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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jill the Reckless, by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Jill the Reckless
+
+Author: P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2007 [eBook #20533]
+[Most recently updated: June 11, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Sankar Viswanathan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JILL THE RECKLESS ***
+
+
+
+
+                               JILL THE
+                               RECKLESS
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                           P. G. WODEHOUSE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
+
+                        3 DUKE OF YORK STREET
+
+                     ST. JAMES'S, LONDON, S.W. 1
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY WIFE
+
+BLESS HER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+
+    I. THE FAMILY CURSE
+   II. THE FIRST NIGHT AT THE LEICESTER
+  III. JILL AND THE UNKNOWN ESCAPE
+   IV. THE LAST OF THE ROOKES TAKES A HAND
+    V. LADY UNDERHILL RECEIVES A SHOCK
+   VI. UNCLE CHRIS BANGS THE TABLE
+  VII. JILL CATCHES THE 10.10
+ VIII. THE DRY-SALTERS WING DEREK
+   IX. JILL IN SEARCH OF AN UNCLE
+    X. JILL IGNORES AUTHORITY
+   XI. MR. PILKINGTON'S LOVE LIGHT
+  XII. UNCLE CHRIS BORROWS A FLAT
+ XIII. THE AMBASSADOR ARRIVES
+  XIV. MR. GOBLE MAKES THE BIG NOISE
+   XV. JILL EXPLAINS
+  XVI. MR. GOBLE PLAYS WITH FATE
+ XVII. THE COST OF A ROW
+XVIII. JILL RECEIVES NOTICE
+  XIX. MRS. PEAGRIM BURNS INCENSE
+   XX. DEREK LOSES ONE BIRD AND SECURES ANOTHER
+  XXI. WALLY MASON LEARNS A NEW EXERCISE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JILL THE RECKLESS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE FAMILY CURSE
+
+I
+
+
+Freddie Rooke gazed coldly at the breakfast-table. Through a gleaming
+eye-glass he inspected the revolting object which Barker, his faithful
+man, had placed on a plate before him.
+
+"Barker!" His voice had a ring of pain.
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"What's this?"
+
+"Poached egg, sir."
+
+Freddie averted his eyes with a silent shudder.
+
+"It looks just like an old aunt of mine," he said. "Remove it!"
+
+He got up, and, wrapping his dressing-gown about his long legs, took
+up a stand in front of the fireplace. From this position he surveyed
+the room, his shoulders against the mantelpiece, his calves pressing
+the club fender. It was a cheerful oasis in a chill and foggy world, a
+typical London bachelor's breakfast-room. The walls were a restful
+grey, and the table, set for two, a comfortable arrangement in white
+and silver.
+
+"Eggs, Barker," said Freddie solemnly, "are the acid test!"
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"If, on the morning after, you can tackle a poached egg, you are all
+right. If not, not. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Freddie pressed the palm of his hand to his brow, and sighed.
+
+"It would seem, then, that I must have revelled a trifle
+whole-heartedly last night. I was possibly a little blotto. Not
+whiffled, perhaps, but indisputably blotto. Did I make much noise
+coming in?"
+
+"No, sir. You were very quiet."
+
+"Ah! A dashed bad sign!"
+
+Freddie moved to the table, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
+
+"The cream jug is to your right, sir," said the helpful Barker.
+
+"Let it remain there. _Café noir_ for me this morning. As _noir_ as it
+can jolly well stick!" Freddie retired to the fireplace and sipped
+delicately. "As far as I can remember, it was Ronny Devereux' birthday
+or something...."
+
+"Mr. Martyn's, I think you said, sir."
+
+"That's right. Algy Martyn's birthday, and Ronny and I were the
+guests. It all comes back to me. I wanted Derek to roll along and join
+the festivities--he's never met Ronny--but he gave it a miss. Quite
+right! A chap in his position has responsibilities. Member of
+Parliament and all that. Besides," said Freddie earnestly, driving
+home the point with a wave of his spoon, "he's engaged to be married.
+You must remember that, Barker!"
+
+"I will endeavour to, sir."
+
+"Sometimes," said Freddie dreamily, "I wish I were engaged to be
+married. Sometimes I wish I had some sweet girl to watch over me
+and.... No, I don't, by Jove. It would give me the utter pip! Is Sir
+Derek up yet, Barker?"
+
+"Getting up, sir."
+
+"See that everything is all right, will you? I mean as regards the
+food-stuffs and what not. I want him to make a good breakfast. He's
+got to meet his mother this morning at Charing Cross. She's legging it
+back from the Riviera."
+
+"Indeed, sir?"
+
+Freddie shook his head.
+
+"You wouldn't speak in that light, careless tone if you knew her!
+Well, you'll see her to-night. She's coming here to dinner."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Miss Mariner will be here, too. A foursome. Tell Mrs. Barker to pull
+up her socks and give us something pretty ripe. Soup, fish, all that
+sort of thing. _She_ knows. And let's have a stoup of malvoisie from
+the oldest bin. This is a special occasion!"
+
+"Her ladyship will be meeting Miss Mariner for the first time, sir?"
+
+"You've put your finger on it! Absolutely the first time on this or
+any stage! We must all rally round and make the thing a success."
+
+"I am sure Mrs. Barker will strain every nerve, sir." Barker moved to
+the door, carrying the rejected egg, and stepped aside to allow a
+tall, well-built man of about thirty to enter. "Good morning, Sir
+Derek."
+
+"Morning, Barker."
+
+Barker slid softly from the room. Derek Underhill sat down at the
+table. He was a strikingly handsome man, with a strong, forceful face,
+dark, lean and cleanly shaven. He was one of those men whom a stranger
+would instinctively pick out of a crowd as worthy of note. His only
+defect was that his heavy eyebrows gave him at times an expression
+which was a little forbidding. Women, however, had never been repelled
+by it. He was very popular with women, not quite so popular with
+men--always excepting Freddie Rooke, who worshipped him. They had been
+at school together, though Freddie was the younger by several years.
+
+"Finished, Freddie?" asked Derek.
+
+Freddie smiled wanly.
+
+"We are not breakfasting this morning," he replied. "The spirit was
+willing, but the jolly old flesh would have none of it. To be
+perfectly frank, the Last of the Rookes has a bit of a head."
+
+"Ass!" said Derek.
+
+"A bit of sympathy," said Freddie, pained, "would not be out of place.
+We are far from well. Some person unknown has put a threshing-machine
+inside the old bean and substituted a piece of brown paper for our
+tongue. Things look dark and yellow and wobbly!"
+
+"You shouldn't have overdone it last night."
+
+"It was Algy Martyn's birthday," pleaded Freddie.
+
+"If I were an ass like Algy Martyn," said Derek, "I wouldn't go about
+advertising the fact that I'd been born. I'd hush it up!"
+
+He helped himself to a plentiful portion of kedgeree, Freddie watching
+him with repulsion mingled with envy. When he began to eat the
+spectacle became too poignant for the sufferer, and he wandered to the
+window.
+
+"What a beast of a day!"
+
+It was an appalling day. January, that grim month, was treating London
+with its usual severity. Early in the morning a bank of fog had rolled
+up off the river, and was deepening from pearly white to a lurid
+brown. It pressed on the window-pane like a blanket, leaving dark,
+damp rivulets on the glass.
+
+"Awful!" said Derek,
+
+"Your mater's train will be late."
+
+"Yes. Damned nuisance. It's bad enough meeting trains in any case,
+without having to hang about a draughty station for an hour."
+
+"And it's sure, I should imagine," went on Freddie, pursuing his train
+of thought, "to make the dear old thing pretty tolerably ratty, if she
+has one of those slow journeys." He pottered back to the fireplace,
+and rubbed his shoulders reflectively against the mantelpiece. "I take
+it that you wrote to her about Jill?"
+
+"Of course. That's why she's coming over, I suppose. By the way, you
+got those seats for that theatre to-night?"
+
+"Yes. Three together and one somewhere on the outskirts. If it's all
+the same to you, old thing, I'll have the one on the outskirts."
+
+Derek, who had finished his kedgeree and was now making himself a blot
+on Freddie's horizon with toast and marmalade, laughed.
+
+"What a rabbit you are, Freddie! Why on earth are you so afraid of
+mother?"
+
+Freddie looked at him as a timid young squire might have gazed upon
+St. George when the latter set out to do battle with the dragon. He
+was of the amiable type which makes heroes of its friends. In the old
+days when he had fagged for him at Winchester he had thought Derek the
+most wonderful person in the world, and this view he still retained.
+Indeed, subsequent events had strengthened it. Derek had done the most
+amazing things since leaving school. He had had a brilliant career at
+Oxford, and now, in the House of Commons, was already looked upon by
+the leaders of his party as one to be watched and encouraged. He
+played polo superlatively well, and was a fine shot. But of all his
+gifts and qualities the one that extorted Freddie's admiration in its
+intensest form was his lion-like courage as exemplified by his
+behaviour in the present crisis. There he sat, placidly eating toast
+and marmalade, while the boat-train containing Lady Underhill already
+sped on its way from Dover to London. It was like Drake playing bowls
+with the Spanish Armada in sight.
+
+"I wish I had your nerve!" he said awed. "What I should be feeling, if
+I were in your place and had to meet your mater after telling her that
+I was engaged to marry a girl she had never seen, I don't know. I'd
+rather face a wounded tiger!"
+
+"Idiot!" said Derek placidly.
+
+"Not," pursued Freddie, "that I mean to say anything in the least
+derogatory and so forth to your jolly old mater, if you understand me,
+but the fact remains she scares me pallid. Always has, ever since the
+first time I went to stay at your place when I was a kid. I can still
+remember catching her eye the morning I happened by pure chance to
+bung an apple through her bedroom window, meaning to let a cat on the
+sill below have it in the short ribs. She was at least thirty feet
+away, but, by Jove, it stopped me like a bullet!"
+
+"Push the bell, old man, will you? I want some more toast."
+
+Freddie did as he was requested, with growing admiration.
+
+"The condemned man made an excellent breakfast," he murmured. "More
+toast, Barker," he added, as that admirable servitor opened the door.
+"Gallant! That's what I call it. Gallant!"
+
+Derek tilted his chair back.
+
+"Mother is sure to like Jill when she sees her," he said.
+
+"_When_ she sees her! Ah! But the trouble is, young feller-me-lad,
+that she _hasn't_ seen her! That's the weak spot in your case, old
+companion. A month ago she didn't know of Jill's existence. Now, you
+know and I know that Jill is one of the best and brightest. As far as
+we are concerned, everything in the good old garden is lovely. Why,
+dash it, Jill and I were children together. Sported side by side on
+the green, and what not. I remember Jill, when she was twelve, turning
+the garden hose on me and knocking about seventy-five per cent off the
+market value of my best Sunday suit. That sort of thing forms a bond,
+you know, and I've always felt that she was a corker. But your
+mater's got to discover it for herself. It's a dashed pity, by Jove,
+that Jill hasn't a father or a mother or something of that species to
+rally round just now. They would form a gang. There's nothing like a
+gang! But she's only got that old uncle of hers. A rummy bird. Met
+him?"
+
+"Several times. I like him."
+
+"Oh, he's a genial old buck all right. A very bonhomous lad. But you
+hear some pretty queer stories about him if you get among people who
+knew him in the old days. Even now I'm not so dashed sure I should
+care to play cards with him. Young Threepwood was telling me only the
+other day that the old boy took thirty quid off him at picquet as
+clean as a whistle. And Jimmy Monroe, who's on the Stock Exchange,
+says he's frightfully busy these times buying margins or whatever it
+is chappies do down in the City. Margins. That's the word. Jimmy made
+me buy some myself on a thing called Amalgamated Dyes. I don't
+understand the procedure exactly, but Jimmy says it's a sound egg and
+will do me a bit of good. What was I talking about? Oh, yes, old
+Selby. There's no doubt he's quite a sportsman. But till you've got
+Jill well established, you know, I shouldn't enlarge on him too much
+with the mater."
+
+"On the contrary," said Derek, "I shall mention him at the first
+opportunity. He knew my father out in India."
+
+"Did he, by Jove! Oh, well, that makes a difference."
+
+Barker entered with the toast, and Derek resumed his breakfast.
+
+"It may be a little bit awkward," he said, "at first, meeting mother.
+But everything will be all right after five minutes."
+
+"Absolutely! But, oh, boy! that first five minutes!" Freddie gazed
+portentously through his eye-glass. Then he seemed to be undergoing
+some internal struggle, for he gulped once or twice. "That first five
+minutes!" he said, and paused again. A moment's silent self-communion,
+and he went on with a rush. "I say, listen. Shall I come along, too?"
+
+"Come along?"
+
+"To the station. With you."
+
+"What on earth for?"
+
+"To see you through the opening stages. Break the ice, and all that
+sort of thing. Nothing like collecting a gang, you know. Moments when
+a feller needs a friend and so forth. Say the word, and I'll buzz
+along and lend my moral support."
+
+Derek's heavy eyebrows closed together in an offended frown, and
+seemed to darken his whole face. This unsolicited offer of assistance
+hurt his dignity. He showed a touch of the petulance which came now
+and then when he was annoyed, to suggest that he might not possess so
+strong a character as his exterior indicated.
+
+"It's very kind of you," he began stiffly.
+
+Freddie nodded. He was acutely conscious of this himself.
+
+"Some fellows," he observed, "would say 'Not at all!' I suppose. But
+not the Last of the Rookes! For, honestly, old man, between ourselves,
+I don't mind admitting that this is the bravest deed of the year, and
+I'm dashed if I would do it for anyone else."
+
+"It's very good of you, Freddie...."
+
+"That's all right. I'm a Boy Scout, and this is my act of kindness for
+to-day."
+
+Derek got up from the table.
+
+"Of course you mustn't come," he said. "We can't form a sort of
+debating society to discuss Jill on the platform at Charing Cross."
+
+"Oh, I would just hang around in the offing, shoving in an occasional
+tactful word."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"The wheeze would simply be to...."
+
+"It's impossible."
+
+"Oh, very well," said Freddie, damped. "Just as you say, of course.
+But there's nothing like a gang, old son, nothing like a gang!"
+
+
+II
+
+Derek Underhill threw down the stump of his cigar, and grunted
+irritably. Inside Charing Cross Station business was proceeding as
+usual. Porters wheeling baggage-trucks moved to and fro like
+Juggernauts. Belated trains clanked in, glad to get home, while
+others, less fortunate, crept reluctantly out through the blackness
+and disappeared into an inferno of detonating fog-signals. For outside
+the fog still held. The air was cold and raw and tasted coppery. In
+the street traffic moved at a funeral pace, to the accompaniment of
+hoarse cries and occasional crashes. Once the sun had worked its way
+through the murk and had hung in the sky like a great red orange, but
+now all was darkness and discomfort again, blended with that odd
+suggestion of mystery and romance which is a London fog's only
+redeeming quality.
+
+The fog and the waiting had had their effect upon Derek. The resolute
+front he had exhibited to Freddie at the breakfast-table had melted
+since his arrival at the station, and he was feeling nervous at the
+prospect of the meeting that lay before him. Calm as he had appeared
+to the eye of Freddie and bravely as he had spoken, Derek, in the
+recesses of his heart, was afraid of his mother. There are men--and
+Derek Underhill was one of them--who never wholly emerge from the
+nursery. They may put away childish things and rise in the world to
+affluence and success, but the hand that rocked their cradle still
+rules their lives.
+
+Derek turned to begin one more walk along the platform, and stopped in
+mid-stride, raging. Beaming over the collar of a plaid greatcoat, all
+helpfulness and devotion, Freddie Rooke was advancing towards him, the
+friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Like some loving dog, who,
+ordered home sneaks softly on through alleys and by-ways, peeping
+round corners and crouching behind lamp-posts, the faithful Freddie
+had followed him after all. And with him, to add the last touch to
+Derek's discomfiture, were those two inseparable allies of his, Ronny
+Devereux and Algy Martyn.
+
+"Well, old thing," said Freddie, patting Derek encouragingly on the
+shoulder, "here we are after all! I know you told me not to roll round
+and so forth, but I knew you didn't mean it. I thought it over after
+you had left, and decided it would be a rotten trick not to cluster
+about you in your hour of need. I hope you don't mind Ronny and Algy
+breezing along too. The fact is, I was in the deuce of a funk--your
+jolly old mater always rather paralyses my nerve-centres, you know--so
+I roped them in. Met 'em in Piccadilly, groping about for the club,
+and conscripted 'em both, they very decently consenting. We all
+toddled off and had a pick-me-up at that chemist chappie's at the top
+of the Hay-market, and now we're feeling full of beans and buck,
+ready for anything. I've explained the whole thing to them, and
+they're with you to the death! Collect a gang, dear boy, collect a
+gang! That's the motto. There's nothing like it!"
+
+"Nothing!" said Ronny.
+
+"Absolutely nothing!" said Algy.
+
+"We'll just see you through the opening stages," said Freddie, "and
+then leg it. We'll keep the conversation general you know."
+
+"Stop it getting into painful channels," said Ronny.
+
+"Steer it clear," said Algy, "of the touchy topic."
+
+"That's the wheeze," said Freddie. "We'll ... Oh, golly! There's the
+train coming in now!" His voice quavered, for not even the comforting
+presence of his two allies could altogether sustain him in this
+ordeal. But he pulled himself together with a manful effort. "Stick
+it, old beans!" he said doughtily. "Now is the time for all good men
+to come to the aid of the party!"
+
+"We're here!" said Ronny Devereux.
+
+"On the spot!" said Algy Martyn.
+
+
+III
+
+The boat-train slid into the station. Bells rang, engines blew off
+steam, porters shouted, baggage-trucks rattled over the platform. The
+train began to give up its contents, now in ones and twos, now in a
+steady stream. Most of the travellers seemed limp and exhausted, and
+were pale with the pallor that comes of a choppy Channel crossing.
+Almost the only exception to the general condition of collapse was the
+eagle-faced lady in the brown ulster, who had taken up her stand in
+the middle of the platform and was haranguing a subdued little maid in
+a voice that cut the gloomy air like a steel knife. Like the other
+travellers, she was pale, but she bore up resolutely. No one could
+have told from Lady Underhill's demeanour that the solid platform
+seemed to heave beneath her feet like a deck.
+
+Derek approached, acutely conscious of Freddie, Ronny, and Algy, who
+were skirmishing about his flank.
+
+"Well, mother! So there you are at last!"
+
+"Well, Derek!"
+
+Derek kissed his mother. Freddie, Ronny, and Algy shuffled closer,
+like leopards. Freddie, with the expression of one who leads a
+forlorn hope, moved his Adam's apple briskly up and down several
+times, and spoke.
+
+"How do you do, Lady Underhill?"
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Rooke?"
+
+Lady Underhill bowed stiffly and without pleasure. She was not fond of
+the Last of the Rookes. She supposed the Almighty had had some wise
+purpose in creating Freddie, but it had always been inscrutable to
+her.
+
+"Like you," mumbled Freddie, "to meet my friends. Lady Underhill. Mr.
+Devereux."
+
+"Charmed," said Ronny affably.
+
+"Mr. Martyn."
+
+"Delighted," said Algy with old-world courtesy.
+
+Lady Underhill regarded this mob-scene with an eye of ice.
+
+"How do you do?" she said. "Have you come to meet somebody?"
+
+"I--er--we--er--why--er--" This woman always made Freddie feel as if
+he were being disembowelled by some clumsy amateur. He wished that he
+had defied the dictates of his better nature and remained in his snug
+rooms at the Albany, allowing Derek to go through this business by
+himself. "I--er--we--er--came to meet _you_, don't you know!"
+
+"Indeed! That was very kind of you!"
+
+"Oh, not at all."
+
+"Thought we'd welcome you back to the old homestead," said Ronny
+beaming.
+
+"What could be sweeter?" said Algy. He produced a cigar-case, and
+extracted a formidable torpedo-shaped Havana. He was feeling
+delightfully at his ease, and couldn't understand why Freddie had made
+such a fuss about meeting this nice old lady. "Don't mind if I smoke,
+do you? Air's a bit raw to-day. Gets into the lungs."
+
+Derek chafed impotently. These unsought allies were making a difficult
+situation a thousand times worse. A more acute observer than young Mr.
+Martyn, he noted the tight lines about his mother's mouth and knew
+them for the danger-signal they were. Endeavouring to distract her
+with light conversation, he selected a subject which was a little
+unfortunate.
+
+"What sort of crossing did you have, mother?"
+
+Lady Underhill winced. A current of air had sent the perfume of
+Algy's cigar playing about her nostrils. She closed her eyes, and her
+face turned a shade paler. Freddie, observing this, felt quite sorry
+for the poor old thing. She was a pest and a pot of poison, of course,
+but all the same, he reflected charitably, it was a shame that she
+should look so green about the gills. He came to the conclusion that
+she must be hungry. The thing to do was to take her mind off it till
+she could be conducted to a restaurant and dumped down in front of a
+bowl of soup.
+
+"Bit choppy, I suppose, what?" he bellowed, in a voice that ran up and
+down Lady Underhill's nervous system like an electric needle. "I was
+afraid you were going to have a pretty rough time of it when I read
+the forecast in the paper. The good old boat wobbled a bit, eh?"
+
+Lady Underhill uttered a faint moan. Freddie noticed that she was
+looking deucedly chippy, even chippier than a moment ago.
+
+"It's an extraordinary thing about that Channel crossing," said Algy
+Martyn meditatively, as he puffed a refreshing cloud. "I've known
+fellows who could travel quite happily everywhere else in the
+world--round the Horn in sailing-ships and all that sort of
+thing--yield up their immortal soul crossing the Channel! Absolutely
+yield up their immortal soul! Don't know why. Rummy, but there it is!"
+
+"I'm like that myself," assented Ronny Devereux. "That dashed trip
+from Calais gets me every time. Bowls me right over. I go aboard,
+stoked to the eyebrows with sea-sick remedies, swearing that this time
+I'll fool 'em, but down I go ten minutes after we've started and the
+next thing I know is somebody saying, 'Well, well! So this is Dover!'"
+
+"It's exactly the same with me," said Freddie, delighted with the
+smooth, easy way the conversation was flowing. "Whether it's the hot,
+greasy smell of the engines...."
+
+"It's not the engines," contended Ronny Devereux. "Stands to reason it
+can't be. I rather like the smell of engines. This station is reeking
+with the smell of engine-grease, and I can drink it in and enjoy it."
+He sniffed, luxuriantly. "It's something else."
+
+"Ronny's right," said Algy cordially. "It isn't the engines. It's the
+way the boat heaves up and down and up and down and up and down...."
+He shifted his cigar to his left hand in order to give with his right
+a spirited illustration of a Channel steamer going up and down and up
+and down and up and down. Lady Underhill, who had opened her eyes, had
+an excellent view of the performance, and closed her eyes again
+quickly.
+
+"Be quiet!" she snapped.
+
+"I was only saying...."
+
+"Be quiet!"
+
+"Oh, rather!"
+
+Lady Underhill wrestled with herself. She was a woman of great
+will-power and accustomed to triumph over the weaknesses of the flesh.
+After a while her eyes opened. She had forced herself, against the
+evidence of her senses, to recognize that this was a platform on which
+she stood and not a deck.
+
+There was a pause. Algy, damped, was temporarily out of action, and
+his friends had for the moment nothing to remark.
+
+"I'm afraid you had a trying journey, mother," said Derek. "The train
+was very late."
+
+"Now, _train_-sickness," said Algy, coming to the surface again, "is a
+thing lots of people suffer from. Never could understand it myself."
+
+"I've never had a touch of train-sickness," said Ronny.
+
+"Oh, I have," said Freddie. "I've often felt rotten on a train. I get
+floating spots in front of my eyes and a sort of heaving sensation,
+and everything kind of goes black...."
+
+"Mr. Rooke!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I should be greatly obliged if you would keep those confidences for
+the ear of your medical adviser."
+
+"Freddie," intervened Derek hastily, "my mother's rather tired. Do you
+think you could be going ahead and getting a taxi?"
+
+"My dear old chap, of course! Get you one in a second. Come along,
+Algy. Pick up the old waukeesis, Ronny."
+
+And Freddie, accompanied by his henchmen, ambled off, well pleased
+with himself. He had, he felt, helped to break the ice for Derek and
+had seen him safely through those awkward opening stages. Now he could
+totter off with a light heart and get a bite of lunch.
+
+Lady Underhill's eyes glittered. They were small, keen, black eyes,
+unlike Derek's, which were large and brown. In their other features
+the two were obviously mother and son. Each had the same long upper
+lip, the same thin, firm mouth, the prominent chin which was a family
+characteristic of the Underhills, and the jutting Underhill nose. Most
+of the Underhills came into the world looking as though they meant to
+drive their way through life like a wedge.
+
+"A little more," she said tensely, "and I should have struck those
+unspeakable young men with my umbrella. One of the things I have never
+been able to understand, Derek, is why you should have selected that
+imbecile Rooke as your closest friend."
+
+Derek smiled tolerantly.
+
+"It was more a case of him selecting _me_. But Freddie is quite a good
+fellow really. He's a man you've got to know."
+
+"_I_ have not got to know him, and I thank heaven for it!"
+
+"He's a very good-natured fellow. It was decent of him to put me up at
+the Albany while our house was let. By the way, he has some seats for
+the first night of a new piece this evening. He suggested that we
+might all dine at the Albany and go on to the theatre." He hesitated a
+moment. "Jill will be there," he said, and felt easier now that her
+name had at last come into the talk. "She's longing to meet you."
+
+"Then why didn't she meet me?"
+
+"Here, do you mean? At the station? Well, I--I wanted you to see her
+for the first time in pleasanter surroundings."
+
+"Oh!" said Lady Underhill shortly.
+
+It is a disturbing thought that we suffer in this world just as much
+by being prudent and taking precautions as we do by being rash and
+impulsive and acting as the spirit moves us. If Jill had been
+permitted by her wary fiancé to come with him to the station to meet
+his mother it is certain that much trouble would have been avoided.
+True, Lady Underhill would probably have been rude to her in the
+opening stages of the interview, but she would not have been alarmed
+and suspicious; or, rather, the vague suspicion which she had been
+feeling would not have solidified, as it did now into definite
+certainty of the worst. All that Derek had effected by his careful
+diplomacy had been to convince his mother that he considered his
+bride-elect something to be broken gently to her.
+
+She stopped and faced him.
+
+"Who is she?" she demanded. "Who is this girl?"
+
+Derek flushed.
+
+"I thought I made everything clear in my letter."
+
+"You made nothing clear at all."
+
+"By your leave!" chanted a porter behind them, and a baggage-truck
+clove them apart.
+
+"We can't talk in a crowded station," said Derek irritably. "Let me
+get you to the taxi and take you to the hotel.... What do you want to
+know about Jill?"
+
+"Everything. Where does she come from? Who are her people? I don't
+know any Mariners."
+
+"I haven't cross-examined her," said Derek stiffly. "But I do know
+that her parents are dead. Her father was an American."
+
+"American!"
+
+"Americans frequently have daughters, I believe."
+
+"There is nothing to be gained by losing your temper," said Lady
+Underhill with steely calm.
+
+"There is nothing to be gained, as far as I can see, by all this
+talk," retorted Derek. He wondered vexedly why his mother always had
+this power of making him lose control of himself. He hated to lose
+control of himself. It upset him, and blurred that vision which he
+liked to have of himself as a calm, important man superior to ordinary
+weaknesses. "Jill and I are engaged, and there is an end to it."
+
+"Don't be a fool," said Lady Underhill, and was driven away by another
+baggage-truck. "You know perfectly well," she resumed, returning to
+the attack, "that your marriage is a matter of the greatest concern to
+me and to the whole of the family."
+
+"Listen, mother!" Derek's long wait on the draughty platform had
+generated an irritability which overcame the deep-seated awe of his
+mother which was the result of years of defeat in battles of the will.
+"Let me tell you in a few words all that I know of Jill, and then
+we'll drop the subject. In the first place, she is a lady. Secondly,
+she has plenty of money...."
+
+"The Underhills do not need to marry for money."
+
+"I am not marrying for money!"
+
+"Well, go on."
+
+"I have already described to you in my letter--very inadequately, but
+I did my best--what she looks like. Her sweetness, her lovableness,
+all the subtle things about her which go to make her what she is, you
+will have to judge for yourself."
+
+"I intend to!"
+
+"Well, that's all, then. She lives with her uncle, a Major Selby...."
+
+"Major Selby? What regiment?"
+
+"I didn't ask him," snapped the goaded Derek. "And, in the name of
+heaven, what does it matter? If you are worrying about Major Selby's
+social standing, I may as well tell you that he used to know father."
+
+"What! When? Where?"
+
+"Years ago. In India, when father was at Simla."
+
+"Selby? Selby? Not Christopher Selby?"
+
+"Oh, you remember him?"
+
+"I certainly remember him! Not that he and I ever met, but your father
+often spoke of him."
+
+Derek was relieved. It was abominable that this sort of thing should
+matter, but one had to face facts, and, as far as his mother was
+concerned, it did. The fact that Jill's uncle had known his dead
+father would make all the difference to Lady Underhill.
+
+"Christopher Selby!" said Lady Underhill reflectively. "Yes! I have
+often heard your father speak of him. He was the man who gave your
+father an I.O.U. to pay a card debt, and redeemed it with a cheque
+which was returned by the bank!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Didn't you hear what I said? I will repeat it, if you wish."
+
+"There must have been some mistake."
+
+"Only the one your father made when he trusted the man."
+
+"It must have been some other fellow."
+
+"Of course!" said Lady Underhill satirically. "No doubt your father
+knew hundreds of Christopher Selbys!"
+
+Derek bit his lip.
+
+"Well, after all," he said doggedly, "whether it's true or not...."
+
+"I see no reason why your father should not have spoken the truth."
+
+"All right. We'll say it _is_ true, then. But what does it matter? I
+am marrying Jill, not her uncle."
+
+"Nevertheless, it would be pleasanter if her only living relative
+were not a swindler!... Tell me, where and how did you meet this
+girl?"
+
+"I should be glad if you would not refer to her as 'this girl.' The
+name, if you have forgotten it, is Mariner."
+
+"Well, where did you meet Miss Mariner?"
+
+"At Prince's. Just after you left for Mentone. Freddie Rooke
+introduced me."
+
+"Oh, your intellectual friend Mr. Rooke knows her?"
+
+"They were children together. Her people lived next to the Rookes in
+Worcestershire."
+
+"I thought you said she was an American."
+
+"I said her father was. He settled in England. Jill hasn't been in
+America since she was eight or nine."
+
+"The fact," said Lady Underhill, "that the girl is a friend of Mr.
+Rooke is no great recommendation."
+
+Derek kicked angrily at a box of matches which someone had thrown down
+on the platform.
+
+"I wonder if you could possibly get it into your head, mother, that I
+want to marry Jill, not engage her as an under-housemaid. I don't
+consider that she requires recommendations, as you call them. However,
+don't you think the most sensible thing is for you to wait till you
+meet her at dinner to-night, and then you can form your own opinion?
+I'm beginning to get a little bored by this futile discussion."
+
+"As you seem quite unable to talk on the subject of this girl without
+becoming rude," said Lady Underhill, "I agree with you. Let us hope
+that my first impression will be a favourable one. Experience has
+taught me that first impressions are everything."
+
+"I'm glad you think so," said Derek, "for I fell in love with Jill the
+very first moment I saw her!"
+
+
+IV
+
+Barker stepped back and surveyed with modest pride the dinner-table to
+which he had been putting the finishing touches. It was an artistic
+job and a credit to him.
+
+"That's that!" said Barker, satisfied.
+
+He went to the window and looked out. The fog which had lasted well
+into the evening, had vanished now, and the clear night was bright
+with stars. A distant murmur of traffic came from the direction of
+Piccadilly.
+
+As he stood there, the front-door bell rang, and continued to ring in
+little spurts of sound. If character can be deduced from bell-ringing,
+as nowadays it apparently can be from every other form of human
+activity, one might have hazarded the guess that whoever was on the
+other side of the door was determined, impetuous, and energetic.
+
+"Barker!"
+
+Freddie Rooke pushed a tousled head, which had yet to be brushed into
+the smooth sleekness that made a delight to the public eye, out of a
+room down the passage.
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Somebody ringing."
+
+"I heard, sir. I was about to answer the bell."
+
+"If it's Lady Underhill, tell her I'll be in in a minute."
+
+"I fancy it is Miss Mariner, sir. I think I recognize her touch."
+
+He made his way down the passage to the front-door, and opened it. A
+girl was standing outside. She wore a long grey fur coat, and a filmy
+hood covered her hair. As Barker opened the door, she scampered in
+like a grey kitten.
+
+"Brrh! It's cold!" she exclaimed. "Hullo, Barker!"
+
+"Good evening, miss."
+
+"Am I the last or the first or what?"
+
+Barker moved to help her with her cloak.
+
+"Sir Derek and her ladyship have not yet arrived, miss. Sir Derek went
+to bring her ladyship from the Savoy Hotel. Mr. Rooke is dressing in
+his bedroom and will be ready very shortly."
+
+The girl had slipped out of the fur coat, and Barker cast a swift
+glance of approval at her. He had the valet's unerring eye for a
+thoroughbred, and Jill Mariner was manifestly that. It showed in her
+walk, in every move of her small, active body, in the way she looked
+at you, in the way she talked to you, in the little tilt of her
+resolute chin. Her hair was pale gold, and had the brightness of
+colouring of a child's. Her face glowed, and her grey eyes sparkled.
+She looked very much alive.
+
+It was this liveliness of hers that was her chief charm. Her eyes were
+good and her mouth, with its small, even teeth, attractive, but she
+would have laughed if anybody had called her beautiful. She sometimes
+doubted if she were even pretty. Yet few men had met her and remained
+entirely undisturbed. She had a magnetism. One hapless youth, who had
+laid his heart at her feet and had been commanded to pick it up again,
+had endeavoured subsequently to explain her attraction (to a bosom
+friend over a mournful bottle of the best in the club smoking-room) in
+these words: "I don't know what it is about her, old man, but she
+somehow makes a feller feel she's so damned _interested_ in a chap, if
+you know what I mean." And though not generally credited in his circle
+with any great acuteness, there is no doubt that the speaker had
+achieved something approaching a true analysis of Jill's fascination
+for his sex. She was interested in everything Life presented to her
+notice, from a Coronation to a stray cat. She was vivid. She had
+sympathy. She listened to you as though you really mattered. It takes
+a man of tough fibre to resist these qualities. Women, on the other
+hand, especially of the Lady Underhill type, can resist them without
+an effort.
+
+"Go and stir him up," said Jill, alluding to the absent Mr. Rooke.
+"Tell him to come and talk to me. Where's the nearest fire? I want to
+get right over it and huddle."
+
+"The fire's burning nicely in the sitting-room, miss."
+
+Jill hurried into the sitting-room, and increased her hold on Barker's
+esteem by exclaiming rapturously at the sight that greeted her. Barker
+had expended time and trouble over the sitting-room. There was no
+dust, no untidiness. The pictures all hung straight; the cushions were
+smooth and unrumpled; and a fire of exactly the right dimensions
+burned cheerfully in the grate, flickering cosily on the small piano
+by the couch, on the deep leather arm-chairs which Freddie had brought
+with him from Oxford, that home of comfortable chairs, and on the
+photographs that studded the walls. In the centre of the mantelpiece,
+the place of honour, was the photograph of herself which she had given
+Derek a week ago.
+
+"You're simply wonderful, Barker! I don't see how you manage to make a
+room so cosy!" Jill sat down on the club fender that guarded the
+fireplace, and held her hands over the blaze. "I can't understand why
+men ever marry. Fancy having to give up all this!"
+
+"I am gratified that you appreciate it, miss. I did my best to make it
+comfortable for you. I fancy I hear Mr. Rooke coming now."
+
+"I hope the others won't be long. I'm starving. Has Mrs. Barker got
+something very good for dinner?"
+
+"She has strained every nerve, miss."
+
+"Then I'm sure it's worth waiting for. Hullo, Freddie."
+
+Freddie Rooke, resplendent in evening dress, bustled in, patting his
+tie with solicitous fingers. It had been right when he had looked in
+the glass in his bedroom, but you never know about ties. Sometimes
+they stay right, sometimes they wriggle up sideways. Life is full of
+these anxieties.
+
+"I shouldn't touch it," said Jill. "It looks beautiful, and, if I may
+say so in confidence, is having a most disturbing effect on my
+emotional nature. I'm not at all sure I shall be able to resist it
+right through the evening. It isn't fair of you to try to alienate the
+affections of an engaged young person like this."
+
+Freddie squinted down, and became calmer.
+
+"Hullo, Jill, old thing. Nobody here yet?"
+
+"Well, I'm here--the _petite_ figure seated on the fender. But perhaps
+I don't count."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean that, you know."
+
+"I should hope not, when I've bought a special new dress just to
+fascinate you. A creation I mean. When they cost as much as this one
+did, you have to call them names. What do you think of it?"
+
+Freddie seated himself on another section of the fender, and regarded
+her with the eye of an expert. A snappy dresser, as the technical term
+is, himself, he appreciated snap in the outer covering of the other
+sex.
+
+"Topping!" he said spaciously. "No other word for it. All wool and a
+yard wide. Precisely as mother makes it. You look like a thingummy."
+
+"How splendid. All my life I've wanted to look like a thingummy, but
+somehow I've never been able to manage it."
+
+"A wood-nymph!" exclaimed Freddie, in a burst of unwonted imagery. He
+looked at her with honest admiration. "Dash it, Jill, you know,
+there's something about you! You're--what's the word?--you've got such
+small bones."
+
+"Ugh! I suppose it's a compliment, but how horrible it sounds! It
+makes me feel like a skeleton."
+
+"I mean to say, you're--you're dainty!"
+
+"That's much better."
+
+"You look as if you weighed about an ounce and a half. You look like
+a bit of thistledown! You're a little fairy princess, dash it!"
+
+"Freddie! This is eloquence!" Jill raised her left hand, and twiddled
+a ringed finger ostentatiously. "Er--you _do_ realize that I'm
+bespoke, don't you, and that my heart, alas, is another's? Because you
+sound as if you were going to propose."
+
+Freddie produced a snowy handkerchief, and polished his eye-glass.
+Solemnity descended on him like a cloud. He looked at Jill with an
+earnest, paternal gaze.
+
+"That reminds me," he said. "I wanted to have a bit of a talk with you
+about that--being engaged and all that sort of thing. I'm glad I got
+you alone before the Curse arrived."
+
+"Curse? Do you mean Derek's mother? That sounds cheerful and
+encouraging."
+
+"Well, she is, you know," said Freddie earnestly. "She's a bird! It
+would be idle to deny it. She always puts the fear of God into me. I
+never know what to say to her."
+
+"Why don't you try asking her riddles?"
+
+"It's no joking matter," persisted Freddie, his amiable face overcast.
+"Wait till you meet her! You should have seen her at the station this
+morning. You don't know what you're up against!"
+
+"You make my flesh creep, Freddie. What am I up against?"
+
+Freddie poked the fire scientifically, and assisted it with coal.
+
+"It's this way," he said. "Of course, dear old Derek's the finest chap
+in the world."
+
+"I know that," said Jill softly. She patted Freddie's hand with a
+little gesture of gratitude. Freddie's devotion to Derek was a thing
+that always touched her. She looked thoughtfully into the fire, and
+her eyes seemed to glow in sympathy with the glowing coals. "There's
+nobody like him!"
+
+"But," continued Freddie, "he always has been frightfully under his
+mother's thumb, you know."
+
+Jill was conscious of a little flicker of irritation.
+
+"Don't be absurd, Freddie. How could a man like Derek be under
+anybody's thumb?"
+
+"Well, you know what I mean!"
+
+"I don't in the least know what you mean."
+
+"I mean, it would be rather rotten if his mother set him against you."
+
+Jill clenched her teeth. The quick temper which always lurked so very
+little beneath the surface of her cheerfulness was stirred. She felt
+suddenly chilled and miserable. She tried to tell herself that Freddie
+was just an amiable blunderer who spoke without sense or reason, but
+it was no use. She could not rid herself of a feeling of foreboding
+and discomfort. It had been the one jarring note in the sweet melody
+of her love-story, this apprehension of Derek's regarding his mother.
+The Derek she loved was a strong man, with a strong man's contempt for
+other people's criticism; and there had been something ignoble and
+fussy in his attitude regarding Lady Underhill. She had tried to feel
+that the flaw in her idol did not exist. And here was Freddie Rooke, a
+man who admired Derek with all his hero-worshipping nature, pointing
+it out independently. She was annoyed, and she expended her annoyance,
+as women will do, upon the innocent bystander.
+
+"Do you remember the time I turned the hose on you, Freddie," she
+said, rising from the fender, "years ago, when we were children, when
+you and that awful Mason boy--what was his name? Wally Mason--teased
+me?" She looked at the unhappy Freddie with a hostile eye. It was his
+blundering words that had spoiled everything. "I've forgotten what it
+was all about, but I know that you and Wally infuriated me and I
+turned the garden hose on you and soaked you both to the skin. Well,
+all I want to point out is that, if you go on talking nonsense about
+Derek and his mother and me, I shall ask Barker to bring me a jug of
+water, and I shall empty it over you! Set him against me! You talk as
+if love were a thing any third party could come along and turn off
+with a tap! Do you suppose that, when two people love each other as
+Derek and I do, that it can possibly matter in the least what anybody
+else thinks or says, even if it is his mother? I haven't got a mother,
+but suppose Uncle Chris came and warned me against Derek...."
+
+Her anger suddenly left her as quickly as it had come. That was always
+the way with Jill. One moment she would be raging; the next, something
+would tickle her sense of humour and restore her instantly to
+cheerfulness. And the thought of dear, lazy old Uncle Chris taking the
+trouble to warn anybody against anything except the wrong brand of
+wine or an inferior make of cigar conjured up a picture before which
+wrath melted away. She chuckled, and Freddie, who had been wilting on
+the fender, perked up.
+
+"You're an extraordinary girl, Jill. One never knows when you're going
+to get the wind up."
+
+"Isn't it enough to make me get the wind up, as you call it, when you
+say absurd things like that?"
+
+"I meant well, old girl!"
+
+"That's the trouble with you. You always do mean well. You go about
+the world meaning well till people fly to put themselves under police
+protection. Besides, what on earth could Lady Underhill find to object
+to in me? I've plenty of money, and I'm one of the most charming and
+attractive of Society belles. You needn't take my word for that, and I
+don't suppose you've noticed it, but that's what Mr. Gossip in the
+_Morning Mirror_ called me when he was writing about my getting
+engaged to Derek. My maid showed me the clipping. There was quite a
+long paragraph, with a picture of me that looked like a Zulu
+chieftainess taken in a coal-cellar during a bad fog. Well, after
+that, what could anyone say against me? I'm a perfect prize! I expect
+Lady Underhill screamed with joy when she heard the news and went
+singing all over her Riviera villa."
+
+"Yes," said Freddie dubiously. "Yes, yes, oh, quite so, rather!"
+
+Jill looked at him sternly.
+
+"Freddie, you're concealing something from me! You _don't_ think I'm
+a charming and attractive Society belle! Tell me why not and I'll show
+you where you are wrong. Is it my face you object to, or my manners,
+or my figure? There was a young bride of Antigua, who said to her
+mate, 'What a pig you are!' Said he, 'Oh, my queen, is it manners you
+mean, or do you allude to my fig-u-ar?' Isn't my figuar all right,
+Freddie?"
+
+"Oh, _I_ think you're topping."
+
+"But for some reason you're afraid that Derek's mother won't think so.
+Why won't Lady Underhill agree with Mr. Gossip?"
+
+Freddie hesitated.
+
+"Speak up!"
+
+"Well, it's like this. Remember, I've known the old devil...."
+
+"Freddie Rooke! Where do you pick up such expressions? Not from me!"
+
+"Well, that's how I always think of her! I say I've known her ever
+since I used to go and stop at their place when I was at school, and I
+know exactly the sort of things that put her back up. She's a
+what-d'you-call-it. I mean to say, one of the old school, don't you
+know. And you're so dashed impulsive, old girl. You know you are! You
+are always saying things that come into your head."
+
+"You can't say a thing unless it comes into your head."
+
+"You know what I mean," Freddie went on earnestly, not to be diverted
+from his theme. "You say rummy things and you do rummy things. What I
+mean to say is, you're impulsive."
+
+"What have I ever done that the sternest critic could call rummy?"
+
+"Well, I've seen you with my own eyes stop in the middle of Bond
+Street and help a lot of fellows shove along a cart that had got
+stuck. Mind you, I'm not blaming you for it...."
+
+"I should hope not. The poor old horse was trying all he knew to get
+going, and he couldn't quite make it. Naturally, I helped."
+
+"Oh, I know. Very decent and all that, but I doubt if Lady Underhill
+would have thought a lot of it. And you're so dashed chummy with the
+lower orders."
+
+"Don't be a snob, Freddie."
+
+"I'm not a snob," protested Freddie, wounded. "When I'm alone with
+Barker--for instance--I'm as chatty as dammit. But I don't ask waiters
+in public restaurants how their lumbago is."
+
+"Have you ever had lumbago?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, it's a very painful thing, and waiters get it just as badly as
+dukes. Worse, I should think, because they're always bending and
+stooping and carrying things. Naturally one feels sorry for them."
+
+"But how do you ever find out that a waiter has _got_ lumbago?"
+
+"I ask him, of course."
+
+"Well, for goodness' sake," said Freddie, "if you feel the impulse to
+do that sort of thing to-night, try and restrain it. I mean to say,
+if you're curious to know anything about Barker's chilblains, for
+instance, don't enquire after them while he's handing Lady Underhill
+the potatoes! She wouldn't like it."
+
+Jill uttered an exclamation.
+
+"I knew there was something! Being so cold and wanting to rush in and
+crouch over a fire put it clean out of my head. He must be thinking me
+a perfect beast!" She ran to the door. "Barker! Barker!"
+
+Barker appeared from nowhere.
+
+"Yes, miss?"
+
+"I'm so sorry I forgot to ask before. How are your chilblains?"
+
+"A good deal better miss, thank you."
+
+"Did you try the stuff I recommended?"
+
+"Yes, miss. It did them a world of good."
+
+"Splendid!"
+
+Jill went back into the sitting-room.
+
+"It's all right," she said reassuringly. "They're better."
+
+She wandered restlessly about the room, looking at the photographs,
+then sat down at the piano and touched the keys. The clock on the
+mantelpiece chimed the half-hour. "I wish to goodness they would
+arrive," she said.
+
+"They'll be here pretty soon, I expect."
+
+"It's rather awful," said Jill, "to think of Lady Underhill racing all
+the way from Mentone to Paris and from Paris to Calais and from Calais
+to Dover and from Dover to London simply to inspect me. You can't
+wonder I'm nervous, Freddie."
+
+The eye-glass dropped from Freddie's eye.
+
+"Are _you_ nervous?" he asked, astonished.
+
+"Of course I'm nervous. Wouldn't you be in my place?"
+
+"Well, I should never have thought it."
+
+"Why do you suppose I've been talking such a lot? Why do you imagine I
+snapped your poor, innocent head off just now! I'm terrified inside,
+terrified!"
+
+"You don't look it, by Jove!"
+
+"No, I'm trying to be a little warrior. That's what Uncle Chris always
+used to call me. It started the day when he took me to have a tooth
+out, when I was ten. 'Be a little warrior, Jill!' he kept saying. 'Be
+a little warrior!' And I was." She looked at the clock. "But I shan't
+be if they don't get here soon. The suspense is awful." She strummed
+the keys. "Suppose she _doesn't_ like me, Freddie! You see how you've
+scared me."
+
+"I didn't say she wouldn't. I only said you'd got to watch out a bit."
+
+"Something tells me she won't. My nerve is oozing out of me." Jill
+shook her head impatiently. "It's all so vulgar! I thought this sort
+of thing only happened in the comic papers and in music-hall songs.
+Why, it's just like that song somebody used to sing." She laughed. "Do
+you remember? I don't know how the verse went, but ...
+
+    John took me round to see his mother,
+                              his mother,
+                              his mother!
+    And when he'd introduced us to each other,
+      She sized up everything that I had on.
+    She put me through a cross-examination:
+    I fairly boiled with aggravation:
+      Then she shook her head,
+      Looked at me and said:
+          'Poor John! Poor John!'
+
+Chorus, Freddie! Let's cheer ourselves up! We need it!"
+
+    John took me round to see his mother...!
+
+"His m-o-o-other!" croaked Freddie. Curiously enough, this ballad was
+one of Freddie's favourites. He had rendered it with a good deal of
+success on three separate occasions at village entertainments down in
+Worcestershire, and he rather flattered himself that he could get
+about as much out of it as the next man. He proceeded to abet Jill
+heartily with gruff sounds which he was under the impression
+constituted what is known in musical circles as "singing seconds."
+
+"His mo-o-other!" he growled with frightful scorn.
+
+"And when he'd introduced us to each other...."
+
+"O-o-o-other!"
+
+"She sized up everything that I had on!"
+
+"Pom-_pom_-pom!"
+
+"She put me through a cross-examination...."
+
+Jill had thrown her head back, and was singing jubilantly at the top
+of her voice. The appositeness of the song had cheered her up. It
+seemed somehow to make her forebodings rather ridiculous, to reduce
+them to absurdity, to turn into farce the gathering tragedy which had
+been weighing upon her nerves.
+
+    Then she shook her head,
+    Looked at me and said:
+        'Poor John!'....
+
+"Jill," said a voice at the door. "I want you to meet my mother!"
+
+"Poo-oo-oor John!" bleated the hapless Freddie, unable to check
+himself.
+
+"Dinner," said Barker the valet, appearing at the door and breaking a
+silence that seemed to fill the room like a tangible presence, "is
+served!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FIRST NIGHT AT THE LEICESTER
+
+I
+
+
+The front-door closed softly behind the theatre-party. Dinner was
+over, and Barker had just been assisting the expedition out of the
+place. Sensitive to atmosphere, he had found his share in the dinner a
+little trying. It had been a strained meal, and what he liked was a
+clatter of conversation and everybody having a good time and enjoying
+themselves.
+
+"Ellen!" called Barker, as he proceeded down the passage to the empty
+dining-room. "Ellen!"
+
+Mrs. Barker appeared out of the kitchen, wiping her hands. Her work
+for the evening, like her husband's, was over. Presently what is
+technically called a "useful girl" would come in to wash up the
+dishes, leaving the evening free for social intercourse. Mrs. Barker
+had done well by her patrons that night, and now she wanted a quiet
+chat with Barker over a glass of Freddie Rooke's port.
+
+"Have they gone, Horace?" she asked, following him into the
+dining-room.
+
+Barker selected a cigar from Freddie's humidor, crackled it against
+his ear, smelt it, clipped off the end, and lit it. He took the
+decanter and filled his wife's glass, then mixed himself a
+whisky-and-soda.
+
+"Happy days!" said Barker. "Yes, they've gone!"
+
+"I didn't see her ladyship."
+
+"You didn't miss much! A nasty, dangerous specimen, _she_ is! 'Always
+merry and bright,' I don't think. I wish you'd have had my job of
+waiting on 'em, Ellen, and me been the one to stay in the kitchen safe
+out of it all. That's all I say! It's no treat to _me_ to 'and the
+dishes when the atmosphere's what you might call electric. I didn't
+envy them that _vol-au-vent_ of yours, Ellen, good as it smelt. Better
+a dinner of 'erbs where love is than a stalled ox and 'atred
+therewith," said Barker, helping himself to a walnut.
+
+"Did they have words?"
+
+Barker shook his head impatiently.
+
+"That sort don't have words, Ellen. They just sit and goggle."
+
+"How did her ladyship seem to hit it off with Miss Mariner, Horace?"
+
+Barker uttered a dry laugh.
+
+"Ever seen a couple of strange dogs watching each other sort of wary?
+That was them! Not that Miss Mariner wasn't all that was pleasant and
+nice-spoken. She's all right, Miss Mariner is. She's a little queen.
+It wasn't her fault the dinner you'd took so much trouble over was
+more like an evening in the Morgue than a Christian dinner-party. She
+tried to help things along best she could. But what with Sir Derek
+chewing his lip 'alf the time and his mother acting about as matey as
+a pennorth of ice-cream, she didn't have a chance. As for the
+guv'nor--well, I wish you could have seen him, that's all. You know,
+Ellen, sometimes I'm not altogether easy in my mind about the
+guv'nor's mental balance. He knows how to buy cigars, and you tell me
+his port is good--I never touch it myself--but sometimes he seems to
+me to go right off his onion. Just sat there, he did, all through
+dinner, looking as if he expected the good food to rise up and bite
+him in the face, and jumping nervous when I spoke to him. It's not my
+fault," said Barker, aggrieved. "_I_ can't give gentlemen warning
+before I ask 'em if they'll have sherry or hock. I can't ring a bell
+or toot a horn to show 'em I'm coming. It's my place to bend over and
+whisper in their ear, and they've no right to leap about in their
+seats and make me spill good wine. (You'll see the spot close by where
+you're sitting, Ellen. Jogged my wrist, he did!) I'd like to know why
+people in the spear of life which these people are in can't behave
+themselves rational, same as we do. When we were walking out and I
+took you to have tea with my mother, it was one of the pleasantest
+meals I ever ate. Talk about 'armony! It was a love-feast!"
+
+"Your ma and I took to each other right from the start, Horace," said
+Mrs. Barker softly. "That's the difference."
+
+"Well, any woman with any sense would take to Miss Mariner. If I told
+you how near I came to spilling the sauce-boat accidentally over that
+old fossil's head, you'd be surprised, Ellen. She just sat there
+brooding like an old eagle. If you ask my opinion, Miss Mariner's a
+long sight too good for her precious son!"
+
+"Oh, but Horace! Sir Derek's a baronet!"
+
+"What of it? Kind 'earts are more than coronets and simple faith than
+Norman blood, aren't they?"
+
+"You're talking Socialism, Horace."
+
+"No, I'm not. I'm talking sense. I don't know who Miss Mariner's
+parents may have been--I never enquired--but anyone can see she's a
+lady born and bred. But do you suppose the path of true love is going
+to run smooth, for all that? Not it! She's got a 'ard time ahead of
+her, that poor girl!"
+
+"Horace!" Mrs. Barker's gentle heart was wrung. The situation hinted
+at by her husband was no new one--indeed, it formed the basis of at
+least fifty per cent of the stories in the True Heart Novelette
+Series, of which she was a determined reader--but it had never failed
+to touch her. "Do you think her ladyship means to come between them
+and wreck their romance?"
+
+"I think she means to have a jolly good try."
+
+"But Sir Derek has his own money, hasn't he? I mean it's not like when
+Sir Courtenay Travers fell in love with the milkmaid and was dependent
+on his mother, the Countess, for everything. Sir Derek can afford to
+do what he pleases, can't he?"
+
+Barker shook his head tolerantly. The excellence of the cigar and the
+soothing qualities of the whisky-and-soda had worked upon him, and he
+was feeling less ruffled.
+
+"You don't understand these things," he said. "Women like her ladyship
+can talk a man into anything and out of anything. I wouldn't care,
+only you can see the poor girl is mad over the feller. What she finds
+attractive in him, I can't say, but that's her own affair."
+
+"He's very handsome, Horace, with those flashing eyes and that stern
+mouth," argued Mrs. Barker.
+
+Barker sniffed.
+
+"Have it your own way," he said. "It's no treat to _me_ to see his
+eyes flash, and if he'd put that stern mouth of his to some better use
+than advising the guv'nor to lock up the cigars and trouser the key,
+I'd be better pleased. If there's one thing I can't stand," said
+Barker, "it's not to be trusted!" He lifted his cigar and looked at it
+censoriously. "I thought so! Burning all down one side. They will do
+that if you light 'em careless. Oh, well," he continued, rising and
+going to the humidor, "there's plenty more where that came from. Out
+of evil cometh good," said Barker philosophically. "If the guv'nor
+hadn't been in such a overwrought state to-night, he'd have remembered
+not to leave the key in the keyhole. Help yourself to another glass of
+port, Ellen, and let's enjoy ourselves!"
+
+
+II
+
+When one considers how full of his own troubles, how weighed down with
+the problems of his own existence the average playgoer generally is
+when enters a theatre, it is remarkable that dramatists ever find it
+possible to divert and entertain whole audiences for a space of
+several hours. As regards at least three of those who had assembled to
+witness its opening performance, the author of "Tried by Fire," at the
+Leicester Theatre, undoubtedly had his work cut out for him.
+
+It has perhaps been sufficiently indicated by the remarks of Barker,
+the valet, that the little dinner at Freddie Rooke's had not been an
+unqualified success. Searching the records for an adequately gloomy
+parallel to the taxi-cab journey to the theatre which followed it, one
+can only think of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. And yet even that
+was probably not conducted in dead silence.
+
+The only member of the party who was even remotely happy was,
+curiously enough, Freddie Rooke. Originally Freddie had obtained three
+tickets for "Tried by Fire." The unexpected arrival of Lady Underhill
+had obliged him to buy a fourth, separated by several rows from the
+other three. This, as he had told Derek at breakfast, was the seat he
+proposed to occupy himself.
+
+It consoles the philosopher in this hard world to reflect that, even
+if man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upward, it is still
+possible for small things to make him happy. The thought of being
+several rows away from Lady Underhill had restored Freddie's
+equanimity like a tonic. It thrilled him like the strains of some
+grand, sweet anthem all the way to the theatre. If Freddie Rooke had
+been asked at that moment to define happiness in a few words, he would
+have replied that it consisted in being several rows away from Lady
+Underhill.
+
+The theatre was nearly full when Freddie's party arrived. The
+Leicester Theatre had been rented for the season by the newest
+theatrical knight, Sir Chester Portwood, who had a large following;
+and, whatever might be the fate of the play in the final issue, it
+would do at least one night's business. The stalls were ablaze with
+jewellery and crackling with starched shirt-fronts; and expensive
+scents pervaded the air, putting up a stiff battle with the plebeian
+peppermint that emanated from the pit. The boxes were filled, and up
+in the gallery grim-faced patrons of the drama, who had paid their
+shillings at the door and intended to get a shilling's worth of
+entertainment in return, sat and waited stolidly for the curtain to
+rise.
+
+The lights shot up beyond the curtain. The house-lights dimmed.
+Conversation ceased. The curtain rose. Jill wriggled herself
+comfortably into her seat, and slipped her hand into Derek's. She felt
+a glow of happiness as it closed over hers. All, she told herself, was
+right with the world.
+
+All, that is to say, except the drama which was unfolding on the
+stage. It was one of those plays which start wrong and never recover.
+By the end of the first ten minutes there had spread through the
+theatre that uneasy feeling which comes over the audience at an
+opening performance when it realizes that it is going to be bored. A
+sort of lethargy had gripped the stalls. The dress-circle was
+coughing. Up in the gallery there was grim silence.
+
+Sir Chester Portwood was an actor-manager who had made his reputation
+in light comedy of the tea-cup school. His numerous admirers attended
+a first night at his theatre in a mood of comfortable anticipation,
+assured of something pleasant and frothy with a good deal of bright
+dialogue and not too much plot. To-night he seemed to have fallen a
+victim to that spirit of ambition which intermittently attacks
+actor-managers of his class, expressing itself in an attempt to prove
+that, having established themselves securely as light comedians, they
+can, like the lady reciter, turn right around and be serious. The one
+thing which the London public felt that it was safe from in a Portwood
+play was heaviness, and "Tried by Fire" was grievously heavy. It was a
+poetic drama, and the audience, though loath to do anybody an
+injustice, was beginning to suspect that it was written in blank
+verse.
+
+The acting did nothing to dispel the growing uneasiness. Sir Chester
+himself, apparently oppressed by the weightiness of the occasion and
+the responsibility of offering an unfamiliar brand of goods to his
+public, had dropped his customary debonair method of delivering lines
+and was mouthing his speeches. It was good gargling, but bad
+elocution. And, for some reason best known to himself, he had
+entrusted the rôle of the heroine to a doll-like damsel with a lisp,
+of whom the audience disapproved sternly from her initial entrance.
+
+It was about half-way through the first act that Jill, whose attention
+had begun to wander, heard a soft groan at her side. The seats which
+Freddie Rooke had bought were at the extreme end of the seventh row.
+There was only one other seat in the row, and, as Derek had placed his
+mother on his left and was sitting between her and Jill, the latter
+had this seat on her right. It had been empty at the rise of the
+curtain, but in the past few minutes a man had slipped silently into
+it. The darkness prevented Jill from seeing his face, but it was plain
+that he was suffering, and her sympathy went out to him. His opinion
+of the play so obviously coincided with her own.
+
+Presently the first act ended, and the lights went up. There was a
+spatter of insincere applause from the stalls, echoed in the
+dress-circle. It grew fainter in the upper circle, and did not reach
+the gallery at all.
+
+"Well?" said Jill to Derek. "What do you think of it?"
+
+"Too awful for words," said Derek sternly.
+
+He leaned forward to join the conversation which had started between
+Lady Underhill and some friends she had discovered in the seats in
+front; and Jill, turning, became aware that the man on her right was
+looking at her intently. He was a big man with rough, wiry hair and a
+humorous mouth. His age appeared to be somewhere in the middle
+twenties. Jill, in the brief moment in which their eyes met, decided
+that he was ugly, but with an ugliness that was rather attractive. He
+reminded her of one of those large, loose, shaggy dogs that break
+things in drawing-rooms but make admirable companions for the open
+road. She had a feeling that he would look better in tweeds in a field
+than in evening dress in a theatre. He had nice eyes. She could not
+distinguish their colour, but they were frank and friendly.
+
+All this Jill noted with her customary quickness, and then she looked
+away. For an instant she had had an odd feeling that somewhere she had
+met this man or somebody very like him before, but the impression
+vanished. She also had the impression that he was still looking at
+her, but she gazed demurely in front of her and did not attempt to
+verify the suspicion.
+
+Between them, as they sat side by side, there inserted itself suddenly
+the pinkly remorseful face of Freddie Rooke. Freddie, having
+skirmished warily in the aisle until it was clear that Lady
+Underhill's attention was engaged elsewhere, had occupied a seat in
+the row behind which had been left vacant temporarily by an owner who
+liked refreshment between the acts. Freddie was feeling deeply ashamed
+of himself. He felt that he had perpetrated a bloomer of no slight
+magnitude.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry about this," he said penitently. "I mean, roping
+you in to listen to this frightful tosh! When I think I might have got
+seats just as well for any one of half a dozen topping musical
+comedies, I feel like kicking myself with some vim. But, honestly, how
+was I to know? I never dreamed we were going to be let in for anything
+of this sort. Portwood's plays are usually so dashed bright and snappy
+and all that. Can't think what he was doing, putting on a thing like
+this. Why, it's blue round the edges!"
+
+The man on Jill's right laughed sharply.
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "the chump who wrote the piece got away from the
+asylum long enough to put up the money to produce it."
+
+If there is one thing that startles the well-bred Londoner and throws
+him off his balance, it is to be addressed unexpectedly by a stranger.
+Freddie's sense of decency was revolted. A voice from the tomb could
+hardly have shaken him more. All the traditions to which he had been
+brought up had gone to solidify his belief that this was one of the
+things which didn't happen. Absolutely it wasn't done. During an
+earthquake or a shipwreck and possibly on the Day of Judgment, yes.
+But only then. At other times, unless they wanted a match or the time
+or something, chappies did not speak to fellows to whom they had not
+been introduced. He was far too amiable to snub the man, but to go on
+with this degrading scene was out of the question. There was nothing
+for it but flight.
+
+"Oh, ah, yes," he mumbled. "Well," he added to Jill, "I suppose I may
+as well be toddling back. See you later and so forth."
+
+And with a faint "Good-bye-ee!" Freddie removed himself, thoroughly
+unnerved.
+
+Jill looked out of the corner of her eye at Derek. He was still
+occupied with the people in front. She turned to the man on her right.
+She was not the slave to etiquette that Freddie was. She was much too
+interested in life to refrain from speaking to strangers.
+
+"You shocked him!" she said dimpling.
+
+"Yes. It broke Freddie all up, didn't it!"
+
+It was Jill's turn to be startled. She looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Freddie?"
+
+"That _was_ Freddie Rooke, wasn't it? Surely I wasn't mistaken?"
+
+"But--do you know him? He didn't seem to know you."
+
+"These are life's tragedies He has forgotten me. My boyhood friend!"
+
+"Oh, you were at school with him?"
+
+"No. Freddie went to Winchester, if I remember. I was at Haileybury.
+Our acquaintance was confined to the holidays. My people lived near
+his people in Worcestershire."
+
+"Worcestershire!" Jill leaned forward excitedly. "But I used to live
+near Freddie in Worcestershire myself when I was small. I knew him
+there when he was a boy. We must have met!"
+
+"We met all right."
+
+Jill wrinkled her forehead. That odd familiar look was in his eyes
+again. But memory failed to respond. She shook her head.
+
+"I don't remember you," she said. "I'm sorry."
+
+"Never mind. Perhaps the recollection would have been painful."
+
+"How do you mean, painful?"
+
+"Well, looking back, I can see that I must have been a very unpleasant
+child. I have always thought it greatly to the credit of my parents
+that they let me grow up. It would have been so easy to have dropped
+something heavy on me out of a window. They must have been tempted a
+hundred times, but they refrained. Yes, I was a great pest around the
+home. My only redeeming point was the way I worshipped _you_!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Oh, yes. You probably didn't notice it at the time, for I had a
+curious way of expressing my adoration. But you remain the brightest
+memory of a chequered youth."
+
+Jill searched his face with grave eyes, then shook her head again.
+
+"Nothing stirs?" asked the man sympathetically.
+
+"It's too maddening! Why does one forget things?" She reflected. "You
+aren't Bobby Morrison?"
+
+"I am not. What is more, I never was!"
+
+Jill dived into the past once more and emerged with another
+possibility.
+
+"Or--Charlie--Charlie what was it?--Charlie Field?"
+
+"You wound me! Have you forgotten that Charlie Field wore velvet Lord
+Fauntleroy suits and long golden curls? My past is not smirched with
+anything like that."
+
+"Would I remember your name if you told me?"
+
+"I don't know. I've forgotten yours. Your surname, that is. Of course,
+I remember that your Christian name was Jill. It has always seemed to
+me the prettiest monosyllable in the language." He looked at her
+thoughtfully. "It's odd how little you've altered in looks. Freddie's
+just the same, too, only larger. And he didn't wear an eye-glass in
+those days, though I can see he was bound to later on. And yet I've
+changed so much that you can't place me. It shows what a wearing life
+I must have led. I feel like Rip van Winkle. Old and withered. But
+that may be just the result of watching this play."
+
+"It is pretty terrible, isn't it?"
+
+"Worse than that. Looking at it dispassionately, I find it the
+extreme, ragged, outermost edge of the limit. Freddie had the correct
+description of it. He's a great critic."
+
+"I really do think it's the worst thing I have ever seen."
+
+"I don't know what plays you have seen, but I feel you're right."
+
+"Perhaps the second act's better," said Jill optimistically.
+
+"It's worse. I know that sounds like boasting, but it's true. I feel
+like getting up and making a public apology."
+
+"But ... Oh!"
+
+Jill turned scarlet. A monstrous suspicion had swept over her.
+
+"The only trouble is," went on her companion, "that the audience would
+undoubtedly lynch me. And, though it seems improbable just at the
+present moment, it may be that life holds some happiness for me that's
+worth waiting for. Anyway, I'd rather not be torn limb from limb. A
+messy finish! I can just see them rending me asunder in a spasm of
+perfectly justifiable fury. 'She loves me!' Off comes a leg. 'She
+loves me not!' Off comes an arm. No, I think on the whole I'll lie
+low. Besides, why should I care? Let 'em suffer. It's their own fault.
+They _would_ come!"
+
+Jill had been trying to interrupt the harangue. She was greatly
+concerned.
+
+"Did you _write_ the play?"
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"You are quite right to speak in that horrified tone. But between
+ourselves and on the understanding that you don't get up and denounce
+me, I did."
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry!"
+
+"Not half so sorry as I am, believe me!"
+
+"I mean, I wouldn't have said...."
+
+"Never mind. You didn't tell me anything I didn't know." The lights
+began to go down. He rose. "Well, they're off again. Perhaps you will
+excuse me? I don't feel quite equal to assisting any longer at the
+wake. If you want something to occupy your mind during the next act,
+try to remember my name."
+
+He slid from his seat and disappeared. Jill clutched at Derek.
+
+"Oh, Derek, it's too awful. I've just been talking to the man who
+wrote this play, and I told him it was the worst thing I had ever
+seen!"
+
+"Did you?" Derek snorted. "Well, it's about time somebody told him!" A
+thought seemed to strike him. "Why, who is he? I didn't know you knew
+him."
+
+"I don't. I don't even know his name."
+
+"His name, according to the programme, is John Grant. Never heard of
+him before. Jill, I wish you would not talk to people you don't know,"
+said Derek with a note of annoyance in his voice. "You can never tell
+who they are."
+
+"But...."
+
+"Especially with my mother here. You must be more careful."
+
+The curtain rose. Jill saw the stage mistily. From childhood up, she
+had never been able to cure herself of an unfortunate sensitiveness
+when sharply spoken to by those she loved. A rebuking world she could
+face with a stout heart, but there had always been just one or two
+people whose lightest word of censure could crush her. Her father had
+always had that effect upon her, and now Derek had taken his place.
+
+But if there had only been time to explain.... Derek could not object
+to her chatting with a friend of her childhood, even if she had
+completely forgotten him and did not remember his name even now. John
+Grant? Memory failed to produce any juvenile John Grant for her
+inspection.
+
+Puzzling over this problem, Jill missed much of the beginning of the
+second act. Hers was a detachment which the rest of the audience would
+gladly have shared. For the poetic drama, after a bad start, was now
+plunging into worse depths of dullness. The coughing had become almost
+continuous. The stalls, supported by the presence of large droves of
+Sir Chester's personal friends, were struggling gallantly to maintain
+a semblance of interest, but the pit and gallery had plainly given up
+hope. The critic of a weekly paper of small circulation, who had been
+shoved up in the upper circle, grimly jotted down the phrase
+"apathetically received" on his programme. He had come to the theatre
+that night in an aggrieved mood, for managers usually put him in the
+dress-circle. He got out his pencil again. Another phrase had occurred
+to him, admirable for the opening of his article. "At the Leicester
+Theatre," he wrote, "where Sir Chester Portwood presented 'Tried by
+Fire,' dullness reigned supreme...."
+
+But you never know. Call no evening dull till it is over. However
+uninteresting its early stages may have been that night was to be as
+animated and exciting as any audience could desire--a night to be
+looked back to and talked about, for just as the critic of _London
+Gossip_ wrote those damning words on his programme, guiding his pencil
+uncertainly in the dark, a curious yet familiar odour stole over the
+house.
+
+The stalls got it first, and sniffed. It rose to the dress-circle, and
+the dress-circle sniffed. Floating up, it smote the silent gallery.
+And, suddenly, coming to life with a single-minded abruptness, the
+gallery ceased to be silent.
+
+"Fire!"
+
+Sir Chester Portwood, ploughing his way through a long speech, stopped
+and looked apprehensively over his shoulder. The girl with the lisp,
+who had been listening in a perfunctory manner to the long speech,
+screamed loudly. The voice of an unseen stage-hand called thunderously
+to an invisible "Bill" to commere quick. And from the scenery on the
+prompt side there curled lazily across the stage a black wisp of
+smoke.
+
+"Fire! Fire! Fire!"
+
+"Just," said a voice at Jill's elbow, "what the play needed!" The
+mysterious author was back in his seat again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+JILL AND THE UNKNOWN ESCAPE
+
+I
+
+
+In these days when the authorities who watch over the welfare of the
+community have taken the trouble to reiterate encouragingly in printed
+notices that a full house can be emptied in three minutes and that all
+an audience has to do in an emergency is to walk, not run, to the
+nearest exit, fire in the theatre has lost a good deal of its old-time
+terror. Yet it would be paltering with the truth to say that the
+audience which had assembled to witness the opening performance of the
+new play at the Leicester was entirely at its ease. The asbestos
+curtain was already on its way down, which should have been
+reassuring: but then asbestos curtains never look the part. To the lay
+eye they seem just the sort of thing that will blaze quickest.
+Moreover, it had not yet occurred to the man at the switchboard to
+turn up the house-lights, and the darkness was disconcerting.
+
+Portions of the house were taking the thing better than other
+portions. Up in the gallery a vast activity was going on. The clatter
+of feet almost drowned the shouting. A moment before it would have
+seemed incredible that anything could have made the occupants of the
+gallery animated, but the instinct of self-preservation had put new
+life into them.
+
+The stalls had not yet entirely lost their self-control. Alarm was in
+the air, but for the moment they hung on the razor-edge between panic
+and dignity. Panic urged them to do something sudden and energetic;
+dignity counselled them to wait. They, like the occupants of the
+gallery, greatly desired to be outside, but it was bad form to rush
+and jostle. The men were assisting the women in their cloaks, assuring
+them the while that it was "all right" and that they must not be
+frightened. But another curl of smoke had crept out just before the
+asbestos curtain completed its descent, and their words lacked the
+ring of conviction. The movement towards the exits had not yet become
+a stampede, but already those with seats nearest the stage had begun
+to feel that the more fortunate individuals near the doors were
+infernally slow in removing themselves.
+
+Suddenly, as if by mutual inspiration, the composure of the stalls
+began to slip. Looking from above, one could have seen a sort of
+shudder run through the crowd. It was the effect of every member of
+that crowd starting to move a little more quickly.
+
+A hand grasped Jill's arm. It was a comforting hand, the hand of a man
+who had not lost his head. A pleasant voice backed up its message of
+reassurance.
+
+"It's no good getting into that mob. You might get hurt. There's no
+danger; the play isn't going on."
+
+Jill was shaken; but she had the fighting spirit and hated to show
+that she was shaken. Panic was knocking at the door of her soul, but
+dignity refused to be dislodged.
+
+"All the same," she said, smiling a difficult smile, "it would be nice
+to get out, wouldn't it?"
+
+"I was just going to suggest something of that very sort," said the
+man beside her. "The same thought occurred to me. We can stroll out
+quite comfortably by our own private route. Come along."
+
+Jill looked over her shoulder. Derek and Lady Underhill were merged
+into the mass of refugees. She could not see them. For an instant a
+little spasm of pique stung her at the thought that Derek had deserted
+her. She groped her way after her companion, and presently they came
+by way of a lower box to the iron pass-door leading to the stage.
+
+As it opened, smoke blew through, and the smell of burning was
+formidable. Jill recoiled involuntarily.
+
+"It's all right," said her companion. "It smells worse than it really
+is. And, anyway, this is the quickest way out."
+
+They passed through on to the stage, and found themselves in a world
+of noise and confusion compared with which the auditorium which they
+had left had been a peaceful place. Smoke was everywhere. A
+stage-hand, carrying a bucket, lurched past them, bellowing. From
+somewhere out of sight on the other side of the stage there came a
+sound of chopping. Jill's companion moved quickly to the switchboard,
+groped, found a handle, and turned it. In the narrow space between the
+corner of the proscenium and the edge of the asbestos curtain lights
+flashed up: and simultaneously there came a sudden diminution of the
+noise from the body of the house. The stalls, snatched from the
+intimidating spell of the darkness and able to see each other's faces,
+discovered that they had been behaving indecorously and checked their
+struggling, a little ashamed of themselves. The relief would be only
+momentary, but, while it lasted, it postponed panic.
+
+"Go straight across the stage," Jill heard her companion say, "out
+along the passage and turn to the right, and you'll be at the
+stage-door. I think, as there seems no one else around to do it, I'd
+better go out and say a few soothing words to the customers. Otherwise
+they'll be biting holes in each other."
+
+He squeezed through the narrow opening in front of the curtain.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen!"
+
+Jill remained where she was, leaning with one hand against the
+switchboard. She made no attempt to follow the directions he had given
+her. She was aware of a sense of comradeship, of being with this man
+in this adventure. If he stayed, she must stay. To go now through the
+safety of the stage-door would be abominable desertion. She listened,
+and found that she could hear plainly in spite of the noise. The smoke
+was worse than ever, and hurt her eyes, so that the figures of the
+theatre-firemen, hurrying to and fro, seemed like Brocken spectres.
+She slipped a corner of her cloak across her mouth, and was able to
+breathe more easily.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you that there is absolutely no
+danger. I am a stranger to you, so there is no reason why you should
+take my word, but fortunately I can give you solid proof. If there
+were any danger, _I_ wouldn't be here. All that has happened is that
+the warmth of your reception of the play has set a piece of scenery
+alight...."
+
+A crimson-faced stage-hand, carrying an axe in blackened hands, roared
+in Jill's ear.
+
+"'Op it!" shouted the stage-hand. He cast his axe down with a clatter.
+"Can't you see the place is afire?"
+
+"But--but I'm waiting for...." Jill pointed to where her ally was
+still addressing an audience that seemed reluctant to stop and listen
+to him.
+
+The stage-hand squinted out round the edge of the curtain.
+
+"If he's a friend of yours, miss, kindly get 'im to cheese it and get
+a move on. We're clearing out. There's nothing we can do. It's got too
+much of an 'old. In about another two ticks the roof's going to drop
+on us."
+
+Jill's friend came squeezing back through the opening.
+
+"Hullo! Still here?" He blinked approvingly at her through the smoke.
+"You're a little soldier! Well, Augustus, what's on your mind?"
+
+The simple question seemed to take the stage-hand aback.
+
+"Wot's on my mind? I'll tell you wot's on my blinking mind...."
+
+"Don't tell me. Let me guess. I've got it! The place is on fire!"
+
+The stage-hand expectorated disgustedly. Flippancy at such a moment
+offended his sensibilities.
+
+"We're 'opping it," he said.
+
+"Great minds think alike! _We_ are hopping it, too."
+
+"You'd better! And damn quick!"
+
+"And, as you suggest, damn quick. You think of everything!"
+
+Jill followed him across the stage. Her heart was beating violently.
+There was not only smoke now, but heat. Across the stage little
+scarlet flames were shooting, and something large and hard, unseen
+through the smoke, fell with a crash. The air was heavy with the smell
+of burning paint.
+
+"Where's Sir Chester Portwood?" enquired her companion of the
+stage-hand, who hurried beside them.
+
+"'Opped it!" replied the other briefly, and coughed raspingly as he
+swallowed smoke.
+
+"Strange," said the man in Jill's ear, as he pulled her along. "This
+way. Stick to me. Strange how the drama anticipates life! At the end
+of Act Two there was a scene where Sir Chester had to creep sombrely
+out into the night, and now he's gone and done it! Ah!"
+
+They had stumbled through a doorway and were out in a narrow passage,
+where the air, though tainted, was comparatively fresh. Jill drew a
+deep breath. Her companion turned to the stage-hand and felt in his
+pocket.
+
+"Here." A coin changed hands. "Go and get a drink. You need it after
+all this."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"Don't mention it. You've saved our lives. Suppose you hadn't come up
+and told us, and we had never noticed there was a fire!" He turned to
+Jill. "Here's the stage-door. Shall we creep sombrely out into the
+night?"
+
+The guardian of the stage-door was standing in the entrance of his
+little hutch, plainly perplexed. He was a slow thinker and a man whose
+life was ruled by routine, and the events of the evening had left him
+uncertain how to act.
+
+"Wot's all this about a fire?" he demanded.
+
+Jill's friend stopped.
+
+"A fire?" He looked at Jill. "Did _you_ hear anything about a fire?"
+
+"They all come bustin' past 'ere yelling there's a fire," persisted
+the door-man.
+
+"By George! Now I come to think of it, you're perfectly right! There
+_is_ a fire! If you wait here a little longer you'll get it in the
+small of the back. Take the advice of an old friend who means you well
+and vanish. In the inspired words of the lad we've just parted from,
+'op it!"
+
+The stage-door man turned this over in his mind for a space.
+
+"But I'm supposed to stay 'ere till eleven-thirty and lock up!" he
+said. "That's what I'm supposed to do. Stay 'ere till eleven-thirty
+and lock up! And it ain't but ten forty-five now."
+
+"I see the difficulty," said Jill's companion thoughtfully.
+
+"Well, Casabianca, I'm afraid I don't see how to help you. It's a
+matter for your own conscience. I don't want to lure you from the
+burning deck; on the other hand, if you stick on here you'll most
+certainly be fired on both sides.... But, tell me. You spoke about
+locking up something at eleven-thirty. What are you supposed to lock
+up?"
+
+"Why, the theatre."
+
+"Then that's all right. By eleven-thirty there won't _be_ a theatre.
+If I were you, I should leave quietly and unostentatiously now.
+To-morrow, if you wish it, and if they've cooled off sufficiently, you
+can come and sit on the ruins. Good night!"
+
+
+II
+
+Outside, the air was cold and crisp. Jill drew her warm cloak closer.
+Round the corner there was noise and shouting. Fire-engines had
+arrived. Jill's companion lit a cigarette.
+
+"Do you wish to stop and see the conflagration?" he asked.
+
+Jill shivered. She was more shaken than she had realized.
+
+"I've seen all the conflagration I want."
+
+"Same here. Well, it's been an exciting evening. Started slow, I
+admit, but warmed up later! What I seem to need at the moment is a
+restorative stroll along the Embankment. Do you know, Sir Chester
+Portwood didn't like the title of my play. He said 'Tried by Fire' was
+too melodramatic. Well, he can't say now it wasn't appropriate."
+
+They made their way towards the river, avoiding the street which was
+blocked by the crowds and the fire-engines. As they crossed the
+Strand, the man looked back. A red glow was in the sky.
+
+"A great blaze!" he said. "What you might call--in fact what the
+papers _will_ call--a holocaust. Quite a treat for the populace."
+
+"Do you think they will be able to put it out?"
+
+"Not a chance. It's got too much of a hold. It's a pity you hadn't
+that garden-hose of yours with you, isn't it?"
+
+Jill stopped, wide-eyed.
+
+"Garden-hose?"
+
+"Don't you remember the garden-hose? I do! I can feel that clammy
+feeling of the water trickling down my back now!"
+
+Memory, always a laggard by the wayside that redeems itself by an
+eleventh-hour rush, raced back to Jill. The Embankment turned to a
+sun-lit garden, and the January night to a July day. She stared at
+him. He was looking at her with a whimsical smile. It was a smile
+which, pleasant to-day, had seemed mocking and hostile on that
+afternoon years ago. She had always felt then that he was laughing at
+her, and at the age of twelve she had resented laughter at her
+expense.
+
+"You surely can't be Wally Mason!" "I was wondering when you would
+remember." "But the programme called you something else--John
+something."
+
+"That was a cunning disguise. Wally Mason is the only genuine and
+official name. And, by Jove! I've just remembered yours. It was
+Mariner. By the way,"--he paused for an almost imperceptible
+instant--"is it still?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE LAST OF THE ROOKES TAKES A HAND
+
+I
+
+
+Jill was hardly aware that he had asked her a question. She was
+suffering that momentary sense of unreality which comes to us when the
+years roll away and we are thrown abruptly back into the days of our
+childhood. The logical side of her mind was quite aware that there was
+nothing remarkable in the fact that Wally Mason, who had been to her
+all these years a boy in an Eton suit, should now present himself as a
+grown man. But for all that the transformation had something of the
+effect of a conjuring-trick. It was not only the alteration in his
+appearance that startled her: it was the amazing change in his
+personality. Wally Mason had been the _bête noire_ of her childhood.
+She had never failed to look back at the episode of the garden-hose
+with the feeling that she had acted well, that--however she might have
+strayed in those early days from the straight and narrow path--in that
+one particular crisis she had done the right thing. And now she had
+taken an instant liking for him. Easily as she made friends, she had
+seldom before felt so immediately drawn to a strange man. Gone was
+the ancient hostility, and in its place a soothing sense of
+comradeship. The direct effect of this was to make Jill feel suddenly
+old. It was as if some link that joined her to her childhood had been
+snapped.
+
+She glanced down the Embankment. Close by, to the left, Waterloo
+Bridge loomed up, dark and massive against the steel-grey sky. A
+tram-car, full of home-bound travellers, clattered past over rails
+that shone with the peculiarly frost-bitten gleam that seems to herald
+snow. Across the river everything was dark and mysterious, except for
+an occasional lamp-post and the dim illumination of the wharves. It
+was a depressing prospect, and the thought crossed her mind that to
+the derelicts whose nightly resting-place was a seat on the Embankment
+the view must seem even bleaker than it did to herself. She gave a
+little shiver. Somehow this sudden severance from the old days had
+brought with it a forlornness. She seemed to be standing alone in a
+changed world.
+
+"Cold?" said Wally Mason.
+
+"A little."
+
+"Let's walk."
+
+They moved westwards. Cleopatra's Needle shot up beside them, a
+pointing finger. Down on the silent river below, coffin-like row-boats
+lay moored to the wall. Through a break in the trees the clock over
+the Houses of Parliament shone for an instant as if suspended in the
+sky, then vanished as the trees closed in. A distant barge in the
+direction of Battersea wailed and was still. It had a mournful and
+foreboding sound. Jill shivered again. It annoyed her that she could
+not shake off this quite uncalled-for melancholy, but it withstood
+every effort. Why she should have felt that a chapter, a pleasant
+chapter, in the book of her life had been closed, she could not have
+said, but the feeling lingered.
+
+"Correct me if I am wrong," said Wally Mason, breaking a silence that
+had lasted several minutes, "but you seem to me to be freezing in your
+tracks. Ever since I came to London I've had a habit of heading for
+the Embankment in times of mental stress, but perhaps the middle of
+winter is not quite the moment for communing with the night. The Savoy
+is handy, if we stop walking away from it. I think we might celebrate
+this re-union with a little supper, don't you?"
+
+Jill's depression disappeared magically. Her mercurial temperament
+asserted itself.
+
+"Lights!" she said. "Music!"
+
+"And food! To an ethereal person like you that remark may seem gross,
+but I had no dinner."
+
+"You poor dear! Why not?"
+
+"Just nervousness."
+
+"Why, of course." The interlude of the fire had caused her to forget
+his private and personal connection with the night's events. Her mind
+went back to something he had said in the theatre. "Wally--" She
+stopped, a little embarrassed. "I suppose I ought to call you Mr.
+Mason, but I've always thought of you...."
+
+"Wally, if you please, Jill. It's not as though we were strangers. I
+haven't my book of etiquette with me, but I fancy that about eleven
+gallons of cold water down the neck constitutes an introduction. What
+were you going to say?"
+
+"It was what you said to Freddie about putting up money. Did you
+really?"
+
+"Put up the money for that ghastly play? I did. Every cent. It was the
+only way to get it put on."
+
+"But why...? I forget what I was going to say!"
+
+"Why did I want it put on? Well, it does seem odd, but I give you my
+honest word that until to-night I thought the darned thing a
+masterpiece. I've been writing musical comedies for the last few
+years, and after you've done that for a while your soul rises up
+within you and says, 'Come, come, my lad! You can do better than
+this!' That's what mine said, and I believed it. Subsequent events
+have proved that Sidney the Soul was pulling my leg!"
+
+"But--then you've lost a great deal of money?"
+
+"The hoarded wealth, if you don't mind my being melodramatic for a
+moment, of a lifetime. And no honest old servitor who dangled me on
+his knee as a baby to come along and offer me his savings! They don't
+make servitors like that in America, worse luck. There is a Swedish
+lady who looks after my simple needs back there, but instinct tells me
+that, if I were to approach her on the subject of loosening up for the
+benefit of the young master, she would call a cop. Still, I've gained
+experience, which they say is just as good as cash, and I've enough
+money left to pay the bill, at any rate, so come along."
+
+In the supper-room of the Savoy Hotel there was, as anticipated, food
+and light and music. It was still early, and the theatres had not yet
+emptied themselves, so that the big room was as yet but half full.
+Wally Mason had found a table in the corner, and proceeded to order
+with the concentration of a hungry man.
+
+"Forgive my dwelling so tensely on the bill-of-fare," he said, when
+the waiter had gone. "You don't know what it means to one in my
+condition to have to choose between _poulet en casserole_ and kidneys
+_à la mâitre d'hôtel_. A man's cross-roads!"
+
+Jill smiled happily across the table at him. She could hardly believe
+that this old friend with whom she had gone through the perils of the
+night and with whom she was now about to feast was the sinister figure
+that had cast a shadow on her childhood. He looked positively
+incapable of pulling a little girl's hair--as no doubt he was.
+
+"You always were greedy," she commented. "Just before I turned the
+hose on you, I remember you had made yourself thoroughly disliked by
+pocketing a piece of my birthday cake."
+
+"Do you remember that?" His eyes lit up and he smiled back at her. He
+had an ingratiating smile. His mouth was rather wide, and it seemed to
+stretch right across his face. He reminded Jill more than ever of a
+big, friendly dog. "I can feel it now--all squashy in my pocket,
+inextricably mingled with a catapult, a couple of marbles, a box of
+matches, and some string. I was quite the human general store in those
+days. Which reminds me that we have been some time settling down to an
+exchange of our childish reminiscences, haven't we?"
+
+"I've been trying to realize that you are Wally Mason. You have
+altered so."
+
+"For the better?"
+
+"Very much for the better! You were a horrid little brute. You used to
+terrify me. I never knew when you were going to bound out at me from
+behind a tree or something. I remember your chasing me for miles,
+shrieking at the top of your voice!"
+
+"Sheer embarrassment! I told you just now how I used to worship you.
+If I shrieked a little, it was merely because I was shy. I did it to
+hide my devotion."
+
+"You certainly succeeded. I never even suspected it."
+
+Wally sighed.
+
+"How like life! I never told my love, but let concealment like a worm
+i' the bud...."
+
+"Talking of worms, you once put one down my back!"
+
+"No, no," said Wally in a shocked voice. "Not that! I was boisterous,
+perhaps, but surely always the gentleman."
+
+"You did! In the shrubbery. There had been a thunderstorm and...."
+
+"I remember the incident now. A mere misunderstanding. I had done with
+the worm, and thought you might be glad to have it."
+
+"You were always doing things like that. Once you held me over the
+pond and threatened to drop me into the water--in the winter! Just
+before Christmas. It was a particularly mean thing to do, because I
+couldn't even kick your shins for fear you would let me fall. Luckily
+Uncle Chris came up and made you stop."
+
+"You considered that a fortunate occurrence, did you?" said Wally.
+"Well, perhaps from your point of view it may have been. I saw the
+thing from a different angle. Your uncle had a whangee with him. My
+friends sometimes wonder what I mean when I say that my old wound
+troubles me in frosty weather. By the way, how is your uncle?"
+
+"Oh, he's very well. Just as lazy as ever. He's away at present, down
+at Brighton."
+
+"He didn't strike me as lazy," said Wally thoughtfully. "Dynamic would
+express it better. But perhaps I happened to encounter him in a moment
+of energy. Ah!" The waiter had returned with a loaded tray. "The food!
+Forgive me if I seem a little distrait for a moment or two. There is
+man's work before me!"
+
+"And later on, I suppose, you would like a chop or something to take
+away in your pocket?"
+
+"I will think it over. Possibly a little soup. My needs are very
+simple these days."
+
+Jill watched him with a growing sense of satisfaction. There was
+something boyishly engaging about this man. She felt at home with him.
+He affected her in much the same way as did Freddie Rooke. He was a
+definite addition to the things that went to make her happy.
+
+She liked him particularly for being such a good loser. She had
+always been a good loser herself, and the quality was one which she
+admired. It was nice of him to dismiss from his conversation--and
+apparently from his thoughts--that night's fiasco and all that it must
+have cost him. She wondered how much he had lost. Certainly something
+very substantial. Yet it seemed to trouble him not at all. Jill
+considered his behaviour gallant, and her heart warmed to him. This
+was how a man ought to take the slings and arrows of outrageous
+fortune.
+
+Wally sighed contentedly, and leaned back in his chair.
+
+"An unpleasant exhibition!" he said apologetically. "But unavoidable.
+And, anyway, I take it that you prefer to have me well-fed and happy
+about the place than swooning on the floor with starvation. A
+wonderful thing, food! I am now ready to converse intelligently on any
+subject you care to suggest. I have eaten rose-leaves and am no more a
+golden ass, so to speak. What shall we talk about?"
+
+"Tell me about yourself."
+
+"There is no nobler topic. But what aspect of myself do you wish me to
+touch on? My thoughts, my tastes, my amusements, my career, or what? I
+can talk about myself for hours. My friends in New York often complain
+about it bitterly."
+
+"New York?" said Jill. "Oh, then you live in America?"
+
+"Yes. I only came over here to see that darned false alarm of a play
+of mine put on."
+
+"Why didn't you put it on in New York?"
+
+"Too many of the lads of the village know me over there. This was a
+new departure, you see. What the critics in those parts expect from me
+is something entitled 'Wow! Wow!' or 'The Girl from Yonkers.' It would
+have unsettled their minds to find me breaking out in poetic drama.
+They are men of coarse fibre and ribald mind and they would have been
+funny about it. I thought it wiser to come over here among strangers,
+little thinking that I should sit in the next seat to somebody I had
+known all my life."
+
+"But when did you go to America? And why?"
+
+"I think it must have been four--five--well, quite a number of years
+after the hose episode. Probably you didn't observe that I wasn't
+still around, but we crept silently out of the neighbourhood round
+about that time and went to live in London." His tone lost its
+lightness momentarily. "My father died, you know, and that sort of
+broke things up. He didn't leave any too much money, either.
+Apparently we had been living on rather too expensive a scale during
+the time I knew you. At any rate, I was more or less up against it
+until your father got me a job in an office in New York."
+
+"My father!"
+
+"Yes. It was wonderfully good of him to bother about me. I didn't
+suppose he would have known me by sight, and, even if he had
+remembered me, I shouldn't have imagined that the memory would have
+been a pleasant one. But he couldn't have taken more trouble if I had
+been a blood-relation."
+
+"That was just like father," said Jill softly.
+
+"He was a prince."
+
+"But you aren't in the office now?"
+
+"No. I found I had a knack of writing verses and things, and I wrote a
+few vaudeville songs. Then I came across a man named Bevan at a music
+publisher's. He was just starting to write music, and we got together
+and turned out some vaudeville sketches, and then a manager sent for
+us to fix up a show that was dying on the road and we had the good
+luck to turn it into a success, and after that it was pretty good
+going. George Bevan got married the other day. Lucky devil!"
+
+"Are you married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You were faithful to my memory?" said Jill with a smile.
+
+"I was."
+
+"It can't last," said Jill, shaking her head. "One of these days
+you'll meet some lovely American girl and then you'll put a worm down
+her back or pull her hair or whatever it is you do when you want to
+show your devotion, and.... What are you looking at? Is something
+interesting going on behind me?"
+
+He had been looking past her out into the room.
+
+"It's nothing," he said. "Only there's a statuesque old lady about two
+tables back of you who has been staring at you, with intervals for
+refreshment, for the last five minutes. You seem to fascinate her."
+
+"An old lady?"
+
+"Yes. With a glare! She looks like Dunsany's Bird of the Difficult
+Eye. Count ten and turn carelessly round, There, at that table. Almost
+behind you."
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Jill.
+
+She turned quickly round again.
+
+"What's the matter? Do you know her? Somebody you don't want to meet?"
+
+"It's Lady Underhill! And Derek's with her!"
+
+Wally had been lifting his glass. He put it down rather suddenly.
+
+"Derek?" he said.
+
+"Derek Underhill. The man I'm engaged to marry."
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Oh!" said Wally thoughtfully. "The man you're engaged to marry? Yes,
+I see!"
+
+He raised his glass again, and drank its contents quickly.
+
+
+II
+
+Jill looked at her companion anxiously. Recent events had caused her
+completely to forget the existence of Lady Underhill. She was always
+so intensely interested in what she happened to be doing at the moment
+that she often suffered these temporary lapses of memory. It occurred
+to her now--too late, as usual--that the Savoy Hotel was the last
+place in London where she should have come to supper with Wally. It
+was the hotel where Lady Underhill was staying. She frowned. Life had
+suddenly ceased to be careless and happy, and had become a
+problem-ridden thing, full of perplexity and misunderstandings.
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+Wally Mason started at the sound of her voice. He appeared to be deep
+in thoughts of his own.
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"I shouldn't be worried."
+
+"Derek will be awfully cross."
+
+Wally's good-humoured mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.
+
+"Why?" he said. "There's nothing wrong in your having supper with an
+old friend."
+
+"N-no," said Jill doubtfully. "But...."
+
+"Derek Underhill," said Wally reflectively. "Is that Sir Derek
+Underhill, whose name one's always seeing in the papers?"
+
+"Derek is in the papers a lot. He's an M.P. and all sorts of things."
+
+"Good-looking fellow. Ah, here's the coffee."
+
+"I don't want any, thanks."
+
+"Nonsense. Why spoil your meal because of this? Do you smoke?"
+
+"No, thanks."
+
+"Given it up, eh? Daresay you're wise. Stunts the growth and increases
+the expenses."
+
+"Given it up?"
+
+"Don't you remember sharing one of your father's cigars with me behind
+the haystack in the meadow? We cut it in half. I finished my half, but
+I fancy about three puffs were enough for you. Those were happy days!"
+
+"That one wasn't! Of course I remember it now. I don't suppose I shall
+ever forget it."
+
+"The thing was my fault, as usual. I recollect I dared you."
+
+"Yes. I always took a dare."
+
+"Do you still?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+Wally knocked the ash off his cigarette.
+
+"Well," he said slowly, "suppose I were to dare you to get up and walk
+over to that table and look your fiancé in the eye and say, 'Stop
+scowling at my back hair! I've a perfect right to be supping with an
+old friend!'--would you do it?"
+
+"Is he?" said Jill startled.
+
+"Scowling? Can't you feel it on the back of your head?" He drew
+thoughtfully at his cigarette. "If I were you I should stop that sort
+of thing at the source. It's a habit that can't be discouraged in a
+husband too early. Scowling is the civilized man's substitute for
+wife-beating."
+
+Jill moved uncomfortably in her chair. Her quick temper resented his
+tone. There was a hostility, a hardly veiled contempt in his voice
+which stung her. Derek was sacred. Whoever criticised him, presumed.
+Wally, a few minutes before a friend and an agreeable companion,
+seemed to her to have changed. He was once more the boy whom she had
+disliked in the old days. There was a gleam in her eyes which should
+have warned him, but he went on.
+
+"I should imagine that this Derek of yours is not one of our leading
+sunbeams. Well, I suppose he could hardly be, if that's his mother and
+there is anything in heredity."
+
+"Please don't criticise Derek," said Jill coldly.
+
+"I was only saying...."
+
+"Never mind. I don't like it."
+
+A slow flush crept over Wally's face. He made no reply, and there fell
+between them a silence that was like a shadow, Jill sipped her coffee
+miserably. She was regretting that little spurt of temper. She wished
+she could have recalled the words. Not that it was the actual words
+that had torn asunder this gossamer thing, the friendship which they
+had begun to weave like some fragile web: it was her manner, the
+manner of the princess rebuking an underling. She knew that, if she
+had struck him, she could not have offended Wally more deeply. There
+are some men whose ebullient natures enable them to rise unscathed
+from the worst snub. Wally, her intuition told her, was not that kind
+of man.
+
+There was only one way of mending the matter. In these clashes of
+human temperaments, these sudden storms that spring up out of a clear
+sky, it is possible sometimes to repair the damage, if the
+psychological moment is resolutely seized, by talking rapidly and with
+detachment on neutral topics. Words have made the rift, and words
+alone can bridge it. But neither Jill nor her companion could find
+words, and the silence lengthened grimly. When Wally spoke, it was in
+the level tones of a polite stranger.
+
+"Your friends have gone."
+
+His voice was the voice in which, when she went on railway journeys,
+fellow-travellers in the carriage enquired of Jill if she would prefer
+the window up or down. It had the effect of killing her regrets and
+feeding her resentment. She was a girl who never refused a challenge,
+and she set herself to be as frigidly polite and aloof as he.
+
+"Really?" she said. "When did they leave?"
+
+"A moment ago." The lights gave the warning flicker that announces the
+arrival of the hour of closing. In the momentary darkness they both
+rose. Wally scrawled his name across the bill which the waiter had
+insinuated upon his attention. "I suppose we had better be moving?"
+
+They crossed the room in silence. Everybody was moving in the same
+direction. The broad stairway leading to the lobby was crowded with
+chattering supper-parties. The light had gone up again.
+
+At the cloak-room Wally stopped.
+
+"I see Underhill waiting up there," he said casually. "To take you
+home, I suppose. Shall we say good-night? I'm staying in the hotel."
+
+Jill glanced towards the head of the stairs. Derek was there. He was
+alone. Lady Underhill presumably had gone up to her room in the
+elevator.
+
+Wally was holding out his hand. His face was stolid and his eyes
+avoided hers.
+
+"Good-bye," he said.
+
+"Good-bye," said Jill.
+
+She felt curiously embarrassed. At this last moment hostility had
+weakened, and she was conscious of a desire to make amends. She and
+this man had been through much together that night, much that was
+perilous and much that was pleasant. A sudden feeling of remorse came
+over her.
+
+"You'll come and see us, won't you?" she said a little wistfully. "I'm
+sure my uncle would like to meet you again."
+
+"It's very good of you," said Wally, "but I'm afraid I shall be going
+back to America at any moment now."
+
+Pique, that ally of the devil, regained its slipping grip upon Jill.
+
+"Oh? I'm sorry," she said indifferently. "Well, good-bye, then."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"I hope you have a pleasant voyage."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+He turned into the cloak-room, and Jill went up the stairs to join
+Derek. She felt angry and depressed, full of a sense of the futility
+of things. People flashed into one's life and out again. Where was the
+sense of it?
+
+
+III
+
+Derek had been scowling, and Derek still scowled. His eyebrows were
+formidable, and his mouth smiled no welcome at Jill as she approached
+him. The evening, portions of which Jill had found so enjoyable, had
+contained no pleasant portions for Derek. Looking back over a lifetime
+whose events had been almost uniformly agreeable, he told himself
+that he could not recall another day which had gone so completely
+awry. It had started with the fog. He hated fog. Then had come that
+meeting with his mother at Charing Cross, which had been enough to
+upset him by itself. After that, rising to a crescendo of
+unpleasantness, the day had provided that appalling situation at the
+Albany, the recollection of which still made him tingle; and there had
+followed the silent dinner, the boredom of the early part of the play,
+the fire at the theatre, the undignified scramble for the exits, and
+now this discovery of the girl whom he was engaged to marry supping at
+the Savoy with a fellow he didn't remember ever having seen in his
+life. All these things combined to induce in Derek a mood bordering on
+ferocity. His birth and income combining to make him one of the
+spoiled children of the world, had fitted him ill for such a series of
+catastrophes. He received Jill with frozen silence and led her out to
+the waiting taxi-cab. It was only when the cab had started on its
+journey that he found relief in speech.
+
+"Well," he said, mastering with difficulty an inclination to raise his
+voice to a shout, "perhaps you will kindly explain?"
+
+Jill had sunk back against the cushions of the cab. The touch of his
+body against hers always gave her a thrill, half pleasurable, half
+frightening. She had never met anybody who affected her in this way as
+Derek did. She moved a little closer, and felt for his hand. But, as
+she touched it, it retreated--coldly. Her heart sank. It was like
+being cut in public by somebody very dignified.
+
+"Derek, darling!" Her lips trembled. Others had seen this side of
+Derek Underhill frequently, for he was a man who believed in keeping
+the world in its place, but she never. To her he had always been the
+perfect, gracious knight. A little too perfect, perhaps, a trifle too
+gracious, possibly, but she had been too deeply in love to notice
+that. "Don't be cross!"
+
+The English language is the richest in the world, and yet somehow in
+moments when words count most we generally choose the wrong ones. The
+adjective "cross" as a description of his Jove-like wrath that
+consumed his whole being jarred upon Derek profoundly. It was as
+though Prometheus, with the vultures tearing his liver, had been asked
+if he were piqued.
+
+"Cross!"
+
+The cab rolled on. Lights from lamp-posts flashed in at windows. It
+was a pale, anxious little face that they lit up when they shone upon
+Jill.
+
+"I can't understand you," said Derek at last. Jill noticed that he had
+not yet addressed her by her name. He was speaking straight out in
+front of him as if he were soliloquising. "I simply cannot understand
+you. After what happened before dinner to-night, for you to cap
+everything by going off alone to supper at a restaurant, where half
+the people in the room must have known you, with a man...."
+
+"You don't understand!"
+
+"Exactly! I said I did not understand." The feeling of having scored a
+point made Derek feel a little better. "I admit it. Your behaviour is
+incomprehensible. Where did you meet this fellow?"
+
+"I met him at the theatre. He was the author of the play."
+
+"The man you told me you had been talking to? The fellow who scraped
+acquaintance with you between the acts?"
+
+"But I found out he was an old friend. I mean, I knew him when I was a
+child."
+
+"You didn't tell me that."
+
+"I only found it out later."
+
+"After he had invited you to supper! It's maddening!" cried Derek, the
+sense of his wrongs surging back over him. "What do you suppose my
+mother thought? She asked me who the man with you was. I had to say I
+didn't know! What do you suppose she thought?"
+
+It is to be doubted whether anything else in the world could have
+restored the fighting spirit to Jill's cowering soul at that moment;
+but the reference to Lady Underhill achieved this miracle. That deep
+mutual antipathy which is so much more common than love at first sight
+had sprung up between the two at the instant of their meeting. The
+circumstances of that meeting had caused it to take root and grow. To
+Jill, Derek's mother was by this time not so much a fellow human being
+whom she disliked as a something, a sort of force, that made for her
+unhappiness. She was a menace and a loathing.
+
+"If your mother had asked me that question," she retorted with spirit,
+"I should have told her that he was the man who got me safely out of
+the theatre after you...." She checked herself. She did not want to
+say the unforgivable thing. "You see," she said more quietly, "you had
+disappeared...."
+
+"My mother is an old woman," said Derek stiffly. "Naturally I had to
+look after her. I called to you to follow."
+
+"Oh, I understand. I'm simply trying to explain what happened. I was
+there all alone, and Wally Mason...."
+
+"Wally!" Derek uttered a short laugh, almost a bark. "It got to
+Christian names, eh?"
+
+Jill set her teeth.
+
+"I told you I knew him as a child. I always called him Wally then."
+
+"I beg your pardon. I had forgotten."
+
+"He got me out through the pass-door on to the stage and through the
+stage-door."
+
+Derek was feeling cheated. He had the uncomfortable sensation that
+comes to men who grandly contemplate mountains and see them dwindle to
+molehills. The apparently outrageous had shown itself in explanation
+nothing so out-of-the-way after all. He seized upon the single point
+in Jill's behaviour that still constituted a grievance.
+
+"There was no need for you to go to supper with the man!" Jove-like
+wrath had ebbed away to something deplorably like a querulous grumble.
+"You should have gone straight home. You must have known how anxious I
+would be about you."
+
+"Well, really, Derek, dear! You didn't seem so very anxious! You were
+having supper yourself quite cosily."
+
+The human mind is curiously constituted. It is worthy of record that,
+despite his mother's obvious disapproval of his engagement, despite
+all the occurrences of this dreadful day, it was not till she made
+this remark that Derek Underhill first admitted to himself that,
+intoxicate his senses as she might, there was a possibility that Jill
+Mariner was not the ideal wife for him. The idea came and went more
+quickly than breath upon a mirror. It passed, but it had been. There
+are men who fear repartee in a wife more keenly than a sword. Derek
+was one of these. Like most men of single outlook, whose dignity is
+their most precious possession, he winced from an edged tongue.
+
+"My mother was greatly upset," he replied coldly. "I thought a cup of
+soup would do her good. And, as for being anxious about you, I
+telephoned to your home to ask if you had come in."
+
+"And when," thought Jill, "they told you I hadn't, you went off to
+supper!"
+
+She did not speak the words. If she had an edged tongue, she had also
+the control of it. She had no wish to wound Derek. Whole-hearted in
+everything she did, she loved him with her whole heart. There might be
+specks upon her idol--that its feet might be clay she could never
+believe--but they mattered nothing. She loved him.
+
+"I'm so sorry, dear," she said. "So awfully sorry! I've been a bad
+girl, haven't I?"
+
+She felt for his hand again, and this time he allowed it to remain
+stiffly in her grasp. It was like being grudgingly recognized by
+somebody very dignified who had his doubts about you but reserved
+judgment.
+
+The cab drew up at the door of the house in Ovingdon Square which
+Jill's Uncle Christopher had settled upon as a suitable address for a
+gentleman of his standing. Jill put up her face to be kissed, like a
+penitent child.
+
+"I'll never be naughty again!"
+
+For a flickering instant Derek hesitated. The drive, long as it was,
+had been too short wholly to restore his equanimity. Then the sense of
+her nearness, her sweetness, the faint perfume of her hair, and her
+eyes, shining softly in the darkness so close to his own, overcame
+him. He crushed her to him.
+
+Jill disappeared into the house with a happy laugh. It had been a
+terrible day, but it had ended well.
+
+"The Albany," said Derek to the cabman.
+
+He leaned back against the cushions. His senses were in a whirl. The
+cab rolled on. Presently his exalted mood vanished as quickly as it
+had come. Jill absent always affected him differently from Jill
+present. He was not a man of strong imagination, and the stimulus of
+her waned when she was not with him. Long before the cab reached the
+Albany the frown was back on his face.
+
+
+IV
+
+Arriving at the Albany, he found Freddie Rooke lying on his spine in a
+deep arm-chair. His slippered feet were on the mantelpiece, and he was
+restoring his wasted tissues with a strong whisky-and-soda. One of
+the cigars which Barker, the valet, had stamped with the seal of his
+approval was in the corner of his mouth. The _Sporting Times_, with a
+perusal of which he had been soothing his fluttered nerves, had fallen
+on the floor beside the chair. He had finished reading, and was now
+gazing peacefully at the ceiling, his mind a perfect blank. There was
+nothing the matter with Freddie.
+
+"Hullo, old thing," he observed as Derek entered. "So you buzzed out
+of the fiery furnace all right? I was wondering how you had got along.
+How are you feeling? I'm not the man I was! These things get the old
+system all stirred up! I'll do anything in reason to oblige and help
+things along and all that, but to be called on at a moment's notice to
+play Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego rolled into one, without
+rehearsal or make-up, is a bit too thick! No, young feller-me-lad! If
+theatre fires are going to be the fashion this season, the Last of the
+Rookes will sit quietly at home and play solitaire. Mix yourself a
+drink of something, old man, or something of that kind. By the way,
+your jolly old mater. All right? Not even singed? Fine! Make a long
+arm and gather in a cigar."
+
+And Freddie, having exerted himself to play the host in a suitable
+manner, wedged himself more firmly into his chair and blew a cloud of
+smoke.
+
+Derek sat down. He lit a cigar, and stared silently at the fire. From
+the mantelpiece Jill's photograph smiled down, but he did not look at
+it. Presently his attitude began to weigh upon Freddie. Freddie had
+had a trying evening What he wanted just now was merry prattle, and
+his friend did not seem disposed to contribute his share. He removed
+his feet from the mantelpiece and wriggled himself sideways, so that
+he could see Derek's face. Its gloom touched him. Apart from his
+admiration for Derek, he was a warmhearted young man, and sympathized
+with affliction when it presented itself for his notice.
+
+"Something on your mind, old bean?" he enquired delicately.
+
+Derek did not answer for a moment. Then he reflected that, little as
+he esteemed the other's mentality, he and Freddie had known each other
+a long time, and that it would be a relief to confide in some one. And
+Freddie, moreover, was an old friend of Jill and the man who had
+introduced him to her.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"I'm listening, old top," said Freddie. "Release the film."
+
+Derek drew at his cigar, and watched the smoke as it curled to the
+ceiling.
+
+"It's about Jill."
+
+Freddie signified his interest by wriggling still further sideways.
+
+"Jill, eh?"
+
+"Freddie, she's so damned impulsive!"
+
+Freddie nearly rolled out of his chair. This, he took it, was what
+writing-chappies called a coincidence.
+
+"Rummy you should say that," he ejaculated. "I was telling her exactly
+the same thing myself only this evening." He hesitated. "I fancy I can
+see what you're driving at, old thing. The watchword is 'What ho, the
+mater!' yes, no? You've begun to get a sort of idea that if Jill
+doesn't watch her step, she's apt to sink pretty low in the betting,
+what? I know exactly what you mean! You and I know all right that
+Jill's a topper. But one can see that to your mater she might seem a
+bit different. I mean to say, your jolly old mater only judging by
+first impressions, and the meeting not having come off quite as
+scheduled.... I say, old man," he broke off, "fearfully sorry and all
+that about that business. You know what I mean! Wouldn't have had it
+happen for the world. I take it the mater was a trifle peeved? Not to
+say perturbed and chagrined? I seemed to notice it at dinner."
+
+"She was furious, of course. She did not refer to the matter when we
+were alone together, but there was no need to. I knew what she was
+thinking."
+
+Derek threw away his cigar. Freddie noted this evidence of an
+overwrought soul with concern.
+
+"The whole thing," he conceded, "was a bit unfortunate."
+
+Derek began to pace the room.
+
+"Freddie."
+
+"On the spot, old man."
+
+"Something's got to be done."
+
+"Absolutely!" Freddie nodded solemnly. He had taken this matter
+greatly to heart. Derek was his best friend, and he had always been
+extremely fond of Jill. It hurt him to see things going wrong. "I'll
+tell you what, old bean. Let _me_ handle this binge for you."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Me! The Final Rooke!" He jumped up, and leaned against the
+mantelpiece. "I'm the lad to do it. I've known Jill for years. She'll
+listen to me. I'll talk to her like a Dutch uncle and make her
+understand the general scheme of things. I'll take her out to tea
+to-morrow and slang her in no uncertain voice! Leave the whole thing
+to _me_, laddie!"
+
+Derek considered.
+
+"It might do some good," he said.
+
+"Good?" said Freddie. "It's _it_, dear boy! It's a wheeze! You toddle
+off to bed and have a good sleep. I'll fix the whole thing for you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LADY UNDERHILL RECEIVES A SHOCK
+
+I
+
+
+There are streets in London into which the sun seems never to
+penetrate. Some of these are in fashionable quarters, and it is to be
+supposed that their inhabitants find an address which looks well on
+note-paper a sufficient compensation for the gloom that goes with it.
+The majority, however, are in the mean neighbourhoods of the great
+railway termini, and appear to offer no compensation whatever. They
+are lean, furtive streets, grey as the January sky with a sort of
+arrested decay. They smell of cabbage and are much prowled over by
+vagrom cats. At night they are empty and dark, and a stillness broods
+on them, broken only by the cracked tingle of an occasional piano
+playing one of the easier hymns, a form of music to which the dwellers
+in the dingy houses are greatly addicted. By day they achieve a
+certain animation through the intermittent appearance of women in
+aprons, who shake rugs out of the front doors or, emerging from areas,
+go down to the public-house on the corner with jugs to fetch the
+supper-beer. In almost every ground-floor window there is a card
+announcing that furnished lodgings may be had within. You will find
+these streets by the score if you leave the main thoroughfares and
+take a short cut on your way to Euston, to Paddington, or to Waterloo.
+But the dingiest and deadliest and most depressing lie round about
+Victoria. And Daubeny Street, Pimlico, is one of the worst of them
+all.
+
+On the afternoon following the events recorded, a girl was dressing in
+the ground-floor room of Number Nine, Daubeny Street. A tray bearing
+the remains of a late breakfast stood on the rickety table beside a
+bowl of wax flowers. From beneath the table peered the green cover of
+a copy of _Variety_. A grey parrot in a cage by the window cracked
+seed and looked out into the room with a satirical eye. He had seen
+all this so many times before--Nelly Bryant arraying herself in her
+smartest clothes to go out and besiege agents in their offices off the
+Strand. It happened every day. In an hour or two she would come back
+as usual, say "Oh, Gee!" in a tired sort of voice, and then Bill the
+parrot's day proper would begin. He was a bird who liked the sound of
+his own voice, and he never got the chance of a really sustained
+conversation till Nelly returned in the evening.
+
+"Who cares?" said Bill, and cracked another seed.
+
+If rooms are an indication of the characters of their occupants, Nelly
+Bryant came well out of the test of her surroundings. Nothing can make
+a London furnished room much less horrible than it intends to be, but
+Nelly had done her best. The furniture, what there was of it, was of
+that lodging-house kind which resembles nothing else in the world. But
+a few little touches here and there, a few instinctively tasteful
+alterations in the general scheme of things, had given the room almost
+a cosy air. Later on, with the gas lit, it would achieve something
+approaching homeliness. Nelly, like many another nomad, had taught
+herself to accomplish a good deal with poor material. On tour in
+America, she had sometimes made even a bedroom in a small hotel
+tolerably comfortable, than which there is no greater achievement.
+Oddly, considering her life, she had a genius for domesticity.
+
+To-day, not for the first time, Nelly was feeling unhappy. The face
+that looked back at her out of the mirror at which she was arranging
+her most becoming hat was weary. It was only a moderately pretty face,
+but loneliness and underfeeding had given it a wistful expression that
+had charm. Unfortunately, it was not the sort of charm which made a
+great appeal to the stout, whisky-nourished men who sat behind
+paper-littered tables, smoking cigars, in the rooms marked "Private"
+in the offices of theatrical agents. Nelly had been out of a "shop"
+now for many weeks--ever since, in fact, "Follow the Girl" had
+finished its long run at the Regal Theatre.
+
+"Follow the Girl," an American musical comedy, had come over from New
+York with an American company, of which Nelly had been a humble unit,
+and, after playing a year in London and some weeks in the number one
+towns, had returned to New York. It did not cheer Nelly up in the long
+evenings in Daubeny Street to reflect that, if she had wished, she
+could have gone home with the rest of the company. A mad impulse had
+seized her to try her luck in London, and here she was now, marooned.
+
+"Who cares?" said Bill.
+
+For a bird who enjoyed talking he was a little limited in his remarks
+and apt to repeat himself.
+
+"I do, you poor fish!" said Nelly, completing her manoeuvres with
+the hat and turning to the cage. "It's all right for you--you have a
+swell time with nothing to do but sit there and eat seed--but how do
+you suppose I enjoy tramping around looking for work and never finding
+any?"
+
+She picked up her gloves. "Oh, well!" she said. "Wish me luck!"
+
+"Good-bye, boy!" said the parrot, clinging to the bars.
+
+Nelly thrust a finger into the cage, and scratched his head.
+
+"Anxious to get rid of me, aren't you? Well, so long."
+
+"Good-bye, boy!"
+
+"All right, I'm going. Be good!"
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" barked Bill the parrot, not committing himself to
+any promises.
+
+For some moments after Nelly had gone he remained hunched on his
+perch, contemplating the infinite. Then he sauntered along to the
+seed-box and took some more light nourishment. He always liked to
+spread his meals out, to make them last longer. A drink of water to
+wash the food down, and he returned to the middle of the cage, where
+he proceeded to conduct a few intimate researches with his beak under
+his left wing. After which he mewed like a cat, and relapsed into
+silent meditation once more. He closed his eyes and pondered on his
+favourite problem--Why was he a parrot? This was always good for an
+hour or so, and it was three o'clock before he had come to his
+customary decision that he didn't know. Then, exhausted by brain-work
+and feeling a trifle hipped by the silence of the room, he looked
+about him for some way of jazzing existence up a little. It occurred
+to him that if he barked again it might help.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!"
+
+Good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. It was not real
+excitement. Something rather more dashing seemed to him to be
+indicated. He hammered for a moment or two on the floor of his cage,
+ate a mouthful of the newspaper there, and stood with his head on one
+side, chewing thoughtfully. It didn't taste as good as usual. He
+suspected Nelly of having changed his _Daily Mail_ for the _Daily
+Express_ or something. He swallowed the piece of paper, and was struck
+by the thought that a little climbing exercise might be what his soul
+demanded. (You hang on by your beak and claws and work your way up to
+the roof. It sounds tame, but it's something to do.) He tried it. And,
+as he gripped the door of the cage it swung open. Bill the parrot now
+perceived that this was going to be one of those days. He had not had
+a bit of luck like this for months.
+
+For a while he sat regarding the open door. Unless excited by outside
+influences, he never did anything in a hurry. Then proceeding
+cautiously, he passed out into the room. He had been out there before,
+but always chaperoned by Nelly. This was something quite different. It
+was an adventure. He hopped on to the window-sill. There was a ball of
+yellow wool there, but he had lunched and could eat nothing. He cast
+around in his mind for something to occupy him, and perceived suddenly
+that the world was larger than he had supposed. Apparently there was a
+lot of it outside the room. How long this had been going on he did not
+know, but obviously it was a thing to be investigated. The window was
+open at the bottom, and just outside the window were what he took to
+be the bars of another and larger cage. As a matter of fact they were
+the railings which afforded a modest protection to Number Nine. They
+ran the length of the house, and were much used by small boys as a
+means of rattling sticks. One of these stick-rattlers passed as Bill
+stood there looking down. The noise startled him for a moment, then he
+seemed to come to the conclusion that this sort of thing was to be
+expected if you went out into the great world and that a parrot who
+intended to see life must not allow himself to be deterred by trifles.
+He crooned a little, and finally, stepping in a stately way over the
+window-sill, with his toes turned in at right angles, caught at the
+top of the railing with his beak, and proceeded to lower himself.
+Arrived at the level of the street, he stood looking out.
+
+A dog trotted up, spied him, and came to sniff.
+
+"Good-bye, boy!" said Bill chattily.
+
+The dog was taken aback. Hitherto, in his limited experience, birds
+had been birds and men men. Here was a blend of the two. What was to
+be done about it? He barked tentatively, then, finding that nothing
+disastrous ensued, pushed his nose between two of the bars and barked
+again. Any one who knew Bill could have told him that he was asking
+for it, and he got it. Bill leaned forward and nipped his nose. The
+dog started back with a howl of agony. He was learning something new
+every minute.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill sardonically.
+
+He perceived trousered legs, four of them, and, cocking his eye
+upwards, saw that two men of the lower orders stood before him. They
+were gazing down at him in the stolid manner peculiar to the
+proletariat of London in the presence of the unusual. For some minutes
+they stood drinking him in, then one of them gave judgment.
+
+"It's a parrot!" He removed a pipe from his mouth and pointed with the
+stem. "A perishin' parrot, Erb."
+
+"Ah!" said Erb, a man of few words.
+
+"A parrot," proceeded the other. He was seeing clearer into the matter
+every moment. "That's a parrot, that is Erb. My brother Joe's wife's
+sister had one of 'em. Come from abroad, _they_ do. My brother Joe's
+wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. Red-'aired gel she was. Married a feller
+down at the Docks _She_ 'ad one of 'em. Parrots they're called."
+
+He bent down for a closer inspection, and inserted a finger through
+the railings. Erb abandoned his customary taciturnity and spoke words
+of warning.
+
+"Tike care 'e don't sting yer, 'Enry!"
+
+Henry seemed wounded.
+
+"Woddyer mean, sting me? I know all abart parrots, I do. My brother
+Joe's wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. They don't 'urt yer, not if you're
+kind to 'em. You know yer pals when you see 'em, don't yer, mate?" he
+went on, addressing Bill, who was contemplating the finger with one
+half-closed eye.
+
+"Good-bye, boy," said the parrot, evading the point.
+
+"Jear that?" cried Henry delightedly. "'Goo'-bye, boy!' 'Uman they
+are!"
+
+"'E'll 'ave a piece out of yer finger," warned Erb the suspicious.
+
+"Wot, 'im?" Henry's voice was indignant. He seemed to think that his
+reputation as an expert on parrots had been challenged. "'E wouldn't
+'ave no piece out of my finger."
+
+"Bet yer a narf-pint 'e would 'ave a piece out of yer finger,"
+persisted the sceptic.
+
+"No blinkin' parrot's goin' to 'ave no piece of no finger of mine! My
+brother Joe's wife's sister's parrot never 'ad no piece out of no
+finger of mine!" He extended the finger further and waggled it
+enticingly beneath Bill's beak. "Cheerio, matey!" he said winningly.
+"Polly want a nut?"
+
+Whether it was mere indolence or whether the advertised docility of
+that other parrot belonging to Henry's brother's wife's sister had
+caused him to realize that there was a certain standard of good
+conduct for his species one cannot say; but for a while Bill merely
+contemplated temptation with a detached eye.
+
+"See!" said Henry.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill.
+
+"_Wow-Wow-Wow_!" yapped the dog, suddenly returning to the scene and
+going on with the argument at the point where he had left off.
+
+The effect on Bill was catastrophic. Ever a high-strung bird, he lost
+completely the repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere and the
+better order of parrot. His nerves were shocked, and, as always under
+such conditions, his impulse was to bite blindly. He bit, and
+Henry--one feels sorry for Henry: he was a well-meaning man--leaped
+back with a loud howl.
+
+"'That'll be 'arf a pint," said Erb, always the business man.
+
+There was a lull in the rapid action. The dog, mumbling softly to
+himself, had moved away again and was watching affairs from the edge
+of the sidewalk. Erb, having won his point, was silent once more.
+Henry sucked his finger. Bill, having met the world squarely and shown
+it what was what, stood where he was, whistling nonchalantly.
+
+Henry removed his finger from his mouth. "Lend the loan of that stick
+of yours, Erb," he said tensely.
+
+Erb silently yielded up the stout stick which was his inseparable
+companion. Henry, a vastly different man from the genial saunterer of
+a moment ago, poked wildly through the railings. Bill, panic-stricken
+now and wishing for nothing better than to be back in his cosy cage,
+shrieked loudly for help. And Freddie Rooke, running round the corner
+with Jill, stopped dead and turned pale.
+
+"Good God!" said Freddie.
+
+
+II
+
+In pursuance of his overnight promise to Derek, Freddie Rooke had got
+in touch with Jill through the medium of the telephone immediately
+after breakfast, and had arranged to call at Ovingdon Square in the
+afternoon. Arrived there, he found Jill with a telegram in her hand.
+Her Uncle Christopher, who had been enjoying a breath of sea-air down
+at Brighton, was returning by an afternoon train, and Jill had
+suggested that Freddie should accompany her to Victoria, pick up Uncle
+Chris, and escort him home. Freddie, whose idea had been a
+_tête-à-tête_ involving a brotherly lecture on impetuosity, had
+demurred but had given way in the end; and they had set out to walk to
+Victoria together. Their way had lain through Daubeny Street, and they
+turned the corner just as the brutal onslaught on the innocent Henry
+had occurred. Bill's shrieks, which were of an appalling timbre,
+brought them to a halt.
+
+"What is it?" cried Jill.
+
+"It sounds like a murder!"
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"I don't know, you know. This is the sort of street chappies are
+murdering people in all the time."
+
+They caught sight of the group in front of them, and were reassured.
+Nobody could possibly be looking so aloof and distrait as Erb if there
+were a murder going on.
+
+"It's a bird!"
+
+"It's a jolly old parrot. See it? Just inside the railings."
+
+A red-hot wave of rage swept over Jill. Whatever her defects--and
+already this story has shown her far from perfect--she had the
+excellent quality of loving animals and blazing into fury when she saw
+them ill-treated. At least three draymen were going about London with
+burning ears as the result of what she had said to them on discovering
+them abusing their patient horses. Zoologically, Bill the parrot was
+not an animal, but he counted as one with Jill, and she sped down
+Daubeny Street to his rescue--Freddie, spatted and hatted and
+trousered as became the man of fashion, following disconsolately,
+ruefully aware that he did not look his best sprinting like that. But
+Jill was cutting out a warm pace, and he held his hat on with one
+neatly-gloved hand and did what he could to keep up.
+
+Jill reached the scene of battle, and, stopping, eyed Henry with a
+baleful glare. We, who have seen Henry in his calmer moments and know
+him for the good fellow he was, are aware that he was more sinned
+against than sinning. If there is any spirit of justice in us, we are
+pro-Henry. In his encounter with Bill the parrot, Henry undoubtedly
+had right on his side. His friendly overtures, made in the best spirit
+of kindliness, had been repulsed. He had been severely bitten. And he
+had lost half a pint of beer to Erb. As impartial judges we have no
+other course before us than to wish Henry luck and bid him go to it.
+But Jill, who had not seen the opening stages of the affair, thought
+far otherwise. She merely saw in Henry a great brute of a man poking
+at a defenceless bird with a stick.
+
+She turned to Freddie, who had come up at a gallop and was wondering
+why the deuce this sort of thing happened to him out of a city of six
+millions.
+
+"Make him stop, Freddie!"
+
+"Oh, I say, you know, what?"
+
+"Can't you see he's hurting the poor thing? Make him leave off!
+Brute!" she added to Henry (for whom one's heart bleeds), as he jabbed
+once again at his adversary.
+
+Freddie stepped reluctantly up to Henry, and tapped him on the
+shoulder. Freddie was one of those men who have a rooted idea that a
+conversation of this sort can only be begun by a tap on the shoulder.
+
+"'Look here, you know, you can't do this sort of thing, you know!"
+said Freddie.
+
+Henry raised a scarlet face.
+
+"'Oo are _you_?" he demanded.
+
+This attack from the rear, coming on top of his other troubles, tried
+his restraint sorely.
+
+"Well--" Freddie hesitated. It seemed silly to offer the fellow one of
+his cards. "Well, as a matter of fact, my name's Rooke...."
+
+"And who," pursued Henry, "arsked _you_ to come shoving your ugly mug
+in 'ere?"
+
+"Well, if you put it that way...."
+
+"'E comes messing abart," said Henry complainingly, addressing the
+universe, "and interfering in what don't concern 'im and mucking
+around and interfering and messing abart.... Why," he broke off in a
+sudden burst of eloquence, "I could eat two of you for a relish wiv me
+tea, even if you '_ave_ got white spats!"
+
+Here Erb, who had contributed nothing to the conversation, remarked
+"Ah!" and expectorated on the sidewalk. The point, one gathers, seemed
+to Erb well taken. A neat thrust, was Erb's verdict.
+
+"Just because you've got white spats," proceeded Henry, on whose
+sensitive mind these adjuncts of the costume of the well-dressed man
+about town seemed to have made a deep and unfavourable impression,
+"you think you can come mucking around and messing abart and
+interfering and mucking around. This bird's bit me in the finger, and
+'ere's the finger, if you don't believe me--and I'm going to twist 'is
+ruddy neck, if all the perishers with white spats in London come
+messing abart and mucking around, so you take them white spats of
+yours 'ome and give 'em to the old woman to cook for your Sunday
+dinner!"
+
+And Henry, having cleansed his stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
+which weighs upon the heart, shoved the stick energetically once more
+through the railings.
+
+Jill darted forward. Always a girl who believed that, if you want a
+thing well done, you must do it yourself, she had applied to Freddie
+for assistance merely as a matter of form. All the time she had felt
+that Freddie was a broken reed, and such he had proved himself.
+Freddie's policy in this affair was obviously to rely on the magic of
+speech, and any magic his speech might have had was manifestly offset
+by the fact that he was wearing white spats and that Henry,
+apparently, belonged to some sort of league or society which had for
+its main object the discouragement of white spats. It was plainly no
+good leaving the conduct of the campaign to Freddie. Whatever was to
+be done must be done by herself. She seized the stick and wrenched it
+out of Henry's hand.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill the parrot.
+
+No dispassionate auditor could have failed to detect the nasty ring of
+sarcasm. It stung Henry. He was not normally a man who believed in
+violence to the gentler sex outside a clump on the head of his missus
+when the occasion seemed to demand it; but now he threw away the
+guiding principles of a lifetime and turned on Jill like a tiger.
+
+"Gimme that stick!"
+
+"Get back!"
+
+"Here, I say, you know!" said Freddie.
+
+Henry, now thoroughly overwrought, made a rush at Jill; and Jill, who
+had a straight eye, hit him accurately on the side of the head.
+
+"Goo!" said Henry, and sat down.
+
+And then, from behind Jill, a voice spoke.
+
+"What's all this?"
+
+A stout policeman had manifested himself from empty space.
+
+"This won't do!" said the policeman.
+
+Erb, who had been a silent spectator of the fray, burst into speech.
+
+"She 'it 'im!"
+
+The policeman looked at Jill. He was an officer of many years' experience
+in the Force, and time had dulled in him that respect for good clothes
+which he had brought with him from Little-Sudbury-in-the-Wold in the days
+of his novitiate. Jill was well dressed, but, in the stirring epoch of the
+Suffrage disturbances, the policeman had been kicked on the shins and even
+bitten by ladies of an equally elegant exterior. Hearts, the policeman
+knew, just as pure and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the lowlier
+air of Seven Dials, but you have to pinch them just the same when they
+disturb the peace. His gaze, as it fell upon Jill, red-handed as it were
+with the stick still in her grasp, was stern.
+
+"Your name, please, and address, miss?" he said.
+
+A girl in blue with a big hat had come up, and was standing staring
+open-mouthed at the group. At the sight of her Bill the parrot uttered
+a shriek of welcome. Nelly Bryant had returned, and everything would
+now be all right again.
+
+"Mariner," said Jill, pale and bright-eyed. "I live at Number
+Twenty-two, Ovingdon Square."
+
+"And yours, sir?"
+
+"Mine? Oh, ah, yes. I see what you mean. Rooke, you know. F. L. Rooke.
+I live at the Albany and all that sort of thing."
+
+The policeman made an entry in his note-book.
+
+"Officer," cried Jill, "this man was trying to kill that parrot and I
+stopped him...."
+
+"Can't help that, miss. You 'adn't no right to hit a man with a stick.
+You'll 'ave to come along."
+
+"But, I say, you know!" Freddie was appalled. This sort of thing had
+happened to him before, but only on Boat-Race Night at the Empire,
+where it was expected of a chappie. "I mean to say!"
+
+"And you, too, sir. You're both in it."
+
+"But...."
+
+"Oh, come along, Freddie," said Jill quietly. "It's perfectly absurd,
+but it's no use making a fuss."
+
+"That," said the policeman cordially, "is the right spirit!"
+
+
+III
+
+Lady Underhill paused for breath. She had been talking long and
+vehemently. She and Derek were sitting in Freddie Rooke's apartment at
+the Albany, and the subject of her monologue was Jill. Derek had been
+expecting the attack, and had wondered why it had not come before. All
+through supper on the previous night, even after the discovery that
+Jill was supping at a near-by table with a man who was a stranger to
+her son, Lady Underhill had preserved a grim reticence with regard to
+her future daughter-in-law. But to-day she had spoken her mind with
+all the energy which comes of suppression. She had relieved herself
+with a flow of words of all the pent-up hostility that had been
+growing within her since that first meeting in this same room. She had
+talked rapidly, for she was talking against time. The Town Council of
+the principal city in Derek's constituency in the north of England had
+decided that to-morrow morning should witness the laying of the
+foundation stone of their new Town Hall, and Derek as the sitting
+member was to preside at the celebration. Already Barker had been
+dispatched to telephone for a cab to take him to the station, and at
+any moment their conversation might be interrupted. So Lady Underhill
+made the most of what little time she had.
+
+Derek listened gloomily, scarcely rousing himself to reply. His mother
+would have been gratified could she have known how powerfully her
+arguments were working on him. That little imp of doubt which had
+vexed him in the cab as he drove home from Ovingdon Square had not
+died in the night. It had grown and waxed more formidable. And now,
+aided by this ally from without, it had become a Colossus straddling
+his soul. Derek looked frequently at the clock, and cursed the unknown
+cabman whose delay was prolonging the scene. Something told him that
+only flight could serve him now. He never had been able to withstand
+his mother in one of her militant moods. She seemed to numb his
+faculties. Other members of his family had also noted this quality in
+Lady Underhill, and had commented on it bitterly in the smoking-rooms
+of distant country-houses at the hour when men meet to drink the final
+whisky-and-soda and unburden their souls.
+
+Lady Underhill, having said all she had to say, recovered her breath
+and began to say it again. Frequent iteration was one of her strongest
+weapons. As her brother Edwin, who was fond of homely imagery, had
+often observed, she could talk the hind-leg off a donkey.
+
+"You must be mad, Derek, to dream of handicapping yourself at this
+vital stage of your career with a wife who not only will not be a help
+to you, but must actually be a ruinous handicap. I am not blaming you
+for imagining yourself in love in the first place, though I really
+should have thought that a man of your strength and character
+would.... However, as I say, I am not blaming you for that.
+Superficially, no doubt, this girl might be called attractive. I do
+not admire the type myself, but I suppose she has that quality--in my
+time we should have called it boldness--which seems to appeal to the
+young men of to-day. I could imagine her fascinating a weak-minded
+imbecile like your friend Mr. Rooke. But that you.... Still, there is
+no need to go into that. What I am trying to point out is that in
+your position, with a career like yours in front of you--it's quite
+certain that in a year or two you will be offered some really big and
+responsible position--you would be insane to tie yourself to a girl
+who seems to have been allowed to run perfectly wild, whose uncle is a
+swindler...."
+
+"She can't be blamed for her uncle."
+
+"... Who sups alone with strange men in public restaurants...."
+
+"I explained that."
+
+"You may have explained it. You certainly did not excuse it or make it
+a whit less outrageous. You cannot pretend that you really imagine
+that an engaged girl is behaving with perfect correctness when she
+allows a man she has only just met to take her to supper at the Savoy,
+even if she did know him slightly years and years ago. It is very
+idyllic to suppose that a childhood acquaintance excuses every breach
+of decorum, but I was brought up to believe otherwise. I don't wish to
+be vulgar, but what it amounts to is that this girl was having
+supper--supper! In my days girls were in bed at supper-time!--with a
+strange man who picked her up at a theatre!"
+
+Derek shifted uneasily. There was a part of his mind which called upon
+him to rise up and challenge the outrageous phrase and demand that it
+be taken back. But he remained silent. The imp-Colossus was too strong
+for him. She is quite right, said the imp. That is an unpleasant but
+accurate description of what happened. He looked at the clock again,
+and wished for the hundredth time that the cab would come. Jill's
+photograph smiled at him from beside the clock. He looked away, for,
+when he found his eyes upon it, he had an odd sensation of baseness,
+as if he were playing some one false who loved and trusted him.
+
+"Well, I am not going to say any more," she said, getting up and
+buttoning her glove. "I will leave you to think it over. All I will
+say is that, though I only met her yesterday, I can assure you that I
+am quite confident that this girl is just the sort of harum-scarum
+so-called 'modern' girl who is sure some day to involve herself in a
+really serious scandal. I don't want her to be in a position to drag
+you into it as well. Yes, Barker, what is it? Is Sir Derek's cab
+here?"
+
+The lantern-jawed Barker had entered softly, and was standing
+deferentially in the doorway. There was no emotion on his face beyond
+the vague sadness which a sense of what was correct made him always
+wear like a sort of mask when in the presence of those of superior
+station.
+
+"The cab will be at the door very shortly, m'lady. If you please, Sir
+Derek, a policeman has come with a message."
+
+"A policeman?"
+
+"With a message from Mr. Rooke."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I have had a few words of conversation with the constable, sir," said
+Barker sadly, "and I understand from him that Mr. Rooke and Miss
+Mariner have been arrested."
+
+"Arrested! What are you talking about?"
+
+"Mr. Rooke desired the officer to ask you to be good enough to step
+round and bail them out!"
+
+The gleam in Lady Underhill's eye became a flame, but she controlled
+her voice.
+
+"Why were Miss Mariner and Mr. Rooke arrested, Barker?"
+
+"As far as I can gather, m'lady, Miss Mariner struck a man in the
+street with a stick, and they took both her and Mr. Rooke to the
+Chelsea Police Station."
+
+Lady Underhill glanced at Derek, who was looking into the fire.
+
+"This is a little awkward, Derek," she said suavely. "If you go to the
+police-station, you will miss your train."
+
+"I fancy, m'lady, it would be sufficient if Sir Derek were to dispatch
+me with a cheque for ten pounds."
+
+"Very well. Tell the policeman to wait a moment."
+
+"Very good, m'lady."
+
+Derek roused himself with an effort. His face was drawn and gloomy. He
+sat down at the writing-table, and took out his cheque-book. There was
+silence for a moment, broken only by the scratching of the pen. Barker
+took the cheque and left the room.
+
+"Now, perhaps," said Lady Underhill, "you will admit that I was
+right!" She spoke in almost an awed voice, for this occurrence at just
+this moment seemed to her very like a direct answer to prayer. "You
+can't hesitate now! You _must_ free yourself from this detestable
+entanglement!"
+
+Derek rose without speaking. He took his coat and hat from where they
+lay on a chair.
+
+"Derek! You will! Say you will!"
+
+Derek put on his coat.
+
+"Derek!"
+
+"For heaven's sake, leave me alone, mother. I want to think."
+
+"Very well. I will leave you to think it over, then." Lady Underhill
+moved to the door. At the door she paused for a moment, and seemed
+about to speak again, but her mouth closed resolutely. She was a
+shrewd woman, and knew that the art of life is to know when to stop
+talking. What words have accomplished, too many words can undo.
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, mother."
+
+"I'll see you when you get back?"
+
+"Yes. No. I don't know. I'm not certain when I shall return. I may go
+away for a bit."
+
+The door closed behind Lady Underhill. Derek sat down again at the
+writing-table. He wrote a few words on a sheet of paper, then tore it
+up. His eye travelled to the mantelpiece. Jill's photograph smiled
+happily down at him. He turned back to the writing-table, took out a
+fresh piece of paper, thought for a few moments, and began to write
+again.
+
+The door opened softly.
+
+"The cab is at the door, Sir Derek," said Barker.
+
+Derek addressed an envelope, and got up.
+
+"All right. Thanks. Oh, Barker, stop at a district-messenger office on
+your way to the police-station, and have this sent off at once."
+
+"Very good, Sir Derek," said Barker.
+
+Derek's eyes turned once more to the mantelpiece. He stood looking for
+an instant, then walked quickly out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+UNCLE CHRIS BANGS THE TABLE
+
+I
+
+
+A taxi-cab stopped at the door of Number Twenty-two, Ovingdon Square.
+Freddie Rooke emerged, followed by Jill. While Freddie paid the
+driver, Jill sniffed the afternoon air happily. It had turned into a
+delightful day. A westerly breeze, springing up in the morning, had
+sent the thermometer up with a run and broken the cold spell which had
+been gripping London. It was one of those afternoons which intrude on
+the bleakness of winter with a false but none the less agreeable
+intimation that Spring is on its way. The sidewalks were wet
+underfoot, and the gutters ran with thawed snow. The sun shone
+exhilaratingly from a sky the colour of a hedge-sparrow's egg.
+
+"Doesn't everything smell lovely, Freddie," said Jill, "after our
+prison-life!"
+
+"Topping!"
+
+"Fancy getting out so quickly! Whenever I'm arrested, I must always
+make a point of having a rich man with me. I shall never tease you
+about that fifty-pound note again."
+
+"Fifty-pound note?"
+
+"It certainly came in handy to-day!"
+
+She was opening the door with her latch-key, and missed the sudden
+sagging of Freddie's jaw, the sudden clutch at his breast-pocket, and
+the look of horror and anguish that started into his eyes. Freddie was
+appalled. Finding himself at the police-station penniless with the
+exception of a little loose change, he had sent that message to Derek,
+imploring assistance, as the only alternative to spending the night in
+a cell, with Jill in another. He had realized that there was a risk of
+Derek taking the matter hardly, and he had not wanted to get Jill into
+trouble, but there seemed nothing else to do. If they remained where
+they were overnight, the thing would get into the papers, and that
+would be a thousand times worse. And if he applied for aid to Ronny
+Devereux or Algy Martyn or anybody like that all London would know
+about it next day. So Freddie, with misgivings, had sent the message
+to Derek, and now Jill's words had reminded him that there was no need
+to have done so. Years ago he had read somewhere or heard somewhere
+about some chappie who always buzzed around with a sizable banknote
+stitched into his clothes, and the scheme had seemed to him ripe to a
+degree. You never knew when you might find yourself short of cash and
+faced by an immediate call for the ready. He had followed the
+chappie's example. And now, when the crisis had arrived, he had
+forgotten--absolutely forgotten!--that he had the dashed thing on his
+person at all.
+
+He followed Jill into the house, groaning in spirit, but thankful
+that she had taken it for granted that he had secured their release in
+the manner indicated. He did not propose to disillusion her. It would
+be time enough to take the blame when the blame came along. Probably
+old Derek would simply be amused and laugh at the whole bally affair
+like a sportsman. Freddie cheered up considerably at the thought.
+
+Jill was talking to the parlourmaid whose head had popped up over the
+banisters flanking the stairs that led to the kitchen.
+
+"Major Selby hasn't arrived yet, miss."
+
+"That's odd. I suppose he must have taken a later train."
+
+"There's a lady in the drawing-room, miss, waiting to see him. She
+didn't give any name. She said she would wait till the major came.
+She's been waiting a goodish while."
+
+"All right, Jane. Thanks. Will you bring up tea?"
+
+They walked down the hall. The drawing-room was on the ground floor, a
+long, dim room that would have looked like a converted studio but for
+the absence of bright light. A girl was sitting at the far end by the
+fireplace. She rose as they entered.
+
+"How do you do?" said Jill. "I'm afraid my uncle has not come back
+yet...."
+
+"Say!" cried the visitor. "You _did_ get out quick!"
+
+Jill was surprised. She had no recollection of ever having seen the
+other before. Her visitor was a rather pretty girl, with a sort of
+jaunty way of carrying herself which made a piquant contrast to her
+tired eyes and wistful face. Jill took an immediate liking to her. She
+looked so forlorn and pathetic.
+
+"My name's Nelly Bryant," said the girl. "That parrot belongs to me."
+
+"Oh, I see."
+
+"I heard you say to the cop that you lived here, so I came along to
+tell your folks what had happened, so that they could do something.
+The maid said that your uncle was expected any minute, so I waited."
+
+"That was awfully good of you."
+
+"Dashed good," said Freddie.
+
+"Oh, no! Honest, I don't know how to thank you for what you did. You
+don't know what a pal Bill is to me. It would have broken me all up if
+that plug-ugly had killed him."
+
+"But what a shame you had to wait so long."
+
+"I liked it."
+
+Nelly Bryant looked about the room wistfully. This was the sort of
+room she sometimes dreamed about. She loved its subdued light and the
+pulpy cushions on the sofa.
+
+"You'll have some tea before you go, won't you?" said Jill, switching
+on the lights.
+
+"It's very kind of you."
+
+"Why, hullo!" said Freddie. "By Jove! I say! We've met before, what?"
+
+"Why, so we have!"
+
+"That lunch at Oddy's that young Threepwood gave, what?"
+
+"I wonder you remember."
+
+"Oh, I remember. Quite a time ago, eh? Miss Bryant was in that show.
+'Follow the Girl,' Jill, at the Regal."
+
+"Oh, yes. I remember you took me to see it."
+
+"Dashed odd meeting again like this!" said Freddie. "Really rummy!"
+
+Jane, the parlourmaid, entering with tea, interrupted his comments.
+
+"You're American, then?" said Jill interested. "The whole company came
+from New York, didn't they?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm half American myself, you know. I used to live in New York when I
+was very small, but I've almost forgotten what it was like. I remember
+a sort of overhead railway that made an awful noise...."
+
+"The Elevated!" murmured Nelly devoutly. A wave of home-sickness
+seemed to choke her for a moment.
+
+"And the air. Like champagne. And a very blue sky."
+
+"Yes," said Nelly in a small voice.
+
+"I shouldn't half mind popping over New York for a bit," said Freddie,
+unconscious of the agony he was inflicting. "I've met some very sound
+sportsmen who came from there. You don't know a fellow named
+Williamson, do you?"
+
+"I don't believe I do."
+
+"Or Oakes?"
+
+"No."
+
+"That's rummy! Oakes has lived in New York for years."
+
+"So have about seven million other people," interposed Jill. "Don't be
+silly, Freddie. How would you like somebody to ask of you if you knew
+a man named Jenkins in London?"
+
+"I _do_ know a man named Jenkins in London," replied Freddie
+triumphantly.
+
+Jill poured out a cup of tea for her visitor, and looked at the clock.
+
+"I wonder where Uncle Chris has got to," she said. "He ought to be
+here by now. I hope he hasn't got into any mischief among the wild
+stockbrokers down at Brighton."
+
+Freddie laid down his cup on the table and uttered a loud snort.
+
+"Oh, Freddie, darling!" said Jill remorsefully. "I forgot!
+Stockbrokers are a painful subject, aren't they!" She turned to Nelly.
+"There's been an awful slump on the Stock Exchange to-day, and he
+got--what was the word, Freddie?"
+
+"Nipped!" said Freddie with gloom.
+
+"Nipped!"
+
+"Nipped like the dickens!"
+
+"Nipped like the dickens!" Jill smiled at Nelly. "He had forgotten all
+about it in the excitement of being a jailbird, and I went and
+reminded him."
+
+Freddie sought sympathy from Nelly.
+
+"A silly ass at the club named Jimmy Monroe told me to take a flutter
+in some rotten thing called Amalgamated Dyes. You know how it is, when
+you're feeling devilish fit and cheery and all that after dinner, and
+somebody sidles up to you and slips his little hand in yours and tells
+you to do some fool thing. You're so dashed happy you simply say
+'Right-ho, old bird! Make it so!' That's the way I got had!"
+
+Jill laughed unfeelingly.
+
+"It will do you good, Freddie. It'll stir you up and prevent you being
+so silly again. Besides, you know you'll hardly notice it. You've much
+too much money as it is."
+
+"It's not the money. It's the principle of the thing. I hate looking a
+frightful chump."
+
+"Well, you needn't tell anybody. We'll keep it a secret. In fact,
+we'll start at once, for I hear Uncle Chris outside. Let us dissemble.
+We are observed!... Hullo, Uncle Chris!"
+
+She ran down the room, as the door opened, and kissed the tall,
+soldierly man who entered.
+
+"Well, Jill, my dear."
+
+"How late you are. I was expecting you hours ago."
+
+"I had to call on my broker."
+
+"Hush! Hush!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing.... We've got visitors. You know Freddie Rooke, of
+course?"
+
+"How are you, Freddie, my boy?"
+
+"Cheerio!" said Freddie. "Pretty fit?"
+
+"And Miss Bryant," said Jill.
+
+"How do you do?" said Uncle Chris in the bluff, genial way which, in
+his younger days, had charmed many a five-pound note out of the
+pockets of his fellow-men and many a soft glance out of the eyes of
+their sisters, their cousins, and their aunts.
+
+"Come and have some tea," said Jill. "You're just in time."
+
+"Tea? Capital!"
+
+Nelly had subsided shyly into the depths of her big arm-chair. Somehow
+she felt a better and a more important girl since Uncle Chris had
+addressed her. Most people felt like that after encountering Jill's
+Uncle Christopher. Uncle Chris had a manner. It was not precisely
+condescending, and yet it was not the manner of an equal. He treated
+you as an equal, true, but all the time you were conscious of the fact
+that it was extraordinarily good of him to do so. Uncle Chris affected
+the rank and file of his fellow-men much as a genial knight of the
+Middle Ages would have affected a scurvy knave or varlet if he had
+cast aside social distinctions for a while and hobnobbed with the
+latter in a tavern. He never patronized, but the mere fact that he
+abstained from patronizing seemed somehow impressive.
+
+To this impressiveness his appearance contributed largely. He was a
+fine, upstanding man, who looked less than his forty-nine years in
+spite of an ominous thinning of the hair which he tended and brushed
+so carefully. He had a firm chin, a mouth that smiled often and
+pleasantly beneath the closely-clipped moustache, and very bright blue
+eyes which met yours in a clear, frank, honest gaze. Though he had
+served in his youth in India, he had none of the Anglo-Indian's
+sun-scorched sallowness. His complexion was fresh and sanguine. He
+looked as if he had just stepped out of a cold tub--a misleading
+impression, for Uncle Chris detested cold water and always took his
+morning bath as hot as he could get it.
+
+It was his clothes, however, which, even more than his appearance,
+fascinated the populace. There is only one tailor in London, as
+distinguished from the ambitious mechanics who make coats and
+trousers, and Uncle Chris was his best customer. Similarly, London is
+full of young fellows trying to get along by the manufacture of
+foot-wear, but there is only one boot-maker in the true meaning of the
+word--the one who supplied Uncle Chris. And, as for hats, while it is
+no doubt a fact that you can get at plenty of London shops some sort
+of covering for your head which will keep it warm, the only
+hatter--using the term in its deeper sense--is the man who enjoyed the
+patronage of Major Christopher Selby. From foot to head, in short,
+from furthest South to extremest North, Uncle Chris was perfect. He
+was an ornament to his surroundings. The Metropolis looked better for
+him. One seems to picture London as a mother with a horde of untidy
+children, children with made-up ties, children with wrinkled coats and
+baggy trouser-legs, sighing to herself as she beheld them, then
+cheering up and murmuring with a touch of restored complacency, "Ah,
+well, I still have Uncle Chris!"
+
+"Miss Bryant is American, Uncle Chris," said Jill.
+
+Uncle Chris spread his shapely legs before the fire, and glanced down
+kindly at Nelly.
+
+"Indeed?" He took a cup of tea and stirred it. "I was in America as a
+young man."
+
+"Whereabouts?" asked Nelly eagerly.
+
+"Oh, here and there and everywhere. I travelled considerably."
+
+"That's how it is with me," said Nelly, overcoming her diffidence as
+she warmed to the favourite topic. "I guess I know most every town in
+every State, from New York to the last one-night stand. It's a great
+old country, isn't it?"
+
+"It is!" said Uncle Chris. "I shall be returning there very shortly."
+He paused meditatively. "Very shortly indeed."
+
+Nelly bit her lip. It seemed to be her fate to-day to meet people who
+were going to America.
+
+"When did you decide to do that?" asked Jill.
+
+She had been looking at him, puzzled. Years of association with Uncle
+Chris had enabled her to read his moods quickly, and she was sure that
+there was something on his mind. It was not likely that the others had
+noticed it, for his manner was as genial and urbane as ever. But
+something about him, a look in his eyes that came and went, an
+occasional quick twitching of his mouth, told her that all was not
+well. She was a little troubled, but not greatly. Uncle Chris was not
+the sort of man to whom grave tragedies happened. It was probably some
+mere trifle which she could smooth out for him in five minutes, once
+they were alone together. She reached out and patted his sleeve
+affectionately. She was fonder of Uncle Chris than of anyone in the
+world except Derek.
+
+"The thought," said Uncle Chris, "came to me this morning, as I read
+my morning paper while breakfasting. It has grown and developed during
+the day. At this moment you might almost call it an obsession. I am
+very fond of America. I spent several happy years there. On that
+occasion I set sail for the land of promise, I admit, somewhat
+reluctantly. Of my own free will I might never have made the
+expedition. But the general sentiment seemed so strongly in favour of
+my doing so that I yielded to what I might call a public demand. The
+willing hands for my nearest and dearest were behind me, pushing, and
+I did not resist them. I have never regretted it. America is a part of
+every young man's education. You ought to go there, Freddie."
+
+"Rummily enough," said Freddie, "I was saying just before you came in
+that I had half a mind to pop over. Only it's rather a bally fag,
+starting. Getting your luggage packed and all that sort of thing."
+
+Nelly, whose luggage consisted of one small trunk, heaved a silent
+sigh. Mingling with the idle rich carried its penalties.
+
+"America," said Uncle Chris, "taught me poker, for which I can never
+be sufficiently grateful. Also an exotic pastime styled Craps--or,
+alternatively, 'rolling the bones'--which in those days was a very
+present help in time of trouble. At Craps, I fear, my hand in late
+years has lost much of its cunning. I have had little opportunity of
+practising. But as a young man I was no mean exponent of the art. Let
+me see," said Uncle Chris meditatively. "What was the precise ritual?
+Ah! I have it, 'Come, little seven!'"
+
+"'Come, eleven!'" exclaimed Nelly excitedly.
+
+"'Baby....' I feel convinced that in some manner the word baby entered
+into it."
+
+"'Baby needs new shoes!'"
+
+"'Baby needs new shoes!' Precisely!"
+
+"It sounds to me," said Freddie, "dashed silly."
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Nelly reproachfully.
+
+"Well, what I mean is, there's no sense in it, don't you know."
+
+"It is a noble pursuit," said Uncle Chris firmly. "Worthy of the great
+nation that has produced it. No doubt, when I return to America, I
+shall have opportunities of recovering my lost skill."
+
+"You aren't returning to America," said Jill. "You're going to stay
+safe at home like a good little uncle. I'm not going to have you
+running wild all over the world at your age."
+
+"Age?" declaimed Uncle Chris. "What is my age? At the present moment I
+feel in the neighbourhood of twenty-one, and Ambition is tapping me on
+the shoulder and whispering 'Young man, go West!' The years are
+slipping away from me, my dear Jill--slipping so quickly that in a few
+minutes you will be wondering why my nurse does not come to fetch me.
+The wanderlust is upon me. I gaze around me at all this prosperity in
+which I am lapped," said Uncle Chris, eyeing the arm-chair severely,
+"all this comfort and luxury which swaddles me, and I feel staggered.
+I want activity. I want to be braced!"
+
+"You would hate it," said Jill composedly. "You know you're the
+laziest old darling in the world."
+
+"Exactly what I am endeavouring to point out. I _am_ lazy. Or, I was
+till this morning."
+
+"Something very extraordinary must have happened this morning. I can
+see that."
+
+"I wallowed in gross comfort. I was what Shakespeare calls a 'fat and
+greasy citizen'!"
+
+"Please, Uncle Chris!" protested Jill. "Not while I'm eating buttered
+toast!"
+
+"But now I am myself again."
+
+"That's splendid."
+
+"I have heard the beat of the off-shore wind," chanted Uncle Chris,
+"and the thresh of the deep-sea rain. I have heard the song--How long!
+how long! Pull out on the trail again!"
+
+"He can also recite 'Gunga Din,'" said Jill to Nelly. "I really must
+apologize for all this. He's usually as good as gold."
+
+"I believe I know how he feels," said Nelly softly.
+
+"Of course you do. You and I, Miss Bryant, are of the gipsies of the
+world. We are not vegetables like young Rooke here."
+
+"Eh, what?" said the vegetable, waking from a reverie. He had been
+watching Nelly's face. Its wistfulness attracted him.
+
+"We are only happy," proceeded Uncle Chris, "when we are wandering."
+
+"You should see Uncle Chris wander to his club in the morning," said
+Jill. "He trudges off in a taxi, singing wild gipsy songs, absolutely
+defying fatigue."
+
+"That," said Uncle Chris, "is a perfectly justified slur. I shudder at
+the depths to which prosperity has caused me to sink." He expanded his
+chest. "I shall be a different man in America. America would make a
+different man of _you_, Freddie."
+
+"I'm all right, thanks!" said that easily satisfied young man.
+
+Uncle Chris turned to Nelly, pointing dramatically.
+
+"Young woman, go West! Return to your bracing home, and leave this
+enervating London! You...."
+
+Nelly got up abruptly. She could endure no more.
+
+"I believe I'll have to be going now," she said. "Bill misses me if
+I'm away long. Good-bye. Thank you ever so much for what you did."
+
+"It was awfully kind of you to come round," said Jill.
+
+"Good-bye, Major Selby."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Rooke."
+
+Freddie awoke from another reverie.
+
+"Eh? Oh, I say, half a jiffy. I think I may as well be toddling along
+myself. About time I was getting back to dress for dinner and all
+that. See you home, may I, and then I'll get a taxi at Victoria.
+Toodle-oo, everybody."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Freddie escorted Nelly through the hall and opened the front door for
+her. The night was cool and cloudy and there was still in the air that
+odd, rejuvenating suggestion of Spring. A wet fragrance came from the
+dripping trees.
+
+"Topping evening!" said Freddie conversationally.
+
+"Yes."
+
+They walked through the square in silence. Freddie shot an
+appreciative glance at his companion. Freddie, as he would have
+admitted frankly, was not much of a lad for the modern girl. The
+modern girl, he considered, was too dashed rowdy and exuberant for a
+chappie of peaceful tastes. Now, this girl, on the other hand, had all
+the earmarks of being something of a topper. She had a soft voice.
+Rummy accent and all that, but nevertheless a soft and pleasing voice.
+She was mild and unaggressive, and these were qualities which Freddie
+esteemed. Freddie, though this was a thing he would not have admitted,
+was afraid of girls, the sort of girls he had to take down to dinner
+and dance with and so forth. They were too dashed clever, and always
+seemed to be waiting for a chance to score off a fellow. This one was
+not like that. Not a bit. She was gentle and quiet and what not.
+
+It was at this point that it came home to him how remarkably quiet she
+was. She had not said a word for the last five minutes. He was just
+about to break the silence, when, as they passed under a street lamp,
+he perceived that she was crying--crying very softly to herself, like
+a child in the dark.
+
+"Good God!" said Freddie appalled. There were two things in life with
+which he felt totally unable to cope--crying girls and dog-fights. The
+glimpse he had caught of Nelly's face froze him into a speechlessness
+which lasted until they reached Daubeny Street and stopped at her
+door.
+
+"Good-bye," said Nelly.
+
+"Good-bye-ee!" said Freddie mechanically. "That's to say, I mean to
+say, half a second!" he added quickly. He faced her nervously, with
+one hand on the grimy railings. This wanted looking into. When it came
+to girls trickling to and fro in the public streets, weeping, well, it
+was pretty rotten and something had to be done about it. "What's up?"
+he demanded.
+
+"It's nothing. Good-bye."
+
+"But, my dear old soul," said Freddie, clutching the railing for moral
+support, "it is something. It must be! You might not think it, to look
+at me, but I'm really rather a dashed shrewd chap, and I can _see_
+there's something up. Why not give me the jolly old scenario and see
+if we can't do something?"
+
+Nelly moved as if to turn to the door, then stopped. She was
+thoroughly ashamed of herself.
+
+"I'm a fool!"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Yes, I am. I don't often act this way, but, oh, gee! hearing you all
+talking like that about going to America, just as if it was the
+easiest thing in the world, only you couldn't be bothered to do it,
+kind of got me going. And to think I could be there right now if I
+wasn't a bonehead!"
+
+"A bonehead?"
+
+"A simp. I'm all right as far up as the string of near-pearls, but
+above that I'm reinforced concrete."
+
+Freddie groped for her meaning.
+
+"Do you mean you've made a bloomer of some kind?"
+
+"I pulled the worst kind of bone. I stopped on in London when the rest
+of the company went back home, and now I've got to stick."
+
+"Rush of jolly old professional engagements, what?"
+
+Nelly laughed bitterly.
+
+"You're a bad guesser. No, they haven't started to fight over me yet.
+I'm at liberty, as they say in the _Era_."
+
+"But, my dear old thing," said Freddie earnestly, "if you've nothing
+to keep you in England, why not pop back to America? I mean to say,
+home-sickness is the most dashed blighted thing in the world. There's
+nothing gives one the pip to such an extent. Why, dash it, I remember
+staying with an old aunt of mine up in Scotland the year before last
+and not being able to get away for three weeks or so, and I
+raved--absolutely gibbered--for the sight of the merry old metrop.
+Sometimes I'd wake up in the night, thinking I was back at the Albany,
+and, by Jove, when I found I wasn't I howled like a dog! You take my
+tip, old soul, and pop back on the next boat."
+
+"Which line?"
+
+"How do you mean, which line? Oh, I see, you mean which line? Well ...
+well ... I've never been on any of them, so it's rather hard to say.
+But I hear the Cunard well spoken of, and then again some chappies
+swear by the White Star. But I should imagine you can't go far wrong,
+whichever you pick. They're all pretty ripe, I fancy."
+
+"Which of them is giving free trips? That's the point."
+
+"Eh? Oh!" Her meaning dawned upon Freddie. He regarded her with deep
+consternation. Life had treated him so kindly that he had almost
+forgotten that there existed a class which had not as much money as
+himself. Sympathy welled up beneath his perfectly fitting waistcoat.
+It was a purely disinterested sympathy. The fact that Nelly was a girl
+and in many respects a dashed pretty girl did not affect him. What
+mattered was that she was hard up. The thought hurt Freddie like a
+blow. He hated the idea of anyone being hard up.
+
+"I say!" he said. "Are you broke?"
+
+Nelly laughed.
+
+"Am I? If dollars were doughnuts, I wouldn't even have the hole in the
+middle."
+
+Freddie was stirred to his depths. Except for the beggars in the
+streets, to whom he gave shillings, he had not met anyone for years
+who had not plenty of money. He had friends at his clubs who
+frequently claimed to be unable to lay their hands on a bally penny,
+but the bally penny they wanted to lay their hands on generally turned
+out to be a couple of thousand pounds for a new car.
+
+"Good God!" he said.
+
+There was a pause. Then, with a sudden impulse, he began to fumble in
+his breast-pocket. Rummy how things worked out for the best, however
+scaly they might seem at the moment. Only an hour or so ago he had
+been kicking himself for not having remembered that fifty-pound note,
+tacked on to the lining of his coat, when it would have come in handy
+at the police-station. He now saw that Providence had had the matter
+well in hand. If he had remembered it and coughed it up to the
+constabulary then, he wouldn't have had it now. And he needed it now.
+A mood of quixotic generosity had surged upon him. With swift fingers
+he jerked the note free from its moorings and displayed it like a
+conjurer exhibiting a rabbit.
+
+"My dear old thing," he said, "I can't stand it! I absolutely cannot
+stick it at any price! I really must insist on your trousering this.
+Positively!"
+
+Nelly Bryant gazed at the note with wide eyes. She was stunned. She
+took it limply, and looked at it under the dim light of the gas-lamp
+over the door.
+
+"I couldn't!" she cried.
+
+"Oh, but really! You must!"
+
+"But this is a fifty-pound!"
+
+"Absolutely! It will take you back to New York, what? you asked which
+line was giving free trips. The Freddie Rooke Line, by Jove, sailings
+every Wednesday and Saturday! I mean, what?"
+
+"But I can't take two hundred and fifty dollars from you!"
+
+"Oh, rather. Of course you can."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+"You'll think--" Nelly's pale face flushed. "You'll think I told you
+all about myself just--just because I wanted to...."
+
+"To make a touch? Absolutely not! Rid yourself of the jolly old
+supposition entirely. You see before you, old thing, a chappie who
+knows more about borrowing money than any man in London. I mean to
+say, I've had my ear bitten more often than anyone, I should think.
+There are sixty-four ways of making a touch--I've had them all worked
+on me by divers blighters here and there--and I can tell any of them
+with my eyes shut. I know you weren't dreaming of any such thing."
+
+The note crackled musically in Nelly's hand.
+
+"I don't know what to say!"
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"I don't see why.... Gee! I wish I could tell you what I think of
+you!"
+
+Freddie laughed amusedly.
+
+"Do you know," he said, "that's exactly what the beaks--the masters,
+you know--used to say to me at school."
+
+"Are you sure you can spare it?"
+
+"Oh, rather."
+
+Nelly's eyes shone in the light of the lamp.
+
+"I've never met anyone like you before. I don't know how...."
+
+Freddie shuffled nervously. Being thanked always made him feel pretty
+rotten.
+
+"Well, I think I'll be popping," he said. "Got to get back and dress
+and all that. Awfully glad to have seen you, and all that sort of
+rot."
+
+Nelly unlocked the door with her latch-key, and stood on the step.
+
+"I'll buy a fur-wrap," she said, half to herself.
+
+"Great wheeze! I should!"
+
+"And some nuts for Bill!"
+
+"Bill?"
+
+"The parrot."
+
+"Oh, the jolly old parrot! Rather! Well, cheerio!"
+
+"Good-bye.... You've been awfully good to me."
+
+"Oh, no," said Freddie uncomfortably. "Any time you're passing...."
+
+"Awfully good.... Well, good-bye."
+
+"Toodle-oo!"
+
+"Maybe we'll meet again some day."
+
+"I hope so. Absolutely!"
+
+There was a little scurry of feet. Something warm and soft pressed for
+an instant against Freddie's cheek, and, as he stumbled back, Nelly
+Bryant skipped up the steps and vanished through the door.
+
+"Good God!"
+
+Freddie felt his cheek. He was aware of an odd mixture of
+embarrassment and exhilaration.
+
+From the area below a slight cough sounded. Freddie turned sharply. A
+maid in a soiled cap, worn coquettishly over one ear, was gazing
+intently up through the railings. Their eyes met. Freddie turned a
+warm pink. It seemed to him that the maid had the air of one about to
+giggle.
+
+"Damn!" said Freddie softly, and hurried off down the street. He
+wondered whether he had made a frightful ass of himself, spraying
+bank-notes all over the place like that to comparative strangers. Then
+a vision came to him of Nelly's eyes as they had looked at him in the
+lamp-light, and he decided--no, absolutely not. Rummy as the gadget
+might appear, it had been the right thing to do. It was a binge of
+which he thoroughly approved. A good egg!
+
+
+II
+
+Jill, when Freddie and Nelly left the room, had seated herself on a
+low stool, and sat looking thoughtfully into the fire. She was
+wondering if she had been mistaken in supposing that Uncle Chris was
+worried about something. This restlessness of his, this desire for
+movement, was strange in him. Hitherto he had been like a dear old
+cosy cat, revelling in the comfort which he had just denounced so
+eloquently. She watched him as he took up his favourite stand in
+front of the fire.
+
+"Nice girl," said Uncle Chris. "Who was she?"
+
+"Somebody Freddie met," said Jill diplomatically. There was no need to
+worry Uncle Chris with details of the afternoon's happenings.
+
+"Very nice girl." Uncle Chris took out his cigar-case. "No need to ask
+if I may, thank goodness." He lit a cigar. "Do you remember, Jill,
+years ago, when you were quite small, how I used to blow smoke in your
+face?"
+
+Jill smiled.
+
+"Of course I do. You said that you were training me for marriage. You
+said that there were no happy marriages except where the wife didn't
+mind the smell of tobacco. Well, it's lucky, as a matter of fact, for
+Derek smokes all the time."
+
+Uncle Chris took up his favourite stand against the fireplace.
+
+"You're very fond of Derek, aren't you, Jill?"
+
+"Of course I am. You are, too, aren't you?"
+
+"Fine chap. Very fine chap. Plenty of money, too. It's a great
+relief," said Uncle Chris, puffing vigorously. "A thundering relief."
+He looked over Jill's head down the room. "It's fine to think of you
+happily married, dear, with everything in the world that you want."
+
+Uncle Chris' gaze wandered down to where Jill sat. A slight mist
+affected his eyesight. Jill had provided a solution for the great
+problem of his life. Marriage had always appalled him, but there was
+this to be said for it, that married people had daughters. He had
+always wanted a daughter, a smart girl he could take out and be proud
+of; and fate had given him Jill at precisely the right age. A child
+would have bored Uncle Chris--he was fond of children, but they made
+the deuce of a noise and regarded jam as an external ornament--but a
+delightful little girl of fourteen was different. Jill and he had been
+very close to each other since her mother had died, a year after the
+death of her father, and had left her in his charge. He had watched
+her grow up with a joy that had a touch of bewilderment in it--she
+seemed to grow so quickly--and had been fonder and prouder of her at
+every stage of her tumultuous career.
+
+"You're a dear," said Jill. She stroked the trouser-leg that was
+nearest. "How _do_ you manage to get such a wonderful crease? You
+really are a credit to me!"
+
+There was a momentary silence. A shade of embarrassment made itself
+noticeable in Uncle Chris' frank gaze. He gave a little cough, and
+pulled at his moustache.
+
+"I wish I were, my dear," he said soberly. "I wish I were. I'm afraid
+I'm a poor sort of a fellow, Jill."
+
+Jill looked up.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"A poor sort of a fellow," repeated Uncle Chris. "Your mother was
+foolish to trust you to me. Your father had more sense. He always said
+I was a wrong 'un."
+
+Jill got up quickly. She was certain now that she had been right, and
+that there was something on her uncle's mind.
+
+"What's the matter, Uncle Chris? Something's happened. What is it?"
+
+Uncle Chris turned to knock the ash off his cigar. The movement gave
+him time to collect himself for what lay before him. He had one of
+those rare volatile natures which can ignore the blows of fate so long
+as their effects are not brought home by visible evidence of disaster.
+He lived in the moment, and, though matters had been as bad at
+breakfast-time as they were now, it was not till now, when he
+confronted Jill, that he had found his cheerfulness affected by them.
+He was a man who hated ordeals, and one faced him now. Until this
+moment he had been able to detach his mind from a state of affairs
+which would have weighed unceasingly upon another man. His mind was a
+telephone which he could cut off at will, when the voice of Trouble
+wished to speak. The time would arrive, he had been aware, when he
+would have to pay attention to that voice, but so far he had refused
+to listen. Now it could be evaded no longer.
+
+"Jill."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Uncle Chris paused again, searching for the best means of saying what
+had to be said.
+
+"Jill, I don't know if you understand about these things, but there
+was what is called a slump on the Stock Exchange this morning. In
+other words...."
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"Of course I know all about that," she said. "Poor Freddie wouldn't
+talk about anything else till I made him. He was terribly blue when he
+got here this afternoon. He said he had got 'nipped' in Amalgamated
+Dyes. He had lost about two hundred pounds, and was furious with a
+friend of his who had told him to buy margins."
+
+Uncle Chris cleared his throat.
+
+"Jill, I'm afraid I've got bad news for you. I bought Amalgamated
+Dyes, too." He worried his moustache. "I lost heavily, very heavily."
+
+"How naughty of you! You know you oughtn't to gamble."
+
+"Jill, you must be brave. I--I--well, the fact is--it's no good
+beating about the bush--I lost everything! Everything!"
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Everything! It's all gone! All fooled away. It's a terrible business.
+This house will have to go."
+
+"But--but doesn't the house belong to me?"
+
+"I was your trustee, dear." Uncle Chris smoked furiously. "Thank
+heaven you're going to marry a rich man!"
+
+Jill stood looking at him, perplexed. Money, as money, had never
+entered into her life. There were things one wanted which had to be
+paid for with money, but Uncle Chris had always looked after that. She
+had taken them for granted.
+
+"I don't understand," she said.
+
+And then suddenly she realized that she did, and a great wave of pity
+for Uncle Chris flooded over her. He was such an old dear. It must be
+horrible for him to have to stand there, telling her all this. She
+felt no sense of injury, only the discomfort of having to witness the
+humiliation of her oldest friend. Uncle Chris was bound up
+inextricably with everything in her life that was pleasant. She could
+remember him, looking exactly the same, only with a thicker and wavier
+crop of hair, playing with her patiently and unwearied for hours in
+the hot sun, a cheerful martyr. She could remember sitting up with him
+when she came home from her first grownup dance, drinking cocoa and
+talking and talking and talking till the birds outside sang the sun
+high up into the sky and it was breakfast time. She could remember
+theatres with him, and jolly little suppers afterwards; expeditions
+into the country, with lunches at queer old inns; days on the river,
+days at Hurlingham, days at Lords', days at the Academy. He had always
+been the same, always cheerful, always kind. He was Uncle Chris, and
+he would always be Uncle Chris, whatever he had done or whatever he
+might do. She slipped her arm in his and gave it a squeeze.
+
+"Poor old thing!" she said.
+
+Uncle Chris had been looking straight out before him with those fine
+blue eyes of his. There had been just a touch of sternness in his
+attitude. A stranger, coming into the room at that moment, would have
+said that here was a girl trying to coax her blunt, straightforward,
+military father into some course of action of which his honest nature
+disapproved. He might have been posing for a statue of Rectitude. As
+Jill spoke, he seemed to cave in.
+
+"Poor old thing?" he repeated limply.
+
+"Of course you are! And stop trying to look dignified and tragic!
+Because it doesn't suit you. You're much too well dressed."
+
+"But, my dear, you don't understand! You haven't realized!"
+
+"Yes, I do. Yes, I have!"
+
+"I've spent all your money--_your_ money!"
+
+"I know! What does it matter?"
+
+"What does it matter! Jill, don't you hate me?"
+
+"As if anyone could hate an old darling like you!"
+
+Uncle Chris threw away his cigar, and put his arms round Jill. For a
+moment a dreadful fear came to her that he was going to cry. She
+prayed that he wouldn't cry. It would be too awful. It would be a
+memory of which she could never rid herself. She felt as though he
+were someone extraordinarily young and unable to look after himself,
+someone she must soothe and protect.
+
+"Jill," said Uncle Chris, choking, "you're--you're--you're a little
+warrior!"
+
+Jill kissed him and moved away. She busied herself with some flowers,
+her back turned. The tension had been relieved, and she wanted to give
+him time to recover his poise. She knew him well enough to be sure
+that, sooner or later, the resiliency of his nature would assert
+itself. He could never remain long in the depths.
+
+The silence had the effect of making her think more clearly than in
+the first rush of pity she had been able to do. She was able now to
+review the matter as it affected herself. It had not been easy to
+grasp, the blunt fact that she was penniless, that all this comfort
+which surrounded her was no longer her own. For an instant a kind of
+panic seized her. There was a bleakness about the situation which made
+one gasp. It was like icy water dashed in the face. Realization had
+almost the physical pain of life returning to a numbed limb. Her hands
+shook as she arranged the flowers, and she had to bite her lip to keep
+herself from crying out.
+
+She fought panic eye to eye, and beat it down. Uncle Chris, swiftly
+recovering by the fireplace, never knew that the fight had taken
+place. He was feeling quite jovial again now that the unpleasant
+business of breaking the news was over, and was looking on the world
+with the eye of a debonair gentleman-adventurer. As far as he was
+concerned, he told himself, this was the best thing that could have
+happened. He had been growing old and sluggish in prosperity. He
+needed a fillip. The wits by which he had once lived so merrily had
+been getting blunt in their easy retirement. He welcomed the
+opportunity of matching them once more against the world. He was
+remorseful as regarded Jill, but the optimist in him, never crushed
+for long, told him that Jill would be all right. She would step from
+the sinking ship to the safe refuge of Derek Underhill's wealth and
+position, while he went out to seek a new life. Uncle Chris' blue eyes
+gleamed with a new fire as he pictured himself in this new life. He
+felt like a hunter setting out on a hunting expedition. There were
+always adventures and the spoils of war for the man with brains to
+find them and gather them in. But it was a mercy that Jill had
+Derek....
+
+Jill was thinking of Derek, too. Panic had fled, and a curious
+exhilaration had seized upon her. If Derek wanted her now, it would be
+because his love was the strongest thing in the world. She would come
+to him like the beggar-maid to Cophetua.
+
+Uncle Chris broke the silence with a cough. At the sound of it, Jill
+smiled again. She knew it for what it was, a sign that he was himself
+again.
+
+"Tell me, Uncle Chris," she said, "just how bad is it? When you said
+everything was gone, did you really mean everything, or were you being
+melodramatic? Exactly how do we stand?"
+
+"It's dashed hard to say, my dear. I expect we shall find there are a
+few hundreds left. Enough to see you through till you get married.
+After that it won't matter." Uncle Chris flicked a particle of dust
+off his coat-sleeve. Jill could not help feeling that the action was
+symbolical of his attitude towards life. He nicked away life's
+problems with just the same airy carelessness. "You mustn't worry
+about me, my dear. I shall be all right. I have made my way in the
+world before, and I can do it again. I shall go to America and try my
+luck there. Amazing how many opportunities there are in America.
+Really, as far as I am concerned, this is the best thing that could
+have happened. I have been getting abominably lazy. If I had gone on
+living my present life for another year or two, why, dash it, I
+honestly believe I should have succumbed to some sort of senile decay.
+Positively I should have got fatty degeneration of the brain! This
+will be the making of me."
+
+Jill sat down on the lounge and laughed till there were tears in her
+eyes. Uncle Chris might be responsible for this disaster, but he was
+certainly making it endurable. However greatly he might be deserving
+of censure, from the standpoint of the sterner morality, he made
+amends. If he brought the whole world crashing in chaos about one's
+ears, at least he helped one to smile among the ruins.
+
+"Did you ever read 'Candide,' Uncle Chris?"
+
+"'Candide'?" Uncle Chris shook his head. He was not a great reader,
+except of the sporting press.
+
+"It's a book by Voltaire. There's a character in it called Doctor
+Pangloss, who thought that everything was for the best in this best of
+all possible worlds."
+
+Uncle Chris felt a touch of embarrassment. It occurred to him that he
+had been betrayed by his mercurial temperament into an attitude which,
+considering the circumstances, was perhaps a trifle too jubilant. He
+gave his moustache a pull, and reverted to the minor key.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't think that I don't appreciate the terrible, the criminal
+thing I have done! I blame myself," said Uncle Chris cordially, nicking
+another speck of dust off his sleeve. "I blame myself bitterly. Your
+mother ought never to have made me your trustee, my dear. But she always
+believed in me, in spite of everything, and this is how I have repaid
+her." He blew his nose to cover a not unmanly emotion. "I wasn't fitted
+for the position. Never become a trustee, Jill. It's the devil, is trust
+money. However much you argue with yourself, you can't--dash it, you
+simply can't believe that it's not your own, to do as you like with,
+There it sits, smiling at you, crying 'Spend me! Spend me!' and you find
+yourself dipping--dipping--till one day there's nothing left to dip
+for--only a far-off rustling--the ghosts of dead bank-notes. That's how it
+was with me. The process was almost automatic. I hardly knew it was going
+on. Here a little--there a little. It was like snow melting on a
+mountain-top. And one morning--all gone!" Uncle Chris drove the point home
+with a gesture. "I did what I could. When I found that there were only a
+few hundreds left, for your sake I took a chance. All heart and no head!
+There you have Christopher Selby in a nutshell! A man at the club, a fool
+named--I've forgotten his damn name--recommended Amalgamated Dyestuffs as
+a speculation. Monroe, that was his name, Jimmy Monroe. He talked about
+the future of British Dyes now that Germany was out of the race, and ...
+well, the long and short of it was that I took his advice and bought on
+margin. Bought like the devil. And this morning Amalgamated Dyestuffs went
+all to blazes. There you have the whole story!"
+
+"And now," said Jill, "comes the sequel!"
+
+"The sequel?" said Uncle Chris breezily. "Happiness, my dear,
+happiness! Wedding bells and--and all that sort of thing!" He
+straddled the hearth-rug manfully, and swelled his chest out. He would
+permit no pessimism on this occasion of rejoicing. "You don't suppose
+that the fact of your having lost your money--that is to say--er--of
+_my_ having lost your money--will affect a splendid young fellow like
+Derek Underhill? I know him better than to think that! I've always
+liked him. He's a man you can trust! Besides," he added reflectively,
+"there's no need to tell him! Till after the wedding, I mean. It won't
+be hard to keep up appearances here for a month or so."
+
+"Of course we must tell him!"
+
+"You think it wise?"
+
+"I don't know about it being wise. It's the only thing to do. I must
+see him to-night. Oh, I forgot. He was going away this afternoon for a
+day or two."
+
+"Capital! It will give you time to think it over."
+
+"I don't want to think it over. There's nothing to think about."
+
+"Of course, yes, of course. Quite so."
+
+"I shall write him a letter."
+
+"Write, eh?"
+
+"It's easier to put what one wants to say in a letter."
+
+"Letters," began Uncle Chris, and stopped as the door opened. Jane,
+the parlourmaid, entered, carrying a salver.
+
+"For me?" asked Uncle Chris.
+
+"For Miss Jill, sir."
+
+Jill took the note off the salver.
+
+"It's from Derek."
+
+"There's a messenger-boy waiting, miss," said Jane. "He wasn't told if
+there was an answer."
+
+"If the note is from Derek," said Uncle Chris, "it's not likely to
+want an answer. You said he left town to-day."
+
+Jill opened the envelope.
+
+"Is there an answer, miss?" asked Jane, after what she considered a
+suitable interval. She spoke tenderly. She was a great admirer of
+Derek, and considered it a pretty action on his part to send notes
+like this when he was compelled to leave London.
+
+"Any answer, Jill?"
+
+Jill seemed to rouse herself. She had turned oddly pale.
+
+"No, no answer, Jane."
+
+"Thank you, miss," said Jane, and went off to tell the cook that in
+her opinion Jill was lacking in heart. "It might have been a bill
+instead of a love-letter," said Jane to the cook with indignation,
+"the way she read it. I like people to have a little feeling!"
+
+Jill sat turning the letter over and over in her fingers. Her face was
+very white. There seemed to be a big, heavy, leaden something inside
+her. A cold hand clutched her throat. Uncle Chris, who at first had
+noticed nothing untoward, now began to find the silence sinister.
+
+"No bad news, I hope, dear?"
+
+Jill turned the letter between her fingers.
+
+"Jill, is it bad news?"
+
+"Derek has broken off the engagement," said Jill in a dull voice. She
+let the note fall to the floor, and sat with her chin in her hands.
+
+"What!" Uncle Chris leaped from the hearth-rug, as though the fire had
+suddenly scorched him. "What did you say?"
+
+"He's broken it off."
+
+"The hound!" cried Uncle Chris. "The blackguard! The--the--I never
+liked that man! I never trusted him!" He fumed for a moment.
+"But--but--it isn't possible. How can he have heard about what's
+happened? He couldn't know. It's--it's--it isn't possible!"
+
+"He doesn't know. It has nothing to do with that."
+
+"But...." Uncle Chris stooped to where the note lay. "May I...?"
+
+"Yes, you can read it if you like."
+
+Uncle Chris produced a pair of reading-glasses, and glared through
+them at the sheet of paper as though it were some loathsome insect.
+
+"The hound! The cad! If I were a younger man," shouted Uncle Chris,
+smiting the letter violently, "if I were.... Jill! My dear little
+Jill!"
+
+He plunged down on his knees beside her, as she buried her face in her
+hands and began to sob.
+
+"My little girl! Damn that man! My dear little girl! The cad! The
+devil! My own darling little girl! I'll thrash him within an inch of
+his life!"
+
+The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away the minutes. Jill got up. Her
+face was wet and quivering, but her mouth had set in a brave line.
+
+"Jill, dear!"
+
+She let his hand close over hers.
+
+"Everything's happening all at once this afternoon, Uncle Chris, isn't
+it!" She smiled a twisted smile. "You look so funny! Your hair's all
+rumpled, and your glasses are over on one side!"
+
+Uncle Chris breathed heavily through his nose.
+
+"When I meet that man...." he began portentously.
+
+"Oh, what's the good of bothering! It's not worth it! Nothing's worth
+it!" Jill stopped and faced him, her hands clenched. "Let's get away!
+Let's get right away! I want to get right away, Uncle Chris! Take me
+away! Anywhere! Take me to America with you! I must get away!"
+
+Uncle Chris raised his right hand, and shook it. His reading-glasses,
+hanging from his left ear, bobbed drunkenly.
+
+"We'll sail by the next boat! The very next boat, dammit! I'll take
+care of you, dear. I've been a blackguard to you, my little girl. I've
+robbed you, and swindled you. But I'll make up for it, by George! I'll
+make up for it! I'll give you a new home, as good as this, if I die
+for it. There's nothing I won't do! Nothing! By Jove!" shouted Uncle
+Chris, raising his voice in a red-hot frenzy of emotion, "I'll work!
+Yes, by Gad, if it comes right down to it, I'll work!"
+
+He brought his fist down with a crash on the table where Derek's
+flowers stood in their bowl. The bowl leaped in the air and tumbled
+over, scattering the flowers on the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+JILL CATCHES THE 10.10
+
+I
+
+
+In the lives of each one of us, as we look back and review them in
+retrospect, there are certain desert wastes from which memory winces
+like some tired traveller faced with a dreary stretch of road. Even
+from the security of later happiness we cannot contemplate them
+without a shudder.
+
+It took one of the most competent firms in the metropolis four days to
+produce some sort of order in the confusion resulting from Major
+Selby's financial operations; and during those days Jill existed in a
+state of being which could be defined as living only in that she
+breathed and ate and comported herself outwardly like a girl and not a
+ghost.
+
+Boards announcing that the house was for sale appeared against the
+railings through which Jane the parlourmaid conducted her daily
+conversations with the tradesmen. Strangers roamed the rooms eyeing
+and appraising the furniture. Uncle Chris, on whom disaster had had a
+quickening and vivifying effect, was everywhere at once, an impressive
+figure of energy. One may be wronging Uncle Chris, but to the eye of
+the casual observer he seemed in these days of trial to be having the
+time of his life.
+
+Jill varied the monotony of sitting in her room--which was the only
+place in the house where one might be sure of not encountering a
+furniture-broker's man with a note-book and pencil--by taking long
+walks. She avoided as far as possible the small area which had once
+made up the whole of London for her, but even so she was not always
+successful in escaping from old acquaintances. Once, butting through
+Lennox Gardens on her way to that vast, desolate King's Road which
+stretches its length out into regions unknown to those whose London
+is the West End, she happened upon Freddie Rooke, who had been paying
+a call in his best, and a pair of white spats which would have cut his
+friend Henry to the quick. It was not an enjoyable meeting. Freddie,
+keenly alive to the awkwardness of the situation, was scarlet and
+incoherent; and Jill, who desired nothing less than to talk with one
+so intimately connected in her mind with all that she had lost, was
+scarcely more collected. They parted without regret. The only
+satisfaction that came to Jill from the encounter was the knowledge
+that Derek was still out of town. He had wired for his things, said
+Freddie, and had retreated further north. Freddie, it seemed, had been
+informed of the broken engagement by Lady Underhill in an interview
+which appeared to have left a lasting impression on his mind. Of
+Jill's monetary difficulties he had heard nothing.
+
+After this meeting, Jill felt a slight diminution of the oppression
+which weighed upon her. She could not have borne to have come
+unexpectedly upon Derek, and, now that there was no danger of that,
+she found life a little easier. The days passed somehow, and finally
+there came the morning, when, accompanied by Uncle Chris--voluble and
+explanatory about the details of what he called "getting everything
+settled"--she rode in a taxi to take the train for Southampton. Her
+last impression of London was of rows upon rows of mean houses, of
+cats wandering in back-yards among groves of home-washed
+underclothing, and a smoky greyness which gave way, as the train raced
+on, to the clearer grey of the suburbs and the good green and brown of
+the open country.
+
+Then the bustle and confusion of the liner; the calm monotony of the
+journey, when one came on deck each morning to find the vessel so
+manifestly in the same spot where it had been the morning before that
+it was impossible to realize that many hundred miles of ocean had
+really been placed behind one; and finally the Ambrose Channel
+lightship and the great bulk of New York rising into the sky like a
+city of fairyland, heartening yet sinister, at once a welcome and a
+menace.
+
+"There you are, my dear?" said Uncle Chris indulgently, as though it
+were a toy he had made for her with his own hands. "New York!"
+
+They were standing on the boat-deck, leaning over the rail. Jill
+caught her breath. For the first time since disaster had come upon her
+she was conscious of a rising of her spirits. It is impossible to
+behold the huge buildings which fringe the harbour of New York without
+a sense of expectancy and excitement. There had remained in Jill's
+mind from childhood memories a vague picture of what she now saw, but
+it had been feeble and inadequate. The sight of this towering city
+seemed somehow to blot out everything that had gone before. The
+feeling of starting afresh was strong upon her.
+
+Uncle Chris, the old traveller, was not emotionally affected. He
+smoked placidly and talked in a wholly earthy strain of grape-fruit
+and buckwheat cakes.
+
+It was now, also for the first time, that Uncle Chris touched upon
+future prospects in a practical manner. On the voyage he had been
+eloquent but sketchy. With the land of promise within biscuit-throw
+and the tugs bustling about the great liner's skirts like little dogs
+about their mistress, he descended to details.
+
+"I shall get a room somewhere," said Uncle Chris, "and start looking
+about me. I wonder if the old Holland House is still there. I fancy I
+heard they'd pulled it down. Capital place. I had a steak there in the
+year.... But I expect they've pulled it down. But I shall find
+somewhere to go. I'll write and tell you my address directly I've got
+one."
+
+Jill removed her gaze from the sky-line with a start.
+
+"Write to me?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you about that?" said Uncle Chris cheerily--avoiding
+her eye, however, for he had realized all along that it might be a
+little bit awkward breaking the news. "I've arranged that you shall go
+and stay for the time being down at Brookport--on Long Island, you
+know--over in that direction--with your Uncle Elmer. Daresay you've
+forgotten you have an Uncle Elmer, eh?" he went on quickly, as Jill
+was about to speak. "Your father's brother. Used to be in business,
+but retired some years ago and goes in for amateur farming. Corn
+and--and corn," said Uncle Chris. "All that sort of thing. You'll like
+him. Capital chap! Never met him myself, but always heard," said Uncle
+Chris, who had never to his recollection heard any comments upon Mr.
+Elmer Mariner whatever, "that he was a splendid fellow. Directly we
+decided to sail, I cabled to him, and got an answer saying that he
+would be delighted to put you up. You'll be quite happy there."
+
+Jill listened to this programme with dismay. New York was calling to
+her, and Brookport held out no attractions at all. She looked down
+over the side at the tugs puffing their way through the broken blocks
+of ice that reminded her of a cocoanut candy familiar to her
+childhood.
+
+"But I want to be with you," she protested.
+
+"Impossible, my dear, for the present. I shall be very busy, very busy
+indeed for some weeks, until I have found my feet. Really, you would
+be in the way. He--er--travels the fastest who travels alone! I must
+be in a position to go anywhere and do anything at a moment's notice.
+But always remember, my dear," said Uncle Chris, patting her shoulder
+affectionately, "that I shall be working for you. I have treated you
+very badly, but I intend to make up for it. I shall not forget that
+whatever money I may make will really belong to you." He looked at her
+benignly, like a monarch of finance who has earmarked a million or two
+for the benefit of a deserving charity. "You shall have it all, Jill."
+
+He had so much the air of having conferred a substantial benefit upon
+her that Jill felt obliged to thank him. Uncle Chris had always been
+able to make people grateful for the phantom gold which he showered
+upon them. He was as lavish a man with the money he was going to get
+next week as ever borrowed a five-pound note to see him through till
+Saturday.
+
+"What are you going to do, Uncle Chris?" asked Jill curiously. Apart
+from a nebulous idea that he intended to saunter through the city
+picking dollar-bills off the sidewalk, she had no inkling of his
+plans.
+
+Uncle Chris toyed with his short moustache. He was not quite equal to
+a direct answer on the spur of the moment. He had a faith in his star.
+Something would turn up. Something always had turned up in the old
+days, and doubtless, with the march of civilization, opportunities had
+multiplied. Somewhere behind those tall buildings the Goddess of Luck
+awaited him, her hands full of gifts, but precisely what those gifts
+would be he was not in a position to say.
+
+"I shall--ah--how shall I put it--?"
+
+"Look round?" suggested Jill.
+
+"Precisely," said Uncle Chris gratefully. "Look round. I daresay you
+have noticed that I have gone out of my way during the voyage to make
+myself agreeable to our fellow-travellers? I had an object.
+Acquaintances begun on shipboard will often ripen into useful
+friendships ashore. When I was a young man I never neglected the
+opportunities which an ocean voyage affords. The offer of a book here,
+a steamer-rug there, a word of encouragement to a chatty bore in the
+smoke-room--these are small things, but they may lead to much. One
+meets influential people on a liner. You wouldn't think it to look at
+him, but that man with the eye-glasses and the thin nose I was talking
+to just now is one of the richest men in Milwaukee!"
+
+"But it's not much good having rich friends in Milwaukee when you are
+in New York!"
+
+"Exactly. There you have put your finger on the very point I have been
+trying to make. It will probably be necessary for me to travel. And
+for that I must be alone. I must be a mobile force. I should dearly
+like to keep you with me, but you can see for yourself that for the
+moment you would be an encumbrance. Later on, no doubt, when my
+affairs are more settled...."
+
+"Oh, I understand. I'm resigned. But, oh dear! it's going to be very
+dull down at Brookport."
+
+"Nonsense, nonsense! It's a delightful spot."
+
+"Have you been there?"
+
+"No. But of course everybody knows Brookport. Healthy,
+invigorating.... Sure to be. The very name.... You'll be as happy as
+the days are long!"
+
+"And how long will the days be!"
+
+"Come, come. You mustn't look on the dark side."
+
+"Is there another?" Jill laughed. "You are an old humbug, Uncle Chris.
+You know perfectly well what you're condemning me to. I expect
+Brookport will be like a sort of Southend in winter. Oh, well, I'll be
+brave. But do hurry and make a fortune, because I want to come to New
+York."
+
+"My dear," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "if there is a dollar lying
+loose in this city, rest assured that I shall have it! And, if it's
+not loose, I will detach it with the greatest possible speed. You have
+only known me in my decadence, an idle and unprofitable London
+clubman. I can assure you that lurking beneath the surface, there is
+a business acumen given to few men...."
+
+"Oh, if you are going to talk poetry," said Jill, "I'll leave you.
+Anyhow, I ought to be getting below and putting my things together."
+
+
+II
+
+If Jill's vision of Brookport as a wintry Southend was not entirely
+fulfilled, neither was Uncle Chris' picture of it as an earthly
+paradise. At the right time of the year, like most of the summer
+resorts on the south shore of Long Island, it is not without its
+attractions; but January is not the month which most people would
+choose for living in it. It presented itself to Jill on first
+acquaintance in the aspect of a wind-swept railroad station, dumped
+down far away from human habitation in the middle of a stretch of flat
+and ragged country that reminded her a little of parts of Surrey. The
+station was just a shed on a foundation of planks which lay flush with
+the rails. From this shed, as the train clanked in, there emerged a
+tall, shambling man in a weather-beaten overcoat. He had a
+clean-shaven, wrinkled face, and he looked doubtfully at Jill with
+small eyes. Something in his expression reminded Jill of her father,
+as a bad caricature of a public man will recall the original. She
+introduced herself.
+
+"If you're Uncle Elmer," she said, "I'm Jill."
+
+The man held out a long hand. He did not smile. He was as bleak as the
+east wind that swept the platform.
+
+"Glad to meet you again," he said in a melancholy voice. It was news
+to Jill that they had met before. She wondered where. Her uncle
+supplied the information. "Last time I saw you, you were a kiddy in
+short frocks, running round and shouting to beat the band." He looked
+up and down the platform. "_I_ never heard a child make so much
+noise!"
+
+"I'm quite quiet now," said Jill encouragingly. The recollection of
+her infant revelry seemed to her to be distressing her relative.
+
+It appeared, however, that it was not only this that was on his mind.
+
+"If you want to drive home," he said, "we'll have to 'phone to the
+Durham House for a hack." He brooded a while, Jill remaining silent at
+his side, loath to break in upon whatever secret sorrow he was
+wrestling with. "That would be a dollar," he went on. "They're
+robbers in these parts! A dollar! And it's not over a mile and a half.
+Are you fond of walking?"
+
+Jill was a bright girl, and could take a hint.
+
+"I love walking," she said. She might have added that she preferred to
+do it on a day when the wind was not blowing quite so keenly from the
+East, but her uncle's obvious excitement at the prospect of cheating
+the rapacity of the sharks at the Durham House restrained her. Her
+independent soul had not quite adjusted itself to the prospect of
+living on the bounty of her fellows, relatives though they were, and
+she was desirous of imposing as light a burden upon them as possible.
+"But how about my trunk?"
+
+"The expressman will bring that up. Fifty cents!" said Uncle Elmer in
+a crushed way. The high cost of entertaining seemed to be afflicting
+this man deeply.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Jill. She could not see how this particular
+expenditure was to be avoided. Anxious as she was to make herself
+pleasant, she declined to consider carrying the trunk to their
+destination. "Shall we start, then?"
+
+Mr. Mariner led the way out into the ice-covered road. The wind
+welcomed them like a boisterous dog. For some minutes they proceeded
+in silence.
+
+"Your aunt will be glad to see you," said Mr. Mariner at last in the
+voice with which one announces the death of a dear friend.
+
+"It's awfully kind of you to have me to stay with you," said Jill. It
+is a human tendency to think, when crises occur, in terms of
+melodrama, and unconsciously she had begun to regard herself somewhat
+in the light of a heroine driven out into the world from the old home,
+with no roof to shelter her head. The promptitude with which these
+good people, who, though relatives, were after all complete strangers,
+had offered her a resting-place touched her. "I hope I shan't be in
+the way."
+
+"Major Selby was speaking to me on the telephone just now," said Mr.
+Mariner, "and he said that you might be thinking of settling down in
+Brookport. I've some nice little places round here which you might
+like to look at. Rent or buy. It's cheaper to buy. Brookport's a
+growing place. It's getting known as a summer resort. There's a
+bungalow down on the shore I'd like to show you to-morrow. Stands in
+a nice large plot of ground, and if you bought it for twelve thousand
+you'd be getting a bargain."
+
+Jill was too astonished to speak. Plainly Uncle Chris had made no
+mention of the change in her fortunes, and this man looked on her as a
+girl of wealth. She could only think how typical this was of Uncle
+Chris. There was a sort of boyish impishness about him. She could see
+him at the telephone, suave and important. He would have hung up the
+receiver with a complacent smirk, thoroughly satisfied that he had
+done her an excellent turn.
+
+"I put all my money into real estate when I came to live here," went
+on Mr. Mariner. "I believe in the place. It's growing all the time."
+
+They had come to the outskirts of a straggling village. The lights in
+the windows gave a welcome suggestion of warmth, for darkness had
+fallen swiftly during their walk and the chill of the wind had become
+more biting. There was a smell of salt in the air now, and once or
+twice Jill had caught the low booming of waves on some distant beach.
+This was the Atlantic pounding the sandy shore of Fire Island.
+Brookport itself lay inside, on the lagoon called the Great South Bay.
+
+They passed through the village, bearing to the right, and found
+themselves in a road bordered by large gardens in which stood big,
+dark houses. The spectacle of these stimulated Mr. Mariner to
+something approaching eloquence. He quoted the price paid for each,
+the price asked, the price offered, the price that had been paid five
+years ago. The recital carried them on for another mile, in the course
+of which the houses became smaller and more scattered, and finally,
+when the country had become bare and desolate again, they turned down
+a narrow lane and came to a tall, gaunt house standing by itself in a
+field.
+
+"This is Sandringham," said Mr. Mariner.
+
+"What!" said Jill. "What did you say?"
+
+"Sandringham. Where we live. I got the name from your father. I
+remember him telling me there was a place called that in England."
+
+"There is." Jill's voice bubbled. "The King lives there."
+
+"Is that so?" said Mr. Mariner. "Well, I bet he doesn't have the
+trouble with help that we have here. I have to pay our girl fifty
+dollars a month, and another twenty for the man who looks after the
+furnace and chops wood. They're all robbers. And if you kick they quit
+on you!"
+
+
+III
+
+Jill endured Sandringham for ten days; and, looking back on that
+period of her life later, she wondered how she did it. The sense of
+desolation which had gripped her on the station platform increased
+rather than diminished as she grew accustomed to her surroundings. The
+east wind died away, and the sun shone fitfully with a suggestion of
+warmth, but her uncle's bleakness appeared to be a static quality,
+independent of weather conditions. Her aunt, a faded woman, with a
+perpetual cold in the head, did nothing to promote cheerfulness. The
+rest of the household consisted of a gloomy child, "Tibby," aged
+eight; a spaniel, probably a few years older, and an intermittent cat,
+who, when he did put in an appearance, was the life and soul of the
+party, but whose visits to his home were all too infrequent for Jill.
+
+The picture which Mr. Mariner had formed in his mind of Jill as a
+wealthy young lady with a taste for house property continued as vivid
+as ever. It was his practice each morning to conduct her about the
+neighbourhood, introducing her to the various houses in which he had
+sunk most of the money he had made in business. Mr. Mariner's life
+centred around Brookport real estate, and the embarrassed Jill was
+compelled to inspect sitting-rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and master's
+bedrooms till the sound of a key turning in a lock gave her a feeling
+of nervous exhaustion. Most of her uncle's houses were converted
+farm-houses, and, as one unfortunate purchaser had remarked, not so
+darned converted at that. The days she spent at Brookport remained in
+Jill's memory as a smell of dampness and chill and closeness.
+
+"You want to buy," said Mr. Mariner every time he shut a front-door
+behind them. "Not rent. Buy. Then, if you don't want to live here, you
+can always rent in the summer."
+
+It seemed incredible to Jill that the summer would ever come. Winter
+held Brookport in its grip. For the first time in her life she was
+tasting real loneliness. She wandered over the snow-patched fields
+down to the frozen bay, and found the intense stillness, punctuated
+only by the occasional distant gunshot of some optimist trying for
+duck, oppressive rather than restful. She looked on the weird beauty
+of the ice-bound marshes which glittered red and green and blue in the
+sun with unseeing eyes; for her isolation was giving her time to
+think, and thought was a torment.
+
+On the eighth day came a letter from Uncle Chris--a cheerful, even
+rollicking letter. Things were going well with Uncle Chris, it seemed.
+As was his habit, he did not enter into details, but he wrote in a
+spacious way of large things to be, of affairs that were coming out
+right, of prosperity in sight. As tangible evidence of success, he
+enclosed a present of twenty dollars for Jill to spend in the
+Brookport shops.
+
+The letter arrived by the morning mail, and two hours later Mr.
+Mariner took Jill by one of his usual overland routes to see a house
+nearer the village than most of those which she had viewed. Mr.
+Mariner had exhausted the supply of cottages belonging to himself, and
+this one was the property of an acquaintance. There would be an
+agent's fee for him in the deal, if it went through, and Mr. Mariner
+was not a man who despised money in small quantities.
+
+There was a touch of hopefulness in his gloom this morning, like the first
+intimation of sunshine after a wet day. He had been thinking the thing
+over, and had come to the conclusion that Jill's unresponsiveness when
+confronted with the houses she had already seen was due to the fact that
+she had loftier ideas than he had supposed. Something a little more
+magnificent than the twelve thousand dollar places he had shown her was
+what she desired. This house stood on a hill looking down on the bay, in
+several acres of ground. It had its private landing-stage and bath-house,
+its dairy, its sleeping-porches--everything, in fact, that a sensible girl
+could want. Mr. Mariner could not bring himself to suppose that he would
+fail again to-day.
+
+"They're asking a hundred and five thousand," he said, "but I know
+they'd take a hundred thousand. And, if it was a question of cash
+down, they would go even lower. It's a fine house. You could entertain
+there. Mrs. Bruggenheim rented it last summer, and wanted to buy, but
+she wouldn't go above ninety thousand. If you want it, you'd better
+make up your mind quick. A place like this is apt to be snapped up in
+a hurry."
+
+Jill could endure it no longer.
+
+"But, you see," she said gently, "all I have in the world is twenty
+dollars!"
+
+There was a painful pause. Mr. Mariner shot a swift glance at her in
+the hope of discovering that she had spoken humorously, but was
+compelled to decide that she had not.
+
+"Twenty dollars!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Twenty dollars," said Jill.
+
+"But your father was a rich man." Mr. Mariner's voice was high and
+plaintive. "He made a fortune over here before he went to England."
+
+"It's all gone. I got nipped," said Jill, who was finding a certain
+amount of humour in the situation, "in Amalgamated Dyes."
+
+"Amalgamated Dyes?"
+
+"They're something," explained Jill, "that people get nipped in."
+
+Mr. Mariner digested this.
+
+"You speculated?" he gasped.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You shouldn't have been allowed to do it," said Mr. Mariner warmly.
+"Major Selby, your uncle, ought to have known better than to allow
+you."
+
+"Yes, oughtn't he?" said Jill demurely.
+
+There was another silence, lasting for about a quarter of a mile.
+
+"Well, it's a bad business," said Mr. Mariner.
+
+"Yes," said Jill. "I've felt that myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The result of this conversation was to effect a change in the
+atmosphere of Sandringham. The alteration in the demeanour of people
+of parsimonious habit, when they discover that the guest they are
+entertaining is a pauper and not, as they had supposed, an heiress, is
+subtle but well marked. In most cases, more well marked than subtle.
+Nothing was actually said, but there are thoughts that are almost as
+audible as words. A certain suspense seemed to creep into the air, as
+happens when a situation has been reached which is too poignant to
+last. Greek Tragedy affects the reader with the same sense of
+overhanging doom. Things, we feel, cannot go on as they are.
+
+That night, after dinner, Mrs. Mariner asked Jill to read to her.
+
+"Print tries my eyes so, dear," said Mrs. Mariner.
+
+It was a small thing, but it had the significance of that little cloud
+that arose out of the sea like a man's hand. Jill appreciated the
+portent. She was, she perceived, to make herself useful.
+
+"Of course I will," she said cordially. "What would you like me to
+read?"
+
+She hated reading aloud. It always made her throat sore, and her eye
+skipped to the end of each page and took the interest out of it long
+before the proper time. But she proceeded bravely, for her conscience
+was troubling her. Her sympathy was divided equally between these
+unfortunate people who had been saddled with an undesired visitor and
+herself who had been placed in a position at which every independent
+nerve in her rebelled. Even as a child she had loathed being under
+obligations to strangers or those whom she did not love.
+
+"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Mariner, when Jill's voice had roughened
+to a weary croak. "You read so well." She wrestled ineffectually with
+her handkerchief against the cold in the head from which she had
+always suffered. "It would be nice if you would do it every night,
+don't you think? You have no idea how tired print makes my eyes."
+
+On the following morning after breakfast, at the hour when she had
+hitherto gone house-hunting with Mr. Mariner, the child Tibby, of whom
+up till now she had seen little except at meals, presented himself to
+her, coated and shod for the open and regarding her with a dull and
+phlegmatic gaze.
+
+"Ma says will you please take me for a nice walk!"
+
+Jill's heart sank. She loved children, but Tibby was not an
+ingratiating child. He was a Mr. Mariner in little. He had the family
+gloom. It puzzled Jill sometimes why this branch of the family should
+look on life with so jaundiced an eye. She remembered her father as a
+cheerful man, alive to the small humours of life.
+
+"All right, Tibby. Where shall we go?"
+
+"Ma says we must keep on the roads and I mustn't slide."
+
+Jill was thoughtful during the walk. Tibby, who was no
+conversationist, gave her every opportunity for meditation. She
+perceived that in the space of a few hours she had sunk in the social
+scale. If there was any difference between her position and that of a
+paid nurse and companion it lay in the fact that she was not paid. She
+looked about her at the grim countryside, gave a thought to the chill
+gloom of the house to which she was about to return, and her heart
+sank.
+
+Nearing home, Tibby vouched his first independent observation.
+
+"The hired man's quit!"
+
+"Has he?"
+
+"Yep. Quit this morning."
+
+It had begun to snow. They turned and made their way back to the
+house. The information she had received did not cause Jill any great
+apprehension. It was hardly likely that her new duties would include
+the stoking of the furnace. That and cooking appeared to be the only
+acts about the house which were outside her present sphere of
+usefulness.
+
+"He killed a rat once in the wood-shed with an axe," said Tibby
+chattily. "Yessir! Chopped it right in half, and it bled!"
+
+"Look at the pretty snow falling on the trees," said Jill faintly.
+
+At breakfast next morning, Mrs. Mariner having sneezed, made a
+suggestion.
+
+"Tibby, darling, wouldn't it be nice if you and cousin Jill played a
+game of pretending you were pioneers in the Far West?"
+
+"What's a pioneer?" enquired Tibby, pausing in the middle of an act of
+violence on a plate of oatmeal.
+
+"The pioneers were the early settlers in this country, dear. You have
+read about them in your history book. They endured a great many
+hardships, for life was very rough for them, with no railroads or
+anything. I think it would be a nice game to play this morning."
+
+Tibby looked at Jill. There was doubt in his eye. Jill returned his
+gaze sympathetically. One thought was in both their minds.
+
+"There is a string to this!" said Tibby's eye.
+
+Mrs. Mariner sneezed again.
+
+"You would have lots of fun," she said.
+
+"What'ud we do?" asked Tibby cautiously. He had been had this way
+before. Only last summer, on his mother's suggestion that he should
+pretend he was a shipwrecked sailor on a desert island, he had
+perspired through a whole afternoon cutting the grass in front of the
+house to make a shipwrecked sailor's simple bed.
+
+"I know," said Jill. "We'll pretend we're pioneers stormbound in their
+log cabin in the woods, and the wolves are howling outside, and they
+daren't go out, so they make a lovely big fire and sit in front of it
+and read."
+
+"And eat candy," suggested Tibby, warming to the idea.
+
+"And eat candy," agreed Jill.
+
+Mrs. Mariner frowned.
+
+"I was going to suggest," she said frostily, "that you shovelled the
+snow away from the front steps!"
+
+"Splendid!" said Jill. "Oh, but I forgot. I want to go to the village
+first."
+
+"There will be plenty of time to do it when you get back."
+
+"All right. I'll do it when I get back."
+
+It was a quarter of an hour's walk to the village. Jill stopped at the
+post-office.
+
+"Could you tell me," she asked, "when the next train is to New York?"
+
+"There's one at ten-ten," said the woman behind the window. "You'll
+have to hurry."
+
+"I'll hurry!" said Jill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DRY-SALTERS WING DEREK
+
+I
+
+
+Doctors, laying down the law in their usual confident way, tell us
+that the vitality of the human body is at its lowest at two o'clock in
+the morning: and that it is then, as a consequence, that the mind is
+least able to contemplate the present with equanimity, the future with
+fortitude, and the past without regret. Every thinking man, however,
+knows that this is not so. The true zero hour, desolate, gloom-ridden,
+and spectre-haunted, occurs immediately before dinner while we are
+waiting for that cocktail. It is then that, stripped for a brief
+moment of our armour of complacency and self-esteem, we see ourselves
+as we are--frightful chumps in a world where nothing goes right; a
+grey world in which, hoping to click, we merely get the raspberry;
+where, animated by the best intentions, we nevertheless succeed in
+perpetrating the scaliest bloomers and landing our loved ones
+neck-deep in the gumbo.
+
+So reflected Freddie Rooke, that priceless old bean, sitting
+disconsolately in an arm-chair at the Drones Club about two weeks
+after Jill's departure from England, waiting for his friend Algy
+Martyn to trickle in and give him dinner.
+
+Surveying Freddie, as he droops on his spine in the yielding leather,
+one is conscious of one's limitations as a writer. Gloom like his
+calls for the pen of a master. Zola could have tackled it nicely.
+Gorky might have made a stab at it. Dostoevsky would have handled it
+with relish. But for oneself the thing is too vast. One cannot wangle
+it. It intimidates. It would have been bad enough in any case, for
+Algy Martyn was late as usual and it always gave Freddie the pip to
+have to wait for dinner: but what made it worse was the fact that the
+Drones was not one of Freddie's clubs and so, until the blighter Algy
+arrived, it was impossible for him to get his cocktail. There he sat,
+surrounded by happy, laughing young men, each grasping a glass of the
+good old mixture-as-before, absolutely unable to connect. Some of
+them, casual acquaintances, had nodded to him, waved, and gone on
+lowering the juice,--a spectacle which made Freddie feel much as the
+wounded soldier would have felt if Sir Philip Sidney, instead of
+offering him the cup of water, had placed it to his own lips and
+drained it with a careless "Cheerio!" No wonder Freddie experienced
+the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoi's
+Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling
+his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city
+reservoir, he turns to the cupboard, only to find the vodka-bottle
+empty.
+
+Freddie gave himself up to despondency: and, as always in these days
+when he was mournful, he thought of Jill. Jill's sad case was a
+continual source of mental anguish to him. From the first he had
+blamed himself for the breaking-off of her engagement with Derek. If
+he had not sent the message to Derek from the police-station, the
+latter would never have known about their arrest, and all would have
+been well. And now, a few days ago, had come the news of her financial
+disaster, with its attendant complications.
+
+It had descended on Freddie like a thunderbolt through the medium of
+Ronny Devereux.
+
+"I say," Ronny had said, "have you heard the latest? Your pal,
+Underhill, has broken off his engagement with Jill Mariner."
+
+"I know; rather rotten, what!"
+
+"Rotten? I should say so! It isn't done. I mean to say, chap can't
+chuck a girl just because she's lost her money. Simply isn't on the
+board, old man!"
+
+"Lost her money? What do you mean?"
+
+Ronny was surprised. Hadn't Freddie heard? Yes, absolute fact. He had
+it from the best authority. Didn't know how it had happened and all
+that, but Jill Mariner had gone completely bust; Underhill had given
+her the miss-in-baulk; and the poor girl had legged it, no one knew
+where. Oh, Freddie had met her and she had told him she was going to
+America? Well, then, legged it to America. But the point was that the
+swine Underhill had handed her the mitten just because she was broke,
+and that was what Ronny thought so bally rotten. Broker a girl is,
+Ronny meant to say, more a fellow should stick to her.
+
+"But--" Freddie rushed to his hero's defence. "But it wasn't that at
+all. Something quite different. I mean, Derek didn't even know Jill
+had lost her money. He broke the engagement because...." Freddie
+stopped short. He didn't want everybody to know of that rotten arrest
+business, as they infallibly would if he confided in Ronny Devereux.
+Sort of thing he would never hear the last of. "He broke it off
+because of something quite different."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Ronny sceptically.
+
+"But he did, really!"
+
+Ronny shook his head.
+
+"Don't you believe it, old son. Don't you believe it. Stands to reason
+it must have been because the poor girl was broke. You wouldn't have
+done it and I wouldn't have done it, but Underhill did, and that's all
+there is to it. I mean, a tick's a tick, and there's nothing more to
+say. Well, I know he's been a pal of yours, Freddie, but, next time I
+meet him, by Jove, I'll cut him dead. Only I don't know him to speak
+to, dash it!" concluded Ronny regretfully.
+
+Ronny's news had upset Freddie. Derek had returned to the Albany a
+couple of days ago, moody and silent. They had lunched together at the
+Bachelors, and Freddie had been pained at the attitude of his
+fellow-clubmen. Usually, when he lunched at the Bachelors, his table
+became a sort of social centre. Cheery birds would roll up to pass the
+time of day, and festive old eggs would toddle over to have coffee and
+so forth, and all that sort of thing. Jolly! On this occasion nobody
+had rolled, and all the eggs present had taken their coffee elsewhere.
+There was an uncomfortable chill in the atmosphere of which Freddie
+had been acutely conscious, though Derek had not appeared to notice
+it. The thing had only come home to Derek yesterday at the Albany,
+when the painful episode of Wally Mason had occurred. It was this
+way....
+
+"Hullo, Freddie, old top! Sorry to have kept you waiting."
+
+Freddie looked up from his broken meditations, to find that his host
+had arrived.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"A quick bracer," said Algy Martyn, "and then the jolly old
+food-stuffs. It's pretty late, I see. Didn't notice how time was
+slipping."
+
+Over the soup, Freddie was still a prey to gloom. For once the healing
+gin-and-vermouth had failed to do its noble work. He sipped sombrely,
+so sombrely as to cause comment from his host.
+
+"Pipped?" enquired Algy solicitously.
+
+"Pretty pipped," admitted Freddie.
+
+"Backed a loser?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Something wrong with the old tum?"
+
+"No.... Worried."
+
+"Worried?"
+
+"About Derek."
+
+"Derek? Who's...? Oh, you mean Underhill?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Algy Martyn chased an elusive piece of carrot about his soup plate,
+watching it interestedly as it slid coyly from the spoon.
+
+"Oh?" he said, with sudden coolness. "What about him?"
+
+Freddie was too absorbed in his subject to notice the change in his
+friend's tone.
+
+"A dashed unpleasant thing," he said, "happened yesterday morning at
+my place. I was just thinking about going out to lunch, when the
+door-bell rang and Barker said a chappie of the name of Mason would
+like to see me. I didn't remember any Mason, but Barker said the
+chappie said he knew me when I was a kid. So he loosed him into the
+room, and it turned out to be a fellow I used to know years ago down
+in Worcestershire. I didn't know him from Adam at first, but gradually
+the old bean got to work, and I placed him. Wally Mason his name was.
+Rummily enough, he had spoken to me at the Leicester that night when
+the fire was, but not being able to place him, I had given him the
+miss somewhat. You know how it is. Cove you've never been introduced
+to says something to you in a theatre, and you murmur something and
+sheer off. What?"
+
+"Absolutely," agreed Algy Martyn. He thoroughly approved of Freddie's
+code of etiquette. Sheer off. Only thing to do.
+
+"Well, anyhow, now that he had turned up again and told me who he was,
+I began to remember. We had been kids together, don't you know.
+(What's this? Salmon? Oh, right ho.) So I buzzed about and did the
+jovial host, you know; gave him a drink and a toofer, and all that
+sort of thing; and talked about the dear old days and what not. And so
+forth, if you follow me. Then he brought the conversation round to
+Jill. Of course he knew Jill at the same time when he knew me, down in
+Worcestershire, you see. We were all pretty pally in those days, if
+you see what I mean. Well, this man Mason, it seems, had heard
+somewhere about Jill losing her money, and he wanted to know if it was
+true. I said absolutely. Hadn't heard any details, but Ronny had told
+me, and Ronny had had it from some one who had stable information and
+all that sort of thing. 'Dashed shame, isn't it?' I said. 'She's gone
+to America, you know.' 'I didn't know,' he said. 'I understood she was
+going to be married quite soon.' Well, of course, I told him that that
+was off. He didn't say anything for a bit, then he said 'Off?' I said
+'Off.' 'Did she break it off?' asked the chappie. 'Well, no,' I said.
+'As a matter of fact Derek broke it off.' He said 'Oh!' (What? Oh yes,
+a bit of pheasant will be fine.) Where was I? Oh, yes. He said 'Oh!'
+Now, before this, I ought to tell you, this chappie Mason had asked
+me to come out and have a bit of lunch. I had told him I was lunching
+with Derek, and he said 'Right ho,' or words to that effect, 'Bring
+him along.' Derek had been out for a stroll, you see, and we were
+waiting for him to come in. Well, just at this point or juncture, if
+you know what I mean, in he came, and I said' Oh, what ho!' and
+introduced Wally Mason. 'Oh, do you know Underhill?' I said, or
+something like that. You know the sort of thing. And then...."
+
+Freddie broke off and drained his glass. The recollection of that
+painful moment had made him feverish. Social difficulties always did.
+
+"Then what?" enquired Algy Martyn.
+
+"Well, it was pretty rotten. Derek held out his hand, as a chappie
+naturally would, being introduced to a strange chappie, and Wally
+Mason, giving it an absolute miss, went on talking to me just as if we
+were alone, you know. Look here. Here was I, where this knife is.
+Derek over here--this fork--with his hand out. Mason here--this bit of
+bread. Mason looks at his watch, and says 'I'm sorry, Freddie, but I
+find I've an engagement for lunch. So long!' and biffed out, without
+apparently knowing that Derek was on the earth. I mean...." Freddie
+reached for his glass. "What I mean is, it was dashed embarrassing. I
+mean, cutting a fellow dead in my rooms. I don't know when I've felt
+so rotten!"
+
+Algy Martyn delivered judgment with great firmness.
+
+"Chappie was perfectly right!"
+
+"No, but I mean...."
+
+"Absolutely correct-o," insisted Algy sternly. "Underhill can't dash
+about all over the place giving the girl he's engaged to the mitten
+because she's broke, and expect no notice to be taken of it. If you
+want to know what I think, old man, your pal Underhill--I can't
+imagine what the deuce you see in him, but, school together and so
+forth, makes a difference, I suppose--I say, if you want to know what
+I think, Freddie, the blighter Underhill would be well advised either
+to leg it after Jill and get her to marry him or else lie low for a
+goodish while till people have forgotten the thing. I mean to say,
+fellows like Ronny and I and Dick Wimpole and Archie Studd and the
+rest of our lot--well, we all knew Jill and thought she was a topper
+and had danced with her here and there and seen her about and all
+that, and naturally we feel pretty strongly about the whole dashed
+business. Underhill isn't in our particular set, but we all know most
+of the people he knows, and we talk about this business, and the thing
+gets about, and there you are! My sister, who was a great pal of
+Jill's, swears that all the girls she knows mean to cut Underhill. I
+tell you, Freddie, London's going to get pretty hot for him if he
+doesn't do something dashed quick and with great rapidity!"
+
+"But you haven't got the story right, old thing!"
+
+"How not?"
+
+"Well, I mean you think and Ronny thinks and all the rest of you think
+that Derek broke off the engagement because of the money. It wasn't
+that at all."
+
+"What was it, then?"
+
+"Well.... Well, look here, it makes me seem a fearful ass and all
+that, but I'd better tell you. Jill and I were going down one of those
+streets near Victoria and a blighter was trying to slay a parrot...."
+
+"Parrot-shooting's pretty good in those parts, they tell me,"
+interjected Algy satirically.
+
+"Don't interrupt, old man. This parrot had got out of one of the
+houses, and a fellow was jabbing at it with a stick, and Jill--you
+know what she's like; impulsive, I mean, and all that--Jill got hold
+of the stick and biffed him with some vim, and a policeman rolled up
+and the fellow made a fuss and the policeman took Jill and me off to
+chokey. Well, like an ass, I sent round to Derek to bail us out, and
+that's how he heard of the thing. Apparently he didn't think a lot of
+it, and the result was that he broke off the engagement."
+
+Algy Martyn had listened to this recital with growing amazement.
+
+"He broke it off because of that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What absolute rot!" said Algy Martyn. "I don't believe a word of it!"
+
+"I say, old man!"
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," repeated Algy firmly.
+
+"And nobody else will either. It's dashed good of you, Freddie, to
+cook up a yarn like that to try and make things look better for the
+blighter, but it won't work. Such a damn silly story, too!" said Algy
+with some indignation.
+
+"But it's true!"
+
+"What's the use, Freddie, between old pals?" said Algy protestingly.
+"You know perfectly well that Underhill's a worm of the most
+pronounced order, and that, when he found out that Jill hadn't any
+money, he chucked her."
+
+"But why should Derek care whether Jill was well off or not? He's got
+enough money of his own."
+
+"Nobody," said Algy judicially, "has got enough money of his own.
+Underhill thought he was marrying a girl with a sizable chunk of the
+ready, and, when the fuse blew out, he decided it wasn't good enough.
+For Heaven's sake don't let's talk any more about the blighter. It
+gives me a pain to think of him."
+
+
+II
+
+Freddie returned to the Albany in a state of gloom and uneasiness.
+Algy's remarks, coming on top of the Wally Mason episode, had shaken
+him. The London in which he and Derek moved and had their being is
+nothing but a village, and it was evident that village gossip was
+hostile to Derek. People were talking about him. Local opinion had
+decided that he had behaved badly. Already one man had cut him.
+Freddie blenched at a sudden vision of streetfuls of men, long
+Piccadillys of men, all cutting him, one after the other. Something
+had got to be done.
+
+The subject was not an easy one to broach to his somewhat forbidding
+friend, as he discovered when the latter arrived about half an hour
+later. Derek had been attending the semi-annual banquet of the
+Worshipful Dry-Salters Company down in the City, understudying one of
+the speakers, a leading member of Parliament, who had been unable to
+appear; and he was still in the grip of that feeling of degraded
+repletion which City dinners induce.
+
+Yet, unfavourably disposed as, judging by his silence and the
+occasional moody grunts he uttered, he appeared to be to a discussion
+of his private affairs, it seemed to Freddie impossible that the night
+should be allowed to pass without some word spoken on the subject. He
+thought of Ronny and what Ronny had said, of Algy and what Algy had
+said, of Wally Mason and how Wally had behaved in this very room; and
+he nerved himself to the task.
+
+"Derek, old top."
+
+A grunt.
+
+"I say, Derek, old bean."
+
+Derek roused himself, and looked gloomily across the room to where he
+stood, warming his legs at the blaze.
+
+"Well?"
+
+Freddie found a difficulty in selecting words. A ticklish business,
+this. One that might well have disconcerted a diplomat. Freddie was no
+diplomat, and the fact enabled him to find a way in the present
+crisis. Equipped by nature with an amiable tactlessness and a happy
+gift of blundering, he charged straight at the main point, and landed
+on it like a circus elephant alighting on a bottle.
+
+"I say, you know, about Jill!"
+
+He stooped to rub the backs of his legs, on which the fire was playing
+with a little too fierce a glow, and missed his companion's start and
+the sudden thickening of his bushy eyebrows.
+
+"Well?" said Derek again.
+
+Freddie nerved himself to proceed. A thought flashed across his mind
+that Derek was looking exactly like Lady Underhill. It was the first
+time he had seen the family resemblance quite so marked.
+
+"Ronny Devereux was saying...." faltered Freddie.
+
+"Damn Ronny Devereux!"
+
+"Oh, absolutely! But...."
+
+"Ronny Devereux! Who the devil _is_ Ronny Devereux?"
+
+"Why, old man, you've heard me speak of him, haven't you? Pal of mine.
+He came down to the station with Algy and me to meet your mater that
+morning."
+
+"Oh, _that_ fellow? And he has been saying something about...?"
+
+"It isn't only Ronny, you know," Freddie hastened to interject. "Algy
+Martyn's talking about it, too. And lots of other fellows. And Algy's
+sister and a lot of peoples They're all saying...."
+
+"What are they saying?"
+
+Freddie bent down and chafed the back of his legs. He simply couldn't
+look at Derek while he had that Lady Underhill expression on the old
+map. Rummy he had never noticed before how extraordinarily like his
+mother he was. Freddie was conscious of a faint sense of grievance. He
+could not have put it into words, but what he felt was that a fellow
+had no right to go about looking like Lady Underhill.
+
+"What are they saying?" repeated Derek grimly.
+
+"Well...." Freddie hesitated. "That it's a bit tough.... On Jill, you
+know."
+
+"They think I behaved badly?"
+
+"Well.... Oh, well, you know!"
+
+Derek smiled a ghastly smile. This was not wholly due to mental
+disturbance. The dull heaviness which was the legacy of the
+Dry-Salters' dinner had begun to change to something more actively
+unpleasant. A sub-motive of sharp pain had begun to run through it,
+flashing in and out like lightning through a thunder-cloud. He felt
+sullen and vicious.
+
+"I wonder," he said with savage politeness, "if, when you chat with
+your friends, you would mind choosing some other topic than my private
+affairs."
+
+"Sorry, old man. But they started it, you know."
+
+"And, if you feel you've got to discuss me, kindly keep it to
+yourself. Don't come and tell me what your damned friends said to each
+other and to you and what you said to them, because it bores me. I'm
+not interested. I don't value their opinions as much as you seem to."
+Derek paused, to battle in silence with the imperious agony within
+him. "It was good of you to put me up here," he went on, "but I think
+I won't trespass on your hospitality any longer. Perhaps you'll ask
+Barker to pack my things to-morrow." Derek moved, as majestically as
+an ex-guest of the Worshipful Company of Dry-Salters may, in the
+direction of the door. "I shall go to the Savoy."
+
+"Oh, I say, old man! No need to do that."
+
+"Good night."
+
+"But, I say...."
+
+"And you can tell your friend Devereux that, if he doesn't stop poking
+his nose into my private business, I'll pull it off."
+
+"Well," said Freddie doubtfully, "of course I don't suppose you know,
+but.... Ronny's a pretty hefty bird. He boxed for Cambridge in the
+light-weights the last year he was up, you know. He...."
+
+Derek slammed the door. Freddie was alone. He stood rubbing his legs
+for some minutes, a rueful expression on his usually cheerful face.
+Freddie hated rows. He liked everything to jog along smoothly. What a
+rotten place the world was these days! Just one thing after another.
+First, poor old Jill takes the knock and disappears. He would miss
+her badly. What a good sort! What a pal! And now--gone. Biffed off.
+Next, Derek. Together, more or less, ever since Winchester, and
+now--bing!...
+
+Freddie heaved a sigh, and reached out for the _Sporting Times_, his
+never-failing comfort in times of depression. He lit another cigar and
+curled up in one of the arm-chairs. He was feeling tired. He had been
+playing squash all the afternoon, a game at which he was exceedingly
+expert and to which he was much addicted.
+
+Time passed. The paper slipped to the floor. A cold cigar followed it.
+From the depths of the chair came a faint snore....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hand on his shoulder brought Freddie with a jerk from troubled
+dreams. Derek was standing beside him. A bent, tousled Derek,
+apparently in pain.
+
+"Freddie!"
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+A spasm twisted Derek's face.
+
+"Have you got any pepsin?"
+
+Derek uttered a groan. What a mocker of our petty human dignity is
+this dyspepsia, bringing low the haughtiest of us, less than love
+itself a respecter of persons. This was a different Derek from the man
+who had stalked stiffly from the room two hours before. His pride had
+been humbled upon the rack.
+
+"Pepsin?"
+
+"Yes. I've got the most damned attack of indigestion."
+
+The mists of sleep rolled away from Freddie. He was awake again, and
+became immediately helpful. These were the occasions when the Last of
+the Rookes was a good man to have at your side. It was Freddie who
+suggested that Derek should recline in the arm-chair which he had
+vacated; Freddie who nipped round the corner to the all-night
+chemist's and returned with a magic bottle guaranteed to relieve an
+ostrich after a surfeit of tenpenny nails; Freddie who mixed and
+administered the dose.
+
+His ministrations were rewarded. Presently the agony seemed to pass.
+Derek recovered.
+
+One would say that Derek became himself again, but that the mood of
+gentle remorse which came upon him as he lay in the arm-chair was one
+so foreign to his nature. Freddie had never seen him so subdued. He
+was like a convalescent child. Between them, the all-night chemist and
+the Dry. Salters seemed to have wrought a sort of miracle. These
+temporary softenings of personality frequently follow City dinners.
+The time to catch your Dry-Salter in angelic mood is the day after the
+semi-annual banquet. Go to him then and he will give you his watch and
+chain.
+
+"Freddie," said Derek.
+
+They were sitting over the dying fire. The clock on the mantelpiece,
+beside which Jill's photograph had stood pointed to ten minutes past
+two. Derek spoke in a low, soft voice. Perhaps the doctors are right
+after all, and two o'clock is the hour at which our self-esteem
+deserts us, leaving in its place regret for past sins, good
+resolutions for future behaviour.
+
+"What do Martyn and the others say about ... you know?"
+
+Freddie hesitated. Pity to start all that again.
+
+"Oh, I know," went on Derek. "They say I behaved like a cad."
+
+"Oh, well...."
+
+"They are quite right. I did."
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't say that, you know. Faults on both sides and all that
+sort of rot."
+
+"I did!" Derek stared into the fire. Scattered all over London at that
+moment, probably a hundred Worshipful Dry-Salters were equally
+sleepless and subdued, looking wide-eyed into black pasts. "Is it true
+she has gone to America, Freddie?"
+
+"She told me she was going."
+
+"What a fool I've been!"
+
+The clock ticked on through the silence. The fire sputtered faintly,
+then gave a little wheeze, like a very old man. Derek rested his chin
+on his hands, gazing into the ashes.
+
+"I wish to God I could go over there and find her."
+
+"Why don't you?"
+
+"How can I? There may be an election coming on at any moment. I can't
+stir."
+
+Freddie leaped from his seat. The suddenness of the action sent a
+red-hot corkscrew of pain through Derek's head.
+
+"What the devil's the matter?" he demanded irritably. Even the gentle
+mood which comes with convalescence after a City dinner is not
+guaranteed to endure against this sort of thing.
+
+"I've got an idea, old bean!"
+
+"Well, there's no need to dance, is there?"
+
+"I've nothing to keep me here, you know. What's the matter with my
+popping over to America and finding Jill?" Freddie tramped the floor,
+aglow. Each beat of his foot jarred Derek, but he made no complaint.
+
+"Could you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Of course I could. I was saying only the other day that I had half a
+mind to buzz over. It's a wheeze! I'll get on the next boat and charge
+over in the capacity of a jolly old ambassador. Have her back in no
+time. Leave it to me, old thing! This is where I come out strong!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JILL IN SEARCH OF AN UNCLE
+
+I
+
+
+New York welcomed Jill, as she came out of the Pennsylvania Station in
+Seventh Avenue, with a whirl of powdered snow that touched her cheek
+like a kiss, the cold, bracing kiss one would expect from this vivid
+city. She stood at the station entrance, a tiny figure beside the huge
+pillars, looking round her with eager eyes. A wind was whipping down
+the avenue. The sky was a clear, brilliant tint of the brightest blue.
+Energy was in the air, and hopefulness. She wondered if Mr. Elmer
+Mariner ever came to New York. It was hard to see how even his gloom
+would contrive to remain unaffected by the exhilaration of the place.
+
+She took Uncle Chris' letter from her bag. He had written from an
+address on East Fifty-seventh Street. There would be just time to
+catch him before he went out to lunch. She hailed a taxi-cab which was
+coming out of the station.
+
+It was a slow ride, halted repeatedly by congestion of the traffic,
+but a short one for Jill. She was surprised at herself, a Londoner of
+long standing, for feeling so provincial and being so impressed. But
+London was far away. It belonged to a life that seemed years ago and
+a world from which she had parted for ever. Moreover, this was
+undeniably a stupendous city through which her taxi-cab was carrying
+her. At Times Square the stream of the traffic plunged into a
+whirlpool, swinging out of Broadway to meet the rapids which poured in
+from east, west, and north. On Fifth Avenue all the motor-cars in the
+world were gathered together. On the pavements, pedestrians, muffled
+against the nipping chill of the crisp air, hurried to and fro. And,
+above, that sapphire sky spread a rich velvet curtain which made the
+tops of the buildings stand out like the white minarets of some
+eastern city of romance.
+
+The cab drew up in front of a stone apartment house; and Jill, getting
+out, passed under an awning through a sort of mediæval courtyard, gay
+with potted shrubs, to an inner door. She was impressed. Evidently the
+tales one heard of fortunes accumulated overnight in this magic city
+were true, and one of them must have fallen to the lot of Uncle Chris.
+For nobody to whom money was a concern could possibly afford to live
+in a place like this. If Croesus and the Count of Monte Cristo had
+applied for lodging there, the authorities would probably have looked
+on them a little doubtfully at first and hinted at the desirability of
+a month's rent in advance.
+
+In a glass case behind the inner door, reading a newspaper and chewing
+gum, sat a dignified old man in the rich uniform of a general in the
+Guatemalan army. He was a brilliant spectacle. He wore no jewellery,
+but this, no doubt, was due to a private distaste for display. As
+there was no one else of humbler rank at hand from whom Jill could
+solicit an introduction and the privilege of an audience, she took the
+bold step of addressing him directly.
+
+"I want to see Major Selby, please."
+
+The Guatemalan general arrested for a moment the rhythmic action of
+his jaws, lowered his paper and looked at her with raised eyebrows. At
+first Jill thought that he was registering haughty contempt, then she
+saw what she had taken for scorn was surprise.
+
+"Major Selby?"
+
+"Major Selby."
+
+"No Major Selby living here."
+
+"Major Christopher Selby."
+
+"Not here," said the associate of ambassadors and the pampered pet of
+Guatemala's proudest beauties. "Never heard of him in my life!"
+
+
+II
+
+Jill had read works of fiction in which at certain crises everything
+had "seemed to swim" in front of the heroine's eyes, but never till
+this moment had she experienced that remarkable sensation herself. The
+Saviour of Guatemala did not actually swim, perhaps, but he certainly
+flickered. She had to blink to restore his prismatic outlines to their
+proper sharpness. Already the bustle and noise of New York had begun
+to induce in her that dizzy condition of unreality which one feels in
+dreams, and this extraordinary statement added the finishing touch.
+
+Perhaps the fact that she had said "please" to him when she opened the
+conversation touched the heart of the hero of a thousand revolutions.
+Dignified and beautiful as he was to the eye of the stranger, it is
+unpleasant to have to record that he lived in a world which rather
+neglected the minor courtesies of speech. People did not often say
+"please" to him. "Here!" "Hi!" and "Gosh darn you!" yes; but seldom
+"please." He seemed to approve of Jill, for he shifted his chewing-gum
+to a position which facilitated speech, and began to be helpful.
+
+"What was the name again?"
+
+"Selby."
+
+"Howja spell it?"
+
+"S-e-l-b-y."
+
+"S-e-l-b-y. Oh, Selby?"
+
+"Yes, Selby."
+
+"What was the first name?"
+
+"Christopher."
+
+"Christopher?"
+
+"Yes, Christopher."
+
+"Christopher Selby? No one of that name living here."
+
+"But there must be."
+
+The veteran shook his head with an indulgent smile.
+
+"You want Mr. Sipperley," he said tolerantly. In Guatemala these
+mistakes are always happening. "Mr. George Sipperley. He's on the
+fourth floor. What name shall I say?"
+
+He had almost reached the telephone when Jill stopped him. This is an
+age of just-as-good substitutes, but she refused to accept any unknown
+Sipperley as a satisfactory alternative for Uncle Chris.
+
+"I don't want Mr. Sipperley. I want Major Selby."
+
+"Howja spell it once more?"
+
+"S-e-l-b-y."
+
+"S-e-l-b-y. No one of that name living here. Mr. Sipperley--" he spoke
+in a wheedling voice, as if determined, in spite of herself, to make
+Jill see what was in her best interests--"Mr. Sipperley's on the
+fourth floor. Gentleman in the real estate business," he added
+insinuatingly. "He's got blond hair and a Boston bull-dog."
+
+"He may be all you say, and he may have a dozen bull-dogs...."
+
+"Only one. Jack his name is."
+
+"... But he isn't the right man. It's absurd. Major Selby wrote to me
+from this address. This _is_ Eighteen East Fifty-seventh Street?"
+
+"This is Eighteen East Fifty-seventh Street," conceded the other
+cautiously.
+
+"I've got his letter here." She opened her bag, and gave an
+exclamation of dismay. "It's gone!"
+
+"Mr. Sipperley used to have a friend staying with him last Fall. A Mr.
+Robertson. Dark-complexioned man with a moustache."
+
+"I took it out to look at the address, and I was sure I put it back. I
+must have dropped it."
+
+"There's a Mr. Rainsby on the seventh floor. He's a broker down on
+Wall Street. Short man with an impediment in his speech."
+
+Jill snapped the clasp of her bag.
+
+"Never mind," she said. "I must have made a mistake. I was quite sure
+that this was the address, but it evidently isn't. Thank you so much.
+I'm so sorry to have bothered you."
+
+She walked away, leaving the Terror of Paraguay and all points west
+speechless: for people who said "Thank you so much" to him were even
+rarer than those who said "please." He followed her with an
+affectionate eye till she was out of sight, then, restoring his
+chewing-gum to circulation, returned to the perusal of his paper. A
+momentary suggestion presented itself to his mind that what Jill had
+really wanted was Mr. Willoughby on the eighth floor, but it was too
+late to say so now; and soon, becoming absorbed in the narrative of a
+spirited householder in Kansas who had run amuck with a hatchet and
+slain six, he dismissed the matter from his mind.
+
+
+III
+
+Jill walked back to Fifth Avenue, crossed it, and made her way
+thoughtfully along the breezy street which, flanked on one side by the
+Park and on the other by the green-roofed Plaza Hotel and the
+apartment houses of the wealthy, ends in the humbler and more
+democratic spaces of Columbus Circle. She perceived that she was in
+that position, familiar to melodrama, of being alone in a great city.
+The reflection brought with it a certain discomfort. The bag that
+dangled from her wrist contained all the money she had in the world,
+the very broken remains of the twenty dollars which Uncle Chris had
+sent her at Brookport. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep, and no
+immediately obvious means of adding to her capital. It was a situation
+which she had not foreseen when she set out to walk to Brookport
+station.
+
+She pondered over the mystery of Uncle Chris' disappearance, and found
+no solution. The thing was inexplicable. She was as sure of the
+address he had given in his letter as she was of anything in the
+world. Yet at that address nothing had been heard of him. His name was
+not even known. These were deeper waters than Jill was able to fathom.
+
+She walked on aimlessly. Presently she came to Columbus Circle, and,
+crossing Broadway at the point where that street breaks out into an
+eruption of automobile shops, found herself, suddenly hungry, opposite
+a restaurant whose entire front was a sheet of plate glass. On the
+other side of this glass, at marble-topped tables, apparently careless
+of their total lack of privacy, sat the impecunious, lunching, their
+every mouthful a spectacle for the passer-by. It reminded Jill of
+looking at fishes in an aquarium. In the centre of the window, gazing
+out in a distrait manner over piles of apples and grape-fruit, a
+white-robed ministrant at a stove juggled ceaselessly with buckwheat
+cakes. He struck the final note in the candidness of the
+establishment, a priest whose ritual contained no mysteries.
+Spectators with sufficient time on their hands to permit them to stand
+and watch were enabled to witness a New York midday meal in every
+stage of its career, from its protoplasmic beginnings as a stream of
+yellowish-white liquid poured on top of the stove to its ultimate
+Nirvana in the interior of the luncher in the form of an appetising
+cake. It was a spectacle which no hungry girl could resist. Jill went
+in, and, as she made her way among the tables, a voice spoke her name.
+
+"Miss Mariner!"
+
+Jill jumped, and thought for a moment that the thing must have been an
+hallucination. It was impossible that anybody in the place should have
+called her name. Except for Uncle Chris, wherever he might be, she
+knew no one in New York. Then the voice spoke again, competing
+valiantly with a clatter of crockery so uproarious as to be more like
+something solid than a mere sound.
+
+"I couldn't believe it was you!"
+
+A girl in blue had risen from the nearest table, and was staring at
+her in astonishment. Jill recognized her instantly. Those big,
+pathetic eyes, like a lost child's, were unmistakable. It was the
+parrot girl, the girl whom she and Freddie Rooke had found in the
+drawing-room at Ovingdon Square that afternoon when the foundations of
+the world had given way and chaos had begun.
+
+"Good gracious!" cried Jill. "I thought you were in London!"
+
+That feeling of emptiness and panic, the result of her interview with
+the Guatemalan general at the apartment house, vanished magically. She
+sat down at this unexpected friend's table with a light heart.
+
+"Whatever are you doing in New York?" asked the girl. "I never knew
+you meant to come over."
+
+"It was a little sudden. Still, here I am. And I'm starving. What are
+those things you're eating?"
+
+"Buckwheat cakes."
+
+"Oh, yes. I remember Uncle Chris talking about them on the boat. I'll
+have some."
+
+"But when did you come over?"
+
+"I landed about ten days ago. I've been down at a place called
+Brookport on Long Island. How funny running into you like this!"
+
+"I was surprised that you remembered me."
+
+"I've forgotten your name," admitted Jill frankly. "But that's
+nothing. I always forget names."
+
+"My name's Nelly Bryant."
+
+"Of course. And you're on the stage, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes. I've just got work with Goble and Cohn.... Hullo, Phil!"
+
+A young man with a lithe figure and smooth black hair brushed straight
+back from his forehead had paused at the table on his way to the
+cashier's desk.
+
+"Hello, Nelly."
+
+"I didn't know you lunched here."
+
+"Don't often. Been rehearsing with Joe up at the Century Roof, and had
+a quarter of an hour to get a bite. Can I sit down?"
+
+"Sure. This is my friend, Miss Mariner."
+
+The young man shook hands with Jill, flashing an approving glance at
+her out of his dark, restless eyes.
+
+"Pleased to meet you."
+
+"This is Phil Brown," said Nelly. "He plays the straight for Joe
+Widgeon. They're the best jazz-and-hokum team on the Keith Circuit."
+
+"Oh, hush!" said Mr. Brown modestly. "You always were a great little
+booster, Nelly."
+
+"Well, you know you are! Weren't you held over at the Palace last
+time? Well, then!"
+
+"That's true," admitted the young man. "Maybe we didn't gool 'em, eh?
+Stop me on the street and ask me! Only eighteen bows second house
+Saturday!"
+
+Jill was listening, fascinated.
+
+"I can't understand a word," she said. "It's like another language."
+
+"You're from the other side, aren't you?" asked Mr. Brown.
+
+"She only landed a week ago," said Nelly.
+
+"I thought so from the accent," said Mr. Brown. "So our talk sort of
+goes over the top, does it? Well, you'll learn American soon, if you
+stick around."
+
+"I've learned some already," said Jill. The relief of meeting Nelly
+had made her feel very happy. She liked this smooth-haired young man.
+"A man on the train this morning said to me, 'Would you care for the
+morning paper, sister?' I said, 'No, thanks, brother, I want to look
+out of the window and think!'"
+
+"You meet a lot of fresh guys on trains," commented Mr. Brown
+austerely. "You want to give 'em the cold-storage eye." He turned to
+Nelly. "Did you go down to Ike, as I told you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you cop?"
+
+"Yes. I never felt so happy in my life. I'd waited over an hour on
+that landing of theirs, and then Johnny Miller came along, and I
+yelled in his ear that I was after work, and he told me it would be
+all right. He's awfully good to girls who've worked in shows for him
+before. If it hadn't been for him I might have been waiting there
+still."
+
+"Who," enquired Jill, anxious to be abreast of the conversation, "is
+Ike?"
+
+"Mr. Goble. Where I've just got work. Goble and Cohn, you know."
+
+"I never heard of them!"
+
+The young man extended his hand.
+
+"Put it there!" he said. "They never heard of me! At least, the fellow
+I saw when I went down to the office hadn't! Can you beat it!"
+
+"Oh, did you go down there, too?" asked Nelly.
+
+"Sure. Joe wanted to get in another show on Broadway. He'd sort of got
+tired of vodevil. Say, I don't want to scare you, Nelly, but, if you
+ask me, that show they're putting out down there is a citron! I don't
+think Ike's got a cent of his own money in it. My belief is that he's
+running it for a lot of amateurs. Why, say, listen! Joe and I blow in
+there to see if there's anything for us, and there's a tall guy in
+tortoise-shell cheaters sitting in Ike's office. Said he was the
+author and was engaging the principals. We told him who we were, and
+it didn't make any hit with him at all. He said he had never heard of
+us. And, when we explained, he said no, there wasn't going to be any
+of our sort of work in the show. Said he was making an effort to give
+the public something rather better than the usual sort of thing. No
+specialities required. He said it was an effort to restore the Gilbert
+and Sullivan tradition. Say, who are these Gilbert and Sullivan guys,
+anyway? They get written up in the papers all the time and I never met
+any one who'd run across them. If you want my opinion, that show down
+there is a comic opera!"
+
+"For heaven's sake!" Nelly had the musical comedy performer's horror
+of the older-established form of entertainment. "Why, comic opera died
+in the year one!"
+
+"Well, these guys are going to dig it up. That's the way it looks to
+me." He lowered his voice. "Say, I saw Clarice last night," he said in
+a confidential undertone. "It's all right."
+
+"It is?"
+
+"We've made it up. It was like this...."
+
+His conversation took an intimate turn. He expounded for Nelly's
+benefit the inner history, with all its ramifications, of a recent
+unfortunate rift between himself and "the best little girl in
+Flatbush"--what he had said, what she had said, what her sister had
+said, and how it all came right in the end. Jill might have felt a
+little excluded, but for the fact that a sudden and exciting idea had
+come to her. She sat back, thinking.... After all, what else was she
+to do? She must do something....
+
+She bent forward and interrupted Mr. Brown in his description of a
+brisk passage of arms between himself and the best little girl's
+sister, who seemed to be an unpleasant sort of person in every way.
+
+"Mr. Brown."
+
+"Hello?"
+
+"Do you think there would be any chance for me if I asked for work at
+Goble and Cohn's?"
+
+"You're joking!" cried Nelly.
+
+"I'm not at all."
+
+"But what do you want with work?"
+
+"I've got to find some. And right away, too."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+Jill hesitated. She disliked discussing her private affairs, but there
+was obviously no way of avoiding it. Nelly was round-eyed and
+mystified, and Mr. Brown had manifestly no intention whatever of
+withdrawing tactfully. He wanted to hear all.
+
+"I've lost my money," said Jill.
+
+"Lost your money! Do you mean...?"
+
+"I've lost it all. Every penny I had in the world."
+
+"Tough!" interpolated Mr. Brown judicially. "I was broke once way out
+in a tank-town in Oklahoma. The manager skipped with our salaries.
+Last we saw of him he was doing the trip to Canada in nothing flat."
+
+"But how?" gasped Nelly.
+
+"It happened about the time we met in London. Do you remember Freddie
+Rooke, who was at our house that afternoon?"
+
+A dreamy look came into Nelly's eyes. There had not been an hour since
+their parting when she had not thought of that immaculate sportsman.
+It would have amazed Freddie, could he have known, but to Nelly Bryant
+he was the one perfect man in an imperfect world.
+
+"Do I!" she sighed ecstatically.
+
+Mr. Brown shot a keen glance at her.
+
+"Aha!" he cried facetiously. "Who is he, Nelly? Who is this blue-eyed
+boy?"
+
+"If you want to know," said Nelly, defiance in her tone, "he's the
+fellow who gave me fifty pounds, with no strings tied to it--get
+that!--when I was broke in London! If it hadn't been for him, I'd be
+there still."
+
+"Did he?" cried Jill. "Freddie!"
+
+"Yes. Oh, Gee!" Nelly sighed once more. "I suppose I'll never see him
+again in this world."
+
+"Introduce me to him, if you do," said Mr. Brown. "He sounds just the
+sort of little pal I'd like to have!"
+
+"You remember hearing Freddie say something about losing money in a
+slump on the Stock Exchange," proceeded Jill. "Well, that was how I
+lost mine. It's a long story, and it's not worth talking about, but
+that's how things stand, and I've got to find work of some sort, and
+it looks to me as if I should have a better chance of finding it on
+the stage than anywhere else."
+
+"I'm terribly sorry."
+
+"Oh, it's all right. How much would these people Goble and Cohn give
+me if I got an engagement?"
+
+"Only forty a week."
+
+"Forty dollars a week! It's wealth! Where are they?"
+
+"Over at the Gotham Theatre in Forty-second Street."
+
+"I'll go there at once."
+
+"But you'll hate it. You don't realize what it's like. You wait hours
+and hours and nobody sees you."
+
+"Why shouldn't I walk straight in and say that I've come for work?"
+
+Nelly's big eyes grew bigger.
+
+"But you couldn't!'
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, you couldn't!"
+
+"I don't see why."
+
+Mr. Brown intervened with decision.
+
+"You're dead right," he said to Jill approvingly. "If you ask me,
+that's the only sensible thing to do. Where's the sense of hanging
+around and getting stalled? Managers are human guys, some of 'em.
+Probably, if you were to try it, they'd appreciate a bit of gall. It
+would show 'em you'd got pep. You go down there and try walking
+straight in. They can't eat you. It makes me sick when I see all those
+poor devils hanging about outside these offices, waiting to get
+noticed and nobody ever paying any attention to them. You push the
+office-boy in the face if he tries to stop you, and go in and make 'em
+take notice. And, whatever you do, don't leave your name and address!
+That's the old, moth-eaten gag they're sure to try to pull on you.
+Tell 'em there's nothing doing. Say you're out for a quick decision!
+Stand 'em on their heads!"
+
+Jill got up, fired by this eloquence. She called for her check.
+
+"Good-bye," she said. "I'm going to do exactly as you say. Where can I
+find you afterwards?" she said to Nelly.
+
+"You aren't really going?"
+
+"I am!"
+
+Nelly scribbled on a piece of paper.
+
+"Here's my address. I'll be in all evening."
+
+"I'll come and see you. Good-bye, Mr. Brown. And thank you."
+
+"You're welcome!" said Mr. Brown.
+
+Nelly watched Jill depart with wide eyes.
+
+"Why did you tell her to do that?" she said.
+
+"Why not?" said Mr. Brown. "I started something, didn't I? Well, I
+guess I'll have to be leaving, too. Got to get back to rehearsal. Say,
+I like that friend of yours, Nelly. There's no yellow streak about
+her! I wish her luck!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JILL IGNORES AUTHORITY
+
+I
+
+
+The offices of Messrs. Goble and Cohn were situated, like everything
+else in New York that appertains to the drama, in the neighbourhood of
+Times Square. They occupied the fifth floor of the Gotham Theatre on
+West Forty-second Street. As there was no lift in the building except
+the small private one used by the two members of the firm, Jill walked
+up the stairs, and found signs of a thriving business beginning to
+present themselves as early as the third floor, where half a dozen
+patient persons of either sex had draped themselves like roosting
+fowls upon the banisters. There were more on the fourth floor, and the
+landing of the fifth, which served the firm as a waiting-room, was
+quite full. It is the custom of New York theatrical managers--the
+lowest order of intelligence, with the possible exception of the
+_limax maximus_ or garden slug, known to science--to omit from their
+calculations the fact that they are likely every day to receive a
+large number of visitors, whom they will be obliged to keep waiting;
+and that these people will require somewhere to wait. Such
+considerations never occur to them. Messrs. Goble and Cohn had
+provided for those who called to see them one small bench on the
+landing, conveniently situated at the intersecting point of three
+draughts, and had let it go at that.
+
+Nobody, except perhaps the night-watchman, had ever seen this bench
+empty. At whatever hour of the day you happened to call, you would
+always find three wistful individuals seated side by side with their
+eyes on the tiny ante-room where sat the office-boy, the
+telephone-girl, and Mr. Goble's stenographer. Beyond this was the door
+marked "Private," through which, as it opened to admit some careless,
+debonair thousand-dollar-a-week comedian who sauntered in with a
+jaunty "Hello, Ike!" or some furred and scented female star, the rank
+and file of the profession were greeted, like Moses on Pisgah, with a
+fleeting glimpse of the promised land, consisting of a large desk and
+a section of a very fat man with spectacles and a bald head or a
+younger man with fair hair and a double chin.
+
+The keynote of the mass meeting on the landing was one of determined,
+almost aggressive smartness. The men wore bright overcoats with bands
+round the waist, the women those imitation furs which to the
+uninitiated eye appear so much more expensive than the real thing.
+Everybody looked very dashing and very young, except about the eyes.
+Most of the eyes that glanced at Jill were weary. The women were
+nearly all blondes, blondness having been decided upon in the theatre
+as the colour that brings the best results. The men were all so much
+alike that they seemed to be members of one large family--an illusion
+which was heightened by the scraps of conversation, studded with
+"dears," "old mans," and "honeys," which came to Jill's ears. A stern
+fight for supremacy was being waged by a score or so of lively and
+powerful young scents.
+
+For a moment Jill was somewhat daunted by the spectacle, but she
+recovered almost immediately. The exhilarating and heady influence of
+New York still wrought within her. The Berserk spirit was upon her,
+and she remembered the stimulating words of Mr. Brown, of Brown and
+Widgeon, the best jazz-and-hokum team on the Keith Circuit. "Walk
+straight in!" had been the burden of his inspiring address. She pushed
+her way through the crowd until she came to the small ante-room.
+
+In the ante-room were the outposts, the pickets of the enemy. In one
+corner a girl was hammering energetically and with great speed on a
+typewriter; a second girl, seated at a switchboard, was having an
+argument with Central which was already warm and threatened to descend
+shortly to personalities; on a chair tilted back so that it rested
+against the wall, a small boy sat eating sweets and reading the comic
+page of an evening newspaper. All three were enclosed, like zoological
+specimens, in a cage formed by a high counter terminating in brass
+bars.
+
+Beyond these watchers on the threshold was the door marked "Private."
+Through it, as Jill reached the outer defences, filtered the sound of
+a piano.
+
+Those who have studied the subject have come to the conclusion that
+the boorishness of New York theatrical managers' office-boys cannot be
+the product of mere chance. Somewhere, in some sinister den in the
+criminal districts of the town, there is a school where small boys are
+trained for these positions, where their finer instincts are
+rigorously uprooted and rudeness systematically inculcated by
+competent professors. Of this school the Cerberus of Messrs. Goble and
+Cohn had been the star scholar. Quickly seeing his natural gifts, his
+teachers had given him special attention. When he had graduated, it
+had been amidst the cordial good wishes of the entire staff. They had
+taught him all they knew, and they were proud of him. They felt that
+he would do them credit.
+
+This boy raised a pair of pink-rimmed eyes to Jill, sniffed, bit his
+thumb-nail, and spoke. He was a snub-nosed boy. His ears and hair were
+vermilion. His name was Ralph. He had seven hundred and forty-three
+pimples.
+
+"Woddyerwant?" enquired Ralph, coming within an ace of condensing the
+question into a word of one syllable.
+
+"I want to see Mr. Goble."
+
+"Zout!" said the Pimple King, and returned to his paper.
+
+There will, no doubt, always be class distinctions. Sparta had her
+kings and her helots, King Arthur's Round Table its knights and its
+scullions, America her Simon Legree and her Uncle Tom. But in no
+nation and at no period of history has any one ever been so brutally
+superior to any one else as is the Broadway theatrical office-boy to
+the caller who wishes to see the manager. Thomas Jefferson held these
+truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they
+are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that
+among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
+Theatrical office-boys do not see eye to eye with Thomas. From their
+pinnacle they look down on the common herd, the _canaille_, and
+despise them. They coldly question their right to live.
+
+Jill turned pink. Mr. Brown, her guide and mentor, foreseeing this
+situation, had, she remembered, recommended "pushing the office-boy in
+the face": and for a moment she felt like following his advice.
+Prudence, or the fact that he was out of reach behind the brass bars,
+restrained her. Without further delay she made for the door of the
+inner room. That was her objective, and she did not intend to be
+diverted from it. Her fingers were on the handle before any of those
+present divined her intention. Then the stenographer stopped typing
+and sat with raised fingers, aghast. The girl at the telephone broke
+off in mid-sentence and stared round over her shoulder. Ralph, the
+office-boy, outraged, dropped his paper and constituted himself the
+spokesman of the invaded force.
+
+"Hey!"
+
+Jill stopped and eyed the lad militantly.
+
+"Were you speaking to me?"
+
+"Yes, I _was_ speaking to you!"
+
+"Don't do it again with your mouth full," said Jill, turning to the
+door.
+
+The belligerent fire in the office-boy's pink-rimmed eyes was suddenly
+dimmed by a gush of water. It was not remorse that caused him to weep,
+however. In the heat of the moment he had swallowed a large, jagged
+sweet, and he was suffering severely.
+
+"You can't go in there!" he managed to articulate, his iron will
+triumphing over the flesh sufficiently to enable him to speak.
+
+"I _am_ going in there!"
+
+"That's Mr. Goble's private room."
+
+"Well, I want a private talk with Mr. Goble."
+
+Ralph, his eyes still moist, felt that the situation was slipping from
+his grip. This sort of thing had never happened to him before. "I tell
+ya he _zout_!"
+
+Jill looked at him sternly.
+
+"You wretched child!" she said, encouraged by a sharp giggle from the
+neighbourhood of the switchboard. "Do you know where little boys go
+who don't speak the truth? I can hear him playing the piano. Now he's
+singing! And it's no good telling me he's busy. If he was busy, he
+wouldn't have time to sing. If you're as deceitful as this at your
+age, what do you expect to be when you grow up? You're an ugly little
+boy, you've got red ears, and your collar doesn't fit! I shall speak
+to Mr. Goble about you."
+
+With which words Jill opened the door and walked in.
+
+"Good afternoon," she said brightly.
+
+After the congested and unfurnished discomfort of the landing, the
+room in which Jill found herself had an air of cosiness and almost of
+luxury. It was a large room, solidly upholstered. Along the further
+wall, filling nearly the whole of its space, stood a vast and gleaming
+desk, covered with a litter of papers which rose at one end of it to a
+sort of mountain of play-scripts in buff covers. There was a
+bookshelf to the left. Photographs covered the walls. Near the window
+was a deep leather lounge; to the right of this stood a small piano,
+the music-stool of which was occupied by a young man with untidy black
+hair that needed cutting. On top of the piano, taking the eye
+immediately by reason of its bold brightness, was balanced a large
+cardboard poster. Much of its surface was filled by a picture of a
+youth in polo costume bending over a blonde goddess in a bathing-suit.
+What space was left displayed the legend:
+
+ISAAC GOBLE AND JACOB COHN
+
+PRESENT
+
+THE ROSE OF AMERICA
+
+(A Musical Fantasy)
+
+BOOK AND LYRICS BY OTIS PILKINGTON
+
+MUSIC BY ROLAND TREVIS
+
+Turning her eyes from this, Jill became aware that something was going
+on at the other side of the desk, and she perceived that a second
+young man, the longest and thinnest she had ever seen, was in the act
+of rising to his feet, length upon length like an unfolding snake. At
+the moment of her entry he had been lying back in an office-chair, so
+that only a merely nominal section of his upper structure was visible.
+Now he reared his impressive length until his head came within
+measurable distance of the ceiling. He had a hatchet face and a
+receding chin, and he gazed at Jill through what she assumed were the
+"tortoise-shell cheaters" referred to by her recent acquaintance, Mr.
+Brown.
+
+"Er...?" said this young man enquiringly in a high, flat voice.
+
+Jill, like many other people, had a brain which was under the
+alternating control of two diametrically opposite forces. It was like
+a motor-car steered in turn by two drivers, the one a dashing,
+reckless fellow with no regard for the speed limits, the other a timid
+novice. All through the proceedings up to this point the dasher had
+been in command. He had whisked her along at a break-neck pace,
+ignoring obstacles and police regulations. Now, having brought her to
+this situation, he abruptly abandoned the wheel and turned it over to
+his colleague, the shrinker. Jill, greatly daring a moment ago, now
+felt an overwhelming shyness.
+
+She gulped, and her heart beat quickly. The thin man towered over her.
+The black-haired pianist shook his locks at her like Banquo.
+
+"I...." she began.
+
+Then, suddenly, womanly intuition came to her aid. Something seemed to
+tell her that these men were just as scared as she was. And, at the
+discovery, the dashing driver resumed his post at the wheel, and she
+began to deal with the situation with composure.
+
+"I want to see Mr. Goble."
+
+"Mr. Goble is out," said the long young man, plucking nervously at the
+papers on the desk. Jill had affected him powerfully.
+
+"Out!" She felt she had wronged the pimpled office-boy.
+
+"We are not expecting him back this afternoon. Is there anything I can
+do?"
+
+He spoke tenderly. This weak-minded young man was thinking that he had
+never seen anything like Jill before. And it was true that she was
+looking very pretty, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling.
+She touched a chord in the young man which seemed to make the world a
+flower-scented thing, full of soft music. Often as he had been in love
+at first sight before in his time, Otis Pilkington could not recall an
+occasion on which he had been in love at first sight more completely
+than now. When she smiled at him, it was as if the gates of heaven had
+opened. He did not reflect how many times, in similar circumstances,
+these same gates had opened before; and that on one occasion when they
+had done so it had cost him eight thousand dollars to settle the case
+out of court. One does not think of these things at such times, for
+they strike a jarring note. Otis Pilkington was in love. That was all
+he knew, or cared to know.
+
+"Won't you take a seat, Miss...."
+
+"Mariner," prompted Jill. "Thank you."
+
+"Miss Mariner. May I introduce Mr. Roland Trevis?"
+
+The man at the piano bowed. His black hair heaved upon his skull like
+seaweed in a ground swell.
+
+"My name is Pilkington. Otis Pilkington."
+
+The uncomfortable silence which always follows introductions was
+broken by the sound of the telephone-bell on the desk. Otis
+Pilkington, who had moved out into the room and was nowhere near the
+desk, stretched forth a preposterous arm and removed the receiver.
+
+"Yes? Oh, will you say, please, that I have a conference at present."
+Jill was to learn that people in the theatrical business never talked:
+they always held conferences. "Tell Mrs. Peagrim that I shall be
+calling later in the afternoon, but cannot be spared just now." He
+replaced the receiver. "Aunt Olive's secretary," he murmured in a soft
+aside to Mr. Trevis. "Aunt Olive wanted me to go for a ride." He
+turned to Jill. "Excuse me. Is there anything I can do for you, Miss
+Mariner?"
+
+Jill's composure was now completely restored. This interview was
+turning out so totally different from anything she had expected. The
+atmosphere was cosy and social. She felt as if she were back in
+Ovingdon Square, giving tea to Freddie Rooke and Ronny Devereux and
+the rest of her friends of the London period. All that was needed to
+complete the picture was a tea-table in front of her. The business
+note hardly intruded on the proceedings at all. Still, as business was
+the object of her visit, she felt that she had better approach it.
+
+"I came for work."
+
+"Work!" cried Mr. Pilkington. He, too, appeared to be regarding the
+interview as purely of a social nature.
+
+"In the chorus," explained Jill.
+
+Mr. Pilkington seemed shocked. He winced away from the word as though
+it pained him.
+
+"There is no chorus in 'The Rose of America,'" he said.
+
+"I thought it was a musical comedy."
+
+Mr. Pilkington winced again.
+
+"It is a musical _fantasy_!" he said. "But there will be no chorus. We
+shall have," he added, a touch of rebuke in his voice, "the services
+of twelve refined ladies of the ensemble."
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"It does sound much better, doesn't it!" she said. "Well, am I refined
+enough, do you think?"
+
+"I shall be only too happy if you will join us," said Mr. Pilkington
+promptly.
+
+The long-haired composer looked doubtful. He struck a note up in the
+treble, then whirled round on his stool.
+
+"If you don't mind my mentioning it, Otie, we have twelve girls
+already."
+
+"Then we must have thirteen," said Otis Pilkington firmly.
+
+"Unlucky number," argued Mr. Trevis.
+
+"I don't care. We must have Miss Mariner. You can see for yourself
+that she is exactly the type we need."
+
+He spoke feelingly. Ever since the business of engaging a company had
+begun, he had been thinking wistfully of the evening when "The Rose of
+America" had had its opening performance--at his aunt's house at
+Newport last summer--with an all-star cast of society favourites and
+an ensemble recruited entirely from debutantes and matrons of the
+Younger Set. That was the sort of company he had longed to assemble
+for the piece's professional career, and until this afternoon he had
+met with nothing but disappointment. Jill seemed to be the only girl
+in theatrical New York who came up to the standard he would have liked
+to demand.
+
+"Thank you very much," said Jill.
+
+There was another pause. The social note crept into the atmosphere
+again. Jill felt the hostess' desire to keep conversation circulating.
+
+"I hear," she said, "that this piece is a sort of Gilbert and Sullivan
+opera."
+
+Mr. Pilkington considered the point.
+
+"I confess," he said, "that, in writing the book, I had Gilbert before
+me as a model. Whether I have in any sense succeeded in...."
+
+"The book," said Mr. Trevis, running his fingers over the piano, "is
+as good as anything Gilbert ever wrote."
+
+"Oh, come, Rolie!" protested Mr. Pilkington modestly.
+
+"Better," insisted Mr. Trevis. "For one thing, it is up-to-date."
+
+"I _do_ try to strike the modern note," murmured Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"And you have avoided Gilbert's mistake of being too fanciful."
+
+"He _was_ fanciful," admitted Mr. Pilkington. "The music," he added,
+in a generous spirit of give and take, "has all Sullivan's melody with
+a newness of rhythm peculiarly its own. You will like the music."
+
+"It sounds," said Jill amiably, "as though the piece is bound to be a
+tremendous success."
+
+"We hope so," said Mr. Pilkington. "We feel that the time has come
+when the public is beginning to demand something better than what it
+has been accustomed to. People are getting tired of the brainless
+trash and jingly tunes which have been given them by men like Wallace
+Mason and George Bevan. They want a certain polish.... It was just the
+same in Gilbert and Sullivan's day. They started writing at a time
+when the musical stage had reached a terrible depth of inanity. The
+theatre was given over to burlesques of the most idiotic description.
+The public was waiting eagerly to welcome something of a higher class.
+It is just the same to-day. But the managers will not see it. 'The
+Rose of America' went up and down Broadway for months, knocking at
+managers' doors."
+
+"It should have walked in without knocking, like me," said Jill. She
+got up. "Well, it was very kind of you to see me when I came in so
+unceremoniously. But I felt it was no good waiting outside on that
+landing. I'm so glad everything is settled. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, Miss Mariner." Mr. Pilkington took her outstretched hand
+devoutly. "There is a rehearsal called for the ensemble at--when is
+it, Rolie?"
+
+"Eleven o'clock, day after to-morrow, at Bryant Hall."
+
+"I'll be there," said Jill. "Good-bye, and thank you very much."
+
+The silence which had fallen upon the room as she left it was broken
+by Mr. Trevis.
+
+"Some pip!" observed Mr. Trevis.
+
+Otis Pilkington awoke from day-dreams with a start.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"That girl.... I said she was some pippin!"
+
+"Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington icily, "is a most charming,
+refined, cultured, and vivacious girl, if you mean that."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Trevis. "That was what I meant!"
+
+
+II
+
+Jill walked out into Forty-second Street, looking about her with the
+eye of a conqueror. Very little change had taken place in the aspect
+of New York since she had entered the Gotham Theatre, but it seemed a
+different city to her. An hour ago, she had been a stranger, drifting
+aimlessly along its rapids. Now she belonged to New York, and New
+York belonged to her. She had faced it squarely, and forced from it
+the means of living. She walked on with a new jauntiness in her
+stride.
+
+The address which Nelly had given her was on the east side of Fifth
+Avenue. She made her way along Forty-second Street. It seemed the
+jolliest, alivest street she had ever encountered. The rattle of the
+Elevated as she crossed Sixth Avenue was music, and she loved the
+crowds that jostled her with every step she took.
+
+She reached the Fifth Avenue corner just as the policeman out in the
+middle of the street swung his Stop-and-Go post round to allow the
+up-town traffic to proceed on its way. A stream of cars which had been
+dammed up as far as the eye could reach began to flow swiftly past.
+They moved in a double line, red limousines, blue limousines, mauve
+limousines, green limousines. She stood waiting for the flood to
+cease, and, as she did so, there purred past her the biggest and
+reddest limousine of all. It was a colossal vehicle with a polar-bear
+at the steering-wheel and another at his side. And in the interior,
+very much at his ease, his gaze bent courteously upon a massive lady
+in a mink coat, sat Uncle Chris.
+
+For a moment he was so near to her that, but for the closed window,
+she could have touched him. Then the polar-bear at the wheel, noting a
+gap in the traffic, stepped on the accelerator and slipped neatly
+through. The car moved swiftly on and disappeared.
+
+Jill drew a deep breath. The Stop-and-Go sign swung round again. She
+crossed the avenue, and set out once more to find Nelly Bryant. It
+occurred to her, five minutes later, that a really practical and
+quick-thinking girl would have noted the number of the limousine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MR. PILKINGTON'S LOVE LIGHT
+
+I
+
+
+The rehearsals of a musical comedy--a term which embraces "musical
+fantasies"--generally begin in a desultory sort of way at that curious
+building, Bryant Hall, on Sixth Avenue just off Forty-second Street.
+There, in a dusty, uncarpeted room, simply furnished with a few wooden
+chairs and some long wooden benches, the chorus--or, in the case of
+"The Rose of America," the ensemble--sit round a piano and endeavour,
+with the assistance of the musical director, to get the words and
+melodies of the first-act numbers into their heads. This done, they
+are ready for the dance director to instil into them the steps, the
+groupings, and the business for the encores, of which that incurable
+optimist always seems to expect there will be at least six. Later, the
+principals are injected into the numbers. And finally, leaving Bryant
+Hall and dodging about from one unoccupied theatre to another,
+principals and chorus rehearse together, running through the entire
+piece over and over again till the opening night of the preliminary
+road tour.
+
+To Jill, in the early stages, rehearsing was just like being back at
+school. She could remember her first schoolmistress, whom the musical
+director somewhat resembled in manner and appearance, hammering out
+hymns on a piano and leading in a weak soprano an eager, baying pack
+of children, each anxious from motives of pride to out-bawl her
+nearest neighbour.
+
+The proceedings began on the first morning with the entrance of Mr.
+Saltzburg, the musical director, a brisk, busy little man with
+benevolent eyes behind big spectacles, who bustled over to the piano,
+sat down, and played a loud chord, designed to act as a sort of bugle
+blast, rallying the ladies of the ensemble from the corners where they
+sat in groups, chatting. For the process of making one another's
+acquaintance had begun some ten minutes before with mutual
+recognitions between those who knew each other from having been
+together in previous productions. There followed rapid introductions
+of friends. Nelly Bryant had been welcomed warmly by a pretty girl
+with red hair, whom she introduced to Jill as Babe; Babe had a willowy
+blonde friend, named Lois, and the four of them had seated themselves
+on one of the benches and opened a conversation; their numbers being
+added to a moment later by a dark girl with a Southern accent and
+another blonde. Elsewhere other groups had formed, and the room was
+filled with a noise like the chattering of starlings. In a body by
+themselves, rather forlorn and neglected, half a dozen solemn and
+immaculately dressed young men were propping themselves up against
+the wall and looking on, like men in a ball-room who do not dance.
+
+Jill listened to the conversation without taking any great part in it
+herself. She felt as she had done on her first day at school, a little
+shy and desirous of effacing herself. The talk dealt with clothes,
+men, and the show business, in that order of importance. Presently one
+of the young men sauntered diffidently across the room and added
+himself to the group with the remark that it was a fine day. He was
+received a little grudgingly, Jill thought, but by degrees succeeded
+in assimilating himself. A second young man drifted up; reminded the
+willowy girl that they had worked together in the western company of
+"You're the One"; was recognized and introduced, and justified his
+admission to the circle by a creditable imitation of a cat-fight. Five
+minutes later he was addressing the Southern girl as "honey," and had
+informed Jill that he had only joined this show to fill in before
+opening on the three-a-day with the swellest little song-and-dance act
+which he and a little girl who worked in the cabaret at Geisenheimer's
+had fixed up.
+
+On this scene of harmony and good-fellowship Mr. Saltzburg's chord
+intruded jarringly. There was a general movement, and chairs and
+benches were dragged to the piano. Mr. Saltzburg causing a momentary
+delay by opening a large brown music-bag and digging in it like a
+terrier at a rat-hole, conversation broke out again.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg emerged from the bag, with his hands full of papers,
+protesting.
+
+"Childrun! Chil-_drun_! If you please, less noise and attend to me!"
+He distributed sheets of paper. "Act One, Opening Chorus. I will play
+the melody three--four times. Follow attentively. Then we will sing it
+la-la-la, and after that we will sing the words. So!"
+
+He struck the yellow-keyed piano a vicious blow, producing a tinny and
+complaining sound. Bending forward with his spectacles almost touching
+the music, he plodded determinedly through the tune, then encored
+himself, and after that encored himself again. When he had done this,
+he removed his spectacles and wiped them. There was a pause.
+
+"Izzy," observed the willowy young lady chattily, leaning across Jill
+and addressing the Southern girl's blonde friend, "has promised me a
+sunburst!"
+
+A general stir of interest and a coming close together of heads.
+
+"What! Izzy!"
+
+"Sure, Izzy."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"He's just landed the hat-check privilege at the St. Aurea!"
+
+"You don't say!"
+
+"He told me so last night and promised me the sunburst. He was,"
+admitted the willowy girl regretfully, "a good bit tanked at the time,
+but I guess he'll make good." She mused awhile, a rather anxious
+expression clouding her perfect profile. She looked like a meditative
+Greek goddess. "If he doesn't," she added with maidenly dignity, "it's
+the last time _I_ go out with the big stiff. I'd tie a can to him
+quicker'n look at him!"
+
+A murmur of approval greeted this admirable sentiment.
+
+"Childrun!" protested Mr. Saltzburg. "Chil-drun! Less noise and
+chatter of conversation. We are here to work! We must not waste time!
+So! Act One, Opening Chorus. Now, all together. La-la-la...."
+
+"La-la-la...."
+
+"Tum-tum-tumty-tumty...."
+
+"Tum-tum-tumty...."
+
+Mr. Saltzburg pressed his hands to his ears in a spasm of pain.
+
+"No, no, no! Sour! Sour! Sour!... Once again. La-la-la...."
+
+A round-faced girl with golden hair and the face of a wondering cherub
+interrupted, speaking with a lisp.
+
+"Mithter Thalzburg."
+
+"Now what is it, Miss Trevor?"
+
+"What sort of a show is this?"
+
+"A musical show," said Mr. Saltzburg severely, "and this is a
+rehearsal of it, not a conversazione. Once more, please."
+
+The cherub was not to be rebuffed.
+
+"Is the music good, Mithter Thalzburg?"
+
+"When you have rehearsed it, you shall judge for yourself. Come
+now...."
+
+"Is there anything in it as good as that waltz of yours you played us
+when we were rehearthing 'Mind How You Go?' You remember. The one that
+went...."
+
+A tall and stately girl, with sleepy brown eyes and the air of a
+duchess in the servants' hall, bent forward and took a kindly interest
+in the conversation.
+
+"Oh, have you composed a varlse, Mr. Saltzburg?" she asked with
+pleasant condescension. "How interesting, really! Won't you play it
+for us?"
+
+The sentiment of the meeting seemed to be unanimous in favour of
+shelving work and listening to Mr. Saltzburg's waltz.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Saltzburg, do!"
+
+"Please!"
+
+"Some one told me it was a pipterino!"
+
+"I cert'nly do love waltzes!"
+
+"Please, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg obviously weakened. His fingers touched the keys
+irresolutely.
+
+"But, childrun!"
+
+"I am sure it would be a great pleasure to all of us," said the
+duchess graciously, "if you would play it. There is nothing I enjoy
+more than a good varlse."
+
+Mr. Saltzburg capitulated. Like all musical directors he had in his
+leisure moments composed the complete score of a musical play and
+spent much of his time waylaying librettists on the Rialto and trying
+to lure them to his apartment to listen to it, with a view to
+business. The eternal tragedy of a musical director's life is
+comparable only to that of the waiter who, himself fasting, has to
+assist others to eat. Mr. Saltzburg had lofty ideas on music, and his
+soul revolted at being compelled perpetually to rehearse and direct
+the inferior compositions of other men. Far less persuasion than he
+had received to-day was usually required to induce him to play the
+whole of his score.
+
+"You wish it?" he said. "Well, then! This waltz, you will understand,
+is the theme of a musical romance which I have composed. It will be
+sung once in the first act by the heroine, then in the second act as a
+duet for heroine and hero. I weave it into the finale of the second
+act, and we have an echo of it, sung off stage, in the third act. What
+I play you now is the second act duet. The verse is longer. So! The
+male voice begins."
+
+A pleasant time was had by all for ten minutes.
+
+"Ah, but this is not rehearsing, childrun!" cried Mr. Saltzburg
+remorsefully at the end of that period. "This is not business. Come
+now, the opening chorus of Act One, and please this time keep on the
+key. Before, it was sour, sour Come! La-la-la...."
+
+"Mr. Thalzburg!"
+
+"Miss Trevor?"
+
+"There was an awfully thweet fox-trot you used to play us. I do
+wish...."
+
+"Some other time, some other time! Now we must work. Come!
+La-la-la...."
+
+"I wish you could have heard it, girls" said the cherub regretfully.
+"Honetht, it was lalapalootha!"
+
+The pack broke into full cry.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+"Please, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+"Do play the fox-trot, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+"If it is as good as the varlse," said the duchess, stooping once more
+to the common level, "I am sure it must be very good indeed." She
+powdered her nose. "And one so rarely hears musicianly music nowadays,
+does one?"
+
+"Which fox-trot?" asked Mr. Saltzburg weakly.
+
+"Play 'em all!" decided a voice on the left.
+
+"Yes, play 'em all," bayed the pack.
+
+"I am sure that that would be charming," agreed the duchess, replacing
+her powder-puff.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg played 'em all. This man by now seemed entirely lost to
+shame. The precious minutes that belonged to his employers and should
+have been earmarked for "The Rose of America" flitted by. The ladies
+and gentlemen of the ensemble, who should have been absorbing and
+learning to deliver the melodies of Roland Trevis and the lyrics of
+Otis Pilkington, lolled back in their seats. The yellow-keyed piano
+rocked beneath an unprecedented onslaught. The proceedings had begun
+to resemble not so much a rehearsal as a happy home evening, and
+grateful glances were cast at the complacent cherub. She had, it was
+felt, shown tact and discretion.
+
+Pleasant conversation began again.
+
+"... And I walked a couple of blocks, and there was exactly the same
+model in Schwartz and Gulderstein's window at twenty-six fifty...."
+
+"... He got on Forty-second Street, and he was kinda fresh from the
+start. At Sixty-sixth he came sasshaying right down the car and said
+'Hello, patootie!' Well, I drew myself up...."
+
+"... Even if you are my sister's husband,' I said to him. Oh, I
+suppose I got a temper. It takes a lot to arouse it, y'know, but I c'n
+get pretty mad...."
+
+"... You don't know the half of it, dearie, you don't know the half of
+it! A one-piece bathing suit! Well, you could call it that, but the
+cop of the beach said it was more like a baby's sock. And when...."
+
+"... So I said 'Listen, Izzy, that'll be about all from you! My father
+was a gentleman, though I don't suppose you know what that means, and
+I'm not accustomed....'"
+
+"Hey!"
+
+A voice from the neighbourhood of the door had cut into the babble
+like a knife into butter; a rough, rasping voice, loud and compelling,
+which caused the conversation of the members of the ensemble to cease
+on the instant. Only Mr. Saltzburg, now in a perfect frenzy of
+musicianly fervour, continued to assault the decrepit piano, unwitting
+of an unsympathetic addition to his audience.
+
+"What I play you now is the laughing trio from my second act. It is a
+building number. It is sung by tenor, principal comedian, and
+soubrette. On the second refrain four girls will come out and two
+boys. The girls will dance with the two men, the boys with the
+soubrette. So! On the encore four more girls and two more boys. Third
+encore, solo-dance for specialty dancer, all on stage beating time by
+clapping their hands. On repeat, all sing refrain once more, and off.
+Last encore, the three principals and specialty dancer dance the dance
+with entire chorus. It is a great building number, you understand. It
+is enough to make the success of any musical play, but can I get a
+hearing? No! If I ask managers to listen to my music, they are busy!
+If I beg them to give me a libretto to set, they laugh--ha! ha!" Mr.
+Saltzburg gave a spirited and lifelike representation of a manager
+laughing ha-ha when begged to disgorge a libretto. "Now I play it once
+more!"
+
+"Like hell you do!" said the voice. "Say, what is this, anyway? A
+concert?"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg swung round on the music-stool, a startled and
+apprehensive man, and nearly fell off it. The divine afflatus left him
+like air oozing from a punctured toy-balloon, and, like such a
+balloon, he seemed to grow suddenly limp and flat. He stared with
+fallen jaw at the new arrival.
+
+Two men had entered the room. One was the long Mr. Pilkington. The
+other, who looked shorter and stouter than he really was beside his
+giraffe-like companion, was a thick-set, fleshy man in the early
+thirties with a blond, clean-shaven, double-chinned face. He had
+smooth, yellow hair, an unwholesome complexion, and light green eyes,
+set close together. From the edge of the semi-circle about the piano,
+he glared menacingly over the heads of the chorus at the unfortunate
+Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"Why aren't these girls working?"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg, who had risen nervously from his stool, backed away
+apprehensively from his gaze, and, stumbling over the stool, sat down
+abruptly on the piano, producing a curious noise like Futurist music.
+
+"I--We--Why, Mr. Goble...."
+
+Mr. Goble turned his green gaze on the concert audience, and spread
+discomfort as if it were something liquid which he was spraying
+through a hose. The girls who were nearest looked down flutteringly at
+their shoes: those further away concealed themselves behind their
+neighbours. Even the duchess, who prided herself on being the
+possessor of a stare of unrivalled haughtiness, before which the fresh
+quailed and those who made breaks subsided in confusion, was unable to
+meet his eyes: and the willowy friend of Izzy, for all her victories
+over that monarch of the hat-checks, bowed before it like a slim tree
+before a blizzard.
+
+Only Jill returned the manager's gaze. She was seated on the outer rim
+of the semi-circle, and she stared frankly at Mr. Goble. She had never
+seen anything like him before, and he fascinated her. This behaviour
+on her part singled her out from the throng, and Mr. Goble
+concentrated his attention on her.
+
+For some seconds he stood looking at her; then, raising a stubby
+finger, he let his eye travel over the company, and seemed to be
+engrossed in some sort of mathematical calculation.
+
+"Thirteen," he said at length. "I make it thirteen." He rounded on Mr.
+Pilkington. "I told you we were going to have a chorus of twelve."
+
+Mr. Pilkington blushed and stumbled over his feet.
+
+"Ah, yes ... yes," he murmured vaguely. "Yes!"
+
+"Well, there are thirteen here. Count 'em for yourself." He whipped
+round on Jill. "What's _your_ name? Who engaged you?"
+
+A croaking sound from the neighbourhood of the ceiling indicated the
+clearing of Mr. Pilkington's throat.
+
+"I--er--_I_ engaged Miss Mariner, Mr. Goble."
+
+"Oh, _you_ engaged her?"
+
+He stared again at Jill. The inspection was long and lingering, and
+affected Jill with a sense of being inadequately clothed. She returned
+the gaze as defiantly as she could, but her heart was beating fast.
+She had never yet been frightened of any man, but there was something
+reptilian about this fat, yellow-haired individual which disquieted
+her, much as cockroaches had done in her childhood. A momentary
+thought flashed through her mind that it would be horrible to be
+touched by him. He looked soft and glutinous.
+
+"All right," said Mr. Goble at last, after what seemed to Jill many
+minutes. He nodded to Mr. Saltzburg. "Get on with it! And try working
+a little this time! I don't hire you to give musical entertainments."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Goble, yes. I mean no, Mr. Goble!"
+
+"You can have the Gotham stage this afternoon," said Mr. Goble. "Call
+the rehearsal for two sharp."
+
+Outside the door, he turned to Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"That was a fool trick of yours, hiring that girl. Thirteen! I'd as
+soon walk under a ladder on a Friday as open in New York with a chorus
+of thirteen. Well, it don't matter. We can sack one of 'em after we've
+opened on the road." He mused for a moment. "Darned pretty girl,
+that!" he went on meditatively. "Where did you get her?"
+
+"She--ah--came into the office, when you were out. She struck me as
+being essentially the type we required for our ensemble, so
+I--er--engaged her. She--" Mr. Pilkington gulped. "She is a charming,
+refined girl!"
+
+"She's darned pretty," admitted Mr. Goble, and went on his way wrapped
+in thought, Mr. Pilkington following timorously. It was episodes like
+the one that had just concluded which made Otis Pilkington wish that
+he possessed a little more assertion. He regretted wistfully that he
+was not one of those men who can put their hat on the side of their
+heads and shoot out their chins and say to the world "Well, what about
+it!" He was bearing the financial burden of this production. If it
+should be a failure, his would be the loss. Yet somehow this coarse,
+rough person in front of him never seemed to allow him a word in the
+executive policy of the piece. He treated him as a child. He
+domineered and he shouted, and behaved as if he were in sole command.
+Mr Pilkington sighed. He rather wished he had never gone into this
+undertaking.
+
+Inside the room, Mr. Saltzburg wiped his forehead, his spectacles, and
+his hands. He had the aspect of one who wakes from a dreadful dream.
+
+"Childrun!" he whispered brokenly. "Childrun! If you please, once
+more. Act One, Opening Chorus. Come! La-la-la!"
+
+"La-la-la!" chanted the subdued members of the ensemble.
+
+
+II
+
+By the time the two halves of the company, ensemble and principals,
+melted into one complete whole, the novelty of her new surroundings
+had worn off, and Jill was feeling that there had never been a time
+when she had not been one of a theatrical troupe, rehearsing. The
+pleasant social gatherings round Mr. Saltzburg's piano gave way in a
+few days to something far less agreeable and infinitely more
+strenuous, the breaking-in of the dances under the supervision of the
+famous Johnson Miller. Johnson Miller was a little man with snow-white
+hair and the india-rubber physique of a juvenile acrobat. Nobody knew
+actually how old he was, but he certainly looked much too advanced in
+years to be capable of the feats of endurance which he performed
+daily. He had the untiring enthusiasm of a fox-terrier, and had
+bullied and scolded more companies along the rocky road that leads to
+success than any half-dozen dance-directors in the country, in spite
+of his handicap in being almost completely deaf. He had an almost
+miraculous gift of picking up the melodies for which it was his
+business to design dances, without apparently hearing them. He seemed
+to absorb them through the pores. He had a blunt and arbitrary manner,
+and invariably spoke his mind frankly and honestly--a habit which made
+him strangely popular in a profession where the language of equivoque
+is cultivated almost as sedulously as in the circles of international
+diplomacy. What Johnson Miller said to your face was official, not
+subject to revision as soon as your back was turned, and people
+appreciated this.
+
+Izzy's willowy friend summed him up one evening when the ladies of the
+ensemble were changing their practice-clothes after a particularly
+strenuous rehearsal, defending him against the Southern girl, who
+complained that he made her tired.
+
+"You bet he makes you tired," she said. "So he does me. I'm losing my
+girlish curves, and I'm so stiff I can't lace my shoes. But he knows
+his business and he's on the level, which is more than you can say of
+most of these guys in the show business."
+
+"That's right," agreed the Southern girl's blonde friend. "He does
+know his business. He's put over any amount of shows which would have
+flopped like dogs without him to stage the numbers."
+
+The duchess yawned. Rehearsing always bored her, and she had not been
+greatly impressed by what she had seen of "The Rose of America."
+
+"One will be greatly surprised if he can make a success of _this_
+show! I confess I find it perfectly ridiculous."
+
+"Ithn't it the limit, honetht!" said the cherub, arranging her golden
+hair at the mirror. "It maketh me thick! Why on earth ith Ike putting
+it on?"
+
+The girl who knew everything--there is always one in every
+company--hastened to explain.
+
+"I heard all about that. Ike hasn't any of his own money in the thing.
+He's getting twenty-five per cent of the show for running it. The
+angel is the long fellow you see jumping around. Pilkington his name
+is."
+
+"Well, it'll need to be Rockefeller later on," said the blonde.
+
+"Oh, they'll get thomebody down to fixth it after we've been out on
+the road a couple of days," said the cherub, optimistically. "They
+alwayth do. I've seen worse shows than this turned into hits. All it
+wants ith a new book and lyrics and a different thcore."
+
+"And a new set of principals," said the red-headed Babe. "Did you ever
+see such a bunch?"
+
+The duchess, with another tired sigh, arched her well-shaped eyebrows
+and studied the effect in the mirror.
+
+"One wonders where they pick these persons up," she assented
+languidly. "They remind me of a headline I saw in the paper this
+morning--'Tons of Hams Unfit for Human Consumption.' Are any of you
+girls coming my way? I Can give two or three of you a lift in my
+limousine."
+
+"Thorry, old dear, and thanks ever so much," said the cherub, "but I
+instructed Clarence, my man, to have the street-car waiting on the
+corner, and he'll be too upset if I'm not there."
+
+Nelly had an engagement to go and help one of the other girls buy a
+Spring suit, a solemn rite which it is impossible to conduct by
+oneself: and Jill and the cherub walked to the corner together. Jill
+had become very fond of the little thing since rehearsals began. She
+reminded her of a London sparrow. She was so small and perky and so
+absurdly able to take care of herself.
+
+"Limouthine!" snorted the cherub. The duchess' concluding speech
+evidently still rankled. "She gives me a pain in the gizthard!"
+
+"Hasn't she got a limousine?" asked Jill.
+
+"Of course she hasn't. She's engaged to be married to a demonstrator
+in the Speedwell Auto Company, and he thneaks off when he can get away
+and gives her joy-rides. That's all the limouthine she's got. It beats
+me why girls in the show business are alwayth tho crazy to make
+themselves out vamps with a dozen millionaires on a string. If Mae
+wouldn't four-flush and act like the Belle of the Moulin Rouge, she'd
+be the nithest girl you ever met. She's mad about the fellow she's
+engaged to, and wouldn't look at all the millionaires in New York if
+you brought 'em to her on a tray. She's going to marry him as thoon as
+he's thaved enough to buy the furniture, and then she'll thettle down
+in Harlem thomewhere and cook and mind the baby and regularly be one
+of the lower middle classes. All that's wrong with Mae ith that she's
+read Gingery Stories and thinkth that's the way a girl has to act when
+she'th in the chorus."
+
+"That's funny," said Jill. "I should never have thought it. I
+swallowed the limousine whole."
+
+The cherub looked at her curiously. Jill puzzled her. Jill had,
+indeed, been the subject of much private speculation among her
+colleagues.
+
+"This is your first show, ithn't it?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Thay, what are you doing in the chorus, anyway?"
+
+"Getting scolded by Mr. Miller mostly, it seems to me.
+
+"Thcolded by Mr. Miller! Why didn't you say 'bawled out by Johnny'?
+That'th what any of the retht of us would have said."
+
+"Well, I've lived most of my life in England. You can't expect me to
+talk the language yet."
+
+"I thought you were English. You've got an acthent like the fellow who
+plays the dude in thith show. Thay, why did you ever get into the show
+business?"
+
+"Well ... well, why did you? Why does anybody?"
+
+"Why did I? Oh, I belong there. I'm a regular Broadway rat. I wouldn't
+be happy anywhere elthe. I was born in the show business. I've got two
+thithters in the two-a-day and a brother in thtock in California and
+dad's one of the betht comedians on the burlethque wheel. But any one
+can thee you're different. There's no reathon why you should be
+sticking around in the chorus."
+
+"But there is. I've no money, and I can't do anything to make it."
+
+"Honetht?"
+
+"Honest."
+
+"That's tough." The cherub pondered, her round eyes searching Jill's
+face. "Why don't you get married?"
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"Nobody's asked me."
+
+"Somebody thoon will. At least, if he's on the level, and I think he
+is. You can generally tell by the look of a guy, and, if you ask me,
+friend Pilkington's got the licence in hith pocket and the ring all
+ordered and everything."
+
+"Pilkington!" cried Jill aghast.
+
+She remembered certain occasions during rehearsals, when, while the
+chorus idled in the body of the theatre and listened to the principals
+working at their scenes, the elongated Pilkington had suddenly
+appeared in the next seat and conversed sheepishly in a low voice.
+Could this be love? If so, it was a terrible nuisance. Jill had had
+her experience in London of enamoured young men who, running true to
+national form, declined to know when they were beaten, and she had not
+enjoyed the process of cooling their ardour. She had a kind heart, and
+it distressed her to give pain. It also got on her nerves to be dogged
+by stricken males who tried to catch her eye in order that she might
+observe their broken condition. She recalled one house-party in Wales
+where it rained all the time and she had been cooped up with a victim
+who kept popping out from obscure corners and beginning all his pleas
+with the words "I say, you know...!" She trusted that Otis Pilkington
+was not proposing to conduct a wooing on those lines. Yet he had
+certainly developed a sinister habit of popping out at the theatre. On
+several occasions he had startled her by appearing at her side as if
+he had come up out of a trap.
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Jill.
+
+"Oh, yeth!" insisted the cherub, waving imperiously to an approaching
+street-car. "Well, I must be getting up-town. I've got a date. Thee
+you later."
+
+"I'm sure you're mistaken."
+
+"I'm not."
+
+"But what makes you think so?"
+
+The cherub placed a hand on the rail of the car, preparatory to
+swinging herself on board.
+
+"Well, for one thing," she said, "he'th been stalking you like an
+Indian ever since we left the theatre! Look behind you. Good-bye,
+honey. Thend me a piece of the cake!"
+
+The street-car bore her away. The last that Jill saw of her was a wide
+and amiable grin. Then, turning, she beheld the snake-like form of
+Otis Pilkington towering at her side.
+
+Mr. Pilkington seemed nervous but determined. His face was half hidden
+by the silk scarf that muffled his throat, for he was careful of his
+health and had a fancied tendency to bronchial trouble. Above the
+scarf a pair of mild eyes gazed down at Jill through their
+tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles. It was hopeless for Jill to try to
+tell herself that the tender gleam behind the glass was not the love
+light in Otis Pilkington's eyes. The truth was too obvious.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington, his voice sounding
+muffled and far away through the scarf. "Are you going up-town?"
+
+"No, down-town," said Jill quickly.
+
+"So am I," said Mr. Pilkington.
+
+Jill felt annoyed, but helpless. It is difficult to bid a tactful
+farewell to a man who has stated his intention of going in the same
+direction as yourself. There was nothing for it but to accept the
+unspoken offer of Otis Pilkington's escort. They began to walk down
+Broadway together.
+
+"I suppose you are tired after the rehearsal?" enquired Mr.
+Pilkington in his precise voice. He always spoke as if he were
+weighing each word and clipping it off a reel.
+
+"A little. Mr. Miller is very enthusiastic."
+
+"About the piece?" Her companion spoke eagerly.
+
+"No; I meant hard-working."
+
+"Has he said anything about the piece?"
+
+"Well, no. You see, he doesn't confide in us a great deal, except to
+tell us his opinion of the way we do the steps. I don't think we
+impress him very much, to judge from what he says. But the girls say
+he always tells every chorus he rehearses that it is the worst he ever
+had anything to do with."
+
+"And the chor--the--er--ladies of the ensemble? What do they think of
+the piece?"
+
+"Well, I don't suppose they are very good judges, are they?" said Jill
+diplomatically.
+
+"You mean they do not like it?"
+
+"Some of them don't seem quite to understand it."
+
+Mr. Pilkington was silent for a moment.
+
+"I am beginning to wonder myself whether it may not be a little over
+the heads of the public," he said ruefully. "When it was first
+performed...."
+
+"Oh, has it been done before?"
+
+"By amateurs, yes, at the house of my aunt, Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim,
+at Newport, last summer. In aid of the Armenian orphans. It was
+extraordinarily well received on that occasion. We nearly made our
+expenses. It was such a success that--I feel I can confide in you. I
+should not like this repeated to your--your--the other ladies--it was
+such a success that, against my aunt's advice, I decided to give it a
+Broadway production. Between ourselves, I am shouldering practically
+all the expenses of the undertaking. Mr. Goble has nothing to do with
+the financial arrangements of 'The Rose of America.' Those are
+entirely in my hands. Mr. Goble, in return for a share in the profits,
+is giving us the benefit of his experience as regards the management
+and booking of the piece. I have always had the greatest faith in it.
+Trevis and I wrote it when we were in college together, and all our
+friends thought it exceptionally brilliant. My aunt, as I say, was
+opposed to the venture. She holds the view that I am not a good man of
+business. In a sense, perhaps, she is right. Temperamentally, no
+doubt, I am more the artist. But I was determined to show the public
+something superior to the so-called Broadway successes, which are so
+terribly trashy. Unfortunately, I am beginning to wonder whether it is
+possible, with the crude type of actor at one's disposal in this
+country, to give a really adequate performance of such a play as 'The
+Rose of America.' These people seem to miss the spirit of the piece,
+its subtle topsy-turvy humour, its delicate whimsicality. This
+afternoon," Mr. Pilkington choked. "This afternoon I happened to
+overhear two of the principals, who were not aware that I was within
+earshot, discussing the play. One of them--these people express
+themselves curiously--one of them said that he thought it a quince:
+and the other described it as a piece of gorgonzola cheese! That is
+not the spirit that wins success!"
+
+Jill was feeling immensely relieved. After all, it seemed, this poor
+young man merely wanted sympathy, not romance. She had been mistaken,
+she felt, about that gleam in his eyes. It was not the lovelight: it
+was the light of panic. He was the author of the play. He had sunk a
+large sum of money in its production, he had heard people criticizing
+it harshly, and he was suffering from what her colleagues in the
+chorus would have called cold feet. It was such a human emotion and he
+seemed so like an overgrown child pleading to be comforted that her
+heart warmed to him. Relief melted her defences. And when, on their
+arrival at Thirty-fourth Street Mr. Pilkington suggested that she
+partake of a cup of tea at his apartment, which was only a couple of
+blocks away off Madison Avenue, she accepted the invitation without
+hesitating.
+
+On the way to his apartment Mr. Pilkington continued in the minor key.
+He was a great deal more communicative than she herself would have
+been to such a comparative stranger as she was, but she knew that men
+were often like this. Over in London, she had frequently been made the
+recipient of the most intimate confidences by young men whom she had
+met for the first time the same evening at a dance. She had been
+forced to believe that there was something about her personality that
+acted on a certain type of man like the crack in the dam, setting
+loose the surging flood of their eloquence. To this class Otis
+Pilkington evidently belonged, for, once started, he withheld nothing.
+
+"It isn't that I'm dependent on Aunt Olive or anything like that," he
+vouchsafed, as he stirred the tea in his Japanese-print hung studio.
+"But you know how it is. Aunt Olive is in a position to make it very
+unpleasant for me if I do anything foolish. At present, I have reason
+to know that she intends to leave me practically all that she
+possesses. Millions!" said Mr. Pilkington, handing Jill a cup. "I
+assure you, millions! But there is a hard commercial strain in her. It
+would have the most prejudicial effect upon her if; especially after
+she had expressly warned me against it, I were to lose a great deal of
+money over this production. She is always complaining that I am not a
+business man like my late uncle. Mr. Waddesleigh Peagrim made a
+fortune in smoked hams." Mr. Pilkington looked at the Japanese prints,
+and shuddered slightly. "Right up to the time of his death he was
+urging me to go into the business. I could not have endured it. But,
+when I heard those two men discussing the play, I almost wished that I
+had done so."
+
+Jill was now completely disarmed. She would almost have patted this
+unfortunate young man's head, if she could have reached it.
+
+"I shouldn't worry about the piece," she said. "I've read somewhere or
+heard somewhere that it's the surest sign of a success when actors
+don't like a play."
+
+Mr. Pilkington drew his chair an imperceptible inch nearer.
+
+"How sympathetic you are!"
+
+Jill perceived with chagrin that she had been mistaken after all. It
+_was_ the love light. The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles sprayed it
+all over her like a couple of searchlights. Otis Pilkington was
+looking exactly like a sheep, and she knew from past experience that
+that was the infallible sign. When young men looked like that, it was
+time to go.
+
+"I'm afraid I must be off," she said. "Thank you so much for giving me
+tea. I shouldn't be a bit afraid about the play. I'm sure it's going
+to be splendid. Good-bye."
+
+"You aren't going already?"
+
+"I must. I'm very late as it is. I promised...."
+
+Whatever fiction Jill might have invented to the detriment of her soul
+was interrupted by a ring at the bell. The steps of Mr. Pilkington's
+Japanese servant crossing the hall came faintly to the sitting-room.
+
+"Mr. Pilkington in?"
+
+Otis Pilkington motioned pleadingly to Jill.
+
+"Don't go!" he urged. "It's only a man I know. He has probably come
+to remind me that I am dining with him to-night. He won't stay a
+minute. Please don't go."
+
+Jill sat down. She had no intention of going now. The cheery voice at
+the front door had been the cheery voice of her long-lost uncle, Major
+Christopher Selby.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+UNCLE CHRIS BORROWS A FLAT
+
+I
+
+
+Uncle Chris walked breezily into the room, flicking a jaunty glove. He
+stopped short on seeing that Mr. Pilkington was not alone.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon! I understood...." He peered at Jill
+uncertainly. Mr. Pilkington affected a dim, artistic lighting-system
+in his studio, and people who entered from the great outdoors
+generally had to take time to accustom their eyes to it. "If you're
+engaged...."
+
+"Er--allow me.... Miss Mariner.... Major Selby."
+
+"Hullo, Uncle Chris!" said Jill.
+
+"God bless my soul!" ejaculated that startled gentleman adventurer,
+and collapsed on to a settee as if his legs had been mown from under
+him.
+
+"I've been looking for you all over New York," said Jill.
+
+Mr. Pilkington found himself unequal to the intellectual pressure of
+the conversation.
+
+"Uncle Chris?" he said with a note of feeble enquiry in his voice.
+
+"Major Selby is my uncle."
+
+"Are you sure?" said Mr. Pilkington. "I mean...."
+
+Not being able to ascertain, after a moment's self-examination, what
+he did mean, he relapsed into silence.
+
+"Whatever are you doing here?" asked Uncle Chris.
+
+"I've been having tea with Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"But ... but why Mr. Pilkington?"
+
+"Well, he invited me."
+
+"But how do you know him?"
+
+"We met at the theatre."
+
+"Theatre?"
+
+Otis Pilkington recovered his power of speech.
+
+"Miss Mariner is rehearsing with a little play in which I am
+interested," he explained.
+
+Uncle Chris half rose from the settee. He blinked twice in rapid
+succession. Jill had never seen him so shaken from his customary
+poise.
+
+"Don't tell me you have gone on the stage, Jill!"
+
+"I have. I'm in the chorus...."
+
+"Ensemble," corrected Mr. Pilkington softly.
+
+"I'm in the ensemble of a piece called 'The Rose of America.' We've
+been rehearsing for ever so long."
+
+Uncle Chris digested this information in silence for a moment He
+pulled at his short moustache.
+
+"Why, of course!" he said at length. Jill, who knew him so well, could
+tell by the restored ring of cheeriness in his tone that he was
+himself again. He had dealt with this situation in his mind and was
+prepared to cope with it. The surmise was confirmed the next instant
+when he rose and stationed himself in front of the fire. Mr.
+Pilkington detested steam-heat and had scoured the city till he had
+found a studio apartment with an open fireplace. Uncle Chris spread
+his legs and expanded his chest. "Of course," he said. "I remember now
+that you told me in your letter that you were thinking of going on the
+stage. My niece," explained Uncle Chris to the attentive Mr.
+Pilkington, "came over from England on a later boat. I was not
+expecting her for some weeks. Hence my surprise at meeting her here.
+Of course. You told me that you intended to go on the stage, and I
+strongly recommended you to begin at the bottom of the ladder and
+learn the ground-work thoroughly before you attempted higher flights."
+
+"Oh, that was it?" said Mr. Pilkington. He had been wondering.
+
+"There is no finer training," resumed Uncle Chris, completely at his
+ease once more, "than the chorus. How many of the best-known actresses
+in America began in that way! Dozens. Dozens. If I were giving advice
+to any young girl with theatrical aspirations, I should say 'Begin in
+the chorus!' On the other hand," he proceeded, turning to Mr.
+Pilkington, "I think it would be just as well if you would not mention
+the fact of my niece being in that position to Mrs. Waddesleigh
+Peagrim. She might not understand."
+
+"Exactly," assented Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"The term 'chorus'...."
+
+"I dislike it intensely myself."
+
+"It suggests...."
+
+"Precisely."
+
+Uncle Chris inflated his chest again, well satisfied.
+
+"Capital!" he said. "Well, I only dropped in to remind you, my boy,
+that you and your aunt are dining with me to-night. I was afraid a
+busy man like you might forget."
+
+"I was looking forward to it," said Mr. Pilkington, charmed at the
+description.
+
+"You remember the address? Nine East Forty-first Street. I have moved,
+you remember."
+
+"So that was why I couldn't find you at the other place," said Jill.
+"The man at the door said he had never heard of you."
+
+"Stupid idiot!" said Uncle Chris testily. "These New York hall-porters
+are recruited entirely from homes for the feeble-minded. I suppose he
+was a new man. Well, Pilkington, my boy, I shall expect you at seven
+o'clock. Good-bye till then. Come, Jill."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Pilkington," said Jill.
+
+"Good-bye for the present, Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington, bending
+down to take her hand. The tortoise-shell spectacles shot a last soft
+beam at her.
+
+As the front door closed behind them, Uncle Chris heaved a sigh of
+relief.
+
+"Whew! I think I handled that little contretemps with diplomacy! A
+certain amount of diplomacy, I think!"
+
+"If you mean," said Jill severely, "that you told some disgraceful
+fibs...."
+
+"Fibs, my dear--or shall we say, artistic mouldings of the unshapely
+clay of truth--are the ... how shall I put it?... Well, anyway, they
+come in dashed handy. It would never have done for Mrs. Peagrim to
+have found out that you were in the chorus. If she discovered that my
+niece was in the chorus, she would infallibly suspect me of being an
+adventurer. And while," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "of course I
+_am_, it is nice to have one's little secrets. The good lady has had a
+rooted distaste for girls in that perfectly honourable but maligned
+profession ever since our long young friend back there was sued for
+breach of promise by a member of a touring company in his second year
+at college. We all have our prejudices. That is hers. However, I
+think, we may rely on our friend to say nothing about the matter....
+But why did you do it? My dear child, whatever induced you to take
+such a step?"
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"That's practically what Mr. Miller said to me when we were rehearsing
+one of the dances this afternoon, only he put it differently." She
+linked her arm in his. "What else could I do? I was alone in New York
+with the remains of that twenty dollars you sent me and no more in
+sight."
+
+"But why didn't you stay down at Brookport with your Uncle Elmer?"
+
+"Have you ever seen my Uncle Elmer?"
+
+"No. Curiously enough, I never have."
+
+"If you had, you wouldn't ask. Brookport! Ugh! I left when they tried
+to get me to understudy the hired man, who had resigned."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes, they got tired of supporting me in the state to which I was
+accustomed--I don't blame them!--so they began to find ways of making
+me useful about the home. I didn't mind reading to Aunt Julia, and I
+could just stand taking Tibby for walks. But, when it came to
+shoveling snow, I softly and silently vanished away."
+
+"But I can't understand all this. I suggested to your
+uncle--diplomatically--that you had large private means."
+
+"I know you did. And he spent all his time showing me over houses and
+telling me I could have them for a hundred thousand dollars cash
+down." Jill bubbled. "You should have seen his face when I told him
+that twenty dollars was all I had in the world!"
+
+"You didn't tell him that!"
+
+"I did."
+
+Uncle Chris shook his head, like an indulgent father disappointed in a
+favourite child.
+
+"You're a dear girl, Jill, but really you do seem totally lacking
+in ... how shall I put it?--finesse. Your mother was just the same. A
+sweet woman, but with no diplomacy, no notion of _handling_ a
+situation. I remember her as a child giving me away hopelessly on one
+occasion after we had been at the jam-cupboard. She did not mean any
+harm, but she was constitutionally incapable of a tactful negative at
+the right time." Uncle Chris brooded for a moment on the past. "Oh,
+well, it's a very fine trait, no doubt, though inconvenient. I don't
+blame you for leaving Brookport if you weren't happy there. But I wish
+you had consulted me before going on the stage."
+
+"Shall I strike this man?" asked Jill of the world at large. "How
+could I consult you? My darling, precious uncle, don't you realize
+that you had vanished into thin air, leaving me penniless? I had to do
+something. And, now that we are on the subject, perhaps you will
+explain your movements. Why did you write to me from that place on
+Fifty-seventh Street if you weren't there?"
+
+Uncle Chris cleared his throat.
+
+"In a sense ... when I wrote ... I _was_ there."
+
+"I suppose that means something, but it's beyond me. I'm not nearly as
+intelligent as you think, Uncle Chris, so you'll have to explain."
+
+"Well, it was this way, my dear. I was in a peculiar position you must
+remember. I had made a number of wealthy friends on the boat and it is
+possible that--unwittingly--I gave them the impression that I was as
+comfortably off as themselves. At any rate, that is the impression they
+gathered, and it hardly seemed expedient to correct it. For it is a
+deplorable trait in the character of the majority of rich people that they
+only--er--expand--they only show the best and most companionable side of
+themselves to those whom they imagine to be as wealthy as they are. Well,
+of course, while one was on the boat, the fact that I was sailing under
+what a purist might have termed false colours did not matter. The problem
+was how to keep up the--er--innocent deception after we had reached New
+York. A woman like Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim--a ghastly creature, my dear,
+all front teeth and exuberance, but richer than the Sub-Treasury--looks
+askance at a man, however agreeable, if he endeavours to cement a
+friendship begun on board ship from a cheap boarding-house on Amsterdam
+Avenue. It was imperative that I should find something in the nature of
+what I might call a suitable base of operations. Fortune played into my
+hands. One of the first men I met in New York was an old soldier-servant
+of mine, to whom I had been able to do some kindnesses in the old days. In
+fact--it shows how bread cast upon the waters returns to us after many
+days--it was with the assistance of a small loan from me that he was
+enabled to emigrate to America. Well, I met this man, and, after a short
+conversation, he revealed the fact that he was the hall-porter at that
+apartment-house which you visited, the one on Fifty-Seventh Street. At
+this time of the year, I knew, many wealthy people go south, to Florida
+and the Carolinas, and it occurred to me that there might be a vacant
+apartment in his building. There was. I took it."
+
+"But how on earth could you afford to pay for an apartment in a place
+like that?"
+
+Uncle Chris coughed.
+
+"I didn't say I paid for it. I said I took it. That is, as one might
+say, the point of my story. My old friend, grateful for favours
+received and wishing to do me a good turn, consented to become my
+accomplice in another--er--innocent deception. I gave my friends the
+address and telephone number of the apartment-house, living the while
+myself in surroundings of a somewhat humbler and less expensive
+character. I called every morning for letters. If anybody rang me up
+on the telephone, the admirable man answered in the capacity of my
+servant, took a message, and relayed it on to me at my boarding-house.
+If anybody called, he merely said that I was out. There wasn't a flaw
+in the whole scheme, my dear, and its chief merit was its beautiful
+simplicity."
+
+"Then what made you give it up? Conscience?"
+
+"Conscience never made me give up _anything_," said Uncle Chris
+firmly. "No, there were a hundred chances to one against anything
+going wrong, and it was the hundredth that happened. When you have
+been in New York longer, you will realize that one peculiarity of the
+place is that the working-classes are in a constant state of flux. On
+Monday you meet a plumber. Ah! you say, a plumber! Capital! On the
+following Thursday you meet him again, and he is a car-conductor. Next
+week he will be squirting soda in a drug-store. It's the fault of
+these dashed magazines, with their advertisements of correspondence
+courses--Are You Earning All You Should?--Write To Us and Learn
+Chicken-Farming By Mail.... It puts wrong ideas into the fellows'
+heads. It unsettles them. It was so in this case. Everything was going
+swimmingly, when my man suddenly conceived the idea that destiny had
+intended him for a chauffeur-gardener, and he threw up his position!"
+
+"Leaving you homeless!"
+
+"As you say, homeless--temporarily. But, fortunately--I have been
+amazingly lucky all through; it really does seem as if you cannot keep
+a good man down--fortunately my friend had a friend who was janitor at
+a place on East Forty-first Street, and by a miracle of luck the only
+apartment in the building was empty. It is an office-building, but,
+like some of these places, it has one small bachelor's apartment on
+the top floor."
+
+"And you are the small bachelor?"
+
+"Precisely. My friend explained matters to his friend--a few financial
+details were satisfactorily arranged--and here I am, perfectly happy
+with the cosiest little place in the world, rent free. I am even
+better off than I was before, as a matter of fact, for my new ally's
+wife is an excellent cook, and I have been enabled to give one or two
+very pleasant dinners at my new home. It lends verisimilitude to the
+thing if you can entertain a little. If you are never in when people
+call, they begin to wonder. I am giving dinner to your friend
+Pilkington and Mrs. Peagrim there to-night. Homey, delightful, and
+infinitely cheaper than a restaurant."
+
+"And what will you do when the real owner of the place walks in in the
+middle of dinner?"
+
+"Out of the question. The janitor informs me that he left for England
+some weeks ago, intending to make a stay of several months."
+
+"Well, you certainly think of everything."
+
+"Whatever success I may have achieved," replied Uncle Chris, with the
+dignity of a Captain of Industry confiding in an interviewer, "I
+attribute to always thinking of everything."
+
+Jill gurgled with laughter. There was that about her uncle which
+always acted on her moral sense like an opiate, lulling it to sleep
+and preventing it from rising up and becoming critical. If he had
+stolen a watch and chain, he would somehow have succeeded in
+convincing her that he had acted for the best under the dictates of a
+benevolent altruism.
+
+"What success _have_ you achieved?" she asked, interested. "When you
+left me, you were on your way to find a fortune. Did you find it?"
+
+"I have not actually placed my hands on it yet," admitted Uncle Chris.
+"But it is hovering in the air all round me. I can hear the beating of
+the wings of the dollar-bills as they flutter to and fro, almost
+within reach. Sooner or later I shall grab them. I never forget, my
+dear, that I have a task before me--to restore to you the money of
+which I deprived you. Some day--be sure--I shall do it. Some day you
+will receive a letter from me, containing a large sum--five
+thousand--ten thousand--twenty thousand--whatever it may be, with the
+simple words 'First Instalment.'" He repeated the phrase, as if it
+pleased him. "First Instalment!"
+
+Jill hugged his arm. She was in the mood in which she used to listen
+to him ages ago telling her fairy stories.
+
+"Go on!" she cried. "Go on! It's wonderful! Once upon a time Uncle
+Chris was walking along Fifth Avenue, when he happened to meet a poor
+old woman gathering sticks for firewood. She looked so old and tired
+that he was sorry for her, so he gave her ten cents which he had
+borrowed from the janitor, and suddenly she turned into a beautiful
+girl and said 'I am a fairy! In return for your kindness I grant you
+three wishes!' And Uncle Chris thought for a moment, and said, 'I want
+twenty thousand dollars to send to Jill!' And the fairy said, 'It
+shall be attended to. And the next article?'"
+
+"It is all very well to joke," protested Uncle Chris, pained by this
+flippancy, "but let me tell you that I shall not require magic
+assistance to become a rich man. Do you realize that at houses like
+Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's I am meeting men all the time who have only
+to say one little word to make me a millionaire? They are fat, grey
+men with fishy eyes and large waistcoats, and they sit smoking cigars
+and brooding on what they are going to do to the market next day. If I
+were a mind-reader I could have made a dozen fortunes by now. I sat
+opposite that old pirate, Bruce Bishop, for over an hour the very day
+before he and his gang sent Consolidated Pea-Nuts down twenty points!
+If I had known what was in the wind, I doubt if I could have
+restrained myself from choking his intentions out of the fellow. Well,
+what I am trying to point out is that one of these days one of these
+old oysters will have a fleeting moment of human pity and disgorge
+some tip on which I can act. It is that reflection that keeps me so
+constantly at Mrs. Peagrim's house." Uncle Chris shivered slightly. "A
+fearsome woman, my dear! Weighs a hundred and eighty pounds and as
+skittish as a young lamb in springtime! She makes me dance with her!"
+Uncle Chris' lips quivered in a spasm of pain, and he was silent for a
+moment. "Thank Heaven I was once a footballer!" he said reverently.
+
+"But what do you live on?" asked Jill. "I know you are going to be a
+millionaire next Tuesday week, but how are you getting along in the
+meantime?"
+
+Uncle Chris coughed.
+
+"Well, as regards actual living expenses, I have managed by a shrewd
+business stroke to acquire a small but sufficient income. I live in a
+boarding-house--true--but I contrive to keep the wolf away from its
+door--which, by the by, badly needs a lick of paint. Have you ever
+heard of Nervino?"
+
+"I don't think so. It sounds like a patent medicine."
+
+"It _is_ a patent medicine." Uncle Chris stopped and looked anxiously
+at her. "Jill, you're looking pale, my dear."
+
+"Am I? We had rather a tiring rehearsal."
+
+"Are you sure," said Uncle Chris seriously, "that it is only that? Are
+you sure that your vitality has not become generally lowered by the
+fierce rush of Metropolitan life? Are you aware of the things that can
+happen to you if you allow the red corpuscles of your blood to become
+devitalised? I had a friend...."
+
+"Stop! You're scaring me to death!"
+
+Uncle Chris gave his moustache a satisfied twirl.
+
+"Just what I meant to do, my dear. And, when I had scared you
+sufficiently--you wouldn't wait for the story of my consumptive
+friend. Pity! It's one of my best!--I should have mentioned that I had
+been having much the same trouble myself until lately, but the other
+day I happened to try Nervino, the great specific.... I was giving you
+an illustration of myself in action, my dear. I went to these Nervino
+people--happened to see one of their posters and got the idea in a
+flash--I went to them and said, 'Here am I, a presentable man of
+persuasive manners and a large acquaintance among the leaders of New
+York Society. What would it be worth to you to have me hint from time
+to time at dinner parties and so forth that Nervino is the rich man's
+panacea?' I put the thing lucidly to them. I said, 'No doubt you have
+a thousand agents in the city, but have you one who does not look like
+an agent and won't talk like an agent? Have you one who is inside the
+houses of the wealthy, at their very dinner-tables, instead of being
+on the front step, trying to hold the door open with his foot? That is
+the point you have to consider.' They saw the idea at once. We
+arranged terms--not as generous as I could wish, perhaps, but quite
+ample. I receive a tolerably satisfactory salary each week, and in
+return I spread the good word about Nervino in the gilded palaces of
+the rich. Those are the people to go for, Jill. They have been so
+busy wrenching money away from the widow and the orphan that they
+haven't had time to look after their health. You catch one of them
+after dinner, just as he is wondering if he was really wise in taking
+two helpings of the lobster Newburg, and he is clay in your hands. I
+draw my chair up to his and become sympathetic and say that I had
+precisely the same trouble myself until recently, and mention a dear
+old friend of mine who died of indigestion, and gradually lead the
+conversation round to Nervino. I don't force it on them. I don't even
+ask them, to try it. I merely point to myself, rosy with health, and
+say that I owe everything to it, and the thing is done. They thank me
+profusely and scribble the name down on their shirt-cuffs. And there
+you are! I don't suppose," said Uncle Chris philosophically, "that the
+stuff can do them any actual harm."
+
+They had come to the corner of Forty-first Street. Uncle Chris felt in
+his pocket and produced a key.
+
+"If you want to go and take a look at my little nest, you can let
+yourself in. It's on the twenty-second floor. Don't fail to go out on
+the roof and look at the view. It's worth seeing. It will give you
+some idea of the size of the city. A wonderful, amazing city, my dear,
+full of people who need Nervino. I shall go on and drop in at the club
+for half an hour. They have given me a fortnight's card at the Avenue.
+Capital place. Here's the key."
+
+Jill turned down Forty-first Street, and came to a mammoth structure
+of steel and stone which dwarfed the modest brown houses beside it
+into nothingness. It was curious to think of a private flat nestling
+on the summit of this mountain. She went in, and the lift shot her
+giddily upwards to the twenty-second floor. She found herself facing a
+short flight of stone steps, ending in a door. She mounted the steps,
+tried the key, and, turning it, entered a hall-way. Proceeding down
+the passage, she reached a sitting-room.
+
+It was a small room, but furnished with a solid comfort which soothed
+her. For the first time since she had arrived in New York, she had the
+sense of being miles away from the noise and bustle of the city. There
+was a complete and restful silence. She was alone in a nest of books
+and deep chairs, on which a large grandfather-clock looked down with
+that wide-faced benevolence peculiar to its kind. So peaceful was
+this eyrie, perched high up above the clamour and rattle of
+civilization, that every nerve in her body seemed to relax in a
+delicious content. It was like being in Peter Pan's house in the
+tree-tops.
+
+
+II
+
+Jill possessed in an unusual degree that instinct for exploration
+which is implanted in most of us. She was frankly inquisitive, and
+could never be two minutes in a strange room without making a tour of
+it and examining its books, pictures, and photographs. Almost at once
+she began to prowl.
+
+The mantelpiece was her first objective. She always made for other
+people's mantelpieces, for there, more than anywhere else, is the
+character of a proprietor revealed. This mantelpiece was sprinkled
+with photographs, large, small, framed and unframed. In the centre of
+it, standing all alone and looking curiously out of place among its
+large neighbours, was a little snapshot.
+
+It was dark by the mantelpiece. Jill took the photograph to the
+window, where the fading light could fall on it. Why, she could not
+have said, but the thing interested her. There was mystery about it.
+It seemed in itself so insignificant to have the place of honour.
+
+The snapshot had evidently been taken by an amateur, but it was one of
+those lucky successes which happen at rare intervals to amateur
+photographers to encourage them to proceed with their hobby. It showed
+a small girl in a white dress cut short above slim, black legs,
+standing in the porch of an old house, one hand swinging a sun-bonnet,
+the other patting an Irish terrier which had planted its front paws
+against her waist and was looking up into her face with that grave
+melancholy characteristic of Irish terriers. The sunlight was
+evidently strong, for the child's face was puckered in a twisted
+though engaging grin. Jill's first thought was "What a jolly kid!" And
+then, with a leaping of the heart that seemed to send something big
+and choking into her throat, she saw that it was a photograph of
+herself.
+
+With a swooping bound memory raced back over the years. She could feel
+the hot sun on her face, hear the anxious voice of Freddie Rooke--then
+fourteen and for the first time the owner of a camera--imploring her
+to stand just like that because he wouldn't be half a minute only some
+rotten thing had stuck or something. Then the sharp click, the
+doubtful assurance of Freddie that he thought it was all right if he
+hadn't forgotten to shift the film (in which case she might expect to
+appear in combination with a cow which he had snapped on his way to
+the house), and the relieved disappearance of Pat, the terrier, who
+didn't understand photography. How many years ago had that been? She
+could not remember. But Freddie had grown to long-legged manhood, she
+to an age of discretion and full-length frocks, Pat had died, the old
+house was inhabited by strangers ... and here was the silent record of
+that sun-lit afternoon, three thousand miles away from the English
+garden in which it had come into existence.
+
+The shadows deepened. The top of the great building swayed gently,
+causing the pendulum of the grandfather-clock to knock against the
+sides of its wooden case. Jill started. The noise, coming after the
+dead silence, frightened her till she realized what it was. She had a
+nervous feeling of not being alone. It was as if the shadows held
+goblins that peered out at the intruder. She darted to the mantelpiece
+and replaced the photograph. She felt like some heroine of a
+fairy-story meddling with the contents of the giant's castle. Soon
+there would come the sound of a great footstep thud--thud....
+
+_Thud._
+
+Jill's heart gave another leap. She was perfectly sure she had heard a
+sound. It had been just like the banging of a door. She braced
+herself, listening, every muscle tense. And then, cleaving the
+stillness, came a voice from down the passage--
+
+    "Just see them Pullman porters,
+    Dolled up with scented waters
+    Bought with their dimes and quarters!
+      See, here they come! Here they come!"
+
+For an instant Jill could not have said whether she was relieved or
+more frightened than ever. True, that numbing sense of the uncanny had
+ceased to grip her, for Reason told her that spectres do not sing
+rag-time songs. On the other hand, owners of apartments do, and she
+would almost as readily have faced a spectre as the owner of this
+apartment. Dizzily, she wondered how in the world she was to explain
+her presence. Suppose he turned out to be some awful-choleric person
+who would listen to no explanations.
+
+    "Oh, see those starched-up collars!
+    Hark how their captain hollers
+      'Keep time! Keep time!'
+    It's worth a thousand dollars
+    To see those tip-collectors...."
+
+Very near now. Almost at the door.
+
+    "Those upper-berth inspectors,
+    Those Pullman porters on parade!"
+
+A dim, shapeless figure in the black of the doorway. The scrabbling of
+fingers on the wall.
+
+"Where are you, dammit?" said the voice, apparently addressing the
+electric-light switch.
+
+Jill shrank back, desperate fingers pressing deep into the back of an
+arm-chair. Light flashed from the wall at her side. And there, in the
+doorway, stood Wally Mason in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE AMBASSADOR ARRIVES
+
+I
+
+
+In these days of rapid movement, when existence has become little more
+than a series of shocks of varying intensity, astonishment is the
+shortest-lived of all the emotions. There was an instant in which Jill
+looked at Wally and Wally at Jill with the eye of total amazement, and
+then, almost simultaneously, each began--the process was
+subconscious--to regard this meeting not as an isolated and
+inexplicable event, but as something resulting from a perfectly
+logical chain of circumstances.
+
+"Hullo!" said Wally.
+
+"Hullo!" said Jill.
+
+It was not a very exalted note on which to pitch the conversation, but
+it had the merit of giving each of them a little more time to collect
+themselves.
+
+"This is.... I wasn't expecting you!" said Wally.
+
+"I wasn't expecting _you_!" said Jill.
+
+There was another pause, in which Wally, apparently examining her last
+words and turning them over in his mind, found that they did not
+square with his preconceived theories.
+
+"You weren't expecting me?"
+
+"I certainly was not!"
+
+"But ... but you knew I lived here?"
+
+Jill shook her head. Wally reflected for an instant, and then put his
+finger, with a happy inspiration, on the very heart of the mystery.
+
+"Then how on earth did you get here?"
+
+He was glad he had asked that. The sense of unreality which had come
+to him in the first startling moment of seeing her and vanished under
+the influence of logic had returned as strong as ever. If she did not
+know he lived in this place, how in the name of everything uncanny had
+she found her way here? A momentary wonder as to whether all this was
+not mixed up with telepathy and mental suggestion and all that sort of
+thing came to him. Certainly he had been thinking of her all the time
+since their parting at the Savoy Hotel that night three weeks and more
+back.... No, that was absurd. There must be some sounder reason for
+her presence. He waited for her to give it.
+
+Jill for the moment felt physically incapable of giving it. She shrank
+from the interminable explanation which confronted her as a weary
+traveller shrinks from a dusty, far-stretching desert. She simply
+could not go into all that now. So she answered with a question.
+
+"When did you land in New York?"
+
+"This afternoon. We were supposed to dock this morning, but the boat
+was late." Wally perceived that he was being pushed away from the main
+point, and jostled his way back to it. "But what are you doing here?"
+
+"It's such a long story."
+
+Her voice was plaintive. Remorse smote Wally. It occurred to him that
+he had not been sufficiently sympathetic. Not a word had he said on
+the subject of her change of fortunes. He had just stood and gaped and
+asked questions. After all, what the devil did it matter how she came
+to be here? He had anticipated a long and tedious search for her
+through the labyrinth of New York, and here Fate had brought her to
+his very door, and all he could do was to ask why, instead of being
+thankful. He perceived that he was not much of a fellow.
+
+"Never mind," he said. "You can tell me when you feel like it." He
+looked at her eagerly. Time seemed to have wiped away that little
+misunderstanding under the burden of which they had parted. "It's too
+wonderful finding you like this!" He hesitated. "I heard
+about--everything," he said awkwardly.
+
+"My--" Jill hesitated too. "My smash?"
+
+"Yes. Freddie Rooke told me. I was terribly sorry."
+
+"Thank you," said Jill.
+
+There was a pause. They were both thinking of that other disaster
+which had happened. The presence of Derek Underhill seemed to stand
+like an unseen phantom between them. Finally Wally spoke at random,
+choosing the first words that came into his head in his desire to
+break the silence.
+
+"Jolly place, this, isn't it?"
+
+Jill perceived that an opening for those tedious explanations had been
+granted her.
+
+"Uncle Chris thinks so," she said demurely.
+
+Wally looked puzzled.
+
+"Uncle Chris? Oh, your uncle?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But--he has never been here."
+
+"Oh, yes. He's giving a dinner-party here to-night!"
+
+"He's ... what did you say?"
+
+"It's all right. I only began at the end of the story instead of the
+beginning. I'll tell you the whole thing. And then ... then I suppose
+you will be terribly angry and make a fuss."
+
+"I'm not much of a lad, as Freddie Rooke would say, for making fusses.
+And I can't imagine being terribly angry with you."
+
+"Well, I'll risk it. Though, if I wasn't a brave girl, I should leave
+Uncle Chris to explain for himself and simply run away."
+
+"Anything is better than that. It's a miracle meeting you like this,
+and I don't want to be deprived of the fruits of it. Tell me anything,
+but don't go."
+
+"You'll be furious."
+
+"Not with you."
+
+"I should hope not with me. I've done nothing. I am the innocent
+heroine. But I'm afraid you will be very angry with Uncle Chris."
+
+"If he's your uncle, that passes him. Besides, he once licked the
+stuffing out of me with a whangee. That forms a bond. Tell me all."
+
+Jill considered. She had promised to begin at the beginning, but it
+was difficult to know what was the beginning.
+
+"Have you ever heard of Captain Kidd?" she asked at length.
+
+"You're wandering from the point, aren't you?"
+
+"No, I'm not. _Have_ you heard of Captain Kidd?"
+
+"The pirate? Of course."
+
+"Well, Uncle Chris is his direct lineal descendant. That really
+explains the whole thing."
+
+Wally looked at her enquiringly.
+
+"Could you make it a little easier?" he said.
+
+"I can tell you everything in half a dozen words, if you like. But it
+will sound awfully abrupt."
+
+"Go ahead."
+
+"Uncle Chris has stolen your apartment."
+
+Wally nodded slowly.
+
+"I see. Stolen my apartment."
+
+"Of course you can't possibly understand. I shall have to tell you the
+whole thing, after all."
+
+Wally listened with flattering attention as she began the epic of
+Major Christopher Selby's doings in New York. Whatever his emotions,
+he certainly was not bored.
+
+"So that's how it all happened," concluded Jill.
+
+For a moment Wally said nothing. He seemed to be digesting what he had
+heard.
+
+"I see," he said at last. "It's a variant of those advertisements they
+print in the magazines. 'Why pay rent? Own somebody else's home!'"
+
+"That _does_ rather sum it up," said Jill.
+
+Wally burst into a roar of laughter.
+
+"He's a corker!"
+
+Jill was immensely relieved. For all her courageous bearing, she had
+not relished the task of breaking the news to Wally. She knew that he
+had a sense of humour, but a man may have a sense of humour and yet
+not see anything amusing in having his home stolen in his absence.
+
+"I'm so glad you're not angry."
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Most men would be."
+
+"Most men are chumps."
+
+"It's so wonderful that it happened to be you. Suppose it had been an
+utter stranger! What could I have done?"
+
+"It would have been the same thing. You would have won him over in two
+minutes. Nobody could resist you."
+
+"That's very sweet of you."
+
+"I can't help telling the truth. Washington was just the same."
+
+"Then you don't mind Uncle Chris giving his dinner-party here
+to-night?"
+
+"He has my blessing."
+
+"You really are an angel," said Jill gratefully. "From what he said, I
+think he looks on it as rather an important function. He has invited a
+very rich woman, who has been showing him a lot of hospitality--a Mrs.
+Peagrim...."
+
+"Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim?"
+
+"Yes? Why, do you know her?"
+
+"Quite well. She goes in a good deal for being Bohemian and knowing
+people who write and paint and act and so on. That reminds me. I gave
+Freddie Rooke a letter of introduction to her."
+
+"Freddie Rooke!"
+
+"Yes. He suddenly made up his mind to come over. He came to me for
+advice about the journey. He sailed a couple of days before I did. I
+suppose he's somewhere in New York by now, unless he was going on to
+Florida. He didn't tell me what his plans were."
+
+Jill was conscious of a sudden depression. Much as she liked Freddie,
+he belonged to a chapter in her life which was closed and which she
+was trying her hardest to forget. It was impossible to think of
+Freddie without thinking of Derek, and to think of Derek was like
+touching an exposed nerve. The news that Freddie was in New York
+shocked her. New York had already shown itself a city of chance
+encounters. Could she avoid meeting Freddie?
+
+She knew Freddie so well. There was not a dearer or a better-hearted
+youth in the world, but he had not that fine sensibility which pilots
+a man through the awkwardnesses of life. He was a blunderer. Instinct
+told her that, if she met Freddie, he would talk of Derek, and, if
+thinking of Derek was touching an exposed nerve, talking of him would
+be like pressing on that nerve with a heavy hand. She shivered.
+
+Wally was observant.
+
+"There's no need to meet him if you don't want to," he said.
+
+"No," said Jill doubtfully.
+
+"New York's a large place. By the way," he went on, "to return once
+more to the interesting subject of my lodger, does your uncle sleep
+here at nights, do you know?"
+
+Jill looked at him gratefully. He was no blunderer. Her desire to
+avoid Freddie Rooke was, he gave her tacitly to understand, her
+business, and he did not propose to intrude on it. She liked him for
+dismissing the subject so easily.
+
+"No, I think he told me he doesn't."
+
+"Well, that's something, isn't it! I call that darned nice of him! I
+wonder if I could drop back here somewhere about eleven o'clock. Are
+the festivities likely to be over by then? If I know Mrs. Peagrim, she
+will insist on going off to one of the hotels to dance directly after
+dinner. She's a confirmed trotter."
+
+"I don't know how to apologize," began Jill remorsefully.
+
+"Please don't. It's absolutely all right." His eye wandered to the
+mantelpiece, as it had done once or twice during the conversation. In
+her hurry Jill had replaced the snapshot with its back to the room,
+and Wally had the fidgety air of a man whose most cherished possession
+is maltreated. He got up now and, walking across, turned the
+photograph round. He stood for a moment, looking at it. Jill had
+forgotten the snapshot. Curiosity returned to her.
+
+"Where _did_ you get that?" she asked.
+
+Wally turned.
+
+"Oh, did you see this?"
+
+"I was looking at it just before you nearly frightened me to death by
+appearing so unexpectedly."
+
+"Freddie Rooke sold it to me fourteen years ago."
+
+"Fourteen years ago?"
+
+"Next July," added Wally. "I gave him five shillings for it."
+
+"Five shillings! The little brute!" cried Jill indignantly. "It must
+have been all the money you had in the world!"
+
+"A trifle more, as a matter of fact. All the money I had in the world
+was three-and-six. But by a merciful dispensation of Providence the
+curate had called that morning and left a money-box for subscriptions
+to the village organ-fund.... It's wonderful what you can do with a
+turn for crime and the small blade of a pocket-knife! I don't think I
+have ever made money quicker!" He looked at the photograph again. "Not
+that it seemed quick at the moment. I died at least a dozen agonizing
+deaths in the few minutes I was operating. Have you ever noticed how
+slowly time goes when you are coaxing a shilling and a sixpence out of
+somebody's money-box? Centuries! But I was forgetting. Of course
+you've had no experience."
+
+"You poor thing!"
+
+"It was worth it."
+
+"And you've had it ever since!"
+
+"I wouldn't part with it for all Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's millions,"
+said Wally with sudden and startling vehemence, "if she offered me
+them." He paused. "She hasn't, as a matter of fact."
+
+There was a silence. Jill looked at Wally furtively as he returned to
+his seat. She was seeing him with new eyes. It was as if this trifling
+incident had removed some sort of a veil. He had suddenly become more
+alive. For an instant she had seen right into him, to the hidden deeps
+of his soul. She felt shy and embarrassed.
+
+"Pat died," she said at length. She felt the necessity of saying
+something.
+
+"I liked Pat."
+
+"He picked up some poison, poor darling.... How long ago those days
+seem, don't they?"
+
+"They are always pretty vivid to me. I wonder who has that old house
+of yours now."
+
+"I heard the other day," said Jill more easily. The odd sensation of
+embarrassment was passing. "Some people called ... what was the
+name?... Debenham, I think."
+
+Silence fell again. It was broken by the front-door bell, like an
+alarm-clock that shatters a dream.
+
+Wally got up.
+
+"Your uncle," he said.
+
+"You aren't going to open the door?"
+
+"That was the scheme."
+
+"But he'll get such a shock when he sees you."
+
+"He must look on it in the light of rent. I don't see why I shouldn't
+have a little passing amusement from this business."
+
+He left the room. Jill heard the front door open. She waited
+breathlessly. Pity for Uncle Chris struggled with the sterner feeling
+that it served him right.
+
+"Hullo!" she heard Wally say.
+
+"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" replied an exuberant voice. "Wondered if I'd find
+you in, and all that sort of thing. I say, what a deuce of a way up it
+is here. Sort of get a chappie into training for going to heaven,
+what? I mean, what?"
+
+Jill looked about her like a trapped animal. It was absurd, she felt,
+but every nerve in her body cried out against the prospect of meeting
+Freddie. His very voice had opened old wounds and set them throbbing.
+
+She listened in the doorway. Out of sight down the passage, Freddie
+seemed by the sounds to be removing his overcoat. She stole out and
+darted like a shadow down the corridor that led to Wally's bedroom.
+The window of the bedroom opened on to the wide roof which Uncle Chris
+had eulogized. She slipped noiselessly out, closing the window behind
+her.
+
+
+II
+
+"I say, Mason, old top," said Freddie, entering the sitting-room, "I
+hope you don't mind my barging in like this, but the fact is things
+are a bit thick. I'm dashed worried, and I didn't know another soul I
+could talk it over with. As a matter of fact, I wasn't sure you were
+in New York at all, but I remembered hearing you say in London that
+you were popping back almost at once, so I looked you up in the
+telephone book and took a chance. I'm dashed glad you _are_ back. When
+did you arrive?"
+
+"This afternoon."
+
+"I've been here two or three days. Well, it's a bit of luck catching
+you. You see, what I want to ask your advice about...."
+
+Wally looked at his watch. He was not surprised to find that Jill had
+taken to flight. He understood her feelings perfectly, and was anxious
+to get rid of the inopportune Freddie as soon as possible.
+
+"You'll have to talk quick, I'm afraid," he said. "I've lent this
+place to a man for the evening, and he's having some people to dinner.
+What's the trouble?"
+
+"It's about Jill."
+
+"Jill?"
+
+"Jill Mariner, you know. You remember Jill? You haven't forgotten my
+telling you all that? About her losing her money and coming over to
+America?"
+
+"No. I remember you telling me that."
+
+Freddie seemed to miss something in his companion's manner, some note
+of excitement and perturbation.
+
+"Of course," he said, as if endeavouring to explain this to himself,
+"you hardly knew her, I suppose. Only met once since you were kids and
+all that sort of thing. But I'm a pal of hers and I'm dashed upset by
+the whole business, I can tell you. It worries me, I mean to say. Poor
+girl, you know, landed on her uppers in a strange country. Well, I
+mean, it worries me. So the first thing I did when I got here was to
+try to find her. That's why I came over, really, to try to find her.
+Apart from anything else, you see, poor old Derek is dashed worried
+about her."
+
+"Need we bring Underhill in?"
+
+"Oh, I know you don't like him and think he behaved rather rummily and
+so forth, but that's all right now."
+
+"It is, is it?" said Wally drily.
+
+"Oh, absolutely. It's all on again."
+
+"What's all on again?"
+
+"Why, I mean he wants to marry Jill. I came over to find her and tell
+her so."
+
+Wally's eyes glowed.
+
+"If you have come over as an ambassador...."
+
+"That's right. Jolly old ambassador. Very word I used myself."
+
+"I say, if you have come over as an ambassador with the idea of
+reopening negotiations with Jill on behalf of that infernal swine...."
+
+"Old man!" protested Freddie, pained. "Pal of mine, you know."
+
+"If he is, after what's happened, your mental processes are beyond
+me."
+
+"My what, old son?"
+
+"Your mental processes."
+
+"Oh, ah!" said Freddie, learning for the first time that he had any.
+
+Wally looked at him intently. There was a curious expression on his
+rough-hewn face.
+
+"I can't understand you, Freddie. If ever there was a fellow who might
+have been expected to take the only possible view of Underhill's
+behaviour in this business, I should have said it was you. You're a
+public-school man. You've mixed all the time with decent people. You
+wouldn't do anything that wasn't straight yourself to save your life.
+Yet it seems to have made absolutely no difference in your opinion of
+this man Underhill that he behaved like an utter cad to a girl who
+was one of your best friends. You seem to worship him just as much as
+ever. And you have travelled three thousand miles to bring a message
+from him to Jill--Good God! _Jill_!--to the effect, as far as I can
+understand it, that he has thought it over and come to the conclusion
+that after all she may possibly be good enough for him!"
+
+Freddie recovered the eye-glass which the raising of his eyebrows had
+caused to fall, and polished it in a crushed sort of way. Rummy, he
+reflected, how chappies stayed the same all their lives as they were
+when they were kids. Nasty, tough sort of chap Wally Mason had been as
+a boy, and here he was, apparently, not altered a bit. At least the
+only improvement he could detect was that, whereas in the old days
+Wally, when in an ugly mood like this, would undoubtedly have kicked
+him, he now seemed content with mere words. All the same, he was being
+dashed unpleasant. And he was all wrong about poor Derek. This last
+fact he endeavoured to make clear.
+
+"You don't understand," he said. "You don't realize. You've never met
+Lady Underhill, have you?"
+
+"What has she got to do with it?"
+
+"Everything, old bean, everything. If it hadn't been for her, there
+wouldn't have been any trouble of any description, sort, or order. But
+she barged in and savaged poor old Derek till she absolutely made him
+break off the engagement."
+
+"If you call him 'poor old Derek' again, Freddie," said Wally
+viciously, "I'll drop you out of the window and throw your hat after
+you! If he's such a gelatine-backboned worm that his mother can...."
+
+"You don't know her, old thing! She's _the_ original hellhound!"
+
+"I don't care what...."
+
+"Must be seen to be believed," mumbled Freddie.
+
+"I don't care what she's like! Any man who could...."
+
+"Once seen, never forgotten!"
+
+"Damn you! Don't interrupt every time I try to get a word in!"
+
+"Sorry, old man! Shan't occur again!"
+
+Wally moved to the window, and stood looking out. He had had much more
+to say on the subject of Derek Underhill, but Freddie's interruptions
+had put it out of his head, and he felt irritated and baffled.
+
+"Well, all I can say is," he remarked savagely, "that, if you have
+come over here as an ambassador to try and effect a reconciliation
+between Jill and Underhill, I hope to God you'll never find her."
+
+Freddie emitted a weak cough, like a very far-off asthmatic old sheep.
+He was finding Wally more overpowering every moment. He had rather
+forgotten the dear old days of his childhood, but this conversation
+was beginning to refresh his memory: and he was realizing more vividly
+with every moment that passed how very Wallyish Wally was--how
+extraordinarily like the Wally who had dominated his growing intellect
+when they were both in Eton suits. Freddie in those days had been all
+for peace, and he was all for peace now. He made his next observation
+diffidently.
+
+"I _have_ found her!"
+
+Wally spun round.
+
+"What!"
+
+"When I say that, I don't absolutely mean I've seen her. I mean I know
+where she is. That's what I came round to see you about. Felt I must
+talk it over, you know. The situation seems to me dashed rotten and
+not a little thick. The fact is, old man, she's gone on the stage. In
+the chorus, you know. And, I mean to say, well, if you follow what I'm
+driving at, what, what?"
+
+"In the chorus?"
+
+"In the chorus!"
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+Freddie groped for his eyeglass, which had fallen again. He regarded
+it a trifle sternly. He was fond of the little chap, but it was always
+doing that sort of thing. The whole trouble was that, if you wanted to
+keep it in its place, you simply couldn't register any sort of emotion
+with the good old features: and, when you were chatting with a fellow
+like Wally Mason, you had to be registering something all the time.
+
+"Well, that was a bit of luck, as a matter of fact. When I first got
+here, you know, it seemed to me the only thing to do was to round up a
+merry old detective and put the matter in his hands, like they do in
+stories. _You_ know. Ring at the bell. 'And this, if I mistake not,
+Watson, is my client now.' And then in breezes client and spills the
+plot. I found a sleuth in the classified telephone directory, and
+toddled round. Rummy chaps, detectives! Ever met any? I always thought
+they were lean, hatchet-faced Johnnies with inscrutable smiles. This
+one looked just like my old Uncle Ted, the one who died of apoplexy.
+Jovial, puffy-faced bird, who kept bobbing up behind a fat cigar. Have
+you ever noticed what whacking big cigars these fellows over here
+smoke? Rummy country, America. You ought to have seen the way this
+blighter could shift his cigar right across his face with moving his
+jaw-muscles. Like a flash! Most remarkable thing you ever saw, I give
+you my honest word! He...."
+
+"Couldn't you keep your Impressions of America for the book you're
+going to write, and come to the point?" said Wally rudely.
+
+"Sorry, old chap," said Freddie meekly. "Glad you reminded me.
+Well.... Oh, yes. We had got as far as the jovial old human
+bloodhound, hadn't we? Well, I put the matter before this chappie.
+Told him I wanted to find a girl, showed him a photograph, and so
+forth. I say," said Freddie, wandering off once more into speculation,
+"why is it that coves like that always talk of a girl as 'the little
+lady'? This chap kept saying 'We'll find the little lady for you!' Oh,
+well, that's rather off the rails, isn't it? It just floated across my
+mind and I thought I'd mention it. Well, this blighter presumably
+nosed about and made enquiries for a couple of days, but didn't effect
+anything that you might call substantial. I'm not blaming him, mind
+you. I shouldn't care to have a job like that myself. I mean to say,
+when you come to think of what a frightful number of girls there are
+in this place, to have to ... well, as I say, he did his best but
+didn't click; and then this evening, just before I came here, I met a
+girl I had known in England--she was in a show over there--a girl
+called Nelly Bryant...."
+
+"Nelly Bryant? I know her."
+
+"Yes? Fancy that! She was in a thing called 'Follow the Girl' in
+London. Did you see it by any chance? Topping show! There was one
+scene where the...."
+
+"Get on! Get on! I wrote it."
+
+"You wrote it?" Freddie beamed simple-hearted admiration. "My dear old
+chap, I congratulate you! One of the ripest and most all-wool musical
+comedies I've ever seen. I went twenty-four times. Rummy I don't
+remember spotting that you wrote it. I suppose one never looks at the
+names on the programme. Yes, I went twenty-four times The first time I
+went was with a couple of chappies from...."
+
+"Listen, Freddie!" said Wally feverishly. "On some other occasion I
+should dearly love to hear the story of your life, but just now...."
+
+"Absolutely, old man. You're perfectly right. Well, to cut a long
+story short, Nelly Bryant told me that she and Jill were rehearsing
+with a piece called 'The Rose of America.'"
+
+"'The Rose of America!'"
+
+"I think that was the name of it."
+
+"That's Ike Goble's show. He called me up on the phone about it half
+an hour ago. I promised to go and see a rehearsal of it to-morrow or
+the day after. And Jill's in that?"
+
+"Yes. How about it? I mean, I don't know much about this sort of
+thing, but do you think it's the sort of thing Jill ought to be
+doing?"
+
+Wally was moving restlessly about the room. Freddie's news had
+disquieted him. Mr. Goble had a reputation.
+
+"I know a lot about it," he replied, "and it certainly isn't." He
+scowled at the carpet. "Oh, damn everybody!"
+
+Freddie paused to allow him to proceed, if such should be his wish,
+but Wally had apparently said his say. Freddie went on to point out an
+aspect of the matter which was troubling him greatly.
+
+"I'm sure poor old Derek wouldn't like her being in the chorus!"
+
+Wally started so violently that for a moment Freddie was uneasy.
+
+"I mean Underhill," he corrected himself hastily.
+
+"Freddie," said Wally, "you're an awfully good chap, but I wish you
+would exit rapidly now! Thanks for coming and telling me, very good of
+you. This way out!"
+
+"But, old man...!"
+
+"Now what?"
+
+"I thought we were going to discuss this binge and decide what to do
+and all that sort of thing."
+
+"Some other time. I want to think about it."
+
+"Oh, you will think about it?"
+
+"Yes, I'll think about it."
+
+"Topping! You see, you're a brainy sort of fellow, and you'll probably
+hit something."
+
+"I probably shall, if you don't go."
+
+"Eh? Oh, ah, yes!" Freddie struggled into his coat. More than ever did
+the adult Wally remind him of the dangerous stripling of years gone
+by. "Well, cheerio!"
+
+"Same to you!"
+
+"You'll let me know if you scare up some devilish fruity wheeze, won't
+you? I'm at the Biltmore."
+
+"Very good place to be. Go there now."
+
+"Right ho! Well, toodle-oo!"
+
+"The elevator is at the foot of the stairs," said Wally. "You press
+the bell and up it comes. You hop in and down you go! It's a great
+invention! Good night!"
+
+"Oh, I say. One moment...."
+
+"Good _night_!" said Wally.
+
+He closed the door, and ran down the passage.
+
+"Jill!" he called. He opened the bedroom window and stepped out.
+"Jill!"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Jill!" called Wally once again, but again there was no answer.
+
+Wally walked to the parapet, and looked over. Below him the vastness
+of the city stretched itself in a great triangle, its apex the
+harbour, its sides the dull silver of the East and Hudson Rivers.
+Directly before him, crowned with its white lantern, the Metropolitan
+Tower reared its graceful height to the stars. And all around, in the
+windows of the tall buildings that looked from this bastion on which
+he stood almost squat, a million lights stared up at him, the
+unsleeping eyes of New York. It was a scene of which Wally, always
+sensitive to beauty, never tired: but to-night it had lost its appeal.
+A pleasant breeze from the Jersey shore greeted him with a quickening
+whisper of springtime and romance, but it did not lift the heaviness
+of his heart. He felt depressed and apprehensive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MR. GOBLE MAKES THE BIG NOISE
+
+I
+
+
+Spring, whose coming the breeze had heralded to Wally as he smoked
+upon the roof, floated graciously upon New York two mornings later.
+The city awoke to a day of blue and gold and to a sense of hard times
+over and good times to come. In his apartment on Park Avenue, Mr Isaac
+Goble, sniffing the gentle air from the window of his breakfast-room,
+returned to his meal and his _Morning Telegraph_ with a resolve to
+walk to the theatre for rehearsal: a resolve which had also come to
+Jill and Nelly Bryant, eating stewed prunes in their boarding-house in
+the Forties. On the summit of his sky-scraper, Wally Mason, performing
+Swedish exercises to the delectation of various clerks and
+stenographers in the upper windows of neighbouring buildings, felt
+young and vigorous and optimistic, and went in to his shower-bath
+thinking of Jill. And it was of Jill, too, that young Pilkington
+thought, as he propped his long form up against the pillows and sipped
+his morning cup of tea. For the first time in several days a certain
+moodiness which had affected Otis Pilkington left him, and he dreamed
+happy day-dreams.
+
+The gaiety of Otis was not, however, entirely or even primarily due to
+the improvement in the weather. It had its source in a conversation
+which had taken place between himself and Jill's Uncle Chris on the
+previous night. Exactly how it had come about, Mr. Pilkington was not
+entirely clear, but, somehow, before he was fully aware of what he was
+saying, he had begun to pour into Major Selby's sympathetic ears the
+story of his romance. Encouraged by the other's kindly receptiveness,
+he had told him all--his love for Jill, his hopes that some day it
+might be returned, the difficulties complicating the situation owing
+to the known prejudices of Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim concerning girls
+who formed the personnel of musical comedy ensembles. To all these
+outpourings Major Selby had listened with keen attention, and finally
+had made one of those luminous suggestions, so simple yet so shrewd,
+which emanate only from your man of the world. It was Jill's girlish
+ambition, it seemed from Major Selby's statement, to become a force in
+the motion-picture world. The movies were her objective.
+
+What, he broke off to ask, did Pilkington think of the idea?
+
+Pilkington thought the idea splendid. Miss Mariner, with her charm and
+looks, would be wonderful in the movies.
+
+There was, said Uncle Chris, a future for the girl in the movies.
+
+Mr. Pilkington agreed cordially. A great future indeed.
+
+"Observe," proceeded Uncle Chris, gathering speed and expanding his
+chest as he spread his legs before the fire, "how it would simplify
+the whole matter if Jill were to become a motion-picture artist and
+win fame and wealth in her profession. You go to your excellent aunt
+and announce that you are engaged to be married to Jill Mariner. There
+is a momentary pause. 'Not _the_ Jill Mariner?' falters Mrs. Peagrim.
+'Yes, the famous Miss Mariner!' you reply. Well, I ask you, my boy,
+can you see her making any objection? Such a thing would be absurd.
+No, I can see no flaw in the project whatsoever." Here Uncle Chris, as
+he had pictured Mrs. Peagrim doing, paused for a moment. "Of course,
+there would be the preliminaries."
+
+"The preliminaries?"
+
+Uncle Chris' voice became a melodious coo. He beamed upon Mr.
+Pilkington.
+
+"Well, think for yourself, my boy! These things cannot be done without
+money. I do not propose to allow my niece to waste her time and her
+energy in the rank and file of the profession, waiting years for a
+chance that might never come. There is plenty of room at the top, and
+that, in the motion-picture profession, is the place to start. If Jill
+is to become a motion-picture artist, a special company must be formed
+to promote her. She must be made a feature, a star, from the
+beginning. Whether," said Uncle Chris, smoothing the crease of his
+trousers, "you would wish to take shares in the company yourself...."
+
+"Oo...!"
+
+"... is a matter," proceeded Uncle Chris, ignoring the interruption,
+"for you yourself to decide. Possibly you have other claims on your
+purse. Possibly this musical play of yours has taken all the cash you
+are prepared to lock up. Possibly you may consider the venture too
+speculative. Possibly ... there are a hundred reasons why you may not
+wish to join us. But I know a dozen men--I can go down Wall Street
+to-morrow and pick out twenty men--who will be glad to advance the
+necessary capital. I can assure you that I personally shall not
+hesitate to risk--if one can call it risking--any loose cash which I
+may have lying idle at my banker's."
+
+He rattled the loose cash which he had lying idle in his
+trouser-pocket--fifteen cents in all--and stopped to flick a piece of
+fluff off his coat-sleeve. Mr. Pilkington was thus enabled to insert a
+word.
+
+"How much would you want?" he enquired.
+
+"That," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "is a little hard to say. I
+should have to look into the matter more closely in order to give you
+the exact figures. But let us say for the sake of argument that you
+put up--what shall we say?--a hundred thousand? fifty thousand? ...
+no, we will be conservative. Perhaps you had better not begin with
+more than ten thousand. You can always buy more shares later. I don't
+suppose I shall begin with more than ten thousand myself."
+
+"I could manage ten thousand all right."
+
+"Excellent. We make progress, we make progress. Very well, then. I go
+to my Wall Street friends and tell them about the scheme, and say
+'Here is ten thousand dollars! What is your contribution?' It puts the
+affair on a business-like basis, you understand. Then we really get to
+work. But use your own judgment, my boy, you know. Use your own
+judgment. I would not think of persuading you to take such a step, if
+you felt at all doubtful. Think it over. Sleep on it. And, whatever
+you decide to do, on no account say a word about it to Jill. It would
+be cruel to raise her hopes until we are certain that we are in a
+position to enable her to realize them. And, of course, not a word to
+Mrs. Peagrim."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Very well, then, my boy," said Uncle Chris affably. "I will leave you
+to turn the whole thing over in your mind. Act entirely as you think
+best. How is your insomnia, by the way? Did you try Nervino? Capital!
+There's nothing like it. It did wonders for _me_! Good night, good
+night!"
+
+Otis Pilkington had been turning the thing over in his mind, with an
+interval for sleep, ever since. And the more he thought of it, the
+better the scheme appeared to him. He winced a little at the thought
+of the ten thousand dollars, for he came of prudent stock and had been
+brought up in habits of parsimony, but, after all, he reflected, the
+money would be merely a loan. Once the company found its feet, it
+would be returned to him a hundred-fold. And there was no doubt that
+this would put a completely different aspect on his wooing of Jill, as
+far as Aunt Olive was concerned. Why, a cousin of his--young Brewster
+Philmore--had married a movie-star only two years ago, and nobody had
+made the slightest objection. Brewster was to be seen with his bride
+frequently beneath Mrs. Peagrim's roof. Against the higher strata of
+Bohemia Mrs. Peagrim had no prejudice at all. Quite the reverse, in
+fact. She liked the society of those whose names were often in the
+papers and much in the public mouth. It seemed to Otis Pilkington, in
+short, that Love had found a way. He sipped his tea with relish, and
+when the Japanese valet brought in the toast all burned on one side,
+chided him with a gentle sweetness which, one may hope, touched the
+latter's Oriental heart and inspired him with a desire to serve his
+best of employers more efficiently.
+
+At half-past ten, Otis Pilkington removed his dressing-gown and began
+to put on his clothes to visit the theatre. There was a rehearsal-call
+for the whole company at eleven. As he dressed, his mood was as sunny
+as the day itself.
+
+And the day, by half-past ten, was as sunny as ever Spring day had
+been in a country where Spring comes early and does its best from the
+very start. The blue sky beamed down on a happy city. To and fro the
+citizenry bustled, aglow with the perfection of the weather.
+Everywhere was gaiety and good cheer, except on the stage of the
+Gotham Theatre, where an early rehearsal, preliminary to the main
+event, had been called by Johnson Miller in order to iron some of the
+kinks out of the "My Heart and I" number, which, with the assistance
+of the male chorus, the leading lady was to render in Act One.
+
+On the stage of the Gotham gloom reigned--literally, because the stage
+was wide and deep and was illumined only by a single electric light;
+and figuratively, because things were going even worse than usual with
+the "My Heart and I" number, and Johnson Miller, always of an
+emotional and easily stirred temperament, had been goaded by the
+incompetence of his male chorus to a state of frenzy. At about the
+moment when Otis Pilkington shed his flowered dressing-gown and
+reached for his trousers (the heather-mixture with the red twill),
+Johnson Miller was pacing the gangway between the orchestra pit and
+the first row of the orchestra chairs, waving one hand and clutching
+his white locks with the other, his voice raised the while in agonized
+protest.
+
+"Gentlemen, you silly idiots," complained Mr. Miller loudly, "you've
+had three weeks to get these movements into your thick heads, and you
+haven't done a damn thing right! You're all over the place! You don't
+seem able to turn without tumbling over each other like a lot of
+Keystone Kops! What's the matter with you? You're not doing the
+movements I showed you; you're doing some you have invented
+yourselves, and they are rotten! I've no doubt you think you can
+arrange a number better than I can, but Mr. Goble engaged me to be the
+director, so kindly do exactly as I tell you. Don't try to use your
+own intelligence, because you haven't any. I'm not blaming you for it.
+It wasn't your fault that your nurses dropped you on your heads when
+you were babies. But it handicaps you when you try to think."
+
+Of the seven gentlemanly members of the male ensemble present, six
+looked wounded by this tirade. They had the air of good men wrongfully
+accused. They appeared to be silently calling on Heaven to see justice
+done between Mr. Miller and themselves. The seventh, a long-legged
+young man in faultlessly fitting tweeds of English cut, seemed, on the
+other hand, not so much hurt as embarrassed. It was this youth who now
+stepped down to the darkened footlights and spoke in a remorseful and
+conscience-stricken manner.
+
+"I say!"
+
+Mr. Miller, that martyr to deafness, did not hear the pathetic bleat.
+He had swung off at right angles and was marching in an overwrought
+way up the central aisle leading to the back of the house, his
+india-rubber form moving in convulsive jerks. Only when he had turned
+and retraced his steps did he perceive the speaker and prepare to take
+his share in the conversation.
+
+"What?" he shouted. "Can't hear you!"
+
+"I say, you know, it's my fault, really."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mean to say, you know...."
+
+"What? Speak up, can't you?"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg, who had been seated at the piano, absently playing a
+melody from his unproduced musical comedy, awoke to the fact that the
+services of an interpreter were needed. He obligingly left the
+music-stool and crept, crab-like, along the ledge of the stage-box. He
+placed his arm about Mr. Miller's shoulders and his lips to Mr.
+Miller's left ear, and drew a deep breath.
+
+"He says it is his fault!"
+
+Mr. Miller nodded adhesion to this admirable sentiment.
+
+"I know they're not worth their salt!" he replied.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg patiently took in a fresh stock of breath.
+
+"This young man says it is his fault that the movement went wrong!"
+
+"Tell him I only signed on this morning, laddie," urged the tweed-clad
+young man.
+
+"He only joined the company this morning!"
+
+This puzzled Mr. Miller.
+
+"How do you mean, warning?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg, purple in the face, made a last effort.
+
+"This young man is new," he bellowed carefully, keeping to words of
+one syllable. "He does not yet know the steps. He says this is his
+first day here, so he does not yet know the steps. When he has been
+here some more time he will know the steps. But now he does not know
+the steps."
+
+"What he means," explained the young man in tweeds helpfully, "is that
+I don't know the steps."
+
+"He does not know the steps!" roared Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"I know he doesn't know the steps," said Mr. Miller. "Why doesn't he
+know the steps? He's had long enough to learn them."
+
+"He is new!"
+
+"Hugh?"
+
+"New!"
+
+"Oh, new?"
+
+"Yes, new!"
+
+"Why the devil is he new?" cried Mr. Miller, awaking suddenly to the
+truth and filled with a sense of outrage. "Why didn't he join with the
+rest of the company? How can I put on chorus numbers if I am saddled
+every day with new people to teach? Who engaged him?"
+
+"Who engaged you?" enquired Mr. Saltzburg of the culprit.
+
+"Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"Mr. Pilkington," shouted Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"When?"
+
+"When?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+"Last night."
+
+Mr. Miller waved his hands in a gesture of divine despair, spun round,
+darted up the aisle, turned, and bounded back.
+
+"What can I do?" he wailed. "My hands are tied! I am hampered! I am
+handicapped! We open in two weeks and every day I find somebody new in
+the company to upset everything I have done. I shall go to Mr. Goble
+and ask to be released from my contract. I shall.... Come along, come
+along, come along now!" he broke off suddenly. "Why are we wasting
+time? The whole number once more. The whole number once more from the
+beginning!"
+
+The young man tottered back to his gentlemanly colleagues, running a
+finger in an agitated manner round the inside of his collar. He was
+not used to this sort of thing. In a large experience of amateur
+theatricals he had never encountered anything like it. In the
+breathing-space afforded by the singing of the first verse and refrain
+by the lady who played the heroine of "The Rose of America," he found
+time to make an enquiry of the artist on his right.
+
+"I say! Is he always like this?"
+
+"Who? Johnny?"
+
+"The sportsman with the hair that turned white in a single night. The
+barker on the sky-line. Does he often get the wind up like this?"
+
+His colleague smiled tolerantly.
+
+"Why, that's nothing!" he replied. "Wait till you see him really cut
+loose! That was just a gentle whisper!"
+
+"My God!" said the newcomer, staring into a bleak future.
+
+The leading lady came to the end of her refrain, and the gentlemen of the
+ensemble, who had been hanging about up-stage, began to curvet nimbly down
+towards her in a double line; the new arrival, with an eye on his nearest
+neighbour, endeavouring to curvet as nimbly as the others. A clapping of
+hands from the dark auditorium indicated--inappropriately--that he had
+failed to do so. Mr. Miller could be perceived--dimly--with all his
+fingers entwined in his hair.
+
+"Clear the stage!" yelled Mr. Miller. "Not you!" he shouted, as the
+latest addition to the company began to drift off with the others.
+"You stay!"
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Yes, you. I shall have to teach you the steps by yourself, or we
+shall get nowhere. Go up-stage. Start the music again, Mr. Saltzburg.
+Now, when the refrain begins, come down. Gracefully! Gracefully!"
+
+The young man, pink but determined, began to come down gracefully. And
+it was while he was thus occupied that Jill and Nelly Bryant, entering
+the wings which were beginning to fill up as eleven o'clock
+approached, saw him.
+
+"Whoever is that?" said Nelly.
+
+"New man," replied one of the chorus gentlemen. "Came this morning."
+
+Nelly turned to Jill.
+
+"He looks just like Mr. Rooke!" she exclaimed.
+
+"He _is_ Mr. Rooke!" said Jill.
+
+"He can't be!"
+
+"He _is_!"
+
+"But what is he doing here?"
+
+Jill bit her lip.
+
+"That's just what I'm going to ask him myself," she said.
+
+
+II
+
+The opportunity for a private conversation with Freddie did not occur
+immediately. For ten minutes he remained alone on the stage, absorbing
+abusive tuition from Mr. Miller: and at the end of that period a
+further ten minutes was occupied with the rehearsing of the number
+with the leading lady and the rest of the male chorus. When, finally,
+a roar from the back of the auditorium announced the arrival of Mr.
+Goble and at the same time indicated Mr. Goble's desire that the stage
+should be cleared and the rehearsal proper begin, a wan smile of
+recognition and a faint "What ho!" was all that Freddie was able to
+bestow upon Jill, before, with the rest of the ensemble, they had to
+go out and group themselves for the opening chorus. It was only when
+this had been run through four times and the stage left vacant for two
+of the principals to play a scene that Jill was able to draw the Last
+of the Rookes aside in a dark corner and put him to the question.
+
+"Freddie, what are you doing here?"
+
+Freddie mopped his streaming brow. Johnson Miller's idea of an opening
+chorus was always strenuous. On the present occasion, the ensemble
+were supposed to be guests at a Long Island house-party, and Mr.
+Miller's conception of the gathering suggested that he supposed
+house-party guests on Long Island to consist exclusively of victims of
+St. Vitus' dance. Freddie was feeling limp, battered, and exhausted:
+and, from what he had gathered, the worst was yet to come.
+
+"Eh?" he said feebly.
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Oh, ah, yes! I see what you mean! I suppose you're surprised to find
+me in New York, what?"
+
+"I'm not surprised to find you in New York. I knew you had come over.
+But I am surprised to find you on the stage, being bullied by Mr.
+Miller."
+
+"I say," said Freddie in an awed voice. "He's a bit of a nut, that
+lad, what? He reminds me of the troops of Midian in the hymn. The
+chappies who prowled and prowled around. I'll bet he's worn a groove
+in the carpet. Like a jolly old tiger at the Zoo at feeding time.
+Wouldn't be surprised at any moment to look down and find him biting a
+piece out of my leg!"
+
+Jill seized his arm and shook it.
+
+"Don't _ramble_, Freddie! Tell me how you got here."
+
+"Oh, that was pretty simple. I had a letter of introduction to this
+chappie Pilkington who's running this show, and, we having got
+tolerably pally in the last few days, I went to him and asked him to
+let me join the merry throng. I said I didn't want any money, and the
+little bit of work I would do wouldn't make any difference, so he said
+'Right ho!' or words to that effect, and here I am."
+
+"But why? You can't be doing this for fun, surely?"
+
+"Fun!" A pained expression came into Freddie's face. "My idea of fun
+isn't anything in which jolly old Miller, the bird with the snowy
+hair, is permitted to mix. Something tells me that that lad is going
+to make it his life-work picking on me. No, I didn't do this for fun.
+I had a talk with Wally Mason the night before last, and he seemed to
+think that being in the chorus wasn't the sort of thing you ought to
+be doing, so I thought it over and decided that I ought to join the
+troupe too. Then I could always be on the spot, don't you know, if
+there was any trouble. I mean to say, I'm not much of a chap and all
+that sort of thing, but still I might come in handy one of these
+times. Keep a fatherly eye on you, don't you know, and what not!"
+
+Jill was touched. "You're a dear, Freddie!"
+
+"I thought, don't you know, it would make poor old Derek a bit easier
+in his mind."
+
+Jill froze.
+
+"I don't want to talk about Derek, Freddie, please."
+
+"Oh, I know what you must be feeling. Pretty sick, I'll bet, what? But
+if you could see him now...."
+
+"I don't want to talk about him!"
+
+"He's pretty cut up, you know. Regrets bitterly and all that sort of
+thing. He wants you to come back again."
+
+"I see! He sent you to fetch me?"
+
+"That was more or less the idea."
+
+"It's a shame that you had all the trouble. You can get messenger-boys
+to go anywhere and do anything nowadays. Derek ought to have thought
+of that."
+
+Freddie looked at her doubtfully.
+
+"You're spoofing, aren't you? I mean to say, you wouldn't have liked
+that!"
+
+"I shouldn't have disliked it any more than his sending you."
+
+"Oh, but I wanted to pop over. Keen to see America and so forth."
+
+Jill looked past him at the gloomy stage. Her face was set, and her
+eyes sombre.
+
+"Can't you understand, Freddie? You've known me a long time. I should
+have thought that you would have found out by now that I have a
+certain amount of pride. If Derek wanted me back, there was only one
+thing for him to do--come over and find me himself."
+
+"Rummy! That's what Mason said, when I told him. You two don't realize
+how dashed busy Derek is these days."
+
+"Busy!"
+
+Something in her face seemed to tell Freddie that he was not saying
+the right thing, but he stumbled on.
+
+"You've no notion how busy he is. I mean to say, elections coming on
+and so forth. He daren't stir from the metrop."
+
+"Of course I couldn't expect him to do anything that might interfere
+with his career, could I?"
+
+"Absolutely not. I knew you would see it!" said Freddie, charmed at
+her reasonableness. All rot, what you read about women being
+unreasonable. "Then I take it it's all right, eh?"
+
+"All right?"
+
+"I mean you will toddle home with me at the earliest opp. and make
+poor old Derek happy?"
+
+Jill laughed discordantly.
+
+"Poor old Derek!" she echoed. "He has been badly treated, hasn't he?"
+
+"Well, I wouldn't say that," said Freddie doubtfully. "You see, coming
+down to it, the thing was more or less his fault, what?"
+
+"More or less!"
+
+"I mean to say...."
+
+"More or less!"
+
+Freddie glanced at her anxiously. He was not at all sure now that he
+liked the way she was looking or the tone in which she spoke. He was
+not a keenly observant young man, but there did begin at this point to
+seep through to his brain-centres a suspicion that all was not well.
+
+"Let me pull myself together!" said Freddie warily to his immortal
+soul. "I believe I'm getting the raspberry!" And there was silence for
+a space.
+
+The complexity of life began to weigh upon Freddie. Life was like one
+of those shots at squash which seem so simple till you go to knock the
+cover off the ball, when the ball sort of edges away from you and you
+miss it. Life, Freddie began to perceive, was apt to have a nasty
+back-spin on it. He had never had any doubt when he had started, that
+the only difficult part of this expedition to America would be the
+finding of Jill. Once found, he had presumed that she would be
+delighted to hear his good news and would joyfully accompany him home
+on the next boat. It appeared now, however, that he had been too
+sanguine. Optimist as he was, he had to admit that, as far as could be
+ascertained with the naked eye, the jolly old binge might be said to
+have sprung a leak.
+
+He proceeded to approach the matter from another angle.
+
+"I say!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"You do love old Derek, don't you? I mean to say, you know what I
+mean, _love_ him and all that sort of rot?"
+
+"I don't know!"
+
+"You don't know! Oh, I say, come now! You must _know_! Pull up your
+socks, old thing.... I mean, pull yourself together! You either love a
+chappie or you don't."
+
+Jill smiled painfully.
+
+"How nice it would be if everything were as simple and straightforward
+as that. Haven't you ever heard that the dividing line between love
+and hate is just a thread? Poets have said so a great number of
+times."
+
+"Oh, poets!" said Freddie, dismissing the genus with a wave of the
+hand. He had been compelled to read Shakespeare and all that sort of
+thing at school, but it had left him cold, and since growing to man's
+estate he had rather handed the race of bards the mitten. He liked
+Doss Chiderdoss' stuff in the _Sporting Times_, but beyond that he was
+not much of a lad for poets.
+
+"Can't you understand a girl in my position not being able to make up
+her mind whether she loves a man or despises him?"
+
+Freddie shook his head.
+
+"No," he said. "It sounds dashed silly to me!"
+
+"Then what's the good of talking?" cried Jill. "It only hurts."
+
+"But--won't you come back to England?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, I say! Be a sport! Take a stab at it!"
+
+Jill laughed again--another of those grating laughs which afflicted
+Freddie with a sense of foreboding and failure. Something had
+undoubtedly gone wrong with the works. He began to fear that at some
+point in the conversation--just where he could not say--he had been
+less diplomatic than he might have been.
+
+"You speak as if you were inviting me to a garden-party! No, I won't
+take a stab at it. You've a lot to learn about women, Freddie!"
+
+"Women _are_ rum!" conceded that perplexed ambassador.
+
+Jill began to move away.
+
+"Don't go!" urged Freddie.
+
+"Why not? What's the use of talking any more? Have you ever broken an
+arm or a leg, Freddie?"
+
+"Yes," said Freddie, mystified. "As a matter of fact, my last year at
+Oxford, playing soccer for the college in a friendly game, some
+blighter barged into me and I came down on my wrist. But...."
+
+"It hurt?"
+
+"Like the deuce!"
+
+"And then it began to get better, I suppose. Well, used you to hit it,
+and twist it, and prod it, or did you leave it alone to try and heal?
+I won't talk any more about Derek! I simply won't! I'm all smashed up
+inside, and I don't know if I'm ever going to get well again, but at
+least I'm going to give myself a chance. I'm working as hard as ever I
+can and I'm forcing myself not to think of him. I'm in a sling,
+Freddie, like your wrist, and I don't want to be prodded. I hope we
+shall see a lot of each other while you're over here--you always were
+the greatest dear in the world--but you mustn't mention Derek again,
+and you mustn't ask me to go home. If you avoid those subjects, we'll
+be as happy as possible. And now I'm going to leave you to talk to
+poor Nelly. She has been hovering round for the last ten minutes,
+waiting for a chance to speak to you. She worships you, you know!"
+
+Freddie started violently.
+
+"Oh, I say! What rot!"
+
+Jill had gone, and he was still gaping after her, when Nelly Bryant
+moved towards him--shyly, like a worshipper approaching a shrine.
+
+"Hello, Mr. Rooke!" said Nelly.
+
+"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" said Freddie.
+
+Nelly fixed her large eyes on his face. A fleeting impression passed
+through Freddie's mind that she was looking unusually pretty this
+morning: nor was the impression unjustified. Nelly was wearing for the
+first time a Spring suit which was the outcome of hours of painful
+selection among the wares of a dozen different stores, and the
+knowledge that the suit was just right seemed to glow from her like an
+inner light. She felt happy, and her happiness had lent an unwonted
+colour to her face and a soft brightness to her eyes.
+
+"How nice it is, your being here!"
+
+Freddie waited for the inevitable question, the question with which
+Jill had opened their conversation; but it did not come. He was
+surprised, but relieved. He hated long explanations, and he was very
+doubtful whether loyalty to Jill could allow him to give them to
+Nelly. His reason for being where he was had to do so intimately with
+Jill's most private affairs. A wave of gratitude to Nelly swept
+through him when he realized that she was either incurious or else too
+delicate-minded to show inquisitiveness.
+
+As a matter of fact, it was delicacy that kept Nelly silent. Seeing
+Freddie here at the theatre, she had, as is not uncommon with fallible
+mortals, put two and two together and made the answer four when it
+was not four at all. She had been deceived by circumstantial evidence.
+Jill, whom she had left in England wealthy and secure, she had met
+again in New York penniless as the result of some Stock Exchange
+cataclysm in which, she remembered with the vagueness with which one
+recalls once-heard pieces of information, Freddie Rooke had been
+involved. True, she seemed to recollect hearing that Freddie's losses
+had been comparatively slight, but his presence in the chorus of "The
+Rose of America" seemed to her proof that after all they must have
+been devastating. She could think of no other reason except loss of
+money which could have placed Freddie in the position in which she now
+found him, so she accepted it; and, with the delicacy which was innate
+in her and which a hard life had never blunted, decided, directly she
+saw him, to make no allusion to the disaster.
+
+Such was Nelly's view of the matter, and sympathy gave to her manner a
+kind of maternal gentleness which acted on Freddie, raw from his late
+encounter with Mr. Johnson Miller and disturbed by Jill's attitude in
+the matter of poor old Derek, like a healing balm. His emotions were
+too chaotic for analysis, but one thing stood out clear from the
+welter--the fact that he was glad to be with Nelly as he had never
+been glad to be with a girl before, and found her soothing as he had
+never supposed a girl could be soothing.
+
+They talked desultorily of unimportant things, and every minute found
+Freddie more convinced that Nelly was not as other girls. He felt that
+he must see more of her.
+
+"I say," he said. "When this binge is over ... when the rehearsal
+finishes, you know, how about a bite to eat?"
+
+"I should love it. I generally go to the Automat."
+
+"The how-much? Never heard of it."
+
+"In Times Square. It's cheap, you know."
+
+"I was thinking of the Cosmopolis."
+
+"But that's so expensive."
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Much the same as any of the other places, isn't
+it?"
+
+Nelly's manner became more motherly than ever. She bent forward and
+touched his arm affectionately.
+
+"You haven't to keep up any front with me," she said gently. "I don't
+care whether you're rich or poor or what. I mean, of course I'm
+awfully sorry you've lost your money, but it makes it all the easier
+for us to be real pals, don't you think so?"
+
+"Lost my money?"
+
+"Well, I know you wouldn't be here if you hadn't. I wasn't going to
+say anything about it, but, when you talked of the Cosmopolis, I just
+had to. You lost your money in the same thing Jill Mariner lost hers,
+didn't you? I was sure you had, the moment I saw you here. Who cares?
+Money isn't everything!"
+
+Astonishment kept Freddie silent for an instant: after that he
+refrained from explanations of his own free will. He accepted the
+situation and rejoiced in it. Like many other wealthy and modest young
+men, he had always had a sneaking suspicion at the back of his mind
+that any girl who was decently civil to him was so from mixed
+motives--or, more likely, motives that were not even mixed. Well, dash
+it, here was a girl who seemed to like him although under the
+impression that he was broke to the wide. It was an intoxicating
+experience. It made him feel a better chap. It fortified his
+self-respect.
+
+"You know," he said, stammering a little, for he found a sudden
+difficulty in controlling his voice. "You're a dashed good sort!"
+
+"I'm awfully glad you think so."
+
+There was a silence--as far, at least, as he and she were concerned.
+In the outer world, beyond the piece of scenery under whose shelter
+they stood, stirring things, loud and exciting things, seemed to be
+happening. Some sort of an argument appeared to be in progress. The
+rasping voice of Mr. Goble was making itself heard from the unseen
+auditorium. These things they sensed vaguely, but they were too
+occupied with each other to ascertain details.
+
+"What was the name of that place again?" asked Freddie. "The
+what-ho-something?"
+
+"The Automat?"
+
+"That's the little chap! We'll go there, shall we?"
+
+"The food's quite good. You go and help yourself out of slot-machines,
+you know."
+
+"My favourite indoor sport!" said Freddie with enthusiasm. "Hullo!
+What's up? It sounds as if there were dirty work at the cross-roads!"
+
+The voice of the assistant stage-manager was calling, sharply excited,
+agitation in every syllable.
+
+"All the gentlemen of the chorus on the stage, please! Mr. Goble wants
+all the chorus-gentlemen on the stage!"
+
+"Well, cheerio for the present," said Freddie. "I suppose I'd better
+look into this."
+
+He made his way on to the stage.
+
+
+III
+
+There is an insidious something about the atmosphere of a rehearsal of
+a musical play which saps the finer feelings of those connected with
+it. Softened by the gentle beauty of the Spring weather, Mr. Goble had
+come to the Gotham Theatre that morning in an excellent temper, firmly
+intending to remain in an excellent temper all day. Five minutes of
+"The Rose of America" had sent him back to the normal; and at ten
+minutes past eleven he was chewing his cigar and glowering at the
+stage with all the sweetness gone from his soul. When Wally Mason
+arrived at a quarter past eleven and dropped into the seat beside him,
+the manager received him with a grunt and even omitted to offer him a
+cigar. And when a New York theatrical manager does that, it is a
+certain sign that his mood is of the worst.
+
+One may find excuses for Mr. Goble. "The Rose of America" would have
+tested the equanimity of a far more amiable man: and on Mr. Goble what
+Otis Pilkington had called its delicate whimsicality jarred
+profoundly. He had been brought up in the lower-browed school of
+musical comedy, where you shelved the plot after the opening number
+and filled in the rest of the evening by bringing on the girls in a
+variety of exotic costumes, with some good vaudeville specialists to
+get the laughs. Mr. Goble's idea of a musical piece was something
+embracing trained seals, acrobats, and two or three teams of skilled
+buck-and-wing dancers, with nothing on the stage, from a tree to a
+lamp-shade, which could not suddenly turn into a chorus-girl. The
+austere legitimateness of "The Rose of America" gave him a pain in the
+neck. He loathed plot, and "The Rose of America" was all plot.
+
+Why, then, had the earthy Mr. Goble consented to associate himself
+with the production of this intellectual play? Because he was subject,
+like all other New York managers, to intermittent spasms of the idea
+that the time is ripe for a revival of comic opera. Sometimes,
+lunching in his favourite corner in the Cosmopolis grill-room, he
+would lean across the table and beg some other manager to take it from
+him that the time was ripe for a revival of comic opera--or, more
+cautiously, that pretty soon the time was going to be ripe for a
+revival of comic opera. And the other manager would nod his head and
+thoughtfully stroke his three chins and admit that, sure as God made
+little apples, the time was darned soon going to be ripe for a revival
+of comic opera. And then they would stuff themselves with rich food
+and light big cigars and brood meditatively.
+
+With most managers these spasms, which may be compared to twinges of
+conscience, pass as quickly as they come, and they go back to coining
+money with rowdy musical comedies, quite contented. But Otis
+Pilkington, happening along with the script of "The Rose of America"
+and the cash to back it, had caught Mr. Goble in the full grip of an
+attack, and all the arrangements had been made before the latter
+emerged from the influence. He now regretted his rash act.
+
+"Say, listen," he said to Wally, his gaze on the stage, his words
+proceeding from the corner of his mouth, "you've got to stick around
+with this show after it opens on the road. We'll talk terms later. But
+we've got to get it right, don't care what it costs. See?"
+
+"You think it will need fixing?"
+
+Mr. Goble scowled at the unconscious artists, who were now going
+through a particularly arid stretch of dialogue.
+
+"Fixing! It's all wrong! It don't add up right! You'll have to rewrite
+it from end to end."
+
+"Well, I've got some idea about it. I saw it played by amateurs last
+summer, you know. I could make a quick job of it, if you want me to.
+But will the author stand for it?"
+
+Mr. Goble allowed a belligerent eye to stray from the stage, and
+twisted it round in Wally's direction.
+
+"Say, listen! He'll stand for anything I say. I'm the little guy that
+gives orders round here. I'm the big noise!"
+
+As if in support of this statement he suddenly emitted a terrific
+bellow. The effect was magical. The refined and painstaking artists on
+the stage stopped as if they had been shot. The assistant
+stage-director bent sedulously over the footlights, which had now been
+turned up, shading his eyes with the prompt script.
+
+"Take that over again!" shouted Mr. Goble. "Yes, that speech about
+life being like a water-melon. It don't sound to me as though it meant
+anything." He cocked his cigar at an angle, and listened fiercely. He
+clapped his hands. The action stopped again. "Cut it!" said Mr. Goble
+tersely.
+
+"Cut the speech, Mr. Goble?" queried the obsequious assistant
+stage-director.
+
+"Yes. Cut it. It don't mean nothing!"
+
+Down the aisle, springing from a seat at the back, shimmered Mr.
+Pilkington, wounded to the quick.
+
+"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"That is the best epigram in the play."
+
+"The best what?"
+
+"Epigram. The best epigram in the play."
+
+Mr. Goble knocked the ash off his cigar. "The public don't want
+epigrams. The public don't like epigrams. I've been in the show
+business fifteen years, and I'm telling you! Epigrams give them a pain
+under the vest. All right, get on."
+
+Mr. Pilkington fluttered agitatedly. This was his first experience of
+Mr. Goble in the capacity of stage-director. It was the latter's
+custom to leave the early rehearsals of the pieces with which he was
+connected to a subordinate producer, who did what Mr. Goble called the
+breaking-in. This accomplished, he would appear in person, undo most
+of the other's work, make cuts, tell the actors how to read their
+lines, and generally enjoy himself. Producing plays was Mr. Goble's
+hobby. He imagined himself to have a genius in that direction, and it
+was useless to try to induce him to alter any decision to which he
+might have come. He regarded those who did not agree with him with the
+lofty contempt of an Eastern despot.
+
+Of this Mr. Pilkington was not yet aware.
+
+"But, Mr. Goble ...!"
+
+The potentate swung irritably round on him.
+
+"What is it? What _is_ it? Can't you see I'm busy?"
+
+"That epigram...."
+
+"It's out!"
+
+"But ...!"
+
+"It's out!"
+
+"Surely," protested Mr. Pilkington almost tearfully, "I have a
+voice...."
+
+"Sure you have a voice," retorted Mr. Goble, "and you can use it any
+old place you want, except in my theatre. Have all the voice you like!
+Go round the corner and talk to yourself! Sing in your bath! But don't
+come using it here, because I'm the little guy that does all the
+talking in this theatre! That fellow makes me tired," he added
+complainingly to Wally, as Mr. Pilkington withdrew like a foiled
+python. "He don't know nothing about the show business, and he keeps
+butting in and making fool suggestions. He ought to be darned glad
+he's getting his first play produced and not trying to teach me how to
+direct it." He clapped his hands imperiously. The assistant
+stage-manager bent over the footlights. "What was that that guy said?
+Lord Finchley's last speech. Take it again."
+
+The gentleman who was playing the part of Lord Finchley, an English
+character actor who specialized in London "nuts," raised his eyebrows,
+annoyed. Like Mr. Pilkington, he had never before come into contact
+with Mr. Goble as stage-director, and, accustomed to the suaver
+methods of his native land, he was finding the experience trying. He
+had not yet recovered from the agony of having that water-melon line
+cut out of his part. It was the only good line, he considered, that he
+had. Any line that is cut out of an actor's part is always the only
+good line he has.
+
+"The speech about Omar Khayyám?" he enquired with suppressed
+irritation.
+
+"I thought that was the way you said it. All wrong! It's Omar _of_
+Khayyám."
+
+"I think you will find that Omar Khayyám is the--ah--generally
+accepted version of the poet's name," said the portrayer of Lord
+Finchley adding beneath his breath. "You silly ass!"
+
+"You say Omar _of_ Khayyám," bellowed Mr. Goble. "Who's running this
+show, anyway?"
+
+"Just as you please."
+
+Mr. Goble turned to Wally.
+
+"These actors...." he began, when Mr. Pilkington appeared again at his
+elbow.
+
+"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"
+
+"What is it _now_?"
+
+"Omar Khayyám was a Persian poet. His _name_ was Khayyám."
+
+"That wasn't the way _I_ heard it," said Mr. Goble doggedly. "Did
+_you_?" he enquired of Wally. "I thought he was born at Khayyám."
+
+"You're probably quite right," said Wally, "but, if so, everybody else
+has been wrong for a good many years. It's usually supposed that the
+gentleman's name was Omar Khayyám. Khayyám, Omar J. Born A.D. 1050,
+educated privately and at Bagdad University. Represented Persia in the
+Olympic Games of 1072, winning the sitting high-jump and the
+egg-and-spoon race. The Khayyáms were quite a well-known family in
+Bagdad, and there was a lot of talk when Omar, who was Mrs. Khayyam's
+pet son, took to drink and writing poetry. They had had it all fixed
+for him to go into his father's date business."
+
+Mr. Goble was impressed. He had a respect for Wally's opinion, for
+Wally had written "Follow the Girl" and look what a knock-out that had
+been. He stopped the rehearsal again.
+
+"Go back to that Khayyám speech!" he said interrupting Lord Finchley
+in mid-sentence.
+
+The actor whispered a hearty English oath beneath his breath. He had
+been up late last night, and, in spite of the fair weather, he was
+feeling a trifle on edge.
+
+"' In the words of Omar of Khayyám'...."
+
+Mr. Goble clapped his hands.
+
+"Cut that 'of,'" he said. "The show's too long, anyway."
+
+And, having handled a delicate matter in masterly fashion, he leaned
+back in his chair and chewed the end off another cigar.
+
+For some minutes after this the rehearsal proceeded smoothly. If Mr.
+Goble did not enjoy the play, at least he made no criticisms except to
+Wally. To him he enlarged from time to time on the pain which "The
+Rose of America" caused him.
+
+"How I ever came to put on junk like this beats me," confessed Mr.
+Goble frankly.
+
+"You probably saw that there was a good idea at the back of it,"
+suggested Wally. "There is, you know. Properly handled, it's an idea
+that could be made into a success."
+
+"What would you do with it?"
+
+"Oh, a lot of things," said Wally warily. In his younger and callower
+days he had sometimes been rash enough to scatter views on the
+reconstruction of plays broadcast, to find them gratefully absorbed
+and acted upon and treated as a friendly gift. His affection for Mr.
+Goble was not so overpowering as to cause him to give him ideas for
+nothing now.
+
+"Any time you want me to fix it for you, I'll come along. About one
+and a half per cent of the gross would meet the case, I think."
+
+Mr. Goble faced him, registering the utmost astonishment and horror.
+
+"One and a half per cent for fixing a show like this? Why, darn it,
+there's hardly anything to do to it! It's--it's _in_!"
+
+"You called it junk just now."
+
+"Well, all I meant was that it wasn't the sort of thing I cared for
+myself. The public will eat it. Take it from me, the time is just
+about ripe for a revival of comic opera."
+
+"This one will want all the reviving you can give it. Better use a
+pulmotor."
+
+"But that long boob, that Pilkington ... he would never stand for my
+handing you one and a half per cent."
+
+"I thought _you_ were the little guy who arranged things round here."
+
+"But he's got money in the show."
+
+"Well, if he wants to get any out, he'd better call in somebody to
+rewrite it. You don't have to engage me if you don't want to. But I
+know I could make a good job of it. There's just one little twist the
+thing needs and you would have quite a different piece."
+
+"What's that?" enquired Mr. Goble casually.
+
+"Oh, just a little ... what shall I say? ... a little touch of
+what-d'you-call-it and a bit of thingummy. You know the sort of thing!
+That's all it wants."
+
+Mr. Goble gnawed his cigar, baffled.
+
+"You think so, eh?" he said at length.
+
+"And perhaps a suspicion of _je-ne-sais-quoi_," added Wally.
+
+Mr. Goble worried his cigar, and essayed a new form of attack.
+
+"You've done a lot of work for me," he said. "Good work!"
+
+"Glad you liked it," said Wally.
+
+"You're a good kid. I like having you around. I was half thinking of
+giving you a show to do this Fall. Corking book. French farce. Ran
+two years in Paris. But what's the good, if you want the earth?"
+
+"Always useful, the earth. Good thing to have."
+
+"See here, if you'll fix up this show for half of one per cent, I'll
+give you the other to do."
+
+"You shouldn't slur your words so. For a moment I thought you said
+'half of one per cent. One and a half of course you really said.
+
+"If you won't take half, you don't get the other."
+
+"All right," said Wally. "There are lots of other managers in New
+York. Haven't you seen them popping about? Rich, enterprising men, and
+all of them love me like a son."
+
+"Make it one per cent," said Mr. Goble, "and I'll see if I can fix it
+with Pilkington."
+
+"One and a half."
+
+"Oh, damn it, one and a half, then," said Mr. Goble morosely. "What's
+the good of splitting straws?"
+
+"Forgotten Sports of the Past--Splitting the Straw. All right. If you
+drop me a line to that effect, legibly signed with your name, I'll
+wear it next my heart. I shall have to go now. I have a date.
+Good-bye. Glad everything's settled and everybody's happy."
+
+For some moments after Wally had left, Mr. Goble sat hunched up in his
+orchestra-chair, smoking sullenly, his mood less sunny than ever.
+Living in a little world of sycophants, he was galled by the off-hand
+way in which Wally always treated him. There was something in the
+latter's manner which seemed to him sometimes almost contemptuous. He
+regretted the necessity of having to employ him. There was, of course,
+no real necessity why he should have employed Wally. New York was full
+of librettists who would have done the work equally well for half the
+money, but, like most managers, Mr. Goble had the mental processes of
+a sheep. "Follow the Girl" was the last outstanding musical success in
+New York theatrical history: Wally had written it, therefore nobody
+but Wally was capable of re-writing "The Rose of America." The thing
+had for Mr. Goble the inevitability of Fate. Except for deciding
+mentally that Wally had swelled head, there was nothing to be done.
+
+Having decided that Wally had swelled head, and not feeling much
+better, Mr. Goble concentrated his attention on the stage. A good deal
+of action had taken place there during the recently concluded
+business talk, and the unfortunate Lord Finchley was back again,
+playing another of his scenes. Mr. Goble glared at Lord Finchley. He
+did not like him, and he did not like the way he was speaking his
+lines.
+
+The part of Lord Finchley was a non-singing rôle. It was a type part.
+Otis Pilkington had gone to the straight stage to find an artist, and
+had secured the not uncelebrated Wentworth Hill, who had come over
+from London to play in an English comedy which had just closed. The
+newspapers had called the play thin, but had thought that Wentworth
+Hill was an excellent comedian. Mr. Hill thought so, too, and it was
+consequently a shock to his already disordered nerves when a bellow
+from the auditorium stopped him in the middle of one of his speeches
+and a rasping voice informed him that he was doing it all wrong.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Hill, quietly but dangerously, stepping
+to the footlights.
+
+"All wrong!" repeated Mr. Goble.
+
+"Really?" Wentworth Hill, who a few years earlier had spent several
+terms at Oxford University before being sent down for aggravated
+disorderliness, had brought little away with him from that seat of
+learning except the Oxford manner. This he now employed upon Mr. Goble
+with an icy severity which put the last touch to the manager's
+fermenting state of mind. "Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me
+just how you think that part should be played?"
+
+Mr. Goble marched down the aisle.
+
+"Speak out to the audience," he said, stationing himself by the
+orchestra pit. "You're turning your head away all the darned time."
+
+"I may be wrong," said Mr. Hill, "but I have played a certain amount,
+don't you know, in pretty good companies, and I was always under the
+impression that one should address one's remarks to the person one was
+speaking to, not deliver a recitation to the gallery. I was taught
+that that was the legitimate method."
+
+The word touched off all the dynamite in Mr. Goble. Of all things in
+the theatre he detested most the "legitimate method." His idea of
+producing was to instruct the cast to come down to the footlights and
+hand it to 'em. These people who looked up-stage and talked to the
+audience through the backs of their necks revolted him.
+
+"Legitimate! That's a hell of a thing to be! Where do you get that
+legitimate stuff? You aren't playing Ibsen!"
+
+"Nor am I playing a knockabout vaudeville sketch."
+
+"Don't talk back at me!"
+
+"Kindly don't shout at _me_! Your voice is unpleasant enough without
+your raising it."
+
+Open defiance was a thing which Mr. Goble had never encountered
+before, and for a moment it deprived him of breath. He recovered it,
+however, almost immediately.
+
+"You're fired!"
+
+"On the contrary," said Mr. Hill, "I'm resigning." He drew a
+green-covered script from his pocket and handed it with an air to the
+pallid assistant stage-director. Then, more gracefully than ever
+Freddie Rooke had managed to move down-stage under the tuition of
+Johnson Miller, he moved up-stage to the exit. "I trust that you will
+be able to find someone who will play the part according to your
+ideas!"
+
+"I'll find," bellowed Mr. Goble at his vanishing back, "a chorus-man
+who'll play it a damned sight better than you!" He waved to the
+assistant stage-director. "Send the chorus-men on the stage!"
+
+"All the gentlemen of the chorus on the stage, please!" shrilled the
+assistant stage-director, bounding into the wings like a retriever.
+"Mr. Goble wants all the chorus-gentlemen on the stage!"
+
+There was a moment, when the seven male members of "The Rose of
+America" ensemble lined up self-consciously before his gleaming eyes,
+when Mr. Goble repented of his brave words. An uncomfortable feeling
+passed across his mind that Fate had called his bluff and that he
+would not be able to make good. All chorus-men are exactly alike, and
+they are like nothing else on earth. Even Mr. Goble, anxious as he was
+to overlook their deficiencies, could not persuade himself that in
+their ranks stood even an adequate Lord Finchley.
+
+And then, just as a cold reaction from his fervid mood was about to
+set in, he perceived that Providence had been good to him. There, at
+the extreme end of the line, stood a young man who, as far as
+appearance went, was the ideal Lord Finchley--as far as appearance
+went, a far better Lord Finchley than the late Mr. Hill. He beckoned
+imperiously.
+
+"You at the end!"
+
+"Me?" said the young man.
+
+"Yes, you. What's your name?"
+
+"Rooke. Frederick Rooke, don't you know."
+
+"You're English, aren't you?"
+
+"Eh? Oh, yes, absolutely!"
+
+"Ever played a part before?"
+
+"Part? Oh, I see what you mean. Well, in amateur theatricals, you
+know, and all that sort of rot."
+
+His words were music to Mr. Goble's ears. He felt that his Napoleonic
+action had justified itself by success. His fury left him. If he had
+been capable of beaming, one would have said that he beamed at
+Freddie.
+
+"Well, you play the part of Lord Finchley from now on. Come to my
+office this afternoon for your contract. Clear the stage. We've wasted
+enough time."
+
+Five minutes later, in the wings, Freddie, receiving congratulations
+from Nelly Bryant, asserted himself.
+
+"_Not_ the Automat to-day, I _think_, what? Now that I'm a jolly old
+star and all that sort of thing, it can't be done. Directly this is
+over we'll roll round to the Cosmopolis. A slight celebration is
+indicated, what? Right ho! Rally round, dear heart, rally round!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+JILL EXPLAINS
+
+I
+
+
+The lobby of the Hotel Cosmopolis is the exact centre of New York, the
+spot where at certain hours one is sure of meeting everybody one
+knows. The first person that Nelly and Freddie saw, as they passed
+through the swing doors, was Jill. She was seated on the chair by the
+big pillar in the middle of the hall.
+
+"What ho!" said Freddie. "Waiting for someone?"
+
+"Hullo, Freddie. Yes, I'm waiting for Wally Mason. I got a note from
+him this morning, asking me to meet him here. I'm a little early. I
+haven't congratulated you yet. You're wonderful!"
+
+"Thanks, old girl. Our young hero _is_ making pretty hefty strides in
+his chosen profesh, what? Mr. Rooke, who appears quite simple and
+unspoiled by success, replied to our representative's enquiry as to
+his future plans, that he proposed to stagger into the grill-room and
+imbibe about eighteen dollars' worth of lunch. Yes, it _is_ a bit of
+all right, taking it by and large, isn't it? I mean to say, the
+salary, the jolly old salary, you know ... quite a help when a
+fellow's lost all his money!"
+
+Jill was surprised to observe that the Last of the Rookes was
+contorting his face in an unsightly manner that seemed to be an
+attempt at a wink, pregnant with hidden meaning. She took her cue
+dutifully, though without understanding.
+
+"Oh, yes," she replied.
+
+Freddie seemed grateful. With a cordial "Cheerio!" he led Nelly off to
+the grill-room.
+
+"I didn't know Jill knew Mr. Mason," said Nelly, as they sat down at
+their table.
+
+"No?" said Freddie absently, running an experienced eye over the bill
+of fare. He gave an elaborate order. "What was that? Oh, absolutely!
+Jill and I and Wally were children together."
+
+"How funny you should all be together again like this."
+
+"Yes. Oh, good Lord!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"It's nothing. I meant to send a cable to a pal of mine in England,
+I'll send it after lunch."
+
+Freddie took out his handkerchief, and tied a knot in it. He was
+slightly ashamed of the necessity of taking such a precaution, but it
+was better to be on the safe side. His interview with Jill at the
+theatre had left him with the conviction that there was only one thing
+for him to do, and that was to cable poor old Derek to forget
+impending elections and all the rest of it and pop over to America at
+once. He knew that he would never have the courage to re-open the
+matter with Jill himself. As an ambassador he was a spent force. If
+Jill was to be wooed from her mood of intractibility, Derek was the
+only man to do it. Freddie was convinced that, seeing him in person,
+she would melt and fall into his arms. Too dashed absurd, Freddie
+felt, two loving hearts being separated like this and all that sort
+of thing. He replaced his handkerchief in his pocket, relieved, and
+concentrated himself on the entertainment of Nelly. A simple task for
+the longer he was with this girl, the easier did it seem, to talk to
+her.
+
+Jill, left alone in the lobby, was finding the moments pass quite
+pleasantly. She liked watching the people as they came in. One or two
+of the girls of the company fluttered in like birds, were swooped upon
+by their cavaliers, and fluttered off to the grill-room. The
+red-headed Babe passed her with a genial nod, and, shortly after, Lois
+Denham, the willowy recipient of sunbursts from her friend Izzy of the
+hat-checks, came by in company with a sallow, hawk-faced young man
+with a furtive eye, whom Jill took--correctly--to be Izzy himself.
+Lois was looking pale and proud, and, from the few words which came to
+Jill's ears as they neared her, seemed to be annoyed at having been
+kept waiting.
+
+It was immediately after this that the swing-doors revolved rather
+more violently than usual, and Mr. Goble burst into view.
+
+There was a cloud upon Mr. Goble's brow, seeming to indicate that his
+grievance against life had not yet been satisfactorily adjusted; but
+it passed as he saw Jill, and he came up to her with what he would
+probably have claimed to be an ingratiating smile.
+
+"Hullo!" said Mr. Goble. "All alone?"
+
+Jill was about to say that the condition was merely temporary when the
+manager went on.
+
+"Come and have a bit of lunch."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Jill, with the politeness of dislike, "but
+I'm waiting for someone."
+
+"Chuck him!" advised Mr. Goble cordially.
+
+"No, thanks, I couldn't, really."
+
+The cloud began to descend again upon Mr. Goble's brow. He was
+accustomed to having these invitations of his treated as royal
+commands.
+
+"Come along!"
+
+"I'm afraid it's impossible."
+
+Mr. Goble subjected her to a prolonged stare, seemed about to speak,
+changed his mind, and swung off moodily in the direction of the
+grill-room. He was not used to this sort of treatment.
+
+He had hardly gone, when Wally appeared.
+
+"What was he saying to you?" demanded Wally abruptly, without
+preliminary greeting.
+
+"He was asking me to lunch."
+
+Wally was silent for a moment. His good-natured face wore an unwonted
+scowl.
+
+"He went in there, of course?" he said, pointing to the grill-room.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then let's go into the other room," said Wally. He regained his good
+humour. "It was awfully good of you to come. I didn't know whether you
+would be able to."
+
+"It was very nice of you to invite me."
+
+Wally grinned.
+
+"How perfect our manners are! It's a treat to listen! How did you know
+that that was the one hat in New York I wanted you to wear?"
+
+"Oh, these things get about. Do you like it?"
+
+"It's wonderful. Let's take this table, shall we?"
+
+
+II
+
+They sat down. The dim, tapestry-hung room soothed Jill. She was
+feeling a little tired after the rehearsal. At the far end of the room
+an orchestra was playing a tune that she remembered and liked. Her
+mind went back to the last occasion on which she and Wally had sat
+opposite each other at a restaurant. How long ago it seemed! She
+returned to the present to find Wally speaking to her.
+
+"You left very suddenly the other night," said Wally.
+
+"I didn't want to meet Freddie."
+
+Wally looked at her commiseratingly.
+
+"I don't want to spoil your lunch," he said, "but Freddie knows all.
+He has tracked you down. He met Nelly Bryant, whom he seems to have
+made friends with in London, and she told him where you were and what
+you were doing. For a girl who fled at his mere approach the night
+before last, you don't seem very agitated by the news," he said, as
+Jill burst into a peal of laughter.
+
+"You haven't heard?"
+
+"Heard what?"
+
+"Freddie got Mr. Pilkington to put him in the chorus of the piece. He
+was rehearsing when I arrived at the theatre this morning, and having
+a terrible time with Mr. Miller. And, later on, Mr. Goble had a
+quarrel with the man who was playing the Englishman, and the man threw
+up his part, and Mr. Goble said he could get any one in the chorus to
+play it just as well, and he chose Freddie. So now Freddie is one of
+the principals, and bursting with pride!"
+
+Wally threw his head back and uttered a roar of appreciation which
+caused a luncher at a neighbouring table to drop an oyster which he
+was poising in mid-air.
+
+"Don't make such a noise!" said Jill severely. "Everyone's looking at
+you."
+
+"I must! It's the most priceless thing I ever heard. I've always
+maintained and I always will maintain that for pure lunacy nothing can
+touch the musical comedy business. There isn't anything that can't
+happen in musical comedy. 'Alice in Wonderland' is nothing to it."
+
+"Have you felt that, too? That's exactly how I feel. It's like a
+perpetual 'Mad Hatter's Tea-Party.'"
+
+"But what on earth made Freddie join the company at all?"
+
+A sudden gravity descended upon Jill. The words had reminded her of
+the thing which she was perpetually striving to keep out of her
+thoughts.
+
+"He said he wanted to be there to keep an eye on me."
+
+Gravity is infectious. Wally's smile disappeared. He, too, had been
+recalled to thoughts which were not pleasant.
+
+Wally crumbled his roll. There was a serious expression on his face.
+
+"Freddie was quite right. I didn't think he had so much sense."
+
+"Freddie was not right," flared Jill. The recollection of her
+conversation with that prominent artist still had the power to fire
+her independent soul. "I'm not a child. I can look after myself. What
+I do is my own business."
+
+"I'm afraid you're going to find that your business is several
+people's business. I am interested in it myself. I don't like your
+being on the stage. Now bite my head off!"
+
+"It's very kind of you to bother about me...."
+
+"I said 'Bite my head off!' I didn't say 'Freeze me!' I take the
+licence of an old friend who in his time has put worms down your
+back, and I repeat--I don't like your being on the stage."
+
+"I shouldn't have thought you would have been so"--Jill sought for a
+devastating adjective--"so mid-Victorian!"
+
+"As far as you are concerned, I'm the middest Victorian in existence.
+Mid is my middle name." Wally met her indignant gaze squarely.
+"I--do--not--like--your--being--on--the--stage! Especially in any
+company which Ike Goble is running."
+
+"Why Mr. Goble particularly?"
+
+"Because he is not the sort of man you ought to be coming in contact
+with."
+
+"What nonsense!"
+
+"It isn't nonsense at all. I suppose you've read a lot about the
+morals of theatrical managers...."
+
+"Yes. And it seemed to be exaggerated and silly."
+
+"So it is. There's nothing wrong with most of them. As a general
+thing, they are very decent fellows--extraordinarily decent if you
+think of the position they are in. I don't say that in a business way
+there's much they won't try to put over on you. In the theatre, when
+it comes to business, everything goes except biting and gouging.
+'There's never a law of God or man runs north of fifty-three.' If you
+alter that to 'north of Forty-first Street' it doesn't scan as well,
+but it's just as true. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that
+the Golden Rule is suspended there. You get used to it after you have
+been in the theatre for a while, and, except for leaving your watch
+and pocket-book at home when you have to pay a call on a manager and
+keeping your face to him so that he can't get away with your back
+collar-stud, you don't take any notice of it. It's all a game. If a
+manager swindles you, he wins the hole and takes the honour. If you
+foil him, you are one up. In either case, it makes no difference to
+the pleasantness of your relations. You go on calling him by his first
+name, and he gives you a couple of cigars out of his waistcoat pocket
+and says you're a good kid. There is nothing personal in it. He has
+probably done his best friend out of a few thousand dollars the same
+morning, and you see them lunching together after the ceremony as
+happily as possible. You've got to make allowances for managers. They
+are the victims of heredity. When a burglar marries a hat-check girl,
+their offspring goes into the theatrical business automatically, and
+he can't shake off the early teaching which he imbibed at his father's
+knee. But morals...."
+
+Wally broke off to allow the waiter to place a fried sole before him.
+Waiters always select the moment when we are talking our best to
+intrude themselves.
+
+"As regards morals," resumed Wally, "that is a different matter. Most
+managers are respectable, middle-aged men with wives and families.
+They are in the business to make money, and they don't want anything
+else out of it. The girls in their companies are like so many clerks
+to them, just machines that help to bring the money in. They don't
+know half a dozen of them to speak to. But our genial Ike is not like
+that." Wally consumed a mouthful of sole. "Ike Goble is a bad citizen.
+He paws! He's a slinker and a prowler and a leerer. He's a pest and a
+worm! He's fat and soft and flabby. He has a greasy soul, a withered
+heart, and an eye like a codfish. Not knocking him, of course!" added
+Wally magnanimously. "Far be it from me to knock anyone! But, speaking
+with the utmost respect and viewing him in the most favourable light,
+he is a combination of tom-cat and the things you see when you turn
+over a flat stone! Such are the reasons why I am sorry that you are in
+his company."
+
+Jill had listened to this diatribe with a certain uneasiness. Her
+brief encounters with Mr. Goble told her that every word was probably
+true. She could still feel the unpleasant sensation of being inspected
+by the eye which Wally had compared--quite justly--to that of a
+codfish. But her pride forbade any admission of weakness.
+
+"I can take care of myself," she said.
+
+"I don't doubt it," said Wally. "And you could probably take care of
+yourself if you fell into a muddy pond. But I shouldn't like to stand
+on the bank and watch you doing it. I know what girls in the chorus
+have to go through. Hanging about for hours in draughts, doing
+nothing, while the principals go through their scenes, and yelled at
+if they try to relieve the tedium of captivity with a little light
+conversation...."
+
+"Yes," admitted Jill. "There has been a good lot of that."
+
+"There always is. I believe if the stage-carpenter was going to stick
+a screw in a flat, they would call a chorus-rehearsal to watch him do
+it.... Jill, you must get out of it. It's no life for you. The
+work...."
+
+"I like the work."
+
+"While it's new, perhaps, but...."
+
+Jill interrupted him passionately.
+
+"Oh, can't you understand!" she cried. "I want the work. I need it. I
+want something to do, something to occupy my mind. I hate talking
+about it, but you know how things are with me. Freddie must have told
+you. Even if he didn't, you must have guessed, meeting me here all
+alone and remembering how things were when we last met. You must
+understand! Haven't you ever had a terrible shock or a dreadful
+disappointment that seemed to smash up the whole world? And didn't you
+find that the only possible thing to do was to work and work and work
+as hard as ever you could? When I first came to America, I nearly went
+mad. Uncle Chris sent me down to a place on Long Island, and I had
+nothing to do all day but think. I couldn't stand it. I ran away and
+came to New York and met Nelly Bryant and got this work to do. It
+saved me. It kept me busy all day and tired me out and didn't give me
+time to think. The harder it is, the better it suits me. It's an
+antidote. I simply wouldn't give it up now. As for what you were
+saying, I must put up with that. The other girls do, so why shouldn't
+I?"
+
+"They are toughened to it."
+
+"Then I must get toughened to it. What else is there for me to do? I
+must do something."
+
+"Marry me!" said Wally, reaching across the table and putting his hand
+on hers. The light in his eyes lit up his homely face like a lantern.
+
+
+III
+
+The suddenness of it startled Jill into silence. She snatched her hand
+away and drew back, looking at him in wonderment. She was confusedly
+aware of a babble of sound--people talking, people laughing, the
+orchestra playing a lively tune. All her senses seemed to have become
+suddenly more acute. She was intensely alive to small details. Then,
+abruptly, the whole world condensed itself into two eyes that were
+fastened upon hers--compelling eyes which she felt a panic desire to
+avoid.
+
+She turned her head away, and looked out into the restaurant. It
+seemed incredible that all these people, placidly intent upon their
+food and their small talk, should not be staring at her, wondering
+what she was going to say; nudging each other and speculating. Their
+detachment made her feel alone and helpless. She was nothing to them
+and they did not care what happened to her, just as she had been
+nothing to those frozen marshes down at Brookport. She was alone in an
+indifferent world, with her own problems to settle for herself.
+
+Other men had asked Jill to marry them--a full dozen of them, here and
+there in country houses and at London dances, before she had met and
+loved Derek Underhill; but nothing that she had had in the way of
+experience had prepared her for Wally. These others had given her time
+to marshal her forces, to collect herself, to weigh them thoughtfully
+in the balance. Before speaking, they had signalled their devotion in
+a hundred perceptible ways--by their pinkness, their stammering
+awkwardness, by the glassy look in their eyes. They had not shot a
+proposal at her like a bullet from out of the cover of a conversation
+that had nothing to do with their emotions at all.
+
+Yet, now that the shock of it was dying away, she began to remember
+signs she would have noticed, speeches which ought to have warned
+her....
+
+"Wally!" she gasped.
+
+She found that he affected her in an entirely different fashion from
+the luckless dozen of those London days. He seemed to matter more, to
+be more important, almost--though she rebelled at the word--more
+dangerous.
+
+"Let me take you out of it all! You aren't fit for this sort of life.
+I can't bear to see you...."
+
+Jill bent forward and touched his hand. He started as though he had
+been burned. The muscles of his throat were working.
+
+"Wally, it's--" She paused for a word. "Kind" was horrible. It would
+have sounded cold, almost supercilious. "Sweet" was the sort of thing
+she could imagine Lois Denham saying to her friend Izzy. She began her
+sentence again. "You're a dear to say that, but...."
+
+Wally laughed chokingly.
+
+"You think I'm altruistic? I'm not. I'm just as selfish and
+self-centred as any other man who wants a thing very badly. I'm as
+altruistic as a child crying for the moon. I want you to marry me
+because I love you, because there never was anybody like you, because
+you're the whole world, because I always have loved you. I've been
+dreaming about you for a dozen years, thinking about you, wondering
+about you--wondering where you were, what you were doing, how you
+looked. I used to think that it was just sentimentality, that you
+merely stood for a time of my life when I was happier than I have ever
+been since. I used to think that you were just a sort of peg on which
+I was hanging a pleasant sentimental regret for days which could never
+come back. You were a memory that seemed to personify all the other
+memories of the best time of my life. You were the goddess of old
+associations. Then I met you in London, and it was different. I wanted
+you--_you_! I didn't want you because you recalled old times and were
+associated with dead happiness, I wanted _you_! I knew I loved you
+directly you spoke to me at the theatre that night of the fire. I
+loved your voice and your eyes and your smile and your courage. And
+then you told me you were engaged. I might have expected it, but I
+couldn't keep my jealousy from showing itself, and you snubbed me as I
+deserved. But now ... things are different now. Everything's
+different, except my love."
+
+Jill turned her face to the wall beside her. A man at the next table,
+a corpulent, red-faced man, had begun to stare. He could have heard
+nothing, for Wally had spoken in a low voice; but plainly he was aware
+that something more interesting was happening at their table than at
+any of the other tables, and he was watching with a bovine
+inquisitiveness which affected Jill with a sense of outrage. A moment
+before, she had resented the indifference of the outer world. Now,
+this one staring man seemed like a watching multitude. There were
+tears in her eyes, and she felt that the red-faced man suspected it.
+
+"Wally...." Her voice broke. "It's impossible."
+
+"Why? Why, Jill?"
+
+"Because.... Oh, it's impossible!"
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"Because...." He seemed to find a difficulty in speaking. "Because of
+Underhill?"
+
+Jill nodded. She felt wretched. The monstrous incongruity of her
+surroundings oppressed her. The orchestra had dashed into a rollicking
+melody, which set her foot tapping in spite of herself. At a near-by
+table somebody was shouting with laughter. Two waiters at a
+service-stand were close enough for her to catch snatches of their
+talk. They were arguing about an order of fried potatoes. Once again
+her feelings veered round, and she loathed the detachment of the
+world. Her heart ached for Wally. She could not look at him, but she
+knew exactly what she would see if she did--honest, pleading eyes
+searching her face for something which she could not give.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+The table creaked. Wally was leaning further forward. He seemed like
+something large and pathetic--a big dog in trouble. She hated to be
+hurting him. And all the time her foot tapped accompaniment to the
+rag-time tune.
+
+"But you can't live all your life with a memory," said Wally.
+
+Jill turned and faced him. His eyes seemed to leap at her, and they
+were just as she had pictured them.
+
+"You don't understand," she said gently. "You don't understand."
+
+"It's ended. It's over."
+
+Jill shook her head.
+
+"You can't still love him, after what has happened!"
+
+"I don't know," said Jill unhappily.
+
+The words seemed to bewilder Wally as much as they had bewildered
+Freddie.
+
+"You don't know?"
+
+Jill shut her eyes tight. Wally quivered. It was a trick she had had
+as a child. In perplexity, she had always screwed up her eyes just
+like that, as if to shut herself up in herself.
+
+"Don't talk for a minute, Wally," she said. "I want to think."
+
+Her eyes opened.
+
+"It's like this," she said. He had seen her look at him in exactly the
+same way a hundred times. "I don't suppose I can make you understand,
+but this is how it is. Suppose you had a room, and it was full--of
+things. Furniture. And there wasn't any space left. You--you couldn't
+put anything else in till you had taken all that out, could you? It
+might not be worth anything, but it would still be there, taking up
+all the room."
+
+Wally nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I see."
+
+"My heart's full, Wally dear. I know it's just lumber that's choking
+it up, but it's difficult to get it out. It takes time getting it out.
+I put it in, thinking it was wonderful furniture, the most wonderful
+in the world, and--I was cheated. It was just lumber. But it's there.
+It's still there. It's there all the time. And what am I to do?"
+
+The orchestra crashed, and was silent. The sudden stillness seemed to
+break a spell. The world invaded the little island where they sat. A
+chattering party of girls and men brushed past them. The waiter,
+judging that they had been there long enough, slipped a strip of
+paper, decorously turned upside down, in front of Wally. He took the
+money, and went away to get change.
+
+Wally turned to Jill.
+
+"I understand," he said. "All this hasn't happened, and we're just as
+good pals as before?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But...." He forced a laugh ... "mark my words, a time may come, and
+then...!"
+
+"I don't know," said Jill.
+
+"A time may come," repeated Wally. "At any rate, let me think so. It
+has nothing to do with me. It's for you to decide, absolutely. I'm not
+going to pursue you with my addresses! If ever you get that room of
+yours emptied, you won't have to hang out a 'To Let' sign. I shall be
+waiting, and you will know where to find me. And, in the meantime,
+yours to command, Wallace Mason. Is that clear?"
+
+"Quite clear." Jill looked at him affectionately. "There's nobody I'd
+rather open that room to than you, Wally. You know that."
+
+"Is that the solemn truth?"
+
+"The solemn truth."
+
+"Then," said Wally, "in two minutes you will see a startled waiter.
+There will be about fourteen dollars change out of that twenty he took
+away. I'm going to give it all to him."
+
+"You mustn't!"
+
+"Every cent!" said Wally firmly. "And the young Greek brigand who
+stole my hat at the door is going to get a dollar! That, as our
+ascetic and honourable friend Goble would say, is the sort of little
+guy _I_ am!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The red-faced man at the next table eyed them as they went out,
+leaving behind them a waiter who clutched totteringly for support at
+the back of a chair.
+
+"Had a row," he decided, "but made it up."
+
+He called for a toothpick.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MR. GOBLE PLAYS WITH FATE
+
+I
+
+
+On the boardwalk at Atlantic City, that much-enduring seashore resort
+which has been the birthplace of so many musical plays, there stands
+an all-day and all-night restaurant, under the same management and
+offering the same hospitality as the one in Columbus Circle at which
+Jill had taken her first meal on arriving in New York. At least, its
+hospitality is noisy during the waking and working hours of the day;
+but there are moments when it has an almost cloistral peace, and the
+customer, abashed by the cold calm of its snowy marble and the silent
+gravity of the white-robed attendants, unconsciously lowers his voice
+and tries to keep his feet from shuffling, like one in a temple. The
+members of the chorus of "The Rose of America," dropping in by ones
+and twos at six o'clock in the morning about two weeks after the
+events recorded in the last chapter, spoke in whispers and gave their
+orders for breakfast in a subdued undertone.
+
+The dress-rehearsal had just dragged its weary length to a close. It
+is the custom of the dwellers in Atlantic City, who seem to live
+entirely by pleasure, to attend a species of vaudeville
+performances--incorrectly termed a sacred concert--on Sunday nights,
+and it had been one o'clock in the morning before the concert scenery
+could be moved out of the theatre and the first act set of "The Rose
+of America" moved in. And, as by some unwritten law of the drama no
+dress-rehearsal can begin without a delay of at least an hour and a
+half, the curtain had not gone up on Mr. Miller's opening chorus till
+half-past two. There had been dress-parades, conferences, interminable
+arguments between the stage-director and a mysterious man in
+shirt-sleeves about the lights, more dress-parades, further
+conferences, hitches with regard to the sets, and another outbreak of
+debate on the subject of blues, ambers, and the management of the
+"spot," which was worked by a plaintive voice, answering to the name
+of Charlie, at the back of the family circle. But by six o'clock a
+complete, if ragged, performance had been given, and the chorus, who
+had partaken of no nourishment since dinner on the previous night, had
+limped off round the corner for a bite of breakfast before going to
+bed.
+
+They were a battered and a draggled company, some with dark circles
+beneath their eyes, others blooming with the unnatural scarlet of the
+make-up which they had been too tired to take off. The Duchess,
+haughty to the last, had fallen asleep with her head on the table. The
+red-headed Babe was lying back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.
+The Southern girl blinked like an owl at the morning sunshine out on
+the boardwalk.
+
+The Cherub, whose triumphant youth had brought her almost fresh
+through a sleepless night, contributed the only remark made during the
+interval of waiting for the meal.
+
+"The fascination of a thtage life! Why girls leave home!" She looked
+at her reflection in the little mirror of her vanity-bag. "It _is_ a
+face!" she murmured reflectively. "But I should hate to have to go
+around with it long!"
+
+A sallow young man, with the alertness peculiar to those who work on
+the night-shifts of restaurants, dumped a tray down on the table with
+a clatter. The Duchess woke up. Babe took her eyes off the ceiling.
+The Southern girl ceased to look at the sunshine. Already, at the mere
+sight of food, the extraordinary recuperative powers of the theatrical
+worker had begun to assert themselves. In five minutes these girls
+would be feeling completely restored and fit for anything.
+
+Conversation broke out with the first sip of coffee, and the calm of
+the restaurant was shattered. Its day had begun.
+
+"It's a great life if you don't weaken," said the Cherub hungrily
+attacking her omelette. "And the wortht is yet to come! I thuppose all
+you old dears realithe that this show will have to be rewritten from
+end to end, and we'll be rehearthing day and night all the time we're
+on the road."
+
+"Why?" Lois Denham spoke with her mouth full. "What's wrong with it?"
+
+The Duchess took a sip of coffee.
+
+"Don't make me laugh!" she pleaded. "What's wrong with it? What's
+right with it, one would feel more inclined to ask!"
+
+"One would feel thtill more inclined," said the Cherub, "to athk why
+one was thuch a chump as to let oneself in for this sort of thing when
+one hears on all sides that waitresses earn thixty dollars a month."
+
+"The numbers are all right," argued Babe. "I don't mean the melodies,
+but Johnny has arranged some good business."
+
+"He always does," said the Southern girl. "Some more buckwheat cakes,
+please. But what about the book?"
+
+"I never listen to the book."
+
+The Cherub laughed.
+
+"You're too good to yourself! I listened to it right along, and take
+it from me it's sad! Of courthe they'll have it fixed. We can't open
+in New York like this. My professional reputation wouldn't thtand it!
+Didn't you thee Wally Mason in front, making notes? They've got him
+down to do the re-writing."
+
+Jill, who had been listening in a dazed way to the conversation,
+fighting against the waves of sleep which flooded over her, woke up.
+
+"Was Wally--was Mr. Mason there?"
+
+"Sure. Sitting at the back."
+
+Jill could not have said whether she was glad or sorry. She had not
+seen Wally since that afternoon when they had lunched together at the
+Cosmopolis, and the rush of the final weeks of rehearsals had given
+her little opportunity for thinking of him. At the back of her mind
+had been the feeling that sooner or later she would have to think of
+him, but for two weeks she had been too tired and too busy to
+re-examine him as a factor in her life. There had been times when the
+thought of him had been like the sunshine on a winter day, warming her
+with almost an impersonal glow in moments of depression. And then some
+sharp, poignant memory of Derek would come to blot him out.
+
+She came out of her thoughts to find that the talk had taken another
+turn.
+
+"And the wortht of it is," the Cherub was saying, "we shall rehearthe
+all day and give a show every night and work ourselves to the bone,
+and then, when they're good and ready, they'll fire one of us!"
+
+"That's right!" agreed the Southern girl.
+
+"They couldn't!" Jill cried.
+
+"You wait!" said the Cherub. "They'll never open in New York with
+thirteen girls. Ike's much too thuperstitious."
+
+"But they wouldn't do a thing like that after we've all worked so
+hard!"
+
+There was a general burst of sardonic laughter. Jill's opinion of the
+chivalry of theatrical managers seemed to be higher than that of her
+more experienced colleagues.
+
+"They'll do anything," the Cherub assured her.
+
+"You don't know the half of it, dearie," scoffed Lois Denham. "You
+don't know the half of it!"
+
+"Wait till you've been in as many shows as I have," said Babe, shaking
+her red locks. "The usual thing is to keep a girl slaving her head off
+all through the road-tour and then fire her before the New York
+opening."
+
+"But it's a shame! It isn't fair!"
+
+"If one is expecting to be treated fairly," said the Duchess with a
+prolonged yawn, "one should not go into the show-business."
+
+And, having uttered this profoundly true maxim, she fell asleep again.
+
+The slumber of the Duchess was the signal for a general move. Her
+somnolence was catching. The restorative effects of the meal were
+beginning to wear off. There was a call for a chorus rehearsal at four
+o'clock, and it seemed the wise move to go to bed and get some sleep
+while there was time. The Duchess was roused from her dreams by means
+of a piece of ice from one of the tumblers; bills were paid; and the
+company poured out, yawning and chattering, into the sunlight of the
+empty boardwalk.
+
+Jill detached herself from the group, and made her way to a seat
+facing the sea. Tiredness had fallen upon her like a leaden weight,
+crushing all the power out of her limbs, and the thought of walking to
+the boarding-house where, from motives of economy, she was sharing a
+room with the Cherub, paralysed her.
+
+It was a perfect morning, clear and cloudless, with the warm
+freshness of a day that means to be hotter later on. The sea sparkled
+in the sun. Little waves broke lazily on the grey sand. Jill closed
+her eyes, for the brightness of sun and water was trying; and her
+thoughts went back to what the Cherub had said.
+
+If Wally was really going to rewrite the play, they would be thrown
+together. She would be obliged to meet him, and she was not sure that
+she was ready to meet him. Still, he would be somebody to talk to on
+subjects other than the one eternal topic of the theatre, somebody who
+belonged to the old life. She had ceased to regard Freddie Rooke in
+this light; for Freddie, solemn with his new responsibilities as a
+principal, was the most whole-hearted devotee of "shop" in the
+company. Freddie nowadays declined to consider any subject for
+conversation that did not have to do with "The Rose of America" in
+general and his share in it in particular. Jill had given him up, and
+he had paired off with Nelly Bryant. The two were inseparable. Jill
+had taken one or two meals with them, but Freddie's professional
+monologues, of which Nelly seemed never to weary, were too much for
+her. As a result she was now very much alone. There were girls in the
+company whom she liked, but most of them had their own intimate
+friends, and she was always conscious of not being really wanted. She
+was lonely, and, after examining the matter as clearly as her tired
+mind would allow, she found herself curiously soothed by the thought
+that Wally would be near to mitigate her loneliness.
+
+She opened her eyes, blinking. Sleep had crept upon her with an
+insidious suddenness, and she had almost fallen over on the seat. She
+was just bracing herself to get up and begin the long tramp to the
+boarding-house, when a voice spoke at her side.
+
+"Hullo! Good morning!"
+
+Jill looked up.
+
+"Hullo, Wally!"
+
+"Surprised to see me?"
+
+"No. Milly Trevor said she had seen you at the rehearsal last night."
+
+Wally came round the bench and seated himself at her side. His eyes
+were tired, and his chin dark and bristly.
+
+"Had breakfast?"
+
+"Yes, thanks. Have you?"
+
+"Not yet. How are you feeling?"
+
+"Rather tired."
+
+"I wonder you're not dead. I've been through a good many
+dress-rehearsals, but this one was the record. Why they couldn't have
+had it comfortably in New York and just have run through the piece
+without scenery last night, I don't know, except that in musical
+comedy it's etiquette always to do the most inconvenient thing. They
+know perfectly well that there was no chance of getting the scenery
+into the theatre till the small hours. You must be worn out. Why
+aren't you in bed?"
+
+"I couldn't face the walk. I suppose I ought to be going, though."
+
+She half rose, then sank back again. The glitter of the water
+hypnotized her. She closed her eyes again. She could hear Wally
+speaking, then his voice grew suddenly faint and far off, and she
+ceased to fight the delicious drowsiness.
+
+Jill awoke with a start. She opened her eyes, and shut them again at
+once. The sun was very strong now. It was one of those prematurely
+warm days of early Spring which have all the languorous heat of late
+summer. She opened her eyes once more, and found that she was feeling
+greatly refreshed. She also discovered that her head was resting on
+Wally's shoulder.
+
+"Have I been asleep?"
+
+Wally laughed.
+
+"You have been having what you might call a nap." He massaged his left
+arm vigorously. "You needed it. Do you feel more rested now?"
+
+"Good gracious! Have I been squashing your poor arm all the time? Why
+didn't you move?"
+
+"I was afraid you would fall over. You just shut your eyes and toppled
+sideways."
+
+"What's the time?"
+
+Wally looked at his watch.
+
+"Just on ten."
+
+"Ten!" Jill was horrified. "Why, I have been giving you cramp for
+about three hours! You must have had an awful time!"
+
+"Oh, it was all right. I think I dozed off myself. Except that the
+birds didn't come and cover us with leaves; it was rather like the
+'Babes in the Wood.'"
+
+"But you haven't had any breakfast! Aren't you starving?"
+
+"Well, I'm not saying I wouldn't spear a fried egg with some vim if it
+happened to float past. But there's plenty of time for that. Lots of
+doctors say you oughtn't to eat breakfast, and Indian fakirs go
+without food for days at a time in order to develop their souls. Shall
+I take you back to wherever you're staying? You ought to get a proper
+sleep in bed."
+
+"Don't dream of taking me. Go off and have something to eat."
+
+"Oh, that can wait. I'd like to see you safely home."
+
+Jill was conscious of a renewed sense of his comfortingness. There was
+no doubt about it, Wally was different from any other man she had
+known. She suddenly felt guilty, as if she were obtaining something
+valuable under false pretences.
+
+"Wally!"
+
+"Hullo?"
+
+"You--you oughtn't to be so good to me!"
+
+"Nonsense! Where's the harm in lending a hand--or, rather, an arm--to
+a pal in trouble?"
+
+"You know what I mean. I can't ... that is to say ... it isn't as
+though ... I mean...."
+
+Wally smiled a tired, friendly smile.
+
+"If you're trying to say what I think you're trying to say, don't! We
+had all that out two weeks ago. I quite understand the position. You
+mustn't worry yourself about it." He took her arm, and they crossed
+the boardwalk. "Are we going in the right direction? You lead the way.
+I know exactly how you feel. We're old friends, and nothing more. But,
+as an old friend, I claim the right to behave like an old friend. If
+an old friend can't behave like an old friend, how _can_ an old friend
+behave? And now we'll rule the whole topic out of the conversation.
+But perhaps you're too tired for conversation?"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"Then I will tell you about the sad death of young Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Well, when I say death, I use the word in a loose sense. The human
+giraffe still breathes, and I imagine, from the speed with which he
+legged it back to his hotel when we parted, that he still takes
+nourishment. But really he is dead. His heart is broken. We had a
+conference after the dress-rehearsal, and our friend Mr. Goble told
+him in no uncertain words--in the whole course of my experience I have
+never heard words less uncertain--that his damned rotten high-brow
+false-alarm of a show--I am quoting Mr. Goble--would have to be
+rewritten by alien hands. And these are them! On the right, alien
+right hand. On the left, alien left hand. Yes, I am the instrument
+selected for the murder of Pilkington's artistic aspirations. I'm
+going to rewrite the show. In fact, I have already rewritten the first
+act and most of the second. Goble foresaw this contingency and told me
+to get busy two weeks ago, and I've been working hard ever since. We
+shall start rehearsing the new version to-morrow and open in Baltimore
+next Monday with practically a different piece. And it's going to be a
+pippin, believe _me_, said our hero modestly. A gang of composers has
+been working in shifts for two weeks, and, by chucking out nearly all
+of the original music, we shall have a good score. It means a lot of
+work for you, I'm afraid. All the business of the numbers will have to
+be re-arranged."
+
+"I like work," said Jill. "But I'm sorry for Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"He's all right. He owns seventy per cent of the show. He may make a
+fortune. He's certain to make a comfortable sum. That is, if he
+doesn't sell out his interest in pique--or dudgeon, if you prefer it.
+From what he said at the close of the proceedings, I fancy he would
+sell out to anybody who asked him. At least, he said that he washed
+his hands of the piece. He's going back to New York this
+afternoon--won't even wait for the opening. Of course, _I'm_ sorry for
+the poor chap in a way, but he had no right, with the excellent
+central idea which he got, to turn out such a rotten book. Oh, by the
+way!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Another tragedy! Unavoidable, but pathetic. Poor old Freddie! He's
+out!"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Out!" repeated Wally firmly.
+
+"But didn't you think he was good last night?"
+
+"He was awful! But that isn't why. Goble wanted his part rewritten as
+a Scotchman, so as to get McAndrew, the fellow who made such a hit
+last season in 'Hoots, Mon!' That sort of thing is always happening in
+musical comedy. You have to fit parts to suit whatever good people
+happen to be available at the moment. My heart bleeds for Freddie, but
+what can one do? At any rate he isn't so badly off as a fellow was in
+one of my shows. In the second act he was supposed to have escaped
+from an asylum, and the management, in a passion for realism, insisted
+that he should shave his head. The day after he shaved it, they heard
+that a superior comedian was disengaged and fired him. It's a ruthless
+business."
+
+"The girls were saying that one of us would be dismissed."
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't think that's likely."
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"So do I. What are we stopping for?"
+
+Jill had halted in front of a shabby-looking house, one of those
+depressing buildings which spring up overnight at seashore resorts and
+start to decay the moment the builders have left them.
+
+"I live here."
+
+"Here?" Wally looked at her in consternation. "But...."
+
+Jill smiled.
+
+"We working-girls have got to economize. Besides, it's quite
+comfortable--fairly comfortable--inside, and it's only for a week."
+She yawned. "I believe I'm falling asleep again. I'd better hurry in
+and go to bed. Good-bye, Wally dear. You've been wonderful. Mind you
+go and get a good breakfast."
+
+
+II
+
+When Jill arrived at the theatre at four o'clock for the chorus
+rehearsal, the expected blow had not fallen. No steps had apparently
+been taken to eliminate the thirteenth girl whose presence in the cast
+preyed on Mr. Goble's superstitious mind. But she found her colleagues
+still in a condition of pessimistic foreboding. "Wait!" was the gloomy
+watchword of "The Rose of America" chorus.
+
+The rehearsal passed off without event. It lasted until six o'clock,
+when Jill, the Cherub, and two or three of the other girls went to
+snatch a hasty dinner before returning to the theatre to make up. It
+was not a cheerful meal. Reaction had set in after the over-exertion
+of the previous night, and it was too early for first-night excitement
+to take its place. Everybody, even the Cherub, whose spirits seldom
+failed her, was depressed, and the idea of an overhanging doom had
+grown. It seemed now to be merely a question of speculating on the
+victim, and the conversation gave Jill, as the last addition to the
+company, and so the cause of swelling the ranks of the chorus to the
+unlucky number, a feeling of guilt. She was glad when it was time to
+go back to the theatre.
+
+The moment she and her companions entered the dressing-room, it was
+made clear to them that the doom had fallen. In a chair in the corner,
+all her pretence and affectation swept away in a flood of tears, sat
+the unhappy Duchess, the centre of a group of girls anxious to
+console, but limited in their ideas of consolation to an occasional
+pat on the back and an offer of a fresh pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"It's tough, honey!" somebody was saying as Jill came in.
+
+Somebody else said it was fierce, and a third girl declared it to be
+the limit. A fourth girl, well-meaning but less helpful than she would
+have liked to be, was advising the victim not to worry.
+
+The story of the disaster was brief and easily told. The Duchess,
+sailing in at the stage-door, had paused at the letterbox to see if
+Cuthbert, her faithful auto-salesman, had sent her a good-luck
+telegram. He had, but his good wishes were unfortunately neutralized
+by the fact that the very next letter in the box was one from the
+management, crisp and to the point, informing the Duchess that her
+services would not be required that night or thereafter. It was the
+subtle meanness of the blow that roused the indignation of "The Rose
+of America" chorus, the cunning villainy with which it had been timed.
+
+"Poor Mae, if she'd opened to-night, they'd have had to give her two
+weeks' notice or her salary. But they can fire her without a cent just
+because she's only been rehearsing and hasn't given a show!"
+
+The Duchess burst into fresh flood of tears.
+
+"Don't you worry, honey!" advised the well-meaning girl who would have
+been in her element looking in on Job with Bildad the Shuhite and his
+friends. "Don't you worry!"
+
+"It's tough!" said the girl who had adopted that form of verbal
+consolation.
+
+"It's fierce!" said the girl who preferred that adjective.
+
+The other girl, with an air of saying something new, repeated her
+statement that it was the limit. The Duchess cried forlornly
+throughout. She had needed this engagement badly. Chorus salaries are
+not stupendous, but it is possible to save money by means of them
+during a New York run, especially if you have spent three years in a
+milliner's shop and can make your own clothes, as the Duchess, in
+spite of her air of being turned out by Fifth Avenue modistes, could
+and did. She had been looking forward, now that this absurd piece was
+to be rewritten by someone who knew his business and had a good chance
+of success, to putting by just those few dollars that make all the
+difference when you are embarking on married life. Cuthbert, for all
+his faithfulness, could not hold up the financial end of the
+establishment unsupported for at least another eighteen months; and
+this disaster meant that the wedding would have to be postponed again.
+So the Duchess, abandoning that aristocratic manner criticized by some
+of her colleagues as "up-stage" and by others as "Ritz-y," sat in her
+chair and consumed pocket-handkerchiefs as fast as they were offered
+to her.
+
+Jill had been the only girl in the room who had spoken no word of
+consolation. This was not because she was not sorry for the Duchess.
+She had never been sorrier for any one in her life. The pathos of that
+swift descent from haughtiness to misery had bitten deep into her
+sensitive heart. But she revolted at the idea of echoing the banal
+words of the others. Words were no good, she thought, as she set her
+little teeth and glared at an absent management--a management just
+about now presumably distending itself with a luxurious dinner at one
+of the big hotels. Deeds were what she demanded. All her life she had
+been a girl of impulsive action, and she wanted to act impulsively
+now. She was in much the same Berserk mood as had swept her, raging,
+to the defence of Bill the parrot on the occasion of his dispute with
+Henry of London. The fighting spirit which had been drained from her
+by the all-night rehearsal had come back in full measure.
+
+"What are you going to _do_?" she cried. "Aren't you going to _do_
+something?"
+
+Do? The members of "The Rose of America" ensemble looked doubtfully at
+one another. Do? It had not occurred to them that there was anything
+to be done. These things happened, and you regretted them, but as for
+doing anything, well, what _could_ you do?
+
+Jill's face was white and her eyes were flaming. She dominated the
+roomful of girls like a little Napoleon. The change in her startled
+them. Hitherto they had always looked on her as rather an unusually
+quiet girl. She had always made herself unobtrusively pleasant to them
+all. They all liked her. But they had never suspected her of
+possessing this militant quality. Nobody spoke, but there was a
+general stir. She had flung a new idea broadcast, and it was beginning
+to take root. Do something? Well, if it came to that, why not?
+
+"We ought all to refuse to go on to-night unless they let her go on!"
+Jill declared.
+
+The stir became a movement. Enthusiasm is catching, and every girl is
+at heart a rebel. And the idea was appealing to the imagination.
+Refuse to give a show on the opening night! Had a chorus ever done
+such a thing? They trembled on the verge of making history.
+
+"Strike?" quavered somebody at the back.
+
+"Yes, strike!" cried Jill.
+
+"Hooray! That's the thtuff!" shouted the Cherub, and turned the scale.
+She was a popular girl, and her adherence to the Cause confirmed the
+doubters. "Thtrike!"
+
+"Strike! Strike!"
+
+Jill turned to the Duchess, who had been gaping amazedly at the
+demonstration. She no longer wept, but she seemed in a dream.
+
+"Dress and get ready to go on," Jill commanded. "We'll all dress and
+get ready to go on. Then I'll go and find Mr. Goble and tell him what
+we mean to do. And, if he doesn't give in, we'll stay here in this
+room, and there won't be a performance!"
+
+
+III
+
+Mr. Goble, with a Derby hat on the back of his head and an unlighted
+cigar in the corner of his mouth, was superintending the erection of
+the first act set when Jill found him. He was standing with his back
+to the safety-curtain glowering at a blue canvas, supposed to
+represent one of those picturesque summer skies which you get at the
+best places on Long Island. Jill, coming down-stage from the staircase
+that led to the dressing-room, interrupted his line of vision.
+
+"Get out of the light!" bellowed Mr. Goble, always a man of direct
+speech, adding "Damn you!" for good measure.
+
+"Please move to one side," interpreted the stage-director. "Mr. Goble
+is looking at the set."
+
+The head carpenter, who completed the little group, said nothing.
+Stage carpenters always say nothing. Long association with fussy
+directors has taught them that the only policy to pursue on opening
+nights is to withdraw into the silence, wrap themselves up in it, and
+not emerge until the enemy has grown tired and gone off to worry
+somebody else.
+
+"It don't look right!" said Mr. Goble, cocking his head on one side.
+
+"I see what you mean, Mr. Goble," assented the stage-director
+obsequiously. "It has perhaps a little too much--er--not quite
+enough--yes, I see what you mean!"
+
+"It's too--damn--BLUE!" rasped Mr. Goble, impatient of the vacillating
+criticism. "That's what's the matter with it."
+
+The head carpenter abandoned the silent policy of a lifetime. He felt
+impelled to utter. He was a man who, when not at the theatre, spent
+most of his time in bed, reading all-fiction magazines; but it so
+happened that once, last summer, he had actually seen the sky; and he
+considered that this entitled him to speak almost as a specialist on
+the subject.
+
+"Ther sky _is_ blue!" he observed huskily. "Yessir! I seen it!"
+
+He passed into the silence again, and, to prevent a further lapse,
+stopped up his mouth with a piece of chewing-gum.
+
+Mr. Goble regarded the silver-tongued orator wrathfully. He was not
+accustomed to chatterboxes arguing with him like this. He would
+probably have said something momentous and crushing, but at this point
+Jill intervened.
+
+"Mr. Goble."
+
+The manager swung round on her.
+
+"What _is_ it?"
+
+It is sad to think how swiftly affection can change to dislike in this
+world. Two weeks before, Mr. Goble had looked on Jill with favour. She
+had seemed good in his eyes. But that refusal of hers to lunch with
+him, followed by a refusal some days later to take a bit of supper
+somewhere, had altered his views on feminine charm. If it had been
+left to him, as most things were about this theatre, to decide which
+of the thirteen girls should be dismissed, he would undoubtedly have
+selected Jill. But at this stage in the proceedings there was the
+unfortunate necessity of making concessions to the temperamental
+Johnson Miller. Mr. Goble was aware that the dance-director's services
+would be badly needed in the re-arrangement of the numbers during the
+coming week or so, and he knew that there were a dozen managers
+waiting eagerly to welcome him if he threw up his present job, so he
+had been obliged to approach him in quite a humble spirit and enquire
+which of his female chorus could be most easily spared. And, as the
+Duchess had a habit of carrying her haughty languor on to the stage
+and employing it as a substitute for the chorea which was Mr. Miller's
+ideal, the dance-director had chosen her. To Mr. Goble's dislike of
+Jill, therefore, was added now something of the fury of the baffled
+potentate.
+
+"'Jer want?" he demanded.
+
+"Mr. Goble is extremely busy," said the stage-director. "Extremely."
+
+A momentary doubt as to the best way of approaching her subject had
+troubled Jill on her way downstairs, but, now that she was on the
+battlefield confronting the enemy, she found herself cool, collected,
+and full of a cold rage which steeled her nerves without confusing her
+mind.
+
+"I came to ask you to let Mae D'Arcy go on to-night."
+
+"Who the hell's Mae D'Arcy?" Mr. Goble broke off to bellow at a
+scene-shifter who was depositing the wall of Mrs. Stuyvesant van
+Dyke's Long Island residence too far down stage. "Not there, you fool!
+Higher up!"
+
+"You gave her notice this evening," said Jill.
+
+"Well, what about it?"
+
+"We want you to withdraw it."
+
+"Who's 'we'?"
+
+"The other girls and myself."
+
+Mr. Goble jerked his head so violently that the Derby hat flew off, to
+be picked up, dusted, and restored by the stage-director.
+
+"Oh, so you don't like it? Well, you know what you can do...."
+
+"Yes," said Jill, "we do. We are going to strike."
+
+"What?"
+
+"If you don't let Mae go on, we shan't go on. There won't be a
+performance to-night, unless you like to give one without a chorus."
+
+"Are you crazy?"
+
+"Perhaps. But we're quite unanimous."
+
+Mr. Goble, like most theatrical managers, was not good at words over
+two syllables.
+
+"You're what?"
+
+"We've talked it over, and we've all decided to do what I said."
+
+Mr. Goble's hat shot off again, and gambolled away into the wings,
+with the stage-director bounding after it like a retriever.
+
+"Whose idea's this?" demanded Mr. Goble. His eyes were a little foggy,
+for his brain was adjusting itself but slowly to the novel situation.
+
+"Mine."
+
+"Oh, yours! I thought as much!"
+
+"Well," said Jill, "I'll go back and tell them that you will not do
+what we ask. We will keep our make-up on in case you change your
+mind."
+
+She turned away.
+
+"Come back!"
+
+Jill proceeded toward the staircase. As she went, a husky voice spoke
+in her ear.
+
+"Go to it, kid! You're all right!"
+
+The head-carpenter had broken his Trappist vows twice in a single
+evening, a thing which had not happened to him since the night three
+years ago, when, sinking wearily into a seat in a dark corner for a
+bit of a rest, he found that one of his assistants had placed a pot of
+red paint there.
+
+
+IV
+
+To Mr. Goble, fermenting and full of strange oaths, entered Johnson
+Miller. The dance-director was always edgey on first nights, and
+during the foregoing conversation had been flitting about the stage
+like a white-haired moth. His deafness had kept him in complete
+ignorance that there was anything untoward afoot, and he now
+approached Mr. Goble with his watch in his hand.
+
+"Eight twenty-five," he observed. "Time those girls were on stage."
+
+Mr. Goble, glad of a concrete target for his wrath, cursed him in
+about two hundred and fifty rich and well-selected words.
+
+"Huh?" said Miller, hand to ear.
+
+Mr. Goble repeated the last hundred and eleven words, the pick of the
+bunch.
+
+"Can't hear!" said Mr. Miller regretfully. "Got a cold."
+
+The grave danger that Mr. Goble, a thick-necked man, would undergo
+some sort of a stroke was averted by the presence of mind of the
+stage-director, who, returning with the hat, presented it like a
+bouquet to his employer, and then, his hands being now unoccupied,
+formed them into a funnel and through this flesh-and-blood megaphone
+endeavoured to impart the bad news.
+
+"The girls say they won't go on!"
+
+Mr. Miller nodded.
+
+"I _said_ it was time they were on."
+
+"They're on strike!"
+
+"It's not," said Mr. Miller austerely, "what they _like_, it's what
+they're paid for. They ought to be on stage. We should be ringing up
+in two minutes."
+
+The stage-director drew another breath, then thought better of it. He
+had a wife and children, and, if dadda went under with apoplexy, what
+became of the home, civilization's most sacred product? He relaxed the
+muscles of his diaphragm, and reached for pencil and paper.
+
+Mr. Miller inspected the message, felt for his spectacle-case, found
+it, opened it, took out his glasses, replaced the spectacle-case, felt
+for his handkerchief, polished the glasses, replaced the handkerchief,
+put the glasses on, and read. A blank look came into his face.
+
+"Why?" he enquired.
+
+The stage-director, with a nod of the head intended to imply that he
+must be patient and all would come right in the future, recovered the
+paper, and scribbled another sentence. Mr. Miller perused it.
+
+"Because Mae D'Arcy has got her notice?" he queried, amazed. "But the
+girl can't dance a step."
+
+The stage-director, by means of a wave of the hand, a lifting of both
+eyebrows, and a wrinkling of the nose, replied that the situation,
+unreasonable as it might appear to the thinking man, was as he had
+stated and must be faced. What, he enquired--through the medium of a
+clever drooping of the mouth and a shrug of the shoulders--was to be
+done about it?
+
+Mr. Miller remained for a moment in meditation.
+
+"I'll go and talk to them," he said.
+
+He flitted off, and the stage-director leaned back against the
+asbestos curtain. He was exhausted, and his throat was in agony, but
+nevertheless he was conscious of a feeling of quiet happiness. His
+life had been lived in the shadow of the constant fear that some day
+Mr. Goble might dismiss him. Should that disaster occur, he felt there
+was always a future for him in the movies.
+
+Scarcely had Mr. Miller disappeared on his peace-making errand, when
+there was a noise like a fowl going through a quickset hedge, and Mr.
+Saltzburg, brandishing his baton as if he were conducting an unseen
+orchestra, plunged through the scenery at the left upper entrance and
+charged excitedly down the stage. Having taken his musicians twice
+through the overture, he had for ten minutes been sitting in silence,
+waiting for the curtain to go up. At last, his emotional nature
+cracking under the strain of this suspense, he had left his
+conductor's chair and plunged down under the stage by way of the
+musician's bolthole to ascertain what was causing the delay.
+
+"What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?" enquired Mr.
+Saltzburg. "I wait and wait and wait and wait and wait.... We cannot
+play the overture again. What is it? What has happened?"
+
+Mr. Goble, that overwrought soul, had betaken himself to the wings
+where he was striding up and down with his hands behind his back,
+chewing his cigar. The stage-director braced himself once more to the
+task of explanation.
+
+"The girls have struck!"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg blinked through his glasses.
+
+"The girls?" he repeated blankly.
+
+"Oh, damn it!" cried the stage-director, his patience at last giving
+way. "You know what a girl is, don't you?"
+
+"They have what?"
+
+"Struck! Walked out on us! Refused to go on!"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg reeled under the blow.
+
+"But it is impossible! Who is to sing the opening chorus?"
+
+In the presence of one to whom he could relieve his mind without fear
+of consequences, the stage-director became savagely jocular.
+
+"That's all arranged," he said. "We're going to dress the carpenters
+in skirts. The audience won't notice anything wrong."
+
+"Should I speak to Mr. Goble?" queried Mr. Saltzburg doubtfully.
+
+"Yes, if you don't value your life," returned the stage-director.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg pondered.
+
+"I will go and speak to the childrun," he said. "I will talk to them.
+They know _me_! I will make them be reasonable."
+
+He bustled off in the direction taken by Mr. Miller, his coat-tails
+flying behind him. The stage-director, with a tired sigh, turned to
+face Wally, who had come in through the iron pass-door from the
+auditorium.
+
+"Hullo!" said Wally cheerfully. "Going strong? How's everybody at
+home? Fine? So am I! By the way, am I wrong or did I hear something
+about a theatrical entertainment of some sort here to-night?" He
+looked about him at the empty stage. In the wings, on the prompt side,
+could be discerned the flannel-clad forms of the gentlemanly members
+of the male ensemble, all dressed up for Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke's
+tennis party. One or two of the principals were standing perplexedly
+in the lower entrance. The O.P. side had been given over by general
+consent to Mr. Goble for his perambulations. Every now and then he
+would flash into view through an opening in the scenery. "I understood
+that to-night was the night for the great revival of comic opera.
+Where are the comics, and why aren't they opping?"
+
+The stage-director repeated his formula once more.
+
+"The girls have struck!"
+
+"So have the clocks," said Wally. "It's past nine."
+
+"The chorus refuse to go on."
+
+"No, really! Just artistic loathing of the rotten piece, or is there
+some other reason?"
+
+"They're sore because one of them has been given her notice, and they
+say they won't give a show unless she's taken back. They've struck.
+That Mariner girl started it."
+
+"She did!" Wally's interest became keener. "She would!" he said
+approvingly. "She's a heroine!"
+
+"Little devil! I never liked that girl!"
+
+"Now there," said Wally, "is just the point on which we differ. I have
+always liked her, and I've known her all my life. So, shipmate, if you
+have any derogatory remarks to make about Miss Mariner, keep them
+where they belong--_there_!" He prodded the other sharply in the
+stomach. He was smiling pleasantly, but the stage-director, catching
+his eye, decided that his advice was good and should be followed. It
+is just as bad for the home if the head of the family gets his neck
+broken as if he succumbs to apoplexy.
+
+"You surely aren't on their side?" he said.
+
+"Me!" said Wally. "Of course I am. I'm always on the side of the
+down-trodden and oppressed. If you know of a dirtier trick than firing
+a girl just before the opening, so that they won't have to pay her two
+weeks' salary, mention it. Till you do, I'll go on believing that it
+is the limit. Of course I'm on the girls' side. I'll make them a
+speech if they want me to, or head the procession with a banner if
+they are going to parade down the boardwalk. I'm for 'em, Father
+Abraham, a hundred thousand strong. And then a few! If you want my
+considered opinion, our old friend Goble has asked for it and got it.
+And I'm glad--glad--glad, if you don't mind my quoting Pollyanna for a
+moment. I hope it chokes him!"
+
+"You'd better not let him hear you talking like that!"
+
+"_Au contraire_, as we say in the Gay City, I'm going to make a point
+of letting him hear me talk like that! Adjust the impression that I
+fear any Goble in shining armour, because I don't. I propose to speak
+my mind to him. I would beard him in his lair, if he had a beard.
+Well, I'll clean-shave him in his lair. That will be just as good. But
+hist! whom have we here? Tell me, do you see the same thing I see?"
+
+Like the vanguard of a defeated army, Mr. Saltzburg was coming
+dejectedly across the stage.
+
+"Well?" said the stage-director.
+
+"They would not listen to me," said Mr. Saltzburg brokenly. "The more
+I talked the more they did not listen!" He winced at a painful memory.
+"Miss Trevor stole my baton, and then they all lined up and sang the
+'Star-Spangled Banner'!"
+
+"Not the words?" cried Wally incredulously. "Don't tell me they knew
+the words!"
+
+"Mr. Miller is still up there, arguing with them. But it will be of no
+use. What shall we do?" asked Mr. Saltzburg helplessly. "We ought to
+have rung up half an hour ago. What shall we do-oo-oo?"
+
+"We must go and talk to Goble," said Wally. "Something has got to be
+settled quick. When I left, the audience was getting so impatient that
+I thought he was going to walk out on us. He's one of those nasty,
+determined-looking men. So come along!"
+
+Mr. Goble, intercepted as he was about to turn for another walk
+up-stage, eyed the deputation sourly and put the same question that
+the stage-director had put to Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"Well?"
+
+Wally came briskly to the point.
+
+"You'll have to give in," he said, "or else go and make a speech to
+the audience, the burden of which will be that they can have their
+money back by applying at the box-office. These Joans of Arc have got
+you by the short hairs!"
+
+"I won't give in!"
+
+"Then give out!" said Wally. "Or pay out, if you prefer it. Trot along
+and tell the audience that the four dollars fifty in the house will be
+refunded."
+
+Mr. Goble gnawed his cigar.
+
+"I've been in the show business fifteen years...."
+
+"I know. And this sort of thing has never happened to you before. One
+gets new experiences."
+
+Mr. Goble cocked his cigar at a fierce angle, and glared at Wally.
+Something told him that Wally's sympathies were not wholly with him.
+
+"They can't do this sort of thing to _me_!" he growled.
+
+"Well, they are doing it to someone, aren't they," said Wally, "and,
+if it's not you, who is it?"
+
+"I've a damned good mind to fire them all!"
+
+"A corking idea! I can't see a single thing wrong with it except that
+it would hang up the production for another five weeks and lose you
+your bookings and cost you a week's rent of this theatre for nothing
+and mean having all the dresses made over and lead to all your
+principals going off and getting other jobs. These trifling things
+apart, we may call the suggestion a bright one."
+
+"You talk too damn much!" said Mr. Goble, eyeing him with distaste.
+
+"Well, go on, _you_ say something. Something sensible."
+
+"It is a very serious situation...." began the stage-director.
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Mr. Goble.
+
+The stage-director subsided into his collar.
+
+"I cannot play the overture again," protested Mr. Saltzburg. "I
+cannot!"
+
+At this point Mr. Miller appeared. He was glad to see Mr. Goble. He
+had been looking for him, for he had news to impart.
+
+"The girls," said Mr. Miller, "have struck! They won't go on!"
+
+Mr. Goble, with the despairing gesture of one who realizes the
+impotence of words, dashed off for his favourite walk up stage. Wally
+took out his watch.
+
+"Six seconds and a bit," he said approvingly, as the manager returned.
+"A very good performance. I should like to time you over the course in
+running-kit."
+
+The interval for reflection, brief as it had been, had apparently
+enabled Mr. Goble to come to a decision.
+
+"Go," he said to the stage-director, "and tell 'em that fool of a
+D'Arcy girl can play. We've got to get that curtain up."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Goble."
+
+The stage-director galloped off.
+
+"Get back to your place," said the manager to Mr. Saltzburg, "and play
+the overture again."
+
+"Again!"
+
+"Perhaps they didn't hear it the first two times," said Wally.
+
+Mr. Goble watched Mr. Saltzburg out of sight. Then he turned to Wally.
+
+"That damned Mariner girl was at the bottom of this! She started the
+whole thing! She told me so. Well, I'll settle _her_! She goes
+to-morrow!"
+
+"Wait a minute," said Wally. "Wait one minute! Bright as it is, that
+idea is _out_!"
+
+"What the devil has it got to do with you?"
+
+"Only this, that if you fire Miss Mariner, I take that neat script
+which I've prepared and I tear it into a thousand fragments. Or nine
+hundred. Anyway, I tear it. Miss Mariner opens in New York, or I pack
+up my work and leave."
+
+Mr. Goble's green eyes glowed.
+
+"Oh, you're stuck on her, are you?" he sneered. "I see!"
+
+"Listen, dear heart," said Wally, gripping the manager's arm, "I can
+see that you are on the verge of introducing personalities into this
+very pleasant little chat. Resist the impulse! Why not let your spine
+stay where it is instead of having it kicked up through your hat? Keep
+to the main issue. Does Miss Mariner open in New York or does she
+not?"
+
+There was a tense silence. Mr. Goble permitted himself a swift review
+of his position. He would have liked to do many things to Wally,
+beginning with ordering him out of the theatre, but prudence
+restrained him. He wanted Wally's work. He needed Wally in his
+business: and, in the theatre, business takes precedence of personal
+feelings.
+
+"All right!" he growled reluctantly.
+
+"That's a promise," said Wally. "I'll see that you keep it." He looked
+over his shoulder. The stage was filled with gaily-coloured dresses.
+The mutineers had returned to duty. "Well, I'll be getting along. I'm
+rather sorry we agreed to keep clear of personalities, because I
+should have liked to say that, if ever they have a skunk-show at
+Madison Square Garden, you ought to enter--and win the blue ribbon.
+Still, of course, under our agreement my lips are sealed, and I can't
+even hint at it. Good-bye. See you later, I suppose?"
+
+Mr. Goble, giving a creditable imitation of a living statue, was
+plucked from his thoughts by a hand upon his arm. It was Mr. Miller,
+whose unfortunate ailment had prevented him from keeping abreast of
+the conversation.
+
+"What did he say?" enquired Mr. Miller, interested. "I didn't hear
+what he said!"
+
+Mr. Goble made no effort to inform him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE COST OF A ROW
+
+I
+
+
+Otis Pilkington had left Atlantic City two hours after the conference
+which had followed the dress-rehearsal, firmly resolved never to go near
+"The Rose of America" again. He had been wounded in his finest feelings.
+There had been a moment, when Mr. Goble had given him the choice between
+having the piece rewritten and cancelling the production altogether, when
+he had inclined to the heroic course. But for one thing Mr. Pilkington
+would have defied the manager, refused to allow his script to be touched,
+and removed the play from his hands. That one thing was the fact that, up
+to the day of the dress-rehearsal, the expenses of the production had
+amounted to the appalling sum of thirty-two thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents, all of which had to come out of Mr.
+Pilkington's pocket. The figures, presented to him in a neatly typewritten
+column stretching over two long sheets of paper, had stunned him. He had
+had no notion that musical plays cost so much. The costumes alone had come
+to ten thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents, and
+somehow that odd fifty cents annoyed Otis Pilkington as much as anything
+on the list. A dark suspicion that Mr. Goble, who had seen to all the
+executive end of the business, had a secret arrangement with the costumer
+whereby he received a private rebate, deepened his gloom. Why, for ten
+thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents you could
+dress the whole female population of New York State and have a bit left
+over for Connecticut. So thought Mr. Pilkington, as he read the bad news
+in the train. He only ceased to brood upon the high cost of costuming when
+in the next line but one there smote his eye an item of four hundred and
+ninety-eight dollars for "Clothing." Clothing! Weren't costumes clothing?
+Why should he have to pay twice over for the same thing? Mr. Pilkington
+was just raging over this, when something lower down in the column caught
+his eye. It was the words:--
+
+Clothing .... 187.45
+
+At this Otis Pilkington uttered a stifled cry, so sharp and so
+anguished that an old lady in the next seat, who was drinking a glass
+of milk, dropped it and had to refund the railway company thirty-five
+cents for breakages. For the remainder of the journey she sat with one
+eye warily on Mr. Pilkington, waiting for his next move.
+
+This adventure quieted Otis Pilkington down, if it did not soothe him.
+He returned blushingly to a perusal of his bill of costs, nearly every
+line of which contained some item that infuriated and dismayed him.
+"Shoes" ($213.50) he could understand, but what on earth was "Academy.
+Rehl. $105.50"? What was "Cuts ... $15"? And what in the name of
+everything infernal was this item for "Frames," in which mysterious
+luxury he had apparently indulged to the extent of ninety-four dollars
+and fifty cents? "Props" occurred on the list no fewer than seventeen
+times. Whatever his future, at whatever poor-house he might spend his
+declining years, he was supplied with enough props to last his
+lifetime.
+
+Otis Pilkington stared blankly at the scenery that flitted past the
+train windows. (Scenery! There had been two charges for scenery!
+"Friedmann, Samuel ... Scenery ... $3711" and "Unitt and Wickes ...
+Scenery ... $2120"). He was suffering the torments of the ruined
+gamester at the roulette-table. Thirty-two thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents! And he was out of pocket ten
+thousand in addition from the cheque he had handed over two days ago
+to Uncle Chris as his share of the investment of starting Jill in the
+motion-pictures. It was terrible! It deprived one of the power of
+thought.
+
+The power of thought, however, returned to Mr. Pilkington almost
+immediately, for, remembering suddenly that Roland Trevis had assured
+him that no musical production, except one of those elaborate
+girl-shows with a chorus of ninety, could possibly cost more than
+fifteen thousand dollars at an outside figure, he began to think about
+Roland Trevis, and continued to think about him until the train pulled
+into the Pennsylvania Station.
+
+For a week or more the stricken financier confined himself mostly to
+his rooms, where he sat smoking cigarettes, gazing at Japanese prints,
+and trying not to think about "props" and "rehl." Then, gradually, the
+almost maternal yearning to see his brain-child once more, which can
+never be wholly crushed out of a young dramatist, returned to
+him--faintly at first, then getting stronger by degrees till it could
+no longer be resisted. Otis Pilkington, having instructed his Japanese
+valet to pack a few simple necessaries in a suit-case, took a cab to
+the Grand Central Station and caught an afternoon train for Rochester,
+where his recollection of the route planned for the tour told him "The
+Rose of America" would now be playing.
+
+Looking into his club on the way, to cash a cheque, the first person
+he encountered was Freddie Rooke.
+
+"Good gracious!" said Otis Pilkington. "What are you doing here?"
+
+Freddie looked up dully from his reading. The abrupt stoppage of his
+professional career--his life-work, one might almost say--had left
+Freddie at a very loose end; and so hollow did the world seem to him
+at the moment, so uniformly futile all its so-called allurements,
+that, to pass the time, he had just been trying to read the _National
+Geographic Magazine_.
+
+"Hullo!" he said. "Well, might as well be here as anywhere, what?" he
+replied to the other's question.
+
+"But why aren't you playing?"
+
+"They sacked me! They've changed my part to a bally Scotchman! Well, I
+mean to say, I couldn't play a bally Scotchman!"
+
+Mr. Pilkington groaned in spirit. Of all the characters in his musical
+fantasy on which he prided himself, that of Lord Finchley was his pet.
+And he had been burked, murdered, blotted out, in order to make room
+for a bally Scotchman.
+
+"The character's called 'The McWhustle of McWhustle' now!" said
+Freddie sombrely.
+
+The McWhustle of McWhustle! Mr. Pilkington almost abandoned his trip
+to Rochester on receiving this devastating piece of information.
+
+"He comes on in Act One in kilts!"
+
+"In kilts! At Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke's garden-party! On Long
+Island!"
+
+"It isn't Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke any longer, either," said Freddie.
+"She's been changed to the wife of a pickle manufacturer."
+
+"A pickle manufacturer!"
+
+"Yes. They said it ought to be a comedy part."
+
+If agony had not caused Mr. Pilkington to clutch for support at the
+back of a chair, he would undoubtedly have wrung his hands.
+
+"But it _was_ a comedy part!" he wailed. "It was full of the subtlest,
+most delicate satire on Society. They were delighted with it at
+Newport! Oh, this is too much! I shall make a strong protest! I shall
+insist on these parts being kept as I wrote them! I shall.... I must
+be going at once, or I shall miss my train." He paused at the door.
+"How was business in Baltimore?"
+
+"Rotten!" said Freddie, and returned to his _National Geographic
+Magazine_.
+
+Otis Pilkington tottered into his cab. He was shattered by what he had
+heard. They had massacred his beautiful play and, doing so had not
+even made a success of it by their own sordid commercial lights.
+Business at Baltimore had been rotten! That meant more expense,
+further columns of figures with "frames" and "rehl." in front of them!
+He staggered into the station.
+
+"Hey!" cried the taxi-driver.
+
+Otis Pilkington turned.
+
+"Sixty-five cents, mister, if _you_ please! Forgetting I'm not your
+private shovoor, wasn't you?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington gave him a dollar. Money--money! Life was just one long
+round of paying out and paying out.
+
+
+II
+
+The day which Mr. Pilkington had selected for his visit to the
+provinces was a Tuesday. "The Rose of America" had opened at Rochester
+on the previous night, after a week at Atlantic City in its original
+form and a week at Baltimore in what might be called its second
+incarnation. Business had been bad in Atlantic City and no better in
+Baltimore, and a meagre first-night house at Rochester had given the
+piece a cold reception, which had put the finishing touches to the
+depression of the company in spite of the fact that the Rochester
+critics, like those of Baltimore, had written kindly of the play. One
+of the maxims of the theatre is that "out-of-town notices don't
+count," and the company had refused to be cheered by them.
+
+It is to be doubted, however, if even crowded houses would have
+aroused much response from the principals and chorus of "The Rose of
+America." For two weeks without a break they had been working under
+forced draught, and they were weary in body and spirit. The new
+principals had had to learn parts in exactly half the time usually
+given for that purpose, and the chorus, after spending five weeks
+assimilating one set of steps and groupings, had been compelled to
+forget them and rehearse an entirely new set. From the morning after
+the first performance at Atlantic City, they had not left the theatre
+except for sketchy half-hour meals.
+
+Jill, standing listlessly in the wings while the scene-shifters
+arranged the Second Act set, was aware of Wally approaching from the
+direction of the pass-door.
+
+"Miss Mariner, I believe?" said Wally. "I suppose you know you look
+perfectly wonderful in that dress? All Rochester's talking about it,
+and there is some idea of running excursion trains from Troy and
+Utica. A great stir it has made!"
+
+Jill smiled. Wally was like a tonic to her during these days of
+overwork. He seemed to be entirely unaffected by the general
+depression, a fact which he attributed himself to the happy accident
+of being in a position to sit back and watch the others toil. But in
+reality Jill knew that he was working as hard as any one. He was
+working all the time, changing scenes, adding lines, tinkering with
+lyrics, smoothing over principals whose nerves had become strained by
+the incessant rehearsing, keeping within bounds Mr. Goble's passion
+for being the big noise about the theatre. His cheerfulness was due to
+the spirit that was in him, and Jill appreciated it. She had come to
+feel very close to Wally since the driving rush of making over "The
+Rose of America" had begun.
+
+"They seemed quite calm to-night," she said. "I believe half of them
+were asleep."
+
+"They're always like that in Rochester. They cloak their deeper
+feelings. They wear the mask. But you can tell from the glassy look in
+their eyes that they are really seething inwardly. But what I came
+round about was--(a)--to give you this letter...."
+
+Jill took the letter, and glanced at the writing. It was from Uncle
+Chris. She placed it on the axe over the fire-buckets for perusal
+later.
+
+"The man at the box-office gave it to me," said Wally, "when I looked
+in there to find out how much money there was in the house to-night.
+The sum was so small that he had to whisper it."
+
+"I'm afraid the piece isn't a success."
+
+"Nonsense! Of course it is! We're doing fine. That brings me to
+section (b) of my discourse. I met poor old Pilkington in the lobby,
+and he said exactly what you have just said, only at greater length."
+
+"Is Mr. Pilkington here?"
+
+"He appears to have run down on the afternoon train to have a look at
+the show. He is catching the next train back to New York! Whenever I
+meet him, he always seems to be dashing off to catch the next train
+back to New York! Poor chap! Have you ever done a murder? If you
+haven't, don't! I know exactly what it feels like, and it feels
+rotten! After two minutes' conversation with Pilkington, I could
+sympathize with Macbeth when he chatted with Banquo. He said I had
+killed his play. He nearly wept, and he drew such a moving picture of
+a poor helpless musical fantasy being lured into a dark alley by thugs
+and there slaughtered that he almost had me in tears too. I felt like
+a beetle-browed brute with a dripping knife and hands imbrued with
+innocent gore."
+
+"Poor Mr. Pilkington!'
+
+"Once more you say exactly what he said, only more crisply. I
+comforted him as well as I could, told him all was for the best and so
+on, and he flung the box-office receipts in my face and said that the
+piece was as bad a failure commercially as it was artistically. I
+couldn't say anything to that, seeing what a house we've got to-night,
+except to bid him look out to the horizon where the sun will shortly
+shine. In other words, I told him that business was about to buck up
+and that later on he would be going about the place with a sprained
+wrist from clipping coupons. But he refused to be cheered, cursed me
+some more for ruining his piece, and ended by begging me to buy his
+share of it cheap."
+
+"You aren't going to?"
+
+"No, I am not--but simply and solely for the reason that, after that
+fiasco in London, I raised my right hand--thus--and swore an oath that
+never, as long as I lived, would I again put up a cent for a
+production, were it the most obvious cinch on earth. I'm gun-shy. But
+if he does happen to get hold of any one with a sporting disposition
+and a few thousands to invest, that person will make a fortune. This
+piece is going to be a gold-mine."
+
+Jill looked at him in surprise. With anybody else but Wally she would
+have attributed this confidence to author's vanity. But with Wally,
+she felt, the fact that the piece, as played now, was almost entirely
+his own work did not count. He viewed it dispassionately, and she
+could not understand why, in the face of half-empty houses, he should
+have such faith in it.
+
+"But what makes you think so? We've been doing awfully badly so far."
+
+Wally nodded.
+
+"And we shall do awfully badly in Syracuse the last half of this week.
+And why? For one thing, because the show isn't a show at all at
+present. Why should people flock to pay for seats for what are
+practically dress-rehearsals of an unknown play? Half the principals
+have had to get up in their parts in two weeks, and they haven't had
+time to get anything out of them. They are groping for their lines all
+the time. The girls can't let themselves go in the numbers, because
+they are wondering if they are going to remember the steps. The show
+hasn't had time to click together yet. It's just ragged. Take a look
+at it in another two weeks! I _know_! I don't say musical comedy is a
+very lofty form of art, but still there's a certain amount of science
+about it. If you go in for it long enough, you learn the tricks, and
+take it from me that, if you have a good cast and some catchy numbers
+it's almost impossible not to have a success. We've got an excellent
+cast now, and the numbers are fine. I tell you--as I tried to tell
+Pilkington, only he wouldn't listen--that this show is all right.
+There's a fortune in it for somebody. But I suppose Pilkington is now
+sitting in the smoking-car of an east-bound train, trying to get the
+porter to accept his share in the piece instead of a tip!"
+
+If Otis Pilkington was not actually doing that, he was doing
+something like it. Sunk in gloom, he bumped up and down on an
+uncomfortable seat, wondering why he had ever taken the trouble to
+make the trip to Rochester. He had found exactly what he had expected
+to find, a mangled caricature of his brain-child playing to a house
+half empty and wholly indifferent. The only redeeming feature, he
+thought vindictively, as he remembered what Roland Trevis had said
+about the cost of musical productions, was the fact that the new
+numbers were undoubtedly better than those which his collaborator had
+originally supplied.
+
+And "The Rose of America," after a disheartening Wednesday matinee and
+a not much better reception on the Wednesday night, packed its baggage
+and moved to Syracuse, where it failed just as badly. Then for another
+two weeks it wandered on from one small town to another, up and down
+New York State and through the doldrums of Connecticut, tacking to and
+fro like a storm-battered ship, till finally the astute and discerning
+citizens of Hartford welcomed it with such a reception that hardened
+principals stared at each other in a wild surmise, wondering if these
+things could really be: and a weary chorus forgot its weariness and
+gave encore after encore with a snap and vim which even Mr. Johnson
+Miller was obliged to own approximated to something like it. Nothing
+to touch the work of his choruses of the old days, of course, but
+nevertheless fair, quite fair.
+
+The spirits of the company revived. Optimism reigned. Principals
+smiled happily and said they had believed in the thing all along. The
+ladies and gentlemen of the ensemble chattered contentedly of a year's
+run in New York. And the citizens of Hartford fought for seats, and,
+if they could not get seats, stood up at the back.
+
+Of these things Otis Pilkington was not aware. He had sold his
+interest in the piece two weeks ago for ten thousand dollars to a
+lawyer acting for some client unknown, and was glad to feel that he
+had saved something out of the wreck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+JILL RECEIVES NOTICE
+
+I
+
+
+The violins soared to one last high note; the bassoon uttered a final
+moan; the pensive person at the end of the orchestra-pit just under
+Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's box, whose duty it was to slam the drum at
+stated intervals, gave that much-enduring instrument a concluding
+wallop; and, laying aside his weapons, allowed his thoughts to stray
+in the direction of cooling drinks. Mr. Saltzburg lowered the baton
+which he had stretched quivering towards the roof and sat down and
+mopped his forehead. The curtain fell on the first act of "The Rose of
+America," and simultaneously tremendous applause broke out from all
+over the Gotham Theatre, which was crammed from floor to roof with
+that heterogeneous collection of humanity which makes up the audience
+of a New York opening performance. The applause continued like the
+breaking of waves on a stony beach. The curtain rose and fell, rose
+and fell, rose and fell again. An usher, stealing down the central
+aisle, gave to Mr. Saltzburg an enormous bouquet of American Beauty
+roses, which he handed to the prima donna, who took it with a
+brilliant smile and a bow, nicely combining humility with joyful
+surprise. The applause, which had begun to slacken, gathered strength
+again. It was a superb bouquet, nearly as big as Mr. Saltzburg
+himself. It had cost the prima donna close on a hundred dollars that
+morning at Thorley's, but it was worth every cent of the money.
+
+The house-lights went up. The audience began to move up the aisles to
+stretch its legs and discuss the piece during the intermission. There
+was a general babble of conversation. Here, a composer who had not got
+an interpolated number in the show was explaining to another composer
+who had not got an interpolated number in the show the exact source
+from which a third composer who had got an interpolated number in the
+show had stolen the number which he had got interpolated. There, two
+musical comedy artists who were temporarily resting were agreeing that
+the prima donna was a dear thing but that, contrary as it was to their
+life-long policy to knock anybody, they must say that she was
+beginning to show the passage of years a trifle and ought to be warned
+by some friend that her career as an _ingénue_ was a thing of the
+past. Dramatic critics, slinking in twos and threes into dark corners,
+were telling each other that "The Rose of America" was just another of
+those things but it had apparently got over. The general public was of
+the opinion that it was a knock-out.
+
+"Otie, darling," said Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim, leaning her ample
+shoulder on Uncle Chris' perfectly fitting sleeve and speaking across
+him to young Mr. Pilkington, "I do congratulate you, dear. It's
+perfectly delightful! I don't know when I have enjoyed a musical piece
+so much. Don't you think it's perfectly darling, Major Selby?"
+
+"Capital!" agreed that suave man of the world, who had been bored as
+near extinction as makes no matter. "Congratulate you, my boy!"
+
+"You clever, clever thing!" said Mrs. Peagrim, skittishly striking her
+nephew on the knee with her fan. "I'm proud to be your aunt! Aren't
+you proud to know him, Mr. Rooke?"
+
+The fourth occupant of the box awoke with a start from the species of
+stupor into which he had been plunged by the spectacle of the
+McWhustle of McWhustle in action. There had been other dark moments in
+Freddie's life. Once, back in London, Parker had sent him out into the
+heart of the West End without his spats and he had not discovered
+their absence till he was half-way up Bond Street. On another
+occasion, having taken on a stranger at squash for a quid a game, he
+had discovered too late that the latter was an ex-public-school
+champion. He had felt gloomy when he had learned of the breaking-off
+of the engagement between Jill Mariner and Derek Underhill, and sad
+when it had been brought to his notice that London was giving Derek
+the cold shoulder in consequence. But never in his whole career had he
+experienced such gloom and such sadness as had come to him that
+evening while watching this unspeakable person in kilts murder that
+part that should have been his. And the audience, confound them, had
+roared with laughter at every damn silly thing the fellow had said!
+
+"Eh?" he replied. "Oh, yes, rather, absolutely!"
+
+"We're _all_ proud of you, Otie darling," proceeded Mrs. Peagrim.
+"The piece is a wonderful success. You will make a fortune out of it.
+And just think, Major Selby, I tried my best to argue the poor, dear
+boy out of putting it on! I thought it was so rash to risk his money
+in a theatrical venture. But then," said Mrs. Peagrim in extenuation,
+"I had only seen the piece when it was done at my house at Newport,
+and of course it really was rather dreadful nonsense then! I might
+have known that you would change it a great deal before you put it on
+in New York. As I always say, plays are not written, they are
+rewritten! Why, you have improved this piece a hundred per cent, Otie!
+I wouldn't know it was the same play!"
+
+She slapped him smartly once more with her fan, ignorant of the gashes
+she was inflicting. Poor Mr. Pilkington was suffering twin torments,
+the torture of remorse and the agonized jealousy of the unsuccessful
+artist. It would have been bad enough to have to sit and watch a large
+audience rocking in its seats at the slap-stick comedy which Wally
+Mason had substituted for his delicate social satire: but, had this
+been all, at least he could have consoled himself with the sordid
+reflection that he, as owner of the piece, was going to make a lot of
+money out of it. Now, even this material balm was denied him. He had
+sold out, and he was feeling like the man who parts for a song with
+shares in an apparently goldless gold mine, only to read in the papers
+next morning that a new reef has been located. Into each life some
+rain must fall. Quite a shower was falling now into young Mr.
+Pilkington's.
+
+"Of course," went on Mrs. Peagrim, "when the play was done at my
+house, it was acted by amateurs. And you know what amateurs are! The
+cast to-night is perfectly splendid. I do think that Scotchman is the
+most killing creature! Don't you think he is wonderful, Mr. Rooke?"
+
+We may say what we will against the upper strata of Society, but it
+cannot be denied that breeding tells. Only by falling back for support
+on the traditions of his class and the solid support of a gentle
+up-bringing was the Last of the Rookes able to crush down the words
+that leaped to his lips and to substitute for them a politely
+conventional agreement. If Mr. Pilkington was feeling like a too
+impulsive seller of gold mines, Freddie's emotions were akin to those
+of the Spartan boy with the fox under his vest. Nothing but Winchester
+and Magdalen could have produced the smile which, though twisted and
+confined entirely to his lips, flashed on to his face and off again at
+his hostess' question.
+
+"Oh, rather! Priceless!"
+
+"Wasn't that part an Englishman before?" asked Mrs. Peagrim. "I
+thought so. Well, it was a stroke of genius changing it. This
+Scotchman is too funny for words. And such an artist!"
+
+Freddie rose shakily. One can stand just so much.
+
+"Think," he mumbled, "I'll be pushing along and smoking a cigarette."
+
+He groped his way to the door.
+
+"I'll come with you, Freddie my boy," said Uncle Chris, who felt an
+imperative need of five minutes' respite from Mrs. Peagrim. "Let's get
+out into the air for a moment. Uncommonly warm it is here."
+
+Freddie assented. Air was what he felt he wanted most.
+
+Left alone in the box with her nephew, Mrs. Peagrim continued for some
+moments in the same vein, innocently twisting the knife in the open
+wound. It struck her from time to time that darling Otie was perhaps a
+shade unresponsive, but she put this down to the nervous strain
+inseparable from a first night of a young author's first play.
+
+"Why," she concluded, "you will make thousands and thousands of
+dollars out of this piece. I am sure it is going to be another 'Merry
+Widow.'"
+
+"You can't tell from a first night audience," said Mr. Pilkington
+sombrely, giving out a piece of theatrical wisdom he had picked up at
+rehearsals.
+
+"Oh, but you can. It's so easy to distinguish polite applause from the
+real thing. No doubt many of the people down here have friends in the
+company or other reasons for seeming to enjoy the play, but look how
+the circle and the gallery were enjoying it! You can't tell me that
+that was not genuine. They love it. How hard," she proceeded
+commiseratingly, "you must have worked, poor boy, during the tour on
+the road to improve the piece so much! I never liked to say so before
+but even you must agree with me now that that original version of
+yours, which was done down at Newport, was the most terrible nonsense!
+And how hard the company must have worked too! Otie," cried Mrs.
+Peagrim, aglow with the magic of a brilliant idea, "I will tell you
+what you must really do. You must give a supper and dance to the
+whole company on the stage to-morrow night after the performance."
+
+"What!" cried Otis Pilkington, startled out of his lethargy by this
+appalling suggestion. Was he, the man who, after planking down
+thirty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty, nine dollars, sixty-eight
+cents for "props" and "frames" and "rehl," had sold out for a paltry
+ten thousand, to be still further victimized?
+
+"They do deserve it, don't they, after working so hard?"
+
+"It's impossible," said Otis Pilkington vehemently. "Out of the
+question."
+
+"But, Otie, darling, I was talking to Mr. Mason when he came down to
+Newport to see the piece last summer, and he told me that the
+management nearly always gives a supper to the company, especially if
+they have had a lot of extra rehearsing to do."
+
+"Well, let Goble give them a supper if he wants to."
+
+"But you know that Mr. Goble, though he has his name on the programme
+as the manager, has really nothing to do with it. You own the piece,
+don't you?"
+
+For a moment Mr. Pilkington felt an impulse to reveal all, but
+refrained. He knew his Aunt Olive too well. If she found out that he
+had parted at a heavy loss with this valuable property, her whole
+attitude towards him would change--or, rather it would revert to her
+normal attitude, which was not unlike that of a severe nurse to a
+weak-minded child. Even in his agony there had been a certain faint
+consolation, due to the entirely unwonted note of respect in the voice
+with which she had addressed him since the fall of the curtain. He
+shrank from forfeiting this respect, unentitled though he was to it.
+
+"Yes," he said in his precise voice. "That, of course, is so."
+
+"Well, then!" said Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"But it seems so unnecessary! And think what it would cost."
+
+This was a false step. Some of the reverence left Mrs. Peagrim's
+voice, and she spoke a little coldly. A gay and gallant spender
+herself, she had often had occasion to rebuke a tendency to
+over-parsimony in her nephew.
+
+"We must not be mean, Otie!" she said.
+
+Mr. Pilkington keenly resented her choice of pronouns. "We" indeed!
+Who was going to foot the bill? Both of them, hand in hand, or he
+alone, the chump, the boob, the easy mark who got this sort of thing
+wished on him!
+
+"I don't think it would be possible to get the stage for a
+supper-party," he pleaded, shifting his ground. "Goble wouldn't give
+it to us."
+
+"As if Mr. Goble would refuse you anything after you have written a
+wonderful success for this theatre! And isn't he getting his share of
+the profits? Directly after the performance you must go round and ask
+him. Of course he will be delighted to give you the stage. I will be
+hostess," said Mrs. Peagrim radiantly. "And now, let me see, whom
+shall we invite?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington stared gloomily at the floor, too bowed down by his
+weight of cares to resent the "we," which had plainly come to stay. He
+was trying to estimate the size of the gash which this preposterous
+entertainment would cleave in the Pilkington bank-roll. He doubted if
+it was possible to go through with it under five hundred dollars; and,
+if, as seemed only too probable, Mrs. Peagrim took the matter in hand
+and gave herself her head, it might get into four figures.
+
+"Major Selby, of course," said Mrs. Peagrim musingly, with a cooing
+note in her voice. Long since had that polished man of affairs made a
+deep impression upon her. "Of course Major Selby, for one. And Mr.
+Rooke. Then there are one or two of my friends who would be hurt if
+they were left out. How about Mr. Mason? Isn't he a friend of yours?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington snorted. He had endured much and was prepared to endure
+more, but he drew the line at squandering his money on the man who had
+sneaked up behind his brain-child with a hatchet and chopped its
+precious person into little bits.
+
+"He is _not_ a friend of mine," he said stiffly, "and I do not wish
+him to be invited!"
+
+Having attained her main objective, Mrs. Peagrim was prepared to yield
+minor points.
+
+"Very well, if you do not like him," she said. "But I thought he was
+quite an intimate of yours. It was you who asked me to invite him to
+Newport last summer."
+
+"Much," said Mr. Pilkington coldly, "has happened since last summer."
+
+"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Peagrim again. "Then we will not include
+Mr. Mason. Now, directly the curtain has fallen, Otie dear, pop right
+round and find Mr. Goble and tell him what you want."
+
+
+II
+
+It is not only twin-souls in this world who yearn to meet each other.
+Between Otis Pilkington and Mr. Goble there was little in common, yet,
+at the moment when Otis set out to find Mr. Goble, the thing which Mr.
+Goble desired most in the world was an interview with Otis. Since the
+end of the first act, the manager had been in a state of mental
+upheaval. Reverting to the gold-mine simile again, Mr. Goble was in
+the position of a man who has had a chance of purchasing such a mine
+and now, learning too late of the discovery of the reef, is feeling
+the truth of the poet's dictum that "of all sad words of tongue or
+pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.'" The electric
+success of "The Rose of America" had stunned Mr. Goble; and realizing,
+as he did, that he might have bought Otis Pilkington's share dirt
+cheap at almost any point of the preliminary tour, he was having a bad
+half hour with himself. The only ray in the darkness which brooded on
+his indomitable soul was the thought that it might still be possible,
+by getting hold of Mr. Pilkington before the notices appeared, and
+shaking his head sadly and talking about the misleading hopes which
+young authors so often draw from an enthusiastic first-night reception
+and impressing upon him that first-night receptions do not deceive
+your expert who has been fifteen years in the show-business and
+mentioning gloomily that he had heard a coupla the critics roastin'
+the show to beat the band ... by doing all these things, it might
+still be possible to depress Mr. Pilkington's young enthusiasm and
+induce him to sell his share at a sacrifice price to a great-hearted
+friend who didn't think the thing would run a week but was willing to
+buy as a sporting speculation, because he thought Mr. Pilkington a
+good kid, and after all these shows that flop in New York sometimes
+have a chance on the road.
+
+Such were the meditations of Mr. Goble, and, on the final fall of the
+curtain, amid unrestrained enthusiasm on the part of the audience, he
+had despatched messengers in all directions with instructions to find
+Mr. Pilkington and conduct him to the presence. Meanwhile, he waited
+impatiently on the empty stage.
+
+The sudden advent of Wally Mason, who appeared at this moment, upset
+Mr. Goble terribly. Wally was a factor in the situation which he had
+not considered. An infernal, tactless fellow, always trying to make
+mischief and upset honest merchants, Wally, if present at the
+interview with Otis Pilkington, would probably try to act in restraint
+of trade and would blurt out some untimely truth about the prospects
+of the piece. Not for the first time, Mr. Goble wished Wally a sudden
+stroke of apoplexy.
+
+"Went well, eh?" said Wally amiably. He did not like Mr. Goble, but on
+the first night of a successful piece personal antipathies may be
+sunk. Such was his effervescent good humour at the moment that he was
+prepared to treat Mr. Goble as a man and a brother.
+
+"H'm!" replied Mr. Goble doubtfully, paving the way.
+
+"What are you h'ming about?" demanded Wally, astonished. "The thing's
+a riot."
+
+"You never know," responded Mr. Goble in the minor key.
+
+"Well!" Wally stared. "I don't know what more you want. The audience
+sat up on its hind legs and squealed, didn't they?"
+
+"I've an idea," said Mr. Goble, raising his voice as the long form of
+Mr. Pilkington crossed the stage towards them, "that the critics will
+roast it. If you ask _me_," he went on loudly, "it's just the sort of
+show the critics will pan the life out of. I've been fifteen years in
+the...."
+
+"Critics!" cried Wally. "Well, I've just been talking to Alexander of
+the _Times_, and he said it was the best musical piece he had ever
+seen and that all the other men he had talked to thought the same."
+
+Mr. Goble turned a distorted face to Mr. Pilkington. He wished that
+Wally would go. But Wally, he reflected, bitterly, was one of those
+men who never go. He faced Mr. Pilkington and did the best he could.
+
+"Of course it's got a _chance_," he said gloomily. "Any show has got a
+_chance_! But I don't know.... I don't know...."
+
+Mr. Pilkington was not interested in the future prospects of "The Rose
+of America." He had a favour to ask, and he wanted to ask it, have it
+refused if possible, and get away. It occurred to him that, by
+substituting for the asking of a favour a peremptory demand, he might
+save himself a thousand dollars.
+
+"I want the stage after the performance to-morrow night, for a supper
+to the company," he said brusquely.
+
+He was shocked to find Mr. Goble immediately complaisant.
+
+"Why, sure," said Mr. Goble readily. "Go as far as you like!" He took
+Mr. Pilkington by the elbow and drew him up-stage, lowering his voice
+to a confidential undertone. "And now, listen," he said, "I've
+something I want to talk to you about. Between you and I and the
+lamp-post, I don't think this show will last a month in New York. It
+don't add up right! There's something all wrong about it."
+
+Mr. Pilkington assented with an emphasis which amazed the manager. "I
+quite agree with you! If you had kept it the way it was
+originally...."
+
+"Too late for that!" sighed Mr. Goble, realizing that his star was in
+the ascendant. He had forgotten for the moment that Mr. Pilkington was
+an author. "We must make the best of a bad job! Now, you're a good kid
+and I wouldn't like you to go around town saying that I had let you
+in. It isn't business, maybe, but, just because I don't want you to
+have any kick coming, I'm ready to buy your share of the thing and
+call it a deal. After all, it may get money on the road. It ain't
+likely, but there's a chance, and I'm willing to take it. Well,
+listen, I'm probably robbing myself, but I'll give you fifteen
+thousand if you want to sell."
+
+A hated voice spoke at his elbow.
+
+"I'll make you a better offer than that," said Wally. "Give me your
+share of the show for three dollars in cash and I'll throw in a pair
+of sock-suspenders and an Ingersoll. Is it a go?"
+
+Mr. Goble regarded him balefully.
+
+"Who told you to butt in?" he enquired sourly.
+
+"Conscience!" replied Wally. "Old Henry W. Conscience! I refuse to
+stand by and see the slaughter of the innocents. Why don't you wait
+till he's dead before you skin him!" He turned to Mr. Pilkington.
+"Don't you be a fool!" he said earnestly. "Can't you see the thing is
+the biggest hit in years? Do you think Jesse James here would be
+offering you a cent for your share if he didn't know there was a
+fortune in it? Do you imagine...?"
+
+"It is immaterial to me," interrupted Otis Pilkington loftily, "what
+Mr. Goble offers. I have already sold my interest!"
+
+"What!" cried Mr. Goble.
+
+"When?" cried Wally.
+
+"I sold it half-way through the road-tour," said Mr. Pilkington, "to a
+lawyer, acting on behalf of a client whose name I did not learn."
+
+In the silence which followed this revelation, another voice spoke.
+
+"I should like to speak to you for a moment, Mr. Goble, if I may." It
+was Jill, who had joined the group unperceived.
+
+Mr. Goble glowered at Jill, who met his gaze composedly.
+
+"I'm busy!" snapped Mr. Goble. "See me to-morrow!"
+
+"I would prefer to see you now."
+
+"You would prefer!" Mr. Goble waved his hands despairingly, as if
+calling on heaven to witness the persecution of a good man.
+
+Jill exhibited a piece of paper stamped with the letter-heading of the
+management.
+
+"It's about this," she said. "I found it in the box as I was going
+out."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"It seems to be a fortnight's notice."
+
+"And that," said Mr. Goble, "is what it _is_!"
+
+Wally uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Do you mean to say...?"
+
+"Yes, I do!" said the manager, turning on him. He felt that he had
+out-manoeuvred Wally. "I agreed to let her open in New York, and
+she's done it, hasn't she? Now she can get out. I don't want her. I
+wouldn't have her if you paid me. She's a nuisance in the company,
+always making trouble, and she can go."
+
+"But I would prefer not to go," said Jill.
+
+"You would prefer!" The phrase infuriated Mr. Goble. "And what has
+what you would prefer got to do with it?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Jill, "I forgot to tell you before, but I own
+the piece!"
+
+
+III
+
+Mr. Goble's jaw fell. He had been waving his hands in another spacious
+gesture, and he remained frozen with outstretched arms, like a
+semaphore. This evening had been a series of shocks for him, but this
+was the worst shock of all.
+
+"You--what!" he stammered.
+
+"I own the piece," repeated Jill. "Surely that gives me authority to
+say what I want done and what I don't want done."
+
+There was a silence, Mr. Goble, who was having difficulty with his
+vocal chords, swallowed once or twice. Wally and Mr. Pilkington stared
+dumbly. At the back of the stage, a belated scene-shifter, homeward
+bound, was whistling as much as he could remember of the refrain of a
+popular song.
+
+"What do you mean you own the piece?" Mr. Goble at length gurgled.
+
+"I bought it."
+
+"You bought it?"
+
+"I bought Mr. Pilkington's share through a lawyer for ten thousand
+dollars."
+
+"Ten thousand dollars! Where did you get ten thousand dollars?" Light
+broke upon Mr. Goble. The thing became clear to him. "Damn it!" he
+cried. "I might have known you had some man behind you! You'd never
+have been so darned fresh if you hadn't had some John in the
+background, paying the bills! Well, of all the...."
+
+He broke off abruptly, not because he had said all that he wished to
+say, for he had only touched the fringe of his subject, but because at
+this point Wally's elbow smote him in the parts about the third button
+of his waistcoat and jarred all the breath out of him.
+
+"Be quiet!" said Wally dangerously. He turned to Jill. "Jill, you
+don't mind telling me how you got ten thousand dollars, do you?"
+
+"Of course not, Wally. Uncle Chris sent it to me. Do you remember
+giving me a letter from him at Rochester? The cheque was in that."
+
+Wally stared.
+
+"Your uncle! But he hasn't any money!"
+
+"He must have made it somehow."
+
+"But he couldn't! How could he?"
+
+Otis Pilkington suddenly gave tongue. He broke in on them with a loud
+noise that was half a snort and half a yell. Stunned by the
+information that it was Jill who had bought his share in the piece,
+Mr. Pilkington's mind had recovered slowly and then had begun to work
+with a quite unusual rapidity. During the preceding conversation he
+had been doing some tense thinking, and now he saw all.
+
+"It's a swindle! It's a deliberate swindle!" shrilled Mr. Pilkington.
+The tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles flashed sparks. "I've been made a
+fool of! I've been swindled! I've been robbed!"
+
+Jill regarded him with wide eyes.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You know what I mean!"
+
+"I certainly do not! You were perfectly willing to sell the piece."
+
+"I'm not talking about that! You know what I mean! I've been robbed!"
+
+Wally snatched at his arm as it gyrated past him in a gesture of
+anguish which rivalled the late efforts in that direction of Mr.
+Goble, who was now leaning against the safety-curtain trying to get
+his breath back.
+
+"Don't be a fool," said Wally curtly. "Talk sense! You know perfectly
+well that Miss Mariner wouldn't swindle you."
+
+"She may not have been in it," conceded Mr. Pilkington. "I don't know
+whether she was or not. But that uncle of hers swindled me out of ten
+thousand dollars! The smooth old crook!"
+
+"Don't talk like that about Uncle Chris!" said Jill, her eyes
+flashing. "Tell me what you mean."
+
+"Yes, come on, Pilkington," said Wally grimly. "You've been scattering
+some pretty serious charges about. Let's hear what you base them on.
+Be coherent for a couple of seconds."
+
+Mr. Goble filled his depleted lungs.
+
+"If you ask me...." he began.
+
+"We don't," said Wally curtly. "This has nothing to do with you.
+Well," he went on, "we're waiting to hear what this is all about."
+
+Mr. Pilkington gulped. Like most men of weak intellect who are preyed
+on by the wolves of the world, he had ever a strong distaste for
+admitting that he had been deceived. He liked to regard himself as a
+shrewd young man who knew his way about and could take care of
+himself.
+
+"Major Selby," he said, adjusting his spectacles, which emotion had
+caused to slip down his nose, "came to me a few weeks ago with a
+proposition. He suggested the formation of a company to start Miss
+Mariner in the motion-pictures."
+
+"What!" cried Jill.
+
+"In the motion-pictures," repeated Mr. Pilkington. "He wished to know
+if I cared to advance any capital towards the venture. I thought it
+over carefully and decided that I was favourably disposed towards the
+scheme. I...." Mr. Pilkington gulped again. "I gave him a cheque for
+ten thousand dollars!"
+
+"Of all the fools!" said Mr. Goble with a sharp laugh. He caught
+Wally's eye and subsided once more.
+
+Mr. Pilkington's fingers strayed agitatedly to his spectacles.
+
+"I may have been a fool," he cried shrilly, "though I was perfectly
+willing to risk the money had it been applied to the object for which
+I gave it. But when it comes to giving ten thousand dollars just to
+have it paid back to me in exchange for a very valuable piece of
+theatrical property ... my own money ... handed back to me...!"
+
+Words failed Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"I've been deliberately swindled!" he added, after a moment, harking
+back to the main motive.
+
+Jill's heart was like lead. She could not doubt for an instant the
+truth of what the victim had said. Woven into every inch of the
+fabric, plainly hall-marked on its surface, she could perceive the
+signature of Uncle Chris. If he had come and confessed to her himself,
+she could not have been more certain that he had acted precisely as
+Mr. Pilkington had charged. There was that same impishness, that same
+bland unscrupulousness, that same pathetic desire to do her a good
+turn however it might affect anybody else which, if she might compare
+the two things, had caused him to pass her off on unfortunate Mr.
+Mariner of Brookport as a girl of wealth with tastes in the direction
+of real estate.
+
+Wally was not so easily satisfied.
+
+"You've no proof whatever...."
+
+Jill shook her head.
+
+"It's true, Wally. I know Uncle Chris. It must be true."
+
+"But, Jill...!"
+
+"It must be. How else could Uncle Chris have got the money?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington, much encouraged by this ready acquiescence in his
+theories, got under way once more.
+
+"The man's a swindler! A swindler! He's robbed me! I have been robbed!
+He never had any intention of starting a motion-picture company. He
+planned it all out...!"
+
+Jill cut into the babble of his denunciations. She was sick at heart,
+and she spoke almost listlessly.
+
+"Mr. Pilkington!" The victim stopped. "Mr. Pilkington, if what you say
+is true, and I'm afraid there is no doubt that it is, the only thing I
+can do is to give you back your property. So will you please try to
+understand that everything is just as it was before you gave my uncle
+the money. You've got back your ten thousand dollars and you've got
+back your piece, so there's nothing more to talk about."
+
+Mr. Pilkington, dimly realizing that the financial aspect of the
+affair had been more or less satisfactorily adjusted, was nevertheless
+conscious of a feeling that he was being thwarted. He had much more to
+say about Uncle Chris and his methods of doing business, and it irked
+him to be cut short like this.
+
+"Yes, but I do not think.... That's all very well, but I have by no
+means finished...."
+
+"Yes, you have," said Wally.
+
+"There's nothing more to talk about," repeated Jill. "I'm sorry this
+should have happened, but you've nothing to complain about now, have
+you? Good night."
+
+And she turned quickly away, and walked towards the door.
+
+"But I hadn't _finished_!" wailed Mr. Pilkington, clutching at Wally.
+He was feeling profoundly aggrieved. If it is bad to be all dressed up
+and no place to go, it is almost worse to be full of talk and to have
+no one to talk it to. Otis Pilkington had at least another twenty
+minutes of speech inside him on the topic of Uncle Chris, and Wally
+was the nearest human being with a pair of ears.
+
+Wally was in no mood to play the part of confidant. He pushed Mr.
+Pilkington earnestly in the chest and raced after Jill. Mr.
+Pilkington, with the feeling that the world was against him, tottered
+back into the arms of Mr. Goble, who had now recovered his breath and
+was ready to talk business.
+
+"Have a good cigar," said Mr. Goble, producing one. "Now, see here,
+let's get right down to it. If you'd care to sell out for twenty
+thousand...."
+
+"I would _not_ care to sell out for twenty thousand!" yelled the
+overwrought Mr. Pilkington. "I wouldn't sell out for a million! You're
+a swindler! You want to rob me! You're a crook!"
+
+"Yes, yes," assented Mr. Goble gently. "But, all joking aside, suppose
+I was to go up to twenty-five thousand...?" He twined his fingers
+lovingly in the slack of Mr. Pilkington's coat. "Come now! You're a
+good kid I Shall we say twenty-five thousand?"
+
+"We will _not_ say twenty-five thousand! Let me go!"
+
+"Now, now, _now_!" pleaded Mr. Goble. "Be sensible! Don't get all
+worked up! Say, _do_ have a good cigar!"
+
+"I _won't_ have a good cigar!" shouted Mr. Pilkington.
+
+He detached himself with a jerk, and stalked with long strides up the
+stage. Mr. Goble watched him go with a lowering gaze. A heavy sense of
+the unkindness of fate was oppressing Mr. Goble. If you couldn't gyp a
+bone-headed amateur out of a piece of property, whom could you gyp?
+Mr. Goble sighed. It hardly seemed to him worth while going on.
+
+
+IV
+
+Out in the street Wally had overtaken Jill, and they faced one another
+in the light of a street lamp. Forty-first Street at midnight is a
+quiet oasis. They had it to themselves.
+
+Jill was pale, and she was breathing quickly, but she forced a smile.
+
+"Well, Wally," she said. "My career as a manager didn't last long, did
+it?"
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+Jill looked down the street.
+
+"I don't know," she said. "I suppose I shall have to start trying to
+find something."
+
+"But...."
+
+Jill drew him suddenly into the dark alley-way leading to the
+stage-door of the Gotham Theatre's nearest neighbour, and, as she did
+so, a long, thin form, swathed in an overcoat and surmounted by an
+opera-hat, flashed past.
+
+"I don't think I could have gone through another meeting with Mr.
+Pilkington," said Jill. "It wasn't his fault, and he was quite
+justified, but what he said about Uncle Chris rather hurt."
+
+Wally, who had ideas of his own similar to those of Mr. Pilkington on
+the subject of Uncle Chris and had intended to express them, prudently
+kept them unspoken.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "there is no doubt...?"
+
+"There can't be. Poor Uncle Chris! He is like Freddie. He means well!"
+
+There was a pause. They left the alley and walked down the street.
+
+"Where are you going now?" asked Wally.
+
+"I'm going home."
+
+"Where's home?"
+
+"Forty-ninth Street. I live in a boarding-house there."
+
+A sudden recollection of the boarding-house at which she had lived in
+Atlantic City smote Wally, and it turned the scale. He had not
+intended to speak, but he could not help himself.
+
+"Jill!" he cried. "It's no good. I _must_ say it! I want to get you
+out of all this. I want to take care of you. Why should you go on
+living this sort of life, when.... Why won't you let me...?"
+
+He stopped. Even as he spoke, he realized the futility of what he was
+saying. Jill was not a girl to be won with words.
+
+They walked on in silence for a moment. They crossed Broadway, noisy
+with night traffic, and passed into the stillness on the other side.
+
+"Wally," said Jill at last.
+
+She was looking straight in front of her. Her voice was troubled.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Jill hesitated.
+
+"Wally, you wouldn't want me to marry you if you knew you weren't the
+only man in the world that mattered to me, would you?"
+
+They had reached Sixth Avenue before Wally replied.
+
+"No!" he said.
+
+For an instant, Jill could not have said whether the feeling that shot
+through her like the abrupt touching of a nerve was relief or
+disappointment. Then suddenly she realized that it was disappointment.
+It was absurd to her to feel disappointed, but at that moment she
+would have welcomed a different attitude in him. If only this problem
+of hers could be taken forcefully out of her hands, what a relief it
+would be. If only Wally, masterfully insistent, would batter down her
+hesitations and _grab_ her, knock her on the head and carry her off
+like a caveman, care less about her happiness and concentrate on his
+own, what a solution it would be.... But then he wouldn't be Wally....
+Nevertheless, Jill gave a little sigh. Her new life had changed her
+already. It had blunted the sharp edge of her independence. To-night
+she was feeling the need of some one to lean on--some one strong and
+cosy and sympathetic who would treat her like a little girl and shield
+her from all the roughness of life. The fighting spirit had gone out
+of her, and she was no longer the little warrior facing the world with
+a brave eye and a tilted chin. She wanted to cry and be petted.
+
+"No!" said Wally again. There had been the faintest suggestion of a
+doubt when he had spoken the word before, but now it shot out like a
+bullet. "And I'll tell you why. I want _you_--and, if you married me
+feeling like that, it wouldn't be you. I want Jill, the whole Jill,
+and nothing but Jill, and, if I can't have that, I'd rather not have
+anything. Marriage isn't a motion-picture close-up with slow fade-out
+on the embrace. It's a partnership, and what's the good of a
+partnership if your heart's not in it? It's like collaborating with a
+man you dislike.... I believe you wish sometimes--not often, perhaps,
+but when you're feeling lonely and miserable--that I would pester and
+bludgeon you into marrying me.... What's the matter?"
+
+Jill had started. It was disquieting to have her thoughts read with
+such accuracy.
+
+"Nothing," she said.
+
+"It wouldn't be any good," Wally went on, "because it wouldn't be
+_me_. I couldn't keep that attitude up, and I know I should hate
+myself for ever having tried it. There's nothing in the world I
+wouldn't do to help you, though I know it's no use offering to do
+anything. You're a fighter, and you mean to fight your own battle. It
+might happen that, if I kept after you and badgered you and nagged
+you, one of these days, when you were feeling particularly all alone
+in the world and tired of fighting for yourself, you might consent to
+marry me. But it wouldn't do. Even if you reconciled yourself to it,
+it wouldn't do. I suppose the cave-woman sometimes felt rather
+relieved when everything was settled for her with a club, but I'm sure
+the caveman must have had a hard time ridding himself of the thought
+that he had behaved like a cad and taken a mean advantage. I don't
+want to feel like that. I couldn't make you happy if I felt like that.
+Much better to have you go on regarding me as a friend ... knowing
+that, if ever your feelings do change, that I am right there,
+waiting...."
+
+"But by that time _your_ feelings will have changed!"
+
+Wally laughed.
+
+"Never!"
+
+"You'll meet some other girl...."
+
+"I've met every girl in the world! None of them will do!" The
+lightness came back into Wally's voice. "I'm sorry for the poor
+things, but they won't do! Take 'em away! There's only one girl in the
+world for me--oh, confound it! why is it that one always thinks in
+song-titles! Well, there it is. I'm not going to bother you. We're
+pals. And, as a pal, may I offer you my bank-roll?"
+
+"No!" said Jill. She smiled up at him. "I believe you would give me
+your coat if I asked you for it!"
+
+Wally stopped.
+
+"Do you want it? Here you are!"
+
+"Wally, behave! There's a policeman looking at you!"
+
+"Oh, well, if you won't! It's a good coat, all the same."
+
+They turned the corner and stopped before a brown-stone house, with a
+long ladder of untidy steps running up to the front door.
+
+"Is this where you live?" Wally asked. He looked at the gloomy place
+disapprovingly. "You do choose the most awful places!"
+
+"I don't choose them. They're thrust on me. Yes, this is where I live.
+If you want to know the exact room, it's the third window up there
+over the front door. Well, good night."
+
+"Good night," said Wally. He paused. "Jill."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I know it's not worth mentioning, and it's breaking our agreement to
+mention it, but you _do_ understand, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, Wally dear, I understand."
+
+"I'm round the corner, you know, waiting! And if you ever _do_ change,
+all you've got to do is just to come to me and say 'It's all
+right!'...."
+
+Jill laughed a little shakily.
+
+"That doesn't sound very romantic!"
+
+"Not sound romantic? If you can think of any three words in the
+language that sound more romantic, let me have them! Well, never mind
+how they sound, just say them, and watch the result! But you must get
+to bed. Good night."
+
+"Good night, Wally."
+
+She passed in through the dingy door. It closed behind her, and Wally
+stood for some moments staring at it with a gloomy repulsion. He
+thought he had never seen a dingier door.
+
+Then he started to walk back to his apartment. He walked very quickly,
+with clenched hands. He was wondering if after all there was not
+something to be said for the methods of the caveman when he went
+a-wooing. Twinges of conscience the caveman may have had when all was
+over, but at least he had established his right to look after the
+woman he loved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MRS. PEAGRIM BURNS INCENSE
+
+
+"They tell me ... I am told ... I am informed ... No, one moment, Miss
+Frisby."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim wrinkled her fair forehead. It has been truly said that
+there is no agony like the agony of literary composition, and Mrs.
+Peagrim was having rather a bad time getting the requisite snap and
+ginger into her latest communication to the Press. She bit her lip,
+and would have passed her twitching fingers restlessly through her
+hair but for the thought of the damage which such an action must do to
+her coiffure. Miss Frisby, her secretary, an anæmic and negative young
+woman, waited patiently, pad on knee, and tapped her teeth with her
+pencil.
+
+"Please do not make that tapping noise, Miss Frisby," said the
+sufferer querulously. "I cannot think. Otie, dear, can't you suggest a
+good phrase? You ought to be able to, being an author."
+
+Mr. Pilkington, who was strewn over an arm-chair by the window, awoke
+from his meditations, which, to judge from the furrow just above the
+bridge of his tortoise-shell spectacles and the droop of his weak
+chin, were not pleasant. It was the morning after the production of
+"The Rose of America," and he had passed a sleepless night, thinking
+of the harsh words he had said to Jill. Could she ever forgive him?
+Would she have the generosity to realize that a man ought not to be
+held accountable for what he says in the moment when he discovers that
+he has been cheated, deceived, robbed--in a word, hornswoggled? He had
+been brooding on this all night, and he wanted to go on brooding now.
+His aunt's question interrupted his train of thought.
+
+"Eh?" he said vaguely, gaping.
+
+"Oh, don't be so absent-minded!" snapped Mrs. Peagrim, not
+unjustifiably annoyed. "I am trying to compose a paragraph for the
+papers about our party to-night, and I can't get the right phrase....
+Read what you've written, Miss Frisby."
+
+Miss Frisby, having turned a pale eye on the pothooks and twiddleys in
+her note-book, translated them in a pale voice.
+
+"'Surely of all the leading hostesses in New York Society there can be
+few more versatile than Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim. I am amazed every
+time I go to her delightful home on West End Avenue to see the scope
+and variety of her circle of intimates. Here you will see an
+ambassador with a fever....'"
+
+"With a _what_?" demanded Mrs. Peagrim sharply.
+
+"'Fever,' I thought you said," replied Miss Frisby stolidly. "I wrote
+'fever.'"
+
+"'Diva.' Do use your intelligence, my good girl. Go on."
+
+"Here you will see an ambassador with a diva from the opera,
+exchanging the latest gossip from the chancelleries for intimate news
+of the world behind the scenes. There, the author of the latest novel
+talking literature to the newest debutante. Truly one may say that
+Mrs. Peagrim has revived the saloon.'"
+
+Mrs. Peagrim bit her lip.
+
+"'Salon.'"
+
+"'Salon,'" said Miss Frisby unemotionally. "They tell me, I am told, I
+am informed....'" She paused. "That's all I have."
+
+"Scratch out those last words," said Mrs. Peagrim irritably. "You
+really are hopeless, Miss Frisby! Couldn't you see that I had stopped
+dictating and was searching for a phrase? Otie, what is a good phrase
+for 'I am told'?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington forced his wandering attention to grapple with the
+problem.
+
+"'I hear,'" he suggested at length.
+
+"Tchah!" ejaculated his aunt. Then her face brightened. "I have it.
+Take dictation, please, Miss Frisby. 'A little bird whispers to me
+that there were great doings last night on the stage of the Gotham
+Theatre after the curtain had fallen on "The Rose of America," which,
+as everybody knows, is the work of Mrs. Peagrim's clever young nephew,
+Otis Pilkington.'" Mrs. Peagrim shot a glance at her clever young
+nephew, to see how he appreciated the boost, but Otis' thoughts were
+far away once more. He was lying on his spine, brooding, brooding.
+Mrs. Peagrim resumed her dictation. "'In honour of the extraordinary
+success of the piece, Mrs. Peagrim, who certainly does nothing by
+halves, entertained the entire company to a supper-dance after the
+performance. A number of prominent people were among the guests, and
+Mrs. Peagrim was a radiant and vivacious hostess. She has never looked
+more charming. The high jinks were kept up to an advanced hour, and
+every one agreed that they had never spent a more delightful evening.'
+There! Type as many copies as are necessary, Miss Frisby, and send
+them out this afternoon with photographs."
+
+Miss Frisby having vanished in her pallid way, the radiant and
+vivacious hostess turned on her nephew again.
+
+"I must say, Otie," she began complainingly, "that, for a man who has
+had a success like yours, you are not very cheerful. I should have
+thought the notices of the piece would have made you the happiest man
+in New York."
+
+There was once a melodrama where the child of the persecuted heroine
+used to dissolve the gallery in tears by saying "Happiness? What _is_
+happiness, moth-aw?" Mr. Pilkington did not use these actual words,
+but he reproduced the stricken infant's tone with great fidelity.
+
+"Notices! What are notices to me?"
+
+"Oh, don't be so affected!" cried Mrs. Peagrim. "Don't pretend that
+you don't know every word of them by heart!"
+
+"I have not seen the notices, Aunt Olive," said Mr. Pilkington dully.
+
+Mrs. Peagrim looked at him with positive alarm. She had never been
+overwhelmingly attached to her long nephew, but since his rise to fame
+something resembling affection had sprung up in her, and his attitude
+now disturbed her.
+
+"You can't be well, Otie!" she said solicitously. "Are you ill?"
+
+"I have a severe headache," replied the martyr. "I passed a wakeful
+night."
+
+"Let me go and mix you a dose of the most wonderful mixture," said
+Mrs. Peagrim maternally. "Poor boy! I don't wonder, after all the
+nervousness and excitement.... You sit quite still and rest. I will be
+back in a moment."
+
+She bustled out of the room, and Mr. Pilkington sagged back into his
+chair. He had hardly got his meditations going once more, when the
+door opened and the maid announced "Major Selby."
+
+"Good morning," said Uncle Chris breezily, sailing down the fairway
+with outstretched hand. "How are--oh!"
+
+He stopped abruptly, perceiving that Mrs. Peagrim was not present
+and--a more disturbing discovery--that Otis Pilkington was. It would
+be exaggeration to say that Uncle Chris was embarrassed. That
+master-mind was never actually embarrassed. But his jauntiness
+certainly ebbed a little, and he had to pull his moustache twice
+before he could face the situation with his customary _aplomb_. He had
+not expected to find Otis Pilkington here, and Otis was the last man
+he wished to meet. He had just parted from Jill, who had been rather
+plain-spoken with regard to the recent financial operations; and,
+though possessed only of a rudimentary conscience, Uncle Chris was
+aware that his next interview with young Mr. Pilkington might have
+certain aspects bordering on awkwardness and he would have liked time
+to prepare a statement for the defence. However, here the man was, and
+the situation must be faced.
+
+"Pilkington!" he cried. "My dear fellow! Just the man I wanted to
+see! I'm afraid there has been a little misunderstanding. Of course,
+it has all been cleared up now, but still I must insist on making a
+personal explanation; really, I must insist. The whole matter was a most
+absurd misunderstanding. It was like this...."
+
+Here Uncle Chris paused in order to devote a couple of seconds to
+thought. He had said it was "like this," and he gave his moustache
+another pull as though he were trying to drag inspiration out of it.
+His blue eyes were as frank and honest as ever, and showed no trace of
+the perplexity in his mind, but he had to admit to himself that, if he
+managed to satisfy his hearer that all was for the best and that he
+had acted uprightly and without blame, he would be doing well.
+
+Fortunately, the commercial side of Mr. Pilkington was entirely
+dormant this morning. The matter of the ten thousand dollars seemed
+trivial to him in comparison with the weightier problems which
+occupied his mind.
+
+"Have you seen Miss Mariner?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes. I have just parted from her. She was upset, poor girl, of
+course, exceedingly upset."
+
+Mr. Pilkington moaned hollowly.
+
+"Is she very angry with me?"
+
+For a moment the utter inexplicability of the remark silenced Uncle
+Chris. Why Jill should be angry with Mr. Pilkington for being robbed
+of ten thousand dollars he could not understand, for Jill had told him
+nothing of the scene that had taken place on the previous night. But
+evidently this point was to Mr. Pilkington the nub of the matter, and
+Uncle Chris, like the strategist he was, re-arranged his forces to
+meet the new development.
+
+"Angry?" he said slowly. "Well, of course...."
+
+He did not know what it was all about, but no doubt if he confined
+himself to broken sentences which meant nothing light would shortly be
+vouchsafed to him.
+
+"In the heat of the moment," confessed Mr. Pilkington, "I'm afraid I
+said things to Miss Mariner which I now regret."
+
+Uncle Chris began to feel on solid ground again.
+
+"Dear, dear!" he murmured regretfully.
+
+"I spoke hastily."
+
+"Always think before you speak, my boy."
+
+"I considered that I had been cheated...."
+
+"My dear boy!" Uncle Chris' blue eyes opened wide. "Please! Haven't I said
+that I could explain all that? It was a pure misunderstanding...."
+
+"Oh, I don't care about that part of it...."
+
+"Quite right," said Uncle Chris cordially. "Let bygones be bygones.
+Start with a clean slate. You have your money back, and there's no
+need to say another word about it. Let us forget it," he concluded
+generously. "And, if I have any influence with Jill, you may count on
+me to use it to dissipate any little unfortunate rift which may have
+occurred between you."
+
+"You think there's a chance that she might overlook what I said?"
+
+"As I say, I will use any influence I may possess to heal the breach.
+I like you, my boy. And I am sure that Jill likes you. She will make
+allowances for any ill-judged remarks you may have uttered in a moment
+of heat."
+
+Mr. Pilkington brightened, and Mrs. Peagrim, returning with a
+medicine-glass, was pleased to see him looking so much better.
+
+"You are a positive wizard, Major Selby," she said archly. "What have
+you been saying to the poor boy to cheer him up so? He has a bad
+headache this morning."
+
+"Headache?" said Uncle Chris, starting like a war-horse that has heard
+the bugle. "I don't know if I have ever mentioned it, but _I_ used to
+suffer from headaches at one time. Extraordinarily severe headaches. I
+tried everything, until one day a man I knew recommended a thing
+called--don't know if you have ever heard of it...."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim, in her rôle of ministering angel, was engrossed with her
+errand of mercy. She was holding the medicine-glass to Mr.
+Pilkington's lips, and the seed fell on stony ground.
+
+"Drink this, dear," urged Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"Nervino," said Uncle Chris.
+
+"There!" said Mrs. Peagrim. "That will make you feel much better. How
+well _you_ always look, Major Selby!"
+
+"And yet at one time," said Uncle Chris perseveringly, "I was a
+martyr...."
+
+"I can't remember if I told you last night about the party. We are
+giving a little supper-dance to the company of Otie's play after the
+performance this evening. Of course you will come?"
+
+Uncle Chris philosophically accepted his failure to secure the ear of
+his audience. Other opportunities would occur.
+
+"Delighted," he said. "Delighted."
+
+"Quite a simple, Bohemian little affair," proceeded Mrs. Peagrim. "I
+thought it was only right to give the poor things a little treat after
+they have all worked so hard."
+
+"Certainly, certainly. A capital idea."
+
+"We shall be quite a small party. If I once started asking anybody
+outside our _real_ friends, I should have to ask everybody."
+
+The door opened.
+
+"Mr. Rooke," announced the maid.
+
+Freddie, like Mr. Pilkington, was a prey to gloom this morning. He had
+read one or two of the papers, and they had been disgustingly lavish
+in their praise of The McWhustle of McWhustle. It made Freddie despair
+of the New York Press. In addition to this, he had been woken up at
+seven o'clock, after going to sleep at three, by the ringing of the
+telephone and the announcement that a gentleman wished to see him: and
+he was weighed down with that heavy-eyed languor which comes to those
+whose night's rest is broken.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Rooke!" said Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"How-de-do," replied Freddie, blinking in the strong light from the
+window. "Hope I'm not barging in and all that sort of thing? I came
+round about this party to-night, you know."
+
+"Oh, yes?"
+
+"Was wondering," said Freddie, "if you would mind if I brought a
+friend of mine along? Popped in on me from England this morning. At
+seven o'clock," said Freddie plaintively. "Ghastly hour, what? Didn't
+do a thing to the good old beauty sleep! Well, what I mean to say is,
+I'd be awfully obliged if you'd let me bring him along."
+
+"Why, of course," said Mrs. Peagrim. "Any friend of yours, Mr.
+Rooke...."
+
+"Thanks awfully. Special reason why I'd like him to come, and all
+that. He's a fellow named Underhill. Sir Derek Underhill. Been a pal
+of mine for years and years."
+
+Uncle Chris started.
+
+"Underhill! Is Derek Underhill in America?"
+
+"Landed this morning. Routed me out of bed at seven o'clock."
+
+"Oh, do you know him, too, Major Selby?" said Mrs. Peagrim. "Then I'm
+sure he must be charming!"
+
+"Charming," began Uncle Chris in measured tones, "is an adjective
+which I cannot...."
+
+"Well, thanks most awfully," interrupted Freddie. "It's fearfully good
+of you to let me bring him along. I must be staggering off now. Lot of
+things to do."
+
+"Oh, must you go already?"
+
+"Absolutely must. Lots of things to do."
+
+Uncle Chris extended a hand to his hostess.
+
+"I think I will be going along, too, Mrs. Peagrim. I'll walk a few
+yards with you, Freddie, my boy. There are one or two things I would
+like to talk over. Till to-night, Mrs. Peagrim."
+
+"Till to-night, Major Selby." She turned to Mr. Pilkington as the door
+closed. "What charming manners Major Selby has. So polished. A sort of
+old-world courtesy. So smooth!"
+
+"Smooth," said Mr. Pilkington dourly, "is right!"
+
+
+II
+
+Uncle Chris confronted Freddie sternly outside the front door.
+
+"What does this mean? Good God, Freddie, have you no delicacy?"
+
+"Eh?" said Freddie blankly.
+
+"Why are you bringing Underhill to this party? Don't you realize that
+poor Jill will be there? How do you suppose she will feel when she
+sees that blackguard again? The cad who threw her over and nearly
+broke her heart!"
+
+Freddie's jaw fell. He groped for his fallen eyeglass.
+
+"Oh, my aunt! Do you think she will be pipped?"
+
+"A sensitive girl like Jill?"
+
+"But, listen. Derek wants to marry her."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Oh, absolutely. That's why he's come over."
+
+Uncle Chris shook his head.
+
+"I don't understand this. I saw the letter myself which he wrote to
+her, breaking off the engagement."
+
+"Yes, but he's dashed sorry about all that now. Wishes he had never
+been such a mug, and all that sort of thing. As a matter of fact,
+that's why I shot over here in the first place. As an ambassador,
+don't you know. I told Jill all about it directly I saw her, but she
+seemed inclined to give it a miss rather, so I cabled old Derek to pop
+here in person. Seemed to me, don't you know, that Jill might be more
+likely to make it up and all that if she saw old Derek."
+
+Uncle Chris nodded, his composure restored.
+
+"Very true. Yes, certainly, my boy, you acted most sensibly. Badly as
+Underhill behaved, she undoubtedly loved him. It would be the best
+possible thing that could happen if they could be brought together. It
+is my dearest wish to see Jill comfortably settled. I was half hoping
+that she might marry young Pilkington."
+
+"Good God! The Pilker!"
+
+"He is quite a nice young fellow," argued Uncle Chris. "None too many
+brains, perhaps, but Jill would supply that deficiency. Still, of
+course, Underhill would be much better."
+
+"She ought to marry someone," said Freddie earnestly. "I mean, all rot
+a girl like Jill having to knock about and rough it like this."
+
+"You're perfectly right."
+
+"Of course," said Freddie thoughtfully, "the catch in the whole dashed
+business is that she's such a bally independent sort of girl. I mean
+to say, it's quite possible she may hand Derek the mitten, you know."
+
+"In that case, let us hope that she will look more favourably on young
+Pilkington."
+
+"Yes," said Freddie. "Well, yes. But--well, I wouldn't call the Pilker
+a very ripe sporting proposition. About sixty to one against is the
+way I should figure it if I were making a book. It may be just because
+I'm feeling a bit pipped this morning--got turfed out of bed at seven
+o'clock and all that--but I have an idea that she may give both of
+them the old razz. May be wrong, of course."
+
+"Let us hope that you are, my boy," said Uncle Chris gravely. "For in
+that case I should be forced into a course of action from which I
+confess that I shrink."
+
+"I don't follow."
+
+"Freddie, my boy, you are a very old friend of Jill's and I am her
+uncle. I feel that I can speak plainly to you. Jill is the dearest
+thing to me in the world. She trusted me, and I failed her. I was
+responsible for the loss of her money, and my one object in life is to
+see her by some means or other in a position equal to the one of which
+I deprived her. If she married a rich man, well and good. That,
+provided she marries him because she is fond of him, will be the very
+best thing that can happen. But if she does not, there is another way.
+It may be possible for me to marry a rich woman."
+
+Freddie stopped, appalled.
+
+"Good God! You don't mean ... you aren't thinking of marrying Mrs.
+Peagrim!"
+
+"I wouldn't have mentioned names, but, as you have guessed.... Yes, if
+the worst comes to the worst, I shall make the supreme sacrifice.
+To-night will decide. Good-bye, my boy. I want to look in at my club
+for a few minutes. Tell Underhill that he has my best wishes."
+
+"I'll bet he has!" gasped Freddie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DEREK LOSES ONE BIRD AND SECURES ANOTHER
+
+
+It is safest for the historian, if he values accuracy, to wait till a
+thing has happened before writing about it. Otherwise he may commit
+himself to statements which are not borne out by the actual facts.
+Mrs. Peagrim, recording in advance the success of her party at the
+Gotham Theatre, had done this. It is true that she was a "radiant and
+vivacious hostess," and it is possible, her standard not being very
+high, that she had "never looked more charming." But, when she went on
+to say that all present were in agreement that they had never spent a
+more delightful evening, she deceived the public. Uncle Chris, for
+one; Otis Pilkington, for another, and Freddie Rooke, for a third,
+were so far from spending a delightful evening that they found it hard
+to mask their true emotions and keep a smiling face to the world.
+
+Otis Pilkington, indeed, found it impossible, and, ceasing to try,
+left early. Just twenty minutes after the proceedings had begun, he
+seized his coat and hat, shot out into the night, made off blindly up
+Broadway, and walked twice round Central Park before his feet gave out
+and he allowed himself to be taken back to his apartment in a taxi.
+Jill had been very kind and very sweet and very regretful, but it was
+only too manifest that on the question of becoming Mrs. Otis
+Pilkington her mind was made up. She was willing to like him, to be a
+sister to him, to watch his future progress with considerable
+interest, but she would not marry him.
+
+One feels sorry for Otis Pilkington in his hour of travail. This was
+the fifth or sixth time that this sort of thing had happened to him,
+and he was getting tired of it. If he could have looked into the
+future--five years almost to a day from that evening--and seen himself
+walking blushfully down the aisle of St. Thomas' with Roland Trevis'
+sister Angela on his arm, his gloom might have been lightened. More
+probably, however, it would have been increased. At the moment, Roland
+Trevis' sister Angela was fifteen, frivolous, and freckled and, except
+that he rather disliked her and suspected her--correctly--of laughing
+at him, amounted to just _nil_ in Mr. Pilkington's life. The idea of
+linking his lot with hers would have appalled him, enthusiastically
+though he was in favour of it five years later.
+
+However, Mr. Pilkington was unable to look into the future, so his
+reflections on this night of sorrow were not diverted from Jill. He
+thought sadly of Jill till two-thirty, when he fell asleep in his
+chair and dreamed of her. At seven o'clock his Japanese valet, who had
+been given the night off, returned home, found him, and gave him
+breakfast. After which, Mr. Pilkington went to bed, played three games
+of solitaire, and slept till dinner-time, when he awoke to take up the
+burden of life again. He still brooded on the tragedy which had
+shattered him. Indeed, it was only two weeks later, when at a dance he
+was introduced to a red-haired girl from Detroit, that he really got
+over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The news was conveyed to Freddie Rooke by Uncle Chris. Uncle Chris,
+with something of the emotions of a condemned man on the scaffold
+waiting for a reprieve, had watched Jill and Mr. Pilkington go off
+together into the dim solitude at the back of the orchestra chairs,
+and, after an all too brief interval, had observed the latter whizzing
+back, his every little movement having a meaning of its own--and that
+meaning one which convinced Uncle Chris that Freddie, in estimating
+Mr. Pilkington as a sixty to one chance, had not erred in his judgment
+of form.
+
+Uncle Chris found Freddie in one of the upper boxes, talking to Nelly
+Bryant. Dancing was going on down on the stage, but Freddie, though
+normally a young man who shook a skilful shoe, was in no mood for
+dancing to-night. The return to the scenes of his former triumphs and
+the meeting with the companions of happier days, severed from him by a
+two-weeks' notice, had affected Freddie powerfully. Eyeing the happy
+throng below, he experienced the emotions of that Peri who, in the
+poem, "at the gate of Eden stood disconsolate."
+
+Excusing himself from Nelly and following Uncle Chris into the
+passage-way outside the box, he heard the other's news listlessly. It
+came as no shock to Freddie. He had never thought Mr. Pilkington
+anything to write home about, and had never supposed that Jill would
+accept him. He said as much. Sorry for the chap in a way, and all
+that, but had never imagined for an instant that he would click.
+
+"Where is Underhill?" asked Uncle Chris agitated.
+
+"Derek? Oh, he isn't here yet."
+
+"But why isn't he here? I understood that you were bringing him with
+you."
+
+"That was the scheme, but it seems he had promised some people he met
+on the boat to go to a theatre and have a bit of supper with them
+afterwards. I only heard about it when I got back this morning."
+
+"Good God, boy! Didn't you tell him that Jill would be here to-night?"
+
+"Oh, rather. And he's coming on directly he can get away from these
+people. Ought to be here any moment now."
+
+Uncle Chris plucked at his moustache gloomily. Freddie's detachment
+depressed him. He had looked for more animation and a greater sense of
+the importance of the issue.
+
+"Well, pip-pip for the present," said Freddie, moving toward the box.
+"Have to be getting back. See you later."
+
+He disappeared, and Uncle Chris turned slowly to descend the stairs.
+As he reached the floor below, the door of the stage-box opened, and
+Mrs. Peagrim came out.
+
+"Oh, Major Selby!" cried the radiant and vivacious hostess. "I
+couldn't think where you had got to. I have been looking for you
+everywhere."
+
+Uncle Chris quivered slightly, but braced himself to do his duty.
+
+"May I have the pleasure...?" he began, then broke off as he saw the
+man who had come out of the box behind his hostess. "Underhill!" He
+grasped his hand and shook it warmly. "My dear fellow! I had no notion
+that you had arrived!"
+
+"Sir Derek came just a moment ago," said Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"How are you, Major Selby?" said Derek. He was a little surprised at
+the warmth of his reception. He had not anticipated this geniality.
+
+"My dear fellow, I'm delighted to see you," cried Uncle Chris. "But,
+as I was saying, Mrs. Peagrim, may I have the pleasure of this dance?"
+
+"I don't think I will dance this one," said Mrs. Peagrim surprisingly.
+"I'm sure you two must have ever so much to talk about. Why don't you
+take Sir Derek and give him a cup of coffee?"
+
+"Capital idea!" said Uncle Chris. "Come this way, my dear fellow. As
+Mrs. Peagrim says, I have ever so much to talk about. Along this
+passage, my boy. Be careful. There's a step. Well, well, well! It's
+delightful to see you again!" He massaged Derek's arm affectionately.
+Every time he had met Mrs. Peagrim that evening he had quailed
+inwardly at what lay before him, should some hitch occur to prevent
+the re-union of Derek and Jill: and now that the other was actually
+here, handsomer than ever and more than ever the sort of man no girl
+could resist, he declined to admit the possibility of a hitch. His
+spirits soared. "You haven't seen Jill yet, of course?"
+
+"No." Derek hesitated. "Is Jill.... Does she.... I mean...."
+
+Uncle Chris resumed his osteopathy. He kneaded his companion's
+coat-sleeve with a jovial hand.
+
+"My dear fellow, of course! I am sure that a word or two from you will
+put everything right. We all make mistakes. I have made them myself. I
+am convinced that everything will be perfectly all right.... Ah, there
+she is. Jill, my dear, here is an old friend to see you!"
+
+
+II
+
+Since the hurried departure of Mr. Pilkington, Jill had been sitting
+in the auditorium, lazily listening to the music and watching the
+couples dancing on the stage. She found herself drifting into a mood
+of gentle contentment, and was at a loss to account for this. She was
+happy--quietly and peacefully happy, when she was aware that she ought
+to have been both agitated and apprehensive. When she had anticipated
+the recent interview with Otis Pilkington, which she had known was
+bound to come sooner or later, it had been shrinkingly and with
+foreboding. She hated hurting people's feelings, and, though she read
+Mr. Pilkington's character accurately enough to know that time would
+heal any anguish which she might cause him, she had had no doubt that
+the temperamental surface of that long young man, when he succeeded in
+getting her alone, was going to be badly bruised. And it had fallen
+out just as she had expected. Mr. Pilkington had said his say and
+departed, a pitiful figure, a spectacle which should have wrung her
+heart. It had not wrung her heart. Except for one fleeting instant
+when she was actually saying the fatal words, it had not interfered
+with her happiness at all; and already she was beginning to forget
+that the incident had ever happened.
+
+And, if the past should have depressed her, the future might have been
+expected to depress her even more. There was nothing in it, either
+immediate or distant, which could account for her feeling gently
+contented. And yet, as she leaned back in her seat, her heart was
+dancing in time to the dance-music of Mrs. Peagrim's hired orchestra.
+It puzzled Jill.
+
+And then, quite suddenly, yet with no abruptness or sense of
+discovery, just as if it were something which she had known all along,
+the truth came upon her. It was Wally, the thought of Wally, the
+knowledge that Wally existed, that made her happy. He was a solid,
+comforting, reassuring fact in a world of doubts and perplexities. She
+did not need to be with him to be fortified, it was enough just to
+think of him. Present or absent, his personality heartened her like
+fine weather or music or a sea-breeze--or like that friendly, soothing
+night-light which they used to leave in her nursery when she was
+little, to scare away the goblins and see her safely over the road
+that led to the gates of the city of dreams.
+
+Suppose there were no Wally...?
+
+Jill gave a sudden gasp, and sat up, tingling. She felt as she had
+sometimes felt as a child, when, on the edge of sleep, she had dreamed
+that she was stepping off a precipice and had woken, tense and alert,
+to find that there was no danger after all. But there was a difference
+between that feeling and this. She had woken, but to find that there
+was danger. It was as though some inner voice was calling to her to be
+careful, to take thought. Suppose there were no Wally?... And why
+should there always be Wally? He had said confidently enough that
+there would never be another girl.... But there were thousands of
+other girls, millions of other girls, and could she suppose that one
+of them would not have the sense to snap up a treasure like Wally? A
+sense of blank desolation swept over Jill. Her quick imagination,
+leaping ahead, had made the vague possibility of a distant future an
+accomplished fact. She felt, absurdly, a sense of overwhelming loss.
+
+Into her mind, never far distant from it, came the thought of Derek.
+And, suddenly, Jill made another discovery. She was thinking of Derek,
+and it was not hurting. She was thinking of him quite coolly and
+clearly and her heart was not aching.
+
+She sat back and screwed her eyes tight, as she had always done when
+puzzled. Something had happened to her, but how it had happened and
+when it had happened and why it had happened she could not understand.
+She only knew that now for the first time she had been granted a
+moment of clear vision and was seeing things truly.
+
+She wanted Wally. She wanted him in the sense that she could not do
+without him. She felt nothing of the fiery tumult which had come upon
+her when she first met Derek. She and Wally would come together with a
+smile and build their life on an enduring foundation of laughter and
+happiness and good-fellowship. Wally had never shaken and never would
+shake her senses as Derek had done. If that was love, then she did not
+love Wally. But her clear vision told her that it was not love. It
+might be the blazing and crackling of thorns, but it was not the fire.
+She wanted Wally. She needed him as she needed the air and the
+sunlight.
+
+She opened her eyes and saw Uncle Chris coming down the aisle towards
+her. There was a man with him, and, as they moved closer in the dim
+light, Jill saw that it was Derek.
+
+"Jill, my dear," said Uncle Chris, "here is an old friend to see you!"
+
+And, having achieved their bringing together, he proceeded to withdraw
+delicately whence he had come. It is pleasant to be able to record
+that he was immediately seized upon by Mrs. Peagrim, who had changed
+her mind about not dancing, and led off to be her partner in a
+fox-trot, in the course of which she trod on his feet three times.
+
+"Why, Derek!" said Jill cheerfully. Except for a mild wonder how he
+came to be there, she found herself wholly unaffected by the sight of
+him. "Whatever are _you_ doing here?"
+
+Derek sat down beside her. The cordiality of her tone had relieved,
+yet at the same time disconcerted him. Man seldom attains to perfect
+contentment in this world, and Derek, while pleased that Jill
+apparently bore him no ill-will, seemed to miss something in her
+manner which he would have been glad to find there.
+
+"Jill!" he said huskily.
+
+It seemed to Derek only decent to speak huskily. To his orderly mind
+this situation could be handled only in one way. It was a plain,
+straight issue of the strong man humbling himself--not too much of
+course, but sufficiently: and it called, in his opinion, for the low
+voice, the clenched hand, and the broken whisper. Speaking as he had
+spoken, he had given the scene the right key from the start--or would
+have done if she had not got in ahead of him and opened it on a note
+of absurd cheeriness? Derek found himself resenting her cheeriness.
+Often as he had attempted during the voyage from England to visualize
+to himself this first meeting, he had never pictured Jill smiling
+brightly at him. It was a jolly smile, and made her look extremely
+pretty, but it jarred upon him. A moment before he had been half
+relieved, half disconcerted: now he was definitely disconcerted. He
+searched in his mind for a criticism of her attitude, and came to the
+conclusion that what was wrong with it was that it was too friendly.
+Friendliness is well enough in its way, but in what should have been a
+tense clashing of strong emotions it did not seem to Derek fitting.
+
+"Did you have a pleasant trip?" asked Jill. "Have you come over on
+business?"
+
+A feeling of bewilderment came upon Derek. It was wrong, it was all
+wrong. Of course, she might be speaking like this to cloak intense
+feeling, but, if so, she had certainly succeeded. From her manner, he
+and she might be casual acquaintances. A pleasant trip! In another
+minute she would be asking him how he had come out on the sweepstake
+on the ship's run. With a sense of putting his shoulder to some heavy
+weight and heaving at it, he sought to lift the conversation to a
+higher plane.
+
+"I came to find _you_!" he said; still huskily but not so huskily as
+before. There are degrees of huskiness, and Derek's was sharpened a
+little by a touch of irritation.
+
+"Yes?" said Jill.
+
+Derek was now fermenting. What she ought to have said, he did not
+know, but he knew that it was not "Yes?" "Yes?" in the circumstances
+was almost as bad as "Really?"
+
+There was a pause. Jill was looking at him with a frank and
+unembarrassed gaze which somehow deepened his sense of annoyance. Had
+she looked at him coldly, he could have understood and even
+appreciated it. He had been expecting coldness, and had braced himself
+to combat it. He was still not quite sure in his mind whether he was
+playing the rôle of a penitent or a King Cophetua, but in either
+character he might have anticipated a little temporary coldness, which
+it would have been his easy task to melt. But he had never expected to
+be looked at as if he were a specimen in a museum, and that was how he
+was feeling now. Jill was not looking at him--she was inspecting him,
+examining him, and he chafed under the process.
+
+Jill, unconscious of the discomfort she was causing, continued to
+gaze. She was trying to discover in just what respect he had changed
+from the god he had been. Certainly not in looks. He was as handsome
+as ever--handsomer, indeed, for the sunshine and clean breezes of the
+Atlantic had given him an exceedingly becoming coat of tan. And yet he
+must have changed, for now she could look upon him quite
+dispassionately and criticize him without a tremor. It was like seeing
+a copy of a great painting. Everything was there, except the one thing
+that mattered, the magic and the glamour. It was like.... She suddenly
+remembered a scene in the dressing-room when the company had been in
+Baltimore. Lois Denham, duly the recipient of the sunburst which her
+friend Izzy had promised her, had unfortunately, in a spirit of
+girlish curiosity, taken it to a jeweller to be priced, and the
+jeweller had blasted her young life by declaring it a paste imitation.
+Jill recalled how the stricken girl--previous to calling Izzy on the
+long distance and telling him a number of things which, while probably
+not news to him, must have been painful hearing--had passed the vile
+object round the dressing-room for inspection. The imitation was
+perfect. It had been impossible for the girls to tell that the stones
+were not real diamonds. Yet the jeweller, with his sixth sense, had
+seen through them in a trifle under ten seconds. Jill came to the
+conclusion that her newly-discovered love for Wally Mason had equipped
+her with a sixth sense, and that by its aid she was really for the
+first time seeing Derek as he was.
+
+Derek had not the privilege of being able to read Jill's thoughts. All
+he could see was the outer Jill, and the outer Jill, as she had always
+done, was stirring his emotions. Her daintiness afflicted him. Not for
+the first, the second, or the third time since they had come into each
+other's lives, he was astounded at the strength of the appeal which
+Jill had for him when they were together, as contrasted with its
+weakness when they were apart. He made another attempt to establish
+the scene on a loftier plane.
+
+"What a fool I was!" he sighed. "Jill! Can you ever forgive me?"
+
+He tried to take her hand. Jill skilfully eluded him.
+
+"Why, of course I've forgiven you, Derek, if there was, anything to
+forgive."
+
+"Anything to forgive!" Derek began to get into his stride. These were
+the lines on which he had desired the interview to develop. "I was a
+brute! A cad!"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"I was. Oh, I have been through hell!"
+
+Jill turned her head away. She did not want to hurt him, but nothing
+could have kept her from smiling. She had been so sure that he would
+say that sooner or later.
+
+"Jill!" Derek had misinterpreted the cause of her movement, and had
+attributed it to emotion. "Tell me that everything is as it was
+before."
+
+Jill turned.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't say that, Derek."
+
+"Of course not!" agreed Derek in a comfortable glow of manly remorse.
+He liked himself in the character of the strong man abashed. "It would
+be too much to expect, I know. But, when we are married...."
+
+"Do you really want to marry me?"
+
+"Jill!"
+
+"I wonder!"
+
+"How can you doubt it?"
+
+Jill looked at him.
+
+"Have you thought what it would mean?"
+
+"What it would mean?"
+
+"Well, your mother...."
+
+"Oh!" Derek dismissed Lady Underhill with a grand gesture.
+
+"Yes," persisted Jill, "but, if she disapproved of your marrying me
+before, wouldn't she disapprove a good deal more now, when I haven't a
+penny in the world and am just in the chorus...."
+
+A sort of strangled sound proceeded from Derek's throat.
+
+"In the chorus!"
+
+"Didn't you know? I thought Freddie must have told you."
+
+"In the chorus!" Derek stammered. "I thought you were here as a guest
+of Mrs. Peagrim's."
+
+"So I am--like all the rest of the company."
+
+"But.... But...."
+
+"You see, it would be bound to make everything a little difficult,"
+said Jill. Her face was grave, but her lips were twitching. "I mean,
+you are rather a prominent man, aren't you, and if you married a
+chorus-girl...."
+
+"Nobody would know," said Derek limply.
+
+Jill opened her eyes.
+
+"Nobody would _know_!" She laughed. "But, of course, you've never met
+our Press-agent. If you think that nobody would know that a girl in
+the company had married a baronet who was a member of parliament and
+expected to be in the Cabinet in a few years, you're wronging him! The
+news would be on the front page of all the papers the very next
+day--columns of it, with photographs. There would be articles about it
+in the Sunday papers. Illustrated! And then it would be cabled to
+England and would appear in the papers there.... You see, you're a
+very important person, Derek."
+
+Derek sat clutching the arms of his chair. His face was chalky. Though
+he had never been inclined to underestimate his importance as a figure
+in the public eye, he had overlooked the disadvantages connected with
+such an eminence. He gurgled wordlessly. He had been prepared to brave
+Lady Underhill's wrath and assert his right to marry whom he pleased,
+but this was different.
+
+Jill watched him curiously and with a certain pity. It was so easy to
+read what was passing in his mind. She wondered what he would say, how
+he would flounder out of his unfortunate position. She had no
+illusions about him now. She did not even contemplate the possibility
+of chivalry winning the battle which was going on within him.
+
+"It would be very awkward, wouldn't it?" she said.
+
+And then pity had its way with Jill. He had treated her badly; for a
+time she had thought that he had crushed all the heart out of her: but
+he was suffering, and she hated to see anybody suffer.
+
+"Besides," she said, "I'm engaged to somebody else."
+
+As a suffocating man, his lips to the tube of oxygen, gradually comes
+back to life, Derek revived--slowly as the meaning of her words sank
+into his mind, then with a sudden abruptness.
+
+"What?" he cried.
+
+"I'm going to marry somebody else. A man named Wally Mason."
+
+Derek swallowed. The chalky look died out of his face, and he flushed
+hotly. His eyes, half relieved, half indignant, glowed under their
+pent-house of eyebrow. He sat for a moment in silence.
+
+"I think you might have told me before!" he said huffily.
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"Yes, I suppose I ought to have told you before."
+
+"Leading me on...!"
+
+Jill patted him on the arm.
+
+"Never mind, Derek! It's all over now. And it was great fun, wasn't
+it!"
+
+"Fun!"
+
+"Shall we go and dance? The music is just starting."
+
+"I _won't_ dance!"
+
+Jill got up.
+
+"I must," she said. "I'm so happy I can't keep still. Well, good-bye,
+Derek, in case I don't see you again. It was nice meeting after all
+this time. You haven't altered a bit!"
+
+Derek watched her flit down the aisle, saw her jump up the little
+ladder on to the stage, watched her vanish into the swirl of the
+dance. He reached for a cigarette, opened his case, and found it
+empty. He uttered a mirthless, Byronic laugh. The thing seemed to him
+symbolic.
+
+
+III
+
+Not having a cigarette of his own, Derek got up and went to look for
+the only man he knew who could give him one: and after a search of a
+few minutes came upon Freddie all alone in a dark corner, apart from
+the throng. It was a very different Freddie from the moody youth who
+had returned to the box after his conversation with Uncle Chris. He
+was leaning against a piece of scenery with his head tilted back and a
+beam of startled happiness on his face. So rapt was he in his
+reflections that he did not become aware of Derek's approach until the
+latter spoke.
+
+"Got a cigarette, Freddie?"
+
+Freddie withdrew his gaze from the roof.
+
+"Hullo, old son! Cigarette? Certainly and by all means. Cigarettes?
+Where are the cigarettes? Mr. Rooke, forward! Show cigarettes." He
+extended his case to Derek, who helped himself in sombre silence,
+finding his boyhood's friend's exuberance hard to bear. "I say, Derek,
+old scream, the most extraordinary thing has happened! You'll never
+guess. To cut a long story short and come to the blow-out of the
+scenario, I'm engaged! Engaged, old crumpet! You know what I
+mean--engaged to be married!"
+
+"Ugh!" said Derek gruffly, frowning over his cigarette.
+
+"Don't wonder you're surprised," said Freddie, looking at him a little
+wistfully, for his friend had scarcely been gushing, and he would have
+welcomed a bit of enthusiasm. "Can hardly believe it myself."
+
+Derek awoke to a sense of the conventions.
+
+"Congratulate you," he said. "Do I know her?"
+
+"Not yet, but you will soon. She's a girl in the company--in the
+chorus as a matter of fact. Girl named Nelly Bryant. An absolute
+corker. I'll go further--a topper. You'll like her, old man."
+
+Derek was looking at him, amazed.
+
+"Good Heavens!" he said.
+
+"Extraordinary how these things happen," proceeded Freddie. "Looking
+back, I can see, of course, that I always thought her a topper, but
+the idea of getting engaged--I don't know--sort of thing that doesn't
+occur to a chappie, if you know what I mean. What I mean to say is, we
+had always been the greatest of pals and all that, but it never struck
+me that she would think it much of a wheeze getting hooked up for life
+with a chap like me. We just sort of drifted along and so forth. All
+very jolly and what not. And then this evening--I don't know. I had a
+bit of a hump, what with one thing and another, and she was most
+dashed sweet and patient and soothing and--and--well, and what not,
+don't you know, and suddenly--deuced rummy sensation--the jolly old
+scales seemed to fall, if you follow me, from my good old eyes; I
+don't know if you get the idea. I suddenly seemed to look myself
+squarely in the eyeball and say to myself, 'Freddie, old top, how do
+we go? Are we not missing a good thing?' And, by Jove, thinking it
+over, I found that I was absolutely correct-o! You've no notion how
+dashed sympathetic she is, old man! I mean to say, I had this hump,
+you know, owing to one thing and another, and was feeling that life
+was more or less of a jolly old snare and delusion, and she bucked me
+up and all that, and suddenly I found myself kissing her and all that
+sort of rot, and she was kissing me and so on and so forth, and she's
+got the most ripping eyes, and there was nobody about, and the long
+and the short of it was, old boy, that I said, 'Let's get married!'
+and she said, 'When?' and that was that, if you see what I mean. The
+scheme now is to pop down to the City Hall and get a licence, which it
+appears you have to have if you want to bring this sort of binge off
+with any success and vim, and then what ho for the padre! Looking at
+it from every angle, a bit of a good egg, what? Happiest man in the
+world, and all that sort of thing."
+
+At this point in his somewhat incoherent epic Freddie paused. It had
+occurred to him that he had perhaps laid himself open to a charge of
+monopolising the conversation.
+
+"I say! You'll forgive my dwelling a bit on this thing, won't you?
+Never found a girl who would look twice at me before, and it's rather
+unsettled the old bean. Just occurred to me that I may have been
+talking about my own affairs a bit. Your turn now, old thing. Sit
+down, as the blighters in the novels used to say, and tell me the
+story of your life. You've seen Jill, of course?"
+
+"Yes," said Derek shortly.
+
+"And it's all right, eh? Fine! We'll make a double wedding of it,
+what? Not a bad idea, that! I mean to say, the man of God might make a
+reduction for quantity and shade his fee a bit. Do the job half
+price!"
+
+Derek threw down the end of his cigarette, and crushed it with his
+heel. A closer observer than Freddie would have detected long ere this
+the fact that his demeanour was not that of a happy and successful
+wooer.
+
+"Jill and I are not going to be married," he said.
+
+A look of blank astonishment came into Freddie's cheerful face. He
+could hardly believe that he had heard correctly. It is true that, in
+gloomier mood, he had hazarded the theory to Uncle Chris that Jill's
+independence might lead her to refuse Derek, but he had not really
+believed in the possibility of such a thing even at the time, and now,
+in the full flood of optimism consequent on his own engagement, it
+seemed even more incredible.
+
+"Great Scott!" he cried. "Did she give you the raspberry?"
+
+It is to be doubted whether the pride of the Underhills would have
+permitted Derek to reply in the affirmative, even if Freddie had
+phrased his question differently; but the brutal directness of the
+query made such a course impossible for him. Nothing was dearer to
+Derek than his self-esteem, and, even at the expense of the truth, he
+was resolved to shield it from injury. To face Freddie and confess
+that any girl in the world had given him, Derek Underhill, what he
+coarsely termed the raspberry was a task so revolting as to be utterly
+beyond his powers.
+
+"Nothing of the kind!" he snapped. "It was because we both saw that
+the thing would be impossible. Why didn't you tell me that Jill was in
+the chorus of this damned piece?"
+
+Freddie's mouth slowly opened. He was trying not to realize the
+meaning of what his friend was saying. His was a faithful soul, and
+for years--to all intents and purposes for practically the whole of
+his life--he had looked up to Derek and reverenced him. He absolutely
+refused to believe that Derek was intending to convey what he seemed
+to be trying to convey; for, if he was, well ... by Jove ... it was
+too rotten and Algy Martyn had been right after all and the fellow was
+simply....
+
+"You don't mean, old man," said Freddie with an almost pleading note
+in his voice, "that you're going to back out of marrying Jill because
+she's in the chorus?"
+
+Derek looked away, and scowled. He was finding Freddie, in the
+capacity of inquisitor, as trying as he had found him in the rôle of
+exuberant fiancé. It offended his pride to have to make explanations
+to one whom he had always regarded with a patronizing tolerance as not
+a bad fellow in his way but in every essential respect negligible.
+
+"I have to be sensible," he said, chafing as the indignity of his
+position intruded itself more and more. "You know what it would
+mean.... Paragraphs in all the papers.... photographs ... the news
+cabled to England ... everybody reading it and misunderstanding....
+I've got my career to think of.... It would cripple me...."
+
+His voice trailed off, and there was silence for a moment. Then
+Freddie burst into speech. His good-natured face was hard with
+unwonted scorn. Its cheerful vacuity had changed to stony contempt.
+For the second time in the evening the jolly old scales had fallen
+from Freddie's good old eyes, and, as Jill had done, he saw Derek as
+he was.
+
+"My sainted aunt!" he said slowly. "So that's it, what? Well, I've
+always thought a dashed lot of you, as you know. I've always looked up
+to you as a bit of a nib and wished I was like you. But, great Scott!
+if that's the sort of a chap you are, I'm deuced glad I'm not! I'm
+going to wake up in the middle of the night and think how unlike you I
+am and pat myself on the back! Ronny Devereux was perfectly right. A
+tick's a tick, and that's all there is to say about it. Good old Ronny
+told me what you were, and, like a silly ass, I wasted a lot of time
+trying to make him believe you weren't that sort of chap at all. It's
+no good standing there looking like your mother," said Freddie firmly.
+"This is where we jolly well part brass-rags! If we ever meet again,
+I'll trouble you not to speak to me, because I've a reputation to keep
+up! So there you have it in a bally nutshell!"
+
+Scarcely had Freddie ceased to administer it to his former friend in a
+bally nutshell, when Uncle Chris, warm and dishevelled from the dance
+as interpreted by Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim, came bustling up, saving
+Derek the necessity of replying to the harangue.
+
+"Well, Underhill, my dear fellow," began Uncle Chris affably,
+attaching himself to the other's arm, "what...?"
+
+He broke off, for Derek, freeing his arm with a wrench, turned and
+walked rapidly away. Derek had no desire to go over the whole thing
+again with Uncle Chris. He wanted to be alone, to build up, painfully
+and laboriously, the ruins of his self-esteem. The pride of the
+Underhills had had a bad evening.
+
+Uncle Chris turned to Freddie.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked blankly.
+
+"I'll tell you what's the jolly old matter!" cried Freddie. "The
+blighter isn't going to marry poor Jill after all! He's changed his
+rotten mind! It's off!"
+
+"Off?"
+
+"Absolutely off!"
+
+"Absolutely off?"
+
+"Napoo!" said Freddie. "He's afraid of what will happen to his blasted
+career if he marries a girl who's been in the chorus."
+
+"But, my dear boy!" Uncle Chris blinked. "But, my dear boy! This is
+ridiculous.... Surely, if I were to speak a word...."
+
+"You can if you like. _I_ wouldn't speak to the man again if you paid
+me! But it won't do any good, so what's the use?"
+
+Slowly Uncle Chris adjusted his mind to the disaster.
+
+"Then you mean...?"
+
+"It's off!" said Freddie.
+
+For a moment Uncle Chris stood motionless. Then, with a sudden jerk,
+he seemed to stiffen his backbone. His face was bleak, but he pulled
+at his moustache jauntily.
+
+"_Morituri te salutant!_" he said. "Good-bye, Freddie, my boy."
+
+He turned away, gallant and upright, the old soldier.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Freddie.
+
+"Over the top!" said Uncle Chris.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I am going," said Uncle Chris steadily, "to find Mrs. Peagrim!"
+
+"Good God!" cried Freddie. He followed him, protesting weakly, but the
+other gave no sign that he had heard. Freddie saw him disappear into
+the stage-box, and, turning, found Jill at his elbow.
+
+"Where did Uncle Chris go?" asked Jill. "I want to speak to him."
+
+"He's in the stage-box, with Mrs. Peagrim."
+
+"With Mrs. Peagrim?"
+
+"Proposing to her," said Freddie solemnly.
+
+Jill stared.
+
+"Proposing to Mrs. Peagrim? What do you mean?"
+
+Freddie drew her aside, and began to explain.
+
+
+IV
+
+In the dimness of the stage-box, his eyes a little glassy and a dull
+despair in his soul, Uncle Chris was wondering how to begin. In his
+hot youth he had been rather a devil of a fellow in between dances, a
+coo-er of soft phrases and a stealer of never very stoutly withheld
+kisses. He remembered one time in Bangalore ... but that had nothing
+to do with the case. The point was, how to begin with Mrs. Peagrim.
+The fact that twenty-five years ago he had crushed in his arms beneath
+the shadows of the deodars a girl whose name he had forgotten, though
+he remembered that she had worn a dress of some pink stuff, was
+immaterial and irrelevant. Was he to crush Mrs. Peagrim in his arms?
+Not, thought Uncle Chris to himself, on a bet. He contented himself
+for the moment with bending an intense gaze upon her and asking if she
+was tired.
+
+"A little," panted Mrs. Peagrim, who, though she danced often and
+vigorously, was never in the best of condition, owing to her habit of
+neutralizing the beneficent effects of exercise by surreptitious
+candy-eating. "I'm a little out of breath."
+
+Uncle Chris had observed this for himself, and it had not helped him
+to face his task. Lovely woman loses something of her queenly dignity
+when she puffs. Inwardly, he was thinking how exactly his hostess
+resembled the third from the left of a troupe of performing sea-lions
+which he had seen some years ago on one of his rare visits to a
+vaudeville house.
+
+"You ought not to tire yourself," he said with a difficult tenderness.
+
+"I _am_ so fond of dancing," pleaded Mrs. Peagrim. Recovering some of
+her breath, she gazed at her companion with a sort of short-winded
+archness. "You are always so sympathetic, Major Selby."
+
+"Am I?" said Uncle Chris. "Am I?"
+
+"You know you are!"
+
+Uncle Chris swallowed quickly.
+
+"I wonder if you have ever wondered," he began, and stopped. He felt
+that he was not putting it as well as he might. "I wonder if it has
+ever struck you that there's a reason." He stopped again. He seemed to
+remember reading something like that in an advertisement in a
+magazine, and he did not want to talk like an advertisement. "I wonder
+if it has ever struck you, Mrs. Peagrim," he began again, "that any
+sympathy on my part might be due to some deeper emotion which.... Have
+you never suspected that you have never suspected...." Uncle Chris
+began to feel that he must brace himself up. Usually a man of fluent
+speech, he was not at his best to-night. He was just about to try
+again, when he caught his hostess' eye, and the soft gleam in it sent
+him cowering back into the silence as if he were taking cover from an
+enemy's shrapnel.
+
+Mrs. Peagrim touched him on the arm.
+
+"You were saying...?" she murmured encouragingly.
+
+Uncle Chris shut his eyes. His fingers pressed desperately into the
+velvet curtain beside him. He felt as he had felt when a raw
+lieutenant in India, during his first hill-campaign, when the
+etiquette of the service had compelled him to rise and walk up and
+down in front of his men under a desultory shower of jezail-bullets.
+He seemed to hear the damned things _whop-whopping_ now ... and almost
+wished that he could really hear them. One or two good bullets just
+now would be a welcome diversion.
+
+"Yes?" said Mrs. Peagrim.--
+
+"Have you never felt," babbled Uncle Chris, "that, feeling as I feel,
+I might have felt ... that is to say might be feeling a feeling...?"
+
+There was a tap at the door of the box. Uncle Chris started violently.
+Jill came in.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said. "I wanted to speak...."
+
+"You wanted to speak to me?" said Uncle Chris, bounding up.
+"Certainly, certainly, certainly, of course. If you will excuse me for
+a moment?"
+
+Mrs. Peagrim bowed coldly. The interruption had annoyed her. She had
+no notion who Jill was, and she resented the intrusion at this
+particular juncture intensely. Not so Uncle Chris, who skipped out
+into the passage like a young lamb.
+
+"Am I in time?" asked Jill in a whisper.
+
+"In time?"
+
+"You know what I mean. Uncle Chris, listen to me! You are not to
+propose to that awful woman. Do you understand?"
+
+Uncle Chris shook his head.
+
+"The die is cast!"
+
+"The die isn't anything of the sort," said Jill. "Unless...." She
+stopped, aghast. "You don't mean that you have done it already?"
+
+"Well, no. To be perfectly accurate, no. But...."
+
+"Then that's all right. I know why you were doing it, and it was very
+sweet of you, but you mustn't."
+
+"But, Jill, you don't understand."
+
+"I do understand."
+
+"I have a motive...."
+
+"I know your motive. Freddie told me. Don't you worry yourself about
+me, dear, because I am all right. I am going to be married."
+
+A look of ecstatic relief came into Uncle Chris' face.
+
+"Then Underhill...?"
+
+"I am not marrying Derek. Somebody else. I don't think you know him,
+but I love him, and so will you." She pulled his face down and kissed
+him. "Now you can go back."
+
+Uncle Chris was almost too overcome to speak. He gulped a little.
+
+"Jill," he said shakily, "this is a ... this is a great relief."
+
+"I knew it would be."
+
+"If you are really going to marry a rich man...."
+
+"I didn't say he was rich."
+
+The joy ebbed from Uncle Chris' face.
+
+"If he is not rich, if he cannot give you everything of which I...."
+
+"Oh, don't be absurd! Wally has all the money anybody needs. What's
+money?"
+
+"What's money?" Uncle Chris stared. "Money, my dear child, is ... is ...
+well, you mustn't talk of it in that light way. But, if you think you will
+really have enough...?"
+
+"Of course we shall. Now you can go back. Mrs. Peagrim will be
+wondering what has become of you."
+
+"Must I?" said Uncle Chris doubtfully.
+
+"Of course. You must be polite."
+
+"Very well," said Uncle Chris. "But it will be a little difficult to
+continue the conversation on what you might call general lines.
+However!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Back in the box, Mrs. Peagrim was fanning herself with manifest
+impatience.
+
+"What did that girl want?" she demanded.
+
+Uncle Chris seated himself with composure. The weakness had passed,
+and he was himself again.
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing. Some trivial difficulty, which I was able to
+dispose of in a few words."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim would have liked to continue her researches, but a
+feeling that it was wiser not to stray too long from the main point
+restrained her. She bent towards him.
+
+"You were going to say something when that girl interrupted us."
+
+Uncle Chris shot his cuffs with a debonair gesture.
+
+"Was I? Was I? To be sure, yes. I was saying that you ought not to let
+yourself get tired. Deuce of a thing, getting tired. Plays the dickens
+with the system."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim was disconcerted. The atmosphere seemed to have changed,
+and she did not like it. She endeavoured to restore the tone of the
+conversation.
+
+"You are so sympathetic," she sighed, feeling that she could not do
+better than to begin again at that point. The remark had produced
+good results before and it might do so a second time.
+
+"Yes," agreed Uncle Chris cheerily. "You see, I have seen something of
+all this sort of thing, and I realize the importance of it. I know
+what all this modern rush and strain of life is for a woman in your
+position. Parties every night ... dancing ... a thousand and one calls
+on the vitality ... bound to have an effect sooner or later,
+unless--_unless_," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "one takes steps. Unless
+one acts in time. I had a friend--" His voice sank--"I had a very dear
+friend over in London, Lady Alice--but the name would convey
+nothing--the point is that she was in exactly the same position as
+you. On the rush all the time. Never stopped. The end was inevitable.
+She caught cold, hadn't sufficient vitality to throw it off, went to a
+dance in mid-winter, contracted pneumonia...." Uncle Chris sighed.
+"All over in three days," he said sadly. "Now at that time," he
+resumed, "I did not know what I know now. If I had heard of Nervino
+then...." He shook his head. "It might have saved her life. It _would_
+have saved her life. I tell you, Mrs. Peagrim, that there is nothing,
+there is no lack of vitality which Nervino cannot set right. I am no
+physician myself, I speak as a layman, but it acts on the red
+corpuscles of the blood...."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim's face was stony. She had not spoken before, because he
+had given her no opportunity, but she spoke now in a hard voice.
+
+"Major Selby!"
+
+"Mrs. Peagrim?"
+
+"I am not interested in patent medicines!"
+
+"One can hardly call Nervino that," said Uncle Chris reproachfully.
+"It is a sovereign specific. You can get it at any drug store. It
+comes in two sizes, the dollar-fifty--or large--size, and the...."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim rose majestically.
+
+"Major Selby, I am tired...."
+
+"Precisely. And, as I say, Nervino...."
+
+"Please," said Mrs. Peagrim coldly, "go to the stage-door and see if
+you can find my limousine. It should be waiting in the street."
+
+"Certainly," said Uncle Chris. "Why, certainly, certainly,
+certainly."
+
+He left the box and proceeded across the stage. He walked with a
+lissom jauntiness. His eye was bright. One or two of those whom he
+passed on his way had the idea that this fine-looking man was in pain.
+They fancied that he was moaning. But Uncle Chris was not moaning. He
+was humming a gay snatch from the lighter music of the 'nineties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+WALLY MASON LEARNS A NEW EXERCISE
+
+I
+
+
+Up on the roof of his apartment, far above the bustle and clamour of
+the busy city, Wally Mason, at eleven o'clock on the morning after
+Mrs. Peagrim's Bohemian party, was greeting the new day, as was his
+custom, by going through his ante-breakfast exercises. Mankind is
+divided into two classes--those who do setting-up exercises before
+breakfast and those who know they ought to but don't. To the former
+and more praiseworthy class Wally had belonged since boyhood. Life
+might be vain and the world a void, but still he touched his toes the
+prescribed number of times and twisted his muscular body about
+according to the ritual. He did so this morning a little more
+vigorously than usual, partly because he had sat up too late the night
+before and thought too much and smoked too much, with the result that
+he had risen heavy-eyed, at the present disgraceful hour, and partly
+because he hoped by wearying the flesh to still the restlessness of
+the spirit. Spring generally made Wally restless, but never previously
+had it brought him this distracted feverishness. So he lay on his back
+and waved his legs in the air, and it was only when he had risen and
+was about to go still further into the matter that he perceived Jill
+standing beside him.
+
+"Good Lord!" said Wally.
+
+"Don't stop," said Jill. "I'm enjoying it.'
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"Oh, I only just arrived. I rang the bell, and the nice old lady who
+is cooking your lunch told me you were out here.'
+
+"Not lunch. Breakfast."
+
+"Breakfast! At this hour?"
+
+"Won't you join me?"
+
+"I'll join you. But I had my breakfast long ago."
+
+Wally found his despondency magically dispelled. It was extraordinary
+how the mere sight of Jill could make the world a different place. It
+was true the sun had been shining before her arrival, but in a flabby,
+weak-minded way, not with the brilliance it had acquired immediately
+he heard her voice.
+
+"If you don't mind waiting for about three minutes while I have a
+shower and dress...."
+
+"Oh, is the entertainment over?" asked Jill, disappointed. "I always
+arrive too late for everything."
+
+"One of these days you shall see me go through the whole programme,
+including shadow-boxing and the goose-step. Bring your friends! But at
+the moment I think it would be more of a treat for you to watch me eat
+an egg. Go and look at the view. From over there you can see Hoboken."
+
+"I've seen it. I don't think much of it."
+
+"Well, then, on this side we have Brooklyn. There is no stint. Wander
+to and fro and enjoy yourself. The rendezvous is in the sitting-room
+in about four moments."
+
+Wally vaulted through the passage-window and disappeared. Then he
+returned and put his head out.
+
+"I say!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Just occurred to me. Your uncle won't be wanting this place for half
+an hour or so, will he? I mean, there will be time for me to have a
+bite of breakfast?"
+
+"I don't suppose he will require your little home till some time in
+the evening."
+
+"Fine!"
+
+Wally disappeared again, and a few moments later Jill heard the faint
+splashing of water. She walked to the parapet and looked down. On the
+windows of the nearer buildings the sun cast glittering beams, but
+further away a faint, translucent mist hid the city. There was Spring
+humidity in the air. In the street she had found it oppressive: but on
+the breezy summit of this steel-and-granite cliff the air was cool and
+exhilarating. Peace stole into Jill's heart as she watched the boats
+dropping slowly down the East River, which gleamed like dull steel
+through the haze. She had come to Journey's End, and she was happy.
+Trouble and heartache seemed as distant as those hurrying black ants
+down on the streets. She felt far away from the world on an enduring
+mountain of rest. She gave a little sigh of contentment and turned to
+go in as Wally called.
+
+In the sitting-room her feeling of security deepened. Here, the world
+was farther away than ever. Even the faint noises which had risen to
+the roof were inaudible, and only the cosy tick-tock of the
+grandfather's clock punctuated the stillness.
+
+She looked at Wally with a quickening sense of affection. He had the
+divine gift of silence at the right time. Yes, this was home. This was
+where she belonged.
+
+"It didn't take me in, you know," said Jill at length, resting her
+arms on the table and regarding him severely.
+
+Wally looked up.
+
+"What didn't take you in?"
+
+"That bath of yours. Yes, I know you turned on the cold shower, but
+you stood at a safe distance and watched it _show_!"
+
+Wally waved his fork.
+
+"As Heaven is my witness.... Look at my hair! Still damp! And I can
+show you the towel."
+
+"Well, then, I'll bet it was the hot water. Why weren't you at Mrs.
+Peagrim's party last night?"
+
+"It would take too long to explain all my reasons, but one of them was
+that I wasn't invited. How did it go off?"
+
+"Splendidly. Freddie's engaged!"
+
+Wally lowered his coffee cup.
+
+"Engaged! You don't mean what is sometimes slangily called betrothed?"
+
+"I do. He's engaged to Nelly Bryant. Nelly told me all about it when
+she got home last night. It seems that Freddie said to her 'What ho!'
+and she said 'You bet!' and Freddie said 'Pip pip!' and the thing was
+settled." Jill bubbled. "Freddie wants to go into vaudeville with
+her!"
+
+"No! The Juggling Rookes? Or Rooke and Bryant, the cross-talk team, a
+thoroughly refined act, swell dressers on and off?"
+
+"I don't know. But it doesn't matter. Nelly is domestic. She's going
+to have a little home in the country, where she can grow chickens and
+pigs."
+
+"Father's in the pigstye, you can tell him by his hat, eh?"
+
+"Yes. They will be very happy. Freddie will be a father to her
+parrot."
+
+Wally's cheerfulness diminished a trifle. The contemplation of
+Freddie's enviable lot brought with it the inevitable contrast with
+his own. A little home in the country.... Oh, well!
+
+
+II
+
+There was a pause. Jill was looking a little grave.
+
+"Wally!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+She turned her face away, for there was a gleam of mischief in her
+eyes which she did not wish him to observe.
+
+"Derek was at the party!"
+
+Wally had been about to butter a piece of toast. The butter, jerked
+from the knife by the convulsive start which he gave, popped up in a
+semi-circle and plumped on to the tablecloth. He recovered himself
+quickly.
+
+"Sorry!" he said. "You mustn't mind that. They want me to be
+second-string for the "Boosting the Butter" event at the next Olympic
+Games, and I'm practising all the time.... Underhill was there, eh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You met him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Wally fiddled with his knife.
+
+"Did he come over.... I mean ... had he come specially to see you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I see."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+"He wants to marry you?"
+
+"He said he wanted to marry me."
+
+Wally got up and went to the window. Jill could smile safely now, and
+she did, but her voice was still grave.
+
+"What ought I to do, Wally? I thought I would ask you as you are such
+a friend."
+
+Wally spoke without turning.
+
+"You ought to marry him, of course."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"You ought to marry him, of course," said Wally doggedly. "You love
+him, and the fact that he came all the way to America must mean that
+he still loves you. Marry him!"
+
+"But...." Jill hesitated. "You see, there's a difficulty."
+
+"What difficulty?"
+
+"Well ... it was something I said to him just before he went away. I
+said something that made it a little difficult."
+
+Wally continued to inspect the roofs below.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Well ... it was something ... something that I don't believe he liked ...
+something that may interfere with his marrying me."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I told him I was going to marry _you_!"
+
+Wally spun round. At the same time he leaped in the air. The effect of
+the combination of movements was to cause him to stagger across the
+room and, after two or three impromptu dance steps which would have
+interested Mrs. Peagrim, to clutch at the mantelpiece to save himself
+from falling. Jill watched him with quiet approval.
+
+"Why, that's wonderful, Wally! Is that another of your morning
+exercises? If Freddie does go into vaudeville, you ought to get him to
+let you join the troupe."
+
+Wally was blinking at her from the mantelpiece.
+
+"Jill!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"What--what--what...!"
+
+"Now, don't talk like Freddie, even if you are going into vaudeville
+with him."
+
+"You said you were going to marry _me_?"
+
+"I said I was going to marry you!"
+
+"But--do you mean...?"
+
+The mischief died out of Jill's eyes. She met his gaze frankly and
+seriously.
+
+"The lumber's gone, Wally," she said. "But my heart isn't empty. It's
+quite, quite full, and it's going to be full for ever and ever and
+ever."
+
+Wally left the mantelpiece, and came slowly towards her.
+
+"Jill!" He choked. "Jill!"
+
+Suddenly he pounced on her and swung her off her feet She gave a
+little breathless cry.
+
+"Wally! I thought you didn't approve of cavemen!"
+
+"This," said Wally, "is just another new morning exercise I've thought
+of!"
+
+Jill sat down, gasping.
+
+"Are you going to do that often, Wally?"
+
+"Every day for the rest of my life!"
+
+"Goodness!"
+
+"Oh, you'll get used to it. It'll grow on you."
+
+"You don't think I am making a mistake marrying you?"
+
+"No, no! I've given the matter a lot of thought, and ... in fact, no,
+no!"
+
+"No," said Jill thoughtfully. "I think you'll make a good husband. I
+mean, suppose we ever want the piano moved or something.... Wally!"
+she broke off suddenly.
+
+"You have our ear."
+
+"Come out on the roof," said Jill. "I want to show you something
+funny."
+
+Wally followed her out. They stood at the parapet together, looking
+down.
+
+"There!" said Jill, pointing.
+
+Wally looked puzzled.
+
+"I see many things, but which is the funny one?"
+
+"Why, all these people. Over there--and there--and there. Scuttering
+about and thinking they know everything there is to know, and not one
+of them has the least idea that I am the happiest girl on earth!"
+
+"Or that I'm the happiest man! Their ignorance is--what is the word I
+want? Abysmal. They don't know what it's like to stand beside you and
+see that little dimple in your chin.... They don't know you've _got_ a
+little dimple in your chin.... They don't know.... They don't know....
+Why, I don't suppose a single one of them even knows that I'm just
+going to kiss you!"
+
+"Those girls in that window over there do," said Jill. "They are
+watching us like hawks."
+
+"Let 'em!" said Wally briefly.
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT
+
+
+Jill had money, Jill was engaged to be married to Sir Derek Underhill.
+Suddenly Jill becomes penniless, and she is no longer engaged. With a
+smile, in which there is just a tinge of recklessness, she refuses to
+be beaten and turns to face the world. Instead she went to New York
+and became a member of the chorus of "The Rose of America," and Mr.
+Wodehouse is enabled to lift the curtain of the musical comedy world.
+
+There is laughter and drama in _Jill the Reckless_, and the action
+never flags from the moment that Freddie Rooke confesses that he has
+had a hectic night, down to the point where Wally says briefly "Let
+'em," which is page 313.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JILL THE RECKLESS ***
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jill the Reckless, by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse</div>
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+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Jill the Reckless</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 6, 2007 [eBook #20533]<br />
+[Most recently updated: June 11, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Sankar Viswanathan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JILL THE RECKLESS ***</div>
+
+<h1>JILL THE<br />
+RECKLESS</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>P. G. WODEHOUSE</h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<h3>HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED</h3>
+<h3>3 DUKE OF YORK STREET</h3>
+<h3>ST. JAMES'S, LONDON, S.W. 1</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>TO</h3>
+
+<h2>MY WIFE<br />
+
+BLESS HER</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<tr><td class="tocch f1">CHAPTER</td><td></td><td class="tocpg f1">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">I.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">The Family Curse</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">II.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">The First Night at the Leicester</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">III.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Jill and the Unknown Escape</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">IV.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">The Last of the Rookes Takes a Hand</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">V.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">Lady Underhill Receives a Shock</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">VI.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Uncle Chris Bangs the Table</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">VII.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Jill Catches the 10.10</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">VIII.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">The Dry-Salters Wing Derek</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">IX.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">Jill in Search of an Uncle</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">X.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">Jill Ignores Authority</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XI.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">Mr. Pilkington's Love Light</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XII.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">Uncle Chris Borrows a Flat</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XIII.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">The Ambassador Arrives</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XIV.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Mr. Goble Makes the Big Noise</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XV.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Jill Explains</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XVI.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">Mr. Goble Plays with Fate</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XVII.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">The Cost of a Row</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XVIII.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">Jill Receives Notice</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XIX.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">Mrs. Peagrim Burns Incense</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_278">278</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XX.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">Derek Loses One Bird and Secures Another</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXI.</td><td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">Wally Mason Learns a New Exercise</a></span></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="JILL_THE_RECKLESS" id="JILL_THE_RECKLESS"></a>JILL THE RECKLESS</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FAMILY CURSE</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+
+<p>Freddie Rooke gazed coldly at the breakfast-table. Through a gleaming
+eye-glass he inspected the revolting object which Barker, his faithful
+man, had placed on a plate before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Barker!" His voice had a ring of pain.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Poached egg, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie averted his eyes with a silent shudder.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks just like an old aunt of mine," he said. "Remove it!"</p>
+
+<p>He got up, and, wrapping his dressing-gown about his long legs, took
+up a stand in front of the fireplace. From this position he surveyed
+the room, his shoulders against the mantelpiece, his calves pressing
+the club fender. It was a cheerful oasis in a chill and foggy world, a
+typical London bachelor's breakfast-room. The walls were a restful
+grey, and the table, set for two, a comfortable arrangement in white
+and silver.</p>
+
+<p>"Eggs, Barker," said Freddie solemnly, "are the acid test!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"If, on the morning after, you can tackle a poached egg, you are all
+right. If not, not. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie pressed the palm of his hand to his brow, and sighed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It would seem, then, that I must have revelled a trifle
+whole-heartedly last night. I was possibly a little blotto. Not
+whiffled, perhaps, but indisputably blotto. Did I make much noise
+coming in?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. You were very quiet."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! A dashed bad sign!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie moved to the table, and poured himself a cup of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"The cream jug is to your right, sir," said the helpful Barker.</p>
+
+<p>"Let it remain there. <i>Caf&eacute; noir</i> for me this morning. As <i>noir</i> as it
+can jolly well stick!" Freddie retired to the fireplace and sipped
+delicately. "As far as I can remember, it was Ronny Devereux' birthday
+or something...."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Martyn's, I think you said, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. Algy Martyn's birthday, and Ronny and I were the
+guests. It all comes back to me. I wanted Derek to roll along and join
+the festivities&mdash;he's never met Ronny&mdash;but he gave it a miss. Quite
+right! A chap in his position has responsibilities. Member of
+Parliament and all that. Besides," said Freddie earnestly, driving
+home the point with a wave of his spoon, "he's engaged to be married.
+You must remember that, Barker!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will endeavour to, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," said Freddie dreamily, "I wish I were engaged to be
+married. Sometimes I wish I had some sweet girl to watch over me
+and.... No, I don't, by Jove. It would give me the utter pip! Is Sir
+Derek up yet, Barker?"</p>
+
+<p>"Getting up, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"See that everything is all right, will you? I mean as regards the
+food-stuffs and what not. I want him to make a good breakfast. He's
+got to meet his mother this morning at Charing Cross. She's legging it
+back from the Riviera."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't speak in that light, careless tone if you knew her!
+Well, you'll see her to-night. She's coming here to dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Mariner will be here, too. A foursome. Tell Mrs. Barker to pull
+up her socks and give us something pretty ripe. Soup, fish, all that
+sort of thing. <i>She</i> knows. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> let's have a stoup of malvoisie from
+the oldest bin. This is a special occasion!"</p>
+
+<p>"Her ladyship will be meeting Miss Mariner for the first time, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"You've put your finger on it! Absolutely the first time on this or
+any stage! We must all rally round and make the thing a success."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure Mrs. Barker will strain every nerve, sir." Barker moved to
+the door, carrying the rejected egg, and stepped aside to allow a
+tall, well-built man of about thirty to enter. "Good morning, Sir
+Derek."</p>
+
+<p>"Morning, Barker."</p>
+
+<p>Barker slid softly from the room. Derek Underhill sat down at the
+table. He was a strikingly handsome man, with a strong, forceful face,
+dark, lean and cleanly shaven. He was one of those men whom a stranger
+would instinctively pick out of a crowd as worthy of note. His only
+defect was that his heavy eyebrows gave him at times an expression
+which was a little forbidding. Women, however, had never been repelled
+by it. He was very popular with women, not quite so popular with
+men&mdash;always excepting Freddie Rooke, who worshipped him. They had been
+at school together, though Freddie was the younger by several years.</p>
+
+<p>"Finished, Freddie?" asked Derek.</p>
+
+<p>Freddie smiled wanly.</p>
+
+<p>"We are not breakfasting this morning," he replied. "The spirit was
+willing, but the jolly old flesh would have none of it. To be
+perfectly frank, the Last of the Rookes has a bit of a head."</p>
+
+<p>"Ass!" said Derek.</p>
+
+<p>"A bit of sympathy," said Freddie, pained, "would not be out of place.
+We are far from well. Some person unknown has put a threshing-machine
+inside the old bean and substituted a piece of brown paper for our
+tongue. Things look dark and yellow and wobbly!"</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't have overdone it last night."</p>
+
+<p>"It was Algy Martyn's birthday," pleaded Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were an ass like Algy Martyn," said Derek, "I wouldn't go about
+advertising the fact that I'd been born. I'd hush it up!"</p>
+
+<p>He helped himself to a plentiful portion of kedgeree, Freddie watching
+him with repulsion mingled with envy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> When he began to eat the
+spectacle became too poignant for the sufferer, and he wandered to the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>"What a beast of a day!"</p>
+
+<p>It was an appalling day. January, that grim month, was treating London
+with its usual severity. Early in the morning a bank of fog had rolled
+up off the river, and was deepening from pearly white to a lurid
+brown. It pressed on the window-pane like a blanket, leaving dark,
+damp rivulets on the glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Awful!" said Derek,</p>
+
+<p>"Your mater's train will be late."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Damned nuisance. It's bad enough meeting trains in any case,
+without having to hang about a draughty station for an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's sure, I should imagine," went on Freddie, pursuing his train
+of thought, "to make the dear old thing pretty tolerably ratty, if she
+has one of those slow journeys." He pottered back to the fireplace,
+and rubbed his shoulders reflectively against the mantelpiece. "I take
+it that you wrote to her about Jill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. That's why she's coming over, I suppose. By the way, you
+got those seats for that theatre to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Three together and one somewhere on the outskirts. If it's all
+the same to you, old thing, I'll have the one on the outskirts."</p>
+
+<p>Derek, who had finished his kedgeree and was now making himself a blot
+on Freddie's horizon with toast and marmalade, laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"What a rabbit you are, Freddie! Why on earth are you so afraid of
+mother?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie looked at him as a timid young squire might have gazed upon
+St. George when the latter set out to do battle with the dragon. He
+was of the amiable type which makes heroes of its friends. In the old
+days when he had fagged for him at Winchester he had thought Derek the
+most wonderful person in the world, and this view he still retained.
+Indeed, subsequent events had strengthened it. Derek had done the most
+amazing things since leaving school. He had had a brilliant career at
+Oxford, and now, in the House of Commons, was already looked upon by
+the leaders of his party as one to be watched and encouraged. He
+played polo superlatively well, and was a fine shot. But of all his
+gifts and qualities the one that extorted Freddie's admiration in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> its
+intensest form was his lion-like courage as exemplified by his
+behaviour in the present crisis. There he sat, placidly eating toast
+and marmalade, while the boat-train containing Lady Underhill already
+sped on its way from Dover to London. It was like Drake playing bowls
+with the Spanish Armada in sight.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had your nerve!" he said awed. "What I should be feeling, if
+I were in your place and had to meet your mater after telling her that
+I was engaged to marry a girl she had never seen, I don't know. I'd
+rather face a wounded tiger!"</p>
+
+<p>"Idiot!" said Derek placidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not," pursued Freddie, "that I mean to say anything in the least
+derogatory and so forth to your jolly old mater, if you understand me,
+but the fact remains she scares me pallid. Always has, ever since the
+first time I went to stay at your place when I was a kid. I can still
+remember catching her eye the morning I happened by pure chance to
+bung an apple through her bedroom window, meaning to let a cat on the
+sill below have it in the short ribs. She was at least thirty feet
+away, but, by Jove, it stopped me like a bullet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Push the bell, old man, will you? I want some more toast."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie did as he was requested, with growing admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"The condemned man made an excellent breakfast," he murmured. "More
+toast, Barker," he added, as that admirable servitor opened the door.
+"Gallant! That's what I call it. Gallant!"</p>
+
+<p>Derek tilted his chair back.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother is sure to like Jill when she sees her," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>When</i> she sees her! Ah! But the trouble is, young feller-me-lad,
+that she <i>hasn't</i> seen her! That's the weak spot in your case, old
+companion. A month ago she didn't know of Jill's existence. Now, you
+know and I know that Jill is one of the best and brightest. As far as
+we are concerned, everything in the good old garden is lovely. Why,
+dash it, Jill and I were children together. Sported side by side on
+the green, and what not. I remember Jill, when she was twelve, turning
+the garden hose on me and knocking about seventy-five per cent off the
+market value of my best Sunday suit. That sort of thing forms a bond,
+you know,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> and I've always felt that she was a corker. But your
+mater's got to discover it for herself. It's a dashed pity, by Jove,
+that Jill hasn't a father or a mother or something of that species to
+rally round just now. They would form a gang. There's nothing like a
+gang! But she's only got that old uncle of hers. A rummy bird. Met
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Several times. I like him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's a genial old buck all right. A very bonhomous lad. But you
+hear some pretty queer stories about him if you get among people who
+knew him in the old days. Even now I'm not so dashed sure I should
+care to play cards with him. Young Threepwood was telling me only the
+other day that the old boy took thirty quid off him at picquet as
+clean as a whistle. And Jimmy Monroe, who's on the Stock Exchange,
+says he's frightfully busy these times buying margins or whatever it
+is chappies do down in the City. Margins. That's the word. Jimmy made
+me buy some myself on a thing called Amalgamated Dyes. I don't
+understand the procedure exactly, but Jimmy says it's a sound egg and
+will do me a bit of good. What was I talking about? Oh, yes, old
+Selby. There's no doubt he's quite a sportsman. But till you've got
+Jill well established, you know, I shouldn't enlarge on him too much
+with the mater."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," said Derek, "I shall mention him at the first
+opportunity. He knew my father out in India."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he, by Jove! Oh, well, that makes a difference."</p>
+
+<p>Barker entered with the toast, and Derek resumed his breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be a little bit awkward," he said, "at first, meeting mother.
+But everything will be all right after five minutes."</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely! But, oh, boy! that first five minutes!" Freddie gazed
+portentously through his eye-glass. Then he seemed to be undergoing
+some internal struggle, for he gulped once or twice. "That first five
+minutes!" he said, and paused again. A moment's silent self-communion,
+and he went on with a rush. "I say, listen. Shall I come along, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come along?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the station. With you."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth for?"</p>
+
+<p>"To see you through the opening stages. Break the ice,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> and all that
+sort of thing. Nothing like collecting a gang, you know. Moments when
+a feller needs a friend and so forth. Say the word, and I'll buzz
+along and lend my moral support."</p>
+
+<p>Derek's heavy eyebrows closed together in an offended frown, and
+seemed to darken his whole face. This unsolicited offer of assistance
+hurt his dignity. He showed a touch of the petulance which came now
+and then when he was annoyed, to suggest that he might not possess so
+strong a character as his exterior indicated.</p>
+
+<p>"It's very kind of you," he began stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>Freddie nodded. He was acutely conscious of this himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Some fellows," he observed, "would say 'Not at all!' I suppose. But
+not the Last of the Rookes! For, honestly, old man, between ourselves,
+I don't mind admitting that this is the bravest deed of the year, and
+I'm dashed if I would do it for anyone else."</p>
+
+<p>"It's very good of you, Freddie...."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right. I'm a Boy Scout, and this is my act of kindness for
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Derek got up from the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you mustn't come," he said. "We can't form a sort of
+debating society to discuss Jill on the platform at Charing Cross."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I would just hang around in the offing, shoving in an occasional
+tactful word."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"The wheeze would simply be to...."</p>
+
+<p>"It's impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well," said Freddie, damped. "Just as you say, of course.
+But there's nothing like a gang, old son, nothing like a gang!"</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>Derek Underhill threw down the stump of his cigar, and grunted
+irritably. Inside Charing Cross Station business was proceeding as
+usual. Porters wheeling baggage-trucks moved to and fro like
+Juggernauts. Belated trains clanked in, glad to get home, while
+others, less fortunate, crept reluctantly out through the blackness
+and disappeared into an inferno of detonating fog-signals. For outside
+the fog<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> still held. The air was cold and raw and tasted coppery. In
+the street traffic moved at a funeral pace, to the accompaniment of
+hoarse cries and occasional crashes. Once the sun had worked its way
+through the murk and had hung in the sky like a great red orange, but
+now all was darkness and discomfort again, blended with that odd
+suggestion of mystery and romance which is a London fog's only
+redeeming quality.</p>
+
+<p>The fog and the waiting had had their effect upon Derek. The resolute
+front he had exhibited to Freddie at the breakfast-table had melted
+since his arrival at the station, and he was feeling nervous at the
+prospect of the meeting that lay before him. Calm as he had appeared
+to the eye of Freddie and bravely as he had spoken, Derek, in the
+recesses of his heart, was afraid of his mother. There are men&mdash;and
+Derek Underhill was one of them&mdash;who never wholly emerge from the
+nursery. They may put away childish things and rise in the world to
+affluence and success, but the hand that rocked their cradle still
+rules their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Derek turned to begin one more walk along the platform, and stopped in
+mid-stride, raging. Beaming over the collar of a plaid greatcoat, all
+helpfulness and devotion, Freddie Rooke was advancing towards him, the
+friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Like some loving dog, who,
+ordered home sneaks softly on through alleys and by-ways, peeping
+round corners and crouching behind lamp-posts, the faithful Freddie
+had followed him after all. And with him, to add the last touch to
+Derek's discomfiture, were those two inseparable allies of his, Ronny
+Devereux and Algy Martyn.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, old thing," said Freddie, patting Derek encouragingly on the
+shoulder, "here we are after all! I know you told me not to roll round
+and so forth, but I knew you didn't mean it. I thought it over after
+you had left, and decided it would be a rotten trick not to cluster
+about you in your hour of need. I hope you don't mind Ronny and Algy
+breezing along too. The fact is, I was in the deuce of a funk&mdash;your
+jolly old mater always rather paralyses my nerve-centres, you know&mdash;so
+I roped them in. Met 'em in Piccadilly, groping about for the club,
+and conscripted 'em both, they very decently consenting. We all
+toddled off and had a pick-me-up at that chemist chappie's at the top
+of the Hay-market, and now we're feeling full of beans and buck,
+ready<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> for anything. I've explained the whole thing to them, and
+they're with you to the death! Collect a gang, dear boy, collect a
+gang! That's the motto. There's nothing like it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing!" said Ronny.</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely nothing!" said Algy.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll just see you through the opening stages," said Freddie, "and
+then leg it. We'll keep the conversation general you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop it getting into painful channels," said Ronny.</p>
+
+<p>"Steer it clear," said Algy, "of the touchy topic."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the wheeze," said Freddie. "We'll ... Oh, golly! There's the
+train coming in now!" His voice quavered, for not even the comforting
+presence of his two allies could altogether sustain him in this
+ordeal. But he pulled himself together with a manful effort. "Stick
+it, old beans!" he said doughtily. "Now is the time for all good men
+to come to the aid of the party!"</p>
+
+<p>"We're here!" said Ronny Devereux.</p>
+
+<p>"On the spot!" said Algy Martyn.</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+<p>The boat-train slid into the station. Bells rang, engines blew off
+steam, porters shouted, baggage-trucks rattled over the platform. The
+train began to give up its contents, now in ones and twos, now in a
+steady stream. Most of the travellers seemed limp and exhausted, and
+were pale with the pallor that comes of a choppy Channel crossing.
+Almost the only exception to the general condition of collapse was the
+eagle-faced lady in the brown ulster, who had taken up her stand in
+the middle of the platform and was haranguing a subdued little maid in
+a voice that cut the gloomy air like a steel knife. Like the other
+travellers, she was pale, but she bore up resolutely. No one could
+have told from Lady Underhill's demeanour that the solid platform
+seemed to heave beneath her feet like a deck.</p>
+
+<p>Derek approached, acutely conscious of Freddie, Ronny, and Algy, who
+were skirmishing about his flank.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, mother! So there you are at last!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Derek!"</p>
+
+<p>Derek kissed his mother. Freddie, Ronny, and Algy shuffled closer,
+like leopards. Freddie, with the expression of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> one who leads a
+forlorn hope, moved his Adam's apple briskly up and down several
+times, and spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, Lady Underhill?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, Mr. Rooke?"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Underhill bowed stiffly and without pleasure. She was not fond of
+the Last of the Rookes. She supposed the Almighty had had some wise
+purpose in creating Freddie, but it had always been inscrutable to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Like you," mumbled Freddie, "to meet my friends. Lady Underhill. Mr.
+Devereux."</p>
+
+<p>"Charmed," said Ronny affably.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Martyn."</p>
+
+<p>"Delighted," said Algy with old-world courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Underhill regarded this mob-scene with an eye of ice.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do?" she said. "Have you come to meet somebody?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;er&mdash;we&mdash;er&mdash;why&mdash;er&mdash;" This woman always made Freddie feel as if
+he were being disembowelled by some clumsy amateur. He wished that he
+had defied the dictates of his better nature and remained in his snug
+rooms at the Albany, allowing Derek to go through this business by
+himself. "I&mdash;er&mdash;we&mdash;er&mdash;came to meet <i>you</i>, don't you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! That was very kind of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Thought we'd welcome you back to the old homestead," said Ronny
+beaming.</p>
+
+<p>"What could be sweeter?" said Algy. He produced a cigar-case, and
+extracted a formidable torpedo-shaped Havana. He was feeling
+delightfully at his ease, and couldn't understand why Freddie had made
+such a fuss about meeting this nice old lady. "Don't mind if I smoke,
+do you? Air's a bit raw to-day. Gets into the lungs."</p>
+
+<p>Derek chafed impotently. These unsought allies were making a difficult
+situation a thousand times worse. A more acute observer than young Mr.
+Martyn, he noted the tight lines about his mother's mouth and knew
+them for the danger-signal they were. Endeavouring to distract her
+with light conversation, he selected a subject which was a little
+unfortunate.</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of crossing did you have, mother?"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Underhill winced. A current of air had sent the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> perfume of
+Algy's cigar playing about her nostrils. She closed her eyes, and her
+face turned a shade paler. Freddie, observing this, felt quite sorry
+for the poor old thing. She was a pest and a pot of poison, of course,
+but all the same, he reflected charitably, it was a shame that she
+should look so green about the gills. He came to the conclusion that
+she must be hungry. The thing to do was to take her mind off it till
+she could be conducted to a restaurant and dumped down in front of a
+bowl of soup.</p>
+
+<p>"Bit choppy, I suppose, what?" he bellowed, in a voice that ran up and
+down Lady Underhill's nervous system like an electric needle. "I was
+afraid you were going to have a pretty rough time of it when I read
+the forecast in the paper. The good old boat wobbled a bit, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Underhill uttered a faint moan. Freddie noticed that she was
+looking deucedly chippy, even chippier than a moment ago.</p>
+
+<p>"It's an extraordinary thing about that Channel crossing," said Algy
+Martyn meditatively, as he puffed a refreshing cloud. "I've known
+fellows who could travel quite happily everywhere else in the
+world&mdash;round the Horn in sailing-ships and all that sort of
+thing&mdash;yield up their immortal soul crossing the Channel! Absolutely
+yield up their immortal soul! Don't know why. Rummy, but there it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm like that myself," assented Ronny Devereux. "That dashed trip
+from Calais gets me every time. Bowls me right over. I go aboard,
+stoked to the eyebrows with sea-sick remedies, swearing that this time
+I'll fool 'em, but down I go ten minutes after we've started and the
+next thing I know is somebody saying, 'Well, well! So this is Dover!'"</p>
+
+<p>"It's exactly the same with me," said Freddie, delighted with the
+smooth, easy way the conversation was flowing. "Whether it's the hot,
+greasy smell of the engines...."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not the engines," contended Ronny Devereux. "Stands to reason it
+can't be. I rather like the smell of engines. This station is reeking
+with the smell of engine-grease, and I can drink it in and enjoy it."
+He sniffed, luxuriantly. "It's something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Ronny's right," said Algy cordially. "It isn't the engines. It's the
+way the boat heaves up and down and up and down and up and down...."
+He shifted his cigar to his left hand in order to give with his right
+a spirited illustration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> of a Channel steamer going up and down and up
+and down and up and down. Lady Underhill, who had opened her eyes, had
+an excellent view of the performance, and closed her eyes again
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet!" she snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"I was only saying...."</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rather!"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Underhill wrestled with herself. She was a woman of great
+will-power and accustomed to triumph over the weaknesses of the flesh.
+After a while her eyes opened. She had forced herself, against the
+evidence of her senses, to recognize that this was a platform on which
+she stood and not a deck.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. Algy, damped, was temporarily out of action, and
+his friends had for the moment nothing to remark.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you had a trying journey, mother," said Derek. "The train
+was very late."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, <i>train</i>-sickness," said Algy, coming to the surface again, "is a
+thing lots of people suffer from. Never could understand it myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I've never had a touch of train-sickness," said Ronny.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I have," said Freddie. "I've often felt rotten on a train. I get
+floating spots in front of my eyes and a sort of heaving sensation,
+and everything kind of goes black...."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rooke!"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be greatly obliged if you would keep those confidences for
+the ear of your medical adviser."</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie," intervened Derek hastily, "my mother's rather tired. Do you
+think you could be going ahead and getting a taxi?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear old chap, of course! Get you one in a second. Come along,
+Algy. Pick up the old waukeesis, Ronny."</p>
+
+<p>And Freddie, accompanied by his henchmen, ambled off, well pleased
+with himself. He had, he felt, helped to break the ice for Derek and
+had seen him safely through those awkward opening stages. Now he could
+totter off with a light heart and get a bite of lunch.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Underhill's eyes glittered. They were small, keen, black eyes,
+unlike Derek's, which were large and brown. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> their other features
+the two were obviously mother and son. Each had the same long upper
+lip, the same thin, firm mouth, the prominent chin which was a family
+characteristic of the Underhills, and the jutting Underhill nose. Most
+of the Underhills came into the world looking as though they meant to
+drive their way through life like a wedge.</p>
+
+<p>"A little more," she said tensely, "and I should have struck those
+unspeakable young men with my umbrella. One of the things I have never
+been able to understand, Derek, is why you should have selected that
+imbecile Rooke as your closest friend."</p>
+
+<p>Derek smiled tolerantly.</p>
+
+<p>"It was more a case of him selecting <i>me</i>. But Freddie is quite a good
+fellow really. He's a man you've got to know."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> have not got to know him, and I thank heaven for it!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a very good-natured fellow. It was decent of him to put me up at
+the Albany while our house was let. By the way, he has some seats for
+the first night of a new piece this evening. He suggested that we
+might all dine at the Albany and go on to the theatre." He hesitated a
+moment. "Jill will be there," he said, and felt easier now that her
+name had at last come into the talk. "She's longing to meet you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why didn't she meet me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here, do you mean? At the station? Well, I&mdash;I wanted you to see her
+for the first time in pleasanter surroundings."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Lady Underhill shortly.</p>
+
+<p>It is a disturbing thought that we suffer in this world just as much
+by being prudent and taking precautions as we do by being rash and
+impulsive and acting as the spirit moves us. If Jill had been
+permitted by her wary fianc&eacute; to come with him to the station to meet
+his mother it is certain that much trouble would have been avoided.
+True, Lady Underhill would probably have been rude to her in the
+opening stages of the interview, but she would not have been alarmed
+and suspicious; or, rather, the vague suspicion which she had been
+feeling would not have solidified, as it did now into definite
+certainty of the worst. All that Derek had effected by his careful
+diplomacy had been to convince his mother that he considered his
+bride-elect something to be broken gently to her.</p>
+
+<p>She stopped and faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is she?" she demanded. "Who is this girl?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Derek flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I made everything clear in my letter."</p>
+
+<p>"You made nothing clear at all."</p>
+
+<p>"By your leave!" chanted a porter behind them, and a baggage-truck
+clove them apart.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't talk in a crowded station," said Derek irritably. "Let me
+get you to the taxi and take you to the hotel.... What do you want to
+know about Jill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything. Where does she come from? Who are her people? I don't
+know any Mariners."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't cross-examined her," said Derek stiffly. "But I do know
+that her parents are dead. Her father was an American."</p>
+
+<p>"American!"</p>
+
+<p>"Americans frequently have daughters, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to be gained by losing your temper," said Lady
+Underhill with steely calm.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to be gained, as far as I can see, by all this
+talk," retorted Derek. He wondered vexedly why his mother always had
+this power of making him lose control of himself. He hated to lose
+control of himself. It upset him, and blurred that vision which he
+liked to have of himself as a calm, important man superior to ordinary
+weaknesses. "Jill and I are engaged, and there is an end to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a fool," said Lady Underhill, and was driven away by another
+baggage-truck. "You know perfectly well," she resumed, returning to
+the attack, "that your marriage is a matter of the greatest concern to
+me and to the whole of the family."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, mother!" Derek's long wait on the draughty platform had
+generated an irritability which overcame the deep-seated awe of his
+mother which was the result of years of defeat in battles of the will.
+"Let me tell you in a few words all that I know of Jill, and then
+we'll drop the subject. In the first place, she is a lady. Secondly,
+she has plenty of money...."</p>
+
+<p>"The Underhills do not need to marry for money."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not marrying for money!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go on."</p>
+
+<p>"I have already described to you in my letter&mdash;very inadequately, but
+I did my best&mdash;what she looks like. Her sweetness, her lovableness,
+all the subtle things about her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> which go to make her what she is, you
+will have to judge for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I intend to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's all, then. She lives with her uncle, a Major Selby...."</p>
+
+<p>"Major Selby? What regiment?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't ask him," snapped the goaded Derek. "And, in the name of
+heaven, what does it matter? If you are worrying about Major Selby's
+social standing, I may as well tell you that he used to know father."</p>
+
+<p>"What! When? Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Years ago. In India, when father was at Simla."</p>
+
+<p>"Selby? Selby? Not Christopher Selby?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you remember him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly remember him! Not that he and I ever met, but your father
+often spoke of him."</p>
+
+<p>Derek was relieved. It was abominable that this sort of thing should
+matter, but one had to face facts, and, as far as his mother was
+concerned, it did. The fact that Jill's uncle had known his dead
+father would make all the difference to Lady Underhill.</p>
+
+<p>"Christopher Selby!" said Lady Underhill reflectively. "Yes! I have
+often heard your father speak of him. He was the man who gave your
+father an I.O.U. to pay a card debt, and redeemed it with a cheque
+which was returned by the bank!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you hear what I said? I will repeat it, if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"There must have been some mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"Only the one your father made when he trusted the man."</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been some other fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" said Lady Underhill satirically. "No doubt your father
+knew hundreds of Christopher Selbys!"</p>
+
+<p>Derek bit his lip.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, after all," he said doggedly, "whether it's true or not...."</p>
+
+<p>"I see no reason why your father should not have spoken the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. We'll say it <i>is</i> true, then. But what does it matter? I
+am marrying Jill, not her uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, it would be pleasanter if her only living<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> relative
+were not a swindler!... Tell me, where and how did you meet this
+girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be glad if you would not refer to her as 'this girl.' The
+name, if you have forgotten it, is Mariner."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, where did you meet Miss Mariner?"</p>
+
+<p>"At Prince's. Just after you left for Mentone. Freddie Rooke
+introduced me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, your intellectual friend Mr. Rooke knows her?"</p>
+
+<p>"They were children together. Her people lived next to the Rookes in
+Worcestershire."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you said she was an American."</p>
+
+<p>"I said her father was. He settled in England. Jill hasn't been in
+America since she was eight or nine."</p>
+
+<p>"The fact," said Lady Underhill, "that the girl is a friend of Mr.
+Rooke is no great recommendation."</p>
+
+<p>Derek kicked angrily at a box of matches which someone had thrown down
+on the platform.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you could possibly get it into your head, mother, that I
+want to marry Jill, not engage her as an under-housemaid. I don't
+consider that she requires recommendations, as you call them. However,
+don't you think the most sensible thing is for you to wait till you
+meet her at dinner to-night, and then you can form your own opinion?
+I'm beginning to get a little bored by this futile discussion."</p>
+
+<p>"As you seem quite unable to talk on the subject of this girl without
+becoming rude," said Lady Underhill, "I agree with you. Let us hope
+that my first impression will be a favourable one. Experience has
+taught me that first impressions are everything."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you think so," said Derek, "for I fell in love with Jill the
+very first moment I saw her!"</p>
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+<p>Barker stepped back and surveyed with modest pride the dinner-table to
+which he had been putting the finishing touches. It was an artistic
+job and a credit to him.</p>
+
+<p>"That's that!" said Barker, satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>He went to the window and looked out. The fog which had lasted well
+into the evening, had vanished now, and the clear night was bright
+with stars. A distant murmur of traffic came from the direction of
+Piccadilly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As he stood there, the front-door bell rang, and continued to ring in
+little spurts of sound. If character can be deduced from bell-ringing,
+as nowadays it apparently can be from every other form of human
+activity, one might have hazarded the guess that whoever was on the
+other side of the door was determined, impetuous, and energetic.</p>
+
+<p>"Barker!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie Rooke pushed a tousled head, which had yet to be brushed into
+the smooth sleekness that made a delight to the public eye, out of a
+room down the passage.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody ringing."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard, sir. I was about to answer the bell."</p>
+
+<p>"If it's Lady Underhill, tell her I'll be in in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy it is Miss Mariner, sir. I think I recognize her touch."</p>
+
+<p>He made his way down the passage to the front-door, and opened it. A
+girl was standing outside. She wore a long grey fur coat, and a filmy
+hood covered her hair. As Barker opened the door, she scampered in
+like a grey kitten.</p>
+
+<p>"Brrh! It's cold!" she exclaimed. "Hullo, Barker!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I the last or the first or what?"</p>
+
+<p>Barker moved to help her with her cloak.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Derek and her ladyship have not yet arrived, miss. Sir Derek went
+to bring her ladyship from the Savoy Hotel. Mr. Rooke is dressing in
+his bedroom and will be ready very shortly."</p>
+
+<p>The girl had slipped out of the fur coat, and Barker cast a swift
+glance of approval at her. He had the valet's unerring eye for a
+thoroughbred, and Jill Mariner was manifestly that. It showed in her
+walk, in every move of her small, active body, in the way she looked
+at you, in the way she talked to you, in the little tilt of her
+resolute chin. Her hair was pale gold, and had the brightness of
+colouring of a child's. Her face glowed, and her grey eyes sparkled.
+She looked very much alive.</p>
+
+<p>It was this liveliness of hers that was her chief charm. Her eyes were
+good and her mouth, with its small, even teeth, attractive, but she
+would have laughed if anybody had called her beautiful. She sometimes
+doubted if she were even pretty. Yet few men had met her and remained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+entirely undisturbed. She had a magnetism. One hapless youth, who had
+laid his heart at her feet and had been commanded to pick it up again,
+had endeavoured subsequently to explain her attraction (to a bosom
+friend over a mournful bottle of the best in the club smoking-room) in
+these words: "I don't know what it is about her, old man, but she
+somehow makes a feller feel she's so damned <i>interested</i> in a chap, if
+you know what I mean." And though not generally credited in his circle
+with any great acuteness, there is no doubt that the speaker had
+achieved something approaching a true analysis of Jill's fascination
+for his sex. She was interested in everything Life presented to her
+notice, from a Coronation to a stray cat. She was vivid. She had
+sympathy. She listened to you as though you really mattered. It takes
+a man of tough fibre to resist these qualities. Women, on the other
+hand, especially of the Lady Underhill type, can resist them without
+an effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Go and stir him up," said Jill, alluding to the absent Mr. Rooke.
+"Tell him to come and talk to me. Where's the nearest fire? I want to
+get right over it and huddle."</p>
+
+<p>"The fire's burning nicely in the sitting-room, miss."</p>
+
+<p>Jill hurried into the sitting-room, and increased her hold on Barker's
+esteem by exclaiming rapturously at the sight that greeted her. Barker
+had expended time and trouble over the sitting-room. There was no
+dust, no untidiness. The pictures all hung straight; the cushions were
+smooth and unrumpled; and a fire of exactly the right dimensions
+burned cheerfully in the grate, flickering cosily on the small piano
+by the couch, on the deep leather arm-chairs which Freddie had brought
+with him from Oxford, that home of comfortable chairs, and on the
+photographs that studded the walls. In the centre of the mantelpiece,
+the place of honour, was the photograph of herself which she had given
+Derek a week ago.</p>
+
+<p>"You're simply wonderful, Barker! I don't see how you manage to make a
+room so cosy!" Jill sat down on the club fender that guarded the
+fireplace, and held her hands over the blaze. "I can't understand why
+men ever marry. Fancy having to give up all this!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am gratified that you appreciate it, miss. I did my best to make it
+comfortable for you. I fancy I hear Mr. Rooke coming now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I hope the others won't be long. I'm starving. Has Mrs. Barker got
+something very good for dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has strained every nerve, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'm sure it's worth waiting for. Hullo, Freddie."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie Rooke, resplendent in evening dress, bustled in, patting his
+tie with solicitous fingers. It had been right when he had looked in
+the glass in his bedroom, but you never know about ties. Sometimes
+they stay right, sometimes they wriggle up sideways. Life is full of
+these anxieties.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't touch it," said Jill. "It looks beautiful, and, if I may
+say so in confidence, is having a most disturbing effect on my
+emotional nature. I'm not at all sure I shall be able to resist it
+right through the evening. It isn't fair of you to try to alienate the
+affections of an engaged young person like this."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie squinted down, and became calmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Jill, old thing. Nobody here yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm here&mdash;the <i>petite</i> figure seated on the fender. But perhaps
+I don't count."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I didn't mean that, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope not, when I've bought a special new dress just to
+fascinate you. A creation I mean. When they cost as much as this one
+did, you have to call them names. What do you think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie seated himself on another section of the fender, and regarded
+her with the eye of an expert. A snappy dresser, as the technical term
+is, himself, he appreciated snap in the outer covering of the other
+sex.</p>
+
+<p>"Topping!" he said spaciously. "No other word for it. All wool and a
+yard wide. Precisely as mother makes it. You look like a thingummy."</p>
+
+<p>"How splendid. All my life I've wanted to look like a thingummy, but
+somehow I've never been able to manage it."</p>
+
+<p>"A wood-nymph!" exclaimed Freddie, in a burst of unwonted imagery. He
+looked at her with honest admiration. "Dash it, Jill, you know,
+there's something about you! You're&mdash;what's the word?&mdash;you've got such
+small bones."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! I suppose it's a compliment, but how horrible it sounds! It
+makes me feel like a skeleton."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to say, you're&mdash;you're dainty!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's much better."</p>
+
+<p>"You look as if you weighed about an ounce and a half.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> You look like
+a bit of thistledown! You're a little fairy princess, dash it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie! This is eloquence!" Jill raised her left hand, and twiddled
+a ringed finger ostentatiously. "Er&mdash;you <i>do</i> realize that I'm
+bespoke, don't you, and that my heart, alas, is another's? Because you
+sound as if you were going to propose."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie produced a snowy handkerchief, and polished his eye-glass.
+Solemnity descended on him like a cloud. He looked at Jill with an
+earnest, paternal gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"That reminds me," he said. "I wanted to have a bit of a talk with you
+about that&mdash;being engaged and all that sort of thing. I'm glad I got
+you alone before the Curse arrived."</p>
+
+<p>"Curse? Do you mean Derek's mother? That sounds cheerful and
+encouraging."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she is, you know," said Freddie earnestly. "She's a bird! It
+would be idle to deny it. She always puts the fear of God into me. I
+never know what to say to her."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you try asking her riddles?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's no joking matter," persisted Freddie, his amiable face overcast.
+"Wait till you meet her! You should have seen her at the station this
+morning. You don't know what you're up against!"</p>
+
+<p>"You make my flesh creep, Freddie. What am I up against?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie poked the fire scientifically, and assisted it with coal.</p>
+
+<p>"It's this way," he said. "Of course, dear old Derek's the finest chap
+in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that," said Jill softly. She patted Freddie's hand with a
+little gesture of gratitude. Freddie's devotion to Derek was a thing
+that always touched her. She looked thoughtfully into the fire, and
+her eyes seemed to glow in sympathy with the glowing coals. "There's
+nobody like him!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," continued Freddie, "he always has been frightfully under his
+mother's thumb, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Jill was conscious of a little flicker of irritation.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be absurd, Freddie. How could a man like Derek be under
+anybody's thumb?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know what I mean!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't in the least know what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, it would be rather rotten if his mother set him against you."</p>
+
+<p>Jill clenched her teeth. The quick temper which always lurked so very
+little beneath the surface of her cheerfulness was stirred. She felt
+suddenly chilled and miserable. She tried to tell herself that Freddie
+was just an amiable blunderer who spoke without sense or reason, but
+it was no use. She could not rid herself of a feeling of foreboding
+and discomfort. It had been the one jarring note in the sweet melody
+of her love-story, this apprehension of Derek's regarding his mother.
+The Derek she loved was a strong man, with a strong man's contempt for
+other people's criticism; and there had been something ignoble and
+fussy in his attitude regarding Lady Underhill. She had tried to feel
+that the flaw in her idol did not exist. And here was Freddie Rooke, a
+man who admired Derek with all his hero-worshipping nature, pointing
+it out independently. She was annoyed, and she expended her annoyance,
+as women will do, upon the innocent bystander.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember the time I turned the hose on you, Freddie," she
+said, rising from the fender, "years ago, when we were children, when
+you and that awful Mason boy&mdash;what was his name? Wally Mason&mdash;teased
+me?" She looked at the unhappy Freddie with a hostile eye. It was his
+blundering words that had spoiled everything. "I've forgotten what it
+was all about, but I know that you and Wally infuriated me and I
+turned the garden hose on you and soaked you both to the skin. Well,
+all I want to point out is that, if you go on talking nonsense about
+Derek and his mother and me, I shall ask Barker to bring me a jug of
+water, and I shall empty it over you! Set him against me! You talk as
+if love were a thing any third party could come along and turn off
+with a tap! Do you suppose that, when two people love each other as
+Derek and I do, that it can possibly matter in the least what anybody
+else thinks or says, even if it is his mother? I haven't got a mother,
+but suppose Uncle Chris came and warned me against Derek...."</p>
+
+<p>Her anger suddenly left her as quickly as it had come. That was always
+the way with Jill. One moment she would be raging; the next, something
+would tickle her sense of humour and restore her instantly to
+cheerfulness. And the thought of dear, lazy old Uncle Chris taking the
+trouble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> to warn anybody against anything except the wrong brand of
+wine or an inferior make of cigar conjured up a picture before which
+wrath melted away. She chuckled, and Freddie, who had been wilting on
+the fender, perked up.</p>
+
+<p>"You're an extraordinary girl, Jill. One never knows when you're going
+to get the wind up."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it enough to make me get the wind up, as you call it, when you
+say absurd things like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I meant well, old girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the trouble with you. You always do mean well. You go about
+the world meaning well till people fly to put themselves under police
+protection. Besides, what on earth could Lady Underhill find to object
+to in me? I've plenty of money, and I'm one of the most charming and
+attractive of Society belles. You needn't take my word for that, and I
+don't suppose you've noticed it, but that's what Mr. Gossip in the
+<i>Morning Mirror</i> called me when he was writing about my getting
+engaged to Derek. My maid showed me the clipping. There was quite a
+long paragraph, with a picture of me that looked like a Zulu
+chieftainess taken in a coal-cellar during a bad fog. Well, after
+that, what could anyone say against me? I'm a perfect prize! I expect
+Lady Underhill screamed with joy when she heard the news and went
+singing all over her Riviera villa."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Freddie dubiously. "Yes, yes, oh, quite so, rather!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill looked at him sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie, you're concealing something from me! You <i>don't</i> think I'm
+a charming and attractive Society belle! Tell me why not and I'll show
+you where you are wrong. Is it my face you object to, or my manners,
+or my figure? There was a young bride of Antigua, who said to her
+mate, 'What a pig you are!' Said he, 'Oh, my queen, is it manners you
+mean, or do you allude to my fig-u-ar?' Isn't my figuar all right,
+Freddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>I</i> think you're topping."</p>
+
+<p>"But for some reason you're afraid that Derek's mother won't think so.
+Why won't Lady Underhill agree with Mr. Gossip?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak up!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's like this. Remember, I've known the old devil...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Freddie Rooke! Where do you pick up such expressions? Not from me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's how I always think of her! I say I've known her ever
+since I used to go and stop at their place when I was at school, and I
+know exactly the sort of things that put her back up. She's a
+what-d'you-call-it. I mean to say, one of the old school, don't you
+know. And you're so dashed impulsive, old girl. You know you are! You
+are always saying things that come into your head."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't say a thing unless it comes into your head."</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I mean," Freddie went on earnestly, not to be diverted
+from his theme. "You say rummy things and you do rummy things. What I
+mean to say is, you're impulsive."</p>
+
+<p>"What have I ever done that the sternest critic could call rummy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've seen you with my own eyes stop in the middle of Bond
+Street and help a lot of fellows shove along a cart that had got
+stuck. Mind you, I'm not blaming you for it...."</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope not. The poor old horse was trying all he knew to get
+going, and he couldn't quite make it. Naturally, I helped."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know. Very decent and all that, but I doubt if Lady Underhill
+would have thought a lot of it. And you're so dashed chummy with the
+lower orders."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a snob, Freddie."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a snob," protested Freddie, wounded. "When I'm alone with
+Barker&mdash;for instance&mdash;I'm as chatty as dammit. But I don't ask waiters
+in public restaurants how their lumbago is."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever had lumbago?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's a very painful thing, and waiters get it just as badly as
+dukes. Worse, I should think, because they're always bending and
+stooping and carrying things. Naturally one feels sorry for them."</p>
+
+<p>"But how do you ever find out that a waiter has <i>got</i> lumbago?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ask him, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for goodness' sake," said Freddie, "if you feel the impulse to
+do that sort of thing to-night, try and restrain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> it. I mean to say,
+if you're curious to know anything about Barker's chilblains, for
+instance, don't enquire after them while he's handing Lady Underhill
+the potatoes! She wouldn't like it."</p>
+
+<p>Jill uttered an exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew there was something! Being so cold and wanting to rush in and
+crouch over a fire put it clean out of my head. He must be thinking me
+a perfect beast!" She ran to the door. "Barker! Barker!"</p>
+
+<p>Barker appeared from nowhere.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so sorry I forgot to ask before. How are your chilblains?"</p>
+
+<p>"A good deal better miss, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you try the stuff I recommended?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, miss. It did them a world of good."</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill went back into the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right," she said reassuringly. "They're better."</p>
+
+<p>She wandered restlessly about the room, looking at the photographs,
+then sat down at the piano and touched the keys. The clock on the
+mantelpiece chimed the half-hour. "I wish to goodness they would
+arrive," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll be here pretty soon, I expect."</p>
+
+<p>"It's rather awful," said Jill, "to think of Lady Underhill racing all
+the way from Mentone to Paris and from Paris to Calais and from Calais
+to Dover and from Dover to London simply to inspect me. You can't
+wonder I'm nervous, Freddie."</p>
+
+<p>The eye-glass dropped from Freddie's eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Are <i>you</i> nervous?" he asked, astonished.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I'm nervous. Wouldn't you be in my place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I should never have thought it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you suppose I've been talking such a lot? Why do you imagine I
+snapped your poor, innocent head off just now! I'm terrified inside,
+terrified!"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't look it, by Jove!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm trying to be a little warrior. That's what Uncle Chris always
+used to call me. It started the day when he took me to have a tooth
+out, when I was ten. 'Be a little warrior, Jill!' he kept saying. 'Be
+a little warrior!' And I was." She looked at the clock. "But I shan't
+be if they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> don't get here soon. The suspense is awful." She strummed
+the keys. "Suppose she <i>doesn't</i> like me, Freddie! You see how you've
+scared me."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say she wouldn't. I only said you'd got to watch out a bit."</p>
+
+<p>"Something tells me she won't. My nerve is oozing out of me." Jill
+shook her head impatiently. "It's all so vulgar! I thought this sort
+of thing only happened in the comic papers and in music-hall songs.
+Why, it's just like that song somebody used to sing." She laughed. "Do
+you remember? I don't know how the verse went, but ...</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">John took me round to see his mother,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">his mother,<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">his mother!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when he'd introduced us to each other,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She sized up everything that I had on.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She put me through a cross-examination:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I fairly boiled with aggravation:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then she shook her head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Looked at me and said:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">'Poor John! Poor John!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Chorus, Freddie! Let's cheer ourselves up! We need it!"</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">John took me round to see his mother...!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"His m-o-o-other!" croaked Freddie. Curiously enough, this ballad was
+one of Freddie's favourites. He had rendered it with a good deal of
+success on three separate occasions at village entertainments down in
+Worcestershire, and he rather flattered himself that he could get
+about as much out of it as the next man. He proceeded to abet Jill
+heartily with gruff sounds which he was under the impression
+constituted what is known in musical circles as "singing seconds."</p>
+
+<p>"His mo-o-other!" he growled with frightful scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"And when he'd introduced us to each other...."</p>
+
+<p>"O-o-o-other!"</p>
+
+<p>"She sized up everything that I had on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Pom-<i>pom</i>-pom!"</p>
+
+<p>"She put me through a cross-examination...."</p>
+
+<p>Jill had thrown her head back, and was singing jubilantly at the top
+of her voice. The appositeness of the song had cheered her up. It
+seemed somehow to make her forebodings rather ridiculous, to reduce
+them to absurdity, to turn into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> farce the gathering tragedy which had
+been weighing upon her nerves.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then she shook her head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Looked at me and said:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Poor John!'....<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Jill," said a voice at the door. "I want you to meet my mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poo-oo-oor John!" bleated the hapless Freddie, unable to check
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Dinner," said Barker the valet, appearing at the door and breaking a
+silence that seemed to fill the room like a tangible presence, "is
+served!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRST NIGHT AT THE LEICESTER</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>The front-door closed softly behind the theatre-party. Dinner was
+over, and Barker had just been assisting the expedition out of the
+place. Sensitive to atmosphere, he had found his share in the dinner a
+little trying. It had been a strained meal, and what he liked was a
+clatter of conversation and everybody having a good time and enjoying
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"Ellen!" called Barker, as he proceeded down the passage to the empty
+dining-room. "Ellen!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Barker appeared out of the kitchen, wiping her hands. Her work
+for the evening, like her husband's, was over. Presently what is
+technically called a "useful girl" would come in to wash up the
+dishes, leaving the evening free for social intercourse. Mrs. Barker
+had done well by her patrons that night, and now she wanted a quiet
+chat with Barker over a glass of Freddie Rooke's port.</p>
+
+<p>"Have they gone, Horace?" she asked, following him into the
+dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>Barker selected a cigar from Freddie's humidor, crackled it against
+his ear, smelt it, clipped off the end, and lit it. He took the
+decanter and filled his wife's glass, then mixed himself a
+whisky-and-soda.</p>
+
+<p>"Happy days!" said Barker. "Yes, they've gone!"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't see her ladyship."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You didn't miss much! A nasty, dangerous specimen, <i>she</i> is! 'Always
+merry and bright,' I don't think. I wish you'd have had my job of
+waiting on 'em, Ellen, and me been the one to stay in the kitchen safe
+out of it all. That's all I say! It's no treat to <i>me</i> to 'and the
+dishes when the atmosphere's what you might call electric. I didn't
+envy them that <i>vol-au-vent</i> of yours, Ellen, good as it smelt. Better
+a dinner of 'erbs where love is than a stalled ox and 'atred
+therewith," said Barker, helping himself to a walnut.</p>
+
+<p>"Did they have words?"</p>
+
+<p>Barker shook his head impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"That sort don't have words, Ellen. They just sit and goggle."</p>
+
+<p>"How did her ladyship seem to hit it off with Miss Mariner, Horace?"</p>
+
+<p>Barker uttered a dry laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever seen a couple of strange dogs watching each other sort of wary?
+That was them! Not that Miss Mariner wasn't all that was pleasant and
+nice-spoken. She's all right, Miss Mariner is. She's a little queen.
+It wasn't her fault the dinner you'd took so much trouble over was
+more like an evening in the Morgue than a Christian dinner-party. She
+tried to help things along best she could. But what with Sir Derek
+chewing his lip 'alf the time and his mother acting about as matey as
+a pennorth of ice-cream, she didn't have a chance. As for the
+guv'nor&mdash;well, I wish you could have seen him, that's all. You know,
+Ellen, sometimes I'm not altogether easy in my mind about the
+guv'nor's mental balance. He knows how to buy cigars, and you tell me
+his port is good&mdash;I never touch it myself&mdash;but sometimes he seems to
+me to go right off his onion. Just sat there, he did, all through
+dinner, looking as if he expected the good food to rise up and bite
+him in the face, and jumping nervous when I spoke to him. It's not my
+fault," said Barker, aggrieved. "<i>I</i> can't give gentlemen warning
+before I ask 'em if they'll have sherry or hock. I can't ring a bell
+or toot a horn to show 'em I'm coming. It's my place to bend over and
+whisper in their ear, and they've no right to leap about in their
+seats and make me spill good wine. (You'll see the spot close by where
+you're sitting, Ellen. Jogged my wrist, he did!) I'd like to know why
+people in the spear of life which these people are in can't behave
+themselves rational,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> same as we do. When we were walking out and I
+took you to have tea with my mother, it was one of the pleasantest
+meals I ever ate. Talk about 'armony! It was a love-feast!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your ma and I took to each other right from the start, Horace," said
+Mrs. Barker softly. "That's the difference."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, any woman with any sense would take to Miss Mariner. If I told
+you how near I came to spilling the sauce-boat accidentally over that
+old fossil's head, you'd be surprised, Ellen. She just sat there
+brooding like an old eagle. If you ask my opinion, Miss Mariner's a
+long sight too good for her precious son!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but Horace! Sir Derek's a baronet!"</p>
+
+<p>"What of it? Kind 'earts are more than coronets and simple faith than
+Norman blood, aren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're talking Socialism, Horace."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not. I'm talking sense. I don't know who Miss Mariner's
+parents may have been&mdash;I never enquired&mdash;but anyone can see she's a
+lady born and bred. But do you suppose the path of true love is going
+to run smooth, for all that? Not it! She's got a 'ard time ahead of
+her, that poor girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Horace!" Mrs. Barker's gentle heart was wrung. The situation hinted
+at by her husband was no new one&mdash;indeed, it formed the basis of at
+least fifty per cent of the stories in the True Heart Novelette
+Series, of which she was a determined reader&mdash;but it had never failed
+to touch her. "Do you think her ladyship means to come between them
+and wreck their romance?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think she means to have a jolly good try."</p>
+
+<p>"But Sir Derek has his own money, hasn't he? I mean it's not like when
+Sir Courtenay Travers fell in love with the milkmaid and was dependent
+on his mother, the Countess, for everything. Sir Derek can afford to
+do what he pleases, can't he?"</p>
+
+<p>Barker shook his head tolerantly. The excellence of the cigar and the
+soothing qualities of the whisky-and-soda had worked upon him, and he
+was feeling less ruffled.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand these things," he said. "Women like her ladyship
+can talk a man into anything and out of anything. I wouldn't care,
+only you can see the poor girl is mad over the feller. What she finds
+attractive in him, I can't say, but that's her own affair."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He's very handsome, Horace, with those flashing eyes and that stern
+mouth," argued Mrs. Barker.</p>
+
+<p>Barker sniffed.</p>
+
+<p>"Have it your own way," he said. "It's no treat to <i>me</i> to see his
+eyes flash, and if he'd put that stern mouth of his to some better use
+than advising the guv'nor to lock up the cigars and trouser the key,
+I'd be better pleased. If there's one thing I can't stand," said
+Barker, "it's not to be trusted!" He lifted his cigar and looked at it
+censoriously. "I thought so! Burning all down one side. They will do
+that if you light 'em careless. Oh, well," he continued, rising and
+going to the humidor, "there's plenty more where that came from. Out
+of evil cometh good," said Barker philosophically. "If the guv'nor
+hadn't been in such a overwrought state to-night, he'd have remembered
+not to leave the key in the keyhole. Help yourself to another glass of
+port, Ellen, and let's enjoy ourselves!"</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>When one considers how full of his own troubles, how weighed down with
+the problems of his own existence the average playgoer generally is
+when enters a theatre, it is remarkable that dramatists ever find it
+possible to divert and entertain whole audiences for a space of
+several hours. As regards at least three of those who had assembled to
+witness its opening performance, the author of "Tried by Fire," at the
+Leicester Theatre, undoubtedly had his work cut out for him.</p>
+
+<p>It has perhaps been sufficiently indicated by the remarks of Barker,
+the valet, that the little dinner at Freddie Rooke's had not been an
+unqualified success. Searching the records for an adequately gloomy
+parallel to the taxi-cab journey to the theatre which followed it, one
+can only think of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. And yet even that
+was probably not conducted in dead silence.</p>
+
+<p>The only member of the party who was even remotely happy was,
+curiously enough, Freddie Rooke. Originally Freddie had obtained three
+tickets for "Tried by Fire." The unexpected arrival of Lady Underhill
+had obliged him to buy a fourth, separated by several rows from the
+other three. This, as he had told Derek at breakfast, was the seat he
+proposed to occupy himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It consoles the philosopher in this hard world to reflect that, even
+if man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upward, it is still
+possible for small things to make him happy. The thought of being
+several rows away from Lady Underhill had restored Freddie's
+equanimity like a tonic. It thrilled him like the strains of some
+grand, sweet anthem all the way to the theatre. If Freddie Rooke had
+been asked at that moment to define happiness in a few words, he would
+have replied that it consisted in being several rows away from Lady
+Underhill.</p>
+
+<p>The theatre was nearly full when Freddie's party arrived. The
+Leicester Theatre had been rented for the season by the newest
+theatrical knight, Sir Chester Portwood, who had a large following;
+and, whatever might be the fate of the play in the final issue, it
+would do at least one night's business. The stalls were ablaze with
+jewellery and crackling with starched shirt-fronts; and expensive
+scents pervaded the air, putting up a stiff battle with the plebeian
+peppermint that emanated from the pit. The boxes were filled, and up
+in the gallery grim-faced patrons of the drama, who had paid their
+shillings at the door and intended to get a shilling's worth of
+entertainment in return, sat and waited stolidly for the curtain to
+rise.</p>
+
+<p>The lights shot up beyond the curtain. The house-lights dimmed.
+Conversation ceased. The curtain rose. Jill wriggled herself
+comfortably into her seat, and slipped her hand into Derek's. She felt
+a glow of happiness as it closed over hers. All, she told herself, was
+right with the world.</p>
+
+<p>All, that is to say, except the drama which was unfolding on the
+stage. It was one of those plays which start wrong and never recover.
+By the end of the first ten minutes there had spread through the
+theatre that uneasy feeling which comes over the audience at an
+opening performance when it realizes that it is going to be bored. A
+sort of lethargy had gripped the stalls. The dress-circle was
+coughing. Up in the gallery there was grim silence.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Chester Portwood was an actor-manager who had made his reputation
+in light comedy of the tea-cup school. His numerous admirers attended
+a first night at his theatre in a mood of comfortable anticipation,
+assured of something pleasant and frothy with a good deal of bright
+dialogue and not too much plot. To-night he seemed to have fallen a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+victim to that spirit of ambition which intermittently attacks
+actor-managers of his class, expressing itself in an attempt to prove
+that, having established themselves securely as light comedians, they
+can, like the lady reciter, turn right around and be serious. The one
+thing which the London public felt that it was safe from in a Portwood
+play was heaviness, and "Tried by Fire" was grievously heavy. It was a
+poetic drama, and the audience, though loath to do anybody an
+injustice, was beginning to suspect that it was written in blank
+verse.</p>
+
+<p>The acting did nothing to dispel the growing uneasiness. Sir Chester
+himself, apparently oppressed by the weightiness of the occasion and
+the responsibility of offering an unfamiliar brand of goods to his
+public, had dropped his customary debonair method of delivering lines
+and was mouthing his speeches. It was good gargling, but bad
+elocution. And, for some reason best known to himself, he had
+entrusted the r&ocirc;le of the heroine to a doll-like damsel with a lisp,
+of whom the audience disapproved sternly from her initial entrance.</p>
+
+<p>It was about half-way through the first act that Jill, whose attention
+had begun to wander, heard a soft groan at her side. The seats which
+Freddie Rooke had bought were at the extreme end of the seventh row.
+There was only one other seat in the row, and, as Derek had placed his
+mother on his left and was sitting between her and Jill, the latter
+had this seat on her right. It had been empty at the rise of the
+curtain, but in the past few minutes a man had slipped silently into
+it. The darkness prevented Jill from seeing his face, but it was plain
+that he was suffering, and her sympathy went out to him. His opinion
+of the play so obviously coincided with her own.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the first act ended, and the lights went up. There was a
+spatter of insincere applause from the stalls, echoed in the
+dress-circle. It grew fainter in the upper circle, and did not reach
+the gallery at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said Jill to Derek. "What do you think of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too awful for words," said Derek sternly.</p>
+
+<p>He leaned forward to join the conversation which had started between
+Lady Underhill and some friends she had discovered in the seats in
+front; and Jill, turning, became aware that the man on her right was
+looking at her intently. He was a big man with rough, wiry hair and a
+humorous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> mouth. His age appeared to be somewhere in the middle
+twenties. Jill, in the brief moment in which their eyes met, decided
+that he was ugly, but with an ugliness that was rather attractive. He
+reminded her of one of those large, loose, shaggy dogs that break
+things in drawing-rooms but make admirable companions for the open
+road. She had a feeling that he would look better in tweeds in a field
+than in evening dress in a theatre. He had nice eyes. She could not
+distinguish their colour, but they were frank and friendly.</p>
+
+<p>All this Jill noted with her customary quickness, and then she looked
+away. For an instant she had had an odd feeling that somewhere she had
+met this man or somebody very like him before, but the impression
+vanished. She also had the impression that he was still looking at
+her, but she gazed demurely in front of her and did not attempt to
+verify the suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Between them, as they sat side by side, there inserted itself suddenly
+the pinkly remorseful face of Freddie Rooke. Freddie, having
+skirmished warily in the aisle until it was clear that Lady
+Underhill's attention was engaged elsewhere, had occupied a seat in
+the row behind which had been left vacant temporarily by an owner who
+liked refreshment between the acts. Freddie was feeling deeply ashamed
+of himself. He felt that he had perpetrated a bloomer of no slight
+magnitude.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awfully sorry about this," he said penitently. "I mean, roping
+you in to listen to this frightful tosh! When I think I might have got
+seats just as well for any one of half a dozen topping musical
+comedies, I feel like kicking myself with some vim. But, honestly, how
+was I to know? I never dreamed we were going to be let in for anything
+of this sort. Portwood's plays are usually so dashed bright and snappy
+and all that. Can't think what he was doing, putting on a thing like
+this. Why, it's blue round the edges!"</p>
+
+<p>The man on Jill's right laughed sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," he said, "the chump who wrote the piece got away from the
+asylum long enough to put up the money to produce it."</p>
+
+<p>If there is one thing that startles the well-bred Londoner and throws
+him off his balance, it is to be addressed unexpectedly by a stranger.
+Freddie's sense of decency was revolted. A voice from the tomb could
+hardly have shaken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> him more. All the traditions to which he had been
+brought up had gone to solidify his belief that this was one of the
+things which didn't happen. Absolutely it wasn't done. During an
+earthquake or a shipwreck and possibly on the Day of Judgment, yes.
+But only then. At other times, unless they wanted a match or the time
+or something, chappies did not speak to fellows to whom they had not
+been introduced. He was far too amiable to snub the man, but to go on
+with this degrading scene was out of the question. There was nothing
+for it but flight.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ah, yes," he mumbled. "Well," he added to Jill, "I suppose I may
+as well be toddling back. See you later and so forth."</p>
+
+<p>And with a faint "Good-bye-ee!" Freddie removed himself, thoroughly
+unnerved.</p>
+
+<p>Jill looked out of the corner of her eye at Derek. He was still
+occupied with the people in front. She turned to the man on her right.
+She was not the slave to etiquette that Freddie was. She was much too
+interested in life to refrain from speaking to strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"You shocked him!" she said dimpling.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It broke Freddie all up, didn't it!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Jill's turn to be startled. She looked at him in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"That <i>was</i> Freddie Rooke, wasn't it? Surely I wasn't mistaken?"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;do you know him? He didn't seem to know you."</p>
+
+<p>"These are life's tragedies He has forgotten me. My boyhood friend!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you were at school with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Freddie went to Winchester, if I remember. I was at Haileybury.
+Our acquaintance was confined to the holidays. My people lived near
+his people in Worcestershire."</p>
+
+<p>"Worcestershire!" Jill leaned forward excitedly. "But I used to live
+near Freddie in Worcestershire myself when I was small. I knew him
+there when he was a boy. We must have met!"</p>
+
+<p>"We met all right."</p>
+
+<p>Jill wrinkled her forehead. That odd familiar look was in his eyes
+again. But memory failed to respond. She shook her head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember you," she said. "I'm sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. Perhaps the recollection would have been painful."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean, painful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, looking back, I can see that I must have been a very unpleasant
+child. I have always thought it greatly to the credit of my parents
+that they let me grow up. It would have been so easy to have dropped
+something heavy on me out of a window. They must have been tempted a
+hundred times, but they refrained. Yes, I was a great pest around the
+home. My only redeeming point was the way I worshipped <i>you</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. You probably didn't notice it at the time, for I had a
+curious way of expressing my adoration. But you remain the brightest
+memory of a chequered youth."</p>
+
+<p>Jill searched his face with grave eyes, then shook her head again.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing stirs?" asked the man sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"It's too maddening! Why does one forget things?" She reflected. "You
+aren't Bobby Morrison?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not. What is more, I never was!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill dived into the past once more and emerged with another
+possibility.</p>
+
+<p>"Or&mdash;Charlie&mdash;Charlie what was it?&mdash;Charlie Field?"</p>
+
+<p>"You wound me! Have you forgotten that Charlie Field wore velvet Lord
+Fauntleroy suits and long golden curls? My past is not smirched with
+anything like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Would I remember your name if you told me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I've forgotten yours. Your surname, that is. Of course,
+I remember that your Christian name was Jill. It has always seemed to
+me the prettiest monosyllable in the language." He looked at her
+thoughtfully. "It's odd how little you've altered in looks. Freddie's
+just the same, too, only larger. And he didn't wear an eye-glass in
+those days, though I can see he was bound to later on. And yet I've
+changed so much that you can't place me. It shows what a wearing life
+I must have led. I feel like Rip van Winkle. Old and withered. But
+that may be just the result of watching this play."</p>
+
+<p>"It is pretty terrible, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Worse than that. Looking at it dispassionately, I find it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> the
+extreme, ragged, outermost edge of the limit. Freddie had the correct
+description of it. He's a great critic."</p>
+
+<p>"I really do think it's the worst thing I have ever seen."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what plays you have seen, but I feel you're right."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the second act's better," said Jill optimistically.</p>
+
+<p>"It's worse. I know that sounds like boasting, but it's true. I feel
+like getting up and making a public apology."</p>
+
+<p>"But ... Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill turned scarlet. A monstrous suspicion had swept over her.</p>
+
+<p>"The only trouble is," went on her companion, "that the audience would
+undoubtedly lynch me. And, though it seems improbable just at the
+present moment, it may be that life holds some happiness for me that's
+worth waiting for. Anyway, I'd rather not be torn limb from limb. A
+messy finish! I can just see them rending me asunder in a spasm of
+perfectly justifiable fury. 'She loves me!' Off comes a leg. 'She
+loves me not!' Off comes an arm. No, I think on the whole I'll lie
+low. Besides, why should I care? Let 'em suffer. It's their own fault.
+They <i>would</i> come!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill had been trying to interrupt the harangue. She was greatly
+concerned.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you <i>write</i> the play?"</p>
+
+<p>The man nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite right to speak in that horrified tone. But between
+ourselves and on the understanding that you don't get up and denounce
+me, I did."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm so sorry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not half so sorry as I am, believe me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, I wouldn't have said...."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. You didn't tell me anything I didn't know." The lights
+began to go down. He rose. "Well, they're off again. Perhaps you will
+excuse me? I don't feel quite equal to assisting any longer at the
+wake. If you want something to occupy your mind during the next act,
+try to remember my name."</p>
+
+<p>He slid from his seat and disappeared. Jill clutched at Derek.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Derek, it's too awful. I've just been talking to the man who
+wrote this play, and I told him it was the worst thing I had ever
+seen!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Did you?" Derek snorted. "Well, it's about time somebody told him!" A
+thought seemed to strike him. "Why, who is he? I didn't know you knew
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't. I don't even know his name."</p>
+
+<p>"His name, according to the programme, is John Grant. Never heard of
+him before. Jill, I wish you would not talk to people you don't know,"
+said Derek with a note of annoyance in his voice. "You can never tell
+who they are."</p>
+
+<p>"But...."</p>
+
+<p>"Especially with my mother here. You must be more careful."</p>
+
+<p>The curtain rose. Jill saw the stage mistily. From childhood up, she
+had never been able to cure herself of an unfortunate sensitiveness
+when sharply spoken to by those she loved. A rebuking world she could
+face with a stout heart, but there had always been just one or two
+people whose lightest word of censure could crush her. Her father had
+always had that effect upon her, and now Derek had taken his place.</p>
+
+<p>But if there had only been time to explain.... Derek could not object
+to her chatting with a friend of her childhood, even if she had
+completely forgotten him and did not remember his name even now. John
+Grant? Memory failed to produce any juvenile John Grant for her
+inspection.</p>
+
+<p>Puzzling over this problem, Jill missed much of the beginning of the
+second act. Hers was a detachment which the rest of the audience would
+gladly have shared. For the poetic drama, after a bad start, was now
+plunging into worse depths of dullness. The coughing had become almost
+continuous. The stalls, supported by the presence of large droves of
+Sir Chester's personal friends, were struggling gallantly to maintain
+a semblance of interest, but the pit and gallery had plainly given up
+hope. The critic of a weekly paper of small circulation, who had been
+shoved up in the upper circle, grimly jotted down the phrase
+"apathetically received" on his programme. He had come to the theatre
+that night in an aggrieved mood, for managers usually put him in the
+dress-circle. He got out his pencil again. Another phrase had occurred
+to him, admirable for the opening of his article. "At the Leicester
+Theatre," he wrote, "where Sir Chester Portwood presented 'Tried by
+Fire,' dullness reigned supreme...."</p>
+
+<p>But you never know. Call no evening dull till it is over.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> However
+uninteresting its early stages may have been that night was to be as
+animated and exciting as any audience could desire&mdash;a night to be
+looked back to and talked about, for just as the critic of <i>London
+Gossip</i> wrote those damning words on his programme, guiding his pencil
+uncertainly in the dark, a curious yet familiar odour stole over the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>The stalls got it first, and sniffed. It rose to the dress-circle, and
+the dress-circle sniffed. Floating up, it smote the silent gallery.
+And, suddenly, coming to life with a single-minded abruptness, the
+gallery ceased to be silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire!"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Chester Portwood, ploughing his way through a long speech, stopped
+and looked apprehensively over his shoulder. The girl with the lisp,
+who had been listening in a perfunctory manner to the long speech,
+screamed loudly. The voice of an unseen stage-hand called thunderously
+to an invisible "Bill" to commere quick. And from the scenery on the
+prompt side there curled lazily across the stage a black wisp of
+smoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire! Fire! Fire!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just," said a voice at Jill's elbow, "what the play needed!" The
+mysterious author was back in his seat again.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>JILL AND THE UNKNOWN ESCAPE</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>In these days when the authorities who watch over the welfare of the
+community have taken the trouble to reiterate encouragingly in printed
+notices that a full house can be emptied in three minutes and that all
+an audience has to do in an emergency is to walk, not run, to the
+nearest exit, fire in the theatre has lost a good deal of its old-time
+terror. Yet it would be paltering with the truth to say that the
+audience which had assembled to witness the opening performance of the
+new play at the Leicester was entirely at its ease. The asbestos
+curtain was already on its way down, which should have been
+reassuring: but then asbestos curtains never look the part. To the lay
+eye they seem just the sort of thing that will blaze quickest.
+Moreover, it had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> not yet occurred to the man at the switchboard to
+turn up the house-lights, and the darkness was disconcerting.</p>
+
+<p>Portions of the house were taking the thing better than other
+portions. Up in the gallery a vast activity was going on. The clatter
+of feet almost drowned the shouting. A moment before it would have
+seemed incredible that anything could have made the occupants of the
+gallery animated, but the instinct of self-preservation had put new
+life into them.</p>
+
+<p>The stalls had not yet entirely lost their self-control. Alarm was in
+the air, but for the moment they hung on the razor-edge between panic
+and dignity. Panic urged them to do something sudden and energetic;
+dignity counselled them to wait. They, like the occupants of the
+gallery, greatly desired to be outside, but it was bad form to rush
+and jostle. The men were assisting the women in their cloaks, assuring
+them the while that it was "all right" and that they must not be
+frightened. But another curl of smoke had crept out just before the
+asbestos curtain completed its descent, and their words lacked the
+ring of conviction. The movement towards the exits had not yet become
+a stampede, but already those with seats nearest the stage had begun
+to feel that the more fortunate individuals near the doors were
+infernally slow in removing themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, as if by mutual inspiration, the composure of the stalls
+began to slip. Looking from above, one could have seen a sort of
+shudder run through the crowd. It was the effect of every member of
+that crowd starting to move a little more quickly.</p>
+
+<p>A hand grasped Jill's arm. It was a comforting hand, the hand of a man
+who had not lost his head. A pleasant voice backed up its message of
+reassurance.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no good getting into that mob. You might get hurt. There's no
+danger; the play isn't going on."</p>
+
+<p>Jill was shaken; but she had the fighting spirit and hated to show
+that she was shaken. Panic was knocking at the door of her soul, but
+dignity refused to be dislodged.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," she said, smiling a difficult smile, "it would be nice
+to get out, wouldn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was just going to suggest something of that very sort," said the
+man beside her. "The same thought occurred to me. We can stroll out
+quite comfortably by our own private route. Come along."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jill looked over her shoulder. Derek and Lady Underhill were merged
+into the mass of refugees. She could not see them. For an instant a
+little spasm of pique stung her at the thought that Derek had deserted
+her. She groped her way after her companion, and presently they came
+by way of a lower box to the iron pass-door leading to the stage.</p>
+
+<p>As it opened, smoke blew through, and the smell of burning was
+formidable. Jill recoiled involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right," said her companion. "It smells worse than it really
+is. And, anyway, this is the quickest way out."</p>
+
+<p>They passed through on to the stage, and found themselves in a world
+of noise and confusion compared with which the auditorium which they
+had left had been a peaceful place. Smoke was everywhere. A
+stage-hand, carrying a bucket, lurched past them, bellowing. From
+somewhere out of sight on the other side of the stage there came a
+sound of chopping. Jill's companion moved quickly to the switchboard,
+groped, found a handle, and turned it. In the narrow space between the
+corner of the proscenium and the edge of the asbestos curtain lights
+flashed up: and simultaneously there came a sudden diminution of the
+noise from the body of the house. The stalls, snatched from the
+intimidating spell of the darkness and able to see each other's faces,
+discovered that they had been behaving indecorously and checked their
+struggling, a little ashamed of themselves. The relief would be only
+momentary, but, while it lasted, it postponed panic.</p>
+
+<p>"Go straight across the stage," Jill heard her companion say, "out
+along the passage and turn to the right, and you'll be at the
+stage-door. I think, as there seems no one else around to do it, I'd
+better go out and say a few soothing words to the customers. Otherwise
+they'll be biting holes in each other."</p>
+
+<p>He squeezed through the narrow opening in front of the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill remained where she was, leaning with one hand against the
+switchboard. She made no attempt to follow the directions he had given
+her. She was aware of a sense of comradeship, of being with this man
+in this adventure. If he stayed, she must stay. To go now through the
+safety of the stage-door would be abominable desertion. She listened,
+and found that she could hear plainly in spite of the noise. The smoke
+was worse than ever, and hurt her eyes, so that the figures of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> the
+theatre-firemen, hurrying to and fro, seemed like Brocken spectres.
+She slipped a corner of her cloak across her mouth, and was able to
+breathe more easily.</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you that there is absolutely no
+danger. I am a stranger to you, so there is no reason why you should
+take my word, but fortunately I can give you solid proof. If there
+were any danger, <i>I</i> wouldn't be here. All that has happened is that
+the warmth of your reception of the play has set a piece of scenery
+alight...."</p>
+
+<p>A crimson-faced stage-hand, carrying an axe in blackened hands, roared
+in Jill's ear.</p>
+
+<p>"'Op it!" shouted the stage-hand. He cast his axe down with a clatter.
+"Can't you see the place is afire?"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but I'm waiting for...." Jill pointed to where her ally was
+still addressing an audience that seemed reluctant to stop and listen
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>The stage-hand squinted out round the edge of the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>"If he's a friend of yours, miss, kindly get 'im to cheese it and get
+a move on. We're clearing out. There's nothing we can do. It's got too
+much of an 'old. In about another two ticks the roof's going to drop
+on us."</p>
+
+<p>Jill's friend came squeezing back through the opening.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! Still here?" He blinked approvingly at her through the smoke.
+"You're a little soldier! Well, Augustus, what's on your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>The simple question seemed to take the stage-hand aback.</p>
+
+<p>"Wot's on my mind? I'll tell you wot's on my blinking mind...."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell me. Let me guess. I've got it! The place is on fire!"</p>
+
+<p>The stage-hand expectorated disgustedly. Flippancy at such a moment
+offended his sensibilities.</p>
+
+<p>"We're 'opping it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Great minds think alike! <i>We</i> are hopping it, too."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better! And damn quick!"</p>
+
+<p>"And, as you suggest, damn quick. You think of everything!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill followed him across the stage. Her heart was beating violently.
+There was not only smoke now, but heat. Across the stage little
+scarlet flames were shooting, and something large and hard, unseen
+through the smoke, fell with a crash. The air was heavy with the smell
+of burning paint.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Where's Sir Chester Portwood?" enquired her companion of the
+stage-hand, who hurried beside them.</p>
+
+<p>"'Opped it!" replied the other briefly, and coughed raspingly as he
+swallowed smoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Strange," said the man in Jill's ear, as he pulled her along. "This
+way. Stick to me. Strange how the drama anticipates life! At the end
+of Act Two there was a scene where Sir Chester had to creep sombrely
+out into the night, and now he's gone and done it! Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>They had stumbled through a doorway and were out in a narrow passage,
+where the air, though tainted, was comparatively fresh. Jill drew a
+deep breath. Her companion turned to the stage-hand and felt in his
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Here." A coin changed hands. "Go and get a drink. You need it after
+all this."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mention it. You've saved our lives. Suppose you hadn't come up
+and told us, and we had never noticed there was a fire!" He turned to
+Jill. "Here's the stage-door. Shall we creep sombrely out into the
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>The guardian of the stage-door was standing in the entrance of his
+little hutch, plainly perplexed. He was a slow thinker and a man whose
+life was ruled by routine, and the events of the evening had left him
+uncertain how to act.</p>
+
+<p>"Wot's all this about a fire?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Jill's friend stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"A fire?" He looked at Jill. "Did <i>you</i> hear anything about a fire?"</p>
+
+<p>"They all come bustin' past 'ere yelling there's a fire," persisted
+the door-man.</p>
+
+<p>"By George! Now I come to think of it, you're perfectly right! There
+<i>is</i> a fire! If you wait here a little longer you'll get it in the
+small of the back. Take the advice of an old friend who means you well
+and vanish. In the inspired words of the lad we've just parted from,
+'op it!"</p>
+
+<p>The stage-door man turned this over in his mind for a space.</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm supposed to stay 'ere till eleven-thirty and lock up!" he
+said. "That's what I'm supposed to do. Stay 'ere till eleven-thirty
+and lock up! And it ain't but ten forty-five now."</p>
+
+<p>"I see the difficulty," said Jill's companion thoughtfully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, Casabianca, I'm afraid I don't see how to help you. It's a
+matter for your own conscience. I don't want to lure you from the
+burning deck; on the other hand, if you stick on here you'll most
+certainly be fired on both sides.... But, tell me. You spoke about
+locking up something at eleven-thirty. What are you supposed to lock
+up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the theatre."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that's all right. By eleven-thirty there won't <i>be</i> a theatre.
+If I were you, I should leave quietly and unostentatiously now.
+To-morrow, if you wish it, and if they've cooled off sufficiently, you
+can come and sit on the ruins. Good night!"</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>Outside, the air was cold and crisp. Jill drew her warm cloak closer.
+Round the corner there was noise and shouting. Fire-engines had
+arrived. Jill's companion lit a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wish to stop and see the conflagration?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Jill shivered. She was more shaken than she had realized.</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen all the conflagration I want."</p>
+
+<p>"Same here. Well, it's been an exciting evening. Started slow, I
+admit, but warmed up later! What I seem to need at the moment is a
+restorative stroll along the Embankment. Do you know, Sir Chester
+Portwood didn't like the title of my play. He said 'Tried by Fire' was
+too melodramatic. Well, he can't say now it wasn't appropriate."</p>
+
+<p>They made their way towards the river, avoiding the street which was
+blocked by the crowds and the fire-engines. As they crossed the
+Strand, the man looked back. A red glow was in the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"A great blaze!" he said. "What you might call&mdash;in fact what the
+papers <i>will</i> call&mdash;a holocaust. Quite a treat for the populace."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think they will be able to put it out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a chance. It's got too much of a hold. It's a pity you hadn't
+that garden-hose of yours with you, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill stopped, wide-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Garden-hose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you remember the garden-hose? I do! I can feel that clammy
+feeling of the water trickling down my back now!"</p>
+
+<p>Memory, always a laggard by the wayside that redeems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> itself by an
+eleventh-hour rush, raced back to Jill. The Embankment turned to a
+sun-lit garden, and the January night to a July day. She stared at
+him. He was looking at her with a whimsical smile. It was a smile
+which, pleasant to-day, had seemed mocking and hostile on that
+afternoon years ago. She had always felt then that he was laughing at
+her, and at the age of twelve she had resented laughter at her
+expense.</p>
+
+<p>"You surely can't be Wally Mason!" "I was wondering when you would
+remember." "But the programme called you something else&mdash;John
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"That was a cunning disguise. Wally Mason is the only genuine and
+official name. And, by Jove! I've just remembered yours. It was
+Mariner. By the way,"&mdash;he paused for an almost imperceptible
+instant&mdash;"is it still?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST OF THE ROOKES TAKES A HAND</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>Jill was hardly aware that he had asked her a question. She was
+suffering that momentary sense of unreality which comes to us when the
+years roll away and we are thrown abruptly back into the days of our
+childhood. The logical side of her mind was quite aware that there was
+nothing remarkable in the fact that Wally Mason, who had been to her
+all these years a boy in an Eton suit, should now present himself as a
+grown man. But for all that the transformation had something of the
+effect of a conjuring-trick. It was not only the alteration in his
+appearance that startled her: it was the amazing change in his
+personality. Wally Mason had been the <i>b&ecirc;te noire</i> of her childhood.
+She had never failed to look back at the episode of the garden-hose
+with the feeling that she had acted well, that&mdash;however she might have
+strayed in those early days from the straight and narrow path&mdash;in that
+one particular crisis she had done the right thing. And now she had
+taken an instant liking for him. Easily as she made friends, she had
+seldom before felt so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> immediately drawn to a strange man. Gone was
+the ancient hostility, and in its place a soothing sense of
+comradeship. The direct effect of this was to make Jill feel suddenly
+old. It was as if some link that joined her to her childhood had been
+snapped.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced down the Embankment. Close by, to the left, Waterloo
+Bridge loomed up, dark and massive against the steel-grey sky. A
+tram-car, full of home-bound travellers, clattered past over rails
+that shone with the peculiarly frost-bitten gleam that seems to herald
+snow. Across the river everything was dark and mysterious, except for
+an occasional lamp-post and the dim illumination of the wharves. It
+was a depressing prospect, and the thought crossed her mind that to
+the derelicts whose nightly resting-place was a seat on the Embankment
+the view must seem even bleaker than it did to herself. She gave a
+little shiver. Somehow this sudden severance from the old days had
+brought with it a forlornness. She seemed to be standing alone in a
+changed world.</p>
+
+<p>"Cold?" said Wally Mason.</p>
+
+<p>"A little."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's walk."</p>
+
+<p>They moved westwards. Cleopatra's Needle shot up beside them, a
+pointing finger. Down on the silent river below, coffin-like row-boats
+lay moored to the wall. Through a break in the trees the clock over
+the Houses of Parliament shone for an instant as if suspended in the
+sky, then vanished as the trees closed in. A distant barge in the
+direction of Battersea wailed and was still. It had a mournful and
+foreboding sound. Jill shivered again. It annoyed her that she could
+not shake off this quite uncalled-for melancholy, but it withstood
+every effort. Why she should have felt that a chapter, a pleasant
+chapter, in the book of her life had been closed, she could not have
+said, but the feeling lingered.</p>
+
+<p>"Correct me if I am wrong," said Wally Mason, breaking a silence that
+had lasted several minutes, "but you seem to me to be freezing in your
+tracks. Ever since I came to London I've had a habit of heading for
+the Embankment in times of mental stress, but perhaps the middle of
+winter is not quite the moment for communing with the night. The Savoy
+is handy, if we stop walking away from it. I think we might celebrate
+this re-union with a little supper, don't you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jill's depression disappeared magically. Her mercurial temperament
+asserted itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Lights!" she said. "Music!"</p>
+
+<p>"And food! To an ethereal person like you that remark may seem gross,
+but I had no dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"You poor dear! Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just nervousness."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course." The interlude of the fire had caused her to forget
+his private and personal connection with the night's events. Her mind
+went back to something he had said in the theatre. "Wally&mdash;" She
+stopped, a little embarrassed. "I suppose I ought to call you Mr.
+Mason, but I've always thought of you...."</p>
+
+<p>"Wally, if you please, Jill. It's not as though we were strangers. I
+haven't my book of etiquette with me, but I fancy that about eleven
+gallons of cold water down the neck constitutes an introduction. What
+were you going to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was what you said to Freddie about putting up money. Did you
+really?"</p>
+
+<p>"Put up the money for that ghastly play? I did. Every cent. It was the
+only way to get it put on."</p>
+
+<p>"But why...? I forget what I was going to say!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why did I want it put on? Well, it does seem odd, but I give you my
+honest word that until to-night I thought the darned thing a
+masterpiece. I've been writing musical comedies for the last few
+years, and after you've done that for a while your soul rises up
+within you and says, 'Come, come, my lad! You can do better than
+this!' That's what mine said, and I believed it. Subsequent events
+have proved that Sidney the Soul was pulling my leg!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;then you've lost a great deal of money?"</p>
+
+<p>"The hoarded wealth, if you don't mind my being melodramatic for a
+moment, of a lifetime. And no honest old servitor who dangled me on
+his knee as a baby to come along and offer me his savings! They don't
+make servitors like that in America, worse luck. There is a Swedish
+lady who looks after my simple needs back there, but instinct tells me
+that, if I were to approach her on the subject of loosening up for the
+benefit of the young master, she would call a cop. Still, I've gained
+experience, which they say is just as good as cash, and I've enough
+money left to pay the bill, at any rate, so come along."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the supper-room of the Savoy Hotel there was, as anticipated, food
+and light and music. It was still early, and the theatres had not yet
+emptied themselves, so that the big room was as yet but half full.
+Wally Mason had found a table in the corner, and proceeded to order
+with the concentration of a hungry man.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive my dwelling so tensely on the bill-of-fare," he said, when
+the waiter had gone. "You don't know what it means to one in my
+condition to have to choose between <i>poulet en casserole</i> and kidneys
+<i>&agrave; la m&acirc;itre d'h&ocirc;tel</i>. A man's cross-roads!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill smiled happily across the table at him. She could hardly believe
+that this old friend with whom she had gone through the perils of the
+night and with whom she was now about to feast was the sinister figure
+that had cast a shadow on her childhood. He looked positively
+incapable of pulling a little girl's hair&mdash;as no doubt he was.</p>
+
+<p>"You always were greedy," she commented. "Just before I turned the
+hose on you, I remember you had made yourself thoroughly disliked by
+pocketing a piece of my birthday cake."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember that?" His eyes lit up and he smiled back at her. He
+had an ingratiating smile. His mouth was rather wide, and it seemed to
+stretch right across his face. He reminded Jill more than ever of a
+big, friendly dog. "I can feel it now&mdash;all squashy in my pocket,
+inextricably mingled with a catapult, a couple of marbles, a box of
+matches, and some string. I was quite the human general store in those
+days. Which reminds me that we have been some time settling down to an
+exchange of our childish reminiscences, haven't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've been trying to realize that you are Wally Mason. You have
+altered so."</p>
+
+<p>"For the better?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much for the better! You were a horrid little brute. You used to
+terrify me. I never knew when you were going to bound out at me from
+behind a tree or something. I remember your chasing me for miles,
+shrieking at the top of your voice!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sheer embarrassment! I told you just now how I used to worship you.
+If I shrieked a little, it was merely because I was shy. I did it to
+hide my devotion."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You certainly succeeded. I never even suspected it."</p>
+
+<p>Wally sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"How like life! I never told my love, but let concealment like a worm
+i' the bud...."</p>
+
+<p>"Talking of worms, you once put one down my back!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," said Wally in a shocked voice. "Not that! I was boisterous,
+perhaps, but surely always the gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"You did! In the shrubbery. There had been a thunderstorm and...."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember the incident now. A mere misunderstanding. I had done with
+the worm, and thought you might be glad to have it."</p>
+
+<p>"You were always doing things like that. Once you held me over the
+pond and threatened to drop me into the water&mdash;in the winter! Just
+before Christmas. It was a particularly mean thing to do, because I
+couldn't even kick your shins for fear you would let me fall. Luckily
+Uncle Chris came up and made you stop."</p>
+
+<p>"You considered that a fortunate occurrence, did you?" said Wally.
+"Well, perhaps from your point of view it may have been. I saw the
+thing from a different angle. Your uncle had a whangee with him. My
+friends sometimes wonder what I mean when I say that my old wound
+troubles me in frosty weather. By the way, how is your uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's very well. Just as lazy as ever. He's away at present, down
+at Brighton."</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't strike me as lazy," said Wally thoughtfully. "Dynamic would
+express it better. But perhaps I happened to encounter him in a moment
+of energy. Ah!" The waiter had returned with a loaded tray. "The food!
+Forgive me if I seem a little distrait for a moment or two. There is
+man's work before me!"</p>
+
+<p>"And later on, I suppose, you would like a chop or something to take
+away in your pocket?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will think it over. Possibly a little soup. My needs are very
+simple these days."</p>
+
+<p>Jill watched him with a growing sense of satisfaction. There was
+something boyishly engaging about this man. She felt at home with him.
+He affected her in much the same way as did Freddie Rooke. He was a
+definite addition to the things that went to make her happy.</p>
+
+<p>She liked him particularly for being such a good loser.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> She had
+always been a good loser herself, and the quality was one which she
+admired. It was nice of him to dismiss from his conversation&mdash;and
+apparently from his thoughts&mdash;that night's fiasco and all that it must
+have cost him. She wondered how much he had lost. Certainly something
+very substantial. Yet it seemed to trouble him not at all. Jill
+considered his behaviour gallant, and her heart warmed to him. This
+was how a man ought to take the slings and arrows of outrageous
+fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Wally sighed contentedly, and leaned back in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"An unpleasant exhibition!" he said apologetically. "But unavoidable.
+And, anyway, I take it that you prefer to have me well-fed and happy
+about the place than swooning on the floor with starvation. A
+wonderful thing, food! I am now ready to converse intelligently on any
+subject you care to suggest. I have eaten rose-leaves and am no more a
+golden ass, so to speak. What shall we talk about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no nobler topic. But what aspect of myself do you wish me to
+touch on? My thoughts, my tastes, my amusements, my career, or what? I
+can talk about myself for hours. My friends in New York often complain
+about it bitterly."</p>
+
+<p>"New York?" said Jill. "Oh, then you live in America?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I only came over here to see that darned false alarm of a play
+of mine put on."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you put it on in New York?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too many of the lads of the village know me over there. This was a
+new departure, you see. What the critics in those parts expect from me
+is something entitled 'Wow! Wow!' or 'The Girl from Yonkers.' It would
+have unsettled their minds to find me breaking out in poetic drama.
+They are men of coarse fibre and ribald mind and they would have been
+funny about it. I thought it wiser to come over here among strangers,
+little thinking that I should sit in the next seat to somebody I had
+known all my life."</p>
+
+<p>"But when did you go to America? And why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it must have been four&mdash;five&mdash;well, quite a number of years
+after the hose episode. Probably you didn't observe that I wasn't
+still around, but we crept silently out of the neighbourhood round
+about that time and went to live in London." His tone lost its
+lightness momentarily. "My<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> father died, you know, and that sort of
+broke things up. He didn't leave any too much money, either.
+Apparently we had been living on rather too expensive a scale during
+the time I knew you. At any rate, I was more or less up against it
+until your father got me a job in an office in New York."</p>
+
+<p>"My father!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It was wonderfully good of him to bother about me. I didn't
+suppose he would have known me by sight, and, even if he had
+remembered me, I shouldn't have imagined that the memory would have
+been a pleasant one. But he couldn't have taken more trouble if I had
+been a blood-relation."</p>
+
+<p>"That was just like father," said Jill softly.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a prince."</p>
+
+<p>"But you aren't in the office now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I found I had a knack of writing verses and things, and I wrote a
+few vaudeville songs. Then I came across a man named Bevan at a music
+publisher's. He was just starting to write music, and we got together
+and turned out some vaudeville sketches, and then a manager sent for
+us to fix up a show that was dying on the road and we had the good
+luck to turn it into a success, and after that it was pretty good
+going. George Bevan got married the other day. Lucky devil!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you married?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You were faithful to my memory?" said Jill with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I was."</p>
+
+<p>"It can't last," said Jill, shaking her head. "One of these days
+you'll meet some lovely American girl and then you'll put a worm down
+her back or pull her hair or whatever it is you do when you want to
+show your devotion, and.... What are you looking at? Is something
+interesting going on behind me?"</p>
+
+<p>He had been looking past her out into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing," he said. "Only there's a statuesque old lady about two
+tables back of you who has been staring at you, with intervals for
+refreshment, for the last five minutes. You seem to fascinate her."</p>
+
+<p>"An old lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. With a glare! She looks like Dunsany's Bird of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> the Difficult
+Eye. Count ten and turn carelessly round, There, at that table. Almost
+behind you."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Jill.</p>
+
+<p>She turned quickly round again.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter? Do you know her? Somebody you don't want to meet?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's Lady Underhill! And Derek's with her!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally had been lifting his glass. He put it down rather suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Derek?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Derek Underhill. The man I'm engaged to marry."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Wally thoughtfully. "The man you're engaged to marry? Yes,
+I see!"</p>
+
+<p>He raised his glass again, and drank its contents quickly.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>Jill looked at her companion anxiously. Recent events had caused her
+completely to forget the existence of Lady Underhill. She was always
+so intensely interested in what she happened to be doing at the moment
+that she often suffered these temporary lapses of memory. It occurred
+to her now&mdash;too late, as usual&mdash;that the Savoy Hotel was the last
+place in London where she should have come to supper with Wally. It
+was the hotel where Lady Underhill was staying. She frowned. Life had
+suddenly ceased to be careless and happy, and had become a
+problem-ridden thing, full of perplexity and misunderstandings.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I do?"</p>
+
+<p>Wally Mason started at the sound of her voice. He appeared to be deep
+in thoughts of his own.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon?"</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't be worried."</p>
+
+<p>"Derek will be awfully cross."</p>
+
+<p>Wally's good-humoured mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he said. "There's nothing wrong in your having supper with an
+old friend."</p>
+
+<p>"N-no," said Jill doubtfully. "But...."</p>
+
+<p>"Derek Underhill," said Wally reflectively. "Is that Sir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> Derek
+Underhill, whose name one's always seeing in the papers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Derek is in the papers a lot. He's an M.P. and all sorts of things."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-looking fellow. Ah, here's the coffee."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want any, thanks."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense. Why spoil your meal because of this? Do you smoke?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks."</p>
+
+<p>"Given it up, eh? Daresay you're wise. Stunts the growth and increases
+the expenses."</p>
+
+<p>"Given it up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you remember sharing one of your father's cigars with me behind
+the haystack in the meadow? We cut it in half. I finished my half, but
+I fancy about three puffs were enough for you. Those were happy days!"</p>
+
+<p>"That one wasn't! Of course I remember it now. I don't suppose I shall
+ever forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"The thing was my fault, as usual. I recollect I dared you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I always took a dare."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you still?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Wally knocked the ash off his cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said slowly, "suppose I were to dare you to get up and walk
+over to that table and look your fianc&eacute; in the eye and say, 'Stop
+scowling at my back hair! I've a perfect right to be supping with an
+old friend!'&mdash;would you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is he?" said Jill startled.</p>
+
+<p>"Scowling? Can't you feel it on the back of your head?" He drew
+thoughtfully at his cigarette. "If I were you I should stop that sort
+of thing at the source. It's a habit that can't be discouraged in a
+husband too early. Scowling is the civilized man's substitute for
+wife-beating."</p>
+
+<p>Jill moved uncomfortably in her chair. Her quick temper resented his
+tone. There was a hostility, a hardly veiled contempt in his voice
+which stung her. Derek was sacred. Whoever criticised him, presumed.
+Wally, a few minutes before a friend and an agreeable companion,
+seemed to her to have changed. He was once more the boy whom she had
+disliked in the old days. There was a gleam in her eyes which should
+have warned him, but he went on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I should imagine that this Derek of yours is not one of our leading
+sunbeams. Well, I suppose he could hardly be, if that's his mother and
+there is anything in heredity."</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't criticise Derek," said Jill coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"I was only saying...."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. I don't like it."</p>
+
+<p>A slow flush crept over Wally's face. He made no reply, and there fell
+between them a silence that was like a shadow, Jill sipped her coffee
+miserably. She was regretting that little spurt of temper. She wished
+she could have recalled the words. Not that it was the actual words
+that had torn asunder this gossamer thing, the friendship which they
+had begun to weave like some fragile web: it was her manner, the
+manner of the princess rebuking an underling. She knew that, if she
+had struck him, she could not have offended Wally more deeply. There
+are some men whose ebullient natures enable them to rise unscathed
+from the worst snub. Wally, her intuition told her, was not that kind
+of man.</p>
+
+<p>There was only one way of mending the matter. In these clashes of
+human temperaments, these sudden storms that spring up out of a clear
+sky, it is possible sometimes to repair the damage, if the
+psychological moment is resolutely seized, by talking rapidly and with
+detachment on neutral topics. Words have made the rift, and words
+alone can bridge it. But neither Jill nor her companion could find
+words, and the silence lengthened grimly. When Wally spoke, it was in
+the level tones of a polite stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"Your friends have gone."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was the voice in which, when she went on railway journeys,
+fellow-travellers in the carriage enquired of Jill if she would prefer
+the window up or down. It had the effect of killing her regrets and
+feeding her resentment. She was a girl who never refused a challenge,
+and she set herself to be as frigidly polite and aloof as he.</p>
+
+<p>"Really?" she said. "When did they leave?"</p>
+
+<p>"A moment ago." The lights gave the warning flicker that announces the
+arrival of the hour of closing. In the momentary darkness they both
+rose. Wally scrawled his name across the bill which the waiter had
+insinuated upon his attention. "I suppose we had better be moving?"</p>
+
+<p>They crossed the room in silence. Everybody was moving in the same
+direction. The broad stairway leading to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> lobby was crowded with
+chattering supper-parties. The light had gone up again.</p>
+
+<p>At the cloak-room Wally stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"I see Underhill waiting up there," he said casually. "To take you
+home, I suppose. Shall we say good-night? I'm staying in the hotel."</p>
+
+<p>Jill glanced towards the head of the stairs. Derek was there. He was
+alone. Lady Underhill presumably had gone up to her room in the
+elevator.</p>
+
+<p>Wally was holding out his hand. His face was stolid and his eyes
+avoided hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>She felt curiously embarrassed. At this last moment hostility had
+weakened, and she was conscious of a desire to make amends. She and
+this man had been through much together that night, much that was
+perilous and much that was pleasant. A sudden feeling of remorse came
+over her.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll come and see us, won't you?" she said a little wistfully. "I'm
+sure my uncle would like to meet you again."</p>
+
+<p>"It's very good of you," said Wally, "but I'm afraid I shall be going
+back to America at any moment now."</p>
+
+<p>Pique, that ally of the devil, regained its slipping grip upon Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh? I'm sorry," she said indifferently. "Well, good-bye, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you have a pleasant voyage."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks."</p>
+
+<p>He turned into the cloak-room, and Jill went up the stairs to join
+Derek. She felt angry and depressed, full of a sense of the futility
+of things. People flashed into one's life and out again. Where was the
+sense of it?</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+<p>Derek had been scowling, and Derek still scowled. His eyebrows were
+formidable, and his mouth smiled no welcome at Jill as she approached
+him. The evening, portions of which Jill had found so enjoyable, had
+contained no pleasant portions for Derek. Looking back over a lifetime
+whose events had been almost uniformly agreeable, he told himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+that he could not recall another day which had gone so completely
+awry. It had started with the fog. He hated fog. Then had come that
+meeting with his mother at Charing Cross, which had been enough to
+upset him by itself. After that, rising to a crescendo of
+unpleasantness, the day had provided that appalling situation at the
+Albany, the recollection of which still made him tingle; and there had
+followed the silent dinner, the boredom of the early part of the play,
+the fire at the theatre, the undignified scramble for the exits, and
+now this discovery of the girl whom he was engaged to marry supping at
+the Savoy with a fellow he didn't remember ever having seen in his
+life. All these things combined to induce in Derek a mood bordering on
+ferocity. His birth and income combining to make him one of the
+spoiled children of the world, had fitted him ill for such a series of
+catastrophes. He received Jill with frozen silence and led her out to
+the waiting taxi-cab. It was only when the cab had started on its
+journey that he found relief in speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, mastering with difficulty an inclination to raise his
+voice to a shout, "perhaps you will kindly explain?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill had sunk back against the cushions of the cab. The touch of his
+body against hers always gave her a thrill, half pleasurable, half
+frightening. She had never met anybody who affected her in this way as
+Derek did. She moved a little closer, and felt for his hand. But, as
+she touched it, it retreated&mdash;coldly. Her heart sank. It was like
+being cut in public by somebody very dignified.</p>
+
+<p>"Derek, darling!" Her lips trembled. Others had seen this side of
+Derek Underhill frequently, for he was a man who believed in keeping
+the world in its place, but she never. To her he had always been the
+perfect, gracious knight. A little too perfect, perhaps, a trifle too
+gracious, possibly, but she had been too deeply in love to notice
+that. "Don't be cross!"</p>
+
+<p>The English language is the richest in the world, and yet somehow in
+moments when words count most we generally choose the wrong ones. The
+adjective "cross" as a description of his Jove-like wrath that
+consumed his whole being jarred upon Derek profoundly. It was as
+though Prometheus, with the vultures tearing his liver, had been asked
+if he were piqued.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Cross!"</p>
+
+<p>The cab rolled on. Lights from lamp-posts flashed in at windows. It
+was a pale, anxious little face that they lit up when they shone upon
+Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand you," said Derek at last. Jill noticed that he had
+not yet addressed her by her name. He was speaking straight out in
+front of him as if he were soliloquising. "I simply cannot understand
+you. After what happened before dinner to-night, for you to cap
+everything by going off alone to supper at a restaurant, where half
+the people in the room must have known you, with a man...."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly! I said I did not understand." The feeling of having scored a
+point made Derek feel a little better. "I admit it. Your behaviour is
+incomprehensible. Where did you meet this fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I met him at the theatre. He was the author of the play."</p>
+
+<p>"The man you told me you had been talking to? The fellow who scraped
+acquaintance with you between the acts?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I found out he was an old friend. I mean, I knew him when I was a
+child."</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't tell me that."</p>
+
+<p>"I only found it out later."</p>
+
+<p>"After he had invited you to supper! It's maddening!" cried Derek, the
+sense of his wrongs surging back over him. "What do you suppose my
+mother thought? She asked me who the man with you was. I had to say I
+didn't know! What do you suppose she thought?"</p>
+
+<p>It is to be doubted whether anything else in the world could have
+restored the fighting spirit to Jill's cowering soul at that moment;
+but the reference to Lady Underhill achieved this miracle. That deep
+mutual antipathy which is so much more common than love at first sight
+had sprung up between the two at the instant of their meeting. The
+circumstances of that meeting had caused it to take root and grow. To
+Jill, Derek's mother was by this time not so much a fellow human being
+whom she disliked as a something, a sort of force, that made for her
+unhappiness. She was a menace and a loathing.</p>
+
+<p>"If your mother had asked me that question," she retorted with spirit,
+"I should have told her that he was the man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> who got me safely out of
+the theatre after you...." She checked herself. She did not want to
+say the unforgivable thing. "You see," she said more quietly, "you had
+disappeared...."</p>
+
+<p>"My mother is an old woman," said Derek stiffly. "Naturally I had to
+look after her. I called to you to follow."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I understand. I'm simply trying to explain what happened. I was
+there all alone, and Wally Mason...."</p>
+
+<p>"Wally!" Derek uttered a short laugh, almost a bark. "It got to
+Christian names, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill set her teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you I knew him as a child. I always called him Wally then."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon. I had forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>"He got me out through the pass-door on to the stage and through the
+stage-door."</p>
+
+<p>Derek was feeling cheated. He had the uncomfortable sensation that
+comes to men who grandly contemplate mountains and see them dwindle to
+molehills. The apparently outrageous had shown itself in explanation
+nothing so out-of-the-way after all. He seized upon the single point
+in Jill's behaviour that still constituted a grievance.</p>
+
+<p>"There was no need for you to go to supper with the man!" Jove-like
+wrath had ebbed away to something deplorably like a querulous grumble.
+"You should have gone straight home. You must have known how anxious I
+would be about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, really, Derek, dear! You didn't seem so very anxious! You were
+having supper yourself quite cosily."</p>
+
+<p>The human mind is curiously constituted. It is worthy of record that,
+despite his mother's obvious disapproval of his engagement, despite
+all the occurrences of this dreadful day, it was not till she made
+this remark that Derek Underhill first admitted to himself that,
+intoxicate his senses as she might, there was a possibility that Jill
+Mariner was not the ideal wife for him. The idea came and went more
+quickly than breath upon a mirror. It passed, but it had been. There
+are men who fear repartee in a wife more keenly than a sword. Derek
+was one of these. Like most men of single outlook, whose dignity is
+their most precious possession, he winced from an edged tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was greatly upset," he replied coldly. "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> thought a cup of
+soup would do her good. And, as for being anxious about you, I
+telephoned to your home to ask if you had come in."</p>
+
+<p>"And when," thought Jill, "they told you I hadn't, you went off to
+supper!"</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak the words. If she had an edged tongue, she had also
+the control of it. She had no wish to wound Derek. Whole-hearted in
+everything she did, she loved him with her whole heart. There might be
+specks upon her idol&mdash;that its feet might be clay she could never
+believe&mdash;but they mattered nothing. She loved him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so sorry, dear," she said. "So awfully sorry! I've been a bad
+girl, haven't I?"</p>
+
+<p>She felt for his hand again, and this time he allowed it to remain
+stiffly in her grasp. It was like being grudgingly recognized by
+somebody very dignified who had his doubts about you but reserved
+judgment.</p>
+
+<p>The cab drew up at the door of the house in Ovingdon Square which
+Jill's Uncle Christopher had settled upon as a suitable address for a
+gentleman of his standing. Jill put up her face to be kissed, like a
+penitent child.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never be naughty again!"</p>
+
+<p>For a flickering instant Derek hesitated. The drive, long as it was,
+had been too short wholly to restore his equanimity. Then the sense of
+her nearness, her sweetness, the faint perfume of her hair, and her
+eyes, shining softly in the darkness so close to his own, overcame
+him. He crushed her to him.</p>
+
+<p>Jill disappeared into the house with a happy laugh. It had been a
+terrible day, but it had ended well.</p>
+
+<p>"The Albany," said Derek to the cabman.</p>
+
+<p>He leaned back against the cushions. His senses were in a whirl. The
+cab rolled on. Presently his exalted mood vanished as quickly as it
+had come. Jill absent always affected him differently from Jill
+present. He was not a man of strong imagination, and the stimulus of
+her waned when she was not with him. Long before the cab reached the
+Albany the frown was back on his face.</p>
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+<p>Arriving at the Albany, he found Freddie Rooke lying on his spine in a
+deep arm-chair. His slippered feet were on the mantelpiece, and he was
+restoring his wasted tissues<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> with a strong whisky-and-soda. One of
+the cigars which Barker, the valet, had stamped with the seal of his
+approval was in the corner of his mouth. The <i>Sporting Times</i>, with a
+perusal of which he had been soothing his fluttered nerves, had fallen
+on the floor beside the chair. He had finished reading, and was now
+gazing peacefully at the ceiling, his mind a perfect blank. There was
+nothing the matter with Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, old thing," he observed as Derek entered. "So you buzzed out
+of the fiery furnace all right? I was wondering how you had got along.
+How are you feeling? I'm not the man I was! These things get the old
+system all stirred up! I'll do anything in reason to oblige and help
+things along and all that, but to be called on at a moment's notice to
+play Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego rolled into one, without
+rehearsal or make-up, is a bit too thick! No, young feller-me-lad! If
+theatre fires are going to be the fashion this season, the Last of the
+Rookes will sit quietly at home and play solitaire. Mix yourself a
+drink of something, old man, or something of that kind. By the way,
+your jolly old mater. All right? Not even singed? Fine! Make a long
+arm and gather in a cigar."</p>
+
+<p>And Freddie, having exerted himself to play the host in a suitable
+manner, wedged himself more firmly into his chair and blew a cloud of
+smoke.</p>
+
+<p>Derek sat down. He lit a cigar, and stared silently at the fire. From
+the mantelpiece Jill's photograph smiled down, but he did not look at
+it. Presently his attitude began to weigh upon Freddie. Freddie had
+had a trying evening What he wanted just now was merry prattle, and
+his friend did not seem disposed to contribute his share. He removed
+his feet from the mantelpiece and wriggled himself sideways, so that
+he could see Derek's face. Its gloom touched him. Apart from his
+admiration for Derek, he was a warmhearted young man, and sympathized
+with affliction when it presented itself for his notice.</p>
+
+<p>"Something on your mind, old bean?" he enquired delicately.</p>
+
+<p>Derek did not answer for a moment. Then he reflected that, little as
+he esteemed the other's mentality, he and Freddie had known each other
+a long time, and that it would be a relief to confide in some one. And
+Freddie, moreover,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> was an old friend of Jill and the man who had
+introduced him to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm listening, old top," said Freddie. "Release the film."</p>
+
+<p>Derek drew at his cigar, and watched the smoke as it curled to the
+ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>"It's about Jill."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie signified his interest by wriggling still further sideways.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie, she's so damned impulsive!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie nearly rolled out of his chair. This, he took it, was what
+writing-chappies called a coincidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Rummy you should say that," he ejaculated. "I was telling her exactly
+the same thing myself only this evening." He hesitated. "I fancy I can
+see what you're driving at, old thing. The watchword is 'What ho, the
+mater!' yes, no? You've begun to get a sort of idea that if Jill
+doesn't watch her step, she's apt to sink pretty low in the betting,
+what? I know exactly what you mean! You and I know all right that
+Jill's a topper. But one can see that to your mater she might seem a
+bit different. I mean to say, your jolly old mater only judging by
+first impressions, and the meeting not having come off quite as
+scheduled.... I say, old man," he broke off, "fearfully sorry and all
+that about that business. You know what I mean! Wouldn't have had it
+happen for the world. I take it the mater was a trifle peeved? Not to
+say perturbed and chagrined? I seemed to notice it at dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"She was furious, of course. She did not refer to the matter when we
+were alone together, but there was no need to. I knew what she was
+thinking."</p>
+
+<p>Derek threw away his cigar. Freddie noted this evidence of an
+overwrought soul with concern.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole thing," he conceded, "was a bit unfortunate."</p>
+
+<p>Derek began to pace the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie."</p>
+
+<p>"On the spot, old man."</p>
+
+<p>"Something's got to be done."</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely!" Freddie nodded solemnly. He had taken this matter
+greatly to heart. Derek was his best friend, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> he had always been
+extremely fond of Jill. It hurt him to see things going wrong. "I'll
+tell you what, old bean. Let <i>me</i> handle this binge for you."</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me! The Final Rooke!" He jumped up, and leaned against the
+mantelpiece. "I'm the lad to do it. I've known Jill for years. She'll
+listen to me. I'll talk to her like a Dutch uncle and make her
+understand the general scheme of things. I'll take her out to tea
+to-morrow and slang her in no uncertain voice! Leave the whole thing
+to <i>me</i>, laddie!"</p>
+
+<p>Derek considered.</p>
+
+<p>"It might do some good," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Good?" said Freddie. "It's <i>it</i>, dear boy! It's a wheeze! You toddle
+off to bed and have a good sleep. I'll fix the whole thing for you!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>LADY UNDERHILL RECEIVES A SHOCK</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>There are streets in London into which the sun seems never to
+penetrate. Some of these are in fashionable quarters, and it is to be
+supposed that their inhabitants find an address which looks well on
+note-paper a sufficient compensation for the gloom that goes with it.
+The majority, however, are in the mean neighbourhoods of the great
+railway termini, and appear to offer no compensation whatever. They
+are lean, furtive streets, grey as the January sky with a sort of
+arrested decay. They smell of cabbage and are much prowled over by
+vagrom cats. At night they are empty and dark, and a stillness broods
+on them, broken only by the cracked tingle of an occasional piano
+playing one of the easier hymns, a form of music to which the dwellers
+in the dingy houses are greatly addicted. By day they achieve a
+certain animation through the intermittent appearance of women in
+aprons, who shake rugs out of the front doors or, emerging from areas,
+go down to the public-house on the corner with jugs to fetch the
+supper-beer. In almost every ground-floor window there is a card
+announcing that furnished lodgings may be had within. You will find
+these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> streets by the score if you leave the main thoroughfares and
+take a short cut on your way to Euston, to Paddington, or to Waterloo.
+But the dingiest and deadliest and most depressing lie round about
+Victoria. And Daubeny Street, Pimlico, is one of the worst of them
+all.</p>
+
+<p>On the afternoon following the events recorded, a girl was dressing in
+the ground-floor room of Number Nine, Daubeny Street. A tray bearing
+the remains of a late breakfast stood on the rickety table beside a
+bowl of wax flowers. From beneath the table peered the green cover of
+a copy of <i>Variety</i>. A grey parrot in a cage by the window cracked
+seed and looked out into the room with a satirical eye. He had seen
+all this so many times before&mdash;Nelly Bryant arraying herself in her
+smartest clothes to go out and besiege agents in their offices off the
+Strand. It happened every day. In an hour or two she would come back
+as usual, say "Oh, Gee!" in a tired sort of voice, and then Bill the
+parrot's day proper would begin. He was a bird who liked the sound of
+his own voice, and he never got the chance of a really sustained
+conversation till Nelly returned in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>"Who cares?" said Bill, and cracked another seed.</p>
+
+<p>If rooms are an indication of the characters of their occupants, Nelly
+Bryant came well out of the test of her surroundings. Nothing can make
+a London furnished room much less horrible than it intends to be, but
+Nelly had done her best. The furniture, what there was of it, was of
+that lodging-house kind which resembles nothing else in the world. But
+a few little touches here and there, a few instinctively tasteful
+alterations in the general scheme of things, had given the room almost
+a cosy air. Later on, with the gas lit, it would achieve something
+approaching homeliness. Nelly, like many another nomad, had taught
+herself to accomplish a good deal with poor material. On tour in
+America, she had sometimes made even a bedroom in a small hotel
+tolerably comfortable, than which there is no greater achievement.
+Oddly, considering her life, she had a genius for domesticity.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, not for the first time, Nelly was feeling unhappy. The face
+that looked back at her out of the mirror at which she was arranging
+her most becoming hat was weary. It was only a moderately pretty face,
+but loneliness and underfeeding had given it a wistful expression that
+had charm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> Unfortunately, it was not the sort of charm which made a
+great appeal to the stout, whisky-nourished men who sat behind
+paper-littered tables, smoking cigars, in the rooms marked "Private"
+in the offices of theatrical agents. Nelly had been out of a "shop"
+now for many weeks&mdash;ever since, in fact, "Follow the Girl" had
+finished its long run at the Regal Theatre.</p>
+
+<p>"Follow the Girl," an American musical comedy, had come over from New
+York with an American company, of which Nelly had been a humble unit,
+and, after playing a year in London and some weeks in the number one
+towns, had returned to New York. It did not cheer Nelly up in the long
+evenings in Daubeny Street to reflect that, if she had wished, she
+could have gone home with the rest of the company. A mad impulse had
+seized her to try her luck in London, and here she was now, marooned.</p>
+
+<p>"Who cares?" said Bill.</p>
+
+<p>For a bird who enjoyed talking he was a little limited in his remarks
+and apt to repeat himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I do, you poor fish!" said Nelly, completing her man&oelig;uvres with
+the hat and turning to the cage. "It's all right for you&mdash;you have a
+swell time with nothing to do but sit there and eat seed&mdash;but how do
+you suppose I enjoy tramping around looking for work and never finding
+any?"</p>
+
+<p>She picked up her gloves. "Oh, well!" she said. "Wish me luck!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, boy!" said the parrot, clinging to the bars.</p>
+
+<p>Nelly thrust a finger into the cage, and scratched his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Anxious to get rid of me, aren't you? Well, so long."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I'm going. Be good!"</p>
+
+<p>"Woof-woof-woof!" barked Bill the parrot, not committing himself to
+any promises.</p>
+
+<p>For some moments after Nelly had gone he remained hunched on his
+perch, contemplating the infinite. Then he sauntered along to the
+seed-box and took some more light nourishment. He always liked to
+spread his meals out, to make them last longer. A drink of water to
+wash the food down, and he returned to the middle of the cage, where
+he proceeded to conduct a few intimate researches with his beak under
+his left wing. After which he mewed like a cat, and relapsed into
+silent meditation once more. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> closed his eyes and pondered on his
+favourite problem&mdash;Why was he a parrot? This was always good for an
+hour or so, and it was three o'clock before he had come to his
+customary decision that he didn't know. Then, exhausted by brain-work
+and feeling a trifle hipped by the silence of the room, he looked
+about him for some way of jazzing existence up a little. It occurred
+to him that if he barked again it might help.</p>
+
+<p>"Woof-woof-woof!"</p>
+
+<p>Good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. It was not real
+excitement. Something rather more dashing seemed to him to be
+indicated. He hammered for a moment or two on the floor of his cage,
+ate a mouthful of the newspaper there, and stood with his head on one
+side, chewing thoughtfully. It didn't taste as good as usual. He
+suspected Nelly of having changed his <i>Daily Mail</i> for the <i>Daily
+Express</i> or something. He swallowed the piece of paper, and was struck
+by the thought that a little climbing exercise might be what his soul
+demanded. (You hang on by your beak and claws and work your way up to
+the roof. It sounds tame, but it's something to do.) He tried it. And,
+as he gripped the door of the cage it swung open. Bill the parrot now
+perceived that this was going to be one of those days. He had not had
+a bit of luck like this for months.</p>
+
+<p>For a while he sat regarding the open door. Unless excited by outside
+influences, he never did anything in a hurry. Then proceeding
+cautiously, he passed out into the room. He had been out there before,
+but always chaperoned by Nelly. This was something quite different. It
+was an adventure. He hopped on to the window-sill. There was a ball of
+yellow wool there, but he had lunched and could eat nothing. He cast
+around in his mind for something to occupy him, and perceived suddenly
+that the world was larger than he had supposed. Apparently there was a
+lot of it outside the room. How long this had been going on he did not
+know, but obviously it was a thing to be investigated. The window was
+open at the bottom, and just outside the window were what he took to
+be the bars of another and larger cage. As a matter of fact they were
+the railings which afforded a modest protection to Number Nine. They
+ran the length of the house, and were much used by small boys as a
+means of rattling sticks. One of these stick-rattlers passed as Bill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+stood there looking down. The noise startled him for a moment, then he
+seemed to come to the conclusion that this sort of thing was to be
+expected if you went out into the great world and that a parrot who
+intended to see life must not allow himself to be deterred by trifles.
+He crooned a little, and finally, stepping in a stately way over the
+window-sill, with his toes turned in at right angles, caught at the
+top of the railing with his beak, and proceeded to lower himself.
+Arrived at the level of the street, he stood looking out.</p>
+
+<p>A dog trotted up, spied him, and came to sniff.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, boy!" said Bill chattily.</p>
+
+<p>The dog was taken aback. Hitherto, in his limited experience, birds
+had been birds and men men. Here was a blend of the two. What was to
+be done about it? He barked tentatively, then, finding that nothing
+disastrous ensued, pushed his nose between two of the bars and barked
+again. Any one who knew Bill could have told him that he was asking
+for it, and he got it. Bill leaned forward and nipped his nose. The
+dog started back with a howl of agony. He was learning something new
+every minute.</p>
+
+<p>"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill sardonically.</p>
+
+<p>He perceived trousered legs, four of them, and, cocking his eye
+upwards, saw that two men of the lower orders stood before him. They
+were gazing down at him in the stolid manner peculiar to the
+proletariat of London in the presence of the unusual. For some minutes
+they stood drinking him in, then one of them gave judgment.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a parrot!" He removed a pipe from his mouth and pointed with the
+stem. "A perishin' parrot, Erb."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Erb, a man of few words.</p>
+
+<p>"A parrot," proceeded the other. He was seeing clearer into the matter
+every moment. "That's a parrot, that is Erb. My brother Joe's wife's
+sister had one of 'em. Come from abroad, <i>they</i> do. My brother Joe's
+wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. Red-'aired gel she was. Married a feller
+down at the Docks <i>She</i> 'ad one of 'em. Parrots they're called."</p>
+
+<p>He bent down for a closer inspection, and inserted a finger through
+the railings. Erb abandoned his customary taciturnity and spoke words
+of warning.</p>
+
+<p>"Tike care 'e don't sting yer, 'Enry!"</p>
+
+<p>Henry seemed wounded.</p>
+
+<p>"Woddyer mean, sting me? I know all abart parrots, I do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> My brother
+Joe's wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. They don't 'urt yer, not if you're
+kind to 'em. You know yer pals when you see 'em, don't yer, mate?" he
+went on, addressing Bill, who was contemplating the finger with one
+half-closed eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, boy," said the parrot, evading the point.</p>
+
+<p>"Jear that?" cried Henry delightedly. "'Goo'-bye, boy!' 'Uman they
+are!"</p>
+
+<p>"'E'll 'ave a piece out of yer finger," warned Erb the suspicious.</p>
+
+<p>"Wot, 'im?" Henry's voice was indignant. He seemed to think that his
+reputation as an expert on parrots had been challenged. "'E wouldn't
+'ave no piece out of my finger."</p>
+
+<p>"Bet yer a narf-pint 'e would 'ave a piece out of yer finger,"
+persisted the sceptic.</p>
+
+<p>"No blinkin' parrot's goin' to 'ave no piece of no finger of mine! My
+brother Joe's wife's sister's parrot never 'ad no piece out of no
+finger of mine!" He extended the finger further and waggled it
+enticingly beneath Bill's beak. "Cheerio, matey!" he said winningly.
+"Polly want a nut?"</p>
+
+<p>Whether it was mere indolence or whether the advertised docility of
+that other parrot belonging to Henry's brother's wife's sister had
+caused him to realize that there was a certain standard of good
+conduct for his species one cannot say; but for a while Bill merely
+contemplated temptation with a detached eye.</p>
+
+<p>"See!" said Henry.</p>
+
+<p>"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Wow-Wow-Wow</i>!" yapped the dog, suddenly returning to the scene and
+going on with the argument at the point where he had left off.</p>
+
+<p>The effect on Bill was catastrophic. Ever a high-strung bird, he lost
+completely the repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere and the
+better order of parrot. His nerves were shocked, and, as always under
+such conditions, his impulse was to bite blindly. He bit, and
+Henry&mdash;one feels sorry for Henry: he was a well-meaning man&mdash;leaped
+back with a loud howl.</p>
+
+<p>"'That'll be 'arf a pint," said Erb, always the business man.</p>
+
+<p>There was a lull in the rapid action. The dog, mumbling softly to
+himself, had moved away again and was watching affairs from the edge
+of the sidewalk. Erb, having won his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> point, was silent once more.
+Henry sucked his finger. Bill, having met the world squarely and shown
+it what was what, stood where he was, whistling nonchalantly.</p>
+
+<p>Henry removed his finger from his mouth. "Lend the loan of that stick
+of yours, Erb," he said tensely.</p>
+
+<p>Erb silently yielded up the stout stick which was his inseparable
+companion. Henry, a vastly different man from the genial saunterer of
+a moment ago, poked wildly through the railings. Bill, panic-stricken
+now and wishing for nothing better than to be back in his cosy cage,
+shrieked loudly for help. And Freddie Rooke, running round the corner
+with Jill, stopped dead and turned pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" said Freddie.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>In pursuance of his overnight promise to Derek, Freddie Rooke had got
+in touch with Jill through the medium of the telephone immediately
+after breakfast, and had arranged to call at Ovingdon Square in the
+afternoon. Arrived there, he found Jill with a telegram in her hand.
+Her Uncle Christopher, who had been enjoying a breath of sea-air down
+at Brighton, was returning by an afternoon train, and Jill had
+suggested that Freddie should accompany her to Victoria, pick up Uncle
+Chris, and escort him home. Freddie, whose idea had been a
+<i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i> involving a brotherly lecture on impetuosity, had
+demurred but had given way in the end; and they had set out to walk to
+Victoria together. Their way had lain through Daubeny Street, and they
+turned the corner just as the brutal onslaught on the innocent Henry
+had occurred. Bill's shrieks, which were of an appalling timbre,
+brought them to a halt.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" cried Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds like a murder!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, you know. This is the sort of street chappies are
+murdering people in all the time."</p>
+
+<p>They caught sight of the group in front of them, and were reassured.
+Nobody could possibly be looking so aloof and distrait as Erb if there
+were a murder going on.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bird!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a jolly old parrot. See it? Just inside the railings."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A red-hot wave of rage swept over Jill. Whatever her defects&mdash;and
+already this story has shown her far from perfect&mdash;she had the
+excellent quality of loving animals and blazing into fury when she saw
+them ill-treated. At least three draymen were going about London with
+burning ears as the result of what she had said to them on discovering
+them abusing their patient horses. Zoologically, Bill the parrot was
+not an animal, but he counted as one with Jill, and she sped down
+Daubeny Street to his rescue&mdash;Freddie, spatted and hatted and
+trousered as became the man of fashion, following disconsolately,
+ruefully aware that he did not look his best sprinting like that. But
+Jill was cutting out a warm pace, and he held his hat on with one
+neatly-gloved hand and did what he could to keep up.</p>
+
+<p>Jill reached the scene of battle, and, stopping, eyed Henry with a
+baleful glare. We, who have seen Henry in his calmer moments and know
+him for the good fellow he was, are aware that he was more sinned
+against than sinning. If there is any spirit of justice in us, we are
+pro-Henry. In his encounter with Bill the parrot, Henry undoubtedly
+had right on his side. His friendly overtures, made in the best spirit
+of kindliness, had been repulsed. He had been severely bitten. And he
+had lost half a pint of beer to Erb. As impartial judges we have no
+other course before us than to wish Henry luck and bid him go to it.
+But Jill, who had not seen the opening stages of the affair, thought
+far otherwise. She merely saw in Henry a great brute of a man poking
+at a defenceless bird with a stick.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to Freddie, who had come up at a gallop and was wondering
+why the deuce this sort of thing happened to him out of a city of six
+millions.</p>
+
+<p>"Make him stop, Freddie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say, you know, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you see he's hurting the poor thing? Make him leave off!
+Brute!" she added to Henry (for whom one's heart bleeds), as he jabbed
+once again at his adversary.</p>
+
+<p>Freddie stepped reluctantly up to Henry, and tapped him on the
+shoulder. Freddie was one of those men who have a rooted idea that a
+conversation of this sort can only be begun by a tap on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"'Look here, you know, you can't do this sort of thing, you know!"
+said Freddie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Henry raised a scarlet face.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oo are <i>you</i>?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>This attack from the rear, coming on top of his other troubles, tried
+his restraint sorely.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;" Freddie hesitated. It seemed silly to offer the fellow one of
+his cards. "Well, as a matter of fact, my name's Rooke...."</p>
+
+<p>"And who," pursued Henry, "arsked <i>you</i> to come shoving your ugly mug
+in 'ere?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you put it that way...."</p>
+
+<p>"'E comes messing abart," said Henry complainingly, addressing the
+universe, "and interfering in what don't concern 'im and mucking
+around and interfering and messing abart.... Why," he broke off in a
+sudden burst of eloquence, "I could eat two of you for a relish wiv me
+tea, even if you '<i>ave</i> got white spats!"</p>
+
+<p>Here Erb, who had contributed nothing to the conversation, remarked
+"Ah!" and expectorated on the sidewalk. The point, one gathers, seemed
+to Erb well taken. A neat thrust, was Erb's verdict.</p>
+
+<p>"Just because you've got white spats," proceeded Henry, on whose
+sensitive mind these adjuncts of the costume of the well-dressed man
+about town seemed to have made a deep and unfavourable impression,
+"you think you can come mucking around and messing abart and
+interfering and mucking around. This bird's bit me in the finger, and
+'ere's the finger, if you don't believe me&mdash;and I'm going to twist 'is
+ruddy neck, if all the perishers with white spats in London come
+messing abart and mucking around, so you take them white spats of
+yours 'ome and give 'em to the old woman to cook for your Sunday
+dinner!"</p>
+
+<p>And Henry, having cleansed his stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
+which weighs upon the heart, shoved the stick energetically once more
+through the railings.</p>
+
+<p>Jill darted forward. Always a girl who believed that, if you want a
+thing well done, you must do it yourself, she had applied to Freddie
+for assistance merely as a matter of form. All the time she had felt
+that Freddie was a broken reed, and such he had proved himself.
+Freddie's policy in this affair was obviously to rely on the magic of
+speech, and any magic his speech might have had was manifestly offset
+by the fact that he was wearing white spats and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> Henry,
+apparently, belonged to some sort of league or society which had for
+its main object the discouragement of white spats. It was plainly no
+good leaving the conduct of the campaign to Freddie. Whatever was to
+be done must be done by herself. She seized the stick and wrenched it
+out of Henry's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill the parrot.</p>
+
+<p>No dispassionate auditor could have failed to detect the nasty ring of
+sarcasm. It stung Henry. He was not normally a man who believed in
+violence to the gentler sex outside a clump on the head of his missus
+when the occasion seemed to demand it; but now he threw away the
+guiding principles of a lifetime and turned on Jill like a tiger.</p>
+
+<p>"Gimme that stick!"</p>
+
+<p>"Get back!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here, I say, you know!" said Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, now thoroughly overwrought, made a rush at Jill; and Jill, who
+had a straight eye, hit him accurately on the side of the head.</p>
+
+<p>"Goo!" said Henry, and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>And then, from behind Jill, a voice spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"What's all this?"</p>
+
+<p>A stout policeman had manifested himself from empty space.</p>
+
+<p>"This won't do!" said the policeman.</p>
+
+<p>Erb, who had been a silent spectator of the fray, burst into speech.</p>
+
+<p>"She 'it 'im!"</p>
+
+<p>The policeman looked at Jill. He was an officer of many years' experience
+in the Force, and time had dulled in him that respect for good clothes
+which he had brought with him from Little-Sudbury-in-the-Wold in the days
+of his novitiate. Jill was well dressed, but, in the stirring epoch of the
+Suffrage disturbances, the policeman had been kicked on the shins and even
+bitten by ladies of an equally elegant exterior. Hearts, the policeman
+knew, just as pure and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the lowlier
+air of Seven Dials, but you have to pinch them just the same when they
+disturb the peace. His gaze, as it fell upon Jill, red-handed as it were
+with the stick still in her grasp, was stern.</p>
+
+<p>"Your name, please, and address, miss?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>A girl in blue with a big hat had come up, and was standing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> staring
+open-mouthed at the group. At the sight of her Bill the parrot uttered
+a shriek of welcome. Nelly Bryant had returned, and everything would
+now be all right again.</p>
+
+<p>"Mariner," said Jill, pale and bright-eyed. "I live at Number
+Twenty-two, Ovingdon Square."</p>
+
+<p>"And yours, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mine? Oh, ah, yes. I see what you mean. Rooke, you know. F. L. Rooke.
+I live at the Albany and all that sort of thing."</p>
+
+<p>The policeman made an entry in his note-book.</p>
+
+<p>"Officer," cried Jill, "this man was trying to kill that parrot and I
+stopped him...."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't help that, miss. You 'adn't no right to hit a man with a stick.
+You'll 'ave to come along."</p>
+
+<p>"But, I say, you know!" Freddie was appalled. This sort of thing had
+happened to him before, but only on Boat-Race Night at the Empire,
+where it was expected of a chappie. "I mean to say!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you, too, sir. You're both in it."</p>
+
+<p>"But...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come along, Freddie," said Jill quietly. "It's perfectly absurd,
+but it's no use making a fuss."</p>
+
+<p>"That," said the policeman cordially, "is the right spirit!"</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+<p>Lady Underhill paused for breath. She had been talking long and
+vehemently. She and Derek were sitting in Freddie Rooke's apartment at
+the Albany, and the subject of her monologue was Jill. Derek had been
+expecting the attack, and had wondered why it had not come before. All
+through supper on the previous night, even after the discovery that
+Jill was supping at a near-by table with a man who was a stranger to
+her son, Lady Underhill had preserved a grim reticence with regard to
+her future daughter-in-law. But to-day she had spoken her mind with
+all the energy which comes of suppression. She had relieved herself
+with a flow of words of all the pent-up hostility that had been
+growing within her since that first meeting in this same room. She had
+talked rapidly, for she was talking against time. The Town Council of
+the principal city in Derek's constituency in the north of England had
+decided that to-morrow morning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> should witness the laying of the
+foundation stone of their new Town Hall, and Derek as the sitting
+member was to preside at the celebration. Already Barker had been
+dispatched to telephone for a cab to take him to the station, and at
+any moment their conversation might be interrupted. So Lady Underhill
+made the most of what little time she had.</p>
+
+<p>Derek listened gloomily, scarcely rousing himself to reply. His mother
+would have been gratified could she have known how powerfully her
+arguments were working on him. That little imp of doubt which had
+vexed him in the cab as he drove home from Ovingdon Square had not
+died in the night. It had grown and waxed more formidable. And now,
+aided by this ally from without, it had become a Colossus straddling
+his soul. Derek looked frequently at the clock, and cursed the unknown
+cabman whose delay was prolonging the scene. Something told him that
+only flight could serve him now. He never had been able to withstand
+his mother in one of her militant moods. She seemed to numb his
+faculties. Other members of his family had also noted this quality in
+Lady Underhill, and had commented on it bitterly in the smoking-rooms
+of distant country-houses at the hour when men meet to drink the final
+whisky-and-soda and unburden their souls.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Underhill, having said all she had to say, recovered her breath
+and began to say it again. Frequent iteration was one of her strongest
+weapons. As her brother Edwin, who was fond of homely imagery, had
+often observed, she could talk the hind-leg off a donkey.</p>
+
+<p>"You must be mad, Derek, to dream of handicapping yourself at this
+vital stage of your career with a wife who not only will not be a help
+to you, but must actually be a ruinous handicap. I am not blaming you
+for imagining yourself in love in the first place, though I really
+should have thought that a man of your strength and character
+would.... However, as I say, I am not blaming you for that.
+Superficially, no doubt, this girl might be called attractive. I do
+not admire the type myself, but I suppose she has that quality&mdash;in my
+time we should have called it boldness&mdash;which seems to appeal to the
+young men of to-day. I could imagine her fascinating a weak-minded
+imbecile like your friend Mr. Rooke. But that you.... Still, there is
+no need to go into that. What I am trying to point out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> is that in
+your position, with a career like yours in front of you&mdash;it's quite
+certain that in a year or two you will be offered some really big and
+responsible position&mdash;you would be insane to tie yourself to a girl
+who seems to have been allowed to run perfectly wild, whose uncle is a
+swindler...."</p>
+
+<p>"She can't be blamed for her uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"... Who sups alone with strange men in public restaurants...."</p>
+
+<p>"I explained that."</p>
+
+<p>"You may have explained it. You certainly did not excuse it or make it
+a whit less outrageous. You cannot pretend that you really imagine
+that an engaged girl is behaving with perfect correctness when she
+allows a man she has only just met to take her to supper at the Savoy,
+even if she did know him slightly years and years ago. It is very
+idyllic to suppose that a childhood acquaintance excuses every breach
+of decorum, but I was brought up to believe otherwise. I don't wish to
+be vulgar, but what it amounts to is that this girl was having
+supper&mdash;supper! In my days girls were in bed at supper-time!&mdash;with a
+strange man who picked her up at a theatre!"</p>
+
+<p>Derek shifted uneasily. There was a part of his mind which called upon
+him to rise up and challenge the outrageous phrase and demand that it
+be taken back. But he remained silent. The imp-Colossus was too strong
+for him. She is quite right, said the imp. That is an unpleasant but
+accurate description of what happened. He looked at the clock again,
+and wished for the hundredth time that the cab would come. Jill's
+photograph smiled at him from beside the clock. He looked away, for,
+when he found his eyes upon it, he had an odd sensation of baseness,
+as if he were playing some one false who loved and trusted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am not going to say any more," she said, getting up and
+buttoning her glove. "I will leave you to think it over. All I will
+say is that, though I only met her yesterday, I can assure you that I
+am quite confident that this girl is just the sort of harum-scarum
+so-called 'modern' girl who is sure some day to involve herself in a
+really serious scandal. I don't want her to be in a position to drag
+you into it as well. Yes, Barker, what is it? Is Sir Derek's cab
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>The lantern-jawed Barker had entered softly, and was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> standing
+deferentially in the doorway. There was no emotion on his face beyond
+the vague sadness which a sense of what was correct made him always
+wear like a sort of mask when in the presence of those of superior
+station.</p>
+
+<p>"The cab will be at the door very shortly, m'lady. If you please, Sir
+Derek, a policeman has come with a message."</p>
+
+<p>"A policeman?"</p>
+
+<p>"With a message from Mr. Rooke."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have had a few words of conversation with the constable, sir," said
+Barker sadly, "and I understand from him that Mr. Rooke and Miss
+Mariner have been arrested."</p>
+
+<p>"Arrested! What are you talking about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rooke desired the officer to ask you to be good enough to step
+round and bail them out!"</p>
+
+<p>The gleam in Lady Underhill's eye became a flame, but she controlled
+her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Why were Miss Mariner and Mr. Rooke arrested, Barker?"</p>
+
+<p>"As far as I can gather, m'lady, Miss Mariner struck a man in the
+street with a stick, and they took both her and Mr. Rooke to the
+Chelsea Police Station."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Underhill glanced at Derek, who was looking into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a little awkward, Derek," she said suavely. "If you go to the
+police-station, you will miss your train."</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy, m'lady, it would be sufficient if Sir Derek were to dispatch
+me with a cheque for ten pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Tell the policeman to wait a moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, m'lady."</p>
+
+<p>Derek roused himself with an effort. His face was drawn and gloomy. He
+sat down at the writing-table, and took out his cheque-book. There was
+silence for a moment, broken only by the scratching of the pen. Barker
+took the cheque and left the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, perhaps," said Lady Underhill, "you will admit that I was
+right!" She spoke in almost an awed voice, for this occurrence at just
+this moment seemed to her very like a direct answer to prayer. "You
+can't hesitate now! You <i>must</i> free yourself from this detestable
+entanglement!"</p>
+
+<p>Derek rose without speaking. He took his coat and hat from where they
+lay on a chair.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Derek! You will! Say you will!"</p>
+
+<p>Derek put on his coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Derek!"</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake, leave me alone, mother. I want to think."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. I will leave you to think it over, then." Lady Underhill
+moved to the door. At the door she paused for a moment, and seemed
+about to speak again, but her mouth closed resolutely. She was a
+shrewd woman, and knew that the art of life is to know when to stop
+talking. What words have accomplished, too many words can undo.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, mother."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll see you when you get back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. No. I don't know. I'm not certain when I shall return. I may go
+away for a bit."</p>
+
+<p>The door closed behind Lady Underhill. Derek sat down again at the
+writing-table. He wrote a few words on a sheet of paper, then tore it
+up. His eye travelled to the mantelpiece. Jill's photograph smiled
+happily down at him. He turned back to the writing-table, took out a
+fresh piece of paper, thought for a few moments, and began to write
+again.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened softly.</p>
+
+<p>"The cab is at the door, Sir Derek," said Barker.</p>
+
+<p>Derek addressed an envelope, and got up.</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Thanks. Oh, Barker, stop at a district-messenger office on
+your way to the police-station, and have this sent off at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, Sir Derek," said Barker.</p>
+
+<p>Derek's eyes turned once more to the mantelpiece. He stood looking for
+an instant, then walked quickly out of the room.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>UNCLE CHRIS BANGS THE TABLE</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>A taxi-cab stopped at the door of Number Twenty-two, Ovingdon Square.
+Freddie Rooke emerged, followed by Jill. While Freddie paid the
+driver, Jill sniffed the afternoon air happily. It had turned into a
+delightful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> day. A westerly breeze, springing up in the morning, had
+sent the thermometer up with a run and broken the cold spell which had
+been gripping London. It was one of those afternoons which intrude on
+the bleakness of winter with a false but none the less agreeable
+intimation that Spring is on its way. The sidewalks were wet
+underfoot, and the gutters ran with thawed snow. The sun shone
+exhilaratingly from a sky the colour of a hedge-sparrow's egg.</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't everything smell lovely, Freddie," said Jill, "after our
+prison-life!"</p>
+
+<p>"Topping!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy getting out so quickly! Whenever I'm arrested, I must always
+make a point of having a rich man with me. I shall never tease you
+about that fifty-pound note again."</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty-pound note?"</p>
+
+<p>"It certainly came in handy to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>She was opening the door with her latch-key, and missed the sudden
+sagging of Freddie's jaw, the sudden clutch at his breast-pocket, and
+the look of horror and anguish that started into his eyes. Freddie was
+appalled. Finding himself at the police-station penniless with the
+exception of a little loose change, he had sent that message to Derek,
+imploring assistance, as the only alternative to spending the night in
+a cell, with Jill in another. He had realized that there was a risk of
+Derek taking the matter hardly, and he had not wanted to get Jill into
+trouble, but there seemed nothing else to do. If they remained where
+they were overnight, the thing would get into the papers, and that
+would be a thousand times worse. And if he applied for aid to Ronny
+Devereux or Algy Martyn or anybody like that all London would know
+about it next day. So Freddie, with misgivings, had sent the message
+to Derek, and now Jill's words had reminded him that there was no need
+to have done so. Years ago he had read somewhere or heard somewhere
+about some chappie who always buzzed around with a sizable banknote
+stitched into his clothes, and the scheme had seemed to him ripe to a
+degree. You never knew when you might find yourself short of cash and
+faced by an immediate call for the ready. He had followed the
+chappie's example. And now, when the crisis had arrived, he had
+forgotten&mdash;absolutely forgotten!&mdash;that he had the dashed thing on his
+person at all.</p>
+
+<p>He followed Jill into the house, groaning in spirit, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> thankful
+that she had taken it for granted that he had secured their release in
+the manner indicated. He did not propose to disillusion her. It would
+be time enough to take the blame when the blame came along. Probably
+old Derek would simply be amused and laugh at the whole bally affair
+like a sportsman. Freddie cheered up considerably at the thought.</p>
+
+<p>Jill was talking to the parlourmaid whose head had popped up over the
+banisters flanking the stairs that led to the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Selby hasn't arrived yet, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"That's odd. I suppose he must have taken a later train."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a lady in the drawing-room, miss, waiting to see him. She
+didn't give any name. She said she would wait till the major came.
+She's been waiting a goodish while."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Jane. Thanks. Will you bring up tea?"</p>
+
+<p>They walked down the hall. The drawing-room was on the ground floor, a
+long, dim room that would have looked like a converted studio but for
+the absence of bright light. A girl was sitting at the far end by the
+fireplace. She rose as they entered.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do?" said Jill. "I'm afraid my uncle has not come back
+yet...."</p>
+
+<p>"Say!" cried the visitor. "You <i>did</i> get out quick!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill was surprised. She had no recollection of ever having seen the
+other before. Her visitor was a rather pretty girl, with a sort of
+jaunty way of carrying herself which made a piquant contrast to her
+tired eyes and wistful face. Jill took an immediate liking to her. She
+looked so forlorn and pathetic.</p>
+
+<p>"My name's Nelly Bryant," said the girl. "That parrot belongs to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard you say to the cop that you lived here, so I came along to
+tell your folks what had happened, so that they could do something.
+The maid said that your uncle was expected any minute, so I waited."</p>
+
+<p>"That was awfully good of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Dashed good," said Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! Honest, I don't know how to thank you for what you did. You
+don't know what a pal Bill is to me. It would have broken me all up if
+that plug-ugly had killed him."</p>
+
+<p>"But what a shame you had to wait so long."</p>
+
+<p>"I liked it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nelly Bryant looked about the room wistfully. This was the sort of
+room she sometimes dreamed about. She loved its subdued light and the
+pulpy cushions on the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have some tea before you go, won't you?" said Jill, switching
+on the lights.</p>
+
+<p>"It's very kind of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, hullo!" said Freddie. "By Jove! I say! We've met before, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, so we have!"</p>
+
+<p>"That lunch at Oddy's that young Threepwood gave, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder you remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I remember. Quite a time ago, eh? Miss Bryant was in that show.
+'Follow the Girl,' Jill, at the Regal."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. I remember you took me to see it."</p>
+
+<p>"Dashed odd meeting again like this!" said Freddie. "Really rummy!"</p>
+
+<p>Jane, the parlourmaid, entering with tea, interrupted his comments.</p>
+
+<p>"You're American, then?" said Jill interested. "The whole company came
+from New York, didn't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm half American myself, you know. I used to live in New York when I
+was very small, but I've almost forgotten what it was like. I remember
+a sort of overhead railway that made an awful noise...."</p>
+
+<p>"The Elevated!" murmured Nelly devoutly. A wave of home-sickness
+seemed to choke her for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"And the air. Like champagne. And a very blue sky."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Nelly in a small voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't half mind popping over New York for a bit," said Freddie,
+unconscious of the agony he was inflicting. "I've met some very sound
+sportsmen who came from there. You don't know a fellow named
+Williamson, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Or Oakes?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"That's rummy! Oakes has lived in New York for years."</p>
+
+<p>"So have about seven million other people," interposed Jill. "Don't be
+silly, Freddie. How would you like somebody to ask of you if you knew
+a man named Jenkins in London?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I <i>do</i> know a man named Jenkins in London," replied Freddie
+triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>Jill poured out a cup of tea for her visitor, and looked at the clock.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder where Uncle Chris has got to," she said. "He ought to be
+here by now. I hope he hasn't got into any mischief among the wild
+stockbrokers down at Brighton."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie laid down his cup on the table and uttered a loud snort.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Freddie, darling!" said Jill remorsefully. "I forgot!
+Stockbrokers are a painful subject, aren't they!" She turned to Nelly.
+"There's been an awful slump on the Stock Exchange to-day, and he
+got&mdash;what was the word, Freddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nipped!" said Freddie with gloom.</p>
+
+<p>"Nipped!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nipped like the dickens!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nipped like the dickens!" Jill smiled at Nelly. "He had forgotten all
+about it in the excitement of being a jailbird, and I went and
+reminded him."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie sought sympathy from Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"A silly ass at the club named Jimmy Monroe told me to take a flutter
+in some rotten thing called Amalgamated Dyes. You know how it is, when
+you're feeling devilish fit and cheery and all that after dinner, and
+somebody sidles up to you and slips his little hand in yours and tells
+you to do some fool thing. You're so dashed happy you simply say
+'Right-ho, old bird! Make it so!' That's the way I got had!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill laughed unfeelingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It will do you good, Freddie. It'll stir you up and prevent you being
+so silly again. Besides, you know you'll hardly notice it. You've much
+too much money as it is."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not the money. It's the principle of the thing. I hate looking a
+frightful chump."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you needn't tell anybody. We'll keep it a secret. In fact,
+we'll start at once, for I hear Uncle Chris outside. Let us dissemble.
+We are observed!... Hullo, Uncle Chris!"</p>
+
+<p>She ran down the room, as the door opened, and kissed the tall,
+soldierly man who entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jill, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"How late you are. I was expecting you hours ago."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I had to call on my broker."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! Hush!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, nothing.... We've got visitors. You know Freddie Rooke, of
+course?"</p>
+
+<p>"How are you, Freddie, my boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cheerio!" said Freddie. "Pretty fit?"</p>
+
+<p>"And Miss Bryant," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do?" said Uncle Chris in the bluff, genial way which, in
+his younger days, had charmed many a five-pound note out of the
+pockets of his fellow-men and many a soft glance out of the eyes of
+their sisters, their cousins, and their aunts.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and have some tea," said Jill. "You're just in time."</p>
+
+<p>"Tea? Capital!"</p>
+
+<p>Nelly had subsided shyly into the depths of her big arm-chair. Somehow
+she felt a better and a more important girl since Uncle Chris had
+addressed her. Most people felt like that after encountering Jill's
+Uncle Christopher. Uncle Chris had a manner. It was not precisely
+condescending, and yet it was not the manner of an equal. He treated
+you as an equal, true, but all the time you were conscious of the fact
+that it was extraordinarily good of him to do so. Uncle Chris affected
+the rank and file of his fellow-men much as a genial knight of the
+Middle Ages would have affected a scurvy knave or varlet if he had
+cast aside social distinctions for a while and hobnobbed with the
+latter in a tavern. He never patronized, but the mere fact that he
+abstained from patronizing seemed somehow impressive.</p>
+
+<p>To this impressiveness his appearance contributed largely. He was a
+fine, upstanding man, who looked less than his forty-nine years in
+spite of an ominous thinning of the hair which he tended and brushed
+so carefully. He had a firm chin, a mouth that smiled often and
+pleasantly beneath the closely-clipped moustache, and very bright blue
+eyes which met yours in a clear, frank, honest gaze. Though he had
+served in his youth in India, he had none of the Anglo-Indian's
+sun-scorched sallowness. His complexion was fresh and sanguine. He
+looked as if he had just stepped out of a cold tub&mdash;a misleading
+impression, for Uncle Chris detested cold water and always took his
+morning bath as hot as he could get it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was his clothes, however, which, even more than his appearance,
+fascinated the populace. There is only one tailor in London, as
+distinguished from the ambitious mechanics who make coats and
+trousers, and Uncle Chris was his best customer. Similarly, London is
+full of young fellows trying to get along by the manufacture of
+foot-wear, but there is only one boot-maker in the true meaning of the
+word&mdash;the one who supplied Uncle Chris. And, as for hats, while it is
+no doubt a fact that you can get at plenty of London shops some sort
+of covering for your head which will keep it warm, the only
+hatter&mdash;using the term in its deeper sense&mdash;is the man who enjoyed the
+patronage of Major Christopher Selby. From foot to head, in short,
+from furthest South to extremest North, Uncle Chris was perfect. He
+was an ornament to his surroundings. The Metropolis looked better for
+him. One seems to picture London as a mother with a horde of untidy
+children, children with made-up ties, children with wrinkled coats and
+baggy trouser-legs, sighing to herself as she beheld them, then
+cheering up and murmuring with a touch of restored complacency, "Ah,
+well, I still have Uncle Chris!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Bryant is American, Uncle Chris," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris spread his shapely legs before the fire, and glanced down
+kindly at Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?" He took a cup of tea and stirred it. "I was in America as a
+young man."</p>
+
+<p>"Whereabouts?" asked Nelly eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, here and there and everywhere. I travelled considerably."</p>
+
+<p>"That's how it is with me," said Nelly, overcoming her diffidence as
+she warmed to the favourite topic. "I guess I know most every town in
+every State, from New York to the last one-night stand. It's a great
+old country, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is!" said Uncle Chris. "I shall be returning there very shortly."
+He paused meditatively. "Very shortly indeed."</p>
+
+<p>Nelly bit her lip. It seemed to be her fate to-day to meet people who
+were going to America.</p>
+
+<p>"When did you decide to do that?" asked Jill.</p>
+
+<p>She had been looking at him, puzzled. Years of association with Uncle
+Chris had enabled her to read his moods quickly, and she was sure that
+there was something on his mind. It was not likely that the others had
+noticed it, for his manner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> was as genial and urbane as ever. But
+something about him, a look in his eyes that came and went, an
+occasional quick twitching of his mouth, told her that all was not
+well. She was a little troubled, but not greatly. Uncle Chris was not
+the sort of man to whom grave tragedies happened. It was probably some
+mere trifle which she could smooth out for him in five minutes, once
+they were alone together. She reached out and patted his sleeve
+affectionately. She was fonder of Uncle Chris than of anyone in the
+world except Derek.</p>
+
+<p>"The thought," said Uncle Chris, "came to me this morning, as I read
+my morning paper while breakfasting. It has grown and developed during
+the day. At this moment you might almost call it an obsession. I am
+very fond of America. I spent several happy years there. On that
+occasion I set sail for the land of promise, I admit, somewhat
+reluctantly. Of my own free will I might never have made the
+expedition. But the general sentiment seemed so strongly in favour of
+my doing so that I yielded to what I might call a public demand. The
+willing hands for my nearest and dearest were behind me, pushing, and
+I did not resist them. I have never regretted it. America is a part of
+every young man's education. You ought to go there, Freddie."</p>
+
+<p>"Rummily enough," said Freddie, "I was saying just before you came in
+that I had half a mind to pop over. Only it's rather a bally fag,
+starting. Getting your luggage packed and all that sort of thing."</p>
+
+<p>Nelly, whose luggage consisted of one small trunk, heaved a silent
+sigh. Mingling with the idle rich carried its penalties.</p>
+
+<p>"America," said Uncle Chris, "taught me poker, for which I can never
+be sufficiently grateful. Also an exotic pastime styled Craps&mdash;or,
+alternatively, 'rolling the bones'&mdash;which in those days was a very
+present help in time of trouble. At Craps, I fear, my hand in late
+years has lost much of its cunning. I have had little opportunity of
+practising. But as a young man I was no mean exponent of the art. Let
+me see," said Uncle Chris meditatively. "What was the precise ritual?
+Ah! I have it, 'Come, little seven!'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Come, eleven!'" exclaimed Nelly excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Baby....' I feel convinced that in some manner the word baby entered
+into it."</p>
+
+<p>"'Baby needs new shoes!'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Baby needs new shoes!' Precisely!"</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds to me," said Freddie, "dashed silly."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!" cried Nelly reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what I mean is, there's no sense in it, don't you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a noble pursuit," said Uncle Chris firmly. "Worthy of the great
+nation that has produced it. No doubt, when I return to America, I
+shall have opportunities of recovering my lost skill."</p>
+
+<p>"You aren't returning to America," said Jill. "You're going to stay
+safe at home like a good little uncle. I'm not going to have you
+running wild all over the world at your age."</p>
+
+<p>"Age?" declaimed Uncle Chris. "What is my age? At the present moment I
+feel in the neighbourhood of twenty-one, and Ambition is tapping me on
+the shoulder and whispering 'Young man, go West!' The years are
+slipping away from me, my dear Jill&mdash;slipping so quickly that in a few
+minutes you will be wondering why my nurse does not come to fetch me.
+The wanderlust is upon me. I gaze around me at all this prosperity in
+which I am lapped," said Uncle Chris, eyeing the arm-chair severely,
+"all this comfort and luxury which swaddles me, and I feel staggered.
+I want activity. I want to be braced!"</p>
+
+<p>"You would hate it," said Jill composedly. "You know you're the
+laziest old darling in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly what I am endeavouring to point out. I <i>am</i> lazy. Or, I was
+till this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Something very extraordinary must have happened this morning. I can
+see that."</p>
+
+<p>"I wallowed in gross comfort. I was what Shakespeare calls a 'fat and
+greasy citizen'!"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Uncle Chris!" protested Jill. "Not while I'm eating buttered
+toast!"</p>
+
+<p>"But now I am myself again."</p>
+
+<p>"That's splendid."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard the beat of the off-shore wind," chanted Uncle Chris,
+"and the thresh of the deep-sea rain. I have heard the song&mdash;How long!
+how long! Pull out on the trail again!"</p>
+
+<p>"He can also recite 'Gunga Din,'" said Jill to Nelly. "I really must
+apologize for all this. He's usually as good as gold."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I believe I know how he feels," said Nelly softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you do. You and I, Miss Bryant, are of the gipsies of the
+world. We are not vegetables like young Rooke here."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, what?" said the vegetable, waking from a reverie. He had been
+watching Nelly's face. Its wistfulness attracted him.</p>
+
+<p>"We are only happy," proceeded Uncle Chris, "when we are wandering."</p>
+
+<p>"You should see Uncle Chris wander to his club in the morning," said
+Jill. "He trudges off in a taxi, singing wild gipsy songs, absolutely
+defying fatigue."</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Uncle Chris, "is a perfectly justified slur. I shudder at
+the depths to which prosperity has caused me to sink." He expanded his
+chest. "I shall be a different man in America. America would make a
+different man of <i>you</i>, Freddie."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all right, thanks!" said that easily satisfied young man.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris turned to Nelly, pointing dramatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Young woman, go West! Return to your bracing home, and leave this
+enervating London! You...."</p>
+
+<p>Nelly got up abruptly. She could endure no more.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I'll have to be going now," she said. "Bill misses me if
+I'm away long. Good-bye. Thank you ever so much for what you did."</p>
+
+<p>"It was awfully kind of you to come round," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Major Selby."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Mr. Rooke."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie awoke from another reverie.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? Oh, I say, half a jiffy. I think I may as well be toddling along
+myself. About time I was getting back to dress for dinner and all
+that. See you home, may I, and then I'll get a taxi at Victoria.
+Toodle-oo, everybody."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Freddie escorted Nelly through the hall and opened the front door for
+her. The night was cool and cloudy and there was still in the air that
+odd, rejuvenating suggestion of Spring. A wet fragrance came from the
+dripping trees.</p>
+
+<p>"Topping evening!" said Freddie conversationally.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They walked through the square in silence. Freddie shot an
+appreciative glance at his companion. Freddie, as he would have
+admitted frankly, was not much of a lad for the modern girl. The
+modern girl, he considered, was too dashed rowdy and exuberant for a
+chappie of peaceful tastes. Now, this girl, on the other hand, had all
+the earmarks of being something of a topper. She had a soft voice.
+Rummy accent and all that, but nevertheless a soft and pleasing voice.
+She was mild and unaggressive, and these were qualities which Freddie
+esteemed. Freddie, though this was a thing he would not have admitted,
+was afraid of girls, the sort of girls he had to take down to dinner
+and dance with and so forth. They were too dashed clever, and always
+seemed to be waiting for a chance to score off a fellow. This one was
+not like that. Not a bit. She was gentle and quiet and what not.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this point that it came home to him how remarkably quiet she
+was. She had not said a word for the last five minutes. He was just
+about to break the silence, when, as they passed under a street lamp,
+he perceived that she was crying&mdash;crying very softly to herself, like
+a child in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" said Freddie appalled. There were two things in life with
+which he felt totally unable to cope&mdash;crying girls and dog-fights. The
+glimpse he had caught of Nelly's face froze him into a speechlessness
+which lasted until they reached Daubeny Street and stopped at her
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," said Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye-ee!" said Freddie mechanically. "That's to say, I mean to
+say, half a second!" he added quickly. He faced her nervously, with
+one hand on the grimy railings. This wanted looking into. When it came
+to girls trickling to and fro in the public streets, weeping, well, it
+was pretty rotten and something had to be done about it. "What's up?"
+he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear old soul," said Freddie, clutching the railing for moral
+support, "it is something. It must be! You might not think it, to look
+at me, but I'm really rather a dashed shrewd chap, and I can <i>see</i>
+there's something up. Why not give me the jolly old scenario and see
+if we can't do something?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nelly moved as if to turn to the door, then stopped. She was
+thoroughly ashamed of herself.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a fool!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am. I don't often act this way, but, oh, gee! hearing you all
+talking like that about going to America, just as if it was the
+easiest thing in the world, only you couldn't be bothered to do it,
+kind of got me going. And to think I could be there right now if I
+wasn't a bonehead!"</p>
+
+<p>"A bonehead?"</p>
+
+<p>"A simp. I'm all right as far up as the string of near-pearls, but
+above that I'm reinforced concrete."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie groped for her meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean you've made a bloomer of some kind?"</p>
+
+<p>"I pulled the worst kind of bone. I stopped on in London when the rest
+of the company went back home, and now I've got to stick."</p>
+
+<p>"Rush of jolly old professional engagements, what?"</p>
+
+<p>Nelly laughed bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a bad guesser. No, they haven't started to fight over me yet.
+I'm at liberty, as they say in the <i>Era</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear old thing," said Freddie earnestly, "if you've nothing
+to keep you in England, why not pop back to America? I mean to say,
+home-sickness is the most dashed blighted thing in the world. There's
+nothing gives one the pip to such an extent. Why, dash it, I remember
+staying with an old aunt of mine up in Scotland the year before last
+and not being able to get away for three weeks or so, and I
+raved&mdash;absolutely gibbered&mdash;for the sight of the merry old metrop.
+Sometimes I'd wake up in the night, thinking I was back at the Albany,
+and, by Jove, when I found I wasn't I howled like a dog! You take my
+tip, old soul, and pop back on the next boat."</p>
+
+<p>"Which line?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean, which line? Oh, I see, you mean which line? Well ...
+well ... I've never been on any of them, so it's rather hard to say.
+But I hear the Cunard well spoken of, and then again some chappies
+swear by the White Star. But I should imagine you can't go far wrong,
+whichever you pick. They're all pretty ripe, I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"Which of them is giving free trips? That's the point."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? Oh!" Her meaning dawned upon Freddie. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> regarded her with deep
+consternation. Life had treated him so kindly that he had almost
+forgotten that there existed a class which had not as much money as
+himself. Sympathy welled up beneath his perfectly fitting waistcoat.
+It was a purely disinterested sympathy. The fact that Nelly was a girl
+and in many respects a dashed pretty girl did not affect him. What
+mattered was that she was hard up. The thought hurt Freddie like a
+blow. He hated the idea of anyone being hard up.</p>
+
+<p>"I say!" he said. "Are you broke?"</p>
+
+<p>Nelly laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I? If dollars were doughnuts, I wouldn't even have the hole in the
+middle."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie was stirred to his depths. Except for the beggars in the
+streets, to whom he gave shillings, he had not met anyone for years
+who had not plenty of money. He had friends at his clubs who
+frequently claimed to be unable to lay their hands on a bally penny,
+but the bally penny they wanted to lay their hands on generally turned
+out to be a couple of thousand pounds for a new car.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. Then, with a sudden impulse, he began to fumble in
+his breast-pocket. Rummy how things worked out for the best, however
+scaly they might seem at the moment. Only an hour or so ago he had
+been kicking himself for not having remembered that fifty-pound note,
+tacked on to the lining of his coat, when it would have come in handy
+at the police-station. He now saw that Providence had had the matter
+well in hand. If he had remembered it and coughed it up to the
+constabulary then, he wouldn't have had it now. And he needed it now.
+A mood of quixotic generosity had surged upon him. With swift fingers
+he jerked the note free from its moorings and displayed it like a
+conjurer exhibiting a rabbit.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear old thing," he said, "I can't stand it! I absolutely cannot
+stick it at any price! I really must insist on your trousering this.
+Positively!"</p>
+
+<p>Nelly Bryant gazed at the note with wide eyes. She was stunned. She
+took it limply, and looked at it under the dim light of the gas-lamp
+over the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but really! You must!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But this is a fifty-pound!"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely! It will take you back to New York, what? you asked which
+line was giving free trips. The Freddie Rooke Line, by Jove, sailings
+every Wednesday and Saturday! I mean, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't take two hundred and fifty dollars from you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rather. Of course you can."</p>
+
+<p>There was another pause.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll think&mdash;" Nelly's pale face flushed. "You'll think I told you
+all about myself just&mdash;just because I wanted to...."</p>
+
+<p>"To make a touch? Absolutely not! Rid yourself of the jolly old
+supposition entirely. You see before you, old thing, a chappie who
+knows more about borrowing money than any man in London. I mean to
+say, I've had my ear bitten more often than anyone, I should think.
+There are sixty-four ways of making a touch&mdash;I've had them all worked
+on me by divers blighters here and there&mdash;and I can tell any of them
+with my eyes shut. I know you weren't dreaming of any such thing."</p>
+
+<p>The note crackled musically in Nelly's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what to say!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why.... Gee! I wish I could tell you what I think of
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie laughed amusedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," he said, "that's exactly what the beaks&mdash;the masters,
+you know&mdash;used to say to me at school."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure you can spare it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rather."</p>
+
+<p>Nelly's eyes shone in the light of the lamp.</p>
+
+<p>"I've never met anyone like you before. I don't know how...."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie shuffled nervously. Being thanked always made him feel pretty
+rotten.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think I'll be popping," he said. "Got to get back and dress
+and all that. Awfully glad to have seen you, and all that sort of
+rot."</p>
+
+<p>Nelly unlocked the door with her latch-key, and stood on the step.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll buy a fur-wrap," she said, half to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Great wheeze! I should!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And some nuts for Bill!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bill?"</p>
+
+<p>"The parrot."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the jolly old parrot! Rather! Well, cheerio!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye.... You've been awfully good to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," said Freddie uncomfortably. "Any time you're passing...."</p>
+
+<p>"Awfully good.... Well, good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Toodle-oo!"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe we'll meet again some day."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so. Absolutely!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a little scurry of feet. Something warm and soft pressed for
+an instant against Freddie's cheek, and, as he stumbled back, Nelly
+Bryant skipped up the steps and vanished through the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie felt his cheek. He was aware of an odd mixture of
+embarrassment and exhilaration.</p>
+
+<p>From the area below a slight cough sounded. Freddie turned sharply. A
+maid in a soiled cap, worn coquettishly over one ear, was gazing
+intently up through the railings. Their eyes met. Freddie turned a
+warm pink. It seemed to him that the maid had the air of one about to
+giggle.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn!" said Freddie softly, and hurried off down the street. He
+wondered whether he had made a frightful ass of himself, spraying
+bank-notes all over the place like that to comparative strangers. Then
+a vision came to him of Nelly's eyes as they had looked at him in the
+lamp-light, and he decided&mdash;no, absolutely not. Rummy as the gadget
+might appear, it had been the right thing to do. It was a binge of
+which he thoroughly approved. A good egg!</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>Jill, when Freddie and Nelly left the room, had seated herself on a
+low stool, and sat looking thoughtfully into the fire. She was
+wondering if she had been mistaken in supposing that Uncle Chris was
+worried about something. This restlessness of his, this desire for
+movement, was strange in him. Hitherto he had been like a dear old
+cosy cat, revelling in the comfort which he had just denounced so
+eloquently.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> She watched him as he took up his favourite stand in
+front of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice girl," said Uncle Chris. "Who was she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody Freddie met," said Jill diplomatically. There was no need to
+worry Uncle Chris with details of the afternoon's happenings.</p>
+
+<p>"Very nice girl." Uncle Chris took out his cigar-case. "No need to ask
+if I may, thank goodness." He lit a cigar. "Do you remember, Jill,
+years ago, when you were quite small, how I used to blow smoke in your
+face?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do. You said that you were training me for marriage. You
+said that there were no happy marriages except where the wife didn't
+mind the smell of tobacco. Well, it's lucky, as a matter of fact, for
+Derek smokes all the time."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris took up his favourite stand against the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>"You're very fond of Derek, aren't you, Jill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I am. You are, too, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fine chap. Very fine chap. Plenty of money, too. It's a great
+relief," said Uncle Chris, puffing vigorously. "A thundering relief."
+He looked over Jill's head down the room. "It's fine to think of you
+happily married, dear, with everything in the world that you want."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris' gaze wandered down to where Jill sat. A slight mist
+affected his eyesight. Jill had provided a solution for the great
+problem of his life. Marriage had always appalled him, but there was
+this to be said for it, that married people had daughters. He had
+always wanted a daughter, a smart girl he could take out and be proud
+of; and fate had given him Jill at precisely the right age. A child
+would have bored Uncle Chris&mdash;he was fond of children, but they made
+the deuce of a noise and regarded jam as an external ornament&mdash;but a
+delightful little girl of fourteen was different. Jill and he had been
+very close to each other since her mother had died, a year after the
+death of her father, and had left her in his charge. He had watched
+her grow up with a joy that had a touch of bewilderment in it&mdash;she
+seemed to grow so quickly&mdash;and had been fonder and prouder of her at
+every stage of her tumultuous career.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a dear," said Jill. She stroked the trouser-leg that was
+nearest. "How <i>do</i> you manage to get such a wonderful crease? You
+really are a credit to me!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a momentary silence. A shade of embarrassment made itself
+noticeable in Uncle Chris' frank gaze. He gave a little cough, and
+pulled at his moustache.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I were, my dear," he said soberly. "I wish I were. I'm afraid
+I'm a poor sort of a fellow, Jill."</p>
+
+<p>Jill looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"A poor sort of a fellow," repeated Uncle Chris. "Your mother was
+foolish to trust you to me. Your father had more sense. He always said
+I was a wrong 'un."</p>
+
+<p>Jill got up quickly. She was certain now that she had been right, and
+that there was something on her uncle's mind.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Uncle Chris? Something's happened. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris turned to knock the ash off his cigar. The movement gave
+him time to collect himself for what lay before him. He had one of
+those rare volatile natures which can ignore the blows of fate so long
+as their effects are not brought home by visible evidence of disaster.
+He lived in the moment, and, though matters had been as bad at
+breakfast-time as they were now, it was not till now, when he
+confronted Jill, that he had found his cheerfulness affected by them.
+He was a man who hated ordeals, and one faced him now. Until this
+moment he had been able to detach his mind from a state of affairs
+which would have weighed unceasingly upon another man. His mind was a
+telephone which he could cut off at will, when the voice of Trouble
+wished to speak. The time would arrive, he had been aware, when he
+would have to pay attention to that voice, but so far he had refused
+to listen. Now it could be evaded no longer.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris paused again, searching for the best means of saying what
+had to be said.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill, I don't know if you understand about these things, but there
+was what is called a slump on the Stock Exchange this morning. In
+other words...."</p>
+
+<p>Jill laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I know all about that," she said. "Poor Freddie wouldn't
+talk about anything else till I made him. He was terribly blue when he
+got here this afternoon. He said he had got 'nipped' in Amalgamated
+Dyes. He had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> lost about two hundred pounds, and was furious with a
+friend of his who had told him to buy margins."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill, I'm afraid I've got bad news for you. I bought Amalgamated
+Dyes, too." He worried his moustache. "I lost heavily, very heavily."</p>
+
+<p>"How naughty of you! You know you oughtn't to gamble."</p>
+
+<p>"Jill, you must be brave. I&mdash;I&mdash;well, the fact is&mdash;it's no good
+beating about the bush&mdash;I lost everything! Everything!"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything! It's all gone! All fooled away. It's a terrible business.
+This house will have to go."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but doesn't the house belong to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was your trustee, dear." Uncle Chris smoked furiously. "Thank
+heaven you're going to marry a rich man!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill stood looking at him, perplexed. Money, as money, had never
+entered into her life. There were things one wanted which had to be
+paid for with money, but Uncle Chris had always looked after that. She
+had taken them for granted.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand," she said.</p>
+
+<p>And then suddenly she realized that she did, and a great wave of pity
+for Uncle Chris flooded over her. He was such an old dear. It must be
+horrible for him to have to stand there, telling her all this. She
+felt no sense of injury, only the discomfort of having to witness the
+humiliation of her oldest friend. Uncle Chris was bound up
+inextricably with everything in her life that was pleasant. She could
+remember him, looking exactly the same, only with a thicker and wavier
+crop of hair, playing with her patiently and unwearied for hours in
+the hot sun, a cheerful martyr. She could remember sitting up with him
+when she came home from her first grownup dance, drinking cocoa and
+talking and talking and talking till the birds outside sang the sun
+high up into the sky and it was breakfast time. She could remember
+theatres with him, and jolly little suppers afterwards; expeditions
+into the country, with lunches at queer old inns; days on the river,
+days at Hurlingham, days at Lords', days at the Academy. He had always
+been the same, always cheerful, always kind. He was Uncle Chris, and
+he would always be Uncle Chris,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> whatever he had done or whatever he
+might do. She slipped her arm in his and gave it a squeeze.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old thing!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris had been looking straight out before him with those fine
+blue eyes of his. There had been just a touch of sternness in his
+attitude. A stranger, coming into the room at that moment, would have
+said that here was a girl trying to coax her blunt, straightforward,
+military father into some course of action of which his honest nature
+disapproved. He might have been posing for a statue of Rectitude. As
+Jill spoke, he seemed to cave in.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old thing?" he repeated limply.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you are! And stop trying to look dignified and tragic!
+Because it doesn't suit you. You're much too well dressed."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear, you don't understand! You haven't realized!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do. Yes, I have!"</p>
+
+<p>"I've spent all your money&mdash;<i>your</i> money!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know! What does it matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"What does it matter! Jill, don't you hate me?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if anyone could hate an old darling like you!"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris threw away his cigar, and put his arms round Jill. For a
+moment a dreadful fear came to her that he was going to cry. She
+prayed that he wouldn't cry. It would be too awful. It would be a
+memory of which she could never rid herself. She felt as though he
+were someone extraordinarily young and unable to look after himself,
+someone she must soothe and protect.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill," said Uncle Chris, choking, "you're&mdash;you're&mdash;you're a little
+warrior!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill kissed him and moved away. She busied herself with some flowers,
+her back turned. The tension had been relieved, and she wanted to give
+him time to recover his poise. She knew him well enough to be sure
+that, sooner or later, the resiliency of his nature would assert
+itself. He could never remain long in the depths.</p>
+
+<p>The silence had the effect of making her think more clearly than in
+the first rush of pity she had been able to do. She was able now to
+review the matter as it affected herself. It had not been easy to
+grasp, the blunt fact that she was penniless, that all this comfort
+which surrounded her was no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> longer her own. For an instant a kind of
+panic seized her. There was a bleakness about the situation which made
+one gasp. It was like icy water dashed in the face. Realization had
+almost the physical pain of life returning to a numbed limb. Her hands
+shook as she arranged the flowers, and she had to bite her lip to keep
+herself from crying out.</p>
+
+<p>She fought panic eye to eye, and beat it down. Uncle Chris, swiftly
+recovering by the fireplace, never knew that the fight had taken
+place. He was feeling quite jovial again now that the unpleasant
+business of breaking the news was over, and was looking on the world
+with the eye of a debonair gentleman-adventurer. As far as he was
+concerned, he told himself, this was the best thing that could have
+happened. He had been growing old and sluggish in prosperity. He
+needed a fillip. The wits by which he had once lived so merrily had
+been getting blunt in their easy retirement. He welcomed the
+opportunity of matching them once more against the world. He was
+remorseful as regarded Jill, but the optimist in him, never crushed
+for long, told him that Jill would be all right. She would step from
+the sinking ship to the safe refuge of Derek Underhill's wealth and
+position, while he went out to seek a new life. Uncle Chris' blue eyes
+gleamed with a new fire as he pictured himself in this new life. He
+felt like a hunter setting out on a hunting expedition. There were
+always adventures and the spoils of war for the man with brains to
+find them and gather them in. But it was a mercy that Jill had
+Derek....</p>
+
+<p>Jill was thinking of Derek, too. Panic had fled, and a curious
+exhilaration had seized upon her. If Derek wanted her now, it would be
+because his love was the strongest thing in the world. She would come
+to him like the beggar-maid to Cophetua.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris broke the silence with a cough. At the sound of it, Jill
+smiled again. She knew it for what it was, a sign that he was himself
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Uncle Chris," she said, "just how bad is it? When you said
+everything was gone, did you really mean everything, or were you being
+melodramatic? Exactly how do we stand?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's dashed hard to say, my dear. I expect we shall find there are a
+few hundreds left. Enough to see you through till you get married.
+After that it won't matter." Uncle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> Chris flicked a particle of dust
+off his coat-sleeve. Jill could not help feeling that the action was
+symbolical of his attitude towards life. He nicked away life's
+problems with just the same airy carelessness. "You mustn't worry
+about me, my dear. I shall be all right. I have made my way in the
+world before, and I can do it again. I shall go to America and try my
+luck there. Amazing how many opportunities there are in America.
+Really, as far as I am concerned, this is the best thing that could
+have happened. I have been getting abominably lazy. If I had gone on
+living my present life for another year or two, why, dash it, I
+honestly believe I should have succumbed to some sort of senile decay.
+Positively I should have got fatty degeneration of the brain! This
+will be the making of me."</p>
+
+<p>Jill sat down on the lounge and laughed till there were tears in her
+eyes. Uncle Chris might be responsible for this disaster, but he was
+certainly making it endurable. However greatly he might be deserving
+of censure, from the standpoint of the sterner morality, he made
+amends. If he brought the whole world crashing in chaos about one's
+ears, at least he helped one to smile among the ruins.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever read 'Candide,' Uncle Chris?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Candide'?" Uncle Chris shook his head. He was not a great reader,
+except of the sporting press.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a book by Voltaire. There's a character in it called Doctor
+Pangloss, who thought that everything was for the best in this best of
+all possible worlds."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris felt a touch of embarrassment. It occurred to him that he
+had been betrayed by his mercurial temperament into an attitude which,
+considering the circumstances, was perhaps a trifle too jubilant. He
+gave his moustache a pull, and reverted to the minor key.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you mustn't think that I don't appreciate the terrible, the criminal
+thing I have done! I blame myself," said Uncle Chris cordially, nicking
+another speck of dust off his sleeve. "I blame myself bitterly. Your
+mother ought never to have made me your trustee, my dear. But she always
+believed in me, in spite of everything, and this is how I have repaid
+her." He blew his nose to cover a not unmanly emotion. "I wasn't fitted
+for the position. Never become a trustee, Jill. It's the devil, is trust
+money. However much you argue with yourself, you can't&mdash;dash it, you
+simply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> can't believe that it's not your own, to do as you like with,
+There it sits, smiling at you, crying 'Spend me! Spend me!' and you find
+yourself dipping&mdash;dipping&mdash;till one day there's nothing left to dip
+for&mdash;only a far-off rustling&mdash;the ghosts of dead bank-notes. That's how it
+was with me. The process was almost automatic. I hardly knew it was going
+on. Here a little&mdash;there a little. It was like snow melting on a
+mountain-top. And one morning&mdash;all gone!" Uncle Chris drove the point home
+with a gesture. "I did what I could. When I found that there were only a
+few hundreds left, for your sake I took a chance. All heart and no head!
+There you have Christopher Selby in a nutshell! A man at the club, a fool
+named&mdash;I've forgotten his damn name&mdash;recommended Amalgamated Dyestuffs as
+a speculation. Monroe, that was his name, Jimmy Monroe. He talked about
+the future of British Dyes now that Germany was out of the race, and ...
+well, the long and short of it was that I took his advice and bought on
+margin. Bought like the devil. And this morning Amalgamated Dyestuffs went
+all to blazes. There you have the whole story!"</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said Jill, "comes the sequel!"</p>
+
+<p>"The sequel?" said Uncle Chris breezily. "Happiness, my dear,
+happiness! Wedding bells and&mdash;and all that sort of thing!" He
+straddled the hearth-rug manfully, and swelled his chest out. He would
+permit no pessimism on this occasion of rejoicing. "You don't suppose
+that the fact of your having lost your money&mdash;that is to say&mdash;er&mdash;of
+<i>my</i> having lost your money&mdash;will affect a splendid young fellow like
+Derek Underhill? I know him better than to think that! I've always
+liked him. He's a man you can trust! Besides," he added reflectively,
+"there's no need to tell him! Till after the wedding, I mean. It won't
+be hard to keep up appearances here for a month or so."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we must tell him!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think it wise?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about it being wise. It's the only thing to do. I must
+see him to-night. Oh, I forgot. He was going away this afternoon for a
+day or two."</p>
+
+<p>"Capital! It will give you time to think it over."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to think it over. There's nothing to think about."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, yes, of course. Quite so."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I shall write him a letter."</p>
+
+<p>"Write, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's easier to put what one wants to say in a letter."</p>
+
+<p>"Letters," began Uncle Chris, and stopped as the door opened. Jane,
+the parlourmaid, entered, carrying a salver.</p>
+
+<p>"For me?" asked Uncle Chris.</p>
+
+<p>"For Miss Jill, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Jill took the note off the salver.</p>
+
+<p>"It's from Derek."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a messenger-boy waiting, miss," said Jane. "He wasn't told if
+there was an answer."</p>
+
+<p>"If the note is from Derek," said Uncle Chris, "it's not likely to
+want an answer. You said he left town to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Jill opened the envelope.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there an answer, miss?" asked Jane, after what she considered a
+suitable interval. She spoke tenderly. She was a great admirer of
+Derek, and considered it a pretty action on his part to send notes
+like this when he was compelled to leave London.</p>
+
+<p>"Any answer, Jill?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill seemed to rouse herself. She had turned oddly pale.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no answer, Jane."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, miss," said Jane, and went off to tell the cook that in
+her opinion Jill was lacking in heart. "It might have been a bill
+instead of a love-letter," said Jane to the cook with indignation,
+"the way she read it. I like people to have a little feeling!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill sat turning the letter over and over in her fingers. Her face was
+very white. There seemed to be a big, heavy, leaden something inside
+her. A cold hand clutched her throat. Uncle Chris, who at first had
+noticed nothing untoward, now began to find the silence sinister.</p>
+
+<p>"No bad news, I hope, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill turned the letter between her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill, is it bad news?"</p>
+
+<p>"Derek has broken off the engagement," said Jill in a dull voice. She
+let the note fall to the floor, and sat with her chin in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" Uncle Chris leaped from the hearth-rug, as though the fire had
+suddenly scorched him. "What did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's broken it off."</p>
+
+<p>"The hound!" cried Uncle Chris. "The blackguard!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> The&mdash;the&mdash;I never
+liked that man! I never trusted him!" He fumed for a moment.
+"But&mdash;but&mdash;it isn't possible. How can he have heard about what's
+happened? He couldn't know. It's&mdash;it's&mdash;it isn't possible!"</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't know. It has nothing to do with that."</p>
+
+<p>"But...." Uncle Chris stooped to where the note lay. "May I...?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you can read it if you like."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris produced a pair of reading-glasses, and glared through
+them at the sheet of paper as though it were some loathsome insect.</p>
+
+<p>"The hound! The cad! If I were a younger man," shouted Uncle Chris,
+smiting the letter violently, "if I were.... Jill! My dear little
+Jill!"</p>
+
+<p>He plunged down on his knees beside her, as she buried her face in her
+hands and began to sob.</p>
+
+<p>"My little girl! Damn that man! My dear little girl! The cad! The
+devil! My own darling little girl! I'll thrash him within an inch of
+his life!"</p>
+
+<p>The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away the minutes. Jill got up. Her
+face was wet and quivering, but her mouth had set in a brave line.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>She let his hand close over hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything's happening all at once this afternoon, Uncle Chris, isn't
+it!" She smiled a twisted smile. "You look so funny! Your hair's all
+rumpled, and your glasses are over on one side!"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris breathed heavily through his nose.</p>
+
+<p>"When I meet that man...." he began portentously.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what's the good of bothering! It's not worth it! Nothing's worth
+it!" Jill stopped and faced him, her hands clenched. "Let's get away!
+Let's get right away! I want to get right away, Uncle Chris! Take me
+away! Anywhere! Take me to America with you! I must get away!"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris raised his right hand, and shook it. His reading-glasses,
+hanging from his left ear, bobbed drunkenly.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll sail by the next boat! The very next boat, dammit! I'll take
+care of you, dear. I've been a blackguard to you, my little girl. I've
+robbed you, and swindled you. But I'll make up for it, by George! I'll
+make up for it! I'll give you a new home, as good as this, if I die
+for it. There's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> nothing I won't do! Nothing! By Jove!" shouted Uncle
+Chris, raising his voice in a red-hot frenzy of emotion, "I'll work!
+Yes, by Gad, if it comes right down to it, I'll work!"</p>
+
+<p>He brought his fist down with a crash on the table where Derek's
+flowers stood in their bowl. The bowl leaped in the air and tumbled
+over, scattering the flowers on the floor.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>JILL CATCHES THE 10.10</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>In the lives of each one of us, as we look back and review them in
+retrospect, there are certain desert wastes from which memory winces
+like some tired traveller faced with a dreary stretch of road. Even
+from the security of later happiness we cannot contemplate them
+without a shudder.</p>
+
+<p>It took one of the most competent firms in the metropolis four days to
+produce some sort of order in the confusion resulting from Major
+Selby's financial operations; and during those days Jill existed in a
+state of being which could be defined as living only in that she
+breathed and ate and comported herself outwardly like a girl and not a
+ghost.</p>
+
+<p>Boards announcing that the house was for sale appeared against the
+railings through which Jane the parlourmaid conducted her daily
+conversations with the tradesmen. Strangers roamed the rooms eyeing
+and appraising the furniture. Uncle Chris, on whom disaster had had a
+quickening and vivifying effect, was everywhere at once, an impressive
+figure of energy. One may be wronging Uncle Chris, but to the eye of
+the casual observer he seemed in these days of trial to be having the
+time of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Jill varied the monotony of sitting in her room&mdash;which was the only
+place in the house where one might be sure of not encountering a
+furniture-broker's man with a note-book and pencil&mdash;by taking long
+walks. She avoided as far as possible the small area which had once
+made up the whole of London for her, but even so she was not always
+successful in escaping from old acquaintances. Once, butting through
+Lennox Gardens on her way to that vast, desolate King's Road which
+stretches its length out into regions unknown to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> those whose London
+is the West End, she happened upon Freddie Rooke, who had been paying
+a call in his best, and a pair of white spats which would have cut his
+friend Henry to the quick. It was not an enjoyable meeting. Freddie,
+keenly alive to the awkwardness of the situation, was scarlet and
+incoherent; and Jill, who desired nothing less than to talk with one
+so intimately connected in her mind with all that she had lost, was
+scarcely more collected. They parted without regret. The only
+satisfaction that came to Jill from the encounter was the knowledge
+that Derek was still out of town. He had wired for his things, said
+Freddie, and had retreated further north. Freddie, it seemed, had been
+informed of the broken engagement by Lady Underhill in an interview
+which appeared to have left a lasting impression on his mind. Of
+Jill's monetary difficulties he had heard nothing.</p>
+
+<p>After this meeting, Jill felt a slight diminution of the oppression
+which weighed upon her. She could not have borne to have come
+unexpectedly upon Derek, and, now that there was no danger of that,
+she found life a little easier. The days passed somehow, and finally
+there came the morning, when, accompanied by Uncle Chris&mdash;voluble and
+explanatory about the details of what he called "getting everything
+settled"&mdash;she rode in a taxi to take the train for Southampton. Her
+last impression of London was of rows upon rows of mean houses, of
+cats wandering in back-yards among groves of home-washed
+underclothing, and a smoky greyness which gave way, as the train raced
+on, to the clearer grey of the suburbs and the good green and brown of
+the open country.</p>
+
+<p>Then the bustle and confusion of the liner; the calm monotony of the
+journey, when one came on deck each morning to find the vessel so
+manifestly in the same spot where it had been the morning before that
+it was impossible to realize that many hundred miles of ocean had
+really been placed behind one; and finally the Ambrose Channel
+lightship and the great bulk of New York rising into the sky like a
+city of fairyland, heartening yet sinister, at once a welcome and a
+menace.</p>
+
+<p>"There you are, my dear?" said Uncle Chris indulgently, as though it
+were a toy he had made for her with his own hands. "New York!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They were standing on the boat-deck, leaning over the rail. Jill
+caught her breath. For the first time since disaster had come upon her
+she was conscious of a rising of her spirits. It is impossible to
+behold the huge buildings which fringe the harbour of New York without
+a sense of expectancy and excitement. There had remained in Jill's
+mind from childhood memories a vague picture of what she now saw, but
+it had been feeble and inadequate. The sight of this towering city
+seemed somehow to blot out everything that had gone before. The
+feeling of starting afresh was strong upon her.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris, the old traveller, was not emotionally affected. He
+smoked placidly and talked in a wholly earthy strain of grape-fruit
+and buckwheat cakes.</p>
+
+<p>It was now, also for the first time, that Uncle Chris touched upon
+future prospects in a practical manner. On the voyage he had been
+eloquent but sketchy. With the land of promise within biscuit-throw
+and the tugs bustling about the great liner's skirts like little dogs
+about their mistress, he descended to details.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall get a room somewhere," said Uncle Chris, "and start looking
+about me. I wonder if the old Holland House is still there. I fancy I
+heard they'd pulled it down. Capital place. I had a steak there in the
+year.... But I expect they've pulled it down. But I shall find
+somewhere to go. I'll write and tell you my address directly I've got
+one."</p>
+
+<p>Jill removed her gaze from the sky-line with a start.</p>
+
+<p>"Write to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I tell you about that?" said Uncle Chris cheerily&mdash;avoiding
+her eye, however, for he had realized all along that it might be a
+little bit awkward breaking the news. "I've arranged that you shall go
+and stay for the time being down at Brookport&mdash;on Long Island, you
+know&mdash;over in that direction&mdash;with your Uncle Elmer. Daresay you've
+forgotten you have an Uncle Elmer, eh?" he went on quickly, as Jill
+was about to speak. "Your father's brother. Used to be in business,
+but retired some years ago and goes in for amateur farming. Corn
+and&mdash;and corn," said Uncle Chris. "All that sort of thing. You'll like
+him. Capital chap! Never met him myself, but always heard," said Uncle
+Chris, who had never to his recollection heard any comments upon Mr.
+Elmer Mariner whatever, "that he was a splendid fellow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> Directly we
+decided to sail, I cabled to him, and got an answer saying that he
+would be delighted to put you up. You'll be quite happy there."</p>
+
+<p>Jill listened to this programme with dismay. New York was calling to
+her, and Brookport held out no attractions at all. She looked down
+over the side at the tugs puffing their way through the broken blocks
+of ice that reminded her of a cocoanut candy familiar to her
+childhood.</p>
+
+<p>"But I want to be with you," she protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible, my dear, for the present. I shall be very busy, very busy
+indeed for some weeks, until I have found my feet. Really, you would
+be in the way. He&mdash;er&mdash;travels the fastest who travels alone! I must
+be in a position to go anywhere and do anything at a moment's notice.
+But always remember, my dear," said Uncle Chris, patting her shoulder
+affectionately, "that I shall be working for you. I have treated you
+very badly, but I intend to make up for it. I shall not forget that
+whatever money I may make will really belong to you." He looked at her
+benignly, like a monarch of finance who has earmarked a million or two
+for the benefit of a deserving charity. "You shall have it all, Jill."</p>
+
+<p>He had so much the air of having conferred a substantial benefit upon
+her that Jill felt obliged to thank him. Uncle Chris had always been
+able to make people grateful for the phantom gold which he showered
+upon them. He was as lavish a man with the money he was going to get
+next week as ever borrowed a five-pound note to see him through till
+Saturday.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do, Uncle Chris?" asked Jill curiously. Apart
+from a nebulous idea that he intended to saunter through the city
+picking dollar-bills off the sidewalk, she had no inkling of his
+plans.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris toyed with his short moustache. He was not quite equal to
+a direct answer on the spur of the moment. He had a faith in his star.
+Something would turn up. Something always had turned up in the old
+days, and doubtless, with the march of civilization, opportunities had
+multiplied. Somewhere behind those tall buildings the Goddess of Luck
+awaited him, her hands full of gifts, but precisely what those gifts
+would be he was not in a position to say.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall&mdash;ah&mdash;how shall I put it&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look round?" suggested Jill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Precisely," said Uncle Chris gratefully. "Look round. I daresay you
+have noticed that I have gone out of my way during the voyage to make
+myself agreeable to our fellow-travellers? I had an object.
+Acquaintances begun on shipboard will often ripen into useful
+friendships ashore. When I was a young man I never neglected the
+opportunities which an ocean voyage affords. The offer of a book here,
+a steamer-rug there, a word of encouragement to a chatty bore in the
+smoke-room&mdash;these are small things, but they may lead to much. One
+meets influential people on a liner. You wouldn't think it to look at
+him, but that man with the eye-glasses and the thin nose I was talking
+to just now is one of the richest men in Milwaukee!"</p>
+
+<p>"But it's not much good having rich friends in Milwaukee when you are
+in New York!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. There you have put your finger on the very point I have been
+trying to make. It will probably be necessary for me to travel. And
+for that I must be alone. I must be a mobile force. I should dearly
+like to keep you with me, but you can see for yourself that for the
+moment you would be an encumbrance. Later on, no doubt, when my
+affairs are more settled...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I understand. I'm resigned. But, oh dear! it's going to be very
+dull down at Brookport."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, nonsense! It's a delightful spot."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you been there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But of course everybody knows Brookport. Healthy,
+invigorating.... Sure to be. The very name.... You'll be as happy as
+the days are long!"</p>
+
+<p>"And how long will the days be!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come. You mustn't look on the dark side."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there another?" Jill laughed. "You are an old humbug, Uncle Chris.
+You know perfectly well what you're condemning me to. I expect
+Brookport will be like a sort of Southend in winter. Oh, well, I'll be
+brave. But do hurry and make a fortune, because I want to come to New
+York."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "if there is a dollar lying
+loose in this city, rest assured that I shall have it! And, if it's
+not loose, I will detach it with the greatest possible speed. You have
+only known me in my decadence, an idle and unprofitable London
+clubman. I can assure you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> that lurking beneath the surface, there is
+a business acumen given to few men...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if you are going to talk poetry," said Jill, "I'll leave you.
+Anyhow, I ought to be getting below and putting my things together."</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>If Jill's vision of Brookport as a wintry Southend was not entirely
+fulfilled, neither was Uncle Chris' picture of it as an earthly
+paradise. At the right time of the year, like most of the summer
+resorts on the south shore of Long Island, it is not without its
+attractions; but January is not the month which most people would
+choose for living in it. It presented itself to Jill on first
+acquaintance in the aspect of a wind-swept railroad station, dumped
+down far away from human habitation in the middle of a stretch of flat
+and ragged country that reminded her a little of parts of Surrey. The
+station was just a shed on a foundation of planks which lay flush with
+the rails. From this shed, as the train clanked in, there emerged a
+tall, shambling man in a weather-beaten overcoat. He had a
+clean-shaven, wrinkled face, and he looked doubtfully at Jill with
+small eyes. Something in his expression reminded Jill of her father,
+as a bad caricature of a public man will recall the original. She
+introduced herself.</p>
+
+<p>"If you're Uncle Elmer," she said, "I'm Jill."</p>
+
+<p>The man held out a long hand. He did not smile. He was as bleak as the
+east wind that swept the platform.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad to meet you again," he said in a melancholy voice. It was news
+to Jill that they had met before. She wondered where. Her uncle
+supplied the information. "Last time I saw you, you were a kiddy in
+short frocks, running round and shouting to beat the band." He looked
+up and down the platform. "<i>I</i> never heard a child make so much
+noise!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm quite quiet now," said Jill encouragingly. The recollection of
+her infant revelry seemed to her to be distressing her relative.</p>
+
+<p>It appeared, however, that it was not only this that was on his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want to drive home," he said, "we'll have to 'phone to the
+Durham House for a hack." He brooded a while, Jill remaining silent at
+his side, loath to break in upon whatever secret sorrow he was
+wrestling with. "That<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> would be a dollar," he went on. "They're
+robbers in these parts! A dollar! And it's not over a mile and a half.
+Are you fond of walking?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill was a bright girl, and could take a hint.</p>
+
+<p>"I love walking," she said. She might have added that she preferred to
+do it on a day when the wind was not blowing quite so keenly from the
+East, but her uncle's obvious excitement at the prospect of cheating
+the rapacity of the sharks at the Durham House restrained her. Her
+independent soul had not quite adjusted itself to the prospect of
+living on the bounty of her fellows, relatives though they were, and
+she was desirous of imposing as light a burden upon them as possible.
+"But how about my trunk?"</p>
+
+<p>"The expressman will bring that up. Fifty cents!" said Uncle Elmer in
+a crushed way. The high cost of entertaining seemed to be afflicting
+this man deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," said Jill. She could not see how this particular
+expenditure was to be avoided. Anxious as she was to make herself
+pleasant, she declined to consider carrying the trunk to their
+destination. "Shall we start, then?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mariner led the way out into the ice-covered road. The wind
+welcomed them like a boisterous dog. For some minutes they proceeded
+in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Your aunt will be glad to see you," said Mr. Mariner at last in the
+voice with which one announces the death of a dear friend.</p>
+
+<p>"It's awfully kind of you to have me to stay with you," said Jill. It
+is a human tendency to think, when crises occur, in terms of
+melodrama, and unconsciously she had begun to regard herself somewhat
+in the light of a heroine driven out into the world from the old home,
+with no roof to shelter her head. The promptitude with which these
+good people, who, though relatives, were after all complete strangers,
+had offered her a resting-place touched her. "I hope I shan't be in
+the way."</p>
+
+<p>"Major Selby was speaking to me on the telephone just now," said Mr.
+Mariner, "and he said that you might be thinking of settling down in
+Brookport. I've some nice little places round here which you might
+like to look at. Rent or buy. It's cheaper to buy. Brookport's a
+growing place. It's getting known as a summer resort. There's a
+bungalow down on the shore I'd like to show you to-morrow. Stands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> in
+a nice large plot of ground, and if you bought it for twelve thousand
+you'd be getting a bargain."</p>
+
+<p>Jill was too astonished to speak. Plainly Uncle Chris had made no
+mention of the change in her fortunes, and this man looked on her as a
+girl of wealth. She could only think how typical this was of Uncle
+Chris. There was a sort of boyish impishness about him. She could see
+him at the telephone, suave and important. He would have hung up the
+receiver with a complacent smirk, thoroughly satisfied that he had
+done her an excellent turn.</p>
+
+<p>"I put all my money into real estate when I came to live here," went
+on Mr. Mariner. "I believe in the place. It's growing all the time."</p>
+
+<p>They had come to the outskirts of a straggling village. The lights in
+the windows gave a welcome suggestion of warmth, for darkness had
+fallen swiftly during their walk and the chill of the wind had become
+more biting. There was a smell of salt in the air now, and once or
+twice Jill had caught the low booming of waves on some distant beach.
+This was the Atlantic pounding the sandy shore of Fire Island.
+Brookport itself lay inside, on the lagoon called the Great South Bay.</p>
+
+<p>They passed through the village, bearing to the right, and found
+themselves in a road bordered by large gardens in which stood big,
+dark houses. The spectacle of these stimulated Mr. Mariner to
+something approaching eloquence. He quoted the price paid for each,
+the price asked, the price offered, the price that had been paid five
+years ago. The recital carried them on for another mile, in the course
+of which the houses became smaller and more scattered, and finally,
+when the country had become bare and desolate again, they turned down
+a narrow lane and came to a tall, gaunt house standing by itself in a
+field.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Sandringham," said Mr. Mariner.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" said Jill. "What did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sandringham. Where we live. I got the name from your father. I
+remember him telling me there was a place called that in England."</p>
+
+<p>"There is." Jill's voice bubbled. "The King lives there."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?" said Mr. Mariner. "Well, I bet he doesn't have the
+trouble with help that we have here. I have to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> pay our girl fifty
+dollars a month, and another twenty for the man who looks after the
+furnace and chops wood. They're all robbers. And if you kick they quit
+on you!"</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+<p>Jill endured Sandringham for ten days; and, looking back on that
+period of her life later, she wondered how she did it. The sense of
+desolation which had gripped her on the station platform increased
+rather than diminished as she grew accustomed to her surroundings. The
+east wind died away, and the sun shone fitfully with a suggestion of
+warmth, but her uncle's bleakness appeared to be a static quality,
+independent of weather conditions. Her aunt, a faded woman, with a
+perpetual cold in the head, did nothing to promote cheerfulness. The
+rest of the household consisted of a gloomy child, "Tibby," aged
+eight; a spaniel, probably a few years older, and an intermittent cat,
+who, when he did put in an appearance, was the life and soul of the
+party, but whose visits to his home were all too infrequent for Jill.</p>
+
+<p>The picture which Mr. Mariner had formed in his mind of Jill as a
+wealthy young lady with a taste for house property continued as vivid
+as ever. It was his practice each morning to conduct her about the
+neighbourhood, introducing her to the various houses in which he had
+sunk most of the money he had made in business. Mr. Mariner's life
+centred around Brookport real estate, and the embarrassed Jill was
+compelled to inspect sitting-rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and master's
+bedrooms till the sound of a key turning in a lock gave her a feeling
+of nervous exhaustion. Most of her uncle's houses were converted
+farm-houses, and, as one unfortunate purchaser had remarked, not so
+darned converted at that. The days she spent at Brookport remained in
+Jill's memory as a smell of dampness and chill and closeness.</p>
+
+<p>"You want to buy," said Mr. Mariner every time he shut a front-door
+behind them. "Not rent. Buy. Then, if you don't want to live here, you
+can always rent in the summer."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed incredible to Jill that the summer would ever come. Winter
+held Brookport in its grip. For the first time in her life she was
+tasting real loneliness. She wandered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> over the snow-patched fields
+down to the frozen bay, and found the intense stillness, punctuated
+only by the occasional distant gunshot of some optimist trying for
+duck, oppressive rather than restful. She looked on the weird beauty
+of the ice-bound marshes which glittered red and green and blue in the
+sun with unseeing eyes; for her isolation was giving her time to
+think, and thought was a torment.</p>
+
+<p>On the eighth day came a letter from Uncle Chris&mdash;a cheerful, even
+rollicking letter. Things were going well with Uncle Chris, it seemed.
+As was his habit, he did not enter into details, but he wrote in a
+spacious way of large things to be, of affairs that were coming out
+right, of prosperity in sight. As tangible evidence of success, he
+enclosed a present of twenty dollars for Jill to spend in the
+Brookport shops.</p>
+
+<p>The letter arrived by the morning mail, and two hours later Mr.
+Mariner took Jill by one of his usual overland routes to see a house
+nearer the village than most of those which she had viewed. Mr.
+Mariner had exhausted the supply of cottages belonging to himself, and
+this one was the property of an acquaintance. There would be an
+agent's fee for him in the deal, if it went through, and Mr. Mariner
+was not a man who despised money in small quantities.</p>
+
+<p>There was a touch of hopefulness in his gloom this morning, like the first
+intimation of sunshine after a wet day. He had been thinking the thing
+over, and had come to the conclusion that Jill's unresponsiveness when
+confronted with the houses she had already seen was due to the fact that
+she had loftier ideas than he had supposed. Something a little more
+magnificent than the twelve thousand dollar places he had shown her was
+what she desired. This house stood on a hill looking down on the bay, in
+several acres of ground. It had its private landing-stage and bath-house,
+its dairy, its sleeping-porches&mdash;everything, in fact, that a sensible girl
+could want. Mr. Mariner could not bring himself to suppose that he would
+fail again to-day.</p>
+
+<p>"They're asking a hundred and five thousand," he said, "but I know
+they'd take a hundred thousand. And, if it was a question of cash
+down, they would go even lower. It's a fine house. You could entertain
+there. Mrs. Bruggenheim rented it last summer, and wanted to buy, but
+she wouldn't go above ninety thousand. If you want it, you'd better
+make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> up your mind quick. A place like this is apt to be snapped up in
+a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>Jill could endure it no longer.</p>
+
+<p>"But, you see," she said gently, "all I have in the world is twenty
+dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a painful pause. Mr. Mariner shot a swift glance at her in
+the hope of discovering that she had spoken humorously, but was
+compelled to decide that she had not.</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty dollars!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty dollars," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"But your father was a rich man." Mr. Mariner's voice was high and
+plaintive. "He made a fortune over here before he went to England."</p>
+
+<p>"It's all gone. I got nipped," said Jill, who was finding a certain
+amount of humour in the situation, "in Amalgamated Dyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Amalgamated Dyes?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're something," explained Jill, "that people get nipped in."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mariner digested this.</p>
+
+<p>"You speculated?" he gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't have been allowed to do it," said Mr. Mariner warmly.
+"Major Selby, your uncle, ought to have known better than to allow
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, oughtn't he?" said Jill demurely.</p>
+
+<p>There was another silence, lasting for about a quarter of a mile.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's a bad business," said Mr. Mariner.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Jill. "I've felt that myself."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The result of this conversation was to effect a change in the
+atmosphere of Sandringham. The alteration in the demeanour of people
+of parsimonious habit, when they discover that the guest they are
+entertaining is a pauper and not, as they had supposed, an heiress, is
+subtle but well marked. In most cases, more well marked than subtle.
+Nothing was actually said, but there are thoughts that are almost as
+audible as words. A certain suspense seemed to creep into the air, as
+happens when a situation has been reached which is too poignant to
+last. Greek Tragedy affects<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> the reader with the same sense of
+overhanging doom. Things, we feel, cannot go on as they are.</p>
+
+<p>That night, after dinner, Mrs. Mariner asked Jill to read to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Print tries my eyes so, dear," said Mrs. Mariner.</p>
+
+<p>It was a small thing, but it had the significance of that little cloud
+that arose out of the sea like a man's hand. Jill appreciated the
+portent. She was, she perceived, to make herself useful.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will," she said cordially. "What would you like me to
+read?"</p>
+
+<p>She hated reading aloud. It always made her throat sore, and her eye
+skipped to the end of each page and took the interest out of it long
+before the proper time. But she proceeded bravely, for her conscience
+was troubling her. Her sympathy was divided equally between these
+unfortunate people who had been saddled with an undesired visitor and
+herself who had been placed in a position at which every independent
+nerve in her rebelled. Even as a child she had loathed being under
+obligations to strangers or those whom she did not love.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Mariner, when Jill's voice had roughened
+to a weary croak. "You read so well." She wrestled ineffectually with
+her handkerchief against the cold in the head from which she had
+always suffered. "It would be nice if you would do it every night,
+don't you think? You have no idea how tired print makes my eyes."</p>
+
+<p>On the following morning after breakfast, at the hour when she had
+hitherto gone house-hunting with Mr. Mariner, the child Tibby, of whom
+up till now she had seen little except at meals, presented himself to
+her, coated and shod for the open and regarding her with a dull and
+phlegmatic gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Ma says will you please take me for a nice walk!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill's heart sank. She loved children, but Tibby was not an
+ingratiating child. He was a Mr. Mariner in little. He had the family
+gloom. It puzzled Jill sometimes why this branch of the family should
+look on life with so jaundiced an eye. She remembered her father as a
+cheerful man, alive to the small humours of life.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Tibby. Where shall we go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ma says we must keep on the roads and I mustn't slide."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jill was thoughtful during the walk. Tibby, who was no
+conversationist, gave her every opportunity for meditation. She
+perceived that in the space of a few hours she had sunk in the social
+scale. If there was any difference between her position and that of a
+paid nurse and companion it lay in the fact that she was not paid. She
+looked about her at the grim countryside, gave a thought to the chill
+gloom of the house to which she was about to return, and her heart
+sank.</p>
+
+<p>Nearing home, Tibby vouched his first independent observation.</p>
+
+<p>"The hired man's quit!"</p>
+
+<p>"Has he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yep. Quit this morning."</p>
+
+<p>It had begun to snow. They turned and made their way back to the
+house. The information she had received did not cause Jill any great
+apprehension. It was hardly likely that her new duties would include
+the stoking of the furnace. That and cooking appeared to be the only
+acts about the house which were outside her present sphere of
+usefulness.</p>
+
+<p>"He killed a rat once in the wood-shed with an axe," said Tibby
+chattily. "Yessir! Chopped it right in half, and it bled!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look at the pretty snow falling on the trees," said Jill faintly.</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast next morning, Mrs. Mariner having sneezed, made a
+suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"Tibby, darling, wouldn't it be nice if you and cousin Jill played a
+game of pretending you were pioneers in the Far West?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's a pioneer?" enquired Tibby, pausing in the middle of an act of
+violence on a plate of oatmeal.</p>
+
+<p>"The pioneers were the early settlers in this country, dear. You have
+read about them in your history book. They endured a great many
+hardships, for life was very rough for them, with no railroads or
+anything. I think it would be a nice game to play this morning."</p>
+
+<p>Tibby looked at Jill. There was doubt in his eye. Jill returned his
+gaze sympathetically. One thought was in both their minds.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a string to this!" said Tibby's eye.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mariner sneezed again.</p>
+
+<p>"You would have lots of fun," she said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What'ud we do?" asked Tibby cautiously. He had been had this way
+before. Only last summer, on his mother's suggestion that he should
+pretend he was a shipwrecked sailor on a desert island, he had
+perspired through a whole afternoon cutting the grass in front of the
+house to make a shipwrecked sailor's simple bed.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Jill. "We'll pretend we're pioneers stormbound in their
+log cabin in the woods, and the wolves are howling outside, and they
+daren't go out, so they make a lovely big fire and sit in front of it
+and read."</p>
+
+<p>"And eat candy," suggested Tibby, warming to the idea.</p>
+
+<p>"And eat candy," agreed Jill.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mariner frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"I was going to suggest," she said frostily, "that you shovelled the
+snow away from the front steps!"</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid!" said Jill. "Oh, but I forgot. I want to go to the village
+first."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be plenty of time to do it when you get back."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. I'll do it when I get back."</p>
+
+<p>It was a quarter of an hour's walk to the village. Jill stopped at the
+post-office.</p>
+
+<p>"Could you tell me," she asked, "when the next train is to New York?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's one at ten-ten," said the woman behind the window. "You'll
+have to hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll hurry!" said Jill.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DRY-SALTERS WING DEREK</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>Doctors, laying down the law in their usual confident way, tell us
+that the vitality of the human body is at its lowest at two o'clock in
+the morning: and that it is then, as a consequence, that the mind is
+least able to contemplate the present with equanimity, the future with
+fortitude, and the past without regret. Every thinking man, however,
+knows that this is not so. The true zero hour, desolate, gloom-ridden,
+and spectre-haunted, occurs immediately before dinner while we are
+waiting for that cocktail. It is then that, stripped for a brief
+moment of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> armour of complacency and self-esteem, we see ourselves
+as we are&mdash;frightful chumps in a world where nothing goes right; a
+grey world in which, hoping to click, we merely get the raspberry;
+where, animated by the best intentions, we nevertheless succeed in
+perpetrating the scaliest bloomers and landing our loved ones
+neck-deep in the gumbo.</p>
+
+<p>So reflected Freddie Rooke, that priceless old bean, sitting
+disconsolately in an arm-chair at the Drones Club about two weeks
+after Jill's departure from England, waiting for his friend Algy
+Martyn to trickle in and give him dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Surveying Freddie, as he droops on his spine in the yielding leather,
+one is conscious of one's limitations as a writer. Gloom like his
+calls for the pen of a master. Zola could have tackled it nicely.
+Gorky might have made a stab at it. Dostoevsky would have handled it
+with relish. But for oneself the thing is too vast. One cannot wangle
+it. It intimidates. It would have been bad enough in any case, for
+Algy Martyn was late as usual and it always gave Freddie the pip to
+have to wait for dinner: but what made it worse was the fact that the
+Drones was not one of Freddie's clubs and so, until the blighter Algy
+arrived, it was impossible for him to get his cocktail. There he sat,
+surrounded by happy, laughing young men, each grasping a glass of the
+good old mixture-as-before, absolutely unable to connect. Some of
+them, casual acquaintances, had nodded to him, waved, and gone on
+lowering the juice,&mdash;a spectacle which made Freddie feel much as the
+wounded soldier would have felt if Sir Philip Sidney, instead of
+offering him the cup of water, had placed it to his own lips and
+drained it with a careless "Cheerio!" No wonder Freddie experienced
+the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoi's
+Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling
+his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city
+reservoir, he turns to the cupboard, only to find the vodka-bottle
+empty.</p>
+
+<p>Freddie gave himself up to despondency: and, as always in these days
+when he was mournful, he thought of Jill. Jill's sad case was a
+continual source of mental anguish to him. From the first he had
+blamed himself for the breaking-off of her engagement with Derek. If
+he had not sent the message to Derek from the police-station, the
+latter would never have known about their arrest, and all would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+been well. And now, a few days ago, had come the news of her financial
+disaster, with its attendant complications.</p>
+
+<p>It had descended on Freddie like a thunderbolt through the medium of
+Ronny Devereux.</p>
+
+<p>"I say," Ronny had said, "have you heard the latest? Your pal,
+Underhill, has broken off his engagement with Jill Mariner."</p>
+
+<p>"I know; rather rotten, what!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rotten? I should say so! It isn't done. I mean to say, chap can't
+chuck a girl just because she's lost her money. Simply isn't on the
+board, old man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lost her money? What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Ronny was surprised. Hadn't Freddie heard? Yes, absolute fact. He had
+it from the best authority. Didn't know how it had happened and all
+that, but Jill Mariner had gone completely bust; Underhill had given
+her the miss-in-baulk; and the poor girl had legged it, no one knew
+where. Oh, Freddie had met her and she had told him she was going to
+America? Well, then, legged it to America. But the point was that the
+swine Underhill had handed her the mitten just because she was broke,
+and that was what Ronny thought so bally rotten. Broker a girl is,
+Ronny meant to say, more a fellow should stick to her.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;" Freddie rushed to his hero's defence. "But it wasn't that at
+all. Something quite different. I mean, Derek didn't even know Jill
+had lost her money. He broke the engagement because...." Freddie
+stopped short. He didn't want everybody to know of that rotten arrest
+business, as they infallibly would if he confided in Ronny Devereux.
+Sort of thing he would never hear the last of. "He broke it off
+because of something quite different."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes!" said Ronny sceptically.</p>
+
+<p>"But he did, really!"</p>
+
+<p>Ronny shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you believe it, old son. Don't you believe it. Stands to reason
+it must have been because the poor girl was broke. You wouldn't have
+done it and I wouldn't have done it, but Underhill did, and that's all
+there is to it. I mean, a tick's a tick, and there's nothing more to
+say. Well, I know he's been a pal of yours, Freddie, but, next time I
+meet him, by Jove, I'll cut him dead. Only I don't know him to speak
+to, dash it!" concluded Ronny regretfully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ronny's news had upset Freddie. Derek had returned to the Albany a
+couple of days ago, moody and silent. They had lunched together at the
+Bachelors, and Freddie had been pained at the attitude of his
+fellow-clubmen. Usually, when he lunched at the Bachelors, his table
+became a sort of social centre. Cheery birds would roll up to pass the
+time of day, and festive old eggs would toddle over to have coffee and
+so forth, and all that sort of thing. Jolly! On this occasion nobody
+had rolled, and all the eggs present had taken their coffee elsewhere.
+There was an uncomfortable chill in the atmosphere of which Freddie
+had been acutely conscious, though Derek had not appeared to notice
+it. The thing had only come home to Derek yesterday at the Albany,
+when the painful episode of Wally Mason had occurred. It was this
+way....</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Freddie, old top! Sorry to have kept you waiting."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie looked up from his broken meditations, to find that his host
+had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!"</p>
+
+<p>"A quick bracer," said Algy Martyn, "and then the jolly old
+food-stuffs. It's pretty late, I see. Didn't notice how time was
+slipping."</p>
+
+<p>Over the soup, Freddie was still a prey to gloom. For once the healing
+gin-and-vermouth had failed to do its noble work. He sipped sombrely,
+so sombrely as to cause comment from his host.</p>
+
+<p>"Pipped?" enquired Algy solicitously.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty pipped," admitted Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Backed a loser?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Something wrong with the old tum?"</p>
+
+<p>"No.... Worried."</p>
+
+<p>"Worried?"</p>
+
+<p>"About Derek."</p>
+
+<p>"Derek? Who's...? Oh, you mean Underhill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Algy Martyn chased an elusive piece of carrot about his soup plate,
+watching it interestedly as it slid coyly from the spoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh?" he said, with sudden coolness. "What about him?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie was too absorbed in his subject to notice the change in his
+friend's tone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A dashed unpleasant thing," he said, "happened yesterday morning at
+my place. I was just thinking about going out to lunch, when the
+door-bell rang and Barker said a chappie of the name of Mason would
+like to see me. I didn't remember any Mason, but Barker said the
+chappie said he knew me when I was a kid. So he loosed him into the
+room, and it turned out to be a fellow I used to know years ago down
+in Worcestershire. I didn't know him from Adam at first, but gradually
+the old bean got to work, and I placed him. Wally Mason his name was.
+Rummily enough, he had spoken to me at the Leicester that night when
+the fire was, but not being able to place him, I had given him the
+miss somewhat. You know how it is. Cove you've never been introduced
+to says something to you in a theatre, and you murmur something and
+sheer off. What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely," agreed Algy Martyn. He thoroughly approved of Freddie's
+code of etiquette. Sheer off. Only thing to do.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, now that he had turned up again and told me who he was,
+I began to remember. We had been kids together, don't you know.
+(What's this? Salmon? Oh, right ho.) So I buzzed about and did the
+jovial host, you know; gave him a drink and a toofer, and all that
+sort of thing; and talked about the dear old days and what not. And so
+forth, if you follow me. Then he brought the conversation round to
+Jill. Of course he knew Jill at the same time when he knew me, down in
+Worcestershire, you see. We were all pretty pally in those days, if
+you see what I mean. Well, this man Mason, it seems, had heard
+somewhere about Jill losing her money, and he wanted to know if it was
+true. I said absolutely. Hadn't heard any details, but Ronny had told
+me, and Ronny had had it from some one who had stable information and
+all that sort of thing. 'Dashed shame, isn't it?' I said. 'She's gone
+to America, you know.' 'I didn't know,' he said. 'I understood she was
+going to be married quite soon.' Well, of course, I told him that that
+was off. He didn't say anything for a bit, then he said 'Off?' I said
+'Off.' 'Did she break it off?' asked the chappie. 'Well, no,' I said.
+'As a matter of fact Derek broke it off.' He said 'Oh!' (What? Oh yes,
+a bit of pheasant will be fine.) Where was I? Oh, yes. He said 'Oh!'
+Now,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> before this, I ought to tell you, this chappie Mason had asked
+me to come out and have a bit of lunch. I had told him I was lunching
+with Derek, and he said 'Right ho,' or words to that effect, 'Bring
+him along.' Derek had been out for a stroll, you see, and we were
+waiting for him to come in. Well, just at this point or juncture, if
+you know what I mean, in he came, and I said' Oh, what ho!' and
+introduced Wally Mason. 'Oh, do you know Underhill?' I said, or
+something like that. You know the sort of thing. And then...."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie broke off and drained his glass. The recollection of that
+painful moment had made him feverish. Social difficulties always did.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what?" enquired Algy Martyn.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it was pretty rotten. Derek held out his hand, as a chappie
+naturally would, being introduced to a strange chappie, and Wally
+Mason, giving it an absolute miss, went on talking to me just as if we
+were alone, you know. Look here. Here was I, where this knife is.
+Derek over here&mdash;this fork&mdash;with his hand out. Mason here&mdash;this bit of
+bread. Mason looks at his watch, and says 'I'm sorry, Freddie, but I
+find I've an engagement for lunch. So long!' and biffed out, without
+apparently knowing that Derek was on the earth. I mean...." Freddie
+reached for his glass. "What I mean is, it was dashed embarrassing. I
+mean, cutting a fellow dead in my rooms. I don't know when I've felt
+so rotten!"</p>
+
+<p>Algy Martyn delivered judgment with great firmness.</p>
+
+<p>"Chappie was perfectly right!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I mean...."</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely correct-o," insisted Algy sternly. "Underhill can't dash
+about all over the place giving the girl he's engaged to the mitten
+because she's broke, and expect no notice to be taken of it. If you
+want to know what I think, old man, your pal Underhill&mdash;I can't
+imagine what the deuce you see in him, but, school together and so
+forth, makes a difference, I suppose&mdash;I say, if you want to know what
+I think, Freddie, the blighter Underhill would be well advised either
+to leg it after Jill and get her to marry him or else lie low for a
+goodish while till people have forgotten the thing. I mean to say,
+fellows like Ronny and I and Dick Wimpole and Archie Studd and the
+rest of our lot&mdash;well, we all knew Jill and thought she was a topper
+and had danced with her here and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> there and seen her about and all
+that, and naturally we feel pretty strongly about the whole dashed
+business. Underhill isn't in our particular set, but we all know most
+of the people he knows, and we talk about this business, and the thing
+gets about, and there you are! My sister, who was a great pal of
+Jill's, swears that all the girls she knows mean to cut Underhill. I
+tell you, Freddie, London's going to get pretty hot for him if he
+doesn't do something dashed quick and with great rapidity!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you haven't got the story right, old thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"How not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I mean you think and Ronny thinks and all the rest of you think
+that Derek broke off the engagement because of the money. It wasn't
+that at all."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well.... Well, look here, it makes me seem a fearful ass and all
+that, but I'd better tell you. Jill and I were going down one of those
+streets near Victoria and a blighter was trying to slay a parrot...."</p>
+
+<p>"Parrot-shooting's pretty good in those parts, they tell me,"
+interjected Algy satirically.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't interrupt, old man. This parrot had got out of one of the
+houses, and a fellow was jabbing at it with a stick, and Jill&mdash;you
+know what she's like; impulsive, I mean, and all that&mdash;Jill got hold
+of the stick and biffed him with some vim, and a policeman rolled up
+and the fellow made a fuss and the policeman took Jill and me off to
+chokey. Well, like an ass, I sent round to Derek to bail us out, and
+that's how he heard of the thing. Apparently he didn't think a lot of
+it, and the result was that he broke off the engagement."</p>
+
+<p>Algy Martyn had listened to this recital with growing amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"He broke it off because of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"What absolute rot!" said Algy Martyn. "I don't believe a word of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I say, old man!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe a word of it," repeated Algy firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"And nobody else will either. It's dashed good of you, Freddie, to
+cook up a yarn like that to try and make things look better for the
+blighter, but it won't work. Such a damn silly story, too!" said Algy
+with some indignation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But it's true!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the use, Freddie, between old pals?" said Algy protestingly.
+"You know perfectly well that Underhill's a worm of the most
+pronounced order, and that, when he found out that Jill hadn't any
+money, he chucked her."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should Derek care whether Jill was well off or not? He's got
+enough money of his own."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody," said Algy judicially, "has got enough money of his own.
+Underhill thought he was marrying a girl with a sizable chunk of the
+ready, and, when the fuse blew out, he decided it wasn't good enough.
+For Heaven's sake don't let's talk any more about the blighter. It
+gives me a pain to think of him."</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>Freddie returned to the Albany in a state of gloom and uneasiness.
+Algy's remarks, coming on top of the Wally Mason episode, had shaken
+him. The London in which he and Derek moved and had their being is
+nothing but a village, and it was evident that village gossip was
+hostile to Derek. People were talking about him. Local opinion had
+decided that he had behaved badly. Already one man had cut him.
+Freddie blenched at a sudden vision of streetfuls of men, long
+Piccadillys of men, all cutting him, one after the other. Something
+had got to be done.</p>
+
+<p>The subject was not an easy one to broach to his somewhat forbidding
+friend, as he discovered when the latter arrived about half an hour
+later. Derek had been attending the semi-annual banquet of the
+Worshipful Dry-Salters Company down in the City, understudying one of
+the speakers, a leading member of Parliament, who had been unable to
+appear; and he was still in the grip of that feeling of degraded
+repletion which City dinners induce.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, unfavourably disposed as, judging by his silence and the
+occasional moody grunts he uttered, he appeared to be to a discussion
+of his private affairs, it seemed to Freddie impossible that the night
+should be allowed to pass without some word spoken on the subject. He
+thought of Ronny and what Ronny had said, of Algy and what Algy had
+said, of Wally Mason and how Wally had behaved in this very room; and
+he nerved himself to the task.</p>
+
+<p>"Derek, old top."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A grunt.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Derek, old bean."</p>
+
+<p>Derek roused himself, and looked gloomily across the room to where he
+stood, warming his legs at the blaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie found a difficulty in selecting words. A ticklish business,
+this. One that might well have disconcerted a diplomat. Freddie was no
+diplomat, and the fact enabled him to find a way in the present
+crisis. Equipped by nature with an amiable tactlessness and a happy
+gift of blundering, he charged straight at the main point, and landed
+on it like a circus elephant alighting on a bottle.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, you know, about Jill!"</p>
+
+<p>He stooped to rub the backs of his legs, on which the fire was playing
+with a little too fierce a glow, and missed his companion's start and
+the sudden thickening of his bushy eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said Derek again.</p>
+
+<p>Freddie nerved himself to proceed. A thought flashed across his mind
+that Derek was looking exactly like Lady Underhill. It was the first
+time he had seen the family resemblance quite so marked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ronny Devereux was saying...." faltered Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn Ronny Devereux!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, absolutely! But...."</p>
+
+<p>"Ronny Devereux! Who the devil <i>is</i> Ronny Devereux?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, old man, you've heard me speak of him, haven't you? Pal of mine.
+He came down to the station with Algy and me to meet your mater that
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>that</i> fellow? And he has been saying something about...?"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't only Ronny, you know," Freddie hastened to interject. "Algy
+Martyn's talking about it, too. And lots of other fellows. And Algy's
+sister and a lot of peoples They're all saying...."</p>
+
+<p>"What are they saying?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie bent down and chafed the back of his legs. He simply couldn't
+look at Derek while he had that Lady Underhill expression on the old
+map. Rummy he had never noticed before how extraordinarily like his
+mother he was. Freddie was conscious of a faint sense of grievance. He
+could not have put it into words, but what he felt was that a fellow
+had no right to go about looking like Lady Underhill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What are they saying?" repeated Derek grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well...." Freddie hesitated. "That it's a bit tough.... On Jill, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"They think I behaved badly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well.... Oh, well, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>Derek smiled a ghastly smile. This was not wholly due to mental
+disturbance. The dull heaviness which was the legacy of the
+Dry-Salters' dinner had begun to change to something more actively
+unpleasant. A sub-motive of sharp pain had begun to run through it,
+flashing in and out like lightning through a thunder-cloud. He felt
+sullen and vicious.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," he said with savage politeness, "if, when you chat with
+your friends, you would mind choosing some other topic than my private
+affairs."</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, old man. But they started it, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"And, if you feel you've got to discuss me, kindly keep it to
+yourself. Don't come and tell me what your damned friends said to each
+other and to you and what you said to them, because it bores me. I'm
+not interested. I don't value their opinions as much as you seem to."
+Derek paused, to battle in silence with the imperious agony within
+him. "It was good of you to put me up here," he went on, "but I think
+I won't trespass on your hospitality any longer. Perhaps you'll ask
+Barker to pack my things to-morrow." Derek moved, as majestically as
+an ex-guest of the Worshipful Company of Dry-Salters may, in the
+direction of the door. "I shall go to the Savoy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say, old man! No need to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night."</p>
+
+<p>"But, I say...."</p>
+
+<p>"And you can tell your friend Devereux that, if he doesn't stop poking
+his nose into my private business, I'll pull it off."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Freddie doubtfully, "of course I don't suppose you know,
+but.... Ronny's a pretty hefty bird. He boxed for Cambridge in the
+light-weights the last year he was up, you know. He...."</p>
+
+<p>Derek slammed the door. Freddie was alone. He stood rubbing his legs
+for some minutes, a rueful expression on his usually cheerful face.
+Freddie hated rows. He liked everything to jog along smoothly. What a
+rotten place the world was these days! Just one thing after another.
+First,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> poor old Jill takes the knock and disappears. He would miss
+her badly. What a good sort! What a pal! And now&mdash;gone. Biffed off.
+Next, Derek. Together, more or less, ever since Winchester, and
+now&mdash;bing!...</p>
+
+<p>Freddie heaved a sigh, and reached out for the <i>Sporting Times</i>, his
+never-failing comfort in times of depression. He lit another cigar and
+curled up in one of the arm-chairs. He was feeling tired. He had been
+playing squash all the afternoon, a game at which he was exceedingly
+expert and to which he was much addicted.</p>
+
+<p>Time passed. The paper slipped to the floor. A cold cigar followed it.
+From the depths of the chair came a faint snore....</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A hand on his shoulder brought Freddie with a jerk from troubled
+dreams. Derek was standing beside him. A bent, tousled Derek,
+apparently in pain.</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!"</p>
+
+<p>A spasm twisted Derek's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you got any pepsin?"</p>
+
+<p>Derek uttered a groan. What a mocker of our petty human dignity is
+this dyspepsia, bringing low the haughtiest of us, less than love
+itself a respecter of persons. This was a different Derek from the man
+who had stalked stiffly from the room two hours before. His pride had
+been humbled upon the rack.</p>
+
+<p>"Pepsin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I've got the most damned attack of indigestion."</p>
+
+<p>The mists of sleep rolled away from Freddie. He was awake again, and
+became immediately helpful. These were the occasions when the Last of
+the Rookes was a good man to have at your side. It was Freddie who
+suggested that Derek should recline in the arm-chair which he had
+vacated; Freddie who nipped round the corner to the all-night
+chemist's and returned with a magic bottle guaranteed to relieve an
+ostrich after a surfeit of tenpenny nails; Freddie who mixed and
+administered the dose.</p>
+
+<p>His ministrations were rewarded. Presently the agony seemed to pass.
+Derek recovered.</p>
+
+<p>One would say that Derek became himself again, but that the mood of
+gentle remorse which came upon him as he lay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> in the arm-chair was one
+so foreign to his nature. Freddie had never seen him so subdued. He
+was like a convalescent child. Between them, the all-night chemist and
+the Dry. Salters seemed to have wrought a sort of miracle. These
+temporary softenings of personality frequently follow City dinners.
+The time to catch your Dry-Salter in angelic mood is the day after the
+semi-annual banquet. Go to him then and he will give you his watch and
+chain.</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie," said Derek.</p>
+
+<p>They were sitting over the dying fire. The clock on the mantelpiece,
+beside which Jill's photograph had stood pointed to ten minutes past
+two. Derek spoke in a low, soft voice. Perhaps the doctors are right
+after all, and two o'clock is the hour at which our self-esteem
+deserts us, leaving in its place regret for past sins, good
+resolutions for future behaviour.</p>
+
+<p>"What do Martyn and the others say about ... you know?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie hesitated. Pity to start all that again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know," went on Derek. "They say I behaved like a cad."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well...."</p>
+
+<p>"They are quite right. I did."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I shouldn't say that, you know. Faults on both sides and all that
+sort of rot."</p>
+
+<p>"I did!" Derek stared into the fire. Scattered all over London at that
+moment, probably a hundred Worshipful Dry-Salters were equally
+sleepless and subdued, looking wide-eyed into black pasts. "Is it true
+she has gone to America, Freddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"She told me she was going."</p>
+
+<p>"What a fool I've been!"</p>
+
+<p>The clock ticked on through the silence. The fire sputtered faintly,
+then gave a little wheeze, like a very old man. Derek rested his chin
+on his hands, gazing into the ashes.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to God I could go over there and find her."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I? There may be an election coming on at any moment. I can't
+stir."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie leaped from his seat. The suddenness of the action sent a
+red-hot corkscrew of pain through Derek's head.</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil's the matter?" he demanded irritably. Even the gentle
+mood which comes with convalescence after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> a City dinner is not
+guaranteed to endure against this sort of thing.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got an idea, old bean!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's no need to dance, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've nothing to keep me here, you know. What's the matter with my
+popping over to America and finding Jill?" Freddie tramped the floor,
+aglow. Each beat of his foot jarred Derek, but he made no complaint.</p>
+
+<p>"Could you?" he asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I could. I was saying only the other day that I had half a
+mind to buzz over. It's a wheeze! I'll get on the next boat and charge
+over in the capacity of a jolly old ambassador. Have her back in no
+time. Leave it to me, old thing! This is where I come out strong!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>JILL IN SEARCH OF AN UNCLE</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>New York welcomed Jill, as she came out of the Pennsylvania Station in
+Seventh Avenue, with a whirl of powdered snow that touched her cheek
+like a kiss, the cold, bracing kiss one would expect from this vivid
+city. She stood at the station entrance, a tiny figure beside the huge
+pillars, looking round her with eager eyes. A wind was whipping down
+the avenue. The sky was a clear, brilliant tint of the brightest blue.
+Energy was in the air, and hopefulness. She wondered if Mr. Elmer
+Mariner ever came to New York. It was hard to see how even his gloom
+would contrive to remain unaffected by the exhilaration of the place.</p>
+
+<p>She took Uncle Chris' letter from her bag. He had written from an
+address on East Fifty-seventh Street. There would be just time to
+catch him before he went out to lunch. She hailed a taxi-cab which was
+coming out of the station.</p>
+
+<p>It was a slow ride, halted repeatedly by congestion of the traffic,
+but a short one for Jill. She was surprised at herself, a Londoner of
+long standing, for feeling so provincial and being so impressed. But
+London was far away. It belonged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> to a life that seemed years ago and
+a world from which she had parted for ever. Moreover, this was
+undeniably a stupendous city through which her taxi-cab was carrying
+her. At Times Square the stream of the traffic plunged into a
+whirlpool, swinging out of Broadway to meet the rapids which poured in
+from east, west, and north. On Fifth Avenue all the motor-cars in the
+world were gathered together. On the pavements, pedestrians, muffled
+against the nipping chill of the crisp air, hurried to and fro. And,
+above, that sapphire sky spread a rich velvet curtain which made the
+tops of the buildings stand out like the white minarets of some
+eastern city of romance.</p>
+
+<p>The cab drew up in front of a stone apartment house; and Jill, getting
+out, passed under an awning through a sort of medi&aelig;val courtyard, gay
+with potted shrubs, to an inner door. She was impressed. Evidently the
+tales one heard of fortunes accumulated overnight in this magic city
+were true, and one of them must have fallen to the lot of Uncle Chris.
+For nobody to whom money was a concern could possibly afford to live
+in a place like this. If Croesus and the Count of Monte Cristo had
+applied for lodging there, the authorities would probably have looked
+on them a little doubtfully at first and hinted at the desirability of
+a month's rent in advance.</p>
+
+<p>In a glass case behind the inner door, reading a newspaper and chewing
+gum, sat a dignified old man in the rich uniform of a general in the
+Guatemalan army. He was a brilliant spectacle. He wore no jewellery,
+but this, no doubt, was due to a private distaste for display. As
+there was no one else of humbler rank at hand from whom Jill could
+solicit an introduction and the privilege of an audience, she took the
+bold step of addressing him directly.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see Major Selby, please."</p>
+
+<p>The Guatemalan general arrested for a moment the rhythmic action of
+his jaws, lowered his paper and looked at her with raised eyebrows. At
+first Jill thought that he was registering haughty contempt, then she
+saw what she had taken for scorn was surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Selby?"</p>
+
+<p>"Major Selby."</p>
+
+<p>"No Major Selby living here."</p>
+
+<p>"Major Christopher Selby."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not here," said the associate of ambassadors and the pampered pet of
+Guatemala's proudest beauties. "Never heard of him in my life!"</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>Jill had read works of fiction in which at certain crises everything
+had "seemed to swim" in front of the heroine's eyes, but never till
+this moment had she experienced that remarkable sensation herself. The
+Saviour of Guatemala did not actually swim, perhaps, but he certainly
+flickered. She had to blink to restore his prismatic outlines to their
+proper sharpness. Already the bustle and noise of New York had begun
+to induce in her that dizzy condition of unreality which one feels in
+dreams, and this extraordinary statement added the finishing touch.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the fact that she had said "please" to him when she opened the
+conversation touched the heart of the hero of a thousand revolutions.
+Dignified and beautiful as he was to the eye of the stranger, it is
+unpleasant to have to record that he lived in a world which rather
+neglected the minor courtesies of speech. People did not often say
+"please" to him. "Here!" "Hi!" and "Gosh darn you!" yes; but seldom
+"please." He seemed to approve of Jill, for he shifted his chewing-gum
+to a position which facilitated speech, and began to be helpful.</p>
+
+<p>"What was the name again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Selby."</p>
+
+<p>"Howja spell it?"</p>
+
+<p>"S-e-l-b-y."</p>
+
+<p>"S-e-l-b-y. Oh, Selby?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Selby."</p>
+
+<p>"What was the first name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Christopher."</p>
+
+<p>"Christopher?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Christopher."</p>
+
+<p>"Christopher Selby? No one of that name living here."</p>
+
+<p>"But there must be."</p>
+
+<p>The veteran shook his head with an indulgent smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You want Mr. Sipperley," he said tolerantly. In Guatemala these
+mistakes are always happening. "Mr. George Sipperley. He's on the
+fourth floor. What name shall I say?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He had almost reached the telephone when Jill stopped him. This is an
+age of just-as-good substitutes, but she refused to accept any unknown
+Sipperley as a satisfactory alternative for Uncle Chris.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want Mr. Sipperley. I want Major Selby."</p>
+
+<p>"Howja spell it once more?"</p>
+
+<p>"S-e-l-b-y."</p>
+
+<p>"S-e-l-b-y. No one of that name living here. Mr. Sipperley&mdash;" he spoke
+in a wheedling voice, as if determined, in spite of herself, to make
+Jill see what was in her best interests&mdash;"Mr. Sipperley's on the
+fourth floor. Gentleman in the real estate business," he added
+insinuatingly. "He's got blond hair and a Boston bull-dog."</p>
+
+<p>"He may be all you say, and he may have a dozen bull-dogs...."</p>
+
+<p>"Only one. Jack his name is."</p>
+
+<p>"... But he isn't the right man. It's absurd. Major Selby wrote to me
+from this address. This <i>is</i> Eighteen East Fifty-seventh Street?"</p>
+
+<p>"This is Eighteen East Fifty-seventh Street," conceded the other
+cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got his letter here." She opened her bag, and gave an
+exclamation of dismay. "It's gone!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Sipperley used to have a friend staying with him last Fall. A Mr.
+Robertson. Dark-complexioned man with a moustache."</p>
+
+<p>"I took it out to look at the address, and I was sure I put it back. I
+must have dropped it."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a Mr. Rainsby on the seventh floor. He's a broker down on
+Wall Street. Short man with an impediment in his speech."</p>
+
+<p>Jill snapped the clasp of her bag.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," she said. "I must have made a mistake. I was quite sure
+that this was the address, but it evidently isn't. Thank you so much.
+I'm so sorry to have bothered you."</p>
+
+<p>She walked away, leaving the Terror of Paraguay and all points west
+speechless: for people who said "Thank you so much" to him were even
+rarer than those who said "please." He followed her with an
+affectionate eye till she was out of sight, then, restoring his
+chewing-gum to circulation, returned to the perusal of his paper. A
+momentary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> suggestion presented itself to his mind that what Jill had
+really wanted was Mr. Willoughby on the eighth floor, but it was too
+late to say so now; and soon, becoming absorbed in the narrative of a
+spirited householder in Kansas who had run amuck with a hatchet and
+slain six, he dismissed the matter from his mind.</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+<p>Jill walked back to Fifth Avenue, crossed it, and made her way
+thoughtfully along the breezy street which, flanked on one side by the
+Park and on the other by the green-roofed Plaza Hotel and the
+apartment houses of the wealthy, ends in the humbler and more
+democratic spaces of Columbus Circle. She perceived that she was in
+that position, familiar to melodrama, of being alone in a great city.
+The reflection brought with it a certain discomfort. The bag that
+dangled from her wrist contained all the money she had in the world,
+the very broken remains of the twenty dollars which Uncle Chris had
+sent her at Brookport. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep, and no
+immediately obvious means of adding to her capital. It was a situation
+which she had not foreseen when she set out to walk to Brookport
+station.</p>
+
+<p>She pondered over the mystery of Uncle Chris' disappearance, and found
+no solution. The thing was inexplicable. She was as sure of the
+address he had given in his letter as she was of anything in the
+world. Yet at that address nothing had been heard of him. His name was
+not even known. These were deeper waters than Jill was able to fathom.</p>
+
+<p>She walked on aimlessly. Presently she came to Columbus Circle, and,
+crossing Broadway at the point where that street breaks out into an
+eruption of automobile shops, found herself, suddenly hungry, opposite
+a restaurant whose entire front was a sheet of plate glass. On the
+other side of this glass, at marble-topped tables, apparently careless
+of their total lack of privacy, sat the impecunious, lunching, their
+every mouthful a spectacle for the passer-by. It reminded Jill of
+looking at fishes in an aquarium. In the centre of the window, gazing
+out in a distrait manner over piles of apples and grape-fruit, a
+white-robed ministrant at a stove juggled ceaselessly with buckwheat
+cakes. He struck the final note in the candidness of the
+establishment, a priest whose ritual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> contained no mysteries.
+Spectators with sufficient time on their hands to permit them to stand
+and watch were enabled to witness a New York midday meal in every
+stage of its career, from its protoplasmic beginnings as a stream of
+yellowish-white liquid poured on top of the stove to its ultimate
+Nirvana in the interior of the luncher in the form of an appetising
+cake. It was a spectacle which no hungry girl could resist. Jill went
+in, and, as she made her way among the tables, a voice spoke her name.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Mariner!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill jumped, and thought for a moment that the thing must have been an
+hallucination. It was impossible that anybody in the place should have
+called her name. Except for Uncle Chris, wherever he might be, she
+knew no one in New York. Then the voice spoke again, competing
+valiantly with a clatter of crockery so uproarious as to be more like
+something solid than a mere sound.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't believe it was you!"</p>
+
+<p>A girl in blue had risen from the nearest table, and was staring at
+her in astonishment. Jill recognized her instantly. Those big,
+pathetic eyes, like a lost child's, were unmistakable. It was the
+parrot girl, the girl whom she and Freddie Rooke had found in the
+drawing-room at Ovingdon Square that afternoon when the foundations of
+the world had given way and chaos had begun.</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious!" cried Jill. "I thought you were in London!"</p>
+
+<p>That feeling of emptiness and panic, the result of her interview with
+the Guatemalan general at the apartment house, vanished magically. She
+sat down at this unexpected friend's table with a light heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever are you doing in New York?" asked the girl. "I never knew
+you meant to come over."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a little sudden. Still, here I am. And I'm starving. What are
+those things you're eating?"</p>
+
+<p>"Buckwheat cakes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. I remember Uncle Chris talking about them on the boat. I'll
+have some."</p>
+
+<p>"But when did you come over?"</p>
+
+<p>"I landed about ten days ago. I've been down at a place called
+Brookport on Long Island. How funny running into you like this!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I was surprised that you remembered me."</p>
+
+<p>"I've forgotten your name," admitted Jill frankly. "But that's
+nothing. I always forget names."</p>
+
+<p>"My name's Nelly Bryant."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. And you're on the stage, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I've just got work with Goble and Cohn.... Hullo, Phil!"</p>
+
+<p>A young man with a lithe figure and smooth black hair brushed straight
+back from his forehead had paused at the table on his way to the
+cashier's desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Nelly."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know you lunched here."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't often. Been rehearsing with Joe up at the Century Roof, and had
+a quarter of an hour to get a bite. Can I sit down?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. This is my friend, Miss Mariner."</p>
+
+<p>The young man shook hands with Jill, flashing an approving glance at
+her out of his dark, restless eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Pleased to meet you."</p>
+
+<p>"This is Phil Brown," said Nelly. "He plays the straight for Joe
+Widgeon. They're the best jazz-and-hokum team on the Keith Circuit."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hush!" said Mr. Brown modestly. "You always were a great little
+booster, Nelly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know you are! Weren't you held over at the Palace last
+time? Well, then!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," admitted the young man. "Maybe we didn't gool 'em, eh?
+Stop me on the street and ask me! Only eighteen bows second house
+Saturday!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill was listening, fascinated.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand a word," she said. "It's like another language."</p>
+
+<p>"You're from the other side, aren't you?" asked Mr. Brown.</p>
+
+<p>"She only landed a week ago," said Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so from the accent," said Mr. Brown. "So our talk sort of
+goes over the top, does it? Well, you'll learn American soon, if you
+stick around."</p>
+
+<p>"I've learned some already," said Jill. The relief of meeting Nelly
+had made her feel very happy. She liked this smooth-haired young man.
+"A man on the train this morning said to me, 'Would you care for the
+morning paper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> sister?' I said, 'No, thanks, brother, I want to look
+out of the window and think!'"</p>
+
+<p>"You meet a lot of fresh guys on trains," commented Mr. Brown
+austerely. "You want to give 'em the cold-storage eye." He turned to
+Nelly. "Did you go down to Ike, as I told you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you cop?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I never felt so happy in my life. I'd waited over an hour on
+that landing of theirs, and then Johnny Miller came along, and I
+yelled in his ear that I was after work, and he told me it would be
+all right. He's awfully good to girls who've worked in shows for him
+before. If it hadn't been for him I might have been waiting there
+still."</p>
+
+<p>"Who," enquired Jill, anxious to be abreast of the conversation, "is
+Ike?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Goble. Where I've just got work. Goble and Cohn, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard of them!"</p>
+
+<p>The young man extended his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Put it there!" he said. "They never heard of me! At least, the fellow
+I saw when I went down to the office hadn't! Can you beat it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, did you go down there, too?" asked Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. Joe wanted to get in another show on Broadway. He'd sort of got
+tired of vodevil. Say, I don't want to scare you, Nelly, but, if you
+ask me, that show they're putting out down there is a citron! I don't
+think Ike's got a cent of his own money in it. My belief is that he's
+running it for a lot of amateurs. Why, say, listen! Joe and I blow in
+there to see if there's anything for us, and there's a tall guy in
+tortoise-shell cheaters sitting in Ike's office. Said he was the
+author and was engaging the principals. We told him who we were, and
+it didn't make any hit with him at all. He said he had never heard of
+us. And, when we explained, he said no, there wasn't going to be any
+of our sort of work in the show. Said he was making an effort to give
+the public something rather better than the usual sort of thing. No
+specialities required. He said it was an effort to restore the Gilbert
+and Sullivan tradition. Say, who are these Gilbert and Sullivan guys,
+anyway? They get written up in the papers all the time and I never met
+any one who'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> run across them. If you want my opinion, that show down
+there is a comic opera!"</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake!" Nelly had the musical comedy performer's horror
+of the older-established form of entertainment. "Why, comic opera died
+in the year one!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, these guys are going to dig it up. That's the way it looks to
+me." He lowered his voice. "Say, I saw Clarice last night," he said in
+a confidential undertone. "It's all right."</p>
+
+<p>"It is?"</p>
+
+<p>"We've made it up. It was like this...."</p>
+
+<p>His conversation took an intimate turn. He expounded for Nelly's
+benefit the inner history, with all its ramifications, of a recent
+unfortunate rift between himself and "the best little girl in
+Flatbush"&mdash;what he had said, what she had said, what her sister had
+said, and how it all came right in the end. Jill might have felt a
+little excluded, but for the fact that a sudden and exciting idea had
+come to her. She sat back, thinking.... After all, what else was she
+to do? She must do something....</p>
+
+<p>She bent forward and interrupted Mr. Brown in his description of a
+brisk passage of arms between himself and the best little girl's
+sister, who seemed to be an unpleasant sort of person in every way.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Brown."</p>
+
+<p>"Hello?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think there would be any chance for me if I asked for work at
+Goble and Cohn's?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're joking!" cried Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you want with work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've got to find some. And right away, too."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand."</p>
+
+<p>Jill hesitated. She disliked discussing her private affairs, but there
+was obviously no way of avoiding it. Nelly was round-eyed and
+mystified, and Mr. Brown had manifestly no intention whatever of
+withdrawing tactfully. He wanted to hear all.</p>
+
+<p>"I've lost my money," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"Lost your money! Do you mean...?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've lost it all. Every penny I had in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Tough!" interpolated Mr. Brown judicially. "I was broke once way out
+in a tank-town in Oklahoma. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> manager skipped with our salaries.
+Last we saw of him he was doing the trip to Canada in nothing flat."</p>
+
+<p>"But how?" gasped Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"It happened about the time we met in London. Do you remember Freddie
+Rooke, who was at our house that afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>A dreamy look came into Nelly's eyes. There had not been an hour since
+their parting when she had not thought of that immaculate sportsman.
+It would have amazed Freddie, could he have known, but to Nelly Bryant
+he was the one perfect man in an imperfect world.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I!" she sighed ecstatically.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Brown shot a keen glance at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Aha!" he cried facetiously. "Who is he, Nelly? Who is this blue-eyed
+boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you want to know," said Nelly, defiance in her tone, "he's the
+fellow who gave me fifty pounds, with no strings tied to it&mdash;get
+that!&mdash;when I was broke in London! If it hadn't been for him, I'd be
+there still."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he?" cried Jill. "Freddie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Oh, Gee!" Nelly sighed once more. "I suppose I'll never see him
+again in this world."</p>
+
+<p>"Introduce me to him, if you do," said Mr. Brown. "He sounds just the
+sort of little pal I'd like to have!"</p>
+
+<p>"You remember hearing Freddie say something about losing money in a
+slump on the Stock Exchange," proceeded Jill. "Well, that was how I
+lost mine. It's a long story, and it's not worth talking about, but
+that's how things stand, and I've got to find work of some sort, and
+it looks to me as if I should have a better chance of finding it on
+the stage than anywhere else."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm terribly sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's all right. How much would these people Goble and Cohn give
+me if I got an engagement?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only forty a week."</p>
+
+<p>"Forty dollars a week! It's wealth! Where are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Over at the Gotham Theatre in Forty-second Street."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go there at once."</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll hate it. You don't realize what it's like. You wait hours
+and hours and nobody sees you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't I walk straight in and say that I've come for work?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nelly's big eyes grew bigger.</p>
+
+<p>"But you couldn't!'</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you couldn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Brown intervened with decision.</p>
+
+<p>"You're dead right," he said to Jill approvingly. "If you ask me,
+that's the only sensible thing to do. Where's the sense of hanging
+around and getting stalled? Managers are human guys, some of 'em.
+Probably, if you were to try it, they'd appreciate a bit of gall. It
+would show 'em you'd got pep. You go down there and try walking
+straight in. They can't eat you. It makes me sick when I see all those
+poor devils hanging about outside these offices, waiting to get
+noticed and nobody ever paying any attention to them. You push the
+office-boy in the face if he tries to stop you, and go in and make 'em
+take notice. And, whatever you do, don't leave your name and address!
+That's the old, moth-eaten gag they're sure to try to pull on you.
+Tell 'em there's nothing doing. Say you're out for a quick decision!
+Stand 'em on their heads!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill got up, fired by this eloquence. She called for her check.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," she said. "I'm going to do exactly as you say. Where can I
+find you afterwards?" she said to Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"You aren't really going?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am!"</p>
+
+<p>Nelly scribbled on a piece of paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's my address. I'll be in all evening."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come and see you. Good-bye, Mr. Brown. And thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"You're welcome!" said Mr. Brown.</p>
+
+<p>Nelly watched Jill depart with wide eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you tell her to do that?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" said Mr. Brown. "I started something, didn't I? Well, I
+guess I'll have to be leaving, too. Got to get back to rehearsal. Say,
+I like that friend of yours, Nelly. There's no yellow streak about
+her! I wish her luck!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>JILL IGNORES AUTHORITY</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>The offices of Messrs. Goble and Cohn were situated, like everything
+else in New York that appertains to the drama, in the neighbourhood of
+Times Square. They occupied the fifth floor of the Gotham Theatre on
+West Forty-second Street. As there was no lift in the building except
+the small private one used by the two members of the firm, Jill walked
+up the stairs, and found signs of a thriving business beginning to
+present themselves as early as the third floor, where half a dozen
+patient persons of either sex had draped themselves like roosting
+fowls upon the banisters. There were more on the fourth floor, and the
+landing of the fifth, which served the firm as a waiting-room, was
+quite full. It is the custom of New York theatrical managers&mdash;the
+lowest order of intelligence, with the possible exception of the
+<i>limax maximus</i> or garden slug, known to science&mdash;to omit from their
+calculations the fact that they are likely every day to receive a
+large number of visitors, whom they will be obliged to keep waiting;
+and that these people will require somewhere to wait. Such
+considerations never occur to them. Messrs. Goble and Cohn had
+provided for those who called to see them one small bench on the
+landing, conveniently situated at the intersecting point of three
+draughts, and had let it go at that.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody, except perhaps the night-watchman, had ever seen this bench
+empty. At whatever hour of the day you happened to call, you would
+always find three wistful individuals seated side by side with their
+eyes on the tiny ante-room where sat the office-boy, the
+telephone-girl, and Mr. Goble's stenographer. Beyond this was the door
+marked "Private," through which, as it opened to admit some careless,
+debonair thousand-dollar-a-week comedian who sauntered in with a
+jaunty "Hello, Ike!" or some furred and scented female star, the rank
+and file of the profession were greeted, like Moses on Pisgah, with a
+fleeting glimpse of the promised land, consisting of a large desk and
+a section of a very fat man with spectacles and a bald head or a
+younger man with fair hair and a double chin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The keynote of the mass meeting on the landing was one of determined,
+almost aggressive smartness. The men wore bright overcoats with bands
+round the waist, the women those imitation furs which to the
+uninitiated eye appear so much more expensive than the real thing.
+Everybody looked very dashing and very young, except about the eyes.
+Most of the eyes that glanced at Jill were weary. The women were
+nearly all blondes, blondness having been decided upon in the theatre
+as the colour that brings the best results. The men were all so much
+alike that they seemed to be members of one large family&mdash;an illusion
+which was heightened by the scraps of conversation, studded with
+"dears," "old mans," and "honeys," which came to Jill's ears. A stern
+fight for supremacy was being waged by a score or so of lively and
+powerful young scents.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Jill was somewhat daunted by the spectacle, but she
+recovered almost immediately. The exhilarating and heady influence of
+New York still wrought within her. The Berserk spirit was upon her,
+and she remembered the stimulating words of Mr. Brown, of Brown and
+Widgeon, the best jazz-and-hokum team on the Keith Circuit. "Walk
+straight in!" had been the burden of his inspiring address. She pushed
+her way through the crowd until she came to the small ante-room.</p>
+
+<p>In the ante-room were the outposts, the pickets of the enemy. In one
+corner a girl was hammering energetically and with great speed on a
+typewriter; a second girl, seated at a switchboard, was having an
+argument with Central which was already warm and threatened to descend
+shortly to personalities; on a chair tilted back so that it rested
+against the wall, a small boy sat eating sweets and reading the comic
+page of an evening newspaper. All three were enclosed, like zoological
+specimens, in a cage formed by a high counter terminating in brass
+bars.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond these watchers on the threshold was the door marked "Private."
+Through it, as Jill reached the outer defences, filtered the sound of
+a piano.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have studied the subject have come to the conclusion that
+the boorishness of New York theatrical managers' office-boys cannot be
+the product of mere chance. Somewhere, in some sinister den in the
+criminal districts of the town, there is a school where small boys are
+trained for these posi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>tions, where their finer instincts are
+rigorously uprooted and rudeness systematically inculcated by
+competent professors. Of this school the Cerberus of Messrs. Goble and
+Cohn had been the star scholar. Quickly seeing his natural gifts, his
+teachers had given him special attention. When he had graduated, it
+had been amidst the cordial good wishes of the entire staff. They had
+taught him all they knew, and they were proud of him. They felt that
+he would do them credit.</p>
+
+<p>This boy raised a pair of pink-rimmed eyes to Jill, sniffed, bit his
+thumb-nail, and spoke. He was a snub-nosed boy. His ears and hair were
+vermilion. His name was Ralph. He had seven hundred and forty-three
+pimples.</p>
+
+<p>"Woddyerwant?" enquired Ralph, coming within an ace of condensing the
+question into a word of one syllable.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see Mr. Goble."</p>
+
+<p>"Zout!" said the Pimple King, and returned to his paper.</p>
+
+<p>There will, no doubt, always be class distinctions. Sparta had her
+kings and her helots, King Arthur's Round Table its knights and its
+scullions, America her Simon Legree and her Uncle Tom. But in no
+nation and at no period of history has any one ever been so brutally
+superior to any one else as is the Broadway theatrical office-boy to
+the caller who wishes to see the manager. Thomas Jefferson held these
+truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they
+are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that
+among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
+Theatrical office-boys do not see eye to eye with Thomas. From their
+pinnacle they look down on the common herd, the <i>canaille</i>, and
+despise them. They coldly question their right to live.</p>
+
+<p>Jill turned pink. Mr. Brown, her guide and mentor, foreseeing this
+situation, had, she remembered, recommended "pushing the office-boy in
+the face": and for a moment she felt like following his advice.
+Prudence, or the fact that he was out of reach behind the brass bars,
+restrained her. Without further delay she made for the door of the
+inner room. That was her objective, and she did not intend to be
+diverted from it. Her fingers were on the handle before any of those
+present divined her intention. Then the stenographer stopped typing
+and sat with raised fingers, aghast. The girl at the telephone broke
+off in mid-sentence and stared round over her shoulder. Ralph, the
+office-boy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> outraged, dropped his paper and constituted himself the
+spokesman of the invaded force.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill stopped and eyed the lad militantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you speaking to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I <i>was</i> speaking to you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do it again with your mouth full," said Jill, turning to the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>The belligerent fire in the office-boy's pink-rimmed eyes was suddenly
+dimmed by a gush of water. It was not remorse that caused him to weep,
+however. In the heat of the moment he had swallowed a large, jagged
+sweet, and he was suffering severely.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't go in there!" he managed to articulate, his iron will
+triumphing over the flesh sufficiently to enable him to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> going in there!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's Mr. Goble's private room."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I want a private talk with Mr. Goble."</p>
+
+<p>Ralph, his eyes still moist, felt that the situation was slipping from
+his grip. This sort of thing had never happened to him before. "I tell
+ya he <i>zout</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill looked at him sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"You wretched child!" she said, encouraged by a sharp giggle from the
+neighbourhood of the switchboard. "Do you know where little boys go
+who don't speak the truth? I can hear him playing the piano. Now he's
+singing! And it's no good telling me he's busy. If he was busy, he
+wouldn't have time to sing. If you're as deceitful as this at your
+age, what do you expect to be when you grow up? You're an ugly little
+boy, you've got red ears, and your collar doesn't fit! I shall speak
+to Mr. Goble about you."</p>
+
+<p>With which words Jill opened the door and walked in.</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon," she said brightly.</p>
+
+<p>After the congested and unfurnished discomfort of the landing, the
+room in which Jill found herself had an air of cosiness and almost of
+luxury. It was a large room, solidly upholstered. Along the further
+wall, filling nearly the whole of its space, stood a vast and gleaming
+desk, covered with a litter of papers which rose at one end of it to a
+sort of mountain of play-scripts in buff covers. There was a
+bookshelf<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> to the left. Photographs covered the walls. Near the window
+was a deep leather lounge; to the right of this stood a small piano,
+the music-stool of which was occupied by a young man with untidy black
+hair that needed cutting. On top of the piano, taking the eye
+immediately by reason of its bold brightness, was balanced a large
+cardboard poster. Much of its surface was filled by a picture of a
+youth in polo costume bending over a blonde goddess in a bathing-suit.
+What space was left displayed the legend:</p>
+
+
+<h3>ISAAC GOBLE AND JACOB COHN</h3>
+
+<h4>PRESENT</h4>
+
+<h2>THE ROSE OF AMERICA</h2>
+
+<h4>(A Musical Fantasy)</h4>
+
+<h3>BOOK AND LYRICS BY OTIS PILKINGTON</h3>
+
+<h3>MUSIC BY ROLAND TREVIS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Turning her eyes from this, Jill became aware that something was going
+on at the other side of the desk, and she perceived that a second
+young man, the longest and thinnest she had ever seen, was in the act
+of rising to his feet, length upon length like an unfolding snake. At
+the moment of her entry he had been lying back in an office-chair, so
+that only a merely nominal section of his upper structure was visible.
+Now he reared his impressive length until his head came within
+measurable distance of the ceiling. He had a hatchet face and a
+receding chin, and he gazed at Jill through what she assumed were the
+"tortoise-shell cheaters" referred to by her recent acquaintance, Mr.
+Brown.</p>
+
+<p>"Er...?" said this young man enquiringly in a high, flat voice.</p>
+
+<p>Jill, like many other people, had a brain which was under the
+alternating control of two diametrically opposite forces. It was like
+a motor-car steered in turn by two drivers, the one a dashing,
+reckless fellow with no regard for the speed limits, the other a timid
+novice. All through the proceedings up to this point the dasher had
+been in command. He had whisked her along at a break-neck pace,
+ignoring obstacles and police regulations. Now, having brought her to
+this situation, he abruptly abandoned the wheel and turned it over to
+his colleague, the shrinker. Jill, greatly daring a moment ago, now
+felt an overwhelming shyness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She gulped, and her heart beat quickly. The thin man towered over her.
+The black-haired pianist shook his locks at her like Banquo.</p>
+
+<p>"I...." she began.</p>
+
+<p>Then, suddenly, womanly intuition came to her aid. Something seemed to
+tell her that these men were just as scared as she was. And, at the
+discovery, the dashing driver resumed his post at the wheel, and she
+began to deal with the situation with composure.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see Mr. Goble."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Goble is out," said the long young man, plucking nervously at the
+papers on the desk. Jill had affected him powerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Out!" She felt she had wronged the pimpled office-boy.</p>
+
+<p>"We are not expecting him back this afternoon. Is there anything I can
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke tenderly. This weak-minded young man was thinking that he had
+never seen anything like Jill before. And it was true that she was
+looking very pretty, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling.
+She touched a chord in the young man which seemed to make the world a
+flower-scented thing, full of soft music. Often as he had been in love
+at first sight before in his time, Otis Pilkington could not recall an
+occasion on which he had been in love at first sight more completely
+than now. When she smiled at him, it was as if the gates of heaven had
+opened. He did not reflect how many times, in similar circumstances,
+these same gates had opened before; and that on one occasion when they
+had done so it had cost him eight thousand dollars to settle the case
+out of court. One does not think of these things at such times, for
+they strike a jarring note. Otis Pilkington was in love. That was all
+he knew, or cared to know.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you take a seat, Miss...."</p>
+
+<p>"Mariner," prompted Jill. "Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Mariner. May I introduce Mr. Roland Trevis?"</p>
+
+<p>The man at the piano bowed. His black hair heaved upon his skull like
+seaweed in a ground swell.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Pilkington. Otis Pilkington."</p>
+
+<p>The uncomfortable silence which always follows introductions was
+broken by the sound of the telephone-bell on the desk. Otis
+Pilkington, who had moved out into the room<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> and was nowhere near the
+desk, stretched forth a preposterous arm and removed the receiver.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes? Oh, will you say, please, that I have a conference at present."
+Jill was to learn that people in the theatrical business never talked:
+they always held conferences. "Tell Mrs. Peagrim that I shall be
+calling later in the afternoon, but cannot be spared just now." He
+replaced the receiver. "Aunt Olive's secretary," he murmured in a soft
+aside to Mr. Trevis. "Aunt Olive wanted me to go for a ride." He
+turned to Jill. "Excuse me. Is there anything I can do for you, Miss
+Mariner?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill's composure was now completely restored. This interview was
+turning out so totally different from anything she had expected. The
+atmosphere was cosy and social. She felt as if she were back in
+Ovingdon Square, giving tea to Freddie Rooke and Ronny Devereux and
+the rest of her friends of the London period. All that was needed to
+complete the picture was a tea-table in front of her. The business
+note hardly intruded on the proceedings at all. Still, as business was
+the object of her visit, she felt that she had better approach it.</p>
+
+<p>"I came for work."</p>
+
+<p>"Work!" cried Mr. Pilkington. He, too, appeared to be regarding the
+interview as purely of a social nature.</p>
+
+<p>"In the chorus," explained Jill.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington seemed shocked. He winced away from the word as though
+it pained him.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no chorus in 'The Rose of America,'" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it was a musical comedy."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington winced again.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a musical <i>fantasy</i>!" he said. "But there will be no chorus. We
+shall have," he added, a touch of rebuke in his voice, "the services
+of twelve refined ladies of the ensemble."</p>
+
+<p>Jill laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"It does sound much better, doesn't it!" she said. "Well, am I refined
+enough, do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be only too happy if you will join us," said Mr. Pilkington
+promptly.</p>
+
+<p>The long-haired composer looked doubtful. He struck a note up in the
+treble, then whirled round on his stool.</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind my mentioning it, Otie, we have twelve girls
+already."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then we must have thirteen," said Otis Pilkington firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Unlucky number," argued Mr. Trevis.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care. We must have Miss Mariner. You can see for yourself
+that she is exactly the type we need."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke feelingly. Ever since the business of engaging a company had
+begun, he had been thinking wistfully of the evening when "The Rose of
+America" had had its opening performance&mdash;at his aunt's house at
+Newport last summer&mdash;with an all-star cast of society favourites and
+an ensemble recruited entirely from debutantes and matrons of the
+Younger Set. That was the sort of company he had longed to assemble
+for the piece's professional career, and until this afternoon he had
+met with nothing but disappointment. Jill seemed to be the only girl
+in theatrical New York who came up to the standard he would have liked
+to demand.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very much," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>There was another pause. The social note crept into the atmosphere
+again. Jill felt the hostess' desire to keep conversation circulating.</p>
+
+<p>"I hear," she said, "that this piece is a sort of Gilbert and Sullivan
+opera."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington considered the point.</p>
+
+<p>"I confess," he said, "that, in writing the book, I had Gilbert before
+me as a model. Whether I have in any sense succeeded in...."</p>
+
+<p>"The book," said Mr. Trevis, running his fingers over the piano, "is
+as good as anything Gilbert ever wrote."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, Rolie!" protested Mr. Pilkington modestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Better," insisted Mr. Trevis. "For one thing, it is up-to-date."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>do</i> try to strike the modern note," murmured Mr. Pilkington.</p>
+
+<p>"And you have avoided Gilbert's mistake of being too fanciful."</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>was</i> fanciful," admitted Mr. Pilkington. "The music," he added,
+in a generous spirit of give and take, "has all Sullivan's melody with
+a newness of rhythm peculiarly its own. You will like the music."</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds," said Jill amiably, "as though the piece is bound to be a
+tremendous success."</p>
+
+<p>"We hope so," said Mr. Pilkington. "We feel that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> time has come
+when the public is beginning to demand something better than what it
+has been accustomed to. People are getting tired of the brainless
+trash and jingly tunes which have been given them by men like Wallace
+Mason and George Bevan. They want a certain polish.... It was just the
+same in Gilbert and Sullivan's day. They started writing at a time
+when the musical stage had reached a terrible depth of inanity. The
+theatre was given over to burlesques of the most idiotic description.
+The public was waiting eagerly to welcome something of a higher class.
+It is just the same to-day. But the managers will not see it. 'The
+Rose of America' went up and down Broadway for months, knocking at
+managers' doors."</p>
+
+<p>"It should have walked in without knocking, like me," said Jill. She
+got up. "Well, it was very kind of you to see me when I came in so
+unceremoniously. But I felt it was no good waiting outside on that
+landing. I'm so glad everything is settled. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Miss Mariner." Mr. Pilkington took her outstretched hand
+devoutly. "There is a rehearsal called for the ensemble at&mdash;when is
+it, Rolie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eleven o'clock, day after to-morrow, at Bryant Hall."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be there," said Jill. "Good-bye, and thank you very much."</p>
+
+<p>The silence which had fallen upon the room as she left it was broken
+by Mr. Trevis.</p>
+
+<p>"Some pip!" observed Mr. Trevis.</p>
+
+<p>Otis Pilkington awoke from day-dreams with a start.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"That girl.... I said she was some pippin!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington icily, "is a most charming,
+refined, cultured, and vivacious girl, if you mean that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Mr. Trevis. "That was what I meant!"</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>Jill walked out into Forty-second Street, looking about her with the
+eye of a conqueror. Very little change had taken place in the aspect
+of New York since she had entered the Gotham Theatre, but it seemed a
+different city to her. An hour ago, she had been a stranger, drifting
+aimlessly along its rapids. Now she belonged to New York, and New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+York belonged to her. She had faced it squarely, and forced from it
+the means of living. She walked on with a new jauntiness in her
+stride.</p>
+
+<p>The address which Nelly had given her was on the east side of Fifth
+Avenue. She made her way along Forty-second Street. It seemed the
+jolliest, alivest street she had ever encountered. The rattle of the
+Elevated as she crossed Sixth Avenue was music, and she loved the
+crowds that jostled her with every step she took.</p>
+
+<p>She reached the Fifth Avenue corner just as the policeman out in the
+middle of the street swung his Stop-and-Go post round to allow the
+up-town traffic to proceed on its way. A stream of cars which had been
+dammed up as far as the eye could reach began to flow swiftly past.
+They moved in a double line, red limousines, blue limousines, mauve
+limousines, green limousines. She stood waiting for the flood to
+cease, and, as she did so, there purred past her the biggest and
+reddest limousine of all. It was a colossal vehicle with a polar-bear
+at the steering-wheel and another at his side. And in the interior,
+very much at his ease, his gaze bent courteously upon a massive lady
+in a mink coat, sat Uncle Chris.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he was so near to her that, but for the closed window,
+she could have touched him. Then the polar-bear at the wheel, noting a
+gap in the traffic, stepped on the accelerator and slipped neatly
+through. The car moved swiftly on and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Jill drew a deep breath. The Stop-and-Go sign swung round again. She
+crossed the avenue, and set out once more to find Nelly Bryant. It
+occurred to her, five minutes later, that a really practical and
+quick-thinking girl would have noted the number of the limousine.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. PILKINGTON'S LOVE LIGHT</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>The rehearsals of a musical comedy&mdash;a term which embraces "musical
+fantasies"&mdash;generally begin in a desultory sort of way at that curious
+building, Bryant Hall, on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> Sixth Avenue just off Forty-second Street.
+There, in a dusty, uncarpeted room, simply furnished with a few wooden
+chairs and some long wooden benches, the chorus&mdash;or, in the case of
+"The Rose of America," the ensemble&mdash;sit round a piano and endeavour,
+with the assistance of the musical director, to get the words and
+melodies of the first-act numbers into their heads. This done, they
+are ready for the dance director to instil into them the steps, the
+groupings, and the business for the encores, of which that incurable
+optimist always seems to expect there will be at least six. Later, the
+principals are injected into the numbers. And finally, leaving Bryant
+Hall and dodging about from one unoccupied theatre to another,
+principals and chorus rehearse together, running through the entire
+piece over and over again till the opening night of the preliminary
+road tour.</p>
+
+<p>To Jill, in the early stages, rehearsing was just like being back at
+school. She could remember her first schoolmistress, whom the musical
+director somewhat resembled in manner and appearance, hammering out
+hymns on a piano and leading in a weak soprano an eager, baying pack
+of children, each anxious from motives of pride to out-bawl her
+nearest neighbour.</p>
+
+<p>The proceedings began on the first morning with the entrance of Mr.
+Saltzburg, the musical director, a brisk, busy little man with
+benevolent eyes behind big spectacles, who bustled over to the piano,
+sat down, and played a loud chord, designed to act as a sort of bugle
+blast, rallying the ladies of the ensemble from the corners where they
+sat in groups, chatting. For the process of making one another's
+acquaintance had begun some ten minutes before with mutual
+recognitions between those who knew each other from having been
+together in previous productions. There followed rapid introductions
+of friends. Nelly Bryant had been welcomed warmly by a pretty girl
+with red hair, whom she introduced to Jill as Babe; Babe had a willowy
+blonde friend, named Lois, and the four of them had seated themselves
+on one of the benches and opened a conversation; their numbers being
+added to a moment later by a dark girl with a Southern accent and
+another blonde. Elsewhere other groups had formed, and the room was
+filled with a noise like the chattering of starlings. In a body by
+themselves, rather forlorn and neglected, half a dozen solemn and
+immaculately dressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> young men were propping themselves up against
+the wall and looking on, like men in a ball-room who do not dance.</p>
+
+<p>Jill listened to the conversation without taking any great part in it
+herself. She felt as she had done on her first day at school, a little
+shy and desirous of effacing herself. The talk dealt with clothes,
+men, and the show business, in that order of importance. Presently one
+of the young men sauntered diffidently across the room and added
+himself to the group with the remark that it was a fine day. He was
+received a little grudgingly, Jill thought, but by degrees succeeded
+in assimilating himself. A second young man drifted up; reminded the
+willowy girl that they had worked together in the western company of
+"You're the One"; was recognized and introduced, and justified his
+admission to the circle by a creditable imitation of a cat-fight. Five
+minutes later he was addressing the Southern girl as "honey," and had
+informed Jill that he had only joined this show to fill in before
+opening on the three-a-day with the swellest little song-and-dance act
+which he and a little girl who worked in the cabaret at Geisenheimer's
+had fixed up.</p>
+
+<p>On this scene of harmony and good-fellowship Mr. Saltzburg's chord
+intruded jarringly. There was a general movement, and chairs and
+benches were dragged to the piano. Mr. Saltzburg causing a momentary
+delay by opening a large brown music-bag and digging in it like a
+terrier at a rat-hole, conversation broke out again.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg emerged from the bag, with his hands full of papers,
+protesting.</p>
+
+<p>"Childrun! Chil-<i>drun</i>! If you please, less noise and attend to me!"
+He distributed sheets of paper. "Act One, Opening Chorus. I will play
+the melody three&mdash;four times. Follow attentively. Then we will sing it
+la-la-la, and after that we will sing the words. So!"</p>
+
+<p>He struck the yellow-keyed piano a vicious blow, producing a tinny and
+complaining sound. Bending forward with his spectacles almost touching
+the music, he plodded determinedly through the tune, then encored
+himself, and after that encored himself again. When he had done this,
+he removed his spectacles and wiped them. There was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Izzy," observed the willowy young lady chattily, leaning across Jill
+and addressing the Southern girl's blonde friend, "has promised me a
+sunburst!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A general stir of interest and a coming close together of heads.</p>
+
+<p>"What! Izzy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, Izzy."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's just landed the hat-check privilege at the St. Aurea!"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say!"</p>
+
+<p>"He told me so last night and promised me the sunburst. He was,"
+admitted the willowy girl regretfully, "a good bit tanked at the time,
+but I guess he'll make good." She mused awhile, a rather anxious
+expression clouding her perfect profile. She looked like a meditative
+Greek goddess. "If he doesn't," she added with maidenly dignity, "it's
+the last time <i>I</i> go out with the big stiff. I'd tie a can to him
+quicker'n look at him!"</p>
+
+<p>A murmur of approval greeted this admirable sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>"Childrun!" protested Mr. Saltzburg. "Chil-drun! Less noise and
+chatter of conversation. We are here to work! We must not waste time!
+So! Act One, Opening Chorus. Now, all together. La-la-la...."</p>
+
+<p>"La-la-la...."</p>
+
+<p>"Tum-tum-tumty-tumty...."</p>
+
+<p>"Tum-tum-tumty...."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg pressed his hands to his ears in a spasm of pain.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no! Sour! Sour! Sour!... Once again. La-la-la...."</p>
+
+<p>A round-faced girl with golden hair and the face of a wondering cherub
+interrupted, speaking with a lisp.</p>
+
+<p>"Mithter Thalzburg."</p>
+
+<p>"Now what is it, Miss Trevor?"</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of a show is this?"</p>
+
+<p>"A musical show," said Mr. Saltzburg severely, "and this is a
+rehearsal of it, not a conversazione. Once more, please."</p>
+
+<p>The cherub was not to be rebuffed.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the music good, Mithter Thalzburg?"</p>
+
+<p>"When you have rehearsed it, you shall judge for yourself. Come
+now...."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything in it as good as that waltz of yours you played us
+when we were rehearthing 'Mind How You Go?' You remember. The one that
+went...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A tall and stately girl, with sleepy brown eyes and the air of a
+duchess in the servants' hall, bent forward and took a kindly interest
+in the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, have you composed a varlse, Mr. Saltzburg?" she asked with
+pleasant condescension. "How interesting, really! Won't you play it
+for us?"</p>
+
+<p>The sentiment of the meeting seemed to be unanimous in favour of
+shelving work and listening to Mr. Saltzburg's waltz.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Saltzburg, do!"</p>
+
+<p>"Please!"</p>
+
+<p>"Some one told me it was a pipterino!"</p>
+
+<p>"I cert'nly do love waltzes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Mr. Saltzburg!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg obviously weakened. His fingers touched the keys
+irresolutely.</p>
+
+<p>"But, childrun!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure it would be a great pleasure to all of us," said the
+duchess graciously, "if you would play it. There is nothing I enjoy
+more than a good varlse."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg capitulated. Like all musical directors he had in his
+leisure moments composed the complete score of a musical play and
+spent much of his time waylaying librettists on the Rialto and trying
+to lure them to his apartment to listen to it, with a view to
+business. The eternal tragedy of a musical director's life is
+comparable only to that of the waiter who, himself fasting, has to
+assist others to eat. Mr. Saltzburg had lofty ideas on music, and his
+soul revolted at being compelled perpetually to rehearse and direct
+the inferior compositions of other men. Far less persuasion than he
+had received to-day was usually required to induce him to play the
+whole of his score.</p>
+
+<p>"You wish it?" he said. "Well, then! This waltz, you will understand,
+is the theme of a musical romance which I have composed. It will be
+sung once in the first act by the heroine, then in the second act as a
+duet for heroine and hero. I weave it into the finale of the second
+act, and we have an echo of it, sung off stage, in the third act. What
+I play you now is the second act duet. The verse is longer. So! The
+male voice begins."</p>
+
+<p>A pleasant time was had by all for ten minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but this is not rehearsing, childrun!" cried Mr. Saltzburg
+remorsefully at the end of that period. "This is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> not business. Come
+now, the opening chorus of Act One, and please this time keep on the
+key. Before, it was sour, sour Come! La-la-la...."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Thalzburg!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Trevor?"</p>
+
+<p>"There was an awfully thweet fox-trot you used to play us. I do
+wish...."</p>
+
+<p>"Some other time, some other time! Now we must work. Come!
+La-la-la...."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you could have heard it, girls" said the cherub regretfully.
+"Honetht, it was lalapalootha!"</p>
+
+<p>The pack broke into full cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Saltzburg!"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Mr. Saltzburg!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do play the fox-trot, Mr. Saltzburg!"</p>
+
+<p>"If it is as good as the varlse," said the duchess, stooping once more
+to the common level, "I am sure it must be very good indeed." She
+powdered her nose. "And one so rarely hears musicianly music nowadays,
+does one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Which fox-trot?" asked Mr. Saltzburg weakly.</p>
+
+<p>"Play 'em all!" decided a voice on the left.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, play 'em all," bayed the pack.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure that that would be charming," agreed the duchess, replacing
+her powder-puff.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg played 'em all. This man by now seemed entirely lost to
+shame. The precious minutes that belonged to his employers and should
+have been earmarked for "The Rose of America" flitted by. The ladies
+and gentlemen of the ensemble, who should have been absorbing and
+learning to deliver the melodies of Roland Trevis and the lyrics of
+Otis Pilkington, lolled back in their seats. The yellow-keyed piano
+rocked beneath an unprecedented onslaught. The proceedings had begun
+to resemble not so much a rehearsal as a happy home evening, and
+grateful glances were cast at the complacent cherub. She had, it was
+felt, shown tact and discretion.</p>
+
+<p>Pleasant conversation began again.</p>
+
+<p>"... And I walked a couple of blocks, and there was exactly the same
+model in Schwartz and Gulderstein's window at twenty-six fifty...."</p>
+
+<p>"... He got on Forty-second Street, and he was kinda fresh from the
+start. At Sixty-sixth he came sasshaying right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> down the car and said
+'Hello, patootie!' Well, I drew myself up...."</p>
+
+<p>"... Even if you are my sister's husband,' I said to him. Oh, I
+suppose I got a temper. It takes a lot to arouse it, y'know, but I c'n
+get pretty mad...."</p>
+
+<p>"... You don't know the half of it, dearie, you don't know the half of
+it! A one-piece bathing suit! Well, you could call it that, but the
+cop of the beach said it was more like a baby's sock. And when...."</p>
+
+<p>"... So I said 'Listen, Izzy, that'll be about all from you! My father
+was a gentleman, though I don't suppose you know what that means, and
+I'm not accustomed....'"</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!"</p>
+
+<p>A voice from the neighbourhood of the door had cut into the babble
+like a knife into butter; a rough, rasping voice, loud and compelling,
+which caused the conversation of the members of the ensemble to cease
+on the instant. Only Mr. Saltzburg, now in a perfect frenzy of
+musicianly fervour, continued to assault the decrepit piano, unwitting
+of an unsympathetic addition to his audience.</p>
+
+<p>"What I play you now is the laughing trio from my second act. It is a
+building number. It is sung by tenor, principal comedian, and
+soubrette. On the second refrain four girls will come out and two
+boys. The girls will dance with the two men, the boys with the
+soubrette. So! On the encore four more girls and two more boys. Third
+encore, solo-dance for specialty dancer, all on stage beating time by
+clapping their hands. On repeat, all sing refrain once more, and off.
+Last encore, the three principals and specialty dancer dance the dance
+with entire chorus. It is a great building number, you understand. It
+is enough to make the success of any musical play, but can I get a
+hearing? No! If I ask managers to listen to my music, they are busy!
+If I beg them to give me a libretto to set, they laugh&mdash;ha! ha!" Mr.
+Saltzburg gave a spirited and lifelike representation of a manager
+laughing ha-ha when begged to disgorge a libretto. "Now I play it once
+more!"</p>
+
+<p>"Like hell you do!" said the voice. "Say, what is this, anyway? A
+concert?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg swung round on the music-stool, a startled and
+apprehensive man, and nearly fell off it. The divine afflatus left him
+like air oozing from a punctured toy-balloon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> and, like such a
+balloon, he seemed to grow suddenly limp and flat. He stared with
+fallen jaw at the new arrival.</p>
+
+<p>Two men had entered the room. One was the long Mr. Pilkington. The
+other, who looked shorter and stouter than he really was beside his
+giraffe-like companion, was a thick-set, fleshy man in the early
+thirties with a blond, clean-shaven, double-chinned face. He had
+smooth, yellow hair, an unwholesome complexion, and light green eyes,
+set close together. From the edge of the semi-circle about the piano,
+he glared menacingly over the heads of the chorus at the unfortunate
+Mr. Saltzburg.</p>
+
+<p>"Why aren't these girls working?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg, who had risen nervously from his stool, backed away
+apprehensively from his gaze, and, stumbling over the stool, sat down
+abruptly on the piano, producing a curious noise like Futurist music.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;We&mdash;Why, Mr. Goble...."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble turned his green gaze on the concert audience, and spread
+discomfort as if it were something liquid which he was spraying
+through a hose. The girls who were nearest looked down flutteringly at
+their shoes: those further away concealed themselves behind their
+neighbours. Even the duchess, who prided herself on being the
+possessor of a stare of unrivalled haughtiness, before which the fresh
+quailed and those who made breaks subsided in confusion, was unable to
+meet his eyes: and the willowy friend of Izzy, for all her victories
+over that monarch of the hat-checks, bowed before it like a slim tree
+before a blizzard.</p>
+
+<p>Only Jill returned the manager's gaze. She was seated on the outer rim
+of the semi-circle, and she stared frankly at Mr. Goble. She had never
+seen anything like him before, and he fascinated her. This behaviour
+on her part singled her out from the throng, and Mr. Goble
+concentrated his attention on her.</p>
+
+<p>For some seconds he stood looking at her; then, raising a stubby
+finger, he let his eye travel over the company, and seemed to be
+engrossed in some sort of mathematical calculation.</p>
+
+<p>"Thirteen," he said at length. "I make it thirteen." He rounded on Mr.
+Pilkington. "I told you we were going to have a chorus of twelve."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington blushed and stumbled over his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes ... yes," he murmured vaguely. "Yes!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, there are thirteen here. Count 'em for yourself." He whipped
+round on Jill. "What's <i>your</i> name? Who engaged you?"</p>
+
+<p>A croaking sound from the neighbourhood of the ceiling indicated the
+clearing of Mr. Pilkington's throat.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;er&mdash;<i>I</i> engaged Miss Mariner, Mr. Goble."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>you</i> engaged her?"</p>
+
+<p>He stared again at Jill. The inspection was long and lingering, and
+affected Jill with a sense of being inadequately clothed. She returned
+the gaze as defiantly as she could, but her heart was beating fast.
+She had never yet been frightened of any man, but there was something
+reptilian about this fat, yellow-haired individual which disquieted
+her, much as cockroaches had done in her childhood. A momentary
+thought flashed through her mind that it would be horrible to be
+touched by him. He looked soft and glutinous.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Mr. Goble at last, after what seemed to Jill many
+minutes. He nodded to Mr. Saltzburg. "Get on with it! And try working
+a little this time! I don't hire you to give musical entertainments."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Goble, yes. I mean no, Mr. Goble!"</p>
+
+<p>"You can have the Gotham stage this afternoon," said Mr. Goble. "Call
+the rehearsal for two sharp."</p>
+
+<p>Outside the door, he turned to Mr. Pilkington.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a fool trick of yours, hiring that girl. Thirteen! I'd as
+soon walk under a ladder on a Friday as open in New York with a chorus
+of thirteen. Well, it don't matter. We can sack one of 'em after we've
+opened on the road." He mused for a moment. "Darned pretty girl,
+that!" he went on meditatively. "Where did you get her?"</p>
+
+<p>"She&mdash;ah&mdash;came into the office, when you were out. She struck me as
+being essentially the type we required for our ensemble, so
+I&mdash;er&mdash;engaged her. She&mdash;" Mr. Pilkington gulped. "She is a charming,
+refined girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"She's darned pretty," admitted Mr. Goble, and went on his way wrapped
+in thought, Mr. Pilkington following timorously. It was episodes like
+the one that had just concluded which made Otis Pilkington wish that
+he possessed a little more assertion. He regretted wistfully that he
+was not one of those men who can put their hat on the side of their
+heads and shoot out their chins and say to the world "Well, what about
+it!" He was bearing the financial burden of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> production. If it
+should be a failure, his would be the loss. Yet somehow this coarse,
+rough person in front of him never seemed to allow him a word in the
+executive policy of the piece. He treated him as a child. He
+domineered and he shouted, and behaved as if he were in sole command.
+Mr Pilkington sighed. He rather wished he had never gone into this
+undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the room, Mr. Saltzburg wiped his forehead, his spectacles, and
+his hands. He had the aspect of one who wakes from a dreadful dream.</p>
+
+<p>"Childrun!" he whispered brokenly. "Childrun! If you please, once
+more. Act One, Opening Chorus. Come! La-la-la!"</p>
+
+<p>"La-la-la!" chanted the subdued members of the ensemble.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>By the time the two halves of the company, ensemble and principals,
+melted into one complete whole, the novelty of her new surroundings
+had worn off, and Jill was feeling that there had never been a time
+when she had not been one of a theatrical troupe, rehearsing. The
+pleasant social gatherings round Mr. Saltzburg's piano gave way in a
+few days to something far less agreeable and infinitely more
+strenuous, the breaking-in of the dances under the supervision of the
+famous Johnson Miller. Johnson Miller was a little man with snow-white
+hair and the india-rubber physique of a juvenile acrobat. Nobody knew
+actually how old he was, but he certainly looked much too advanced in
+years to be capable of the feats of endurance which he performed
+daily. He had the untiring enthusiasm of a fox-terrier, and had
+bullied and scolded more companies along the rocky road that leads to
+success than any half-dozen dance-directors in the country, in spite
+of his handicap in being almost completely deaf. He had an almost
+miraculous gift of picking up the melodies for which it was his
+business to design dances, without apparently hearing them. He seemed
+to absorb them through the pores. He had a blunt and arbitrary manner,
+and invariably spoke his mind frankly and honestly&mdash;a habit which made
+him strangely popular in a profession where the language of equivoque
+is cultivated almost as sedulously as in the circles of international
+diplomacy. What Johnson Miller said to your face was official, not
+subject to revision<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> as soon as your back was turned, and people
+appreciated this.</p>
+
+<p>Izzy's willowy friend summed him up one evening when the ladies of the
+ensemble were changing their practice-clothes after a particularly
+strenuous rehearsal, defending him against the Southern girl, who
+complained that he made her tired.</p>
+
+<p>"You bet he makes you tired," she said. "So he does me. I'm losing my
+girlish curves, and I'm so stiff I can't lace my shoes. But he knows
+his business and he's on the level, which is more than you can say of
+most of these guys in the show business."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," agreed the Southern girl's blonde friend. "He does
+know his business. He's put over any amount of shows which would have
+flopped like dogs without him to stage the numbers."</p>
+
+<p>The duchess yawned. Rehearsing always bored her, and she had not been
+greatly impressed by what she had seen of "The Rose of America."</p>
+
+<p>"One will be greatly surprised if he can make a success of <i>this</i>
+show! I confess I find it perfectly ridiculous."</p>
+
+<p>"Ithn't it the limit, honetht!" said the cherub, arranging her golden
+hair at the mirror. "It maketh me thick! Why on earth ith Ike putting
+it on?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl who knew everything&mdash;there is always one in every
+company&mdash;hastened to explain.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard all about that. Ike hasn't any of his own money in the thing.
+He's getting twenty-five per cent of the show for running it. The
+angel is the long fellow you see jumping around. Pilkington his name
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it'll need to be Rockefeller later on," said the blonde.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they'll get thomebody down to fixth it after we've been out on
+the road a couple of days," said the cherub, optimistically. "They
+alwayth do. I've seen worse shows than this turned into hits. All it
+wants ith a new book and lyrics and a different thcore."</p>
+
+<p>"And a new set of principals," said the red-headed Babe. "Did you ever
+see such a bunch?"</p>
+
+<p>The duchess, with another tired sigh, arched her well-shaped eyebrows
+and studied the effect in the mirror.</p>
+
+<p>"One wonders where they pick these persons up," she assented
+languidly. "They remind me of a headline I saw in the paper this
+morning&mdash;'Tons of Hams Unfit for Human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> Consumption.' Are any of you
+girls coming my way? I Can give two or three of you a lift in my
+limousine."</p>
+
+<p>"Thorry, old dear, and thanks ever so much," said the cherub, "but I
+instructed Clarence, my man, to have the street-car waiting on the
+corner, and he'll be too upset if I'm not there."</p>
+
+<p>Nelly had an engagement to go and help one of the other girls buy a
+Spring suit, a solemn rite which it is impossible to conduct by
+oneself: and Jill and the cherub walked to the corner together. Jill
+had become very fond of the little thing since rehearsals began. She
+reminded her of a London sparrow. She was so small and perky and so
+absurdly able to take care of herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Limouthine!" snorted the cherub. The duchess' concluding speech
+evidently still rankled. "She gives me a pain in the gizthard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hasn't she got a limousine?" asked Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she hasn't. She's engaged to be married to a demonstrator
+in the Speedwell Auto Company, and he thneaks off when he can get away
+and gives her joy-rides. That's all the limouthine she's got. It beats
+me why girls in the show business are alwayth tho crazy to make
+themselves out vamps with a dozen millionaires on a string. If Mae
+wouldn't four-flush and act like the Belle of the Moulin Rouge, she'd
+be the nithest girl you ever met. She's mad about the fellow she's
+engaged to, and wouldn't look at all the millionaires in New York if
+you brought 'em to her on a tray. She's going to marry him as thoon as
+he's thaved enough to buy the furniture, and then she'll thettle down
+in Harlem thomewhere and cook and mind the baby and regularly be one
+of the lower middle classes. All that's wrong with Mae ith that she's
+read Gingery Stories and thinkth that's the way a girl has to act when
+she'th in the chorus."</p>
+
+<p>"That's funny," said Jill. "I should never have thought it. I
+swallowed the limousine whole."</p>
+
+<p>The cherub looked at her curiously. Jill puzzled her. Jill had,
+indeed, been the subject of much private speculation among her
+colleagues.</p>
+
+<p>"This is your first show, ithn't it?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Thay, what are you doing in the chorus, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Getting scolded by Mr. Miller mostly, it seems to me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thcolded by Mr. Miller! Why didn't you say 'bawled out by Johnny'?
+That'th what any of the retht of us would have said."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've lived most of my life in England. You can't expect me to
+talk the language yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were English. You've got an acthent like the fellow who
+plays the dude in thith show. Thay, why did you ever get into the show
+business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well ... well, why did you? Why does anybody?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why did I? Oh, I belong there. I'm a regular Broadway rat. I wouldn't
+be happy anywhere elthe. I was born in the show business. I've got two
+thithters in the two-a-day and a brother in thtock in California and
+dad's one of the betht comedians on the burlethque wheel. But any one
+can thee you're different. There's no reathon why you should be
+sticking around in the chorus."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is. I've no money, and I can't do anything to make it."</p>
+
+<p>"Honetht?"</p>
+
+<p>"Honest."</p>
+
+<p>"That's tough." The cherub pondered, her round eyes searching Jill's
+face. "Why don't you get married?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody's asked me."</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody thoon will. At least, if he's on the level, and I think he
+is. You can generally tell by the look of a guy, and, if you ask me,
+friend Pilkington's got the licence in hith pocket and the ring all
+ordered and everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Pilkington!" cried Jill aghast.</p>
+
+<p>She remembered certain occasions during rehearsals, when, while the
+chorus idled in the body of the theatre and listened to the principals
+working at their scenes, the elongated Pilkington had suddenly
+appeared in the next seat and conversed sheepishly in a low voice.
+Could this be love? If so, it was a terrible nuisance. Jill had had
+her experience in London of enamoured young men who, running true to
+national form, declined to know when they were beaten, and she had not
+enjoyed the process of cooling their ardour. She had a kind heart, and
+it distressed her to give pain. It also got on her nerves to be dogged
+by stricken males who tried to catch her eye in order that she might
+observe their broken condition. She recalled one house-party in Wales
+where it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> rained all the time and she had been cooped up with a victim
+who kept popping out from obscure corners and beginning all his pleas
+with the words "I say, you know...!" She trusted that Otis Pilkington
+was not proposing to conduct a wooing on those lines. Yet he had
+certainly developed a sinister habit of popping out at the theatre. On
+several occasions he had startled her by appearing at her side as if
+he had come up out of a trap.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!" cried Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yeth!" insisted the cherub, waving imperiously to an approaching
+street-car. "Well, I must be getting up-town. I've got a date. Thee
+you later."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure you're mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not."</p>
+
+<p>"But what makes you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>The cherub placed a hand on the rail of the car, preparatory to
+swinging herself on board.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for one thing," she said, "he'th been stalking you like an
+Indian ever since we left the theatre! Look behind you. Good-bye,
+honey. Thend me a piece of the cake!"</p>
+
+<p>The street-car bore her away. The last that Jill saw of her was a wide
+and amiable grin. Then, turning, she beheld the snake-like form of
+Otis Pilkington towering at her side.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington seemed nervous but determined. His face was half hidden
+by the silk scarf that muffled his throat, for he was careful of his
+health and had a fancied tendency to bronchial trouble. Above the
+scarf a pair of mild eyes gazed down at Jill through their
+tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles. It was hopeless for Jill to try to
+tell herself that the tender gleam behind the glass was not the love
+light in Otis Pilkington's eyes. The truth was too obvious.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington, his voice sounding
+muffled and far away through the scarf. "Are you going up-town?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, down-town," said Jill quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," said Mr. Pilkington.</p>
+
+<p>Jill felt annoyed, but helpless. It is difficult to bid a tactful
+farewell to a man who has stated his intention of going in the same
+direction as yourself. There was nothing for it but to accept the
+unspoken offer of Otis Pilkington's escort. They began to walk down
+Broadway together.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are tired after the rehearsal?" enquired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> Mr.
+Pilkington in his precise voice. He always spoke as if he were
+weighing each word and clipping it off a reel.</p>
+
+<p>"A little. Mr. Miller is very enthusiastic."</p>
+
+<p>"About the piece?" Her companion spoke eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I meant hard-working."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he said anything about the piece?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no. You see, he doesn't confide in us a great deal, except to
+tell us his opinion of the way we do the steps. I don't think we
+impress him very much, to judge from what he says. But the girls say
+he always tells every chorus he rehearses that it is the worst he ever
+had anything to do with."</p>
+
+<p>"And the chor&mdash;the&mdash;er&mdash;ladies of the ensemble? What do they think of
+the piece?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't suppose they are very good judges, are they?" said Jill
+diplomatically.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean they do not like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some of them don't seem quite to understand it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington was silent for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I am beginning to wonder myself whether it may not be a little over
+the heads of the public," he said ruefully. "When it was first
+performed...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, has it been done before?"</p>
+
+<p>"By amateurs, yes, at the house of my aunt, Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim,
+at Newport, last summer. In aid of the Armenian orphans. It was
+extraordinarily well received on that occasion. We nearly made our
+expenses. It was such a success that&mdash;I feel I can confide in you. I
+should not like this repeated to your&mdash;your&mdash;the other ladies&mdash;it was
+such a success that, against my aunt's advice, I decided to give it a
+Broadway production. Between ourselves, I am shouldering practically
+all the expenses of the undertaking. Mr. Goble has nothing to do with
+the financial arrangements of 'The Rose of America.' Those are
+entirely in my hands. Mr. Goble, in return for a share in the profits,
+is giving us the benefit of his experience as regards the management
+and booking of the piece. I have always had the greatest faith in it.
+Trevis and I wrote it when we were in college together, and all our
+friends thought it exceptionally brilliant. My aunt, as I say, was
+opposed to the venture. She holds the view that I am not a good man of
+business. In a sense, perhaps, she is right. Temperamentally, no
+doubt, I am more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> the artist. But I was determined to show the public
+something superior to the so-called Broadway successes, which are so
+terribly trashy. Unfortunately, I am beginning to wonder whether it is
+possible, with the crude type of actor at one's disposal in this
+country, to give a really adequate performance of such a play as 'The
+Rose of America.' These people seem to miss the spirit of the piece,
+its subtle topsy-turvy humour, its delicate whimsicality. This
+afternoon," Mr. Pilkington choked. "This afternoon I happened to
+overhear two of the principals, who were not aware that I was within
+earshot, discussing the play. One of them&mdash;these people express
+themselves curiously&mdash;one of them said that he thought it a quince:
+and the other described it as a piece of gorgonzola cheese! That is
+not the spirit that wins success!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill was feeling immensely relieved. After all, it seemed, this poor
+young man merely wanted sympathy, not romance. She had been mistaken,
+she felt, about that gleam in his eyes. It was not the lovelight: it
+was the light of panic. He was the author of the play. He had sunk a
+large sum of money in its production, he had heard people criticizing
+it harshly, and he was suffering from what her colleagues in the
+chorus would have called cold feet. It was such a human emotion and he
+seemed so like an overgrown child pleading to be comforted that her
+heart warmed to him. Relief melted her defences. And when, on their
+arrival at Thirty-fourth Street Mr. Pilkington suggested that she
+partake of a cup of tea at his apartment, which was only a couple of
+blocks away off Madison Avenue, she accepted the invitation without
+hesitating.</p>
+
+<p>On the way to his apartment Mr. Pilkington continued in the minor key.
+He was a great deal more communicative than she herself would have
+been to such a comparative stranger as she was, but she knew that men
+were often like this. Over in London, she had frequently been made the
+recipient of the most intimate confidences by young men whom she had
+met for the first time the same evening at a dance. She had been
+forced to believe that there was something about her personality that
+acted on a certain type of man like the crack in the dam, setting
+loose the surging flood of their eloquence. To this class Otis
+Pilkington evidently belonged, for, once started, he withheld nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't that I'm dependent on Aunt Olive or anything like that," he
+vouchsafed, as he stirred the tea in his Jap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>anese-print hung studio.
+"But you know how it is. Aunt Olive is in a position to make it very
+unpleasant for me if I do anything foolish. At present, I have reason
+to know that she intends to leave me practically all that she
+possesses. Millions!" said Mr. Pilkington, handing Jill a cup. "I
+assure you, millions! But there is a hard commercial strain in her. It
+would have the most prejudicial effect upon her if; especially after
+she had expressly warned me against it, I were to lose a great deal of
+money over this production. She is always complaining that I am not a
+business man like my late uncle. Mr. Waddesleigh Peagrim made a
+fortune in smoked hams." Mr. Pilkington looked at the Japanese prints,
+and shuddered slightly. "Right up to the time of his death he was
+urging me to go into the business. I could not have endured it. But,
+when I heard those two men discussing the play, I almost wished that I
+had done so."</p>
+
+<p>Jill was now completely disarmed. She would almost have patted this
+unfortunate young man's head, if she could have reached it.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't worry about the piece," she said. "I've read somewhere or
+heard somewhere that it's the surest sign of a success when actors
+don't like a play."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington drew his chair an imperceptible inch nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"How sympathetic you are!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill perceived with chagrin that she had been mistaken after all. It
+<i>was</i> the love light. The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles sprayed it
+all over her like a couple of searchlights. Otis Pilkington was
+looking exactly like a sheep, and she knew from past experience that
+that was the infallible sign. When young men looked like that, it was
+time to go.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I must be off," she said. "Thank you so much for giving me
+tea. I shouldn't be a bit afraid about the play. I'm sure it's going
+to be splendid. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"You aren't going already?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must. I'm very late as it is. I promised...."</p>
+
+<p>Whatever fiction Jill might have invented to the detriment of her soul
+was interrupted by a ring at the bell. The steps of Mr. Pilkington's
+Japanese servant crossing the hall came faintly to the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Pilkington in?"</p>
+
+<p>Otis Pilkington motioned pleadingly to Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go!" he urged. "It's only a man I know. He has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> probably come
+to remind me that I am dining with him to-night. He won't stay a
+minute. Please don't go."</p>
+
+<p>Jill sat down. She had no intention of going now. The cheery voice at
+the front door had been the cheery voice of her long-lost uncle, Major
+Christopher Selby.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>UNCLE CHRIS BORROWS A FLAT</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>Uncle Chris walked breezily into the room, flicking a jaunty glove. He
+stopped short on seeing that Mr. Pilkington was not alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon! I understood...." He peered at Jill
+uncertainly. Mr. Pilkington affected a dim, artistic lighting-system
+in his studio, and people who entered from the great outdoors
+generally had to take time to accustom their eyes to it. "If you're
+engaged...."</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;allow me.... Miss Mariner.... Major Selby."</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Uncle Chris!" said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless my soul!" ejaculated that startled gentleman adventurer,
+and collapsed on to a settee as if his legs had been mown from under
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been looking for you all over New York," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington found himself unequal to the intellectual pressure of
+the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Chris?" he said with a note of feeble enquiry in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Selby is my uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?" said Mr. Pilkington. "I mean...."</p>
+
+<p>Not being able to ascertain, after a moment's self-examination, what
+he did mean, he relapsed into silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever are you doing here?" asked Uncle Chris.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been having tea with Mr. Pilkington."</p>
+
+<p>"But ... but why Mr. Pilkington?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he invited me."</p>
+
+<p>"But how do you know him?"</p>
+
+<p>"We met at the theatre."</p>
+
+<p>"Theatre?"</p>
+
+<p>Otis Pilkington recovered his power of speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Mariner is rehearsing with a little play in which I am
+interested," he explained.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris half rose from the settee. He blinked twice in rapid
+succession. Jill had never seen him so shaken from his customary
+poise.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell me you have gone on the stage, Jill!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have. I'm in the chorus...."</p>
+
+<p>"Ensemble," corrected Mr. Pilkington softly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm in the ensemble of a piece called 'The Rose of America.' We've
+been rehearsing for ever so long."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris digested this information in silence for a moment He
+pulled at his short moustache.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course!" he said at length. Jill, who knew him so well, could
+tell by the restored ring of cheeriness in his tone that he was
+himself again. He had dealt with this situation in his mind and was
+prepared to cope with it. The surmise was confirmed the next instant
+when he rose and stationed himself in front of the fire. Mr.
+Pilkington detested steam-heat and had scoured the city till he had
+found a studio apartment with an open fireplace. Uncle Chris spread
+his legs and expanded his chest. "Of course," he said. "I remember now
+that you told me in your letter that you were thinking of going on the
+stage. My niece," explained Uncle Chris to the attentive Mr.
+Pilkington, "came over from England on a later boat. I was not
+expecting her for some weeks. Hence my surprise at meeting her here.
+Of course. You told me that you intended to go on the stage, and I
+strongly recommended you to begin at the bottom of the ladder and
+learn the ground-work thoroughly before you attempted higher flights."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that was it?" said Mr. Pilkington. He had been wondering.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no finer training," resumed Uncle Chris, completely at his
+ease once more, "than the chorus. How many of the best-known actresses
+in America began in that way! Dozens. Dozens. If I were giving advice
+to any young girl with theatrical aspirations, I should say 'Begin in
+the chorus!' On the other hand," he proceeded, turning to Mr.
+Pilkington, "I think it would be just as well if you would not mention
+the fact of my niece being in that position to Mrs. Waddesleigh
+Peagrim. She might not understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," assented Mr. Pilkington.</p>
+
+<p>"The term 'chorus'...."</p>
+
+<p>"I dislike it intensely myself."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It suggests...."</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris inflated his chest again, well satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>"Capital!" he said. "Well, I only dropped in to remind you, my boy,
+that you and your aunt are dining with me to-night. I was afraid a
+busy man like you might forget."</p>
+
+<p>"I was looking forward to it," said Mr. Pilkington, charmed at the
+description.</p>
+
+<p>"You remember the address? Nine East Forty-first Street. I have moved,
+you remember."</p>
+
+<p>"So that was why I couldn't find you at the other place," said Jill.
+"The man at the door said he had never heard of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Stupid idiot!" said Uncle Chris testily. "These New York hall-porters
+are recruited entirely from homes for the feeble-minded. I suppose he
+was a new man. Well, Pilkington, my boy, I shall expect you at seven
+o'clock. Good-bye till then. Come, Jill."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Mr. Pilkington," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye for the present, Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington, bending
+down to take her hand. The tortoise-shell spectacles shot a last soft
+beam at her.</p>
+
+<p>As the front door closed behind them, Uncle Chris heaved a sigh of
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew! I think I handled that little contretemps with diplomacy! A
+certain amount of diplomacy, I think!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean," said Jill severely, "that you told some disgraceful
+fibs...."</p>
+
+<p>"Fibs, my dear&mdash;or shall we say, artistic mouldings of the unshapely
+clay of truth&mdash;are the ... how shall I put it?... Well, anyway, they
+come in dashed handy. It would never have done for Mrs. Peagrim to
+have found out that you were in the chorus. If she discovered that my
+niece was in the chorus, she would infallibly suspect me of being an
+adventurer. And while," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "of course I
+<i>am</i>, it is nice to have one's little secrets. The good lady has had a
+rooted distaste for girls in that perfectly honourable but maligned
+profession ever since our long young friend back there was sued for
+breach of promise by a member of a touring company in his second year
+at college. We all have our prejudices. That is hers. However, I
+think, we may rely on our friend to say nothing about the matter....
+But why did you do it? My dear child, whatever induced you to take
+such a step?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jill laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's practically what Mr. Miller said to me when we were rehearsing
+one of the dances this afternoon, only he put it differently." She
+linked her arm in his. "What else could I do? I was alone in New York
+with the remains of that twenty dollars you sent me and no more in
+sight."</p>
+
+<p>"But why didn't you stay down at Brookport with your Uncle Elmer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever seen my Uncle Elmer?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Curiously enough, I never have."</p>
+
+<p>"If you had, you wouldn't ask. Brookport! Ugh! I left when they tried
+to get me to understudy the hired man, who had resigned."</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they got tired of supporting me in the state to which I was
+accustomed&mdash;I don't blame them!&mdash;so they began to find ways of making
+me useful about the home. I didn't mind reading to Aunt Julia, and I
+could just stand taking Tibby for walks. But, when it came to
+shoveling snow, I softly and silently vanished away."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't understand all this. I suggested to your
+uncle&mdash;diplomatically&mdash;that you had large private means."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you did. And he spent all his time showing me over houses and
+telling me I could have them for a hundred thousand dollars cash
+down." Jill bubbled. "You should have seen his face when I told him
+that twenty dollars was all I had in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't tell him that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I did."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris shook his head, like an indulgent father disappointed in a
+favourite child.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a dear girl, Jill, but really you do seem totally lacking in
+... how shall I put it?&mdash;finesse. Your mother was just the same. A
+sweet woman, but with no diplomacy, no notion of <i>handling</i> a
+situation. I remember her as a child giving me away hopelessly on one
+occasion after we had been at the jam-cupboard. She did not mean any
+harm, but she was constitutionally incapable of a tactful negative at
+the right time." Uncle Chris brooded for a moment on the past. "Oh,
+well, it's a very fine trait, no doubt, though inconvenient. I don't
+blame you for leaving Brookport if you weren't happy there. But I wish
+you had consulted me before going on the stage."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Shall I strike this man?" asked Jill of the world at large. "How
+could I consult you? My darling, precious uncle, don't you realize
+that you had vanished into thin air, leaving me penniless? I had to do
+something. And, now that we are on the subject, perhaps you will
+explain your movements. Why did you write to me from that place on
+Fifty-seventh Street if you weren't there?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"In a sense ... when I wrote ... I <i>was</i> there."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that means something, but it's beyond me. I'm not nearly as
+intelligent as you think, Uncle Chris, so you'll have to explain."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it was this way, my dear. I was in a peculiar position you must
+remember. I had made a number of wealthy friends on the boat and it is
+possible that&mdash;unwittingly&mdash;I gave them the impression that I was as
+comfortably off as themselves. At any rate, that is the impression they
+gathered, and it hardly seemed expedient to correct it. For it is a
+deplorable trait in the character of the majority of rich people that they
+only&mdash;er&mdash;expand&mdash;they only show the best and most companionable side of
+themselves to those whom they imagine to be as wealthy as they are. Well,
+of course, while one was on the boat, the fact that I was sailing under
+what a purist might have termed false colours did not matter. The problem
+was how to keep up the&mdash;er&mdash;innocent deception after we had reached New
+York. A woman like Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim&mdash;a ghastly creature, my dear,
+all front teeth and exuberance, but richer than the Sub-Treasury&mdash;looks
+askance at a man, however agreeable, if he endeavours to cement a
+friendship begun on board ship from a cheap boarding-house on Amsterdam
+Avenue. It was imperative that I should find something in the nature of
+what I might call a suitable base of operations. Fortune played into my
+hands. One of the first men I met in New York was an old soldier-servant
+of mine, to whom I had been able to do some kindnesses in the old days. In
+fact&mdash;it shows how bread cast upon the waters returns to us after many
+days&mdash;it was with the assistance of a small loan from me that he was
+enabled to emigrate to America. Well, I met this man, and, after a short
+conversation, he revealed the fact that he was the hall-porter at that
+apartment-house which you visited, the one on Fifty-Seventh Street. At
+this time of the year, I knew,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> many wealthy people go south, to Florida
+and the Carolinas, and it occurred to me that there might be a vacant
+apartment in his building. There was. I took it."</p>
+
+<p>"But how on earth could you afford to pay for an apartment in a place
+like that?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris coughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say I paid for it. I said I took it. That is, as one might
+say, the point of my story. My old friend, grateful for favours
+received and wishing to do me a good turn, consented to become my
+accomplice in another&mdash;er&mdash;innocent deception. I gave my friends the
+address and telephone number of the apartment-house, living the while
+myself in surroundings of a somewhat humbler and less expensive
+character. I called every morning for letters. If anybody rang me up
+on the telephone, the admirable man answered in the capacity of my
+servant, took a message, and relayed it on to me at my boarding-house.
+If anybody called, he merely said that I was out. There wasn't a flaw
+in the whole scheme, my dear, and its chief merit was its beautiful
+simplicity."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what made you give it up? Conscience?"</p>
+
+<p>"Conscience never made me give up <i>anything</i>," said Uncle Chris
+firmly. "No, there were a hundred chances to one against anything
+going wrong, and it was the hundredth that happened. When you have
+been in New York longer, you will realize that one peculiarity of the
+place is that the working-classes are in a constant state of flux. On
+Monday you meet a plumber. Ah! you say, a plumber! Capital! On the
+following Thursday you meet him again, and he is a car-conductor. Next
+week he will be squirting soda in a drug-store. It's the fault of
+these dashed magazines, with their advertisements of correspondence
+courses&mdash;Are You Earning All You Should?&mdash;Write To Us and Learn
+Chicken-Farming By Mail.... It puts wrong ideas into the fellows'
+heads. It unsettles them. It was so in this case. Everything was going
+swimmingly, when my man suddenly conceived the idea that destiny had
+intended him for a chauffeur-gardener, and he threw up his position!"</p>
+
+<p>"Leaving you homeless!"</p>
+
+<p>"As you say, homeless&mdash;temporarily. But, fortunately&mdash;I have been
+amazingly lucky all through; it really does seem as if you cannot keep
+a good man down&mdash;fortunately my friend had a friend who was janitor at
+a place on East Forty-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>first Street, and by a miracle of luck the only
+apartment in the building was empty. It is an office-building, but,
+like some of these places, it has one small bachelor's apartment on
+the top floor."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are the small bachelor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely. My friend explained matters to his friend&mdash;a few financial
+details were satisfactorily arranged&mdash;and here I am, perfectly happy
+with the cosiest little place in the world, rent free. I am even
+better off than I was before, as a matter of fact, for my new ally's
+wife is an excellent cook, and I have been enabled to give one or two
+very pleasant dinners at my new home. It lends verisimilitude to the
+thing if you can entertain a little. If you are never in when people
+call, they begin to wonder. I am giving dinner to your friend
+Pilkington and Mrs. Peagrim there to-night. Homey, delightful, and
+infinitely cheaper than a restaurant."</p>
+
+<p>"And what will you do when the real owner of the place walks in in the
+middle of dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Out of the question. The janitor informs me that he left for England
+some weeks ago, intending to make a stay of several months."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you certainly think of everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever success I may have achieved," replied Uncle Chris, with the
+dignity of a Captain of Industry confiding in an interviewer, "I
+attribute to always thinking of everything."</p>
+
+<p>Jill gurgled with laughter. There was that about her uncle which
+always acted on her moral sense like an opiate, lulling it to sleep
+and preventing it from rising up and becoming critical. If he had
+stolen a watch and chain, he would somehow have succeeded in
+convincing her that he had acted for the best under the dictates of a
+benevolent altruism.</p>
+
+<p>"What success <i>have</i> you achieved?" she asked, interested. "When you
+left me, you were on your way to find a fortune. Did you find it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not actually placed my hands on it yet," admitted Uncle Chris.
+"But it is hovering in the air all round me. I can hear the beating of
+the wings of the dollar-bills as they flutter to and fro, almost
+within reach. Sooner or later I shall grab them. I never forget, my
+dear, that I have a task before me&mdash;to restore to you the money of
+which I deprived you. Some day&mdash;be sure&mdash;I shall do it. Some day you
+will receive a letter from me, containing a large sum&mdash;five
+thousand&mdash;ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> thousand&mdash;twenty thousand&mdash;whatever it may be, with the
+simple words 'First Instalment.'" He repeated the phrase, as if it
+pleased him. "First Instalment!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill hugged his arm. She was in the mood in which she used to listen
+to him ages ago telling her fairy stories.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!" she cried. "Go on! It's wonderful! Once upon a time Uncle
+Chris was walking along Fifth Avenue, when he happened to meet a poor
+old woman gathering sticks for firewood. She looked so old and tired
+that he was sorry for her, so he gave her ten cents which he had
+borrowed from the janitor, and suddenly she turned into a beautiful
+girl and said 'I am a fairy! In return for your kindness I grant you
+three wishes!' And Uncle Chris thought for a moment, and said, 'I want
+twenty thousand dollars to send to Jill!' And the fairy said, 'It
+shall be attended to. And the next article?'"</p>
+
+<p>"It is all very well to joke," protested Uncle Chris, pained by this
+flippancy, "but let me tell you that I shall not require magic
+assistance to become a rich man. Do you realize that at houses like
+Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's I am meeting men all the time who have only
+to say one little word to make me a millionaire? They are fat, grey
+men with fishy eyes and large waistcoats, and they sit smoking cigars
+and brooding on what they are going to do to the market next day. If I
+were a mind-reader I could have made a dozen fortunes by now. I sat
+opposite that old pirate, Bruce Bishop, for over an hour the very day
+before he and his gang sent Consolidated Pea-Nuts down twenty points!
+If I had known what was in the wind, I doubt if I could have
+restrained myself from choking his intentions out of the fellow. Well,
+what I am trying to point out is that one of these days one of these
+old oysters will have a fleeting moment of human pity and disgorge
+some tip on which I can act. It is that reflection that keeps me so
+constantly at Mrs. Peagrim's house." Uncle Chris shivered slightly. "A
+fearsome woman, my dear! Weighs a hundred and eighty pounds and as
+skittish as a young lamb in springtime! She makes me dance with her!"
+Uncle Chris' lips quivered in a spasm of pain, and he was silent for a
+moment. "Thank Heaven I was once a footballer!" he said reverently.</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you live on?" asked Jill. "I know you are going to be a
+millionaire next Tuesday week, but how are you getting along in the
+meantime?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris coughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as regards actual living expenses, I have managed by a shrewd
+business stroke to acquire a small but sufficient income. I live in a
+boarding-house&mdash;true&mdash;but I contrive to keep the wolf away from its
+door&mdash;which, by the by, badly needs a lick of paint. Have you ever
+heard of Nervino?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so. It sounds like a patent medicine."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> a patent medicine." Uncle Chris stopped and looked anxiously
+at her. "Jill, you're looking pale, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I? We had rather a tiring rehearsal."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure," said Uncle Chris seriously, "that it is only that? Are
+you sure that your vitality has not become generally lowered by the
+fierce rush of Metropolitan life? Are you aware of the things that can
+happen to you if you allow the red corpuscles of your blood to become
+devitalised? I had a friend...."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop! You're scaring me to death!"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris gave his moustache a satisfied twirl.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what I meant to do, my dear. And, when I had scared you
+sufficiently&mdash;you wouldn't wait for the story of my consumptive
+friend. Pity! It's one of my best!&mdash;I should have mentioned that I had
+been having much the same trouble myself until lately, but the other
+day I happened to try Nervino, the great specific.... I was giving you
+an illustration of myself in action, my dear. I went to these Nervino
+people&mdash;happened to see one of their posters and got the idea in a
+flash&mdash;I went to them and said, 'Here am I, a presentable man of
+persuasive manners and a large acquaintance among the leaders of New
+York Society. What would it be worth to you to have me hint from time
+to time at dinner parties and so forth that Nervino is the rich man's
+panacea?' I put the thing lucidly to them. I said, 'No doubt you have
+a thousand agents in the city, but have you one who does not look like
+an agent and won't talk like an agent? Have you one who is inside the
+houses of the wealthy, at their very dinner-tables, instead of being
+on the front step, trying to hold the door open with his foot? That is
+the point you have to consider.' They saw the idea at once. We
+arranged terms&mdash;not as generous as I could wish, perhaps, but quite
+ample. I receive a tolerably satisfactory salary each week, and in
+return I spread the good word about Nervino in the gilded palaces of
+the rich. Those are the people to go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> for, Jill. They have been so
+busy wrenching money away from the widow and the orphan that they
+haven't had time to look after their health. You catch one of them
+after dinner, just as he is wondering if he was really wise in taking
+two helpings of the lobster Newburg, and he is clay in your hands. I
+draw my chair up to his and become sympathetic and say that I had
+precisely the same trouble myself until recently, and mention a dear
+old friend of mine who died of indigestion, and gradually lead the
+conversation round to Nervino. I don't force it on them. I don't even
+ask them, to try it. I merely point to myself, rosy with health, and
+say that I owe everything to it, and the thing is done. They thank me
+profusely and scribble the name down on their shirt-cuffs. And there
+you are! I don't suppose," said Uncle Chris philosophically, "that the
+stuff can do them any actual harm."</p>
+
+<p>They had come to the corner of Forty-first Street. Uncle Chris felt in
+his pocket and produced a key.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want to go and take a look at my little nest, you can let
+yourself in. It's on the twenty-second floor. Don't fail to go out on
+the roof and look at the view. It's worth seeing. It will give you
+some idea of the size of the city. A wonderful, amazing city, my dear,
+full of people who need Nervino. I shall go on and drop in at the club
+for half an hour. They have given me a fortnight's card at the Avenue.
+Capital place. Here's the key."</p>
+
+<p>Jill turned down Forty-first Street, and came to a mammoth structure
+of steel and stone which dwarfed the modest brown houses beside it
+into nothingness. It was curious to think of a private flat nestling
+on the summit of this mountain. She went in, and the lift shot her
+giddily upwards to the twenty-second floor. She found herself facing a
+short flight of stone steps, ending in a door. She mounted the steps,
+tried the key, and, turning it, entered a hall-way. Proceeding down
+the passage, she reached a sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>It was a small room, but furnished with a solid comfort which soothed
+her. For the first time since she had arrived in New York, she had the
+sense of being miles away from the noise and bustle of the city. There
+was a complete and restful silence. She was alone in a nest of books
+and deep chairs, on which a large grandfather-clock looked down with
+that wide-faced benevolence peculiar to its kind. So peaceful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> was
+this eyrie, perched high up above the clamour and rattle of
+civilization, that every nerve in her body seemed to relax in a
+delicious content. It was like being in Peter Pan's house in the
+tree-tops.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>Jill possessed in an unusual degree that instinct for exploration
+which is implanted in most of us. She was frankly inquisitive, and
+could never be two minutes in a strange room without making a tour of
+it and examining its books, pictures, and photographs. Almost at once
+she began to prowl.</p>
+
+<p>The mantelpiece was her first objective. She always made for other
+people's mantelpieces, for there, more than anywhere else, is the
+character of a proprietor revealed. This mantelpiece was sprinkled
+with photographs, large, small, framed and unframed. In the centre of
+it, standing all alone and looking curiously out of place among its
+large neighbours, was a little snapshot.</p>
+
+<p>It was dark by the mantelpiece. Jill took the photograph to the
+window, where the fading light could fall on it. Why, she could not
+have said, but the thing interested her. There was mystery about it.
+It seemed in itself so insignificant to have the place of honour.</p>
+
+<p>The snapshot had evidently been taken by an amateur, but it was one of
+those lucky successes which happen at rare intervals to amateur
+photographers to encourage them to proceed with their hobby. It showed
+a small girl in a white dress cut short above slim, black legs,
+standing in the porch of an old house, one hand swinging a sun-bonnet,
+the other patting an Irish terrier which had planted its front paws
+against her waist and was looking up into her face with that grave
+melancholy characteristic of Irish terriers. The sunlight was
+evidently strong, for the child's face was puckered in a twisted
+though engaging grin. Jill's first thought was "What a jolly kid!" And
+then, with a leaping of the heart that seemed to send something big
+and choking into her throat, she saw that it was a photograph of
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>With a swooping bound memory raced back over the years. She could feel
+the hot sun on her face, hear the anxious voice of Freddie Rooke&mdash;then
+fourteen and for the first time the owner of a camera&mdash;imploring her
+to stand just like that because he wouldn't be half a minute only some
+rotten thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> had stuck or something. Then the sharp click, the
+doubtful assurance of Freddie that he thought it was all right if he
+hadn't forgotten to shift the film (in which case she might expect to
+appear in combination with a cow which he had snapped on his way to
+the house), and the relieved disappearance of Pat, the terrier, who
+didn't understand photography. How many years ago had that been? She
+could not remember. But Freddie had grown to long-legged manhood, she
+to an age of discretion and full-length frocks, Pat had died, the old
+house was inhabited by strangers ... and here was the silent record of
+that sun-lit afternoon, three thousand miles away from the English
+garden in which it had come into existence.</p>
+
+<p>The shadows deepened. The top of the great building swayed gently,
+causing the pendulum of the grandfather-clock to knock against the
+sides of its wooden case. Jill started. The noise, coming after the
+dead silence, frightened her till she realized what it was. She had a
+nervous feeling of not being alone. It was as if the shadows held
+goblins that peered out at the intruder. She darted to the mantelpiece
+and replaced the photograph. She felt like some heroine of a
+fairy-story meddling with the contents of the giant's castle. Soon
+there would come the sound of a great footstep thud&mdash;thud....</p>
+
+<p><i>Thud.</i></p>
+
+<p>Jill's heart gave another leap. She was perfectly sure she had heard a
+sound. It had been just like the banging of a door. She braced
+herself, listening, every muscle tense. And then, cleaving the
+stillness, came a voice from down the passage&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Just see them Pullman porters,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dolled up with scented waters<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bought with their dimes and quarters!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">See, here they come! Here they come!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>For an instant Jill could not have said whether she was relieved or
+more frightened than ever. True, that numbing sense of the uncanny had
+ceased to grip her, for Reason told her that spectres do not sing
+rag-time songs. On the other hand, owners of apartments do, and she
+would almost as readily have faced a spectre as the owner of this
+apartment. Dizzily, she wondered how in the world she was to explain
+her presence. Suppose he turned out to be some awful-choleric person
+who would listen to no explanations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh, see those starched-up collars!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hark how their captain hollers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">'Keep time! Keep time!'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It's worth a thousand dollars<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see those tip-collectors...."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Very near now. Almost at the door.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Those upper-berth inspectors,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those Pullman porters on parade!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>A dim, shapeless figure in the black of the doorway. The scrabbling of
+fingers on the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you, dammit?" said the voice, apparently addressing the
+electric-light switch.</p>
+
+<p>Jill shrank back, desperate fingers pressing deep into the back of an
+arm-chair. Light flashed from the wall at her side. And there, in the
+doorway, stood Wally Mason in his shirt-sleeves.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE AMBASSADOR ARRIVES</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>In these days of rapid movement, when existence has become little more
+than a series of shocks of varying intensity, astonishment is the
+shortest-lived of all the emotions. There was an instant in which Jill
+looked at Wally and Wally at Jill with the eye of total amazement, and
+then, almost simultaneously, each began&mdash;the process was
+subconscious&mdash;to regard this meeting not as an isolated and
+inexplicable event, but as something resulting from a perfectly
+logical chain of circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" said Wally.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a very exalted note on which to pitch the conversation, but
+it had the merit of giving each of them a little more time to collect
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"This is.... I wasn't expecting you!" said Wally.</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't expecting <i>you</i>!" said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>There was another pause, in which Wally, apparently examining her last
+words and turning them over in his mind, found that they did not
+square with his preconceived theories.</p>
+
+<p>"You weren't expecting me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly was not!"</p>
+
+<p>"But ... but you knew I lived here?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill shook her head. Wally reflected for an instant, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> then put his
+finger, with a happy inspiration, on the very heart of the mystery.</p>
+
+<p>"Then how on earth did you get here?"</p>
+
+<p>He was glad he had asked that. The sense of unreality which had come
+to him in the first startling moment of seeing her and vanished under
+the influence of logic had returned as strong as ever. If she did not
+know he lived in this place, how in the name of everything uncanny had
+she found her way here? A momentary wonder as to whether all this was
+not mixed up with telepathy and mental suggestion and all that sort of
+thing came to him. Certainly he had been thinking of her all the time
+since their parting at the Savoy Hotel that night three weeks and more
+back.... No, that was absurd. There must be some sounder reason for
+her presence. He waited for her to give it.</p>
+
+<p>Jill for the moment felt physically incapable of giving it. She shrank
+from the interminable explanation which confronted her as a weary
+traveller shrinks from a dusty, far-stretching desert. She simply
+could not go into all that now. So she answered with a question.</p>
+
+<p>"When did you land in New York?"</p>
+
+<p>"This afternoon. We were supposed to dock this morning, but the boat
+was late." Wally perceived that he was being pushed away from the main
+point, and jostled his way back to it. "But what are you doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's such a long story."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was plaintive. Remorse smote Wally. It occurred to him that
+he had not been sufficiently sympathetic. Not a word had he said on
+the subject of her change of fortunes. He had just stood and gaped and
+asked questions. After all, what the devil did it matter how she came
+to be here? He had anticipated a long and tedious search for her
+through the labyrinth of New York, and here Fate had brought her to
+his very door, and all he could do was to ask why, instead of being
+thankful. He perceived that he was not much of a fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," he said. "You can tell me when you feel like it." He
+looked at her eagerly. Time seemed to have wiped away that little
+misunderstanding under the burden of which they had parted. "It's too
+wonderful finding you like this!" He hesitated. "I heard
+about&mdash;everything," he said awkwardly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My&mdash;" Jill hesitated too. "My smash?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Freddie Rooke told me. I was terribly sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. They were both thinking of that other disaster
+which had happened. The presence of Derek Underhill seemed to stand
+like an unseen phantom between them. Finally Wally spoke at random,
+choosing the first words that came into his head in his desire to
+break the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Jolly place, this, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill perceived that an opening for those tedious explanations had been
+granted her.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Chris thinks so," she said demurely.</p>
+
+<p>Wally looked puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Chris? Oh, your uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;he has never been here."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. He's giving a dinner-party here to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's ... what did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right. I only began at the end of the story instead of the
+beginning. I'll tell you the whole thing. And then ... then I suppose
+you will be terribly angry and make a fuss."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not much of a lad, as Freddie Rooke would say, for making fusses.
+And I can't imagine being terribly angry with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll risk it. Though, if I wasn't a brave girl, I should leave
+Uncle Chris to explain for himself and simply run away."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything is better than that. It's a miracle meeting you like this,
+and I don't want to be deprived of the fruits of it. Tell me anything,
+but don't go."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be furious."</p>
+
+<p>"Not with you."</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope not with me. I've done nothing. I am the innocent
+heroine. But I'm afraid you will be very angry with Uncle Chris."</p>
+
+<p>"If he's your uncle, that passes him. Besides, he once licked the
+stuffing out of me with a whangee. That forms a bond. Tell me all."</p>
+
+<p>Jill considered. She had promised to begin at the beginning, but it
+was difficult to know what was the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever heard of Captain Kidd?" she asked at length.</p>
+
+<p>"You're wandering from the point, aren't you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not. <i>Have</i> you heard of Captain Kidd?"</p>
+
+<p>"The pirate? Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Uncle Chris is his direct lineal descendant. That really
+explains the whole thing."</p>
+
+<p>Wally looked at her enquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Could you make it a little easier?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I can tell you everything in half a dozen words, if you like. But it
+will sound awfully abrupt."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead."</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Chris has stolen your apartment."</p>
+
+<p>Wally nodded slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I see. Stolen my apartment."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you can't possibly understand. I shall have to tell you the
+whole thing, after all."</p>
+
+<p>Wally listened with flattering attention as she began the epic of
+Major Christopher Selby's doings in New York. Whatever his emotions,
+he certainly was not bored.</p>
+
+<p>"So that's how it all happened," concluded Jill.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Wally said nothing. He seemed to be digesting what he had
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," he said at last. "It's a variant of those advertisements they
+print in the magazines. 'Why pay rent? Own somebody else's home!'"</p>
+
+<p>"That <i>does</i> rather sum it up," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>Wally burst into a roar of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a corker!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill was immensely relieved. For all her courageous bearing, she had
+not relished the task of breaking the news to Wally. She knew that he
+had a sense of humour, but a man may have a sense of humour and yet
+not see anything amusing in having his home stolen in his absence.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad you're not angry."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not."</p>
+
+<p>"Most men would be."</p>
+
+<p>"Most men are chumps."</p>
+
+<p>"It's so wonderful that it happened to be you. Suppose it had been an
+utter stranger! What could I have done?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would have been the same thing. You would have won him over in two
+minutes. Nobody could resist you."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very sweet of you."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help telling the truth. Washington was just the same."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then you don't mind Uncle Chris giving his dinner-party here
+to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has my blessing."</p>
+
+<p>"You really are an angel," said Jill gratefully. "From what he said, I
+think he looks on it as rather an important function. He has invited a
+very rich woman, who has been showing him a lot of hospitality&mdash;a Mrs.
+Peagrim...."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes? Why, do you know her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite well. She goes in a good deal for being Bohemian and knowing
+people who write and paint and act and so on. That reminds me. I gave
+Freddie Rooke a letter of introduction to her."</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie Rooke!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He suddenly made up his mind to come over. He came to me for
+advice about the journey. He sailed a couple of days before I did. I
+suppose he's somewhere in New York by now, unless he was going on to
+Florida. He didn't tell me what his plans were."</p>
+
+<p>Jill was conscious of a sudden depression. Much as she liked Freddie,
+he belonged to a chapter in her life which was closed and which she
+was trying her hardest to forget. It was impossible to think of
+Freddie without thinking of Derek, and to think of Derek was like
+touching an exposed nerve. The news that Freddie was in New York
+shocked her. New York had already shown itself a city of chance
+encounters. Could she avoid meeting Freddie?</p>
+
+<p>She knew Freddie so well. There was not a dearer or a better-hearted
+youth in the world, but he had not that fine sensibility which pilots
+a man through the awkwardnesses of life. He was a blunderer. Instinct
+told her that, if she met Freddie, he would talk of Derek, and, if
+thinking of Derek was touching an exposed nerve, talking of him would
+be like pressing on that nerve with a heavy hand. She shivered.</p>
+
+<p>Wally was observant.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no need to meet him if you don't want to," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jill doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"New York's a large place. By the way," he went on, "to return once
+more to the interesting subject of my lodger, does your uncle sleep
+here at nights, do you know?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jill looked at him gratefully. He was no blunderer. Her desire to
+avoid Freddie Rooke was, he gave her tacitly to understand, her
+business, and he did not propose to intrude on it. She liked him for
+dismissing the subject so easily.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I think he told me he doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's something, isn't it! I call that darned nice of him! I
+wonder if I could drop back here somewhere about eleven o'clock. Are
+the festivities likely to be over by then? If I know Mrs. Peagrim, she
+will insist on going off to one of the hotels to dance directly after
+dinner. She's a confirmed trotter."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how to apologize," began Jill remorsefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't. It's absolutely all right." His eye wandered to the
+mantelpiece, as it had done once or twice during the conversation. In
+her hurry Jill had replaced the snapshot with its back to the room,
+and Wally had the fidgety air of a man whose most cherished possession
+is maltreated. He got up now and, walking across, turned the
+photograph round. He stood for a moment, looking at it. Jill had
+forgotten the snapshot. Curiosity returned to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Where <i>did</i> you get that?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Wally turned.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, did you see this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was looking at it just before you nearly frightened me to death by
+appearing so unexpectedly."</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie Rooke sold it to me fourteen years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Fourteen years ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"Next July," added Wally. "I gave him five shillings for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Five shillings! The little brute!" cried Jill indignantly. "It must
+have been all the money you had in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"A trifle more, as a matter of fact. All the money I had in the world
+was three-and-six. But by a merciful dispensation of Providence the
+curate had called that morning and left a money-box for subscriptions
+to the village organ-fund.... It's wonderful what you can do with a
+turn for crime and the small blade of a pocket-knife! I don't think I
+have ever made money quicker!" He looked at the photograph again. "Not
+that it seemed quick at the moment. I died at least a dozen agonizing
+deaths in the few minutes I was operating. Have you ever noticed how
+slowly time goes when you are coaxing a shilling and a sixpence out of
+some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>body's money-box? Centuries! But I was forgetting. Of course
+you've had no experience."</p>
+
+<p>"You poor thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was worth it."</p>
+
+<p>"And you've had it ever since!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't part with it for all Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's millions,"
+said Wally with sudden and startling vehemence, "if she offered me
+them." He paused. "She hasn't, as a matter of fact."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. Jill looked at Wally furtively as he returned to
+his seat. She was seeing him with new eyes. It was as if this trifling
+incident had removed some sort of a veil. He had suddenly become more
+alive. For an instant she had seen right into him, to the hidden deeps
+of his soul. She felt shy and embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>"Pat died," she said at length. She felt the necessity of saying
+something.</p>
+
+<p>"I liked Pat."</p>
+
+<p>"He picked up some poison, poor darling.... How long ago those days
+seem, don't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are always pretty vivid to me. I wonder who has that old house
+of yours now."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard the other day," said Jill more easily. The odd sensation of
+embarrassment was passing. "Some people called ... what was the
+name?... Debenham, I think."</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell again. It was broken by the front-door bell, like an
+alarm-clock that shatters a dream.</p>
+
+<p>Wally got up.</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You aren't going to open the door?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was the scheme."</p>
+
+<p>"But he'll get such a shock when he sees you."</p>
+
+<p>"He must look on it in the light of rent. I don't see why I shouldn't
+have a little passing amusement from this business."</p>
+
+<p>He left the room. Jill heard the front door open. She waited
+breathlessly. Pity for Uncle Chris struggled with the sterner feeling
+that it served him right.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" she heard Wally say.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" replied an exuberant voice. "Wondered if I'd find
+you in, and all that sort of thing. I say, what a deuce of a way up it
+is here. Sort of get a chappie into training for going to heaven,
+what? I mean, what?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jill looked about her like a trapped animal. It was absurd, she felt,
+but every nerve in her body cried out against the prospect of meeting
+Freddie. His very voice had opened old wounds and set them throbbing.</p>
+
+<p>She listened in the doorway. Out of sight down the passage, Freddie
+seemed by the sounds to be removing his overcoat. She stole out and
+darted like a shadow down the corridor that led to Wally's bedroom.
+The window of the bedroom opened on to the wide roof which Uncle Chris
+had eulogized. She slipped noiselessly out, closing the window behind
+her.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>"I say, Mason, old top," said Freddie, entering the sitting-room, "I
+hope you don't mind my barging in like this, but the fact is things
+are a bit thick. I'm dashed worried, and I didn't know another soul I
+could talk it over with. As a matter of fact, I wasn't sure you were
+in New York at all, but I remembered hearing you say in London that
+you were popping back almost at once, so I looked you up in the
+telephone book and took a chance. I'm dashed glad you <i>are</i> back. When
+did you arrive?"</p>
+
+<p>"This afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"I've been here two or three days. Well, it's a bit of luck catching
+you. You see, what I want to ask your advice about...."</p>
+
+<p>Wally looked at his watch. He was not surprised to find that Jill had
+taken to flight. He understood her feelings perfectly, and was anxious
+to get rid of the inopportune Freddie as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to talk quick, I'm afraid," he said. "I've lent this
+place to a man for the evening, and he's having some people to dinner.
+What's the trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's about Jill."</p>
+
+<p>"Jill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jill Mariner, you know. You remember Jill? You haven't forgotten my
+telling you all that? About her losing her money and coming over to
+America?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I remember you telling me that."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie seemed to miss something in his companion's manner, some note
+of excitement and perturbation.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he said, as if endeavouring to explain this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> to himself,
+"you hardly knew her, I suppose. Only met once since you were kids and
+all that sort of thing. But I'm a pal of hers and I'm dashed upset by
+the whole business, I can tell you. It worries me, I mean to say. Poor
+girl, you know, landed on her uppers in a strange country. Well, I
+mean, it worries me. So the first thing I did when I got here was to
+try to find her. That's why I came over, really, to try to find her.
+Apart from anything else, you see, poor old Derek is dashed worried
+about her."</p>
+
+<p>"Need we bring Underhill in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know you don't like him and think he behaved rather rummily and
+so forth, but that's all right now."</p>
+
+<p>"It is, is it?" said Wally drily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, absolutely. It's all on again."</p>
+
+<p>"What's all on again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I mean he wants to marry Jill. I came over to find her and tell
+her so."</p>
+
+<p>Wally's eyes glowed.</p>
+
+<p>"If you have come over as an ambassador...."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. Jolly old ambassador. Very word I used myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I say, if you have come over as an ambassador with the idea of
+reopening negotiations with Jill on behalf of that infernal swine...."</p>
+
+<p>"Old man!" protested Freddie, pained. "Pal of mine, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"If he is, after what's happened, your mental processes are beyond
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"My what, old son?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your mental processes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ah!" said Freddie, learning for the first time that he had any.</p>
+
+<p>Wally looked at him intently. There was a curious expression on his
+rough-hewn face.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't understand you, Freddie. If ever there was a fellow who might
+have been expected to take the only possible view of Underhill's
+behaviour in this business, I should have said it was you. You're a
+public-school man. You've mixed all the time with decent people. You
+wouldn't do anything that wasn't straight yourself to save your life.
+Yet it seems to have made absolutely no difference in your opinion of
+this man Underhill that he behaved like an utter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> cad to a girl who
+was one of your best friends. You seem to worship him just as much as
+ever. And you have travelled three thousand miles to bring a message
+from him to Jill&mdash;Good God! <i>Jill</i>!&mdash;to the effect, as far as I can
+understand it, that he has thought it over and come to the conclusion
+that after all she may possibly be good enough for him!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie recovered the eye-glass which the raising of his eyebrows had
+caused to fall, and polished it in a crushed sort of way. Rummy, he
+reflected, how chappies stayed the same all their lives as they were
+when they were kids. Nasty, tough sort of chap Wally Mason had been as
+a boy, and here he was, apparently, not altered a bit. At least the
+only improvement he could detect was that, whereas in the old days
+Wally, when in an ugly mood like this, would undoubtedly have kicked
+him, he now seemed content with mere words. All the same, he was being
+dashed unpleasant. And he was all wrong about poor Derek. This last
+fact he endeavoured to make clear.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand," he said. "You don't realize. You've never met
+Lady Underhill, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"What has she got to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything, old bean, everything. If it hadn't been for her, there
+wouldn't have been any trouble of any description, sort, or order. But
+she barged in and savaged poor old Derek till she absolutely made him
+break off the engagement."</p>
+
+<p>"If you call him 'poor old Derek' again, Freddie," said Wally
+viciously, "I'll drop you out of the window and throw your hat after
+you! If he's such a gelatine-backboned worm that his mother can...."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know her, old thing! She's <i>the</i> original hellhound!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care what...."</p>
+
+<p>"Must be seen to be believed," mumbled Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care what she's like! Any man who could...."</p>
+
+<p>"Once seen, never forgotten!"</p>
+
+<p>"Damn you! Don't interrupt every time I try to get a word in!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, old man! Shan't occur again!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally moved to the window, and stood looking out. He had had much more
+to say on the subject of Derek Underhill, but Freddie's interruptions
+had put it out of his head, and he felt irritated and baffled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, all I can say is," he remarked savagely, "that, if you have
+come over here as an ambassador to try and effect a reconciliation
+between Jill and Underhill, I hope to God you'll never find her."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie emitted a weak cough, like a very far-off asthmatic old sheep.
+He was finding Wally more overpowering every moment. He had rather
+forgotten the dear old days of his childhood, but this conversation
+was beginning to refresh his memory: and he was realizing more vividly
+with every moment that passed how very Wallyish Wally was&mdash;how
+extraordinarily like the Wally who had dominated his growing intellect
+when they were both in Eton suits. Freddie in those days had been all
+for peace, and he was all for peace now. He made his next observation
+diffidently.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>have</i> found her!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally spun round.</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"When I say that, I don't absolutely mean I've seen her. I mean I know
+where she is. That's what I came round to see you about. Felt I must
+talk it over, you know. The situation seems to me dashed rotten and
+not a little thick. The fact is, old man, she's gone on the stage. In
+the chorus, you know. And, I mean to say, well, if you follow what I'm
+driving at, what, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the chorus?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the chorus!"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie groped for his eyeglass, which had fallen again. He regarded
+it a trifle sternly. He was fond of the little chap, but it was always
+doing that sort of thing. The whole trouble was that, if you wanted to
+keep it in its place, you simply couldn't register any sort of emotion
+with the good old features: and, when you were chatting with a fellow
+like Wally Mason, you had to be registering something all the time.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that was a bit of luck, as a matter of fact. When I first got
+here, you know, it seemed to me the only thing to do was to round up a
+merry old detective and put the matter in his hands, like they do in
+stories. <i>You</i> know. Ring at the bell. 'And this, if I mistake not,
+Watson, is my client now.' And then in breezes client and spills the
+plot. I found a sleuth in the classified telephone directory, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+toddled round. Rummy chaps, detectives! Ever met any? I always thought
+they were lean, hatchet-faced Johnnies with inscrutable smiles. This
+one looked just like my old Uncle Ted, the one who died of apoplexy.
+Jovial, puffy-faced bird, who kept bobbing up behind a fat cigar. Have
+you ever noticed what whacking big cigars these fellows over here
+smoke? Rummy country, America. You ought to have seen the way this
+blighter could shift his cigar right across his face with moving his
+jaw-muscles. Like a flash! Most remarkable thing you ever saw, I give
+you my honest word! He...."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you keep your Impressions of America for the book you're
+going to write, and come to the point?" said Wally rudely.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, old chap," said Freddie meekly. "Glad you reminded me.
+Well.... Oh, yes. We had got as far as the jovial old human
+bloodhound, hadn't we? Well, I put the matter before this chappie.
+Told him I wanted to find a girl, showed him a photograph, and so
+forth. I say," said Freddie, wandering off once more into speculation,
+"why is it that coves like that always talk of a girl as 'the little
+lady'? This chap kept saying 'We'll find the little lady for you!' Oh,
+well, that's rather off the rails, isn't it? It just floated across my
+mind and I thought I'd mention it. Well, this blighter presumably
+nosed about and made enquiries for a couple of days, but didn't effect
+anything that you might call substantial. I'm not blaming him, mind
+you. I shouldn't care to have a job like that myself. I mean to say,
+when you come to think of what a frightful number of girls there are
+in this place, to have to ... well, as I say, he did his best but
+didn't click; and then this evening, just before I came here, I met a
+girl I had known in England&mdash;she was in a show over there&mdash;a girl
+called Nelly Bryant...."</p>
+
+<p>"Nelly Bryant? I know her."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes? Fancy that! She was in a thing called 'Follow the Girl' in
+London. Did you see it by any chance? Topping show! There was one
+scene where the...."</p>
+
+<p>"Get on! Get on! I wrote it."</p>
+
+<p>"You wrote it?" Freddie beamed simple-hearted admiration. "My dear old
+chap, I congratulate you! One of the ripest and most all-wool musical
+comedies I've ever seen. I went twenty-four times. Rummy I don't
+remember<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> spotting that you wrote it. I suppose one never looks at the
+names on the programme. Yes, I went twenty-four times The first time I
+went was with a couple of chappies from...."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Freddie!" said Wally feverishly. "On some other occasion I
+should dearly love to hear the story of your life, but just now...."</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely, old man. You're perfectly right. Well, to cut a long
+story short, Nelly Bryant told me that she and Jill were rehearsing
+with a piece called 'The Rose of America.'"</p>
+
+<p>"'The Rose of America!'"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that was the name of it."</p>
+
+<p>"That's Ike Goble's show. He called me up on the phone about it half
+an hour ago. I promised to go and see a rehearsal of it to-morrow or
+the day after. And Jill's in that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. How about it? I mean, I don't know much about this sort of
+thing, but do you think it's the sort of thing Jill ought to be
+doing?"</p>
+
+<p>Wally was moving restlessly about the room. Freddie's news had
+disquieted him. Mr. Goble had a reputation.</p>
+
+<p>"I know a lot about it," he replied, "and it certainly isn't." He
+scowled at the carpet. "Oh, damn everybody!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie paused to allow him to proceed, if such should be his wish,
+but Wally had apparently said his say. Freddie went on to point out an
+aspect of the matter which was troubling him greatly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure poor old Derek wouldn't like her being in the chorus!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally started so violently that for a moment Freddie was uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean Underhill," he corrected himself hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie," said Wally, "you're an awfully good chap, but I wish you
+would exit rapidly now! Thanks for coming and telling me, very good of
+you. This way out!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, old man...!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought we were going to discuss this binge and decide what to do
+and all that sort of thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Some other time. I want to think about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you will think about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'll think about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Topping! You see, you're a brainy sort of fellow, and you'll probably
+hit something."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I probably shall, if you don't go."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? Oh, ah, yes!" Freddie struggled into his coat. More than ever did
+the adult Wally remind him of the dangerous stripling of years gone
+by. "Well, cheerio!"</p>
+
+<p>"Same to you!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll let me know if you scare up some devilish fruity wheeze, won't
+you? I'm at the Biltmore."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good place to be. Go there now."</p>
+
+<p>"Right ho! Well, toodle-oo!"</p>
+
+<p>"The elevator is at the foot of the stairs," said Wally. "You press
+the bell and up it comes. You hop in and down you go! It's a great
+invention! Good night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say. One moment...."</p>
+
+<p>"Good <i>night</i>!" said Wally.</p>
+
+<p>He closed the door, and ran down the passage.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill!" he called. He opened the bedroom window and stepped out.
+"Jill!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill!" called Wally once again, but again there was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>Wally walked to the parapet, and looked over. Below him the vastness
+of the city stretched itself in a great triangle, its apex the
+harbour, its sides the dull silver of the East and Hudson Rivers.
+Directly before him, crowned with its white lantern, the Metropolitan
+Tower reared its graceful height to the stars. And all around, in the
+windows of the tall buildings that looked from this bastion on which
+he stood almost squat, a million lights stared up at him, the
+unsleeping eyes of New York. It was a scene of which Wally, always
+sensitive to beauty, never tired: but to-night it had lost its appeal.
+A pleasant breeze from the Jersey shore greeted him with a quickening
+whisper of springtime and romance, but it did not lift the heaviness
+of his heart. He felt depressed and apprehensive.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. GOBLE MAKES THE BIG NOISE</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>Spring, whose coming the breeze had heralded to Wally as he smoked
+upon the roof, floated graciously upon New York two mornings later.
+The city awoke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> to a day of blue and gold and to a sense of hard times
+over and good times to come. In his apartment on Park Avenue, Mr Isaac
+Goble, sniffing the gentle air from the window of his breakfast-room,
+returned to his meal and his <i>Morning Telegraph</i> with a resolve to
+walk to the theatre for rehearsal: a resolve which had also come to
+Jill and Nelly Bryant, eating stewed prunes in their boarding-house in
+the Forties. On the summit of his sky-scraper, Wally Mason, performing
+Swedish exercises to the delectation of various clerks and
+stenographers in the upper windows of neighbouring buildings, felt
+young and vigorous and optimistic, and went in to his shower-bath
+thinking of Jill. And it was of Jill, too, that young Pilkington
+thought, as he propped his long form up against the pillows and sipped
+his morning cup of tea. For the first time in several days a certain
+moodiness which had affected Otis Pilkington left him, and he dreamed
+happy day-dreams.</p>
+
+<p>The gaiety of Otis was not, however, entirely or even primarily due to
+the improvement in the weather. It had its source in a conversation
+which had taken place between himself and Jill's Uncle Chris on the
+previous night. Exactly how it had come about, Mr. Pilkington was not
+entirely clear, but, somehow, before he was fully aware of what he was
+saying, he had begun to pour into Major Selby's sympathetic ears the
+story of his romance. Encouraged by the other's kindly receptiveness,
+he had told him all&mdash;his love for Jill, his hopes that some day it
+might be returned, the difficulties complicating the situation owing
+to the known prejudices of Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim concerning girls
+who formed the personnel of musical comedy ensembles. To all these
+outpourings Major Selby had listened with keen attention, and finally
+had made one of those luminous suggestions, so simple yet so shrewd,
+which emanate only from your man of the world. It was Jill's girlish
+ambition, it seemed from Major Selby's statement, to become a force in
+the motion-picture world. The movies were her objective.</p>
+
+<p>What, he broke off to ask, did Pilkington think of the idea?</p>
+
+<p>Pilkington thought the idea splendid. Miss Mariner, with her charm and
+looks, would be wonderful in the movies.</p>
+
+<p>There was, said Uncle Chris, a future for the girl in the movies.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington agreed cordially. A great future indeed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Observe," proceeded Uncle Chris, gathering speed and expanding his
+chest as he spread his legs before the fire, "how it would simplify
+the whole matter if Jill were to become a motion-picture artist and
+win fame and wealth in her profession. You go to your excellent aunt
+and announce that you are engaged to be married to Jill Mariner. There
+is a momentary pause. 'Not <i>the</i> Jill Mariner?' falters Mrs. Peagrim.
+'Yes, the famous Miss Mariner!' you reply. Well, I ask you, my boy,
+can you see her making any objection? Such a thing would be absurd.
+No, I can see no flaw in the project whatsoever." Here Uncle Chris, as
+he had pictured Mrs. Peagrim doing, paused for a moment. "Of course,
+there would be the preliminaries."</p>
+
+<p>"The preliminaries?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris' voice became a melodious coo. He beamed upon Mr.
+Pilkington.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, think for yourself, my boy! These things cannot be done without
+money. I do not propose to allow my niece to waste her time and her
+energy in the rank and file of the profession, waiting years for a
+chance that might never come. There is plenty of room at the top, and
+that, in the motion-picture profession, is the place to start. If Jill
+is to become a motion-picture artist, a special company must be formed
+to promote her. She must be made a feature, a star, from the
+beginning. Whether," said Uncle Chris, smoothing the crease of his
+trousers, "you would wish to take shares in the company yourself...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oo...!"</p>
+
+<p>"... is a matter," proceeded Uncle Chris, ignoring the interruption,
+"for you yourself to decide. Possibly you have other claims on your
+purse. Possibly this musical play of yours has taken all the cash you
+are prepared to lock up. Possibly you may consider the venture too
+speculative. Possibly ... there are a hundred reasons why you may not
+wish to join us. But I know a dozen men&mdash;I can go down Wall Street
+to-morrow and pick out twenty men&mdash;who will be glad to advance the
+necessary capital. I can assure you that I personally shall not
+hesitate to risk&mdash;if one can call it risking&mdash;any loose cash which I
+may have lying idle at my banker's."</p>
+
+<p>He rattled the loose cash which he had lying idle in his
+trouser-pocket&mdash;fifteen cents in all&mdash;and stopped to flick a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> piece of
+fluff off his coat-sleeve. Mr. Pilkington was thus enabled to insert a
+word.</p>
+
+<p>"How much would you want?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "is a little hard to say. I
+should have to look into the matter more closely in order to give you
+the exact figures. But let us say for the sake of argument that you
+put up&mdash;what shall we say?&mdash;a hundred thousand? fifty thousand? ...
+no, we will be conservative. Perhaps you had better not begin with
+more than ten thousand. You can always buy more shares later. I don't
+suppose I shall begin with more than ten thousand myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I could manage ten thousand all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent. We make progress, we make progress. Very well, then. I go
+to my Wall Street friends and tell them about the scheme, and say
+'Here is ten thousand dollars! What is your contribution?' It puts the
+affair on a business-like basis, you understand. Then we really get to
+work. But use your own judgment, my boy, you know. Use your own
+judgment. I would not think of persuading you to take such a step, if
+you felt at all doubtful. Think it over. Sleep on it. And, whatever
+you decide to do, on no account say a word about it to Jill. It would
+be cruel to raise her hopes until we are certain that we are in a
+position to enable her to realize them. And, of course, not a word to
+Mrs. Peagrim."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then, my boy," said Uncle Chris affably. "I will leave you
+to turn the whole thing over in your mind. Act entirely as you think
+best. How is your insomnia, by the way? Did you try Nervino? Capital!
+There's nothing like it. It did wonders for <i>me</i>! Good night, good
+night!"</p>
+
+<p>Otis Pilkington had been turning the thing over in his mind, with an
+interval for sleep, ever since. And the more he thought of it, the
+better the scheme appeared to him. He winced a little at the thought
+of the ten thousand dollars, for he came of prudent stock and had been
+brought up in habits of parsimony, but, after all, he reflected, the
+money would be merely a loan. Once the company found its feet, it
+would be returned to him a hundred-fold. And there was no doubt that
+this would put a completely different aspect on his wooing of Jill, as
+far as Aunt Olive was concerned. Why, a cousin of his&mdash;young Brewster
+Philmore&mdash;had married a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> movie-star only two years ago, and nobody had
+made the slightest objection. Brewster was to be seen with his bride
+frequently beneath Mrs. Peagrim's roof. Against the higher strata of
+Bohemia Mrs. Peagrim had no prejudice at all. Quite the reverse, in
+fact. She liked the society of those whose names were often in the
+papers and much in the public mouth. It seemed to Otis Pilkington, in
+short, that Love had found a way. He sipped his tea with relish, and
+when the Japanese valet brought in the toast all burned on one side,
+chided him with a gentle sweetness which, one may hope, touched the
+latter's Oriental heart and inspired him with a desire to serve his
+best of employers more efficiently.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past ten, Otis Pilkington removed his dressing-gown and began
+to put on his clothes to visit the theatre. There was a rehearsal-call
+for the whole company at eleven. As he dressed, his mood was as sunny
+as the day itself.</p>
+
+<p>And the day, by half-past ten, was as sunny as ever Spring day had
+been in a country where Spring comes early and does its best from the
+very start. The blue sky beamed down on a happy city. To and fro the
+citizenry bustled, aglow with the perfection of the weather.
+Everywhere was gaiety and good cheer, except on the stage of the
+Gotham Theatre, where an early rehearsal, preliminary to the main
+event, had been called by Johnson Miller in order to iron some of the
+kinks out of the "My Heart and I" number, which, with the assistance
+of the male chorus, the leading lady was to render in Act One.</p>
+
+<p>On the stage of the Gotham gloom reigned&mdash;literally, because the stage
+was wide and deep and was illumined only by a single electric light;
+and figuratively, because things were going even worse than usual with
+the "My Heart and I" number, and Johnson Miller, always of an
+emotional and easily stirred temperament, had been goaded by the
+incompetence of his male chorus to a state of frenzy. At about the
+moment when Otis Pilkington shed his flowered dressing-gown and
+reached for his trousers (the heather-mixture with the red twill),
+Johnson Miller was pacing the gangway between the orchestra pit and
+the first row of the orchestra chairs, waving one hand and clutching
+his white locks with the other, his voice raised the while in agonized
+protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, you silly idiots," complained Mr. Miller loudly, "you've
+had three weeks to get these movements into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> your thick heads, and you
+haven't done a damn thing right! You're all over the place! You don't
+seem able to turn without tumbling over each other like a lot of
+Keystone Kops! What's the matter with you? You're not doing the
+movements I showed you; you're doing some you have invented
+yourselves, and they are rotten! I've no doubt you think you can
+arrange a number better than I can, but Mr. Goble engaged me to be the
+director, so kindly do exactly as I tell you. Don't try to use your
+own intelligence, because you haven't any. I'm not blaming you for it.
+It wasn't your fault that your nurses dropped you on your heads when
+you were babies. But it handicaps you when you try to think."</p>
+
+<p>Of the seven gentlemanly members of the male ensemble present, six
+looked wounded by this tirade. They had the air of good men wrongfully
+accused. They appeared to be silently calling on Heaven to see justice
+done between Mr. Miller and themselves. The seventh, a long-legged
+young man in faultlessly fitting tweeds of English cut, seemed, on the
+other hand, not so much hurt as embarrassed. It was this youth who now
+stepped down to the darkened footlights and spoke in a remorseful and
+conscience-stricken manner.</p>
+
+<p>"I say!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller, that martyr to deafness, did not hear the pathetic bleat.
+He had swung off at right angles and was marching in an overwrought
+way up the central aisle leading to the back of the house, his
+india-rubber form moving in convulsive jerks. Only when he had turned
+and retraced his steps did he perceive the speaker and prepare to take
+his share in the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he shouted. "Can't hear you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I say, you know, it's my fault, really."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to say, you know...."</p>
+
+<p>"What? Speak up, can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg, who had been seated at the piano, absently playing a
+melody from his unproduced musical comedy, awoke to the fact that the
+services of an interpreter were needed. He obligingly left the
+music-stool and crept, crab-like, along the ledge of the stage-box. He
+placed his arm about Mr. Miller's shoulders and his lips to Mr.
+Miller's left ear, and drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"He says it is his fault!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller nodded adhesion to this admirable sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>"I know they're not worth their salt!" he replied.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg patiently took in a fresh stock of breath.</p>
+
+<p>"This young man says it is his fault that the movement went wrong!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him I only signed on this morning, laddie," urged the tweed-clad
+young man.</p>
+
+<p>"He only joined the company this morning!"</p>
+
+<p>This puzzled Mr. Miller.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean, warning?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg, purple in the face, made a last effort.</p>
+
+<p>"This young man is new," he bellowed carefully, keeping to words of
+one syllable. "He does not yet know the steps. He says this is his
+first day here, so he does not yet know the steps. When he has been
+here some more time he will know the steps. But now he does not know
+the steps."</p>
+
+<p>"What he means," explained the young man in tweeds helpfully, "is that
+I don't know the steps."</p>
+
+<p>"He does not know the steps!" roared Mr. Saltzburg.</p>
+
+<p>"I know he doesn't know the steps," said Mr. Miller. "Why doesn't he
+know the steps? He's had long enough to learn them."</p>
+
+<p>"He is new!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh?"</p>
+
+<p>"New!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, new?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, new!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why the devil is he new?" cried Mr. Miller, awaking suddenly to the
+truth and filled with a sense of outrage. "Why didn't he join with the
+rest of the company? How can I put on chorus numbers if I am saddled
+every day with new people to teach? Who engaged him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who engaged you?" enquired Mr. Saltzburg of the culprit.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Pilkington."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Pilkington," shouted Mr. Saltzburg.</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"Last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Last night."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller waved his hands in a gesture of divine despair, spun round,
+darted up the aisle, turned, and bounded back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What can I do?" he wailed. "My hands are tied! I am hampered! I am
+handicapped! We open in two weeks and every day I find somebody new in
+the company to upset everything I have done. I shall go to Mr. Goble
+and ask to be released from my contract. I shall.... Come along, come
+along, come along now!" he broke off suddenly. "Why are we wasting
+time? The whole number once more. The whole number once more from the
+beginning!"</p>
+
+<p>The young man tottered back to his gentlemanly colleagues, running a
+finger in an agitated manner round the inside of his collar. He was
+not used to this sort of thing. In a large experience of amateur
+theatricals he had never encountered anything like it. In the
+breathing-space afforded by the singing of the first verse and refrain
+by the lady who played the heroine of "The Rose of America," he found
+time to make an enquiry of the artist on his right.</p>
+
+<p>"I say! Is he always like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who? Johnny?"</p>
+
+<p>"The sportsman with the hair that turned white in a single night. The
+barker on the sky-line. Does he often get the wind up like this?"</p>
+
+<p>His colleague smiled tolerantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's nothing!" he replied. "Wait till you see him really cut
+loose! That was just a gentle whisper!"</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" said the newcomer, staring into a bleak future.</p>
+
+<p>The leading lady came to the end of her refrain, and the gentlemen of the
+ensemble, who had been hanging about up-stage, began to curvet nimbly down
+towards her in a double line; the new arrival, with an eye on his nearest
+neighbour, endeavouring to curvet as nimbly as the others. A clapping of
+hands from the dark auditorium indicated&mdash;inappropriately&mdash;that he had
+failed to do so. Mr. Miller could be perceived&mdash;dimly&mdash;with all his
+fingers entwined in his hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Clear the stage!" yelled Mr. Miller. "Not you!" he shouted, as the
+latest addition to the company began to drift off with the others.
+"You stay!"</p>
+
+<p>"Me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you. I shall have to teach you the steps by yourself, or we
+shall get nowhere. Go up-stage. Start the music again, Mr. Saltzburg.
+Now, when the refrain begins, come down. Gracefully! Gracefully!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The young man, pink but determined, began to come down gracefully. And
+it was while he was thus occupied that Jill and Nelly Bryant, entering
+the wings which were beginning to fill up as eleven o'clock
+approached, saw him.</p>
+
+<p>"Whoever is that?" said Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"New man," replied one of the chorus gentlemen. "Came this morning."</p>
+
+<p>Nelly turned to Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"He looks just like Mr. Rooke!" she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>is</i> Mr. Rooke!" said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"He can't be!"</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>is</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"But what is he doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill bit her lip.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I'm going to ask him myself," she said.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>The opportunity for a private conversation with Freddie did not occur
+immediately. For ten minutes he remained alone on the stage, absorbing
+abusive tuition from Mr. Miller: and at the end of that period a
+further ten minutes was occupied with the rehearsing of the number
+with the leading lady and the rest of the male chorus. When, finally,
+a roar from the back of the auditorium announced the arrival of Mr.
+Goble and at the same time indicated Mr. Goble's desire that the stage
+should be cleared and the rehearsal proper begin, a wan smile of
+recognition and a faint "What ho!" was all that Freddie was able to
+bestow upon Jill, before, with the rest of the ensemble, they had to
+go out and group themselves for the opening chorus. It was only when
+this had been run through four times and the stage left vacant for two
+of the principals to play a scene that Jill was able to draw the Last
+of the Rookes aside in a dark corner and put him to the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie, what are you doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie mopped his streaming brow. Johnson Miller's idea of an opening
+chorus was always strenuous. On the present occasion, the ensemble
+were supposed to be guests at a Long Island house-party, and Mr.
+Miller's conception of the gathering suggested that he supposed
+house-party guests on Long Island to consist exclusively of victims of
+St. Vitus' dance. Freddie was feeling limp, battered, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> exhausted:
+and, from what he had gathered, the worst was yet to come.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" he said feebly.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ah, yes! I see what you mean! I suppose you're surprised to find
+me in New York, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not surprised to find you in New York. I knew you had come over.
+But I am surprised to find you on the stage, being bullied by Mr.
+Miller."</p>
+
+<p>"I say," said Freddie in an awed voice. "He's a bit of a nut, that
+lad, what? He reminds me of the troops of Midian in the hymn. The
+chappies who prowled and prowled around. I'll bet he's worn a groove
+in the carpet. Like a jolly old tiger at the Zoo at feeding time.
+Wouldn't be surprised at any moment to look down and find him biting a
+piece out of my leg!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill seized his arm and shook it.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't <i>ramble</i>, Freddie! Tell me how you got here."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that was pretty simple. I had a letter of introduction to this
+chappie Pilkington who's running this show, and, we having got
+tolerably pally in the last few days, I went to him and asked him to
+let me join the merry throng. I said I didn't want any money, and the
+little bit of work I would do wouldn't make any difference, so he said
+'Right ho!' or words to that effect, and here I am."</p>
+
+<p>"But why? You can't be doing this for fun, surely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fun!" A pained expression came into Freddie's face. "My idea of fun
+isn't anything in which jolly old Miller, the bird with the snowy
+hair, is permitted to mix. Something tells me that that lad is going
+to make it his life-work picking on me. No, I didn't do this for fun.
+I had a talk with Wally Mason the night before last, and he seemed to
+think that being in the chorus wasn't the sort of thing you ought to
+be doing, so I thought it over and decided that I ought to join the
+troupe too. Then I could always be on the spot, don't you know, if
+there was any trouble. I mean to say, I'm not much of a chap and all
+that sort of thing, but still I might come in handy one of these
+times. Keep a fatherly eye on you, don't you know, and what not!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill was touched. "You're a dear, Freddie!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought, don't you know, it would make poor old Derek a bit easier
+in his mind."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jill froze.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to talk about Derek, Freddie, please."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what you must be feeling. Pretty sick, I'll bet, what? But
+if you could see him now...."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to talk about him!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's pretty cut up, you know. Regrets bitterly and all that sort of
+thing. He wants you to come back again."</p>
+
+<p>"I see! He sent you to fetch me?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was more or less the idea."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a shame that you had all the trouble. You can get messenger-boys
+to go anywhere and do anything nowadays. Derek ought to have thought
+of that."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie looked at her doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You're spoofing, aren't you? I mean to say, you wouldn't have liked
+that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have disliked it any more than his sending you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I wanted to pop over. Keen to see America and so forth."</p>
+
+<p>Jill looked past him at the gloomy stage. Her face was set, and her
+eyes sombre.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you understand, Freddie? You've known me a long time. I should
+have thought that you would have found out by now that I have a
+certain amount of pride. If Derek wanted me back, there was only one
+thing for him to do&mdash;come over and find me himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Rummy! That's what Mason said, when I told him. You two don't realize
+how dashed busy Derek is these days."</p>
+
+<p>"Busy!"</p>
+
+<p>Something in her face seemed to tell Freddie that he was not saying
+the right thing, but he stumbled on.</p>
+
+<p>"You've no notion how busy he is. I mean to say, elections coming on
+and so forth. He daren't stir from the metrop."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I couldn't expect him to do anything that might interfere
+with his career, could I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely not. I knew you would see it!" said Freddie, charmed at
+her reasonableness. All rot, what you read about women being
+unreasonable. "Then I take it it's all right, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean you will toddle home with me at the earliest opp. and make
+poor old Derek happy?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jill laughed discordantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Derek!" she echoed. "He has been badly treated, hasn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I wouldn't say that," said Freddie doubtfully. "You see, coming
+down to it, the thing was more or less his fault, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"More or less!"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to say...."</p>
+
+<p>"More or less!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie glanced at her anxiously. He was not at all sure now that he
+liked the way she was looking or the tone in which she spoke. He was
+not a keenly observant young man, but there did begin at this point to
+seep through to his brain-centres a suspicion that all was not well.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me pull myself together!" said Freddie warily to his immortal
+soul. "I believe I'm getting the raspberry!" And there was silence for
+a space.</p>
+
+<p>The complexity of life began to weigh upon Freddie. Life was like one
+of those shots at squash which seem so simple till you go to knock the
+cover off the ball, when the ball sort of edges away from you and you
+miss it. Life, Freddie began to perceive, was apt to have a nasty
+back-spin on it. He had never had any doubt when he had started, that
+the only difficult part of this expedition to America would be the
+finding of Jill. Once found, he had presumed that she would be
+delighted to hear his good news and would joyfully accompany him home
+on the next boat. It appeared now, however, that he had been too
+sanguine. Optimist as he was, he had to admit that, as far as could be
+ascertained with the naked eye, the jolly old binge might be said to
+have sprung a leak.</p>
+
+<p>He proceeded to approach the matter from another angle.</p>
+
+<p>"I say!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"You do love old Derek, don't you? I mean to say, you know what I
+mean, <i>love</i> him and all that sort of rot?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know!"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know! Oh, I say, come now! You must <i>know</i>! Pull up your
+socks, old thing.... I mean, pull yourself together! You either love a
+chappie or you don't."</p>
+
+<p>Jill smiled painfully.</p>
+
+<p>"How nice it would be if everything were as simple and straightforward
+as that. Haven't you ever heard that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> dividing line between love
+and hate is just a thread? Poets have said so a great number of
+times."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, poets!" said Freddie, dismissing the genus with a wave of the
+hand. He had been compelled to read Shakespeare and all that sort of
+thing at school, but it had left him cold, and since growing to man's
+estate he had rather handed the race of bards the mitten. He liked
+Doss Chiderdoss' stuff in the <i>Sporting Times</i>, but beyond that he was
+not much of a lad for poets.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you understand a girl in my position not being able to make up
+her mind whether she loves a man or despises him?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said. "It sounds dashed silly to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then what's the good of talking?" cried Jill. "It only hurts."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;won't you come back to England?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say! Be a sport! Take a stab at it!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill laughed again&mdash;another of those grating laughs which afflicted
+Freddie with a sense of foreboding and failure. Something had
+undoubtedly gone wrong with the works. He began to fear that at some
+point in the conversation&mdash;just where he could not say&mdash;he had been
+less diplomatic than he might have been.</p>
+
+<p>"You speak as if you were inviting me to a garden-party! No, I won't
+take a stab at it. You've a lot to learn about women, Freddie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Women <i>are</i> rum!" conceded that perplexed ambassador.</p>
+
+<p>Jill began to move away.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go!" urged Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? What's the use of talking any more? Have you ever broken an
+arm or a leg, Freddie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Freddie, mystified. "As a matter of fact, my last year at
+Oxford, playing soccer for the college in a friendly game, some
+blighter barged into me and I came down on my wrist. But...."</p>
+
+<p>"It hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like the deuce!"</p>
+
+<p>"And then it began to get better, I suppose. Well, used you to hit it,
+and twist it, and prod it, or did you leave it alone to try and heal?
+I won't talk any more about Derek! I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> simply won't! I'm all smashed up
+inside, and I don't know if I'm ever going to get well again, but at
+least I'm going to give myself a chance. I'm working as hard as ever I
+can and I'm forcing myself not to think of him. I'm in a sling,
+Freddie, like your wrist, and I don't want to be prodded. I hope we
+shall see a lot of each other while you're over here&mdash;you always were
+the greatest dear in the world&mdash;but you mustn't mention Derek again,
+and you mustn't ask me to go home. If you avoid those subjects, we'll
+be as happy as possible. And now I'm going to leave you to talk to
+poor Nelly. She has been hovering round for the last ten minutes,
+waiting for a chance to speak to you. She worships you, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie started violently.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say! What rot!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill had gone, and he was still gaping after her, when Nelly Bryant
+moved towards him&mdash;shyly, like a worshipper approaching a shrine.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Mr. Rooke!" said Nelly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" said Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>Nelly fixed her large eyes on his face. A fleeting impression passed
+through Freddie's mind that she was looking unusually pretty this
+morning: nor was the impression unjustified. Nelly was wearing for the
+first time a Spring suit which was the outcome of hours of painful
+selection among the wares of a dozen different stores, and the
+knowledge that the suit was just right seemed to glow from her like an
+inner light. She felt happy, and her happiness had lent an unwonted
+colour to her face and a soft brightness to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"How nice it is, your being here!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie waited for the inevitable question, the question with which
+Jill had opened their conversation; but it did not come. He was
+surprised, but relieved. He hated long explanations, and he was very
+doubtful whether loyalty to Jill could allow him to give them to
+Nelly. His reason for being where he was had to do so intimately with
+Jill's most private affairs. A wave of gratitude to Nelly swept
+through him when he realized that she was either incurious or else too
+delicate-minded to show inquisitiveness.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, it was delicacy that kept Nelly silent. Seeing
+Freddie here at the theatre, she had, as is not uncommon with fallible
+mortals, put two and two together and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> made the answer four when it
+was not four at all. She had been deceived by circumstantial evidence.
+Jill, whom she had left in England wealthy and secure, she had met
+again in New York penniless as the result of some Stock Exchange
+cataclysm in which, she remembered with the vagueness with which one
+recalls once-heard pieces of information, Freddie Rooke had been
+involved. True, she seemed to recollect hearing that Freddie's losses
+had been comparatively slight, but his presence in the chorus of "The
+Rose of America" seemed to her proof that after all they must have
+been devastating. She could think of no other reason except loss of
+money which could have placed Freddie in the position in which she now
+found him, so she accepted it; and, with the delicacy which was innate
+in her and which a hard life had never blunted, decided, directly she
+saw him, to make no allusion to the disaster.</p>
+
+<p>Such was Nelly's view of the matter, and sympathy gave to her manner a
+kind of maternal gentleness which acted on Freddie, raw from his late
+encounter with Mr. Johnson Miller and disturbed by Jill's attitude in
+the matter of poor old Derek, like a healing balm. His emotions were
+too chaotic for analysis, but one thing stood out clear from the
+welter&mdash;the fact that he was glad to be with Nelly as he had never
+been glad to be with a girl before, and found her soothing as he had
+never supposed a girl could be soothing.</p>
+
+<p>They talked desultorily of unimportant things, and every minute found
+Freddie more convinced that Nelly was not as other girls. He felt that
+he must see more of her.</p>
+
+<p>"I say," he said. "When this binge is over ... when the rehearsal
+finishes, you know, how about a bite to eat?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should love it. I generally go to the Automat."</p>
+
+<p>"The how-much? Never heard of it."</p>
+
+<p>"In Times Square. It's cheap, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of the Cosmopolis."</p>
+
+<p>"But that's so expensive."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know. Much the same as any of the other places, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>Nelly's manner became more motherly than ever. She bent forward and
+touched his arm affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't to keep up any front with me," she said gently. "I don't
+care whether you're rich or poor or what. I mean, of course I'm
+awfully sorry you've lost your money,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> but it makes it all the easier
+for us to be real pals, don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lost my money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know you wouldn't be here if you hadn't. I wasn't going to
+say anything about it, but, when you talked of the Cosmopolis, I just
+had to. You lost your money in the same thing Jill Mariner lost hers,
+didn't you? I was sure you had, the moment I saw you here. Who cares?
+Money isn't everything!"</p>
+
+<p>Astonishment kept Freddie silent for an instant: after that he
+refrained from explanations of his own free will. He accepted the
+situation and rejoiced in it. Like many other wealthy and modest young
+men, he had always had a sneaking suspicion at the back of his mind
+that any girl who was decently civil to him was so from mixed
+motives&mdash;or, more likely, motives that were not even mixed. Well, dash
+it, here was a girl who seemed to like him although under the
+impression that he was broke to the wide. It was an intoxicating
+experience. It made him feel a better chap. It fortified his
+self-respect.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," he said, stammering a little, for he found a sudden
+difficulty in controlling his voice. "You're a dashed good sort!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awfully glad you think so."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence&mdash;as far, at least, as he and she were concerned.
+In the outer world, beyond the piece of scenery under whose shelter
+they stood, stirring things, loud and exciting things, seemed to be
+happening. Some sort of an argument appeared to be in progress. The
+rasping voice of Mr. Goble was making itself heard from the unseen
+auditorium. These things they sensed vaguely, but they were too
+occupied with each other to ascertain details.</p>
+
+<p>"What was the name of that place again?" asked Freddie. "The
+what-ho-something?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Automat?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the little chap! We'll go there, shall we?"</p>
+
+<p>"The food's quite good. You go and help yourself out of slot-machines,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>"My favourite indoor sport!" said Freddie with enthusiasm. "Hullo!
+What's up? It sounds as if there were dirty work at the cross-roads!"</p>
+
+<p>The voice of the assistant stage-manager was calling, sharply excited,
+agitation in every syllable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"All the gentlemen of the chorus on the stage, please! Mr. Goble wants
+all the chorus-gentlemen on the stage!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, cheerio for the present," said Freddie. "I suppose I'd better
+look into this."</p>
+
+<p>He made his way on to the stage.</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+<p>There is an insidious something about the atmosphere of a rehearsal of
+a musical play which saps the finer feelings of those connected with
+it. Softened by the gentle beauty of the Spring weather, Mr. Goble had
+come to the Gotham Theatre that morning in an excellent temper, firmly
+intending to remain in an excellent temper all day. Five minutes of
+"The Rose of America" had sent him back to the normal; and at ten
+minutes past eleven he was chewing his cigar and glowering at the
+stage with all the sweetness gone from his soul. When Wally Mason
+arrived at a quarter past eleven and dropped into the seat beside him,
+the manager received him with a grunt and even omitted to offer him a
+cigar. And when a New York theatrical manager does that, it is a
+certain sign that his mood is of the worst.</p>
+
+<p>One may find excuses for Mr. Goble. "The Rose of America" would have
+tested the equanimity of a far more amiable man: and on Mr. Goble what
+Otis Pilkington had called its delicate whimsicality jarred
+profoundly. He had been brought up in the lower-browed school of
+musical comedy, where you shelved the plot after the opening number
+and filled in the rest of the evening by bringing on the girls in a
+variety of exotic costumes, with some good vaudeville specialists to
+get the laughs. Mr. Goble's idea of a musical piece was something
+embracing trained seals, acrobats, and two or three teams of skilled
+buck-and-wing dancers, with nothing on the stage, from a tree to a
+lamp-shade, which could not suddenly turn into a chorus-girl. The
+austere legitimateness of "The Rose of America" gave him a pain in the
+neck. He loathed plot, and "The Rose of America" was all plot.</p>
+
+<p>Why, then, had the earthy Mr. Goble consented to associate himself
+with the production of this intellectual play? Because he was subject,
+like all other New York managers, to intermittent spasms of the idea
+that the time is ripe for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> revival of comic opera. Sometimes,
+lunching in his favourite corner in the Cosmopolis grill-room, he
+would lean across the table and beg some other manager to take it from
+him that the time was ripe for a revival of comic opera&mdash;or, more
+cautiously, that pretty soon the time was going to be ripe for a
+revival of comic opera. And the other manager would nod his head and
+thoughtfully stroke his three chins and admit that, sure as God made
+little apples, the time was darned soon going to be ripe for a revival
+of comic opera. And then they would stuff themselves with rich food
+and light big cigars and brood meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>With most managers these spasms, which may be compared to twinges of
+conscience, pass as quickly as they come, and they go back to coining
+money with rowdy musical comedies, quite contented. But Otis
+Pilkington, happening along with the script of "The Rose of America"
+and the cash to back it, had caught Mr. Goble in the full grip of an
+attack, and all the arrangements had been made before the latter
+emerged from the influence. He now regretted his rash act.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, listen," he said to Wally, his gaze on the stage, his words
+proceeding from the corner of his mouth, "you've got to stick around
+with this show after it opens on the road. We'll talk terms later. But
+we've got to get it right, don't care what it costs. See?"</p>
+
+<p>"You think it will need fixing?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble scowled at the unconscious artists, who were now going
+through a particularly arid stretch of dialogue.</p>
+
+<p>"Fixing! It's all wrong! It don't add up right! You'll have to rewrite
+it from end to end."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've got some idea about it. I saw it played by amateurs last
+summer, you know. I could make a quick job of it, if you want me to.
+But will the author stand for it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble allowed a belligerent eye to stray from the stage, and
+twisted it round in Wally's direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, listen! He'll stand for anything I say. I'm the little guy that
+gives orders round here. I'm the big noise!"</p>
+
+<p>As if in support of this statement he suddenly emitted a terrific
+bellow. The effect was magical. The refined and painstaking artists on
+the stage stopped as if they had been shot. The assistant
+stage-director bent sedulously over the footlights, which had now been
+turned up, shading his eyes with the prompt script.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Take that over again!" shouted Mr. Goble. "Yes, that speech about
+life being like a water-melon. It don't sound to me as though it meant
+anything." He cocked his cigar at an angle, and listened fiercely. He
+clapped his hands. The action stopped again. "Cut it!" said Mr. Goble
+tersely.</p>
+
+<p>"Cut the speech, Mr. Goble?" queried the obsequious assistant
+stage-director.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Cut it. It don't mean nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>Down the aisle, springing from a seat at the back, shimmered Mr.
+Pilkington, wounded to the quick.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is the best epigram in the play."</p>
+
+<p>"The best what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Epigram. The best epigram in the play."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble knocked the ash off his cigar. "The public don't want
+epigrams. The public don't like epigrams. I've been in the show
+business fifteen years, and I'm telling you! Epigrams give them a pain
+under the vest. All right, get on."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington fluttered agitatedly. This was his first experience of
+Mr. Goble in the capacity of stage-director. It was the latter's
+custom to leave the early rehearsals of the pieces with which he was
+connected to a subordinate producer, who did what Mr. Goble called the
+breaking-in. This accomplished, he would appear in person, undo most
+of the other's work, make cuts, tell the actors how to read their
+lines, and generally enjoy himself. Producing plays was Mr. Goble's
+hobby. He imagined himself to have a genius in that direction, and it
+was useless to try to induce him to alter any decision to which he
+might have come. He regarded those who did not agree with him with the
+lofty contempt of an Eastern despot.</p>
+
+<p>Of this Mr. Pilkington was not yet aware.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Goble ...!"</p>
+
+<p>The potentate swung irritably round on him.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? What <i>is</i> it? Can't you see I'm busy?"</p>
+
+<p>"That epigram...."</p>
+
+<p>"It's out!"</p>
+
+<p>"But ...!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely," protested Mr. Pilkington almost tearfully, "I have a
+voice...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sure you have a voice," retorted Mr. Goble, "and you can use it any
+old place you want, except in my theatre. Have all the voice you like!
+Go round the corner and talk to yourself! Sing in your bath! But don't
+come using it here, because I'm the little guy that does all the
+talking in this theatre! That fellow makes me tired," he added
+complainingly to Wally, as Mr. Pilkington withdrew like a foiled
+python. "He don't know nothing about the show business, and he keeps
+butting in and making fool suggestions. He ought to be darned glad
+he's getting his first play produced and not trying to teach me how to
+direct it." He clapped his hands imperiously. The assistant
+stage-manager bent over the footlights. "What was that that guy said?
+Lord Finchley's last speech. Take it again."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman who was playing the part of Lord Finchley, an English
+character actor who specialized in London "nuts," raised his eyebrows,
+annoyed. Like Mr. Pilkington, he had never before come into contact
+with Mr. Goble as stage-director, and, accustomed to the suaver
+methods of his native land, he was finding the experience trying. He
+had not yet recovered from the agony of having that water-melon line
+cut out of his part. It was the only good line, he considered, that he
+had. Any line that is cut out of an actor's part is always the only
+good line he has.</p>
+
+<p>"The speech about Omar Khayy&aacute;m?" he enquired with suppressed
+irritation.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought that was the way you said it. All wrong! It's Omar <i>of</i>
+Khayy&aacute;m."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you will find that Omar Khayy&aacute;m is the&mdash;ah&mdash;generally
+accepted version of the poet's name," said the portrayer of Lord
+Finchley adding beneath his breath. "You silly ass!"</p>
+
+<p>"You say Omar <i>of</i> Khayy&aacute;m," bellowed Mr. Goble. "Who's running this
+show, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just as you please."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble turned to Wally.</p>
+
+<p>"These actors...." he began, when Mr. Pilkington appeared again at his
+elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it <i>now</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Omar Khayy&aacute;m was a Persian poet. His <i>name</i> was Khayy&aacute;m."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That wasn't the way <i>I</i> heard it," said Mr. Goble doggedly. "Did
+<i>you</i>?" he enquired of Wally. "I thought he was born at Khayy&aacute;m."</p>
+
+<p>"You're probably quite right," said Wally, "but, if so, everybody else
+has been wrong for a good many years. It's usually supposed that the
+gentleman's name was Omar Khayy&aacute;m. Khayy&aacute;m, Omar J. Born <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 1050,
+educated privately and at Bagdad University. Represented Persia in the
+Olympic Games of 1072, winning the sitting high-jump and the
+egg-and-spoon race. The Khayy&aacute;ms were quite a well-known family in
+Bagdad, and there was a lot of talk when Omar, who was Mrs. Khayyam's
+pet son, took to drink and writing poetry. They had had it all fixed
+for him to go into his father's date business."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble was impressed. He had a respect for Wally's opinion, for
+Wally had written "Follow the Girl" and look what a knock-out that had
+been. He stopped the rehearsal again.</p>
+
+<p>"Go back to that Khayy&aacute;m speech!" he said interrupting Lord Finchley
+in mid-sentence.</p>
+
+<p>The actor whispered a hearty English oath beneath his breath. He had
+been up late last night, and, in spite of the fair weather, he was
+feeling a trifle on edge.</p>
+
+<p>"' In the words of Omar of Khayy&aacute;m'...."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble clapped his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Cut that 'of,'" he said. "The show's too long, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>And, having handled a delicate matter in masterly fashion, he leaned
+back in his chair and chewed the end off another cigar.</p>
+
+<p>For some minutes after this the rehearsal proceeded smoothly. If Mr.
+Goble did not enjoy the play, at least he made no criticisms except to
+Wally. To him he enlarged from time to time on the pain which "The
+Rose of America" caused him.</p>
+
+<p>"How I ever came to put on junk like this beats me," confessed Mr.
+Goble frankly.</p>
+
+<p>"You probably saw that there was a good idea at the back of it,"
+suggested Wally. "There is, you know. Properly handled, it's an idea
+that could be made into a success."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a lot of things," said Wally warily. In his younger and callower
+days he had sometimes been rash enough to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> scatter views on the
+reconstruction of plays broadcast, to find them gratefully absorbed
+and acted upon and treated as a friendly gift. His affection for Mr.
+Goble was not so overpowering as to cause him to give him ideas for
+nothing now.</p>
+
+<p>"Any time you want me to fix it for you, I'll come along. About one
+and a half per cent of the gross would meet the case, I think."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble faced him, registering the utmost astonishment and horror.</p>
+
+<p>"One and a half per cent for fixing a show like this? Why, darn it,
+there's hardly anything to do to it! It's&mdash;it's <i>in</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"You called it junk just now."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, all I meant was that it wasn't the sort of thing I cared for
+myself. The public will eat it. Take it from me, the time is just
+about ripe for a revival of comic opera."</p>
+
+<p>"This one will want all the reviving you can give it. Better use a
+pulmotor."</p>
+
+<p>"But that long boob, that Pilkington ... he would never stand for my
+handing you one and a half per cent."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought <i>you</i> were the little guy who arranged things round here."</p>
+
+<p>"But he's got money in the show."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if he wants to get any out, he'd better call in somebody to
+rewrite it. You don't have to engage me if you don't want to. But I
+know I could make a good job of it. There's just one little twist the
+thing needs and you would have quite a different piece."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" enquired Mr. Goble casually.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, just a little ... what shall I say? ... a little touch of
+what-d'you-call-it and a bit of thingummy. You know the sort of thing!
+That's all it wants."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble gnawed his cigar, baffled.</p>
+
+<p>"You think so, eh?" he said at length.</p>
+
+<p>"And perhaps a suspicion of <i>je-ne-sais-quoi</i>," added Wally.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble worried his cigar, and essayed a new form of attack.</p>
+
+<p>"You've done a lot of work for me," he said. "Good work!"</p>
+
+<p>"Glad you liked it," said Wally.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a good kid. I like having you around. I was half thinking of
+giving you a show to do this Fall. Corking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> book. French farce. Ran
+two years in Paris. But what's the good, if you want the earth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Always useful, the earth. Good thing to have."</p>
+
+<p>"See here, if you'll fix up this show for half of one per cent, I'll
+give you the other to do."</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't slur your words so. For a moment I thought you said
+'half of one per cent. One and a half of course you really said.</p>
+
+<p>"If you won't take half, you don't get the other."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Wally. "There are lots of other managers in New
+York. Haven't you seen them popping about? Rich, enterprising men, and
+all of them love me like a son."</p>
+
+<p>"Make it one per cent," said Mr. Goble, "and I'll see if I can fix it
+with Pilkington."</p>
+
+<p>"One and a half."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, damn it, one and a half, then," said Mr. Goble morosely. "What's
+the good of splitting straws?"</p>
+
+<p>"Forgotten Sports of the Past&mdash;Splitting the Straw. All right. If you
+drop me a line to that effect, legibly signed with your name, I'll
+wear it next my heart. I shall have to go now. I have a date.
+Good-bye. Glad everything's settled and everybody's happy."</p>
+
+<p>For some moments after Wally had left, Mr. Goble sat hunched up in his
+orchestra-chair, smoking sullenly, his mood less sunny than ever.
+Living in a little world of sycophants, he was galled by the off-hand
+way in which Wally always treated him. There was something in the
+latter's manner which seemed to him sometimes almost contemptuous. He
+regretted the necessity of having to employ him. There was, of course,
+no real necessity why he should have employed Wally. New York was full
+of librettists who would have done the work equally well for half the
+money, but, like most managers, Mr. Goble had the mental processes of
+a sheep. "Follow the Girl" was the last outstanding musical success in
+New York theatrical history: Wally had written it, therefore nobody
+but Wally was capable of re-writing "The Rose of America." The thing
+had for Mr. Goble the inevitability of Fate. Except for deciding
+mentally that Wally had swelled head, there was nothing to be done.</p>
+
+<p>Having decided that Wally had swelled head, and not feeling much
+better, Mr. Goble concentrated his attention on the stage. A good deal
+of action had taken place there during<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> the recently concluded
+business talk, and the unfortunate Lord Finchley was back again,
+playing another of his scenes. Mr. Goble glared at Lord Finchley. He
+did not like him, and he did not like the way he was speaking his
+lines.</p>
+
+<p>The part of Lord Finchley was a non-singing r&ocirc;le. It was a type part.
+Otis Pilkington had gone to the straight stage to find an artist, and
+had secured the not uncelebrated Wentworth Hill, who had come over
+from London to play in an English comedy which had just closed. The
+newspapers had called the play thin, but had thought that Wentworth
+Hill was an excellent comedian. Mr. Hill thought so, too, and it was
+consequently a shock to his already disordered nerves when a bellow
+from the auditorium stopped him in the middle of one of his speeches
+and a rasping voice informed him that he was doing it all wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Hill, quietly but dangerously, stepping
+to the footlights.</p>
+
+<p>"All wrong!" repeated Mr. Goble.</p>
+
+<p>"Really?" Wentworth Hill, who a few years earlier had spent several
+terms at Oxford University before being sent down for aggravated
+disorderliness, had brought little away with him from that seat of
+learning except the Oxford manner. This he now employed upon Mr. Goble
+with an icy severity which put the last touch to the manager's
+fermenting state of mind. "Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me
+just how you think that part should be played?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble marched down the aisle.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak out to the audience," he said, stationing himself by the
+orchestra pit. "You're turning your head away all the darned time."</p>
+
+<p>"I may be wrong," said Mr. Hill, "but I have played a certain amount,
+don't you know, in pretty good companies, and I was always under the
+impression that one should address one's remarks to the person one was
+speaking to, not deliver a recitation to the gallery. I was taught
+that that was the legitimate method."</p>
+
+<p>The word touched off all the dynamite in Mr. Goble. Of all things in
+the theatre he detested most the "legitimate method." His idea of
+producing was to instruct the cast to come down to the footlights and
+hand it to 'em. These people who looked up-stage and talked to the
+audience through the backs of their necks revolted him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Legitimate! That's a hell of a thing to be! Where do you get that
+legitimate stuff? You aren't playing Ibsen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor am I playing a knockabout vaudeville sketch."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk back at me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kindly don't shout at <i>me</i>! Your voice is unpleasant enough without
+your raising it."</p>
+
+<p>Open defiance was a thing which Mr. Goble had never encountered
+before, and for a moment it deprived him of breath. He recovered it,
+however, almost immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"You're fired!"</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," said Mr. Hill, "I'm resigning." He drew a
+green-covered script from his pocket and handed it with an air to the
+pallid assistant stage-director. Then, more gracefully than ever
+Freddie Rooke had managed to move down-stage under the tuition of
+Johnson Miller, he moved up-stage to the exit. "I trust that you will
+be able to find someone who will play the part according to your
+ideas!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll find," bellowed Mr. Goble at his vanishing back, "a chorus-man
+who'll play it a damned sight better than you!" He waved to the
+assistant stage-director. "Send the chorus-men on the stage!"</p>
+
+<p>"All the gentlemen of the chorus on the stage, please!" shrilled the
+assistant stage-director, bounding into the wings like a retriever.
+"Mr. Goble wants all the chorus-gentlemen on the stage!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment, when the seven male members of "The Rose of
+America" ensemble lined up self-consciously before his gleaming eyes,
+when Mr. Goble repented of his brave words. An uncomfortable feeling
+passed across his mind that Fate had called his bluff and that he
+would not be able to make good. All chorus-men are exactly alike, and
+they are like nothing else on earth. Even Mr. Goble, anxious as he was
+to overlook their deficiencies, could not persuade himself that in
+their ranks stood even an adequate Lord Finchley.</p>
+
+<p>And then, just as a cold reaction from his fervid mood was about to
+set in, he perceived that Providence had been good to him. There, at
+the extreme end of the line, stood a young man who, as far as
+appearance went, was the ideal Lord Finchley&mdash;as far as appearance
+went, a far better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> Lord Finchley than the late Mr. Hill. He beckoned
+imperiously.</p>
+
+<p>"You at the end!"</p>
+
+<p>"Me?" said the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you. What's your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rooke. Frederick Rooke, don't you know."</p>
+
+<p>"You're English, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh? Oh, yes, absolutely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ever played a part before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Part? Oh, I see what you mean. Well, in amateur theatricals, you
+know, and all that sort of rot."</p>
+
+<p>His words were music to Mr. Goble's ears. He felt that his Napoleonic
+action had justified itself by success. His fury left him. If he had
+been capable of beaming, one would have said that he beamed at
+Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you play the part of Lord Finchley from now on. Come to my
+office this afternoon for your contract. Clear the stage. We've wasted
+enough time."</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later, in the wings, Freddie, receiving congratulations
+from Nelly Bryant, asserted himself.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Not</i> the Automat to-day, I <i>think</i>, what? Now that I'm a jolly old
+star and all that sort of thing, it can't be done. Directly this is
+over we'll roll round to the Cosmopolis. A slight celebration is
+indicated, what? Right ho! Rally round, dear heart, rally round!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>JILL EXPLAINS</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>The lobby of the Hotel Cosmopolis is the exact centre of New York, the
+spot where at certain hours one is sure of meeting everybody one
+knows. The first person that Nelly and Freddie saw, as they passed
+through the swing doors, was Jill. She was seated on the chair by the
+big pillar in the middle of the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"What ho!" said Freddie. "Waiting for someone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Freddie. Yes, I'm waiting for Wally Mason. I got a note from
+him this morning, asking me to meet him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> here. I'm a little early. I
+haven't congratulated you yet. You're wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, old girl. Our young hero <i>is</i> making pretty hefty strides in
+his chosen profesh, what? Mr. Rooke, who appears quite simple and
+unspoiled by success, replied to our representative's enquiry as to
+his future plans, that he proposed to stagger into the grill-room and
+imbibe about eighteen dollars' worth of lunch. Yes, it <i>is</i> a bit of
+all right, taking it by and large, isn't it? I mean to say, the
+salary, the jolly old salary, you know ... quite a help when a
+fellow's lost all his money!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill was surprised to observe that the Last of the Rookes was
+contorting his face in an unsightly manner that seemed to be an
+attempt at a wink, pregnant with hidden meaning. She took her cue
+dutifully, though without understanding.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes," she replied.</p>
+
+<p>Freddie seemed grateful. With a cordial "Cheerio!" he led Nelly off to
+the grill-room.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know Jill knew Mr. Mason," said Nelly, as they sat down at
+their table.</p>
+
+<p>"No?" said Freddie absently, running an experienced eye over the bill
+of fare. He gave an elaborate order. "What was that? Oh, absolutely!
+Jill and I and Wally were children together."</p>
+
+<p>"How funny you should all be together again like this."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Oh, good Lord!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing. I meant to send a cable to a pal of mine in England,
+I'll send it after lunch."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie took out his handkerchief, and tied a knot in it. He was
+slightly ashamed of the necessity of taking such a precaution, but it
+was better to be on the safe side. His interview with Jill at the
+theatre had left him with the conviction that there was only one thing
+for him to do, and that was to cable poor old Derek to forget
+impending elections and all the rest of it and pop over to America at
+once. He knew that he would never have the courage to re-open the
+matter with Jill himself. As an ambassador he was a spent force. If
+Jill was to be wooed from her mood of intractibility, Derek was the
+only man to do it. Freddie was convinced that, seeing him in person,
+she would melt and fall into his arms. Too dashed absurd, Freddie
+felt, two loving hearts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> being separated like this and all that sort
+of thing. He replaced his handkerchief in his pocket, relieved, and
+concentrated himself on the entertainment of Nelly. A simple task for
+the longer he was with this girl, the easier did it seem, to talk to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Jill, left alone in the lobby, was finding the moments pass quite
+pleasantly. She liked watching the people as they came in. One or two
+of the girls of the company fluttered in like birds, were swooped upon
+by their cavaliers, and fluttered off to the grill-room. The
+red-headed Babe passed her with a genial nod, and, shortly after, Lois
+Denham, the willowy recipient of sunbursts from her friend Izzy of the
+hat-checks, came by in company with a sallow, hawk-faced young man
+with a furtive eye, whom Jill took&mdash;correctly&mdash;to be Izzy himself.
+Lois was looking pale and proud, and, from the few words which came to
+Jill's ears as they neared her, seemed to be annoyed at having been
+kept waiting.</p>
+
+<p>It was immediately after this that the swing-doors revolved rather
+more violently than usual, and Mr. Goble burst into view.</p>
+
+<p>There was a cloud upon Mr. Goble's brow, seeming to indicate that his
+grievance against life had not yet been satisfactorily adjusted; but
+it passed as he saw Jill, and he came up to her with what he would
+probably have claimed to be an ingratiating smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" said Mr. Goble. "All alone?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill was about to say that the condition was merely temporary when the
+manager went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and have a bit of lunch."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very much," said Jill, with the politeness of dislike, "but
+I'm waiting for someone."</p>
+
+<p>"Chuck him!" advised Mr. Goble cordially.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks, I couldn't, really."</p>
+
+<p>The cloud began to descend again upon Mr. Goble's brow. He was
+accustomed to having these invitations of his treated as royal
+commands.</p>
+
+<p>"Come along!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it's impossible."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble subjected her to a prolonged stare, seemed about to speak,
+changed his mind, and swung off moodily in the direction of the
+grill-room. He was not used to this sort of treatment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He had hardly gone, when Wally appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"What was he saying to you?" demanded Wally abruptly, without
+preliminary greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"He was asking me to lunch."</p>
+
+<p>Wally was silent for a moment. His good-natured face wore an unwonted
+scowl.</p>
+
+<p>"He went in there, of course?" he said, pointing to the grill-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let's go into the other room," said Wally. He regained his good
+humour. "It was awfully good of you to come. I didn't know whether you
+would be able to."</p>
+
+<p>"It was very nice of you to invite me."</p>
+
+<p>Wally grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"How perfect our manners are! It's a treat to listen! How did you know
+that that was the one hat in New York I wanted you to wear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, these things get about. Do you like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's wonderful. Let's take this table, shall we?"</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>They sat down. The dim, tapestry-hung room soothed Jill. She was
+feeling a little tired after the rehearsal. At the far end of the room
+an orchestra was playing a tune that she remembered and liked. Her
+mind went back to the last occasion on which she and Wally had sat
+opposite each other at a restaurant. How long ago it seemed! She
+returned to the present to find Wally speaking to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You left very suddenly the other night," said Wally.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't want to meet Freddie."</p>
+
+<p>Wally looked at her commiseratingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to spoil your lunch," he said, "but Freddie knows all.
+He has tracked you down. He met Nelly Bryant, whom he seems to have
+made friends with in London, and she told him where you were and what
+you were doing. For a girl who fled at his mere approach the night
+before last, you don't seem very agitated by the news," he said, as
+Jill burst into a peal of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't heard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heard what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie got Mr. Pilkington to put him in the chorus of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> the piece. He
+was rehearsing when I arrived at the theatre this morning, and having
+a terrible time with Mr. Miller. And, later on, Mr. Goble had a
+quarrel with the man who was playing the Englishman, and the man threw
+up his part, and Mr. Goble said he could get any one in the chorus to
+play it just as well, and he chose Freddie. So now Freddie is one of
+the principals, and bursting with pride!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally threw his head back and uttered a roar of appreciation which
+caused a luncher at a neighbouring table to drop an oyster which he
+was poising in mid-air.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make such a noise!" said Jill severely. "Everyone's looking at
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"I must! It's the most priceless thing I ever heard. I've always
+maintained and I always will maintain that for pure lunacy nothing can
+touch the musical comedy business. There isn't anything that can't
+happen in musical comedy. 'Alice in Wonderland' is nothing to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you felt that, too? That's exactly how I feel. It's like a
+perpetual 'Mad Hatter's Tea-Party.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But what on earth made Freddie join the company at all?"</p>
+
+<p>A sudden gravity descended upon Jill. The words had reminded her of
+the thing which she was perpetually striving to keep out of her
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"He said he wanted to be there to keep an eye on me."</p>
+
+<p>Gravity is infectious. Wally's smile disappeared. He, too, had been
+recalled to thoughts which were not pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Wally crumbled his roll. There was a serious expression on his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie was quite right. I didn't think he had so much sense."</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie was not right," flared Jill. The recollection of her
+conversation with that prominent artist still had the power to fire
+her independent soul. "I'm not a child. I can look after myself. What
+I do is my own business."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you're going to find that your business is several
+people's business. I am interested in it myself. I don't like your
+being on the stage. Now bite my head off!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's very kind of you to bother about me...."</p>
+
+<p>"I said 'Bite my head off!' I didn't say 'Freeze me!' I take the
+licence of an old friend who in his time has put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> worms down your
+back, and I repeat&mdash;I don't like your being on the stage."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't have thought you would have been so"&mdash;Jill sought for a
+devastating adjective&mdash;"so mid-Victorian!"</p>
+
+<p>"As far as you are concerned, I'm the middest Victorian in existence.
+Mid is my middle name." Wally met her indignant gaze squarely.
+"I&mdash;do&mdash;not&mdash;like&mdash;your&mdash;being&mdash;on&mdash;the&mdash;stage! Especially in any
+company which Ike Goble is running."</p>
+
+<p>"Why Mr. Goble particularly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he is not the sort of man you ought to be coming in contact
+with."</p>
+
+<p>"What nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't nonsense at all. I suppose you've read a lot about the
+morals of theatrical managers...."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And it seemed to be exaggerated and silly."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is. There's nothing wrong with most of them. As a general
+thing, they are very decent fellows&mdash;extraordinarily decent if you
+think of the position they are in. I don't say that in a business way
+there's much they won't try to put over on you. In the theatre, when
+it comes to business, everything goes except biting and gouging.
+'There's never a law of God or man runs north of fifty-three.' If you
+alter that to 'north of Forty-first Street' it doesn't scan as well,
+but it's just as true. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that
+the Golden Rule is suspended there. You get used to it after you have
+been in the theatre for a while, and, except for leaving your watch
+and pocket-book at home when you have to pay a call on a manager and
+keeping your face to him so that he can't get away with your back
+collar-stud, you don't take any notice of it. It's all a game. If a
+manager swindles you, he wins the hole and takes the honour. If you
+foil him, you are one up. In either case, it makes no difference to
+the pleasantness of your relations. You go on calling him by his first
+name, and he gives you a couple of cigars out of his waistcoat pocket
+and says you're a good kid. There is nothing personal in it. He has
+probably done his best friend out of a few thousand dollars the same
+morning, and you see them lunching together after the ceremony as
+happily as possible. You've got to make allowances for managers. They
+are the victims of heredity. When a burglar marries a hat-check girl,
+their offspring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> goes into the theatrical business automatically, and
+he can't shake off the early teaching which he imbibed at his father's
+knee. But morals...."</p>
+
+<p>Wally broke off to allow the waiter to place a fried sole before him.
+Waiters always select the moment when we are talking our best to
+intrude themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"As regards morals," resumed Wally, "that is a different matter. Most
+managers are respectable, middle-aged men with wives and families.
+They are in the business to make money, and they don't want anything
+else out of it. The girls in their companies are like so many clerks
+to them, just machines that help to bring the money in. They don't
+know half a dozen of them to speak to. But our genial Ike is not like
+that." Wally consumed a mouthful of sole. "Ike Goble is a bad citizen.
+He paws! He's a slinker and a prowler and a leerer. He's a pest and a
+worm! He's fat and soft and flabby. He has a greasy soul, a withered
+heart, and an eye like a codfish. Not knocking him, of course!" added
+Wally magnanimously. "Far be it from me to knock anyone! But, speaking
+with the utmost respect and viewing him in the most favourable light,
+he is a combination of tom-cat and the things you see when you turn
+over a flat stone! Such are the reasons why I am sorry that you are in
+his company."</p>
+
+<p>Jill had listened to this diatribe with a certain uneasiness. Her
+brief encounters with Mr. Goble told her that every word was probably
+true. She could still feel the unpleasant sensation of being inspected
+by the eye which Wally had compared&mdash;quite justly&mdash;to that of a
+codfish. But her pride forbade any admission of weakness.</p>
+
+<p>"I can take care of myself," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt it," said Wally. "And you could probably take care of
+yourself if you fell into a muddy pond. But I shouldn't like to stand
+on the bank and watch you doing it. I know what girls in the chorus
+have to go through. Hanging about for hours in draughts, doing
+nothing, while the principals go through their scenes, and yelled at
+if they try to relieve the tedium of captivity with a little light
+conversation...."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," admitted Jill. "There has been a good lot of that."</p>
+
+<p>"There always is. I believe if the stage-carpenter was going to stick
+a screw in a flat, they would call a chorus-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>rehearsal to watch him do
+it.... Jill, you must get out of it. It's no life for you. The
+work...."</p>
+
+<p>"I like the work."</p>
+
+<p>"While it's new, perhaps, but...."</p>
+
+<p>Jill interrupted him passionately.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, can't you understand!" she cried. "I want the work. I need it. I
+want something to do, something to occupy my mind. I hate talking
+about it, but you know how things are with me. Freddie must have told
+you. Even if he didn't, you must have guessed, meeting me here all
+alone and remembering how things were when we last met. You must
+understand! Haven't you ever had a terrible shock or a dreadful
+disappointment that seemed to smash up the whole world? And didn't you
+find that the only possible thing to do was to work and work and work
+as hard as ever you could? When I first came to America, I nearly went
+mad. Uncle Chris sent me down to a place on Long Island, and I had
+nothing to do all day but think. I couldn't stand it. I ran away and
+came to New York and met Nelly Bryant and got this work to do. It
+saved me. It kept me busy all day and tired me out and didn't give me
+time to think. The harder it is, the better it suits me. It's an
+antidote. I simply wouldn't give it up now. As for what you were
+saying, I must put up with that. The other girls do, so why shouldn't
+I?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are toughened to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must get toughened to it. What else is there for me to do? I
+must do something."</p>
+
+<p>"Marry me!" said Wally, reaching across the table and putting his hand
+on hers. The light in his eyes lit up his homely face like a lantern.</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+<p>The suddenness of it startled Jill into silence. She snatched her hand
+away and drew back, looking at him in wonderment. She was confusedly
+aware of a babble of sound&mdash;people talking, people laughing, the
+orchestra playing a lively tune. All her senses seemed to have become
+suddenly more acute. She was intensely alive to small details. Then,
+abruptly, the whole world condensed itself into two eyes that were
+fastened upon hers&mdash;compelling eyes which she felt a panic desire to
+avoid.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She turned her head away, and looked out into the restaurant. It
+seemed incredible that all these people, placidly intent upon their
+food and their small talk, should not be staring at her, wondering
+what she was going to say; nudging each other and speculating. Their
+detachment made her feel alone and helpless. She was nothing to them
+and they did not care what happened to her, just as she had been
+nothing to those frozen marshes down at Brookport. She was alone in an
+indifferent world, with her own problems to settle for herself.</p>
+
+<p>Other men had asked Jill to marry them&mdash;a full dozen of them, here and
+there in country houses and at London dances, before she had met and
+loved Derek Underhill; but nothing that she had had in the way of
+experience had prepared her for Wally. These others had given her time
+to marshal her forces, to collect herself, to weigh them thoughtfully
+in the balance. Before speaking, they had signalled their devotion in
+a hundred perceptible ways&mdash;by their pinkness, their stammering
+awkwardness, by the glassy look in their eyes. They had not shot a
+proposal at her like a bullet from out of the cover of a conversation
+that had nothing to do with their emotions at all.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, now that the shock of it was dying away, she began to remember
+signs she would have noticed, speeches which ought to have warned
+her....</p>
+
+<p>"Wally!" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>She found that he affected her in an entirely different fashion from
+the luckless dozen of those London days. He seemed to matter more, to
+be more important, almost&mdash;though she rebelled at the word&mdash;more
+dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me take you out of it all! You aren't fit for this sort of life.
+I can't bear to see you...."</p>
+
+<p>Jill bent forward and touched his hand. He started as though he had
+been burned. The muscles of his throat were working.</p>
+
+<p>"Wally, it's&mdash;" She paused for a word. "Kind" was horrible. It would
+have sounded cold, almost supercilious. "Sweet" was the sort of thing
+she could imagine Lois Denham saying to her friend Izzy. She began her
+sentence again. "You're a dear to say that, but...."</p>
+
+<p>Wally laughed chokingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You think I'm altruistic? I'm not. I'm just as selfish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> and
+self-centred as any other man who wants a thing very badly. I'm as
+altruistic as a child crying for the moon. I want you to marry me
+because I love you, because there never was anybody like you, because
+you're the whole world, because I always have loved you. I've been
+dreaming about you for a dozen years, thinking about you, wondering
+about you&mdash;wondering where you were, what you were doing, how you
+looked. I used to think that it was just sentimentality, that you
+merely stood for a time of my life when I was happier than I have ever
+been since. I used to think that you were just a sort of peg on which
+I was hanging a pleasant sentimental regret for days which could never
+come back. You were a memory that seemed to personify all the other
+memories of the best time of my life. You were the goddess of old
+associations. Then I met you in London, and it was different. I wanted
+you&mdash;<i>you</i>! I didn't want you because you recalled old times and were
+associated with dead happiness, I wanted <i>you</i>! I knew I loved you
+directly you spoke to me at the theatre that night of the fire. I
+loved your voice and your eyes and your smile and your courage. And
+then you told me you were engaged. I might have expected it, but I
+couldn't keep my jealousy from showing itself, and you snubbed me as I
+deserved. But now ... things are different now. Everything's
+different, except my love."</p>
+
+<p>Jill turned her face to the wall beside her. A man at the next table,
+a corpulent, red-faced man, had begun to stare. He could have heard
+nothing, for Wally had spoken in a low voice; but plainly he was aware
+that something more interesting was happening at their table than at
+any of the other tables, and he was watching with a bovine
+inquisitiveness which affected Jill with a sense of outrage. A moment
+before, she had resented the indifference of the outer world. Now,
+this one staring man seemed like a watching multitude. There were
+tears in her eyes, and she felt that the red-faced man suspected it.</p>
+
+<p>"Wally...." Her voice broke. "It's impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Why, Jill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because.... Oh, it's impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Because...." He seemed to find a difficulty in speaking. "Because of
+Underhill?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill nodded. She felt wretched. The monstrous incon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>gruity of her
+surroundings oppressed her. The orchestra had dashed into a rollicking
+melody, which set her foot tapping in spite of herself. At a near-by
+table somebody was shouting with laughter. Two waiters at a
+service-stand were close enough for her to catch snatches of their
+talk. They were arguing about an order of fried potatoes. Once again
+her feelings veered round, and she loathed the detachment of the
+world. Her heart ached for Wally. She could not look at him, but she
+knew exactly what she would see if she did&mdash;honest, pleading eyes
+searching her face for something which she could not give.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said.</p>
+
+<p>The table creaked. Wally was leaning further forward. He seemed like
+something large and pathetic&mdash;a big dog in trouble. She hated to be
+hurting him. And all the time her foot tapped accompaniment to the
+rag-time tune.</p>
+
+<p>"But you can't live all your life with a memory," said Wally.</p>
+
+<p>Jill turned and faced him. His eyes seemed to leap at her, and they
+were just as she had pictured them.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand," she said gently. "You don't understand."</p>
+
+<p>"It's ended. It's over."</p>
+
+<p>Jill shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't still love him, after what has happened!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Jill unhappily.</p>
+
+<p>The words seemed to bewilder Wally as much as they had bewildered
+Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill shut her eyes tight. Wally quivered. It was a trick she had had
+as a child. In perplexity, she had always screwed up her eyes just
+like that, as if to shut herself up in herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk for a minute, Wally," she said. "I want to think."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes opened.</p>
+
+<p>"It's like this," she said. He had seen her look at him in exactly the
+same way a hundred times. "I don't suppose I can make you understand,
+but this is how it is. Suppose you had a room, and it was full&mdash;of
+things. Furniture. And there wasn't any space left. You&mdash;you couldn't
+put anything else in till you had taken all that out, could you?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> It
+might not be worth anything, but it would still be there, taking up
+all the room."</p>
+
+<p>Wally nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said. "I see."</p>
+
+<p>"My heart's full, Wally dear. I know it's just lumber that's choking
+it up, but it's difficult to get it out. It takes time getting it out.
+I put it in, thinking it was wonderful furniture, the most wonderful
+in the world, and&mdash;I was cheated. It was just lumber. But it's there.
+It's still there. It's there all the time. And what am I to do?"</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra crashed, and was silent. The sudden stillness seemed to
+break a spell. The world invaded the little island where they sat. A
+chattering party of girls and men brushed past them. The waiter,
+judging that they had been there long enough, slipped a strip of
+paper, decorously turned upside down, in front of Wally. He took the
+money, and went away to get change.</p>
+
+<p>Wally turned to Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," he said. "All this hasn't happened, and we're just as
+good pals as before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But...." He forced a laugh ... "mark my words, a time may come, and
+then...!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"A time may come," repeated Wally. "At any rate, let me think so. It
+has nothing to do with me. It's for you to decide, absolutely. I'm not
+going to pursue you with my addresses! If ever you get that room of
+yours emptied, you won't have to hang out a 'To Let' sign. I shall be
+waiting, and you will know where to find me. And, in the meantime,
+yours to command, Wallace Mason. Is that clear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite clear." Jill looked at him affectionately. "There's nobody I'd
+rather open that room to than you, Wally. You know that."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the solemn truth?"</p>
+
+<p>"The solemn truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Wally, "in two minutes you will see a startled waiter.
+There will be about fourteen dollars change out of that twenty he took
+away. I'm going to give it all to him."</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Every cent!" said Wally firmly. "And the young Greek<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> brigand who
+stole my hat at the door is going to get a dollar! That, as our
+ascetic and honourable friend Goble would say, is the sort of little
+guy <i>I</i> am!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The red-faced man at the next table eyed them as they went out,
+leaving behind them a waiter who clutched totteringly for support at
+the back of a chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Had a row," he decided, "but made it up."</p>
+
+<p>He called for a toothpick.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. GOBLE PLAYS WITH FATE</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>On the boardwalk at Atlantic City, that much-enduring seashore resort
+which has been the birthplace of so many musical plays, there stands
+an all-day and all-night restaurant, under the same management and
+offering the same hospitality as the one in Columbus Circle at which
+Jill had taken her first meal on arriving in New York. At least, its
+hospitality is noisy during the waking and working hours of the day;
+but there are moments when it has an almost cloistral peace, and the
+customer, abashed by the cold calm of its snowy marble and the silent
+gravity of the white-robed attendants, unconsciously lowers his voice
+and tries to keep his feet from shuffling, like one in a temple. The
+members of the chorus of "The Rose of America," dropping in by ones
+and twos at six o'clock in the morning about two weeks after the
+events recorded in the last chapter, spoke in whispers and gave their
+orders for breakfast in a subdued undertone.</p>
+
+<p>The dress-rehearsal had just dragged its weary length to a close. It
+is the custom of the dwellers in Atlantic City, who seem to live
+entirely by pleasure, to attend a species of vaudeville
+performances&mdash;incorrectly termed a sacred concert&mdash;on Sunday nights,
+and it had been one o'clock in the morning before the concert scenery
+could be moved out of the theatre and the first act set of "The Rose
+of America" moved in. And, as by some unwritten law of the drama no
+dress-rehearsal can begin without a delay of at least an hour and a
+half, the curtain had not gone up on Mr. Miller's opening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> chorus till
+half-past two. There had been dress-parades, conferences, interminable
+arguments between the stage-director and a mysterious man in
+shirt-sleeves about the lights, more dress-parades, further
+conferences, hitches with regard to the sets, and another outbreak of
+debate on the subject of blues, ambers, and the management of the
+"spot," which was worked by a plaintive voice, answering to the name
+of Charlie, at the back of the family circle. But by six o'clock a
+complete, if ragged, performance had been given, and the chorus, who
+had partaken of no nourishment since dinner on the previous night, had
+limped off round the corner for a bite of breakfast before going to
+bed.</p>
+
+<p>They were a battered and a draggled company, some with dark circles
+beneath their eyes, others blooming with the unnatural scarlet of the
+make-up which they had been too tired to take off. The Duchess,
+haughty to the last, had fallen asleep with her head on the table. The
+red-headed Babe was lying back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.
+The Southern girl blinked like an owl at the morning sunshine out on
+the boardwalk.</p>
+
+<p>The Cherub, whose triumphant youth had brought her almost fresh
+through a sleepless night, contributed the only remark made during the
+interval of waiting for the meal.</p>
+
+<p>"The fascination of a thtage life! Why girls leave home!" She looked
+at her reflection in the little mirror of her vanity-bag. "It <i>is</i> a
+face!" she murmured reflectively. "But I should hate to have to go
+around with it long!"</p>
+
+<p>A sallow young man, with the alertness peculiar to those who work on
+the night-shifts of restaurants, dumped a tray down on the table with
+a clatter. The Duchess woke up. Babe took her eyes off the ceiling.
+The Southern girl ceased to look at the sunshine. Already, at the mere
+sight of food, the extraordinary recuperative powers of the theatrical
+worker had begun to assert themselves. In five minutes these girls
+would be feeling completely restored and fit for anything.</p>
+
+<p>Conversation broke out with the first sip of coffee, and the calm of
+the restaurant was shattered. Its day had begun.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a great life if you don't weaken," said the Cherub hungrily
+attacking her omelette. "And the wortht is yet to come! I thuppose all
+you old dears realithe that this show will have to be rewritten from
+end to end, and we'll be rehearthing day and night all the time we're
+on the road."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why?" Lois Denham spoke with her mouth full. "What's wrong with it?"</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess took a sip of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make me laugh!" she pleaded. "What's wrong with it? What's
+right with it, one would feel more inclined to ask!"</p>
+
+<p>"One would feel thtill more inclined," said the Cherub, "to athk why
+one was thuch a chump as to let oneself in for this sort of thing when
+one hears on all sides that waitresses earn thixty dollars a month."</p>
+
+<p>"The numbers are all right," argued Babe. "I don't mean the melodies,
+but Johnny has arranged some good business."</p>
+
+<p>"He always does," said the Southern girl. "Some more buckwheat cakes,
+please. But what about the book?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never listen to the book."</p>
+
+<p>The Cherub laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You're too good to yourself! I listened to it right along, and take
+it from me it's sad! Of courthe they'll have it fixed. We can't open
+in New York like this. My professional reputation wouldn't thtand it!
+Didn't you thee Wally Mason in front, making notes? They've got him
+down to do the re-writing."</p>
+
+<p>Jill, who had been listening in a dazed way to the conversation,
+fighting against the waves of sleep which flooded over her, woke up.</p>
+
+<p>"Was Wally&mdash;was Mr. Mason there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. Sitting at the back."</p>
+
+<p>Jill could not have said whether she was glad or sorry. She had not
+seen Wally since that afternoon when they had lunched together at the
+Cosmopolis, and the rush of the final weeks of rehearsals had given
+her little opportunity for thinking of him. At the back of her mind
+had been the feeling that sooner or later she would have to think of
+him, but for two weeks she had been too tired and too busy to
+re-examine him as a factor in her life. There had been times when the
+thought of him had been like the sunshine on a winter day, warming her
+with almost an impersonal glow in moments of depression. And then some
+sharp, poignant memory of Derek would come to blot him out.</p>
+
+<p>She came out of her thoughts to find that the talk had taken another
+turn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And the wortht of it is," the Cherub was saying, "we shall rehearthe
+all day and give a show every night and work ourselves to the bone,
+and then, when they're good and ready, they'll fire one of us!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right!" agreed the Southern girl.</p>
+
+<p>"They couldn't!" Jill cried.</p>
+
+<p>"You wait!" said the Cherub. "They'll never open in New York with
+thirteen girls. Ike's much too thuperstitious."</p>
+
+<p>"But they wouldn't do a thing like that after we've all worked so
+hard!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a general burst of sardonic laughter. Jill's opinion of the
+chivalry of theatrical managers seemed to be higher than that of her
+more experienced colleagues.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll do anything," the Cherub assured her.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know the half of it, dearie," scoffed Lois Denham. "You
+don't know the half of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till you've been in as many shows as I have," said Babe, shaking
+her red locks. "The usual thing is to keep a girl slaving her head off
+all through the road-tour and then fire her before the New York
+opening."</p>
+
+<p>"But it's a shame! It isn't fair!"</p>
+
+<p>"If one is expecting to be treated fairly," said the Duchess with a
+prolonged yawn, "one should not go into the show-business."</p>
+
+<p>And, having uttered this profoundly true maxim, she fell asleep again.</p>
+
+<p>The slumber of the Duchess was the signal for a general move. Her
+somnolence was catching. The restorative effects of the meal were
+beginning to wear off. There was a call for a chorus rehearsal at four
+o'clock, and it seemed the wise move to go to bed and get some sleep
+while there was time. The Duchess was roused from her dreams by means
+of a piece of ice from one of the tumblers; bills were paid; and the
+company poured out, yawning and chattering, into the sunlight of the
+empty boardwalk.</p>
+
+<p>Jill detached herself from the group, and made her way to a seat
+facing the sea. Tiredness had fallen upon her like a leaden weight,
+crushing all the power out of her limbs, and the thought of walking to
+the boarding-house where, from motives of economy, she was sharing a
+room with the Cherub, paralysed her.</p>
+
+<p>It was a perfect morning, clear and cloudless, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> warm
+freshness of a day that means to be hotter later on. The sea sparkled
+in the sun. Little waves broke lazily on the grey sand. Jill closed
+her eyes, for the brightness of sun and water was trying; and her
+thoughts went back to what the Cherub had said.</p>
+
+<p>If Wally was really going to rewrite the play, they would be thrown
+together. She would be obliged to meet him, and she was not sure that
+she was ready to meet him. Still, he would be somebody to talk to on
+subjects other than the one eternal topic of the theatre, somebody who
+belonged to the old life. She had ceased to regard Freddie Rooke in
+this light; for Freddie, solemn with his new responsibilities as a
+principal, was the most whole-hearted devotee of "shop" in the
+company. Freddie nowadays declined to consider any subject for
+conversation that did not have to do with "The Rose of America" in
+general and his share in it in particular. Jill had given him up, and
+he had paired off with Nelly Bryant. The two were inseparable. Jill
+had taken one or two meals with them, but Freddie's professional
+monologues, of which Nelly seemed never to weary, were too much for
+her. As a result she was now very much alone. There were girls in the
+company whom she liked, but most of them had their own intimate
+friends, and she was always conscious of not being really wanted. She
+was lonely, and, after examining the matter as clearly as her tired
+mind would allow, she found herself curiously soothed by the thought
+that Wally would be near to mitigate her loneliness.</p>
+
+<p>She opened her eyes, blinking. Sleep had crept upon her with an
+insidious suddenness, and she had almost fallen over on the seat. She
+was just bracing herself to get up and begin the long tramp to the
+boarding-house, when a voice spoke at her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! Good morning!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Wally!"</p>
+
+<p>"Surprised to see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Milly Trevor said she had seen you at the rehearsal last night."</p>
+
+<p>Wally came round the bench and seated himself at her side. His eyes
+were tired, and his chin dark and bristly.</p>
+
+<p>"Had breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thanks. Have you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not yet. How are you feeling?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather tired."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder you're not dead. I've been through a good many
+dress-rehearsals, but this one was the record. Why they couldn't have
+had it comfortably in New York and just have run through the piece
+without scenery last night, I don't know, except that in musical
+comedy it's etiquette always to do the most inconvenient thing. They
+know perfectly well that there was no chance of getting the scenery
+into the theatre till the small hours. You must be worn out. Why
+aren't you in bed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't face the walk. I suppose I ought to be going, though."</p>
+
+<p>She half rose, then sank back again. The glitter of the water
+hypnotized her. She closed her eyes again. She could hear Wally
+speaking, then his voice grew suddenly faint and far off, and she
+ceased to fight the delicious drowsiness.</p>
+
+<p>Jill awoke with a start. She opened her eyes, and shut them again at
+once. The sun was very strong now. It was one of those prematurely
+warm days of early Spring which have all the languorous heat of late
+summer. She opened her eyes once more, and found that she was feeling
+greatly refreshed. She also discovered that her head was resting on
+Wally's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I been asleep?"</p>
+
+<p>Wally laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been having what you might call a nap." He massaged his left
+arm vigorously. "You needed it. Do you feel more rested now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious! Have I been squashing your poor arm all the time? Why
+didn't you move?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid you would fall over. You just shut your eyes and toppled
+sideways."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the time?"</p>
+
+<p>Wally looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Just on ten."</p>
+
+<p>"Ten!" Jill was horrified. "Why, I have been giving you cramp for
+about three hours! You must have had an awful time!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it was all right. I think I dozed off myself. Except that the
+birds didn't come and cover us with leaves; it was rather like the
+'Babes in the Wood.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But you haven't had any breakfast! Aren't you starving?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not saying I wouldn't spear a fried egg with some vim if it
+happened to float past. But there's plenty of time for that. Lots of
+doctors say you oughtn't to eat breakfast, and Indian fakirs go
+without food for days at a time in order to develop their souls. Shall
+I take you back to wherever you're staying? You ought to get a proper
+sleep in bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't dream of taking me. Go off and have something to eat."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that can wait. I'd like to see you safely home."</p>
+
+<p>Jill was conscious of a renewed sense of his comfortingness. There was
+no doubt about it, Wally was different from any other man she had
+known. She suddenly felt guilty, as if she were obtaining something
+valuable under false pretences.</p>
+
+<p>"Wally!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo?"</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you oughtn't to be so good to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! Where's the harm in lending a hand&mdash;or, rather, an arm&mdash;to
+a pal in trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I mean. I can't ... that is to say ... it isn't as
+though ... I mean...."</p>
+
+<p>Wally smiled a tired, friendly smile.</p>
+
+<p>"If you're trying to say what I think you're trying to say, don't! We
+had all that out two weeks ago. I quite understand the position. You
+mustn't worry yourself about it." He took her arm, and they crossed
+the boardwalk. "Are we going in the right direction? You lead the way.
+I know exactly how you feel. We're old friends, and nothing more. But,
+as an old friend, I claim the right to behave like an old friend. If
+an old friend can't behave like an old friend, how <i>can</i> an old friend
+behave? And now we'll rule the whole topic out of the conversation.
+But perhaps you're too tired for conversation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will tell you about the sad death of young Mr. Pilkington."</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when I say death, I use the word in a loose sense. The human
+giraffe still breathes, and I imagine, from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> speed with which he
+legged it back to his hotel when we parted, that he still takes
+nourishment. But really he is dead. His heart is broken. We had a
+conference after the dress-rehearsal, and our friend Mr. Goble told
+him in no uncertain words&mdash;in the whole course of my experience I have
+never heard words less uncertain&mdash;that his damned rotten high-brow
+false-alarm of a show&mdash;I am quoting Mr. Goble&mdash;would have to be
+rewritten by alien hands. And these are them! On the right, alien
+right hand. On the left, alien left hand. Yes, I am the instrument
+selected for the murder of Pilkington's artistic aspirations. I'm
+going to rewrite the show. In fact, I have already rewritten the first
+act and most of the second. Goble foresaw this contingency and told me
+to get busy two weeks ago, and I've been working hard ever since. We
+shall start rehearsing the new version to-morrow and open in Baltimore
+next Monday with practically a different piece. And it's going to be a
+pippin, believe <i>me</i>, said our hero modestly. A gang of composers has
+been working in shifts for two weeks, and, by chucking out nearly all
+of the original music, we shall have a good score. It means a lot of
+work for you, I'm afraid. All the business of the numbers will have to
+be re-arranged."</p>
+
+<p>"I like work," said Jill. "But I'm sorry for Mr. Pilkington."</p>
+
+<p>"He's all right. He owns seventy per cent of the show. He may make a
+fortune. He's certain to make a comfortable sum. That is, if he
+doesn't sell out his interest in pique&mdash;or dudgeon, if you prefer it.
+From what he said at the close of the proceedings, I fancy he would
+sell out to anybody who asked him. At least, he said that he washed
+his hands of the piece. He's going back to New York this
+afternoon&mdash;won't even wait for the opening. Of course, <i>I'm</i> sorry for
+the poor chap in a way, but he had no right, with the excellent
+central idea which he got, to turn out such a rotten book. Oh, by the
+way!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Another tragedy! Unavoidable, but pathetic. Poor old Freddie! He's
+out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"Out!" repeated Wally firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"But didn't you think he was good last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was awful! But that isn't why. Goble wanted his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> part rewritten as
+a Scotchman, so as to get McAndrew, the fellow who made such a hit
+last season in 'Hoots, Mon!' That sort of thing is always happening in
+musical comedy. You have to fit parts to suit whatever good people
+happen to be available at the moment. My heart bleeds for Freddie, but
+what can one do? At any rate he isn't so badly off as a fellow was in
+one of my shows. In the second act he was supposed to have escaped
+from an asylum, and the management, in a passion for realism, insisted
+that he should shave his head. The day after he shaved it, they heard
+that a superior comedian was disengaged and fired him. It's a ruthless
+business."</p>
+
+<p>"The girls were saying that one of us would be dismissed."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I shouldn't think that's likely."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I. What are we stopping for?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill had halted in front of a shabby-looking house, one of those
+depressing buildings which spring up overnight at seashore resorts and
+start to decay the moment the builders have left them.</p>
+
+<p>"I live here."</p>
+
+<p>"Here?" Wally looked at her in consternation. "But...."</p>
+
+<p>Jill smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"We working-girls have got to economize. Besides, it's quite
+comfortable&mdash;fairly comfortable&mdash;inside, and it's only for a week."
+She yawned. "I believe I'm falling asleep again. I'd better hurry in
+and go to bed. Good-bye, Wally dear. You've been wonderful. Mind you
+go and get a good breakfast."</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>When Jill arrived at the theatre at four o'clock for the chorus
+rehearsal, the expected blow had not fallen. No steps had apparently
+been taken to eliminate the thirteenth girl whose presence in the cast
+preyed on Mr. Goble's superstitious mind. But she found her colleagues
+still in a condition of pessimistic foreboding. "Wait!" was the gloomy
+watchword of "The Rose of America" chorus.</p>
+
+<p>The rehearsal passed off without event. It lasted until six o'clock,
+when Jill, the Cherub, and two or three of the other girls went to
+snatch a hasty dinner before returning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> to the theatre to make up. It
+was not a cheerful meal. Reaction had set in after the over-exertion
+of the previous night, and it was too early for first-night excitement
+to take its place. Everybody, even the Cherub, whose spirits seldom
+failed her, was depressed, and the idea of an overhanging doom had
+grown. It seemed now to be merely a question of speculating on the
+victim, and the conversation gave Jill, as the last addition to the
+company, and so the cause of swelling the ranks of the chorus to the
+unlucky number, a feeling of guilt. She was glad when it was time to
+go back to the theatre.</p>
+
+<p>The moment she and her companions entered the dressing-room, it was
+made clear to them that the doom had fallen. In a chair in the corner,
+all her pretence and affectation swept away in a flood of tears, sat
+the unhappy Duchess, the centre of a group of girls anxious to
+console, but limited in their ideas of consolation to an occasional
+pat on the back and an offer of a fresh pocket-handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"It's tough, honey!" somebody was saying as Jill came in.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody else said it was fierce, and a third girl declared it to be
+the limit. A fourth girl, well-meaning but less helpful than she would
+have liked to be, was advising the victim not to worry.</p>
+
+<p>The story of the disaster was brief and easily told. The Duchess,
+sailing in at the stage-door, had paused at the letterbox to see if
+Cuthbert, her faithful auto-salesman, had sent her a good-luck
+telegram. He had, but his good wishes were unfortunately neutralized
+by the fact that the very next letter in the box was one from the
+management, crisp and to the point, informing the Duchess that her
+services would not be required that night or thereafter. It was the
+subtle meanness of the blow that roused the indignation of "The Rose
+of America" chorus, the cunning villainy with which it had been timed.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Mae, if she'd opened to-night, they'd have had to give her two
+weeks' notice or her salary. But they can fire her without a cent just
+because she's only been rehearsing and hasn't given a show!"</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess burst into fresh flood of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry, honey!" advised the well-meaning girl who would have
+been in her element looking in on Job with Bildad the Shuhite and his
+friends. "Don't you worry!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It's tough!" said the girl who had adopted that form of verbal
+consolation.</p>
+
+<p>"It's fierce!" said the girl who preferred that adjective.</p>
+
+<p>The other girl, with an air of saying something new, repeated her
+statement that it was the limit. The Duchess cried forlornly
+throughout. She had needed this engagement badly. Chorus salaries are
+not stupendous, but it is possible to save money by means of them
+during a New York run, especially if you have spent three years in a
+milliner's shop and can make your own clothes, as the Duchess, in
+spite of her air of being turned out by Fifth Avenue modistes, could
+and did. She had been looking forward, now that this absurd piece was
+to be rewritten by someone who knew his business and had a good chance
+of success, to putting by just those few dollars that make all the
+difference when you are embarking on married life. Cuthbert, for all
+his faithfulness, could not hold up the financial end of the
+establishment unsupported for at least another eighteen months; and
+this disaster meant that the wedding would have to be postponed again.
+So the Duchess, abandoning that aristocratic manner criticized by some
+of her colleagues as "up-stage" and by others as "Ritz-y," sat in her
+chair and consumed pocket-handkerchiefs as fast as they were offered
+to her.</p>
+
+<p>Jill had been the only girl in the room who had spoken no word of
+consolation. This was not because she was not sorry for the Duchess.
+She had never been sorrier for any one in her life. The pathos of that
+swift descent from haughtiness to misery had bitten deep into her
+sensitive heart. But she revolted at the idea of echoing the banal
+words of the others. Words were no good, she thought, as she set her
+little teeth and glared at an absent management&mdash;a management just
+about now presumably distending itself with a luxurious dinner at one
+of the big hotels. Deeds were what she demanded. All her life she had
+been a girl of impulsive action, and she wanted to act impulsively
+now. She was in much the same Berserk mood as had swept her, raging,
+to the defence of Bill the parrot on the occasion of his dispute with
+Henry of London. The fighting spirit which had been drained from her
+by the all-night rehearsal had come back in full measure.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to <i>do</i>?" she cried. "Aren't you going to <i>do</i>
+something?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Do? The members of "The Rose of America" ensemble looked doubtfully at
+one another. Do? It had not occurred to them that there was anything
+to be done. These things happened, and you regretted them, but as for
+doing anything, well, what <i>could</i> you do?</p>
+
+<p>Jill's face was white and her eyes were flaming. She dominated the
+roomful of girls like a little Napoleon. The change in her startled
+them. Hitherto they had always looked on her as rather an unusually
+quiet girl. She had always made herself unobtrusively pleasant to them
+all. They all liked her. But they had never suspected her of
+possessing this militant quality. Nobody spoke, but there was a
+general stir. She had flung a new idea broadcast, and it was beginning
+to take root. Do something? Well, if it came to that, why not?</p>
+
+<p>"We ought all to refuse to go on to-night unless they let her go on!"
+Jill declared.</p>
+
+<p>The stir became a movement. Enthusiasm is catching, and every girl is
+at heart a rebel. And the idea was appealing to the imagination.
+Refuse to give a show on the opening night! Had a chorus ever done
+such a thing? They trembled on the verge of making history.</p>
+
+<p>"Strike?" quavered somebody at the back.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, strike!" cried Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"Hooray! That's the thtuff!" shouted the Cherub, and turned the scale.
+She was a popular girl, and her adherence to the Cause confirmed the
+doubters. "Thtrike!"</p>
+
+<p>"Strike! Strike!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill turned to the Duchess, who had been gaping amazedly at the
+demonstration. She no longer wept, but she seemed in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>"Dress and get ready to go on," Jill commanded. "We'll all dress and
+get ready to go on. Then I'll go and find Mr. Goble and tell him what
+we mean to do. And, if he doesn't give in, we'll stay here in this
+room, and there won't be a performance!"</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+<p>Mr. Goble, with a Derby hat on the back of his head and an unlighted
+cigar in the corner of his mouth, was superintending the erection of
+the first act set when Jill found him. He was standing with his back
+to the safety-curtain glower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>ing at a blue canvas, supposed to
+represent one of those picturesque summer skies which you get at the
+best places on Long Island. Jill, coming down-stage from the staircase
+that led to the dressing-room, interrupted his line of vision.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of the light!" bellowed Mr. Goble, always a man of direct
+speech, adding "Damn you!" for good measure.</p>
+
+<p>"Please move to one side," interpreted the stage-director. "Mr. Goble
+is looking at the set."</p>
+
+<p>The head carpenter, who completed the little group, said nothing.
+Stage carpenters always say nothing. Long association with fussy
+directors has taught them that the only policy to pursue on opening
+nights is to withdraw into the silence, wrap themselves up in it, and
+not emerge until the enemy has grown tired and gone off to worry
+somebody else.</p>
+
+<p>"It don't look right!" said Mr. Goble, cocking his head on one side.</p>
+
+<p>"I see what you mean, Mr. Goble," assented the stage-director
+obsequiously. "It has perhaps a little too much&mdash;er&mdash;not quite
+enough&mdash;yes, I see what you mean!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's too&mdash;damn&mdash;BLUE!" rasped Mr. Goble, impatient of the vacillating
+criticism. "That's what's the matter with it."</p>
+
+<p>The head carpenter abandoned the silent policy of a lifetime. He felt
+impelled to utter. He was a man who, when not at the theatre, spent
+most of his time in bed, reading all-fiction magazines; but it so
+happened that once, last summer, he had actually seen the sky; and he
+considered that this entitled him to speak almost as a specialist on
+the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Ther sky <i>is</i> blue!" he observed huskily. "Yessir! I seen it!"</p>
+
+<p>He passed into the silence again, and, to prevent a further lapse,
+stopped up his mouth with a piece of chewing-gum.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble regarded the silver-tongued orator wrathfully. He was not
+accustomed to chatterboxes arguing with him like this. He would
+probably have said something momentous and crushing, but at this point
+Jill intervened.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Goble."</p>
+
+<p>The manager swung round on her.</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>is</i> it?"</p>
+
+<p>It is sad to think how swiftly affection can change to dislike in this
+world. Two weeks before, Mr. Goble had looked on Jill with favour. She
+had seemed good in his eyes. But that refusal of hers to lunch with
+him, followed by a refusal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> some days later to take a bit of supper
+somewhere, had altered his views on feminine charm. If it had been
+left to him, as most things were about this theatre, to decide which
+of the thirteen girls should be dismissed, he would undoubtedly have
+selected Jill. But at this stage in the proceedings there was the
+unfortunate necessity of making concessions to the temperamental
+Johnson Miller. Mr. Goble was aware that the dance-director's services
+would be badly needed in the re-arrangement of the numbers during the
+coming week or so, and he knew that there were a dozen managers
+waiting eagerly to welcome him if he threw up his present job, so he
+had been obliged to approach him in quite a humble spirit and enquire
+which of his female chorus could be most easily spared. And, as the
+Duchess had a habit of carrying her haughty languor on to the stage
+and employing it as a substitute for the chorea which was Mr. Miller's
+ideal, the dance-director had chosen her. To Mr. Goble's dislike of
+Jill, therefore, was added now something of the fury of the baffled
+potentate.</p>
+
+<p>"'Jer want?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Goble is extremely busy," said the stage-director. "Extremely."</p>
+
+<p>A momentary doubt as to the best way of approaching her subject had
+troubled Jill on her way downstairs, but, now that she was on the
+battlefield confronting the enemy, she found herself cool, collected,
+and full of a cold rage which steeled her nerves without confusing her
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to ask you to let Mae D'Arcy go on to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Who the hell's Mae D'Arcy?" Mr. Goble broke off to bellow at a
+scene-shifter who was depositing the wall of Mrs. Stuyvesant van
+Dyke's Long Island residence too far down stage. "Not there, you fool!
+Higher up!"</p>
+
+<p>"You gave her notice this evening," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"We want you to withdraw it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's 'we'?"</p>
+
+<p>"The other girls and myself."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble jerked his head so violently that the Derby hat flew off, to
+be picked up, dusted, and restored by the stage-director.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so you don't like it? Well, you know what you can do...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Jill, "we do. We are going to strike."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't let Mae go on, we shan't go on. There won't be a
+performance to-night, unless you like to give one without a chorus."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. But we're quite unanimous."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble, like most theatrical managers, was not good at words over
+two syllables.</p>
+
+<p>"You're what?"</p>
+
+<p>"We've talked it over, and we've all decided to do what I said."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble's hat shot off again, and gambolled away into the wings,
+with the stage-director bounding after it like a retriever.</p>
+
+<p>"Whose idea's this?" demanded Mr. Goble. His eyes were a little foggy,
+for his brain was adjusting itself but slowly to the novel situation.</p>
+
+<p>"Mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yours! I thought as much!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Jill, "I'll go back and tell them that you will not do
+what we ask. We will keep our make-up on in case you change your
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>She turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill proceeded toward the staircase. As she went, a husky voice spoke
+in her ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Go to it, kid! You're all right!"</p>
+
+<p>The head-carpenter had broken his Trappist vows twice in a single
+evening, a thing which had not happened to him since the night three
+years ago, when, sinking wearily into a seat in a dark corner for a
+bit of a rest, he found that one of his assistants had placed a pot of
+red paint there.</p>
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+<p>To Mr. Goble, fermenting and full of strange oaths, entered Johnson
+Miller. The dance-director was always edgey on first nights, and
+during the foregoing conversation had been flitting about the stage
+like a white-haired moth. His deafness had kept him in complete
+ignorance that there was anything untoward afoot, and he now
+approached Mr. Goble with his watch in his hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Eight twenty-five," he observed. "Time those girls were on stage."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble, glad of a concrete target for his wrath, cursed him in
+about two hundred and fifty rich and well-selected words.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh?" said Miller, hand to ear.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble repeated the last hundred and eleven words, the pick of the
+bunch.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't hear!" said Mr. Miller regretfully. "Got a cold."</p>
+
+<p>The grave danger that Mr. Goble, a thick-necked man, would undergo
+some sort of a stroke was averted by the presence of mind of the
+stage-director, who, returning with the hat, presented it like a
+bouquet to his employer, and then, his hands being now unoccupied,
+formed them into a funnel and through this flesh-and-blood megaphone
+endeavoured to impart the bad news.</p>
+
+<p>"The girls say they won't go on!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>said</i> it was time they were on."</p>
+
+<p>"They're on strike!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not," said Mr. Miller austerely, "what they <i>like</i>, it's what
+they're paid for. They ought to be on stage. We should be ringing up
+in two minutes."</p>
+
+<p>The stage-director drew another breath, then thought better of it. He
+had a wife and children, and, if dadda went under with apoplexy, what
+became of the home, civilization's most sacred product? He relaxed the
+muscles of his diaphragm, and reached for pencil and paper.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller inspected the message, felt for his spectacle-case, found
+it, opened it, took out his glasses, replaced the spectacle-case, felt
+for his handkerchief, polished the glasses, replaced the handkerchief,
+put the glasses on, and read. A blank look came into his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>The stage-director, with a nod of the head intended to imply that he
+must be patient and all would come right in the future, recovered the
+paper, and scribbled another sentence. Mr. Miller perused it.</p>
+
+<p>"Because Mae D'Arcy has got her notice?" he queried, amazed. "But the
+girl can't dance a step."</p>
+
+<p>The stage-director, by means of a wave of the hand, a lifting of both
+eyebrows, and a wrinkling of the nose, replied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> that the situation,
+unreasonable as it might appear to the thinking man, was as he had
+stated and must be faced. What, he enquired&mdash;through the medium of a
+clever drooping of the mouth and a shrug of the shoulders&mdash;was to be
+done about it?</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller remained for a moment in meditation.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go and talk to them," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He flitted off, and the stage-director leaned back against the
+asbestos curtain. He was exhausted, and his throat was in agony, but
+nevertheless he was conscious of a feeling of quiet happiness. His
+life had been lived in the shadow of the constant fear that some day
+Mr. Goble might dismiss him. Should that disaster occur, he felt there
+was always a future for him in the movies.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had Mr. Miller disappeared on his peace-making errand, when
+there was a noise like a fowl going through a quickset hedge, and Mr.
+Saltzburg, brandishing his baton as if he were conducting an unseen
+orchestra, plunged through the scenery at the left upper entrance and
+charged excitedly down the stage. Having taken his musicians twice
+through the overture, he had for ten minutes been sitting in silence,
+waiting for the curtain to go up. At last, his emotional nature
+cracking under the strain of this suspense, he had left his
+conductor's chair and plunged down under the stage by way of the
+musician's bolthole to ascertain what was causing the delay.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?" enquired Mr.
+Saltzburg. "I wait and wait and wait and wait and wait.... We cannot
+play the overture again. What is it? What has happened?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble, that overwrought soul, had betaken himself to the wings
+where he was striding up and down with his hands behind his back,
+chewing his cigar. The stage-director braced himself once more to the
+task of explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"The girls have struck!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg blinked through his glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"The girls?" he repeated blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, damn it!" cried the stage-director, his patience at last giving
+way. "You know what a girl is, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Struck! Walked out on us! Refused to go on!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg reeled under the blow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But it is impossible! Who is to sing the opening chorus?"</p>
+
+<p>In the presence of one to whom he could relieve his mind without fear
+of consequences, the stage-director became savagely jocular.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all arranged," he said. "We're going to dress the carpenters
+in skirts. The audience won't notice anything wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Should I speak to Mr. Goble?" queried Mr. Saltzburg doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you don't value your life," returned the stage-director.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saltzburg pondered.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go and speak to the childrun," he said. "I will talk to them.
+They know <i>me</i>! I will make them be reasonable."</p>
+
+<p>He bustled off in the direction taken by Mr. Miller, his coat-tails
+flying behind him. The stage-director, with a tired sigh, turned to
+face Wally, who had come in through the iron pass-door from the
+auditorium.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" said Wally cheerfully. "Going strong? How's everybody at
+home? Fine? So am I! By the way, am I wrong or did I hear something
+about a theatrical entertainment of some sort here to-night?" He
+looked about him at the empty stage. In the wings, on the prompt side,
+could be discerned the flannel-clad forms of the gentlemanly members
+of the male ensemble, all dressed up for Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke's
+tennis party. One or two of the principals were standing perplexedly
+in the lower entrance. The O.P. side had been given over by general
+consent to Mr. Goble for his perambulations. Every now and then he
+would flash into view through an opening in the scenery. "I understood
+that to-night was the night for the great revival of comic opera.
+Where are the comics, and why aren't they opping?"</p>
+
+<p>The stage-director repeated his formula once more.</p>
+
+<p>"The girls have struck!"</p>
+
+<p>"So have the clocks," said Wally. "It's past nine."</p>
+
+<p>"The chorus refuse to go on."</p>
+
+<p>"No, really! Just artistic loathing of the rotten piece, or is there
+some other reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're sore because one of them has been given her notice, and they
+say they won't give a show unless she's taken back. They've struck.
+That Mariner girl started it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She did!" Wally's interest became keener. "She would!" he said
+approvingly. "She's a heroine!"</p>
+
+<p>"Little devil! I never liked that girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now there," said Wally, "is just the point on which we differ. I have
+always liked her, and I've known her all my life. So, shipmate, if you
+have any derogatory remarks to make about Miss Mariner, keep them
+where they belong&mdash;<i>there</i>!" He prodded the other sharply in the
+stomach. He was smiling pleasantly, but the stage-director, catching
+his eye, decided that his advice was good and should be followed. It
+is just as bad for the home if the head of the family gets his neck
+broken as if he succumbs to apoplexy.</p>
+
+<p>"You surely aren't on their side?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Me!" said Wally. "Of course I am. I'm always on the side of the
+down-trodden and oppressed. If you know of a dirtier trick than firing
+a girl just before the opening, so that they won't have to pay her two
+weeks' salary, mention it. Till you do, I'll go on believing that it
+is the limit. Of course I'm on the girls' side. I'll make them a
+speech if they want me to, or head the procession with a banner if
+they are going to parade down the boardwalk. I'm for 'em, Father
+Abraham, a hundred thousand strong. And then a few! If you want my
+considered opinion, our old friend Goble has asked for it and got it.
+And I'm glad&mdash;glad&mdash;glad, if you don't mind my quoting Pollyanna for a
+moment. I hope it chokes him!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better not let him hear you talking like that!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Au contraire</i>, as we say in the Gay City, I'm going to make a point
+of letting him hear me talk like that! Adjust the impression that I
+fear any Goble in shining armour, because I don't. I propose to speak
+my mind to him. I would beard him in his lair, if he had a beard.
+Well, I'll clean-shave him in his lair. That will be just as good. But
+hist! whom have we here? Tell me, do you see the same thing I see?"</p>
+
+<p>Like the vanguard of a defeated army, Mr. Saltzburg was coming
+dejectedly across the stage.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said the stage-director.</p>
+
+<p>"They would not listen to me," said Mr. Saltzburg brokenly. "The more
+I talked the more they did not listen!" He winced at a painful memory.
+"Miss Trevor stole my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> baton, and then they all lined up and sang the
+'Star-Spangled Banner'!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the words?" cried Wally incredulously. "Don't tell me they knew
+the words!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Miller is still up there, arguing with them. But it will be of no
+use. What shall we do?" asked Mr. Saltzburg helplessly. "We ought to
+have rung up half an hour ago. What shall we do-oo-oo?"</p>
+
+<p>"We must go and talk to Goble," said Wally. "Something has got to be
+settled quick. When I left, the audience was getting so impatient that
+I thought he was going to walk out on us. He's one of those nasty,
+determined-looking men. So come along!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble, intercepted as he was about to turn for another walk
+up-stage, eyed the deputation sourly and put the same question that
+the stage-director had put to Mr. Saltzburg.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>Wally came briskly to the point.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to give in," he said, "or else go and make a speech to
+the audience, the burden of which will be that they can have their
+money back by applying at the box-office. These Joans of Arc have got
+you by the short hairs!"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't give in!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then give out!" said Wally. "Or pay out, if you prefer it. Trot along
+and tell the audience that the four dollars fifty in the house will be
+refunded."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble gnawed his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been in the show business fifteen years...."</p>
+
+<p>"I know. And this sort of thing has never happened to you before. One
+gets new experiences."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble cocked his cigar at a fierce angle, and glared at Wally.
+Something told him that Wally's sympathies were not wholly with him.</p>
+
+<p>"They can't do this sort of thing to <i>me</i>!" he growled.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they are doing it to someone, aren't they," said Wally, "and,
+if it's not you, who is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've a damned good mind to fire them all!"</p>
+
+<p>"A corking idea! I can't see a single thing wrong with it except that
+it would hang up the production for another five weeks and lose you
+your bookings and cost you a week's rent of this theatre for nothing
+and mean having all the dresses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> made over and lead to all your
+principals going off and getting other jobs. These trifling things
+apart, we may call the suggestion a bright one."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk too damn much!" said Mr. Goble, eyeing him with distaste.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go on, <i>you</i> say something. Something sensible."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a very serious situation...." began the stage-director.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shut up!" said Mr. Goble.</p>
+
+<p>The stage-director subsided into his collar.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot play the overture again," protested Mr. Saltzburg. "I
+cannot!"</p>
+
+<p>At this point Mr. Miller appeared. He was glad to see Mr. Goble. He
+had been looking for him, for he had news to impart.</p>
+
+<p>"The girls," said Mr. Miller, "have struck! They won't go on!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble, with the despairing gesture of one who realizes the
+impotence of words, dashed off for his favourite walk up stage. Wally
+took out his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Six seconds and a bit," he said approvingly, as the manager returned.
+"A very good performance. I should like to time you over the course in
+running-kit."</p>
+
+<p>The interval for reflection, brief as it had been, had apparently
+enabled Mr. Goble to come to a decision.</p>
+
+<p>"Go," he said to the stage-director, "and tell 'em that fool of a
+D'Arcy girl can play. We've got to get that curtain up."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Goble."</p>
+
+<p>The stage-director galloped off.</p>
+
+<p>"Get back to your place," said the manager to Mr. Saltzburg, "and play
+the overture again."</p>
+
+<p>"Again!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps they didn't hear it the first two times," said Wally.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble watched Mr. Saltzburg out of sight. Then he turned to Wally.</p>
+
+<p>"That damned Mariner girl was at the bottom of this! She started the
+whole thing! She told me so. Well, I'll settle <i>her</i>! She goes
+to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute," said Wally. "Wait one minute! Bright as it is, that
+idea is <i>out</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil has it got to do with you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Only this, that if you fire Miss Mariner, I take that neat script
+which I've prepared and I tear it into a thousand fragments. Or nine
+hundred. Anyway, I tear it. Miss Mariner opens in New York, or I pack
+up my work and leave."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble's green eyes glowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're stuck on her, are you?" he sneered. "I see!"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, dear heart," said Wally, gripping the manager's arm, "I can
+see that you are on the verge of introducing personalities into this
+very pleasant little chat. Resist the impulse! Why not let your spine
+stay where it is instead of having it kicked up through your hat? Keep
+to the main issue. Does Miss Mariner open in New York or does she
+not?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a tense silence. Mr. Goble permitted himself a swift review
+of his position. He would have liked to do many things to Wally,
+beginning with ordering him out of the theatre, but prudence
+restrained him. He wanted Wally's work. He needed Wally in his
+business: and, in the theatre, business takes precedence of personal
+feelings.</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" he growled reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a promise," said Wally. "I'll see that you keep it." He looked
+over his shoulder. The stage was filled with gaily-coloured dresses.
+The mutineers had returned to duty. "Well, I'll be getting along. I'm
+rather sorry we agreed to keep clear of personalities, because I
+should have liked to say that, if ever they have a skunk-show at
+Madison Square Garden, you ought to enter&mdash;and win the blue ribbon.
+Still, of course, under our agreement my lips are sealed, and I can't
+even hint at it. Good-bye. See you later, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble, giving a creditable imitation of a living statue, was
+plucked from his thoughts by a hand upon his arm. It was Mr. Miller,
+whose unfortunate ailment had prevented him from keeping abreast of
+the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say?" enquired Mr. Miller, interested. "I didn't hear
+what he said!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble made no effort to inform him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE COST OF A ROW</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>Otis Pilkington had left Atlantic City two hours after the conference
+which had followed the dress-rehearsal, firmly resolved never to go near
+"The Rose of America" again. He had been wounded in his finest feelings.
+There had been a moment, when Mr. Goble had given him the choice between
+having the piece rewritten and cancelling the production altogether, when
+he had inclined to the heroic course. But for one thing Mr. Pilkington
+would have defied the manager, refused to allow his script to be touched,
+and removed the play from his hands. That one thing was the fact that, up
+to the day of the dress-rehearsal, the expenses of the production had
+amounted to the appalling sum of thirty-two thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents, all of which had to come out of Mr.
+Pilkington's pocket. The figures, presented to him in a neatly typewritten
+column stretching over two long sheets of paper, had stunned him. He had
+had no notion that musical plays cost so much. The costumes alone had come
+to ten thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents, and
+somehow that odd fifty cents annoyed Otis Pilkington as much as anything
+on the list. A dark suspicion that Mr. Goble, who had seen to all the
+executive end of the business, had a secret arrangement with the costumer
+whereby he received a private rebate, deepened his gloom. Why, for ten
+thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents you could
+dress the whole female population of New York State and have a bit left
+over for Connecticut. So thought Mr. Pilkington, as he read the bad news
+in the train. He only ceased to brood upon the high cost of costuming when
+in the next line but one there smote his eye an item of four hundred and
+ninety-eight dollars for "Clothing." Clothing! Weren't costumes clothing?
+Why should he have to pay twice over for the same thing? Mr. Pilkington
+was just raging over this, when something lower down in the column caught
+his eye.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> It was the words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Clothing .... 187.45</p>
+
+<p>At this Otis Pilkington uttered a stifled cry, so sharp and so
+anguished that an old lady in the next seat, who was drinking a glass
+of milk, dropped it and had to refund the railway company thirty-five
+cents for breakages. For the remainder of the journey she sat with one
+eye warily on Mr. Pilkington, waiting for his next move.</p>
+
+<p>This adventure quieted Otis Pilkington down, if it did not soothe him.
+He returned blushingly to a perusal of his bill of costs, nearly every
+line of which contained some item that infuriated and dismayed him.
+"Shoes" ($213.50) he could understand, but what on earth was "Academy.
+Rehl. $105.50"? What was "Cuts ... $15"? And what in the name of
+everything infernal was this item for "Frames," in which mysterious
+luxury he had apparently indulged to the extent of ninety-four dollars
+and fifty cents? "Props" occurred on the list no fewer than seventeen
+times. Whatever his future, at whatever poor-house he might spend his
+declining years, he was supplied with enough props to last his
+lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>Otis Pilkington stared blankly at the scenery that flitted past the
+train windows. (Scenery! There had been two charges for scenery!
+"Friedmann, Samuel ... Scenery ... $3711" and "Unitt and Wickes ...
+Scenery ... $2120"). He was suffering the torments of the ruined
+gamester at the roulette-table. Thirty-two thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents! And he was out of pocket ten
+thousand in addition from the cheque he had handed over two days ago
+to Uncle Chris as his share of the investment of starting Jill in the
+motion-pictures. It was terrible! It deprived one of the power of
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>The power of thought, however, returned to Mr. Pilkington almost
+immediately, for, remembering suddenly that Roland Trevis had assured
+him that no musical production, except one of those elaborate
+girl-shows with a chorus of ninety, could possibly cost more than
+fifteen thousand dollars at an outside figure, he began to think about
+Roland Trevis, and continued to think about him until the train pulled
+into the Pennsylvania Station.</p>
+
+<p>For a week or more the stricken financier confined himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> mostly to
+his rooms, where he sat smoking cigarettes, gazing at Japanese prints,
+and trying not to think about "props" and "rehl." Then, gradually, the
+almost maternal yearning to see his brain-child once more, which can
+never be wholly crushed out of a young dramatist, returned to
+him&mdash;faintly at first, then getting stronger by degrees till it could
+no longer be resisted. Otis Pilkington, having instructed his Japanese
+valet to pack a few simple necessaries in a suit-case, took a cab to
+the Grand Central Station and caught an afternoon train for Rochester,
+where his recollection of the route planned for the tour told him "The
+Rose of America" would now be playing.</p>
+
+<p>Looking into his club on the way, to cash a cheque, the first person
+he encountered was Freddie Rooke.</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious!" said Otis Pilkington. "What are you doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie looked up dully from his reading. The abrupt stoppage of his
+professional career&mdash;his life-work, one might almost say&mdash;had left
+Freddie at a very loose end; and so hollow did the world seem to him
+at the moment, so uniformly futile all its so-called allurements,
+that, to pass the time, he had just been trying to read the <i>National
+Geographic Magazine</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" he said. "Well, might as well be here as anywhere, what?" he
+replied to the other's question.</p>
+
+<p>"But why aren't you playing?"</p>
+
+<p>"They sacked me! They've changed my part to a bally Scotchman! Well, I
+mean to say, I couldn't play a bally Scotchman!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington groaned in spirit. Of all the characters in his musical
+fantasy on which he prided himself, that of Lord Finchley was his pet.
+And he had been burked, murdered, blotted out, in order to make room
+for a bally Scotchman.</p>
+
+<p>"The character's called 'The McWhustle of McWhustle' now!" said
+Freddie sombrely.</p>
+
+<p>The McWhustle of McWhustle! Mr. Pilkington almost abandoned his trip
+to Rochester on receiving this devastating piece of information.</p>
+
+<p>"He comes on in Act One in kilts!"</p>
+
+<p>"In kilts! At Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke's garden-party! On Long
+Island!"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke any longer, either,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> said Freddie.
+"She's been changed to the wife of a pickle manufacturer."</p>
+
+<p>"A pickle manufacturer!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. They said it ought to be a comedy part."</p>
+
+<p>If agony had not caused Mr. Pilkington to clutch for support at the
+back of a chair, he would undoubtedly have wrung his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"But it <i>was</i> a comedy part!" he wailed. "It was full of the subtlest,
+most delicate satire on Society. They were delighted with it at
+Newport! Oh, this is too much! I shall make a strong protest! I shall
+insist on these parts being kept as I wrote them! I shall.... I must
+be going at once, or I shall miss my train." He paused at the door.
+"How was business in Baltimore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rotten!" said Freddie, and returned to his <i>National Geographic
+Magazine</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Otis Pilkington tottered into his cab. He was shattered by what he had
+heard. They had massacred his beautiful play and, doing so had not
+even made a success of it by their own sordid commercial lights.
+Business at Baltimore had been rotten! That meant more expense,
+further columns of figures with "frames" and "rehl." in front of them!
+He staggered into the station.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" cried the taxi-driver.</p>
+
+<p>Otis Pilkington turned.</p>
+
+<p>"Sixty-five cents, mister, if <i>you</i> please! Forgetting I'm not your
+private shovoor, wasn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington gave him a dollar. Money&mdash;money! Life was just one long
+round of paying out and paying out.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>The day which Mr. Pilkington had selected for his visit to the
+provinces was a Tuesday. "The Rose of America" had opened at Rochester
+on the previous night, after a week at Atlantic City in its original
+form and a week at Baltimore in what might be called its second
+incarnation. Business had been bad in Atlantic City and no better in
+Baltimore, and a meagre first-night house at Rochester had given the
+piece a cold reception, which had put the finishing touches to the
+depression of the company in spite of the fact that the Roches<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>ter
+critics, like those of Baltimore, had written kindly of the play. One
+of the maxims of the theatre is that "out-of-town notices don't
+count," and the company had refused to be cheered by them.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be doubted, however, if even crowded houses would have
+aroused much response from the principals and chorus of "The Rose of
+America." For two weeks without a break they had been working under
+forced draught, and they were weary in body and spirit. The new
+principals had had to learn parts in exactly half the time usually
+given for that purpose, and the chorus, after spending five weeks
+assimilating one set of steps and groupings, had been compelled to
+forget them and rehearse an entirely new set. From the morning after
+the first performance at Atlantic City, they had not left the theatre
+except for sketchy half-hour meals.</p>
+
+<p>Jill, standing listlessly in the wings while the scene-shifters
+arranged the Second Act set, was aware of Wally approaching from the
+direction of the pass-door.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Mariner, I believe?" said Wally. "I suppose you know you look
+perfectly wonderful in that dress? All Rochester's talking about it,
+and there is some idea of running excursion trains from Troy and
+Utica. A great stir it has made!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill smiled. Wally was like a tonic to her during these days of
+overwork. He seemed to be entirely unaffected by the general
+depression, a fact which he attributed himself to the happy accident
+of being in a position to sit back and watch the others toil. But in
+reality Jill knew that he was working as hard as any one. He was
+working all the time, changing scenes, adding lines, tinkering with
+lyrics, smoothing over principals whose nerves had become strained by
+the incessant rehearsing, keeping within bounds Mr. Goble's passion
+for being the big noise about the theatre. His cheerfulness was due to
+the spirit that was in him, and Jill appreciated it. She had come to
+feel very close to Wally since the driving rush of making over "The
+Rose of America" had begun.</p>
+
+<p>"They seemed quite calm to-night," she said. "I believe half of them
+were asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"They're always like that in Rochester. They cloak their deeper
+feelings. They wear the mask. But you can tell from the glassy look in
+their eyes that they are really seething in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>wardly. But what I came
+round about was&mdash;(a)&mdash;to give you this letter...."</p>
+
+<p>Jill took the letter, and glanced at the writing. It was from Uncle
+Chris. She placed it on the axe over the fire-buckets for perusal
+later.</p>
+
+<p>"The man at the box-office gave it to me," said Wally, "when I looked
+in there to find out how much money there was in the house to-night.
+The sum was so small that he had to whisper it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid the piece isn't a success."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! Of course it is! We're doing fine. That brings me to
+section (b) of my discourse. I met poor old Pilkington in the lobby,
+and he said exactly what you have just said, only at greater length."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Mr. Pilkington here?"</p>
+
+<p>"He appears to have run down on the afternoon train to have a look at
+the show. He is catching the next train back to New York! Whenever I
+meet him, he always seems to be dashing off to catch the next train
+back to New York! Poor chap! Have you ever done a murder? If you
+haven't, don't! I know exactly what it feels like, and it feels
+rotten! After two minutes' conversation with Pilkington, I could
+sympathize with Macbeth when he chatted with Banquo. He said I had
+killed his play. He nearly wept, and he drew such a moving picture of
+a poor helpless musical fantasy being lured into a dark alley by thugs
+and there slaughtered that he almost had me in tears too. I felt like
+a beetle-browed brute with a dripping knife and hands imbrued with
+innocent gore."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Mr. Pilkington!'</p>
+
+<p>"Once more you say exactly what he said, only more crisply. I
+comforted him as well as I could, told him all was for the best and so
+on, and he flung the box-office receipts in my face and said that the
+piece was as bad a failure commercially as it was artistically. I
+couldn't say anything to that, seeing what a house we've got to-night,
+except to bid him look out to the horizon where the sun will shortly
+shine. In other words, I told him that business was about to buck up
+and that later on he would be going about the place with a sprained
+wrist from clipping coupons. But he refused to be cheered, cursed me
+some more for ruining his piece, and ended by begging me to buy his
+share of it cheap."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You aren't going to?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am not&mdash;but simply and solely for the reason that, after that
+fiasco in London, I raised my right hand&mdash;thus&mdash;and swore an oath that
+never, as long as I lived, would I again put up a cent for a
+production, were it the most obvious cinch on earth. I'm gun-shy. But
+if he does happen to get hold of any one with a sporting disposition
+and a few thousands to invest, that person will make a fortune. This
+piece is going to be a gold-mine."</p>
+
+<p>Jill looked at him in surprise. With anybody else but Wally she would
+have attributed this confidence to author's vanity. But with Wally,
+she felt, the fact that the piece, as played now, was almost entirely
+his own work did not count. He viewed it dispassionately, and she
+could not understand why, in the face of half-empty houses, he should
+have such faith in it.</p>
+
+<p>"But what makes you think so? We've been doing awfully badly so far."</p>
+
+<p>Wally nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And we shall do awfully badly in Syracuse the last half of this week.
+And why? For one thing, because the show isn't a show at all at
+present. Why should people flock to pay for seats for what are
+practically dress-rehearsals of an unknown play? Half the principals
+have had to get up in their parts in two weeks, and they haven't had
+time to get anything out of them. They are groping for their lines all
+the time. The girls can't let themselves go in the numbers, because
+they are wondering if they are going to remember the steps. The show
+hasn't had time to click together yet. It's just ragged. Take a look
+at it in another two weeks! I <i>know</i>! I don't say musical comedy is a
+very lofty form of art, but still there's a certain amount of science
+about it. If you go in for it long enough, you learn the tricks, and
+take it from me that, if you have a good cast and some catchy numbers
+it's almost impossible not to have a success. We've got an excellent
+cast now, and the numbers are fine. I tell you&mdash;as I tried to tell
+Pilkington, only he wouldn't listen&mdash;that this show is all right.
+There's a fortune in it for somebody. But I suppose Pilkington is now
+sitting in the smoking-car of an east-bound train, trying to get the
+porter to accept his share in the piece instead of a tip!"</p>
+
+<p>If Otis Pilkington was not actually doing that, he was doing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
+something like it. Sunk in gloom, he bumped up and down on an
+uncomfortable seat, wondering why he had ever taken the trouble to
+make the trip to Rochester. He had found exactly what he had expected
+to find, a mangled caricature of his brain-child playing to a house
+half empty and wholly indifferent. The only redeeming feature, he
+thought vindictively, as he remembered what Roland Trevis had said
+about the cost of musical productions, was the fact that the new
+numbers were undoubtedly better than those which his collaborator had
+originally supplied.</p>
+
+<p>And "The Rose of America," after a disheartening Wednesday matinee and
+a not much better reception on the Wednesday night, packed its baggage
+and moved to Syracuse, where it failed just as badly. Then for another
+two weeks it wandered on from one small town to another, up and down
+New York State and through the doldrums of Connecticut, tacking to and
+fro like a storm-battered ship, till finally the astute and discerning
+citizens of Hartford welcomed it with such a reception that hardened
+principals stared at each other in a wild surmise, wondering if these
+things could really be: and a weary chorus forgot its weariness and
+gave encore after encore with a snap and vim which even Mr. Johnson
+Miller was obliged to own approximated to something like it. Nothing
+to touch the work of his choruses of the old days, of course, but
+nevertheless fair, quite fair.</p>
+
+<p>The spirits of the company revived. Optimism reigned. Principals
+smiled happily and said they had believed in the thing all along. The
+ladies and gentlemen of the ensemble chattered contentedly of a year's
+run in New York. And the citizens of Hartford fought for seats, and,
+if they could not get seats, stood up at the back.</p>
+
+<p>Of these things Otis Pilkington was not aware. He had sold his
+interest in the piece two weeks ago for ten thousand dollars to a
+lawyer acting for some client unknown, and was glad to feel that he
+had saved something out of the wreck.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>JILL RECEIVES NOTICE</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>The violins soared to one last high note; the bassoon uttered a final
+moan; the pensive person at the end of the orchestra-pit just under
+Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's box, whose duty it was to slam the drum at
+stated intervals, gave that much-enduring instrument a concluding
+wallop; and, laying aside his weapons, allowed his thoughts to stray
+in the direction of cooling drinks. Mr. Saltzburg lowered the baton
+which he had stretched quivering towards the roof and sat down and
+mopped his forehead. The curtain fell on the first act of "The Rose of
+America," and simultaneously tremendous applause broke out from all
+over the Gotham Theatre, which was crammed from floor to roof with
+that heterogeneous collection of humanity which makes up the audience
+of a New York opening performance. The applause continued like the
+breaking of waves on a stony beach. The curtain rose and fell, rose
+and fell, rose and fell again. An usher, stealing down the central
+aisle, gave to Mr. Saltzburg an enormous bouquet of American Beauty
+roses, which he handed to the prima donna, who took it with a
+brilliant smile and a bow, nicely combining humility with joyful
+surprise. The applause, which had begun to slacken, gathered strength
+again. It was a superb bouquet, nearly as big as Mr. Saltzburg
+himself. It had cost the prima donna close on a hundred dollars that
+morning at Thorley's, but it was worth every cent of the money.</p>
+
+<p>The house-lights went up. The audience began to move up the aisles to
+stretch its legs and discuss the piece during the intermission. There
+was a general babble of conversation. Here, a composer who had not got
+an interpolated number in the show was explaining to another composer
+who had not got an interpolated number in the show the exact source
+from which a third composer who had got an interpolated number in the
+show had stolen the number which he had got interpolated. There, two
+musical comedy artists who were temporarily resting were agreeing that
+the prima donna was a dear thing but that, contrary as it was to their
+life-long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> policy to knock anybody, they must say that she was
+beginning to show the passage of years a trifle and ought to be warned
+by some friend that her career as an <i>ing&eacute;nue</i> was a thing of the
+past. Dramatic critics, slinking in twos and threes into dark corners,
+were telling each other that "The Rose of America" was just another of
+those things but it had apparently got over. The general public was of
+the opinion that it was a knock-out.</p>
+
+<p>"Otie, darling," said Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim, leaning her ample
+shoulder on Uncle Chris' perfectly fitting sleeve and speaking across
+him to young Mr. Pilkington, "I do congratulate you, dear. It's
+perfectly delightful! I don't know when I have enjoyed a musical piece
+so much. Don't you think it's perfectly darling, Major Selby?"</p>
+
+<p>"Capital!" agreed that suave man of the world, who had been bored as
+near extinction as makes no matter. "Congratulate you, my boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"You clever, clever thing!" said Mrs. Peagrim, skittishly striking her
+nephew on the knee with her fan. "I'm proud to be your aunt! Aren't
+you proud to know him, Mr. Rooke?"</p>
+
+<p>The fourth occupant of the box awoke with a start from the species of
+stupor into which he had been plunged by the spectacle of the
+McWhustle of McWhustle in action. There had been other dark moments in
+Freddie's life. Once, back in London, Parker had sent him out into the
+heart of the West End without his spats and he had not discovered
+their absence till he was half-way up Bond Street. On another
+occasion, having taken on a stranger at squash for a quid a game, he
+had discovered too late that the latter was an ex-public-school
+champion. He had felt gloomy when he had learned of the breaking-off
+of the engagement between Jill Mariner and Derek Underhill, and sad
+when it had been brought to his notice that London was giving Derek
+the cold shoulder in consequence. But never in his whole career had he
+experienced such gloom and such sadness as had come to him that
+evening while watching this unspeakable person in kilts murder that
+part that should have been his. And the audience, confound them, had
+roared with laughter at every damn silly thing the fellow had said!</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" he replied. "Oh, yes, rather, absolutely!"</p>
+
+<p>"We're <i>all</i> proud of you, Otie darling," proceeded Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> Peagrim.
+"The piece is a wonderful success. You will make a fortune out of it.
+And just think, Major Selby, I tried my best to argue the poor, dear
+boy out of putting it on! I thought it was so rash to risk his money
+in a theatrical venture. But then," said Mrs. Peagrim in extenuation,
+"I had only seen the piece when it was done at my house at Newport,
+and of course it really was rather dreadful nonsense then! I might
+have known that you would change it a great deal before you put it on
+in New York. As I always say, plays are not written, they are
+rewritten! Why, you have improved this piece a hundred per cent, Otie!
+I wouldn't know it was the same play!"</p>
+
+<p>She slapped him smartly once more with her fan, ignorant of the gashes
+she was inflicting. Poor Mr. Pilkington was suffering twin torments,
+the torture of remorse and the agonized jealousy of the unsuccessful
+artist. It would have been bad enough to have to sit and watch a large
+audience rocking in its seats at the slap-stick comedy which Wally
+Mason had substituted for his delicate social satire: but, had this
+been all, at least he could have consoled himself with the sordid
+reflection that he, as owner of the piece, was going to make a lot of
+money out of it. Now, even this material balm was denied him. He had
+sold out, and he was feeling like the man who parts for a song with
+shares in an apparently goldless gold mine, only to read in the papers
+next morning that a new reef has been located. Into each life some
+rain must fall. Quite a shower was falling now into young Mr.
+Pilkington's.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," went on Mrs. Peagrim, "when the play was done at my
+house, it was acted by amateurs. And you know what amateurs are! The
+cast to-night is perfectly splendid. I do think that Scotchman is the
+most killing creature! Don't you think he is wonderful, Mr. Rooke?"</p>
+
+<p>We may say what we will against the upper strata of Society, but it
+cannot be denied that breeding tells. Only by falling back for support
+on the traditions of his class and the solid support of a gentle
+up-bringing was the Last of the Rookes able to crush down the words
+that leaped to his lips and to substitute for them a politely
+conventional agreement. If Mr. Pilkington was feeling like a too
+impulsive seller of gold mines, Freddie's emotions were akin to those
+of the Spartan boy with the fox under his vest. Nothing but Winchester
+and Magdalen could have produced the smile which,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> though twisted and
+confined entirely to his lips, flashed on to his face and off again at
+his hostess' question.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rather! Priceless!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't that part an Englishman before?" asked Mrs. Peagrim. "I
+thought so. Well, it was a stroke of genius changing it. This
+Scotchman is too funny for words. And such an artist!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie rose shakily. One can stand just so much.</p>
+
+<p>"Think," he mumbled, "I'll be pushing along and smoking a cigarette."</p>
+
+<p>He groped his way to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come with you, Freddie my boy," said Uncle Chris, who felt an
+imperative need of five minutes' respite from Mrs. Peagrim. "Let's get
+out into the air for a moment. Uncommonly warm it is here."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie assented. Air was what he felt he wanted most.</p>
+
+<p>Left alone in the box with her nephew, Mrs. Peagrim continued for some
+moments in the same vein, innocently twisting the knife in the open
+wound. It struck her from time to time that darling Otie was perhaps a
+shade unresponsive, but she put this down to the nervous strain
+inseparable from a first night of a young author's first play.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," she concluded, "you will make thousands and thousands of
+dollars out of this piece. I am sure it is going to be another 'Merry
+Widow.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You can't tell from a first night audience," said Mr. Pilkington
+sombrely, giving out a piece of theatrical wisdom he had picked up at
+rehearsals.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you can. It's so easy to distinguish polite applause from the
+real thing. No doubt many of the people down here have friends in the
+company or other reasons for seeming to enjoy the play, but look how
+the circle and the gallery were enjoying it! You can't tell me that
+that was not genuine. They love it. How hard," she proceeded
+commiseratingly, "you must have worked, poor boy, during the tour on
+the road to improve the piece so much! I never liked to say so before
+but even you must agree with me now that that original version of
+yours, which was done down at Newport, was the most terrible nonsense!
+And how hard the company must have worked too! Otie," cried Mrs.
+Peagrim, aglow with the magic of a brilliant idea, "I will tell you
+what you must really do. You must give a supper and dance to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
+whole company on the stage to-morrow night after the performance."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Otis Pilkington, startled out of his lethargy by this
+appalling suggestion. Was he, the man who, after planking down
+thirty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty, nine dollars, sixty-eight
+cents for "props" and "frames" and "rehl," had sold out for a paltry
+ten thousand, to be still further victimized?</p>
+
+<p>"They do deserve it, don't they, after working so hard?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's impossible," said Otis Pilkington vehemently. "Out of the
+question."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Otie, darling, I was talking to Mr. Mason when he came down to
+Newport to see the piece last summer, and he told me that the
+management nearly always gives a supper to the company, especially if
+they have had a lot of extra rehearsing to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let Goble give them a supper if he wants to."</p>
+
+<p>"But you know that Mr. Goble, though he has his name on the programme
+as the manager, has really nothing to do with it. You own the piece,
+don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Mr. Pilkington felt an impulse to reveal all, but
+refrained. He knew his Aunt Olive too well. If she found out that he
+had parted at a heavy loss with this valuable property, her whole
+attitude towards him would change&mdash;or, rather it would revert to her
+normal attitude, which was not unlike that of a severe nurse to a
+weak-minded child. Even in his agony there had been a certain faint
+consolation, due to the entirely unwonted note of respect in the voice
+with which she had addressed him since the fall of the curtain. He
+shrank from forfeiting this respect, unentitled though he was to it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said in his precise voice. "That, of course, is so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then!" said Mrs. Peagrim.</p>
+
+<p>"But it seems so unnecessary! And think what it would cost."</p>
+
+<p>This was a false step. Some of the reverence left Mrs. Peagrim's
+voice, and she spoke a little coldly. A gay and gallant spender
+herself, she had often had occasion to rebuke a tendency to
+over-parsimony in her nephew.</p>
+
+<p>"We must not be mean, Otie!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington keenly resented her choice of pronouns.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> "We" indeed!
+Who was going to foot the bill? Both of them, hand in hand, or he
+alone, the chump, the boob, the easy mark who got this sort of thing
+wished on him!</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it would be possible to get the stage for a
+supper-party," he pleaded, shifting his ground. "Goble wouldn't give
+it to us."</p>
+
+<p>"As if Mr. Goble would refuse you anything after you have written a
+wonderful success for this theatre! And isn't he getting his share of
+the profits? Directly after the performance you must go round and ask
+him. Of course he will be delighted to give you the stage. I will be
+hostess," said Mrs. Peagrim radiantly. "And now, let me see, whom
+shall we invite?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington stared gloomily at the floor, too bowed down by his
+weight of cares to resent the "we," which had plainly come to stay. He
+was trying to estimate the size of the gash which this preposterous
+entertainment would cleave in the Pilkington bank-roll. He doubted if
+it was possible to go through with it under five hundred dollars; and,
+if, as seemed only too probable, Mrs. Peagrim took the matter in hand
+and gave herself her head, it might get into four figures.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Selby, of course," said Mrs. Peagrim musingly, with a cooing
+note in her voice. Long since had that polished man of affairs made a
+deep impression upon her. "Of course Major Selby, for one. And Mr.
+Rooke. Then there are one or two of my friends who would be hurt if
+they were left out. How about Mr. Mason? Isn't he a friend of yours?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington snorted. He had endured much and was prepared to endure
+more, but he drew the line at squandering his money on the man who had
+sneaked up behind his brain-child with a hatchet and chopped its
+precious person into little bits.</p>
+
+<p>"He is <i>not</i> a friend of mine," he said stiffly, "and I do not wish
+him to be invited!"</p>
+
+<p>Having attained her main objective, Mrs. Peagrim was prepared to yield
+minor points.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, if you do not like him," she said. "But I thought he was
+quite an intimate of yours. It was you who asked me to invite him to
+Newport last summer."</p>
+
+<p>"Much," said Mr. Pilkington coldly, "has happened since last summer."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Peagrim again. "Then we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> will not include
+Mr. Mason. Now, directly the curtain has fallen, Otie dear, pop right
+round and find Mr. Goble and tell him what you want."</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>It is not only twin-souls in this world who yearn to meet each other.
+Between Otis Pilkington and Mr. Goble there was little in common, yet,
+at the moment when Otis set out to find Mr. Goble, the thing which Mr.
+Goble desired most in the world was an interview with Otis. Since the
+end of the first act, the manager had been in a state of mental
+upheaval. Reverting to the gold-mine simile again, Mr. Goble was in
+the position of a man who has had a chance of purchasing such a mine
+and now, learning too late of the discovery of the reef, is feeling
+the truth of the poet's dictum that "of all sad words of tongue or
+pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.'" The electric
+success of "The Rose of America" had stunned Mr. Goble; and realizing,
+as he did, that he might have bought Otis Pilkington's share dirt
+cheap at almost any point of the preliminary tour, he was having a bad
+half hour with himself. The only ray in the darkness which brooded on
+his indomitable soul was the thought that it might still be possible,
+by getting hold of Mr. Pilkington before the notices appeared, and
+shaking his head sadly and talking about the misleading hopes which
+young authors so often draw from an enthusiastic first-night reception
+and impressing upon him that first-night receptions do not deceive
+your expert who has been fifteen years in the show-business and
+mentioning gloomily that he had heard a coupla the critics roastin'
+the show to beat the band ... by doing all these things, it might
+still be possible to depress Mr. Pilkington's young enthusiasm and
+induce him to sell his share at a sacrifice price to a great-hearted
+friend who didn't think the thing would run a week but was willing to
+buy as a sporting speculation, because he thought Mr. Pilkington a
+good kid, and after all these shows that flop in New York sometimes
+have a chance on the road.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the meditations of Mr. Goble, and, on the final fall of the
+curtain, amid unrestrained enthusiasm on the part of the audience, he
+had despatched messengers in all directions with instructions to find
+Mr. Pilkington and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> conduct him to the presence. Meanwhile, he waited
+impatiently on the empty stage.</p>
+
+<p>The sudden advent of Wally Mason, who appeared at this moment, upset
+Mr. Goble terribly. Wally was a factor in the situation which he had
+not considered. An infernal, tactless fellow, always trying to make
+mischief and upset honest merchants, Wally, if present at the
+interview with Otis Pilkington, would probably try to act in restraint
+of trade and would blurt out some untimely truth about the prospects
+of the piece. Not for the first time, Mr. Goble wished Wally a sudden
+stroke of apoplexy.</p>
+
+<p>"Went well, eh?" said Wally amiably. He did not like Mr. Goble, but on
+the first night of a successful piece personal antipathies may be
+sunk. Such was his effervescent good humour at the moment that he was
+prepared to treat Mr. Goble as a man and a brother.</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!" replied Mr. Goble doubtfully, paving the way.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you h'ming about?" demanded Wally, astonished. "The thing's
+a riot."</p>
+
+<p>"You never know," responded Mr. Goble in the minor key.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" Wally stared. "I don't know what more you want. The audience
+sat up on its hind legs and squealed, didn't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've an idea," said Mr. Goble, raising his voice as the long form of
+Mr. Pilkington crossed the stage towards them, "that the critics will
+roast it. If you ask <i>me</i>," he went on loudly, "it's just the sort of
+show the critics will pan the life out of. I've been fifteen years in
+the...."</p>
+
+<p>"Critics!" cried Wally. "Well, I've just been talking to Alexander of
+the <i>Times</i>, and he said it was the best musical piece he had ever
+seen and that all the other men he had talked to thought the same."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble turned a distorted face to Mr. Pilkington. He wished that
+Wally would go. But Wally, he reflected, bitterly, was one of those
+men who never go. He faced Mr. Pilkington and did the best he could.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it's got a <i>chance</i>," he said gloomily. "Any show has got a
+<i>chance</i>! But I don't know.... I don't know...."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington was not interested in the future prospects of "The Rose
+of America." He had a favour to ask, and he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> wanted to ask it, have it
+refused if possible, and get away. It occurred to him that, by
+substituting for the asking of a favour a peremptory demand, he might
+save himself a thousand dollars.</p>
+
+<p>"I want the stage after the performance to-morrow night, for a supper
+to the company," he said brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>He was shocked to find Mr. Goble immediately complaisant.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sure," said Mr. Goble readily. "Go as far as you like!" He took
+Mr. Pilkington by the elbow and drew him up-stage, lowering his voice
+to a confidential undertone. "And now, listen," he said, "I've
+something I want to talk to you about. Between you and I and the
+lamp-post, I don't think this show will last a month in New York. It
+don't add up right! There's something all wrong about it."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington assented with an emphasis which amazed the manager. "I
+quite agree with you! If you had kept it the way it was
+originally...."</p>
+
+<p>"Too late for that!" sighed Mr. Goble, realizing that his star was in
+the ascendant. He had forgotten for the moment that Mr. Pilkington was
+an author. "We must make the best of a bad job! Now, you're a good kid
+and I wouldn't like you to go around town saying that I had let you
+in. It isn't business, maybe, but, just because I don't want you to
+have any kick coming, I'm ready to buy your share of the thing and
+call it a deal. After all, it may get money on the road. It ain't
+likely, but there's a chance, and I'm willing to take it. Well,
+listen, I'm probably robbing myself, but I'll give you fifteen
+thousand if you want to sell."</p>
+
+<p>A hated voice spoke at his elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll make you a better offer than that," said Wally. "Give me your
+share of the show for three dollars in cash and I'll throw in a pair
+of sock-suspenders and an Ingersoll. Is it a go?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble regarded him balefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you to butt in?" he enquired sourly.</p>
+
+<p>"Conscience!" replied Wally. "Old Henry W. Conscience! I refuse to
+stand by and see the slaughter of the innocents. Why don't you wait
+till he's dead before you skin him!" He turned to Mr. Pilkington.
+"Don't you be a fool!" he said earnestly. "Can't you see the thing is
+the biggest hit in years? Do you think Jesse James here would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> be
+offering you a cent for your share if he didn't know there was a
+fortune in it? Do you imagine...?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is immaterial to me," interrupted Otis Pilkington loftily, "what
+Mr. Goble offers. I have already sold my interest!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Mr. Goble.</p>
+
+<p>"When?" cried Wally.</p>
+
+<p>"I sold it half-way through the road-tour," said Mr. Pilkington, "to a
+lawyer, acting on behalf of a client whose name I did not learn."</p>
+
+<p>In the silence which followed this revelation, another voice spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to speak to you for a moment, Mr. Goble, if I may." It
+was Jill, who had joined the group unperceived.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble glowered at Jill, who met his gaze composedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm busy!" snapped Mr. Goble. "See me to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>"I would prefer to see you now."</p>
+
+<p>"You would prefer!" Mr. Goble waved his hands despairingly, as if
+calling on heaven to witness the persecution of a good man.</p>
+
+<p>Jill exhibited a piece of paper stamped with the letter-heading of the
+management.</p>
+
+<p>"It's about this," she said. "I found it in the box as I was going
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to be a fortnight's notice."</p>
+
+<p>"And that," said Mr. Goble, "is what it <i>is</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally uttered an exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say...?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do!" said the manager, turning on him. He felt that he had
+out-man&oelig;uvred Wally. "I agreed to let her open in New York, and
+she's done it, hasn't she? Now she can get out. I don't want her. I
+wouldn't have her if you paid me. She's a nuisance in the company,
+always making trouble, and she can go."</p>
+
+<p>"But I would prefer not to go," said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"You would prefer!" The phrase infuriated Mr. Goble. "And what has
+what you would prefer got to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see," said Jill, "I forgot to tell you before, but I own
+the piece!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+<p>Mr. Goble's jaw fell. He had been waving his hands in another spacious
+gesture, and he remained frozen with outstretched arms, like a
+semaphore. This evening had been a series of shocks for him, but this
+was the worst shock of all.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;what!" he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"I own the piece," repeated Jill. "Surely that gives me authority to
+say what I want done and what I don't want done."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence, Mr. Goble, who was having difficulty with his
+vocal chords, swallowed once or twice. Wally and Mr. Pilkington stared
+dumbly. At the back of the stage, a belated scene-shifter, homeward
+bound, was whistling as much as he could remember of the refrain of a
+popular song.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean you own the piece?" Mr. Goble at length gurgled.</p>
+
+<p>"I bought it."</p>
+
+<p>"You bought it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I bought Mr. Pilkington's share through a lawyer for ten thousand
+dollars."</p>
+
+<p>"Ten thousand dollars! Where did you get ten thousand dollars?" Light
+broke upon Mr. Goble. The thing became clear to him. "Damn it!" he
+cried. "I might have known you had some man behind you! You'd never
+have been so darned fresh if you hadn't had some John in the
+background, paying the bills! Well, of all the...."</p>
+
+<p>He broke off abruptly, not because he had said all that he wished to
+say, for he had only touched the fringe of his subject, but because at
+this point Wally's elbow smote him in the parts about the third button
+of his waistcoat and jarred all the breath out of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet!" said Wally dangerously. He turned to Jill. "Jill, you
+don't mind telling me how you got ten thousand dollars, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not, Wally. Uncle Chris sent it to me. Do you remember
+giving me a letter from him at Rochester? The cheque was in that."</p>
+
+<p>Wally stared.</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle! But he hasn't any money!"</p>
+
+<p>"He must have made it somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"But he couldn't! How could he?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Otis Pilkington suddenly gave tongue. He broke in on them with a loud
+noise that was half a snort and half a yell. Stunned by the
+information that it was Jill who had bought his share in the piece,
+Mr. Pilkington's mind had recovered slowly and then had begun to work
+with a quite unusual rapidity. During the preceding conversation he
+had been doing some tense thinking, and now he saw all.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a swindle! It's a deliberate swindle!" shrilled Mr. Pilkington.
+The tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles flashed sparks. "I've been made a
+fool of! I've been swindled! I've been robbed!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill regarded him with wide eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I mean!"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly do not! You were perfectly willing to sell the piece."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not talking about that! You know what I mean! I've been robbed!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally snatched at his arm as it gyrated past him in a gesture of
+anguish which rivalled the late efforts in that direction of Mr.
+Goble, who was now leaning against the safety-curtain trying to get
+his breath back.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a fool," said Wally curtly. "Talk sense! You know perfectly
+well that Miss Mariner wouldn't swindle you."</p>
+
+<p>"She may not have been in it," conceded Mr. Pilkington. "I don't know
+whether she was or not. But that uncle of hers swindled me out of ten
+thousand dollars! The smooth old crook!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk like that about Uncle Chris!" said Jill, her eyes
+flashing. "Tell me what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, come on, Pilkington," said Wally grimly. "You've been scattering
+some pretty serious charges about. Let's hear what you base them on.
+Be coherent for a couple of seconds."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Goble filled his depleted lungs.</p>
+
+<p>"If you ask me...." he began.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't," said Wally curtly. "This has nothing to do with you.
+Well," he went on, "we're waiting to hear what this is all about."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington gulped. Like most men of weak intellect who are preyed
+on by the wolves of the world, he had ever a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> strong distaste for
+admitting that he had been deceived. He liked to regard himself as a
+shrewd young man who knew his way about and could take care of
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Selby," he said, adjusting his spectacles, which emotion had
+caused to slip down his nose, "came to me a few weeks ago with a
+proposition. He suggested the formation of a company to start Miss
+Mariner in the motion-pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"In the motion-pictures," repeated Mr. Pilkington. "He wished to know
+if I cared to advance any capital towards the venture. I thought it
+over carefully and decided that I was favourably disposed towards the
+scheme. I...." Mr. Pilkington gulped again. "I gave him a cheque for
+ten thousand dollars!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the fools!" said Mr. Goble with a sharp laugh. He caught
+Wally's eye and subsided once more.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington's fingers strayed agitatedly to his spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>"I may have been a fool," he cried shrilly, "though I was perfectly
+willing to risk the money had it been applied to the object for which
+I gave it. But when it comes to giving ten thousand dollars just to
+have it paid back to me in exchange for a very valuable piece of
+theatrical property ... my own money ... handed back to me...!"</p>
+
+<p>Words failed Mr. Pilkington.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been deliberately swindled!" he added, after a moment, harking
+back to the main motive.</p>
+
+<p>Jill's heart was like lead. She could not doubt for an instant the
+truth of what the victim had said. Woven into every inch of the
+fabric, plainly hall-marked on its surface, she could perceive the
+signature of Uncle Chris. If he had come and confessed to her himself,
+she could not have been more certain that he had acted precisely as
+Mr. Pilkington had charged. There was that same impishness, that same
+bland unscrupulousness, that same pathetic desire to do her a good
+turn however it might affect anybody else which, if she might compare
+the two things, had caused him to pass her off on unfortunate Mr.
+Mariner of Brookport as a girl of wealth with tastes in the direction
+of real estate.</p>
+
+<p>Wally was not so easily satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>"You've no proof whatever...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jill shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"It's true, Wally. I know Uncle Chris. It must be true."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Jill...!"</p>
+
+<p>"It must be. How else could Uncle Chris have got the money?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington, much encouraged by this ready acquiescence in his
+theories, got under way once more.</p>
+
+<p>"The man's a swindler! A swindler! He's robbed me! I have been robbed!
+He never had any intention of starting a motion-picture company. He
+planned it all out...!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill cut into the babble of his denunciations. She was sick at heart,
+and she spoke almost listlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Pilkington!" The victim stopped. "Mr. Pilkington, if what you say
+is true, and I'm afraid there is no doubt that it is, the only thing I
+can do is to give you back your property. So will you please try to
+understand that everything is just as it was before you gave my uncle
+the money. You've got back your ten thousand dollars and you've got
+back your piece, so there's nothing more to talk about."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington, dimly realizing that the financial aspect of the
+affair had been more or less satisfactorily adjusted, was nevertheless
+conscious of a feeling that he was being thwarted. He had much more to
+say about Uncle Chris and his methods of doing business, and it irked
+him to be cut short like this.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I do not think.... That's all very well, but I have by no
+means finished...."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you have," said Wally.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing more to talk about," repeated Jill. "I'm sorry this
+should have happened, but you've nothing to complain about now, have
+you? Good night."</p>
+
+<p>And she turned quickly away, and walked towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>"But I hadn't <i>finished</i>!" wailed Mr. Pilkington, clutching at Wally.
+He was feeling profoundly aggrieved. If it is bad to be all dressed up
+and no place to go, it is almost worse to be full of talk and to have
+no one to talk it to. Otis Pilkington had at least another twenty
+minutes of speech inside him on the topic of Uncle Chris, and Wally
+was the nearest human being with a pair of ears.</p>
+
+<p>Wally was in no mood to play the part of confidant. He pushed Mr.
+Pilkington earnestly in the chest and raced after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> Jill. Mr.
+Pilkington, with the feeling that the world was against him, tottered
+back into the arms of Mr. Goble, who had now recovered his breath and
+was ready to talk business.</p>
+
+<p>"Have a good cigar," said Mr. Goble, producing one. "Now, see here,
+let's get right down to it. If you'd care to sell out for twenty
+thousand...."</p>
+
+<p>"I would <i>not</i> care to sell out for twenty thousand!" yelled the
+overwrought Mr. Pilkington. "I wouldn't sell out for a million! You're
+a swindler! You want to rob me! You're a crook!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," assented Mr. Goble gently. "But, all joking aside, suppose
+I was to go up to twenty-five thousand...?" He twined his fingers
+lovingly in the slack of Mr. Pilkington's coat. "Come now! You're a
+good kid I Shall we say twenty-five thousand?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will <i>not</i> say twenty-five thousand! Let me go!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, now, <i>now</i>!" pleaded Mr. Goble. "Be sensible! Don't get all
+worked up! Say, <i>do</i> have a good cigar!"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>won't</i> have a good cigar!" shouted Mr. Pilkington.</p>
+
+<p>He detached himself with a jerk, and stalked with long strides up the
+stage. Mr. Goble watched him go with a lowering gaze. A heavy sense of
+the unkindness of fate was oppressing Mr. Goble. If you couldn't gyp a
+bone-headed amateur out of a piece of property, whom could you gyp?
+Mr. Goble sighed. It hardly seemed to him worth while going on.</p>
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+<p>Out in the street Wally had overtaken Jill, and they faced one another
+in the light of a street lamp. Forty-first Street at midnight is a
+quiet oasis. They had it to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Jill was pale, and she was breathing quickly, but she forced a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Wally," she said. "My career as a manager didn't last long, did
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill looked down the street.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she said. "I suppose I shall have to start trying to
+find something."</p>
+
+<p>"But...."</p>
+
+<p>Jill drew him suddenly into the dark alley-way leading to the
+stage-door of the Gotham Theatre's nearest neighbour,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> and, as she did
+so, a long, thin form, swathed in an overcoat and surmounted by an
+opera-hat, flashed past.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I could have gone through another meeting with Mr.
+Pilkington," said Jill. "It wasn't his fault, and he was quite
+justified, but what he said about Uncle Chris rather hurt."</p>
+
+<p>Wally, who had ideas of his own similar to those of Mr. Pilkington on
+the subject of Uncle Chris and had intended to express them, prudently
+kept them unspoken.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he said, "there is no doubt...?"</p>
+
+<p>"There can't be. Poor Uncle Chris! He is like Freddie. He means well!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. They left the alley and walked down the street.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going now?" asked Wally.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going home."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Forty-ninth Street. I live in a boarding-house there."</p>
+
+<p>A sudden recollection of the boarding-house at which she had lived in
+Atlantic City smote Wally, and it turned the scale. He had not
+intended to speak, but he could not help himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill!" he cried. "It's no good. I <i>must</i> say it! I want to get you
+out of all this. I want to take care of you. Why should you go on
+living this sort of life, when.... Why won't you let me...?"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped. Even as he spoke, he realized the futility of what he was
+saying. Jill was not a girl to be won with words.</p>
+
+<p>They walked on in silence for a moment. They crossed Broadway, noisy
+with night traffic, and passed into the stillness on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>"Wally," said Jill at last.</p>
+
+<p>She was looking straight in front of her. Her voice was troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Wally, you wouldn't want me to marry you if you knew you weren't the
+only man in the world that mattered to me, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>They had reached Sixth Avenue before Wally replied.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For an instant, Jill could not have said whether the feeling that shot
+through her like the abrupt touching of a nerve was relief or
+disappointment. Then suddenly she realized that it was disappointment.
+It was absurd to her to feel disappointed, but at that moment she
+would have welcomed a different attitude in him. If only this problem
+of hers could be taken forcefully out of her hands, what a relief it
+would be. If only Wally, masterfully insistent, would batter down her
+hesitations and <i>grab</i> her, knock her on the head and carry her off
+like a caveman, care less about her happiness and concentrate on his
+own, what a solution it would be.... But then he wouldn't be Wally....
+Nevertheless, Jill gave a little sigh. Her new life had changed her
+already. It had blunted the sharp edge of her independence. To-night
+she was feeling the need of some one to lean on&mdash;some one strong and
+cosy and sympathetic who would treat her like a little girl and shield
+her from all the roughness of life. The fighting spirit had gone out
+of her, and she was no longer the little warrior facing the world with
+a brave eye and a tilted chin. She wanted to cry and be petted.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Wally again. There had been the faintest suggestion of a
+doubt when he had spoken the word before, but now it shot out like a
+bullet. "And I'll tell you why. I want <i>you</i>&mdash;and, if you married me
+feeling like that, it wouldn't be you. I want Jill, the whole Jill,
+and nothing but Jill, and, if I can't have that, I'd rather not have
+anything. Marriage isn't a motion-picture close-up with slow fade-out
+on the embrace. It's a partnership, and what's the good of a
+partnership if your heart's not in it? It's like collaborating with a
+man you dislike.... I believe you wish sometimes&mdash;not often, perhaps,
+but when you're feeling lonely and miserable&mdash;that I would pester and
+bludgeon you into marrying me.... What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill had started. It was disquieting to have her thoughts read with
+such accuracy.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't be any good," Wally went on, "because it wouldn't be
+<i>me</i>. I couldn't keep that attitude up, and I know I should hate
+myself for ever having tried it. There's nothing in the world I
+wouldn't do to help you, though I know it's no use offering to do
+anything. You're a fighter, and you mean to fight your own battle. It
+might happen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> that, if I kept after you and badgered you and nagged
+you, one of these days, when you were feeling particularly all alone
+in the world and tired of fighting for yourself, you might consent to
+marry me. But it wouldn't do. Even if you reconciled yourself to it,
+it wouldn't do. I suppose the cave-woman sometimes felt rather
+relieved when everything was settled for her with a club, but I'm sure
+the caveman must have had a hard time ridding himself of the thought
+that he had behaved like a cad and taken a mean advantage. I don't
+want to feel like that. I couldn't make you happy if I felt like that.
+Much better to have you go on regarding me as a friend ... knowing
+that, if ever your feelings do change, that I am right there,
+waiting...."</p>
+
+<p>"But by that time <i>your</i> feelings will have changed!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Never!"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll meet some other girl...."</p>
+
+<p>"I've met every girl in the world! None of them will do!" The
+lightness came back into Wally's voice. "I'm sorry for the poor
+things, but they won't do! Take 'em away! There's only one girl in the
+world for me&mdash;oh, confound it! why is it that one always thinks in
+song-titles! Well, there it is. I'm not going to bother you. We're
+pals. And, as a pal, may I offer you my bank-roll?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Jill. She smiled up at him. "I believe you would give me
+your coat if I asked you for it!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want it? Here you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wally, behave! There's a policeman looking at you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, if you won't! It's a good coat, all the same."</p>
+
+<p>They turned the corner and stopped before a brown-stone house, with a
+long ladder of untidy steps running up to the front door.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this where you live?" Wally asked. He looked at the gloomy place
+disapprovingly. "You do choose the most awful places!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't choose them. They're thrust on me. Yes, this is where I live.
+If you want to know the exact room, it's the third window up there
+over the front door. Well, good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night," said Wally. He paused. "Jill."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I know it's not worth mentioning, and it's breaking our agreement to
+mention it, but you <i>do</i> understand, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Wally dear, I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm round the corner, you know, waiting! And if you ever <i>do</i> change,
+all you've got to do is just to come to me and say 'It's all
+right!'...."</p>
+
+<p>Jill laughed a little shakily.</p>
+
+<p>"That doesn't sound very romantic!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not sound romantic? If you can think of any three words in the
+language that sound more romantic, let me have them! Well, never mind
+how they sound, just say them, and watch the result! But you must get
+to bed. Good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, Wally."</p>
+
+<p>She passed in through the dingy door. It closed behind her, and Wally
+stood for some moments staring at it with a gloomy repulsion. He
+thought he had never seen a dingier door.</p>
+
+<p>Then he started to walk back to his apartment. He walked very quickly,
+with clenched hands. He was wondering if after all there was not
+something to be said for the methods of the caveman when he went
+a-wooing. Twinges of conscience the caveman may have had when all was
+over, but at least he had established his right to look after the
+woman he loved.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>MRS. PEAGRIM BURNS INCENSE</h3>
+
+
+<p>"They tell me ... I am told ... I am informed ... No, one moment, Miss
+Frisby."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Peagrim wrinkled her fair forehead. It has been truly said that
+there is no agony like the agony of literary composition, and Mrs.
+Peagrim was having rather a bad time getting the requisite snap and
+ginger into her latest communication to the Press. She bit her lip,
+and would have passed her twitching fingers restlessly through her
+hair but for the thought of the damage which such an action must do to
+her coiffure. Miss Frisby, her secretary, an an&aelig;mic and negative young
+woman, waited patiently, pad on knee, and tapped her teeth with her
+pencil.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Please do not make that tapping noise, Miss Frisby," said the
+sufferer querulously. "I cannot think. Otie, dear, can't you suggest a
+good phrase? You ought to be able to, being an author."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington, who was strewn over an arm-chair by the window, awoke
+from his meditations, which, to judge from the furrow just above the
+bridge of his tortoise-shell spectacles and the droop of his weak
+chin, were not pleasant. It was the morning after the production of
+"The Rose of America," and he had passed a sleepless night, thinking
+of the harsh words he had said to Jill. Could she ever forgive him?
+Would she have the generosity to realize that a man ought not to be
+held accountable for what he says in the moment when he discovers that
+he has been cheated, deceived, robbed&mdash;in a word, hornswoggled? He had
+been brooding on this all night, and he wanted to go on brooding now.
+His aunt's question interrupted his train of thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" he said vaguely, gaping.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't be so absent-minded!" snapped Mrs. Peagrim, not
+unjustifiably annoyed. "I am trying to compose a paragraph for the
+papers about our party to-night, and I can't get the right phrase....
+Read what you've written, Miss Frisby."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Frisby, having turned a pale eye on the pothooks and twiddleys in
+her note-book, translated them in a pale voice.</p>
+
+<p>"'Surely of all the leading hostesses in New York Society there can be
+few more versatile than Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim. I am amazed every
+time I go to her delightful home on West End Avenue to see the scope
+and variety of her circle of intimates. Here you will see an
+ambassador with a fever....'"</p>
+
+<p>"With a <i>what</i>?" demanded Mrs. Peagrim sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"'Fever,' I thought you said," replied Miss Frisby stolidly. "I wrote
+'fever.'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Diva.' Do use your intelligence, my good girl. Go on."</p>
+
+<p>"Here you will see an ambassador with a diva from the opera,
+exchanging the latest gossip from the chancelleries for intimate news
+of the world behind the scenes. There, the author of the latest novel
+talking literature to the newest debutante. Truly one may say that
+Mrs. Peagrim has revived the saloon.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Peagrim bit her lip.</p>
+
+<p>"'Salon.'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Salon,'" said Miss Frisby unemotionally. "They tell me, I am told, I
+am informed....'" She paused. "That's all I have."</p>
+
+<p>"Scratch out those last words," said Mrs. Peagrim irritably. "You
+really are hopeless, Miss Frisby! Couldn't you see that I had stopped
+dictating and was searching for a phrase? Otie, what is a good phrase
+for 'I am told'?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington forced his wandering attention to grapple with the
+problem.</p>
+
+<p>"'I hear,'" he suggested at length.</p>
+
+<p>"Tchah!" ejaculated his aunt. Then her face brightened. "I have it.
+Take dictation, please, Miss Frisby. 'A little bird whispers to me
+that there were great doings last night on the stage of the Gotham
+Theatre after the curtain had fallen on "The Rose of America," which,
+as everybody knows, is the work of Mrs. Peagrim's clever young nephew,
+Otis Pilkington.'" Mrs. Peagrim shot a glance at her clever young
+nephew, to see how he appreciated the boost, but Otis' thoughts were
+far away once more. He was lying on his spine, brooding, brooding.
+Mrs. Peagrim resumed her dictation. "'In honour of the extraordinary
+success of the piece, Mrs. Peagrim, who certainly does nothing by
+halves, entertained the entire company to a supper-dance after the
+performance. A number of prominent people were among the guests, and
+Mrs. Peagrim was a radiant and vivacious hostess. She has never looked
+more charming. The high jinks were kept up to an advanced hour, and
+every one agreed that they had never spent a more delightful evening.'
+There! Type as many copies as are necessary, Miss Frisby, and send
+them out this afternoon with photographs."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Frisby having vanished in her pallid way, the radiant and
+vivacious hostess turned on her nephew again.</p>
+
+<p>"I must say, Otie," she began complainingly, "that, for a man who has
+had a success like yours, you are not very cheerful. I should have
+thought the notices of the piece would have made you the happiest man
+in New York."</p>
+
+<p>There was once a melodrama where the child of the persecuted heroine
+used to dissolve the gallery in tears by saying "Happiness? What <i>is</i>
+happiness, moth-aw?" Mr. Pilk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>ington did not use these actual words,
+but he reproduced the stricken infant's tone with great fidelity.</p>
+
+<p>"Notices! What are notices to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't be so affected!" cried Mrs. Peagrim. "Don't pretend that
+you don't know every word of them by heart!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not seen the notices, Aunt Olive," said Mr. Pilkington dully.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Peagrim looked at him with positive alarm. She had never been
+overwhelmingly attached to her long nephew, but since his rise to fame
+something resembling affection had sprung up in her, and his attitude
+now disturbed her.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't be well, Otie!" she said solicitously. "Are you ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a severe headache," replied the martyr. "I passed a wakeful
+night."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go and mix you a dose of the most wonderful mixture," said
+Mrs. Peagrim maternally. "Poor boy! I don't wonder, after all the
+nervousness and excitement.... You sit quite still and rest. I will be
+back in a moment."</p>
+
+<p>She bustled out of the room, and Mr. Pilkington sagged back into his
+chair. He had hardly got his meditations going once more, when the
+door opened and the maid announced "Major Selby."</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning," said Uncle Chris breezily, sailing down the fairway
+with outstretched hand. "How are&mdash;oh!"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped abruptly, perceiving that Mrs. Peagrim was not present
+and&mdash;a more disturbing discovery&mdash;that Otis Pilkington was. It would
+be exaggeration to say that Uncle Chris was embarrassed. That
+master-mind was never actually embarrassed. But his jauntiness
+certainly ebbed a little, and he had to pull his moustache twice
+before he could face the situation with his customary <i>aplomb</i>. He had
+not expected to find Otis Pilkington here, and Otis was the last man
+he wished to meet. He had just parted from Jill, who had been rather
+plain-spoken with regard to the recent financial operations; and,
+though possessed only of a rudimentary conscience, Uncle Chris was
+aware that his next interview with young Mr. Pilkington might have
+certain aspects bordering on awkwardness and he would have liked time
+to prepare a statement for the defence. However, here the man was, and
+the situation must be faced.</p>
+
+<p>"Pilkington!" he cried. "My dear fellow! Just the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> man I wanted to
+see! I'm afraid there has been a little misunderstanding. Of course,
+it has all been cleared up now, but still I must insist on making a
+personal explanation; really, I must insist. The whole matter was a most
+absurd misunderstanding. It was like this...."</p>
+
+<p>Here Uncle Chris paused in order to devote a couple of seconds to
+thought. He had said it was "like this," and he gave his moustache
+another pull as though he were trying to drag inspiration out of it.
+His blue eyes were as frank and honest as ever, and showed no trace of
+the perplexity in his mind, but he had to admit to himself that, if he
+managed to satisfy his hearer that all was for the best and that he
+had acted uprightly and without blame, he would be doing well.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, the commercial side of Mr. Pilkington was entirely
+dormant this morning. The matter of the ten thousand dollars seemed
+trivial to him in comparison with the weightier problems which
+occupied his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen Miss Mariner?" he asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I have just parted from her. She was upset, poor girl, of
+course, exceedingly upset."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington moaned hollowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is she very angry with me?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the utter inexplicability of the remark silenced Uncle
+Chris. Why Jill should be angry with Mr. Pilkington for being robbed
+of ten thousand dollars he could not understand, for Jill had told him
+nothing of the scene that had taken place on the previous night. But
+evidently this point was to Mr. Pilkington the nub of the matter, and
+Uncle Chris, like the strategist he was, re-arranged his forces to
+meet the new development.</p>
+
+<p>"Angry?" he said slowly. "Well, of course...."</p>
+
+<p>He did not know what it was all about, but no doubt if he confined
+himself to broken sentences which meant nothing light would shortly be
+vouchsafed to him.</p>
+
+<p>"In the heat of the moment," confessed Mr. Pilkington, "I'm afraid I
+said things to Miss Mariner which I now regret."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris began to feel on solid ground again.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear!" he murmured regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I spoke hastily."</p>
+
+<p>"Always think before you speak, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>"I considered that I had been cheated...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy!" Uncle Chris' blue eyes opened wide. "Please! Haven't I said
+that I could explain all that? It was a pure misunderstanding...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't care about that part of it...."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right," said Uncle Chris cordially. "Let bygones be bygones.
+Start with a clean slate. You have your money back, and there's no
+need to say another word about it. Let us forget it," he concluded
+generously. "And, if I have any influence with Jill, you may count on
+me to use it to dissipate any little unfortunate rift which may have
+occurred between you."</p>
+
+<p>"You think there's a chance that she might overlook what I said?"</p>
+
+<p>"As I say, I will use any influence I may possess to heal the breach.
+I like you, my boy. And I am sure that Jill likes you. She will make
+allowances for any ill-judged remarks you may have uttered in a moment
+of heat."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pilkington brightened, and Mrs. Peagrim, returning with a
+medicine-glass, was pleased to see him looking so much better.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a positive wizard, Major Selby," she said archly. "What have
+you been saying to the poor boy to cheer him up so? He has a bad
+headache this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Headache?" said Uncle Chris, starting like a war-horse that has heard
+the bugle. "I don't know if I have ever mentioned it, but <i>I</i> used to
+suffer from headaches at one time. Extraordinarily severe headaches. I
+tried everything, until one day a man I knew recommended a thing
+called&mdash;don't know if you have ever heard of it...."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Peagrim, in her r&ocirc;le of ministering angel, was engrossed with her
+errand of mercy. She was holding the medicine-glass to Mr.
+Pilkington's lips, and the seed fell on stony ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Drink this, dear," urged Mrs. Peagrim.</p>
+
+<p>"Nervino," said Uncle Chris.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" said Mrs. Peagrim. "That will make you feel much better. How
+well <i>you</i> always look, Major Selby!"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet at one time," said Uncle Chris perseveringly, "I was a
+martyr...."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't remember if I told you last night about the party. We are
+giving a little supper-dance to the company of Otie's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> play after the
+performance this evening. Of course you will come?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris philosophically accepted his failure to secure the ear of
+his audience. Other opportunities would occur.</p>
+
+<p>"Delighted," he said. "Delighted."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite a simple, Bohemian little affair," proceeded Mrs. Peagrim. "I
+thought it was only right to give the poor things a little treat after
+they have all worked so hard."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, certainly. A capital idea."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be quite a small party. If I once started asking anybody
+outside our <i>real</i> friends, I should have to ask everybody."</p>
+
+<p>The door opened.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rooke," announced the maid.</p>
+
+<p>Freddie, like Mr. Pilkington, was a prey to gloom this morning. He had
+read one or two of the papers, and they had been disgustingly lavish
+in their praise of The McWhustle of McWhustle. It made Freddie despair
+of the New York Press. In addition to this, he had been woken up at
+seven o'clock, after going to sleep at three, by the ringing of the
+telephone and the announcement that a gentleman wished to see him: and
+he was weighed down with that heavy-eyed languor which comes to those
+whose night's rest is broken.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how do you do, Mr. Rooke!" said Mrs. Peagrim.</p>
+
+<p>"How-de-do," replied Freddie, blinking in the strong light from the
+window. "Hope I'm not barging in and all that sort of thing? I came
+round about this party to-night, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was wondering," said Freddie, "if you would mind if I brought a
+friend of mine along? Popped in on me from England this morning. At
+seven o'clock," said Freddie plaintively. "Ghastly hour, what? Didn't
+do a thing to the good old beauty sleep! Well, what I mean to say is,
+I'd be awfully obliged if you'd let me bring him along."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course," said Mrs. Peagrim. "Any friend of yours, Mr.
+Rooke...."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks awfully. Special reason why I'd like him to come, and all
+that. He's a fellow named Underhill. Sir Derek Underhill. Been a pal
+of mine for years and years."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris started.</p>
+
+<p>"Underhill! Is Derek Underhill in America?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Landed this morning. Routed me out of bed at seven o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do you know him, too, Major Selby?" said Mrs. Peagrim. "Then I'm
+sure he must be charming!"</p>
+
+<p>"Charming," began Uncle Chris in measured tones, "is an adjective
+which I cannot...."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, thanks most awfully," interrupted Freddie. "It's fearfully good
+of you to let me bring him along. I must be staggering off now. Lot of
+things to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, must you go already?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely must. Lots of things to do."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris extended a hand to his hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will be going along, too, Mrs. Peagrim. I'll walk a few
+yards with you, Freddie, my boy. There are one or two things I would
+like to talk over. Till to-night, Mrs. Peagrim."</p>
+
+<p>"Till to-night, Major Selby." She turned to Mr. Pilkington as the door
+closed. "What charming manners Major Selby has. So polished. A sort of
+old-world courtesy. So smooth!"</p>
+
+<p>"Smooth," said Mr. Pilkington dourly, "is right!"</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>Uncle Chris confronted Freddie sternly outside the front door.</p>
+
+<p>"What does this mean? Good God, Freddie, have you no delicacy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" said Freddie blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you bringing Underhill to this party? Don't you realize that
+poor Jill will be there? How do you suppose she will feel when she
+sees that blackguard again? The cad who threw her over and nearly
+broke her heart!"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie's jaw fell. He groped for his fallen eyeglass.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my aunt! Do you think she will be pipped?"</p>
+
+<p>"A sensitive girl like Jill?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, listen. Derek wants to marry her."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, absolutely. That's why he's come over."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand this. I saw the letter myself which he wrote to
+her, breaking off the engagement."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but he's dashed sorry about all that now. Wishes he had never
+been such a mug, and all that sort of thing. As a matter of fact,
+that's why I shot over here in the first place. As an ambassador,
+don't you know. I told Jill all about it directly I saw her, but she
+seemed inclined to give it a miss rather, so I cabled old Derek to pop
+here in person. Seemed to me, don't you know, that Jill might be more
+likely to make it up and all that if she saw old Derek."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris nodded, his composure restored.</p>
+
+<p>"Very true. Yes, certainly, my boy, you acted most sensibly. Badly as
+Underhill behaved, she undoubtedly loved him. It would be the best
+possible thing that could happen if they could be brought together. It
+is my dearest wish to see Jill comfortably settled. I was half hoping
+that she might marry young Pilkington."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God! The Pilker!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is quite a nice young fellow," argued Uncle Chris. "None too many
+brains, perhaps, but Jill would supply that deficiency. Still, of
+course, Underhill would be much better."</p>
+
+<p>"She ought to marry someone," said Freddie earnestly. "I mean, all rot
+a girl like Jill having to knock about and rough it like this."</p>
+
+<p>"You're perfectly right."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Freddie thoughtfully, "the catch in the whole dashed
+business is that she's such a bally independent sort of girl. I mean
+to say, it's quite possible she may hand Derek the mitten, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, let us hope that she will look more favourably on young
+Pilkington."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Freddie. "Well, yes. But&mdash;well, I wouldn't call the Pilker
+a very ripe sporting proposition. About sixty to one against is the
+way I should figure it if I were making a book. It may be just because
+I'm feeling a bit pipped this morning&mdash;got turfed out of bed at seven
+o'clock and all that&mdash;but I have an idea that she may give both of
+them the old razz. May be wrong, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us hope that you are, my boy," said Uncle Chris gravely. "For in
+that case I should be forced into a course of action from which I
+confess that I shrink."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't follow."</p>
+
+<p>"Freddie, my boy, you are a very old friend of Jill's and I am her
+uncle. I feel that I can speak plainly to you. Jill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> is the dearest
+thing to me in the world. She trusted me, and I failed her. I was
+responsible for the loss of her money, and my one object in life is to
+see her by some means or other in a position equal to the one of which
+I deprived her. If she married a rich man, well and good. That,
+provided she marries him because she is fond of him, will be the very
+best thing that can happen. But if she does not, there is another way.
+It may be possible for me to marry a rich woman."</p>
+
+<p>Freddie stopped, appalled.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God! You don't mean ... you aren't thinking of marrying Mrs.
+Peagrim!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't have mentioned names, but, as you have guessed.... Yes, if
+the worst comes to the worst, I shall make the supreme sacrifice.
+To-night will decide. Good-bye, my boy. I want to look in at my club
+for a few minutes. Tell Underhill that he has my best wishes."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet he has!" gasped Freddie.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>DEREK LOSES ONE BIRD AND SECURES ANOTHER</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is safest for the historian, if he values accuracy, to wait till a
+thing has happened before writing about it. Otherwise he may commit
+himself to statements which are not borne out by the actual facts.
+Mrs. Peagrim, recording in advance the success of her party at the
+Gotham Theatre, had done this. It is true that she was a "radiant and
+vivacious hostess," and it is possible, her standard not being very
+high, that she had "never looked more charming." But, when she went on
+to say that all present were in agreement that they had never spent a
+more delightful evening, she deceived the public. Uncle Chris, for
+one; Otis Pilkington, for another, and Freddie Rooke, for a third,
+were so far from spending a delightful evening that they found it hard
+to mask their true emotions and keep a smiling face to the world.</p>
+
+<p>Otis Pilkington, indeed, found it impossible, and, ceasing to try,
+left early. Just twenty minutes after the proceedings had begun, he
+seized his coat and hat, shot out into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> night, made off blindly up
+Broadway, and walked twice round Central Park before his feet gave out
+and he allowed himself to be taken back to his apartment in a taxi.
+Jill had been very kind and very sweet and very regretful, but it was
+only too manifest that on the question of becoming Mrs. Otis
+Pilkington her mind was made up. She was willing to like him, to be a
+sister to him, to watch his future progress with considerable
+interest, but she would not marry him.</p>
+
+<p>One feels sorry for Otis Pilkington in his hour of travail. This was
+the fifth or sixth time that this sort of thing had happened to him,
+and he was getting tired of it. If he could have looked into the
+future&mdash;five years almost to a day from that evening&mdash;and seen himself
+walking blushfully down the aisle of St. Thomas' with Roland Trevis'
+sister Angela on his arm, his gloom might have been lightened. More
+probably, however, it would have been increased. At the moment, Roland
+Trevis' sister Angela was fifteen, frivolous, and freckled and, except
+that he rather disliked her and suspected her&mdash;correctly&mdash;of laughing
+at him, amounted to just <i>nil</i> in Mr. Pilkington's life. The idea of
+linking his lot with hers would have appalled him, enthusiastically
+though he was in favour of it five years later.</p>
+
+<p>However, Mr. Pilkington was unable to look into the future, so his
+reflections on this night of sorrow were not diverted from Jill. He
+thought sadly of Jill till two-thirty, when he fell asleep in his
+chair and dreamed of her. At seven o'clock his Japanese valet, who had
+been given the night off, returned home, found him, and gave him
+breakfast. After which, Mr. Pilkington went to bed, played three games
+of solitaire, and slept till dinner-time, when he awoke to take up the
+burden of life again. He still brooded on the tragedy which had
+shattered him. Indeed, it was only two weeks later, when at a dance he
+was introduced to a red-haired girl from Detroit, that he really got
+over it.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The news was conveyed to Freddie Rooke by Uncle Chris. Uncle Chris,
+with something of the emotions of a condemned man on the scaffold
+waiting for a reprieve, had watched Jill and Mr. Pilkington go off
+together into the dim solitude at the back of the orchestra chairs,
+and, after an all too brief interval, had observed the latter whizzing
+back, his every little movement having a meaning of its own&mdash;and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>
+meaning one which convinced Uncle Chris that Freddie, in estimating
+Mr. Pilkington as a sixty to one chance, had not erred in his judgment
+of form.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris found Freddie in one of the upper boxes, talking to Nelly
+Bryant. Dancing was going on down on the stage, but Freddie, though
+normally a young man who shook a skilful shoe, was in no mood for
+dancing to-night. The return to the scenes of his former triumphs and
+the meeting with the companions of happier days, severed from him by a
+two-weeks' notice, had affected Freddie powerfully. Eyeing the happy
+throng below, he experienced the emotions of that Peri who, in the
+poem, "at the gate of Eden stood disconsolate."</p>
+
+<p>Excusing himself from Nelly and following Uncle Chris into the
+passage-way outside the box, he heard the other's news listlessly. It
+came as no shock to Freddie. He had never thought Mr. Pilkington
+anything to write home about, and had never supposed that Jill would
+accept him. He said as much. Sorry for the chap in a way, and all
+that, but had never imagined for an instant that he would click.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Underhill?" asked Uncle Chris agitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Derek? Oh, he isn't here yet."</p>
+
+<p>"But why isn't he here? I understood that you were bringing him with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"That was the scheme, but it seems he had promised some people he met
+on the boat to go to a theatre and have a bit of supper with them
+afterwards. I only heard about it when I got back this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God, boy! Didn't you tell him that Jill would be here to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, rather. And he's coming on directly he can get away from these
+people. Ought to be here any moment now."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris plucked at his moustache gloomily. Freddie's detachment
+depressed him. He had looked for more animation and a greater sense of
+the importance of the issue.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, pip-pip for the present," said Freddie, moving toward the box.
+"Have to be getting back. See you later."</p>
+
+<p>He disappeared, and Uncle Chris turned slowly to descend the stairs.
+As he reached the floor below, the door of the stage-box opened, and
+Mrs. Peagrim came out.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Major Selby!" cried the radiant and vivacious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> hostess. "I
+couldn't think where you had got to. I have been looking for you
+everywhere."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris quivered slightly, but braced himself to do his duty.</p>
+
+<p>"May I have the pleasure...?" he began, then broke off as he saw the
+man who had come out of the box behind his hostess. "Underhill!" He
+grasped his hand and shook it warmly. "My dear fellow! I had no notion
+that you had arrived!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Derek came just a moment ago," said Mrs. Peagrim.</p>
+
+<p>"How are you, Major Selby?" said Derek. He was a little surprised at
+the warmth of his reception. He had not anticipated this geniality.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, I'm delighted to see you," cried Uncle Chris. "But,
+as I was saying, Mrs. Peagrim, may I have the pleasure of this dance?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I will dance this one," said Mrs. Peagrim surprisingly.
+"I'm sure you two must have ever so much to talk about. Why don't you
+take Sir Derek and give him a cup of coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Capital idea!" said Uncle Chris. "Come this way, my dear fellow. As
+Mrs. Peagrim says, I have ever so much to talk about. Along this
+passage, my boy. Be careful. There's a step. Well, well, well! It's
+delightful to see you again!" He massaged Derek's arm affectionately.
+Every time he had met Mrs. Peagrim that evening he had quailed
+inwardly at what lay before him, should some hitch occur to prevent
+the re-union of Derek and Jill: and now that the other was actually
+here, handsomer than ever and more than ever the sort of man no girl
+could resist, he declined to admit the possibility of a hitch. His
+spirits soared. "You haven't seen Jill yet, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." Derek hesitated. "Is Jill.... Does she.... I mean...."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris resumed his osteopathy. He kneaded his companion's
+coat-sleeve with a jovial hand.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, of course! I am sure that a word or two from you will
+put everything right. We all make mistakes. I have made them myself. I
+am convinced that everything will be perfectly all right.... Ah, there
+she is. Jill, my dear, here is an old friend to see you!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>Since the hurried departure of Mr. Pilkington, Jill had been sitting
+in the auditorium, lazily listening to the music and watching the
+couples dancing on the stage. She found herself drifting into a mood
+of gentle contentment, and was at a loss to account for this. She was
+happy&mdash;quietly and peacefully happy, when she was aware that she ought
+to have been both agitated and apprehensive. When she had anticipated
+the recent interview with Otis Pilkington, which she had known was
+bound to come sooner or later, it had been shrinkingly and with
+foreboding. She hated hurting people's feelings, and, though she read
+Mr. Pilkington's character accurately enough to know that time would
+heal any anguish which she might cause him, she had had no doubt that
+the temperamental surface of that long young man, when he succeeded in
+getting her alone, was going to be badly bruised. And it had fallen
+out just as she had expected. Mr. Pilkington had said his say and
+departed, a pitiful figure, a spectacle which should have wrung her
+heart. It had not wrung her heart. Except for one fleeting instant
+when she was actually saying the fatal words, it had not interfered
+with her happiness at all; and already she was beginning to forget
+that the incident had ever happened.</p>
+
+<p>And, if the past should have depressed her, the future might have been
+expected to depress her even more. There was nothing in it, either
+immediate or distant, which could account for her feeling gently
+contented. And yet, as she leaned back in her seat, her heart was
+dancing in time to the dance-music of Mrs. Peagrim's hired orchestra.
+It puzzled Jill.</p>
+
+<p>And then, quite suddenly, yet with no abruptness or sense of
+discovery, just as if it were something which she had known all along,
+the truth came upon her. It was Wally, the thought of Wally, the
+knowledge that Wally existed, that made her happy. He was a solid,
+comforting, reassuring fact in a world of doubts and perplexities. She
+did not need to be with him to be fortified, it was enough just to
+think of him. Present or absent, his personality heartened her like
+fine weather or music or a sea-breeze&mdash;or like that friendly, soothing
+night-light which they used to leave in her nursery when she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>
+little, to scare away the goblins and see her safely over the road
+that led to the gates of the city of dreams.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose there were no Wally...?</p>
+
+<p>Jill gave a sudden gasp, and sat up, tingling. She felt as she had
+sometimes felt as a child, when, on the edge of sleep, she had dreamed
+that she was stepping off a precipice and had woken, tense and alert,
+to find that there was no danger after all. But there was a difference
+between that feeling and this. She had woken, but to find that there
+was danger. It was as though some inner voice was calling to her to be
+careful, to take thought. Suppose there were no Wally?... And why
+should there always be Wally? He had said confidently enough that
+there would never be another girl.... But there were thousands of
+other girls, millions of other girls, and could she suppose that one
+of them would not have the sense to snap up a treasure like Wally? A
+sense of blank desolation swept over Jill. Her quick imagination,
+leaping ahead, had made the vague possibility of a distant future an
+accomplished fact. She felt, absurdly, a sense of overwhelming loss.</p>
+
+<p>Into her mind, never far distant from it, came the thought of Derek.
+And, suddenly, Jill made another discovery. She was thinking of Derek,
+and it was not hurting. She was thinking of him quite coolly and
+clearly and her heart was not aching.</p>
+
+<p>She sat back and screwed her eyes tight, as she had always done when
+puzzled. Something had happened to her, but how it had happened and
+when it had happened and why it had happened she could not understand.
+She only knew that now for the first time she had been granted a
+moment of clear vision and was seeing things truly.</p>
+
+<p>She wanted Wally. She wanted him in the sense that she could not do
+without him. She felt nothing of the fiery tumult which had come upon
+her when she first met Derek. She and Wally would come together with a
+smile and build their life on an enduring foundation of laughter and
+happiness and good-fellowship. Wally had never shaken and never would
+shake her senses as Derek had done. If that was love, then she did not
+love Wally. But her clear vision told her that it was not love. It
+might be the blazing and crackling of thorns, but it was not the fire.
+She wanted Wally. She needed him as she needed the air and the
+sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>She opened her eyes and saw Uncle Chris coming down the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> aisle towards
+her. There was a man with him, and, as they moved closer in the dim
+light, Jill saw that it was Derek.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill, my dear," said Uncle Chris, "here is an old friend to see you!"</p>
+
+<p>And, having achieved their bringing together, he proceeded to withdraw
+delicately whence he had come. It is pleasant to be able to record
+that he was immediately seized upon by Mrs. Peagrim, who had changed
+her mind about not dancing, and led off to be her partner in a
+fox-trot, in the course of which she trod on his feet three times.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Derek!" said Jill cheerfully. Except for a mild wonder how he
+came to be there, she found herself wholly unaffected by the sight of
+him. "Whatever are <i>you</i> doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>Derek sat down beside her. The cordiality of her tone had relieved,
+yet at the same time disconcerted him. Man seldom attains to perfect
+contentment in this world, and Derek, while pleased that Jill
+apparently bore him no ill-will, seemed to miss something in her
+manner which he would have been glad to find there.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill!" he said huskily.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Derek only decent to speak huskily. To his orderly mind
+this situation could be handled only in one way. It was a plain,
+straight issue of the strong man humbling himself&mdash;not too much of
+course, but sufficiently: and it called, in his opinion, for the low
+voice, the clenched hand, and the broken whisper. Speaking as he had
+spoken, he had given the scene the right key from the start&mdash;or would
+have done if she had not got in ahead of him and opened it on a note
+of absurd cheeriness? Derek found himself resenting her cheeriness.
+Often as he had attempted during the voyage from England to visualize
+to himself this first meeting, he had never pictured Jill smiling
+brightly at him. It was a jolly smile, and made her look extremely
+pretty, but it jarred upon him. A moment before he had been half
+relieved, half disconcerted: now he was definitely disconcerted. He
+searched in his mind for a criticism of her attitude, and came to the
+conclusion that what was wrong with it was that it was too friendly.
+Friendliness is well enough in its way, but in what should have been a
+tense clashing of strong emotions it did not seem to Derek fitting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Did you have a pleasant trip?" asked Jill. "Have you come over on
+business?"</p>
+
+<p>A feeling of bewilderment came upon Derek. It was wrong, it was all
+wrong. Of course, she might be speaking like this to cloak intense
+feeling, but, if so, she had certainly succeeded. From her manner, he
+and she might be casual acquaintances. A pleasant trip! In another
+minute she would be asking him how he had come out on the sweepstake
+on the ship's run. With a sense of putting his shoulder to some heavy
+weight and heaving at it, he sought to lift the conversation to a
+higher plane.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to find <i>you</i>!" he said; still huskily but not so huskily as
+before. There are degrees of huskiness, and Derek's was sharpened a
+little by a touch of irritation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" said Jill.</p>
+
+<p>Derek was now fermenting. What she ought to have said, he did not
+know, but he knew that it was not "Yes?" "Yes?" in the circumstances
+was almost as bad as "Really?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. Jill was looking at him with a frank and
+unembarrassed gaze which somehow deepened his sense of annoyance. Had
+she looked at him coldly, he could have understood and even
+appreciated it. He had been expecting coldness, and had braced himself
+to combat it. He was still not quite sure in his mind whether he was
+playing the r&ocirc;le of a penitent or a King Cophetua, but in either
+character he might have anticipated a little temporary coldness, which
+it would have been his easy task to melt. But he had never expected to
+be looked at as if he were a specimen in a museum, and that was how he
+was feeling now. Jill was not looking at him&mdash;she was inspecting him,
+examining him, and he chafed under the process.</p>
+
+<p>Jill, unconscious of the discomfort she was causing, continued to
+gaze. She was trying to discover in just what respect he had changed
+from the god he had been. Certainly not in looks. He was as handsome
+as ever&mdash;handsomer, indeed, for the sunshine and clean breezes of the
+Atlantic had given him an exceedingly becoming coat of tan. And yet he
+must have changed, for now she could look upon him quite
+dispassionately and criticize him without a tremor. It was like seeing
+a copy of a great painting. Everything was there, except the one thing
+that mattered, the magic and the glamour. It was like.... She suddenly
+remembered a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> scene in the dressing-room when the company had been in
+Baltimore. Lois Denham, duly the recipient of the sunburst which her
+friend Izzy had promised her, had unfortunately, in a spirit of
+girlish curiosity, taken it to a jeweller to be priced, and the
+jeweller had blasted her young life by declaring it a paste imitation.
+Jill recalled how the stricken girl&mdash;previous to calling Izzy on the
+long distance and telling him a number of things which, while probably
+not news to him, must have been painful hearing&mdash;had passed the vile
+object round the dressing-room for inspection. The imitation was
+perfect. It had been impossible for the girls to tell that the stones
+were not real diamonds. Yet the jeweller, with his sixth sense, had
+seen through them in a trifle under ten seconds. Jill came to the
+conclusion that her newly-discovered love for Wally Mason had equipped
+her with a sixth sense, and that by its aid she was really for the
+first time seeing Derek as he was.</p>
+
+<p>Derek had not the privilege of being able to read Jill's thoughts. All
+he could see was the outer Jill, and the outer Jill, as she had always
+done, was stirring his emotions. Her daintiness afflicted him. Not for
+the first, the second, or the third time since they had come into each
+other's lives, he was astounded at the strength of the appeal which
+Jill had for him when they were together, as contrasted with its
+weakness when they were apart. He made another attempt to establish
+the scene on a loftier plane.</p>
+
+<p>"What a fool I was!" he sighed. "Jill! Can you ever forgive me?"</p>
+
+<p>He tried to take her hand. Jill skilfully eluded him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course I've forgiven you, Derek, if there was, anything to
+forgive."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything to forgive!" Derek began to get into his stride. These were
+the lines on which he had desired the interview to develop. "I was a
+brute! A cad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was. Oh, I have been through hell!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill turned her head away. She did not want to hurt him, but nothing
+could have kept her from smiling. She had been so sure that he would
+say that sooner or later.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill!" Derek had misinterpreted the cause of her movement, and had
+attributed it to emotion. "Tell me that everything is as it was
+before."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Jill turned.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I can't say that, Derek."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not!" agreed Derek in a comfortable glow of manly remorse.
+He liked himself in the character of the strong man abashed. "It would
+be too much to expect, I know. But, when we are married...."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really want to marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jill!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder!"</p>
+
+<p>"How can you doubt it?"</p>
+
+<p>Jill looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you thought what it would mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"What it would mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, your mother...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Derek dismissed Lady Underhill with a grand gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," persisted Jill, "but, if she disapproved of your marrying me
+before, wouldn't she disapprove a good deal more now, when I haven't a
+penny in the world and am just in the chorus...."</p>
+
+<p>A sort of strangled sound proceeded from Derek's throat.</p>
+
+<p>"In the chorus!"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you know? I thought Freddie must have told you."</p>
+
+<p>"In the chorus!" Derek stammered. "I thought you were here as a guest
+of Mrs. Peagrim's."</p>
+
+<p>"So I am&mdash;like all the rest of the company."</p>
+
+<p>"But.... But...."</p>
+
+<p>"You see, it would be bound to make everything a little difficult,"
+said Jill. Her face was grave, but her lips were twitching. "I mean,
+you are rather a prominent man, aren't you, and if you married a
+chorus-girl...."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody would know," said Derek limply.</p>
+
+<p>Jill opened her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody would <i>know</i>!" She laughed. "But, of course, you've never met
+our Press-agent. If you think that nobody would know that a girl in
+the company had married a baronet who was a member of parliament and
+expected to be in the Cabinet in a few years, you're wronging him! The
+news would be on the front page of all the papers the very next
+day&mdash;columns of it, with photographs. There would be articles about it
+in the Sunday papers. Illustrated! And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> then it would be cabled to
+England and would appear in the papers there.... You see, you're a
+very important person, Derek."</p>
+
+<p>Derek sat clutching the arms of his chair. His face was chalky. Though
+he had never been inclined to underestimate his importance as a figure
+in the public eye, he had overlooked the disadvantages connected with
+such an eminence. He gurgled wordlessly. He had been prepared to brave
+Lady Underhill's wrath and assert his right to marry whom he pleased,
+but this was different.</p>
+
+<p>Jill watched him curiously and with a certain pity. It was so easy to
+read what was passing in his mind. She wondered what he would say, how
+he would flounder out of his unfortunate position. She had no
+illusions about him now. She did not even contemplate the possibility
+of chivalry winning the battle which was going on within him.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be very awkward, wouldn't it?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>And then pity had its way with Jill. He had treated her badly; for a
+time she had thought that he had crushed all the heart out of her: but
+he was suffering, and she hated to see anybody suffer.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," she said, "I'm engaged to somebody else."</p>
+
+<p>As a suffocating man, his lips to the tube of oxygen, gradually comes
+back to life, Derek revived&mdash;slowly as the meaning of her words sank
+into his mind, then with a sudden abruptness.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to marry somebody else. A man named Wally Mason."</p>
+
+<p>Derek swallowed. The chalky look died out of his face, and he flushed
+hotly. His eyes, half relieved, half indignant, glowed under their
+pent-house of eyebrow. He sat for a moment in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you might have told me before!" he said huffily.</p>
+
+<p>Jill laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose I ought to have told you before."</p>
+
+<p>"Leading me on...!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill patted him on the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, Derek! It's all over now. And it was great fun, wasn't
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fun!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Shall we go and dance? The music is just starting."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>won't</i> dance!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill got up.</p>
+
+<p>"I must," she said. "I'm so happy I can't keep still. Well, good-bye,
+Derek, in case I don't see you again. It was nice meeting after all
+this time. You haven't altered a bit!"</p>
+
+<p>Derek watched her flit down the aisle, saw her jump up the little
+ladder on to the stage, watched her vanish into the swirl of the
+dance. He reached for a cigarette, opened his case, and found it
+empty. He uttered a mirthless, Byronic laugh. The thing seemed to him
+symbolic.</p>
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+<p>Not having a cigarette of his own, Derek got up and went to look for
+the only man he knew who could give him one: and after a search of a
+few minutes came upon Freddie all alone in a dark corner, apart from
+the throng. It was a very different Freddie from the moody youth who
+had returned to the box after his conversation with Uncle Chris. He
+was leaning against a piece of scenery with his head tilted back and a
+beam of startled happiness on his face. So rapt was he in his
+reflections that he did not become aware of Derek's approach until the
+latter spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Got a cigarette, Freddie?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie withdrew his gaze from the roof.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, old son! Cigarette? Certainly and by all means. Cigarettes?
+Where are the cigarettes? Mr. Rooke, forward! Show cigarettes." He
+extended his case to Derek, who helped himself in sombre silence,
+finding his boyhood's friend's exuberance hard to bear. "I say, Derek,
+old scream, the most extraordinary thing has happened! You'll never
+guess. To cut a long story short and come to the blow-out of the
+scenario, I'm engaged! Engaged, old crumpet! You know what I
+mean&mdash;engaged to be married!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said Derek gruffly, frowning over his cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't wonder you're surprised," said Freddie, looking at him a little
+wistfully, for his friend had scarcely been gushing, and he would have
+welcomed a bit of enthusiasm. "Can hardly believe it myself."</p>
+
+<p>Derek awoke to a sense of the conventions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Congratulate you," he said. "Do I know her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, but you will soon. She's a girl in the company&mdash;in the
+chorus as a matter of fact. Girl named Nelly Bryant. An absolute
+corker. I'll go further&mdash;a topper. You'll like her, old man."</p>
+
+<p>Derek was looking at him, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Extraordinary how these things happen," proceeded Freddie. "Looking
+back, I can see, of course, that I always thought her a topper, but
+the idea of getting engaged&mdash;I don't know&mdash;sort of thing that doesn't
+occur to a chappie, if you know what I mean. What I mean to say is, we
+had always been the greatest of pals and all that, but it never struck
+me that she would think it much of a wheeze getting hooked up for life
+with a chap like me. We just sort of drifted along and so forth. All
+very jolly and what not. And then this evening&mdash;I don't know. I had a
+bit of a hump, what with one thing and another, and she was most
+dashed sweet and patient and soothing and&mdash;and&mdash;well, and what not,
+don't you know, and suddenly&mdash;deuced rummy sensation&mdash;the jolly old
+scales seemed to fall, if you follow me, from my good old eyes; I
+don't know if you get the idea. I suddenly seemed to look myself
+squarely in the eyeball and say to myself, 'Freddie, old top, how do
+we go? Are we not missing a good thing?' And, by Jove, thinking it
+over, I found that I was absolutely correct-o! You've no notion how
+dashed sympathetic she is, old man! I mean to say, I had this hump,
+you know, owing to one thing and another, and was feeling that life
+was more or less of a jolly old snare and delusion, and she bucked me
+up and all that, and suddenly I found myself kissing her and all that
+sort of rot, and she was kissing me and so on and so forth, and she's
+got the most ripping eyes, and there was nobody about, and the long
+and the short of it was, old boy, that I said, 'Let's get married!'
+and she said, 'When?' and that was that, if you see what I mean. The
+scheme now is to pop down to the City Hall and get a licence, which it
+appears you have to have if you want to bring this sort of binge off
+with any success and vim, and then what ho for the padre! Looking at
+it from every angle, a bit of a good egg, what? Happiest man in the
+world, and all that sort of thing."</p>
+
+<p>At this point in his somewhat incoherent epic Freddie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> paused. It had
+occurred to him that he had perhaps laid himself open to a charge of
+monopolising the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I say! You'll forgive my dwelling a bit on this thing, won't you?
+Never found a girl who would look twice at me before, and it's rather
+unsettled the old bean. Just occurred to me that I may have been
+talking about my own affairs a bit. Your turn now, old thing. Sit
+down, as the blighters in the novels used to say, and tell me the
+story of your life. You've seen Jill, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Derek shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"And it's all right, eh? Fine! We'll make a double wedding of it,
+what? Not a bad idea, that! I mean to say, the man of God might make a
+reduction for quantity and shade his fee a bit. Do the job half
+price!"</p>
+
+<p>Derek threw down the end of his cigarette, and crushed it with his
+heel. A closer observer than Freddie would have detected long ere this
+the fact that his demeanour was not that of a happy and successful
+wooer.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill and I are not going to be married," he said.</p>
+
+<p>A look of blank astonishment came into Freddie's cheerful face. He
+could hardly believe that he had heard correctly. It is true that, in
+gloomier mood, he had hazarded the theory to Uncle Chris that Jill's
+independence might lead her to refuse Derek, but he had not really
+believed in the possibility of such a thing even at the time, and now,
+in the full flood of optimism consequent on his own engagement, it
+seemed even more incredible.</p>
+
+<p>"Great Scott!" he cried. "Did she give you the raspberry?"</p>
+
+<p>It is to be doubted whether the pride of the Underhills would have
+permitted Derek to reply in the affirmative, even if Freddie had
+phrased his question differently; but the brutal directness of the
+query made such a course impossible for him. Nothing was dearer to
+Derek than his self-esteem, and, even at the expense of the truth, he
+was resolved to shield it from injury. To face Freddie and confess
+that any girl in the world had given him, Derek Underhill, what he
+coarsely termed the raspberry was a task so revolting as to be utterly
+beyond his powers.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing of the kind!" he snapped. "It was because we both saw that
+the thing would be impossible. Why didn't you tell me that Jill was in
+the chorus of this damned piece?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Freddie's mouth slowly opened. He was trying not to realize the
+meaning of what his friend was saying. His was a faithful soul, and
+for years&mdash;to all intents and purposes for practically the whole of
+his life&mdash;he had looked up to Derek and reverenced him. He absolutely
+refused to believe that Derek was intending to convey what he seemed
+to be trying to convey; for, if he was, well ... by Jove ... it was
+too rotten and Algy Martyn had been right after all and the fellow was
+simply....</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean, old man," said Freddie with an almost pleading note
+in his voice, "that you're going to back out of marrying Jill because
+she's in the chorus?"</p>
+
+<p>Derek looked away, and scowled. He was finding Freddie, in the
+capacity of inquisitor, as trying as he had found him in the r&ocirc;le of
+exuberant fianc&eacute;. It offended his pride to have to make explanations
+to one whom he had always regarded with a patronizing tolerance as not
+a bad fellow in his way but in every essential respect negligible.</p>
+
+<p>"I have to be sensible," he said, chafing as the indignity of his
+position intruded itself more and more. "You know what it would
+mean.... Paragraphs in all the papers.... photographs ... the news
+cabled to England ... everybody reading it and misunderstanding....
+I've got my career to think of.... It would cripple me...."</p>
+
+<p>His voice trailed off, and there was silence for a moment. Then
+Freddie burst into speech. His good-natured face was hard with
+unwonted scorn. Its cheerful vacuity had changed to stony contempt.
+For the second time in the evening the jolly old scales had fallen
+from Freddie's good old eyes, and, as Jill had done, he saw Derek as
+he was.</p>
+
+<p>"My sainted aunt!" he said slowly. "So that's it, what? Well, I've
+always thought a dashed lot of you, as you know. I've always looked up
+to you as a bit of a nib and wished I was like you. But, great Scott!
+if that's the sort of a chap you are, I'm deuced glad I'm not! I'm
+going to wake up in the middle of the night and think how unlike you I
+am and pat myself on the back! Ronny Devereux was perfectly right. A
+tick's a tick, and that's all there is to say about it. Good old Ronny
+told me what you were, and, like a silly ass, I wasted a lot of time
+trying to make him believe you weren't that sort of chap at all. It's
+no good standing there looking like your mother," said Freddie firmly.
+"This is where we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> jolly well part brass-rags! If we ever meet again,
+I'll trouble you not to speak to me, because I've a reputation to keep
+up! So there you have it in a bally nutshell!"</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had Freddie ceased to administer it to his former friend in a
+bally nutshell, when Uncle Chris, warm and dishevelled from the dance
+as interpreted by Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim, came bustling up, saving
+Derek the necessity of replying to the harangue.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Underhill, my dear fellow," began Uncle Chris affably,
+attaching himself to the other's arm, "what...?"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off, for Derek, freeing his arm with a wrench, turned and
+walked rapidly away. Derek had no desire to go over the whole thing
+again with Uncle Chris. He wanted to be alone, to build up, painfully
+and laboriously, the ruins of his self-esteem. The pride of the
+Underhills had had a bad evening.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris turned to Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" he asked blankly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what's the jolly old matter!" cried Freddie. "The
+blighter isn't going to marry poor Jill after all! He's changed his
+rotten mind! It's off!"</p>
+
+<p>"Off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely off!"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Napoo!" said Freddie. "He's afraid of what will happen to his blasted
+career if he marries a girl who's been in the chorus."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear boy!" Uncle Chris blinked. "But, my dear boy! This is
+ridiculous.... Surely, if I were to speak a word...."</p>
+
+<p>"You can if you like. <i>I</i> wouldn't speak to the man again if you paid
+me! But it won't do any good, so what's the use?"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly Uncle Chris adjusted his mind to the disaster.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you mean...?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's off!" said Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Uncle Chris stood motionless. Then, with a sudden jerk,
+he seemed to stiffen his backbone. His face was bleak, but he pulled
+at his moustache jauntily.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Morituri te salutant!</i>" he said. "Good-bye, Freddie, my boy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He turned away, gallant and upright, the old soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?" asked Freddie.</p>
+
+<p>"Over the top!" said Uncle Chris.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going," said Uncle Chris steadily, "to find Mrs. Peagrim!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" cried Freddie. He followed him, protesting weakly, but the
+other gave no sign that he had heard. Freddie saw him disappear into
+the stage-box, and, turning, found Jill at his elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did Uncle Chris go?" asked Jill. "I want to speak to him."</p>
+
+<p>"He's in the stage-box, with Mrs. Peagrim."</p>
+
+<p>"With Mrs. Peagrim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Proposing to her," said Freddie solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>Jill stared.</p>
+
+<p>"Proposing to Mrs. Peagrim? What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Freddie drew her aside, and began to explain.</p>
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+<p>In the dimness of the stage-box, his eyes a little glassy and a dull
+despair in his soul, Uncle Chris was wondering how to begin. In his
+hot youth he had been rather a devil of a fellow in between dances, a
+coo-er of soft phrases and a stealer of never very stoutly withheld
+kisses. He remembered one time in Bangalore ... but that had nothing
+to do with the case. The point was, how to begin with Mrs. Peagrim.
+The fact that twenty-five years ago he had crushed in his arms beneath
+the shadows of the deodars a girl whose name he had forgotten, though
+he remembered that she had worn a dress of some pink stuff, was
+immaterial and irrelevant. Was he to crush Mrs. Peagrim in his arms?
+Not, thought Uncle Chris to himself, on a bet. He contented himself
+for the moment with bending an intense gaze upon her and asking if she
+was tired.</p>
+
+<p>"A little," panted Mrs. Peagrim, who, though she danced often and
+vigorously, was never in the best of condition, owing to her habit of
+neutralizing the beneficent effects of exercise by surreptitious
+candy-eating. "I'm a little out of breath."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris had observed this for himself, and it had not helped him
+to face his task. Lovely woman loses something of her queenly dignity
+when she puffs. Inwardly, he was thinking how exactly his hostess
+resembled the third from the left of a troupe of performing sea-lions
+which he had seen some years ago on one of his rare visits to a
+vaudeville house.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought not to tire yourself," he said with a difficult tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> so fond of dancing," pleaded Mrs. Peagrim. Recovering some of
+her breath, she gazed at her companion with a sort of short-winded
+archness. "You are always so sympathetic, Major Selby."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?" said Uncle Chris. "Am I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know you are!"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris swallowed quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you have ever wondered," he began, and stopped. He felt
+that he was not putting it as well as he might. "I wonder if it has
+ever struck you that there's a reason." He stopped again. He seemed to
+remember reading something like that in an advertisement in a
+magazine, and he did not want to talk like an advertisement. "I wonder
+if it has ever struck you, Mrs. Peagrim," he began again, "that any
+sympathy on my part might be due to some deeper emotion which.... Have
+you never suspected that you have never suspected...." Uncle Chris
+began to feel that he must brace himself up. Usually a man of fluent
+speech, he was not at his best to-night. He was just about to try
+again, when he caught his hostess' eye, and the soft gleam in it sent
+him cowering back into the silence as if he were taking cover from an
+enemy's shrapnel.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Peagrim touched him on the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"You were saying...?" she murmured encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris shut his eyes. His fingers pressed desperately into the
+velvet curtain beside him. He felt as he had felt when a raw
+lieutenant in India, during his first hill-campaign, when the
+etiquette of the service had compelled him to rise and walk up and
+down in front of his men under a desultory shower of jezail-bullets.
+He seemed to hear the damned things <i>whop-whopping</i> now ... and almost
+wished that he could really hear them. One or two good bullets just
+now would be a welcome diversion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" said Mrs. Peagrim.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Have you never felt," babbled Uncle Chris, "that, feeling as I feel,
+I might have felt ... that is to say might be feeling a feeling...?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a tap at the door of the box. Uncle Chris started violently.
+Jill came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said. "I wanted to speak...."</p>
+
+<p>"You wanted to speak to me?" said Uncle Chris, bounding up.
+"Certainly, certainly, certainly, of course. If you will excuse me for
+a moment?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Peagrim bowed coldly. The interruption had annoyed her. She had
+no notion who Jill was, and she resented the intrusion at this
+particular juncture intensely. Not so Uncle Chris, who skipped out
+into the passage like a young lamb.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I in time?" asked Jill in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"In time?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I mean. Uncle Chris, listen to me! You are not to
+propose to that awful woman. Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"The die is cast!"</p>
+
+<p>"The die isn't anything of the sort," said Jill. "Unless...." She
+stopped, aghast. "You don't mean that you have done it already?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no. To be perfectly accurate, no. But...."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that's all right. I know why you were doing it, and it was very
+sweet of you, but you mustn't."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Jill, you don't understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I do understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I have a motive...."</p>
+
+<p>"I know your motive. Freddie told me. Don't you worry yourself about
+me, dear, because I am all right. I am going to be married."</p>
+
+<p>A look of ecstatic relief came into Uncle Chris' face.</p>
+
+<p>"Then Underhill...?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not marrying Derek. Somebody else. I don't think you know him,
+but I love him, and so will you." She pulled his face down and kissed
+him. "Now you can go back."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris was almost too overcome to speak. He gulped a little.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Jill," he said shakily, "this is a ... this is a great relief."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it would be."</p>
+
+<p>"If you are really going to marry a rich man...."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say he was rich."</p>
+
+<p>The joy ebbed from Uncle Chris' face.</p>
+
+<p>"If he is not rich, if he cannot give you everything of which I...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't be absurd! Wally has all the money anybody needs. What's
+money?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's money?" Uncle Chris stared. "Money, my dear child, is ... is
+... well, you mustn't talk of it in that light way. But, if you think
+you will really have enough...?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we shall. Now you can go back. Mrs. Peagrim will be
+wondering what has become of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Must I?" said Uncle Chris doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. You must be polite."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Uncle Chris. "But it will be a little difficult to
+continue the conversation on what you might call general lines.
+However!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Back in the box, Mrs. Peagrim was fanning herself with manifest
+impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"What did that girl want?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris seated himself with composure. The weakness had passed,
+and he was himself again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing, nothing. Some trivial difficulty, which I was able to
+dispose of in a few words."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Peagrim would have liked to continue her researches, but a
+feeling that it was wiser not to stray too long from the main point
+restrained her. She bent towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"You were going to say something when that girl interrupted us."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Chris shot his cuffs with a debonair gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Was I? Was I? To be sure, yes. I was saying that you ought not to let
+yourself get tired. Deuce of a thing, getting tired. Plays the dickens
+with the system."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Peagrim was disconcerted. The atmosphere seemed to have changed,
+and she did not like it. She endeavoured to restore the tone of the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"You are so sympathetic," she sighed, feeling that she could not do
+better than to begin again at that point. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> remark had produced
+good results before and it might do so a second time.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," agreed Uncle Chris cheerily. "You see, I have seen something of
+all this sort of thing, and I realize the importance of it. I know
+what all this modern rush and strain of life is for a woman in your
+position. Parties every night ... dancing ... a thousand and one calls
+on the vitality ... bound to have an effect sooner or later,
+unless&mdash;<i>unless</i>," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "one takes steps. Unless
+one acts in time. I had a friend&mdash;" His voice sank&mdash;"I had a very dear
+friend over in London, Lady Alice&mdash;but the name would convey
+nothing&mdash;the point is that she was in exactly the same position as
+you. On the rush all the time. Never stopped. The end was inevitable.
+She caught cold, hadn't sufficient vitality to throw it off, went to a
+dance in mid-winter, contracted pneumonia...." Uncle Chris sighed.
+"All over in three days," he said sadly. "Now at that time," he
+resumed, "I did not know what I know now. If I had heard of Nervino
+then...." He shook his head. "It might have saved her life. It <i>would</i>
+have saved her life. I tell you, Mrs. Peagrim, that there is nothing,
+there is no lack of vitality which Nervino cannot set right. I am no
+physician myself, I speak as a layman, but it acts on the red
+corpuscles of the blood...."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Peagrim's face was stony. She had not spoken before, because he
+had given her no opportunity, but she spoke now in a hard voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Selby!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Peagrim?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not interested in patent medicines!"</p>
+
+<p>"One can hardly call Nervino that," said Uncle Chris reproachfully.
+"It is a sovereign specific. You can get it at any drug store. It
+comes in two sizes, the dollar-fifty&mdash;or large&mdash;size, and the...."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Peagrim rose majestically.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Selby, I am tired...."</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely. And, as I say, Nervino...."</p>
+
+<p>"Please," said Mrs. Peagrim coldly, "go to the stage-door and see if
+you can find my limousine. It should be waiting in the street."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Uncle Chris. "Why, certainly, certainly,
+certainly."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He left the box and proceeded across the stage. He walked with a
+lissom jauntiness. His eye was bright. One or two of those whom he
+passed on his way had the idea that this fine-looking man was in pain.
+They fancied that he was moaning. But Uncle Chris was not moaning. He
+was humming a gay snatch from the lighter music of the 'nineties.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>WALLY MASON LEARNS A NEW EXERCISE</h3>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+<p>Up on the roof of his apartment, far above the bustle and clamour of
+the busy city, Wally Mason, at eleven o'clock on the morning after
+Mrs. Peagrim's Bohemian party, was greeting the new day, as was his
+custom, by going through his ante-breakfast exercises. Mankind is
+divided into two classes&mdash;those who do setting-up exercises before
+breakfast and those who know they ought to but don't. To the former
+and more praiseworthy class Wally had belonged since boyhood. Life
+might be vain and the world a void, but still he touched his toes the
+prescribed number of times and twisted his muscular body about
+according to the ritual. He did so this morning a little more
+vigorously than usual, partly because he had sat up too late the night
+before and thought too much and smoked too much, with the result that
+he had risen heavy-eyed, at the present disgraceful hour, and partly
+because he hoped by wearying the flesh to still the restlessness of
+the spirit. Spring generally made Wally restless, but never previously
+had it brought him this distracted feverishness. So he lay on his back
+and waved his legs in the air, and it was only when he had risen and
+was about to go still further into the matter that he perceived Jill
+standing beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord!" said Wally.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't stop," said Jill. "I'm enjoying it.'</p>
+
+<p>"How long have you been here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I only just arrived. I rang the bell, and the nice old lady who
+is cooking your lunch told me you were out here.'</p>
+
+<p>"Not lunch. Breakfast."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Breakfast! At this hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you join me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll join you. But I had my breakfast long ago."</p>
+
+<p>Wally found his despondency magically dispelled. It was extraordinary
+how the mere sight of Jill could make the world a different place. It
+was true the sun had been shining before her arrival, but in a flabby,
+weak-minded way, not with the brilliance it had acquired immediately
+he heard her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind waiting for about three minutes while I have a
+shower and dress...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, is the entertainment over?" asked Jill, disappointed. "I always
+arrive too late for everything."</p>
+
+<p>"One of these days you shall see me go through the whole programme,
+including shadow-boxing and the goose-step. Bring your friends! But at
+the moment I think it would be more of a treat for you to watch me eat
+an egg. Go and look at the view. From over there you can see Hoboken."</p>
+
+<p>"I've seen it. I don't think much of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, on this side we have Brooklyn. There is no stint. Wander
+to and fro and enjoy yourself. The rendezvous is in the sitting-room
+in about four moments."</p>
+
+<p>Wally vaulted through the passage-window and disappeared. Then he
+returned and put his head out.</p>
+
+<p>"I say!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just occurred to me. Your uncle won't be wanting this place for half
+an hour or so, will he? I mean, there will be time for me to have a
+bite of breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose he will require your little home till some time in
+the evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally disappeared again, and a few moments later Jill heard the faint
+splashing of water. She walked to the parapet and looked down. On the
+windows of the nearer buildings the sun cast glittering beams, but
+further away a faint, translucent mist hid the city. There was Spring
+humidity in the air. In the street she had found it oppressive: but on
+the breezy summit of this steel-and-granite cliff the air was cool and
+exhilarating. Peace stole into Jill's heart as she watched the boats
+dropping slowly down the East River, which gleamed like dull steel
+through the haze. She had come to Journey's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> End, and she was happy.
+Trouble and heartache seemed as distant as those hurrying black ants
+down on the streets. She felt far away from the world on an enduring
+mountain of rest. She gave a little sigh of contentment and turned to
+go in as Wally called.</p>
+
+<p>In the sitting-room her feeling of security deepened. Here, the world
+was farther away than ever. Even the faint noises which had risen to
+the roof were inaudible, and only the cosy tick-tock of the
+grandfather's clock punctuated the stillness.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at Wally with a quickening sense of affection. He had the
+divine gift of silence at the right time. Yes, this was home. This was
+where she belonged.</p>
+
+<p>"It didn't take me in, you know," said Jill at length, resting her
+arms on the table and regarding him severely.</p>
+
+<p>Wally looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"What didn't take you in?"</p>
+
+<p>"That bath of yours. Yes, I know you turned on the cold shower, but
+you stood at a safe distance and watched it <i>show</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally waved his fork.</p>
+
+<p>"As Heaven is my witness.... Look at my hair! Still damp! And I can
+show you the towel."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I'll bet it was the hot water. Why weren't you at Mrs.
+Peagrim's party last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would take too long to explain all my reasons, but one of them was
+that I wasn't invited. How did it go off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Splendidly. Freddie's engaged!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally lowered his coffee cup.</p>
+
+<p>"Engaged! You don't mean what is sometimes slangily called betrothed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do. He's engaged to Nelly Bryant. Nelly told me all about it when
+she got home last night. It seems that Freddie said to her 'What ho!'
+and she said 'You bet!' and Freddie said 'Pip pip!' and the thing was
+settled." Jill bubbled. "Freddie wants to go into vaudeville with
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! The Juggling Rookes? Or Rooke and Bryant, the cross-talk team, a
+thoroughly refined act, swell dressers on and off?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But it doesn't matter. Nelly is domestic. She's going
+to have a little home in the country, where she can grow chickens and
+pigs."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Father's in the pigstye, you can tell him by his hat, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. They will be very happy. Freddie will be a father to her
+parrot."</p>
+
+<p>Wally's cheerfulness diminished a trifle. The contemplation of
+Freddie's enviable lot brought with it the inevitable contrast with
+his own. A little home in the country.... Oh, well!</p>
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+<p>There was a pause. Jill was looking a little grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Wally!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her face away, for there was a gleam of mischief in her
+eyes which she did not wish him to observe.</p>
+
+<p>"Derek was at the party!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally had been about to butter a piece of toast. The butter, jerked
+from the knife by the convulsive start which he gave, popped up in a
+semi-circle and plumped on to the tablecloth. He recovered himself
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry!" he said. "You mustn't mind that. They want me to be
+second-string for the "Boosting the Butter" event at the next Olympic
+Games, and I'm practising all the time.... Underhill was there, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You met him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Wally fiddled with his knife.</p>
+
+<p>"Did he come over.... I mean ... had he come specially to see you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I see."</p>
+
+<p>There was another pause.</p>
+
+<p>"He wants to marry you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He said he wanted to marry me."</p>
+
+<p>Wally got up and went to the window. Jill could smile safely now, and
+she did, but her voice was still grave.</p>
+
+<p>"What ought I to do, Wally? I thought I would ask you as you are such
+a friend."</p>
+
+<p>Wally spoke without turning.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to marry him, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"You think so?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You ought to marry him, of course," said Wally doggedly. "You love
+him, and the fact that he came all the way to America must mean that
+he still loves you. Marry him!"</p>
+
+<p>"But...." Jill hesitated. "You see, there's a difficulty."</p>
+
+<p>"What difficulty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well ... it was something I said to him just before he went away. I
+said something that made it a little difficult."</p>
+
+<p>Wally continued to inspect the roofs below.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well ... it was something ... something that I don't believe he liked
+... something that may interfere with his marrying me."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told him I was going to marry <i>you</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Wally spun round. At the same time he leaped in the air. The effect of
+the combination of movements was to cause him to stagger across the
+room and, after two or three impromptu dance steps which would have
+interested Mrs. Peagrim, to clutch at the mantelpiece to save himself
+from falling. Jill watched him with quiet approval.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's wonderful, Wally! Is that another of your morning
+exercises? If Freddie does go into vaudeville, you ought to get him to
+let you join the troupe."</p>
+
+<p>Wally was blinking at her from the mantelpiece.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what&mdash;what...!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't talk like Freddie, even if you are going into vaudeville
+with him."</p>
+
+<p>"You said you were going to marry <i>me</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said I was going to marry you!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;do you mean...?"</p>
+
+<p>The mischief died out of Jill's eyes. She met his gaze frankly and
+seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"The lumber's gone, Wally," she said. "But my heart isn't empty. It's
+quite, quite full, and it's going to be full for ever and ever and
+ever."</p>
+
+<p>Wally left the mantelpiece, and came slowly towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"Jill!" He choked. "Jill!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he pounced on her and swung her off her feet She gave a
+little breathless cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Wally! I thought you didn't approve of cavemen!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This," said Wally, "is just another new morning exercise I've thought
+of!"</p>
+
+<p>Jill sat down, gasping.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to do that often, Wally?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every day for the rest of my life!"</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you'll get used to it. It'll grow on you."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think I am making a mistake marrying you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! I've given the matter a lot of thought, and ... in fact, no,
+no!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Jill thoughtfully. "I think you'll make a good husband. I
+mean, suppose we ever want the piano moved or something.... Wally!"
+she broke off suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"You have our ear."</p>
+
+<p>"Come out on the roof," said Jill. "I want to show you something
+funny."</p>
+
+<p>Wally followed her out. They stood at the parapet together, looking
+down.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" said Jill, pointing.</p>
+
+<p>Wally looked puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"I see many things, but which is the funny one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, all these people. Over there&mdash;and there&mdash;and there. Scuttering
+about and thinking they know everything there is to know, and not one
+of them has the least idea that I am the happiest girl on earth!"</p>
+
+<p>"Or that I'm the happiest man! Their ignorance is&mdash;what is the word I
+want? Abysmal. They don't know what it's like to stand beside you and
+see that little dimple in your chin.... They don't know you've <i>got</i> a
+little dimple in your chin.... They don't know.... They don't know....
+Why, I don't suppose a single one of them even knows that I'm just
+going to kiss you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Those girls in that window over there do," said Jill. "They are
+watching us like hawks."</p>
+
+<p>"Let 'em!" said Wally briefly.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Jill had money, Jill was engaged to be married to Sir Derek Underhill.
+Suddenly Jill becomes penniless, and she is no longer engaged. With a
+smile, in which there is just a tinge of recklessness, she refuses to
+be beaten and turns to face the world. Instead she went to New York
+and became a member of the chorus of "The Rose of America," and Mr.
+Wodehouse is enabled to lift the curtain of the musical comedy world.</p>
+
+<p>There is laughter and drama in <i>Jill the Reckless</i>, and the action
+never flags from the moment that Freddie Rooke confesses that he has
+had a hectic night, down to the point where Wally says briefly "Let
+'em," which is page 313.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Jill the Reckless, by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jill the Reckless
+
+Author: P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2007 [EBook #20533]
+[Last updated: November 10, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JILL THE RECKLESS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               JILL THE
+                               RECKLESS
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                           P. G. WODEHOUSE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
+
+                        3 DUKE OF YORK STREET
+
+                     ST. JAMES'S, LONDON, S.W. 1
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY WIFE
+
+BLESS HER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+
+    I. THE FAMILY CURSE
+   II. THE FIRST NIGHT AT THE LEICESTER
+  III. JILL AND THE UNKNOWN ESCAPE
+   IV. THE LAST OF THE ROOKES TAKES A HAND
+    V. LADY UNDERHILL RECEIVES A SHOCK
+   VI. UNCLE CHRIS BANGS THE TABLE
+  VII. JILL CATCHES THE 10.10
+ VIII. THE DRY-SALTERS WING DEREK
+   IX. JILL IN SEARCH OF AN UNCLE
+    X. JILL IGNORES AUTHORITY
+   XI. MR. PILKINGTON'S LOVE LIGHT
+  XII. UNCLE CHRIS BORROWS A FLAT
+ XIII. THE AMBASSADOR ARRIVES
+  XIV. MR. GOBLE MAKES THE BIG NOISE
+   XV. JILL EXPLAINS
+  XVI. MR. GOBLE PLAYS WITH FATE
+ XVII. THE COST OF A ROW
+XVIII. JILL RECEIVES NOTICE
+  XIX. MRS. PEAGRIM BURNS INCENSE
+   XX. DEREK LOSES ONE BIRD AND SECURES ANOTHER
+  XXI. WALLY MASON LEARNS A NEW EXERCISE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JILL THE RECKLESS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE FAMILY CURSE
+
+I
+
+
+Freddie Rooke gazed coldly at the breakfast-table. Through a gleaming
+eye-glass he inspected the revolting object which Barker, his faithful
+man, had placed on a plate before him.
+
+"Barker!" His voice had a ring of pain.
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"What's this?"
+
+"Poached egg, sir."
+
+Freddie averted his eyes with a silent shudder.
+
+"It looks just like an old aunt of mine," he said. "Remove it!"
+
+He got up, and, wrapping his dressing-gown about his long legs, took
+up a stand in front of the fireplace. From this position he surveyed
+the room, his shoulders against the mantelpiece, his calves pressing
+the club fender. It was a cheerful oasis in a chill and foggy world, a
+typical London bachelor's breakfast-room. The walls were a restful
+grey, and the table, set for two, a comfortable arrangement in white
+and silver.
+
+"Eggs, Barker," said Freddie solemnly, "are the acid test!"
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"If, on the morning after, you can tackle a poached egg, you are all
+right. If not, not. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Freddie pressed the palm of his hand to his brow, and sighed.
+
+"It would seem, then, that I must have revelled a trifle
+whole-heartedly last night. I was possibly a little blotto. Not
+whiffled, perhaps, but indisputably blotto. Did I make much noise
+coming in?"
+
+"No, sir. You were very quiet."
+
+"Ah! A dashed bad sign!"
+
+Freddie moved to the table, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
+
+"The cream jug is to your right, sir," said the helpful Barker.
+
+"Let it remain there. _Café noir_ for me this morning. As _noir_ as it
+can jolly well stick!" Freddie retired to the fireplace and sipped
+delicately. "As far as I can remember, it was Ronny Devereux' birthday
+or something...."
+
+"Mr. Martyn's, I think you said, sir."
+
+"That's right. Algy Martyn's birthday, and Ronny and I were the
+guests. It all comes back to me. I wanted Derek to roll along and join
+the festivities--he's never met Ronny--but he gave it a miss. Quite
+right! A chap in his position has responsibilities. Member of
+Parliament and all that. Besides," said Freddie earnestly, driving
+home the point with a wave of his spoon, "he's engaged to be married.
+You must remember that, Barker!"
+
+"I will endeavour to, sir."
+
+"Sometimes," said Freddie dreamily, "I wish I were engaged to be
+married. Sometimes I wish I had some sweet girl to watch over me
+and.... No, I don't, by Jove. It would give me the utter pip! Is Sir
+Derek up yet, Barker?"
+
+"Getting up, sir."
+
+"See that everything is all right, will you? I mean as regards the
+food-stuffs and what not. I want him to make a good breakfast. He's
+got to meet his mother this morning at Charing Cross. She's legging it
+back from the Riviera."
+
+"Indeed, sir?"
+
+Freddie shook his head.
+
+"You wouldn't speak in that light, careless tone if you knew her!
+Well, you'll see her to-night. She's coming here to dinner."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Miss Mariner will be here, too. A foursome. Tell Mrs. Barker to pull
+up her socks and give us something pretty ripe. Soup, fish, all that
+sort of thing. _She_ knows. And let's have a stoup of malvoisie from
+the oldest bin. This is a special occasion!"
+
+"Her ladyship will be meeting Miss Mariner for the first time, sir?"
+
+"You've put your finger on it! Absolutely the first time on this or
+any stage! We must all rally round and make the thing a success."
+
+"I am sure Mrs. Barker will strain every nerve, sir." Barker moved to
+the door, carrying the rejected egg, and stepped aside to allow a
+tall, well-built man of about thirty to enter. "Good morning, Sir
+Derek."
+
+"Morning, Barker."
+
+Barker slid softly from the room. Derek Underhill sat down at the
+table. He was a strikingly handsome man, with a strong, forceful face,
+dark, lean and cleanly shaven. He was one of those men whom a stranger
+would instinctively pick out of a crowd as worthy of note. His only
+defect was that his heavy eyebrows gave him at times an expression
+which was a little forbidding. Women, however, had never been repelled
+by it. He was very popular with women, not quite so popular with
+men--always excepting Freddie Rooke, who worshipped him. They had been
+at school together, though Freddie was the younger by several years.
+
+"Finished, Freddie?" asked Derek.
+
+Freddie smiled wanly.
+
+"We are not breakfasting this morning," he replied. "The spirit was
+willing, but the jolly old flesh would have none of it. To be
+perfectly frank, the Last of the Rookes has a bit of a head."
+
+"Ass!" said Derek.
+
+"A bit of sympathy," said Freddie, pained, "would not be out of place.
+We are far from well. Some person unknown has put a threshing-machine
+inside the old bean and substituted a piece of brown paper for our
+tongue. Things look dark and yellow and wobbly!"
+
+"You shouldn't have overdone it last night."
+
+"It was Algy Martyn's birthday," pleaded Freddie.
+
+"If I were an ass like Algy Martyn," said Derek, "I wouldn't go about
+advertising the fact that I'd been born. I'd hush it up!"
+
+He helped himself to a plentiful portion of kedgeree, Freddie watching
+him with repulsion mingled with envy. When he began to eat the
+spectacle became too poignant for the sufferer, and he wandered to the
+window.
+
+"What a beast of a day!"
+
+It was an appalling day. January, that grim month, was treating London
+with its usual severity. Early in the morning a bank of fog had rolled
+up off the river, and was deepening from pearly white to a lurid
+brown. It pressed on the window-pane like a blanket, leaving dark,
+damp rivulets on the glass.
+
+"Awful!" said Derek,
+
+"Your mater's train will be late."
+
+"Yes. Damned nuisance. It's bad enough meeting trains in any case,
+without having to hang about a draughty station for an hour."
+
+"And it's sure, I should imagine," went on Freddie, pursuing his train
+of thought, "to make the dear old thing pretty tolerably ratty, if she
+has one of those slow journeys." He pottered back to the fireplace,
+and rubbed his shoulders reflectively against the mantelpiece. "I take
+it that you wrote to her about Jill?"
+
+"Of course. That's why she's coming over, I suppose. By the way, you
+got those seats for that theatre to-night?"
+
+"Yes. Three together and one somewhere on the outskirts. If it's all
+the same to you, old thing, I'll have the one on the outskirts."
+
+Derek, who had finished his kedgeree and was now making himself a blot
+on Freddie's horizon with toast and marmalade, laughed.
+
+"What a rabbit you are, Freddie! Why on earth are you so afraid of
+mother?"
+
+Freddie looked at him as a timid young squire might have gazed upon
+St. George when the latter set out to do battle with the dragon. He
+was of the amiable type which makes heroes of its friends. In the old
+days when he had fagged for him at Winchester he had thought Derek the
+most wonderful person in the world, and this view he still retained.
+Indeed, subsequent events had strengthened it. Derek had done the most
+amazing things since leaving school. He had had a brilliant career at
+Oxford, and now, in the House of Commons, was already looked upon by
+the leaders of his party as one to be watched and encouraged. He
+played polo superlatively well, and was a fine shot. But of all his
+gifts and qualities the one that extorted Freddie's admiration in its
+intensest form was his lion-like courage as exemplified by his
+behaviour in the present crisis. There he sat, placidly eating toast
+and marmalade, while the boat-train containing Lady Underhill already
+sped on its way from Dover to London. It was like Drake playing bowls
+with the Spanish Armada in sight.
+
+"I wish I had your nerve!" he said awed. "What I should be feeling, if
+I were in your place and had to meet your mater after telling her that
+I was engaged to marry a girl she had never seen, I don't know. I'd
+rather face a wounded tiger!"
+
+"Idiot!" said Derek placidly.
+
+"Not," pursued Freddie, "that I mean to say anything in the least
+derogatory and so forth to your jolly old mater, if you understand me,
+but the fact remains she scares me pallid. Always has, ever since the
+first time I went to stay at your place when I was a kid. I can still
+remember catching her eye the morning I happened by pure chance to
+bung an apple through her bedroom window, meaning to let a cat on the
+sill below have it in the short ribs. She was at least thirty feet
+away, but, by Jove, it stopped me like a bullet!"
+
+"Push the bell, old man, will you? I want some more toast."
+
+Freddie did as he was requested, with growing admiration.
+
+"The condemned man made an excellent breakfast," he murmured. "More
+toast, Barker," he added, as that admirable servitor opened the door.
+"Gallant! That's what I call it. Gallant!"
+
+Derek tilted his chair back.
+
+"Mother is sure to like Jill when she sees her," he said.
+
+"_When_ she sees her! Ah! But the trouble is, young feller-me-lad,
+that she _hasn't_ seen her! That's the weak spot in your case, old
+companion. A month ago she didn't know of Jill's existence. Now, you
+know and I know that Jill is one of the best and brightest. As far as
+we are concerned, everything in the good old garden is lovely. Why,
+dash it, Jill and I were children together. Sported side by side on
+the green, and what not. I remember Jill, when she was twelve, turning
+the garden hose on me and knocking about seventy-five per cent off the
+market value of my best Sunday suit. That sort of thing forms a bond,
+you know, and I've always felt that she was a corker. But your
+mater's got to discover it for herself. It's a dashed pity, by Jove,
+that Jill hasn't a father or a mother or something of that species to
+rally round just now. They would form a gang. There's nothing like a
+gang! But she's only got that old uncle of hers. A rummy bird. Met
+him?"
+
+"Several times. I like him."
+
+"Oh, he's a genial old buck all right. A very bonhomous lad. But you
+hear some pretty queer stories about him if you get among people who
+knew him in the old days. Even now I'm not so dashed sure I should
+care to play cards with him. Young Threepwood was telling me only the
+other day that the old boy took thirty quid off him at picquet as
+clean as a whistle. And Jimmy Monroe, who's on the Stock Exchange,
+says he's frightfully busy these times buying margins or whatever it
+is chappies do down in the City. Margins. That's the word. Jimmy made
+me buy some myself on a thing called Amalgamated Dyes. I don't
+understand the procedure exactly, but Jimmy says it's a sound egg and
+will do me a bit of good. What was I talking about? Oh, yes, old
+Selby. There's no doubt he's quite a sportsman. But till you've got
+Jill well established, you know, I shouldn't enlarge on him too much
+with the mater."
+
+"On the contrary," said Derek, "I shall mention him at the first
+opportunity. He knew my father out in India."
+
+"Did he, by Jove! Oh, well, that makes a difference."
+
+Barker entered with the toast, and Derek resumed his breakfast.
+
+"It may be a little bit awkward," he said, "at first, meeting mother.
+But everything will be all right after five minutes."
+
+"Absolutely! But, oh, boy! that first five minutes!" Freddie gazed
+portentously through his eye-glass. Then he seemed to be undergoing
+some internal struggle, for he gulped once or twice. "That first five
+minutes!" he said, and paused again. A moment's silent self-communion,
+and he went on with a rush. "I say, listen. Shall I come along, too?"
+
+"Come along?"
+
+"To the station. With you."
+
+"What on earth for?"
+
+"To see you through the opening stages. Break the ice, and all that
+sort of thing. Nothing like collecting a gang, you know. Moments when
+a feller needs a friend and so forth. Say the word, and I'll buzz
+along and lend my moral support."
+
+Derek's heavy eyebrows closed together in an offended frown, and
+seemed to darken his whole face. This unsolicited offer of assistance
+hurt his dignity. He showed a touch of the petulance which came now
+and then when he was annoyed, to suggest that he might not possess so
+strong a character as his exterior indicated.
+
+"It's very kind of you," he began stiffly.
+
+Freddie nodded. He was acutely conscious of this himself.
+
+"Some fellows," he observed, "would say 'Not at all!' I suppose. But
+not the Last of the Rookes! For, honestly, old man, between ourselves,
+I don't mind admitting that this is the bravest deed of the year, and
+I'm dashed if I would do it for anyone else."
+
+"It's very good of you, Freddie...."
+
+"That's all right. I'm a Boy Scout, and this is my act of kindness for
+to-day."
+
+Derek got up from the table.
+
+"Of course you mustn't come," he said. "We can't form a sort of
+debating society to discuss Jill on the platform at Charing Cross."
+
+"Oh, I would just hang around in the offing, shoving in an occasional
+tactful word."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"The wheeze would simply be to...."
+
+"It's impossible."
+
+"Oh, very well," said Freddie, damped. "Just as you say, of course.
+But there's nothing like a gang, old son, nothing like a gang!"
+
+
+II
+
+Derek Underhill threw down the stump of his cigar, and grunted
+irritably. Inside Charing Cross Station business was proceeding as
+usual. Porters wheeling baggage-trucks moved to and fro like
+Juggernauts. Belated trains clanked in, glad to get home, while
+others, less fortunate, crept reluctantly out through the blackness
+and disappeared into an inferno of detonating fog-signals. For outside
+the fog still held. The air was cold and raw and tasted coppery. In
+the street traffic moved at a funeral pace, to the accompaniment of
+hoarse cries and occasional crashes. Once the sun had worked its way
+through the murk and had hung in the sky like a great red orange, but
+now all was darkness and discomfort again, blended with that odd
+suggestion of mystery and romance which is a London fog's only
+redeeming quality.
+
+The fog and the waiting had had their effect upon Derek. The resolute
+front he had exhibited to Freddie at the breakfast-table had melted
+since his arrival at the station, and he was feeling nervous at the
+prospect of the meeting that lay before him. Calm as he had appeared
+to the eye of Freddie and bravely as he had spoken, Derek, in the
+recesses of his heart, was afraid of his mother. There are men--and
+Derek Underhill was one of them--who never wholly emerge from the
+nursery. They may put away childish things and rise in the world to
+affluence and success, but the hand that rocked their cradle still
+rules their lives.
+
+Derek turned to begin one more walk along the platform, and stopped in
+mid-stride, raging. Beaming over the collar of a plaid greatcoat, all
+helpfulness and devotion, Freddie Rooke was advancing towards him, the
+friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Like some loving dog, who,
+ordered home sneaks softly on through alleys and by-ways, peeping
+round corners and crouching behind lamp-posts, the faithful Freddie
+had followed him after all. And with him, to add the last touch to
+Derek's discomfiture, were those two inseparable allies of his, Ronny
+Devereux and Algy Martyn.
+
+"Well, old thing," said Freddie, patting Derek encouragingly on the
+shoulder, "here we are after all! I know you told me not to roll round
+and so forth, but I knew you didn't mean it. I thought it over after
+you had left, and decided it would be a rotten trick not to cluster
+about you in your hour of need. I hope you don't mind Ronny and Algy
+breezing along too. The fact is, I was in the deuce of a funk--your
+jolly old mater always rather paralyses my nerve-centres, you know--so
+I roped them in. Met 'em in Piccadilly, groping about for the club,
+and conscripted 'em both, they very decently consenting. We all
+toddled off and had a pick-me-up at that chemist chappie's at the top
+of the Hay-market, and now we're feeling full of beans and buck,
+ready for anything. I've explained the whole thing to them, and
+they're with you to the death! Collect a gang, dear boy, collect a
+gang! That's the motto. There's nothing like it!"
+
+"Nothing!" said Ronny.
+
+"Absolutely nothing!" said Algy.
+
+"We'll just see you through the opening stages," said Freddie, "and
+then leg it. We'll keep the conversation general you know."
+
+"Stop it getting into painful channels," said Ronny.
+
+"Steer it clear," said Algy, "of the touchy topic."
+
+"That's the wheeze," said Freddie. "We'll ... Oh, golly! There's the
+train coming in now!" His voice quavered, for not even the comforting
+presence of his two allies could altogether sustain him in this
+ordeal. But he pulled himself together with a manful effort. "Stick
+it, old beans!" he said doughtily. "Now is the time for all good men
+to come to the aid of the party!"
+
+"We're here!" said Ronny Devereux.
+
+"On the spot!" said Algy Martyn.
+
+
+III
+
+The boat-train slid into the station. Bells rang, engines blew off
+steam, porters shouted, baggage-trucks rattled over the platform. The
+train began to give up its contents, now in ones and twos, now in a
+steady stream. Most of the travellers seemed limp and exhausted, and
+were pale with the pallor that comes of a choppy Channel crossing.
+Almost the only exception to the general condition of collapse was the
+eagle-faced lady in the brown ulster, who had taken up her stand in
+the middle of the platform and was haranguing a subdued little maid in
+a voice that cut the gloomy air like a steel knife. Like the other
+travellers, she was pale, but she bore up resolutely. No one could
+have told from Lady Underhill's demeanour that the solid platform
+seemed to heave beneath her feet like a deck.
+
+Derek approached, acutely conscious of Freddie, Ronny, and Algy, who
+were skirmishing about his flank.
+
+"Well, mother! So there you are at last!"
+
+"Well, Derek!"
+
+Derek kissed his mother. Freddie, Ronny, and Algy shuffled closer,
+like leopards. Freddie, with the expression of one who leads a
+forlorn hope, moved his Adam's apple briskly up and down several
+times, and spoke.
+
+"How do you do, Lady Underhill?"
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Rooke?"
+
+Lady Underhill bowed stiffly and without pleasure. She was not fond of
+the Last of the Rookes. She supposed the Almighty had had some wise
+purpose in creating Freddie, but it had always been inscrutable to
+her.
+
+"Like you," mumbled Freddie, "to meet my friends. Lady Underhill. Mr.
+Devereux."
+
+"Charmed," said Ronny affably.
+
+"Mr. Martyn."
+
+"Delighted," said Algy with old-world courtesy.
+
+Lady Underhill regarded this mob-scene with an eye of ice.
+
+"How do you do?" she said. "Have you come to meet somebody?"
+
+"I--er--we--er--why--er--" This woman always made Freddie feel as if
+he were being disembowelled by some clumsy amateur. He wished that he
+had defied the dictates of his better nature and remained in his snug
+rooms at the Albany, allowing Derek to go through this business by
+himself. "I--er--we--er--came to meet _you_, don't you know!"
+
+"Indeed! That was very kind of you!"
+
+"Oh, not at all."
+
+"Thought we'd welcome you back to the old homestead," said Ronny
+beaming.
+
+"What could be sweeter?" said Algy. He produced a cigar-case, and
+extracted a formidable torpedo-shaped Havana. He was feeling
+delightfully at his ease, and couldn't understand why Freddie had made
+such a fuss about meeting this nice old lady. "Don't mind if I smoke,
+do you? Air's a bit raw to-day. Gets into the lungs."
+
+Derek chafed impotently. These unsought allies were making a difficult
+situation a thousand times worse. A more acute observer than young Mr.
+Martyn, he noted the tight lines about his mother's mouth and knew
+them for the danger-signal they were. Endeavouring to distract her
+with light conversation, he selected a subject which was a little
+unfortunate.
+
+"What sort of crossing did you have, mother?"
+
+Lady Underhill winced. A current of air had sent the perfume of
+Algy's cigar playing about her nostrils. She closed her eyes, and her
+face turned a shade paler. Freddie, observing this, felt quite sorry
+for the poor old thing. She was a pest and a pot of poison, of course,
+but all the same, he reflected charitably, it was a shame that she
+should look so green about the gills. He came to the conclusion that
+she must be hungry. The thing to do was to take her mind off it till
+she could be conducted to a restaurant and dumped down in front of a
+bowl of soup.
+
+"Bit choppy, I suppose, what?" he bellowed, in a voice that ran up and
+down Lady Underhill's nervous system like an electric needle. "I was
+afraid you were going to have a pretty rough time of it when I read
+the forecast in the paper. The good old boat wobbled a bit, eh?"
+
+Lady Underhill uttered a faint moan. Freddie noticed that she was
+looking deucedly chippy, even chippier than a moment ago.
+
+"It's an extraordinary thing about that Channel crossing," said Algy
+Martyn meditatively, as he puffed a refreshing cloud. "I've known
+fellows who could travel quite happily everywhere else in the
+world--round the Horn in sailing-ships and all that sort of
+thing--yield up their immortal soul crossing the Channel! Absolutely
+yield up their immortal soul! Don't know why. Rummy, but there it is!"
+
+"I'm like that myself," assented Ronny Devereux. "That dashed trip
+from Calais gets me every time. Bowls me right over. I go aboard,
+stoked to the eyebrows with sea-sick remedies, swearing that this time
+I'll fool 'em, but down I go ten minutes after we've started and the
+next thing I know is somebody saying, 'Well, well! So this is Dover!'"
+
+"It's exactly the same with me," said Freddie, delighted with the
+smooth, easy way the conversation was flowing. "Whether it's the hot,
+greasy smell of the engines...."
+
+"It's not the engines," contended Ronny Devereux. "Stands to reason it
+can't be. I rather like the smell of engines. This station is reeking
+with the smell of engine-grease, and I can drink it in and enjoy it."
+He sniffed, luxuriantly. "It's something else."
+
+"Ronny's right," said Algy cordially. "It isn't the engines. It's the
+way the boat heaves up and down and up and down and up and down...."
+He shifted his cigar to his left hand in order to give with his right
+a spirited illustration of a Channel steamer going up and down and up
+and down and up and down. Lady Underhill, who had opened her eyes, had
+an excellent view of the performance, and closed her eyes again
+quickly.
+
+"Be quiet!" she snapped.
+
+"I was only saying...."
+
+"Be quiet!"
+
+"Oh, rather!"
+
+Lady Underhill wrestled with herself. She was a woman of great
+will-power and accustomed to triumph over the weaknesses of the flesh.
+After a while her eyes opened. She had forced herself, against the
+evidence of her senses, to recognize that this was a platform on which
+she stood and not a deck.
+
+There was a pause. Algy, damped, was temporarily out of action, and
+his friends had for the moment nothing to remark.
+
+"I'm afraid you had a trying journey, mother," said Derek. "The train
+was very late."
+
+"Now, _train_-sickness," said Algy, coming to the surface again, "is a
+thing lots of people suffer from. Never could understand it myself."
+
+"I've never had a touch of train-sickness," said Ronny.
+
+"Oh, I have," said Freddie. "I've often felt rotten on a train. I get
+floating spots in front of my eyes and a sort of heaving sensation,
+and everything kind of goes black...."
+
+"Mr. Rooke!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I should be greatly obliged if you would keep those confidences for
+the ear of your medical adviser."
+
+"Freddie," intervened Derek hastily, "my mother's rather tired. Do you
+think you could be going ahead and getting a taxi?"
+
+"My dear old chap, of course! Get you one in a second. Come along,
+Algy. Pick up the old waukeesis, Ronny."
+
+And Freddie, accompanied by his henchmen, ambled off, well pleased
+with himself. He had, he felt, helped to break the ice for Derek and
+had seen him safely through those awkward opening stages. Now he could
+totter off with a light heart and get a bite of lunch.
+
+Lady Underhill's eyes glittered. They were small, keen, black eyes,
+unlike Derek's, which were large and brown. In their other features
+the two were obviously mother and son. Each had the same long upper
+lip, the same thin, firm mouth, the prominent chin which was a family
+characteristic of the Underhills, and the jutting Underhill nose. Most
+of the Underhills came into the world looking as though they meant to
+drive their way through life like a wedge.
+
+"A little more," she said tensely, "and I should have struck those
+unspeakable young men with my umbrella. One of the things I have never
+been able to understand, Derek, is why you should have selected that
+imbecile Rooke as your closest friend."
+
+Derek smiled tolerantly.
+
+"It was more a case of him selecting _me_. But Freddie is quite a good
+fellow really. He's a man you've got to know."
+
+"_I_ have not got to know him, and I thank heaven for it!"
+
+"He's a very good-natured fellow. It was decent of him to put me up at
+the Albany while our house was let. By the way, he has some seats for
+the first night of a new piece this evening. He suggested that we
+might all dine at the Albany and go on to the theatre." He hesitated a
+moment. "Jill will be there," he said, and felt easier now that her
+name had at last come into the talk. "She's longing to meet you."
+
+"Then why didn't she meet me?"
+
+"Here, do you mean? At the station? Well, I--I wanted you to see her
+for the first time in pleasanter surroundings."
+
+"Oh!" said Lady Underhill shortly.
+
+It is a disturbing thought that we suffer in this world just as much
+by being prudent and taking precautions as we do by being rash and
+impulsive and acting as the spirit moves us. If Jill had been
+permitted by her wary fiancé to come with him to the station to meet
+his mother it is certain that much trouble would have been avoided.
+True, Lady Underhill would probably have been rude to her in the
+opening stages of the interview, but she would not have been alarmed
+and suspicious; or, rather, the vague suspicion which she had been
+feeling would not have solidified, as it did now into definite
+certainty of the worst. All that Derek had effected by his careful
+diplomacy had been to convince his mother that he considered his
+bride-elect something to be broken gently to her.
+
+She stopped and faced him.
+
+"Who is she?" she demanded. "Who is this girl?"
+
+Derek flushed.
+
+"I thought I made everything clear in my letter."
+
+"You made nothing clear at all."
+
+"By your leave!" chanted a porter behind them, and a baggage-truck
+clove them apart.
+
+"We can't talk in a crowded station," said Derek irritably. "Let me
+get you to the taxi and take you to the hotel.... What do you want to
+know about Jill?"
+
+"Everything. Where does she come from? Who are her people? I don't
+know any Mariners."
+
+"I haven't cross-examined her," said Derek stiffly. "But I do know
+that her parents are dead. Her father was an American."
+
+"American!"
+
+"Americans frequently have daughters, I believe."
+
+"There is nothing to be gained by losing your temper," said Lady
+Underhill with steely calm.
+
+"There is nothing to be gained, as far as I can see, by all this
+talk," retorted Derek. He wondered vexedly why his mother always had
+this power of making him lose control of himself. He hated to lose
+control of himself. It upset him, and blurred that vision which he
+liked to have of himself as a calm, important man superior to ordinary
+weaknesses. "Jill and I are engaged, and there is an end to it."
+
+"Don't be a fool," said Lady Underhill, and was driven away by another
+baggage-truck. "You know perfectly well," she resumed, returning to
+the attack, "that your marriage is a matter of the greatest concern to
+me and to the whole of the family."
+
+"Listen, mother!" Derek's long wait on the draughty platform had
+generated an irritability which overcame the deep-seated awe of his
+mother which was the result of years of defeat in battles of the will.
+"Let me tell you in a few words all that I know of Jill, and then
+we'll drop the subject. In the first place, she is a lady. Secondly,
+she has plenty of money...."
+
+"The Underhills do not need to marry for money."
+
+"I am not marrying for money!"
+
+"Well, go on."
+
+"I have already described to you in my letter--very inadequately, but
+I did my best--what she looks like. Her sweetness, her lovableness,
+all the subtle things about her which go to make her what she is, you
+will have to judge for yourself."
+
+"I intend to!"
+
+"Well, that's all, then. She lives with her uncle, a Major Selby...."
+
+"Major Selby? What regiment?"
+
+"I didn't ask him," snapped the goaded Derek. "And, in the name of
+heaven, what does it matter? If you are worrying about Major Selby's
+social standing, I may as well tell you that he used to know father."
+
+"What! When? Where?"
+
+"Years ago. In India, when father was at Simla."
+
+"Selby? Selby? Not Christopher Selby?"
+
+"Oh, you remember him?"
+
+"I certainly remember him! Not that he and I ever met, but your father
+often spoke of him."
+
+Derek was relieved. It was abominable that this sort of thing should
+matter, but one had to face facts, and, as far as his mother was
+concerned, it did. The fact that Jill's uncle had known his dead
+father would make all the difference to Lady Underhill.
+
+"Christopher Selby!" said Lady Underhill reflectively. "Yes! I have
+often heard your father speak of him. He was the man who gave your
+father an I.O.U. to pay a card debt, and redeemed it with a cheque
+which was returned by the bank!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Didn't you hear what I said? I will repeat it, if you wish."
+
+"There must have been some mistake."
+
+"Only the one your father made when he trusted the man."
+
+"It must have been some other fellow."
+
+"Of course!" said Lady Underhill satirically. "No doubt your father
+knew hundreds of Christopher Selbys!"
+
+Derek bit his lip.
+
+"Well, after all," he said doggedly, "whether it's true or not...."
+
+"I see no reason why your father should not have spoken the truth."
+
+"All right. We'll say it _is_ true, then. But what does it matter? I
+am marrying Jill, not her uncle."
+
+"Nevertheless, it would be pleasanter if her only living relative
+were not a swindler!... Tell me, where and how did you meet this
+girl?"
+
+"I should be glad if you would not refer to her as 'this girl.' The
+name, if you have forgotten it, is Mariner."
+
+"Well, where did you meet Miss Mariner?"
+
+"At Prince's. Just after you left for Mentone. Freddie Rooke
+introduced me."
+
+"Oh, your intellectual friend Mr. Rooke knows her?"
+
+"They were children together. Her people lived next to the Rookes in
+Worcestershire."
+
+"I thought you said she was an American."
+
+"I said her father was. He settled in England. Jill hasn't been in
+America since she was eight or nine."
+
+"The fact," said Lady Underhill, "that the girl is a friend of Mr.
+Rooke is no great recommendation."
+
+Derek kicked angrily at a box of matches which someone had thrown down
+on the platform.
+
+"I wonder if you could possibly get it into your head, mother, that I
+want to marry Jill, not engage her as an under-housemaid. I don't
+consider that she requires recommendations, as you call them. However,
+don't you think the most sensible thing is for you to wait till you
+meet her at dinner to-night, and then you can form your own opinion?
+I'm beginning to get a little bored by this futile discussion."
+
+"As you seem quite unable to talk on the subject of this girl without
+becoming rude," said Lady Underhill, "I agree with you. Let us hope
+that my first impression will be a favourable one. Experience has
+taught me that first impressions are everything."
+
+"I'm glad you think so," said Derek, "for I fell in love with Jill the
+very first moment I saw her!"
+
+
+IV
+
+Barker stepped back and surveyed with modest pride the dinner-table to
+which he had been putting the finishing touches. It was an artistic
+job and a credit to him.
+
+"That's that!" said Barker, satisfied.
+
+He went to the window and looked out. The fog which had lasted well
+into the evening, had vanished now, and the clear night was bright
+with stars. A distant murmur of traffic came from the direction of
+Piccadilly.
+
+As he stood there, the front-door bell rang, and continued to ring in
+little spurts of sound. If character can be deduced from bell-ringing,
+as nowadays it apparently can be from every other form of human
+activity, one might have hazarded the guess that whoever was on the
+other side of the door was determined, impetuous, and energetic.
+
+"Barker!"
+
+Freddie Rooke pushed a tousled head, which had yet to be brushed into
+the smooth sleekness that made a delight to the public eye, out of a
+room down the passage.
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Somebody ringing."
+
+"I heard, sir. I was about to answer the bell."
+
+"If it's Lady Underhill, tell her I'll be in in a minute."
+
+"I fancy it is Miss Mariner, sir. I think I recognize her touch."
+
+He made his way down the passage to the front-door, and opened it. A
+girl was standing outside. She wore a long grey fur coat, and a filmy
+hood covered her hair. As Barker opened the door, she scampered in
+like a grey kitten.
+
+"Brrh! It's cold!" she exclaimed. "Hullo, Barker!"
+
+"Good evening, miss."
+
+"Am I the last or the first or what?"
+
+Barker moved to help her with her cloak.
+
+"Sir Derek and her ladyship have not yet arrived, miss. Sir Derek went
+to bring her ladyship from the Savoy Hotel. Mr. Rooke is dressing in
+his bedroom and will be ready very shortly."
+
+The girl had slipped out of the fur coat, and Barker cast a swift
+glance of approval at her. He had the valet's unerring eye for a
+thoroughbred, and Jill Mariner was manifestly that. It showed in her
+walk, in every move of her small, active body, in the way she looked
+at you, in the way she talked to you, in the little tilt of her
+resolute chin. Her hair was pale gold, and had the brightness of
+colouring of a child's. Her face glowed, and her grey eyes sparkled.
+She looked very much alive.
+
+It was this liveliness of hers that was her chief charm. Her eyes were
+good and her mouth, with its small, even teeth, attractive, but she
+would have laughed if anybody had called her beautiful. She sometimes
+doubted if she were even pretty. Yet few men had met her and remained
+entirely undisturbed. She had a magnetism. One hapless youth, who had
+laid his heart at her feet and had been commanded to pick it up again,
+had endeavoured subsequently to explain her attraction (to a bosom
+friend over a mournful bottle of the best in the club smoking-room) in
+these words: "I don't know what it is about her, old man, but she
+somehow makes a feller feel she's so damned _interested_ in a chap, if
+you know what I mean." And though not generally credited in his circle
+with any great acuteness, there is no doubt that the speaker had
+achieved something approaching a true analysis of Jill's fascination
+for his sex. She was interested in everything Life presented to her
+notice, from a Coronation to a stray cat. She was vivid. She had
+sympathy. She listened to you as though you really mattered. It takes
+a man of tough fibre to resist these qualities. Women, on the other
+hand, especially of the Lady Underhill type, can resist them without
+an effort.
+
+"Go and stir him up," said Jill, alluding to the absent Mr. Rooke.
+"Tell him to come and talk to me. Where's the nearest fire? I want to
+get right over it and huddle."
+
+"The fire's burning nicely in the sitting-room, miss."
+
+Jill hurried into the sitting-room, and increased her hold on Barker's
+esteem by exclaiming rapturously at the sight that greeted her. Barker
+had expended time and trouble over the sitting-room. There was no
+dust, no untidiness. The pictures all hung straight; the cushions were
+smooth and unrumpled; and a fire of exactly the right dimensions
+burned cheerfully in the grate, flickering cosily on the small piano
+by the couch, on the deep leather arm-chairs which Freddie had brought
+with him from Oxford, that home of comfortable chairs, and on the
+photographs that studded the walls. In the centre of the mantelpiece,
+the place of honour, was the photograph of herself which she had given
+Derek a week ago.
+
+"You're simply wonderful, Barker! I don't see how you manage to make a
+room so cosy!" Jill sat down on the club fender that guarded the
+fireplace, and held her hands over the blaze. "I can't understand why
+men ever marry. Fancy having to give up all this!"
+
+"I am gratified that you appreciate it, miss. I did my best to make it
+comfortable for you. I fancy I hear Mr. Rooke coming now."
+
+"I hope the others won't be long. I'm starving. Has Mrs. Barker got
+something very good for dinner?"
+
+"She has strained every nerve, miss."
+
+"Then I'm sure it's worth waiting for. Hullo, Freddie."
+
+Freddie Rooke, resplendent in evening dress, bustled in, patting his
+tie with solicitous fingers. It had been right when he had looked in
+the glass in his bedroom, but you never know about ties. Sometimes
+they stay right, sometimes they wriggle up sideways. Life is full of
+these anxieties.
+
+"I shouldn't touch it," said Jill. "It looks beautiful, and, if I may
+say so in confidence, is having a most disturbing effect on my
+emotional nature. I'm not at all sure I shall be able to resist it
+right through the evening. It isn't fair of you to try to alienate the
+affections of an engaged young person like this."
+
+Freddie squinted down, and became calmer.
+
+"Hullo, Jill, old thing. Nobody here yet?"
+
+"Well, I'm here--the _petite_ figure seated on the fender. But perhaps
+I don't count."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean that, you know."
+
+"I should hope not, when I've bought a special new dress just to
+fascinate you. A creation I mean. When they cost as much as this one
+did, you have to call them names. What do you think of it?"
+
+Freddie seated himself on another section of the fender, and regarded
+her with the eye of an expert. A snappy dresser, as the technical term
+is, himself, he appreciated snap in the outer covering of the other
+sex.
+
+"Topping!" he said spaciously. "No other word for it. All wool and a
+yard wide. Precisely as mother makes it. You look like a thingummy."
+
+"How splendid. All my life I've wanted to look like a thingummy, but
+somehow I've never been able to manage it."
+
+"A wood-nymph!" exclaimed Freddie, in a burst of unwonted imagery. He
+looked at her with honest admiration. "Dash it, Jill, you know,
+there's something about you! You're--what's the word?--you've got such
+small bones."
+
+"Ugh! I suppose it's a compliment, but how horrible it sounds! It
+makes me feel like a skeleton."
+
+"I mean to say, you're--you're dainty!"
+
+"That's much better."
+
+"You look as if you weighed about an ounce and a half. You look like
+a bit of thistledown! You're a little fairy princess, dash it!"
+
+"Freddie! This is eloquence!" Jill raised her left hand, and twiddled
+a ringed finger ostentatiously. "Er--you _do_ realize that I'm
+bespoke, don't you, and that my heart, alas, is another's? Because you
+sound as if you were going to propose."
+
+Freddie produced a snowy handkerchief, and polished his eye-glass.
+Solemnity descended on him like a cloud. He looked at Jill with an
+earnest, paternal gaze.
+
+"That reminds me," he said. "I wanted to have a bit of a talk with you
+about that--being engaged and all that sort of thing. I'm glad I got
+you alone before the Curse arrived."
+
+"Curse? Do you mean Derek's mother? That sounds cheerful and
+encouraging."
+
+"Well, she is, you know," said Freddie earnestly. "She's a bird! It
+would be idle to deny it. She always puts the fear of God into me. I
+never know what to say to her."
+
+"Why don't you try asking her riddles?"
+
+"It's no joking matter," persisted Freddie, his amiable face overcast.
+"Wait till you meet her! You should have seen her at the station this
+morning. You don't know what you're up against!"
+
+"You make my flesh creep, Freddie. What am I up against?"
+
+Freddie poked the fire scientifically, and assisted it with coal.
+
+"It's this way," he said. "Of course, dear old Derek's the finest chap
+in the world."
+
+"I know that," said Jill softly. She patted Freddie's hand with a
+little gesture of gratitude. Freddie's devotion to Derek was a thing
+that always touched her. She looked thoughtfully into the fire, and
+her eyes seemed to glow in sympathy with the glowing coals. "There's
+nobody like him!"
+
+"But," continued Freddie, "he always has been frightfully under his
+mother's thumb, you know."
+
+Jill was conscious of a little flicker of irritation.
+
+"Don't be absurd, Freddie. How could a man like Derek be under
+anybody's thumb?"
+
+"Well, you know what I mean!"
+
+"I don't in the least know what you mean."
+
+"I mean, it would be rather rotten if his mother set him against you."
+
+Jill clenched her teeth. The quick temper which always lurked so very
+little beneath the surface of her cheerfulness was stirred. She felt
+suddenly chilled and miserable. She tried to tell herself that Freddie
+was just an amiable blunderer who spoke without sense or reason, but
+it was no use. She could not rid herself of a feeling of foreboding
+and discomfort. It had been the one jarring note in the sweet melody
+of her love-story, this apprehension of Derek's regarding his mother.
+The Derek she loved was a strong man, with a strong man's contempt for
+other people's criticism; and there had been something ignoble and
+fussy in his attitude regarding Lady Underhill. She had tried to feel
+that the flaw in her idol did not exist. And here was Freddie Rooke, a
+man who admired Derek with all his hero-worshipping nature, pointing
+it out independently. She was annoyed, and she expended her annoyance,
+as women will do, upon the innocent bystander.
+
+"Do you remember the time I turned the hose on you, Freddie," she
+said, rising from the fender, "years ago, when we were children, when
+you and that awful Mason boy--what was his name? Wally Mason--teased
+me?" She looked at the unhappy Freddie with a hostile eye. It was his
+blundering words that had spoiled everything. "I've forgotten what it
+was all about, but I know that you and Wally infuriated me and I
+turned the garden hose on you and soaked you both to the skin. Well,
+all I want to point out is that, if you go on talking nonsense about
+Derek and his mother and me, I shall ask Barker to bring me a jug of
+water, and I shall empty it over you! Set him against me! You talk as
+if love were a thing any third party could come along and turn off
+with a tap! Do you suppose that, when two people love each other as
+Derek and I do, that it can possibly matter in the least what anybody
+else thinks or says, even if it is his mother? I haven't got a mother,
+but suppose Uncle Chris came and warned me against Derek...."
+
+Her anger suddenly left her as quickly as it had come. That was always
+the way with Jill. One moment she would be raging; the next, something
+would tickle her sense of humour and restore her instantly to
+cheerfulness. And the thought of dear, lazy old Uncle Chris taking the
+trouble to warn anybody against anything except the wrong brand of
+wine or an inferior make of cigar conjured up a picture before which
+wrath melted away. She chuckled, and Freddie, who had been wilting on
+the fender, perked up.
+
+"You're an extraordinary girl, Jill. One never knows when you're going
+to get the wind up."
+
+"Isn't it enough to make me get the wind up, as you call it, when you
+say absurd things like that?"
+
+"I meant well, old girl!"
+
+"That's the trouble with you. You always do mean well. You go about
+the world meaning well till people fly to put themselves under police
+protection. Besides, what on earth could Lady Underhill find to object
+to in me? I've plenty of money, and I'm one of the most charming and
+attractive of Society belles. You needn't take my word for that, and I
+don't suppose you've noticed it, but that's what Mr. Gossip in the
+_Morning Mirror_ called me when he was writing about my getting
+engaged to Derek. My maid showed me the clipping. There was quite a
+long paragraph, with a picture of me that looked like a Zulu
+chieftainess taken in a coal-cellar during a bad fog. Well, after
+that, what could anyone say against me? I'm a perfect prize! I expect
+Lady Underhill screamed with joy when she heard the news and went
+singing all over her Riviera villa."
+
+"Yes," said Freddie dubiously. "Yes, yes, oh, quite so, rather!"
+
+Jill looked at him sternly.
+
+"Freddie, you're concealing something from me! You _don't_ think I'm
+a charming and attractive Society belle! Tell me why not and I'll show
+you where you are wrong. Is it my face you object to, or my manners,
+or my figure? There was a young bride of Antigua, who said to her
+mate, 'What a pig you are!' Said he, 'Oh, my queen, is it manners you
+mean, or do you allude to my fig-u-ar?' Isn't my figuar all right,
+Freddie?"
+
+"Oh, _I_ think you're topping."
+
+"But for some reason you're afraid that Derek's mother won't think so.
+Why won't Lady Underhill agree with Mr. Gossip?"
+
+Freddie hesitated.
+
+"Speak up!"
+
+"Well, it's like this. Remember, I've known the old devil...."
+
+"Freddie Rooke! Where do you pick up such expressions? Not from me!"
+
+"Well, that's how I always think of her! I say I've known her ever
+since I used to go and stop at their place when I was at school, and I
+know exactly the sort of things that put her back up. She's a
+what-d'you-call-it. I mean to say, one of the old school, don't you
+know. And you're so dashed impulsive, old girl. You know you are! You
+are always saying things that come into your head."
+
+"You can't say a thing unless it comes into your head."
+
+"You know what I mean," Freddie went on earnestly, not to be diverted
+from his theme. "You say rummy things and you do rummy things. What I
+mean to say is, you're impulsive."
+
+"What have I ever done that the sternest critic could call rummy?"
+
+"Well, I've seen you with my own eyes stop in the middle of Bond
+Street and help a lot of fellows shove along a cart that had got
+stuck. Mind you, I'm not blaming you for it...."
+
+"I should hope not. The poor old horse was trying all he knew to get
+going, and he couldn't quite make it. Naturally, I helped."
+
+"Oh, I know. Very decent and all that, but I doubt if Lady Underhill
+would have thought a lot of it. And you're so dashed chummy with the
+lower orders."
+
+"Don't be a snob, Freddie."
+
+"I'm not a snob," protested Freddie, wounded. "When I'm alone with
+Barker--for instance--I'm as chatty as dammit. But I don't ask waiters
+in public restaurants how their lumbago is."
+
+"Have you ever had lumbago?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, it's a very painful thing, and waiters get it just as badly as
+dukes. Worse, I should think, because they're always bending and
+stooping and carrying things. Naturally one feels sorry for them."
+
+"But how do you ever find out that a waiter has _got_ lumbago?"
+
+"I ask him, of course."
+
+"Well, for goodness' sake," said Freddie, "if you feel the impulse to
+do that sort of thing to-night, try and restrain it. I mean to say,
+if you're curious to know anything about Barker's chilblains, for
+instance, don't enquire after them while he's handing Lady Underhill
+the potatoes! She wouldn't like it."
+
+Jill uttered an exclamation.
+
+"I knew there was something! Being so cold and wanting to rush in and
+crouch over a fire put it clean out of my head. He must be thinking me
+a perfect beast!" She ran to the door. "Barker! Barker!"
+
+Barker appeared from nowhere.
+
+"Yes, miss?"
+
+"I'm so sorry I forgot to ask before. How are your chilblains?"
+
+"A good deal better miss, thank you."
+
+"Did you try the stuff I recommended?"
+
+"Yes, miss. It did them a world of good."
+
+"Splendid!"
+
+Jill went back into the sitting-room.
+
+"It's all right," she said reassuringly. "They're better."
+
+She wandered restlessly about the room, looking at the photographs,
+then sat down at the piano and touched the keys. The clock on the
+mantelpiece chimed the half-hour. "I wish to goodness they would
+arrive," she said.
+
+"They'll be here pretty soon, I expect."
+
+"It's rather awful," said Jill, "to think of Lady Underhill racing all
+the way from Mentone to Paris and from Paris to Calais and from Calais
+to Dover and from Dover to London simply to inspect me. You can't
+wonder I'm nervous, Freddie."
+
+The eye-glass dropped from Freddie's eye.
+
+"Are _you_ nervous?" he asked, astonished.
+
+"Of course I'm nervous. Wouldn't you be in my place?"
+
+"Well, I should never have thought it."
+
+"Why do you suppose I've been talking such a lot? Why do you imagine I
+snapped your poor, innocent head off just now! I'm terrified inside,
+terrified!"
+
+"You don't look it, by Jove!"
+
+"No, I'm trying to be a little warrior. That's what Uncle Chris always
+used to call me. It started the day when he took me to have a tooth
+out, when I was ten. 'Be a little warrior, Jill!' he kept saying. 'Be
+a little warrior!' And I was." She looked at the clock. "But I shan't
+be if they don't get here soon. The suspense is awful." She strummed
+the keys. "Suppose she _doesn't_ like me, Freddie! You see how you've
+scared me."
+
+"I didn't say she wouldn't. I only said you'd got to watch out a bit."
+
+"Something tells me she won't. My nerve is oozing out of me." Jill
+shook her head impatiently. "It's all so vulgar! I thought this sort
+of thing only happened in the comic papers and in music-hall songs.
+Why, it's just like that song somebody used to sing." She laughed. "Do
+you remember? I don't know how the verse went, but ...
+
+    John took me round to see his mother,
+                              his mother,
+                              his mother!
+    And when he'd introduced us to each other,
+      She sized up everything that I had on.
+    She put me through a cross-examination:
+    I fairly boiled with aggravation:
+      Then she shook her head,
+      Looked at me and said:
+          'Poor John! Poor John!'
+
+Chorus, Freddie! Let's cheer ourselves up! We need it!"
+
+    John took me round to see his mother...!
+
+"His m-o-o-other!" croaked Freddie. Curiously enough, this ballad was
+one of Freddie's favourites. He had rendered it with a good deal of
+success on three separate occasions at village entertainments down in
+Worcestershire, and he rather flattered himself that he could get
+about as much out of it as the next man. He proceeded to abet Jill
+heartily with gruff sounds which he was under the impression
+constituted what is known in musical circles as "singing seconds."
+
+"His mo-o-other!" he growled with frightful scorn.
+
+"And when he'd introduced us to each other...."
+
+"O-o-o-other!"
+
+"She sized up everything that I had on!"
+
+"Pom-_pom_-pom!"
+
+"She put me through a cross-examination...."
+
+Jill had thrown her head back, and was singing jubilantly at the top
+of her voice. The appositeness of the song had cheered her up. It
+seemed somehow to make her forebodings rather ridiculous, to reduce
+them to absurdity, to turn into farce the gathering tragedy which had
+been weighing upon her nerves.
+
+    Then she shook her head,
+    Looked at me and said:
+        'Poor John!'....
+
+"Jill," said a voice at the door. "I want you to meet my mother!"
+
+"Poo-oo-oor John!" bleated the hapless Freddie, unable to check
+himself.
+
+"Dinner," said Barker the valet, appearing at the door and breaking a
+silence that seemed to fill the room like a tangible presence, "is
+served!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FIRST NIGHT AT THE LEICESTER
+
+I
+
+
+The front-door closed softly behind the theatre-party. Dinner was
+over, and Barker had just been assisting the expedition out of the
+place. Sensitive to atmosphere, he had found his share in the dinner a
+little trying. It had been a strained meal, and what he liked was a
+clatter of conversation and everybody having a good time and enjoying
+themselves.
+
+"Ellen!" called Barker, as he proceeded down the passage to the empty
+dining-room. "Ellen!"
+
+Mrs. Barker appeared out of the kitchen, wiping her hands. Her work
+for the evening, like her husband's, was over. Presently what is
+technically called a "useful girl" would come in to wash up the
+dishes, leaving the evening free for social intercourse. Mrs. Barker
+had done well by her patrons that night, and now she wanted a quiet
+chat with Barker over a glass of Freddie Rooke's port.
+
+"Have they gone, Horace?" she asked, following him into the
+dining-room.
+
+Barker selected a cigar from Freddie's humidor, crackled it against
+his ear, smelt it, clipped off the end, and lit it. He took the
+decanter and filled his wife's glass, then mixed himself a
+whisky-and-soda.
+
+"Happy days!" said Barker. "Yes, they've gone!"
+
+"I didn't see her ladyship."
+
+"You didn't miss much! A nasty, dangerous specimen, _she_ is! 'Always
+merry and bright,' I don't think. I wish you'd have had my job of
+waiting on 'em, Ellen, and me been the one to stay in the kitchen safe
+out of it all. That's all I say! It's no treat to _me_ to 'and the
+dishes when the atmosphere's what you might call electric. I didn't
+envy them that _vol-au-vent_ of yours, Ellen, good as it smelt. Better
+a dinner of 'erbs where love is than a stalled ox and 'atred
+therewith," said Barker, helping himself to a walnut.
+
+"Did they have words?"
+
+Barker shook his head impatiently.
+
+"That sort don't have words, Ellen. They just sit and goggle."
+
+"How did her ladyship seem to hit it off with Miss Mariner, Horace?"
+
+Barker uttered a dry laugh.
+
+"Ever seen a couple of strange dogs watching each other sort of wary?
+That was them! Not that Miss Mariner wasn't all that was pleasant and
+nice-spoken. She's all right, Miss Mariner is. She's a little queen.
+It wasn't her fault the dinner you'd took so much trouble over was
+more like an evening in the Morgue than a Christian dinner-party. She
+tried to help things along best she could. But what with Sir Derek
+chewing his lip 'alf the time and his mother acting about as matey as
+a pennorth of ice-cream, she didn't have a chance. As for the
+guv'nor--well, I wish you could have seen him, that's all. You know,
+Ellen, sometimes I'm not altogether easy in my mind about the
+guv'nor's mental balance. He knows how to buy cigars, and you tell me
+his port is good--I never touch it myself--but sometimes he seems to
+me to go right off his onion. Just sat there, he did, all through
+dinner, looking as if he expected the good food to rise up and bite
+him in the face, and jumping nervous when I spoke to him. It's not my
+fault," said Barker, aggrieved. "_I_ can't give gentlemen warning
+before I ask 'em if they'll have sherry or hock. I can't ring a bell
+or toot a horn to show 'em I'm coming. It's my place to bend over and
+whisper in their ear, and they've no right to leap about in their
+seats and make me spill good wine. (You'll see the spot close by where
+you're sitting, Ellen. Jogged my wrist, he did!) I'd like to know why
+people in the spear of life which these people are in can't behave
+themselves rational, same as we do. When we were walking out and I
+took you to have tea with my mother, it was one of the pleasantest
+meals I ever ate. Talk about 'armony! It was a love-feast!"
+
+"Your ma and I took to each other right from the start, Horace," said
+Mrs. Barker softly. "That's the difference."
+
+"Well, any woman with any sense would take to Miss Mariner. If I told
+you how near I came to spilling the sauce-boat accidentally over that
+old fossil's head, you'd be surprised, Ellen. She just sat there
+brooding like an old eagle. If you ask my opinion, Miss Mariner's a
+long sight too good for her precious son!"
+
+"Oh, but Horace! Sir Derek's a baronet!"
+
+"What of it? Kind 'earts are more than coronets and simple faith than
+Norman blood, aren't they?"
+
+"You're talking Socialism, Horace."
+
+"No, I'm not. I'm talking sense. I don't know who Miss Mariner's
+parents may have been--I never enquired--but anyone can see she's a
+lady born and bred. But do you suppose the path of true love is going
+to run smooth, for all that? Not it! She's got a 'ard time ahead of
+her, that poor girl!"
+
+"Horace!" Mrs. Barker's gentle heart was wrung. The situation hinted
+at by her husband was no new one--indeed, it formed the basis of at
+least fifty per cent of the stories in the True Heart Novelette
+Series, of which she was a determined reader--but it had never failed
+to touch her. "Do you think her ladyship means to come between them
+and wreck their romance?"
+
+"I think she means to have a jolly good try."
+
+"But Sir Derek has his own money, hasn't he? I mean it's not like when
+Sir Courtenay Travers fell in love with the milkmaid and was dependent
+on his mother, the Countess, for everything. Sir Derek can afford to
+do what he pleases, can't he?"
+
+Barker shook his head tolerantly. The excellence of the cigar and the
+soothing qualities of the whisky-and-soda had worked upon him, and he
+was feeling less ruffled.
+
+"You don't understand these things," he said. "Women like her ladyship
+can talk a man into anything and out of anything. I wouldn't care,
+only you can see the poor girl is mad over the feller. What she finds
+attractive in him, I can't say, but that's her own affair."
+
+"He's very handsome, Horace, with those flashing eyes and that stern
+mouth," argued Mrs. Barker.
+
+Barker sniffed.
+
+"Have it your own way," he said. "It's no treat to _me_ to see his
+eyes flash, and if he'd put that stern mouth of his to some better use
+than advising the guv'nor to lock up the cigars and trouser the key,
+I'd be better pleased. If there's one thing I can't stand," said
+Barker, "it's not to be trusted!" He lifted his cigar and looked at it
+censoriously. "I thought so! Burning all down one side. They will do
+that if you light 'em careless. Oh, well," he continued, rising and
+going to the humidor, "there's plenty more where that came from. Out
+of evil cometh good," said Barker philosophically. "If the guv'nor
+hadn't been in such a overwrought state to-night, he'd have remembered
+not to leave the key in the keyhole. Help yourself to another glass of
+port, Ellen, and let's enjoy ourselves!"
+
+
+II
+
+When one considers how full of his own troubles, how weighed down with
+the problems of his own existence the average playgoer generally is
+when enters a theatre, it is remarkable that dramatists ever find it
+possible to divert and entertain whole audiences for a space of
+several hours. As regards at least three of those who had assembled to
+witness its opening performance, the author of "Tried by Fire," at the
+Leicester Theatre, undoubtedly had his work cut out for him.
+
+It has perhaps been sufficiently indicated by the remarks of Barker,
+the valet, that the little dinner at Freddie Rooke's had not been an
+unqualified success. Searching the records for an adequately gloomy
+parallel to the taxi-cab journey to the theatre which followed it, one
+can only think of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. And yet even that
+was probably not conducted in dead silence.
+
+The only member of the party who was even remotely happy was,
+curiously enough, Freddie Rooke. Originally Freddie had obtained three
+tickets for "Tried by Fire." The unexpected arrival of Lady Underhill
+had obliged him to buy a fourth, separated by several rows from the
+other three. This, as he had told Derek at breakfast, was the seat he
+proposed to occupy himself.
+
+It consoles the philosopher in this hard world to reflect that, even
+if man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upward, it is still
+possible for small things to make him happy. The thought of being
+several rows away from Lady Underhill had restored Freddie's
+equanimity like a tonic. It thrilled him like the strains of some
+grand, sweet anthem all the way to the theatre. If Freddie Rooke had
+been asked at that moment to define happiness in a few words, he would
+have replied that it consisted in being several rows away from Lady
+Underhill.
+
+The theatre was nearly full when Freddie's party arrived. The
+Leicester Theatre had been rented for the season by the newest
+theatrical knight, Sir Chester Portwood, who had a large following;
+and, whatever might be the fate of the play in the final issue, it
+would do at least one night's business. The stalls were ablaze with
+jewellery and crackling with starched shirt-fronts; and expensive
+scents pervaded the air, putting up a stiff battle with the plebeian
+peppermint that emanated from the pit. The boxes were filled, and up
+in the gallery grim-faced patrons of the drama, who had paid their
+shillings at the door and intended to get a shilling's worth of
+entertainment in return, sat and waited stolidly for the curtain to
+rise.
+
+The lights shot up beyond the curtain. The house-lights dimmed.
+Conversation ceased. The curtain rose. Jill wriggled herself
+comfortably into her seat, and slipped her hand into Derek's. She felt
+a glow of happiness as it closed over hers. All, she told herself, was
+right with the world.
+
+All, that is to say, except the drama which was unfolding on the
+stage. It was one of those plays which start wrong and never recover.
+By the end of the first ten minutes there had spread through the
+theatre that uneasy feeling which comes over the audience at an
+opening performance when it realizes that it is going to be bored. A
+sort of lethargy had gripped the stalls. The dress-circle was
+coughing. Up in the gallery there was grim silence.
+
+Sir Chester Portwood was an actor-manager who had made his reputation
+in light comedy of the tea-cup school. His numerous admirers attended
+a first night at his theatre in a mood of comfortable anticipation,
+assured of something pleasant and frothy with a good deal of bright
+dialogue and not too much plot. To-night he seemed to have fallen a
+victim to that spirit of ambition which intermittently attacks
+actor-managers of his class, expressing itself in an attempt to prove
+that, having established themselves securely as light comedians, they
+can, like the lady reciter, turn right around and be serious. The one
+thing which the London public felt that it was safe from in a Portwood
+play was heaviness, and "Tried by Fire" was grievously heavy. It was a
+poetic drama, and the audience, though loath to do anybody an
+injustice, was beginning to suspect that it was written in blank
+verse.
+
+The acting did nothing to dispel the growing uneasiness. Sir Chester
+himself, apparently oppressed by the weightiness of the occasion and
+the responsibility of offering an unfamiliar brand of goods to his
+public, had dropped his customary debonair method of delivering lines
+and was mouthing his speeches. It was good gargling, but bad
+elocution. And, for some reason best known to himself, he had
+entrusted the rôle of the heroine to a doll-like damsel with a lisp,
+of whom the audience disapproved sternly from her initial entrance.
+
+It was about half-way through the first act that Jill, whose attention
+had begun to wander, heard a soft groan at her side. The seats which
+Freddie Rooke had bought were at the extreme end of the seventh row.
+There was only one other seat in the row, and, as Derek had placed his
+mother on his left and was sitting between her and Jill, the latter
+had this seat on her right. It had been empty at the rise of the
+curtain, but in the past few minutes a man had slipped silently into
+it. The darkness prevented Jill from seeing his face, but it was plain
+that he was suffering, and her sympathy went out to him. His opinion
+of the play so obviously coincided with her own.
+
+Presently the first act ended, and the lights went up. There was a
+spatter of insincere applause from the stalls, echoed in the
+dress-circle. It grew fainter in the upper circle, and did not reach
+the gallery at all.
+
+"Well?" said Jill to Derek. "What do you think of it?"
+
+"Too awful for words," said Derek sternly.
+
+He leaned forward to join the conversation which had started between
+Lady Underhill and some friends she had discovered in the seats in
+front; and Jill, turning, became aware that the man on her right was
+looking at her intently. He was a big man with rough, wiry hair and a
+humorous mouth. His age appeared to be somewhere in the middle
+twenties. Jill, in the brief moment in which their eyes met, decided
+that he was ugly, but with an ugliness that was rather attractive. He
+reminded her of one of those large, loose, shaggy dogs that break
+things in drawing-rooms but make admirable companions for the open
+road. She had a feeling that he would look better in tweeds in a field
+than in evening dress in a theatre. He had nice eyes. She could not
+distinguish their colour, but they were frank and friendly.
+
+All this Jill noted with her customary quickness, and then she looked
+away. For an instant she had had an odd feeling that somewhere she had
+met this man or somebody very like him before, but the impression
+vanished. She also had the impression that he was still looking at
+her, but she gazed demurely in front of her and did not attempt to
+verify the suspicion.
+
+Between them, as they sat side by side, there inserted itself suddenly
+the pinkly remorseful face of Freddie Rooke. Freddie, having
+skirmished warily in the aisle until it was clear that Lady
+Underhill's attention was engaged elsewhere, had occupied a seat in
+the row behind which had been left vacant temporarily by an owner who
+liked refreshment between the acts. Freddie was feeling deeply ashamed
+of himself. He felt that he had perpetrated a bloomer of no slight
+magnitude.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry about this," he said penitently. "I mean, roping
+you in to listen to this frightful tosh! When I think I might have got
+seats just as well for any one of half a dozen topping musical
+comedies, I feel like kicking myself with some vim. But, honestly, how
+was I to know? I never dreamed we were going to be let in for anything
+of this sort. Portwood's plays are usually so dashed bright and snappy
+and all that. Can't think what he was doing, putting on a thing like
+this. Why, it's blue round the edges!"
+
+The man on Jill's right laughed sharply.
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "the chump who wrote the piece got away from the
+asylum long enough to put up the money to produce it."
+
+If there is one thing that startles the well-bred Londoner and throws
+him off his balance, it is to be addressed unexpectedly by a stranger.
+Freddie's sense of decency was revolted. A voice from the tomb could
+hardly have shaken him more. All the traditions to which he had been
+brought up had gone to solidify his belief that this was one of the
+things which didn't happen. Absolutely it wasn't done. During an
+earthquake or a shipwreck and possibly on the Day of Judgment, yes.
+But only then. At other times, unless they wanted a match or the time
+or something, chappies did not speak to fellows to whom they had not
+been introduced. He was far too amiable to snub the man, but to go on
+with this degrading scene was out of the question. There was nothing
+for it but flight.
+
+"Oh, ah, yes," he mumbled. "Well," he added to Jill, "I suppose I may
+as well be toddling back. See you later and so forth."
+
+And with a faint "Good-bye-ee!" Freddie removed himself, thoroughly
+unnerved.
+
+Jill looked out of the corner of her eye at Derek. He was still
+occupied with the people in front. She turned to the man on her right.
+She was not the slave to etiquette that Freddie was. She was much too
+interested in life to refrain from speaking to strangers.
+
+"You shocked him!" she said dimpling.
+
+"Yes. It broke Freddie all up, didn't it!"
+
+It was Jill's turn to be startled. She looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Freddie?"
+
+"That _was_ Freddie Rooke, wasn't it? Surely I wasn't mistaken?"
+
+"But--do you know him? He didn't seem to know you."
+
+"These are life's tragedies He has forgotten me. My boyhood friend!"
+
+"Oh, you were at school with him?"
+
+"No. Freddie went to Winchester, if I remember. I was at Haileybury.
+Our acquaintance was confined to the holidays. My people lived near
+his people in Worcestershire."
+
+"Worcestershire!" Jill leaned forward excitedly. "But I used to live
+near Freddie in Worcestershire myself when I was small. I knew him
+there when he was a boy. We must have met!"
+
+"We met all right."
+
+Jill wrinkled her forehead. That odd familiar look was in his eyes
+again. But memory failed to respond. She shook her head.
+
+"I don't remember you," she said. "I'm sorry."
+
+"Never mind. Perhaps the recollection would have been painful."
+
+"How do you mean, painful?"
+
+"Well, looking back, I can see that I must have been a very unpleasant
+child. I have always thought it greatly to the credit of my parents
+that they let me grow up. It would have been so easy to have dropped
+something heavy on me out of a window. They must have been tempted a
+hundred times, but they refrained. Yes, I was a great pest around the
+home. My only redeeming point was the way I worshipped _you_!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Oh, yes. You probably didn't notice it at the time, for I had a
+curious way of expressing my adoration. But you remain the brightest
+memory of a chequered youth."
+
+Jill searched his face with grave eyes, then shook her head again.
+
+"Nothing stirs?" asked the man sympathetically.
+
+"It's too maddening! Why does one forget things?" She reflected. "You
+aren't Bobby Morrison?"
+
+"I am not. What is more, I never was!"
+
+Jill dived into the past once more and emerged with another
+possibility.
+
+"Or--Charlie--Charlie what was it?--Charlie Field?"
+
+"You wound me! Have you forgotten that Charlie Field wore velvet Lord
+Fauntleroy suits and long golden curls? My past is not smirched with
+anything like that."
+
+"Would I remember your name if you told me?"
+
+"I don't know. I've forgotten yours. Your surname, that is. Of course,
+I remember that your Christian name was Jill. It has always seemed to
+me the prettiest monosyllable in the language." He looked at her
+thoughtfully. "It's odd how little you've altered in looks. Freddie's
+just the same, too, only larger. And he didn't wear an eye-glass in
+those days, though I can see he was bound to later on. And yet I've
+changed so much that you can't place me. It shows what a wearing life
+I must have led. I feel like Rip van Winkle. Old and withered. But
+that may be just the result of watching this play."
+
+"It is pretty terrible, isn't it?"
+
+"Worse than that. Looking at it dispassionately, I find it the
+extreme, ragged, outermost edge of the limit. Freddie had the correct
+description of it. He's a great critic."
+
+"I really do think it's the worst thing I have ever seen."
+
+"I don't know what plays you have seen, but I feel you're right."
+
+"Perhaps the second act's better," said Jill optimistically.
+
+"It's worse. I know that sounds like boasting, but it's true. I feel
+like getting up and making a public apology."
+
+"But ... Oh!"
+
+Jill turned scarlet. A monstrous suspicion had swept over her.
+
+"The only trouble is," went on her companion, "that the audience would
+undoubtedly lynch me. And, though it seems improbable just at the
+present moment, it may be that life holds some happiness for me that's
+worth waiting for. Anyway, I'd rather not be torn limb from limb. A
+messy finish! I can just see them rending me asunder in a spasm of
+perfectly justifiable fury. 'She loves me!' Off comes a leg. 'She
+loves me not!' Off comes an arm. No, I think on the whole I'll lie
+low. Besides, why should I care? Let 'em suffer. It's their own fault.
+They _would_ come!"
+
+Jill had been trying to interrupt the harangue. She was greatly
+concerned.
+
+"Did you _write_ the play?"
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"You are quite right to speak in that horrified tone. But between
+ourselves and on the understanding that you don't get up and denounce
+me, I did."
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry!"
+
+"Not half so sorry as I am, believe me!"
+
+"I mean, I wouldn't have said...."
+
+"Never mind. You didn't tell me anything I didn't know." The lights
+began to go down. He rose. "Well, they're off again. Perhaps you will
+excuse me? I don't feel quite equal to assisting any longer at the
+wake. If you want something to occupy your mind during the next act,
+try to remember my name."
+
+He slid from his seat and disappeared. Jill clutched at Derek.
+
+"Oh, Derek, it's too awful. I've just been talking to the man who
+wrote this play, and I told him it was the worst thing I had ever
+seen!"
+
+"Did you?" Derek snorted. "Well, it's about time somebody told him!" A
+thought seemed to strike him. "Why, who is he? I didn't know you knew
+him."
+
+"I don't. I don't even know his name."
+
+"His name, according to the programme, is John Grant. Never heard of
+him before. Jill, I wish you would not talk to people you don't know,"
+said Derek with a note of annoyance in his voice. "You can never tell
+who they are."
+
+"But...."
+
+"Especially with my mother here. You must be more careful."
+
+The curtain rose. Jill saw the stage mistily. From childhood up, she
+had never been able to cure herself of an unfortunate sensitiveness
+when sharply spoken to by those she loved. A rebuking world she could
+face with a stout heart, but there had always been just one or two
+people whose lightest word of censure could crush her. Her father had
+always had that effect upon her, and now Derek had taken his place.
+
+But if there had only been time to explain.... Derek could not object
+to her chatting with a friend of her childhood, even if she had
+completely forgotten him and did not remember his name even now. John
+Grant? Memory failed to produce any juvenile John Grant for her
+inspection.
+
+Puzzling over this problem, Jill missed much of the beginning of the
+second act. Hers was a detachment which the rest of the audience would
+gladly have shared. For the poetic drama, after a bad start, was now
+plunging into worse depths of dullness. The coughing had become almost
+continuous. The stalls, supported by the presence of large droves of
+Sir Chester's personal friends, were struggling gallantly to maintain
+a semblance of interest, but the pit and gallery had plainly given up
+hope. The critic of a weekly paper of small circulation, who had been
+shoved up in the upper circle, grimly jotted down the phrase
+"apathetically received" on his programme. He had come to the theatre
+that night in an aggrieved mood, for managers usually put him in the
+dress-circle. He got out his pencil again. Another phrase had occurred
+to him, admirable for the opening of his article. "At the Leicester
+Theatre," he wrote, "where Sir Chester Portwood presented 'Tried by
+Fire,' dullness reigned supreme...."
+
+But you never know. Call no evening dull till it is over. However
+uninteresting its early stages may have been that night was to be as
+animated and exciting as any audience could desire--a night to be
+looked back to and talked about, for just as the critic of _London
+Gossip_ wrote those damning words on his programme, guiding his pencil
+uncertainly in the dark, a curious yet familiar odour stole over the
+house.
+
+The stalls got it first, and sniffed. It rose to the dress-circle, and
+the dress-circle sniffed. Floating up, it smote the silent gallery.
+And, suddenly, coming to life with a single-minded abruptness, the
+gallery ceased to be silent.
+
+"Fire!"
+
+Sir Chester Portwood, ploughing his way through a long speech, stopped
+and looked apprehensively over his shoulder. The girl with the lisp,
+who had been listening in a perfunctory manner to the long speech,
+screamed loudly. The voice of an unseen stage-hand called thunderously
+to an invisible "Bill" to commere quick. And from the scenery on the
+prompt side there curled lazily across the stage a black wisp of
+smoke.
+
+"Fire! Fire! Fire!"
+
+"Just," said a voice at Jill's elbow, "what the play needed!" The
+mysterious author was back in his seat again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+JILL AND THE UNKNOWN ESCAPE
+
+I
+
+
+In these days when the authorities who watch over the welfare of the
+community have taken the trouble to reiterate encouragingly in printed
+notices that a full house can be emptied in three minutes and that all
+an audience has to do in an emergency is to walk, not run, to the
+nearest exit, fire in the theatre has lost a good deal of its old-time
+terror. Yet it would be paltering with the truth to say that the
+audience which had assembled to witness the opening performance of the
+new play at the Leicester was entirely at its ease. The asbestos
+curtain was already on its way down, which should have been
+reassuring: but then asbestos curtains never look the part. To the lay
+eye they seem just the sort of thing that will blaze quickest.
+Moreover, it had not yet occurred to the man at the switchboard to
+turn up the house-lights, and the darkness was disconcerting.
+
+Portions of the house were taking the thing better than other
+portions. Up in the gallery a vast activity was going on. The clatter
+of feet almost drowned the shouting. A moment before it would have
+seemed incredible that anything could have made the occupants of the
+gallery animated, but the instinct of self-preservation had put new
+life into them.
+
+The stalls had not yet entirely lost their self-control. Alarm was in
+the air, but for the moment they hung on the razor-edge between panic
+and dignity. Panic urged them to do something sudden and energetic;
+dignity counselled them to wait. They, like the occupants of the
+gallery, greatly desired to be outside, but it was bad form to rush
+and jostle. The men were assisting the women in their cloaks, assuring
+them the while that it was "all right" and that they must not be
+frightened. But another curl of smoke had crept out just before the
+asbestos curtain completed its descent, and their words lacked the
+ring of conviction. The movement towards the exits had not yet become
+a stampede, but already those with seats nearest the stage had begun
+to feel that the more fortunate individuals near the doors were
+infernally slow in removing themselves.
+
+Suddenly, as if by mutual inspiration, the composure of the stalls
+began to slip. Looking from above, one could have seen a sort of
+shudder run through the crowd. It was the effect of every member of
+that crowd starting to move a little more quickly.
+
+A hand grasped Jill's arm. It was a comforting hand, the hand of a man
+who had not lost his head. A pleasant voice backed up its message of
+reassurance.
+
+"It's no good getting into that mob. You might get hurt. There's no
+danger; the play isn't going on."
+
+Jill was shaken; but she had the fighting spirit and hated to show
+that she was shaken. Panic was knocking at the door of her soul, but
+dignity refused to be dislodged.
+
+"All the same," she said, smiling a difficult smile, "it would be nice
+to get out, wouldn't it?"
+
+"I was just going to suggest something of that very sort," said the
+man beside her. "The same thought occurred to me. We can stroll out
+quite comfortably by our own private route. Come along."
+
+Jill looked over her shoulder. Derek and Lady Underhill were merged
+into the mass of refugees. She could not see them. For an instant a
+little spasm of pique stung her at the thought that Derek had deserted
+her. She groped her way after her companion, and presently they came
+by way of a lower box to the iron pass-door leading to the stage.
+
+As it opened, smoke blew through, and the smell of burning was
+formidable. Jill recoiled involuntarily.
+
+"It's all right," said her companion. "It smells worse than it really
+is. And, anyway, this is the quickest way out."
+
+They passed through on to the stage, and found themselves in a world
+of noise and confusion compared with which the auditorium which they
+had left had been a peaceful place. Smoke was everywhere. A
+stage-hand, carrying a bucket, lurched past them, bellowing. From
+somewhere out of sight on the other side of the stage there came a
+sound of chopping. Jill's companion moved quickly to the switchboard,
+groped, found a handle, and turned it. In the narrow space between the
+corner of the proscenium and the edge of the asbestos curtain lights
+flashed up: and simultaneously there came a sudden diminution of the
+noise from the body of the house. The stalls, snatched from the
+intimidating spell of the darkness and able to see each other's faces,
+discovered that they had been behaving indecorously and checked their
+struggling, a little ashamed of themselves. The relief would be only
+momentary, but, while it lasted, it postponed panic.
+
+"Go straight across the stage," Jill heard her companion say, "out
+along the passage and turn to the right, and you'll be at the
+stage-door. I think, as there seems no one else around to do it, I'd
+better go out and say a few soothing words to the customers. Otherwise
+they'll be biting holes in each other."
+
+He squeezed through the narrow opening in front of the curtain.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen!"
+
+Jill remained where she was, leaning with one hand against the
+switchboard. She made no attempt to follow the directions he had given
+her. She was aware of a sense of comradeship, of being with this man
+in this adventure. If he stayed, she must stay. To go now through the
+safety of the stage-door would be abominable desertion. She listened,
+and found that she could hear plainly in spite of the noise. The smoke
+was worse than ever, and hurt her eyes, so that the figures of the
+theatre-firemen, hurrying to and fro, seemed like Brocken spectres.
+She slipped a corner of her cloak across her mouth, and was able to
+breathe more easily.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you that there is absolutely no
+danger. I am a stranger to you, so there is no reason why you should
+take my word, but fortunately I can give you solid proof. If there
+were any danger, _I_ wouldn't be here. All that has happened is that
+the warmth of your reception of the play has set a piece of scenery
+alight...."
+
+A crimson-faced stage-hand, carrying an axe in blackened hands, roared
+in Jill's ear.
+
+"'Op it!" shouted the stage-hand. He cast his axe down with a clatter.
+"Can't you see the place is afire?"
+
+"But--but I'm waiting for...." Jill pointed to where her ally was
+still addressing an audience that seemed reluctant to stop and listen
+to him.
+
+The stage-hand squinted out round the edge of the curtain.
+
+"If he's a friend of yours, miss, kindly get 'im to cheese it and get
+a move on. We're clearing out. There's nothing we can do. It's got too
+much of an 'old. In about another two ticks the roof's going to drop
+on us."
+
+Jill's friend came squeezing back through the opening.
+
+"Hullo! Still here?" He blinked approvingly at her through the smoke.
+"You're a little soldier! Well, Augustus, what's on your mind?"
+
+The simple question seemed to take the stage-hand aback.
+
+"Wot's on my mind? I'll tell you wot's on my blinking mind...."
+
+"Don't tell me. Let me guess. I've got it! The place is on fire!"
+
+The stage-hand expectorated disgustedly. Flippancy at such a moment
+offended his sensibilities.
+
+"We're 'opping it," he said.
+
+"Great minds think alike! _We_ are hopping it, too."
+
+"You'd better! And damn quick!"
+
+"And, as you suggest, damn quick. You think of everything!"
+
+Jill followed him across the stage. Her heart was beating violently.
+There was not only smoke now, but heat. Across the stage little
+scarlet flames were shooting, and something large and hard, unseen
+through the smoke, fell with a crash. The air was heavy with the smell
+of burning paint.
+
+"Where's Sir Chester Portwood?" enquired her companion of the
+stage-hand, who hurried beside them.
+
+"'Opped it!" replied the other briefly, and coughed raspingly as he
+swallowed smoke.
+
+"Strange," said the man in Jill's ear, as he pulled her along. "This
+way. Stick to me. Strange how the drama anticipates life! At the end
+of Act Two there was a scene where Sir Chester had to creep sombrely
+out into the night, and now he's gone and done it! Ah!"
+
+They had stumbled through a doorway and were out in a narrow passage,
+where the air, though tainted, was comparatively fresh. Jill drew a
+deep breath. Her companion turned to the stage-hand and felt in his
+pocket.
+
+"Here." A coin changed hands. "Go and get a drink. You need it after
+all this."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"Don't mention it. You've saved our lives. Suppose you hadn't come up
+and told us, and we had never noticed there was a fire!" He turned to
+Jill. "Here's the stage-door. Shall we creep sombrely out into the
+night?"
+
+The guardian of the stage-door was standing in the entrance of his
+little hutch, plainly perplexed. He was a slow thinker and a man whose
+life was ruled by routine, and the events of the evening had left him
+uncertain how to act.
+
+"Wot's all this about a fire?" he demanded.
+
+Jill's friend stopped.
+
+"A fire?" He looked at Jill. "Did _you_ hear anything about a fire?"
+
+"They all come bustin' past 'ere yelling there's a fire," persisted
+the door-man.
+
+"By George! Now I come to think of it, you're perfectly right! There
+_is_ a fire! If you wait here a little longer you'll get it in the
+small of the back. Take the advice of an old friend who means you well
+and vanish. In the inspired words of the lad we've just parted from,
+'op it!"
+
+The stage-door man turned this over in his mind for a space.
+
+"But I'm supposed to stay 'ere till eleven-thirty and lock up!" he
+said. "That's what I'm supposed to do. Stay 'ere till eleven-thirty
+and lock up! And it ain't but ten forty-five now."
+
+"I see the difficulty," said Jill's companion thoughtfully.
+
+"Well, Casabianca, I'm afraid I don't see how to help you. It's a
+matter for your own conscience. I don't want to lure you from the
+burning deck; on the other hand, if you stick on here you'll most
+certainly be fired on both sides.... But, tell me. You spoke about
+locking up something at eleven-thirty. What are you supposed to lock
+up?"
+
+"Why, the theatre."
+
+"Then that's all right. By eleven-thirty there won't _be_ a theatre.
+If I were you, I should leave quietly and unostentatiously now.
+To-morrow, if you wish it, and if they've cooled off sufficiently, you
+can come and sit on the ruins. Good night!"
+
+
+II
+
+Outside, the air was cold and crisp. Jill drew her warm cloak closer.
+Round the corner there was noise and shouting. Fire-engines had
+arrived. Jill's companion lit a cigarette.
+
+"Do you wish to stop and see the conflagration?" he asked.
+
+Jill shivered. She was more shaken than she had realized.
+
+"I've seen all the conflagration I want."
+
+"Same here. Well, it's been an exciting evening. Started slow, I
+admit, but warmed up later! What I seem to need at the moment is a
+restorative stroll along the Embankment. Do you know, Sir Chester
+Portwood didn't like the title of my play. He said 'Tried by Fire' was
+too melodramatic. Well, he can't say now it wasn't appropriate."
+
+They made their way towards the river, avoiding the street which was
+blocked by the crowds and the fire-engines. As they crossed the
+Strand, the man looked back. A red glow was in the sky.
+
+"A great blaze!" he said. "What you might call--in fact what the
+papers _will_ call--a holocaust. Quite a treat for the populace."
+
+"Do you think they will be able to put it out?"
+
+"Not a chance. It's got too much of a hold. It's a pity you hadn't
+that garden-hose of yours with you, isn't it?"
+
+Jill stopped, wide-eyed.
+
+"Garden-hose?"
+
+"Don't you remember the garden-hose? I do! I can feel that clammy
+feeling of the water trickling down my back now!"
+
+Memory, always a laggard by the wayside that redeems itself by an
+eleventh-hour rush, raced back to Jill. The Embankment turned to a
+sun-lit garden, and the January night to a July day. She stared at
+him. He was looking at her with a whimsical smile. It was a smile
+which, pleasant to-day, had seemed mocking and hostile on that
+afternoon years ago. She had always felt then that he was laughing at
+her, and at the age of twelve she had resented laughter at her
+expense.
+
+"You surely can't be Wally Mason!" "I was wondering when you would
+remember." "But the programme called you something else--John
+something."
+
+"That was a cunning disguise. Wally Mason is the only genuine and
+official name. And, by Jove! I've just remembered yours. It was
+Mariner. By the way,"--he paused for an almost imperceptible
+instant--"is it still?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE LAST OF THE ROOKES TAKES A HAND
+
+I
+
+
+Jill was hardly aware that he had asked her a question. She was
+suffering that momentary sense of unreality which comes to us when the
+years roll away and we are thrown abruptly back into the days of our
+childhood. The logical side of her mind was quite aware that there was
+nothing remarkable in the fact that Wally Mason, who had been to her
+all these years a boy in an Eton suit, should now present himself as a
+grown man. But for all that the transformation had something of the
+effect of a conjuring-trick. It was not only the alteration in his
+appearance that startled her: it was the amazing change in his
+personality. Wally Mason had been the _bête noire_ of her childhood.
+She had never failed to look back at the episode of the garden-hose
+with the feeling that she had acted well, that--however she might have
+strayed in those early days from the straight and narrow path--in that
+one particular crisis she had done the right thing. And now she had
+taken an instant liking for him. Easily as she made friends, she had
+seldom before felt so immediately drawn to a strange man. Gone was
+the ancient hostility, and in its place a soothing sense of
+comradeship. The direct effect of this was to make Jill feel suddenly
+old. It was as if some link that joined her to her childhood had been
+snapped.
+
+She glanced down the Embankment. Close by, to the left, Waterloo
+Bridge loomed up, dark and massive against the steel-grey sky. A
+tram-car, full of home-bound travellers, clattered past over rails
+that shone with the peculiarly frost-bitten gleam that seems to herald
+snow. Across the river everything was dark and mysterious, except for
+an occasional lamp-post and the dim illumination of the wharves. It
+was a depressing prospect, and the thought crossed her mind that to
+the derelicts whose nightly resting-place was a seat on the Embankment
+the view must seem even bleaker than it did to herself. She gave a
+little shiver. Somehow this sudden severance from the old days had
+brought with it a forlornness. She seemed to be standing alone in a
+changed world.
+
+"Cold?" said Wally Mason.
+
+"A little."
+
+"Let's walk."
+
+They moved westwards. Cleopatra's Needle shot up beside them, a
+pointing finger. Down on the silent river below, coffin-like row-boats
+lay moored to the wall. Through a break in the trees the clock over
+the Houses of Parliament shone for an instant as if suspended in the
+sky, then vanished as the trees closed in. A distant barge in the
+direction of Battersea wailed and was still. It had a mournful and
+foreboding sound. Jill shivered again. It annoyed her that she could
+not shake off this quite uncalled-for melancholy, but it withstood
+every effort. Why she should have felt that a chapter, a pleasant
+chapter, in the book of her life had been closed, she could not have
+said, but the feeling lingered.
+
+"Correct me if I am wrong," said Wally Mason, breaking a silence that
+had lasted several minutes, "but you seem to me to be freezing in your
+tracks. Ever since I came to London I've had a habit of heading for
+the Embankment in times of mental stress, but perhaps the middle of
+winter is not quite the moment for communing with the night. The Savoy
+is handy, if we stop walking away from it. I think we might celebrate
+this re-union with a little supper, don't you?"
+
+Jill's depression disappeared magically. Her mercurial temperament
+asserted itself.
+
+"Lights!" she said. "Music!"
+
+"And food! To an ethereal person like you that remark may seem gross,
+but I had no dinner."
+
+"You poor dear! Why not?"
+
+"Just nervousness."
+
+"Why, of course." The interlude of the fire had caused her to forget
+his private and personal connection with the night's events. Her mind
+went back to something he had said in the theatre. "Wally--" She
+stopped, a little embarrassed. "I suppose I ought to call you Mr.
+Mason, but I've always thought of you...."
+
+"Wally, if you please, Jill. It's not as though we were strangers. I
+haven't my book of etiquette with me, but I fancy that about eleven
+gallons of cold water down the neck constitutes an introduction. What
+were you going to say?"
+
+"It was what you said to Freddie about putting up money. Did you
+really?"
+
+"Put up the money for that ghastly play? I did. Every cent. It was the
+only way to get it put on."
+
+"But why...? I forget what I was going to say!"
+
+"Why did I want it put on? Well, it does seem odd, but I give you my
+honest word that until to-night I thought the darned thing a
+masterpiece. I've been writing musical comedies for the last few
+years, and after you've done that for a while your soul rises up
+within you and says, 'Come, come, my lad! You can do better than
+this!' That's what mine said, and I believed it. Subsequent events
+have proved that Sidney the Soul was pulling my leg!"
+
+"But--then you've lost a great deal of money?"
+
+"The hoarded wealth, if you don't mind my being melodramatic for a
+moment, of a lifetime. And no honest old servitor who dangled me on
+his knee as a baby to come along and offer me his savings! They don't
+make servitors like that in America, worse luck. There is a Swedish
+lady who looks after my simple needs back there, but instinct tells me
+that, if I were to approach her on the subject of loosening up for the
+benefit of the young master, she would call a cop. Still, I've gained
+experience, which they say is just as good as cash, and I've enough
+money left to pay the bill, at any rate, so come along."
+
+In the supper-room of the Savoy Hotel there was, as anticipated, food
+and light and music. It was still early, and the theatres had not yet
+emptied themselves, so that the big room was as yet but half full.
+Wally Mason had found a table in the corner, and proceeded to order
+with the concentration of a hungry man.
+
+"Forgive my dwelling so tensely on the bill-of-fare," he said, when
+the waiter had gone. "You don't know what it means to one in my
+condition to have to choose between _poulet en casserole_ and kidneys
+_à la mâitre d'hôtel_. A man's cross-roads!"
+
+Jill smiled happily across the table at him. She could hardly believe
+that this old friend with whom she had gone through the perils of the
+night and with whom she was now about to feast was the sinister figure
+that had cast a shadow on her childhood. He looked positively
+incapable of pulling a little girl's hair--as no doubt he was.
+
+"You always were greedy," she commented. "Just before I turned the
+hose on you, I remember you had made yourself thoroughly disliked by
+pocketing a piece of my birthday cake."
+
+"Do you remember that?" His eyes lit up and he smiled back at her. He
+had an ingratiating smile. His mouth was rather wide, and it seemed to
+stretch right across his face. He reminded Jill more than ever of a
+big, friendly dog. "I can feel it now--all squashy in my pocket,
+inextricably mingled with a catapult, a couple of marbles, a box of
+matches, and some string. I was quite the human general store in those
+days. Which reminds me that we have been some time settling down to an
+exchange of our childish reminiscences, haven't we?"
+
+"I've been trying to realize that you are Wally Mason. You have
+altered so."
+
+"For the better?"
+
+"Very much for the better! You were a horrid little brute. You used to
+terrify me. I never knew when you were going to bound out at me from
+behind a tree or something. I remember your chasing me for miles,
+shrieking at the top of your voice!"
+
+"Sheer embarrassment! I told you just now how I used to worship you.
+If I shrieked a little, it was merely because I was shy. I did it to
+hide my devotion."
+
+"You certainly succeeded. I never even suspected it."
+
+Wally sighed.
+
+"How like life! I never told my love, but let concealment like a worm
+i' the bud...."
+
+"Talking of worms, you once put one down my back!"
+
+"No, no," said Wally in a shocked voice. "Not that I I was boisterous,
+perhaps, but surely always the gentleman."
+
+"You did! In the shrubbery. There had been a thunderstorm and...."
+
+"I remember the incident now. A mere misunderstanding. I had done with
+the worm, and thought you might be glad to have it."
+
+"You were always doing things like that. Once you held me over the
+pond and threatened to drop me into the water--in the winter! Just
+before Christmas. It was a particularly mean thing to do, because I
+couldn't even kick your shins for fear you would let me fall. Luckily
+Uncle Chris came up and made you stop."
+
+"You considered that a fortunate occurrence, did you?" said Wally.
+"Well, perhaps from your point of view it may have been. I saw the
+thing from a different angle. Your uncle had a whangee with him. My
+friends sometimes wonder what I mean when I say that my old wound
+troubles me in frosty weather. By the way, how is your uncle?"
+
+"Oh, he's very well. Just as lazy as ever. He's away at present, down
+at Brighton."
+
+"He didn't strike me as lazy," said Wally thoughtfully. "Dynamic would
+express it better. But perhaps I happened to encounter him in a moment
+of energy. Ah!" The waiter had returned with a loaded tray. "The food!
+Forgive me if I seem a little distrait for a moment or two. There is
+man's work before me!"
+
+"And later on, I suppose, you would like a chop or something to take
+away in your pocket?"
+
+"I will think it over. Possibly a little soup. My needs are very
+simple these days."
+
+Jill watched him with a growing sense of satisfaction. There was
+something boyishly engaging about this man. She felt at home with him.
+He affected her in much the same way as did Freddie Rooke. He was a
+definite addition to the things that went to make her happy.
+
+She liked him particularly for being such a good loser. She had
+always been a good loser herself, and the quality was one which she
+admired. It was nice of him to dismiss from his conversation--and
+apparently from his thoughts--that night's fiasco and all that it must
+have cost him. She wondered how much he had lost. Certainly something
+very substantial. Yet it seemed to trouble him not at all. Jill
+considered his behaviour gallant, and her heart warmed to him. This
+was how a man ought to take the slings and arrows of outrageous
+fortune.
+
+Wally sighed contentedly, and leaned back in his chair.
+
+"An unpleasant exhibition!" he said apologetically. "But unavoidable.
+And, anyway, I take it that you prefer to have me well-fed and happy
+about the place than swooning on the floor with starvation. A
+wonderful thing, food! I am now ready to converse intelligently on any
+subject you care to suggest. I have eaten rose-leaves and am no more a
+golden ass, so to speak. What shall we talk about?"
+
+"Tell me about yourself."
+
+"There is no nobler topic. But what aspect of myself do you wish me to
+touch on? My thoughts, my tastes, my amusements, my career, or what? I
+can talk about myself for hours. My friends in New York often complain
+about it bitterly."
+
+"New York?" said Jill. "Oh, then you live in America?"
+
+"Yes. I only came over here to see that darned false alarm of a play
+of mine put on."
+
+"Why didn't you put it on in New York?"
+
+"Too many of the lads of the village know me over there. This was a
+new departure, you see. What the critics in those parts expect from me
+is something entitled 'Wow! Wow!' or 'The Girl from Yonkers.' It would
+have unsettled their minds to find me breaking out in poetic drama.
+They are men of coarse fibre and ribald mind and they would have been
+funny about it. I thought it wiser to come over here among strangers,
+little thinking that I should sit in the next seat to somebody I had
+known all my life."
+
+"But when did you go to America? And why?"
+
+"I think it must have been four--five--well, quite a number of years
+after the hose episode. Probably you didn't observe that I wasn't
+still around, but we crept silently out of the neighbourhood round
+about that time and went to live in London." His tone lost its
+lightness momentarily. "My father died, you know, and that sort of
+broke things up. He didn't leave any too much money, either.
+Apparently we had been living on rather too expensive a scale during
+the time I knew you. At any rate, I was more or less up against it
+until your father got me a job in an office in New York."
+
+"My father!"
+
+"Yes. It was wonderfully good of him to bother about me. I didn't
+suppose he would have known me by sight, and, even if he had
+remembered me, I shouldn't have imagined that the memory would have
+been a pleasant one. But he couldn't have taken more trouble if I had
+been a blood-relation."
+
+"That was just like father," said Jill softly.
+
+"He was a prince."
+
+"But you aren't in the office now?"
+
+"No. I found I had a knack of writing verses and things, and I wrote a
+few vaudeville songs. Then I came across a man named Bevan at a music
+publisher's. He was just starting to write music, and we got together
+and turned out some vaudeville sketches, and then a manager sent for
+us to fix up a show that was dying on the road and we had the good
+luck to turn it into a success, and after that it was pretty good
+going. George Bevan got married the other day. Lucky devil!"
+
+"Are you married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You were faithful to my memory?" said Jill with a smile.
+
+"I was."
+
+"It can't last," said Jill, shaking her head. "One of these days
+you'll meet some lovely American girl and then you'll put a worm down
+her back or pull her hair or whatever it is you do when you want to
+show your devotion, and.... What are you looking at? Is something
+interesting going on behind me?"
+
+He had been looking past her out into the room.
+
+"It's nothing," he said. "Only there's a statuesque old lady about two
+tables back of you who has been staring at you, with intervals for
+refreshment, for the last five minutes. You seem to fascinate her."
+
+"An old lady?"
+
+"Yes. With a glare! She looks like Dunsany's Bird of the Difficult
+Eye. Count ten and turn carelessly round, There, at that table. Almost
+behind you."
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Jill.
+
+She turned quickly round again.
+
+"What's the matter? Do you know her? Somebody you don't want to meet?"
+
+"It's Lady Underhill! And Derek's with her!"
+
+Wally had been lifting his glass. He put it down rather suddenly.
+
+"Derek?" he said.
+
+"Derek Underhill. The man I'm engaged to marry."
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Oh!" said Wally thoughtfully. "The man you're engaged to marry? Yes,
+I see!"
+
+He raised his glass again, and drank its contents quickly.
+
+
+II
+
+Jill looked at her companion anxiously. Recent events had caused her
+completely to forget the existence of Lady Underhill. She was always
+so intensely interested in what she happened to be doing at the moment
+that she often suffered these temporary lapses of memory. It occurred
+to her now--too late, as usual--that the Savoy Hotel was the last
+place in London where she should have come to supper with Wally. It
+was the hotel where Lady Underhill was staying. She frowned. Life had
+suddenly ceased to be careless and happy, and had become a
+problem-ridden thing, full of perplexity and misunderstandings.
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+Wally Mason started at the sound of her voice. He appeared to be deep
+in thoughts of his own.
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"I shouldn't be worried."
+
+"Derek will be awfully cross."
+
+Wally's good-humoured mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.
+
+"Why?" he said. "There's nothing wrong in your having supper with an
+old friend."
+
+"N-no," said Jill doubtfully. "But...."
+
+"Derek Underhill," said Wally reflectively. "Is that Sir Derek
+Underhill, whose name one's always seeing in the papers?"
+
+"Derek is in the papers a lot. He's an M.P. and all sorts of things."
+
+"Good-looking fellow. Ah, here's the coffee."
+
+"I don't want any, thanks."
+
+"Nonsense. Why spoil your meal because of this? Do you smoke?"
+
+"No, thanks."
+
+"Given it up, eh? Daresay you're wise. Stunts the growth and increases
+the expenses."
+
+"Given it up?"
+
+"Don't you remember sharing one of your father's cigars with me behind
+the haystack in the meadow? We cut it in half. I finished my half, but
+I fancy about three puffs were enough for you. Those were happy days!"
+
+"That one wasn't! Of course I remember it now. I don't suppose I shall
+ever forget it."
+
+"The thing was my fault, as usual. I recollect I dared you."
+
+"Yes. I always took a dare."
+
+"Do you still?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+Wally knocked the ash off his cigarette.
+
+"Well," he said slowly, "suppose I were to dare you to get up and walk
+over to that table and look your fiancé in the eye and say, 'Stop
+scowling at my back hair! I've a perfect right to be supping with an
+old friend!'--would you do it?"
+
+"Is he?" said Jill startled.
+
+"Scowling? Can't you feel it on the back of your head?" He drew
+thoughtfully at his cigarette. "If I were you I should stop that sort
+of thing at the source. It's a habit that can't be discouraged in a
+husband too early. Scowling is the civilized man's substitute for
+wife-beating."
+
+Jill moved uncomfortably in her chair. Her quick temper resented his
+tone. There was a hostility, a hardly veiled contempt in his voice
+which stung her. Derek was sacred. Whoever criticised him, presumed.
+Wally, a few minutes before a friend and an agreeable companion,
+seemed to her to have changed. He was once more the boy whom she had
+disliked in the old days. There was a gleam in her eyes which should
+have warned him, but he went on.
+
+"I should imagine that this Derek of yours is not one of our leading
+sunbeams. Well, I suppose he could hardly be, if that's his mother and
+there is anything in heredity."
+
+"Please don't criticise Derek," said Jill coldly.
+
+"I was only saying...."
+
+"Never mind. I don't like it."
+
+A slow flush crept over Wally's face. He made no reply, and there fell
+between them a silence that was like a shadow, Jill sipped her coffee
+miserably. She was regretting that little spurt of temper. She wished
+she could have recalled the words. Not that it was the actual words
+that had torn asunder this gossamer thing, the friendship which they
+had begun to weave like some fragile web: it was her manner, the
+manner of the princess rebuking an underling. She knew that, if she
+had struck him, she could not have offended Wally more deeply. There
+are some men whose ebullient natures enable them to rise unscathed
+from the worst snub. Wally, her intuition told her, was not that kind
+of man.
+
+There was only one way of mending the matter. In these clashes of
+human temperaments, these sudden storms that spring up out of a clear
+sky, it is possible sometimes to repair the damage, if the
+psychological moment is resolutely seized, by talking rapidly and with
+detachment on neutral topics. Words have made the rift, and words
+alone can bridge it. But neither Jill nor her companion could find
+words, and the silence lengthened grimly. When Wally spoke, it was in
+the level tones of a polite stranger.
+
+"Your friends have gone."
+
+His voice was the voice in which, when she went on railway journeys,
+fellow-travellers in the carriage enquired of Jill if she would prefer
+the window up or down. It had the effect of killing her regrets and
+feeding her resentment. She was a girl who never refused a challenge,
+and she set herself to be as frigidly polite and aloof as he.
+
+"Really?" she said. "When did they leave?"
+
+"A moment ago." The lights gave the warning flicker that announces the
+arrival of the hour of closing. In the momentary darkness they both
+rose. Wally scrawled his name across the bill which the waiter had
+insinuated upon his attention. "I suppose we had better be moving?"
+
+They crossed the room in silence. Everybody was moving in the same
+direction. The broad stairway leading to the lobby was crowded with
+chattering supper-parties. The light had gone up again.
+
+At the cloak-room Wally stopped.
+
+"I see Underhill waiting up there," he said casually. "To take you
+home, I suppose. Shall we say good-night? I'm staying in the hotel."
+
+Jill glanced towards the head of the stairs. Derek was there. He was
+alone. Lady Underhill presumably had gone up to her room in the
+elevator.
+
+Wally was holding out his hand. His face was stolid and his eyes
+avoided hers.
+
+"Good-bye," he said.
+
+"Good-bye," said Jill.
+
+She felt curiously embarrassed. At this last moment hostility had
+weakened, and she was conscious of a desire to make amends. She and
+this man had been through much together that night, much that was
+perilous and much that was pleasant. A sudden feeling of remorse came
+over her.
+
+"You'll come and see us, won't you?" she said a little wistfully. "I'm
+sure my uncle would like to meet you again."
+
+"It's very good of you," said Wally, "but I'm afraid I shall be going
+back to America at any moment now."
+
+Pique, that ally of the devil, regained its slipping grip upon Jill.
+
+"Oh? I'm sorry," she said indifferently. "Well, good-bye, then."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"I hope you have a pleasant voyage."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+He turned into the cloak-room, and Jill went up the stairs to join
+Derek. She felt angry and depressed, full of a sense of the futility
+of things. People flashed into one's life and out again. Where was the
+sense of it?
+
+
+III
+
+Derek had been scowling, and Derek still scowled. His eyebrows were
+formidable, and his mouth smiled no welcome at Jill as she approached
+him. The evening, portions of which Jill had found so enjoyable, had
+contained no pleasant portions for Derek. Looking back over a lifetime
+whose events had been almost uniformly agreeable, he told himself
+that he could not recall another day which had gone so completely
+awry. It had started with the fog. He hated fog. Then had come that
+meeting with his mother at Charing Cross, which had been enough to
+upset him by itself. After that, rising to a crescendo of
+unpleasantness, the day had provided that appalling situation at the
+Albany, the recollection of which still made him tingle; and there had
+followed the silent dinner, the boredom of the early part of the play,
+the fire at the theatre, the undignified scramble for the exits, and
+now this discovery of the girl whom he was engaged to marry supping at
+the Savoy with a fellow he didn't remember ever having seen in his
+life. All these things combined to induce in Derek a mood bordering on
+ferocity. His birth and income combining to make him one of the
+spoiled children of the world, had fitted him ill for such a series of
+catastrophes. He received Jill with frozen silence and led her out to
+the waiting taxi-cab. It was only when the cab had started on its
+journey that he found relief in speech.
+
+"Well," he said, mastering with difficulty an inclination to raise his
+voice to a shout, "perhaps you will kindly explain?"
+
+Jill had sunk back against the cushions of the cab. The touch of his
+body against hers always gave her a thrill, half pleasurable, half
+frightening. She had never met anybody who affected her in this way as
+Derek did. She moved a little closer, and felt for his hand. But, as
+she touched it, it retreated--coldly. Her heart sank. It was like
+being cut in public by somebody very dignified.
+
+"Derek, darling!" Her lips trembled. Others had seen this side of
+Derek Underhill frequently, for he was a man who believed in keeping
+the world in its place, but she never. To her he had always been the
+perfect, gracious knight. A little too perfect, perhaps, a trifle too
+gracious, possibly, but she had been too deeply in love to notice
+that. "Don't be cross!"
+
+The English language is the richest in the world, and yet somehow in
+moments when words count most we generally choose the wrong ones. The
+adjective "cross" as a description of his Jove-like wrath that
+consumed his whole being jarred upon Derek profoundly. It was as
+though Prometheus, with the vultures tearing his liver, had been asked
+if he were piqued.
+
+"Cross!"
+
+The cab rolled on. Lights from lamp-posts flashed in at windows. It
+was a pale, anxious little face that they lit up when they shone upon
+Jill.
+
+"I can't understand you," said Derek at last. Jill noticed that he had
+not yet addressed her by her name. He was speaking straight out in
+front of him as if he were soliloquising. "I simply cannot understand
+you. After what happened before dinner to-night, for you to cap
+everything by going off alone to supper at a restaurant, where half
+the people in the room must have known you, with a man...."
+
+"You don't understand!"
+
+"Exactly! I said I did not understand." The feeling of having scored a
+point made Derek feel a little better. "I admit it. Your behaviour is
+incomprehensible. Where did you meet this fellow?"
+
+"I met him at the theatre. He was the author of the play."
+
+"The man you told me you had been talking to? The fellow who scraped
+acquaintance with you between the acts?"
+
+"But I found out he was an old friend. I mean, I knew him when I was a
+child."
+
+"You didn't tell me that."
+
+"I only found it out later."
+
+"After he had invited you to supper! It's maddening!" cried Derek, the
+sense of his wrongs surging back over him. "What do you suppose my
+mother thought? She asked me who the man with you was. I had to say I
+didn't know! What do you suppose she thought?"
+
+It is to be doubted whether anything else in the world could have
+restored the fighting spirit to Jill's cowering soul at that moment;
+but the reference to Lady Underhill achieved this miracle. That deep
+mutual antipathy which is so much more common than love at first sight
+had sprung up between the two at the instant of their meeting. The
+circumstances of that meeting had caused it to take root and grow. To
+Jill, Derek's mother was by this time not so much a fellow human being
+whom she disliked as a something, a sort of force, that made for her
+unhappiness. She was a menace and a loathing.
+
+"If your mother had asked me that question," she retorted with spirit,
+"I should have told her that he was the man who got me safely out of
+the theatre after you...." She checked herself. She did not want to
+say the unforgivable thing. "You see," she said more quietly, "you had
+disappeared...."
+
+"My mother is an old woman," said Derek stiffly. "Naturally I had to
+look after her. I called to you to follow."
+
+"Oh, I understand. I'm simply trying to explain what happened. I was
+there all alone, and Wally Mason...."
+
+"Wally!" Derek uttered a short laugh, almost a bark. "It got to
+Christian names, eh?"
+
+Jill set her teeth.
+
+"I told you I knew him as a child. I always called him Wally then."
+
+"I beg your pardon. I had forgotten."
+
+"He got me out through the pass-door on to the stage and through the
+stage-door."
+
+Derek was feeling cheated. He had the uncomfortable sensation that
+comes to men who grandly contemplate mountains and see them dwindle to
+molehills. The apparently outrageous had shown itself in explanation
+nothing so out-of-the-way after all. He seized upon the single point
+in Jill's behaviour that still constituted a grievance.
+
+"There was no need for you to go to supper with the man!" Jove-like
+wrath had ebbed away to something deplorably like a querulous grumble.
+"You should have gone straight home. You must have known how anxious I
+would be about you."
+
+"Well, really, Derek, dear! You didn't seem so very anxious! You were
+having supper yourself quite cosily."
+
+The human mind is curiously constituted. It is worthy of record that,
+despite his mother's obvious disapproval of his engagement, despite
+all the occurrences of this dreadful day, it was not till she made
+this remark that Derek Underhill first admitted to himself that,
+intoxicate his senses as she might, there was a possibility that Jill
+Mariner was not the ideal wife for him. The idea came and went more
+quickly than breath upon a mirror. It passed, but it had been. There
+are men who fear repartee in a wife more keenly than a sword. Derek
+was one of these. Like most men of single outlook, whose dignity is
+their most precious possession, he winced from an edged tongue.
+
+"My mother was greatly upset," he replied coldly. "I thought a cup of
+soup would do her good. And, as for being anxious about you, I
+telephoned to your home to ask if you had come in."
+
+"And when," thought Jill, "they told you I hadn't, you went off to
+supper!"
+
+She did not speak the words. If she had an edged tongue, she had also
+the control of it. She had no wish to wound Derek. Whole-hearted in
+everything she did, she loved him with her whole heart. There might be
+specks upon her idol--that its feet might be clay she could never
+believe--but they mattered nothing. She loved him.
+
+"I'm so sorry, dear," she said. "So awfully sorry! I've been a bad
+girl, haven't I?"
+
+She felt for his hand again, and this time he allowed it to remain
+stiffly in her grasp. It was like being grudgingly recognized by
+somebody very dignified who had his doubts about you but reserved
+judgment.
+
+The cab drew up at the door of the house in Ovingdon Square which
+Jill's Uncle Christopher had settled upon as a suitable address for a
+gentleman of his standing. Jill put up her face to be kissed, like a
+penitent child.
+
+"I'll never be naughty again!"
+
+For a flickering instant Derek hesitated. The drive, long as it was,
+had been too short wholly to restore his equanimity. Then the sense of
+her nearness, her sweetness, the faint perfume of her hair, and her
+eyes, shining softly in the darkness so close to his own, overcame
+him. He crushed her to him.
+
+Jill disappeared into the house with a happy laugh. It had been a
+terrible day, but it had ended well.
+
+"The Albany," said Derek to the cabman.
+
+He leaned back against the cushions. His senses were in a whirl. The
+cab rolled on. Presently his exalted mood vanished as quickly as it
+had come. Jill absent always affected him differently from Jill
+present. He was not a man of strong imagination, and the stimulus of
+her waned when she was not with him. Long before the cab reached the
+Albany the frown was back on his face.
+
+
+IV
+
+Arriving at the Albany, he found Freddie Rooke lying on his spine in a
+deep arm-chair. His slippered feet were on the mantelpiece, and he was
+restoring his wasted tissues with a strong whisky-and-soda. One of
+the cigars which Barker, the valet, had stamped with the seal of his
+approval was in the corner of his mouth. The _Sporting Times_, with a
+perusal of which he had been soothing his fluttered nerves, had fallen
+on the floor beside the chair. He had finished reading, and was now
+gazing peacefully at the ceiling, his mind a perfect blank. There was
+nothing the matter with Freddie.
+
+"Hullo, old thing," he observed as Derek entered. "So you buzzed out
+of the fiery furnace all right? I was wondering how you had got along.
+How are you feeling? I'm not the man I was! These things get the old
+system all stirred up! I'll do anything in reason to oblige and help
+things along and all that, but to be called on at a moment's notice to
+play Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego rolled into one, without
+rehearsal or make-up, is a bit too thick! No, young feller-me-lad! If
+theatre fires are going to be the fashion this season, the Last of the
+Rookes will sit quietly at home and play solitaire. Mix yourself a
+drink of something, old man, or something of that kind. By the way,
+your jolly old mater. All right? Not even singed? Fine! Make a long
+arm and gather in a cigar."
+
+And Freddie, having exerted himself to play the host in a suitable
+manner, wedged himself more firmly into his chair and blew a cloud of
+smoke.
+
+Derek sat down. He lit a cigar, and stared silently at the fire. From
+the mantelpiece Jill's photograph smiled down, but he did not look at
+it. Presently his attitude began to weigh upon Freddie. Freddie had
+had a trying evening What he wanted just now was merry prattle, and
+his friend did not seem disposed to contribute his share. He removed
+his feet from the mantelpiece and wriggled himself sideways, so that
+he could see Derek's face. Its gloom touched him. Apart from his
+admiration for Derek, he was a warmhearted young man, and sympathized
+with affliction when it presented itself for his notice.
+
+"Something on your mind, old bean?" he enquired delicately.
+
+Derek did not answer for a moment. Then he reflected that, little as
+he esteemed the other's mentality, he and Freddie had known each other
+a long time, and that it would be a relief to confide in some one. And
+Freddie, moreover, was an old friend of Jill and the man who had
+introduced him to her.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"I'm listening, old top," said Freddie. "Release the film."
+
+Derek drew at his cigar, and watched the smoke as it curled to the
+ceiling.
+
+"It's about Jill."
+
+Freddie signified his interest by wriggling still further sideways.
+
+"Jill, eh?"
+
+"Freddie, she's so damned impulsive!"
+
+Freddie nearly rolled out of his chair. This, he took it, was what
+writing-chappies called a coincidence.
+
+"Rummy you should say that," he ejaculated. "I was telling her exactly
+the same thing myself only this evening." He hesitated. "I fancy I can
+see what you're driving at, old thing. The watchword is 'What ho, the
+mater!' yes, no? You've begun to get a sort of idea that if Jill
+doesn't watch her step, she's apt to sink pretty low in the betting,
+what? I know exactly what you mean! You and I know all right that
+Jill's a topper. But one can see that to your mater she might seem a
+bit different. I mean to say, your jolly old mater only judging by
+first impressions, and the meeting not having come off quite as
+scheduled.... I say, old man," he broke off, "fearfully sorry and all
+that about that business. You know what I mean! Wouldn't have had it
+happen for the world. I take it the mater was a trifle peeved? Not to
+say perturbed and chagrined? I seemed to notice it at dinner."
+
+"She was furious, of course. She did not refer to the matter when we
+were alone together, but there was no need to. I knew what she was
+thinking."
+
+Derek threw away his cigar. Freddie noted this evidence of an
+overwrought soul with concern.
+
+"The whole thing," he conceded, "was a bit unfortunate."
+
+Derek began to pace the room.
+
+"Freddie."
+
+"On the spot, old man."
+
+"Something's got to be done."
+
+"Absolutely!" Freddie nodded solemnly. He had taken this matter
+greatly to heart. Derek was his best friend, and he had always been
+extremely fond of Jill. It hurt him to see things going wrong. "I'll
+tell you what, old bean. Let _me_ handle this binge for you."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Me! The Final Rooke!" He jumped up, and leaned against the
+mantelpiece. "I'm the lad to do it. I've known Jill for years. She'll
+listen to me. I'll talk to her like a Dutch uncle and make her
+understand the general scheme of things. I'll take her out to tea
+to-morrow and slang her in no uncertain voice! Leave the whole thing
+to _me_, laddie!"
+
+Derek considered.
+
+"It might do some good," he said.
+
+"Good?" said Freddie. "It's _it_, dear boy! It's a wheeze! You toddle
+off to bed and have a good sleep. I'll fix the whole thing for you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LADY UNDERHILL RECEIVES A SHOCK
+
+I
+
+
+There are streets in London into which the sun seems never to
+penetrate. Some of these are in fashionable quarters, and it is to be
+supposed that their inhabitants find an address which looks well on
+note-paper a sufficient compensation for the gloom that goes with it.
+The majority, however, are in the mean neighbourhoods of the great
+railway termini, and appear to offer no compensation whatever. They
+are lean, furtive streets, grey as the January sky with a sort of
+arrested decay. They smell of cabbage and are much prowled over by
+vagrom cats. At night they are empty and dark, and a stillness broods
+on them, broken only by the cracked tingle of an occasional piano
+playing one of the easier hymns, a form of music to which the dwellers
+in the dingy houses are greatly addicted. By day they achieve a
+certain animation through the intermittent appearance of women in
+aprons, who shake rugs out of the front doors or, emerging from areas,
+go down to the public-house on the corner with jugs to fetch the
+supper-beer. In almost every ground-floor window there is a card
+announcing that furnished lodgings may be had within. You will find
+these streets by the score if you leave the main thoroughfares and
+take a short cut on your way to Euston, to Paddington, or to Waterloo.
+But the dingiest and deadliest and most depressing lie round about
+Victoria. And Daubeny Street, Pimlico, is one of the worst of them
+all.
+
+On the afternoon following the events recorded, a girl was dressing in
+the ground-floor room of Number Nine, Daubeny Street. A tray bearing
+the remains of a late breakfast stood on the rickety table beside a
+bowl of wax flowers. From beneath the table peered the green cover of
+a copy of _Variety_. A grey parrot in a cage by the window cracked
+seed and looked out into the room with a satirical eye. He had seen
+all this so many times before--Nelly Bryant arraying herself in her
+smartest clothes to go out and besiege agents in their offices off the
+Strand. It happened every day. In an hour or two she would come back
+as usual, say "Oh, Gee!" in a tired sort of voice, and then Bill the
+parrot's day proper would begin. He was a bird who liked the sound of
+his own voice, and he never got the chance of a really sustained
+conversation till Nelly returned in the evening.
+
+"Who cares?" said Bill, and cracked another seed.
+
+If rooms are an indication of the characters of their occupants, Nelly
+Bryant came well out of the test of her surroundings. Nothing can make
+a London furnished room much less horrible than it intends to be, but
+Nelly had done her best. The furniture, what there was of it, was of
+that lodging-house kind which resembles nothing else in the world. But
+a few little touches here and there, a few instinctively tasteful
+alterations in the general scheme of things, had given the room almost
+a cosy air. Later on, with the gas lit, it would achieve something
+approaching homeliness. Nelly, like many another nomad, had taught
+herself to accomplish a good deal with poor material. On tour in
+America, she had sometimes made even a bedroom in a small hotel
+tolerably comfortable, than which there is no greater achievement.
+Oddly, considering her life, she had a genius for domesticity.
+
+To-day, not for the first time, Nelly was feeling unhappy. The face
+that looked back at her out of the mirror at which she was arranging
+her most becoming hat was weary. It was only a moderately pretty face,
+but loneliness and underfeeding had given it a wistful expression that
+had charm. Unfortunately, it was not the sort of charm which made a
+great appeal to the stout, whisky-nourished men who sat behind
+paper-littered tables, smoking cigars, in the rooms marked "Private"
+in the offices of theatrical agents. Nelly had been out of a "shop"
+now for many weeks--ever since, in fact, "Follow the Girl" had
+finished its long run at the Regal Theatre.
+
+"Follow the Girl," an American musical comedy, had come over from New
+York with an American company, of which Nelly had been a humble unit,
+and, after playing a year in London and some weeks in the number one
+towns, had returned to New York. It did not cheer Nelly up in the long
+evenings in Daubeny Street to reflect that, if she had wished, she
+could have gone home with the rest of the company. A mad impulse had
+seized her to try her luck in London, and here she was now, marooned.
+
+"Who cares?" said Bill.
+
+For a bird who enjoyed talking he was a little limited in his remarks
+and apt to repeat himself.
+
+"I do, you poor fish!" said Nelly, completing her manoeuvres with
+the hat and turning to the cage. "It's all right for you--you have a
+swell time with nothing to do but sit there and eat seed--but how do
+you suppose I enjoy tramping around looking for work and never finding
+any?"
+
+She picked up her gloves. "Oh, well!" she said. "Wish me luck!"
+
+"Good-bye, boy!" said the parrot, clinging to the bars.
+
+Nelly thrust a finger into the cage, and scratched his head.
+
+"Anxious to get rid of me, aren't you? Well, so long."
+
+"Good-bye, boy!"
+
+"All right, I'm going. Be good!"
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" barked Bill the parrot, not committing himself to
+any promises.
+
+For some moments after Nelly had gone he remained hunched on his
+perch, contemplating the infinite. Then he sauntered along to the
+seed-box and took some more light nourishment. He always liked to
+spread his meals out, to make them last longer. A drink of water to
+wash the food down, and he returned to the middle of the cage, where
+he proceeded to conduct a few intimate researches with his beak under
+his left wing. After which he mewed like a cat, and relapsed into
+silent meditation once more. He closed his eyes and pondered on his
+favourite problem--Why was he a parrot? This was always good for an
+hour or so, and it was three o'clock before he had come to his
+customary decision that he didn't know. Then, exhausted by brain-work
+and feeling a trifle hipped by the silence of the room, he looked
+about him for some way of jazzing existence up a little. It occurred
+to him that if he barked again it might help.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!"
+
+Good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. It was not real
+excitement. Something rather more dashing seemed to him to be
+indicated. He hammered for a moment or two on the floor of his cage,
+ate a mouthful of the newspaper there, and stood with his head on one
+side, chewing thoughtfully. It didn't taste as good as usual. He
+suspected Nelly of having changed his _Daily Mail_ for the _Daily
+Express_ or something. He swallowed the piece of paper, and was struck
+by the thought that a little climbing exercise might be what his soul
+demanded. (You hang on by your beak and claws and work your way up to
+the roof. It sounds tame, but it's something to do.) He tried it. And,
+as he gripped the door of the cage it swung open. Bill the parrot now
+perceived that this was going to be one of those days. He had not had
+a bit of luck like this for months.
+
+For a while he sat regarding the open door. Unless excited by outside
+influences, he never did anything in a hurry. Then proceeding
+cautiously, he passed out into the room. He had been out there before,
+but always chaperoned by Nelly. This was something quite different. It
+was an adventure. He hopped on to the window-sill. There was a ball of
+yellow wool there, but he had lunched and could eat nothing. He cast
+around in his mind for something to occupy him, and perceived suddenly
+that the world was larger than he had supposed. Apparently there was a
+lot of it outside the room. How long this had been going on he did not
+know, but obviously it was a thing to be investigated. The window was
+open at the bottom, and just outside the window were what he took to
+be the bars of another and larger cage. As a matter of fact they were
+the railings which afforded a modest protection to Number Nine. They
+ran the length of the house, and were much used by small boys as a
+means of rattling sticks. One of these stick-rattlers passed as Bill
+stood there looking down. The noise startled him for a moment, then he
+seemed to come to the conclusion that this sort of thing was to be
+expected if you went out into the great world and that a parrot who
+intended to see life must not allow himself to be deterred by trifles.
+He crooned a little, and finally, stepping in a stately way over the
+window-sill, with his toes turned in at right angles, caught at the
+top of the railing with his beak, and proceeded to lower himself.
+Arrived at the level of the street, he stood looking out.
+
+A dog trotted up, spied him, and came to sniff.
+
+"Good-bye, boy!" said Bill chattily.
+
+The dog was taken aback. Hitherto, in his limited experience, birds
+had been birds and men men. Here was a blend of the two. What was to
+be done about it? He barked tentatively, then, finding that nothing
+disastrous ensued, pushed his nose between two of the bars and barked
+again. Any one who knew Bill could have told him that he was asking
+for it, and he got it. Bill leaned forward and nipped his nose. The
+dog started back with a howl of agony. He was learning something new
+every minute.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill sardonically.
+
+He perceived trousered legs, four of them, and, cocking his eye
+upwards, saw that two men of the lower orders stood before him. They
+were gazing down at him in the stolid manner peculiar to the
+proletariat of London in the presence of the unusual. For some minutes
+they stood drinking him in, then one of them gave judgment.
+
+"It's a parrot!" He removed a pipe from his mouth and pointed with the
+stem. "A perishin' parrot, Erb."
+
+"Ah!" said Erb, a man of few words.
+
+"A parrot," proceeded the other. He was seeing clearer into the matter
+every moment. "That's a parrot, that is Erb. My brother Joe's wife's
+sister had one of 'em. Come from abroad, _they_ do. My brother Joe's
+wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. Red-'aired gel she was. Married a feller
+down at the Docks _She_ 'ad one of 'em. Parrots they're called."
+
+He bent down for a closer inspection, and inserted a finger through
+the railings. Erb abandoned his customary taciturnity and spoke words
+of warning.
+
+"Tike care 'e don't sting yer, 'Enry!"
+
+Henry seemed wounded.
+
+"Woddyer mean, sting me? I know all abart parrots, I do. My brother
+Joe's wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. They don't 'urt yer, not if you're
+kind to 'em. You know yer pals when you see 'em, don't yer, mate?" he
+went on, addressing Bill, who was contemplating the finger with one
+half-closed eye.
+
+"Good-bye, boy," said the parrot, evading the point.
+
+"Jear that?" cried Henry delightedly. "'Goo'-bye, boy!' 'Uman they
+are!"
+
+"'E'll 'ave a piece out of yer finger," warned Erb the suspicious.
+
+"Wot, 'im?" Henry's voice was indignant. He seemed to think that his
+reputation as an expert on parrots had been challenged. "'E wouldn't
+'ave no piece out of my finger."
+
+"Bet yer a narf-pint 'e would 'ave a piece out of yer finger,"
+persisted the sceptic.
+
+"No blinkin' parrot's goin' to 'ave no piece of no finger of mine! My
+brother Joe's wife's sister's parrot never 'ad no piece out of no
+finger of mine!" He extended the finger further and waggled it
+enticingly beneath Bill's beak. "Cheerio, matey!" he said winningly.
+"Polly want a nut?"
+
+Whether it was mere indolence or whether the advertised docility of
+that other parrot belonging to Henry's brother's wife's sister had
+caused him to realize that there was a certain standard of good
+conduct for his species one cannot say; but for a while Bill merely
+contemplated temptation with a detached eye.
+
+"See!" said Henry.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill.
+
+"_Wow-Wow-Wow_!" yapped the dog, suddenly returning to the scene and
+going on with the argument at the point where he had left off.
+
+The effect on Bill was catastrophic. Ever a high-strung bird, he lost
+completely the repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere and the
+better order of parrot. His nerves were shocked, and, as always under
+such conditions, his impulse was to bite blindly. He bit, and
+Henry--one feels sorry for Henry: he was a well-meaning man--leaped
+back with a loud howl.
+
+"'That'll be 'arf a pint," said Erb, always the business man.
+
+There was a lull in the rapid action. The dog, mumbling softly to
+himself, had moved away again and was watching affairs from the edge
+of the sidewalk. Erb, having won his point, was silent once more.
+Henry sucked his finger. Bill, having met the world squarely and shown
+it what was what, stood where he was, whistling nonchalantly.
+
+Henry removed his finger from his mouth. "Lend the loan of that stick
+of yours, Erb," he said tensely.
+
+Erb silently yielded up the stout stick which was his inseparable
+companion. Henry, a vastly different man from the genial saunterer of
+a moment ago, poked wildly through the railings. Bill, panic-stricken
+now and wishing for nothing better than to be back in his cosy cage,
+shrieked loudly for help. And Freddie Rooke, running round the corner
+with Jill, stopped dead and turned pale.
+
+"Good God!" said Freddie.
+
+
+II
+
+In pursuance of his overnight promise to Derek, Freddie Rooke had got
+in touch with Jill through the medium of the telephone immediately
+after breakfast, and had arranged to call at Ovingdon Square in the
+afternoon. Arrived there, he found Jill with a telegram in her hand.
+Her Uncle Christopher, who had been enjoying a breath of sea-air down
+at Brighton, was returning by an afternoon train, and Jill had
+suggested that Freddie should accompany her to Victoria, pick up Uncle
+Chris, and escort him home. Freddie, whose idea had been a
+_tête-à-tête_ involving a brotherly lecture on impetuosity, had
+demurred but had given way in the end; and they had set out to walk to
+Victoria together. Their way had lain through Daubeny Street, and they
+turned the corner just as the brutal onslaught on the innocent Henry
+had occurred. Bill's shrieks, which were of an appalling timbre,
+brought them to a halt.
+
+"What is it?" cried Jill.
+
+"It sounds like a murder!"
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"I don't know, you know. This is the sort of street chappies are
+murdering people in all the time."
+
+They caught sight of the group in front of them, and were reassured.
+Nobody could possibly be looking so aloof and distrait as Erb if there
+were a murder going on.
+
+"It's a bird!"
+
+"It's a jolly old parrot. See it? Just inside the railings."
+
+A red-hot wave of rage swept over Jill. Whatever her defects--and
+already this story has shown her far from perfect--she had the
+excellent quality of loving animals and blazing into fury when she saw
+them ill-treated. At least three draymen were going about London with
+burning ears as the result of what she had said to them on discovering
+them abusing their patient horses. Zoologically, Bill the parrot was
+not an animal, but he counted as one with Jill, and she sped down
+Daubeny Street to his rescue--Freddie, spatted and hatted and
+trousered as became the man of fashion, following disconsolately,
+ruefully aware that he did not look his best sprinting like that. But
+Jill was cutting out a warm pace, and he held his hat on with one
+neatly-gloved hand and did what he could to keep up.
+
+Jill reached the scene of battle, and, stopping, eyed Henry with a
+baleful glare. We, who have seen Henry in his calmer moments and know
+him for the good fellow he was, are aware that he was more sinned
+against than sinning. If there is any spirit of justice in us, we are
+pro-Henry. In his encounter with Bill the parrot, Henry undoubtedly
+had right on his side. His friendly overtures, made in the best spirit
+of kindliness, had been repulsed. He had been severely bitten. And he
+had lost half a pint of beer to Erb. As impartial judges we have no
+other course before us than to wish Henry luck and bid him go to it.
+But Jill, who had not seen the opening stages of the affair, thought
+far otherwise. She merely saw in Henry a great brute of a man poking
+at a defenceless bird with a stick.
+
+She turned to Freddie, who had come up at a gallop and was wondering
+why the deuce this sort of thing happened to him out of a city of six
+millions.
+
+"Make him stop, Freddie!"
+
+"Oh, I say, you know, what?"
+
+"Can't you see he's hurting the poor thing? Make him leave off!
+Brute!" she added to Henry (for whom one's heart bleeds), as he jabbed
+once again at his adversary.
+
+Freddie stepped reluctantly up to Henry, and tapped him on the
+shoulder. Freddie was one of those men who have a rooted idea that a
+conversation of this sort can only be begun by a tap on the shoulder.
+
+"'Look here, you know, you can't do this sort of thing, you know!"
+said Freddie.
+
+Henry raised a scarlet face.
+
+"'Oo are _you_?" he demanded.
+
+This attack from the rear, coming on top of his other troubles, tried
+his restraint sorely.
+
+"Well--" Freddie hesitated. It seemed silly to offer the fellow one of
+his cards. "Well, as a matter of fact, my name's Rooke...."
+
+"And who," pursued Henry, "arsked _you_ to come shoving your ugly mug
+in 'ere?"
+
+"Well, if you put it that way...."
+
+"'E comes messing abart," said Henry complainingly, addressing the
+universe, "and interfering in what don't concern 'im and mucking
+around and interfering and messing abart.... Why," he broke off in a
+sudden burst of eloquence, "I could eat two of you for a relish wiv me
+tea, even if you '_ave_ got white spats!"
+
+Here Erb, who had contributed nothing to the conversation, remarked
+"Ah!" and expectorated on the sidewalk. The point, one gathers, seemed
+to Erb well taken. A neat thrust, was Erb's verdict.
+
+"Just because you've got white spats," proceeded Henry, on whose
+sensitive mind these adjuncts of the costume of the well-dressed man
+about town seemed to have made a deep and unfavourable impression,
+"you think you can come mucking around and messing abart and
+interfering and mucking around. This bird's bit me in the finger, and
+'ere's the finger, if you don't believe me--and I'm going to twist 'is
+ruddy neck, if all the perishers with white spats in London come
+messing abart and mucking around, so you take them white spats of
+yours 'ome and give 'em to the old woman to cook for your Sunday
+dinner!"
+
+And Henry, having cleansed his stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
+which weighs upon the heart, shoved the stick energetically once more
+through the railings.
+
+Jill darted forward. Always a girl who believed that, if you want a
+thing well done, you must do it yourself, she had applied to Freddie
+for assistance merely as a matter of form. All the time she had felt
+that Freddie was a broken reed, and such he had proved himself.
+Freddie's policy in this affair was obviously to rely on the magic of
+speech, and any magic his speech might have had was manifestly offset
+by the fact that he was wearing white spats and that Henry,
+apparently, belonged to some sort of league or society which had for
+its main object the discouragement of white spats. It was plainly no
+good leaving the conduct of the campaign to Freddie. Whatever was to
+be done must be done by herself. She seized the stick and wrenched it
+out of Henry's hand.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill the parrot.
+
+No dispassionate auditor could have failed to detect the nasty ring of
+sarcasm. It stung Henry. He was not normally a man who believed in
+violence to the gentler sex outside a clump on the head of his missus
+when the occasion seemed to demand it; but now he threw away the
+guiding principles of a lifetime and turned on Jill like a tiger.
+
+"Gimme that stick!"
+
+"Get back!"
+
+"Here, I say, you know!" said Freddie.
+
+Henry, now thoroughly overwrought, made a rush at Jill; and Jill, who
+had a straight eye, hit him accurately on the side of the head.
+
+"Goo!" said Henry, and sat down.
+
+And then, from behind Jill, a voice spoke.
+
+"What's all this?"
+
+A stout policeman had manifested himself from empty space.
+
+"This won't do!" said the policeman.
+
+Erb, who had been a silent spectator of the fray, burst into speech.
+
+"She 'it 'im!"
+
+The policeman looked at Jill. He was an officer of many years' experience
+in the Force, and time had dulled in him that respect for good clothes
+which he had brought with him from Little-Sudbury-in-the-Wold in the days
+of his novitiate. Jill was well dressed, but, in the stirring epoch of the
+Suffrage disturbances, the policeman had been kicked on the shins and even
+bitten by ladies of an equally elegant exterior. Hearts, the policeman
+knew, just as pure and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the lowlier
+air of Seven Dials, but you have to pinch them just the same when they
+disturb the peace. His gaze, as it fell upon Jill, red-handed as it were
+with the stick still in her grasp, was stern.
+
+"Your name, please, and address, miss?" he said.
+
+A girl in blue with a big hat had come up, and was standing staring
+open-mouthed at the group. At the sight of her Bill the parrot uttered
+a shriek of welcome. Nelly Bryant had returned, and everything would
+now be all right again.
+
+"Mariner," said Jill, pale and bright-eyed. "I live at Number
+Twenty-two, Ovingdon Square."
+
+"And yours, sir?"
+
+"Mine? Oh, ah, yes. I see what you mean. Rooke, you know. F. L. Rooke.
+I live at the Albany and all that sort of thing."
+
+The policeman made an entry in his note-book.
+
+"Officer," cried Jill, "this man was trying to kill that parrot and I
+stopped him...."
+
+"Can't help that, miss. You 'adn't no right to hit a man with a stick.
+You'll 'ave to come along."
+
+"But, I say, you know!" Freddie was appalled. This sort of thing had
+happened to him before, but only on Boat-Race Night at the Empire,
+where it was expected of a chappie. "I mean to say!"
+
+"And you, too, sir. You're both in it."
+
+"But...."
+
+"Oh, come along, Freddie," said Jill quietly. "It's perfectly absurd,
+but it's no use making a fuss."
+
+"That," said the policeman cordially, "is the right spirit!"
+
+
+III
+
+Lady Underhill paused for breath. She had been talking long and
+vehemently. She and Derek were sitting in Freddie Rooke's apartment at
+the Albany, and the subject of her monologue was Jill. Derek had been
+expecting the attack, and had wondered why it had not come before. All
+through supper on the previous night, even after the discovery that
+Jill was supping at a near-by table with a man who was a stranger to
+her son, Lady Underhill had preserved a grim reticence with regard to
+her future daughter-in-law. But to-day she had spoken her mind with
+all the energy which comes of suppression. She had relieved herself
+with a flow of words of all the pent-up hostility that had been
+growing within her since that first meeting in this same room. She had
+talked rapidly, for she was talking against time. The Town Council of
+the principal city in Derek's constituency in the north of England had
+decided that to-morrow morning should witness the laying of the
+foundation stone of their new Town Hall, and Derek as the sitting
+member was to preside at the celebration. Already Barker had been
+dispatched to telephone for a cab to take him to the station, and at
+any moment their conversation might be interrupted. So Lady Underhill
+made the most of what little time she had.
+
+Derek listened gloomily, scarcely rousing himself to reply. His mother
+would have been gratified could she have known how powerfully her
+arguments were working on him. That little imp of doubt which had
+vexed him in the cab as he drove home from Ovingdon Square had not
+died in the night. It had grown and waxed more formidable. And now,
+aided by this ally from without, it had become a Colossus straddling
+his soul. Derek looked frequently at the clock, and cursed the unknown
+cabman whose delay was prolonging the scene. Something told him that
+only flight could serve him now. He never had been able to withstand
+his mother in one of her militant moods. She seemed to numb his
+faculties. Other members of his family had also noted this quality in
+Lady Underhill, and had commented on it bitterly in the smoking-rooms
+of distant country-houses at the hour when men meet to drink the final
+whisky-and-soda and unburden their souls.
+
+Lady Underhill, having said all she had to say, recovered her breath
+and began to say it again. Frequent iteration was one of her strongest
+weapons. As her brother Edwin, who was fond of homely imagery, had
+often observed, she could talk the hind-leg off a donkey.
+
+"You must be mad, Derek, to dream of handicapping yourself at this
+vital stage of your career with a wife who not only will not be a help
+to you, but must actually be a ruinous handicap. I am not blaming you
+for imagining yourself in love in the first place, though I really
+should have thought that a man of your strength and character
+would.... However, as I say, I am not blaming you for that.
+Superficially, no doubt, this girl might be called attractive. I do
+not admire the type myself, but I suppose she has that quality--in my
+time we should have called it boldness--which seems to appeal to the
+young men of to-day. I could imagine her fascinating a weak-minded
+imbecile like your friend Mr. Rooke. But that you.... Still, there is
+no need to go into that. What I am trying to point out is that in
+your position, with a career like yours in front of you--it's quite
+certain that in a year or two you will be offered some really big and
+responsible position--you would be insane to tie yourself to a girl
+who seems to have been allowed to run perfectly wild, whose uncle is a
+swindler...."
+
+"She can't be blamed for her uncle."
+
+"... Who sups alone with strange men in public restaurants...."
+
+"I explained that."
+
+"You may have explained it. You certainly did not excuse it or make it
+a whit less outrageous. You cannot pretend that you really imagine
+that an engaged girl is behaving with perfect correctness when she
+allows a man she has only just met to take her to supper at the Savoy,
+even if she did know him slightly years and years ago. It is very
+idyllic to suppose that a childhood acquaintance excuses every breach
+of decorum, but I was brought up to believe otherwise. I don't wish to
+be vulgar, but what it amounts to is that this girl was having
+supper--supper! In my days girls were in bed at supper-time!--with a
+strange man who picked her up at a theatre!"
+
+Derek shifted uneasily. There was a part of his mind which called upon
+him to rise up and challenge the outrageous phrase and demand that it
+be taken back. But he remained silent. The imp-Colossus was too strong
+for him. She is quite right, said the imp. That is an unpleasant but
+accurate description of what happened. He looked at the clock again,
+and wished for the hundredth time that the cab would come. Jill's
+photograph smiled at him from beside the clock. He looked away, for,
+when he found his eyes upon it, he had an odd sensation of baseness,
+as if he were playing some one false who loved and trusted him.
+
+"Well, I am not going to say any more," she said, getting up and
+buttoning her glove. "I will leave you to think it over. All I will
+say is that, though I only met her yesterday, I can assure you that I
+am quite confident that this girl is just the sort of harum-scarum
+so-called 'modern' girl who is sure some day to involve herself in a
+really serious scandal. I don't want her to be in a position to drag
+you into it as well. Yes, Barker, what is it? Is Sir Derek's cab
+here?"
+
+The lantern-jawed Barker had entered softly, and was standing
+deferentially in the doorway. There was no emotion on his face beyond
+the vague sadness which a sense of what was correct made him always
+wear like a sort of mask when in the presence of those of superior
+station.
+
+"The cab will be at the door very shortly, m'lady. If you please, Sir
+Derek, a policeman has come with a message."
+
+"A policeman?"
+
+"With a message from Mr. Rooke."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I have had a few words of conversation with the constable, sir," said
+Barker sadly, "and I understand from him that Mr. Rooke and Miss
+Mariner have been arrested."
+
+"Arrested! What are you talking about?"
+
+"Mr. Rooke desired the officer to ask you to be good enough to step
+round and bail them out!"
+
+The gleam in Lady Underhill's eye became a flame, but she controlled
+her voice.
+
+"Why were Miss Mariner and Mr. Rooke arrested, Barker?"
+
+"As far as I can gather, m'lady, Miss Mariner struck a man in the
+street with a stick, and they took both her and Mr. Rooke to the
+Chelsea Police Station."
+
+Lady Underhill glanced at Derek, who was looking into the fire.
+
+"This is a little awkward, Derek," she said suavely. "If you go to the
+police-station, you will miss your train."
+
+"I fancy, m'lady, it would be sufficient if Sir Derek were to dispatch
+me with a cheque for ten pounds."
+
+"Very well. Tell the policeman to wait a moment."
+
+"Very good, m'lady."
+
+Derek roused himself with an effort. His face was drawn and gloomy. He
+sat down at the writing-table, and took out his cheque-book. There was
+silence for a moment, broken only by the scratching of the pen. Barker
+took the cheque and left the room.
+
+"Now, perhaps," said Lady Underhill, "you will admit that I was
+right!" She spoke in almost an awed voice, for this occurrence at just
+this moment seemed to her very like a direct answer to prayer. "You
+can't hesitate now! You _must_ free yourself from this detestable
+entanglement!"
+
+Derek rose without speaking. He took his coat and hat from where they
+lay on a chair.
+
+"Derek! You will! Say you will!"
+
+Derek put on his coat.
+
+"Derek!"
+
+"For heaven's sake, leave me alone, mother. I want to think."
+
+"Very well. I will leave you to think it over, then." Lady Underhill
+moved to the door. At the door she paused for a moment, and seemed
+about to speak again, but her mouth closed resolutely. She was a
+shrewd woman, and knew that the art of life is to know when to stop
+talking. What words have accomplished, too many words can undo.
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, mother."
+
+"I'll see you when you get back?"
+
+"Yes. No. I don't know. I'm not certain when I shall return. I may go
+away for a bit."
+
+The door closed behind Lady Underhill. Derek sat down again at the
+writing-table. He wrote a few words on a sheet of paper, then tore it
+up. His eye travelled to the mantelpiece. Jill's photograph smiled
+happily down at him. He turned back to the writing-table, took out a
+fresh piece of paper, thought for a few moments, and began to write
+again.
+
+The door opened softly.
+
+"The cab is at the door, Sir Derek," said Barker.
+
+Derek addressed an envelope, and got up.
+
+"All right. Thanks. Oh, Barker, stop at a district-messenger office on
+your way to the police-station, and have this sent off at once."
+
+"Very good, Sir Derek," said Barker.
+
+Derek's eyes turned once more to the mantelpiece. He stood looking for
+an instant, then walked quickly out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+UNCLE CHRIS BANGS THE TABLE
+
+I
+
+
+A taxi-cab stopped at the door of Number Twenty-two, Ovingdon Square.
+Freddie Rooke emerged, followed by Jill. While Freddie paid the
+driver, Jill sniffed the afternoon air happily. It had turned into a
+delightful day. A westerly breeze, springing up in the morning, had
+sent the thermometer up with a run and broken the cold spell which had
+been gripping London. It was one of those afternoons which intrude on
+the bleakness of winter with a false but none the less agreeable
+intimation that Spring is on its way. The sidewalks were wet
+underfoot, and the gutters ran with thawed snow. The sun shone
+exhilaratingly from a sky the colour of a hedge-sparrow's egg.
+
+"Doesn't everything smell lovely, Freddie," said Jill, "after our
+prison-life!"
+
+"Topping!"
+
+"Fancy getting out so quickly! Whenever I'm arrested, I must always
+make a point of having a rich man with me. I shall never tease you
+about that fifty-pound note again."
+
+"Fifty-pound note?"
+
+"It certainly came in handy to-day!"
+
+She was opening the door with her latch-key, and missed the sudden
+sagging of Freddie's jaw, the sudden clutch at his breast-pocket, and
+the look of horror and anguish that started into his eyes. Freddie was
+appalled. Finding himself at the police-station penniless with the
+exception of a little loose change, he had sent that message to Derek,
+imploring assistance, as the only alternative to spending the night in
+a cell, with Jill in another. He had realized that there was a risk of
+Derek taking the matter hardly, and he had not wanted to get Jill into
+trouble, but there seemed nothing else to do. If they remained where
+they were overnight, the thing would get into the papers, and that
+would be a thousand times worse. And if he applied for aid to Ronny
+Devereux or Algy Martyn or anybody like that all London would know
+about it next day. So Freddie, with misgivings, had sent the message
+to Derek, and now Jill's words had reminded him that there was no need
+to have done so. Years ago he had read somewhere or heard somewhere
+about some chappie who always buzzed around with a sizable banknote
+stitched into his clothes, and the scheme had seemed to him ripe to a
+degree. You never knew when you might find yourself short of cash and
+faced by an immediate call for the ready. He had followed the
+chappie's example. And now, when the crisis had arrived, he had
+forgotten--absolutely forgotten!--that he had the dashed thing on his
+person at all.
+
+He followed Jill into the house, groaning in spirit, but thankful
+that she had taken it for granted that he had secured their release in
+the manner indicated. He did not propose to disillusion her. It would
+be time enough to take the blame when the blame came along. Probably
+old Derek would simply be amused and laugh at the whole bally affair
+like a sportsman. Freddie cheered up considerably at the thought.
+
+Jill was talking to the parlourmaid whose head had popped up over the
+banisters flanking the stairs that led to the kitchen.
+
+"Major Selby hasn't arrived yet, miss."
+
+"That's odd. I suppose he must have taken a later train."
+
+"There's a lady in the drawing-room, miss, waiting to see him. She
+didn't give any name. She said she would wait till the major came.
+She's been waiting a goodish while."
+
+"All right, Jane. Thanks. Will you bring up tea?"
+
+They walked down the hall. The drawing-room was on the ground floor, a
+long, dim room that would have looked like a converted studio but for
+the absence of bright light. A girl was sitting at the far end by the
+fireplace. She rose as they entered.
+
+"How do you do?" said Jill. "I'm afraid my uncle has not come back
+yet...."
+
+"Say!" cried the visitor. "You _did_ get out quick!"
+
+Jill was surprised. She had no recollection of ever having seen the
+other before. Her visitor was a rather pretty girl, with a sort of
+jaunty way of carrying herself which made a piquant contrast to her
+tired eyes and wistful face. Jill took an immediate liking to her. She
+looked so forlorn and pathetic.
+
+"My name's Nelly Bryant," said the girl. "That parrot belongs to me."
+
+"Oh, I see."
+
+"I heard you say to the cop that you lived here, so I came along to
+tell your folks what had happened, so that they could do something.
+The maid said that your uncle was expected any minute, so I waited."
+
+"That was awfully good of you."
+
+"Dashed good," said Freddie.
+
+"Oh, no! Honest, I don't know how to thank you for what you did. You
+don't know what a pal Bill is to me. It would have broken me all up if
+that plug-ugly had killed him."
+
+"But what a shame you had to wait so long."
+
+"I liked it."
+
+Nelly Bryant looked about the room wistfully. This was the sort of
+room she sometimes dreamed about. She loved its subdued light and the
+pulpy cushions on the sofa.
+
+"You'll have some tea before you go, won't you?" said Jill, switching
+on the lights.
+
+"It's very kind of you."
+
+"Why, hullo!" said Freddie. "By Jove! I say! We've met before, what?"
+
+"Why, so we have!"
+
+"That lunch at Oddy's that young Threepwood gave, what?"
+
+"I wonder you remember."
+
+"Oh, I remember. Quite a time ago, eh? Miss Bryant was in that show.
+'Follow the Girl,' Jill, at the Regal."
+
+"Oh, yes. I remember you took me to see it."
+
+"Dashed odd meeting again like this!" said Freddie. "Really rummy!"
+
+Jane, the parlourmaid, entering with tea, interrupted his comments.
+
+"You're American, then?" said Jill interested. "The whole company came
+from New York, didn't they?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm half American myself, you know. I used to live in New York when I
+was very small, but I've almost forgotten what it was like. I remember
+a sort of overhead railway that made an awful noise...."
+
+"The Elevated!" murmured Nelly devoutly. A wave of home-sickness
+seemed to choke her for a moment.
+
+"And the air. Like champagne. And a very blue sky."
+
+"Yes," said Nelly in a small voice.
+
+"I shouldn't half mind popping over New York for a bit," said Freddie,
+unconscious of the agony he was inflicting. "I've met some very sound
+sportsmen who came from there. You don't know a fellow named
+Williamson, do you?"
+
+"I don't believe I do."
+
+"Or Oakes?"
+
+"No."
+
+"That's rummy! Oakes has lived in New York for years."
+
+"So have about seven million other people," interposed Jill. "Don't be
+silly, Freddie. How would you like somebody to ask of you if you knew
+a man named Jenkins in London?"
+
+"I _do_ know a man named Jenkins in London," replied Freddie
+triumphantly.
+
+Jill poured out a cup of tea for her visitor, and looked at the clock.
+
+"I wonder where Uncle Chris has got to," she said. "He ought to be
+here by now. I hope he hasn't got into any mischief among the wild
+stockbrokers down at Brighton."
+
+Freddie laid down his cup on the table and uttered a loud snort.
+
+"Oh, Freddie, darling!" said Jill remorsefully. "I forgot!
+Stockbrokers are a painful subject, aren't they!" She turned to Nelly.
+"There's been an awful slump on the Stock Exchange to-day, and he
+got--what was the word, Freddie?"
+
+"Nipped!" said Freddie with gloom.
+
+"Nipped!"
+
+"Nipped like the dickens!"
+
+"Nipped like the dickens!" Jill smiled at Nelly. "He had forgotten all
+about it in the excitement of being a jailbird, and I went and
+reminded him."
+
+Freddie sought sympathy from Nelly.
+
+"A silly ass at the club named Jimmy Monroe told me to take a flutter
+in some rotten thing called Amalgamated Dyes. You know how it is, when
+you're feeling devilish fit and cheery and all that after dinner, and
+somebody sidles up to you and slips his little hand in yours and tells
+you to do some fool thing. You're so dashed happy you simply say
+'Right-ho, old bird! Make it so!' That's the way I got had!"
+
+Jill laughed unfeelingly.
+
+"It will do you good, Freddie. It'll stir you up and prevent you being
+so silly again. Besides, you know you'll hardly notice it. You've much
+too much money as it is."
+
+"It's not the money. It's the principle of the thing. I hate looking a
+frightful chump."
+
+"Well, you needn't tell anybody. We'll keep it a secret. In fact,
+we'll start at once, for I hear Uncle Chris outside. Let us dissemble.
+We are observed!... Hullo, Uncle Chris!"
+
+She ran down the room, as the door opened, and kissed the tall,
+soldierly man who entered.
+
+"Well, Jill, my dear."
+
+"How late you are. I was expecting you hours ago."
+
+"I had to call on my broker."
+
+"Hush! Hush!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing.... We've got visitors. You know Freddie Rooke, of
+course?"
+
+"How are you, Freddie, my boy?"
+
+"Cheerio!" said Freddie. "Pretty fit?"
+
+"And Miss Bryant," said Jill.
+
+"How do you do?" said Uncle Chris in the bluff, genial way which, in
+his younger days, had charmed many a five-pound note out of the
+pockets of his fellow-men and many a soft glance out of the eyes of
+their sisters, their cousins, and their aunts.
+
+"Come and have some tea," said Jill. "You're just in time."
+
+"Tea? Capital!"
+
+Nelly had subsided shyly into the depths of her big arm-chair. Somehow
+she felt a better and a more important girl since Uncle Chris had
+addressed her. Most people felt like that after encountering Jill's
+Uncle Christopher. Uncle Chris had a manner. It was not precisely
+condescending, and yet it was not the manner of an equal. He treated
+you as an equal, true, but all the time you were conscious of the fact
+that it was extraordinarily good of him to do so. Uncle Chris affected
+the rank and file of his fellow-men much as a genial knight of the
+Middle Ages would have affected a scurvy knave or varlet if he had
+cast aside social distinctions for a while and hobnobbed with the
+latter in a tavern. He never patronized, but the mere fact that he
+abstained from patronizing seemed somehow impressive.
+
+To this impressiveness his appearance contributed largely. He was a
+fine, upstanding man, who looked less than his forty-nine years in
+spite of an ominous thinning of the hair which he tended and brushed
+so carefully. He had a firm chin, a mouth that smiled often and
+pleasantly beneath the closely-clipped moustache, and very bright blue
+eyes which met yours in a clear, frank, honest gaze. Though he had
+served in his youth in India, he had none of the Anglo-Indian's
+sun-scorched sallowness. His complexion was fresh and sanguine. He
+looked as if he had just stepped out of a cold tub--a misleading
+impression, for Uncle Chris detested cold water and always took his
+morning bath as hot as he could get it.
+
+It was his clothes, however, which, even more than his appearance,
+fascinated the populace. There is only one tailor in London, as
+distinguished from the ambitious mechanics who make coats and
+trousers, and Uncle Chris was his best customer. Similarly, London is
+full of young fellows trying to get along by the manufacture of
+foot-wear, but there is only one boot-maker in the true meaning of the
+word--the one who supplied Uncle Chris. And, as for hats, while it is
+no doubt a fact that you can get at plenty of London shops some sort
+of covering for your head which will keep it warm, the only
+hatter--using the term in its deeper sense--is the man who enjoyed the
+patronage of Major Christopher Selby. From foot to head, in short,
+from furthest South to extremest North, Uncle Chris was perfect. He
+was an ornament to his surroundings. The Metropolis looked better for
+him. One seems to picture London as a mother with a horde of untidy
+children, children with made-up ties, children with wrinkled coats and
+baggy trouser-legs, sighing to herself as she beheld them, then
+cheering up and murmuring with a touch of restored complacency, "Ah,
+well, I still have Uncle Chris!"
+
+"Miss Bryant is American, Uncle Chris," said Jill.
+
+Uncle Chris spread his shapely legs before the fire, and glanced down
+kindly at Nelly.
+
+"Indeed?" He took a cup of tea and stirred it. "I was in America as a
+young man."
+
+"Whereabouts?" asked Nelly eagerly.
+
+"Oh, here and there and everywhere. I travelled considerably."
+
+"That's how it is with me," said Nelly, overcoming her diffidence as
+she warmed to the favourite topic. "I guess I know most every town in
+every State, from New York to the last one-night stand. It's a great
+old country, isn't it?"
+
+"It is!" said Uncle Chris. "I shall be returning there very shortly."
+He paused meditatively. "Very shortly indeed."
+
+Nelly bit her lip. It seemed to be her fate to-day to meet people who
+were going to America.
+
+"When did you decide to do that?" asked Jill.
+
+She had been looking at him, puzzled. Years of association with Uncle
+Chris had enabled her to read his moods quickly, and she was sure that
+there was something on his mind. It was not likely that the others had
+noticed it, for his manner was as genial and urbane as ever. But
+something about him, a look in his eyes that came and went, an
+occasional quick twitching of his mouth, told her that all was not
+well. She was a little troubled, but not greatly. Uncle Chris was not
+the sort of man to whom grave tragedies happened. It was probably some
+mere trifle which she could smooth out for him in five minutes, once
+they were alone together. She reached out and patted his sleeve
+affectionately. She was fonder of Uncle Chris than of anyone in the
+world except Derek.
+
+"The thought," said Uncle Chris, "came to me this morning, as I read
+my morning paper while breakfasting. It has grown and developed during
+the day. At this moment you might almost call it an obsession. I am
+very fond of America. I spent several happy years there. On that
+occasion I set sail for the land of promise, I admit, somewhat
+reluctantly. Of my own free will I might never have made the
+expedition. But the general sentiment seemed so strongly in favour of
+my doing so that I yielded to what I might call a public demand. The
+willing hands for my nearest and dearest were behind me, pushing, and
+I did not resist them. I have never regretted it. America is a part of
+every young man's education. You ought to go there, Freddie."
+
+"Rummily enough," said Freddie, "I was saying just before you came in
+that I had half a mind to pop over. Only it's rather a bally fag,
+starting. Getting your luggage packed and all that sort of thing."
+
+Nelly, whose luggage consisted of one small trunk, heaved a silent
+sigh. Mingling with the idle rich carried its penalties.
+
+"America," said Uncle Chris, "taught me poker, for which I can never
+be sufficiently grateful. Also an exotic pastime styled Craps--or,
+alternatively, 'rolling the bones'--which in those days was a very
+present help in time of trouble. At Craps, I fear, my hand in late
+years has lost much of its cunning. I have had little opportunity of
+practising. But as a young man I was no mean exponent of the art. Let
+me see," said Uncle Chris meditatively. "What was the precise ritual?
+Ah! I have it, 'Come, little seven!'"
+
+"'Come, eleven!'" exclaimed Nelly excitedly.
+
+"'Baby....' I feel convinced that in some manner the word baby entered
+into it."
+
+"'Baby needs new shoes!'"
+
+"'Baby needs new shoes!' Precisely!"
+
+"It sounds to me," said Freddie, "dashed silly."
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Nelly reproachfully.
+
+"Well, what I mean is, there's no sense in it, don't you know."
+
+"It is a noble pursuit," said Uncle Chris firmly. "Worthy of the great
+nation that has produced it. No doubt, when I return to America, I
+shall have opportunities of recovering my lost skill."
+
+"You aren't returning to America," said Jill. "You're going to stay
+safe at home like a good little uncle. I'm not going to have you
+running wild all over the world at your age."
+
+"Age?" declaimed Uncle Chris. "What is my age? At the present moment I
+feel in the neighbourhood of twenty-one, and Ambition is tapping me on
+the shoulder and whispering 'Young man, go West!' The years are
+slipping away from me, my dear Jill--slipping so quickly that in a few
+minutes you will be wondering why my nurse does not come to fetch me.
+The wanderlust is upon me. I gaze around me at all this prosperity in
+which I am lapped," said Uncle Chris, eyeing the arm-chair severely,
+"all this comfort and luxury which swaddles me, and I feel staggered.
+I want activity. I want to be braced!"
+
+"You would hate it," said Jill composedly. "You know you're the
+laziest old darling in the world."
+
+"Exactly what I am endeavouring to point out. I _am_ lazy. Or, I was
+till this morning."
+
+"Something very extraordinary must have happened this morning. I can
+see that."
+
+"I wallowed in gross comfort. I was what Shakespeare calls a 'fat and
+greasy citizen'!"
+
+"Please, Uncle Chris!" protested Jill. "Not while I'm eating buttered
+toast!"
+
+"But now I am myself again."
+
+"That's splendid."
+
+"I have heard the beat of the off-shore wind," chanted Uncle Chris,
+"and the thresh of the deep-sea rain. I have heard the song--How long!
+how long! Pull out on the trail again!"
+
+"He can also recite 'Gunga Din,'" said Jill to Nelly. "I really must
+apologize for all this. He's usually as good as gold."
+
+"I believe I know how he feels," said Nelly softly.
+
+"Of course you do. You and I, Miss Bryant, are of the gipsies of the
+world. We are not vegetables like young Rooke here."
+
+"Eh, what?" said the vegetable, waking from a reverie. He had been
+watching Nelly's face. Its wistfulness attracted him.
+
+"We are only happy," proceeded Uncle Chris, "when we are wandering."
+
+"You should see Uncle Chris wander to his club in the morning," said
+Jill. "He trudges off in a taxi, singing wild gipsy songs, absolutely
+defying fatigue."
+
+"That," said Uncle Chris, "is a perfectly justified slur. I shudder at
+the depths to which prosperity has caused me to sink." He expanded his
+chest. "I shall be a different man in America. America would make a
+different man of _you_, Freddie."
+
+"I'm all right, thanks!" said that easily satisfied young man.
+
+Uncle Chris turned to Nelly, pointing dramatically.
+
+"Young woman, go West! Return to your bracing home, and leave this
+enervating London! You...."
+
+Nelly got up abruptly. She could endure no more.
+
+"I believe I'll have to be going now," she said. "Bill misses me if
+I'm away long. Good-bye. Thank you ever so much for what you did."
+
+"It was awfully kind of you to come round," said Jill.
+
+"Good-bye, Major Selby."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Rooke."
+
+Freddie awoke from another reverie.
+
+"Eh? Oh, I say, half a jiffy. I think I may as well be toddling along
+myself. About time I was getting back to dress for dinner and all
+that. See you home, may I, and then I'll get a taxi at Victoria.
+Toodle-oo, everybody."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Freddie escorted Nelly through the hall and opened the front door for
+her. The night was cool and cloudy and there was still in the air that
+odd, rejuvenating suggestion of Spring. A wet fragrance came from the
+dripping trees.
+
+"Topping evening!" said Freddie conversationally.
+
+"Yes."
+
+They walked through the square in silence. Freddie shot an
+appreciative glance at his companion. Freddie, as he would have
+admitted frankly, was not much of a lad for the modern girl. The
+modern girl, he considered, was too dashed rowdy and exuberant for a
+chappie of peaceful tastes. Now, this girl, on the other hand, had all
+the earmarks of being something of a topper. She had a soft voice.
+Rummy accent and all that, but nevertheless a soft and pleasing voice.
+She was mild and unaggressive, and these were qualities which Freddie
+esteemed. Freddie, though this was a thing he would not have admitted,
+was afraid of girls, the sort of girls he had to take down to dinner
+and dance with and so forth. They were too dashed clever, and always
+seemed to be waiting for a chance to score off a fellow. This one was
+not like that. Not a bit. She was gentle and quiet and what not.
+
+It was at this point that it came home to him how remarkably quiet she
+was. She had not said a word for the last five minutes. He was just
+about to break the silence, when, as they passed under a street lamp,
+he perceived that she was crying--crying very softly to herself, like
+a child in the dark.
+
+"Good God!" said Freddie appalled. There were two things in life with
+which he felt totally unable to cope--crying girls and dog-fights. The
+glimpse he had caught of Nelly's face froze him into a speechlessness
+which lasted until they reached Daubeny Street and stopped at her
+door.
+
+"Good-bye," said Nelly.
+
+"Good-bye-ee!" said Freddie mechanically. "That's to say, I mean to
+say, half a second!" he added quickly. He faced her nervously, with
+one hand on the grimy railings. This wanted looking into. When it came
+to girls trickling to and fro in the public streets, weeping, well, it
+was pretty rotten and something had to be done about it. "What's up?"
+he demanded.
+
+"It's nothing. Good-bye."
+
+"But, my dear old soul," said Freddie, clutching the railing for moral
+support, "it is something. It must be! You might not think it, to look
+at me, but I'm really rather a dashed shrewd chap, and I can _see_
+there's something up. Why not give me the jolly old scenario and see
+if we can't do something?"
+
+Nelly moved as if to turn to the door, then stopped. She was
+thoroughly ashamed of herself.
+
+"I'm a fool!"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Yes, I am. I don't often act this way, but, oh, gee! hearing you all
+talking like that about going to America, just as if it was the
+easiest thing in the world, only you couldn't be bothered to do it,
+kind of got me going. And to think I could be there right now if I
+wasn't a bonehead!"
+
+"A bonehead?"
+
+"A simp. I'm all right as far up as the string of near-pearls, but
+above that I'm reinforced concrete."
+
+Freddie groped for her meaning.
+
+"Do you mean you've made a bloomer of some kind?"
+
+"I pulled the worst kind of bone. I stopped on in London when the rest
+of the company went back home, and now I've got to stick."
+
+"Rush of jolly old professional engagements, what?"
+
+Nelly laughed bitterly.
+
+"You're a bad guesser. No, they haven't started to fight over me yet.
+I'm at liberty, as they say in the _Era_."
+
+"But, my dear old thing," said Freddie earnestly, "if you've nothing
+to keep you in England, why not pop back to America? I mean to say,
+home-sickness is the most dashed blighted thing in the world. There's
+nothing gives one the pip to such an extent. Why, dash it, I remember
+staying with an old aunt of mine up in Scotland the year before last
+and not being able to get away for three weeks or so, and I
+raved--absolutely gibbered--for the sight of the merry old metrop.
+Sometimes I'd wake up in the night, thinking I was back at the Albany,
+and, by Jove, when I found I wasn't I howled like a dog! You take my
+tip, old soul, and pop back on the next boat."
+
+"Which line?"
+
+"How do you mean, which line? Oh, I see, you mean which line? Well ...
+well ... I've never been on any of them, so it's rather hard to say.
+But I hear the Cunard well spoken of, and then again some chappies
+swear by the White Star. But I should imagine you can't go far wrong,
+whichever you pick. They're all pretty ripe, I fancy."
+
+"Which of them is giving free trips? That's the point."
+
+"Eh? Oh!" Her meaning dawned upon Freddie. He regarded her with deep
+consternation. Life had treated him so kindly that he had almost
+forgotten that there existed a class which had not as much money as
+himself. Sympathy welled up beneath his perfectly fitting waistcoat.
+It was a purely disinterested sympathy. The fact that Nelly was a girl
+and in many respects a dashed pretty girl did not affect him. What
+mattered was that she was hard up. The thought hurt Freddie like a
+blow. He hated the idea of anyone being hard up.
+
+"I say!" he said. "Are you broke?"
+
+Nelly laughed.
+
+"Am I? If dollars were doughnuts, I wouldn't even have the hole in the
+middle."
+
+Freddie was stirred to his depths. Except for the beggars in the
+streets, to whom he gave shillings, he had not met anyone for years
+who had not plenty of money. He had friends at his clubs who
+frequently claimed to be unable to lay their hands on a bally penny,
+but the bally penny they wanted to lay their hands on generally turned
+out to be a couple of thousand pounds for a new car.
+
+"Good God!" he said.
+
+There was a pause. Then, with a sudden impulse, he began to fumble in
+his breast-pocket. Rummy how things worked out for the best, however
+scaly they might seem at the moment. Only an hour or so ago he had
+been kicking himself for not having remembered that fifty-pound note,
+tacked on to the lining of his coat, when it would have come in handy
+at the police-station. He now saw that Providence had had the matter
+well in hand. If he had remembered it and coughed it up to the
+constabulary then, he wouldn't have had it now. And he needed it now.
+A mood of quixotic generosity had surged upon him. With swift fingers
+he jerked the note free from its moorings and displayed it like a
+conjurer exhibiting a rabbit.
+
+"My dear old thing," he said, "I can't stand it! I absolutely cannot
+stick it at any price! I really must insist on your trousering this.
+Positively!"
+
+Nelly Bryant gazed at the note with wide eyes. She was stunned. She
+took it limply, and looked at it under the dim light of the gas-lamp
+over the door.
+
+"I couldn't!" she cried.
+
+"Oh, but really! You must!"
+
+"But this is a fifty-pound!"
+
+"Absolutely! It will take you back to New York, what? you asked which
+line was giving free trips. The Freddie Rooke Line, by Jove, sailings
+every Wednesday and Saturday! I mean, what?"
+
+"But I can't take two hundred and fifty dollars from you!"
+
+"Oh, rather. Of course you can."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+"You'll think--" Nelly's pale face flushed. "You'll think I told you
+all about myself just--just because I wanted to...."
+
+"To make a touch? Absolutely not! Rid yourself of the jolly old
+supposition entirely. You see before you, old thing, a chappie who
+knows more about borrowing money than any man in London. I mean to
+say, I've had my ear bitten more often than anyone, I should think.
+There are sixty-four ways of making a touch--I've had them all worked
+on me by divers blighters here and there--and I can tell any of them
+with my eyes shut. I know you weren't dreaming of any such thing."
+
+The note crackled musically in Nelly's hand.
+
+"I don't know what to say!"
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"I don't see why.... Gee! I wish I could tell you what I think of
+you!"
+
+Freddie laughed amusedly.
+
+"Do you know," he said, "that's exactly what the beaks--the masters,
+you know--used to say to me at school."
+
+"Are you sure you can spare it?"
+
+"Oh, rather."
+
+Nelly's eyes shone in the light of the lamp.
+
+"I've never met anyone like you before. I don't know how...."
+
+Freddie shuffled nervously. Being thanked always made him feel pretty
+rotten.
+
+"Well, I think I'll be popping," he said. "Got to get back and dress
+and all that. Awfully glad to have seen you, and all that sort of
+rot."
+
+Nelly unlocked the door with her latch-key, and stood on the step.
+
+"I'll buy a fur-wrap," she said, half to herself.
+
+"Great wheeze! I should!"
+
+"And some nuts for Bill!"
+
+"Bill?"
+
+"The parrot."
+
+"Oh, the jolly old parrot! Rather! Well, cheerio!"
+
+"Good-bye.... You've been awfully good to me."
+
+"Oh, no," said Freddie uncomfortably. "Any time you're passing...."
+
+"Awfully good.... Well, good-bye."
+
+"Toodle-oo!"
+
+"Maybe we'll meet again some day."
+
+"I hope so. Absolutely!"
+
+There was a little scurry of feet. Something warm and soft pressed for
+an instant against Freddie's cheek, and, as he stumbled back, Nelly
+Bryant skipped up the steps and vanished through the door.
+
+"Good God!"
+
+Freddie felt his cheek. He was aware of an odd mixture of
+embarrassment and exhilaration.
+
+From the area below a slight cough sounded. Freddie turned sharply. A
+maid in a soiled cap, worn coquettishly over one ear, was gazing
+intently up through the railings. Their eyes met. Freddie turned a
+warm pink. It seemed to him that the maid had the air of one about to
+giggle.
+
+"Damn!" said Freddie softly, and hurried off down the street. He
+wondered whether he had made a frightful ass of himself, spraying
+bank-notes all over the place like that to comparative strangers. Then
+a vision came to him of Nelly's eyes as they had looked at him in the
+lamp-light, and he decided--no, absolutely not. Rummy as the gadget
+might appear, it had been the right thing to do. It was a binge of
+which he thoroughly approved. A good egg!
+
+
+II
+
+Jill, when Freddie and Nelly left the room, had seated herself on a
+low stool, and sat looking thoughtfully into the fire. She was
+wondering if she had been mistaken in supposing that Uncle Chris was
+worried about something. This restlessness of his, this desire for
+movement, was strange in him. Hitherto he had been like a dear old
+cosy cat, revelling in the comfort which he had just denounced so
+eloquently. She watched him as he took up his favourite stand in
+front of the fire.
+
+"Nice girl," said Uncle Chris. "Who was she?"
+
+"Somebody Freddie met," said Jill diplomatically. There was no need to
+worry Uncle Chris with details of the afternoon's happenings.
+
+"Very nice girl." Uncle Chris took out his cigar-case. "No need to ask
+if I may, thank goodness." He lit a cigar. "Do you remember, Jill,
+years ago, when you were quite small, how I used to blow smoke in your
+face?"
+
+Jill smiled.
+
+"Of course I do. You said that you were training me for marriage. You
+said that there were no happy marriages except where the wife didn't
+mind the smell of tobacco. Well, it's lucky, as a matter of fact, for
+Derek smokes all the time."
+
+Uncle Chris took up his favourite stand against the fireplace.
+
+"You're very fond of Derek, aren't you, Jill?"
+
+"Of course I am. You are, too, aren't you?"
+
+"Fine chap. Very fine chap. Plenty of money, too. It's a great
+relief," said Uncle Chris, puffing vigorously. "A thundering relief."
+He looked over Jill's head down the room. "It's fine to think of you
+happily married, dear, with everything in the world that you want."
+
+Uncle Chris' gaze wandered down to where Jill sat. A slight mist
+affected his eyesight. Jill had provided a solution for the great
+problem of his life. Marriage had always appalled him, but there was
+this to be said for it, that married people had daughters. He had
+always wanted a daughter, a smart girl he could take out and be proud
+of; and fate had given him Jill at precisely the right age. A child
+would have bored Uncle Chris--he was fond of children, but they made
+the deuce of a noise and regarded jam as an external ornament--but a
+delightful little girl of fourteen was different. Jill and he had been
+very close to each other since her mother had died, a year after the
+death of her father, and had left her in his charge. He had watched
+her grow up with a joy that had a touch of bewilderment in it--she
+seemed to grow so quickly--and had been fonder and prouder of her at
+every stage of her tumultuous career.
+
+"You're a dear," said Jill. She stroked the trouser-leg that was
+nearest. "How _do_ you manage to get such a wonderful crease? You
+really are a credit to me!"
+
+There was a momentary silence. A shade of embarrassment made itself
+noticeable in Uncle Chris' frank gaze. He gave a little cough, and
+pulled at his moustache.
+
+"I wish I were, my dear," he said soberly. "I wish I were. I'm afraid
+I'm a poor sort of a fellow, Jill."
+
+Jill looked up.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"A poor sort of a fellow," repeated Uncle Chris. "Your mother was
+foolish to trust you to me. Your father had more sense. He always said
+I was a wrong 'un."
+
+Jill got up quickly. She was certain now that she had been right, and
+that there was something on her uncle's mind.
+
+"What's the matter, Uncle Chris? Something's happened. What is it?"
+
+Uncle Chris turned to knock the ash off his cigar. The movement gave
+him time to collect himself for what lay before him. He had one of
+those rare volatile natures which can ignore the blows of fate so long
+as their effects are not brought home by visible evidence of disaster.
+He lived in the moment, and, though matters had been as bad at
+breakfast-time as they were now, it was not till now, when he
+confronted Jill, that he had found his cheerfulness affected by them.
+He was a man who hated ordeals, and one faced him now. Until this
+moment he had been able to detach his mind from a state of affairs
+which would have weighed unceasingly upon another man. His mind was a
+telephone which he could cut off at will, when the voice of Trouble
+wished to speak. The time would arrive, he had been aware, when he
+would have to pay attention to that voice, but so far he had refused
+to listen. Now it could be evaded no longer.
+
+"Jill."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Uncle Chris paused again, searching for the best means of saying what
+had to be said.
+
+"Jill, I don't know if you understand about these things, but there
+was what is called a slump on the Stock Exchange this morning. In
+other words...."
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"Of course I know all about that," she said. "Poor Freddie wouldn't
+talk about anything else till I made him. He was terribly blue when he
+got here this afternoon. He said he had got 'nipped' in Amalgamated
+Dyes. He had lost about two hundred pounds, and was furious with a
+friend of his who had told him to buy margins."
+
+Uncle Chris cleared his throat.
+
+"Jill, I'm afraid I've got bad news for you. I bought Amalgamated
+Dyes, too." He worried his moustache. "I lost heavily, very heavily."
+
+"How naughty of you! You know you oughtn't to gamble."
+
+"Jill, you must be brave. I--I--well, the fact is--it's no good
+beating about the bush--I lost everything! Everything!"
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Everything! It's all gone! All fooled away. It's a terrible business.
+This house will have to go."
+
+"But--but doesn't the house belong to me?"
+
+"I was your trustee, dear." Uncle Chris smoked furiously. "Thank
+heaven you're going to marry a rich man!"
+
+Jill stood looking at him, perplexed. Money, as money, had never
+entered into her life. There were things one wanted which had to be
+paid for with money, but Uncle Chris had always looked after that. She
+had taken them for granted.
+
+"I don't understand," she said.
+
+And then suddenly she realized that she did, and a great wave of pity
+for Uncle Chris flooded over her. He was such an old dear. It must be
+horrible for him to have to stand there, telling her all this. She
+felt no sense of injury, only the discomfort of having to witness the
+humiliation of her oldest friend. Uncle Chris was bound up
+inextricably with everything in her life that was pleasant. She could
+remember him, looking exactly the same, only with a thicker and wavier
+crop of hair, playing with her patiently and unwearied for hours in
+the hot sun, a cheerful martyr. She could remember sitting up with him
+when she came home from her first grownup dance, drinking cocoa and
+talking and talking and talking till the birds outside sang the sun
+high up into the sky and it was breakfast time. She could remember
+theatres with him, and jolly little suppers afterwards; expeditions
+into the country, with lunches at queer old inns; days on the river,
+days at Hurlingham, days at Lords', days at the Academy. He had always
+been the same, always cheerful, always kind. He was Uncle Chris, and
+he would always be Uncle Chris, whatever he had done or whatever he
+might do. She slipped her arm in his and gave it a squeeze.
+
+"Poor old thing!" she said.
+
+Uncle Chris had been looking straight out before him with those fine
+blue eyes of his. There had been just a touch of sternness in his
+attitude. A stranger, coming into the room at that moment, would have
+said that here was a girl trying to coax her blunt, straightforward,
+military father into some course of action of which his honest nature
+disapproved. He might have been posing for a statue of Rectitude. As
+Jill spoke, he seemed to cave in.
+
+"Poor old thing?" he repeated limply.
+
+"Of course you are! And stop trying to look dignified and tragic!
+Because it doesn't suit you. You're much too well dressed."
+
+"But, my dear, you don't understand! You haven't realized!"
+
+"Yes, I do. Yes, I have!"
+
+"I've spent all your money--_your_ money!"
+
+"I know! What does it matter?"
+
+"What does it matter! Jill, don't you hate me?"
+
+"As if anyone could hate an old darling like you!"
+
+Uncle Chris threw away his cigar, and put his arms round Jill. For a
+moment a dreadful fear came to her that he was going to cry. She
+prayed that he wouldn't cry. It would be too awful. It would be a
+memory of which she could never rid herself. She felt as though he
+were someone extraordinarily young and unable to look after himself,
+someone she must soothe and protect.
+
+"Jill," said Uncle Chris, choking, "you're--you're--you're a little
+warrior!"
+
+Jill kissed him and moved away. She busied herself with some flowers,
+her back turned. The tension had been relieved, and she wanted to give
+him time to recover his poise. She knew him well enough to be sure
+that, sooner or later, the resiliency of his nature would assert
+itself. He could never remain long in the depths.
+
+The silence had the effect of making her think more clearly than in
+the first rush of pity she had been able to do. She was able now to
+review the matter as it affected herself. It had not been easy to
+grasp, the blunt fact that she was penniless, that all this comfort
+which surrounded her was no longer her own. For an instant a kind of
+panic seized her. There was a bleakness about the situation which made
+one gasp. It was like icy water dashed in the face. Realization had
+almost the physical pain of life returning to a numbed limb. Her hands
+shook as she arranged the flowers, and she had to bite her lip to keep
+herself from crying out.
+
+She fought panic eye to eye, and beat it down. Uncle Chris, swiftly
+recovering by the fireplace, never knew that the fight had taken
+place. He was feeling quite jovial again now that the unpleasant
+business of breaking the news was over, and was looking on the world
+with the eye of a debonair gentleman-adventurer. As far as he was
+concerned, he told himself, this was the best thing that could have
+happened. He had been growing old and sluggish in prosperity. He
+needed a fillip. The wits by which he had once lived so merrily had
+been getting blunt in their easy retirement. He welcomed the
+opportunity of matching them once more against the world. He was
+remorseful as regarded Jill, but the optimist in him, never crushed
+for long, told him that Jill would be all right. She would step from
+the sinking ship to the safe refuge of Derek Underhill's wealth and
+position, while he went out to seek a new life. Uncle Chris' blue eyes
+gleamed with a new fire as he pictured himself in this new life. He
+felt like a hunter setting out on a hunting expedition. There were
+always adventures and the spoils of war for the man with brains to
+find them and gather them in. But it was a mercy that Jill had
+Derek....
+
+Jill was thinking of Derek, too. Panic had fled, and a curious
+exhilaration had seized upon her. If Derek wanted her now, it would be
+because his love was the strongest thing in the world. She would come
+to him like the beggar-maid to Cophetua.
+
+Uncle Chris broke the silence with a cough. At the sound of it, Jill
+smiled again. She knew it for what it was, a sign that he was himself
+again.
+
+"Tell me, Uncle Chris," she said, "just how bad is it? When you said
+everything was gone, did you really mean everything, or were you being
+melodramatic? Exactly how do we stand?"
+
+"It's dashed hard to say, my dear. I expect we shall find there are a
+few hundreds left. Enough to see you through till you get married.
+After that it won't matter." Uncle Chris flicked a particle of dust
+off his coat-sleeve. Jill could not help feeling that the action was
+symbolical of his attitude towards life. He nicked away life's
+problems with just the same airy carelessness. "You mustn't worry
+about me, my dear. I shall be all right. I have made my way in the
+world before, and I can do it again. I shall go to America and try my
+luck there. Amazing how many opportunities there are in America.
+Really, as far as I am concerned, this is the best thing that could
+have happened. I have been getting abominably lazy. If I had gone on
+living my present life for another year or two, why, dash it, I
+honestly believe I should have succumbed to some sort of senile decay.
+Positively I should have got fatty degeneration of the brain! This
+will be the making of me."
+
+Jill sat down on the lounge and laughed till there were tears in her
+eyes. Uncle Chris might be responsible for this disaster, but he was
+certainly making it endurable. However greatly he might be deserving
+of censure, from the standpoint of the sterner morality, he made
+amends. If he brought the whole world crashing in chaos about one's
+ears, at least he helped one to smile among the ruins.
+
+"Did you ever read 'Candide,' Uncle Chris?"
+
+"'Candide'?" Uncle Chris shook his head. He was not a great reader,
+except of the sporting press.
+
+"It's a book by Voltaire. There's a character in it called Doctor
+Pangloss, who thought that everything was for the best in this best of
+all possible worlds."
+
+Uncle Chris felt a touch of embarrassment. It occurred to him that he
+had been betrayed by his mercurial temperament into an attitude which,
+considering the circumstances, was perhaps a trifle too jubilant. He
+gave his moustache a pull, and reverted to the minor key.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't think that I don't appreciate the terrible, the criminal
+thing I have done! I blame myself," said Uncle Chris cordially, nicking
+another speck of dust off his sleeve. "I blame myself bitterly. Your
+mother ought never to have made me your trustee, my dear. But she always
+believed in me, in spite of everything, and this is how I have repaid
+her." He blew his nose to cover a not unmanly emotion. "I wasn't fitted
+for the position. Never become a trustee, Jill. It's the devil, is trust
+money. However much you argue with yourself, you can't--dash it, you
+simply can't believe that it's not your own, to do as you like with,
+There it sits, smiling at you, crying 'Spend me! Spend me!' and you find
+yourself dipping--dipping--till one day there's nothing left to dip
+for--only a far-off rustling--the ghosts of dead bank-notes. That's how it
+was with me. The process was almost automatic. I hardly knew it was going
+on. Here a little--there a little. It was like snow melting on a
+mountain-top. And one morning--all gone!" Uncle Chris drove the point home
+with a gesture. "I did what I could. When I found that there were only a
+few hundreds left, for your sake I took a chance. All heart and no head!
+There you have Christopher Selby in a nutshell! A man at the club, a fool
+named--I've forgotten his damn name--recommended Amalgamated Dyestuffs as
+a speculation. Monroe, that was his name, Jimmy Monroe. He talked about
+the future of British Dyes now that Germany was out of the race, and ...
+well, the long and short of it was that I took his advice and bought on
+margin. Bought like the devil. And this morning Amalgamated Dyestuffs went
+all to blazes. There you have the whole story!"
+
+"And now," said Jill, "comes the sequel!"
+
+"The sequel?" said Uncle Chris breezily. "Happiness, my dear,
+happiness! Wedding bells and--and all that sort of thing!" He
+straddled the hearth-rug manfully, and swelled his chest out. He would
+permit no pessimism on this occasion of rejoicing. "You don't suppose
+that the fact of your having lost your money--that is to say--er--of
+_my_ having lost your money--will affect a splendid young fellow like
+Derek Underhill? I know him better than to think that! I've always
+liked him. He's a man you can trust! Besides," he added reflectively,
+"there's no need to tell him! Till after the wedding, I mean. It won't
+be hard to keep up appearances here for a month or so."
+
+"Of course we must tell him!"
+
+"You think it wise?"
+
+"I don't know about it being wise. It's the only thing to do. I must
+see him to-night. Oh, I forgot. He was going away this afternoon for a
+day or two."
+
+"Capital! It will give you time to think it over."
+
+"I don't want to think it over. There's nothing to think about."
+
+"Of course, yes, of course. Quite so."
+
+"I shall write him a letter."
+
+"Write, eh?"
+
+"It's easier to put what one wants to say in a letter."
+
+"Letters," began Uncle Chris, and stopped as the door opened. Jane,
+the parlourmaid, entered, carrying a salver.
+
+"For me?" asked Uncle Chris.
+
+"For Miss Jill, sir."
+
+Jill took the note off the salver.
+
+"It's from Derek."
+
+"There's a messenger-boy waiting, miss," said Jane. "He wasn't told if
+there was an answer."
+
+"If the note is from Derek," said Uncle Chris, "it's not likely to
+want an answer. You said he left town to-day."
+
+Jill opened the envelope.
+
+"Is there an answer, miss?" asked Jane, after what she considered a
+suitable interval. She spoke tenderly. She was a great admirer of
+Derek, and considered it a pretty action on his part to send notes
+like this when he was compelled to leave London.
+
+"Any answer, Jill?"
+
+Jill seemed to rouse herself. She had turned oddly pale.
+
+"No, no answer, Jane."
+
+"Thank you, miss," said Jane, and went off to tell the cook that in
+her opinion Jill was lacking in heart. "It might have been a bill
+instead of a love-letter," said Jane to the cook with indignation,
+"the way she read it. I like people to have a little feeling!"
+
+Jill sat turning the letter over and over in her fingers. Her face was
+very white. There seemed to be a big, heavy, leaden something inside
+her. A cold hand clutched her throat. Uncle Chris, who at first had
+noticed nothing untoward, now began to find the silence sinister.
+
+"No bad news, I hope, dear?"
+
+Jill turned the letter between her fingers.
+
+"Jill, is it bad news?"
+
+"Derek has broken off the engagement," said Jill in a dull voice. She
+let the note fall to the floor, and sat with her chin in her hands.
+
+"What!" Uncle Chris leaped from the hearth-rug, as though the fire had
+suddenly scorched him. "What did you say?"
+
+"He's broken it off."
+
+"The hound!" cried Uncle Chris. "The blackguard! The--the--I never
+liked that man! I never trusted him!" He fumed for a moment.
+"But--but--it isn't possible. How can he have heard about what's
+happened? He couldn't know. It's--it's--it isn't possible!"
+
+"He doesn't know. It has nothing to do with that."
+
+"But...." Uncle Chris stooped to where the note lay. "May I...?"
+
+"Yes, you can read it if you like."
+
+Uncle Chris produced a pair of reading-glasses, and glared through
+them at the sheet of paper as though it were some loathsome insect.
+
+"The hound! The cad! If I were a younger man," shouted Uncle Chris,
+smiting the letter violently, "if I were.... Jill! My dear little
+Jill!"
+
+He plunged down on his knees beside her, as she buried her face in her
+hands and began to sob.
+
+"My little girl! Damn that man! My dear little girl! The cad! The
+devil! My own darling little girl! I'll thrash him within an inch of
+his life!"
+
+The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away the minutes. Jill got up. Her
+face was wet and quivering, but her mouth had set in a brave line.
+
+"Jill, dear!"
+
+She let his hand close over hers.
+
+"Everything's happening all at once this afternoon, Uncle Chris, isn't
+it!" She smiled a twisted smile. "You look so funny! Your hair's all
+rumpled, and your glasses are over on one side!"
+
+Uncle Chris breathed heavily through his nose.
+
+"When I meet that man...." he began portentously.
+
+"Oh, what's the good of bothering! It's not worth it! Nothing's worth
+it!" Jill stopped and faced him, her hands clenched. "Let's get away!
+Let's get right away! I want to get right away, Uncle Chris! Take me
+away! Anywhere! Take me to America with you! I must get away!"
+
+Uncle Chris raised his right hand, and shook it. His reading-glasses,
+hanging from his left ear, bobbed drunkenly.
+
+"We'll sail by the next boat! The very next boat, dammit! I'll take
+care of you, dear. I've been a blackguard to you, my little girl. I've
+robbed you, and swindled you. But I'll make up for it, by George! I'll
+make up for it! I'll give you a new home, as good as this, if I die
+for it. There's nothing I won't do! Nothing! By Jove!" shouted Uncle
+Chris, raising his voice in a red-hot frenzy of emotion, "I'll work!
+Yes, by Gad, if it comes right down to it, I'll work!"
+
+He brought his fist down with a crash on the table where Derek's
+flowers stood in their bowl. The bowl leaped in the air and tumbled
+over, scattering the flowers on the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+JILL CATCHES THE 10.10
+
+I
+
+
+In the lives of each one of us, as we look back and review them in
+retrospect, there are certain desert wastes from which memory winces
+like some tired traveller faced with a dreary stretch of road. Even
+from the security of later happiness we cannot contemplate them
+without a shudder.
+
+It took one of the most competent firms in the metropolis four days to
+produce some sort of order in the confusion resulting from Major
+Selby's financial operations; and during those days Jill existed in a
+state of being which could be defined as living only in that she
+breathed and ate and comported herself outwardly like a girl and not a
+ghost.
+
+Boards announcing that the house was for sale appeared against the
+railings through which Jane the parlourmaid conducted her daily
+conversations with the tradesmen. Strangers roamed the rooms eyeing
+and appraising the furniture. Uncle Chris, on whom disaster had had a
+quickening and vivifying effect, was everywhere at once, an impressive
+figure of energy. One may be wronging Uncle Chris, but to the eye of
+the casual observer he seemed in these days of trial to be having the
+time of his life.
+
+Jill varied the monotony of sitting in her room--which was the only
+place in the house where one might be sure of not encountering a
+furniture-broker's man with a note-book and pencil--by taking long
+walks. She avoided as far as possible the small area which had once
+made up the whole of London for her, but even so she was not always
+successful in escaping from old acquaintances. Once, butting through
+Lennox Gardens on her way to that vast, desolate King's Road which
+stretches its length out into regions unknown to those whose London
+is the West End, she happened upon Freddie Rooke, who had been paying
+a call in his best, and a pair of white spats which would have cut his
+friend Henry to the quick. It was not an enjoyable meeting. Freddie,
+keenly alive to the awkwardness of the situation, was scarlet and
+incoherent; and Jill, who desired nothing less than to talk with one
+so intimately connected in her mind with all that she had lost, was
+scarcely more collected. They parted without regret. The only
+satisfaction that came to Jill from the encounter was the knowledge
+that Derek was still out of town. He had wired for his things, said
+Freddie, and had retreated further north. Freddie, it seemed, had been
+informed of the broken engagement by Lady Underhill in an interview
+which appeared to have left a lasting impression on his mind. Of
+Jill's monetary difficulties he had heard nothing.
+
+After this meeting, Jill felt a slight diminution of the oppression
+which weighed upon her. She could not have borne to have come
+unexpectedly upon Derek, and, now that there was no danger of that,
+she found life a little easier. The days passed somehow, and finally
+there came the morning, when, accompanied by Uncle Chris--voluble and
+explanatory about the details of what he called "getting everything
+settled"--she rode in a taxi to take the train for Southampton. Her
+last impression of London was of rows upon rows of mean houses, of
+cats wandering in back-yards among groves of home-washed
+underclothing, and a smoky greyness which gave way, as the train raced
+on, to the clearer grey of the suburbs and the good green and brown of
+the open country.
+
+Then the bustle and confusion of the liner; the calm monotony of the
+journey, when one came on deck each morning to find the vessel so
+manifestly in the same spot where it had been the morning before that
+it was impossible to realize that many hundred miles of ocean had
+really been placed behind one; and finally the Ambrose Channel
+lightship and the great bulk of New York rising into the sky like a
+city of fairyland, heartening yet sinister, at once a welcome and a
+menace.
+
+"There you are, my dear?" said Uncle Chris indulgently, as though it
+were a toy he had made for her with his own hands. "New York!"
+
+They were standing on the boat-deck, leaning over the rail. Jill
+caught her breath. For the first time since disaster had come upon her
+she was conscious of a rising of her spirits. It is impossible to
+behold the huge buildings which fringe the harbour of New York without
+a sense of expectancy and excitement. There had remained in Jill's
+mind from childhood memories a vague picture of what she now saw, but
+it had been feeble and inadequate. The sight of this towering city
+seemed somehow to blot out everything that had gone before. The
+feeling of starting afresh was strong upon her.
+
+Uncle Chris, the old traveller, was not emotionally affected. He
+smoked placidly and talked in a wholly earthy strain of grape-fruit
+and buckwheat cakes.
+
+It was now, also for the first time, that Uncle Chris touched upon
+future prospects in a practical manner. On the voyage he had been
+eloquent but sketchy. With the land of promise within biscuit-throw
+and the tugs bustling about the great liner's skirts like little dogs
+about their mistress, he descended to details.
+
+"I shall get a room somewhere," said Uncle Chris, "and start looking
+about me. I wonder if the old Holland House is still there. I fancy I
+heard they'd pulled it down. Capital place. I had a steak there in the
+year.... But I expect they've pulled it down. But I shall find
+somewhere to go. I'll write and tell you my address directly I've got
+one."
+
+Jill removed her gaze from the sky-line with a start.
+
+"Write to me?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you about that?" said Uncle Chris cheerily--avoiding
+her eye, however, for he had realized all along that it might be a
+little bit awkward breaking the news. "I've arranged that you shall go
+and stay for the time being down at Brookport--on Long Island, you
+know--over in that direction--with your Uncle Elmer. Daresay you've
+forgotten you have an Uncle Elmer, eh?" he went on quickly, as Jill
+was about to speak. "Your father's brother. Used to be in business,
+but retired some years ago and goes in for amateur farming. Corn
+and--and corn," said Uncle Chris. "All that sort of thing. You'll like
+him. Capital chap! Never met him myself, but always heard," said Uncle
+Chris, who had never to his recollection heard any comments upon Mr.
+Elmer Mariner whatever, "that he was a splendid fellow. Directly we
+decided to sail, I cabled to him, and got an answer saying that he
+would be delighted to put you up. You'll be quite happy there."
+
+Jill listened to this programme with dismay. New York was calling to
+her, and Brookport held out no attractions at all. She looked down
+over the side at the tugs puffing their way through the broken blocks
+of ice that reminded her of a cocoanut candy familiar to her
+childhood.
+
+"But I want to be with you," she protested.
+
+"Impossible, my dear, for the present. I shall be very busy, very busy
+indeed for some weeks, until I have found my feet. Really, you would
+be in the way. He--er--travels the fastest who travels alone! I must
+be in a position to go anywhere and do anything at a moment's notice.
+But always remember, my dear," said Uncle Chris, patting her shoulder
+affectionately, "that I shall be working for you. I have treated you
+very badly, but I intend to make up for it. I shall not forget that
+whatever money I may make will really belong to you." He looked at her
+benignly, like a monarch of finance who has earmarked a million or two
+for the benefit of a deserving charity. "You shall have it all, Jill."
+
+He had so much the air of having conferred a substantial benefit upon
+her that Jill felt obliged to thank him. Uncle Chris had always been
+able to make people grateful for the phantom gold which he showered
+upon them. He was as lavish a man with the money he was going to get
+next week as ever borrowed a five-pound note to see him through till
+Saturday.
+
+"What are you going to do, Uncle Chris?" asked Jill curiously. Apart
+from a nebulous idea that he intended to saunter through the city
+picking dollar-bills off the sidewalk, she had no inkling of his
+plans.
+
+Uncle Chris toyed with his short moustache. He was not quite equal to
+a direct answer on the spur of the moment. He had a faith in his star.
+Something would turn up. Something always had turned up in the old
+days, and doubtless, with the march of civilization, opportunities had
+multiplied. Somewhere behind those tall buildings the Goddess of Luck
+awaited him, her hands full of gifts, but precisely what those gifts
+would be he was not in a position to say.
+
+"I shall--ah--how shall I put it--?"
+
+"Look round?" suggested Jill.
+
+"Precisely," said Uncle Chris gratefully. "Look round. I daresay you
+have noticed that I have gone out of my way during the voyage to make
+myself agreeable to our fellow-travellers? I had an object.
+Acquaintances begun on shipboard will often ripen into useful
+friendships ashore. When I was a young man I never neglected the
+opportunities which an ocean voyage affords. The offer of a book here,
+a steamer-rug there, a word of encouragement to a chatty bore in the
+smoke-room--these are small things, but they may lead to much. One
+meets influential people on a liner. You wouldn't think it to look at
+him, but that man with the eye-glasses and the thin nose I was talking
+to just now is one of the richest men in Milwaukee!"
+
+"But it's not much good having rich friends in Milwaukee when you are
+in New York!"
+
+"Exactly. There you have put your finger on the very point I have been
+trying to make. It will probably be necessary for me to travel. And
+for that I must be alone. I must be a mobile force. I should dearly
+like to keep you with me, but you can see for yourself that for the
+moment you would be an encumbrance. Later on, no doubt, when my
+affairs are more settled...."
+
+"Oh, I understand. I'm resigned. But, oh dear! it's going to be very
+dull down at Brookport."
+
+"Nonsense, nonsense! It's a delightful spot."
+
+"Have you been there?"
+
+"No. But of course everybody knows Brookport. Healthy,
+invigorating.... Sure to be. The very name.... You'll be as happy as
+the days are long!"
+
+"And how long will the days be!"
+
+"Come, come. You mustn't look on the dark side."
+
+"Is there another?" Jill laughed. "You are an old humbug, Uncle Chris.
+You know perfectly well what you're condemning me to. I expect
+Brookport will be like a sort of Southend in winter. Oh, well, I'll be
+brave. But do hurry and make a fortune, because I want to come to New
+York."
+
+"My dear," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "if there is a dollar lying
+loose in this city, rest assured that I shall have it! And, if it's
+not loose, I will detach it with the greatest possible speed. You have
+only known me in my decadence, an idle and unprofitable London
+clubman. I can assure you that lurking beneath the surface, there is
+a business acumen given to few men...."
+
+"Oh, if you are going to talk poetry," said Jill, "I'll leave you.
+Anyhow, I ought to be getting below and putting my things together."
+
+
+II
+
+If Jill's vision of Brookport as a wintry Southend was not entirely
+fulfilled, neither was Uncle Chris' picture of it as an earthly
+paradise. At the right time of the year, like most of the summer
+resorts on the south shore of Long Island, it is not without its
+attractions; but January is not the month which most people would
+choose for living in it. It presented itself to Jill on first
+acquaintance in the aspect of a wind-swept railroad station, dumped
+down far away from human habitation in the middle of a stretch of flat
+and ragged country that reminded her a little of parts of Surrey. The
+station was just a shed on a foundation of planks which lay flush with
+the rails. From this shed, as the train clanked in, there emerged a
+tall, shambling man in a weather-beaten overcoat. He had a
+clean-shaven, wrinkled face, and he looked doubtfully at Jill with
+small eyes. Something in his expression reminded Jill of her father,
+as a bad caricature of a public man will recall the original. She
+introduced herself.
+
+"If you're Uncle Elmer," she said, "I'm Jill."
+
+The man held out a long hand. He did not smile. He was as bleak as the
+east wind that swept the platform.
+
+"Glad to meet you again," he said in a melancholy voice. It was news
+to Jill that they had met before. She wondered where. Her uncle
+supplied the information. "Last time I saw you, you were a kiddy in
+short frocks, running round and shouting to beat the band." He looked
+up and down the platform. "_I_ never heard a child make so much
+noise!"
+
+"I'm quite quiet now," said Jill encouragingly. The recollection of
+her infant revelry seemed to her to be distressing her relative.
+
+It appeared, however, that it was not only this that was on his mind.
+
+"If you want to drive home," he said, "we'll have to 'phone to the
+Durham House for a hack." He brooded a while, Jill remaining silent at
+his side, loath to break in upon whatever secret sorrow he was
+wrestling with. "That would be a dollar," he went on. "They're
+robbers in these parts! A dollar! And it's not over a mile and a half.
+Are you fond of walking?"
+
+Jill was a bright girl, and could take a hint.
+
+"I love walking," she said. She might have added that she preferred to
+do it on a day when the wind was not blowing quite so keenly from the
+East, but her uncle's obvious excitement at the prospect of cheating
+the rapacity of the sharks at the Durham House restrained her. Her
+independent soul had not quite adjusted itself to the prospect of
+living on the bounty of her fellows, relatives though they were, and
+she was desirous of imposing as light a burden upon them as possible.
+"But how about my trunk?"
+
+"The expressman will bring that up. Fifty cents!" said Uncle Elmer in
+a crushed way. The high cost of entertaining seemed to be afflicting
+this man deeply.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Jill. She could not see how this particular
+expenditure was to be avoided. Anxious as she was to make herself
+pleasant, she declined to consider carrying the trunk to their
+destination. "Shall we start, then?"
+
+Mr. Mariner led the way out into the ice-covered road. The wind
+welcomed them like a boisterous dog. For some minutes they proceeded
+in silence.
+
+"Your aunt will be glad to see you," said Mr. Mariner at last in the
+voice with which one announces the death of a dear friend.
+
+"It's awfully kind of you to have me to stay with you," said Jill. It
+is a human tendency to think, when crises occur, in terms of
+melodrama, and unconsciously she had begun to regard herself somewhat
+in the light of a heroine driven out into the world from the old home,
+with no roof to shelter her head. The promptitude with which these
+good people, who, though relatives, were after all complete strangers,
+had offered her a resting-place touched her. "I hope I shan't be in
+the way."
+
+"Major Selby was speaking to me on the telephone just now," said Mr.
+Mariner, "and he said that you might be thinking of settling down in
+Brookport. I've some nice little places round here which you might
+like to look at. Rent or buy. It's cheaper to buy. Brookport's a
+growing place. It's getting known as a summer resort. There's a
+bungalow down on the shore I'd like to show you to-morrow. Stands in
+a nice large plot of ground, and if you bought it for twelve thousand
+you'd be getting a bargain."
+
+Jill was too astonished to speak. Plainly Uncle Chris had made no
+mention of the change in her fortunes, and this man looked on her as a
+girl of wealth. She could only think how typical this was of Uncle
+Chris. There was a sort of boyish impishness about him. She could see
+him at the telephone, suave and important. He would have hung up the
+receiver with a complacent smirk, thoroughly satisfied that he had
+done her an excellent turn.
+
+"I put all my money into real estate when I came to live here," went
+on Mr. Mariner. "I believe in the place. It's growing all the time."
+
+They had come to the outskirts of a straggling village. The lights in
+the windows gave a welcome suggestion of warmth, for darkness had
+fallen swiftly during their walk and the chill of the wind had become
+more biting. There was a smell of salt in the air now, and once or
+twice Jill had caught the low booming of waves on some distant beach.
+This was the Atlantic pounding the sandy shore of Fire Island.
+Brookport itself lay inside, on the lagoon called the Great South Bay.
+
+They passed through the village, bearing to the right, and found
+themselves in a road bordered by large gardens in which stood big,
+dark houses. The spectacle of these stimulated Mr. Mariner to
+something approaching eloquence. He quoted the price paid for each,
+the price asked, the price offered, the price that had been paid five
+years ago. The recital carried them on for another mile, in the course
+of which the houses became smaller and more scattered, and finally,
+when the country had become bare and desolate again, they turned down
+a narrow lane and came to a tall, gaunt house standing by itself in a
+field.
+
+"This is Sandringham," said Mr. Mariner.
+
+"What!" said Jill. "What did you say?"
+
+"Sandringham. Where we live. I got the name from your father. I
+remember him telling me there was a place called that in England."
+
+"There is." Jill's voice bubbled. "The King lives there."
+
+"Is that so?" said Mr. Mariner. "Well, I bet he doesn't have the
+trouble with help that we have here. I have to pay our girl fifty
+dollars a month, and another twenty for the man who looks after the
+furnace and chops wood. They're all robbers. And if you kick they quit
+on you!"
+
+
+III
+
+Jill endured Sandringham for ten days; and, looking back on that
+period of her life later, she wondered how she did it. The sense of
+desolation which had gripped her on the station platform increased
+rather than diminished as she grew accustomed to her surroundings. The
+east wind died away, and the sun shone fitfully with a suggestion of
+warmth, but her uncle's bleakness appeared to be a static quality,
+independent of weather conditions. Her aunt, a faded woman, with a
+perpetual cold in the head, did nothing to promote cheerfulness. The
+rest of the household consisted of a gloomy child, "Tibby," aged
+eight; a spaniel, probably a few years older, and an intermittent cat,
+who, when he did put in an appearance, was the life and soul of the
+party, but whose visits to his home were all too infrequent for Jill.
+
+The picture which Mr. Mariner had formed in his mind of Jill as a
+wealthy young lady with a taste for house property continued as vivid
+as ever. It was his practice each morning to conduct her about the
+neighbourhood, introducing her to the various houses in which he had
+sunk most of the money he had made in business. Mr. Mariner's life
+centred around Brookport real estate, and the embarrassed Jill was
+compelled to inspect sitting-rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and master's
+bedrooms till the sound of a key turning in a lock gave her a feeling
+of nervous exhaustion. Most of her uncle's houses were converted
+farm-houses, and, as one unfortunate purchaser had remarked, not so
+darned converted at that. The days she spent at Brookport remained in
+Jill's memory as a smell of dampness and chill and closeness.
+
+"You want to buy," said Mr. Mariner every time he shut a front-door
+behind them. "Not rent. Buy. Then, if you don't want to live here, you
+can always rent in the summer."
+
+It seemed incredible to Jill that the summer would ever come. Winter
+held Brookport in its grip. For the first time in her life she was
+tasting real loneliness. She wandered over the snow-patched fields
+down to the frozen bay, and found the intense stillness, punctuated
+only by the occasional distant gunshot of some optimist trying for
+duck, oppressive rather than restful. She looked on the weird beauty
+of the ice-bound marshes which glittered red and green and blue in the
+sun with unseeing eyes; for her isolation was giving her time to
+think, and thought was a torment.
+
+On the eighth day came a letter from Uncle Chris--a cheerful, even
+rollicking letter. Things were going well with Uncle Chris, it seemed.
+As was his habit, he did not enter into details, but he wrote in a
+spacious way of large things to be, of affairs that were coming out
+right, of prosperity in sight. As tangible evidence of success, he
+enclosed a present of twenty dollars for Jill to spend in the
+Brookport shops.
+
+The letter arrived by the morning mail, and two hours later Mr.
+Mariner took Jill by one of his usual overland routes to see a house
+nearer the village than most of those which she had viewed. Mr.
+Mariner had exhausted the supply of cottages belonging to himself, and
+this one was the property of an acquaintance. There would be an
+agent's fee for him in the deal, if it went through, and Mr. Mariner
+was not a man who despised money in small quantities.
+
+There was a touch of hopefulness in his gloom this morning, like the first
+intimation of sunshine after a wet day. He had been thinking the thing
+over, and had come to the conclusion that Jill's unresponsiveness when
+confronted with the houses she had already seen was due to the fact that
+she had loftier ideas than he had supposed. Something a little more
+magnificent than the twelve thousand dollar places he had shown her was
+what she desired. This house stood on a hill looking down on the bay, in
+several acres of ground. It had its private landing-stage and bath-house,
+its dairy, its sleeping-porches--everything, in fact, that a sensible girl
+could want. Mr. Mariner could not bring himself to suppose that he would
+fail again to-day.
+
+"They're asking a hundred and five thousand," he said, "but I know
+they'd take a hundred thousand. And, if it was a question of cash
+down, they would go even lower. It's a fine house. You could entertain
+there. Mrs. Bruggenheim rented it last summer, and wanted to buy, but
+she wouldn't go above ninety thousand. If you want it, you'd better
+make up your mind quick. A place like this is apt to be snapped up in
+a hurry."
+
+Jill could endure it no longer.
+
+"But, you see," she said gently, "all I have in the world is twenty
+dollars!"
+
+There was a painful pause. Mr. Mariner shot a swift glance at her in
+the hope of discovering that she had spoken humorously, but was
+compelled to decide that she had not.
+
+"Twenty dollars!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Twenty dollars," said Jill.
+
+"But your father was a rich man." Mr. Mariner's voice was high and
+plaintive. "He made a fortune over here before he went to England."
+
+"It's all gone. I got nipped," said Jill, who was finding a certain
+amount of humour in the situation, "in Amalgamated Dyes."
+
+"Amalgamated Dyes?"
+
+"They're something," explained Jill, "that people get nipped in."
+
+Mr. Mariner digested this.
+
+"You speculated?" he gasped.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You shouldn't have been allowed to do it," said Mr. Mariner warmly.
+"Major Selby, your uncle, ought to have known better than to allow
+you."
+
+"Yes, oughtn't he?" said Jill demurely.
+
+There was another silence, lasting for about a quarter of a mile.
+
+"Well, it's a bad business," said Mr. Mariner.
+
+"Yes," said Jill. "I've felt that myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The result of this conversation was to effect a change in the
+atmosphere of Sandringham. The alteration in the demeanour of people
+of parsimonious habit, when they discover that the guest they are
+entertaining is a pauper and not, as they had supposed, an heiress, is
+subtle but well marked. In most cases, more well marked than subtle.
+Nothing was actually said, but there are thoughts that are almost as
+audible as words. A certain suspense seemed to creep into the air, as
+happens when a situation has been reached which is too poignant to
+last. Greek Tragedy affects the reader with the same sense of
+overhanging doom. Things, we feel, cannot go on as they are.
+
+That night, after dinner, Mrs. Mariner asked Jill to read to her.
+
+"Print tries my eyes so, dear," said Mrs. Mariner.
+
+It was a small thing, but it had the significance of that little cloud
+that arose out of the sea like a man's hand. Jill appreciated the
+portent. She was, she perceived, to make herself useful.
+
+"Of course I will," she said cordially. "What would you like me to
+read?"
+
+She hated reading aloud. It always made her throat sore, and her eye
+skipped to the end of each page and took the interest out of it long
+before the proper time. But she proceeded bravely, for her conscience
+was troubling her. Her sympathy was divided equally between these
+unfortunate people who had been saddled with an undesired visitor and
+herself who had been placed in a position at which every independent
+nerve in her rebelled. Even as a child she had loathed being under
+obligations to strangers or those whom she did not love.
+
+"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Mariner, when Jill's voice had roughened
+to a weary croak. "You read so well." She wrestled ineffectually with
+her handkerchief against the cold in the head from which she had
+always suffered. "It would be nice if you would do it every night,
+don't you think? You have no idea how tired print makes my eyes."
+
+On the following morning after breakfast, at the hour when she had
+hitherto gone house-hunting with Mr. Mariner, the child Tibby, of whom
+up till now she had seen little except at meals, presented himself to
+her, coated and shod for the open and regarding her with a dull and
+phlegmatic gaze.
+
+"Ma says will you please take me for a nice walk!"
+
+Jill's heart sank. She loved children, but Tibby was not an
+ingratiating child. He was a Mr. Mariner in little. He had the family
+gloom. It puzzled Jill sometimes why this branch of the family should
+look on life with so jaundiced an eye. She remembered her father as a
+cheerful man, alive to the small humours of life.
+
+"All right, Tibby. Where shall we go?"
+
+"Ma says we must keep on the roads and I mustn't slide."
+
+Jill was thoughtful during the walk. Tibby, who was no
+conversationist, gave her every opportunity for meditation. She
+perceived that in the space of a few hours she had sunk in the social
+scale. If there was any difference between her position and that of a
+paid nurse and companion it lay in the fact that she was not paid. She
+looked about her at the grim countryside, gave a thought to the chill
+gloom of the house to which she was about to return, and her heart
+sank.
+
+Nearing home, Tibby vouched his first independent observation.
+
+"The hired man's quit!"
+
+"Has he?"
+
+"Yep. Quit this morning."
+
+It had begun to snow. They turned and made their way back to the
+house. The information she had received did not cause Jill any great
+apprehension. It was hardly likely that her new duties would include
+the stoking of the furnace. That and cooking appeared to be the only
+acts about the house which were outside her present sphere of
+usefulness.
+
+"He killed a rat once in the wood-shed with an axe," said Tibby
+chattily. "Yessir! Chopped it right in half, and it bled!"
+
+"Look at the pretty snow falling on the trees," said Jill faintly.
+
+At breakfast next morning, Mrs. Mariner having sneezed, made a
+suggestion.
+
+"Tibby, darling, wouldn't it be nice if you and cousin Jill played a
+game of pretending you were pioneers in the Far West?"
+
+"What's a pioneer?" enquired Tibby, pausing in the middle of an act of
+violence on a plate of oatmeal.
+
+"The pioneers were the early settlers in this country, dear. You have
+read about them in your history book. They endured a great many
+hardships, for life was very rough for them, with no railroads or
+anything. I think it would be a nice game to play this morning."
+
+Tibby looked at Jill. There was doubt in his eye. Jill returned his
+gaze sympathetically. One thought was in both their minds.
+
+"There is a string to this!" said Tibby's eye.
+
+Mrs. Mariner sneezed again.
+
+"You would have lots of fun," she said.
+
+"What'ud we do?" asked Tibby cautiously. He had been had this way
+before. Only last summer, on his mother's suggestion that he should
+pretend he was a shipwrecked sailor on a desert island, he had
+perspired through a whole afternoon cutting the grass in front of the
+house to make a shipwrecked sailor's simple bed.
+
+"I know," said Jill. "We'll pretend we're pioneers stormbound in their
+log cabin in the woods, and the wolves are howling outside, and they
+daren't go out, so they make a lovely big fire and sit in front of it
+and read."
+
+"And eat candy," suggested Tibby, warming to the idea.
+
+"And eat candy," agreed Jill.
+
+Mrs. Mariner frowned.
+
+"I was going to suggest," she said frostily, "that you shovelled the
+snow away from the front steps!"
+
+"Splendid!" said Jill. "Oh, but I forgot. I want to go to the village
+first."
+
+"There will be plenty of time to do it when you get back."
+
+"All right. I'll do it when I get back."
+
+It was a quarter of an hour's walk to the village. Jill stopped at the
+post-office.
+
+"Could you tell me," she asked, "when the next train is to New York?"
+
+"There's one at ten-ten," said the woman behind the window. "You'll
+have to hurry."
+
+"I'll hurry!" said Jill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DRY-SALTERS WING DEREK
+
+I
+
+
+Doctors, laying down the law in their usual confident way, tell us
+that the vitality of the human body is at its lowest at two o'clock in
+the morning: and that it is then, as a consequence, that the mind is
+least able to contemplate the present with equanimity, the future with
+fortitude, and the past without regret. Every thinking man, however,
+knows that this is not so. The true zero hour, desolate, gloom-ridden,
+and spectre-haunted, occurs immediately before dinner while we are
+waiting for that cocktail. It is then that, stripped for a brief
+moment of our armour of complacency and self-esteem, we see ourselves
+as we are--frightful chumps in a world where nothing goes right; a
+grey world in which, hoping to click, we merely get the raspberry;
+where, animated by the best intentions, we nevertheless succeed in
+perpetrating the scaliest bloomers and landing our loved ones
+neck-deep in the gumbo.
+
+So reflected Freddie Rooke, that priceless old bean, sitting
+disconsolately in an arm-chair at the Drones Club about two weeks
+after Jill's departure from England, waiting for his friend Algy
+Martyn to trickle in and give him dinner.
+
+Surveying Freddie, as he droops on his spine in the yielding leather,
+one is conscious of one's limitations as a writer. Gloom like his
+calls for the pen of a master. Zola could have tackled it nicely.
+Gorky might have made a stab at it. Dostoevsky would have handled it
+with relish. But for oneself the thing is too vast. One cannot wangle
+it. It intimidates. It would have been bad enough in any case, for
+Algy Martyn was late as usual and it always gave Freddie the pip to
+have to wait for dinner: but what made it worse was the fact that the
+Drones was not one of Freddie's clubs and so, until the blighter Algy
+arrived, it was impossible for him to get his cocktail. There he sat,
+surrounded by happy, laughing young men, each grasping a glass of the
+good old mixture-as-before, absolutely unable to connect. Some of
+them, casual acquaintances, had nodded to him, waved, and gone on
+lowering the juice,--a spectacle which made Freddie feel much as the
+wounded soldier would have felt if Sir Philip Sidney, instead of
+offering him the cup of water, had placed it to his own lips and
+drained it with a careless "Cheerio!" No wonder Freddie experienced
+the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoi's
+Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling
+his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city
+reservoir, he turns to the cupboard, only to find the vodka-bottle
+empty.
+
+Freddie gave himself up to despondency: and, as always in these days
+when he was mournful, he thought of Jill. Jill's sad case was a
+continual source of mental anguish to him. From the first he had
+blamed himself for the breaking-off of her engagement with Derek. If
+he had not sent the message to Derek from the police-station, the
+latter would never have known about their arrest, and all would have
+been well. And now, a few days ago, had come the news of her financial
+disaster, with its attendant complications.
+
+It had descended on Freddie like a thunderbolt through the medium of
+Ronny Devereux.
+
+"I say," Ronny had said, "have you heard the latest? Your pal,
+Underhill, has broken off his engagement with Jill Mariner."
+
+"I know; rather rotten, what!"
+
+"Rotten? I should say so! It isn't done. I mean to say, chap can't
+chuck a girl just because she's lost her money. Simply isn't on the
+board, old man!"
+
+"Lost her money? What do you mean?"
+
+Ronny was surprised. Hadn't Freddie heard? Yes, absolute fact. He had
+it from the best authority. Didn't know how it had happened and all
+that, but Jill Mariner had gone completely bust; Underhill had given
+her the miss-in-baulk; and the poor girl had legged it, no one knew
+where. Oh, Freddie had met her and she had told him she was going to
+America? Well, then, legged it to America. But the point was that the
+swine Underhill had handed her the mitten just because she was broke,
+and that was what Ronny thought so bally rotten. Broker a girl is,
+Ronny meant to say, more a fellow should stick to her.
+
+"But--" Freddie rushed to his hero's defence. "But it wasn't that at
+all. Something quite different. I mean, Derek didn't even know Jill
+had lost her money. He broke the engagement because...." Freddie
+stopped short. He didn't want everybody to know of that rotten arrest
+business, as they infallibly would if he confided in Ronny Devereux.
+Sort of thing he would never hear the last of. "He broke it off
+because of something quite different."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Ronny sceptically.
+
+"But he did, really!"
+
+Ronny shook his head.
+
+"Don't you believe it, old son. Don't you believe it. Stands to reason
+it must have been because the poor girl was broke. You wouldn't have
+done it and I wouldn't have done it, but Underhill did, and that's all
+there is to it. I mean, a tick's a tick, and there's nothing more to
+say. Well, I know he's been a pal of yours, Freddie, but, next time I
+meet him, by Jove, I'll cut him dead. Only I don't know him to speak
+to, dash it!" concluded Ronny regretfully.
+
+Ronny's news had upset Freddie. Derek had returned to the Albany a
+couple of days ago, moody and silent. They had lunched together at the
+Bachelors, and Freddie had been pained at the attitude of his
+fellow-clubmen. Usually, when he lunched at the Bachelors, his table
+became a sort of social centre. Cheery birds would roll up to pass the
+time of day, and festive old eggs would toddle over to have coffee and
+so forth, and all that sort of thing. Jolly! On this occasion nobody
+had rolled, and all the eggs present had taken their coffee elsewhere.
+There was an uncomfortable chill in the atmosphere of which Freddie
+had been acutely conscious, though Derek had not appeared to notice
+it. The thing had only come home to Derek yesterday at the Albany,
+when the painful episode of Wally Mason had occurred. It was this
+way....
+
+"Hullo, Freddie, old top! Sorry to have kept you waiting."
+
+Freddie looked up from his broken meditations, to find that his host
+had arrived.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"A quick bracer," said Algy Martyn, "and then the jolly old
+food-stuffs. It's pretty late, I see. Didn't notice how time was
+slipping."
+
+Over the soup, Freddie was still a prey to gloom. For once the healing
+gin-and-vermouth had failed to do its noble work. He sipped sombrely,
+so sombrely as to cause comment from his host.
+
+"Pipped?" enquired Algy solicitously.
+
+"Pretty pipped," admitted Freddie.
+
+"Backed a loser?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Something wrong with the old tum?"
+
+"No.... Worried."
+
+"Worried?"
+
+"About Derek."
+
+"Derek? Who's...? Oh, you mean Underhill?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Algy Martyn chased an elusive piece of carrot about his soup plate,
+watching it interestedly as it slid coyly from the spoon.
+
+"Oh?" he said, with sudden coolness. "What about him?"
+
+Freddie was too absorbed in his subject to notice the change in his
+friend's tone.
+
+"A dashed unpleasant thing," he said, "happened yesterday morning at
+my place. I was just thinking about going out to lunch, when the
+door-bell rang and Barker said a chappie of the name of Mason would
+like to see me. I didn't remember any Mason, but Barker said the
+chappie said he knew me when I was a kid. So he loosed him into the
+room, and it turned out to be a fellow I used to know years ago down
+in Worcestershire. I didn't know him from Adam at first, but gradually
+the old bean got to work, and I placed him. Wally Mason his name was.
+Rummily enough, he had spoken to me at the Leicester that night when
+the fire was, but not being able to place him, I had given him the
+miss somewhat. You know how it is. Cove you've never been introduced
+to says something to you in a theatre, and you murmur something and
+sheer off. What?"
+
+"Absolutely," agreed Algy Martyn. He thoroughly approved of Freddie's
+code of etiquette. Sheer off. Only thing to do.
+
+"Well, anyhow, now that he had turned up again and told me who he was,
+I began to remember. We had been kids together, don't you know.
+(What's this? Salmon? Oh, right ho.) So I buzzed about and did the
+jovial host, you know; gave him a drink and a toofer, and all that
+sort of thing; and talked about the dear old days and what not. And so
+forth, if you follow me. Then he brought the conversation round to
+Jill. Of course he knew Jill at the same time when he knew me, down in
+Worcestershire, you see. We were all pretty pally in those days, if
+you see what I mean. Well, this man Mason, it seems, had heard
+somewhere about Jill losing her money, and he wanted to know if it was
+true. I said absolutely. Hadn't heard any details, but Ronny had told
+me, and Ronny had had it from some one who had stable information and
+all that sort of thing. 'Dashed shame, isn't it?' I said. 'She's gone
+to America, you know.' 'I didn't know,' he said. 'I understood she was
+going to be married quite soon.' Well, of course, I told him that that
+was off. He didn't say anything for a bit, then he said 'Off?' I said
+'Off.' 'Did she break it off?' asked the chappie. 'Well, no,' I said.
+'As a matter of fact Derek broke it off.' He said 'Oh!' (What? Oh yes,
+a bit of pheasant will be fine.) Where was I? Oh, yes. He said 'Oh!'
+Now, before this, I ought to tell you, this chappie Mason had asked
+me to come out and have a bit of lunch. I had told him I was lunching
+with Derek, and he said 'Right ho,' or words to that effect, 'Bring
+him along.' Derek had been out for a stroll, you see, and we were
+waiting for him to come in. Well, just at this point or juncture, if
+you know what I mean, in he came, and I said' Oh, what ho!' and
+introduced Wally Mason. 'Oh, do you know Underhill?' I said, or
+something like that. You know the sort of thing. And then...."
+
+Freddie broke off and drained his glass. The recollection of that
+painful moment had made him feverish. Social difficulties always did.
+
+"Then what?" enquired Algy Martyn.
+
+"Well, it was pretty rotten. Derek held out his hand, as a chappie
+naturally would, being introduced to a strange chappie, and Wally
+Mason, giving it an absolute miss, went on talking to me just as if we
+were alone, you know. Look here. Here was I, where this knife is.
+Derek over here--this fork--with his hand out. Mason here--this bit of
+bread. Mason looks at his watch, and says 'I'm sorry, Freddie, but I
+find I've an engagement for lunch. So long!' and biffed out, without
+apparently knowing that Derek was on the earth. I mean...." Freddie
+reached for his glass. "What I mean is, it was dashed embarrassing. I
+mean, cutting a fellow dead in my rooms. I don't know when I've felt
+so rotten!"
+
+Algy Martyn delivered judgment with great firmness.
+
+"Chappie was perfectly right!"
+
+"No, but I mean...."
+
+"Absolutely correct-o," insisted Algy sternly. "Underhill can't dash
+about all over the place giving the girl he's engaged to the mitten
+because she's broke, and expect no notice to be taken of it. If you
+want to know what I think, old man, your pal Underhill--I can't
+imagine what the deuce you see in him, but, school together and so
+forth, makes a difference, I suppose--I say, if you want to know what
+I think, Freddie, the blighter Underhill would be well advised either
+to leg it after Jill and get her to marry him or else lie low for a
+goodish while till people have forgotten the thing. I mean to say,
+fellows like Ronny and I and Dick Wimpole and Archie Studd and the
+rest of our lot--well, we all knew Jill and thought she was a topper
+and had danced with her here and there and seen her about and all
+that, and naturally we feel pretty strongly about the whole dashed
+business. Underhill isn't in our particular set, but we all know most
+of the people he knows, and we talk about this business, and the thing
+gets about, and there you are! My sister, who was a great pal of
+Jill's, swears that all the girls she knows mean to cut Underhill. I
+tell you, Freddie, London's going to get pretty hot for him if he
+doesn't do something dashed quick and with great rapidity!"
+
+"But you haven't got the story right, old thing!"
+
+"How not?"
+
+"Well, I mean you think and Ronny thinks and all the rest of you think
+that Derek broke off the engagement because of the money. It wasn't
+that at all."
+
+"What was it, then?"
+
+"Well.... Well, look here, it makes me seem a fearful ass and all
+that, but I'd better tell you. Jill and I were going down one of those
+streets near Victoria and a blighter was trying to slay a parrot...."
+
+"Parrot-shooting's pretty good in those parts, they tell me,"
+interjected Algy satirically.
+
+"Don't interrupt, old man. This parrot had got out of one of the
+houses, and a fellow was jabbing at it with a stick, and Jill--you
+know what she's like; impulsive, I mean, and all that--Jill got hold
+of the stick and biffed him with some vim, and a policeman rolled up
+and the fellow made a fuss and the policeman took Jill and me off to
+chokey. Well, like an ass, I sent round to Derek to bail us out, and
+that's how he heard of the thing. Apparently he didn't think a lot of
+it, and the result was that he broke off the engagement."
+
+Algy Martyn had listened to this recital with growing amazement.
+
+"He broke it off because of that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What absolute rot!" said Algy Martyn. "I don't believe a word of it!"
+
+"I say, old man!"
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," repeated Algy firmly.
+
+"And nobody else will either. It's dashed good of you, Freddie, to
+cook up a yarn like that to try and make things look better for the
+blighter, but it won't work. Such a damn silly story, too!" said Algy
+with some indignation.
+
+"But it's true!"
+
+"What's the use, Freddie, between old pals?" said Algy protestingly.
+"You know perfectly well that Underhill's a worm of the most
+pronounced order, and that, when he found out that Jill hadn't any
+money, he chucked her."
+
+"But why should Derek care whether Jill was well off or not? He's got
+enough money of his own."
+
+"Nobody," said Algy judicially, "has got enough money of his own.
+Underhill thought he was marrying a girl with a sizable chunk of the
+ready, and, when the fuse blew out, he decided it wasn't good enough.
+For Heaven's sake don't let's talk any more about the blighter. It
+gives me a pain to think of him."
+
+
+II
+
+Freddie returned to the Albany in a state of gloom and uneasiness.
+Algy's remarks, coming on top of the Wally Mason episode, had shaken
+him. The London in which he and Derek moved and had their being is
+nothing but a village, and it was evident that village gossip was
+hostile to Derek. People were talking about him. Local opinion had
+decided that he had behaved badly. Already one man had cut him.
+Freddie blenched at a sudden vision of streetfuls of men, long
+Piccadillys of men, all cutting him, one after the other. Something
+had got to be done.
+
+The subject was not an easy one to broach to his somewhat forbidding
+friend, as he discovered when the latter arrived about half an hour
+later. Derek had been attending the semi-annual banquet of the
+Worshipful Dry-Salters Company down in the City, understudying one of
+the speakers, a leading member of Parliament, who had been unable to
+appear; and he was still in the grip of that feeling of degraded
+repletion which City dinners induce.
+
+Yet, unfavourably disposed as, judging by his silence and the
+occasional moody grunts he uttered, he appeared to be to a discussion
+of his private affairs, it seemed to Freddie impossible that the night
+should be allowed to pass without some word spoken on the subject. He
+thought of Ronny and what Ronny had said, of Algy and what Algy had
+said, of Wally Mason and how Wally had behaved in this very room; and
+he nerved himself to the task.
+
+"Derek, old top."
+
+A grunt.
+
+"I say, Derek, old bean."
+
+Derek roused himself, and looked gloomily across the room to where he
+stood, warming his legs at the blaze.
+
+"Well?"
+
+Freddie found a difficulty in selecting words. A ticklish business,
+this. One that might well have disconcerted a diplomat. Freddie was no
+diplomat, and the fact enabled him to find a way in the present
+crisis. Equipped by nature with an amiable tactlessness and a happy
+gift of blundering, he charged straight at the main point, and landed
+on it like a circus elephant alighting on a bottle.
+
+"I say, you know, about Jill!"
+
+He stooped to rub the backs of his legs, on which the fire was playing
+with a little too fierce a glow, and missed his companion's start and
+the sudden thickening of his bushy eyebrows.
+
+"Well?" said Derek again.
+
+Freddie nerved himself to proceed. A thought flashed across his mind
+that Derek was looking exactly like Lady Underhill. It was the first
+time he had seen the family resemblance quite so marked.
+
+"Ronny Devereux was saying...." faltered Freddie.
+
+"Damn Ronny Devereux!"
+
+"Oh, absolutely! But...."
+
+"Ronny Devereux! Who the devil _is_ Ronny Devereux?"
+
+"Why, old man, you've heard me speak of him, haven't you? Pal of mine.
+He came down to the station with Algy and me to meet your mater that
+morning."
+
+"Oh, _that_ fellow? And he has been saying something about...?"
+
+"It isn't only Ronny, you know," Freddie hastened to interject. "Algy
+Martyn's talking about it, too. And lots of other fellows. And Algy's
+sister and a lot of peoples They're all saying...."
+
+"What are they saying?"
+
+Freddie bent down and chafed the back of his legs. He simply couldn't
+look at Derek while he had that Lady Underhill expression on the old
+map. Rummy he had never noticed before how extraordinarily like his
+mother he was. Freddie was conscious of a faint sense of grievance. He
+could not have put it into words, but what he felt was that a fellow
+had no right to go about looking like Lady Underhill.
+
+"What are they saying?" repeated Derek grimly.
+
+"Well...." Freddie hesitated. "That it's a bit tough.... On Jill, you
+know."
+
+"They think I behaved badly?"
+
+"Well.... Oh, well, you know!"
+
+Derek smiled a ghastly smile. This was not wholly due to mental
+disturbance. The dull heaviness which was the legacy of the
+Dry-Salters' dinner had begun to change to something more actively
+unpleasant. A sub-motive of sharp pain had begun to run through it,
+flashing in and out like lightning through a thunder-cloud. He felt
+sullen and vicious.
+
+"I wonder," he said with savage politeness, "if, when you chat with
+your friends, you would mind choosing some other topic than my private
+affairs."
+
+"Sorry, old man. But they started it, you know."
+
+"And, if you feel you've got to discuss me, kindly keep it to
+yourself. Don't come and tell me what your damned friends said to each
+other and to you and what you said to them, because it bores me. I'm
+not interested. I don't value their opinions as much as you seem to."
+Derek paused, to battle in silence with the imperious agony within
+him. "It was good of you to put me up here," he went on, "but I think
+I won't trespass on your hospitality any longer. Perhaps you'll ask
+Barker to pack my things to-morrow." Derek moved, as majestically as
+an ex-guest of the Worshipful Company of Dry-Salters may, in the
+direction of the door. "I shall go to the Savoy."
+
+"Oh, I say, old man! No need to do that."
+
+"Good night."
+
+"But, I say...."
+
+"And you can tell your friend Devereux that, if he doesn't stop poking
+his nose into my private business, I'll pull it off."
+
+"Well," said Freddie doubtfully, "of course I don't suppose you know,
+but.... Ronny's a pretty hefty bird. He boxed for Cambridge in the
+light-weights the last year he was up, you know. He...."
+
+Derek slammed the door. Freddie was alone. He stood rubbing his legs
+for some minutes, a rueful expression on his usually cheerful face.
+Freddie hated rows. He liked everything to jog along smoothly. What a
+rotten place the world was these days! Just one thing after another.
+First, poor old Jill takes the knock and disappears. He would miss
+her badly. What a good sort! What a pal! And now--gone. Biffed off.
+Next, Derek. Together, more or less, ever since Winchester, and
+now--bing!...
+
+Freddie heaved a sigh, and reached out for the _Sporting Times_, his
+never-failing comfort in times of depression. He lit another cigar and
+curled up in one of the arm-chairs. He was feeling tired. He had been
+playing squash all the afternoon, a game at which he was exceedingly
+expert and to which he was much addicted.
+
+Time passed. The paper slipped to the floor. A cold cigar followed it.
+From the depths of the chair came a faint snore....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hand on his shoulder brought Freddie with a jerk from troubled
+dreams. Derek was standing beside him. A bent, tousled Derek,
+apparently in pain.
+
+"Freddie!"
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+A spasm twisted Derek's face.
+
+"Have you got any pepsin?"
+
+Derek uttered a groan. What a mocker of our petty human dignity is
+this dyspepsia, bringing low the haughtiest of us, less than love
+itself a respecter of persons. This was a different Derek from the man
+who had stalked stiffly from the room two hours before. His pride had
+been humbled upon the rack.
+
+"Pepsin?"
+
+"Yes. I've got the most damned attack of indigestion."
+
+The mists of sleep rolled away from Freddie. He was awake again, and
+became immediately helpful. These were the occasions when the Last of
+the Rookes was a good man to have at your side. It was Freddie who
+suggested that Derek should recline in the arm-chair which he had
+vacated; Freddie who nipped round the corner to the all-night
+chemist's and returned with a magic bottle guaranteed to relieve an
+ostrich after a surfeit of tenpenny nails; Freddie who mixed and
+administered the dose.
+
+His ministrations were rewarded. Presently the agony seemed to pass.
+Derek recovered.
+
+One would say that Derek became himself again, but that the mood of
+gentle remorse which came upon him as he lay in the arm-chair was one
+so foreign to his nature. Freddie had never seen him so subdued. He
+was like a convalescent child. Between them, the all-night chemist and
+the Dry. Salters seemed to have wrought a sort of miracle. These
+temporary softenings of personality frequently follow City dinners.
+The time to catch your Dry-Salter in angelic mood is the day after the
+semi-annual banquet. Go to him then and he will give you his watch and
+chain.
+
+"Freddie," said Derek.
+
+They were sitting over the dying fire. The clock on the mantelpiece,
+beside which Jill's photograph had stood pointed to ten minutes past
+two. Derek spoke in a low, soft voice. Perhaps the doctors are right
+after all, and two o'clock is the hour at which our self-esteem
+deserts us, leaving in its place regret for past sins, good
+resolutions for future behaviour.
+
+"What do Martyn and the others say about ... you know?"
+
+Freddie hesitated. Pity to start all that again.
+
+"Oh, I know," went on Derek. "They say I behaved like a cad."
+
+"Oh, well...."
+
+"They are quite right. I did."
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't say that, you know. Faults on both sides and all that
+sort of rot."
+
+"I did!" Derek stared into the fire. Scattered all over London at that
+moment, probably a hundred Worshipful Dry-Salters were equally
+sleepless and subdued, looking wide-eyed into black pasts. "Is it true
+she has gone to America, Freddie?"
+
+"She told me she was going."
+
+"What a fool I've been!"
+
+The clock ticked on through the silence. The fire sputtered faintly,
+then gave a little wheeze, like a very old man. Derek rested his chin
+on his hands, gazing into the ashes.
+
+"I wish to God I could go over there and find her."
+
+"Why don't you?"
+
+"How can I? There may be an election coming on at any moment. I can't
+stir."
+
+Freddie leaped from his seat. The suddenness of the action sent a
+red-hot corkscrew of pain through Derek's head.
+
+"What the devil's the matter?" he demanded irritably. Even the gentle
+mood which comes with convalescence after a City dinner is not
+guaranteed to endure against this sort of thing.
+
+"I've got an idea, old bean!"
+
+"Well, there's no need to dance, is there?"
+
+"I've nothing to keep me here, you know. What's the matter with my
+popping over to America and finding Jill?" Freddie tramped the floor,
+aglow. Each beat of his foot jarred Derek, but he made no complaint.
+
+"Could you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Of course I could. I was saying only the other day that I had half a
+mind to buzz over. It's a wheeze! I'll get on the next boat and charge
+over in the capacity of a jolly old ambassador. Have her back in no
+time. Leave it to me, old thing! This is where I come out strong!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JILL IN SEARCH OF AN UNCLE
+
+I
+
+
+New York welcomed Jill, as she came out of the Pennsylvania Station in
+Seventh Avenue, with a whirl of powdered snow that touched her cheek
+like a kiss, the cold, bracing kiss one would expect from this vivid
+city. She stood at the station entrance, a tiny figure beside the huge
+pillars, looking round her with eager eyes. A wind was whipping down
+the avenue. The sky was a clear, brilliant tint of the brightest blue.
+Energy was in the air, and hopefulness. She wondered if Mr. Elmer
+Mariner ever came to New York. It was hard to see how even his gloom
+would contrive to remain unaffected by the exhilaration of the place.
+
+She took Uncle Chris' letter from her bag. He had written from an
+address on East Fifty-seventh Street. There would be just time to
+catch him before he went out to lunch. She hailed a taxi-cab which was
+coming out of the station.
+
+It was a slow ride, halted repeatedly by congestion of the traffic,
+but a short one for Jill. She was surprised at herself, a Londoner of
+long standing, for feeling so provincial and being so impressed. But
+London was far away. It belonged to a life that seemed years ago and
+a world from which she had parted for ever. Moreover, this was
+undeniably a stupendous city through which her taxi-cab was carrying
+her. At Times Square the stream of the traffic plunged into a
+whirlpool, swinging out of Broadway to meet the rapids which poured in
+from east, west, and north. On Fifth Avenue all the motor-cars in the
+world were gathered together. On the pavements, pedestrians, muffled
+against the nipping chill of the crisp air, hurried to and fro. And,
+above, that sapphire sky spread a rich velvet curtain which made the
+tops of the buildings stand out like the white minarets of some
+eastern city of romance.
+
+The cab drew up in front of a stone apartment house; and Jill, getting
+out, passed under an awning through a sort of mediæval courtyard, gay
+with potted shrubs, to an inner door. She was impressed. Evidently the
+tales one heard of fortunes accumulated overnight in this magic city
+were true, and one of them must have fallen to the lot of Uncle Chris.
+For nobody to whom money was a concern could possibly afford to live
+in a place like this. If Croesus and the Count of Monte Cristo had
+applied for lodging there, the authorities would probably have looked
+on them a little doubtfully at first and hinted at the desirability of
+a month's rent in advance.
+
+In a glass case behind the inner door, reading a newspaper and chewing
+gum, sat a dignified old man in the rich uniform of a general in the
+Guatemalan army. He was a brilliant spectacle. He wore no jewellery,
+but this, no doubt, was due to a private distaste for display. As
+there was no one else of humbler rank at hand from whom Jill could
+solicit an introduction and the privilege of an audience, she took the
+bold step of addressing him directly.
+
+"I want to see Major Selby, please."
+
+The Guatemalan general arrested for a moment the rhythmic action of
+his jaws, lowered his paper and looked at her with raised eyebrows. At
+first Jill thought that he was registering haughty contempt, then she
+saw what she had taken for scorn was surprise.
+
+"Major Selby?"
+
+"Major Selby."
+
+"No Major Selby living here."
+
+"Major Christopher Selby."
+
+"Not here," said the associate of ambassadors and the pampered pet of
+Guatemala's proudest beauties. "Never heard of him in my life!"
+
+
+II
+
+Jill had read works of fiction in which at certain crises everything
+had "seemed to swim" in front of the heroine's eyes, but never till
+this moment had she experienced that remarkable sensation herself. The
+Saviour of Guatemala did not actually swim, perhaps, but he certainly
+flickered. She had to blink to restore his prismatic outlines to their
+proper sharpness. Already the bustle and noise of New York had begun
+to induce in her that dizzy condition of unreality which one feels in
+dreams, and this extraordinary statement added the finishing touch.
+
+Perhaps the fact that she had said "please" to him when she opened the
+conversation touched the heart of the hero of a thousand revolutions.
+Dignified and beautiful as he was to the eye of the stranger, it is
+unpleasant to have to record that he lived in a world which rather
+neglected the minor courtesies of speech. People did not often say
+"please" to him. "Here!" "Hi!" and "Gosh darn you!" yes; but seldom
+"please." He seemed to approve of Jill, for he shifted his chewing-gum
+to a position which facilitated speech, and began to be helpful.
+
+"What was the name again?"
+
+"Selby."
+
+"Howja spell it?"
+
+"S-e-l-b-y."
+
+"S-e-l-b-y. Oh, Selby?"
+
+"Yes, Selby."
+
+"What was the first name?"
+
+"Christopher."
+
+"Christopher?"
+
+"Yes, Christopher."
+
+"Christopher Selby? No one of that name living here."
+
+"But there must be."
+
+The veteran shook his head with an indulgent smile.
+
+"You want Mr. Sipperley," he said tolerantly. In Guatemala these
+mistakes are always happening. "Mr. George Sipperley. He's on the
+fourth floor. What name shall I say?"
+
+He had almost reached the telephone when Jill stopped him. This is an
+age of just-as-good substitutes, but she refused to accept any unknown
+Sipperley as a satisfactory alternative for Uncle Chris.
+
+"I don't want Mr. Sipperley. I want Major Selby."
+
+"Howja spell it once more?"
+
+"S-e-l-b-y."
+
+"S-e-l-b-y. No one of that name living here. Mr. Sipperley--" he spoke
+in a wheedling voice, as if determined, in spite of herself, to make
+Jill see what was in her best interests--"Mr. Sipperley's on the
+fourth floor. Gentleman in the real estate business," he added
+insinuatingly. "He's got blond hair and a Boston bull-dog."
+
+"He may be all you say, and he may have a dozen bull-dogs...."
+
+"Only one. Jack his name is."
+
+"... But he isn't the right man. It's absurd. Major Selby wrote to me
+from this address. This _is_ Eighteen East Fifty-seventh Street?"
+
+"This is Eighteen East Fifty-seventh Street," conceded the other
+cautiously.
+
+"I've got his letter here." She opened her bag, and gave an
+exclamation of dismay. "It's gone!"
+
+"Mr. Sipperley used to have a friend staying with him last Fall. A Mr.
+Robertson. Dark-complexioned man with a moustache."
+
+"I took it out to look at the address, and I was sure I put it back. I
+must have dropped it."
+
+"There's a Mr. Rainsby on the seventh floor. He's a broker down on
+Wall Street. Short man with an impediment in his speech."
+
+Jill snapped the clasp of her bag.
+
+"Never mind," she said. "I must have made a mistake. I was quite sure
+that this was the address, but it evidently isn't. Thank you so much.
+I'm so sorry to have bothered you."
+
+She walked away, leaving the Terror of Paraguay and all points west
+speechless: for people who said "Thank you so much" to him were even
+rarer than those who said "please." He followed her with an
+affectionate eye till she was out of sight, then, restoring his
+chewing-gum to circulation, returned to the perusal of his paper. A
+momentary suggestion presented itself to his mind that what Jill had
+really wanted was Mr. Willoughby on the eighth floor, but it was too
+late to say so now; and soon, becoming absorbed in the narrative of a
+spirited householder in Kansas who had run amuck with a hatchet and
+slain six, he dismissed the matter from his mind.
+
+
+III
+
+Jill walked back to Fifth Avenue, crossed it, and made her way
+thoughtfully along the breezy street which, flanked on one side by the
+Park and on the other by the green-roofed Plaza Hotel and the
+apartment houses of the wealthy, ends in the humbler and more
+democratic spaces of Columbus Circle. She perceived that she was in
+that position, familiar to melodrama, of being alone in a great city.
+The reflection brought with it a certain discomfort. The bag that
+dangled from her wrist contained all the money she had in the world,
+the very broken remains of the twenty dollars which Uncle Chris had
+sent her at Brookport. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep, and no
+immediately obvious means of adding to her capital. It was a situation
+which she had not foreseen when she set out to walk to Brookport
+station.
+
+She pondered over the mystery of Uncle Chris' disappearance, and found
+no solution. The thing was inexplicable. She was as sure of the
+address he had given in his letter as she was of anything in the
+world. Yet at that address nothing had been heard of him. His name was
+not even known. These were deeper waters than Jill was able to fathom.
+
+She walked on aimlessly. Presently she came to Columbus Circle, and,
+crossing Broadway at the point where that street breaks out into an
+eruption of automobile shops, found herself, suddenly hungry, opposite
+a restaurant whose entire front was a sheet of plate glass. On the
+other side of this glass, at marble-topped tables, apparently careless
+of their total lack of privacy, sat the impecunious, lunching, their
+every mouthful a spectacle for the passer-by. It reminded Jill of
+looking at fishes in an aquarium. In the centre of the window, gazing
+out in a distrait manner over piles of apples and grape-fruit, a
+white-robed ministrant at a stove juggled ceaselessly with buckwheat
+cakes. He struck the final note in the candidness of the
+establishment, a priest whose ritual contained no mysteries.
+Spectators with sufficient time on their hands to permit them to stand
+and watch were enabled to witness a New York midday meal in every
+stage of its career, from its protoplasmic beginnings as a stream of
+yellowish-white liquid poured on top of the stove to its ultimate
+Nirvana in the interior of the luncher in the form of an appetising
+cake. It was a spectacle which no hungry girl could resist. Jill went
+in, and, as she made her way among the tables, a voice spoke her name.
+
+"Miss Mariner!"
+
+Jill jumped, and thought for a moment that the thing must have been an
+hallucination. It was impossible that anybody in the place should have
+called her name. Except for Uncle Chris, wherever he might be, she
+knew no one in New York. Then the voice spoke again, competing
+valiantly with a clatter of crockery so uproarious as to be more like
+something solid than a mere sound.
+
+"I couldn't believe it was you!"
+
+A girl in blue had risen from the nearest table, and was staring at
+her in astonishment. Jill recognized her instantly. Those big,
+pathetic eyes, like a lost child's, were unmistakable. It was the
+parrot girl, the girl whom she and Freddie Rooke had found in the
+drawing-room at Ovingdon Square that afternoon when the foundations of
+the world had given way and chaos had begun.
+
+"Good gracious!" cried Jill. "I thought you were in London!"
+
+That feeling of emptiness and panic, the result of her interview with
+the Guatemalan general at the apartment house, vanished magically. She
+sat down at this unexpected friend's table with a light heart.
+
+"Whatever are you doing in New York?" asked the girl. "I never knew
+you meant to come over."
+
+"It was a little sudden. Still, here I am. And I'm starving. What are
+those things you're eating?"
+
+"Buckwheat cakes."
+
+"Oh, yes. I remember Uncle Chris talking about them on the boat. I'll
+have some."
+
+"But when did you come over?"
+
+"I landed about ten days ago. I've been down at a place called
+Brookport on Long Island. How funny running into you like this!"
+
+"I was surprised that you remembered me."
+
+"I've forgotten your name," admitted Jill frankly. "But that's
+nothing. I always forget names."
+
+"My name's Nelly Bryant."
+
+"Of course. And you're on the stage, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes. I've just got work with Goble and Cohn.... Hullo, Phil!"
+
+A young man with a lithe figure and smooth black hair brushed straight
+back from his forehead had paused at the table on his way to the
+cashier's desk.
+
+"Hello, Nelly."
+
+"I didn't know you lunched here."
+
+"Don't often. Been rehearsing with Joe up at the Century Roof, and had
+a quarter of an hour to get a bite. Can I sit down?"
+
+"Sure. This is my friend, Miss Mariner."
+
+The young man shook hands with Jill, flashing an approving glance at
+her out of his dark, restless eyes.
+
+"Pleased to meet you."
+
+"This is Phil Brown," said Nelly. "He plays the straight for Joe
+Widgeon. They're the best jazz-and-hokum team on the Keith Circuit."
+
+"Oh, hush!" said Mr. Brown modestly. "You always were a great little
+booster, Nelly."
+
+"Well, you know you are! Weren't you held over at the Palace last
+time? Well, then!"
+
+"That's true," admitted the young man. "Maybe we didn't gool 'em, eh?
+Stop me on the street and ask me! Only eighteen bows second house
+Saturday!"
+
+Jill was listening, fascinated.
+
+"I can't understand a word," she said. "It's like another language."
+
+"You're from the other side, aren't you?" asked Mr. Brown.
+
+"She only landed a week ago," said Nelly.
+
+"I thought so from the accent," said Mr. Brown. "So our talk sort of
+goes over the top, does it? Well, you'll learn American soon, if you
+stick around."
+
+"I've learned some already," said Jill. The relief of meeting Nelly
+had made her feel very happy. She liked this smooth-haired young man.
+"A man on the train this morning said to me, 'Would you care for the
+morning paper, sister?' I said, 'No, thanks, brother, I want to look
+out of the window and think!'"
+
+"You meet a lot of fresh guys on trains," commented Mr. Brown
+austerely. "You want to give 'em the cold-storage eye." He turned to
+Nelly. "Did you go down to Ike, as I told you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you cop?"
+
+"Yes. I never felt so happy in my life. I'd waited over an hour on
+that landing of theirs, and then Johnny Miller came along, and I
+yelled in his ear that I was after work, and he told me it would be
+all right. He's awfully good to girls who've worked in shows for him
+before. If it hadn't been for him I might have been waiting there
+still."
+
+"Who," enquired Jill, anxious to be abreast of the conversation, "is
+Ike?"
+
+"Mr. Goble. Where I've just got work. Goble and Cohn, you know."
+
+"I never heard of them!"
+
+The young man extended his hand.
+
+"Put it there!" he said. "They never heard of me! At least, the fellow
+I saw when I went down to the office hadn't! Can you beat it!"
+
+"Oh, did you go down there, too?" asked Nelly.
+
+"Sure. Joe wanted to get in another show on Broadway. He'd sort of got
+tired of vodevil. Say, I don't want to scare you, Nelly, but, if you
+ask me, that show they're putting out down there is a citron! I don't
+think Ike's got a cent of his own money in it. My belief is that he's
+running it for a lot of amateurs. Why, say, listen! Joe and I blow in
+there to see if there's anything for us, and there's a tall guy in
+tortoise-shell cheaters sitting in Ike's office. Said he was the
+author and was engaging the principals. We told him who we were, and
+it didn't make any hit with him at all. He said he had never heard of
+us. And, when we explained, he said no, there wasn't going to be any
+of our sort of work in the show. Said he was making an effort to give
+the public something rather better than the usual sort of thing. No
+specialities required. He said it was an effort to restore the Gilbert
+and Sullivan tradition. Say, who are these Gilbert and Sullivan guys,
+anyway? They get written up in the papers all the time and I never met
+any one who'd run across them. If you want my opinion, that show down
+there is a comic opera!"
+
+"For heaven's sake!" Nelly had the musical comedy performer's horror
+of the older-established form of entertainment. "Why, comic opera died
+in the year one!"
+
+"Well, these guys are going to dig it up. That's the way it looks to
+me." He lowered his voice. "Say, I saw Clarice last night," he said in
+a confidential undertone. "It's all right."
+
+"It is?"
+
+"We've made it up. It was like this...."
+
+His conversation took an intimate turn. He expounded for Nelly's
+benefit the inner history, with all its ramifications, of a recent
+unfortunate rift between himself and "the best little girl in
+Flatbush"--what he had said, what she had said, what her sister had
+said, and how it all came right in the end. Jill might have felt a
+little excluded, but for the fact that a sudden and exciting idea had
+come to her. She sat back, thinking.... After all, what else was she
+to do? She must do something....
+
+She bent forward and interrupted Mr. Brown in his description of a
+brisk passage of arms between himself and the best little girl's
+sister, who seemed to be an unpleasant sort of person in every way.
+
+"Mr. Brown."
+
+"Hello?"
+
+"Do you think there would be any chance for me if I asked for work at
+Goble and Cohn's?"
+
+"You're joking!" cried Nelly.
+
+"I'm not at all."
+
+"But what do you want with work?"
+
+"I've got to find some. And right away, too."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+Jill hesitated. She disliked discussing her private affairs, but there
+was obviously no way of avoiding it. Nelly was round-eyed and
+mystified, and Mr. Brown had manifestly no intention whatever of
+withdrawing tactfully. He wanted to hear all.
+
+"I've lost my money," said Jill.
+
+"Lost your money! Do you mean...?"
+
+"I've lost it all. Every penny I had in the world."
+
+"Tough!" interpolated Mr. Brown judicially. "I was broke once way out
+in a tank-town in Oklahoma. The manager skipped with our salaries.
+Last we saw of him he was doing the trip to Canada in nothing flat."
+
+"But how?" gasped Nelly.
+
+"It happened about the time we met in London. Do you remember Freddie
+Rooke, who was at our house that afternoon?"
+
+A dreamy look came into Nelly's eyes. There had not been an hour since
+their parting when she had not thought of that immaculate sportsman.
+It would have amazed Freddie, could he have known, but to Nelly Bryant
+he was the one perfect man in an imperfect world.
+
+"Do I!" she sighed ecstatically.
+
+Mr. Brown shot a keen glance at her.
+
+"Aha!" he cried facetiously. "Who is he, Nelly? Who is this blue-eyed
+boy?"
+
+"If you want to know," said Nelly, defiance in her tone, "he's the
+fellow who gave me fifty pounds, with no strings tied to it--get
+that!--when I was broke in London! If it hadn't been for him, I'd be
+there still."
+
+"Did he?" cried Jill. "Freddie!"
+
+"Yes. Oh, Gee!" Nelly sighed once more. "I suppose I'll never see him
+again in this world."
+
+"Introduce me to him, if you do," said Mr. Brown. "He sounds just the
+sort of little pal I'd like to have!"
+
+"You remember hearing Freddie say something about losing money in a
+slump on the Stock Exchange," proceeded Jill. "Well, that was how I
+lost mine. It's a long story, and it's not worth talking about, but
+that's how things stand, and I've got to find work of some sort, and
+it looks to me as if I should have a better chance of finding it on
+the stage than anywhere else."
+
+"I'm terribly sorry."
+
+"Oh, it's all right. How much would these people Goble and Cohn give
+me if I got an engagement?"
+
+"Only forty a week."
+
+"Forty dollars a week! It's wealth! Where are they?"
+
+"Over at the Gotham Theatre in Forty-second Street."
+
+"I'll go there at once."
+
+"But you'll hate it. You don't realize what it's like. You wait hours
+and hours and nobody sees you."
+
+"Why shouldn't I walk straight in and say that I've come for work?"
+
+Nelly's big eyes grew bigger.
+
+"But you couldn't!'
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, you couldn't!"
+
+"I don't see why."
+
+Mr. Brown intervened with decision.
+
+"You're dead right," he said to Jill approvingly. "If you ask me,
+that's the only sensible thing to do. Where's the sense of hanging
+around and getting stalled? Managers are human guys, some of 'em.
+Probably, if you were to try it, they'd appreciate a bit of gall. It
+would show 'em you'd got pep. You go down there and try walking
+straight in. They can't eat you. It makes me sick when I see all those
+poor devils hanging about outside these offices, waiting to get
+noticed and nobody ever paying any attention to them. You push the
+office-boy in the face if he tries to stop you, and go in and make 'em
+take notice. And, whatever you do, don't leave your name and address!
+That's the old, moth-eaten gag they're sure to try to pull on you.
+Tell 'em there's nothing doing. Say you're out for a quick decision!
+Stand 'em on their heads!"
+
+Jill got up, fired by this eloquence. She called for her check.
+
+"Good-bye," she said. "I'm going to do exactly as you say. Where can I
+find you afterwards?" she said to Nelly.
+
+"You aren't really going?"
+
+"I am!"
+
+Nelly scribbled on a piece of paper.
+
+"Here's my address. I'll be in all evening."
+
+"I'll come and see you. Good-bye, Mr. Brown. And thank you."
+
+"You're welcome!" said Mr. Brown.
+
+Nelly watched Jill depart with wide eyes.
+
+"Why did you tell her to do that?" she said.
+
+"Why not?" said Mr. Brown. "I started something, didn't I? Well, I
+guess I'll have to be leaving, too. Got to get back to rehearsal. Say,
+I like that friend of yours, Nelly. There's no yellow streak about
+her! I wish her luck!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JILL IGNORES AUTHORITY
+
+I
+
+
+The offices of Messrs. Goble and Cohn were situated, like everything
+else in New York that appertains to the drama, in the neighbourhood of
+Times Square. They occupied the fifth floor of the Gotham Theatre on
+West Forty-second Street. As there was no lift in the building except
+the small private one used by the two members of the firm, Jill walked
+up the stairs, and found signs of a thriving business beginning to
+present themselves as early as the third floor, where half a dozen
+patient persons of either sex had draped themselves like roosting
+fowls upon the banisters. There were more on the fourth floor, and the
+landing of the fifth, which served the firm as a waiting-room, was
+quite full. It is the custom of New York theatrical managers--the
+lowest order of intelligence, with the possible exception of the
+_limax maximus_ or garden slug, known to science--to omit from their
+calculations the fact that they are likely every day to receive a
+large number of visitors, whom they will be obliged to keep waiting;
+and that these people will require somewhere to wait. Such
+considerations never occur to them. Messrs. Goble and Cohn had
+provided for those who called to see them one small bench on the
+landing, conveniently situated at the intersecting point of three
+draughts, and had let it go at that.
+
+Nobody, except perhaps the night-watchman, had ever seen this bench
+empty. At whatever hour of the day you happened to call, you would
+always find three wistful individuals seated side by side with their
+eyes on the tiny ante-room where sat the office-boy, the
+telephone-girl, and Mr. Goble's stenographer. Beyond this was the door
+marked "Private," through which, as it opened to admit some careless,
+debonair thousand-dollar-a-week comedian who sauntered in with a
+jaunty "Hello, Ike!" or some furred and scented female star, the rank
+and file of the profession were greeted, like Moses on Pisgah, with a
+fleeting glimpse of the promised land, consisting of a large desk and
+a section of a very fat man with spectacles and a bald head or a
+younger man with fair hair and a double chin.
+
+The keynote of the mass meeting on the landing was one of determined,
+almost aggressive smartness. The men wore bright overcoats with bands
+round the waist, the women those imitation furs which to the
+uninitiated eye appear so much more expensive than the real thing.
+Everybody looked very dashing and very young, except about the eyes.
+Most of the eyes that glanced at Jill were weary. The women were
+nearly all blondes, blondness having been decided upon in the theatre
+as the colour that brings the best results. The men were all so much
+alike that they seemed to be members of one large family--an illusion
+which was heightened by the scraps of conversation, studded with
+"dears," "old mans," and "honeys," which came to Jill's ears. A stern
+fight for supremacy was being waged by a score or so of lively and
+powerful young scents.
+
+For a moment Jill was somewhat daunted by the spectacle, but she
+recovered almost immediately. The exhilarating and heady influence of
+New York still wrought within her. The Berserk spirit was upon her,
+and she remembered the stimulating words of Mr. Brown, of Brown and
+Widgeon, the best jazz-and-hokum team on the Keith Circuit. "Walk
+straight in!" had been the burden of his inspiring address. She pushed
+her way through the crowd until she came to the small ante-room.
+
+In the ante-room were the outposts, the pickets of the enemy. In one
+corner a girl was hammering energetically and with great speed on a
+typewriter; a second girl, seated at a switchboard, was having an
+argument with Central which was already warm and threatened to descend
+shortly to personalities; on a chair tilted back so that it rested
+against the wall, a small boy sat eating sweets and reading the comic
+page of an evening newspaper. All three were enclosed, like zoological
+specimens, in a cage formed by a high counter terminating in brass
+bars.
+
+Beyond these watchers on the threshold was the door marked "Private."
+Through it, as Jill reached the outer defences, filtered the sound of
+a piano.
+
+Those who have studied the subject have come to the conclusion that
+the boorishness of New York theatrical managers' office-boys cannot be
+the product of mere chance. Somewhere, in some sinister den in the
+criminal districts of the town, there is a school where small boys are
+trained for these positions, where their finer instincts are
+rigorously uprooted and rudeness systematically inculcated by
+competent professors. Of this school the Cerberus of Messrs. Goble and
+Cohn had been the star scholar. Quickly seeing his natural gifts, his
+teachers had given him special attention. When he had graduated, it
+had been amidst the cordial good wishes of the entire staff. They had
+taught him all they knew, and they were proud of him. They felt that
+he would do them credit.
+
+This boy raised a pair of pink-rimmed eyes to Jill, sniffed, bit his
+thumb-nail, and spoke. He was a snub-nosed boy. His ears and hair were
+vermilion. His name was Ralph. He had seven hundred and forty-three
+pimples.
+
+"Woddyerwant?" enquired Ralph, coming within an ace of condensing the
+question into a word of one syllable.
+
+"I want to see Mr. Goble."
+
+"Zout!" said the Pimple King, and returned to his paper.
+
+There will, no doubt, always be class distinctions. Sparta had her
+kings and her helots, King Arthur's Round Table its knights and its
+scullions, America her Simon Legree and her Uncle Tom. But in no
+nation and at no period of history has any one ever been so brutally
+superior to any one else as is the Broadway theatrical office-boy to
+the caller who wishes to see the manager. Thomas Jefferson held these
+truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they
+are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that
+among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
+Theatrical office-boys do not see eye to eye with Thomas. From their
+pinnacle they look down on the common herd, the _canaille_, and
+despise them. They coldly question their right to live.
+
+Jill turned pink. Mr. Brown, her guide and mentor, foreseeing this
+situation, had, she remembered, recommended "pushing the office-boy in
+the face": and for a moment she felt like following his advice.
+Prudence, or the fact that he was out of reach behind the brass bars,
+restrained her. Without further delay she made for the door of the
+inner room. That was her objective, and she did not intend to be
+diverted from it. Her fingers were on the handle before any of those
+present divined her intention. Then the stenographer stopped typing
+and sat with raised fingers, aghast. The girl at the telephone broke
+off in mid-sentence and stared round over her shoulder. Ralph, the
+office-boy, outraged, dropped his paper and constituted himself the
+spokesman of the invaded force.
+
+"Hey!"
+
+Jill stopped and eyed the lad militantly.
+
+"Were you speaking to me?"
+
+"Yes, I _was_ speaking to you!"
+
+"Don't do it again with your mouth full," said Jill, turning to the
+door.
+
+The belligerent fire in the office-boy's pink-rimmed eyes was suddenly
+dimmed by a gush of water. It was not remorse that caused him to weep,
+however. In the heat of the moment he had swallowed a large, jagged
+sweet, and he was suffering severely.
+
+"You can't go in there!" he managed to articulate, his iron will
+triumphing over the flesh sufficiently to enable him to speak.
+
+"I _am_ going in there!"
+
+"That's Mr. Goble's private room."
+
+"Well, I want a private talk with Mr. Goble."
+
+Ralph, his eyes still moist, felt that the situation was slipping from
+his grip. This sort of thing had never happened to him before. "I tell
+ya he _zout_!"
+
+Jill looked at him sternly.
+
+"You wretched child!" she said, encouraged by a sharp giggle from the
+neighbourhood of the switchboard. "Do you know where little boys go
+who don't speak the truth? I can hear him playing the piano. Now he's
+singing! And it's no good telling me he's busy. If he was busy, he
+wouldn't have time to sing. If you're as deceitful as this at your
+age, what do you expect to be when you grow up? You're an ugly little
+boy, you've got red ears, and your collar doesn't fit! I shall speak
+to Mr. Goble about you."
+
+With which words Jill opened the door and walked in.
+
+"Good afternoon," she said brightly.
+
+After the congested and unfurnished discomfort of the landing, the
+room in which Jill found herself had an air of cosiness and almost of
+luxury. It was a large room, solidly upholstered. Along the further
+wall, filling nearly the whole of its space, stood a vast and gleaming
+desk, covered with a litter of papers which rose at one end of it to a
+sort of mountain of play-scripts in buff covers. There was a
+bookshelf to the left. Photographs covered the walls. Near the window
+was a deep leather lounge; to the right of this stood a small piano,
+the music-stool of which was occupied by a young man with untidy black
+hair that needed cutting. On top of the piano, taking the eye
+immediately by reason of its bold brightness, was balanced a large
+cardboard poster. Much of its surface was filled by a picture of a
+youth in polo costume bending over a blonde goddess in a bathing-suit.
+What space was left displayed the legend:
+
+ISAAC GOBLE AND JACOB COHN
+
+PRESENT
+
+THE ROSE OF AMERICA
+
+(A Musical Fantasy)
+
+BOOK AND LYRICS BY OTIS PILKINGTON
+
+MUSIC BY ROLAND TREVIS
+
+Turning her eyes from this, Jill became aware that something was going
+on at the other side of the desk, and she perceived that a second
+young man, the longest and thinnest she had ever seen, was in the act
+of rising to his feet, length upon length like an unfolding snake. At
+the moment of her entry he had been lying back in an office-chair, so
+that only a merely nominal section of his upper structure was visible.
+Now he reared his impressive length until his head came within
+measurable distance of the ceiling. He had a hatchet face and a
+receding chin, and he gazed at Jill through what she assumed were the
+"tortoise-shell cheaters" referred to by her recent acquaintance, Mr.
+Brown.
+
+"Er...?" said this young man enquiringly in a high, flat voice.
+
+Jill, like many other people, had a brain which was under the
+alternating control of two diametrically opposite forces. It was like
+a motor-car steered in turn by two drivers, the one a dashing,
+reckless fellow with no regard for the speed limits, the other a timid
+novice. All through the proceedings up to this point the dasher had
+been in command. He had whisked her along at a break-neck pace,
+ignoring obstacles and police regulations. Now, having brought her to
+this situation, he abruptly abandoned the wheel and turned it over to
+his colleague, the shrinker. Jill, greatly daring a moment ago, now
+felt an overwhelming shyness.
+
+She gulped, and her heart beat quickly. The thin man towered over her.
+The black-haired pianist shook his locks at her like Banquo.
+
+"I...." she began.
+
+Then, suddenly, womanly intuition came to her aid. Something seemed to
+tell her that these men were just as scared as she was. And, at the
+discovery, the dashing driver resumed his post at the wheel, and she
+began to deal with the situation with composure.
+
+"I want to see Mr. Goble."
+
+"Mr. Goble is out," said the long young man, plucking nervously at the
+papers on the desk. Jill had affected him powerfully.
+
+"Out!" She felt she had wronged the pimpled office-boy.
+
+"We are not expecting him back this afternoon. Is there anything I can
+do?"
+
+He spoke tenderly. This weak-minded young man was thinking that he had
+never seen anything like Jill before. And it was true that she was
+looking very pretty, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling.
+She touched a chord in the young man which seemed to make the world a
+flower-scented thing, full of soft music. Often as he had been in love
+at first sight before in his time, Otis Pilkington could not recall an
+occasion on which he had been in love at first sight more completely
+than now. When she smiled at him, it was as if the gates of heaven had
+opened. He did not reflect how many times, in similar circumstances,
+these same gates had opened before; and that on one occasion when they
+had done so it had cost him eight thousand dollars to settle the case
+out of court. One does not think of these things at such times, for
+they strike a jarring note. Otis Pilkington was in love. That was all
+he knew, or cared to know.
+
+"Won't you take a seat, Miss...."
+
+"Mariner," prompted Jill. "Thank you."
+
+"Miss Mariner. May I introduce Mr. Roland Trevis?"
+
+The man at the piano bowed. His black hair heaved upon his skull like
+seaweed in a ground swell.
+
+"My name is Pilkington. Otis Pilkington."
+
+The uncomfortable silence which always follows introductions was
+broken by the sound of the telephone-bell on the desk. Otis
+Pilkington, who had moved out into the room and was nowhere near the
+desk, stretched forth a preposterous arm and removed the receiver.
+
+"Yes? Oh, will you say, please, that I have a conference at present."
+Jill was to learn that people in the theatrical business never talked:
+they always held conferences. "Tell Mrs. Peagrim that I shall be
+calling later in the afternoon, but cannot be spared just now." He
+replaced the receiver. "Aunt Olive's secretary," he murmured in a soft
+aside to Mr. Trevis. "Aunt Olive wanted me to go for a ride." He
+turned to Jill. "Excuse me. Is there anything I can do for you, Miss
+Mariner?"
+
+Jill's composure was now completely restored. This interview was
+turning out so totally different from anything she had expected. The
+atmosphere was cosy and social. She felt as if she were back in
+Ovingdon Square, giving tea to Freddie Rooke and Ronny Devereux and
+the rest of her friends of the London period. All that was needed to
+complete the picture was a tea-table in front of her. The business
+note hardly intruded on the proceedings at all. Still, as business was
+the object of her visit, she felt that she had better approach it.
+
+"I came for work."
+
+"Work!" cried Mr. Pilkington. He, too, appeared to be regarding the
+interview as purely of a social nature.
+
+"In the chorus," explained Jill.
+
+Mr. Pilkington seemed shocked. He winced away from the word as though
+it pained him.
+
+"There is no chorus in 'The Rose of America,'" he said.
+
+"I thought it was a musical comedy."
+
+Mr. Pilkington winced again.
+
+"It is a musical _fantasy_!" he said. "But there will be no chorus. We
+shall have," he added, a touch of rebuke in his voice, "the services
+of twelve refined ladies of the ensemble."
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"It does sound much better, doesn't it!" she said. "Well, am I refined
+enough, do you think?"
+
+"I shall be only too happy if you will join us," said Mr. Pilkington
+promptly.
+
+The long-haired composer looked doubtful. He struck a note up in the
+treble, then whirled round on his stool.
+
+"If you don't mind my mentioning it, Otie, we have twelve girls
+already."
+
+"Then we must have thirteen," said Otis Pilkington firmly.
+
+"Unlucky number," argued Mr. Trevis.
+
+"I don't care. We must have Miss Mariner. You can see for yourself
+that she is exactly the type we need."
+
+He spoke feelingly. Ever since the business of engaging a company had
+begun, he had been thinking wistfully of the evening when "The Rose of
+America" had had its opening performance--at his aunt's house at
+Newport last summer--with an all-star cast of society favourites and
+an ensemble recruited entirely from debutantes and matrons of the
+Younger Set. That was the sort of company he had longed to assemble
+for the piece's professional career, and until this afternoon he had
+met with nothing but disappointment. Jill seemed to be the only girl
+in theatrical New York who came up to the standard he would have liked
+to demand.
+
+"Thank you very much," said Jill.
+
+There was another pause. The social note crept into the atmosphere
+again. Jill felt the hostess' desire to keep conversation circulating.
+
+"I hear," she said, "that this piece is a sort of Gilbert and Sullivan
+opera."
+
+Mr. Pilkington considered the point.
+
+"I confess," he said, "that, in writing the book, I had Gilbert before
+me as a model. Whether I have in any sense succeeded in...."
+
+"The book," said Mr. Trevis, running his fingers over the piano, "is
+as good as anything Gilbert ever wrote."
+
+"Oh, come, Rolie!" protested Mr. Pilkington modestly.
+
+"Better," insisted Mr. Trevis. "For one thing, it is up-to-date."
+
+"I _do_ try to strike the modern note," murmured Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"And you have avoided Gilbert's mistake of being too fanciful."
+
+"He _was_ fanciful," admitted Mr. Pilkington. "The music," he added,
+in a generous spirit of give and take, "has all Sullivan's melody with
+a newness of rhythm peculiarly its own. You will like the music."
+
+"It sounds," said Jill amiably, "as though the piece is bound to be a
+tremendous success."
+
+"We hope so," said Mr. Pilkington. "We feel that the time has come
+when the public is beginning to demand something better than what it
+has been accustomed to. People are getting tired of the brainless
+trash and jingly tunes which have been given them by men like Wallace
+Mason and George Bevan. They want a certain polish.... It was just the
+same in Gilbert and Sullivan's day. They started writing at a time
+when the musical stage had reached a terrible depth of inanity. The
+theatre was given over to burlesques of the most idiotic description.
+The public was waiting eagerly to welcome something of a higher class.
+It is just the same to-day. But the managers will not see it. 'The
+Rose of America' went up and down Broadway for months, knocking at
+managers' doors."
+
+"It should have walked in without knocking, like me," said Jill. She
+got up. "Well, it was very kind of you to see me when I came in so
+unceremoniously. But I felt it was no good waiting outside on that
+landing. I'm so glad everything is settled. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, Miss Mariner." Mr. Pilkington took her outstretched hand
+devoutly. "There is a rehearsal called for the ensemble at--when is
+it, Rolie?"
+
+"Eleven o'clock, day after to-morrow, at Bryant Hall."
+
+"I'll be there," said Jill. "Good-bye, and thank you very much."
+
+The silence which had fallen upon the room as she left it was broken
+by Mr. Trevis.
+
+"Some pip!" observed Mr. Trevis.
+
+Otis Pilkington awoke from day-dreams with a start.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"That girl.... I said she was some pippin!"
+
+"Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington icily, "is a most charming,
+refined, cultured, and vivacious girl, if you mean that."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Trevis. "That was what I meant!"
+
+
+II
+
+Jill walked out into Forty-second Street, looking about her with the
+eye of a conqueror. Very little change had taken place in the aspect
+of New York since she had entered the Gotham Theatre, but it seemed a
+different city to her. An hour ago, she had been a stranger, drifting
+aimlessly along its rapids. Now she belonged to New York, and New
+York belonged to her. She had faced it squarely, and forced from it
+the means of living. She walked on with a new jauntiness in her
+stride.
+
+The address which Nelly had given her was on the east side of Fifth
+Avenue. She made her way along Forty-second Street. It seemed the
+jolliest, alivest street she had ever encountered. The rattle of the
+Elevated as she crossed Sixth Avenue was music, and she loved the
+crowds that jostled her with every step she took.
+
+She reached the Fifth Avenue corner just as the policeman out in the
+middle of the street swung his Stop-and-Go post round to allow the
+up-town traffic to proceed on its way. A stream of cars which had been
+dammed up as far as the eye could reach began to flow swiftly past.
+They moved in a double line, red limousines, blue limousines, mauve
+limousines, green limousines. She stood waiting for the flood to
+cease, and, as she did so, there purred past her the biggest and
+reddest limousine of all. It was a colossal vehicle with a polar-bear
+at the steering-wheel and another at his side. And in the interior,
+very much at his ease, his gaze bent courteously upon a massive lady
+in a mink coat, sat Uncle Chris.
+
+For a moment he was so near to her that, but for the closed window,
+she could have touched him. Then the polar-bear at the wheel, noting a
+gap in the traffic, stepped on the accelerator and slipped neatly
+through. The car moved swiftly on and disappeared.
+
+Jill drew a deep breath. The Stop-and-Go sign swung round again. She
+crossed the avenue, and set out once more to find Nelly Bryant. It
+occurred to her, five minutes later, that a really practical and
+quick-thinking girl would have noted the number of the limousine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MR. PILKINGTON'S LOVE LIGHT
+
+I
+
+
+The rehearsals of a musical comedy--a term which embraces "musical
+fantasies"--generally begin in a desultory sort of way at that curious
+building, Bryant Hall, on Sixth Avenue just off Forty-second Street.
+There, in a dusty, uncarpeted room, simply furnished with a few wooden
+chairs and some long wooden benches, the chorus--or, in the case of
+"The Rose of America," the ensemble--sit round a piano and endeavour,
+with the assistance of the musical director, to get the words and
+melodies of the first-act numbers into their heads. This done, they
+are ready for the dance director to instil into them the steps, the
+groupings, and the business for the encores, of which that incurable
+optimist always seems to expect there will be at least six. Later, the
+principals are injected into the numbers. And finally, leaving Bryant
+Hall and dodging about from one unoccupied theatre to another,
+principals and chorus rehearse together, running through the entire
+piece over and over again till the opening night of the preliminary
+road tour.
+
+To Jill, in the early stages, rehearsing was just like being back at
+school. She could remember her first schoolmistress, whom the musical
+director somewhat resembled in manner and appearance, hammering out
+hymns on a piano and leading in a weak soprano an eager, baying pack
+of children, each anxious from motives of pride to out-bawl her
+nearest neighbour.
+
+The proceedings began on the first morning with the entrance of Mr.
+Saltzburg, the musical director, a brisk, busy little man with
+benevolent eyes behind big spectacles, who bustled over to the piano,
+sat down, and played a loud chord, designed to act as a sort of bugle
+blast, rallying the ladies of the ensemble from the corners where they
+sat in groups, chatting. For the process of making one another's
+acquaintance had begun some ten minutes before with mutual
+recognitions between those who knew each other from having been
+together in previous productions. There followed rapid introductions
+of friends. Nelly Bryant had been welcomed warmly by a pretty girl
+with red hair, whom she introduced to Jill as Babe; Babe had a willowy
+blonde friend, named Lois, and the four of them had seated themselves
+on one of the benches and opened a conversation; their numbers being
+added to a moment later by a dark girl with a Southern accent and
+another blonde. Elsewhere other groups had formed, and the room was
+filled with a noise like the chattering of starlings. In a body by
+themselves, rather forlorn and neglected, half a dozen solemn and
+immaculately dressed young men were propping themselves up against
+the wall and looking on, like men in a ball-room who do not dance.
+
+Jill listened to the conversation without taking any great part in it
+herself. She felt as she had done on her first day at school, a little
+shy and desirous of effacing herself. The talk dealt with clothes,
+men, and the show business, in that order of importance. Presently one
+of the young men sauntered diffidently across the room and added
+himself to the group with the remark that it was a fine day. He was
+received a little grudgingly, Jill thought, but by degrees succeeded
+in assimilating himself. A second young man drifted up; reminded the
+willowy girl that they had worked together in the western company of
+"You're the One"; was recognized and introduced, and justified his
+admission to the circle by a creditable imitation of a cat-fight. Five
+minutes later he was addressing the Southern girl as "honey," and had
+informed Jill that he had only joined this show to fill in before
+opening on the three-a-day with the swellest little song-and-dance act
+which he and a little girl who worked in the cabaret at Geisenheimer's
+had fixed up.
+
+On this scene of harmony and good-fellowship Mr. Saltzburg's chord
+intruded jarringly. There was a general movement, and chairs and
+benches were dragged to the piano. Mr. Saltzburg causing a momentary
+delay by opening a large brown music-bag and digging in it like a
+terrier at a rat-hole, conversation broke out again.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg emerged from the bag, with his hands full of papers,
+protesting.
+
+"Childrun! Chil-_drun_! If you please, less noise and attend to me!"
+He distributed sheets of paper. "Act One, Opening Chorus. I will play
+the melody three--four times. Follow attentively. Then we will sing it
+la-la-la, and after that we will sing the words. So!"
+
+He struck the yellow-keyed piano a vicious blow, producing a tinny and
+complaining sound. Bending forward with his spectacles almost touching
+the music, he plodded determinedly through the tune, then encored
+himself, and after that encored himself again. When he had done this,
+he removed his spectacles and wiped them. There was a pause.
+
+"Izzy," observed the willowy young lady chattily, leaning across Jill
+and addressing the Southern girl's blonde friend, "has promised me a
+sunburst!"
+
+A general stir of interest and a coming close together of heads.
+
+"What! Izzy!"
+
+"Sure, Izzy."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"He's just landed the hat-check privilege at the St. Aurea!"
+
+"You don't say!"
+
+"He told me so last night and promised me the sunburst. He was,"
+admitted the willowy girl regretfully, "a good bit tanked at the time,
+but I guess he'll make good." She mused awhile, a rather anxious
+expression clouding her perfect profile. She looked like a meditative
+Greek goddess. "If he doesn't," she added with maidenly dignity, "it's
+the last time _I_ go out with the big stiff. I'd tie a can to him
+quicker'n look at him!"
+
+A murmur of approval greeted this admirable sentiment.
+
+"Childrun!" protested Mr. Saltzburg. "Chil-drun! Less noise and
+chatter of conversation. We are here to work! We must not waste time!
+So! Act One, Opening Chorus. Now, all together. La-la-la...."
+
+"La-la-la...."
+
+"Tum-tum-tumty-tumty...."
+
+"Tum-tum-tumty...."
+
+Mr. Saltzburg pressed his hands to his ears in a spasm of pain.
+
+"No, no, no! Sour! Sour! Sour!... Once again. La-la-la...."
+
+A round-faced girl with golden hair and the face of a wondering cherub
+interrupted, speaking with a lisp.
+
+"Mithter Thalzburg."
+
+"Now what is it, Miss Trevor?"
+
+"What sort of a show is this?"
+
+"A musical show," said Mr. Saltzburg severely, "and this is a
+rehearsal of it, not a conversazione. Once more, please."
+
+The cherub was not to be rebuffed.
+
+"Is the music good, Mithter Thalzburg?"
+
+"When you have rehearsed it, you shall judge for yourself. Come
+now...."
+
+"Is there anything in it as good as that waltz of yours you played us
+when we were rehearthing 'Mind How You Go?' You remember. The one that
+went...."
+
+A tall and stately girl, with sleepy brown eyes and the air of a
+duchess in the servants' hall, bent forward and took a kindly interest
+in the conversation.
+
+"Oh, have you composed a varlse, Mr. Saltzburg?" she asked with
+pleasant condescension. "How interesting, really! Won't you play it
+for us?"
+
+The sentiment of the meeting seemed to be unanimous in favour of
+shelving work and listening to Mr. Saltzburg's waltz.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Saltzburg, do!"
+
+"Please!"
+
+"Some one told me it was a pipterino!"
+
+"I cert'nly do love waltzes!"
+
+"Please, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg obviously weakened. His fingers touched the keys
+irresolutely.
+
+"But, childrun!"
+
+"I am sure it would be a great pleasure to all of us," said the
+duchess graciously, "if you would play it. There is nothing I enjoy
+more than a good varlse."
+
+Mr. Saltzburg capitulated. Like all musical directors he had in his
+leisure moments composed the complete score of a musical play and
+spent much of his time waylaying librettists on the Rialto and trying
+to lure them to his apartment to listen to it, with a view to
+business. The eternal tragedy of a musical director's life is
+comparable only to that of the waiter who, himself fasting, has to
+assist others to eat. Mr. Saltzburg had lofty ideas on music, and his
+soul revolted at being compelled perpetually to rehearse and direct
+the inferior compositions of other men. Far less persuasion than he
+had received to-day was usually required to induce him to play the
+whole of his score.
+
+"You wish it?" he said. "Well, then! This waltz, you will understand,
+is the theme of a musical romance which I have composed. It will be
+sung once in the first act by the heroine, then in the second act as a
+duet for heroine and hero. I weave it into the finale of the second
+act, and we have an echo of it, sung off stage, in the third act. What
+I play you now is the second act duet. The verse is longer. So! The
+male voice begins."
+
+A pleasant time was had by all for ten minutes.
+
+"Ah, but this is not rehearsing, childrun!" cried Mr. Saltzburg
+remorsefully at the end of that period. "This is not business. Come
+now, the opening chorus of Act One, and please this time keep on the
+key. Before, it was sour, sour Come! La-la-la...."
+
+"Mr. Thalzburg!"
+
+"Miss Trevor?"
+
+"There was an awfully thweet fox-trot you used to play us. I do
+wish...."
+
+"Some other time, some other time! Now we must work. Come!
+La-la-la...."
+
+"I wish you could have heard it, girls" said the cherub regretfully.
+"Honetht, it was lalapalootha!"
+
+The pack broke into full cry.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+"Please, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+"Do play the fox-trot, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+"If it is as good as the varlse," said the duchess, stooping once more
+to the common level, "I am sure it must be very good indeed." She
+powdered her nose. "And one so rarely hears musicianly music nowadays,
+does one?"
+
+"Which fox-trot?" asked Mr. Saltzburg weakly.
+
+"Play 'em all!" decided a voice on the left.
+
+"Yes, play 'em all," bayed the pack.
+
+"I am sure that that would be charming," agreed the duchess, replacing
+her powder-puff.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg played 'em all. This man by now seemed entirely lost to
+shame. The precious minutes that belonged to his employers and should
+have been earmarked for "The Rose of America" flitted by. The ladies
+and gentlemen of the ensemble, who should have been absorbing and
+learning to deliver the melodies of Roland Trevis and the lyrics of
+Otis Pilkington, lolled back in their seats. The yellow-keyed piano
+rocked beneath an unprecedented onslaught. The proceedings had begun
+to resemble not so much a rehearsal as a happy home evening, and
+grateful glances were cast at the complacent cherub. She had, it was
+felt, shown tact and discretion.
+
+Pleasant conversation began again.
+
+"... And I walked a couple of blocks, and there was exactly the same
+model in Schwartz and Gulderstein's window at twenty-six fifty...."
+
+"... He got on Forty-second Street, and he was kinda fresh from the
+start. At Sixty-sixth he came sasshaying right down the car and said
+'Hello, patootie!' Well, I drew myself up...."
+
+"... Even if you are my sister's husband,' I said to him. Oh, I
+suppose I got a temper. It takes a lot to arouse it, y'know, but I c'n
+get pretty mad...."
+
+"... You don't know the half of it, dearie, you don't know the half of
+it! A one-piece bathing suit! Well, you could call it that, but the
+cop of the beach said it was more like a baby's sock. And when...."
+
+"... So I said 'Listen, Izzy, that'll be about all from you! My father
+was a gentleman, though I don't suppose you know what that means, and
+I'm not accustomed....'"
+
+"Hey!"
+
+A voice from the neighbourhood of the door had cut into the babble
+like a knife into butter; a rough, rasping voice, loud and compelling,
+which caused the conversation of the members of the ensemble to cease
+on the instant. Only Mr. Saltzburg, now in a perfect frenzy of
+musicianly fervour, continued to assault the decrepit piano, unwitting
+of an unsympathetic addition to his audience.
+
+"What I play you now is the laughing trio from my second act. It is a
+building number. It is sung by tenor, principal comedian, and
+soubrette. On the second refrain four girls will come out and two
+boys. The girls will dance with the two men, the boys with the
+soubrette. So! On the encore four more girls and two more boys. Third
+encore, solo-dance for specialty dancer, all on stage beating time by
+clapping their hands. On repeat, all sing refrain once more, and off.
+Last encore, the three principals and specialty dancer dance the dance
+with entire chorus. It is a great building number, you understand. It
+is enough to make the success of any musical play, but can I get a
+hearing? No! If I ask managers to listen to my music, they are busy!
+If I beg them to give me a libretto to set, they laugh--ha! ha!" Mr.
+Saltzburg gave a spirited and lifelike representation of a manager
+laughing ha-ha when begged to disgorge a libretto. "Now I play it once
+more!"
+
+"Like hell you do!" said the voice. "Say, what is this, anyway? A
+concert?"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg swung round on the music-stool, a startled and
+apprehensive man, and nearly fell off it. The divine afflatus left him
+like air oozing from a punctured toy-balloon, and, like such a
+balloon, he seemed to grow suddenly limp and flat. He stared with
+fallen jaw at the new arrival.
+
+Two men had entered the room. One was the long Mr. Pilkington. The
+other, who looked shorter and stouter than he really was beside his
+giraffe-like companion, was a thick-set, fleshy man in the early
+thirties with a blond, clean-shaven, double-chinned face. He had
+smooth, yellow hair, an unwholesome complexion, and light green eyes,
+set close together. From the edge of the semi-circle about the piano,
+he glared menacingly over the heads of the chorus at the unfortunate
+Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"Why aren't these girls working?"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg, who had risen nervously from his stool, backed away
+apprehensively from his gaze, and, stumbling over the stool, sat down
+abruptly on the piano, producing a curious noise like Futurist music.
+
+"I--We--Why, Mr. Goble...."
+
+Mr. Goble turned his green gaze on the concert audience, and spread
+discomfort as if it were something liquid which he was spraying
+through a hose. The girls who were nearest looked down flutteringly at
+their shoes: those further away concealed themselves behind their
+neighbours. Even the duchess, who prided herself on being the
+possessor of a stare of unrivalled haughtiness, before which the fresh
+quailed and those who made breaks subsided in confusion, was unable to
+meet his eyes: and the willowy friend of Izzy, for all her victories
+over that monarch of the hat-checks, bowed before it like a slim tree
+before a blizzard.
+
+Only Jill returned the manager's gaze. She was seated on the outer rim
+of the semi-circle, and she stared frankly at Mr. Goble. She had never
+seen anything like him before, and he fascinated her. This behaviour
+on her part singled her out from the throng, and Mr. Goble
+concentrated his attention on her.
+
+For some seconds he stood looking at her; then, raising a stubby
+finger, he let his eye travel over the company, and seemed to be
+engrossed in some sort of mathematical calculation.
+
+"Thirteen," he said at length. "I make it thirteen." He rounded on Mr.
+Pilkington. "I told you we were going to have a chorus of twelve."
+
+Mr. Pilkington blushed and stumbled over his feet.
+
+"Ah, yes ... yes," he murmured vaguely. "Yes!"
+
+"Well, there are thirteen here. Count 'em for yourself." He whipped
+round on Jill. "What's _your_ name? Who engaged you?"
+
+A croaking sound from the neighbourhood of the ceiling indicated the
+clearing of Mr. Pilkington's throat.
+
+"I--er--_I_ engaged Miss Mariner, Mr. Goble."
+
+"Oh, _you_ engaged her?"
+
+He stared again at Jill. The inspection was long and lingering, and
+affected Jill with a sense of being inadequately clothed. She returned
+the gaze as defiantly as she could, but her heart was beating fast.
+She had never yet been frightened of any man, but there was something
+reptilian about this fat, yellow-haired individual which disquieted
+her, much as cockroaches had done in her childhood. A momentary
+thought flashed through her mind that it would be horrible to be
+touched by him. He looked soft and glutinous.
+
+"All right," said Mr. Goble at last, after what seemed to Jill many
+minutes. He nodded to Mr. Saltzburg. "Get on with it! And try working
+a little this time! I don't hire you to give musical entertainments."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Goble, yes. I mean no, Mr. Goble!"
+
+"You can have the Gotham stage this afternoon," said Mr. Goble. "Call
+the rehearsal for two sharp."
+
+Outside the door, he turned to Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"That was a fool trick of yours, hiring that girl. Thirteen! I'd as
+soon walk under a ladder on a Friday as open in New York with a chorus
+of thirteen. Well, it don't matter. We can sack one of 'em after we've
+opened on the road." He mused for a moment. "Darned pretty girl,
+that!" he went on meditatively. "Where did you get her?"
+
+"She--ah--came into the office, when you were out. She struck me as
+being essentially the type we required for our ensemble, so
+I--er--engaged her. She--" Mr. Pilkington gulped. "She is a charming,
+refined girl!"
+
+"She's darned pretty," admitted Mr. Goble, and went on his way wrapped
+in thought, Mr. Pilkington following timorously. It was episodes like
+the one that had just concluded which made Otis Pilkington wish that
+he possessed a little more assertion. He regretted wistfully that he
+was not one of those men who can put their hat on the side of their
+heads and shoot out their chins and say to the world "Well, what about
+it!" He was bearing the financial burden of this production. If it
+should be a failure, his would be the loss. Yet somehow this coarse,
+rough person in front of him never seemed to allow him a word in the
+executive policy of the piece. He treated him as a child. He
+domineered and he shouted, and behaved as if he were in sole command.
+Mr Pilkington sighed. He rather wished he had never gone into this
+undertaking.
+
+Inside the room, Mr. Saltzburg wiped his forehead, his spectacles, and
+his hands. He had the aspect of one who wakes from a dreadful dream.
+
+"Childrun!" he whispered brokenly. "Childrun! If you please, once
+more. Act One, Opening Chorus. Come! La-la-la!"
+
+"La-la-la!" chanted the subdued members of the ensemble.
+
+
+II
+
+By the time the two halves of the company, ensemble and principals,
+melted into one complete whole, the novelty of her new surroundings
+had worn off, and Jill was feeling that there had never been a time
+when she had not been one of a theatrical troupe, rehearsing. The
+pleasant social gatherings round Mr. Saltzburg's piano gave way in a
+few days to something far less agreeable and infinitely more
+strenuous, the breaking-in of the dances under the supervision of the
+famous Johnson Miller. Johnson Miller was a little man with snow-white
+hair and the india-rubber physique of a juvenile acrobat. Nobody knew
+actually how old he was, but he certainly looked much too advanced in
+years to be capable of the feats of endurance which he performed
+daily. He had the untiring enthusiasm of a fox-terrier, and had
+bullied and scolded more companies along the rocky road that leads to
+success than any half-dozen dance-directors in the country, in spite
+of his handicap in being almost completely deaf. He had an almost
+miraculous gift of picking up the melodies for which it was his
+business to design dances, without apparently hearing them. He seemed
+to absorb them through the pores. He had a blunt and arbitrary manner,
+and invariably spoke his mind frankly and honestly--a habit which made
+him strangely popular in a profession where the language of equivoque
+is cultivated almost as sedulously as in the circles of international
+diplomacy. What Johnson Miller said to your face was official, not
+subject to revision as soon as your back was turned, and people
+appreciated this.
+
+Izzy's willowy friend summed him up one evening when the ladies of the
+ensemble were changing their practice-clothes after a particularly
+strenuous rehearsal, defending him against the Southern girl, who
+complained that he made her tired.
+
+"You bet he makes you tired," she said. "So he does me. I'm losing my
+girlish curves, and I'm so stiff I can't lace my shoes. But he knows
+his business and he's on the level, which is more than you can say of
+most of these guys in the show business."
+
+"That's right," agreed the Southern girl's blonde friend. "He does
+know his business. He's put over any amount of shows which would have
+flopped like dogs without him to stage the numbers."
+
+The duchess yawned. Rehearsing always bored her, and she had not been
+greatly impressed by what she had seen of "The Rose of America."
+
+"One will be greatly surprised if he can make a success of _this_
+show! I confess I find it perfectly ridiculous."
+
+"Ithn't it the limit, honetht!" said the cherub, arranging her golden
+hair at the mirror. "It maketh me thick! Why on earth ith Ike putting
+it on?"
+
+The girl who knew everything--there is always one in every
+company--hastened to explain.
+
+"I heard all about that. Ike hasn't any of his own money in the thing.
+He's getting twenty-five per cent of the show for running it. The
+angel is the long fellow you see jumping around. Pilkington his name
+is."
+
+"Well, it'll need to be Rockefeller later on," said the blonde.
+
+"Oh, they'll get thomebody down to fixth it after we've been out on
+the road a couple of days," said the cherub, optimistically. "They
+alwayth do. I've seen worse shows than this turned into hits. All it
+wants ith a new book and lyrics and a different thcore."
+
+"And a new set of principals," said the red-headed Babe. "Did you ever
+see such a bunch?"
+
+The duchess, with another tired sigh, arched her well-shaped eyebrows
+and studied the effect in the mirror.
+
+"One wonders where they pick these persons up," she assented
+languidly. "They remind me of a headline I saw in the paper this
+morning--'Tons of Hams Unfit for Human Consumption.' Are any of you
+girls coming my way? I Can give two or three of you a lift in my
+limousine."
+
+"Thorry, old dear, and thanks ever so much," said the cherub, "but I
+instructed Clarence, my man, to have the street-car waiting on the
+corner, and he'll be too upset if I'm not there."
+
+Nelly had an engagement to go and help one of the other girls buy a
+Spring suit, a solemn rite which it is impossible to conduct by
+oneself: and Jill and the cherub walked to the corner together. Jill
+had become very fond of the little thing since rehearsals began. She
+reminded her of a London sparrow. She was so small and perky and so
+absurdly able to take care of herself.
+
+"Limouthine!" snorted the cherub. The duchess' concluding speech
+evidently still rankled. "She gives me a pain in the gizthard!"
+
+"Hasn't she got a limousine?" asked Jill.
+
+"Of course she hasn't. She's engaged to be married to a demonstrator
+in the Speedwell Auto Company, and he thneaks off when he can get away
+and gives her joy-rides. That's all the limouthine she's got. It beats
+me why girls in the show business are alwayth tho crazy to make
+themselves out vamps with a dozen millionaires on a string. If Mae
+wouldn't four-flush and act like the Belle of the Moulin Rouge, she'd
+be the nithest girl you ever met. She's mad about the fellow she's
+engaged to, and wouldn't look at all the millionaires in New York if
+you brought 'em to her on a tray. She's going to marry him as thoon as
+he's thaved enough to buy the furniture, and then she'll thettle down
+in Harlem thomewhere and cook and mind the baby and regularly be one
+of the lower middle classes. All that's wrong with Mae ith that she's
+read Gingery Stories and thinkth that's the way a girl has to act when
+she'th in the chorus."
+
+"That's funny," said Jill. "I should never have thought it. I
+swallowed the limousine whole."
+
+The cherub looked at her curiously. Jill puzzled her. Jill had,
+indeed, been the subject of much private speculation among her
+colleagues.
+
+"This is your first show, ithn't it?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Thay, what are you doing in the chorus, anyway?"
+
+"Getting scolded by Mr. Miller mostly, it seems to me.
+
+"Thcolded by Mr. Miller! Why didn't you say 'bawled out by Johnny'?
+That'th what any of the retht of us would have said."
+
+"Well, I've lived most of my life in England. You can't expect me to
+talk the language yet."
+
+"I thought you were English. You've got an acthent like the fellow who
+plays the dude in thith show. Thay, why did you ever get into the show
+business?"
+
+"Well ... well, why did you? Why does anybody?"
+
+"Why did I? Oh, I belong there. I'm a regular Broadway rat. I wouldn't
+be happy anywhere elthe. I was born in the show business. I've got two
+thithters in the two-a-day and a brother in thtock in California and
+dad's one of the betht comedians on the burlethque wheel. But any one
+can thee you're different. There's no reathon why you should be
+sticking around in the chorus."
+
+"But there is. I've no money, and I can't do anything to make it."
+
+"Honetht?"
+
+"Honest."
+
+"That's tough." The cherub pondered, her round eyes searching Jill's
+face. "Why don't you get married?"
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"Nobody's asked me."
+
+"Somebody thoon will. At least, if he's on the level, and I think he
+is. You can generally tell by the look of a guy, and, if you ask me,
+friend Pilkington's got the licence in hith pocket and the ring all
+ordered and everything."
+
+"Pilkington!" cried Jill aghast.
+
+She remembered certain occasions during rehearsals, when, while the
+chorus idled in the body of the theatre and listened to the principals
+working at their scenes, the elongated Pilkington had suddenly
+appeared in the next seat and conversed sheepishly in a low voice.
+Could this be love? If so, it was a terrible nuisance. Jill had had
+her experience in London of enamoured young men who, running true to
+national form, declined to know when they were beaten, and she had not
+enjoyed the process of cooling their ardour. She had a kind heart, and
+it distressed her to give pain. It also got on her nerves to be dogged
+by stricken males who tried to catch her eye in order that she might
+observe their broken condition. She recalled one house-party in Wales
+where it rained all the time and she had been cooped up with a victim
+who kept popping out from obscure corners and beginning all his pleas
+with the words "I say, you know...!" She trusted that Otis Pilkington
+was not proposing to conduct a wooing on those lines. Yet he had
+certainly developed a sinister habit of popping out at the theatre. On
+several occasions he had startled her by appearing at her side as if
+he had come up out of a trap.
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Jill.
+
+"Oh, yeth!" insisted the cherub, waving imperiously to an approaching
+street-car. "Well, I must be getting up-town. I've got a date. Thee
+you later."
+
+"I'm sure you're mistaken."
+
+"I'm not."
+
+"But what makes you think so?"
+
+The cherub placed a hand on the rail of the car, preparatory to
+swinging herself on board.
+
+"Well, for one thing," she said, "he'th been stalking you like an
+Indian ever since we left the theatre! Look behind you. Good-bye,
+honey. Thend me a piece of the cake!"
+
+The street-car bore her away. The last that Jill saw of her was a wide
+and amiable grin. Then, turning, she beheld the snake-like form of
+Otis Pilkington towering at her side.
+
+Mr. Pilkington seemed nervous but determined. His face was half hidden
+by the silk scarf that muffled his throat, for he was careful of his
+health and had a fancied tendency to bronchial trouble. Above the
+scarf a pair of mild eyes gazed down at Jill through their
+tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles. It was hopeless for Jill to try to
+tell herself that the tender gleam behind the glass was not the love
+light in Otis Pilkington's eyes. The truth was too obvious.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington, his voice sounding
+muffled and far away through the scarf. "Are you going up-town?"
+
+"No, down-town," said Jill quickly.
+
+"So am I," said Mr. Pilkington.
+
+Jill felt annoyed, but helpless. It is difficult to bid a tactful
+farewell to a man who has stated his intention of going in the same
+direction as yourself. There was nothing for it but to accept the
+unspoken offer of Otis Pilkington's escort. They began to walk down
+Broadway together.
+
+"I suppose you are tired after the rehearsal?" enquired Mr.
+Pilkington in his precise voice. He always spoke as if he were
+weighing each word and clipping it off a reel.
+
+"A little. Mr. Miller is very enthusiastic."
+
+"About the piece?" Her companion spoke eagerly.
+
+"No; I meant hard-working."
+
+"Has he said anything about the piece?"
+
+"Well, no. You see, he doesn't confide in us a great deal, except to
+tell us his opinion of the way we do the steps. I don't think we
+impress him very much, to judge from what he says. But the girls say
+he always tells every chorus he rehearses that it is the worst he ever
+had anything to do with."
+
+"And the chor--the--er--ladies of the ensemble? What do they think of
+the piece?"
+
+"Well, I don't suppose they are very good judges, are they?" said Jill
+diplomatically.
+
+"You mean they do not like it?"
+
+"Some of them don't seem quite to understand it."
+
+Mr. Pilkington was silent for a moment.
+
+"I am beginning to wonder myself whether it may not be a little over
+the heads of the public," he said ruefully. "When it was first
+performed...."
+
+"Oh, has it been done before?"
+
+"By amateurs, yes, at the house of my aunt, Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim,
+at Newport, last summer. In aid of the Armenian orphans. It was
+extraordinarily well received on that occasion. We nearly made our
+expenses. It was such a success that--I feel I can confide in you. I
+should not like this repeated to your--your--the other ladies--it was
+such a success that, against my aunt's advice, I decided to give it a
+Broadway production. Between ourselves, I am shouldering practically
+all the expenses of the undertaking. Mr. Goble has nothing to do with
+the financial arrangements of 'The Rose of America.' Those are
+entirely in my hands. Mr. Goble, in return for a share in the profits,
+is giving us the benefit of his experience as regards the management
+and booking of the piece. I have always had the greatest faith in it.
+Trevis and I wrote it when we were in college together, and all our
+friends thought it exceptionally brilliant. My aunt, as I say, was
+opposed to the venture. She holds the view that I am not a good man of
+business. In a sense, perhaps, she is right. Temperamentally, no
+doubt, I am more the artist. But I was determined to show the public
+something superior to the so-called Broadway successes, which are so
+terribly trashy. Unfortunately, I am beginning to wonder whether it is
+possible, with the crude type of actor at one's disposal in this
+country, to give a really adequate performance of such a play as 'The
+Rose of America.' These people seem to miss the spirit of the piece,
+its subtle topsy-turvy humour, its delicate whimsicality. This
+afternoon," Mr. Pilkington choked. "This afternoon I happened to
+overhear two of the principals, who were not aware that I was within
+earshot, discussing the play. One of them--these people express
+themselves curiously--one of them said that he thought it a quince:
+and the other described it as a piece of gorgonzola cheese! That is
+not the spirit that wins success!"
+
+Jill was feeling immensely relieved. After all, it seemed, this poor
+young man merely wanted sympathy, not romance. She had been mistaken,
+she felt, about that gleam in his eyes. It was not the lovelight: it
+was the light of panic. He was the author of the play. He had sunk a
+large sum of money in its production, he had heard people criticizing
+it harshly, and he was suffering from what her colleagues in the
+chorus would have called cold feet. It was such a human emotion and he
+seemed so like an overgrown child pleading to be comforted that her
+heart warmed to him. Relief melted her defences. And when, on their
+arrival at Thirty-fourth Street Mr. Pilkington suggested that she
+partake of a cup of tea at his apartment, which was only a couple of
+blocks away off Madison Avenue, she accepted the invitation without
+hesitating.
+
+On the way to his apartment Mr. Pilkington continued in the minor key.
+He was a great deal more communicative than she herself would have
+been to such a comparative stranger as she was, but she knew that men
+were often like this. Over in London, she had frequently been made the
+recipient of the most intimate confidences by young men whom she had
+met for the first time the same evening at a dance. She had been
+forced to believe that there was something about her personality that
+acted on a certain type of man like the crack in the dam, setting
+loose the surging flood of their eloquence. To this class Otis
+Pilkington evidently belonged, for, once started, he withheld nothing.
+
+"It isn't that I'm dependent on Aunt Olive or anything like that," he
+vouchsafed, as he stirred the tea in his Japanese-print hung studio.
+"But you know how it is. Aunt Olive is in a position to make it very
+unpleasant for me if I do anything foolish. At present, I have reason
+to know that she intends to leave me practically all that she
+possesses. Millions!" said Mr. Pilkington, handing Jill a cup. "I
+assure you, millions! But there is a hard commercial strain in her. It
+would have the most prejudicial effect upon her if; especially after
+she had expressly warned me against it, I were to lose a great deal of
+money over this production. She is always complaining that I am not a
+business man like my late uncle. Mr. Waddesleigh Peagrim made a
+fortune in smoked hams." Mr. Pilkington looked at the Japanese prints,
+and shuddered slightly. "Right up to the time of his death he was
+urging me to go into the business. I could not have endured it. But,
+when I heard those two men discussing the play, I almost wished that I
+had done so."
+
+Jill was now completely disarmed. She would almost have patted this
+unfortunate young man's head, if she could have reached it.
+
+"I shouldn't worry about the piece," she said. "I've read somewhere or
+heard somewhere that it's the surest sign of a success when actors
+don't like a play."
+
+Mr. Pilkington drew his chair an imperceptible inch nearer.
+
+"How sympathetic you are!"
+
+Jill perceived with chagrin that she had been mistaken after all. It
+_was_ the love light. The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles sprayed it
+all over her like a couple of searchlights. Otis Pilkington was
+looking exactly like a sheep, and she knew from past experience that
+that was the infallible sign. When young men looked like that, it was
+time to go.
+
+"I'm afraid I must be off," she said. "Thank you so much for giving me
+tea. I shouldn't be a bit afraid about the play. I'm sure it's going
+to be splendid. Good-bye."
+
+"You aren't going already?"
+
+"I must. I'm very late as it is. I promised...."
+
+Whatever fiction Jill might have invented to the detriment of her soul
+was interrupted by a ring at the bell. The steps of Mr. Pilkington's
+Japanese servant crossing the hall came faintly to the sitting-room.
+
+"Mr. Pilkington in?"
+
+Otis Pilkington motioned pleadingly to Jill.
+
+"Don't go!" he urged. "It's only a man I know. He has probably come
+to remind me that I am dining with him to-night. He won't stay a
+minute. Please don't go."
+
+Jill sat down. She had no intention of going now. The cheery voice at
+the front door had been the cheery voice of her long-lost uncle, Major
+Christopher Selby.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+UNCLE CHRIS BORROWS A FLAT
+
+I
+
+
+Uncle Chris walked breezily into the room, flicking a jaunty glove. He
+stopped short on seeing that Mr. Pilkington was not alone.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon! I understood...." He peered at Jill
+uncertainly. Mr. Pilkington affected a dim, artistic lighting-system
+in his studio, and people who entered from the great outdoors
+generally had to take time to accustom their eyes to it. "If you're
+engaged...."
+
+"Er--allow me.... Miss Mariner.... Major Selby."
+
+"Hullo, Uncle Chris!" said Jill.
+
+"God bless my soul!" ejaculated that startled gentleman adventurer,
+and collapsed on to a settee as if his legs had been mown from under
+him.
+
+"I've been looking for you all over New York," said Jill.
+
+Mr. Pilkington found himself unequal to the intellectual pressure of
+the conversation.
+
+"Uncle Chris?" he said with a note of feeble enquiry in his voice.
+
+"Major Selby is my uncle."
+
+"Are you sure?" said Mr. Pilkington. "I mean...."
+
+Not being able to ascertain, after a moment's self-examination, what
+he did mean, he relapsed into silence.
+
+"Whatever are you doing here?" asked Uncle Chris.
+
+"I've been having tea with Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"But ... but why Mr. Pilkington?"
+
+"Well, he invited me."
+
+"But how do you know him?"
+
+"We met at the theatre."
+
+"Theatre?"
+
+Otis Pilkington recovered his power of speech.
+
+"Miss Mariner is rehearsing with a little play in which I am
+interested," he explained.
+
+Uncle Chris half rose from the settee. He blinked twice in rapid
+succession. Jill had never seen him so shaken from his customary
+poise.
+
+"Don't tell me you have gone on the stage, Jill!"
+
+"I have. I'm in the chorus...."
+
+"Ensemble," corrected Mr. Pilkington softly.
+
+"I'm in the ensemble of a piece called 'The Rose of America.' We've
+been rehearsing for ever so long."
+
+Uncle Chris digested this information in silence for a moment He
+pulled at his short moustache.
+
+"Why, of course!" he said at length. Jill, who knew him so well, could
+tell by the restored ring of cheeriness in his tone that he was
+himself again. He had dealt with this situation in his mind and was
+prepared to cope with it. The surmise was confirmed the next instant
+when he rose and stationed himself in front of the fire. Mr.
+Pilkington detested steam-heat and had scoured the city till he had
+found a studio apartment with an open fireplace. Uncle Chris spread
+his legs and expanded his chest. "Of course," he said. "I remember now
+that you told me in your letter that you were thinking of going on the
+stage. My niece," explained Uncle Chris to the attentive Mr.
+Pilkington, "came over from England on a later boat. I was not
+expecting her for some weeks. Hence my surprise at meeting her here.
+Of course. You told me that you intended to go on the stage, and I
+strongly recommended you to begin at the bottom of the ladder and
+learn the ground-work thoroughly before you attempted higher flights."
+
+"Oh, that was it?" said Mr. Pilkington. He had been wondering.
+
+"There is no finer training," resumed Uncle Chris, completely at his
+ease once more, "than the chorus. How many of the best-known actresses
+in America began in that way! Dozens. Dozens. If I were giving advice
+to any young girl with theatrical aspirations, I should say 'Begin in
+the chorus!' On the other hand," he proceeded, turning to Mr.
+Pilkington, "I think it would be just as well if you would not mention
+the fact of my niece being in that position to Mrs. Waddesleigh
+Peagrim. She might not understand."
+
+"Exactly," assented Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"The term 'chorus'...."
+
+"I dislike it intensely myself."
+
+"It suggests...."
+
+"Precisely."
+
+Uncle Chris inflated his chest again, well satisfied.
+
+"Capital!" he said. "Well, I only dropped in to remind you, my boy,
+that you and your aunt are dining with me to-night. I was afraid a
+busy man like you might forget."
+
+"I was looking forward to it," said Mr. Pilkington, charmed at the
+description.
+
+"You remember the address? Nine East Forty-first Street. I have moved,
+you remember."
+
+"So that was why I couldn't find you at the other place," said Jill.
+"The man at the door said he had never heard of you."
+
+"Stupid idiot!" said Uncle Chris testily. "These New York hall-porters
+are recruited entirely from homes for the feeble-minded. I suppose he
+was a new man. Well, Pilkington, my boy, I shall expect you at seven
+o'clock. Good-bye till then. Come, Jill."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Pilkington," said Jill.
+
+"Good-bye for the present, Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington, bending
+down to take her hand. The tortoise-shell spectacles shot a last soft
+beam at her.
+
+As the front door closed behind them, Uncle Chris heaved a sigh of
+relief.
+
+"Whew! I think I handled that little contretemps with diplomacy! A
+certain amount of diplomacy, I think!"
+
+"If you mean," said Jill severely, "that you told some disgraceful
+fibs...."
+
+"Fibs, my dear--or shall we say, artistic mouldings of the unshapely
+clay of truth--are the ... how shall I put it?... Well, anyway, they
+come in dashed handy. It would never have done for Mrs. Peagrim to
+have found out that you were in the chorus. If she discovered that my
+niece was in the chorus, she would infallibly suspect me of being an
+adventurer. And while," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "of course I
+_am_, it is nice to have one's little secrets. The good lady has had a
+rooted distaste for girls in that perfectly honourable but maligned
+profession ever since our long young friend back there was sued for
+breach of promise by a member of a touring company in his second year
+at college. We all have our prejudices. That is hers. However, I
+think, we may rely on our friend to say nothing about the matter....
+But why did you do it? My dear child, whatever induced you to take
+such a step?"
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"That's practically what Mr. Miller said to me when we were rehearsing
+one of the dances this afternoon, only he put it differently." She
+linked her arm in his. "What else could I do? I was alone in New York
+with the remains of that twenty dollars you sent me and no more in
+sight."
+
+"But why didn't you stay down at Brookport with your Uncle Elmer?"
+
+"Have you ever seen my Uncle Elmer?"
+
+"No. Curiously enough, I never have."
+
+"If you had, you wouldn't ask. Brookport! Ugh! I left when they tried
+to get me to understudy the hired man, who had resigned."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes, they got tired of supporting me in the state to which I was
+accustomed--I don't blame them!--so they began to find ways of making
+me useful about the home. I didn't mind reading to Aunt Julia, and I
+could just stand taking Tibby for walks. But, when it came to
+shoveling snow, I softly and silently vanished away."
+
+"But I can't understand all this. I suggested to your
+uncle--diplomatically--that you had large private means."
+
+"I know you did. And he spent all his time showing me over houses and
+telling me I could have them for a hundred thousand dollars cash
+down." Jill bubbled. "You should have seen his face when I told him
+that twenty dollars was all I had in the world!"
+
+"You didn't tell him that!"
+
+"I did."
+
+Uncle Chris shook his head, like an indulgent father disappointed in a
+favourite child.
+
+"You're a dear girl, Jill, but really you do seem totally lacking
+in ... how shall I put it?--finesse. Your mother was just the same. A
+sweet woman, but with no diplomacy, no notion of _handling_ a
+situation. I remember her as a child giving me away hopelessly on one
+occasion after we had been at the jam-cupboard. She did not mean any
+harm, but she was constitutionally incapable of a tactful negative at
+the right time." Uncle Chris brooded for a moment on the past. "Oh,
+well, it's a very fine trait, no doubt, though inconvenient. I don't
+blame you for leaving Brookport if you weren't happy there. But I wish
+you had consulted me before going on the stage."
+
+"Shall I strike this man?" asked Jill of the world at large. "How
+could I consult you? My darling, precious uncle, don't you realize
+that you had vanished into thin air, leaving me penniless? I had to do
+something. And, now that we are on the subject, perhaps you will
+explain your movements. Why did you write to me from that place on
+Fifty-seventh Street if you weren't there?"
+
+Uncle Chris cleared his throat.
+
+"In a sense ... when I wrote ... I _was_ there."
+
+"I suppose that means something, but it's beyond me. I'm not nearly as
+intelligent as you think, Uncle Chris, so you'll have to explain."
+
+"Well, it was this way, my dear. I was in a peculiar position you must
+remember. I had made a number of wealthy friends on the boat and it is
+possible that--unwittingly--I gave them the impression that I was as
+comfortably off as themselves. At any rate, that is the impression they
+gathered, and it hardly seemed expedient to correct it. For it is a
+deplorable trait in the character of the majority of rich people that they
+only--er--expand--they only show the best and most companionable side of
+themselves to those whom they imagine to be as wealthy as they are. Well,
+of course, while one was on the boat, the fact that I was sailing under
+what a purist might have termed false colours did not matter. The problem
+was how to keep up the--er--innocent deception after we had reached New
+York. A woman like Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim--a ghastly creature, my dear,
+all front teeth and exuberance, but richer than the Sub-Treasury--looks
+askance at a man, however agreeable, if he endeavours to cement a
+friendship begun on board ship from a cheap boarding-house on Amsterdam
+Avenue. It was imperative that I should find something in the nature of
+what I might call a suitable base of operations. Fortune played into my
+hands. One of the first men I met in New York was an old soldier-servant
+of mine, to whom I had been able to do some kindnesses in the old days. In
+fact--it shows how bread cast upon the waters returns to us after many
+days--it was with the assistance of a small loan from me that he was
+enabled to emigrate to America. Well, I met this man, and, after a short
+conversation, he revealed the fact that he was the hall-porter at that
+apartment-house which you visited, the one on Fifty-Seventh Street. At
+this time of the year, I knew, many wealthy people go south, to Florida
+and the Carolinas, and it occurred to me that there might be a vacant
+apartment in his building. There was. I took it."
+
+"But how on earth could you afford to pay for an apartment in a place
+like that?"
+
+Uncle Chris coughed.
+
+"I didn't say I paid for it. I said I took it. That is, as one might
+say, the point of my story. My old friend, grateful for favours
+received and wishing to do me a good turn, consented to become my
+accomplice in another--er--innocent deception. I gave my friends the
+address and telephone number of the apartment-house, living the while
+myself in surroundings of a somewhat humbler and less expensive
+character. I called every morning for letters. If anybody rang me up
+on the telephone, the admirable man answered in the capacity of my
+servant, took a message, and relayed it on to me at my boarding-house.
+If anybody called, he merely said that I was out. There wasn't a flaw
+in the whole scheme, my dear, and its chief merit was its beautiful
+simplicity."
+
+"Then what made you give it up? Conscience?"
+
+"Conscience never made me give up _anything_," said Uncle Chris
+firmly. "No, there were a hundred chances to one against anything
+going wrong, and it was the hundredth that happened. When you have
+been in New York longer, you will realize that one peculiarity of the
+place is that the working-classes are in a constant state of flux. On
+Monday you meet a plumber. Ah! you say, a plumber! Capital! On the
+following Thursday you meet him again, and he is a car-conductor. Next
+week he will be squirting soda in a drug-store. It's the fault of
+these dashed magazines, with their advertisements of correspondence
+courses--Are You Earning All You Should?--Write To Us and Learn
+Chicken-Farming By Mail.... It puts wrong ideas into the fellows'
+heads. It unsettles them. It was so in this case. Everything was going
+swimmingly, when my man suddenly conceived the idea that destiny had
+intended him for a chauffeur-gardener, and he threw up his position!"
+
+"Leaving you homeless!"
+
+"As you say, homeless--temporarily. But, fortunately--I have been
+amazingly lucky all through; it really does seem as if you cannot keep
+a good man down--fortunately my friend had a friend who was janitor at
+a place on East Forty-first Street, and by a miracle of luck the only
+apartment in the building was empty. It is an office-building, but,
+like some of these places, it has one small bachelor's apartment on
+the top floor."
+
+"And you are the small bachelor?"
+
+"Precisely. My friend explained matters to his friend--a few financial
+details were satisfactorily arranged--and here I am, perfectly happy
+with the cosiest little place in the world, rent free. I am even
+better off than I was before, as a matter of fact, for my new ally's
+wife is an excellent cook, and I have been enabled to give one or two
+very pleasant dinners at my new home. It lends verisimilitude to the
+thing if you can entertain a little. If you are never in when people
+call, they begin to wonder. I am giving dinner to your friend
+Pilkington and Mrs. Peagrim there to-night. Homey, delightful, and
+infinitely cheaper than a restaurant."
+
+"And what will you do when the real owner of the place walks in in the
+middle of dinner?"
+
+"Out of the question. The janitor informs me that he left for England
+some weeks ago, intending to make a stay of several months."
+
+"Well, you certainly think of everything."
+
+"Whatever success I may have achieved," replied Uncle Chris, with the
+dignity of a Captain of Industry confiding in an interviewer, "I
+attribute to always thinking of everything."
+
+Jill gurgled with laughter. There was that about her uncle which
+always acted on her moral sense like an opiate, lulling it to sleep
+and preventing it from rising up and becoming critical. If he had
+stolen a watch and chain, he would somehow have succeeded in
+convincing her that he had acted for the best under the dictates of a
+benevolent altruism.
+
+"What success _have_ you achieved?" she asked, interested. "When you
+left me, you were on your way to find a fortune. Did you find it?"
+
+"I have not actually placed my hands on it yet," admitted Uncle Chris.
+"But it is hovering in the air all round me. I can hear the beating of
+the wings of the dollar-bills as they flutter to and fro, almost
+within reach. Sooner or later I shall grab them. I never forget, my
+dear, that I have a task before me--to restore to you the money of
+which I deprived you. Some day--be sure--I shall do it. Some day you
+will receive a letter from me, containing a large sum--five
+thousand--ten thousand--twenty thousand--whatever it may be, with the
+simple words 'First Instalment.'" He repeated the phrase, as if it
+pleased him. "First Instalment!"
+
+Jill hugged his arm. She was in the mood in which she used to listen
+to him ages ago telling her fairy stories.
+
+"Go on!" she cried. "Go on! It's wonderful! Once upon a time Uncle
+Chris was walking along Fifth Avenue, when he happened to meet a poor
+old woman gathering sticks for firewood. She looked so old and tired
+that he was sorry for her, so he gave her ten cents which he had
+borrowed from the janitor, and suddenly she turned into a beautiful
+girl and said 'I am a fairy! In return for your kindness I grant you
+three wishes!' And Uncle Chris thought for a moment, and said, 'I want
+twenty thousand dollars to send to Jill!' And the fairy said, 'It
+shall be attended to. And the next article?'"
+
+"It is all very well to joke," protested Uncle Chris, pained by this
+flippancy, "but let me tell you that I shall not require magic
+assistance to become a rich man. Do you realize that at houses like
+Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's I am meeting men all the time who have only
+to say one little word to make me a millionaire? They are fat, grey
+men with fishy eyes and large waistcoats, and they sit smoking cigars
+and brooding on what they are going to do to the market next day. If I
+were a mind-reader I could have made a dozen fortunes by now. I sat
+opposite that old pirate, Bruce Bishop, for over an hour the very day
+before he and his gang sent Consolidated Pea-Nuts down twenty points!
+If I had known what was in the wind, I doubt if I could have
+restrained myself from choking his intentions out of the fellow. Well,
+what I am trying to point out is that one of these days one of these
+old oysters will have a fleeting moment of human pity and disgorge
+some tip on which I can act. It is that reflection that keeps me so
+constantly at Mrs. Peagrim's house." Uncle Chris shivered slightly. "A
+fearsome woman, my dear! Weighs a hundred and eighty pounds and as
+skittish as a young lamb in springtime! She makes me dance with her!"
+Uncle Chris' lips quivered in a spasm of pain, and he was silent for a
+moment. "Thank Heaven I was once a footballer!" he said reverently.
+
+"But what do you live on?" asked Jill. "I know you are going to be a
+millionaire next Tuesday week, but how are you getting along in the
+meantime?"
+
+Uncle Chris coughed.
+
+"Well, as regards actual living expenses, I have managed by a shrewd
+business stroke to acquire a small but sufficient income. I live in a
+boarding-house--true--but I contrive to keep the wolf away from its
+door--which, by the by, badly needs a lick of paint. Have you ever
+heard of Nervino?"
+
+"I don't think so. It sounds like a patent medicine."
+
+"It _is_ a patent medicine." Uncle Chris stopped and looked anxiously
+at her. "Jill, you're looking pale, my dear."
+
+"Am I? We had rather a tiring rehearsal."
+
+"Are you sure," said Uncle Chris seriously, "that it is only that? Are
+you sure that your vitality has not become generally lowered by the
+fierce rush of Metropolitan life? Are you aware of the things that can
+happen to you if you allow the red corpuscles of your blood to become
+devitalised? I had a friend...."
+
+"Stop! You're scaring me to death!"
+
+Uncle Chris gave his moustache a satisfied twirl.
+
+"Just what I meant to do, my dear. And, when I had scared you
+sufficiently--you wouldn't wait for the story of my consumptive
+friend. Pity! It's one of my best!--I should have mentioned that I had
+been having much the same trouble myself until lately, but the other
+day I happened to try Nervino, the great specific.... I was giving you
+an illustration of myself in action, my dear. I went to these Nervino
+people--happened to see one of their posters and got the idea in a
+flash--I went to them and said, 'Here am I, a presentable man of
+persuasive manners and a large acquaintance among the leaders of New
+York Society. What would it be worth to you to have me hint from time
+to time at dinner parties and so forth that Nervino is the rich man's
+panacea?' I put the thing lucidly to them. I said, 'No doubt you have
+a thousand agents in the city, but have you one who does not look like
+an agent and won't talk like an agent? Have you one who is inside the
+houses of the wealthy, at their very dinner-tables, instead of being
+on the front step, trying to hold the door open with his foot? That is
+the point you have to consider.' They saw the idea at once. We
+arranged terms--not as generous as I could wish, perhaps, but quite
+ample. I receive a tolerably satisfactory salary each week, and in
+return I spread the good word about Nervino in the gilded palaces of
+the rich. Those are the people to go for, Jill. They have been so
+busy wrenching money away from the widow and the orphan that they
+haven't had time to look after their health. You catch one of them
+after dinner, just as he is wondering if he was really wise in taking
+two helpings of the lobster Newburg, and he is clay in your hands. I
+draw my chair up to his and become sympathetic and say that I had
+precisely the same trouble myself until recently, and mention a dear
+old friend of mine who died of indigestion, and gradually lead the
+conversation round to Nervino. I don't force it on them. I don't even
+ask them, to try it. I merely point to myself, rosy with health, and
+say that I owe everything to it, and the thing is done. They thank me
+profusely and scribble the name down on their shirt-cuffs. And there
+you are! I don't suppose," said Uncle Chris philosophically, "that the
+stuff can do them any actual harm."
+
+They had come to the corner of Forty-first Street. Uncle Chris felt in
+his pocket and produced a key.
+
+"If you want to go and take a look at my little nest, you can let
+yourself in. It's on the twenty-second floor. Don't fail to go out on
+the roof and look at the view. It's worth seeing. It will give you
+some idea of the size of the city. A wonderful, amazing city, my dear,
+full of people who need Nervino. I shall go on and drop in at the club
+for half an hour. They have given me a fortnight's card at the Avenue.
+Capital place. Here's the key."
+
+Jill turned down Forty-first Street, and came to a mammoth structure
+of steel and stone which dwarfed the modest brown houses beside it
+into nothingness. It was curious to think of a private flat nestling
+on the summit of this mountain. She went in, and the lift shot her
+giddily upwards to the twenty-second floor. She found herself facing a
+short flight of stone steps, ending in a door. She mounted the steps,
+tried the key, and, turning it, entered a hall-way. Proceeding down
+the passage, she reached a sitting-room.
+
+It was a small room, but furnished with a solid comfort which soothed
+her. For the first time since she had arrived in New York, she had the
+sense of being miles away from the noise and bustle of the city. There
+was a complete and restful silence. She was alone in a nest of books
+and deep chairs, on which a large grandfather-clock looked down with
+that wide-faced benevolence peculiar to its kind. So peaceful was
+this eyrie, perched high up above the clamour and rattle of
+civilization, that every nerve in her body seemed to relax in a
+delicious content. It was like being in Peter Pan's house in the
+tree-tops.
+
+
+II
+
+Jill possessed in an unusual degree that instinct for exploration
+which is implanted in most of us. She was frankly inquisitive, and
+could never be two minutes in a strange room without making a tour of
+it and examining its books, pictures, and photographs. Almost at once
+she began to prowl.
+
+The mantelpiece was her first objective. She always made for other
+people's mantelpieces, for there, more than anywhere else, is the
+character of a proprietor revealed. This mantelpiece was sprinkled
+with photographs, large, small, framed and unframed. In the centre of
+it, standing all alone and looking curiously out of place among its
+large neighbours, was a little snapshot.
+
+It was dark by the mantelpiece. Jill took the photograph to the
+window, where the fading light could fall on it. Why, she could not
+have said, but the thing interested her. There was mystery about it.
+It seemed in itself so insignificant to have the place of honour.
+
+The snapshot had evidently been taken by an amateur, but it was one of
+those lucky successes which happen at rare intervals to amateur
+photographers to encourage them to proceed with their hobby. It showed
+a small girl in a white dress cut short above slim, black legs,
+standing in the porch of an old house, one hand swinging a sun-bonnet,
+the other patting an Irish terrier which had planted its front paws
+against her waist and was looking up into her face with that grave
+melancholy characteristic of Irish terriers. The sunlight was
+evidently strong, for the child's face was puckered in a twisted
+though engaging grin. Jill's first thought was "What a jolly kid!" And
+then, with a leaping of the heart that seemed to send something big
+and choking into her throat, she saw that it was a photograph of
+herself.
+
+With a swooping bound memory raced back over the years. She could feel
+the hot sun on her face, hear the anxious voice of Freddie Rooke--then
+fourteen and for the first time the owner of a camera--imploring her
+to stand just like that because he wouldn't be half a minute only some
+rotten thing had stuck or something. Then the sharp click, the
+doubtful assurance of Freddie that he thought it was all right if he
+hadn't forgotten to shift the film (in which case she might expect to
+appear in combination with a cow which he had snapped on his way to
+the house), and the relieved disappearance of Pat, the terrier, who
+didn't understand photography. How many years ago had that been? She
+could not remember. But Freddie had grown to long-legged manhood, she
+to an age of discretion and full-length frocks, Pat had died, the old
+house was inhabited by strangers ... and here was the silent record of
+that sun-lit afternoon, three thousand miles away from the English
+garden in which it had come into existence.
+
+The shadows deepened. The top of the great building swayed gently,
+causing the pendulum of the grandfather-clock to knock against the
+sides of its wooden case. Jill started. The noise, coming after the
+dead silence, frightened her till she realized what it was. She had a
+nervous feeling of not being alone. It was as if the shadows held
+goblins that peered out at the intruder. She darted to the mantelpiece
+and replaced the photograph. She felt like some heroine of a
+fairy-story meddling with the contents of the giant's castle. Soon
+there would come the sound of a great footstep thud--thud....
+
+_Thud._
+
+Jill's heart gave another leap. She was perfectly sure she had heard a
+sound. It had been just like the banging of a door. She braced
+herself, listening, every muscle tense. And then, cleaving the
+stillness, came a voice from down the passage--
+
+    "Just see them Pullman porters,
+    Dolled up with scented waters
+    Bought with their dimes and quarters!
+      See, here they come! Here they come!"
+
+For an instant Jill could not have said whether she was relieved or
+more frightened than ever. True, that numbing sense of the uncanny had
+ceased to grip her, for Reason told her that spectres do not sing
+rag-time songs. On the other hand, owners of apartments do, and she
+would almost as readily have faced a spectre as the owner of this
+apartment. Dizzily, she wondered how in the world she was to explain
+her presence. Suppose he turned out to be some awful-choleric person
+who would listen to no explanations.
+
+    "Oh, see those starched-up collars!
+    Hark how their captain hollers
+      'Keep time! Keep time!'
+    It's worth a thousand dollars
+    To see those tip-collectors...."
+
+Very near now. Almost at the door.
+
+    "Those upper-berth inspectors,
+    Those Pullman porters on parade!"
+
+A dim, shapeless figure in the black of the doorway. The scrabbling of
+fingers on the wall.
+
+"Where are you, dammit?" said the voice, apparently addressing the
+electric-light switch.
+
+Jill shrank back, desperate fingers pressing deep into the back of an
+arm-chair. Light flashed from the wall at her side. And there, in the
+doorway, stood Wally Mason in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE AMBASSADOR ARRIVES
+
+I
+
+
+In these days of rapid movement, when existence has become little more
+than a series of shocks of varying intensity, astonishment is the
+shortest-lived of all the emotions. There was an instant in which Jill
+looked at Wally and Wally at Jill with the eye of total amazement, and
+then, almost simultaneously, each began--the process was
+subconscious--to regard this meeting not as an isolated and
+inexplicable event, but as something resulting from a perfectly
+logical chain of circumstances.
+
+"Hullo!" said Wally.
+
+"Hullo!" said Jill.
+
+It was not a very exalted note on which to pitch the conversation, but
+it had the merit of giving each of them a little more time to collect
+themselves.
+
+"This is.... I wasn't expecting you!" said Wally.
+
+"I wasn't expecting _you_!" said Jill.
+
+There was another pause, in which Wally, apparently examining her last
+words and turning them over in his mind, found that they did not
+square with his preconceived theories.
+
+"You weren't expecting me?"
+
+"I certainly was not!"
+
+"But ... but you knew I lived here?"
+
+Jill shook her head. Wally reflected for an instant, and then put his
+finger, with a happy inspiration, on the very heart of the mystery.
+
+"Then how on earth did you get here?"
+
+He was glad he had asked that. The sense of unreality which had come
+to him in the first startling moment of seeing her and vanished under
+the influence of logic had returned as strong as ever. If she did not
+know he lived in this place, how in the name of everything uncanny had
+she found her way here? A momentary wonder as to whether all this was
+not mixed up with telepathy and mental suggestion and all that sort of
+thing came to him. Certainly he had been thinking of her all the time
+since their parting at the Savoy Hotel that night three weeks and more
+back.... No, that was absurd. There must be some sounder reason for
+her presence. He waited for her to give it.
+
+Jill for the moment felt physically incapable of giving it. She shrank
+from the interminable explanation which confronted her as a weary
+traveller shrinks from a dusty, far-stretching desert. She simply
+could not go into all that now. So she answered with a question.
+
+"When did you land in New York?"
+
+"This afternoon. We were supposed to dock this morning, but the boat
+was late." Wally perceived that he was being pushed away from the main
+point, and jostled his way back to it. "But what are you doing here?"
+
+"It's such a long story."
+
+Her voice was plaintive. Remorse smote Wally. It occurred to him that
+he had not been sufficiently sympathetic. Not a word had he said on
+the subject of her change of fortunes. He had just stood and gaped and
+asked questions. After all, what the devil did it matter how she came
+to be here? He had anticipated a long and tedious search for her
+through the labyrinth of New York, and here Fate had brought her to
+his very door, and all he could do was to ask why, instead of being
+thankful. He perceived that he was not much of a fellow.
+
+"Never mind," he said. "You can tell me when you feel like it." He
+looked at her eagerly. Time seemed to have wiped away that little
+misunderstanding under the burden of which they had parted. "It's too
+wonderful finding you like this!" He hesitated. "I heard
+about--everything," he said awkwardly.
+
+"My--" Jill hesitated too. "My smash?"
+
+"Yes. Freddie Rooke told me. I was terribly sorry."
+
+"Thank you," said Jill.
+
+There was a pause. They were both thinking of that other disaster
+which had happened. The presence of Derek Underhill seemed to stand
+like an unseen phantom between them. Finally Wally spoke at random,
+choosing the first words that came into his head in his desire to
+break the silence.
+
+"Jolly place, this, isn't it?"
+
+Jill perceived that an opening for those tedious explanations had been
+granted her.
+
+"Uncle Chris thinks so," she said demurely.
+
+Wally looked puzzled.
+
+"Uncle Chris? Oh, your uncle?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But--he has never been here."
+
+"Oh, yes. He's giving a dinner-party here to-night!"
+
+"He's ... what did you say?"
+
+"It's all right. I only began at the end of the story instead of the
+beginning. I'll tell you the whole thing. And then ... then I suppose
+you will be terribly angry and make a fuss."
+
+"I'm not much of a lad, as Freddie Rooke would say, for making fusses.
+And I can't imagine being terribly angry with you."
+
+"Well, I'll risk it. Though, if I wasn't a brave girl, I should leave
+Uncle Chris to explain for himself and simply run away."
+
+"Anything is better than that. It's a miracle meeting you like this,
+and I don't want to be deprived of the fruits of it. Tell me anything,
+but don't go."
+
+"You'll be furious."
+
+"Not with you."
+
+"I should hope not with me. I've done nothing. I am the innocent
+heroine. But I'm afraid you will be very angry with Uncle Chris."
+
+"If he's your uncle, that passes him. Besides, he once licked the
+stuffing out of me with a whangee. That forms a bond. Tell me all."
+
+Jill considered. She had promised to begin at the beginning, but it
+was difficult to know what was the beginning.
+
+"Have you ever heard of Captain Kidd?" she asked at length.
+
+"You're wandering from the point, aren't you?"
+
+"No, I'm not. _Have_ you heard of Captain Kidd?"
+
+"The pirate? Of course."
+
+"Well, Uncle Chris is his direct lineal descendant. That really
+explains the whole thing."
+
+Wally looked at her enquiringly.
+
+"Could you make it a little easier?" he said.
+
+"I can tell you everything in half a dozen words, if you like. But it
+will sound awfully abrupt."
+
+"Go ahead."
+
+"Uncle Chris has stolen your apartment."
+
+Wally nodded slowly.
+
+"I see. Stolen my apartment."
+
+"Of course you can't possibly understand. I shall have to tell you the
+whole thing, after all."
+
+Wally listened with flattering attention as she began the epic of
+Major Christopher Selby's doings in New York. Whatever his emotions,
+he certainly was not bored.
+
+"So that's how it all happened," concluded Jill.
+
+For a moment Wally said nothing. He seemed to be digesting what he had
+heard.
+
+"I see," he said at last. "It's a variant of those advertisements they
+print in the magazines. 'Why pay rent? Own somebody else's home!'"
+
+"That _does_ rather sum it up," said Jill.
+
+Wally burst into a roar of laughter.
+
+"He's a corker!"
+
+Jill was immensely relieved. For all her courageous bearing, she had
+not relished the task of breaking the news to Wally. She knew that he
+had a sense of humour, but a man may have a sense of humour and yet
+not see anything amusing in having his home stolen in his absence.
+
+"I'm so glad you're not angry."
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Most men would be."
+
+"Most men are chumps."
+
+"It's so wonderful that it happened to be you. Suppose it had been an
+utter stranger! What could I have done?"
+
+"It would have been the same thing. You would have won him over in two
+minutes. Nobody could resist you."
+
+"That's very sweet of you."
+
+"I can't help telling the truth. Washington was just the same."
+
+"Then you don't mind Uncle Chris giving his dinner-party here
+to-night?"
+
+"He has my blessing."
+
+"You really are an angel," said Jill gratefully. "From what he said, I
+think he looks on it as rather an important function. He has invited a
+very rich woman, who has been showing him a lot of hospitality--a Mrs.
+Peagrim...."
+
+"Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim?"
+
+"Yes? Why, do you know her?"
+
+"Quite well. She goes in a good deal for being Bohemian and knowing
+people who write and paint and act and so on. That reminds me. I gave
+Freddie Rooke a letter of introduction to her."
+
+"Freddie Rooke!"
+
+"Yes. He suddenly made up his mind to come over. He came to me for
+advice about the journey. He sailed a couple of days before I did. I
+suppose he's somewhere in New York by now, unless he was going on to
+Florida. He didn't tell me what his plans were."
+
+Jill was conscious of a sudden depression. Much as she liked Freddie,
+he belonged to a chapter in her life which was closed and which she
+was trying her hardest to forget. It was impossible to think of
+Freddie without thinking of Derek, and to think of Derek was like
+touching an exposed nerve. The news that Freddie was in New York
+shocked her. New York had already shown itself a city of chance
+encounters. Could she avoid meeting Freddie?
+
+She knew Freddie so well. There was not a dearer or a better-hearted
+youth in the world, but he had not that fine sensibility which pilots
+a man through the awkwardnesses of life. He was a blunderer. Instinct
+told her that, if she met Freddie, he would talk of Derek, and, if
+thinking of Derek was touching an exposed nerve, talking of him would
+be like pressing on that nerve with a heavy hand. She shivered.
+
+Wally was observant.
+
+"There's no need to meet him if you don't want to," he said.
+
+"No," said Jill doubtfully.
+
+"New York's a large place. By the way," he went on, "to return once
+more to the interesting subject of my lodger, does your uncle sleep
+here at nights, do you know?"
+
+Jill looked at him gratefully. He was no blunderer. Her desire to
+avoid Freddie Rooke was, he gave her tacitly to understand, her
+business, and he did not propose to intrude on it. She liked him for
+dismissing the subject so easily.
+
+"No, I think he told me he doesn't."
+
+"Well, that's something, isn't it! I call that darned nice of him! I
+wonder if I could drop back here somewhere about eleven o'clock. Are
+the festivities likely to be over by then? If I know Mrs. Peagrim, she
+will insist on going off to one of the hotels to dance directly after
+dinner. She's a confirmed trotter."
+
+"I don't know how to apologize," began Jill remorsefully.
+
+"Please don't. It's absolutely all right." His eye wandered to the
+mantelpiece, as it had done once or twice during the conversation. In
+her hurry Jill had replaced the snapshot with its back to the room,
+and Wally had the fidgety air of a man whose most cherished possession
+is maltreated. He got up now and, walking across, turned the
+photograph round. He stood for a moment, looking at it. Jill had
+forgotten the snapshot. Curiosity returned to her.
+
+"Where _did_ you get that?" she asked.
+
+Wally turned.
+
+"Oh, did you see this?"
+
+"I was looking at it just before you nearly frightened me to death by
+appearing so unexpectedly."
+
+"Freddie Rooke sold it to me fourteen years ago."
+
+"Fourteen years ago?"
+
+"Next July," added Wally. "I gave him five shillings for it."
+
+"Five shillings! The little brute!" cried Jill indignantly. "It must
+have been all the money you had in the world!"
+
+"A trifle more, as a matter of fact. All the money I had in the world
+was three-and-six. But by a merciful dispensation of Providence the
+curate had called that morning and left a money-box for subscriptions
+to the village organ-fund.... It's wonderful what you can do with a
+turn for crime and the small blade of a pocket-knife! I don't think I
+have ever made money quicker!" He looked at the photograph again. "Not
+that it seemed quick at the moment. I died at least a dozen agonizing
+deaths in the few minutes I was operating. Have you ever noticed how
+slowly time goes when you are coaxing a shilling and a sixpence out of
+somebody's money-box? Centuries! But I was forgetting. Of course
+you've had no experience."
+
+"You poor thing!"
+
+"It was worth it."
+
+"And you've had it ever since!"
+
+"I wouldn't part with it for all Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's millions,"
+said Wally with sudden and startling vehemence, "if she offered me
+them." He paused. "She hasn't, as a matter of fact."
+
+There was a silence. Jill looked at Wally furtively as he returned to
+his seat. She was seeing him with new eyes. It was as if this trifling
+incident had removed some sort of a veil. He had suddenly become more
+alive. For an instant she had seen right into him, to the hidden deeps
+of his soul. She felt shy and embarrassed.
+
+"Pat died," she said at length. She felt the necessity of saying
+something.
+
+"I liked Pat."
+
+"He picked up some poison, poor darling.... How long ago those days
+seem, don't they?"
+
+"They are always pretty vivid to me. I wonder who has that old house
+of yours now."
+
+"I heard the other day," said Jill more easily. The odd sensation of
+embarrassment was passing. "Some people called ... what was the
+name?... Debenham, I think."
+
+Silence fell again. It was broken by the front-door bell, like an
+alarm-clock that shatters a dream.
+
+Wally got up.
+
+"Your uncle," he said.
+
+"You aren't going to open the door?"
+
+"That was the scheme."
+
+"But he'll get such a shock when he sees you."
+
+"He must look on it in the light of rent. I don't see why I shouldn't
+have a little passing amusement from this business."
+
+He left the room. Jill heard the front door open. She waited
+breathlessly. Pity for Uncle Chris struggled with the sterner feeling
+that it served him right.
+
+"Hullo!" she heard Wally say.
+
+"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" replied an exuberant voice. "Wondered if I'd find
+you in, and all that sort of thing. I say, what a deuce of a way up it
+is here. Sort of get a chappie into training for going to heaven,
+what? I mean, what?"
+
+Jill looked about her like a trapped animal. It was absurd, she felt,
+but every nerve in her body cried out against the prospect of meeting
+Freddie. His very voice had opened old wounds and set them throbbing.
+
+She listened in the doorway. Out of sight down the passage, Freddie
+seemed by the sounds to be removing his overcoat. She stole out and
+darted like a shadow down the corridor that led to Wally's bedroom.
+The window of the bedroom opened on to the wide roof which Uncle Chris
+had eulogized. She slipped noiselessly out, closing the window behind
+her.
+
+
+II
+
+"I say, Mason, old top," said Freddie, entering the sitting-room, "I
+hope you don't mind my barging in like this, but the fact is things
+are a bit thick. I'm dashed worried, and I didn't know another soul I
+could talk it over with. As a matter of fact, I wasn't sure you were
+in New York at all, but I remembered hearing you say in London that
+you were popping back almost at once, so I looked you up in the
+telephone book and took a chance. I'm dashed glad you _are_ back. When
+did you arrive?"
+
+"This afternoon."
+
+"I've been here two or three days. Well, it's a bit of luck catching
+you. You see, what I want to ask your advice about...."
+
+Wally looked at his watch. He was not surprised to find that Jill had
+taken to flight. He understood her feelings perfectly, and was anxious
+to get rid of the inopportune Freddie as soon as possible.
+
+"You'll have to talk quick, I'm afraid," he said. "I've lent this
+place to a man for the evening, and he's having some people to dinner.
+What's the trouble?"
+
+"It's about Jill."
+
+"Jill?"
+
+"Jill Mariner, you know. You remember Jill? You haven't forgotten my
+telling you all that? About her losing her money and coming over to
+America?"
+
+"No. I remember you telling me that."
+
+Freddie seemed to miss something in his companion's manner, some note
+of excitement and perturbation.
+
+"Of course," he said, as if endeavouring to explain this to himself,
+"you hardly knew her, I suppose. Only met once since you were kids and
+all that sort of thing. But I'm a pal of hers and I'm dashed upset by
+the whole business, I can tell you. It worries me, I mean to say. Poor
+girl, you know, landed on her uppers in a strange country. Well, I
+mean, it worries me. So the first thing I did when I got here was to
+try to find her. That's why I came over, really, to try to find her.
+Apart from anything else, you see, poor old Derek is dashed worried
+about her."
+
+"Need we bring Underhill in?"
+
+"Oh, I know you don't like him and think he behaved rather rummily and
+so forth, but that's all right now."
+
+"It is, is it?" said Wally drily.
+
+"Oh, absolutely. It's all on again."
+
+"What's all on again?"
+
+"Why, I mean he wants to marry Jill. I came over to find her and tell
+her so."
+
+Wally's eyes glowed.
+
+"If you have come over as an ambassador...."
+
+"That's right. Jolly old ambassador. Very word I used myself."
+
+"I say, if you have come over as an ambassador with the idea of
+reopening negotiations with Jill on behalf of that infernal swine...."
+
+"Old man!" protested Freddie, pained. "Pal of mine, you know."
+
+"If he is, after what's happened, your mental processes are beyond
+me."
+
+"My what, old son?"
+
+"Your mental processes."
+
+"Oh, ah!" said Freddie, learning for the first time that he had any.
+
+Wally looked at him intently. There was a curious expression on his
+rough-hewn face.
+
+"I can't understand you, Freddie. If ever there was a fellow who might
+have been expected to take the only possible view of Underhill's
+behaviour in this business, I should have said it was you. You're a
+public-school man. You've mixed all the time with decent people. You
+wouldn't do anything that wasn't straight yourself to save your life.
+Yet it seems to have made absolutely no difference in your opinion of
+this man Underhill that he behaved like an utter cad to a girl who
+was one of your best friends. You seem to worship him just as much as
+ever. And you have travelled three thousand miles to bring a message
+from him to Jill--Good God! _Jill_!--to the effect, as far as I can
+understand it, that he has thought it over and come to the conclusion
+that after all she may possibly be good enough for him!"
+
+Freddie recovered the eye-glass which the raising of his eyebrows had
+caused to fall, and polished it in a crushed sort of way. Rummy, he
+reflected, how chappies stayed the same all their lives as they were
+when they were kids. Nasty, tough sort of chap Wally Mason had been as
+a boy, and here he was, apparently, not altered a bit. At least the
+only improvement he could detect was that, whereas in the old days
+Wally, when in an ugly mood like this, would undoubtedly have kicked
+him, he now seemed content with mere words. All the same, he was being
+dashed unpleasant. And he was all wrong about poor Derek. This last
+fact he endeavoured to make clear.
+
+"You don't understand," he said. "You don't realize. You've never met
+Lady Underhill, have you?"
+
+"What has she got to do with it?"
+
+"Everything, old bean, everything. If it hadn't been for her, there
+wouldn't have been any trouble of any description, sort, or order. But
+she barged in and savaged poor old Derek till she absolutely made him
+break off the engagement."
+
+"If you call him 'poor old Derek' again, Freddie," said Wally
+viciously, "I'll drop you out of the window and throw your hat after
+you! If he's such a gelatine-backboned worm that his mother can...."
+
+"You don't know her, old thing! She's _the_ original hellhound!"
+
+"I don't care what...."
+
+"Must be seen to be believed," mumbled Freddie.
+
+"I don't care what she's like! Any man who could...."
+
+"Once seen, never forgotten!"
+
+"Damn you! Don't interrupt every time I try to get a word in!"
+
+"Sorry, old man! Shan't occur again!"
+
+Wally moved to the window, and stood looking out. He had had much more
+to say on the subject of Derek Underhill, but Freddie's interruptions
+had put it out of his head, and he felt irritated and baffled.
+
+"Well, all I can say is," he remarked savagely, "that, if you have
+come over here as an ambassador to try and effect a reconciliation
+between Jill and Underhill, I hope to God you'll never find her."
+
+Freddie emitted a weak cough, like a very far-off asthmatic old sheep.
+He was finding Wally more overpowering every moment. He had rather
+forgotten the dear old days of his childhood, but this conversation
+was beginning to refresh his memory: and he was realizing more vividly
+with every moment that passed how very Wallyish Wally was--how
+extraordinarily like the Wally who had dominated his growing intellect
+when they were both in Eton suits. Freddie in those days had been all
+for peace, and he was all for peace now. He made his next observation
+diffidently.
+
+"I _have_ found her!"
+
+Wally spun round.
+
+"What!"
+
+"When I say that, I don't absolutely mean I've seen her. I mean I know
+where she is. That's what I came round to see you about. Felt I must
+talk it over, you know. The situation seems to me dashed rotten and
+not a little thick. The fact is, old man, she's gone on the stage. In
+the chorus, you know. And, I mean to say, well, if you follow what I'm
+driving at, what, what?"
+
+"In the chorus?"
+
+"In the chorus!"
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+Freddie groped for his eyeglass, which had fallen again. He regarded
+it a trifle sternly. He was fond of the little chap, but it was always
+doing that sort of thing. The whole trouble was that, if you wanted to
+keep it in its place, you simply couldn't register any sort of emotion
+with the good old features: and, when you were chatting with a fellow
+like Wally Mason, you had to be registering something all the time.
+
+"Well, that was a bit of luck, as a matter of fact. When I first got
+here, you know, it seemed to me the only thing to do was to round up a
+merry old detective and put the matter in his hands, like they do in
+stories. _You_ know. Ring at the bell. 'And this, if I mistake not,
+Watson, is my client now.' And then in breezes client and spills the
+plot. I found a sleuth in the classified telephone directory, and
+toddled round. Rummy chaps, detectives! Ever met any? I always thought
+they were lean, hatchet-faced Johnnies with inscrutable smiles. This
+one looked just like my old Uncle Ted, the one who died of apoplexy.
+Jovial, puffy-faced bird, who kept bobbing up behind a fat cigar. Have
+you ever noticed what whacking big cigars these fellows over here
+smoke? Rummy country, America. You ought to have seen the way this
+blighter could shift his cigar right across his face with moving his
+jaw-muscles. Like a flash! Most remarkable thing you ever saw, I give
+you my honest word! He...."
+
+"Couldn't you keep your Impressions of America for the book you're
+going to write, and come to the point?" said Wally rudely.
+
+"Sorry, old chap," said Freddie meekly. "Glad you reminded me.
+Well.... Oh, yes. We had got as far as the jovial old human
+bloodhound, hadn't we? Well, I put the matter before this chappie.
+Told him I wanted to find a girl, showed him a photograph, and so
+forth. I say," said Freddie, wandering off once more into speculation,
+"why is it that coves like that always talk of a girl as 'the little
+lady'? This chap kept saying 'We'll find the little lady for you!' Oh,
+well, that's rather off the rails, isn't it? It just floated across my
+mind and I thought I'd mention it. Well, this blighter presumably
+nosed about and made enquiries for a couple of days, but didn't effect
+anything that you might call substantial. I'm not blaming him, mind
+you. I shouldn't care to have a job like that myself. I mean to say,
+when you come to think of what a frightful number of girls there are
+in this place, to have to ... well, as I say, he did his best but
+didn't click; and then this evening, just before I came here, I met a
+girl I had known in England--she was in a show over there--a girl
+called Nelly Bryant...."
+
+"Nelly Bryant? I know her."
+
+"Yes? Fancy that! She was in a thing called 'Follow the Girl' in
+London. Did you see it by any chance? Topping show! There was one
+scene where the...."
+
+"Get on! Get on! I wrote it."
+
+"You wrote it?" Freddie beamed simple-hearted admiration. "My dear old
+chap, I congratulate you! One of the ripest and most all-wool musical
+comedies I've ever seen. I went twenty-four times. Rummy I don't
+remember spotting that you wrote it. I suppose one never looks at the
+names on the programme. Yes, I went twenty-four times The first time I
+went was with a couple of chappies from...."
+
+"Listen, Freddie!" said Wally feverishly. "On some other occasion I
+should dearly love to hear the story of your life, but just now...."
+
+"Absolutely, old man. You're perfectly right. Well, to cut a long
+story short, Nelly Bryant told me that she and Jill were rehearsing
+with a piece called 'The Rose of America.'"
+
+"'The Rose of America!'"
+
+"I think that was the name of it."
+
+"That's Ike Goble's show. He called me up on the phone about it half
+an hour ago. I promised to go and see a rehearsal of it to-morrow or
+the day after. And Jill's in that?"
+
+"Yes. How about it? I mean, I don't know much about this sort of
+thing, but do you think it's the sort of thing Jill ought to be
+doing?"
+
+Wally was moving restlessly about the room. Freddie's news had
+disquieted him. Mr. Goble had a reputation.
+
+"I know a lot about it," he replied, "and it certainly isn't." He
+scowled at the carpet. "Oh, damn everybody!"
+
+Freddie paused to allow him to proceed, if such should be his wish,
+but Wally had apparently said his say. Freddie went on to point out an
+aspect of the matter which was troubling him greatly.
+
+"I'm sure poor old Derek wouldn't like her being in the chorus!"
+
+Wally started so violently that for a moment Freddie was uneasy.
+
+"I mean Underhill," he corrected himself hastily.
+
+"Freddie," said Wally, "you're an awfully good chap, but I wish you
+would exit rapidly now! Thanks for coming and telling me, very good of
+you. This way out!"
+
+"But, old man...!"
+
+"Now what?"
+
+"I thought we were going to discuss this binge and decide what to do
+and all that sort of thing."
+
+"Some other time. I want to think about it."
+
+"Oh, you will think about it?"
+
+"Yes, I'll think about it."
+
+"Topping! You see, you're a brainy sort of fellow, and you'll probably
+hit something."
+
+"I probably shall, if you don't go."
+
+"Eh? Oh, ah, yes!" Freddie struggled into his coat. More than ever did
+the adult Wally remind him of the dangerous stripling of years gone
+by. "Well, cheerio!"
+
+"Same to you!"
+
+"You'll let me know if you scare up some devilish fruity wheeze, won't
+you? I'm at the Biltmore."
+
+"Very good place to be. Go there now."
+
+"Right ho! Well, toodle-oo!"
+
+"The elevator is at the foot of the stairs," said Wally. "You press
+the bell and up it comes. You hop in and down you go! It's a great
+invention! Good night!"
+
+"Oh, I say. One moment...."
+
+"Good _night_!" said Wally.
+
+He closed the door, and ran down the passage.
+
+"Jill!" he called. He opened the bedroom window and stepped out.
+"Jill!"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Jill!" called Wally once again, but again there was no answer.
+
+Wally walked to the parapet, and looked over. Below him the vastness
+of the city stretched itself in a great triangle, its apex the
+harbour, its sides the dull silver of the East and Hudson Rivers.
+Directly before him, crowned with its white lantern, the Metropolitan
+Tower reared its graceful height to the stars. And all around, in the
+windows of the tall buildings that looked from this bastion on which
+he stood almost squat, a million lights stared up at him, the
+unsleeping eyes of New York. It was a scene of which Wally, always
+sensitive to beauty, never tired: but to-night it had lost its appeal.
+A pleasant breeze from the Jersey shore greeted him with a quickening
+whisper of springtime and romance, but it did not lift the heaviness
+of his heart. He felt depressed and apprehensive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MR. GOBLE MAKES THE BIG NOISE
+
+I
+
+
+Spring, whose coming the breeze had heralded to Wally as he smoked
+upon the roof, floated graciously upon New York two mornings later.
+The city awoke to a day of blue and gold and to a sense of hard times
+over and good times to come. In his apartment on Park Avenue, Mr Isaac
+Goble, sniffing the gentle air from the window of his breakfast-room,
+returned to his meal and his _Morning Telegraph_ with a resolve to
+walk to the theatre for rehearsal: a resolve which had also come to
+Jill and Nelly Bryant, eating stewed prunes in their boarding-house in
+the Forties. On the summit of his sky-scraper, Wally Mason, performing
+Swedish exercises to the delectation of various clerks and
+stenographers in the upper windows of neighbouring buildings, felt
+young and vigorous and optimistic, and went in to his shower-bath
+thinking of Jill. And it was of Jill, too, that young Pilkington
+thought, as he propped his long form up against the pillows and sipped
+his morning cup of tea. For the first time in several days a certain
+moodiness which had affected Otis Pilkington left him, and he dreamed
+happy day-dreams.
+
+The gaiety of Otis was not, however, entirely or even primarily due to
+the improvement in the weather. It had its source in a conversation
+which had taken place between himself and Jill's Uncle Chris on the
+previous night. Exactly how it had come about, Mr. Pilkington was not
+entirely clear, but, somehow, before he was fully aware of what he was
+saying, he had begun to pour into Major Selby's sympathetic ears the
+story of his romance. Encouraged by the other's kindly receptiveness,
+he had told him all--his love for Jill, his hopes that some day it
+might be returned, the difficulties complicating the situation owing
+to the known prejudices of Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim concerning girls
+who formed the personnel of musical comedy ensembles. To all these
+outpourings Major Selby had listened with keen attention, and finally
+had made one of those luminous suggestions, so simple yet so shrewd,
+which emanate only from your man of the world. It was Jill's girlish
+ambition, it seemed from Major Selby's statement, to become a force in
+the motion-picture world. The movies were her objective.
+
+What, he broke off to ask, did Pilkington think of the idea?
+
+Pilkington thought the idea splendid. Miss Mariner, with her charm and
+looks, would be wonderful in the movies.
+
+There was, said Uncle Chris, a future for the girl in the movies.
+
+Mr. Pilkington agreed cordially. A great future indeed.
+
+"Observe," proceeded Uncle Chris, gathering speed and expanding his
+chest as he spread his legs before the fire, "how it would simplify
+the whole matter if Jill were to become a motion-picture artist and
+win fame and wealth in her profession. You go to your excellent aunt
+and announce that you are engaged to be married to Jill Mariner. There
+is a momentary pause. 'Not _the_ Jill Mariner?' falters Mrs. Peagrim.
+'Yes, the famous Miss Mariner!' you reply. Well, I ask you, my boy,
+can you see her making any objection? Such a thing would be absurd.
+No, I can see no flaw in the project whatsoever." Here Uncle Chris, as
+he had pictured Mrs. Peagrim doing, paused for a moment. "Of course,
+there would be the preliminaries."
+
+"The preliminaries?"
+
+Uncle Chris' voice became a melodious coo. He beamed upon Mr.
+Pilkington.
+
+"Well, think for yourself, my boy! These things cannot be done without
+money. I do not propose to allow my niece to waste her time and her
+energy in the rank and file of the profession, waiting years for a
+chance that might never come. There is plenty of room at the top, and
+that, in the motion-picture profession, is the place to start. If Jill
+is to become a motion-picture artist, a special company must be formed
+to promote her. She must be made a feature, a star, from the
+beginning. Whether," said Uncle Chris, smoothing the crease of his
+trousers, "you would wish to take shares in the company yourself...."
+
+"Oo...!"
+
+"... is a matter," proceeded Uncle Chris, ignoring the interruption,
+"for you yourself to decide. Possibly you have other claims on your
+purse. Possibly this musical play of yours has taken all the cash you
+are prepared to lock up. Possibly you may consider the venture too
+speculative. Possibly ... there are a hundred reasons why you may not
+wish to join us. But I know a dozen men--I can go down Wall Street
+to-morrow and pick out twenty men--who will be glad to advance the
+necessary capital. I can assure you that I personally shall not
+hesitate to risk--if one can call it risking--any loose cash which I
+may have lying idle at my banker's."
+
+He rattled the loose cash which he had lying idle in his
+trouser-pocket--fifteen cents in all--and stopped to flick a piece of
+fluff off his coat-sleeve. Mr. Pilkington was thus enabled to insert a
+word.
+
+"How much would you want?" he enquired.
+
+"That," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "is a little hard to say. I
+should have to look into the matter more closely in order to give you
+the exact figures. But let us say for the sake of argument that you
+put up--what shall we say?--a hundred thousand? fifty thousand? ...
+no, we will be conservative. Perhaps you had better not begin with
+more than ten thousand. You can always buy more shares later. I don't
+suppose I shall begin with more than ten thousand myself."
+
+"I could manage ten thousand all right."
+
+"Excellent. We make progress, we make progress. Very well, then. I go
+to my Wall Street friends and tell them about the scheme, and say
+'Here is ten thousand dollars! What is your contribution?' It puts the
+affair on a business-like basis, you understand. Then we really get to
+work. But use your own judgment, my boy, you know. Use your own
+judgment. I would not think of persuading you to take such a step, if
+you felt at all doubtful. Think it over. Sleep on it. And, whatever
+you decide to do, on no account say a word about it to Jill. It would
+be cruel to raise her hopes until we are certain that we are in a
+position to enable her to realize them. And, of course, not a word to
+Mrs. Peagrim."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Very well, then, my boy," said Uncle Chris affably. "I will leave you
+to turn the whole thing over in your mind. Act entirely as you think
+best. How is your insomnia, by the way? Did you try Nervino? Capital!
+There's nothing like it. It did wonders for _me_! Good night, good
+night!"
+
+Otis Pilkington had been turning the thing over in his mind, with an
+interval for sleep, ever since. And the more he thought of it, the
+better the scheme appeared to him. He winced a little at the thought
+of the ten thousand dollars, for he came of prudent stock and had been
+brought up in habits of parsimony, but, after all, he reflected, the
+money would be merely a loan. Once the company found its feet, it
+would be returned to him a hundred-fold. And there was no doubt that
+this would put a completely different aspect on his wooing of Jill, as
+far as Aunt Olive was concerned. Why, a cousin of his--young Brewster
+Philmore--had married a movie-star only two years ago, and nobody had
+made the slightest objection. Brewster was to be seen with his bride
+frequently beneath Mrs. Peagrim's roof. Against the higher strata of
+Bohemia Mrs. Peagrim had no prejudice at all. Quite the reverse, in
+fact. She liked the society of those whose names were often in the
+papers and much in the public mouth. It seemed to Otis Pilkington, in
+short, that Love had found a way. He sipped his tea with relish, and
+when the Japanese valet brought in the toast all burned on one side,
+chided him with a gentle sweetness which, one may hope, touched the
+latter's Oriental heart and inspired him with a desire to serve his
+best of employers more efficiently.
+
+At half-past ten, Otis Pilkington removed his dressing-gown and began
+to put on his clothes to visit the theatre. There was a rehearsal-call
+for the whole company at eleven. As he dressed, his mood was as sunny
+as the day itself.
+
+And the day, by half-past ten, was as sunny as ever Spring day had
+been in a country where Spring comes early and does its best from the
+very start. The blue sky beamed down on a happy city. To and fro the
+citizenry bustled, aglow with the perfection of the weather.
+Everywhere was gaiety and good cheer, except on the stage of the
+Gotham Theatre, where an early rehearsal, preliminary to the main
+event, had been called by Johnson Miller in order to iron some of the
+kinks out of the "My Heart and I" number, which, with the assistance
+of the male chorus, the leading lady was to render in Act One.
+
+On the stage of the Gotham gloom reigned--literally, because the stage
+was wide and deep and was illumined only by a single electric light;
+and figuratively, because things were going even worse than usual with
+the "My Heart and I" number, and Johnson Miller, always of an
+emotional and easily stirred temperament, had been goaded by the
+incompetence of his male chorus to a state of frenzy. At about the
+moment when Otis Pilkington shed his flowered dressing-gown and
+reached for his trousers (the heather-mixture with the red twill),
+Johnson Miller was pacing the gangway between the orchestra pit and
+the first row of the orchestra chairs, waving one hand and clutching
+his white locks with the other, his voice raised the while in agonized
+protest.
+
+"Gentlemen, you silly idiots," complained Mr. Miller loudly, "you've
+had three weeks to get these movements into your thick heads, and you
+haven't done a damn thing right! You're all over the place! You don't
+seem able to turn without tumbling over each other like a lot of
+Keystone Kops! What's the matter with you? You're not doing the
+movements I showed you; you're doing some you have invented
+yourselves, and they are rotten! I've no doubt you think you can
+arrange a number better than I can, but Mr. Goble engaged me to be the
+director, so kindly do exactly as I tell you. Don't try to use your
+own intelligence, because you haven't any. I'm not blaming you for it.
+It wasn't your fault that your nurses dropped you on your heads when
+you were babies. But it handicaps you when you try to think."
+
+Of the seven gentlemanly members of the male ensemble present, six
+looked wounded by this tirade. They had the air of good men wrongfully
+accused. They appeared to be silently calling on Heaven to see justice
+done between Mr. Miller and themselves. The seventh, a long-legged
+young man in faultlessly fitting tweeds of English cut, seemed, on the
+other hand, not so much hurt as embarrassed. It was this youth who now
+stepped down to the darkened footlights and spoke in a remorseful and
+conscience-stricken manner.
+
+"I say!"
+
+Mr. Miller, that martyr to deafness, did not hear the pathetic bleat.
+He had swung off at right angles and was marching in an overwrought
+way up the central aisle leading to the back of the house, his
+india-rubber form moving in convulsive jerks. Only when he had turned
+and retraced his steps did he perceive the speaker and prepare to take
+his share in the conversation.
+
+"What?" he shouted. "Can't hear you!"
+
+"I say, you know, it's my fault, really."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mean to say, you know...."
+
+"What? Speak up, can't you?"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg, who had been seated at the piano, absently playing a
+melody from his unproduced musical comedy, awoke to the fact that the
+services of an interpreter were needed. He obligingly left the
+music-stool and crept, crab-like, along the ledge of the stage-box. He
+placed his arm about Mr. Miller's shoulders and his lips to Mr.
+Miller's left ear, and drew a deep breath.
+
+"He says it is his fault!"
+
+Mr. Miller nodded adhesion to this admirable sentiment.
+
+"I know they're not worth their salt!" he replied.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg patiently took in a fresh stock of breath.
+
+"This young man says it is his fault that the movement went wrong!"
+
+"Tell him I only signed on this morning, laddie," urged the tweed-clad
+young man.
+
+"He only joined the company this morning!"
+
+This puzzled Mr. Miller.
+
+"How do you mean, warning?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg, purple in the face, made a last effort.
+
+"This young man is new," he bellowed carefully, keeping to words of
+one syllable. "He does not yet know the steps. He says this is his
+first day here, so he does not yet know the steps. When he has been
+here some more time he will know the steps. But now he does not know
+the steps."
+
+"What he means," explained the young man in tweeds helpfully, "is that
+I don't know the steps."
+
+"He does not know the steps!" roared Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"I know he doesn't know the steps," said Mr. Miller. "Why doesn't he
+know the steps? He's had long enough to learn them."
+
+"He is new!"
+
+"Hugh?"
+
+"New!"
+
+"Oh, new?"
+
+"Yes, new!"
+
+"Why the devil is he new?" cried Mr. Miller, awaking suddenly to the
+truth and filled with a sense of outrage. "Why didn't he join with the
+rest of the company? How can I put on chorus numbers if I am saddled
+every day with new people to teach? Who engaged him?"
+
+"Who engaged you?" enquired Mr. Saltzburg of the culprit.
+
+"Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"Mr. Pilkington," shouted Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"When?"
+
+"When?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+"Last night."
+
+Mr. Miller waved his hands in a gesture of divine despair, spun round,
+darted up the aisle, turned, and bounded back.
+
+"What can I do?" he wailed. "My hands are tied! I am hampered! I am
+handicapped! We open in two weeks and every day I find somebody new in
+the company to upset everything I have done. I shall go to Mr. Goble
+and ask to be released from my contract. I shall.... Come along, come
+along, come along now!" he broke off suddenly. "Why are we wasting
+time? The whole number once more. The whole number once more from the
+beginning!"
+
+The young man tottered back to his gentlemanly colleagues, running a
+finger in an agitated manner round the inside of his collar. He was
+not used to this sort of thing. In a large experience of amateur
+theatricals he had never encountered anything like it. In the
+breathing-space afforded by the singing of the first verse and refrain
+by the lady who played the heroine of "The Rose of America," he found
+time to make an enquiry of the artist on his right.
+
+"I say! Is he always like this?"
+
+"Who? Johnny?"
+
+"The sportsman with the hair that turned white in a single night. The
+barker on the sky-line. Does he often get the wind up like this?"
+
+His colleague smiled tolerantly.
+
+"Why, that's nothing!" he replied. "Wait till you see him really cut
+loose! That was just a gentle whisper!"
+
+"My God!" said the newcomer, staring into a bleak future.
+
+The leading lady came to the end of her refrain, and the gentlemen of the
+ensemble, who had been hanging about up-stage, began to curvet nimbly down
+towards her in a double line; the new arrival, with an eye on his nearest
+neighbour, endeavouring to curvet as nimbly as the others. A clapping of
+hands from the dark auditorium indicated--inappropriately--that he had
+failed to do so. Mr. Miller could be perceived--dimly--with all his
+fingers entwined in his hair.
+
+"Clear the stage!" yelled Mr. Miller. "Not you!" he shouted, as the
+latest addition to the company began to drift off with the others.
+"You stay!"
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Yes, you. I shall have to teach you the steps by yourself, or we
+shall get nowhere. Go up-stage. Start the music again, Mr. Saltzburg.
+Now, when the refrain begins, come down. Gracefully! Gracefully!"
+
+The young man, pink but determined, began to come down gracefully. And
+it was while he was thus occupied that Jill and Nelly Bryant, entering
+the wings which were beginning to fill up as eleven o'clock
+approached, saw him.
+
+"Whoever is that?" said Nelly.
+
+"New man," replied one of the chorus gentlemen. "Came this morning."
+
+Nelly turned to Jill.
+
+"He looks just like Mr. Rooke!" she exclaimed.
+
+"He _is_ Mr. Rooke!" said Jill.
+
+"He can't be!"
+
+"He _is_!"
+
+"But what is he doing here?"
+
+Jill bit her lip.
+
+"That's just what I'm going to ask him myself," she said.
+
+
+II
+
+The opportunity for a private conversation with Freddie did not occur
+immediately. For ten minutes he remained alone on the stage, absorbing
+abusive tuition from Mr. Miller: and at the end of that period a
+further ten minutes was occupied with the rehearsing of the number
+with the leading lady and the rest of the male chorus. When, finally,
+a roar from the back of the auditorium announced the arrival of Mr.
+Goble and at the same time indicated Mr. Goble's desire that the stage
+should be cleared and the rehearsal proper begin, a wan smile of
+recognition and a faint "What ho!" was all that Freddie was able to
+bestow upon Jill, before, with the rest of the ensemble, they had to
+go out and group themselves for the opening chorus. It was only when
+this had been run through four times and the stage left vacant for two
+of the principals to play a scene that Jill was able to draw the Last
+of the Rookes aside in a dark corner and put him to the question.
+
+"Freddie, what are you doing here?"
+
+Freddie mopped his streaming brow. Johnson Miller's idea of an opening
+chorus was always strenuous. On the present occasion, the ensemble
+were supposed to be guests at a Long Island house-party, and Mr.
+Miller's conception of the gathering suggested that he supposed
+house-party guests on Long Island to consist exclusively of victims of
+St. Vitus' dance. Freddie was feeling limp, battered, and exhausted:
+and, from what he had gathered, the worst was yet to come.
+
+"Eh?" he said feebly.
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Oh, ah, yes! I see what you mean! I suppose you're surprised to find
+me in New York, what?"
+
+"I'm not surprised to find you in New York. I knew you had come over.
+But I am surprised to find you on the stage, being bullied by Mr.
+Miller."
+
+"I say," said Freddie in an awed voice. "He's a bit of a nut, that
+lad, what? He reminds me of the troops of Midian in the hymn. The
+chappies who prowled and prowled around. I'll bet he's worn a groove
+in the carpet. Like a jolly old tiger at the Zoo at feeding time.
+Wouldn't be surprised at any moment to look down and find him biting a
+piece out of my leg!"
+
+Jill seized his arm and shook it.
+
+"Don't _ramble_, Freddie! Tell me how you got here."
+
+"Oh, that was pretty simple. I had a letter of introduction to this
+chappie Pilkington who's running this show, and, we having got
+tolerably pally in the last few days, I went to him and asked him to
+let me join the merry throng. I said I didn't want any money, and the
+little bit of work I would do wouldn't make any difference, so he said
+'Right ho!' or words to that effect, and here I am."
+
+"But why? You can't be doing this for fun, surely?"
+
+"Fun!" A pained expression came into Freddie's face. "My idea of fun
+isn't anything in which jolly old Miller, the bird with the snowy
+hair, is permitted to mix. Something tells me that that lad is going
+to make it his life-work picking on me. No, I didn't do this for fun.
+I had a talk with Wally Mason the night before last, and he seemed to
+think that being in the chorus wasn't the sort of thing you ought to
+be doing, so I thought it over and decided that I ought to join the
+troupe too. Then I could always be on the spot, don't you know, if
+there was any trouble. I mean to say, I'm not much of a chap and all
+that sort of thing, but still I might come in handy one of these
+times. Keep a fatherly eye on you, don't you know, and what not!"
+
+Jill was touched. "You're a dear, Freddie!"
+
+"I thought, don't you know, it would make poor old Derek a bit easier
+in his mind."
+
+Jill froze.
+
+"I don't want to talk about Derek, Freddie, please."
+
+"Oh, I know what you must be feeling. Pretty sick, I'll bet, what? But
+if you could see him now...."
+
+"I don't want to talk about him!"
+
+"He's pretty cut up, you know. Regrets bitterly and all that sort of
+thing. He wants you to come back again."
+
+"I see! He sent you to fetch me?"
+
+"That was more or less the idea."
+
+"It's a shame that you had all the trouble. You can get messenger-boys
+to go anywhere and do anything nowadays. Derek ought to have thought
+of that."
+
+Freddie looked at her doubtfully.
+
+"You're spoofing, aren't you? I mean to say, you wouldn't have liked
+that!"
+
+"I shouldn't have disliked it any more than his sending you."
+
+"Oh, but I wanted to pop over. Keen to see America and so forth."
+
+Jill looked past him at the gloomy stage. Her face was set, and her
+eyes sombre.
+
+"Can't you understand, Freddie? You've known me a long time. I should
+have thought that you would have found out by now that I have a
+certain amount of pride. If Derek wanted me back, there was only one
+thing for him to do--come over and find me himself."
+
+"Rummy! That's what Mason said, when I told him. You two don't realize
+how dashed busy Derek is these days."
+
+"Busy!"
+
+Something in her face seemed to tell Freddie that he was not saying
+the right thing, but he stumbled on.
+
+"You've no notion how busy he is. I mean to say, elections coming on
+and so forth. He daren't stir from the metrop."
+
+"Of course I couldn't expect him to do anything that might interfere
+with his career, could I?"
+
+"Absolutely not. I knew you would see it!" said Freddie, charmed at
+her reasonableness. All rot, what you read about women being
+unreasonable. "Then I take it it's all right, eh?"
+
+"All right?"
+
+"I mean you will toddle home with me at the earliest opp. and make
+poor old Derek happy?"
+
+Jill laughed discordantly.
+
+"Poor old Derek!" she echoed. "He has been badly treated, hasn't he?"
+
+"Well, I wouldn't say that," said Freddie doubtfully. "You see, coming
+down to it, the thing was more or less his fault, what?"
+
+"More or less!"
+
+"I mean to say...."
+
+"More or less!"
+
+Freddie glanced at her anxiously. He was not at all sure now that he
+liked the way she was looking or the tone in which she spoke. He was
+not a keenly observant young man, but there did begin at this point to
+seep through to his brain-centres a suspicion that all was not well.
+
+"Let me pull myself together!" said Freddie warily to his immortal
+soul. "I believe I'm getting the raspberry!" And there was silence for
+a space.
+
+The complexity of life began to weigh upon Freddie. Life was like one
+of those shots at squash which seem so simple till you go to knock the
+cover off the ball, when the ball sort of edges away from you and you
+miss it. Life, Freddie began to perceive, was apt to have a nasty
+back-spin on it. He had never had any doubt when he had started, that
+the only difficult part of this expedition to America would be the
+finding of Jill. Once found, he had presumed that she would be
+delighted to hear his good news and would joyfully accompany him home
+on the next boat. It appeared now, however, that he had been too
+sanguine. Optimist as he was, he had to admit that, as far as could be
+ascertained with the naked eye, the jolly old binge might be said to
+have sprung a leak.
+
+He proceeded to approach the matter from another angle.
+
+"I say!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"You do love old Derek, don't you? I mean to say, you know what I
+mean, _love_ him and all that sort of rot?"
+
+"I don't know!"
+
+"You don't know! Oh, I say, come now! You must _know_! Pull up your
+socks, old thing.... I mean, pull yourself together! You either love a
+chappie or you don't."
+
+Jill smiled painfully.
+
+"How nice it would be if everything were as simple and straightforward
+as that. Haven't you ever heard that the dividing line between love
+and hate is just a thread? Poets have said so a great number of
+times."
+
+"Oh, poets!" said Freddie, dismissing the genus with a wave of the
+hand. He had been compelled to read Shakespeare and all that sort of
+thing at school, but it had left him cold, and since growing to man's
+estate he had rather handed the race of bards the mitten. He liked
+Doss Chiderdoss' stuff in the _Sporting Times_, but beyond that he was
+not much of a lad for poets.
+
+"Can't you understand a girl in my position not being able to make up
+her mind whether she loves a man or despises him?"
+
+Freddie shook his head.
+
+"No," he said. "It sounds dashed silly to me!"
+
+"Then what's the good of talking?" cried Jill. "It only hurts."
+
+"But--won't you come back to England?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, I say! Be a sport! Take a stab at it!"
+
+Jill laughed again--another of those grating laughs which afflicted
+Freddie with a sense of foreboding and failure. Something had
+undoubtedly gone wrong with the works. He began to fear that at some
+point in the conversation--just where he could not say--he had been
+less diplomatic than he might have been.
+
+"You speak as if you were inviting me to a garden-party! No, I won't
+take a stab at it. You've a lot to learn about women, Freddie!"
+
+"Women _are_ rum!" conceded that perplexed ambassador.
+
+Jill began to move away.
+
+"Don't go!" urged Freddie.
+
+"Why not? What's the use of talking any more? Have you ever broken an
+arm or a leg, Freddie?"
+
+"Yes," said Freddie, mystified. "As a matter of fact, my last year at
+Oxford, playing soccer for the college in a friendly game, some
+blighter barged into me and I came down on my wrist. But...."
+
+"It hurt?"
+
+"Like the deuce!"
+
+"And then it began to get better, I suppose. Well, used you to hit it,
+and twist it, and prod it, or did you leave it alone to try and heal?
+I won't talk any more about Derek! I simply won't! I'm all smashed up
+inside, and I don't know if I'm ever going to get well again, but at
+least I'm going to give myself a chance. I'm working as hard as ever I
+can and I'm forcing myself not to think of him. I'm in a sling,
+Freddie, like your wrist, and I don't want to be prodded. I hope we
+shall see a lot of each other while you're over here--you always were
+the greatest dear in the world--but you mustn't mention Derek again,
+and you mustn't ask me to go home. If you avoid those subjects, we'll
+be as happy as possible. And now I'm going to leave you to talk to
+poor Nelly. She has been hovering round for the last ten minutes,
+waiting for a chance to speak to you. She worships you, you know!"
+
+Freddie started violently.
+
+"Oh, I say! What rot!"
+
+Jill had gone, and he was still gaping after her, when Nelly Bryant
+moved towards him--shyly, like a worshipper approaching a shrine.
+
+"Hello, Mr. Rooke!" said Nelly.
+
+"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" said Freddie.
+
+Nelly fixed her large eyes on his face. A fleeting impression passed
+through Freddie's mind that she was looking unusually pretty this
+morning: nor was the impression unjustified. Nelly was wearing for the
+first time a Spring suit which was the outcome of hours of painful
+selection among the wares of a dozen different stores, and the
+knowledge that the suit was just right seemed to glow from her like an
+inner light. She felt happy, and her happiness had lent an unwonted
+colour to her face and a soft brightness to her eyes.
+
+"How nice it is, your being here!"
+
+Freddie waited for the inevitable question, the question with which
+Jill had opened their conversation; but it did not come. He was
+surprised, but relieved. He hated long explanations, and he was very
+doubtful whether loyalty to Jill could allow him to give them to
+Nelly. His reason for being where he was had to do so intimately with
+Jill's most private affairs. A wave of gratitude to Nelly swept
+through him when he realized that she was either incurious or else too
+delicate-minded to show inquisitiveness.
+
+As a matter of fact, it was delicacy that kept Nelly silent. Seeing
+Freddie here at the theatre, she had, as is not uncommon with fallible
+mortals, put two and two together and made the answer four when it
+was not four at all. She had been deceived by circumstantial evidence.
+Jill, whom she had left in England wealthy and secure, she had met
+again in New York penniless as the result of some Stock Exchange
+cataclysm in which, she remembered with the vagueness with which one
+recalls once-heard pieces of information, Freddie Rooke had been
+involved. True, she seemed to recollect hearing that Freddie's losses
+had been comparatively slight, but his presence in the chorus of "The
+Rose of America" seemed to her proof that after all they must have
+been devastating. She could think of no other reason except loss of
+money which could have placed Freddie in the position in which she now
+found him, so she accepted it; and, with the delicacy which was innate
+in her and which a hard life had never blunted, decided, directly she
+saw him, to make no allusion to the disaster.
+
+Such was Nelly's view of the matter, and sympathy gave to her manner a
+kind of maternal gentleness which acted on Freddie, raw from his late
+encounter with Mr. Johnson Miller and disturbed by Jill's attitude in
+the matter of poor old Derek, like a healing balm. His emotions were
+too chaotic for analysis, but one thing stood out clear from the
+welter--the fact that he was glad to be with Nelly as he had never
+been glad to be with a girl before, and found her soothing as he had
+never supposed a girl could be soothing.
+
+They talked desultorily of unimportant things, and every minute found
+Freddie more convinced that Nelly was not as other girls. He felt that
+he must see more of her.
+
+"I say," he said. "When this binge is over ... when the rehearsal
+finishes, you know, how about a bite to eat?"
+
+"I should love it. I generally go to the Automat."
+
+"The how-much? Never heard of it."
+
+"In Times Square. It's cheap, you know."
+
+"I was thinking of the Cosmopolis."
+
+"But that's so expensive."
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Much the same as any of the other places, isn't
+it?"
+
+Nelly's manner became more motherly than ever. She bent forward and
+touched his arm affectionately.
+
+"You haven't to keep up any front with me," she said gently. "I don't
+care whether you're rich or poor or what. I mean, of course I'm
+awfully sorry you've lost your money, but it makes it all the easier
+for us to be real pals, don't you think so?"
+
+"Lost my money?"
+
+"Well, I know you wouldn't be here if you hadn't. I wasn't going to
+say anything about it, but, when you talked of the Cosmopolis, I just
+had to. You lost your money in the same thing Jill Mariner lost hers,
+didn't you? I was sure you had, the moment I saw you here. Who cares?
+Money isn't everything!"
+
+Astonishment kept Freddie silent for an instant: after that he
+refrained from explanations of his own free will. He accepted the
+situation and rejoiced in it. Like many other wealthy and modest young
+men, he had always had a sneaking suspicion at the back of his mind
+that any girl who was decently civil to him was so from mixed
+motives--or, more likely, motives that were not even mixed. Well, dash
+it, here was a girl who seemed to like him although under the
+impression that he was broke to the wide. It was an intoxicating
+experience. It made him feel a better chap. It fortified his
+self-respect.
+
+"You know," he said, stammering a little, for he found a sudden
+difficulty in controlling his voice. "You're a dashed good sort!"
+
+"I'm awfully glad you think so."
+
+There was a silence--as far, at least, as he and she were concerned.
+In the outer world, beyond the piece of scenery under whose shelter
+they stood, stirring things, loud and exciting things, seemed to be
+happening. Some sort of an argument appeared to be in progress. The
+rasping voice of Mr. Goble was making itself heard from the unseen
+auditorium. These things they sensed vaguely, but they were too
+occupied with each other to ascertain details.
+
+"What was the name of that place again?" asked Freddie. "The
+what-ho-something?"
+
+"The Automat?"
+
+"That's the little chap! We'll go there, shall we?"
+
+"The food's quite good. You go and help yourself out of slot-machines,
+you know."
+
+"My favourite indoor sport!" said Freddie with enthusiasm. "Hullo!
+What's up? It sounds as if there were dirty work at the cross-roads!"
+
+The voice of the assistant stage-manager was calling, sharply excited,
+agitation in every syllable.
+
+"All the gentlemen of the chorus on the stage, please! Mr. Goble wants
+all the chorus-gentlemen on the stage!"
+
+"Well, cheerio for the present," said Freddie. "I suppose I'd better
+look into this."
+
+He made his way on to the stage.
+
+
+III
+
+There is an insidious something about the atmosphere of a rehearsal of
+a musical play which saps the finer feelings of those connected with
+it. Softened by the gentle beauty of the Spring weather, Mr. Goble had
+come to the Gotham Theatre that morning in an excellent temper, firmly
+intending to remain in an excellent temper all day. Five minutes of
+"The Rose of America" had sent him back to the normal; and at ten
+minutes past eleven he was chewing his cigar and glowering at the
+stage with all the sweetness gone from his soul. When Wally Mason
+arrived at a quarter past eleven and dropped into the seat beside him,
+the manager received him with a grunt and even omitted to offer him a
+cigar. And when a New York theatrical manager does that, it is a
+certain sign that his mood is of the worst.
+
+One may find excuses for Mr. Goble. "The Rose of America" would have
+tested the equanimity of a far more amiable man: and on Mr. Goble what
+Otis Pilkington had called its delicate whimsicality jarred
+profoundly. He had been brought up in the lower-browed school of
+musical comedy, where you shelved the plot after the opening number
+and filled in the rest of the evening by bringing on the girls in a
+variety of exotic costumes, with some good vaudeville specialists to
+get the laughs. Mr. Goble's idea of a musical piece was something
+embracing trained seals, acrobats, and two or three teams of skilled
+buck-and-wing dancers, with nothing on the stage, from a tree to a
+lamp-shade, which could not suddenly turn into a chorus-girl. The
+austere legitimateness of "The Rose of America" gave him a pain in the
+neck. He loathed plot, and "The Rose of America" was all plot.
+
+Why, then, had the earthy Mr. Goble consented to associate himself
+with the production of this intellectual play? Because he was subject,
+like all other New York managers, to intermittent spasms of the idea
+that the time is ripe for a revival of comic opera. Sometimes,
+lunching in his favourite corner in the Cosmopolis grill-room, he
+would lean across the table and beg some other manager to take it from
+him that the time was ripe for a revival of comic opera--or, more
+cautiously, that pretty soon the time was going to be ripe for a
+revival of comic opera. And the other manager would nod his head and
+thoughtfully stroke his three chins and admit that, sure as God made
+little apples, the time was darned soon going to be ripe for a revival
+of comic opera. And then they would stuff themselves with rich food
+and light big cigars and brood meditatively.
+
+With most managers these spasms, which may be compared to twinges of
+conscience, pass as quickly as they come, and they go back to coining
+money with rowdy musical comedies, quite contented. But Otis
+Pilkington, happening along with the script of "The Rose of America"
+and the cash to back it, had caught Mr. Goble in the full grip of an
+attack, and all the arrangements had been made before the latter
+emerged from the influence. He now regretted his rash act.
+
+"Say, listen," he said to Wally, his gaze on the stage, his words
+proceeding from the corner of his mouth, "you've got to stick around
+with this show after it opens on the road. We'll talk terms later. But
+we've got to get it right, don't care what it costs. See?"
+
+"You think it will need fixing?"
+
+Mr. Goble scowled at the unconscious artists, who were now going
+through a particularly arid stretch of dialogue.
+
+"Fixing! It's all wrong! It don't add up right! You'll have to rewrite
+it from end to end."
+
+"Well, I've got some idea about it. I saw it played by amateurs last
+summer, you know. I could make a quick job of it, if you want me to.
+But will the author stand for it?"
+
+Mr. Goble allowed a belligerent eye to stray from the stage, and
+twisted it round in Wally's direction.
+
+"Say, listen! He'll stand for anything I say. I'm the little guy that
+gives orders round here. I'm the big noise!"
+
+As if in support of this statement he suddenly emitted a terrific
+bellow. The effect was magical. The refined and painstaking artists on
+the stage stopped as if they had been shot. The assistant
+stage-director bent sedulously over the footlights, which had now been
+turned up, shading his eyes with the prompt script.
+
+"Take that over again!" shouted Mr. Goble. "Yes, that speech about
+life being like a water-melon. It don't sound to me as though it meant
+anything." He cocked his cigar at an angle, and listened fiercely. He
+clapped his hands. The action stopped again. "Cut it!" said Mr. Goble
+tersely.
+
+"Cut the speech, Mr. Goble?" queried the obsequious assistant
+stage-director.
+
+"Yes. Cut it. It don't mean nothing!"
+
+Down the aisle, springing from a seat at the back, shimmered Mr.
+Pilkington, wounded to the quick.
+
+"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"That is the best epigram in the play."
+
+"The best what?"
+
+"Epigram. The best epigram in the play."
+
+Mr. Goble knocked the ash off his cigar. "The public don't want
+epigrams. The public don't like epigrams. I've been in the show
+business fifteen years, and I'm telling you! Epigrams give them a pain
+under the vest. All right, get on."
+
+Mr. Pilkington fluttered agitatedly. This was his first experience of
+Mr. Goble in the capacity of stage-director. It was the latter's
+custom to leave the early rehearsals of the pieces with which he was
+connected to a subordinate producer, who did what Mr. Goble called the
+breaking-in. This accomplished, he would appear in person, undo most
+of the other's work, make cuts, tell the actors how to read their
+lines, and generally enjoy himself. Producing plays was Mr. Goble's
+hobby. He imagined himself to have a genius in that direction, and it
+was useless to try to induce him to alter any decision to which he
+might have come. He regarded those who did not agree with him with the
+lofty contempt of an Eastern despot.
+
+Of this Mr. Pilkington was not yet aware.
+
+"But, Mr. Goble ...!"
+
+The potentate swung irritably round on him.
+
+"What is it? What _is_ it? Can't you see I'm busy?"
+
+"That epigram...."
+
+"It's out!"
+
+"But ...!"
+
+"It's out!"
+
+"Surely," protested Mr. Pilkington almost tearfully, "I have a
+voice...."
+
+"Sure you have a voice," retorted Mr. Goble, "and you can use it any
+old place you want, except in my theatre. Have all the voice you like!
+Go round the corner and talk to yourself! Sing in your bath! But don't
+come using it here, because I'm the little guy that does all the
+talking in this theatre! That fellow makes me tired," he added
+complainingly to Wally, as Mr. Pilkington withdrew like a foiled
+python. "He don't know nothing about the show business, and he keeps
+butting in and making fool suggestions. He ought to be darned glad
+he's getting his first play produced and not trying to teach me how to
+direct it." He clapped his hands imperiously. The assistant
+stage-manager bent over the footlights. "What was that that guy said?
+Lord Finchley's last speech. Take it again."
+
+The gentleman who was playing the part of Lord Finchley, an English
+character actor who specialized in London "nuts," raised his eyebrows,
+annoyed. Like Mr. Pilkington, he had never before come into contact
+with Mr. Goble as stage-director, and, accustomed to the suaver
+methods of his native land, he was finding the experience trying. He
+had not yet recovered from the agony of having that water-melon line
+cut out of his part. It was the only good line, he considered, that he
+had. Any line that is cut out of an actor's part is always the only
+good line he has.
+
+"The speech about Omar Khayyám?" he enquired with suppressed
+irritation.
+
+"I thought that was the way you said it. All wrong! It's Omar _of_
+Khayyám."
+
+"I think you will find that Omar Khayyám is the--ah--generally
+accepted version of the poet's name," said the portrayer of Lord
+Finchley adding beneath his breath. "You silly ass!"
+
+"You say Omar _of_ Khayyám," bellowed Mr. Goble. "Who's running this
+show, anyway?"
+
+"Just as you please."
+
+Mr. Goble turned to Wally.
+
+"These actors...." he began, when Mr. Pilkington appeared again at his
+elbow.
+
+"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"
+
+"What is it _now_?"
+
+"Omar Khayyám was a Persian poet. His _name_ was Khayyám."
+
+"That wasn't the way _I_ heard it," said Mr. Goble doggedly. "Did
+_you_?" he enquired of Wally. "I thought he was born at Khayyám."
+
+"You're probably quite right," said Wally, "but, if so, everybody else
+has been wrong for a good many years. It's usually supposed that the
+gentleman's name was Omar Khayyám. Khayyám, Omar J. Born A.D. 1050,
+educated privately and at Bagdad University. Represented Persia in the
+Olympic Games of 1072, winning the sitting high-jump and the
+egg-and-spoon race. The Khayyáms were quite a well-known family in
+Bagdad, and there was a lot of talk when Omar, who was Mrs. Khayyam's
+pet son, took to drink and writing poetry. They had had it all fixed
+for him to go into his father's date business."
+
+Mr. Goble was impressed. He had a respect for Wally's opinion, for
+Wally had written "Follow the Girl" and look what a knock-out that had
+been. He stopped the rehearsal again.
+
+"Go back to that Khayyám speech!" he said interrupting Lord Finchley
+in mid-sentence.
+
+The actor whispered a hearty English oath beneath his breath. He had
+been up late last night, and, in spite of the fair weather, he was
+feeling a trifle on edge.
+
+"' In the words of Omar of Khayyám'...."
+
+Mr. Goble clapped his hands.
+
+"Cut that 'of,'" he said. "The show's too long, anyway."
+
+And, having handled a delicate matter in masterly fashion, he leaned
+back in his chair and chewed the end off another cigar.
+
+For some minutes after this the rehearsal proceeded smoothly. If Mr.
+Goble did not enjoy the play, at least he made no criticisms except to
+Wally. To him he enlarged from time to time on the pain which "The
+Rose of America" caused him.
+
+"How I ever came to put on junk like this beats me," confessed Mr.
+Goble frankly.
+
+"You probably saw that there was a good idea at the back of it,"
+suggested Wally. "There is, you know. Properly handled, it's an idea
+that could be made into a success."
+
+"What would you do with it?"
+
+"Oh, a lot of things," said Wally warily. In his younger and callower
+days he had sometimes been rash enough to scatter views on the
+reconstruction of plays broadcast, to find them gratefully absorbed
+and acted upon and treated as a friendly gift. His affection for Mr.
+Goble was not so overpowering as to cause him to give him ideas for
+nothing now.
+
+"Any time you want me to fix it for you, I'll come along. About one
+and a half per cent of the gross would meet the case, I think."
+
+Mr. Goble faced him, registering the utmost astonishment and horror.
+
+"One and a half per cent for fixing a show like this? Why, darn it,
+there's hardly anything to do to it! It's--it's _in_!"
+
+"You called it junk just now."
+
+"Well, all I meant was that it wasn't the sort of thing I cared for
+myself. The public will eat it. Take it from me, the time is just
+about ripe for a revival of comic opera."
+
+"This one will want all the reviving you can give it. Better use a
+pulmotor."
+
+"But that long boob, that Pilkington ... he would never stand for my
+handing you one and a half per cent."
+
+"I thought _you_ were the little guy who arranged things round here."
+
+"But he's got money in the show."
+
+"Well, if he wants to get any out, he'd better call in somebody to
+rewrite it. You don't have to engage me if you don't want to. But I
+know I could make a good job of it. There's just one little twist the
+thing needs and you would have quite a different piece."
+
+"What's that?" enquired Mr. Goble casually.
+
+"Oh, just a little ... what shall I say? ... a little touch of
+what-d'you-call-it and a bit of thingummy. You know the sort of thing!
+That's all it wants."
+
+Mr. Goble gnawed his cigar, baffled.
+
+"You think so, eh?" he said at length.
+
+"And perhaps a suspicion of _je-ne-sais-quoi_," added Wally.
+
+Mr. Goble worried his cigar, and essayed a new form of attack.
+
+"You've done a lot of work for me," he said. "Good work!"
+
+"Glad you liked it," said Wally.
+
+"You're a good kid. I like having you around. I was half thinking of
+giving you a show to do this Fall. Corking book. French farce. Ran
+two years in Paris. But what's the good, if you want the earth?"
+
+"Always useful, the earth. Good thing to have."
+
+"See here, if you'll fix up this show for half of one per cent, I'll
+give you the other to do."
+
+"You shouldn't slur your words so. For a moment I thought you said
+'half of one per cent. One and a half of course you really said.
+
+"If you won't take half, you don't get the other."
+
+"All right," said Wally. "There are lots of other managers in New
+York. Haven't you seen them popping about? Rich, enterprising men, and
+all of them love me like a son."
+
+"Make it one per cent," said Mr. Goble, "and I'll see if I can fix it
+with Pilkington."
+
+"One and a half."
+
+"Oh, damn it, one and a half, then," said Mr. Goble morosely. "What's
+the good of splitting straws?"
+
+"Forgotten Sports of the Past--Splitting the Straw. All right. If you
+drop me a line to that effect, legibly signed with your name, I'll
+wear it next my heart. I shall have to go now. I have a date.
+Good-bye. Glad everything's settled and everybody's happy."
+
+For some moments after Wally had left, Mr. Goble sat hunched up in his
+orchestra-chair, smoking sullenly, his mood less sunny than ever.
+Living in a little world of sycophants, he was galled by the off-hand
+way in which Wally always treated him. There was something in the
+latter's manner which seemed to him sometimes almost contemptuous. He
+regretted the necessity of having to employ him. There was, of course,
+no real necessity why he should have employed Wally. New York was full
+of librettists who would have done the work equally well for half the
+money, but, like most managers, Mr. Goble had the mental processes of
+a sheep. "Follow the Girl" was the last outstanding musical success in
+New York theatrical history: Wally had written it, therefore nobody
+but Wally was capable of re-writing "The Rose of America." The thing
+had for Mr. Goble the inevitability of Fate. Except for deciding
+mentally that Wally had swelled head, there was nothing to be done.
+
+Having decided that Wally had swelled head, and not feeling much
+better, Mr. Goble concentrated his attention on the stage. A good deal
+of action had taken place there during the recently concluded
+business talk, and the unfortunate Lord Finchley was back again,
+playing another of his scenes. Mr. Goble glared at Lord Finchley. He
+did not like him, and he did not like the way he was speaking his
+lines.
+
+The part of Lord Finchley was a non-singing rôle. It was a type part.
+Otis Pilkington had gone to the straight stage to find an artist, and
+had secured the not uncelebrated Wentworth Hill, who had come over
+from London to play in an English comedy which had just closed. The
+newspapers had called the play thin, but had thought that Wentworth
+Hill was an excellent comedian. Mr. Hill thought so, too, and it was
+consequently a shock to his already disordered nerves when a bellow
+from the auditorium stopped him in the middle of one of his speeches
+and a rasping voice informed him that he was doing it all wrong.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Hill, quietly but dangerously, stepping
+to the footlights.
+
+"All wrong!" repeated Mr. Goble.
+
+"Really?" Wentworth Hill, who a few years earlier had spent several
+terms at Oxford University before being sent down for aggravated
+disorderliness, had brought little away with him from that seat of
+learning except the Oxford manner. This he now employed upon Mr. Goble
+with an icy severity which put the last touch to the manager's
+fermenting state of mind. "Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me
+just how you think that part should be played?"
+
+Mr. Goble marched down the aisle.
+
+"Speak out to the audience," he said, stationing himself by the
+orchestra pit. "You're turning your head away all the darned time."
+
+"I may be wrong," said Mr. Hill, "but I have played a certain amount,
+don't you know, in pretty good companies, and I was always under the
+impression that one should address one's remarks to the person one was
+speaking to, not deliver a recitation to the gallery. I was taught
+that that was the legitimate method."
+
+The word touched off all the dynamite in Mr. Goble. Of all things in
+the theatre he detested most the "legitimate method." His idea of
+producing was to instruct the cast to come down to the footlights and
+hand it to 'em. These people who looked up-stage and talked to the
+audience through the backs of their necks revolted him.
+
+"Legitimate! That's a hell of a thing to be! Where do you get that
+legitimate stuff? You aren't playing Ibsen!"
+
+"Nor am I playing a knockabout vaudeville sketch."
+
+"Don't talk back at me!"
+
+"Kindly don't shout at _me_! Your voice is unpleasant enough without
+your raising it."
+
+Open defiance was a thing which Mr. Goble had never encountered
+before, and for a moment it deprived him of breath. He recovered it,
+however, almost immediately.
+
+"You're fired!"
+
+"On the contrary," said Mr. Hill, "I'm resigning." He drew a
+green-covered script from his pocket and handed it with an air to the
+pallid assistant stage-director. Then, more gracefully than ever
+Freddie Rooke had managed to move down-stage under the tuition of
+Johnson Miller, he moved up-stage to the exit. "I trust that you will
+be able to find someone who will play the part according to your
+ideas!"
+
+"I'll find," bellowed Mr. Goble at his vanishing back, "a chorus-man
+who'll play it a damned sight better than you!" He waved to the
+assistant stage-director. "Send the chorus-men on the stage!"
+
+"All the gentlemen of the chorus on the stage, please!" shrilled the
+assistant stage-director, bounding into the wings like a retriever.
+"Mr. Goble wants all the chorus-gentlemen on the stage!"
+
+There was a moment, when the seven male members of "The Rose of
+America" ensemble lined up self-consciously before his gleaming eyes,
+when Mr. Goble repented of his brave words. An uncomfortable feeling
+passed across his mind that Fate had called his bluff and that he
+would not be able to make good. All chorus-men are exactly alike, and
+they are like nothing else on earth. Even Mr. Goble, anxious as he was
+to overlook their deficiencies, could not persuade himself that in
+their ranks stood even an adequate Lord Finchley.
+
+And then, just as a cold reaction from his fervid mood was about to
+set in, he perceived that Providence had been good to him. There, at
+the extreme end of the line, stood a young man who, as far as
+appearance went, was the ideal Lord Finchley--as far as appearance
+went, a far better Lord Finchley than the late Mr. Hill. He beckoned
+imperiously.
+
+"You at the end!"
+
+"Me?" said the young man.
+
+"Yes, you. What's your name?"
+
+"Rooke. Frederick Rooke, don't you know."
+
+"You're English, aren't you?"
+
+"Eh? Oh, yes, absolutely!"
+
+"Ever played a part before?"
+
+"Part? Oh, I see what you mean. Well, in amateur theatricals, you
+know, and all that sort of rot."
+
+His words were music to Mr. Goble's ears. He felt that his Napoleonic
+action had justified itself by success. His fury left him. If he had
+been capable of beaming, one would have said that he beamed at
+Freddie.
+
+"Well, you play the part of Lord Finchley from now on. Come to my
+office this afternoon for your contract. Clear the stage. We've wasted
+enough time."
+
+Five minutes later, in the wings, Freddie, receiving congratulations
+from Nelly Bryant, asserted himself.
+
+"_Not_ the Automat to-day, I _think_, what? Now that I'm a jolly old
+star and all that sort of thing, it can't be done. Directly this is
+over we'll roll round to the Cosmopolis. A slight celebration is
+indicated, what? Right ho! Rally round, dear heart, rally round!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+JILL EXPLAINS
+
+I
+
+
+The lobby of the Hotel Cosmopolis is the exact centre of New York, the
+spot where at certain hours one is sure of meeting everybody one
+knows. The first person that Nelly and Freddie saw, as they passed
+through the swing doors, was Jill. She was seated on the chair by the
+big pillar in the middle of the hall.
+
+"What ho!" said Freddie. "Waiting for someone?"
+
+"Hullo, Freddie. Yes, I'm waiting for Wally Mason. I got a note from
+him this morning, asking me to meet him here. I'm a little early. I
+haven't congratulated you yet. You're wonderful!"
+
+"Thanks, old girl. Our young hero _is_ making pretty hefty strides in
+his chosen profesh, what? Mr. Rooke, who appears quite simple and
+unspoiled by success, replied to our representative's enquiry as to
+his future plans, that he proposed to stagger into the grill-room and
+imbibe about eighteen dollars' worth of lunch. Yes, it _is_ a bit of
+all right, taking it by and large, isn't it? I mean to say, the
+salary, the jolly old salary, you know ... quite a help when a
+fellow's lost all his money!"
+
+Jill was surprised to observe that the Last of the Rookes was
+contorting his face in an unsightly manner that seemed to be an
+attempt at a wink, pregnant with hidden meaning. She took her cue
+dutifully, though without understanding.
+
+"Oh, yes," she replied.
+
+Freddie seemed grateful. With a cordial "Cheerio!" he led Nelly off to
+the grill-room.
+
+"I didn't know Jill knew Mr. Mason," said Nelly, as they sat down at
+their table.
+
+"No?" said Freddie absently, running an experienced eye over the bill
+of fare. He gave an elaborate order. "What was that? Oh, absolutely!
+Jill and I and Wally were children together."
+
+"How funny you should all be together again like this."
+
+"Yes. Oh, good Lord!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"It's nothing. I meant to send a cable to a pal of mine in England,
+I'll send it after lunch."
+
+Freddie took out his handkerchief, and tied a knot in it. He was
+slightly ashamed of the necessity of taking such a precaution, but it
+was better to be on the safe side. His interview with Jill at the
+theatre had left him with the conviction that there was only one thing
+for him to do, and that was to cable poor old Derek to forget
+impending elections and all the rest of it and pop over to America at
+once. He knew that he would never have the courage to re-open the
+matter with Jill himself. As an ambassador he was a spent force. If
+Jill was to be wooed from her mood of intractibility, Derek was the
+only man to do it. Freddie was convinced that, seeing him in person,
+she would melt and fall into his arms. Too dashed absurd, Freddie
+felt, two loving hearts being separated like this and all that sort
+of thing. He replaced his handkerchief in his pocket, relieved, and
+concentrated himself on the entertainment of Nelly. A simple task for
+the longer he was with this girl, the easier did it seem, to talk to
+her.
+
+Jill, left alone in the lobby, was finding the moments pass quite
+pleasantly. She liked watching the people as they came in. One or two
+of the girls of the company fluttered in like birds, were swooped upon
+by their cavaliers, and fluttered off to the grill-room. The
+red-headed Babe passed her with a genial nod, and, shortly after, Lois
+Denham, the willowy recipient of sunbursts from her friend Izzy of the
+hat-checks, came by in company with a sallow, hawk-faced young man
+with a furtive eye, whom Jill took--correctly--to be Izzy himself.
+Lois was looking pale and proud, and, from the few words which came to
+Jill's ears as they neared her, seemed to be annoyed at having been
+kept waiting.
+
+It was immediately after this that the swing-doors revolved rather
+more violently than usual, and Mr. Goble burst into view.
+
+There was a cloud upon Mr. Goble's brow, seeming to indicate that his
+grievance against life had not yet been satisfactorily adjusted; but
+it passed as he saw Jill, and he came up to her with what he would
+probably have claimed to be an ingratiating smile.
+
+"Hullo!" said Mr. Goble. "All alone?"
+
+Jill was about to say that the condition was merely temporary when the
+manager went on.
+
+"Come and have a bit of lunch."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Jill, with the politeness of dislike, "but
+I'm waiting for someone."
+
+"Chuck him!" advised Mr. Goble cordially.
+
+"No, thanks, I couldn't, really."
+
+The cloud began to descend again upon Mr. Goble's brow. He was
+accustomed to having these invitations of his treated as royal
+commands.
+
+"Come along!"
+
+"I'm afraid it's impossible."
+
+Mr. Goble subjected her to a prolonged stare, seemed about to speak,
+changed his mind, and swung off moodily in the direction of the
+grill-room. He was not used to this sort of treatment.
+
+He had hardly gone, when Wally appeared.
+
+"What was he saying to you?" demanded Wally abruptly, without
+preliminary greeting.
+
+"He was asking me to lunch."
+
+Wally was silent for a moment. His good-natured face wore an unwonted
+scowl.
+
+"He went in there, of course?" he said, pointing to the grill-room.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then let's go into the other room," said Wally. He regained his good
+humour. "It was awfully good of you to come. I didn't know whether you
+would be able to."
+
+"It was very nice of you to invite me."
+
+Wally grinned.
+
+"How perfect our manners are! It's a treat to listen! How did you know
+that that was the one hat in New York I wanted you to wear?"
+
+"Oh, these things get about. Do you like it?"
+
+"It's wonderful. Let's take this table, shall we?"
+
+
+II
+
+They sat down. The dim, tapestry-hung room soothed Jill. She was
+feeling a little tired after the rehearsal. At the far end of the room
+an orchestra was playing a tune that she remembered and liked. Her
+mind went back to the last occasion on which she and Wally had sat
+opposite each other at a restaurant. How long ago it seemed! She
+returned to the present to find Wally speaking to her.
+
+"You left very suddenly the other night," said Wally.
+
+"I didn't want to meet Freddie."
+
+Wally looked at her commiseratingly.
+
+"I don't want to spoil your lunch," he said, "but Freddie knows all.
+He has tracked you down. He met Nelly Bryant, whom he seems to have
+made friends with in London, and she told him where you were and what
+you were doing. For a girl who fled at his mere approach the night
+before last, you don't seem very agitated by the news," he said, as
+Jill burst into a peal of laughter.
+
+"You haven't heard?"
+
+"Heard what?"
+
+"Freddie got Mr. Pilkington to put him in the chorus of the piece. He
+was rehearsing when I arrived at the theatre this morning, and having
+a terrible time with Mr. Miller. And, later on, Mr. Goble had a
+quarrel with the man who was playing the Englishman, and the man threw
+up his part, and Mr. Goble said he could get any one in the chorus to
+play it just as well, and he chose Freddie. So now Freddie is one of
+the principals, and bursting with pride!"
+
+Wally threw his head back and uttered a roar of appreciation which
+caused a luncher at a neighbouring table to drop an oyster which he
+was poising in mid-air.
+
+"Don't make such a noise!" said Jill severely. "Everyone's looking at
+you."
+
+"I must! It's the most priceless thing I ever heard. I've always
+maintained and I always will maintain that for pure lunacy nothing can
+touch the musical comedy business. There isn't anything that can't
+happen in musical comedy. 'Alice in Wonderland' is nothing to it."
+
+"Have you felt that, too? That's exactly how I feel. It's like a
+perpetual 'Mad Hatter's Tea-Party.'"
+
+"But what on earth made Freddie join the company at all?"
+
+A sudden gravity descended upon Jill. The words had reminded her of
+the thing which she was perpetually striving to keep out of her
+thoughts.
+
+"He said he wanted to be there to keep an eye on me."
+
+Gravity is infectious. Wally's smile disappeared. He, too, had been
+recalled to thoughts which were not pleasant.
+
+Wally crumbled his roll. There was a serious expression on his face.
+
+"Freddie was quite right. I didn't think he had so much sense."
+
+"Freddie was not right," flared Jill. The recollection of her
+conversation with that prominent artist still had the power to fire
+her independent soul. "I'm not a child. I can look after myself. What
+I do is my own business."
+
+"I'm afraid you're going to find that your business is several
+people's business. I am interested in it myself. I don't like your
+being on the stage. Now bite my head off!"
+
+"It's very kind of you to bother about me...."
+
+"I said 'Bite my head off!' I didn't say 'Freeze me!' I take the
+licence of an old friend who in his time has put worms down your
+back, and I repeat--I don't like your being on the stage."
+
+"I shouldn't have thought you would have been so"--Jill sought for a
+devastating adjective--"so mid-Victorian!"
+
+"As far as you are concerned, I'm the middest Victorian in existence.
+Mid is my middle name." Wally met her indignant gaze squarely.
+"I--do--not--like--your--being--on--the--stage! Especially in any
+company which Ike Goble is running."
+
+"Why Mr. Goble particularly?"
+
+"Because he is not the sort of man you ought to be coming in contact
+with."
+
+"What nonsense!"
+
+"It isn't nonsense at all. I suppose you've read a lot about the
+morals of theatrical managers...."
+
+"Yes. And it seemed to be exaggerated and silly."
+
+"So it is. There's nothing wrong with most of them. As a general
+thing, they are very decent fellows--extraordinarily decent if you
+think of the position they are in. I don't say that in a business way
+there's much they won't try to put over on you. In the theatre, when
+it comes to business, everything goes except biting and gouging.
+'There's never a law of God or man runs north of fifty-three.' If you
+alter that to 'north of Forty-first Street' it doesn't scan as well,
+but it's just as true. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that
+the Golden Rule is suspended there. You get used to it after you have
+been in the theatre for a while, and, except for leaving your watch
+and pocket-book at home when you have to pay a call on a manager and
+keeping your face to him so that he can't get away with your back
+collar-stud, you don't take any notice of it. It's all a game. If a
+manager swindles you, he wins the hole and takes the honour. If you
+foil him, you are one up. In either case, it makes no difference to
+the pleasantness of your relations. You go on calling him by his first
+name, and he gives you a couple of cigars out of his waistcoat pocket
+and says you're a good kid. There is nothing personal in it. He has
+probably done his best friend out of a few thousand dollars the same
+morning, and you see them lunching together after the ceremony as
+happily as possible. You've got to make allowances for managers. They
+are the victims of heredity. When a burglar marries a hat-check girl,
+their offspring goes into the theatrical business automatically, and
+he can't shake off the early teaching which he imbibed at his father's
+knee. But morals...."
+
+Wally broke off to allow the waiter to place a fried sole before him.
+Waiters always select the moment when we are talking our best to
+intrude themselves.
+
+"As regards morals," resumed Wally, "that is a different matter. Most
+managers are respectable, middle-aged men with wives and families.
+They are in the business to make money, and they don't want anything
+else out of it. The girls in their companies are like so many clerks
+to them, just machines that help to bring the money in. They don't
+know half a dozen of them to speak to. But our genial Ike is not like
+that." Wally consumed a mouthful of sole. "Ike Goble is a bad citizen.
+He paws! He's a slinker and a prowler and a leerer. He's a pest and a
+worm! He's fat and soft and flabby. He has a greasy soul, a withered
+heart, and an eye like a codfish. Not knocking him, of course!" added
+Wally magnanimously. "Far be it from me to knock anyone! But, speaking
+with the utmost respect and viewing him in the most favourable light,
+he is a combination of tom-cat and the things you see when you turn
+over a flat stone! Such are the reasons why I am sorry that you are in
+his company."
+
+Jill had listened to this diatribe with a certain uneasiness. Her
+brief encounters with Mr. Goble told her that every word was probably
+true. She could still feel the unpleasant sensation of being inspected
+by the eye which Wally had compared--quite justly--to that of a
+codfish. But her pride forbade any admission of weakness.
+
+"I can take care of myself," she said.
+
+"I don't doubt it," said Wally. "And you could probably take care of
+yourself if you fell into a muddy pond. But I shouldn't like to stand
+on the bank and watch you doing it. I know what girls in the chorus
+have to go through. Hanging about for hours in draughts, doing
+nothing, while the principals go through their scenes, and yelled at
+if they try to relieve the tedium of captivity with a little light
+conversation...."
+
+"Yes," admitted Jill. "There has been a good lot of that."
+
+"There always is. I believe if the stage-carpenter was going to stick
+a screw in a flat, they would call a chorus-rehearsal to watch him do
+it.... Jill, you must get out of it. It's no life for you. The
+work...."
+
+"I like the work."
+
+"While it's new, perhaps, but...."
+
+Jill interrupted him passionately.
+
+"Oh, can't you understand!" she cried. "I want the work. I need it. I
+want something to do, something to occupy my mind. I hate talking
+about it, but you know how things are with me. Freddie must have told
+you. Even if he didn't, you must have guessed, meeting me here all
+alone and remembering how things were when we last met. You must
+understand! Haven't you ever had a terrible shock or a dreadful
+disappointment that seemed to smash up the whole world? And didn't you
+find that the only possible thing to do was to work and work and work
+as hard as ever you could? When I first came to America, I nearly went
+mad. Uncle Chris sent me down to a place on Long Island, and I had
+nothing to do all day but think. I couldn't stand it. I ran away and
+came to New York and met Nelly Bryant and got this work to do. It
+saved me. It kept me busy all day and tired me out and didn't give me
+time to think. The harder it is, the better it suits me. It's an
+antidote. I simply wouldn't give it up now. As for what you were
+saying, I must put up with that. The other girls do, so why shouldn't
+I?"
+
+"They are toughened to it."
+
+"Then I must get toughened to it. What else is there for me to do? I
+must do something."
+
+"Marry me!" said Wally, reaching across the table and putting his hand
+on hers. The light in his eyes lit up his homely face like a lantern.
+
+
+III
+
+The suddenness of it startled Jill into silence. She snatched her hand
+away and drew back, looking at him in wonderment. She was confusedly
+aware of a babble of sound--people talking, people laughing, the
+orchestra playing a lively tune. All her senses seemed to have become
+suddenly more acute. She was intensely alive to small details. Then,
+abruptly, the whole world condensed itself into two eyes that were
+fastened upon hers--compelling eyes which she felt a panic desire to
+avoid.
+
+She turned her head away, and looked out into the restaurant. It
+seemed incredible that all these people, placidly intent upon their
+food and their small talk, should not be staring at her, wondering
+what she was going to say; nudging each other and speculating. Their
+detachment made her feel alone and helpless. She was nothing to them
+and they did not care what happened to her, just as she had been
+nothing to those frozen marshes down at Brookport. She was alone in an
+indifferent world, with her own problems to settle for herself.
+
+Other men had asked Jill to marry them--a full dozen of them, here and
+there in country houses and at London dances, before she had met and
+loved Derek Underhill; but nothing that she had had in the way of
+experience had prepared her for Wally. These others had given her time
+to marshal her forces, to collect herself, to weigh them thoughtfully
+in the balance. Before speaking, they had signalled their devotion in
+a hundred perceptible ways--by their pinkness, their stammering
+awkwardness, by the glassy look in their eyes. They had not shot a
+proposal at her like a bullet from out of the cover of a conversation
+that had nothing to do with their emotions at all.
+
+Yet, now that the shock of it was dying away, she began to remember
+signs she would have noticed, speeches which ought to have warned
+her....
+
+"Wally!" she gasped.
+
+She found that he affected her in an entirely different fashion from
+the luckless dozen of those London days. He seemed to matter more, to
+be more important, almost--though she rebelled at the word--more
+dangerous.
+
+"Let me take you out of it all! You aren't fit for this sort of life.
+I can't bear to see you...."
+
+Jill bent forward and touched his hand. He started as though he had
+been burned. The muscles of his throat were working.
+
+"Wally, it's--" She paused for a word. "Kind" was horrible. It would
+have sounded cold, almost supercilious. "Sweet" was the sort of thing
+she could imagine Lois Denham saying to her friend Izzy. She began her
+sentence again. "You're a dear to say that, but...."
+
+Wally laughed chokingly.
+
+"You think I'm altruistic? I'm not. I'm just as selfish and
+self-centred as any other man who wants a thing very badly. I'm as
+altruistic as a child crying for the moon. I want you to marry me
+because I love you, because there never was anybody like you, because
+you're the whole world, because I always have loved you. I've been
+dreaming about you for a dozen years, thinking about you, wondering
+about you--wondering where you were, what you were doing, how you
+looked. I used to think that it was just sentimentality, that you
+merely stood for a time of my life when I was happier than I have ever
+been since. I used to think that you were just a sort of peg on which
+I was hanging a pleasant sentimental regret for days which could never
+come back. You were a memory that seemed to personify all the other
+memories of the best time of my life. You were the goddess of old
+associations. Then I met you in London, and it was different. I wanted
+you--_you_! I didn't want you because you recalled old times and were
+associated with dead happiness, I wanted _you_! I knew I loved you
+directly you spoke to me at the theatre that night of the fire. I
+loved your voice and your eyes and your smile and your courage. And
+then you told me you were engaged. I might have expected it, but I
+couldn't keep my jealousy from showing itself, and you snubbed me as I
+deserved. But now ... things are different now. Everything's
+different, except my love."
+
+Jill turned her face to the wall beside her. A man at the next table,
+a corpulent, red-faced man, had begun to stare. He could have heard
+nothing, for Wally had spoken in a low voice; but plainly he was aware
+that something more interesting was happening at their table than at
+any of the other tables, and he was watching with a bovine
+inquisitiveness which affected Jill with a sense of outrage. A moment
+before, she had resented the indifference of the outer world. Now,
+this one staring man seemed like a watching multitude. There were
+tears in her eyes, and she felt that the red-faced man suspected it.
+
+"Wally...." Her voice broke. "It's impossible."
+
+"Why? Why, Jill?"
+
+"Because.... Oh, it's impossible!"
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"Because...." He seemed to find a difficulty in speaking. "Because of
+Underhill?"
+
+Jill nodded. She felt wretched. The monstrous incongruity of her
+surroundings oppressed her. The orchestra had dashed into a rollicking
+melody, which set her foot tapping in spite of herself. At a near-by
+table somebody was shouting with laughter. Two waiters at a
+service-stand were close enough for her to catch snatches of their
+talk. They were arguing about an order of fried potatoes. Once again
+her feelings veered round, and she loathed the detachment of the
+world. Her heart ached for Wally. She could not look at him, but she
+knew exactly what she would see if she did--honest, pleading eyes
+searching her face for something which she could not give.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+The table creaked. Wally was leaning further forward. He seemed like
+something large and pathetic--a big dog in trouble. She hated to be
+hurting him. And all the time her foot tapped accompaniment to the
+rag-time tune.
+
+"But you can't live all your life with a memory," said Wally.
+
+Jill turned and faced him. His eyes seemed to leap at her, and they
+were just as she had pictured them.
+
+"You don't understand," she said gently. "You don't understand."
+
+"It's ended. It's over."
+
+Jill shook her head.
+
+"You can't still love him, after what has happened!"
+
+"I don't know," said Jill unhappily.
+
+The words seemed to bewilder Wally as much as they had bewildered
+Freddie.
+
+"You don't know?"
+
+Jill shut her eyes tight. Wally quivered. It was a trick she had had
+as a child. In perplexity, she had always screwed up her eyes just
+like that, as if to shut herself up in herself.
+
+"Don't talk for a minute, Wally," she said. "I want to think."
+
+Her eyes opened.
+
+"It's like this," she said. He had seen her look at him in exactly the
+same way a hundred times. "I don't suppose I can make you understand,
+but this is how it is. Suppose you had a room, and it was full--of
+things. Furniture. And there wasn't any space left. You--you couldn't
+put anything else in till you had taken all that out, could you? It
+might not be worth anything, but it would still be there, taking up
+all the room."
+
+Wally nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I see."
+
+"My heart's full, Wally dear. I know it's just lumber that's choking
+it up, but it's difficult to get it out. It takes time getting it out.
+I put it in, thinking it was wonderful furniture, the most wonderful
+in the world, and--I was cheated. It was just lumber. But it's there.
+It's still there. It's there all the time. And what am I to do?"
+
+The orchestra crashed, and was silent. The sudden stillness seemed to
+break a spell. The world invaded the little island where they sat. A
+chattering party of girls and men brushed past them. The waiter,
+judging that they had been there long enough, slipped a strip of
+paper, decorously turned upside down, in front of Wally. He took the
+money, and went away to get change.
+
+Wally turned to Jill.
+
+"I understand," he said. "All this hasn't happened, and we're just as
+good pals as before?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But...." He forced a laugh ... "mark my words, a time may come, and
+then...!"
+
+"I don't know," said Jill.
+
+"A time may come," repeated Wally. "At any rate, let me think so. It
+has nothing to do with me. It's for you to decide, absolutely. I'm not
+going to pursue you with my addresses! If ever you get that room of
+yours emptied, you won't have to hang out a 'To Let' sign. I shall be
+waiting, and you will know where to find me. And, in the meantime,
+yours to command, Wallace Mason. Is that clear?"
+
+"Quite clear." Jill looked at him affectionately. "There's nobody I'd
+rather open that room to than you, Wally. You know that."
+
+"Is that the solemn truth?"
+
+"The solemn truth."
+
+"Then," said Wally, "in two minutes you will see a startled waiter.
+There will be about fourteen dollars change out of that twenty he took
+away. I'm going to give it all to him."
+
+"You mustn't!"
+
+"Every cent!" said Wally firmly. "And the young Greek brigand who
+stole my hat at the door is going to get a dollar! That, as our
+ascetic and honourable friend Goble would say, is the sort of little
+guy _I_ am!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The red-faced man at the next table eyed them as they went out,
+leaving behind them a waiter who clutched totteringly for support at
+the back of a chair.
+
+"Had a row," he decided, "but made it up."
+
+He called for a toothpick.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MR. GOBLE PLAYS WITH FATE
+
+I
+
+
+On the boardwalk at Atlantic City, that much-enduring seashore resort
+which has been the birthplace of so many musical plays, there stands
+an all-day and all-night restaurant, under the same management and
+offering the same hospitality as the one in Columbus Circle at which
+Jill had taken her first meal on arriving in New York. At least, its
+hospitality is noisy during the waking and working hours of the day;
+but there are moments when it has an almost cloistral peace, and the
+customer, abashed by the cold calm of its snowy marble and the silent
+gravity of the white-robed attendants, unconsciously lowers his voice
+and tries to keep his feet from shuffling, like one in a temple. The
+members of the chorus of "The Rose of America," dropping in by ones
+and twos at six o'clock in the morning about two weeks after the
+events recorded in the last chapter, spoke in whispers and gave their
+orders for breakfast in a subdued undertone.
+
+The dress-rehearsal had just dragged its weary length to a close. It
+is the custom of the dwellers in Atlantic City, who seem to live
+entirely by pleasure, to attend a species of vaudeville
+performances--incorrectly termed a sacred concert--on Sunday nights,
+and it had been one o'clock in the morning before the concert scenery
+could be moved out of the theatre and the first act set of "The Rose
+of America" moved in. And, as by some unwritten law of the drama no
+dress-rehearsal can begin without a delay of at least an hour and a
+half, the curtain had not gone up on Mr. Miller's opening chorus till
+half-past two. There had been dress-parades, conferences, interminable
+arguments between the stage-director and a mysterious man in
+shirt-sleeves about the lights, more dress-parades, further
+conferences, hitches with regard to the sets, and another outbreak of
+debate on the subject of blues, ambers, and the management of the
+"spot," which was worked by a plaintive voice, answering to the name
+of Charlie, at the back of the family circle. But by six o'clock a
+complete, if ragged, performance had been given, and the chorus, who
+had partaken of no nourishment since dinner on the previous night, had
+limped off round the corner for a bite of breakfast before going to
+bed.
+
+They were a battered and a draggled company, some with dark circles
+beneath their eyes, others blooming with the unnatural scarlet of the
+make-up which they had been too tired to take off. The Duchess,
+haughty to the last, had fallen asleep with her head on the table. The
+red-headed Babe was lying back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.
+The Southern girl blinked like an owl at the morning sunshine out on
+the boardwalk.
+
+The Cherub, whose triumphant youth had brought her almost fresh
+through a sleepless night, contributed the only remark made during the
+interval of waiting for the meal.
+
+"The fascination of a thtage life! Why girls leave home!" She looked
+at her reflection in the little mirror of her vanity-bag. "It _is_ a
+face!" she murmured reflectively. "But I should hate to have to go
+around with it long!"
+
+A sallow young man, with the alertness peculiar to those who work on
+the night-shifts of restaurants, dumped a tray down on the table with
+a clatter. The Duchess woke up. Babe took her eyes off the ceiling.
+The Southern girl ceased to look at the sunshine. Already, at the mere
+sight of food, the extraordinary recuperative powers of the theatrical
+worker had begun to assert themselves. In five minutes these girls
+would be feeling completely restored and fit for anything.
+
+Conversation broke out with the first sip of coffee, and the calm of
+the restaurant was shattered. Its day had begun.
+
+"It's a great life if you don't weaken," said the Cherub hungrily
+attacking her omelette. "And the wortht is yet to come! I thuppose all
+you old dears realithe that this show will have to be rewritten from
+end to end, and we'll be rehearthing day and night all the time we're
+on the road."
+
+"Why?" Lois Denham spoke with her mouth full. "What's wrong with it?"
+
+The Duchess took a sip of coffee.
+
+"Don't make me laugh!" she pleaded. "What's wrong with it? What's
+right with it, one would feel more inclined to ask!"
+
+"One would feel thtill more inclined," said the Cherub, "to athk why
+one was thuch a chump as to let oneself in for this sort of thing when
+one hears on all sides that waitresses earn thixty dollars a month."
+
+"The numbers are all right," argued Babe. "I don't mean the melodies,
+but Johnny has arranged some good business."
+
+"He always does," said the Southern girl. "Some more buckwheat cakes,
+please. But what about the book?"
+
+"I never listen to the book."
+
+The Cherub laughed.
+
+"You're too good to yourself! I listened to it right along, and take
+it from me it's sad! Of courthe they'll have it fixed. We can't open
+in New York like this. My professional reputation wouldn't thtand it!
+Didn't you thee Wally Mason in front, making notes? They've got him
+down to do the re-writing."
+
+Jill, who had been listening in a dazed way to the conversation,
+fighting against the waves of sleep which flooded over her, woke up.
+
+"Was Wally--was Mr. Mason there?"
+
+"Sure. Sitting at the back."
+
+Jill could not have said whether she was glad or sorry. She had not
+seen Wally since that afternoon when they had lunched together at the
+Cosmopolis, and the rush of the final weeks of rehearsals had given
+her little opportunity for thinking of him. At the back of her mind
+had been the feeling that sooner or later she would have to think of
+him, but for two weeks she had been too tired and too busy to
+re-examine him as a factor in her life. There had been times when the
+thought of him had been like the sunshine on a winter day, warming her
+with almost an impersonal glow in moments of depression. And then some
+sharp, poignant memory of Derek would come to blot him out.
+
+She came out of her thoughts to find that the talk had taken another
+turn.
+
+"And the wortht of it is," the Cherub was saying, "we shall rehearthe
+all day and give a show every night and work ourselves to the bone,
+and then, when they're good and ready, they'll fire one of us!"
+
+"That's right!" agreed the Southern girl.
+
+"They couldn't!" Jill cried.
+
+"You wait!" said the Cherub. "They'll never open in New York with
+thirteen girls. Ike's much too thuperstitious."
+
+"But they wouldn't do a thing like that after we've all worked so
+hard!"
+
+There was a general burst of sardonic laughter. Jill's opinion of the
+chivalry of theatrical managers seemed to be higher than that of her
+more experienced colleagues.
+
+"They'll do anything," the Cherub assured her.
+
+"You don't know the half of it, dearie," scoffed Lois Denham. "You
+don't know the half of it!"
+
+"Wait till you've been in as many shows as I have," said Babe, shaking
+her red locks. "The usual thing is to keep a girl slaving her head off
+all through the road-tour and then fire her before the New York
+opening."
+
+"But it's a shame! It isn't fair!"
+
+"If one is expecting to be treated fairly," said the Duchess with a
+prolonged yawn, "one should not go into the show-business."
+
+And, having uttered this profoundly true maxim, she fell asleep again.
+
+The slumber of the Duchess was the signal for a general move. Her
+somnolence was catching. The restorative effects of the meal were
+beginning to wear off. There was a call for a chorus rehearsal at four
+o'clock, and it seemed the wise move to go to bed and get some sleep
+while there was time. The Duchess was roused from her dreams by means
+of a piece of ice from one of the tumblers; bills were paid; and the
+company poured out, yawning and chattering, into the sunlight of the
+empty boardwalk.
+
+Jill detached herself from the group, and made her way to a seat
+facing the sea. Tiredness had fallen upon her like a leaden weight,
+crushing all the power out of her limbs, and the thought of walking to
+the boarding-house where, from motives of economy, she was sharing a
+room with the Cherub, paralysed her.
+
+It was a perfect morning, clear and cloudless, with the warm
+freshness of a day that means to be hotter later on. The sea sparkled
+in the sun. Little waves broke lazily on the grey sand. Jill closed
+her eyes, for the brightness of sun and water was trying; and her
+thoughts went back to what the Cherub had said.
+
+If Wally was really going to rewrite the play, they would be thrown
+together. She would be obliged to meet him, and she was not sure that
+she was ready to meet him. Still, he would be somebody to talk to on
+subjects other than the one eternal topic of the theatre, somebody who
+belonged to the old life. She had ceased to regard Freddie Rooke in
+this light; for Freddie, solemn with his new responsibilities as a
+principal, was the most whole-hearted devotee of "shop" in the
+company. Freddie nowadays declined to consider any subject for
+conversation that did not have to do with "The Rose of America" in
+general and his share in it in particular. Jill had given him up, and
+he had paired off with Nelly Bryant. The two were inseparable. Jill
+had taken one or two meals with them, but Freddie's professional
+monologues, of which Nelly seemed never to weary, were too much for
+her. As a result she was now very much alone. There were girls in the
+company whom she liked, but most of them had their own intimate
+friends, and she was always conscious of not being really wanted. She
+was lonely, and, after examining the matter as clearly as her tired
+mind would allow, she found herself curiously soothed by the thought
+that Wally would be near to mitigate her loneliness.
+
+She opened her eyes, blinking. Sleep had crept upon her with an
+insidious suddenness, and she had almost fallen over on the seat. She
+was just bracing herself to get up and begin the long tramp to the
+boarding-house, when a voice spoke at her side.
+
+"Hullo! Good morning!"
+
+Jill looked up.
+
+"Hullo, Wally!"
+
+"Surprised to see me?"
+
+"No. Milly Trevor said she had seen you at the rehearsal last night."
+
+Wally came round the bench and seated himself at her side. His eyes
+were tired, and his chin dark and bristly.
+
+"Had breakfast?"
+
+"Yes, thanks. Have you?"
+
+"Not yet. How are you feeling?"
+
+"Rather tired."
+
+"I wonder you're not dead. I've been through a good many
+dress-rehearsals, but this one was the record. Why they couldn't have
+had it comfortably in New York and just have run through the piece
+without scenery last night, I don't know, except that in musical
+comedy it's etiquette always to do the most inconvenient thing. They
+know perfectly well that there was no chance of getting the scenery
+into the theatre till the small hours. You must be worn out. Why
+aren't you in bed?"
+
+"I couldn't face the walk. I suppose I ought to be going, though."
+
+She half rose, then sank back again. The glitter of the water
+hypnotized her. She closed her eyes again. She could hear Wally
+speaking, then his voice grew suddenly faint and far off, and she
+ceased to fight the delicious drowsiness.
+
+Jill awoke with a start. She opened her eyes, and shut them again at
+once. The sun was very strong now. It was one of those prematurely
+warm days of early Spring which have all the languorous heat of late
+summer. She opened her eyes once more, and found that she was feeling
+greatly refreshed. She also discovered that her head was resting on
+Wally's shoulder.
+
+"Have I been asleep?"
+
+Wally laughed.
+
+"You have been having what you might call a nap." He massaged his left
+arm vigorously. "You needed it. Do you feel more rested now?"
+
+"Good gracious! Have I been squashing your poor arm all the time? Why
+didn't you move?"
+
+"I was afraid you would fall over. You just shut your eyes and toppled
+sideways."
+
+"What's the time?"
+
+Wally looked at his watch.
+
+"Just on ten."
+
+"Ten!" Jill was horrified. "Why, I have been giving you cramp for
+about three hours! You must have had an awful time!"
+
+"Oh, it was all right. I think I dozed off myself. Except that the
+birds didn't come and cover us with leaves; it was rather like the
+'Babes in the Wood.'"
+
+"But you haven't had any breakfast! Aren't you starving?"
+
+"Well, I'm not saying I wouldn't spear a fried egg with some vim if it
+happened to float past. But there's plenty of time for that. Lots of
+doctors say you oughtn't to eat breakfast, and Indian fakirs go
+without food for days at a time in order to develop their souls. Shall
+I take you back to wherever you're staying? You ought to get a proper
+sleep in bed."
+
+"Don't dream of taking me. Go off and have something to eat."
+
+"Oh, that can wait. I'd like to see you safely home."
+
+Jill was conscious of a renewed sense of his comfortingness. There was
+no doubt about it, Wally was different from any other man she had
+known. She suddenly felt guilty, as if she were obtaining something
+valuable under false pretences.
+
+"Wally!"
+
+"Hullo?"
+
+"You--you oughtn't to be so good to me!"
+
+"Nonsense! Where's the harm in lending a hand--or, rather, an arm--to
+a pal in trouble?"
+
+"You know what I mean. I can't ... that is to say ... it isn't as
+though ... I mean...."
+
+Wally smiled a tired, friendly smile.
+
+"If you're trying to say what I think you're trying to say, don't! We
+had all that out two weeks ago. I quite understand the position. You
+mustn't worry yourself about it." He took her arm, and they crossed
+the boardwalk. "Are we going in the right direction? You lead the way.
+I know exactly how you feel. We're old friends, and nothing more. But,
+as an old friend, I claim the right to behave like an old friend. If
+an old friend can't behave like an old friend, how _can_ an old friend
+behave? And now we'll rule the whole topic out of the conversation.
+But perhaps you're too tired for conversation?"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"Then I will tell you about the sad death of young Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Well, when I say death, I use the word in a loose sense. The human
+giraffe still breathes, and I imagine, from the speed with which he
+legged it back to his hotel when we parted, that he still takes
+nourishment. But really he is dead. His heart is broken. We had a
+conference after the dress-rehearsal, and our friend Mr. Goble told
+him in no uncertain words--in the whole course of my experience I have
+never heard words less uncertain--that his damned rotten high-brow
+false-alarm of a show--I am quoting Mr. Goble--would have to be
+rewritten by alien hands. And these are them! On the right, alien
+right hand. On the left, alien left hand. Yes, I am the instrument
+selected for the murder of Pilkington's artistic aspirations. I'm
+going to rewrite the show. In fact, I have already rewritten the first
+act and most of the second. Goble foresaw this contingency and told me
+to get busy two weeks ago, and I've been working hard ever since. We
+shall start rehearsing the new version to-morrow and open in Baltimore
+next Monday with practically a different piece. And it's going to be a
+pippin, believe _me_, said our hero modestly. A gang of composers has
+been working in shifts for two weeks, and, by chucking out nearly all
+of the original music, we shall have a good score. It means a lot of
+work for you, I'm afraid. All the business of the numbers will have to
+be re-arranged."
+
+"I like work," said Jill. "But I'm sorry for Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"He's all right. He owns seventy per cent of the show. He may make a
+fortune. He's certain to make a comfortable sum. That is, if he
+doesn't sell out his interest in pique--or dudgeon, if you prefer it.
+From what he said at the close of the proceedings, I fancy he would
+sell out to anybody who asked him. At least, he said that he washed
+his hands of the piece. He's going back to New York this
+afternoon--won't even wait for the opening. Of course, _I'm_ sorry for
+the poor chap in a way, but he had no right, with the excellent
+central idea which he got, to turn out such a rotten book. Oh, by the
+way!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Another tragedy! Unavoidable, but pathetic. Poor old Freddie! He's
+out!"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Out!" repeated Wally firmly.
+
+"But didn't you think he was good last night?"
+
+"He was awful! But that isn't why. Goble wanted his part rewritten as
+a Scotchman, so as to get McAndrew, the fellow who made such a hit
+last season in 'Hoots, Mon!' That sort of thing is always happening in
+musical comedy. You have to fit parts to suit whatever good people
+happen to be available at the moment. My heart bleeds for Freddie, but
+what can one do? At any rate he isn't so badly off as a fellow was in
+one of my shows. In the second act he was supposed to have escaped
+from an asylum, and the management, in a passion for realism, insisted
+that he should shave his head. The day after he shaved it, they heard
+that a superior comedian was disengaged and fired him. It's a ruthless
+business."
+
+"The girls were saying that one of us would be dismissed."
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't think that's likely."
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"So do I. What are we stopping for?"
+
+Jill had halted in front of a shabby-looking house, one of those
+depressing buildings which spring up overnight at seashore resorts and
+start to decay the moment the builders have left them.
+
+"I live here."
+
+"Here?" Wally looked at her in consternation. "But...."
+
+Jill smiled.
+
+"We working-girls have got to economize. Besides, it's quite
+comfortable--fairly comfortable--inside, and it's only for a week."
+She yawned. "I believe I'm falling asleep again. I'd better hurry in
+and go to bed. Good-bye, Wally dear. You've been wonderful. Mind you
+go and get a good breakfast."
+
+
+II
+
+When Jill arrived at the theatre at four o'clock for the chorus
+rehearsal, the expected blow had not fallen. No steps had apparently
+been taken to eliminate the thirteenth girl whose presence in the cast
+preyed on Mr. Goble's superstitious mind. But she found her colleagues
+still in a condition of pessimistic foreboding. "Wait!" was the gloomy
+watchword of "The Rose of America" chorus.
+
+The rehearsal passed off without event. It lasted until six o'clock,
+when Jill, the Cherub, and two or three of the other girls went to
+snatch a hasty dinner before returning to the theatre to make up. It
+was not a cheerful meal. Reaction had set in after the over-exertion
+of the previous night, and it was too early for first-night excitement
+to take its place. Everybody, even the Cherub, whose spirits seldom
+failed her, was depressed, and the idea of an overhanging doom had
+grown. It seemed now to be merely a question of speculating on the
+victim, and the conversation gave Jill, as the last addition to the
+company, and so the cause of swelling the ranks of the chorus to the
+unlucky number, a feeling of guilt. She was glad when it was time to
+go back to the theatre.
+
+The moment she and her companions entered the dressing-room, it was
+made clear to them that the doom had fallen. In a chair in the corner,
+all her pretence and affectation swept away in a flood of tears, sat
+the unhappy Duchess, the centre of a group of girls anxious to
+console, but limited in their ideas of consolation to an occasional
+pat on the back and an offer of a fresh pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"It's tough, honey!" somebody was saying as Jill came in.
+
+Somebody else said it was fierce, and a third girl declared it to be
+the limit. A fourth girl, well-meaning but less helpful than she would
+have liked to be, was advising the victim not to worry.
+
+The story of the disaster was brief and easily told. The Duchess,
+sailing in at the stage-door, had paused at the letterbox to see if
+Cuthbert, her faithful auto-salesman, had sent her a good-luck
+telegram. He had, but his good wishes were unfortunately neutralized
+by the fact that the very next letter in the box was one from the
+management, crisp and to the point, informing the Duchess that her
+services would not be required that night or thereafter. It was the
+subtle meanness of the blow that roused the indignation of "The Rose
+of America" chorus, the cunning villainy with which it had been timed.
+
+"Poor Mae, if she'd opened to-night, they'd have had to give her two
+weeks' notice or her salary. But they can fire her without a cent just
+because she's only been rehearsing and hasn't given a show!"
+
+The Duchess burst into fresh flood of tears.
+
+"Don't you worry, honey!" advised the well-meaning girl who would have
+been in her element looking in on Job with Bildad the Shuhite and his
+friends. "Don't you worry!"
+
+"It's tough!" said the girl who had adopted that form of verbal
+consolation.
+
+"It's fierce!" said the girl who preferred that adjective.
+
+The other girl, with an air of saying something new, repeated her
+statement that it was the limit. The Duchess cried forlornly
+throughout. She had needed this engagement badly. Chorus salaries are
+not stupendous, but it is possible to save money by means of them
+during a New York run, especially if you have spent three years in a
+milliner's shop and can make your own clothes, as the Duchess, in
+spite of her air of being turned out by Fifth Avenue modistes, could
+and did. She had been looking forward, now that this absurd piece was
+to be rewritten by someone who knew his business and had a good chance
+of success, to putting by just those few dollars that make all the
+difference when you are embarking on married life. Cuthbert, for all
+his faithfulness, could not hold up the financial end of the
+establishment unsupported for at least another eighteen months; and
+this disaster meant that the wedding would have to be postponed again.
+So the Duchess, abandoning that aristocratic manner criticized by some
+of her colleagues as "up-stage" and by others as "Ritz-y," sat in her
+chair and consumed pocket-handkerchiefs as fast as they were offered
+to her.
+
+Jill had been the only girl in the room who had spoken no word of
+consolation. This was not because she was not sorry for the Duchess.
+She had never been sorrier for any one in her life. The pathos of that
+swift descent from haughtiness to misery had bitten deep into her
+sensitive heart. But she revolted at the idea of echoing the banal
+words of the others. Words were no good, she thought, as she set her
+little teeth and glared at an absent management--a management just
+about now presumably distending itself with a luxurious dinner at one
+of the big hotels. Deeds were what she demanded. All her life she had
+been a girl of impulsive action, and she wanted to act impulsively
+now. She was in much the same Berserk mood as had swept her, raging,
+to the defence of Bill the parrot on the occasion of his dispute with
+Henry of London. The fighting spirit which had been drained from her
+by the all-night rehearsal had come back in full measure.
+
+"What are you going to _do_?" she cried. "Aren't you going to _do_
+something?"
+
+Do? The members of "The Rose of America" ensemble looked doubtfully at
+one another. Do? It had not occurred to them that there was anything
+to be done. These things happened, and you regretted them, but as for
+doing anything, well, what _could_ you do?
+
+Jill's face was white and her eyes were flaming. She dominated the
+roomful of girls like a little Napoleon. The change in her startled
+them. Hitherto they had always looked on her as rather an unusually
+quiet girl. She had always made herself unobtrusively pleasant to them
+all. They all liked her. But they had never suspected her of
+possessing this militant quality. Nobody spoke, but there was a
+general stir. She had flung a new idea broadcast, and it was beginning
+to take root. Do something? Well, if it came to that, why not?
+
+"We ought all to refuse to go on to-night unless they let her go on!"
+Jill declared.
+
+The stir became a movement. Enthusiasm is catching, and every girl is
+at heart a rebel. And the idea was appealing to the imagination.
+Refuse to give a show on the opening night! Had a chorus ever done
+such a thing? They trembled on the verge of making history.
+
+"Strike?" quavered somebody at the back.
+
+"Yes, strike!" cried Jill.
+
+"Hooray! That's the thtuff!" shouted the Cherub, and turned the scale.
+She was a popular girl, and her adherence to the Cause confirmed the
+doubters. "Thtrike!"
+
+"Strike! Strike!"
+
+Jill turned to the Duchess, who had been gaping amazedly at the
+demonstration. She no longer wept, but she seemed in a dream.
+
+"Dress and get ready to go on," Jill commanded. "We'll all dress and
+get ready to go on. Then I'll go and find Mr. Goble and tell him what
+we mean to do. And, if he doesn't give in, we'll stay here in this
+room, and there won't be a performance!"
+
+
+III
+
+Mr. Goble, with a Derby hat on the back of his head and an unlighted
+cigar in the corner of his mouth, was superintending the erection of
+the first act set when Jill found him. He was standing with his back
+to the safety-curtain glowering at a blue canvas, supposed to
+represent one of those picturesque summer skies which you get at the
+best places on Long Island. Jill, coming down-stage from the staircase
+that led to the dressing-room, interrupted his line of vision.
+
+"Get out of the light!" bellowed Mr. Goble, always a man of direct
+speech, adding "Damn you!" for good measure.
+
+"Please move to one side," interpreted the stage-director. "Mr. Goble
+is looking at the set."
+
+The head carpenter, who completed the little group, said nothing.
+Stage carpenters always say nothing. Long association with fussy
+directors has taught them that the only policy to pursue on opening
+nights is to withdraw into the silence, wrap themselves up in it, and
+not emerge until the enemy has grown tired and gone off to worry
+somebody else.
+
+"It don't look right!" said Mr. Goble, cocking his head on one side.
+
+"I see what you mean, Mr. Goble," assented the stage-director
+obsequiously. "It has perhaps a little too much--er--not quite
+enough--yes, I see what you mean!"
+
+"It's too--damn--BLUE!" rasped Mr. Goble, impatient of the vacillating
+criticism. "That's what's the matter with it."
+
+The head carpenter abandoned the silent policy of a lifetime. He felt
+impelled to utter. He was a man who, when not at the theatre, spent
+most of his time in bed, reading all-fiction magazines; but it so
+happened that once, last summer, he had actually seen the sky; and he
+considered that this entitled him to speak almost as a specialist on
+the subject.
+
+"Ther sky _is_ blue!" he observed huskily. "Yessir! I seen it!"
+
+He passed into the silence again, and, to prevent a further lapse,
+stopped up his mouth with a piece of chewing-gum.
+
+Mr. Goble regarded the silver-tongued orator wrathfully. He was not
+accustomed to chatterboxes arguing with him like this. He would
+probably have said something momentous and crushing, but at this point
+Jill intervened.
+
+"Mr. Goble."
+
+The manager swung round on her.
+
+"What _is_ it?"
+
+It is sad to think how swiftly affection can change to dislike in this
+world. Two weeks before, Mr. Goble had looked on Jill with favour. She
+had seemed good in his eyes. But that refusal of hers to lunch with
+him, followed by a refusal some days later to take a bit of supper
+somewhere, had altered his views on feminine charm. If it had been
+left to him, as most things were about this theatre, to decide which
+of the thirteen girls should be dismissed, he would undoubtedly have
+selected Jill. But at this stage in the proceedings there was the
+unfortunate necessity of making concessions to the temperamental
+Johnson Miller. Mr. Goble was aware that the dance-director's services
+would be badly needed in the re-arrangement of the numbers during the
+coming week or so, and he knew that there were a dozen managers
+waiting eagerly to welcome him if he threw up his present job, so he
+had been obliged to approach him in quite a humble spirit and enquire
+which of his female chorus could be most easily spared. And, as the
+Duchess had a habit of carrying her haughty languor on to the stage
+and employing it as a substitute for the chorea which was Mr. Miller's
+ideal, the dance-director had chosen her. To Mr. Goble's dislike of
+Jill, therefore, was added now something of the fury of the baffled
+potentate.
+
+"'Jer want?" he demanded.
+
+"Mr. Goble is extremely busy," said the stage-director. "Extremely."
+
+A momentary doubt as to the best way of approaching her subject had
+troubled Jill on her way downstairs, but, now that she was on the
+battlefield confronting the enemy, she found herself cool, collected,
+and full of a cold rage which steeled her nerves without confusing her
+mind.
+
+"I came to ask you to let Mae D'Arcy go on to-night."
+
+"Who the hell's Mae D'Arcy?" Mr. Goble broke off to bellow at a
+scene-shifter who was depositing the wall of Mrs. Stuyvesant van
+Dyke's Long Island residence too far down stage. "Not there, you fool!
+Higher up!"
+
+"You gave her notice this evening," said Jill.
+
+"Well, what about it?"
+
+"We want you to withdraw it."
+
+"Who's 'we'?"
+
+"The other girls and myself."
+
+Mr. Goble jerked his head so violently that the Derby hat flew off, to
+be picked up, dusted, and restored by the stage-director.
+
+"Oh, so you don't like it? Well, you know what you can do...."
+
+"Yes," said Jill, "we do. We are going to strike."
+
+"What?"
+
+"If you don't let Mae go on, we shan't go on. There won't be a
+performance to-night, unless you like to give one without a chorus."
+
+"Are you crazy?"
+
+"Perhaps. But we're quite unanimous."
+
+Mr. Goble, like most theatrical managers, was not good at words over
+two syllables.
+
+"You're what?"
+
+"We've talked it over, and we've all decided to do what I said."
+
+Mr. Goble's hat shot off again, and gambolled away into the wings,
+with the stage-director bounding after it like a retriever.
+
+"Whose idea's this?" demanded Mr. Goble. His eyes were a little foggy,
+for his brain was adjusting itself but slowly to the novel situation.
+
+"Mine."
+
+"Oh, yours! I thought as much!"
+
+"Well," said Jill, "I'll go back and tell them that you will not do
+what we ask. We will keep our make-up on in case you change your
+mind."
+
+She turned away.
+
+"Come back!"
+
+Jill proceeded toward the staircase. As she went, a husky voice spoke
+in her ear.
+
+"Go to it, kid! You're all right!"
+
+The head-carpenter had broken his Trappist vows twice in a single
+evening, a thing which had not happened to him since the night three
+years ago, when, sinking wearily into a seat in a dark corner for a
+bit of a rest, he found that one of his assistants had placed a pot of
+red paint there.
+
+
+IV
+
+To Mr. Goble, fermenting and full of strange oaths, entered Johnson
+Miller. The dance-director was always edgey on first nights, and
+during the foregoing conversation had been flitting about the stage
+like a white-haired moth. His deafness had kept him in complete
+ignorance that there was anything untoward afoot, and he now
+approached Mr. Goble with his watch in his hand.
+
+"Eight twenty-five," he observed. "Time those girls were on stage."
+
+Mr. Goble, glad of a concrete target for his wrath, cursed him in
+about two hundred and fifty rich and well-selected words.
+
+"Huh?" said Miller, hand to ear.
+
+Mr. Goble repeated the last hundred and eleven words, the pick of the
+bunch.
+
+"Can't hear!" said Mr. Miller regretfully. "Got a cold."
+
+The grave danger that Mr. Goble, a thick-necked man, would undergo
+some sort of a stroke was averted by the presence of mind of the
+stage-director, who, returning with the hat, presented it like a
+bouquet to his employer, and then, his hands being now unoccupied,
+formed them into a funnel and through this flesh-and-blood megaphone
+endeavoured to impart the bad news.
+
+"The girls say they won't go on!"
+
+Mr. Miller nodded.
+
+"I _said_ it was time they were on."
+
+"They're on strike!"
+
+"It's not," said Mr. Miller austerely, "what they _like_, it's what
+they're paid for. They ought to be on stage. We should be ringing up
+in two minutes."
+
+The stage-director drew another breath, then thought better of it. He
+had a wife and children, and, if dadda went under with apoplexy, what
+became of the home, civilization's most sacred product? He relaxed the
+muscles of his diaphragm, and reached for pencil and paper.
+
+Mr. Miller inspected the message, felt for his spectacle-case, found
+it, opened it, took out his glasses, replaced the spectacle-case, felt
+for his handkerchief, polished the glasses, replaced the handkerchief,
+put the glasses on, and read. A blank look came into his face.
+
+"Why?" he enquired.
+
+The stage-director, with a nod of the head intended to imply that he
+must be patient and all would come right in the future, recovered the
+paper, and scribbled another sentence. Mr. Miller perused it.
+
+"Because Mae D'Arcy has got her notice?" he queried, amazed. "But the
+girl can't dance a step."
+
+The stage-director, by means of a wave of the hand, a lifting of both
+eyebrows, and a wrinkling of the nose, replied that the situation,
+unreasonable as it might appear to the thinking man, was as he had
+stated and must be faced. What, he enquired--through the medium of a
+clever drooping of the mouth and a shrug of the shoulders--was to be
+done about it?
+
+Mr. Miller remained for a moment in meditation.
+
+"I'll go and talk to them," he said.
+
+He flitted off, and the stage-director leaned back against the
+asbestos curtain. He was exhausted, and his throat was in agony, but
+nevertheless he was conscious of a feeling of quiet happiness. His
+life had been lived in the shadow of the constant fear that some day
+Mr. Goble might dismiss him. Should that disaster occur, he felt there
+was always a future for him in the movies.
+
+Scarcely had Mr. Miller disappeared on his peace-making errand, when
+there was a noise like a fowl going through a quickset hedge, and Mr.
+Saltzburg, brandishing his baton as if he were conducting an unseen
+orchestra, plunged through the scenery at the left upper entrance and
+charged excitedly down the stage. Having taken his musicians twice
+through the overture, he had for ten minutes been sitting in silence,
+waiting for the curtain to go up. At last, his emotional nature
+cracking under the strain of this suspense, he had left his
+conductor's chair and plunged down under the stage by way of the
+musician's bolthole to ascertain what was causing the delay.
+
+"What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?" enquired Mr.
+Saltzburg. "I wait and wait and wait and wait and wait.... We cannot
+play the overture again. What is it? What has happened?"
+
+Mr. Goble, that overwrought soul, had betaken himself to the wings
+where he was striding up and down with his hands behind his back,
+chewing his cigar. The stage-director braced himself once more to the
+task of explanation.
+
+"The girls have struck!"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg blinked through his glasses.
+
+"The girls?" he repeated blankly.
+
+"Oh, damn it!" cried the stage-director, his patience at last giving
+way. "You know what a girl is, don't you?"
+
+"They have what?"
+
+"Struck! Walked out on us! Refused to go on!"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg reeled under the blow.
+
+"But it is impossible! Who is to sing the opening chorus?"
+
+In the presence of one to whom he could relieve his mind without fear
+of consequences, the stage-director became savagely jocular.
+
+"That's all arranged," he said. "We're going to dress the carpenters
+in skirts. The audience won't notice anything wrong."
+
+"Should I speak to Mr. Goble?" queried Mr. Saltzburg doubtfully.
+
+"Yes, if you don't value your life," returned the stage-director.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg pondered.
+
+"I will go and speak to the childrun," he said. "I will talk to them.
+They know _me_! I will make them be reasonable."
+
+He bustled off in the direction taken by Mr. Miller, his coat-tails
+flying behind him. The stage-director, with a tired sigh, turned to
+face Wally, who had come in through the iron pass-door from the
+auditorium.
+
+"Hullo!" said Wally cheerfully. "Going strong? How's everybody at
+home? Fine? So am I! By the way, am I wrong or did I hear something
+about a theatrical entertainment of some sort here to-night?" He
+looked about him at the empty stage. In the wings, on the prompt side,
+could be discerned the flannel-clad forms of the gentlemanly members
+of the male ensemble, all dressed up for Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke's
+tennis party. One or two of the principals were standing perplexedly
+in the lower entrance. The O.P. side had been given over by general
+consent to Mr. Goble for his perambulations. Every now and then he
+would flash into view through an opening in the scenery. "I understood
+that to-night was the night for the great revival of comic opera.
+Where are the comics, and why aren't they opping?"
+
+The stage-director repeated his formula once more.
+
+"The girls have struck!"
+
+"So have the clocks," said Wally. "It's past nine."
+
+"The chorus refuse to go on."
+
+"No, really! Just artistic loathing of the rotten piece, or is there
+some other reason?"
+
+"They're sore because one of them has been given her notice, and they
+say they won't give a show unless she's taken back. They've struck.
+That Mariner girl started it."
+
+"She did!" Wally's interest became keener. "She would!" he said
+approvingly. "She's a heroine!"
+
+"Little devil! I never liked that girl!"
+
+"Now there," said Wally, "is just the point on which we differ. I have
+always liked her, and I've known her all my life. So, shipmate, if you
+have any derogatory remarks to make about Miss Mariner, keep them
+where they belong--_there_!" He prodded the other sharply in the
+stomach. He was smiling pleasantly, but the stage-director, catching
+his eye, decided that his advice was good and should be followed. It
+is just as bad for the home if the head of the family gets his neck
+broken as if he succumbs to apoplexy.
+
+"You surely aren't on their side?" he said.
+
+"Me!" said Wally. "Of course I am. I'm always on the side of the
+down-trodden and oppressed. If you know of a dirtier trick than firing
+a girl just before the opening, so that they won't have to pay her two
+weeks' salary, mention it. Till you do, I'll go on believing that it
+is the limit. Of course I'm on the girls' side. I'll make them a
+speech if they want me to, or head the procession with a banner if
+they are going to parade down the boardwalk. I'm for 'em, Father
+Abraham, a hundred thousand strong. And then a few! If you want my
+considered opinion, our old friend Goble has asked for it and got it.
+And I'm glad--glad--glad, if you don't mind my quoting Pollyanna for a
+moment. I hope it chokes him!"
+
+"You'd better not let him hear you talking like that!"
+
+"_Au contraire_, as we say in the Gay City, I'm going to make a point
+of letting him hear me talk like that! Adjust the impression that I
+fear any Goble in shining armour, because I don't. I propose to speak
+my mind to him. I would beard him in his lair, if he had a beard.
+Well, I'll clean-shave him in his lair. That will be just as good. But
+hist! whom have we here? Tell me, do you see the same thing I see?"
+
+Like the vanguard of a defeated army, Mr. Saltzburg was coming
+dejectedly across the stage.
+
+"Well?" said the stage-director.
+
+"They would not listen to me," said Mr. Saltzburg brokenly. "The more
+I talked the more they did not listen!" He winced at a painful memory.
+"Miss Trevor stole my baton, and then they all lined up and sang the
+'Star-Spangled Banner'!"
+
+"Not the words?" cried Wally incredulously. "Don't tell me they knew
+the words!"
+
+"Mr. Miller is still up there, arguing with them. But it will be of no
+use. What shall we do?" asked Mr. Saltzburg helplessly. "We ought to
+have rung up half an hour ago. What shall we do-oo-oo?"
+
+"We must go and talk to Goble," said Wally. "Something has got to be
+settled quick. When I left, the audience was getting so impatient that
+I thought he was going to walk out on us. He's one of those nasty,
+determined-looking men. So come along!"
+
+Mr. Goble, intercepted as he was about to turn for another walk
+up-stage, eyed the deputation sourly and put the same question that
+the stage-director had put to Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"Well?"
+
+Wally came briskly to the point.
+
+"You'll have to give in," he said, "or else go and make a speech to
+the audience, the burden of which will be that they can have their
+money back by applying at the box-office. These Joans of Arc have got
+you by the short hairs!"
+
+"I won't give in!"
+
+"Then give out!" said Wally. "Or pay out, if you prefer it. Trot along
+and tell the audience that the four dollars fifty in the house will be
+refunded."
+
+Mr. Goble gnawed his cigar.
+
+"I've been in the show business fifteen years...."
+
+"I know. And this sort of thing has never happened to you before. One
+gets new experiences."
+
+Mr. Goble cocked his cigar at a fierce angle, and glared at Wally.
+Something told him that Wally's sympathies were not wholly with him.
+
+"They can't do this sort of thing to _me_!" he growled.
+
+"Well, they are doing it to someone, aren't they," said Wally, "and,
+if it's not you, who is it?"
+
+"I've a damned good mind to fire them all!"
+
+"A corking idea! I can't see a single thing wrong with it except that
+it would hang up the production for another five weeks and lose you
+your bookings and cost you a week's rent of this theatre for nothing
+and mean having all the dresses made over and lead to all your
+principals going off and getting other jobs. These trifling things
+apart, we may call the suggestion a bright one."
+
+"You talk too damn much!" said Mr. Goble, eyeing him with distaste.
+
+"Well, go on, _you_ say something. Something sensible."
+
+"It is a very serious situation...." began the stage-director.
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Mr. Goble.
+
+The stage-director subsided into his collar.
+
+"I cannot play the overture again," protested Mr. Saltzburg. "I
+cannot!"
+
+At this point Mr. Miller appeared. He was glad to see Mr. Goble. He
+had been looking for him, for he had news to impart.
+
+"The girls," said Mr. Miller, "have struck! They won't go on!"
+
+Mr. Goble, with the despairing gesture of one who realizes the
+impotence of words, dashed off for his favourite walk up stage. Wally
+took out his watch.
+
+"Six seconds and a bit," he said approvingly, as the manager returned.
+"A very good performance. I should like to time you over the course in
+running-kit."
+
+The interval for reflection, brief as it had been, had apparently
+enabled Mr. Goble to come to a decision.
+
+"Go," he said to the stage-director, "and tell 'em that fool of a
+D'Arcy girl can play. We've got to get that curtain up."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Goble."
+
+The stage-director galloped off.
+
+"Get back to your place," said the manager to Mr. Saltzburg, "and play
+the overture again."
+
+"Again!"
+
+"Perhaps they didn't hear it the first two times," said Wally.
+
+Mr. Goble watched Mr. Saltzburg out of sight. Then he turned to Wally.
+
+"That damned Mariner girl was at the bottom of this! She started the
+whole thing! She told me so. Well, I'll settle _her_! She goes
+to-morrow!"
+
+"Wait a minute," said Wally. "Wait one minute! Bright as it is, that
+idea is _out_!"
+
+"What the devil has it got to do with you?"
+
+"Only this, that if you fire Miss Mariner, I take that neat script
+which I've prepared and I tear it into a thousand fragments. Or nine
+hundred. Anyway, I tear it. Miss Mariner opens in New York, or I pack
+up my work and leave."
+
+Mr. Goble's green eyes glowed.
+
+"Oh, you're stuck on her, are you?" he sneered. "I see!"
+
+"Listen, dear heart," said Wally, gripping the manager's arm, "I can
+see that you are on the verge of introducing personalities into this
+very pleasant little chat. Resist the impulse! Why not let your spine
+stay where it is instead of having it kicked up through your hat? Keep
+to the main issue. Does Miss Mariner open in New York or does she
+not?"
+
+There was a tense silence. Mr. Goble permitted himself a swift review
+of his position. He would have liked to do many things to Wally,
+beginning with ordering him out of the theatre, but prudence
+restrained him. He wanted Wally's work. He needed Wally in his
+business: and, in the theatre, business takes precedence of personal
+feelings.
+
+"All right!" he growled reluctantly.
+
+"That's a promise," said Wally. "I'll see that you keep it." He looked
+over his shoulder. The stage was filled with gaily-coloured dresses.
+The mutineers had returned to duty. "Well, I'll be getting along. I'm
+rather sorry we agreed to keep clear of personalities, because I
+should have liked to say that, if ever they have a skunk-show at
+Madison Square Garden, you ought to enter--and win the blue ribbon.
+Still, of course, under our agreement my lips are sealed, and I can't
+even hint at it. Good-bye. See you later, I suppose?"
+
+Mr. Goble, giving a creditable imitation of a living statue, was
+plucked from his thoughts by a hand upon his arm. It was Mr. Miller,
+whose unfortunate ailment had prevented him from keeping abreast of
+the conversation.
+
+"What did he say?" enquired Mr. Miller, interested. "I didn't hear
+what he said!"
+
+Mr. Goble made no effort to inform him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE COST OF A ROW
+
+I
+
+
+Otis Pilkington had left Atlantic City two hours after the conference
+which had followed the dress-rehearsal, firmly resolved never to go near
+"The Rose of America" again. He had been wounded in his finest feelings.
+There had been a moment, when Mr. Goble had given him the choice between
+having the piece rewritten and cancelling the production altogether, when
+he had inclined to the heroic course. But for one thing Mr. Pilkington
+would have defied the manager, refused to allow his script to be touched,
+and removed the play from his hands. That one thing was the fact that, up
+to the day of the dress-rehearsal, the expenses of the production had
+amounted to the appalling sum of thirty-two thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents, all of which had to come out of Mr.
+Pilkington's pocket. The figures, presented to him in a neatly typewritten
+column stretching over two long sheets of paper, had stunned him. He had
+had no notion that musical plays cost so much. The costumes alone had come
+to ten thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents, and
+somehow that odd fifty cents annoyed Otis Pilkington as much as anything
+on the list. A dark suspicion that Mr. Goble, who had seen to all the
+executive end of the business, had a secret arrangement with the costumer
+whereby he received a private rebate, deepened his gloom. Why, for ten
+thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents you could
+dress the whole female population of New York State and have a bit left
+over for Connecticut. So thought Mr. Pilkington, as he read the bad news
+in the train. He only ceased to brood upon the high cost of costuming when
+in the next line but one there smote his eye an item of four hundred and
+ninety-eight dollars for "Clothing." Clothing! Weren't costumes clothing?
+Why should he have to pay twice over for the same thing? Mr. Pilkington
+was just raging over this, when something lower down in the column caught
+his eye. It was the words:--
+
+Clothing .... 187.45
+
+At this Otis Pilkington uttered a stifled cry, so sharp and so
+anguished that an old lady in the next seat, who was drinking a glass
+of milk, dropped it and had to refund the railway company thirty-five
+cents for breakages. For the remainder of the journey she sat with one
+eye warily on Mr. Pilkington, waiting for his next move.
+
+This adventure quieted Otis Pilkington down, if it did not soothe him.
+He returned blushingly to a perusal of his bill of costs, nearly every
+line of which contained some item that infuriated and dismayed him.
+"Shoes" ($213.50) he could understand, but what on earth was "Academy.
+Rehl. $105.50"? What was "Cuts ... $15"? And what in the name of
+everything infernal was this item for "Frames," in which mysterious
+luxury he had apparently indulged to the extent of ninety-four dollars
+and fifty cents? "Props" occurred on the list no fewer than seventeen
+times. Whatever his future, at whatever poor-house he might spend his
+declining years, he was supplied with enough props to last his
+lifetime.
+
+Otis Pilkington stared blankly at the scenery that flitted past the
+train windows. (Scenery! There had been two charges for scenery!
+"Friedmann, Samuel ... Scenery ... $3711" and "Unitt and Wickes ...
+Scenery ... $2120"). He was suffering the torments of the ruined
+gamester at the roulette-table. Thirty-two thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents! And he was out of pocket ten
+thousand in addition from the cheque he had handed over two days ago
+to Uncle Chris as his share of the investment of starting Jill in the
+motion-pictures. It was terrible! It deprived one of the power of
+thought.
+
+The power of thought, however, returned to Mr. Pilkington almost
+immediately, for, remembering suddenly that Roland Trevis had assured
+him that no musical production, except one of those elaborate
+girl-shows with a chorus of ninety, could possibly cost more than
+fifteen thousand dollars at an outside figure, he began to think about
+Roland Trevis, and continued to think about him until the train pulled
+into the Pennsylvania Station.
+
+For a week or more the stricken financier confined himself mostly to
+his rooms, where he sat smoking cigarettes, gazing at Japanese prints,
+and trying not to think about "props" and "rehl." Then, gradually, the
+almost maternal yearning to see his brain-child once more, which can
+never be wholly crushed out of a young dramatist, returned to
+him--faintly at first, then getting stronger by degrees till it could
+no longer be resisted. Otis Pilkington, having instructed his Japanese
+valet to pack a few simple necessaries in a suit-case, took a cab to
+the Grand Central Station and caught an afternoon train for Rochester,
+where his recollection of the route planned for the tour told him "The
+Rose of America" would now be playing.
+
+Looking into his club on the way, to cash a cheque, the first person
+he encountered was Freddie Rooke.
+
+"Good gracious!" said Otis Pilkington. "What are you doing here?"
+
+Freddie looked up dully from his reading. The abrupt stoppage of his
+professional career--his life-work, one might almost say--had left
+Freddie at a very loose end; and so hollow did the world seem to him
+at the moment, so uniformly futile all its so-called allurements,
+that, to pass the time, he had just been trying to read the _National
+Geographic Magazine_.
+
+"Hullo!" he said. "Well, might as well be here as anywhere, what?" he
+replied to the other's question.
+
+"But why aren't you playing?"
+
+"They sacked me! They've changed my part to a bally Scotchman! Well, I
+mean to say, I couldn't play a bally Scotchman!"
+
+Mr. Pilkington groaned in spirit. Of all the characters in his musical
+fantasy on which he prided himself, that of Lord Finchley was his pet.
+And he had been burked, murdered, blotted out, in order to make room
+for a bally Scotchman.
+
+"The character's called 'The McWhustle of McWhustle' now!" said
+Freddie sombrely.
+
+The McWhustle of McWhustle! Mr. Pilkington almost abandoned his trip
+to Rochester on receiving this devastating piece of information.
+
+"He comes on in Act One in kilts!"
+
+"In kilts! At Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke's garden-party! On Long
+Island!"
+
+"It isn't Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke any longer, either," said Freddie.
+"She's been changed to the wife of a pickle manufacturer."
+
+"A pickle manufacturer!"
+
+"Yes. They said it ought to be a comedy part."
+
+If agony had not caused Mr. Pilkington to clutch for support at the
+back of a chair, he would undoubtedly have wrung his hands.
+
+"But it _was_ a comedy part!" he wailed. "It was full of the subtlest,
+most delicate satire on Society. They were delighted with it at
+Newport! Oh, this is too much! I shall make a strong protest! I shall
+insist on these parts being kept as I wrote them! I shall.... I must
+be going at once, or I shall miss my train." He paused at the door.
+"How was business in Baltimore?"
+
+"Rotten!" said Freddie, and returned to his _National Geographic
+Magazine_.
+
+Otis Pilkington tottered into his cab. He was shattered by what he had
+heard. They had massacred his beautiful play and, doing so had not
+even made a success of it by their own sordid commercial lights.
+Business at Baltimore had been rotten! That meant more expense,
+further columns of figures with "frames" and "rehl." in front of them!
+He staggered into the station.
+
+"Hey!" cried the taxi-driver.
+
+Otis Pilkington turned.
+
+"Sixty-five cents, mister, if _you_ please! Forgetting I'm not your
+private shovoor, wasn't you?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington gave him a dollar. Money--money! Life was just one long
+round of paying out and paying out.
+
+
+II
+
+The day which Mr. Pilkington had selected for his visit to the
+provinces was a Tuesday. "The Rose of America" had opened at Rochester
+on the previous night, after a week at Atlantic City in its original
+form and a week at Baltimore in what might be called its second
+incarnation. Business had been bad in Atlantic City and no better in
+Baltimore, and a meagre first-night house at Rochester had given the
+piece a cold reception, which had put the finishing touches to the
+depression of the company in spite of the fact that the Rochester
+critics, like those of Baltimore, had written kindly of the play. One
+of the maxims of the theatre is that "out-of-town notices don't
+count," and the company had refused to be cheered by them.
+
+It is to be doubted, however, if even crowded houses would have
+aroused much response from the principals and chorus of "The Rose of
+America." For two weeks without a break they had been working under
+forced draught, and they were weary in body and spirit. The new
+principals had had to learn parts in exactly half the time usually
+given for that purpose, and the chorus, after spending five weeks
+assimilating one set of steps and groupings, had been compelled to
+forget them and rehearse an entirely new set. From the morning after
+the first performance at Atlantic City, they had not left the theatre
+except for sketchy half-hour meals.
+
+Jill, standing listlessly in the wings while the scene-shifters
+arranged the Second Act set, was aware of Wally approaching from the
+direction of the pass-door.
+
+"Miss Mariner, I believe?" said Wally. "I suppose you know you look
+perfectly wonderful in that dress? All Rochester's talking about it,
+and there is some idea of running excursion trains from Troy and
+Utica. A great stir it has made!"
+
+Jill smiled. Wally was like a tonic to her during these days of
+overwork. He seemed to be entirely unaffected by the general
+depression, a fact which he attributed himself to the happy accident
+of being in a position to sit back and watch the others toil. But in
+reality Jill knew that he was working as hard as any one. He was
+working all the time, changing scenes, adding lines, tinkering with
+lyrics, smoothing over principals whose nerves had become strained by
+the incessant rehearsing, keeping within bounds Mr. Goble's passion
+for being the big noise about the theatre. His cheerfulness was due to
+the spirit that was in him, and Jill appreciated it. She had come to
+feel very close to Wally since the driving rush of making over "The
+Rose of America" had begun.
+
+"They seemed quite calm to-night," she said. "I believe half of them
+were asleep."
+
+"They're always like that in Rochester. They cloak their deeper
+feelings. They wear the mask. But you can tell from the glassy look in
+their eyes that they are really seething inwardly. But what I came
+round about was--(a)--to give you this letter...."
+
+Jill took the letter, and glanced at the writing. It was from Uncle
+Chris. She placed it on the axe over the fire-buckets for perusal
+later.
+
+"The man at the box-office gave it to me," said Wally, "when I looked
+in there to find out how much money there was in the house to-night.
+The sum was so small that he had to whisper it."
+
+"I'm afraid the piece isn't a success."
+
+"Nonsense! Of course it is! We're doing fine. That brings me to
+section (b) of my discourse. I met poor old Pilkington in the lobby,
+and he said exactly what you have just said, only at greater length."
+
+"Is Mr. Pilkington here?"
+
+"He appears to have run down on the afternoon train to have a look at
+the show. He is catching the next train back to New York! Whenever I
+meet him, he always seems to be dashing off to catch the next train
+back to New York! Poor chap! Have you ever done a murder? If you
+haven't, don't! I know exactly what it feels like, and it feels
+rotten! After two minutes' conversation with Pilkington, I could
+sympathize with Macbeth when he chatted with Banquo. He said I had
+killed his play. He nearly wept, and he drew such a moving picture of
+a poor helpless musical fantasy being lured into a dark alley by thugs
+and there slaughtered that he almost had me in tears too. I felt like
+a beetle-browed brute with a dripping knife and hands imbrued with
+innocent gore."
+
+"Poor Mr. Pilkington!'
+
+"Once more you say exactly what he said, only more crisply. I
+comforted him as well as I could, told him all was for the best and so
+on, and he flung the box-office receipts in my face and said that the
+piece was as bad a failure commercially as it was artistically. I
+couldn't say anything to that, seeing what a house we've got to-night,
+except to bid him look out to the horizon where the sun will shortly
+shine. In other words, I told him that business was about to buck up
+and that later on he would be going about the place with a sprained
+wrist from clipping coupons. But he refused to be cheered, cursed me
+some more for ruining his piece, and ended by begging me to buy his
+share of it cheap."
+
+"You aren't going to?"
+
+"No, I am not--but simply and solely for the reason that, after that
+fiasco in London, I raised my right hand--thus--and swore an oath that
+never, as long as I lived, would I again put up a cent for a
+production, were it the most obvious cinch on earth. I'm gun-shy. But
+if he does happen to get hold of any one with a sporting disposition
+and a few thousands to invest, that person will make a fortune. This
+piece is going to be a gold-mine."
+
+Jill looked at him in surprise. With anybody else but Wally she would
+have attributed this confidence to author's vanity. But with Wally,
+she felt, the fact that the piece, as played now, was almost entirely
+his own work did not count. He viewed it dispassionately, and she
+could not understand why, in the face of half-empty houses, he should
+have such faith in it.
+
+"But what makes you think so? We've been doing awfully badly so far."
+
+Wally nodded.
+
+"And we shall do awfully badly in Syracuse the last half of this week.
+And why? For one thing, because the show isn't a show at all at
+present. Why should people flock to pay for seats for what are
+practically dress-rehearsals of an unknown play? Half the principals
+have had to get up in their parts in two weeks, and they haven't had
+time to get anything out of them. They are groping for their lines all
+the time. The girls can't let themselves go in the numbers, because
+they are wondering if they are going to remember the steps. The show
+hasn't had time to click together yet. It's just ragged. Take a look
+at it in another two weeks! I _know_! I don't say musical comedy is a
+very lofty form of art, but still there's a certain amount of science
+about it. If you go in for it long enough, you learn the tricks, and
+take it from me that, if you have a good cast and some catchy numbers
+it's almost impossible not to have a success. We've got an excellent
+cast now, and the numbers are fine. I tell you--as I tried to tell
+Pilkington, only he wouldn't listen--that this show is all right.
+There's a fortune in it for somebody. But I suppose Pilkington is now
+sitting in the smoking-car of an east-bound train, trying to get the
+porter to accept his share in the piece instead of a tip!"
+
+If Otis Pilkington was not actually doing that, he was doing
+something like it. Sunk in gloom, he bumped up and down on an
+uncomfortable seat, wondering why he had ever taken the trouble to
+make the trip to Rochester. He had found exactly what he had expected
+to find, a mangled caricature of his brain-child playing to a house
+half empty and wholly indifferent. The only redeeming feature, he
+thought vindictively, as he remembered what Roland Trevis had said
+about the cost of musical productions, was the fact that the new
+numbers were undoubtedly better than those which his collaborator had
+originally supplied.
+
+And "The Rose of America," after a disheartening Wednesday matinee and
+a not much better reception on the Wednesday night, packed its baggage
+and moved to Syracuse, where it failed just as badly. Then for another
+two weeks it wandered on from one small town to another, up and down
+New York State and through the doldrums of Connecticut, tacking to and
+fro like a storm-battered ship, till finally the astute and discerning
+citizens of Hartford welcomed it with such a reception that hardened
+principals stared at each other in a wild surmise, wondering if these
+things could really be: and a weary chorus forgot its weariness and
+gave encore after encore with a snap and vim which even Mr. Johnson
+Miller was obliged to own approximated to something like it. Nothing
+to touch the work of his choruses of the old days, of course, but
+nevertheless fair, quite fair.
+
+The spirits of the company revived. Optimism reigned. Principals
+smiled happily and said they had believed in the thing all along. The
+ladies and gentlemen of the ensemble chattered contentedly of a year's
+run in New York. And the citizens of Hartford fought for seats, and,
+if they could not get seats, stood up at the back.
+
+Of these things Otis Pilkington was not aware. He had sold his
+interest in the piece two weeks ago for ten thousand dollars to a
+lawyer acting for some client unknown, and was glad to feel that he
+had saved something out of the wreck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+JILL RECEIVES NOTICE
+
+I
+
+
+The violins soared to one last high note; the bassoon uttered a final
+moan; the pensive person at the end of the orchestra-pit just under
+Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's box, whose duty it was to slam the drum at
+stated intervals, gave that much-enduring instrument a concluding
+wallop; and, laying aside his weapons, allowed his thoughts to stray
+in the direction of cooling drinks. Mr. Saltzburg lowered the baton
+which he had stretched quivering towards the roof and sat down and
+mopped his forehead. The curtain fell on the first act of "The Rose of
+America," and simultaneously tremendous applause broke out from all
+over the Gotham Theatre, which was crammed from floor to roof with
+that heterogeneous collection of humanity which makes up the audience
+of a New York opening performance. The applause continued like the
+breaking of waves on a stony beach. The curtain rose and fell, rose
+and fell, rose and fell again. An usher, stealing down the central
+aisle, gave to Mr. Saltzburg an enormous bouquet of American Beauty
+roses, which he handed to the prima donna, who took it with a
+brilliant smile and a bow, nicely combining humility with joyful
+surprise. The applause, which had begun to slacken, gathered strength
+again. It was a superb bouquet, nearly as big as Mr. Saltzburg
+himself. It had cost the prima donna close on a hundred dollars that
+morning at Thorley's, but it was worth every cent of the money.
+
+The house-lights went up. The audience began to move up the aisles to
+stretch its legs and discuss the piece during the intermission. There
+was a general babble of conversation. Here, a composer who had not got
+an interpolated number in the show was explaining to another composer
+who had not got an interpolated number in the show the exact source
+from which a third composer who had got an interpolated number in the
+show had stolen the number which he had got interpolated. There, two
+musical comedy artists who were temporarily resting were agreeing that
+the prima donna was a dear thing but that, contrary as it was to their
+life-long policy to knock anybody, they must say that she was
+beginning to show the passage of years a trifle and ought to be warned
+by some friend that her career as an _ingénue_ was a thing of the
+past. Dramatic critics, slinking in twos and threes into dark corners,
+were telling each other that "The Rose of America" was just another of
+those things but it had apparently got over. The general public was of
+the opinion that it was a knock-out.
+
+"Otie, darling," said Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim, leaning her ample
+shoulder on Uncle Chris' perfectly fitting sleeve and speaking across
+him to young Mr. Pilkington, "I do congratulate you, dear. It's
+perfectly delightful! I don't know when I have enjoyed a musical piece
+so much. Don't you think it's perfectly darling, Major Selby?"
+
+"Capital!" agreed that suave man of the world, who had been bored as
+near extinction as makes no matter. "Congratulate you, my boy!"
+
+"You clever, clever thing!" said Mrs. Peagrim, skittishly striking her
+nephew on the knee with her fan. "I'm proud to be your aunt! Aren't
+you proud to know him, Mr. Rooke?"
+
+The fourth occupant of the box awoke with a start from the species of
+stupor into which he had been plunged by the spectacle of the
+McWhustle of McWhustle in action. There had been other dark moments in
+Freddie's life. Once, back in London, Parker had sent him out into the
+heart of the West End without his spats and he had not discovered
+their absence till he was half-way up Bond Street. On another
+occasion, having taken on a stranger at squash for a quid a game, he
+had discovered too late that the latter was an ex-public-school
+champion. He had felt gloomy when he had learned of the breaking-off
+of the engagement between Jill Mariner and Derek Underhill, and sad
+when it had been brought to his notice that London was giving Derek
+the cold shoulder in consequence. But never in his whole career had he
+experienced such gloom and such sadness as had come to him that
+evening while watching this unspeakable person in kilts murder that
+part that should have been his. And the audience, confound them, had
+roared with laughter at every damn silly thing the fellow had said!
+
+"Eh?" he replied. "Oh, yes, rather, absolutely!"
+
+"We're _all_ proud of you, Otie darling," proceeded Mrs. Peagrim.
+"The piece is a wonderful success. You will make a fortune out of it.
+And just think, Major Selby, I tried my best to argue the poor, dear
+boy out of putting it on! I thought it was so rash to risk his money
+in a theatrical venture. But then," said Mrs. Peagrim in extenuation,
+"I had only seen the piece when it was done at my house at Newport,
+and of course it really was rather dreadful nonsense then! I might
+have known that you would change it a great deal before you put it on
+in New York. As I always say, plays are not written, they are
+rewritten! Why, you have improved this piece a hundred per cent, Otie!
+I wouldn't know it was the same play!"
+
+She slapped him smartly once more with her fan, ignorant of the gashes
+she was inflicting. Poor Mr. Pilkington was suffering twin torments,
+the torture of remorse and the agonized jealousy of the unsuccessful
+artist. It would have been bad enough to have to sit and watch a large
+audience rocking in its seats at the slap-stick comedy which Wally
+Mason had substituted for his delicate social satire: but, had this
+been all, at least he could have consoled himself with the sordid
+reflection that he, as owner of the piece, was going to make a lot of
+money out of it. Now, even this material balm was denied him. He had
+sold out, and he was feeling like the man who parts for a song with
+shares in an apparently goldless gold mine, only to read in the papers
+next morning that a new reef has been located. Into each life some
+rain must fall. Quite a shower was falling now into young Mr.
+Pilkington's.
+
+"Of course," went on Mrs. Peagrim, "when the play was done at my
+house, it was acted by amateurs. And you know what amateurs are! The
+cast to-night is perfectly splendid. I do think that Scotchman is the
+most killing creature! Don't you think he is wonderful, Mr. Rooke?"
+
+We may say what we will against the upper strata of Society, but it
+cannot be denied that breeding tells. Only by falling back for support
+on the traditions of his class and the solid support of a gentle
+up-bringing was the Last of the Rookes able to crush down the words
+that leaped to his lips and to substitute for them a politely
+conventional agreement. If Mr. Pilkington was feeling like a too
+impulsive seller of gold mines, Freddie's emotions were akin to those
+of the Spartan boy with the fox under his vest. Nothing but Winchester
+and Magdalen could have produced the smile which, though twisted and
+confined entirely to his lips, flashed on to his face and off again at
+his hostess' question.
+
+"Oh, rather! Priceless!"
+
+"Wasn't that part an Englishman before?" asked Mrs. Peagrim. "I
+thought so. Well, it was a stroke of genius changing it. This
+Scotchman is too funny for words. And such an artist!"
+
+Freddie rose shakily. One can stand just so much.
+
+"Think," he mumbled, "I'll be pushing along and smoking a cigarette."
+
+He groped his way to the door.
+
+"I'll come with you, Freddie my boy," said Uncle Chris, who felt an
+imperative need of five minutes' respite from Mrs. Peagrim. "Let's get
+out into the air for a moment. Uncommonly warm it is here."
+
+Freddie assented. Air was what he felt he wanted most.
+
+Left alone in the box with her nephew, Mrs. Peagrim continued for some
+moments in the same vein, innocently twisting the knife in the open
+wound. It struck her from time to time that darling Otie was perhaps a
+shade unresponsive, but she put this down to the nervous strain
+inseparable from a first night of a young author's first play.
+
+"Why," she concluded, "you will make thousands and thousands of
+dollars out of this piece. I am sure it is going to be another 'Merry
+Widow.'"
+
+"You can't tell from a first night audience," said Mr. Pilkington
+sombrely, giving out a piece of theatrical wisdom he had picked up at
+rehearsals.
+
+"Oh, but you can. It's so easy to distinguish polite applause from the
+real thing. No doubt many of the people down here have friends in the
+company or other reasons for seeming to enjoy the play, but look how
+the circle and the gallery were enjoying it! You can't tell me that
+that was not genuine. They love it. How hard," she proceeded
+commiseratingly, "you must have worked, poor boy, during the tour on
+the road to improve the piece so much! I never liked to say so before
+but even you must agree with me now that that original version of
+yours, which was done down at Newport, was the most terrible nonsense!
+And how hard the company must have worked too! Otie," cried Mrs.
+Peagrim, aglow with the magic of a brilliant idea, "I will tell you
+what you must really do. You must give a supper and dance to the
+whole company on the stage to-morrow night after the performance."
+
+"What!" cried Otis Pilkington, startled out of his lethargy by this
+appalling suggestion. Was he, the man who, after planking down
+thirty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty, nine dollars, sixty-eight
+cents for "props" and "frames" and "rehl," had sold out for a paltry
+ten thousand, to be still further victimized?
+
+"They do deserve it, don't they, after working so hard?"
+
+"It's impossible," said Otis Pilkington vehemently. "Out of the
+question."
+
+"But, Otie, darling, I was talking to Mr. Mason when he came down to
+Newport to see the piece last summer, and he told me that the
+management nearly always gives a supper to the company, especially if
+they have had a lot of extra rehearsing to do."
+
+"Well, let Goble give them a supper if he wants to."
+
+"But you know that Mr. Goble, though he has his name on the programme
+as the manager, has really nothing to do with it. You own the piece,
+don't you?"
+
+For a moment Mr. Pilkington felt an impulse to reveal all, but
+refrained. He knew his Aunt Olive too well. If she found out that he
+had parted at a heavy loss with this valuable property, her whole
+attitude towards him would change--or, rather it would revert to her
+normal attitude, which was not unlike that of a severe nurse to a
+weak-minded child. Even in his agony there had been a certain faint
+consolation, due to the entirely unwonted note of respect in the voice
+with which she had addressed him since the fall of the curtain. He
+shrank from forfeiting this respect, unentitled though he was to it.
+
+"Yes," he said in his precise voice. "That, of course, is so."
+
+"Well, then!" said Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"But it seems so unnecessary! And think what it would cost."
+
+This was a false step. Some of the reverence left Mrs. Peagrim's
+voice, and she spoke a little coldly. A gay and gallant spender
+herself, she had often had occasion to rebuke a tendency to
+over-parsimony in her nephew.
+
+"We must not be mean, Otie!" she said.
+
+Mr. Pilkington keenly resented her choice of pronouns. "We" indeed!
+Who was going to foot the bill? Both of them, hand in hand, or he
+alone, the chump, the boob, the easy mark who got this sort of thing
+wished on him!
+
+"I don't think it would be possible to get the stage for a
+supper-party," he pleaded, shifting his ground. "Goble wouldn't give
+it to us."
+
+"As if Mr. Goble would refuse you anything after you have written a
+wonderful success for this theatre! And isn't he getting his share of
+the profits? Directly after the performance you must go round and ask
+him. Of course he will be delighted to give you the stage. I will be
+hostess," said Mrs. Peagrim radiantly. "And now, let me see, whom
+shall we invite?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington stared gloomily at the floor, too bowed down by his
+weight of cares to resent the "we," which had plainly come to stay. He
+was trying to estimate the size of the gash which this preposterous
+entertainment would cleave in the Pilkington bank-roll. He doubted if
+it was possible to go through with it under five hundred dollars; and,
+if, as seemed only too probable, Mrs. Peagrim took the matter in hand
+and gave herself her head, it might get into four figures.
+
+"Major Selby, of course," said Mrs. Peagrim musingly, with a cooing
+note in her voice. Long since had that polished man of affairs made a
+deep impression upon her. "Of course Major Selby, for one. And Mr.
+Rooke. Then there are one or two of my friends who would be hurt if
+they were left out. How about Mr. Mason? Isn't he a friend of yours?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington snorted. He had endured much and was prepared to endure
+more, but he drew the line at squandering his money on the man who had
+sneaked up behind his brain-child with a hatchet and chopped its
+precious person into little bits.
+
+"He is _not_ a friend of mine," he said stiffly, "and I do not wish
+him to be invited!"
+
+Having attained her main objective, Mrs. Peagrim was prepared to yield
+minor points.
+
+"Very well, if you do not like him," she said. "But I thought he was
+quite an intimate of yours. It was you who asked me to invite him to
+Newport last summer."
+
+"Much," said Mr. Pilkington coldly, "has happened since last summer."
+
+"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Peagrim again. "Then we will not include
+Mr. Mason. Now, directly the curtain has fallen, Otie dear, pop right
+round and find Mr. Goble and tell him what you want."
+
+
+II
+
+It is not only twin-souls in this world who yearn to meet each other.
+Between Otis Pilkington and Mr. Goble there was little in common, yet,
+at the moment when Otis set out to find Mr. Goble, the thing which Mr.
+Goble desired most in the world was an interview with Otis. Since the
+end of the first act, the manager had been in a state of mental
+upheaval. Reverting to the gold-mine simile again, Mr. Goble was in
+the position of a man who has had a chance of purchasing such a mine
+and now, learning too late of the discovery of the reef, is feeling
+the truth of the poet's dictum that "of all sad words of tongue or
+pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.'" The electric
+success of "The Rose of America" had stunned Mr. Goble; and realizing,
+as he did, that he might have bought Otis Pilkington's share dirt
+cheap at almost any point of the preliminary tour, he was having a bad
+half hour with himself. The only ray in the darkness which brooded on
+his indomitable soul was the thought that it might still be possible,
+by getting hold of Mr. Pilkington before the notices appeared, and
+shaking his head sadly and talking about the misleading hopes which
+young authors so often draw from an enthusiastic first-night reception
+and impressing upon him that first-night receptions do not deceive
+your expert who has been fifteen years in the show-business and
+mentioning gloomily that he had heard a coupla the critics roastin'
+the show to beat the band ... by doing all these things, it might
+still be possible to depress Mr. Pilkington's young enthusiasm and
+induce him to sell his share at a sacrifice price to a great-hearted
+friend who didn't think the thing would run a week but was willing to
+buy as a sporting speculation, because he thought Mr. Pilkington a
+good kid, and after all these shows that flop in New York sometimes
+have a chance on the road.
+
+Such were the meditations of Mr. Goble, and, on the final fall of the
+curtain, amid unrestrained enthusiasm on the part of the audience, he
+had despatched messengers in all directions with instructions to find
+Mr. Pilkington and conduct him to the presence. Meanwhile, he waited
+impatiently on the empty stage.
+
+The sudden advent of Wally Mason, who appeared at this moment, upset
+Mr. Goble terribly. Wally was a factor in the situation which he had
+not considered. An infernal, tactless fellow, always trying to make
+mischief and upset honest merchants, Wally, if present at the
+interview with Otis Pilkington, would probably try to act in restraint
+of trade and would blurt out some untimely truth about the prospects
+of the piece. Not for the first time, Mr. Goble wished Wally a sudden
+stroke of apoplexy.
+
+"Went well, eh?" said Wally amiably. He did not like Mr. Goble, but on
+the first night of a successful piece personal antipathies may be
+sunk. Such was his effervescent good humour at the moment that he was
+prepared to treat Mr. Goble as a man and a brother.
+
+"H'm!" replied Mr. Goble doubtfully, paving the way.
+
+"What are you h'ming about?" demanded Wally, astonished. "The thing's
+a riot."
+
+"You never know," responded Mr. Goble in the minor key.
+
+"Well!" Wally stared. "I don't know what more you want. The audience
+sat up on its hind legs and squealed, didn't they?"
+
+"I've an idea," said Mr. Goble, raising his voice as the long form of
+Mr. Pilkington crossed the stage towards them, "that the critics will
+roast it. If you ask _me_," he went on loudly, "it's just the sort of
+show the critics will pan the life out of. I've been fifteen years in
+the...."
+
+"Critics!" cried Wally. "Well, I've just been talking to Alexander of
+the _Times_, and he said it was the best musical piece he had ever
+seen and that all the other men he had talked to thought the same."
+
+Mr. Goble turned a distorted face to Mr. Pilkington. He wished that
+Wally would go. But Wally, he reflected, bitterly, was one of those
+men who never go. He faced Mr. Pilkington and did the best he could.
+
+"Of course it's got a _chance_," he said gloomily. "Any show has got a
+_chance_! But I don't know.... I don't know...."
+
+Mr. Pilkington was not interested in the future prospects of "The Rose
+of America." He had a favour to ask, and he wanted to ask it, have it
+refused if possible, and get away. It occurred to him that, by
+substituting for the asking of a favour a peremptory demand, he might
+save himself a thousand dollars.
+
+"I want the stage after the performance to-morrow night, for a supper
+to the company," he said brusquely.
+
+He was shocked to find Mr. Goble immediately complaisant.
+
+"Why, sure," said Mr. Goble readily. "Go as far as you like!" He took
+Mr. Pilkington by the elbow and drew him up-stage, lowering his voice
+to a confidential undertone. "And now, listen," he said, "I've
+something I want to talk to you about. Between you and I and the
+lamp-post, I don't think this show will last a month in New York. It
+don't add up right! There's something all wrong about it."
+
+Mr. Pilkington assented with an emphasis which amazed the manager. "I
+quite agree with you! If you had kept it the way it was
+originally...."
+
+"Too late for that!" sighed Mr. Goble, realizing that his star was in
+the ascendant. He had forgotten for the moment that Mr. Pilkington was
+an author. "We must make the best of a bad job! Now, you're a good kid
+and I wouldn't like you to go around town saying that I had let you
+in. It isn't business, maybe, but, just because I don't want you to
+have any kick coming, I'm ready to buy your share of the thing and
+call it a deal. After all, it may get money on the road. It ain't
+likely, but there's a chance, and I'm willing to take it. Well,
+listen, I'm probably robbing myself, but I'll give you fifteen
+thousand if you want to sell."
+
+A hated voice spoke at his elbow.
+
+"I'll make you a better offer than that," said Wally. "Give me your
+share of the show for three dollars in cash and I'll throw in a pair
+of sock-suspenders and an Ingersoll. Is it a go?"
+
+Mr. Goble regarded him balefully.
+
+"Who told you to butt in?" he enquired sourly.
+
+"Conscience!" replied Wally. "Old Henry W. Conscience! I refuse to
+stand by and see the slaughter of the innocents. Why don't you wait
+till he's dead before you skin him!" He turned to Mr. Pilkington.
+"Don't you be a fool!" he said earnestly. "Can't you see the thing is
+the biggest hit in years? Do you think Jesse James here would be
+offering you a cent for your share if he didn't know there was a
+fortune in it? Do you imagine...?"
+
+"It is immaterial to me," interrupted Otis Pilkington loftily, "what
+Mr. Goble offers. I have already sold my interest!"
+
+"What!" cried Mr. Goble.
+
+"When?" cried Wally.
+
+"I sold it half-way through the road-tour," said Mr. Pilkington, "to a
+lawyer, acting on behalf of a client whose name I did not learn."
+
+In the silence which followed this revelation, another voice spoke.
+
+"I should like to speak to you for a moment, Mr. Goble, if I may." It
+was Jill, who had joined the group unperceived.
+
+Mr. Goble glowered at Jill, who met his gaze composedly.
+
+"I'm busy!" snapped Mr. Goble. "See me to-morrow!"
+
+"I would prefer to see you now."
+
+"You would prefer!" Mr. Goble waved his hands despairingly, as if
+calling on heaven to witness the persecution of a good man.
+
+Jill exhibited a piece of paper stamped with the letter-heading of the
+management.
+
+"It's about this," she said. "I found it in the box as I was going
+out."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"It seems to be a fortnight's notice."
+
+"And that," said Mr. Goble, "is what it _is_!"
+
+Wally uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Do you mean to say...?"
+
+"Yes, I do!" said the manager, turning on him. He felt that he had
+out-manoeuvred Wally. "I agreed to let her open in New York, and
+she's done it, hasn't she? Now she can get out. I don't want her. I
+wouldn't have her if you paid me. She's a nuisance in the company,
+always making trouble, and she can go."
+
+"But I would prefer not to go," said Jill.
+
+"You would prefer!" The phrase infuriated Mr. Goble. "And what has
+what you would prefer got to do with it?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Jill, "I forgot to tell you before, but I own
+the piece!"
+
+
+III
+
+Mr. Goble's jaw fell. He had been waving his hands in another spacious
+gesture, and he remained frozen with outstretched arms, like a
+semaphore. This evening had been a series of shocks for him, but this
+was the worst shock of all.
+
+"You--what!" he stammered.
+
+"I own the piece," repeated Jill. "Surely that gives me authority to
+say what I want done and what I don't want done."
+
+There was a silence, Mr. Goble, who was having difficulty with his
+vocal chords, swallowed once or twice. Wally and Mr. Pilkington stared
+dumbly. At the back of the stage, a belated scene-shifter, homeward
+bound, was whistling as much as he could remember of the refrain of a
+popular song.
+
+"What do you mean you own the piece?" Mr. Goble at length gurgled.
+
+"I bought it."
+
+"You bought it?"
+
+"I bought Mr. Pilkington's share through a lawyer for ten thousand
+dollars."
+
+"Ten thousand dollars! Where did you get ten thousand dollars?" Light
+broke upon Mr. Goble. The thing became clear to him. "Damn it!" he
+cried. "I might have known you had some man behind you! You'd never
+have been so darned fresh if you hadn't had some John in the
+background, paying the bills! Well, of all the...."
+
+He broke off abruptly, not because he had said all that he wished to
+say, for he had only touched the fringe of his subject, but because at
+this point Wally's elbow smote him in the parts about the third button
+of his waistcoat and jarred all the breath out of him.
+
+"Be quiet!" said Wally dangerously. He turned to Jill. "Jill, you
+don't mind telling me how you got ten thousand dollars, do you?"
+
+"Of course not, Wally. Uncle Chris sent it to me. Do you remember
+giving me a letter from him at Rochester? The cheque was in that."
+
+Wally stared.
+
+"Your uncle! But he hasn't any money!"
+
+"He must have made it somehow."
+
+"But he couldn't! How could he?"
+
+Otis Pilkington suddenly gave tongue. He broke in on them with a loud
+noise that was half a snort and half a yell. Stunned by the
+information that it was Jill who had bought his share in the piece,
+Mr. Pilkington's mind had recovered slowly and then had begun to work
+with a quite unusual rapidity. During the preceding conversation he
+had been doing some tense thinking, and now he saw all.
+
+"It's a swindle! It's a deliberate swindle!" shrilled Mr. Pilkington.
+The tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles flashed sparks. "I've been made a
+fool of! I've been swindled! I've been robbed!"
+
+Jill regarded him with wide eyes.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You know what I mean!"
+
+"I certainly do not! You were perfectly willing to sell the piece."
+
+"I'm not talking about that! You know what I mean! I've been robbed!"
+
+Wally snatched at his arm as it gyrated past him in a gesture of
+anguish which rivalled the late efforts in that direction of Mr.
+Goble, who was now leaning against the safety-curtain trying to get
+his breath back.
+
+"Don't be a fool," said Wally curtly. "Talk sense! You know perfectly
+well that Miss Mariner wouldn't swindle you."
+
+"She may not have been in it," conceded Mr. Pilkington. "I don't know
+whether she was or not. But that uncle of hers swindled me out of ten
+thousand dollars! The smooth old crook!"
+
+"Don't talk like that about Uncle Chris!" said Jill, her eyes
+flashing. "Tell me what you mean."
+
+"Yes, come on, Pilkington," said Wally grimly. "You've been scattering
+some pretty serious charges about. Let's hear what you base them on.
+Be coherent for a couple of seconds."
+
+Mr. Goble filled his depleted lungs.
+
+"If you ask me...." he began.
+
+"We don't," said Wally curtly. "This has nothing to do with you.
+Well," he went on, "we're waiting to hear what this is all about."
+
+Mr. Pilkington gulped. Like most men of weak intellect who are preyed
+on by the wolves of the world, he had ever a strong distaste for
+admitting that he had been deceived. He liked to regard himself as a
+shrewd young man who knew his way about and could take care of
+himself.
+
+"Major Selby," he said, adjusting his spectacles, which emotion had
+caused to slip down his nose, "came to me a few weeks ago with a
+proposition. He suggested the formation of a company to start Miss
+Mariner in the motion-pictures."
+
+"What!" cried Jill.
+
+"In the motion-pictures," repeated Mr. Pilkington. "He wished to know
+if I cared to advance any capital towards the venture. I thought it
+over carefully and decided that I was favourably disposed towards the
+scheme. I...." Mr. Pilkington gulped again. "I gave him a cheque for
+ten thousand dollars!"
+
+"Of all the fools!" said Mr. Goble with a sharp laugh. He caught
+Wally's eye and subsided once more.
+
+Mr. Pilkington's fingers strayed agitatedly to his spectacles.
+
+"I may have been a fool," he cried shrilly, "though I was perfectly
+willing to risk the money had it been applied to the object for which
+I gave it. But when it comes to giving ten thousand dollars just to
+have it paid back to me in exchange for a very valuable piece of
+theatrical property ... my own money ... handed back to me...!"
+
+Words failed Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"I've been deliberately swindled!" he added, after a moment, harking
+back to the main motive.
+
+Jill's heart was like lead. She could not doubt for an instant the
+truth of what the victim had said. Woven into every inch of the
+fabric, plainly hall-marked on its surface, she could perceive the
+signature of Uncle Chris. If he had come and confessed to her himself,
+she could not have been more certain that he had acted precisely as
+Mr. Pilkington had charged. There was that same impishness, that same
+bland unscrupulousness, that same pathetic desire to do her a good
+turn however it might affect anybody else which, if she might compare
+the two things, had caused him to pass her off on unfortunate Mr.
+Mariner of Brookport as a girl of wealth with tastes in the direction
+of real estate.
+
+Wally was not so easily satisfied.
+
+"You've no proof whatever...."
+
+Jill shook her head.
+
+"It's true, Wally. I know Uncle Chris. It must be true."
+
+"But, Jill...!"
+
+"It must be. How else could Uncle Chris have got the money?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington, much encouraged by this ready acquiescence in his
+theories, got under way once more.
+
+"The man's a swindler! A swindler! He's robbed me! I have been robbed!
+He never had any intention of starting a motion-picture company. He
+planned it all out...!"
+
+Jill cut into the babble of his denunciations. She was sick at heart,
+and she spoke almost listlessly.
+
+"Mr. Pilkington!" The victim stopped. "Mr. Pilkington, if what you say
+is true, and I'm afraid there is no doubt that it is, the only thing I
+can do is to give you back your property. So will you please try to
+understand that everything is just as it was before you gave my uncle
+the money. You've got back your ten thousand dollars and you've got
+back your piece, so there's nothing more to talk about."
+
+Mr. Pilkington, dimly realizing that the financial aspect of the
+affair had been more or less satisfactorily adjusted, was nevertheless
+conscious of a feeling that he was being thwarted. He had much more to
+say about Uncle Chris and his methods of doing business, and it irked
+him to be cut short like this.
+
+"Yes, but I do not think.... That's all very well, but I have by no
+means finished...."
+
+"Yes, you have," said Wally.
+
+"There's nothing more to talk about," repeated Jill. "I'm sorry this
+should have happened, but you've nothing to complain about now, have
+you? Good night."
+
+And she turned quickly away, and walked towards the door.
+
+"But I hadn't _finished_!" wailed Mr. Pilkington, clutching at Wally.
+He was feeling profoundly aggrieved. If it is bad to be all dressed up
+and no place to go, it is almost worse to be full of talk and to have
+no one to talk it to. Otis Pilkington had at least another twenty
+minutes of speech inside him on the topic of Uncle Chris, and Wally
+was the nearest human being with a pair of ears.
+
+Wally was in no mood to play the part of confidant. He pushed Mr.
+Pilkington earnestly in the chest and raced after Jill. Mr.
+Pilkington, with the feeling that the world was against him, tottered
+back into the arms of Mr. Goble, who had now recovered his breath and
+was ready to talk business.
+
+"Have a good cigar," said Mr. Goble, producing one. "Now, see here,
+let's get right down to it. If you'd care to sell out for twenty
+thousand...."
+
+"I would _not_ care to sell out for twenty thousand!" yelled the
+overwrought Mr. Pilkington. "I wouldn't sell out for a million! You're
+a swindler! You want to rob me! You're a crook!"
+
+"Yes, yes," assented Mr. Goble gently. "But, all joking aside, suppose
+I was to go up to twenty-five thousand...?" He twined his fingers
+lovingly in the slack of Mr. Pilkington's coat. "Come now! You're a
+good kid I Shall we say twenty-five thousand?"
+
+"We will _not_ say twenty-five thousand! Let me go!"
+
+"Now, now, _now_!" pleaded Mr. Goble. "Be sensible! Don't get all
+worked up! Say, _do_ have a good cigar!"
+
+"I _won't_ have a good cigar!" shouted Mr. Pilkington.
+
+He detached himself with a jerk, and stalked with long strides up the
+stage. Mr. Goble watched him go with a lowering gaze. A heavy sense of
+the unkindness of fate was oppressing Mr. Goble. If you couldn't gyp a
+bone-headed amateur out of a piece of property, whom could you gyp?
+Mr. Goble sighed. It hardly seemed to him worth while going on.
+
+
+IV
+
+Out in the street Wally had overtaken Jill, and they faced one another
+in the light of a street lamp. Forty-first Street at midnight is a
+quiet oasis. They had it to themselves.
+
+Jill was pale, and she was breathing quickly, but she forced a smile.
+
+"Well, Wally," she said. "My career as a manager didn't last long, did
+it?"
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+Jill looked down the street.
+
+"I don't know," she said. "I suppose I shall have to start trying to
+find something."
+
+"But...."
+
+Jill drew him suddenly into the dark alley-way leading to the
+stage-door of the Gotham Theatre's nearest neighbour, and, as she did
+so, a long, thin form, swathed in an overcoat and surmounted by an
+opera-hat, flashed past.
+
+"I don't think I could have gone through another meeting with Mr.
+Pilkington," said Jill. "It wasn't his fault, and he was quite
+justified, but what he said about Uncle Chris rather hurt."
+
+Wally, who had ideas of his own similar to those of Mr. Pilkington on
+the subject of Uncle Chris and had intended to express them, prudently
+kept them unspoken.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "there is no doubt...?"
+
+"There can't be. Poor Uncle Chris! He is like Freddie. He means well!"
+
+There was a pause. They left the alley and walked down the street.
+
+"Where are you going now?" asked Wally.
+
+"I'm going home."
+
+"Where's home?"
+
+"Forty-ninth Street. I live in a boarding-house there."
+
+A sudden recollection of the boarding-house at which she had lived in
+Atlantic City smote Wally, and it turned the scale. He had not
+intended to speak, but he could not help himself.
+
+"Jill!" he cried. "It's no good. I _must_ say it! I want to get you
+out of all this. I want to take care of you. Why should you go on
+living this sort of life, when.... Why won't you let me...?"
+
+He stopped. Even as he spoke, he realized the futility of what he was
+saying. Jill was not a girl to be won with words.
+
+They walked on in silence for a moment. They crossed Broadway, noisy
+with night traffic, and passed into the stillness on the other side.
+
+"Wally," said Jill at last.
+
+She was looking straight in front of her. Her voice was troubled.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Jill hesitated.
+
+"Wally, you wouldn't want me to marry you if you knew you weren't the
+only man in the world that mattered to me, would you?"
+
+They had reached Sixth Avenue before Wally replied.
+
+"No!" he said.
+
+For an instant, Jill could not have said whether the feeling that shot
+through her like the abrupt touching of a nerve was relief or
+disappointment. Then suddenly she realized that it was disappointment.
+It was absurd to her to feel disappointed, but at that moment she
+would have welcomed a different attitude in him. If only this problem
+of hers could be taken forcefully out of her hands, what a relief it
+would be. If only Wally, masterfully insistent, would batter down her
+hesitations and _grab_ her, knock her on the head and carry her off
+like a caveman, care less about her happiness and concentrate on his
+own, what a solution it would be.... But then he wouldn't be Wally....
+Nevertheless, Jill gave a little sigh. Her new life had changed her
+already. It had blunted the sharp edge of her independence. To-night
+she was feeling the need of some one to lean on--some one strong and
+cosy and sympathetic who would treat her like a little girl and shield
+her from all the roughness of life. The fighting spirit had gone out
+of her, and she was no longer the little warrior facing the world with
+a brave eye and a tilted chin. She wanted to cry and be petted.
+
+"No!" said Wally again. There had been the faintest suggestion of a
+doubt when he had spoken the word before, but now it shot out like a
+bullet. "And I'll tell you why. I want _you_--and, if you married me
+feeling like that, it wouldn't be you. I want Jill, the whole Jill,
+and nothing but Jill, and, if I can't have that, I'd rather not have
+anything. Marriage isn't a motion-picture close-up with slow fade-out
+on the embrace. It's a partnership, and what's the good of a
+partnership if your heart's not in it? It's like collaborating with a
+man you dislike.... I believe you wish sometimes--not often, perhaps,
+but when you're feeling lonely and miserable--that I would pester and
+bludgeon you into marrying me.... What's the matter?"
+
+Jill had started. It was disquieting to have her thoughts read with
+such accuracy.
+
+"Nothing," she said.
+
+"It wouldn't be any good," Wally went on, "because it wouldn't be
+_me_. I couldn't keep that attitude up, and I know I should hate
+myself for ever having tried it. There's nothing in the world I
+wouldn't do to help you, though I know it's no use offering to do
+anything. You're a fighter, and you mean to fight your own battle. It
+might happen that, if I kept after you and badgered you and nagged
+you, one of these days, when you were feeling particularly all alone
+in the world and tired of fighting for yourself, you might consent to
+marry me. But it wouldn't do. Even if you reconciled yourself to it,
+it wouldn't do. I suppose the cave-woman sometimes felt rather
+relieved when everything was settled for her with a club, but I'm sure
+the caveman must have had a hard time ridding himself of the thought
+that he had behaved like a cad and taken a mean advantage. I don't
+want to feel like that. I couldn't make you happy if I felt like that.
+Much better to have you go on regarding me as a friend ... knowing
+that, if ever your feelings do change, that I am right there,
+waiting...."
+
+"But by that time _your_ feelings will have changed!"
+
+Wally laughed.
+
+"Never!"
+
+"You'll meet some other girl...."
+
+"I've met every girl in the world! None of them will do!" The
+lightness came back into Wally's voice. "I'm sorry for the poor
+things, but they won't do! Take 'em away! There's only one girl in the
+world for me--oh, confound it! why is it that one always thinks in
+song-titles! Well, there it is. I'm not going to bother you. We're
+pals. And, as a pal, may I offer you my bank-roll?"
+
+"No!" said Jill. She smiled up at him. "I believe you would give me
+your coat if I asked you for it!"
+
+Wally stopped.
+
+"Do you want it? Here you are!"
+
+"Wally, behave! There's a policeman looking at you!"
+
+"Oh, well, if you won't! It's a good coat, all the same."
+
+They turned the corner and stopped before a brown-stone house, with a
+long ladder of untidy steps running up to the front door.
+
+"Is this where you live?" Wally asked. He looked at the gloomy place
+disapprovingly. "You do choose the most awful places!"
+
+"I don't choose them. They're thrust on me. Yes, this is where I live.
+If you want to know the exact room, it's the third window up there
+over the front door. Well, good night."
+
+"Good night," said Wally. He paused. "Jill."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I know it's not worth mentioning, and it's breaking our agreement to
+mention it, but you _do_ understand, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, Wally dear, I understand."
+
+"I'm round the corner, you know, waiting! And if you ever _do_ change,
+all you've got to do is just to come to me and say 'It's all
+right!'...."
+
+Jill laughed a little shakily.
+
+"That doesn't sound very romantic!"
+
+"Not sound romantic? If you can think of any three words in the
+language that sound more romantic, let me have them! Well, never mind
+how they sound, just say them, and watch the result! But you must get
+to bed. Good night."
+
+"Good night, Wally."
+
+She passed in through the dingy door. It closed behind her, and Wally
+stood for some moments staring at it with a gloomy repulsion. He
+thought he had never seen a dingier door.
+
+Then he started to walk back to his apartment. He walked very quickly,
+with clenched hands. He was wondering if after all there was not
+something to be said for the methods of the caveman when he went
+a-wooing. Twinges of conscience the caveman may have had when all was
+over, but at least he had established his right to look after the
+woman he loved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MRS. PEAGRIM BURNS INCENSE
+
+
+"They tell me ... I am told ... I am informed ... No, one moment, Miss
+Frisby."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim wrinkled her fair forehead. It has been truly said that
+there is no agony like the agony of literary composition, and Mrs.
+Peagrim was having rather a bad time getting the requisite snap and
+ginger into her latest communication to the Press. She bit her lip,
+and would have passed her twitching fingers restlessly through her
+hair but for the thought of the damage which such an action must do to
+her coiffure. Miss Frisby, her secretary, an anæmic and negative young
+woman, waited patiently, pad on knee, and tapped her teeth with her
+pencil.
+
+"Please do not make that tapping noise, Miss Frisby," said the
+sufferer querulously. "I cannot think. Otie, dear, can't you suggest a
+good phrase? You ought to be able to, being an author."
+
+Mr. Pilkington, who was strewn over an arm-chair by the window, awoke
+from his meditations, which, to judge from the furrow just above the
+bridge of his tortoise-shell spectacles and the droop of his weak
+chin, were not pleasant. It was the morning after the production of
+"The Rose of America," and he had passed a sleepless night, thinking
+of the harsh words he had said to Jill. Could she ever forgive him?
+Would she have the generosity to realize that a man ought not to be
+held accountable for what he says in the moment when he discovers that
+he has been cheated, deceived, robbed--in a word, hornswoggled? He had
+been brooding on this all night, and he wanted to go on brooding now.
+His aunt's question interrupted his train of thought.
+
+"Eh?" he said vaguely, gaping.
+
+"Oh, don't be so absent-minded!" snapped Mrs. Peagrim, not
+unjustifiably annoyed. "I am trying to compose a paragraph for the
+papers about our party to-night, and I can't get the right phrase....
+Read what you've written, Miss Frisby."
+
+Miss Frisby, having turned a pale eye on the pothooks and twiddleys in
+her note-book, translated them in a pale voice.
+
+"'Surely of all the leading hostesses in New York Society there can be
+few more versatile than Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim. I am amazed every
+time I go to her delightful home on West End Avenue to see the scope
+and variety of her circle of intimates. Here you will see an
+ambassador with a fever....'"
+
+"With a _what_?" demanded Mrs. Peagrim sharply.
+
+"'Fever,' I thought you said," replied Miss Frisby stolidly. "I wrote
+'fever.'"
+
+"'Diva.' Do use your intelligence, my good girl. Go on."
+
+"Here you will see an ambassador with a diva from the opera,
+exchanging the latest gossip from the chancelleries for intimate news
+of the world behind the scenes. There, the author of the latest novel
+talking literature to the newest debutante. Truly one may say that
+Mrs. Peagrim has revived the saloon.'"
+
+Mrs. Peagrim bit her lip.
+
+"'Salon.'"
+
+"'Salon,'" said Miss Frisby unemotionally. "They tell me, I am told, I
+am informed....'" She paused. "That's all I have."
+
+"Scratch out those last words," said Mrs. Peagrim irritably. "You
+really are hopeless, Miss Frisby! Couldn't you see that I had stopped
+dictating and was searching for a phrase? Otie, what is a good phrase
+for 'I am told'?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington forced his wandering attention to grapple with the
+problem.
+
+"'I hear,'" he suggested at length.
+
+"Tchah!" ejaculated his aunt. Then her face brightened. "I have it.
+Take dictation, please, Miss Frisby. 'A little bird whispers to me
+that there were great doings last night on the stage of the Gotham
+Theatre after the curtain had fallen on "The Rose of America," which,
+as everybody knows, is the work of Mrs. Peagrim's clever young nephew,
+Otis Pilkington.'" Mrs. Peagrim shot a glance at her clever young
+nephew, to see how he appreciated the boost, but Otis' thoughts were
+far away once more. He was lying on his spine, brooding, brooding.
+Mrs. Peagrim resumed her dictation. "'In honour of the extraordinary
+success of the piece, Mrs. Peagrim, who certainly does nothing by
+halves, entertained the entire company to a supper-dance after the
+performance. A number of prominent people were among the guests, and
+Mrs. Peagrim was a radiant and vivacious hostess. She has never looked
+more charming. The high jinks were kept up to an advanced hour, and
+every one agreed that they had never spent a more delightful evening.'
+There! Type as many copies as are necessary, Miss Frisby, and send
+them out this afternoon with photographs."
+
+Miss Frisby having vanished in her pallid way, the radiant and
+vivacious hostess turned on her nephew again.
+
+"I must say, Otie," she began complainingly, "that, for a man who has
+had a success like yours, you are not very cheerful. I should have
+thought the notices of the piece would have made you the happiest man
+in New York."
+
+There was once a melodrama where the child of the persecuted heroine
+used to dissolve the gallery in tears by saying "Happiness? What _is_
+happiness, moth-aw?" Mr. Pilkington did not use these actual words,
+but he reproduced the stricken infant's tone with great fidelity.
+
+"Notices! What are notices to me?"
+
+"Oh, don't be so affected!" cried Mrs. Peagrim. "Don't pretend that
+you don't know every word of them by heart!"
+
+"I have not seen the notices, Aunt Olive," said Mr. Pilkington dully.
+
+Mrs. Peagrim looked at him with positive alarm. She had never been
+overwhelmingly attached to her long nephew, but since his rise to fame
+something resembling affection had sprung up in her, and his attitude
+now disturbed her.
+
+"You can't be well, Otie!" she said solicitously. "Are you ill?"
+
+"I have a severe headache," replied the martyr. "I passed a wakeful
+night."
+
+"Let me go and mix you a dose of the most wonderful mixture," said
+Mrs. Peagrim maternally. "Poor boy! I don't wonder, after all the
+nervousness and excitement.... You sit quite still and rest. I will be
+back in a moment."
+
+She bustled out of the room, and Mr. Pilkington sagged back into his
+chair. He had hardly got his meditations going once more, when the
+door opened and the maid announced "Major Selby."
+
+"Good morning," said Uncle Chris breezily, sailing down the fairway
+with outstretched hand. "How are--oh!"
+
+He stopped abruptly, perceiving that Mrs. Peagrim was not present
+and--a more disturbing discovery--that Otis Pilkington was. It would
+be exaggeration to say that Uncle Chris was embarrassed. That
+master-mind was never actually embarrassed. But his jauntiness
+certainly ebbed a little, and he had to pull his moustache twice
+before he could face the situation with his customary _aplomb_. He had
+not expected to find Otis Pilkington here, and Otis was the last man
+he wished to meet. He had just parted from Jill, who had been rather
+plain-spoken with regard to the recent financial operations; and,
+though possessed only of a rudimentary conscience, Uncle Chris was
+aware that his next interview with young Mr. Pilkington might have
+certain aspects bordering on awkwardness and he would have liked time
+to prepare a statement for the defence. However, here the man was, and
+the situation must be faced.
+
+"Pilkington!" he cried. "My dear fellow! Just the man I wanted to
+see! I'm afraid there has been a little misunderstanding. Of course,
+it has all been cleared up now, but still I must insist on making a
+personal explanation; really, I must insist. The whole matter was a most
+absurd misunderstanding. It was like this...."
+
+Here Uncle Chris paused in order to devote a couple of seconds to
+thought. He had said it was "like this," and he gave his moustache
+another pull as though he were trying to drag inspiration out of it.
+His blue eyes were as frank and honest as ever, and showed no trace of
+the perplexity in his mind, but he had to admit to himself that, if he
+managed to satisfy his hearer that all was for the best and that he
+had acted uprightly and without blame, he would be doing well.
+
+Fortunately, the commercial side of Mr. Pilkington was entirely
+dormant this morning. The matter of the ten thousand dollars seemed
+trivial to him in comparison with the weightier problems which
+occupied his mind.
+
+"Have you seen Miss Mariner?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes. I have just parted from her. She was upset, poor girl, of
+course, exceedingly upset."
+
+Mr. Pilkington moaned hollowly.
+
+"Is she very angry with me?"
+
+For a moment the utter inexplicability of the remark silenced Uncle
+Chris. Why Jill should be angry with Mr. Pilkington for being robbed
+of ten thousand dollars he could not understand, for Jill had told him
+nothing of the scene that had taken place on the previous night. But
+evidently this point was to Mr. Pilkington the nub of the matter, and
+Uncle Chris, like the strategist he was, re-arranged his forces to
+meet the new development.
+
+"Angry?" he said slowly. "Well, of course...."
+
+He did not know what it was all about, but no doubt if he confined
+himself to broken sentences which meant nothing light would shortly be
+vouchsafed to him.
+
+"In the heat of the moment," confessed Mr. Pilkington, "I'm afraid I
+said things to Miss Mariner which I now regret."
+
+Uncle Chris began to feel on solid ground again.
+
+"Dear, dear!" he murmured regretfully.
+
+"I spoke hastily."
+
+"Always think before you speak, my boy."
+
+"I considered that I had been cheated...."
+
+"My dear boy!" Uncle Chris' blue eyes opened wide. "Please! Haven't I said
+that I could explain all that? It was a pure misunderstanding...."
+
+"Oh, I don't care about that part of it...."
+
+"Quite right," said Uncle Chris cordially. "Let bygones be bygones.
+Start with a clean slate. You have your money back, and there's no
+need to say another word about it. Let us forget it," he concluded
+generously. "And, if I have any influence with Jill, you may count on
+me to use it to dissipate any little unfortunate rift which may have
+occurred between you."
+
+"You think there's a chance that she might overlook what I said?"
+
+"As I say, I will use any influence I may possess to heal the breach.
+I like you, my boy. And I am sure that Jill likes you. She will make
+allowances for any ill-judged remarks you may have uttered in a moment
+of heat."
+
+Mr. Pilkington brightened, and Mrs. Peagrim, returning with a
+medicine-glass, was pleased to see him looking so much better.
+
+"You are a positive wizard, Major Selby," she said archly. "What have
+you been saying to the poor boy to cheer him up so? He has a bad
+headache this morning."
+
+"Headache?" said Uncle Chris, starting like a war-horse that has heard
+the bugle. "I don't know if I have ever mentioned it, but _I_ used to
+suffer from headaches at one time. Extraordinarily severe headaches. I
+tried everything, until one day a man I knew recommended a thing
+called--don't know if you have ever heard of it...."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim, in her rôle of ministering angel, was engrossed with her
+errand of mercy. She was holding the medicine-glass to Mr.
+Pilkington's lips, and the seed fell on stony ground.
+
+"Drink this, dear," urged Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"Nervino," said Uncle Chris.
+
+"There!" said Mrs. Peagrim. "That will make you feel much better. How
+well _you_ always look, Major Selby!"
+
+"And yet at one time," said Uncle Chris perseveringly, "I was a
+martyr...."
+
+"I can't remember if I told you last night about the party. We are
+giving a little supper-dance to the company of Otie's play after the
+performance this evening. Of course you will come?"
+
+Uncle Chris philosophically accepted his failure to secure the ear of
+his audience. Other opportunities would occur.
+
+"Delighted," he said. "Delighted."
+
+"Quite a simple, Bohemian little affair," proceeded Mrs. Peagrim. "I
+thought it was only right to give the poor things a little treat after
+they have all worked so hard."
+
+"Certainly, certainly. A capital idea."
+
+"We shall be quite a small party. If I once started asking anybody
+outside our _real_ friends, I should have to ask everybody."
+
+The door opened.
+
+"Mr. Rooke," announced the maid.
+
+Freddie, like Mr. Pilkington, was a prey to gloom this morning. He had
+read one or two of the papers, and they had been disgustingly lavish
+in their praise of The McWhustle of McWhustle. It made Freddie despair
+of the New York Press. In addition to this, he had been woken up at
+seven o'clock, after going to sleep at three, by the ringing of the
+telephone and the announcement that a gentleman wished to see him: and
+he was weighed down with that heavy-eyed languor which comes to those
+whose night's rest is broken.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Rooke!" said Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"How-de-do," replied Freddie, blinking in the strong light from the
+window. "Hope I'm not barging in and all that sort of thing? I came
+round about this party to-night, you know."
+
+"Oh, yes?"
+
+"Was wondering," said Freddie, "if you would mind if I brought a
+friend of mine along? Popped in on me from England this morning. At
+seven o'clock," said Freddie plaintively. "Ghastly hour, what? Didn't
+do a thing to the good old beauty sleep! Well, what I mean to say is,
+I'd be awfully obliged if you'd let me bring him along."
+
+"Why, of course," said Mrs. Peagrim. "Any friend of yours, Mr.
+Rooke...."
+
+"Thanks awfully. Special reason why I'd like him to come, and all
+that. He's a fellow named Underhill. Sir Derek Underhill. Been a pal
+of mine for years and years."
+
+Uncle Chris started.
+
+"Underhill! Is Derek Underhill in America?"
+
+"Landed this morning. Routed me out of bed at seven o'clock."
+
+"Oh, do you know him, too, Major Selby?" said Mrs. Peagrim. "Then I'm
+sure he must be charming!"
+
+"Charming," began Uncle Chris in measured tones, "is an adjective
+which I cannot...."
+
+"Well, thanks most awfully," interrupted Freddie. "It's fearfully good
+of you to let me bring him along. I must be staggering off now. Lot of
+things to do."
+
+"Oh, must you go already?"
+
+"Absolutely must. Lots of things to do."
+
+Uncle Chris extended a hand to his hostess.
+
+"I think I will be going along, too, Mrs. Peagrim. I'll walk a few
+yards with you, Freddie, my boy. There are one or two things I would
+like to talk over. Till to-night, Mrs. Peagrim."
+
+"Till to-night, Major Selby." She turned to Mr. Pilkington as the door
+closed. "What charming manners Major Selby has. So polished. A sort of
+old-world courtesy. So smooth!"
+
+"Smooth," said Mr. Pilkington dourly, "is right!"
+
+
+II
+
+Uncle Chris confronted Freddie sternly outside the front door.
+
+"What does this mean? Good God, Freddie, have you no delicacy?"
+
+"Eh?" said Freddie blankly.
+
+"Why are you bringing Underhill to this party? Don't you realize that
+poor Jill will be there? How do you suppose she will feel when she
+sees that blackguard again? The cad who threw her over and nearly
+broke her heart!"
+
+Freddie's jaw fell. He groped for his fallen eyeglass.
+
+"Oh, my aunt! Do you think she will be pipped?"
+
+"A sensitive girl like Jill?"
+
+"But, listen. Derek wants to marry her."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Oh, absolutely. That's why he's come over."
+
+Uncle Chris shook his head.
+
+"I don't understand this. I saw the letter myself which he wrote to
+her, breaking off the engagement."
+
+"Yes, but he's dashed sorry about all that now. Wishes he had never
+been such a mug, and all that sort of thing. As a matter of fact,
+that's why I shot over here in the first place. As an ambassador,
+don't you know. I told Jill all about it directly I saw her, but she
+seemed inclined to give it a miss rather, so I cabled old Derek to pop
+here in person. Seemed to me, don't you know, that Jill might be more
+likely to make it up and all that if she saw old Derek."
+
+Uncle Chris nodded, his composure restored.
+
+"Very true. Yes, certainly, my boy, you acted most sensibly. Badly as
+Underhill behaved, she undoubtedly loved him. It would be the best
+possible thing that could happen if they could be brought together. It
+is my dearest wish to see Jill comfortably settled. I was half hoping
+that she might marry young Pilkington."
+
+"Good God! The Pilker!"
+
+"He is quite a nice young fellow," argued Uncle Chris. "None too many
+brains, perhaps, but Jill would supply that deficiency. Still, of
+course, Underhill would be much better."
+
+"She ought to marry someone," said Freddie earnestly. "I mean, all rot
+a girl like Jill having to knock about and rough it like this."
+
+"You're perfectly right."
+
+"Of course," said Freddie thoughtfully, "the catch in the whole dashed
+business is that she's such a bally independent sort of girl. I mean
+to say, it's quite possible she may hand Derek the mitten, you know."
+
+"In that case, let us hope that she will look more favourably on young
+Pilkington."
+
+"Yes," said Freddie. "Well, yes. But--well, I wouldn't call the Pilker
+a very ripe sporting proposition. About sixty to one against is the
+way I should figure it if I were making a book. It may be just because
+I'm feeling a bit pipped this morning--got turfed out of bed at seven
+o'clock and all that--but I have an idea that she may give both of
+them the old razz. May be wrong, of course."
+
+"Let us hope that you are, my boy," said Uncle Chris gravely. "For in
+that case I should be forced into a course of action from which I
+confess that I shrink."
+
+"I don't follow."
+
+"Freddie, my boy, you are a very old friend of Jill's and I am her
+uncle. I feel that I can speak plainly to you. Jill is the dearest
+thing to me in the world. She trusted me, and I failed her. I was
+responsible for the loss of her money, and my one object in life is to
+see her by some means or other in a position equal to the one of which
+I deprived her. If she married a rich man, well and good. That,
+provided she marries him because she is fond of him, will be the very
+best thing that can happen. But if she does not, there is another way.
+It may be possible for me to marry a rich woman."
+
+Freddie stopped, appalled.
+
+"Good God! You don't mean ... you aren't thinking of marrying Mrs.
+Peagrim!"
+
+"I wouldn't have mentioned names, but, as you have guessed.... Yes, if
+the worst comes to the worst, I shall make the supreme sacrifice.
+To-night will decide. Good-bye, my boy. I want to look in at my club
+for a few minutes. Tell Underhill that he has my best wishes."
+
+"I'll bet he has!" gasped Freddie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DEREK LOSES ONE BIRD AND SECURES ANOTHER
+
+
+It is safest for the historian, if he values accuracy, to wait till a
+thing has happened before writing about it. Otherwise he may commit
+himself to statements which are not borne out by the actual facts.
+Mrs. Peagrim, recording in advance the success of her party at the
+Gotham Theatre, had done this. It is true that she was a "radiant and
+vivacious hostess," and it is possible, her standard not being very
+high, that she had "never looked more charming." But, when she went on
+to say that all present were in agreement that they had never spent a
+more delightful evening, she deceived the public. Uncle Chris, for
+one; Otis Pilkington, for another, and Freddie Rooke, for a third,
+were so far from spending a delightful evening that they found it hard
+to mask their true emotions and keep a smiling face to the world.
+
+Otis Pilkington, indeed, found it impossible, and, ceasing to try,
+left early. Just twenty minutes after the proceedings had begun, he
+seized his coat and hat, shot out into the night, made off blindly up
+Broadway, and walked twice round Central Park before his feet gave out
+and he allowed himself to be taken back to his apartment in a taxi.
+Jill had been very kind and very sweet and very regretful, but it was
+only too manifest that on the question of becoming Mrs. Otis
+Pilkington her mind was made up. She was willing to like him, to be a
+sister to him, to watch his future progress with considerable
+interest, but she would not marry him.
+
+One feels sorry for Otis Pilkington in his hour of travail. This was
+the fifth or sixth time that this sort of thing had happened to him,
+and he was getting tired of it. If he could have looked into the
+future--five years almost to a day from that evening--and seen himself
+walking blushfully down the aisle of St. Thomas' with Roland Trevis'
+sister Angela on his arm, his gloom might have been lightened. More
+probably, however, it would have been increased. At the moment, Roland
+Trevis' sister Angela was fifteen, frivolous, and freckled and, except
+that he rather disliked her and suspected her--correctly--of laughing
+at him, amounted to just _nil_ in Mr. Pilkington's life. The idea of
+linking his lot with hers would have appalled him, enthusiastically
+though he was in favour of it five years later.
+
+However, Mr. Pilkington was unable to look into the future, so his
+reflections on this night of sorrow were not diverted from Jill. He
+thought sadly of Jill till two-thirty, when he fell asleep in his
+chair and dreamed of her. At seven o'clock his Japanese valet, who had
+been given the night off, returned home, found him, and gave him
+breakfast. After which, Mr. Pilkington went to bed, played three games
+of solitaire, and slept till dinner-time, when he awoke to take up the
+burden of life again. He still brooded on the tragedy which had
+shattered him. Indeed, it was only two weeks later, when at a dance he
+was introduced to a red-haired girl from Detroit, that he really got
+over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The news was conveyed to Freddie Rooke by Uncle Chris. Uncle Chris,
+with something of the emotions of a condemned man on the scaffold
+waiting for a reprieve, had watched Jill and Mr. Pilkington go off
+together into the dim solitude at the back of the orchestra chairs,
+and, after an all too brief interval, had observed the latter whizzing
+back, his every little movement having a meaning of its own--and that
+meaning one which convinced Uncle Chris that Freddie, in estimating
+Mr. Pilkington as a sixty to one chance, had not erred in his judgment
+of form.
+
+Uncle Chris found Freddie in one of the upper boxes, talking to Nelly
+Bryant. Dancing was going on down on the stage, but Freddie, though
+normally a young man who shook a skilful shoe, was in no mood for
+dancing to-night. The return to the scenes of his former triumphs and
+the meeting with the companions of happier days, severed from him by a
+two-weeks' notice, had affected Freddie powerfully. Eyeing the happy
+throng below, he experienced the emotions of that Peri who, in the
+poem, "at the gate of Eden stood disconsolate."
+
+Excusing himself from Nelly and following Uncle Chris into the
+passage-way outside the box, he heard the other's news listlessly. It
+came as no shock to Freddie. He had never thought Mr. Pilkington
+anything to write home about, and had never supposed that Jill would
+accept him. He said as much. Sorry for the chap in a way, and all
+that, but had never imagined for an instant that he would click.
+
+"Where is Underhill?" asked Uncle Chris agitated.
+
+"Derek? Oh, he isn't here yet."
+
+"But why isn't he here? I understood that you were bringing him with
+you."
+
+"That was the scheme, but it seems he had promised some people he met
+on the boat to go to a theatre and have a bit of supper with them
+afterwards. I only heard about it when I got back this morning."
+
+"Good God, boy! Didn't you tell him that Jill would be here to-night?"
+
+"Oh, rather. And he's coming on directly he can get away from these
+people. Ought to be here any moment now."
+
+Uncle Chris plucked at his moustache gloomily. Freddie's detachment
+depressed him. He had looked for more animation and a greater sense of
+the importance of the issue.
+
+"Well, pip-pip for the present," said Freddie, moving toward the box.
+"Have to be getting back. See you later."
+
+He disappeared, and Uncle Chris turned slowly to descend the stairs.
+As he reached the floor below, the door of the stage-box opened, and
+Mrs. Peagrim came out.
+
+"Oh, Major Selby!" cried the radiant and vivacious hostess. "I
+couldn't think where you had got to. I have been looking for you
+everywhere."
+
+Uncle Chris quivered slightly, but braced himself to do his duty.
+
+"May I have the pleasure...?" he began, then broke off as he saw the
+man who had come out of the box behind his hostess. "Underhill!" He
+grasped his hand and shook it warmly. "My dear fellow! I had no notion
+that you had arrived!"
+
+"Sir Derek came just a moment ago," said Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"How are you, Major Selby?" said Derek. He was a little surprised at
+the warmth of his reception. He had not anticipated this geniality.
+
+"My dear fellow, I'm delighted to see you," cried Uncle Chris. "But,
+as I was saying, Mrs. Peagrim, may I have the pleasure of this dance?"
+
+"I don't think I will dance this one," said Mrs. Peagrim surprisingly.
+"I'm sure you two must have ever so much to talk about. Why don't you
+take Sir Derek and give him a cup of coffee?"
+
+"Capital idea!" said Uncle Chris. "Come this way, my dear fellow. As
+Mrs. Peagrim says, I have ever so much to talk about. Along this
+passage, my boy. Be careful. There's a step. Well, well, well! It's
+delightful to see you again!" He massaged Derek's arm affectionately.
+Every time he had met Mrs. Peagrim that evening he had quailed
+inwardly at what lay before him, should some hitch occur to prevent
+the re-union of Derek and Jill: and now that the other was actually
+here, handsomer than ever and more than ever the sort of man no girl
+could resist, he declined to admit the possibility of a hitch. His
+spirits soared. "You haven't seen Jill yet, of course?"
+
+"No." Derek hesitated. "Is Jill.... Does she.... I mean...."
+
+Uncle Chris resumed his osteopathy. He kneaded his companion's
+coat-sleeve with a jovial hand.
+
+"My dear fellow, of course! I am sure that a word or two from you will
+put everything right. We all make mistakes. I have made them myself. I
+am convinced that everything will be perfectly all right.... Ah, there
+she is. Jill, my dear, here is an old friend to see you!"
+
+
+II
+
+Since the hurried departure of Mr. Pilkington, Jill had been sitting
+in the auditorium, lazily listening to the music and watching the
+couples dancing on the stage. She found herself drifting into a mood
+of gentle contentment, and was at a loss to account for this. She was
+happy--quietly and peacefully happy, when she was aware that she ought
+to have been both agitated and apprehensive. When she had anticipated
+the recent interview with Otis Pilkington, which she had known was
+bound to come sooner or later, it had been shrinkingly and with
+foreboding. She hated hurting people's feelings, and, though she read
+Mr. Pilkington's character accurately enough to know that time would
+heal any anguish which she might cause him, she had had no doubt that
+the temperamental surface of that long young man, when he succeeded in
+getting her alone, was going to be badly bruised. And it had fallen
+out just as she had expected. Mr. Pilkington had said his say and
+departed, a pitiful figure, a spectacle which should have wrung her
+heart. It had not wrung her heart. Except for one fleeting instant
+when she was actually saying the fatal words, it had not interfered
+with her happiness at all; and already she was beginning to forget
+that the incident had ever happened.
+
+And, if the past should have depressed her, the future might have been
+expected to depress her even more. There was nothing in it, either
+immediate or distant, which could account for her feeling gently
+contented. And yet, as she leaned back in her seat, her heart was
+dancing in time to the dance-music of Mrs. Peagrim's hired orchestra.
+It puzzled Jill.
+
+And then, quite suddenly, yet with no abruptness or sense of
+discovery, just as if it were something which she had known all along,
+the truth came upon her. It was Wally, the thought of Wally, the
+knowledge that Wally existed, that made her happy. He was a solid,
+comforting, reassuring fact in a world of doubts and perplexities. She
+did not need to be with him to be fortified, it was enough just to
+think of him. Present or absent, his personality heartened her like
+fine weather or music or a sea-breeze--or like that friendly, soothing
+night-light which they used to leave in her nursery when she was
+little, to scare away the goblins and see her safely over the road
+that led to the gates of the city of dreams.
+
+Suppose there were no Wally...?
+
+Jill gave a sudden gasp, and sat up, tingling. She felt as she had
+sometimes felt as a child, when, on the edge of sleep, she had dreamed
+that she was stepping off a precipice and had woken, tense and alert,
+to find that there was no danger after all. But there was a difference
+between that feeling and this. She had woken, but to find that there
+was danger. It was as though some inner voice was calling to her to be
+careful, to take thought. Suppose there were no Wally?... And why
+should there always be Wally? He had said confidently enough that
+there would never be another girl.... But there were thousands of
+other girls, millions of other girls, and could she suppose that one
+of them would not have the sense to snap up a treasure like Wally? A
+sense of blank desolation swept over Jill. Her quick imagination,
+leaping ahead, had made the vague possibility of a distant future an
+accomplished fact. She felt, absurdly, a sense of overwhelming loss.
+
+Into her mind, never far distant from it, came the thought of Derek.
+And, suddenly, Jill made another discovery. She was thinking of Derek,
+and it was not hurting. She was thinking of him quite coolly and
+clearly and her heart was not aching.
+
+She sat back and screwed her eyes tight, as she had always done when
+puzzled. Something had happened to her, but how it had happened and
+when it had happened and why it had happened she could not understand.
+She only knew that now for the first time she had been granted a
+moment of clear vision and was seeing things truly.
+
+She wanted Wally. She wanted him in the sense that she could not do
+without him. She felt nothing of the fiery tumult which had come upon
+her when she first met Derek. She and Wally would come together with a
+smile and build their life on an enduring foundation of laughter and
+happiness and good-fellowship. Wally had never shaken and never would
+shake her senses as Derek had done. If that was love, then she did not
+love Wally. But her clear vision told her that it was not love. It
+might be the blazing and crackling of thorns, but it was not the fire.
+She wanted Wally. She needed him as she needed the air and the
+sunlight.
+
+She opened her eyes and saw Uncle Chris coming down the aisle towards
+her. There was a man with him, and, as they moved closer in the dim
+light, Jill saw that it was Derek.
+
+"Jill, my dear," said Uncle Chris, "here is an old friend to see you!"
+
+And, having achieved their bringing together, he proceeded to withdraw
+delicately whence he had come. It is pleasant to be able to record
+that he was immediately seized upon by Mrs. Peagrim, who had changed
+her mind about not dancing, and led off to be her partner in a
+fox-trot, in the course of which she trod on his feet three times.
+
+"Why, Derek!" said Jill cheerfully. Except for a mild wonder how he
+came to be there, she found herself wholly unaffected by the sight of
+him. "Whatever are _you_ doing here?"
+
+Derek sat down beside her. The cordiality of her tone had relieved,
+yet at the same time disconcerted him. Man seldom attains to perfect
+contentment in this world, and Derek, while pleased that Jill
+apparently bore him no ill-will, seemed to miss something in her
+manner which he would have been glad to find there.
+
+"Jill!" he said huskily.
+
+It seemed to Derek only decent to speak huskily. To his orderly mind
+this situation could be handled only in one way. It was a plain,
+straight issue of the strong man humbling himself--not too much of
+course, but sufficiently: and it called, in his opinion, for the low
+voice, the clenched hand, and the broken whisper. Speaking as he had
+spoken, he had given the scene the right key from the start--or would
+have done if she had not got in ahead of him and opened it on a note
+of absurd cheeriness? Derek found himself resenting her cheeriness.
+Often as he had attempted during the voyage from England to visualize
+to himself this first meeting, he had never pictured Jill smiling
+brightly at him. It was a jolly smile, and made her look extremely
+pretty, but it jarred upon him. A moment before he had been half
+relieved, half disconcerted: now he was definitely disconcerted. He
+searched in his mind for a criticism of her attitude, and came to the
+conclusion that what was wrong with it was that it was too friendly.
+Friendliness is well enough in its way, but in what should have been a
+tense clashing of strong emotions it did not seem to Derek fitting.
+
+"Did you have a pleasant trip?" asked Jill. "Have you come over on
+business?"
+
+A feeling of bewilderment came upon Derek. It was wrong, it was all
+wrong. Of course, she might be speaking like this to cloak intense
+feeling, but, if so, she had certainly succeeded. From her manner, he
+and she might be casual acquaintances. A pleasant trip! In another
+minute she would be asking him how he had come out on the sweepstake
+on the ship's run. With a sense of putting his shoulder to some heavy
+weight and heaving at it, he sought to lift the conversation to a
+higher plane.
+
+"I came to find _you_!" he said; still huskily but not so huskily as
+before. There are degrees of huskiness, and Derek's was sharpened a
+little by a touch of irritation.
+
+"Yes?" said Jill.
+
+Derek was now fermenting. What she ought to have said, he did not
+know, but he knew that it was not "Yes?" "Yes?" in the circumstances
+was almost as bad as "Really?"
+
+There was a pause. Jill was looking at him with a frank and
+unembarrassed gaze which somehow deepened his sense of annoyance. Had
+she looked at him coldly, he could have understood and even
+appreciated it. He had been expecting coldness, and had braced himself
+to combat it. He was still not quite sure in his mind whether he was
+playing the rôle of a penitent or a King Cophetua, but in either
+character he might have anticipated a little temporary coldness, which
+it would have been his easy task to melt. But he had never expected to
+be looked at as if he were a specimen in a museum, and that was how he
+was feeling now. Jill was not looking at him--she was inspecting him,
+examining him, and he chafed under the process.
+
+Jill, unconscious of the discomfort she was causing, continued to
+gaze. She was trying to discover in just what respect he had changed
+from the god he had been. Certainly not in looks. He was as handsome
+as ever--handsomer, indeed, for the sunshine and clean breezes of the
+Atlantic had given him an exceedingly becoming coat of tan. And yet he
+must have changed, for now she could look upon him quite
+dispassionately and criticize him without a tremor. It was like seeing
+a copy of a great painting. Everything was there, except the one thing
+that mattered, the magic and the glamour. It was like.... She suddenly
+remembered a scene in the dressing-room when the company had been in
+Baltimore. Lois Denham, duly the recipient of the sunburst which her
+friend Izzy had promised her, had unfortunately, in a spirit of
+girlish curiosity, taken it to a jeweller to be priced, and the
+jeweller had blasted her young life by declaring it a paste imitation.
+Jill recalled how the stricken girl--previous to calling Izzy on the
+long distance and telling him a number of things which, while probably
+not news to him, must have been painful hearing--had passed the vile
+object round the dressing-room for inspection. The imitation was
+perfect. It had been impossible for the girls to tell that the stones
+were not real diamonds. Yet the jeweller, with his sixth sense, had
+seen through them in a trifle under ten seconds. Jill came to the
+conclusion that her newly-discovered love for Wally Mason had equipped
+her with a sixth sense, and that by its aid she was really for the
+first time seeing Derek as he was.
+
+Derek had not the privilege of being able to read Jill's thoughts. All
+he could see was the outer Jill, and the outer Jill, as she had always
+done, was stirring his emotions. Her daintiness afflicted him. Not for
+the first, the second, or the third time since they had come into each
+other's lives, he was astounded at the strength of the appeal which
+Jill had for him when they were together, as contrasted with its
+weakness when they were apart. He made another attempt to establish
+the scene on a loftier plane.
+
+"What a fool I was!" he sighed. "Jill! Can you ever forgive me?"
+
+He tried to take her hand. Jill skilfully eluded him.
+
+"Why, of course I've forgiven you, Derek, if there was, anything to
+forgive."
+
+"Anything to forgive!" Derek began to get into his stride. These were
+the lines on which he had desired the interview to develop. "I was a
+brute! A cad!"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"I was. Oh, I have been through hell!"
+
+Jill turned her head away. She did not want to hurt him, but nothing
+could have kept her from smiling. She had been so sure that he would
+say that sooner or later.
+
+"Jill!" Derek had misinterpreted the cause of her movement, and had
+attributed it to emotion. "Tell me that everything is as it was
+before."
+
+Jill turned.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't say that, Derek."
+
+"Of course not!" agreed Derek in a comfortable glow of manly remorse.
+He liked himself in the character of the strong man abashed. "It would
+be too much to expect, I know. But, when we are married...."
+
+"Do you really want to marry me?"
+
+"Jill!"
+
+"I wonder!"
+
+"How can you doubt it?"
+
+Jill looked at him.
+
+"Have you thought what it would mean?"
+
+"What it would mean?"
+
+"Well, your mother...."
+
+"Oh!" Derek dismissed Lady Underhill with a grand gesture.
+
+"Yes," persisted Jill, "but, if she disapproved of your marrying me
+before, wouldn't she disapprove a good deal more now, when I haven't a
+penny in the world and am just in the chorus...."
+
+A sort of strangled sound proceeded from Derek's throat.
+
+"In the chorus!"
+
+"Didn't you know? I thought Freddie must have told you."
+
+"In the chorus!" Derek stammered. "I thought you were here as a guest
+of Mrs. Peagrim's."
+
+"So I am--like all the rest of the company."
+
+"But.... But...."
+
+"You see, it would be bound to make everything a little difficult,"
+said Jill. Her face was grave, but her lips were twitching. "I mean,
+you are rather a prominent man, aren't you, and if you married a
+chorus-girl...."
+
+"Nobody would know," said Derek limply.
+
+Jill opened her eyes.
+
+"Nobody would _know_!" She laughed. "But, of course, you've never met
+our Press-agent. If you think that nobody would know that a girl in
+the company had married a baronet who was a member of parliament and
+expected to be in the Cabinet in a few years, you're wronging him! The
+news would be on the front page of all the papers the very next
+day--columns of it, with photographs. There would be articles about it
+in the Sunday papers. Illustrated! And then it would be cabled to
+England and would appear in the papers there.... You see, you're a
+very important person, Derek."
+
+Derek sat clutching the arms of his chair. His face was chalky. Though
+he had never been inclined to underestimate his importance as a figure
+in the public eye, he had overlooked the disadvantages connected with
+such an eminence. He gurgled wordlessly. He had been prepared to brave
+Lady Underhill's wrath and assert his right to marry whom he pleased,
+but this was different.
+
+Jill watched him curiously and with a certain pity. It was so easy to
+read what was passing in his mind. She wondered what he would say, how
+he would flounder out of his unfortunate position. She had no
+illusions about him now. She did not even contemplate the possibility
+of chivalry winning the battle which was going on within him.
+
+"It would be very awkward, wouldn't it?" she said.
+
+And then pity had its way with Jill. He had treated her badly; for a
+time she had thought that he had crushed all the heart out of her: but
+he was suffering, and she hated to see anybody suffer.
+
+"Besides," she said, "I'm engaged to somebody else."
+
+As a suffocating man, his lips to the tube of oxygen, gradually comes
+back to life, Derek revived--slowly as the meaning of her words sank
+into his mind, then with a sudden abruptness.
+
+"What?" he cried.
+
+"I'm going to marry somebody else. A man named Wally Mason."
+
+Derek swallowed. The chalky look died out of his face, and he flushed
+hotly. His eyes, half relieved, half indignant, glowed under their
+pent-house of eyebrow. He sat for a moment in silence.
+
+"I think you might have told me before!" he said huffily.
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"Yes, I suppose I ought to have told you before."
+
+"Leading me on...!"
+
+Jill patted him on the arm.
+
+"Never mind, Derek! It's all over now. And it was great fun, wasn't
+it!"
+
+"Fun!"
+
+"Shall we go and dance? The music is just starting."
+
+"I _won't_ dance!"
+
+Jill got up.
+
+"I must," she said. "I'm so happy I can't keep still. Well, good-bye,
+Derek, in case I don't see you again. It was nice meeting after all
+this time. You haven't altered a bit!"
+
+Derek watched her flit down the aisle, saw her jump up the little
+ladder on to the stage, watched her vanish into the swirl of the
+dance. He reached for a cigarette, opened his case, and found it
+empty. He uttered a mirthless, Byronic laugh. The thing seemed to him
+symbolic.
+
+
+III
+
+Not having a cigarette of his own, Derek got up and went to look for
+the only man he knew who could give him one: and after a search of a
+few minutes came upon Freddie all alone in a dark corner, apart from
+the throng. It was a very different Freddie from the moody youth who
+had returned to the box after his conversation with Uncle Chris. He
+was leaning against a piece of scenery with his head tilted back and a
+beam of startled happiness on his face. So rapt was he in his
+reflections that he did not become aware of Derek's approach until the
+latter spoke.
+
+"Got a cigarette, Freddie?"
+
+Freddie withdrew his gaze from the roof.
+
+"Hullo, old son! Cigarette? Certainly and by all means. Cigarettes?
+Where are the cigarettes? Mr. Rooke, forward! Show cigarettes." He
+extended his case to Derek, who helped himself in sombre silence,
+finding his boyhood's friend's exuberance hard to bear. "I say, Derek,
+old scream, the most extraordinary thing has happened! You'll never
+guess. To cut a long story short and come to the blow-out of the
+scenario, I'm engaged! Engaged, old crumpet! You know what I
+mean--engaged to be married!"
+
+"Ugh!" said Derek gruffly, frowning over his cigarette.
+
+"Don't wonder you're surprised," said Freddie, looking at him a little
+wistfully, for his friend had scarcely been gushing, and he would have
+welcomed a bit of enthusiasm. "Can hardly believe it myself."
+
+Derek awoke to a sense of the conventions.
+
+"Congratulate you," he said. "Do I know her?"
+
+"Not yet, but you will soon. She's a girl in the company--in the
+chorus as a matter of fact. Girl named Nelly Bryant. An absolute
+corker. I'll go further--a topper. You'll like her, old man."
+
+Derek was looking at him, amazed.
+
+"Good Heavens!" he said.
+
+"Extraordinary how these things happen," proceeded Freddie. "Looking
+back, I can see, of course, that I always thought her a topper, but
+the idea of getting engaged--I don't know--sort of thing that doesn't
+occur to a chappie, if you know what I mean. What I mean to say is, we
+had always been the greatest of pals and all that, but it never struck
+me that she would think it much of a wheeze getting hooked up for life
+with a chap like me. We just sort of drifted along and so forth. All
+very jolly and what not. And then this evening--I don't know. I had a
+bit of a hump, what with one thing and another, and she was most
+dashed sweet and patient and soothing and--and--well, and what not,
+don't you know, and suddenly--deuced rummy sensation--the jolly old
+scales seemed to fall, if you follow me, from my good old eyes; I
+don't know if you get the idea. I suddenly seemed to look myself
+squarely in the eyeball and say to myself, 'Freddie, old top, how do
+we go? Are we not missing a good thing?' And, by Jove, thinking it
+over, I found that I was absolutely correct-o! You've no notion how
+dashed sympathetic she is, old man! I mean to say, I had this hump,
+you know, owing to one thing and another, and was feeling that life
+was more or less of a jolly old snare and delusion, and she bucked me
+up and all that, and suddenly I found myself kissing her and all that
+sort of rot, and she was kissing me and so on and so forth, and she's
+got the most ripping eyes, and there was nobody about, and the long
+and the short of it was, old boy, that I said, 'Let's get married!'
+and she said, 'When?' and that was that, if you see what I mean. The
+scheme now is to pop down to the City Hall and get a licence, which it
+appears you have to have if you want to bring this sort of binge off
+with any success and vim, and then what ho for the padre! Looking at
+it from every angle, a bit of a good egg, what? Happiest man in the
+world, and all that sort of thing."
+
+At this point in his somewhat incoherent epic Freddie paused. It had
+occurred to him that he had perhaps laid himself open to a charge of
+monopolising the conversation.
+
+"I say! You'll forgive my dwelling a bit on this thing, won't you?
+Never found a girl who would look twice at me before, and it's rather
+unsettled the old bean. Just occurred to me that I may have been
+talking about my own affairs a bit. Your turn now, old thing. Sit
+down, as the blighters in the novels used to say, and tell me the
+story of your life. You've seen Jill, of course?"
+
+"Yes," said Derek shortly.
+
+"And it's all right, eh? Fine! We'll make a double wedding of it,
+what? Not a bad idea, that! I mean to say, the man of God might make a
+reduction for quantity and shade his fee a bit. Do the job half
+price!"
+
+Derek threw down the end of his cigarette, and crushed it with his
+heel. A closer observer than Freddie would have detected long ere this
+the fact that his demeanour was not that of a happy and successful
+wooer.
+
+"Jill and I are not going to be married," he said.
+
+A look of blank astonishment came into Freddie's cheerful face. He
+could hardly believe that he had heard correctly. It is true that, in
+gloomier mood, he had hazarded the theory to Uncle Chris that Jill's
+independence might lead her to refuse Derek, but he had not really
+believed in the possibility of such a thing even at the time, and now,
+in the full flood of optimism consequent on his own engagement, it
+seemed even more incredible.
+
+"Great Scott!" he cried. "Did she give you the raspberry?"
+
+It is to be doubted whether the pride of the Underhills would have
+permitted Derek to reply in the affirmative, even if Freddie had
+phrased his question differently; but the brutal directness of the
+query made such a course impossible for him. Nothing was dearer to
+Derek than his self-esteem, and, even at the expense of the truth, he
+was resolved to shield it from injury. To face Freddie and confess
+that any girl in the world had given him, Derek Underhill, what he
+coarsely termed the raspberry was a task so revolting as to be utterly
+beyond his powers.
+
+"Nothing of the kind!" he snapped. "It was because we both saw that
+the thing would be impossible. Why didn't you tell me that Jill was in
+the chorus of this damned piece?"
+
+Freddie's mouth slowly opened. He was trying not to realize the
+meaning of what his friend was saying. His was a faithful soul, and
+for years--to all intents and purposes for practically the whole of
+his life--he had looked up to Derek and reverenced him. He absolutely
+refused to believe that Derek was intending to convey what he seemed
+to be trying to convey; for, if he was, well ... by Jove ... it was
+too rotten and Algy Martyn had been right after all and the fellow was
+simply....
+
+"You don't mean, old man," said Freddie with an almost pleading note
+in his voice, "that you're going to back out of marrying Jill because
+she's in the chorus?"
+
+Derek looked away, and scowled. He was finding Freddie, in the
+capacity of inquisitor, as trying as he had found him in the rôle of
+exuberant fiancé. It offended his pride to have to make explanations
+to one whom he had always regarded with a patronizing tolerance as not
+a bad fellow in his way but in every essential respect negligible.
+
+"I have to be sensible," he said, chafing as the indignity of his
+position intruded itself more and more. "You know what it would
+mean.... Paragraphs in all the papers.... photographs ... the news
+cabled to England ... everybody reading it and misunderstanding....
+I've got my career to think of.... It would cripple me...."
+
+His voice trailed off, and there was silence for a moment. Then
+Freddie burst into speech. His good-natured face was hard with
+unwonted scorn. Its cheerful vacuity had changed to stony contempt.
+For the second time in the evening the jolly old scales had fallen
+from Freddie's good old eyes, and, as Jill had done, he saw Derek as
+he was.
+
+"My sainted aunt!" he said slowly. "So that's it, what? Well, I've
+always thought a dashed lot of you, as you know. I've always looked up
+to you as a bit of a nib and wished I was like you. But, great Scott!
+if that's the sort of a chap you are, I'm deuced glad I'm not! I'm
+going to wake up in the middle of the night and think how unlike you I
+am and pat myself on the back! Ronny Devereux was perfectly right. A
+tick's a tick, and that's all there is to say about it. Good old Ronny
+told me what you were, and, like a silly ass, I wasted a lot of time
+trying to make him believe you weren't that sort of chap at all. It's
+no good standing there looking like your mother," said Freddie firmly.
+"This is where we jolly well part brass-rags! If we ever meet again,
+I'll trouble you not to speak to me, because I've a reputation to keep
+up! So there you have it in a bally nutshell!"
+
+Scarcely had Freddie ceased to administer it to his former friend in a
+bally nutshell, when Uncle Chris, warm and dishevelled from the dance
+as interpreted by Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim, came bustling up, saving
+Derek the necessity of replying to the harangue.
+
+"Well, Underhill, my dear fellow," began Uncle Chris affably,
+attaching himself to the other's arm, "what...?"
+
+He broke off, for Derek, freeing his arm with a wrench, turned and
+walked rapidly away. Derek had no desire to go over the whole thing
+again with Uncle Chris. He wanted to be alone, to build up, painfully
+and laboriously, the ruins of his self-esteem. The pride of the
+Underhills had had a bad evening.
+
+Uncle Chris turned to Freddie.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked blankly.
+
+"I'll tell you what's the jolly old matter!" cried Freddie. "The
+blighter isn't going to marry poor Jill after all! He's changed his
+rotten mind! It's off!"
+
+"Off?"
+
+"Absolutely off!"
+
+"Absolutely off?"
+
+"Napoo!" said Freddie. "He's afraid of what will happen to his blasted
+career if he marries a girl who's been in the chorus."
+
+"But, my dear boy!" Uncle Chris blinked. "But, my dear boy! This is
+ridiculous.... Surely, if I were to speak a word...."
+
+"You can if you like. _I_ wouldn't speak to the man again if you paid
+me! But it won't do any good, so what's the use?"
+
+Slowly Uncle Chris adjusted his mind to the disaster.
+
+"Then you mean...?"
+
+"It's off!" said Freddie.
+
+For a moment Uncle Chris stood motionless. Then, with a sudden jerk,
+he seemed to stiffen his backbone. His face was bleak, but he pulled
+at his moustache jauntily.
+
+"_Morituri te salutant!_" he said. "Good-bye, Freddie, my boy."
+
+He turned away, gallant and upright, the old soldier.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Freddie.
+
+"Over the top!" said Uncle Chris.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I am going," said Uncle Chris steadily, "to find Mrs. Peagrim!"
+
+"Good God!" cried Freddie. He followed him, protesting weakly, but the
+other gave no sign that he had heard. Freddie saw him disappear into
+the stage-box, and, turning, found Jill at his elbow.
+
+"Where did Uncle Chris go?" asked Jill. "I want to speak to him."
+
+"He's in the stage-box, with Mrs. Peagrim."
+
+"With Mrs. Peagrim?"
+
+"Proposing to her," said Freddie solemnly.
+
+Jill stared.
+
+"Proposing to Mrs. Peagrim? What do you mean?"
+
+Freddie drew her aside, and began to explain.
+
+
+IV
+
+In the dimness of the stage-box, his eyes a little glassy and a dull
+despair in his soul, Uncle Chris was wondering how to begin. In his
+hot youth he had been rather a devil of a fellow in between dances, a
+coo-er of soft phrases and a stealer of never very stoutly withheld
+kisses. He remembered one time in Bangalore ... but that had nothing
+to do with the case. The point was, how to begin with Mrs. Peagrim.
+The fact that twenty-five years ago he had crushed in his arms beneath
+the shadows of the deodars a girl whose name he had forgotten, though
+he remembered that she had worn a dress of some pink stuff, was
+immaterial and irrelevant. Was he to crush Mrs. Peagrim in his arms?
+Not, thought Uncle Chris to himself, on a bet. He contented himself
+for the moment with bending an intense gaze upon her and asking if she
+was tired.
+
+"A little," panted Mrs. Peagrim, who, though she danced often and
+vigorously, was never in the best of condition, owing to her habit of
+neutralizing the beneficent effects of exercise by surreptitious
+candy-eating. "I'm a little out of breath."
+
+Uncle Chris had observed this for himself, and it had not helped him
+to face his task. Lovely woman loses something of her queenly dignity
+when she puffs. Inwardly, he was thinking how exactly his hostess
+resembled the third from the left of a troupe of performing sea-lions
+which he had seen some years ago on one of his rare visits to a
+vaudeville house.
+
+"You ought not to tire yourself," he said with a difficult tenderness.
+
+"I _am_ so fond of dancing," pleaded Mrs. Peagrim. Recovering some of
+her breath, she gazed at her companion with a sort of short-winded
+archness. "You are always so sympathetic, Major Selby."
+
+"Am I?" said Uncle Chris. "Am I?"
+
+"You know you are!"
+
+Uncle Chris swallowed quickly.
+
+"I wonder if you have ever wondered," he began, and stopped. He felt
+that he was not putting it as well as he might. "I wonder if it has
+ever struck you that there's a reason." He stopped again. He seemed to
+remember reading something like that in an advertisement in a
+magazine, and he did not want to talk like an advertisement. "I wonder
+if it has ever struck you, Mrs. Peagrim," he began again, "that any
+sympathy on my part might be due to some deeper emotion which.... Have
+you never suspected that you have never suspected...." Uncle Chris
+began to feel that he must brace himself up. Usually a man of fluent
+speech, he was not at his best to-night. He was just about to try
+again, when he caught his hostess' eye, and the soft gleam in it sent
+him cowering back into the silence as if he were taking cover from an
+enemy's shrapnel.
+
+Mrs. Peagrim touched him on the arm.
+
+"You were saying...?" she murmured encouragingly.
+
+Uncle Chris shut his eyes. His fingers pressed desperately into the
+velvet curtain beside him. He felt as he had felt when a raw
+lieutenant in India, during his first hill-campaign, when the
+etiquette of the service had compelled him to rise and walk up and
+down in front of his men under a desultory shower of jezail-bullets.
+He seemed to hear the damned things _whop-whopping_ now ... and almost
+wished that he could really hear them. One or two good bullets just
+now would be a welcome diversion.
+
+"Yes?" said Mrs. Peagrim.--
+
+"Have you never felt," babbled Uncle Chris, "that, feeling as I feel,
+I might have felt ... that is to say might be feeling a feeling...?"
+
+There was a tap at the door of the box. Uncle Chris started violently.
+Jill came in.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said. "I wanted to speak...."
+
+"You wanted to speak to me?" said Uncle Chris, bounding up.
+"Certainly, certainly, certainly, of course. If you will excuse me for
+a moment?"
+
+Mrs. Peagrim bowed coldly. The interruption had annoyed her. She had
+no notion who Jill was, and she resented the intrusion at this
+particular juncture intensely. Not so Uncle Chris, who skipped out
+into the passage like a young lamb.
+
+"Am I in time?" asked Jill in a whisper.
+
+"In time?"
+
+"You know what I mean. Uncle Chris, listen to me! You are not to
+propose to that awful woman. Do you understand?"
+
+Uncle Chris shook his head.
+
+"The die is cast!"
+
+"The die isn't anything of the sort," said Jill. "Unless...." She
+stopped, aghast. "You don't mean that you have done it already?"
+
+"Well, no. To be perfectly accurate, no. But...."
+
+"Then that's all right. I know why you were doing it, and it was very
+sweet of you, but you mustn't."
+
+"But, Jill, you don't understand."
+
+"I do understand."
+
+"I have a motive...."
+
+"I know your motive. Freddie told me. Don't you worry yourself about
+me, dear, because I am all right. I am going to be married."
+
+A look of ecstatic relief came into Uncle Chris' face.
+
+"Then Underhill...?"
+
+"I am not marrying Derek. Somebody else. I don't think you know him,
+but I love him, and so will you." She pulled his face down and kissed
+him. "Now you can go back."
+
+Uncle Chris was almost too overcome to speak. He gulped a little.
+
+"Jill," he said shakily, "this is a ... this is a great relief."
+
+"I knew it would be."
+
+"If you are really going to marry a rich man...."
+
+"I didn't say he was rich."
+
+The joy ebbed from Uncle Chris' face.
+
+"If he is not rich, if he cannot give you everything of which I...."
+
+"Oh, don't be absurd! Wally has all the money anybody needs. What's
+money?"
+
+"What's money?" Uncle Chris stared. "Money, my dear child, is ... is ...
+well, you mustn't talk of it in that light way. But, if you think you will
+really have enough...?"
+
+"Of course we shall. Now you can go back. Mrs. Peagrim will be
+wondering what has become of you."
+
+"Must I?" said Uncle Chris doubtfully.
+
+"Of course. You must be polite."
+
+"Very well," said Uncle Chris. "But it will be a little difficult to
+continue the conversation on what you might call general lines.
+However!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Back in the box, Mrs. Peagrim was fanning herself with manifest
+impatience.
+
+"What did that girl want?" she demanded.
+
+Uncle Chris seated himself with composure. The weakness had passed,
+and he was himself again.
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing. Some trivial difficulty, which I was able to
+dispose of in a few words."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim would have liked to continue her researches, but a
+feeling that it was wiser not to stray too long from the main point
+restrained her. She bent towards him.
+
+"You were going to say something when that girl interrupted us."
+
+Uncle Chris shot his cuffs with a debonair gesture.
+
+"Was I? Was I? To be sure, yes. I was saying that you ought not to let
+yourself get tired. Deuce of a thing, getting tired. Plays the dickens
+with the system."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim was disconcerted. The atmosphere seemed to have changed,
+and she did not like it. She endeavoured to restore the tone of the
+conversation.
+
+"You are so sympathetic," she sighed, feeling that she could not do
+better than to begin again at that point. The remark had produced
+good results before and it might do so a second time.
+
+"Yes," agreed Uncle Chris cheerily. "You see, I have seen something of
+all this sort of thing, and I realize the importance of it. I know
+what all this modern rush and strain of life is for a woman in your
+position. Parties every night ... dancing ... a thousand and one calls
+on the vitality ... bound to have an effect sooner or later,
+unless--_unless_," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "one takes steps. Unless
+one acts in time. I had a friend--" His voice sank--"I had a very dear
+friend over in London, Lady Alice--but the name would convey
+nothing--the point is that she was in exactly the same position as
+you. On the rush all the time. Never stopped. The end was inevitable.
+She caught cold, hadn't sufficient vitality to throw it off, went to a
+dance in mid-winter, contracted pneumonia...." Uncle Chris sighed.
+"All over in three days," he said sadly. "Now at that time," he
+resumed, "I did not know what I know now. If I had heard of Nervino
+then...." He shook his head. "It might have saved her life. It _would_
+have saved her life. I tell you, Mrs. Peagrim, that there is nothing,
+there is no lack of vitality which Nervino cannot set right. I am no
+physician myself, I speak as a layman, but it acts on the red
+corpuscles of the blood...."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim's face was stony. She had not spoken before, because he
+had given her no opportunity, but she spoke now in a hard voice.
+
+"Major Selby!"
+
+"Mrs. Peagrim?"
+
+"I am not interested in patent medicines!"
+
+"One can hardly call Nervino that," said Uncle Chris reproachfully.
+"It is a sovereign specific. You can get it at any drug store. It
+comes in two sizes, the dollar-fifty--or large--size, and the...."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim rose majestically.
+
+"Major Selby, I am tired...."
+
+"Precisely. And, as I say, Nervino...."
+
+"Please," said Mrs. Peagrim coldly, "go to the stage-door and see if
+you can find my limousine. It should be waiting in the street."
+
+"Certainly," said Uncle Chris. "Why, certainly, certainly,
+certainly."
+
+He left the box and proceeded across the stage. He walked with a
+lissom jauntiness. His eye was bright. One or two of those whom he
+passed on his way had the idea that this fine-looking man was in pain.
+They fancied that he was moaning. But Uncle Chris was not moaning. He
+was humming a gay snatch from the lighter music of the 'nineties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+WALLY MASON LEARNS A NEW EXERCISE
+
+I
+
+
+Up on the roof of his apartment, far above the bustle and clamour of
+the busy city, Wally Mason, at eleven o'clock on the morning after
+Mrs. Peagrim's Bohemian party, was greeting the new day, as was his
+custom, by going through his ante-breakfast exercises. Mankind is
+divided into two classes--those who do setting-up exercises before
+breakfast and those who know they ought to but don't. To the former
+and more praiseworthy class Wally had belonged since boyhood. Life
+might be vain and the world a void, but still he touched his toes the
+prescribed number of times and twisted his muscular body about
+according to the ritual. He did so this morning a little more
+vigorously than usual, partly because he had sat up too late the night
+before and thought too much and smoked too much, with the result that
+he had risen heavy-eyed, at the present disgraceful hour, and partly
+because he hoped by wearying the flesh to still the restlessness of
+the spirit. Spring generally made Wally restless, but never previously
+had it brought him this distracted feverishness. So he lay on his back
+and waved his legs in the air, and it was only when he had risen and
+was about to go still further into the matter that he perceived Jill
+standing beside him.
+
+"Good Lord!" said Wally.
+
+"Don't stop," said Jill. "I'm enjoying it.'
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"Oh, I only just arrived. I rang the bell, and the nice old lady who
+is cooking your lunch told me you were out here.'
+
+"Not lunch. Breakfast."
+
+"Breakfast! At this hour?"
+
+"Won't you join me?"
+
+"I'll join you. But I had my breakfast long ago."
+
+Wally found his despondency magically dispelled. It was extraordinary
+how the mere sight of Jill could make the world a different place. It
+was true the sun had been shining before her arrival, but in a flabby,
+weak-minded way, not with the brilliance it had acquired immediately
+he heard her voice.
+
+"If you don't mind waiting for about three minutes while I have a
+shower and dress...."
+
+"Oh, is the entertainment over?" asked Jill, disappointed. "I always
+arrive too late for everything."
+
+"One of these days you shall see me go through the whole programme,
+including shadow-boxing and the goose-step. Bring your friends! But at
+the moment I think it would be more of a treat for you to watch me eat
+an egg. Go and look at the view. From over there you can see Hoboken."
+
+"I've seen it. I don't think much of it."
+
+"Well, then, on this side we have Brooklyn. There is no stint. Wander
+to and fro and enjoy yourself. The rendezvous is in the sitting-room
+in about four moments."
+
+Wally vaulted through the passage-window and disappeared. Then he
+returned and put his head out.
+
+"I say!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Just occurred to me. Your uncle won't be wanting this place for half
+an hour or so, will he? I mean, there will be time for me to have a
+bite of breakfast?"
+
+"I don't suppose he will require your little home till some time in
+the evening."
+
+"Fine!"
+
+Wally disappeared again, and a few moments later Jill heard the faint
+splashing of water. She walked to the parapet and looked down. On the
+windows of the nearer buildings the sun cast glittering beams, but
+further away a faint, translucent mist hid the city. There was Spring
+humidity in the air. In the street she had found it oppressive: but on
+the breezy summit of this steel-and-granite cliff the air was cool and
+exhilarating. Peace stole into Jill's heart as she watched the boats
+dropping slowly down the East River, which gleamed like dull steel
+through the haze. She had come to Journey's End, and she was happy.
+Trouble and heartache seemed as distant as those hurrying black ants
+down on the streets. She felt far away from the world on an enduring
+mountain of rest. She gave a little sigh of contentment and turned to
+go in as Wally called.
+
+In the sitting-room her feeling of security deepened. Here, the world
+was farther away than ever. Even the faint noises which had risen to
+the roof were inaudible, and only the cosy tick-tock of the
+grandfather's clock punctuated the stillness.
+
+She looked at Wally with a quickening sense of affection. He had the
+divine gift of silence at the right time. Yes, this was home. This was
+where she belonged.
+
+"It didn't take me in, you know," said Jill at length, resting her
+arms on the table and regarding him severely.
+
+Wally looked up.
+
+"What didn't take you in?"
+
+"That bath of yours. Yes, I know you turned on the cold shower, but
+you stood at a safe distance and watched it _show_!"
+
+Wally waved his fork.
+
+"As Heaven is my witness.... Look at my hair! Still damp! And I can
+show you the towel."
+
+"Well, then, I'll bet it was the hot water. Why weren't you at Mrs.
+Peagrim's party last night?"
+
+"It would take too long to explain all my reasons, but one of them was
+that I wasn't invited. How did it go off?"
+
+"Splendidly. Freddie's engaged!"
+
+Wally lowered his coffee cup.
+
+"Engaged! You don't mean what is sometimes slangily called betrothed?"
+
+"I do. He's engaged to Nelly Bryant. Nelly told me all about it when
+she got home last night. It seems that Freddie said to her 'What ho!'
+and she said 'You bet!' and Freddie said 'Pip pip!' and the thing was
+settled." Jill bubbled. "Freddie wants to go into vaudeville with
+her!"
+
+"No! The Juggling Rookes? Or Rooke and Bryant, the cross-talk team, a
+thoroughly refined act, swell dressers on and off?"
+
+"I don't know. But it doesn't matter. Nelly is domestic. She's going
+to have a little home in the country, where she can grow chickens and
+pigs."
+
+"Father's in the pigstye, you can tell him by his hat, eh?"
+
+"Yes. They will be very happy. Freddie will be a father to her
+parrot."
+
+Wally's cheerfulness diminished a trifle. The contemplation of
+Freddie's enviable lot brought with it the inevitable contrast with
+his own. A little home in the country.... Oh, well!
+
+
+II
+
+There was a pause. Jill was looking a little grave.
+
+"Wally!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+She turned her face away, for there was a gleam of mischief in her
+eyes which she did not wish him to observe.
+
+"Derek was at the party!"
+
+Wally had been about to butter a piece of toast. The butter, jerked
+from the knife by the convulsive start which he gave, popped up in a
+semi-circle and plumped on to the tablecloth. He recovered himself
+quickly.
+
+"Sorry!" he said. "You mustn't mind that. They want me to be
+second-string for the "Boosting the Butter" event at the next Olympic
+Games, and I'm practising all the time.... Underhill was there, eh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You met him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Wally fiddled with his knife.
+
+"Did he come over.... I mean ... had he come specially to see you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I see."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+"He wants to marry you?"
+
+"He said he wanted to marry me."
+
+Wally got up and went to the window. Jill could smile safely now, and
+she did, but her voice was still grave.
+
+"What ought I to do, Wally? I thought I would ask you as you are such
+a friend."
+
+Wally spoke without turning.
+
+"You ought to marry him, of course."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"You ought to marry him, of course," said Wally doggedly. "You love
+him, and the fact that he came all the way to America must mean that
+he still loves you. Marry him!"
+
+"But...." Jill hesitated. "You see, there's a difficulty."
+
+"What difficulty?"
+
+"Well ... it was something I said to him just before he went away. I
+said something that made it a little difficult."
+
+Wally continued to inspect the roofs below.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Well ... it was something ... something that I don't believe he liked ...
+something that may interfere with his marrying me."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I told him I was going to marry _you_!"
+
+Wally spun round. At the same time he leaped in the air. The effect of
+the combination of movements was to cause him to stagger across the
+room and, after two or three impromptu dance steps which would have
+interested Mrs. Peagrim, to clutch at the mantelpiece to save himself
+from falling. Jill watched him with quiet approval.
+
+"Why, that's wonderful, Wally! Is that another of your morning
+exercises? If Freddie does go into vaudeville, you ought to get him to
+let you join the troupe."
+
+Wally was blinking at her from the mantelpiece.
+
+"Jill!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"What--what--what...!"
+
+"Now, don't talk like Freddie, even if you are going into vaudeville
+with him."
+
+"You said you were going to marry _me_?"
+
+"I said I was going to marry you!"
+
+"But--do you mean...?"
+
+The mischief died out of Jill's eyes. She met his gaze frankly and
+seriously.
+
+"The lumber's gone, Wally," she said. "But my heart isn't empty. It's
+quite, quite full, and it's going to be full for ever and ever and
+ever."
+
+Wally left the mantelpiece, and came slowly towards her.
+
+"Jill!" He choked. "Jill!"
+
+Suddenly he pounced on her and swung her off her feet She gave a
+little breathless cry.
+
+"Wally! I thought you didn't approve of cavemen!"
+
+"This," said Wally, "is just another new morning exercise I've thought
+of!"
+
+Jill sat down, gasping.
+
+"Are you going to do that often, Wally?"
+
+"Every day for the rest of my life!"
+
+"Goodness!"
+
+"Oh, you'll get used to it. It'll grow on you."
+
+"You don't think I am making a mistake marrying you?"
+
+"No, no! I've given the matter a lot of thought, and ... in fact, no,
+no!"
+
+"No," said Jill thoughtfully. "I think you'll make a good husband. I
+mean, suppose we ever want the piano moved or something.... Wally!"
+she broke off suddenly.
+
+"You have our ear."
+
+"Come out on the roof," said Jill. "I want to show you something
+funny."
+
+Wally followed her out. They stood at the parapet together, looking
+down.
+
+"There!" said Jill, pointing.
+
+Wally looked puzzled.
+
+"I see many things, but which is the funny one?"
+
+"Why, all these people. Over there--and there--and there. Scuttering
+about and thinking they know everything there is to know, and not one
+of them has the least idea that I am the happiest girl on earth!"
+
+"Or that I'm the happiest man! Their ignorance is--what is the word I
+want? Abysmal. They don't know what it's like to stand beside you and
+see that little dimple in your chin.... They don't know you've _got_ a
+little dimple in your chin.... They don't know.... They don't know....
+Why, I don't suppose a single one of them even knows that I'm just
+going to kiss you!"
+
+"Those girls in that window over there do," said Jill. "They are
+watching us like hawks."
+
+"Let 'em!" said Wally briefly.
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT
+
+
+Jill had money, Jill was engaged to be married to Sir Derek Underhill.
+Suddenly Jill becomes penniless, and she is no longer engaged. With a
+smile, in which there is just a tinge of recklessness, she refuses to
+be beaten and turns to face the world. Instead she went to New York
+and became a member of the chorus of "The Rose of America," and Mr.
+Wodehouse is enabled to lift the curtain of the musical comedy world.
+
+There is laughter and drama in _Jill the Reckless_, and the action
+never flags from the moment that Freddie Rooke confesses that he has
+had a hectic night, down to the point where Wally says briefly "Let
+'em," which is page 313.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jill the Reckless, by
+P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JILL THE RECKLESS ***
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+Project Gutenberg's Jill the Reckless, by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jill the Reckless
+
+Author: P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2007 [EBook #20533]
+[Last updated: November 10, 2011]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JILL THE RECKLESS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               JILL THE
+                               RECKLESS
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                           P. G. WODEHOUSE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
+
+                        3 DUKE OF YORK STREET
+
+                     ST. JAMES'S, LONDON, S.W. 1
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY WIFE
+
+BLESS HER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+
+    I. THE FAMILY CURSE
+   II. THE FIRST NIGHT AT THE LEICESTER
+  III. JILL AND THE UNKNOWN ESCAPE
+   IV. THE LAST OF THE ROOKES TAKES A HAND
+    V. LADY UNDERHILL RECEIVES A SHOCK
+   VI. UNCLE CHRIS BANGS THE TABLE
+  VII. JILL CATCHES THE 10.10
+ VIII. THE DRY-SALTERS WING DEREK
+   IX. JILL IN SEARCH OF AN UNCLE
+    X. JILL IGNORES AUTHORITY
+   XI. MR. PILKINGTON'S LOVE LIGHT
+  XII. UNCLE CHRIS BORROWS A FLAT
+ XIII. THE AMBASSADOR ARRIVES
+  XIV. MR. GOBLE MAKES THE BIG NOISE
+   XV. JILL EXPLAINS
+  XVI. MR. GOBLE PLAYS WITH FATE
+ XVII. THE COST OF A ROW
+XVIII. JILL RECEIVES NOTICE
+  XIX. MRS. PEAGRIM BURNS INCENSE
+   XX. DEREK LOSES ONE BIRD AND SECURES ANOTHER
+  XXI. WALLY MASON LEARNS A NEW EXERCISE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JILL THE RECKLESS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE FAMILY CURSE
+
+I
+
+
+Freddie Rooke gazed coldly at the breakfast-table. Through a gleaming
+eye-glass he inspected the revolting object which Barker, his faithful
+man, had placed on a plate before him.
+
+"Barker!" His voice had a ring of pain.
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"What's this?"
+
+"Poached egg, sir."
+
+Freddie averted his eyes with a silent shudder.
+
+"It looks just like an old aunt of mine," he said. "Remove it!"
+
+He got up, and, wrapping his dressing-gown about his long legs, took
+up a stand in front of the fireplace. From this position he surveyed
+the room, his shoulders against the mantelpiece, his calves pressing
+the club fender. It was a cheerful oasis in a chill and foggy world, a
+typical London bachelor's breakfast-room. The walls were a restful
+grey, and the table, set for two, a comfortable arrangement in white
+and silver.
+
+"Eggs, Barker," said Freddie solemnly, "are the acid test!"
+
+"Yes, sir?"
+
+"If, on the morning after, you can tackle a poached egg, you are all
+right. If not, not. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Freddie pressed the palm of his hand to his brow, and sighed.
+
+"It would seem, then, that I must have revelled a trifle
+whole-heartedly last night. I was possibly a little blotto. Not
+whiffled, perhaps, but indisputably blotto. Did I make much noise
+coming in?"
+
+"No, sir. You were very quiet."
+
+"Ah! A dashed bad sign!"
+
+Freddie moved to the table, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
+
+"The cream jug is to your right, sir," said the helpful Barker.
+
+"Let it remain there. _Cafe noir_ for me this morning. As _noir_ as it
+can jolly well stick!" Freddie retired to the fireplace and sipped
+delicately. "As far as I can remember, it was Ronny Devereux' birthday
+or something...."
+
+"Mr. Martyn's, I think you said, sir."
+
+"That's right. Algy Martyn's birthday, and Ronny and I were the
+guests. It all comes back to me. I wanted Derek to roll along and join
+the festivities--he's never met Ronny--but he gave it a miss. Quite
+right! A chap in his position has responsibilities. Member of
+Parliament and all that. Besides," said Freddie earnestly, driving
+home the point with a wave of his spoon, "he's engaged to be married.
+You must remember that, Barker!"
+
+"I will endeavour to, sir."
+
+"Sometimes," said Freddie dreamily, "I wish I were engaged to be
+married. Sometimes I wish I had some sweet girl to watch over me
+and.... No, I don't, by Jove. It would give me the utter pip! Is Sir
+Derek up yet, Barker?"
+
+"Getting up, sir."
+
+"See that everything is all right, will you? I mean as regards the
+food-stuffs and what not. I want him to make a good breakfast. He's
+got to meet his mother this morning at Charing Cross. She's legging it
+back from the Riviera."
+
+"Indeed, sir?"
+
+Freddie shook his head.
+
+"You wouldn't speak in that light, careless tone if you knew her!
+Well, you'll see her to-night. She's coming here to dinner."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Miss Mariner will be here, too. A foursome. Tell Mrs. Barker to pull
+up her socks and give us something pretty ripe. Soup, fish, all that
+sort of thing. _She_ knows. And let's have a stoup of malvoisie from
+the oldest bin. This is a special occasion!"
+
+"Her ladyship will be meeting Miss Mariner for the first time, sir?"
+
+"You've put your finger on it! Absolutely the first time on this or
+any stage! We must all rally round and make the thing a success."
+
+"I am sure Mrs. Barker will strain every nerve, sir." Barker moved to
+the door, carrying the rejected egg, and stepped aside to allow a
+tall, well-built man of about thirty to enter. "Good morning, Sir
+Derek."
+
+"Morning, Barker."
+
+Barker slid softly from the room. Derek Underhill sat down at the
+table. He was a strikingly handsome man, with a strong, forceful face,
+dark, lean and cleanly shaven. He was one of those men whom a stranger
+would instinctively pick out of a crowd as worthy of note. His only
+defect was that his heavy eyebrows gave him at times an expression
+which was a little forbidding. Women, however, had never been repelled
+by it. He was very popular with women, not quite so popular with
+men--always excepting Freddie Rooke, who worshipped him. They had been
+at school together, though Freddie was the younger by several years.
+
+"Finished, Freddie?" asked Derek.
+
+Freddie smiled wanly.
+
+"We are not breakfasting this morning," he replied. "The spirit was
+willing, but the jolly old flesh would have none of it. To be
+perfectly frank, the Last of the Rookes has a bit of a head."
+
+"Ass!" said Derek.
+
+"A bit of sympathy," said Freddie, pained, "would not be out of place.
+We are far from well. Some person unknown has put a threshing-machine
+inside the old bean and substituted a piece of brown paper for our
+tongue. Things look dark and yellow and wobbly!"
+
+"You shouldn't have overdone it last night."
+
+"It was Algy Martyn's birthday," pleaded Freddie.
+
+"If I were an ass like Algy Martyn," said Derek, "I wouldn't go about
+advertising the fact that I'd been born. I'd hush it up!"
+
+He helped himself to a plentiful portion of kedgeree, Freddie watching
+him with repulsion mingled with envy. When he began to eat the
+spectacle became too poignant for the sufferer, and he wandered to the
+window.
+
+"What a beast of a day!"
+
+It was an appalling day. January, that grim month, was treating London
+with its usual severity. Early in the morning a bank of fog had rolled
+up off the river, and was deepening from pearly white to a lurid
+brown. It pressed on the window-pane like a blanket, leaving dark,
+damp rivulets on the glass.
+
+"Awful!" said Derek,
+
+"Your mater's train will be late."
+
+"Yes. Damned nuisance. It's bad enough meeting trains in any case,
+without having to hang about a draughty station for an hour."
+
+"And it's sure, I should imagine," went on Freddie, pursuing his train
+of thought, "to make the dear old thing pretty tolerably ratty, if she
+has one of those slow journeys." He pottered back to the fireplace,
+and rubbed his shoulders reflectively against the mantelpiece. "I take
+it that you wrote to her about Jill?"
+
+"Of course. That's why she's coming over, I suppose. By the way, you
+got those seats for that theatre to-night?"
+
+"Yes. Three together and one somewhere on the outskirts. If it's all
+the same to you, old thing, I'll have the one on the outskirts."
+
+Derek, who had finished his kedgeree and was now making himself a blot
+on Freddie's horizon with toast and marmalade, laughed.
+
+"What a rabbit you are, Freddie! Why on earth are you so afraid of
+mother?"
+
+Freddie looked at him as a timid young squire might have gazed upon
+St. George when the latter set out to do battle with the dragon. He
+was of the amiable type which makes heroes of its friends. In the old
+days when he had fagged for him at Winchester he had thought Derek the
+most wonderful person in the world, and this view he still retained.
+Indeed, subsequent events had strengthened it. Derek had done the most
+amazing things since leaving school. He had had a brilliant career at
+Oxford, and now, in the House of Commons, was already looked upon by
+the leaders of his party as one to be watched and encouraged. He
+played polo superlatively well, and was a fine shot. But of all his
+gifts and qualities the one that extorted Freddie's admiration in its
+intensest form was his lion-like courage as exemplified by his
+behaviour in the present crisis. There he sat, placidly eating toast
+and marmalade, while the boat-train containing Lady Underhill already
+sped on its way from Dover to London. It was like Drake playing bowls
+with the Spanish Armada in sight.
+
+"I wish I had your nerve!" he said awed. "What I should be feeling, if
+I were in your place and had to meet your mater after telling her that
+I was engaged to marry a girl she had never seen, I don't know. I'd
+rather face a wounded tiger!"
+
+"Idiot!" said Derek placidly.
+
+"Not," pursued Freddie, "that I mean to say anything in the least
+derogatory and so forth to your jolly old mater, if you understand me,
+but the fact remains she scares me pallid. Always has, ever since the
+first time I went to stay at your place when I was a kid. I can still
+remember catching her eye the morning I happened by pure chance to
+bung an apple through her bedroom window, meaning to let a cat on the
+sill below have it in the short ribs. She was at least thirty feet
+away, but, by Jove, it stopped me like a bullet!"
+
+"Push the bell, old man, will you? I want some more toast."
+
+Freddie did as he was requested, with growing admiration.
+
+"The condemned man made an excellent breakfast," he murmured. "More
+toast, Barker," he added, as that admirable servitor opened the door.
+"Gallant! That's what I call it. Gallant!"
+
+Derek tilted his chair back.
+
+"Mother is sure to like Jill when she sees her," he said.
+
+"_When_ she sees her! Ah! But the trouble is, young feller-me-lad,
+that she _hasn't_ seen her! That's the weak spot in your case, old
+companion. A month ago she didn't know of Jill's existence. Now, you
+know and I know that Jill is one of the best and brightest. As far as
+we are concerned, everything in the good old garden is lovely. Why,
+dash it, Jill and I were children together. Sported side by side on
+the green, and what not. I remember Jill, when she was twelve, turning
+the garden hose on me and knocking about seventy-five per cent off the
+market value of my best Sunday suit. That sort of thing forms a bond,
+you know, and I've always felt that she was a corker. But your
+mater's got to discover it for herself. It's a dashed pity, by Jove,
+that Jill hasn't a father or a mother or something of that species to
+rally round just now. They would form a gang. There's nothing like a
+gang! But she's only got that old uncle of hers. A rummy bird. Met
+him?"
+
+"Several times. I like him."
+
+"Oh, he's a genial old buck all right. A very bonhomous lad. But you
+hear some pretty queer stories about him if you get among people who
+knew him in the old days. Even now I'm not so dashed sure I should
+care to play cards with him. Young Threepwood was telling me only the
+other day that the old boy took thirty quid off him at picquet as
+clean as a whistle. And Jimmy Monroe, who's on the Stock Exchange,
+says he's frightfully busy these times buying margins or whatever it
+is chappies do down in the City. Margins. That's the word. Jimmy made
+me buy some myself on a thing called Amalgamated Dyes. I don't
+understand the procedure exactly, but Jimmy says it's a sound egg and
+will do me a bit of good. What was I talking about? Oh, yes, old
+Selby. There's no doubt he's quite a sportsman. But till you've got
+Jill well established, you know, I shouldn't enlarge on him too much
+with the mater."
+
+"On the contrary," said Derek, "I shall mention him at the first
+opportunity. He knew my father out in India."
+
+"Did he, by Jove! Oh, well, that makes a difference."
+
+Barker entered with the toast, and Derek resumed his breakfast.
+
+"It may be a little bit awkward," he said, "at first, meeting mother.
+But everything will be all right after five minutes."
+
+"Absolutely! But, oh, boy! that first five minutes!" Freddie gazed
+portentously through his eye-glass. Then he seemed to be undergoing
+some internal struggle, for he gulped once or twice. "That first five
+minutes!" he said, and paused again. A moment's silent self-communion,
+and he went on with a rush. "I say, listen. Shall I come along, too?"
+
+"Come along?"
+
+"To the station. With you."
+
+"What on earth for?"
+
+"To see you through the opening stages. Break the ice, and all that
+sort of thing. Nothing like collecting a gang, you know. Moments when
+a feller needs a friend and so forth. Say the word, and I'll buzz
+along and lend my moral support."
+
+Derek's heavy eyebrows closed together in an offended frown, and
+seemed to darken his whole face. This unsolicited offer of assistance
+hurt his dignity. He showed a touch of the petulance which came now
+and then when he was annoyed, to suggest that he might not possess so
+strong a character as his exterior indicated.
+
+"It's very kind of you," he began stiffly.
+
+Freddie nodded. He was acutely conscious of this himself.
+
+"Some fellows," he observed, "would say 'Not at all!' I suppose. But
+not the Last of the Rookes! For, honestly, old man, between ourselves,
+I don't mind admitting that this is the bravest deed of the year, and
+I'm dashed if I would do it for anyone else."
+
+"It's very good of you, Freddie...."
+
+"That's all right. I'm a Boy Scout, and this is my act of kindness for
+to-day."
+
+Derek got up from the table.
+
+"Of course you mustn't come," he said. "We can't form a sort of
+debating society to discuss Jill on the platform at Charing Cross."
+
+"Oh, I would just hang around in the offing, shoving in an occasional
+tactful word."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"The wheeze would simply be to...."
+
+"It's impossible."
+
+"Oh, very well," said Freddie, damped. "Just as you say, of course.
+But there's nothing like a gang, old son, nothing like a gang!"
+
+
+II
+
+Derek Underhill threw down the stump of his cigar, and grunted
+irritably. Inside Charing Cross Station business was proceeding as
+usual. Porters wheeling baggage-trucks moved to and fro like
+Juggernauts. Belated trains clanked in, glad to get home, while
+others, less fortunate, crept reluctantly out through the blackness
+and disappeared into an inferno of detonating fog-signals. For outside
+the fog still held. The air was cold and raw and tasted coppery. In
+the street traffic moved at a funeral pace, to the accompaniment of
+hoarse cries and occasional crashes. Once the sun had worked its way
+through the murk and had hung in the sky like a great red orange, but
+now all was darkness and discomfort again, blended with that odd
+suggestion of mystery and romance which is a London fog's only
+redeeming quality.
+
+The fog and the waiting had had their effect upon Derek. The resolute
+front he had exhibited to Freddie at the breakfast-table had melted
+since his arrival at the station, and he was feeling nervous at the
+prospect of the meeting that lay before him. Calm as he had appeared
+to the eye of Freddie and bravely as he had spoken, Derek, in the
+recesses of his heart, was afraid of his mother. There are men--and
+Derek Underhill was one of them--who never wholly emerge from the
+nursery. They may put away childish things and rise in the world to
+affluence and success, but the hand that rocked their cradle still
+rules their lives.
+
+Derek turned to begin one more walk along the platform, and stopped in
+mid-stride, raging. Beaming over the collar of a plaid greatcoat, all
+helpfulness and devotion, Freddie Rooke was advancing towards him, the
+friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Like some loving dog, who,
+ordered home sneaks softly on through alleys and by-ways, peeping
+round corners and crouching behind lamp-posts, the faithful Freddie
+had followed him after all. And with him, to add the last touch to
+Derek's discomfiture, were those two inseparable allies of his, Ronny
+Devereux and Algy Martyn.
+
+"Well, old thing," said Freddie, patting Derek encouragingly on the
+shoulder, "here we are after all! I know you told me not to roll round
+and so forth, but I knew you didn't mean it. I thought it over after
+you had left, and decided it would be a rotten trick not to cluster
+about you in your hour of need. I hope you don't mind Ronny and Algy
+breezing along too. The fact is, I was in the deuce of a funk--your
+jolly old mater always rather paralyses my nerve-centres, you know--so
+I roped them in. Met 'em in Piccadilly, groping about for the club,
+and conscripted 'em both, they very decently consenting. We all
+toddled off and had a pick-me-up at that chemist chappie's at the top
+of the Hay-market, and now we're feeling full of beans and buck,
+ready for anything. I've explained the whole thing to them, and
+they're with you to the death! Collect a gang, dear boy, collect a
+gang! That's the motto. There's nothing like it!"
+
+"Nothing!" said Ronny.
+
+"Absolutely nothing!" said Algy.
+
+"We'll just see you through the opening stages," said Freddie, "and
+then leg it. We'll keep the conversation general you know."
+
+"Stop it getting into painful channels," said Ronny.
+
+"Steer it clear," said Algy, "of the touchy topic."
+
+"That's the wheeze," said Freddie. "We'll ... Oh, golly! There's the
+train coming in now!" His voice quavered, for not even the comforting
+presence of his two allies could altogether sustain him in this
+ordeal. But he pulled himself together with a manful effort. "Stick
+it, old beans!" he said doughtily. "Now is the time for all good men
+to come to the aid of the party!"
+
+"We're here!" said Ronny Devereux.
+
+"On the spot!" said Algy Martyn.
+
+
+III
+
+The boat-train slid into the station. Bells rang, engines blew off
+steam, porters shouted, baggage-trucks rattled over the platform. The
+train began to give up its contents, now in ones and twos, now in a
+steady stream. Most of the travellers seemed limp and exhausted, and
+were pale with the pallor that comes of a choppy Channel crossing.
+Almost the only exception to the general condition of collapse was the
+eagle-faced lady in the brown ulster, who had taken up her stand in
+the middle of the platform and was haranguing a subdued little maid in
+a voice that cut the gloomy air like a steel knife. Like the other
+travellers, she was pale, but she bore up resolutely. No one could
+have told from Lady Underhill's demeanour that the solid platform
+seemed to heave beneath her feet like a deck.
+
+Derek approached, acutely conscious of Freddie, Ronny, and Algy, who
+were skirmishing about his flank.
+
+"Well, mother! So there you are at last!"
+
+"Well, Derek!"
+
+Derek kissed his mother. Freddie, Ronny, and Algy shuffled closer,
+like leopards. Freddie, with the expression of one who leads a
+forlorn hope, moved his Adam's apple briskly up and down several
+times, and spoke.
+
+"How do you do, Lady Underhill?"
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Rooke?"
+
+Lady Underhill bowed stiffly and without pleasure. She was not fond of
+the Last of the Rookes. She supposed the Almighty had had some wise
+purpose in creating Freddie, but it had always been inscrutable to
+her.
+
+"Like you," mumbled Freddie, "to meet my friends. Lady Underhill. Mr.
+Devereux."
+
+"Charmed," said Ronny affably.
+
+"Mr. Martyn."
+
+"Delighted," said Algy with old-world courtesy.
+
+Lady Underhill regarded this mob-scene with an eye of ice.
+
+"How do you do?" she said. "Have you come to meet somebody?"
+
+"I--er--we--er--why--er--" This woman always made Freddie feel as if
+he were being disembowelled by some clumsy amateur. He wished that he
+had defied the dictates of his better nature and remained in his snug
+rooms at the Albany, allowing Derek to go through this business by
+himself. "I--er--we--er--came to meet _you_, don't you know!"
+
+"Indeed! That was very kind of you!"
+
+"Oh, not at all."
+
+"Thought we'd welcome you back to the old homestead," said Ronny
+beaming.
+
+"What could be sweeter?" said Algy. He produced a cigar-case, and
+extracted a formidable torpedo-shaped Havana. He was feeling
+delightfully at his ease, and couldn't understand why Freddie had made
+such a fuss about meeting this nice old lady. "Don't mind if I smoke,
+do you? Air's a bit raw to-day. Gets into the lungs."
+
+Derek chafed impotently. These unsought allies were making a difficult
+situation a thousand times worse. A more acute observer than young Mr.
+Martyn, he noted the tight lines about his mother's mouth and knew
+them for the danger-signal they were. Endeavouring to distract her
+with light conversation, he selected a subject which was a little
+unfortunate.
+
+"What sort of crossing did you have, mother?"
+
+Lady Underhill winced. A current of air had sent the perfume of
+Algy's cigar playing about her nostrils. She closed her eyes, and her
+face turned a shade paler. Freddie, observing this, felt quite sorry
+for the poor old thing. She was a pest and a pot of poison, of course,
+but all the same, he reflected charitably, it was a shame that she
+should look so green about the gills. He came to the conclusion that
+she must be hungry. The thing to do was to take her mind off it till
+she could be conducted to a restaurant and dumped down in front of a
+bowl of soup.
+
+"Bit choppy, I suppose, what?" he bellowed, in a voice that ran up and
+down Lady Underhill's nervous system like an electric needle. "I was
+afraid you were going to have a pretty rough time of it when I read
+the forecast in the paper. The good old boat wobbled a bit, eh?"
+
+Lady Underhill uttered a faint moan. Freddie noticed that she was
+looking deucedly chippy, even chippier than a moment ago.
+
+"It's an extraordinary thing about that Channel crossing," said Algy
+Martyn meditatively, as he puffed a refreshing cloud. "I've known
+fellows who could travel quite happily everywhere else in the
+world--round the Horn in sailing-ships and all that sort of
+thing--yield up their immortal soul crossing the Channel! Absolutely
+yield up their immortal soul! Don't know why. Rummy, but there it is!"
+
+"I'm like that myself," assented Ronny Devereux. "That dashed trip
+from Calais gets me every time. Bowls me right over. I go aboard,
+stoked to the eyebrows with sea-sick remedies, swearing that this time
+I'll fool 'em, but down I go ten minutes after we've started and the
+next thing I know is somebody saying, 'Well, well! So this is Dover!'"
+
+"It's exactly the same with me," said Freddie, delighted with the
+smooth, easy way the conversation was flowing. "Whether it's the hot,
+greasy smell of the engines...."
+
+"It's not the engines," contended Ronny Devereux. "Stands to reason it
+can't be. I rather like the smell of engines. This station is reeking
+with the smell of engine-grease, and I can drink it in and enjoy it."
+He sniffed, luxuriantly. "It's something else."
+
+"Ronny's right," said Algy cordially. "It isn't the engines. It's the
+way the boat heaves up and down and up and down and up and down...."
+He shifted his cigar to his left hand in order to give with his right
+a spirited illustration of a Channel steamer going up and down and up
+and down and up and down. Lady Underhill, who had opened her eyes, had
+an excellent view of the performance, and closed her eyes again
+quickly.
+
+"Be quiet!" she snapped.
+
+"I was only saying...."
+
+"Be quiet!"
+
+"Oh, rather!"
+
+Lady Underhill wrestled with herself. She was a woman of great
+will-power and accustomed to triumph over the weaknesses of the flesh.
+After a while her eyes opened. She had forced herself, against the
+evidence of her senses, to recognize that this was a platform on which
+she stood and not a deck.
+
+There was a pause. Algy, damped, was temporarily out of action, and
+his friends had for the moment nothing to remark.
+
+"I'm afraid you had a trying journey, mother," said Derek. "The train
+was very late."
+
+"Now, _train_-sickness," said Algy, coming to the surface again, "is a
+thing lots of people suffer from. Never could understand it myself."
+
+"I've never had a touch of train-sickness," said Ronny.
+
+"Oh, I have," said Freddie. "I've often felt rotten on a train. I get
+floating spots in front of my eyes and a sort of heaving sensation,
+and everything kind of goes black...."
+
+"Mr. Rooke!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I should be greatly obliged if you would keep those confidences for
+the ear of your medical adviser."
+
+"Freddie," intervened Derek hastily, "my mother's rather tired. Do you
+think you could be going ahead and getting a taxi?"
+
+"My dear old chap, of course! Get you one in a second. Come along,
+Algy. Pick up the old waukeesis, Ronny."
+
+And Freddie, accompanied by his henchmen, ambled off, well pleased
+with himself. He had, he felt, helped to break the ice for Derek and
+had seen him safely through those awkward opening stages. Now he could
+totter off with a light heart and get a bite of lunch.
+
+Lady Underhill's eyes glittered. They were small, keen, black eyes,
+unlike Derek's, which were large and brown. In their other features
+the two were obviously mother and son. Each had the same long upper
+lip, the same thin, firm mouth, the prominent chin which was a family
+characteristic of the Underhills, and the jutting Underhill nose. Most
+of the Underhills came into the world looking as though they meant to
+drive their way through life like a wedge.
+
+"A little more," she said tensely, "and I should have struck those
+unspeakable young men with my umbrella. One of the things I have never
+been able to understand, Derek, is why you should have selected that
+imbecile Rooke as your closest friend."
+
+Derek smiled tolerantly.
+
+"It was more a case of him selecting _me_. But Freddie is quite a good
+fellow really. He's a man you've got to know."
+
+"_I_ have not got to know him, and I thank heaven for it!"
+
+"He's a very good-natured fellow. It was decent of him to put me up at
+the Albany while our house was let. By the way, he has some seats for
+the first night of a new piece this evening. He suggested that we
+might all dine at the Albany and go on to the theatre." He hesitated a
+moment. "Jill will be there," he said, and felt easier now that her
+name had at last come into the talk. "She's longing to meet you."
+
+"Then why didn't she meet me?"
+
+"Here, do you mean? At the station? Well, I--I wanted you to see her
+for the first time in pleasanter surroundings."
+
+"Oh!" said Lady Underhill shortly.
+
+It is a disturbing thought that we suffer in this world just as much
+by being prudent and taking precautions as we do by being rash and
+impulsive and acting as the spirit moves us. If Jill had been
+permitted by her wary fiance to come with him to the station to meet
+his mother it is certain that much trouble would have been avoided.
+True, Lady Underhill would probably have been rude to her in the
+opening stages of the interview, but she would not have been alarmed
+and suspicious; or, rather, the vague suspicion which she had been
+feeling would not have solidified, as it did now into definite
+certainty of the worst. All that Derek had effected by his careful
+diplomacy had been to convince his mother that he considered his
+bride-elect something to be broken gently to her.
+
+She stopped and faced him.
+
+"Who is she?" she demanded. "Who is this girl?"
+
+Derek flushed.
+
+"I thought I made everything clear in my letter."
+
+"You made nothing clear at all."
+
+"By your leave!" chanted a porter behind them, and a baggage-truck
+clove them apart.
+
+"We can't talk in a crowded station," said Derek irritably. "Let me
+get you to the taxi and take you to the hotel.... What do you want to
+know about Jill?"
+
+"Everything. Where does she come from? Who are her people? I don't
+know any Mariners."
+
+"I haven't cross-examined her," said Derek stiffly. "But I do know
+that her parents are dead. Her father was an American."
+
+"American!"
+
+"Americans frequently have daughters, I believe."
+
+"There is nothing to be gained by losing your temper," said Lady
+Underhill with steely calm.
+
+"There is nothing to be gained, as far as I can see, by all this
+talk," retorted Derek. He wondered vexedly why his mother always had
+this power of making him lose control of himself. He hated to lose
+control of himself. It upset him, and blurred that vision which he
+liked to have of himself as a calm, important man superior to ordinary
+weaknesses. "Jill and I are engaged, and there is an end to it."
+
+"Don't be a fool," said Lady Underhill, and was driven away by another
+baggage-truck. "You know perfectly well," she resumed, returning to
+the attack, "that your marriage is a matter of the greatest concern to
+me and to the whole of the family."
+
+"Listen, mother!" Derek's long wait on the draughty platform had
+generated an irritability which overcame the deep-seated awe of his
+mother which was the result of years of defeat in battles of the will.
+"Let me tell you in a few words all that I know of Jill, and then
+we'll drop the subject. In the first place, she is a lady. Secondly,
+she has plenty of money...."
+
+"The Underhills do not need to marry for money."
+
+"I am not marrying for money!"
+
+"Well, go on."
+
+"I have already described to you in my letter--very inadequately, but
+I did my best--what she looks like. Her sweetness, her lovableness,
+all the subtle things about her which go to make her what she is, you
+will have to judge for yourself."
+
+"I intend to!"
+
+"Well, that's all, then. She lives with her uncle, a Major Selby...."
+
+"Major Selby? What regiment?"
+
+"I didn't ask him," snapped the goaded Derek. "And, in the name of
+heaven, what does it matter? If you are worrying about Major Selby's
+social standing, I may as well tell you that he used to know father."
+
+"What! When? Where?"
+
+"Years ago. In India, when father was at Simla."
+
+"Selby? Selby? Not Christopher Selby?"
+
+"Oh, you remember him?"
+
+"I certainly remember him! Not that he and I ever met, but your father
+often spoke of him."
+
+Derek was relieved. It was abominable that this sort of thing should
+matter, but one had to face facts, and, as far as his mother was
+concerned, it did. The fact that Jill's uncle had known his dead
+father would make all the difference to Lady Underhill.
+
+"Christopher Selby!" said Lady Underhill reflectively. "Yes! I have
+often heard your father speak of him. He was the man who gave your
+father an I.O.U. to pay a card debt, and redeemed it with a cheque
+which was returned by the bank!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Didn't you hear what I said? I will repeat it, if you wish."
+
+"There must have been some mistake."
+
+"Only the one your father made when he trusted the man."
+
+"It must have been some other fellow."
+
+"Of course!" said Lady Underhill satirically. "No doubt your father
+knew hundreds of Christopher Selbys!"
+
+Derek bit his lip.
+
+"Well, after all," he said doggedly, "whether it's true or not...."
+
+"I see no reason why your father should not have spoken the truth."
+
+"All right. We'll say it _is_ true, then. But what does it matter? I
+am marrying Jill, not her uncle."
+
+"Nevertheless, it would be pleasanter if her only living relative
+were not a swindler!... Tell me, where and how did you meet this
+girl?"
+
+"I should be glad if you would not refer to her as 'this girl.' The
+name, if you have forgotten it, is Mariner."
+
+"Well, where did you meet Miss Mariner?"
+
+"At Prince's. Just after you left for Mentone. Freddie Rooke
+introduced me."
+
+"Oh, your intellectual friend Mr. Rooke knows her?"
+
+"They were children together. Her people lived next to the Rookes in
+Worcestershire."
+
+"I thought you said she was an American."
+
+"I said her father was. He settled in England. Jill hasn't been in
+America since she was eight or nine."
+
+"The fact," said Lady Underhill, "that the girl is a friend of Mr.
+Rooke is no great recommendation."
+
+Derek kicked angrily at a box of matches which someone had thrown down
+on the platform.
+
+"I wonder if you could possibly get it into your head, mother, that I
+want to marry Jill, not engage her as an under-housemaid. I don't
+consider that she requires recommendations, as you call them. However,
+don't you think the most sensible thing is for you to wait till you
+meet her at dinner to-night, and then you can form your own opinion?
+I'm beginning to get a little bored by this futile discussion."
+
+"As you seem quite unable to talk on the subject of this girl without
+becoming rude," said Lady Underhill, "I agree with you. Let us hope
+that my first impression will be a favourable one. Experience has
+taught me that first impressions are everything."
+
+"I'm glad you think so," said Derek, "for I fell in love with Jill the
+very first moment I saw her!"
+
+
+IV
+
+Barker stepped back and surveyed with modest pride the dinner-table to
+which he had been putting the finishing touches. It was an artistic
+job and a credit to him.
+
+"That's that!" said Barker, satisfied.
+
+He went to the window and looked out. The fog which had lasted well
+into the evening, had vanished now, and the clear night was bright
+with stars. A distant murmur of traffic came from the direction of
+Piccadilly.
+
+As he stood there, the front-door bell rang, and continued to ring in
+little spurts of sound. If character can be deduced from bell-ringing,
+as nowadays it apparently can be from every other form of human
+activity, one might have hazarded the guess that whoever was on the
+other side of the door was determined, impetuous, and energetic.
+
+"Barker!"
+
+Freddie Rooke pushed a tousled head, which had yet to be brushed into
+the smooth sleekness that made a delight to the public eye, out of a
+room down the passage.
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Somebody ringing."
+
+"I heard, sir. I was about to answer the bell."
+
+"If it's Lady Underhill, tell her I'll be in in a minute."
+
+"I fancy it is Miss Mariner, sir. I think I recognize her touch."
+
+He made his way down the passage to the front-door, and opened it. A
+girl was standing outside. She wore a long grey fur coat, and a filmy
+hood covered her hair. As Barker opened the door, she scampered in
+like a grey kitten.
+
+"Brrh! It's cold!" she exclaimed. "Hullo, Barker!"
+
+"Good evening, miss."
+
+"Am I the last or the first or what?"
+
+Barker moved to help her with her cloak.
+
+"Sir Derek and her ladyship have not yet arrived, miss. Sir Derek went
+to bring her ladyship from the Savoy Hotel. Mr. Rooke is dressing in
+his bedroom and will be ready very shortly."
+
+The girl had slipped out of the fur coat, and Barker cast a swift
+glance of approval at her. He had the valet's unerring eye for a
+thoroughbred, and Jill Mariner was manifestly that. It showed in her
+walk, in every move of her small, active body, in the way she looked
+at you, in the way she talked to you, in the little tilt of her
+resolute chin. Her hair was pale gold, and had the brightness of
+colouring of a child's. Her face glowed, and her grey eyes sparkled.
+She looked very much alive.
+
+It was this liveliness of hers that was her chief charm. Her eyes were
+good and her mouth, with its small, even teeth, attractive, but she
+would have laughed if anybody had called her beautiful. She sometimes
+doubted if she were even pretty. Yet few men had met her and remained
+entirely undisturbed. She had a magnetism. One hapless youth, who had
+laid his heart at her feet and had been commanded to pick it up again,
+had endeavoured subsequently to explain her attraction (to a bosom
+friend over a mournful bottle of the best in the club smoking-room) in
+these words: "I don't know what it is about her, old man, but she
+somehow makes a feller feel she's so damned _interested_ in a chap, if
+you know what I mean." And though not generally credited in his circle
+with any great acuteness, there is no doubt that the speaker had
+achieved something approaching a true analysis of Jill's fascination
+for his sex. She was interested in everything Life presented to her
+notice, from a Coronation to a stray cat. She was vivid. She had
+sympathy. She listened to you as though you really mattered. It takes
+a man of tough fibre to resist these qualities. Women, on the other
+hand, especially of the Lady Underhill type, can resist them without
+an effort.
+
+"Go and stir him up," said Jill, alluding to the absent Mr. Rooke.
+"Tell him to come and talk to me. Where's the nearest fire? I want to
+get right over it and huddle."
+
+"The fire's burning nicely in the sitting-room, miss."
+
+Jill hurried into the sitting-room, and increased her hold on Barker's
+esteem by exclaiming rapturously at the sight that greeted her. Barker
+had expended time and trouble over the sitting-room. There was no
+dust, no untidiness. The pictures all hung straight; the cushions were
+smooth and unrumpled; and a fire of exactly the right dimensions
+burned cheerfully in the grate, flickering cosily on the small piano
+by the couch, on the deep leather arm-chairs which Freddie had brought
+with him from Oxford, that home of comfortable chairs, and on the
+photographs that studded the walls. In the centre of the mantelpiece,
+the place of honour, was the photograph of herself which she had given
+Derek a week ago.
+
+"You're simply wonderful, Barker! I don't see how you manage to make a
+room so cosy!" Jill sat down on the club fender that guarded the
+fireplace, and held her hands over the blaze. "I can't understand why
+men ever marry. Fancy having to give up all this!"
+
+"I am gratified that you appreciate it, miss. I did my best to make it
+comfortable for you. I fancy I hear Mr. Rooke coming now."
+
+"I hope the others won't be long. I'm starving. Has Mrs. Barker got
+something very good for dinner?"
+
+"She has strained every nerve, miss."
+
+"Then I'm sure it's worth waiting for. Hullo, Freddie."
+
+Freddie Rooke, resplendent in evening dress, bustled in, patting his
+tie with solicitous fingers. It had been right when he had looked in
+the glass in his bedroom, but you never know about ties. Sometimes
+they stay right, sometimes they wriggle up sideways. Life is full of
+these anxieties.
+
+"I shouldn't touch it," said Jill. "It looks beautiful, and, if I may
+say so in confidence, is having a most disturbing effect on my
+emotional nature. I'm not at all sure I shall be able to resist it
+right through the evening. It isn't fair of you to try to alienate the
+affections of an engaged young person like this."
+
+Freddie squinted down, and became calmer.
+
+"Hullo, Jill, old thing. Nobody here yet?"
+
+"Well, I'm here--the _petite_ figure seated on the fender. But perhaps
+I don't count."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean that, you know."
+
+"I should hope not, when I've bought a special new dress just to
+fascinate you. A creation I mean. When they cost as much as this one
+did, you have to call them names. What do you think of it?"
+
+Freddie seated himself on another section of the fender, and regarded
+her with the eye of an expert. A snappy dresser, as the technical term
+is, himself, he appreciated snap in the outer covering of the other
+sex.
+
+"Topping!" he said spaciously. "No other word for it. All wool and a
+yard wide. Precisely as mother makes it. You look like a thingummy."
+
+"How splendid. All my life I've wanted to look like a thingummy, but
+somehow I've never been able to manage it."
+
+"A wood-nymph!" exclaimed Freddie, in a burst of unwonted imagery. He
+looked at her with honest admiration. "Dash it, Jill, you know,
+there's something about you! You're--what's the word?--you've got such
+small bones."
+
+"Ugh! I suppose it's a compliment, but how horrible it sounds! It
+makes me feel like a skeleton."
+
+"I mean to say, you're--you're dainty!"
+
+"That's much better."
+
+"You look as if you weighed about an ounce and a half. You look like
+a bit of thistledown! You're a little fairy princess, dash it!"
+
+"Freddie! This is eloquence!" Jill raised her left hand, and twiddled
+a ringed finger ostentatiously. "Er--you _do_ realize that I'm
+bespoke, don't you, and that my heart, alas, is another's? Because you
+sound as if you were going to propose."
+
+Freddie produced a snowy handkerchief, and polished his eye-glass.
+Solemnity descended on him like a cloud. He looked at Jill with an
+earnest, paternal gaze.
+
+"That reminds me," he said. "I wanted to have a bit of a talk with you
+about that--being engaged and all that sort of thing. I'm glad I got
+you alone before the Curse arrived."
+
+"Curse? Do you mean Derek's mother? That sounds cheerful and
+encouraging."
+
+"Well, she is, you know," said Freddie earnestly. "She's a bird! It
+would be idle to deny it. She always puts the fear of God into me. I
+never know what to say to her."
+
+"Why don't you try asking her riddles?"
+
+"It's no joking matter," persisted Freddie, his amiable face overcast.
+"Wait till you meet her! You should have seen her at the station this
+morning. You don't know what you're up against!"
+
+"You make my flesh creep, Freddie. What am I up against?"
+
+Freddie poked the fire scientifically, and assisted it with coal.
+
+"It's this way," he said. "Of course, dear old Derek's the finest chap
+in the world."
+
+"I know that," said Jill softly. She patted Freddie's hand with a
+little gesture of gratitude. Freddie's devotion to Derek was a thing
+that always touched her. She looked thoughtfully into the fire, and
+her eyes seemed to glow in sympathy with the glowing coals. "There's
+nobody like him!"
+
+"But," continued Freddie, "he always has been frightfully under his
+mother's thumb, you know."
+
+Jill was conscious of a little flicker of irritation.
+
+"Don't be absurd, Freddie. How could a man like Derek be under
+anybody's thumb?"
+
+"Well, you know what I mean!"
+
+"I don't in the least know what you mean."
+
+"I mean, it would be rather rotten if his mother set him against you."
+
+Jill clenched her teeth. The quick temper which always lurked so very
+little beneath the surface of her cheerfulness was stirred. She felt
+suddenly chilled and miserable. She tried to tell herself that Freddie
+was just an amiable blunderer who spoke without sense or reason, but
+it was no use. She could not rid herself of a feeling of foreboding
+and discomfort. It had been the one jarring note in the sweet melody
+of her love-story, this apprehension of Derek's regarding his mother.
+The Derek she loved was a strong man, with a strong man's contempt for
+other people's criticism; and there had been something ignoble and
+fussy in his attitude regarding Lady Underhill. She had tried to feel
+that the flaw in her idol did not exist. And here was Freddie Rooke, a
+man who admired Derek with all his hero-worshipping nature, pointing
+it out independently. She was annoyed, and she expended her annoyance,
+as women will do, upon the innocent bystander.
+
+"Do you remember the time I turned the hose on you, Freddie," she
+said, rising from the fender, "years ago, when we were children, when
+you and that awful Mason boy--what was his name? Wally Mason--teased
+me?" She looked at the unhappy Freddie with a hostile eye. It was his
+blundering words that had spoiled everything. "I've forgotten what it
+was all about, but I know that you and Wally infuriated me and I
+turned the garden hose on you and soaked you both to the skin. Well,
+all I want to point out is that, if you go on talking nonsense about
+Derek and his mother and me, I shall ask Barker to bring me a jug of
+water, and I shall empty it over you! Set him against me! You talk as
+if love were a thing any third party could come along and turn off
+with a tap! Do you suppose that, when two people love each other as
+Derek and I do, that it can possibly matter in the least what anybody
+else thinks or says, even if it is his mother? I haven't got a mother,
+but suppose Uncle Chris came and warned me against Derek...."
+
+Her anger suddenly left her as quickly as it had come. That was always
+the way with Jill. One moment she would be raging; the next, something
+would tickle her sense of humour and restore her instantly to
+cheerfulness. And the thought of dear, lazy old Uncle Chris taking the
+trouble to warn anybody against anything except the wrong brand of
+wine or an inferior make of cigar conjured up a picture before which
+wrath melted away. She chuckled, and Freddie, who had been wilting on
+the fender, perked up.
+
+"You're an extraordinary girl, Jill. One never knows when you're going
+to get the wind up."
+
+"Isn't it enough to make me get the wind up, as you call it, when you
+say absurd things like that?"
+
+"I meant well, old girl!"
+
+"That's the trouble with you. You always do mean well. You go about
+the world meaning well till people fly to put themselves under police
+protection. Besides, what on earth could Lady Underhill find to object
+to in me? I've plenty of money, and I'm one of the most charming and
+attractive of Society belles. You needn't take my word for that, and I
+don't suppose you've noticed it, but that's what Mr. Gossip in the
+_Morning Mirror_ called me when he was writing about my getting
+engaged to Derek. My maid showed me the clipping. There was quite a
+long paragraph, with a picture of me that looked like a Zulu
+chieftainess taken in a coal-cellar during a bad fog. Well, after
+that, what could anyone say against me? I'm a perfect prize! I expect
+Lady Underhill screamed with joy when she heard the news and went
+singing all over her Riviera villa."
+
+"Yes," said Freddie dubiously. "Yes, yes, oh, quite so, rather!"
+
+Jill looked at him sternly.
+
+"Freddie, you're concealing something from me! You _don't_ think I'm
+a charming and attractive Society belle! Tell me why not and I'll show
+you where you are wrong. Is it my face you object to, or my manners,
+or my figure? There was a young bride of Antigua, who said to her
+mate, 'What a pig you are!' Said he, 'Oh, my queen, is it manners you
+mean, or do you allude to my fig-u-ar?' Isn't my figuar all right,
+Freddie?"
+
+"Oh, _I_ think you're topping."
+
+"But for some reason you're afraid that Derek's mother won't think so.
+Why won't Lady Underhill agree with Mr. Gossip?"
+
+Freddie hesitated.
+
+"Speak up!"
+
+"Well, it's like this. Remember, I've known the old devil...."
+
+"Freddie Rooke! Where do you pick up such expressions? Not from me!"
+
+"Well, that's how I always think of her! I say I've known her ever
+since I used to go and stop at their place when I was at school, and I
+know exactly the sort of things that put her back up. She's a
+what-d'you-call-it. I mean to say, one of the old school, don't you
+know. And you're so dashed impulsive, old girl. You know you are! You
+are always saying things that come into your head."
+
+"You can't say a thing unless it comes into your head."
+
+"You know what I mean," Freddie went on earnestly, not to be diverted
+from his theme. "You say rummy things and you do rummy things. What I
+mean to say is, you're impulsive."
+
+"What have I ever done that the sternest critic could call rummy?"
+
+"Well, I've seen you with my own eyes stop in the middle of Bond
+Street and help a lot of fellows shove along a cart that had got
+stuck. Mind you, I'm not blaming you for it...."
+
+"I should hope not. The poor old horse was trying all he knew to get
+going, and he couldn't quite make it. Naturally, I helped."
+
+"Oh, I know. Very decent and all that, but I doubt if Lady Underhill
+would have thought a lot of it. And you're so dashed chummy with the
+lower orders."
+
+"Don't be a snob, Freddie."
+
+"I'm not a snob," protested Freddie, wounded. "When I'm alone with
+Barker--for instance--I'm as chatty as dammit. But I don't ask waiters
+in public restaurants how their lumbago is."
+
+"Have you ever had lumbago?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, it's a very painful thing, and waiters get it just as badly as
+dukes. Worse, I should think, because they're always bending and
+stooping and carrying things. Naturally one feels sorry for them."
+
+"But how do you ever find out that a waiter has _got_ lumbago?"
+
+"I ask him, of course."
+
+"Well, for goodness' sake," said Freddie, "if you feel the impulse to
+do that sort of thing to-night, try and restrain it. I mean to say,
+if you're curious to know anything about Barker's chilblains, for
+instance, don't enquire after them while he's handing Lady Underhill
+the potatoes! She wouldn't like it."
+
+Jill uttered an exclamation.
+
+"I knew there was something! Being so cold and wanting to rush in and
+crouch over a fire put it clean out of my head. He must be thinking me
+a perfect beast!" She ran to the door. "Barker! Barker!"
+
+Barker appeared from nowhere.
+
+"Yes, miss?"
+
+"I'm so sorry I forgot to ask before. How are your chilblains?"
+
+"A good deal better miss, thank you."
+
+"Did you try the stuff I recommended?"
+
+"Yes, miss. It did them a world of good."
+
+"Splendid!"
+
+Jill went back into the sitting-room.
+
+"It's all right," she said reassuringly. "They're better."
+
+She wandered restlessly about the room, looking at the photographs,
+then sat down at the piano and touched the keys. The clock on the
+mantelpiece chimed the half-hour. "I wish to goodness they would
+arrive," she said.
+
+"They'll be here pretty soon, I expect."
+
+"It's rather awful," said Jill, "to think of Lady Underhill racing all
+the way from Mentone to Paris and from Paris to Calais and from Calais
+to Dover and from Dover to London simply to inspect me. You can't
+wonder I'm nervous, Freddie."
+
+The eye-glass dropped from Freddie's eye.
+
+"Are _you_ nervous?" he asked, astonished.
+
+"Of course I'm nervous. Wouldn't you be in my place?"
+
+"Well, I should never have thought it."
+
+"Why do you suppose I've been talking such a lot? Why do you imagine I
+snapped your poor, innocent head off just now! I'm terrified inside,
+terrified!"
+
+"You don't look it, by Jove!"
+
+"No, I'm trying to be a little warrior. That's what Uncle Chris always
+used to call me. It started the day when he took me to have a tooth
+out, when I was ten. 'Be a little warrior, Jill!' he kept saying. 'Be
+a little warrior!' And I was." She looked at the clock. "But I shan't
+be if they don't get here soon. The suspense is awful." She strummed
+the keys. "Suppose she _doesn't_ like me, Freddie! You see how you've
+scared me."
+
+"I didn't say she wouldn't. I only said you'd got to watch out a bit."
+
+"Something tells me she won't. My nerve is oozing out of me." Jill
+shook her head impatiently. "It's all so vulgar! I thought this sort
+of thing only happened in the comic papers and in music-hall songs.
+Why, it's just like that song somebody used to sing." She laughed. "Do
+you remember? I don't know how the verse went, but ...
+
+    John took me round to see his mother,
+                              his mother,
+                              his mother!
+    And when he'd introduced us to each other,
+      She sized up everything that I had on.
+    She put me through a cross-examination:
+    I fairly boiled with aggravation:
+      Then she shook her head,
+      Looked at me and said:
+          'Poor John! Poor John!'
+
+Chorus, Freddie! Let's cheer ourselves up! We need it!"
+
+    John took me round to see his mother...!
+
+"His m-o-o-other!" croaked Freddie. Curiously enough, this ballad was
+one of Freddie's favourites. He had rendered it with a good deal of
+success on three separate occasions at village entertainments down in
+Worcestershire, and he rather flattered himself that he could get
+about as much out of it as the next man. He proceeded to abet Jill
+heartily with gruff sounds which he was under the impression
+constituted what is known in musical circles as "singing seconds."
+
+"His mo-o-other!" he growled with frightful scorn.
+
+"And when he'd introduced us to each other...."
+
+"O-o-o-other!"
+
+"She sized up everything that I had on!"
+
+"Pom-_pom_-pom!"
+
+"She put me through a cross-examination...."
+
+Jill had thrown her head back, and was singing jubilantly at the top
+of her voice. The appositeness of the song had cheered her up. It
+seemed somehow to make her forebodings rather ridiculous, to reduce
+them to absurdity, to turn into farce the gathering tragedy which had
+been weighing upon her nerves.
+
+    Then she shook her head,
+    Looked at me and said:
+        'Poor John!'....
+
+"Jill," said a voice at the door. "I want you to meet my mother!"
+
+"Poo-oo-oor John!" bleated the hapless Freddie, unable to check
+himself.
+
+"Dinner," said Barker the valet, appearing at the door and breaking a
+silence that seemed to fill the room like a tangible presence, "is
+served!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FIRST NIGHT AT THE LEICESTER
+
+I
+
+
+The front-door closed softly behind the theatre-party. Dinner was
+over, and Barker had just been assisting the expedition out of the
+place. Sensitive to atmosphere, he had found his share in the dinner a
+little trying. It had been a strained meal, and what he liked was a
+clatter of conversation and everybody having a good time and enjoying
+themselves.
+
+"Ellen!" called Barker, as he proceeded down the passage to the empty
+dining-room. "Ellen!"
+
+Mrs. Barker appeared out of the kitchen, wiping her hands. Her work
+for the evening, like her husband's, was over. Presently what is
+technically called a "useful girl" would come in to wash up the
+dishes, leaving the evening free for social intercourse. Mrs. Barker
+had done well by her patrons that night, and now she wanted a quiet
+chat with Barker over a glass of Freddie Rooke's port.
+
+"Have they gone, Horace?" she asked, following him into the
+dining-room.
+
+Barker selected a cigar from Freddie's humidor, crackled it against
+his ear, smelt it, clipped off the end, and lit it. He took the
+decanter and filled his wife's glass, then mixed himself a
+whisky-and-soda.
+
+"Happy days!" said Barker. "Yes, they've gone!"
+
+"I didn't see her ladyship."
+
+"You didn't miss much! A nasty, dangerous specimen, _she_ is! 'Always
+merry and bright,' I don't think. I wish you'd have had my job of
+waiting on 'em, Ellen, and me been the one to stay in the kitchen safe
+out of it all. That's all I say! It's no treat to _me_ to 'and the
+dishes when the atmosphere's what you might call electric. I didn't
+envy them that _vol-au-vent_ of yours, Ellen, good as it smelt. Better
+a dinner of 'erbs where love is than a stalled ox and 'atred
+therewith," said Barker, helping himself to a walnut.
+
+"Did they have words?"
+
+Barker shook his head impatiently.
+
+"That sort don't have words, Ellen. They just sit and goggle."
+
+"How did her ladyship seem to hit it off with Miss Mariner, Horace?"
+
+Barker uttered a dry laugh.
+
+"Ever seen a couple of strange dogs watching each other sort of wary?
+That was them! Not that Miss Mariner wasn't all that was pleasant and
+nice-spoken. She's all right, Miss Mariner is. She's a little queen.
+It wasn't her fault the dinner you'd took so much trouble over was
+more like an evening in the Morgue than a Christian dinner-party. She
+tried to help things along best she could. But what with Sir Derek
+chewing his lip 'alf the time and his mother acting about as matey as
+a pennorth of ice-cream, she didn't have a chance. As for the
+guv'nor--well, I wish you could have seen him, that's all. You know,
+Ellen, sometimes I'm not altogether easy in my mind about the
+guv'nor's mental balance. He knows how to buy cigars, and you tell me
+his port is good--I never touch it myself--but sometimes he seems to
+me to go right off his onion. Just sat there, he did, all through
+dinner, looking as if he expected the good food to rise up and bite
+him in the face, and jumping nervous when I spoke to him. It's not my
+fault," said Barker, aggrieved. "_I_ can't give gentlemen warning
+before I ask 'em if they'll have sherry or hock. I can't ring a bell
+or toot a horn to show 'em I'm coming. It's my place to bend over and
+whisper in their ear, and they've no right to leap about in their
+seats and make me spill good wine. (You'll see the spot close by where
+you're sitting, Ellen. Jogged my wrist, he did!) I'd like to know why
+people in the spear of life which these people are in can't behave
+themselves rational, same as we do. When we were walking out and I
+took you to have tea with my mother, it was one of the pleasantest
+meals I ever ate. Talk about 'armony! It was a love-feast!"
+
+"Your ma and I took to each other right from the start, Horace," said
+Mrs. Barker softly. "That's the difference."
+
+"Well, any woman with any sense would take to Miss Mariner. If I told
+you how near I came to spilling the sauce-boat accidentally over that
+old fossil's head, you'd be surprised, Ellen. She just sat there
+brooding like an old eagle. If you ask my opinion, Miss Mariner's a
+long sight too good for her precious son!"
+
+"Oh, but Horace! Sir Derek's a baronet!"
+
+"What of it? Kind 'earts are more than coronets and simple faith than
+Norman blood, aren't they?"
+
+"You're talking Socialism, Horace."
+
+"No, I'm not. I'm talking sense. I don't know who Miss Mariner's
+parents may have been--I never enquired--but anyone can see she's a
+lady born and bred. But do you suppose the path of true love is going
+to run smooth, for all that? Not it! She's got a 'ard time ahead of
+her, that poor girl!"
+
+"Horace!" Mrs. Barker's gentle heart was wrung. The situation hinted
+at by her husband was no new one--indeed, it formed the basis of at
+least fifty per cent of the stories in the True Heart Novelette
+Series, of which she was a determined reader--but it had never failed
+to touch her. "Do you think her ladyship means to come between them
+and wreck their romance?"
+
+"I think she means to have a jolly good try."
+
+"But Sir Derek has his own money, hasn't he? I mean it's not like when
+Sir Courtenay Travers fell in love with the milkmaid and was dependent
+on his mother, the Countess, for everything. Sir Derek can afford to
+do what he pleases, can't he?"
+
+Barker shook his head tolerantly. The excellence of the cigar and the
+soothing qualities of the whisky-and-soda had worked upon him, and he
+was feeling less ruffled.
+
+"You don't understand these things," he said. "Women like her ladyship
+can talk a man into anything and out of anything. I wouldn't care,
+only you can see the poor girl is mad over the feller. What she finds
+attractive in him, I can't say, but that's her own affair."
+
+"He's very handsome, Horace, with those flashing eyes and that stern
+mouth," argued Mrs. Barker.
+
+Barker sniffed.
+
+"Have it your own way," he said. "It's no treat to _me_ to see his
+eyes flash, and if he'd put that stern mouth of his to some better use
+than advising the guv'nor to lock up the cigars and trouser the key,
+I'd be better pleased. If there's one thing I can't stand," said
+Barker, "it's not to be trusted!" He lifted his cigar and looked at it
+censoriously. "I thought so! Burning all down one side. They will do
+that if you light 'em careless. Oh, well," he continued, rising and
+going to the humidor, "there's plenty more where that came from. Out
+of evil cometh good," said Barker philosophically. "If the guv'nor
+hadn't been in such a overwrought state to-night, he'd have remembered
+not to leave the key in the keyhole. Help yourself to another glass of
+port, Ellen, and let's enjoy ourselves!"
+
+
+II
+
+When one considers how full of his own troubles, how weighed down with
+the problems of his own existence the average playgoer generally is
+when enters a theatre, it is remarkable that dramatists ever find it
+possible to divert and entertain whole audiences for a space of
+several hours. As regards at least three of those who had assembled to
+witness its opening performance, the author of "Tried by Fire," at the
+Leicester Theatre, undoubtedly had his work cut out for him.
+
+It has perhaps been sufficiently indicated by the remarks of Barker,
+the valet, that the little dinner at Freddie Rooke's had not been an
+unqualified success. Searching the records for an adequately gloomy
+parallel to the taxi-cab journey to the theatre which followed it, one
+can only think of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. And yet even that
+was probably not conducted in dead silence.
+
+The only member of the party who was even remotely happy was,
+curiously enough, Freddie Rooke. Originally Freddie had obtained three
+tickets for "Tried by Fire." The unexpected arrival of Lady Underhill
+had obliged him to buy a fourth, separated by several rows from the
+other three. This, as he had told Derek at breakfast, was the seat he
+proposed to occupy himself.
+
+It consoles the philosopher in this hard world to reflect that, even
+if man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upward, it is still
+possible for small things to make him happy. The thought of being
+several rows away from Lady Underhill had restored Freddie's
+equanimity like a tonic. It thrilled him like the strains of some
+grand, sweet anthem all the way to the theatre. If Freddie Rooke had
+been asked at that moment to define happiness in a few words, he would
+have replied that it consisted in being several rows away from Lady
+Underhill.
+
+The theatre was nearly full when Freddie's party arrived. The
+Leicester Theatre had been rented for the season by the newest
+theatrical knight, Sir Chester Portwood, who had a large following;
+and, whatever might be the fate of the play in the final issue, it
+would do at least one night's business. The stalls were ablaze with
+jewellery and crackling with starched shirt-fronts; and expensive
+scents pervaded the air, putting up a stiff battle with the plebeian
+peppermint that emanated from the pit. The boxes were filled, and up
+in the gallery grim-faced patrons of the drama, who had paid their
+shillings at the door and intended to get a shilling's worth of
+entertainment in return, sat and waited stolidly for the curtain to
+rise.
+
+The lights shot up beyond the curtain. The house-lights dimmed.
+Conversation ceased. The curtain rose. Jill wriggled herself
+comfortably into her seat, and slipped her hand into Derek's. She felt
+a glow of happiness as it closed over hers. All, she told herself, was
+right with the world.
+
+All, that is to say, except the drama which was unfolding on the
+stage. It was one of those plays which start wrong and never recover.
+By the end of the first ten minutes there had spread through the
+theatre that uneasy feeling which comes over the audience at an
+opening performance when it realizes that it is going to be bored. A
+sort of lethargy had gripped the stalls. The dress-circle was
+coughing. Up in the gallery there was grim silence.
+
+Sir Chester Portwood was an actor-manager who had made his reputation
+in light comedy of the tea-cup school. His numerous admirers attended
+a first night at his theatre in a mood of comfortable anticipation,
+assured of something pleasant and frothy with a good deal of bright
+dialogue and not too much plot. To-night he seemed to have fallen a
+victim to that spirit of ambition which intermittently attacks
+actor-managers of his class, expressing itself in an attempt to prove
+that, having established themselves securely as light comedians, they
+can, like the lady reciter, turn right around and be serious. The one
+thing which the London public felt that it was safe from in a Portwood
+play was heaviness, and "Tried by Fire" was grievously heavy. It was a
+poetic drama, and the audience, though loath to do anybody an
+injustice, was beginning to suspect that it was written in blank
+verse.
+
+The acting did nothing to dispel the growing uneasiness. Sir Chester
+himself, apparently oppressed by the weightiness of the occasion and
+the responsibility of offering an unfamiliar brand of goods to his
+public, had dropped his customary debonair method of delivering lines
+and was mouthing his speeches. It was good gargling, but bad
+elocution. And, for some reason best known to himself, he had
+entrusted the role of the heroine to a doll-like damsel with a lisp,
+of whom the audience disapproved sternly from her initial entrance.
+
+It was about half-way through the first act that Jill, whose attention
+had begun to wander, heard a soft groan at her side. The seats which
+Freddie Rooke had bought were at the extreme end of the seventh row.
+There was only one other seat in the row, and, as Derek had placed his
+mother on his left and was sitting between her and Jill, the latter
+had this seat on her right. It had been empty at the rise of the
+curtain, but in the past few minutes a man had slipped silently into
+it. The darkness prevented Jill from seeing his face, but it was plain
+that he was suffering, and her sympathy went out to him. His opinion
+of the play so obviously coincided with her own.
+
+Presently the first act ended, and the lights went up. There was a
+spatter of insincere applause from the stalls, echoed in the
+dress-circle. It grew fainter in the upper circle, and did not reach
+the gallery at all.
+
+"Well?" said Jill to Derek. "What do you think of it?"
+
+"Too awful for words," said Derek sternly.
+
+He leaned forward to join the conversation which had started between
+Lady Underhill and some friends she had discovered in the seats in
+front; and Jill, turning, became aware that the man on her right was
+looking at her intently. He was a big man with rough, wiry hair and a
+humorous mouth. His age appeared to be somewhere in the middle
+twenties. Jill, in the brief moment in which their eyes met, decided
+that he was ugly, but with an ugliness that was rather attractive. He
+reminded her of one of those large, loose, shaggy dogs that break
+things in drawing-rooms but make admirable companions for the open
+road. She had a feeling that he would look better in tweeds in a field
+than in evening dress in a theatre. He had nice eyes. She could not
+distinguish their colour, but they were frank and friendly.
+
+All this Jill noted with her customary quickness, and then she looked
+away. For an instant she had had an odd feeling that somewhere she had
+met this man or somebody very like him before, but the impression
+vanished. She also had the impression that he was still looking at
+her, but she gazed demurely in front of her and did not attempt to
+verify the suspicion.
+
+Between them, as they sat side by side, there inserted itself suddenly
+the pinkly remorseful face of Freddie Rooke. Freddie, having
+skirmished warily in the aisle until it was clear that Lady
+Underhill's attention was engaged elsewhere, had occupied a seat in
+the row behind which had been left vacant temporarily by an owner who
+liked refreshment between the acts. Freddie was feeling deeply ashamed
+of himself. He felt that he had perpetrated a bloomer of no slight
+magnitude.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry about this," he said penitently. "I mean, roping
+you in to listen to this frightful tosh! When I think I might have got
+seats just as well for any one of half a dozen topping musical
+comedies, I feel like kicking myself with some vim. But, honestly, how
+was I to know? I never dreamed we were going to be let in for anything
+of this sort. Portwood's plays are usually so dashed bright and snappy
+and all that. Can't think what he was doing, putting on a thing like
+this. Why, it's blue round the edges!"
+
+The man on Jill's right laughed sharply.
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "the chump who wrote the piece got away from the
+asylum long enough to put up the money to produce it."
+
+If there is one thing that startles the well-bred Londoner and throws
+him off his balance, it is to be addressed unexpectedly by a stranger.
+Freddie's sense of decency was revolted. A voice from the tomb could
+hardly have shaken him more. All the traditions to which he had been
+brought up had gone to solidify his belief that this was one of the
+things which didn't happen. Absolutely it wasn't done. During an
+earthquake or a shipwreck and possibly on the Day of Judgment, yes.
+But only then. At other times, unless they wanted a match or the time
+or something, chappies did not speak to fellows to whom they had not
+been introduced. He was far too amiable to snub the man, but to go on
+with this degrading scene was out of the question. There was nothing
+for it but flight.
+
+"Oh, ah, yes," he mumbled. "Well," he added to Jill, "I suppose I may
+as well be toddling back. See you later and so forth."
+
+And with a faint "Good-bye-ee!" Freddie removed himself, thoroughly
+unnerved.
+
+Jill looked out of the corner of her eye at Derek. He was still
+occupied with the people in front. She turned to the man on her right.
+She was not the slave to etiquette that Freddie was. She was much too
+interested in life to refrain from speaking to strangers.
+
+"You shocked him!" she said dimpling.
+
+"Yes. It broke Freddie all up, didn't it!"
+
+It was Jill's turn to be startled. She looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Freddie?"
+
+"That _was_ Freddie Rooke, wasn't it? Surely I wasn't mistaken?"
+
+"But--do you know him? He didn't seem to know you."
+
+"These are life's tragedies He has forgotten me. My boyhood friend!"
+
+"Oh, you were at school with him?"
+
+"No. Freddie went to Winchester, if I remember. I was at Haileybury.
+Our acquaintance was confined to the holidays. My people lived near
+his people in Worcestershire."
+
+"Worcestershire!" Jill leaned forward excitedly. "But I used to live
+near Freddie in Worcestershire myself when I was small. I knew him
+there when he was a boy. We must have met!"
+
+"We met all right."
+
+Jill wrinkled her forehead. That odd familiar look was in his eyes
+again. But memory failed to respond. She shook her head.
+
+"I don't remember you," she said. "I'm sorry."
+
+"Never mind. Perhaps the recollection would have been painful."
+
+"How do you mean, painful?"
+
+"Well, looking back, I can see that I must have been a very unpleasant
+child. I have always thought it greatly to the credit of my parents
+that they let me grow up. It would have been so easy to have dropped
+something heavy on me out of a window. They must have been tempted a
+hundred times, but they refrained. Yes, I was a great pest around the
+home. My only redeeming point was the way I worshipped _you_!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Oh, yes. You probably didn't notice it at the time, for I had a
+curious way of expressing my adoration. But you remain the brightest
+memory of a chequered youth."
+
+Jill searched his face with grave eyes, then shook her head again.
+
+"Nothing stirs?" asked the man sympathetically.
+
+"It's too maddening! Why does one forget things?" She reflected. "You
+aren't Bobby Morrison?"
+
+"I am not. What is more, I never was!"
+
+Jill dived into the past once more and emerged with another
+possibility.
+
+"Or--Charlie--Charlie what was it?--Charlie Field?"
+
+"You wound me! Have you forgotten that Charlie Field wore velvet Lord
+Fauntleroy suits and long golden curls? My past is not smirched with
+anything like that."
+
+"Would I remember your name if you told me?"
+
+"I don't know. I've forgotten yours. Your surname, that is. Of course,
+I remember that your Christian name was Jill. It has always seemed to
+me the prettiest monosyllable in the language." He looked at her
+thoughtfully. "It's odd how little you've altered in looks. Freddie's
+just the same, too, only larger. And he didn't wear an eye-glass in
+those days, though I can see he was bound to later on. And yet I've
+changed so much that you can't place me. It shows what a wearing life
+I must have led. I feel like Rip van Winkle. Old and withered. But
+that may be just the result of watching this play."
+
+"It is pretty terrible, isn't it?"
+
+"Worse than that. Looking at it dispassionately, I find it the
+extreme, ragged, outermost edge of the limit. Freddie had the correct
+description of it. He's a great critic."
+
+"I really do think it's the worst thing I have ever seen."
+
+"I don't know what plays you have seen, but I feel you're right."
+
+"Perhaps the second act's better," said Jill optimistically.
+
+"It's worse. I know that sounds like boasting, but it's true. I feel
+like getting up and making a public apology."
+
+"But ... Oh!"
+
+Jill turned scarlet. A monstrous suspicion had swept over her.
+
+"The only trouble is," went on her companion, "that the audience would
+undoubtedly lynch me. And, though it seems improbable just at the
+present moment, it may be that life holds some happiness for me that's
+worth waiting for. Anyway, I'd rather not be torn limb from limb. A
+messy finish! I can just see them rending me asunder in a spasm of
+perfectly justifiable fury. 'She loves me!' Off comes a leg. 'She
+loves me not!' Off comes an arm. No, I think on the whole I'll lie
+low. Besides, why should I care? Let 'em suffer. It's their own fault.
+They _would_ come!"
+
+Jill had been trying to interrupt the harangue. She was greatly
+concerned.
+
+"Did you _write_ the play?"
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"You are quite right to speak in that horrified tone. But between
+ourselves and on the understanding that you don't get up and denounce
+me, I did."
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry!"
+
+"Not half so sorry as I am, believe me!"
+
+"I mean, I wouldn't have said...."
+
+"Never mind. You didn't tell me anything I didn't know." The lights
+began to go down. He rose. "Well, they're off again. Perhaps you will
+excuse me? I don't feel quite equal to assisting any longer at the
+wake. If you want something to occupy your mind during the next act,
+try to remember my name."
+
+He slid from his seat and disappeared. Jill clutched at Derek.
+
+"Oh, Derek, it's too awful. I've just been talking to the man who
+wrote this play, and I told him it was the worst thing I had ever
+seen!"
+
+"Did you?" Derek snorted. "Well, it's about time somebody told him!" A
+thought seemed to strike him. "Why, who is he? I didn't know you knew
+him."
+
+"I don't. I don't even know his name."
+
+"His name, according to the programme, is John Grant. Never heard of
+him before. Jill, I wish you would not talk to people you don't know,"
+said Derek with a note of annoyance in his voice. "You can never tell
+who they are."
+
+"But...."
+
+"Especially with my mother here. You must be more careful."
+
+The curtain rose. Jill saw the stage mistily. From childhood up, she
+had never been able to cure herself of an unfortunate sensitiveness
+when sharply spoken to by those she loved. A rebuking world she could
+face with a stout heart, but there had always been just one or two
+people whose lightest word of censure could crush her. Her father had
+always had that effect upon her, and now Derek had taken his place.
+
+But if there had only been time to explain.... Derek could not object
+to her chatting with a friend of her childhood, even if she had
+completely forgotten him and did not remember his name even now. John
+Grant? Memory failed to produce any juvenile John Grant for her
+inspection.
+
+Puzzling over this problem, Jill missed much of the beginning of the
+second act. Hers was a detachment which the rest of the audience would
+gladly have shared. For the poetic drama, after a bad start, was now
+plunging into worse depths of dullness. The coughing had become almost
+continuous. The stalls, supported by the presence of large droves of
+Sir Chester's personal friends, were struggling gallantly to maintain
+a semblance of interest, but the pit and gallery had plainly given up
+hope. The critic of a weekly paper of small circulation, who had been
+shoved up in the upper circle, grimly jotted down the phrase
+"apathetically received" on his programme. He had come to the theatre
+that night in an aggrieved mood, for managers usually put him in the
+dress-circle. He got out his pencil again. Another phrase had occurred
+to him, admirable for the opening of his article. "At the Leicester
+Theatre," he wrote, "where Sir Chester Portwood presented 'Tried by
+Fire,' dullness reigned supreme...."
+
+But you never know. Call no evening dull till it is over. However
+uninteresting its early stages may have been that night was to be as
+animated and exciting as any audience could desire--a night to be
+looked back to and talked about, for just as the critic of _London
+Gossip_ wrote those damning words on his programme, guiding his pencil
+uncertainly in the dark, a curious yet familiar odour stole over the
+house.
+
+The stalls got it first, and sniffed. It rose to the dress-circle, and
+the dress-circle sniffed. Floating up, it smote the silent gallery.
+And, suddenly, coming to life with a single-minded abruptness, the
+gallery ceased to be silent.
+
+"Fire!"
+
+Sir Chester Portwood, ploughing his way through a long speech, stopped
+and looked apprehensively over his shoulder. The girl with the lisp,
+who had been listening in a perfunctory manner to the long speech,
+screamed loudly. The voice of an unseen stage-hand called thunderously
+to an invisible "Bill" to commere quick. And from the scenery on the
+prompt side there curled lazily across the stage a black wisp of
+smoke.
+
+"Fire! Fire! Fire!"
+
+"Just," said a voice at Jill's elbow, "what the play needed!" The
+mysterious author was back in his seat again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+JILL AND THE UNKNOWN ESCAPE
+
+I
+
+
+In these days when the authorities who watch over the welfare of the
+community have taken the trouble to reiterate encouragingly in printed
+notices that a full house can be emptied in three minutes and that all
+an audience has to do in an emergency is to walk, not run, to the
+nearest exit, fire in the theatre has lost a good deal of its old-time
+terror. Yet it would be paltering with the truth to say that the
+audience which had assembled to witness the opening performance of the
+new play at the Leicester was entirely at its ease. The asbestos
+curtain was already on its way down, which should have been
+reassuring: but then asbestos curtains never look the part. To the lay
+eye they seem just the sort of thing that will blaze quickest.
+Moreover, it had not yet occurred to the man at the switchboard to
+turn up the house-lights, and the darkness was disconcerting.
+
+Portions of the house were taking the thing better than other
+portions. Up in the gallery a vast activity was going on. The clatter
+of feet almost drowned the shouting. A moment before it would have
+seemed incredible that anything could have made the occupants of the
+gallery animated, but the instinct of self-preservation had put new
+life into them.
+
+The stalls had not yet entirely lost their self-control. Alarm was in
+the air, but for the moment they hung on the razor-edge between panic
+and dignity. Panic urged them to do something sudden and energetic;
+dignity counselled them to wait. They, like the occupants of the
+gallery, greatly desired to be outside, but it was bad form to rush
+and jostle. The men were assisting the women in their cloaks, assuring
+them the while that it was "all right" and that they must not be
+frightened. But another curl of smoke had crept out just before the
+asbestos curtain completed its descent, and their words lacked the
+ring of conviction. The movement towards the exits had not yet become
+a stampede, but already those with seats nearest the stage had begun
+to feel that the more fortunate individuals near the doors were
+infernally slow in removing themselves.
+
+Suddenly, as if by mutual inspiration, the composure of the stalls
+began to slip. Looking from above, one could have seen a sort of
+shudder run through the crowd. It was the effect of every member of
+that crowd starting to move a little more quickly.
+
+A hand grasped Jill's arm. It was a comforting hand, the hand of a man
+who had not lost his head. A pleasant voice backed up its message of
+reassurance.
+
+"It's no good getting into that mob. You might get hurt. There's no
+danger; the play isn't going on."
+
+Jill was shaken; but she had the fighting spirit and hated to show
+that she was shaken. Panic was knocking at the door of her soul, but
+dignity refused to be dislodged.
+
+"All the same," she said, smiling a difficult smile, "it would be nice
+to get out, wouldn't it?"
+
+"I was just going to suggest something of that very sort," said the
+man beside her. "The same thought occurred to me. We can stroll out
+quite comfortably by our own private route. Come along."
+
+Jill looked over her shoulder. Derek and Lady Underhill were merged
+into the mass of refugees. She could not see them. For an instant a
+little spasm of pique stung her at the thought that Derek had deserted
+her. She groped her way after her companion, and presently they came
+by way of a lower box to the iron pass-door leading to the stage.
+
+As it opened, smoke blew through, and the smell of burning was
+formidable. Jill recoiled involuntarily.
+
+"It's all right," said her companion. "It smells worse than it really
+is. And, anyway, this is the quickest way out."
+
+They passed through on to the stage, and found themselves in a world
+of noise and confusion compared with which the auditorium which they
+had left had been a peaceful place. Smoke was everywhere. A
+stage-hand, carrying a bucket, lurched past them, bellowing. From
+somewhere out of sight on the other side of the stage there came a
+sound of chopping. Jill's companion moved quickly to the switchboard,
+groped, found a handle, and turned it. In the narrow space between the
+corner of the proscenium and the edge of the asbestos curtain lights
+flashed up: and simultaneously there came a sudden diminution of the
+noise from the body of the house. The stalls, snatched from the
+intimidating spell of the darkness and able to see each other's faces,
+discovered that they had been behaving indecorously and checked their
+struggling, a little ashamed of themselves. The relief would be only
+momentary, but, while it lasted, it postponed panic.
+
+"Go straight across the stage," Jill heard her companion say, "out
+along the passage and turn to the right, and you'll be at the
+stage-door. I think, as there seems no one else around to do it, I'd
+better go out and say a few soothing words to the customers. Otherwise
+they'll be biting holes in each other."
+
+He squeezed through the narrow opening in front of the curtain.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen!"
+
+Jill remained where she was, leaning with one hand against the
+switchboard. She made no attempt to follow the directions he had given
+her. She was aware of a sense of comradeship, of being with this man
+in this adventure. If he stayed, she must stay. To go now through the
+safety of the stage-door would be abominable desertion. She listened,
+and found that she could hear plainly in spite of the noise. The smoke
+was worse than ever, and hurt her eyes, so that the figures of the
+theatre-firemen, hurrying to and fro, seemed like Brocken spectres.
+She slipped a corner of her cloak across her mouth, and was able to
+breathe more easily.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you that there is absolutely no
+danger. I am a stranger to you, so there is no reason why you should
+take my word, but fortunately I can give you solid proof. If there
+were any danger, _I_ wouldn't be here. All that has happened is that
+the warmth of your reception of the play has set a piece of scenery
+alight...."
+
+A crimson-faced stage-hand, carrying an axe in blackened hands, roared
+in Jill's ear.
+
+"'Op it!" shouted the stage-hand. He cast his axe down with a clatter.
+"Can't you see the place is afire?"
+
+"But--but I'm waiting for...." Jill pointed to where her ally was
+still addressing an audience that seemed reluctant to stop and listen
+to him.
+
+The stage-hand squinted out round the edge of the curtain.
+
+"If he's a friend of yours, miss, kindly get 'im to cheese it and get
+a move on. We're clearing out. There's nothing we can do. It's got too
+much of an 'old. In about another two ticks the roof's going to drop
+on us."
+
+Jill's friend came squeezing back through the opening.
+
+"Hullo! Still here?" He blinked approvingly at her through the smoke.
+"You're a little soldier! Well, Augustus, what's on your mind?"
+
+The simple question seemed to take the stage-hand aback.
+
+"Wot's on my mind? I'll tell you wot's on my blinking mind...."
+
+"Don't tell me. Let me guess. I've got it! The place is on fire!"
+
+The stage-hand expectorated disgustedly. Flippancy at such a moment
+offended his sensibilities.
+
+"We're 'opping it," he said.
+
+"Great minds think alike! _We_ are hopping it, too."
+
+"You'd better! And damn quick!"
+
+"And, as you suggest, damn quick. You think of everything!"
+
+Jill followed him across the stage. Her heart was beating violently.
+There was not only smoke now, but heat. Across the stage little
+scarlet flames were shooting, and something large and hard, unseen
+through the smoke, fell with a crash. The air was heavy with the smell
+of burning paint.
+
+"Where's Sir Chester Portwood?" enquired her companion of the
+stage-hand, who hurried beside them.
+
+"'Opped it!" replied the other briefly, and coughed raspingly as he
+swallowed smoke.
+
+"Strange," said the man in Jill's ear, as he pulled her along. "This
+way. Stick to me. Strange how the drama anticipates life! At the end
+of Act Two there was a scene where Sir Chester had to creep sombrely
+out into the night, and now he's gone and done it! Ah!"
+
+They had stumbled through a doorway and were out in a narrow passage,
+where the air, though tainted, was comparatively fresh. Jill drew a
+deep breath. Her companion turned to the stage-hand and felt in his
+pocket.
+
+"Here." A coin changed hands. "Go and get a drink. You need it after
+all this."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"Don't mention it. You've saved our lives. Suppose you hadn't come up
+and told us, and we had never noticed there was a fire!" He turned to
+Jill. "Here's the stage-door. Shall we creep sombrely out into the
+night?"
+
+The guardian of the stage-door was standing in the entrance of his
+little hutch, plainly perplexed. He was a slow thinker and a man whose
+life was ruled by routine, and the events of the evening had left him
+uncertain how to act.
+
+"Wot's all this about a fire?" he demanded.
+
+Jill's friend stopped.
+
+"A fire?" He looked at Jill. "Did _you_ hear anything about a fire?"
+
+"They all come bustin' past 'ere yelling there's a fire," persisted
+the door-man.
+
+"By George! Now I come to think of it, you're perfectly right! There
+_is_ a fire! If you wait here a little longer you'll get it in the
+small of the back. Take the advice of an old friend who means you well
+and vanish. In the inspired words of the lad we've just parted from,
+'op it!"
+
+The stage-door man turned this over in his mind for a space.
+
+"But I'm supposed to stay 'ere till eleven-thirty and lock up!" he
+said. "That's what I'm supposed to do. Stay 'ere till eleven-thirty
+and lock up! And it ain't but ten forty-five now."
+
+"I see the difficulty," said Jill's companion thoughtfully.
+
+"Well, Casabianca, I'm afraid I don't see how to help you. It's a
+matter for your own conscience. I don't want to lure you from the
+burning deck; on the other hand, if you stick on here you'll most
+certainly be fired on both sides.... But, tell me. You spoke about
+locking up something at eleven-thirty. What are you supposed to lock
+up?"
+
+"Why, the theatre."
+
+"Then that's all right. By eleven-thirty there won't _be_ a theatre.
+If I were you, I should leave quietly and unostentatiously now.
+To-morrow, if you wish it, and if they've cooled off sufficiently, you
+can come and sit on the ruins. Good night!"
+
+
+II
+
+Outside, the air was cold and crisp. Jill drew her warm cloak closer.
+Round the corner there was noise and shouting. Fire-engines had
+arrived. Jill's companion lit a cigarette.
+
+"Do you wish to stop and see the conflagration?" he asked.
+
+Jill shivered. She was more shaken than she had realized.
+
+"I've seen all the conflagration I want."
+
+"Same here. Well, it's been an exciting evening. Started slow, I
+admit, but warmed up later! What I seem to need at the moment is a
+restorative stroll along the Embankment. Do you know, Sir Chester
+Portwood didn't like the title of my play. He said 'Tried by Fire' was
+too melodramatic. Well, he can't say now it wasn't appropriate."
+
+They made their way towards the river, avoiding the street which was
+blocked by the crowds and the fire-engines. As they crossed the
+Strand, the man looked back. A red glow was in the sky.
+
+"A great blaze!" he said. "What you might call--in fact what the
+papers _will_ call--a holocaust. Quite a treat for the populace."
+
+"Do you think they will be able to put it out?"
+
+"Not a chance. It's got too much of a hold. It's a pity you hadn't
+that garden-hose of yours with you, isn't it?"
+
+Jill stopped, wide-eyed.
+
+"Garden-hose?"
+
+"Don't you remember the garden-hose? I do! I can feel that clammy
+feeling of the water trickling down my back now!"
+
+Memory, always a laggard by the wayside that redeems itself by an
+eleventh-hour rush, raced back to Jill. The Embankment turned to a
+sun-lit garden, and the January night to a July day. She stared at
+him. He was looking at her with a whimsical smile. It was a smile
+which, pleasant to-day, had seemed mocking and hostile on that
+afternoon years ago. She had always felt then that he was laughing at
+her, and at the age of twelve she had resented laughter at her
+expense.
+
+"You surely can't be Wally Mason!" "I was wondering when you would
+remember." "But the programme called you something else--John
+something."
+
+"That was a cunning disguise. Wally Mason is the only genuine and
+official name. And, by Jove! I've just remembered yours. It was
+Mariner. By the way,"--he paused for an almost imperceptible
+instant--"is it still?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE LAST OF THE ROOKES TAKES A HAND
+
+I
+
+
+Jill was hardly aware that he had asked her a question. She was
+suffering that momentary sense of unreality which comes to us when the
+years roll away and we are thrown abruptly back into the days of our
+childhood. The logical side of her mind was quite aware that there was
+nothing remarkable in the fact that Wally Mason, who had been to her
+all these years a boy in an Eton suit, should now present himself as a
+grown man. But for all that the transformation had something of the
+effect of a conjuring-trick. It was not only the alteration in his
+appearance that startled her: it was the amazing change in his
+personality. Wally Mason had been the _bete noire_ of her childhood.
+She had never failed to look back at the episode of the garden-hose
+with the feeling that she had acted well, that--however she might have
+strayed in those early days from the straight and narrow path--in that
+one particular crisis she had done the right thing. And now she had
+taken an instant liking for him. Easily as she made friends, she had
+seldom before felt so immediately drawn to a strange man. Gone was
+the ancient hostility, and in its place a soothing sense of
+comradeship. The direct effect of this was to make Jill feel suddenly
+old. It was as if some link that joined her to her childhood had been
+snapped.
+
+She glanced down the Embankment. Close by, to the left, Waterloo
+Bridge loomed up, dark and massive against the steel-grey sky. A
+tram-car, full of home-bound travellers, clattered past over rails
+that shone with the peculiarly frost-bitten gleam that seems to herald
+snow. Across the river everything was dark and mysterious, except for
+an occasional lamp-post and the dim illumination of the wharves. It
+was a depressing prospect, and the thought crossed her mind that to
+the derelicts whose nightly resting-place was a seat on the Embankment
+the view must seem even bleaker than it did to herself. She gave a
+little shiver. Somehow this sudden severance from the old days had
+brought with it a forlornness. She seemed to be standing alone in a
+changed world.
+
+"Cold?" said Wally Mason.
+
+"A little."
+
+"Let's walk."
+
+They moved westwards. Cleopatra's Needle shot up beside them, a
+pointing finger. Down on the silent river below, coffin-like row-boats
+lay moored to the wall. Through a break in the trees the clock over
+the Houses of Parliament shone for an instant as if suspended in the
+sky, then vanished as the trees closed in. A distant barge in the
+direction of Battersea wailed and was still. It had a mournful and
+foreboding sound. Jill shivered again. It annoyed her that she could
+not shake off this quite uncalled-for melancholy, but it withstood
+every effort. Why she should have felt that a chapter, a pleasant
+chapter, in the book of her life had been closed, she could not have
+said, but the feeling lingered.
+
+"Correct me if I am wrong," said Wally Mason, breaking a silence that
+had lasted several minutes, "but you seem to me to be freezing in your
+tracks. Ever since I came to London I've had a habit of heading for
+the Embankment in times of mental stress, but perhaps the middle of
+winter is not quite the moment for communing with the night. The Savoy
+is handy, if we stop walking away from it. I think we might celebrate
+this re-union with a little supper, don't you?"
+
+Jill's depression disappeared magically. Her mercurial temperament
+asserted itself.
+
+"Lights!" she said. "Music!"
+
+"And food! To an ethereal person like you that remark may seem gross,
+but I had no dinner."
+
+"You poor dear! Why not?"
+
+"Just nervousness."
+
+"Why, of course." The interlude of the fire had caused her to forget
+his private and personal connection with the night's events. Her mind
+went back to something he had said in the theatre. "Wally--" She
+stopped, a little embarrassed. "I suppose I ought to call you Mr.
+Mason, but I've always thought of you...."
+
+"Wally, if you please, Jill. It's not as though we were strangers. I
+haven't my book of etiquette with me, but I fancy that about eleven
+gallons of cold water down the neck constitutes an introduction. What
+were you going to say?"
+
+"It was what you said to Freddie about putting up money. Did you
+really?"
+
+"Put up the money for that ghastly play? I did. Every cent. It was the
+only way to get it put on."
+
+"But why...? I forget what I was going to say!"
+
+"Why did I want it put on? Well, it does seem odd, but I give you my
+honest word that until to-night I thought the darned thing a
+masterpiece. I've been writing musical comedies for the last few
+years, and after you've done that for a while your soul rises up
+within you and says, 'Come, come, my lad! You can do better than
+this!' That's what mine said, and I believed it. Subsequent events
+have proved that Sidney the Soul was pulling my leg!"
+
+"But--then you've lost a great deal of money?"
+
+"The hoarded wealth, if you don't mind my being melodramatic for a
+moment, of a lifetime. And no honest old servitor who dangled me on
+his knee as a baby to come along and offer me his savings! They don't
+make servitors like that in America, worse luck. There is a Swedish
+lady who looks after my simple needs back there, but instinct tells me
+that, if I were to approach her on the subject of loosening up for the
+benefit of the young master, she would call a cop. Still, I've gained
+experience, which they say is just as good as cash, and I've enough
+money left to pay the bill, at any rate, so come along."
+
+In the supper-room of the Savoy Hotel there was, as anticipated, food
+and light and music. It was still early, and the theatres had not yet
+emptied themselves, so that the big room was as yet but half full.
+Wally Mason had found a table in the corner, and proceeded to order
+with the concentration of a hungry man.
+
+"Forgive my dwelling so tensely on the bill-of-fare," he said, when
+the waiter had gone. "You don't know what it means to one in my
+condition to have to choose between _poulet en casserole_ and kidneys
+_a la maitre d'hotel_. A man's cross-roads!"
+
+Jill smiled happily across the table at him. She could hardly believe
+that this old friend with whom she had gone through the perils of the
+night and with whom she was now about to feast was the sinister figure
+that had cast a shadow on her childhood. He looked positively
+incapable of pulling a little girl's hair--as no doubt he was.
+
+"You always were greedy," she commented. "Just before I turned the
+hose on you, I remember you had made yourself thoroughly disliked by
+pocketing a piece of my birthday cake."
+
+"Do you remember that?" His eyes lit up and he smiled back at her. He
+had an ingratiating smile. His mouth was rather wide, and it seemed to
+stretch right across his face. He reminded Jill more than ever of a
+big, friendly dog. "I can feel it now--all squashy in my pocket,
+inextricably mingled with a catapult, a couple of marbles, a box of
+matches, and some string. I was quite the human general store in those
+days. Which reminds me that we have been some time settling down to an
+exchange of our childish reminiscences, haven't we?"
+
+"I've been trying to realize that you are Wally Mason. You have
+altered so."
+
+"For the better?"
+
+"Very much for the better! You were a horrid little brute. You used to
+terrify me. I never knew when you were going to bound out at me from
+behind a tree or something. I remember your chasing me for miles,
+shrieking at the top of your voice!"
+
+"Sheer embarrassment! I told you just now how I used to worship you.
+If I shrieked a little, it was merely because I was shy. I did it to
+hide my devotion."
+
+"You certainly succeeded. I never even suspected it."
+
+Wally sighed.
+
+"How like life! I never told my love, but let concealment like a worm
+i' the bud...."
+
+"Talking of worms, you once put one down my back!"
+
+"No, no," said Wally in a shocked voice. "Not that I I was boisterous,
+perhaps, but surely always the gentleman."
+
+"You did! In the shrubbery. There had been a thunderstorm and...."
+
+"I remember the incident now. A mere misunderstanding. I had done with
+the worm, and thought you might be glad to have it."
+
+"You were always doing things like that. Once you held me over the
+pond and threatened to drop me into the water--in the winter! Just
+before Christmas. It was a particularly mean thing to do, because I
+couldn't even kick your shins for fear you would let me fall. Luckily
+Uncle Chris came up and made you stop."
+
+"You considered that a fortunate occurrence, did you?" said Wally.
+"Well, perhaps from your point of view it may have been. I saw the
+thing from a different angle. Your uncle had a whangee with him. My
+friends sometimes wonder what I mean when I say that my old wound
+troubles me in frosty weather. By the way, how is your uncle?"
+
+"Oh, he's very well. Just as lazy as ever. He's away at present, down
+at Brighton."
+
+"He didn't strike me as lazy," said Wally thoughtfully. "Dynamic would
+express it better. But perhaps I happened to encounter him in a moment
+of energy. Ah!" The waiter had returned with a loaded tray. "The food!
+Forgive me if I seem a little distrait for a moment or two. There is
+man's work before me!"
+
+"And later on, I suppose, you would like a chop or something to take
+away in your pocket?"
+
+"I will think it over. Possibly a little soup. My needs are very
+simple these days."
+
+Jill watched him with a growing sense of satisfaction. There was
+something boyishly engaging about this man. She felt at home with him.
+He affected her in much the same way as did Freddie Rooke. He was a
+definite addition to the things that went to make her happy.
+
+She liked him particularly for being such a good loser. She had
+always been a good loser herself, and the quality was one which she
+admired. It was nice of him to dismiss from his conversation--and
+apparently from his thoughts--that night's fiasco and all that it must
+have cost him. She wondered how much he had lost. Certainly something
+very substantial. Yet it seemed to trouble him not at all. Jill
+considered his behaviour gallant, and her heart warmed to him. This
+was how a man ought to take the slings and arrows of outrageous
+fortune.
+
+Wally sighed contentedly, and leaned back in his chair.
+
+"An unpleasant exhibition!" he said apologetically. "But unavoidable.
+And, anyway, I take it that you prefer to have me well-fed and happy
+about the place than swooning on the floor with starvation. A
+wonderful thing, food! I am now ready to converse intelligently on any
+subject you care to suggest. I have eaten rose-leaves and am no more a
+golden ass, so to speak. What shall we talk about?"
+
+"Tell me about yourself."
+
+"There is no nobler topic. But what aspect of myself do you wish me to
+touch on? My thoughts, my tastes, my amusements, my career, or what? I
+can talk about myself for hours. My friends in New York often complain
+about it bitterly."
+
+"New York?" said Jill. "Oh, then you live in America?"
+
+"Yes. I only came over here to see that darned false alarm of a play
+of mine put on."
+
+"Why didn't you put it on in New York?"
+
+"Too many of the lads of the village know me over there. This was a
+new departure, you see. What the critics in those parts expect from me
+is something entitled 'Wow! Wow!' or 'The Girl from Yonkers.' It would
+have unsettled their minds to find me breaking out in poetic drama.
+They are men of coarse fibre and ribald mind and they would have been
+funny about it. I thought it wiser to come over here among strangers,
+little thinking that I should sit in the next seat to somebody I had
+known all my life."
+
+"But when did you go to America? And why?"
+
+"I think it must have been four--five--well, quite a number of years
+after the hose episode. Probably you didn't observe that I wasn't
+still around, but we crept silently out of the neighbourhood round
+about that time and went to live in London." His tone lost its
+lightness momentarily. "My father died, you know, and that sort of
+broke things up. He didn't leave any too much money, either.
+Apparently we had been living on rather too expensive a scale during
+the time I knew you. At any rate, I was more or less up against it
+until your father got me a job in an office in New York."
+
+"My father!"
+
+"Yes. It was wonderfully good of him to bother about me. I didn't
+suppose he would have known me by sight, and, even if he had
+remembered me, I shouldn't have imagined that the memory would have
+been a pleasant one. But he couldn't have taken more trouble if I had
+been a blood-relation."
+
+"That was just like father," said Jill softly.
+
+"He was a prince."
+
+"But you aren't in the office now?"
+
+"No. I found I had a knack of writing verses and things, and I wrote a
+few vaudeville songs. Then I came across a man named Bevan at a music
+publisher's. He was just starting to write music, and we got together
+and turned out some vaudeville sketches, and then a manager sent for
+us to fix up a show that was dying on the road and we had the good
+luck to turn it into a success, and after that it was pretty good
+going. George Bevan got married the other day. Lucky devil!"
+
+"Are you married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You were faithful to my memory?" said Jill with a smile.
+
+"I was."
+
+"It can't last," said Jill, shaking her head. "One of these days
+you'll meet some lovely American girl and then you'll put a worm down
+her back or pull her hair or whatever it is you do when you want to
+show your devotion, and.... What are you looking at? Is something
+interesting going on behind me?"
+
+He had been looking past her out into the room.
+
+"It's nothing," he said. "Only there's a statuesque old lady about two
+tables back of you who has been staring at you, with intervals for
+refreshment, for the last five minutes. You seem to fascinate her."
+
+"An old lady?"
+
+"Yes. With a glare! She looks like Dunsany's Bird of the Difficult
+Eye. Count ten and turn carelessly round, There, at that table. Almost
+behind you."
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Jill.
+
+She turned quickly round again.
+
+"What's the matter? Do you know her? Somebody you don't want to meet?"
+
+"It's Lady Underhill! And Derek's with her!"
+
+Wally had been lifting his glass. He put it down rather suddenly.
+
+"Derek?" he said.
+
+"Derek Underhill. The man I'm engaged to marry."
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Oh!" said Wally thoughtfully. "The man you're engaged to marry? Yes,
+I see!"
+
+He raised his glass again, and drank its contents quickly.
+
+
+II
+
+Jill looked at her companion anxiously. Recent events had caused her
+completely to forget the existence of Lady Underhill. She was always
+so intensely interested in what she happened to be doing at the moment
+that she often suffered these temporary lapses of memory. It occurred
+to her now--too late, as usual--that the Savoy Hotel was the last
+place in London where she should have come to supper with Wally. It
+was the hotel where Lady Underhill was staying. She frowned. Life had
+suddenly ceased to be careless and happy, and had become a
+problem-ridden thing, full of perplexity and misunderstandings.
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+Wally Mason started at the sound of her voice. He appeared to be deep
+in thoughts of his own.
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"I shouldn't be worried."
+
+"Derek will be awfully cross."
+
+Wally's good-humoured mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.
+
+"Why?" he said. "There's nothing wrong in your having supper with an
+old friend."
+
+"N-no," said Jill doubtfully. "But...."
+
+"Derek Underhill," said Wally reflectively. "Is that Sir Derek
+Underhill, whose name one's always seeing in the papers?"
+
+"Derek is in the papers a lot. He's an M.P. and all sorts of things."
+
+"Good-looking fellow. Ah, here's the coffee."
+
+"I don't want any, thanks."
+
+"Nonsense. Why spoil your meal because of this? Do you smoke?"
+
+"No, thanks."
+
+"Given it up, eh? Daresay you're wise. Stunts the growth and increases
+the expenses."
+
+"Given it up?"
+
+"Don't you remember sharing one of your father's cigars with me behind
+the haystack in the meadow? We cut it in half. I finished my half, but
+I fancy about three puffs were enough for you. Those were happy days!"
+
+"That one wasn't! Of course I remember it now. I don't suppose I shall
+ever forget it."
+
+"The thing was my fault, as usual. I recollect I dared you."
+
+"Yes. I always took a dare."
+
+"Do you still?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+Wally knocked the ash off his cigarette.
+
+"Well," he said slowly, "suppose I were to dare you to get up and walk
+over to that table and look your fiance in the eye and say, 'Stop
+scowling at my back hair! I've a perfect right to be supping with an
+old friend!'--would you do it?"
+
+"Is he?" said Jill startled.
+
+"Scowling? Can't you feel it on the back of your head?" He drew
+thoughtfully at his cigarette. "If I were you I should stop that sort
+of thing at the source. It's a habit that can't be discouraged in a
+husband too early. Scowling is the civilized man's substitute for
+wife-beating."
+
+Jill moved uncomfortably in her chair. Her quick temper resented his
+tone. There was a hostility, a hardly veiled contempt in his voice
+which stung her. Derek was sacred. Whoever criticised him, presumed.
+Wally, a few minutes before a friend and an agreeable companion,
+seemed to her to have changed. He was once more the boy whom she had
+disliked in the old days. There was a gleam in her eyes which should
+have warned him, but he went on.
+
+"I should imagine that this Derek of yours is not one of our leading
+sunbeams. Well, I suppose he could hardly be, if that's his mother and
+there is anything in heredity."
+
+"Please don't criticise Derek," said Jill coldly.
+
+"I was only saying...."
+
+"Never mind. I don't like it."
+
+A slow flush crept over Wally's face. He made no reply, and there fell
+between them a silence that was like a shadow, Jill sipped her coffee
+miserably. She was regretting that little spurt of temper. She wished
+she could have recalled the words. Not that it was the actual words
+that had torn asunder this gossamer thing, the friendship which they
+had begun to weave like some fragile web: it was her manner, the
+manner of the princess rebuking an underling. She knew that, if she
+had struck him, she could not have offended Wally more deeply. There
+are some men whose ebullient natures enable them to rise unscathed
+from the worst snub. Wally, her intuition told her, was not that kind
+of man.
+
+There was only one way of mending the matter. In these clashes of
+human temperaments, these sudden storms that spring up out of a clear
+sky, it is possible sometimes to repair the damage, if the
+psychological moment is resolutely seized, by talking rapidly and with
+detachment on neutral topics. Words have made the rift, and words
+alone can bridge it. But neither Jill nor her companion could find
+words, and the silence lengthened grimly. When Wally spoke, it was in
+the level tones of a polite stranger.
+
+"Your friends have gone."
+
+His voice was the voice in which, when she went on railway journeys,
+fellow-travellers in the carriage enquired of Jill if she would prefer
+the window up or down. It had the effect of killing her regrets and
+feeding her resentment. She was a girl who never refused a challenge,
+and she set herself to be as frigidly polite and aloof as he.
+
+"Really?" she said. "When did they leave?"
+
+"A moment ago." The lights gave the warning flicker that announces the
+arrival of the hour of closing. In the momentary darkness they both
+rose. Wally scrawled his name across the bill which the waiter had
+insinuated upon his attention. "I suppose we had better be moving?"
+
+They crossed the room in silence. Everybody was moving in the same
+direction. The broad stairway leading to the lobby was crowded with
+chattering supper-parties. The light had gone up again.
+
+At the cloak-room Wally stopped.
+
+"I see Underhill waiting up there," he said casually. "To take you
+home, I suppose. Shall we say good-night? I'm staying in the hotel."
+
+Jill glanced towards the head of the stairs. Derek was there. He was
+alone. Lady Underhill presumably had gone up to her room in the
+elevator.
+
+Wally was holding out his hand. His face was stolid and his eyes
+avoided hers.
+
+"Good-bye," he said.
+
+"Good-bye," said Jill.
+
+She felt curiously embarrassed. At this last moment hostility had
+weakened, and she was conscious of a desire to make amends. She and
+this man had been through much together that night, much that was
+perilous and much that was pleasant. A sudden feeling of remorse came
+over her.
+
+"You'll come and see us, won't you?" she said a little wistfully. "I'm
+sure my uncle would like to meet you again."
+
+"It's very good of you," said Wally, "but I'm afraid I shall be going
+back to America at any moment now."
+
+Pique, that ally of the devil, regained its slipping grip upon Jill.
+
+"Oh? I'm sorry," she said indifferently. "Well, good-bye, then."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"I hope you have a pleasant voyage."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+He turned into the cloak-room, and Jill went up the stairs to join
+Derek. She felt angry and depressed, full of a sense of the futility
+of things. People flashed into one's life and out again. Where was the
+sense of it?
+
+
+III
+
+Derek had been scowling, and Derek still scowled. His eyebrows were
+formidable, and his mouth smiled no welcome at Jill as she approached
+him. The evening, portions of which Jill had found so enjoyable, had
+contained no pleasant portions for Derek. Looking back over a lifetime
+whose events had been almost uniformly agreeable, he told himself
+that he could not recall another day which had gone so completely
+awry. It had started with the fog. He hated fog. Then had come that
+meeting with his mother at Charing Cross, which had been enough to
+upset him by itself. After that, rising to a crescendo of
+unpleasantness, the day had provided that appalling situation at the
+Albany, the recollection of which still made him tingle; and there had
+followed the silent dinner, the boredom of the early part of the play,
+the fire at the theatre, the undignified scramble for the exits, and
+now this discovery of the girl whom he was engaged to marry supping at
+the Savoy with a fellow he didn't remember ever having seen in his
+life. All these things combined to induce in Derek a mood bordering on
+ferocity. His birth and income combining to make him one of the
+spoiled children of the world, had fitted him ill for such a series of
+catastrophes. He received Jill with frozen silence and led her out to
+the waiting taxi-cab. It was only when the cab had started on its
+journey that he found relief in speech.
+
+"Well," he said, mastering with difficulty an inclination to raise his
+voice to a shout, "perhaps you will kindly explain?"
+
+Jill had sunk back against the cushions of the cab. The touch of his
+body against hers always gave her a thrill, half pleasurable, half
+frightening. She had never met anybody who affected her in this way as
+Derek did. She moved a little closer, and felt for his hand. But, as
+she touched it, it retreated--coldly. Her heart sank. It was like
+being cut in public by somebody very dignified.
+
+"Derek, darling!" Her lips trembled. Others had seen this side of
+Derek Underhill frequently, for he was a man who believed in keeping
+the world in its place, but she never. To her he had always been the
+perfect, gracious knight. A little too perfect, perhaps, a trifle too
+gracious, possibly, but she had been too deeply in love to notice
+that. "Don't be cross!"
+
+The English language is the richest in the world, and yet somehow in
+moments when words count most we generally choose the wrong ones. The
+adjective "cross" as a description of his Jove-like wrath that
+consumed his whole being jarred upon Derek profoundly. It was as
+though Prometheus, with the vultures tearing his liver, had been asked
+if he were piqued.
+
+"Cross!"
+
+The cab rolled on. Lights from lamp-posts flashed in at windows. It
+was a pale, anxious little face that they lit up when they shone upon
+Jill.
+
+"I can't understand you," said Derek at last. Jill noticed that he had
+not yet addressed her by her name. He was speaking straight out in
+front of him as if he were soliloquising. "I simply cannot understand
+you. After what happened before dinner to-night, for you to cap
+everything by going off alone to supper at a restaurant, where half
+the people in the room must have known you, with a man...."
+
+"You don't understand!"
+
+"Exactly! I said I did not understand." The feeling of having scored a
+point made Derek feel a little better. "I admit it. Your behaviour is
+incomprehensible. Where did you meet this fellow?"
+
+"I met him at the theatre. He was the author of the play."
+
+"The man you told me you had been talking to? The fellow who scraped
+acquaintance with you between the acts?"
+
+"But I found out he was an old friend. I mean, I knew him when I was a
+child."
+
+"You didn't tell me that."
+
+"I only found it out later."
+
+"After he had invited you to supper! It's maddening!" cried Derek, the
+sense of his wrongs surging back over him. "What do you suppose my
+mother thought? She asked me who the man with you was. I had to say I
+didn't know! What do you suppose she thought?"
+
+It is to be doubted whether anything else in the world could have
+restored the fighting spirit to Jill's cowering soul at that moment;
+but the reference to Lady Underhill achieved this miracle. That deep
+mutual antipathy which is so much more common than love at first sight
+had sprung up between the two at the instant of their meeting. The
+circumstances of that meeting had caused it to take root and grow. To
+Jill, Derek's mother was by this time not so much a fellow human being
+whom she disliked as a something, a sort of force, that made for her
+unhappiness. She was a menace and a loathing.
+
+"If your mother had asked me that question," she retorted with spirit,
+"I should have told her that he was the man who got me safely out of
+the theatre after you...." She checked herself. She did not want to
+say the unforgivable thing. "You see," she said more quietly, "you had
+disappeared...."
+
+"My mother is an old woman," said Derek stiffly. "Naturally I had to
+look after her. I called to you to follow."
+
+"Oh, I understand. I'm simply trying to explain what happened. I was
+there all alone, and Wally Mason...."
+
+"Wally!" Derek uttered a short laugh, almost a bark. "It got to
+Christian names, eh?"
+
+Jill set her teeth.
+
+"I told you I knew him as a child. I always called him Wally then."
+
+"I beg your pardon. I had forgotten."
+
+"He got me out through the pass-door on to the stage and through the
+stage-door."
+
+Derek was feeling cheated. He had the uncomfortable sensation that
+comes to men who grandly contemplate mountains and see them dwindle to
+molehills. The apparently outrageous had shown itself in explanation
+nothing so out-of-the-way after all. He seized upon the single point
+in Jill's behaviour that still constituted a grievance.
+
+"There was no need for you to go to supper with the man!" Jove-like
+wrath had ebbed away to something deplorably like a querulous grumble.
+"You should have gone straight home. You must have known how anxious I
+would be about you."
+
+"Well, really, Derek, dear! You didn't seem so very anxious! You were
+having supper yourself quite cosily."
+
+The human mind is curiously constituted. It is worthy of record that,
+despite his mother's obvious disapproval of his engagement, despite
+all the occurrences of this dreadful day, it was not till she made
+this remark that Derek Underhill first admitted to himself that,
+intoxicate his senses as she might, there was a possibility that Jill
+Mariner was not the ideal wife for him. The idea came and went more
+quickly than breath upon a mirror. It passed, but it had been. There
+are men who fear repartee in a wife more keenly than a sword. Derek
+was one of these. Like most men of single outlook, whose dignity is
+their most precious possession, he winced from an edged tongue.
+
+"My mother was greatly upset," he replied coldly. "I thought a cup of
+soup would do her good. And, as for being anxious about you, I
+telephoned to your home to ask if you had come in."
+
+"And when," thought Jill, "they told you I hadn't, you went off to
+supper!"
+
+She did not speak the words. If she had an edged tongue, she had also
+the control of it. She had no wish to wound Derek. Whole-hearted in
+everything she did, she loved him with her whole heart. There might be
+specks upon her idol--that its feet might be clay she could never
+believe--but they mattered nothing. She loved him.
+
+"I'm so sorry, dear," she said. "So awfully sorry! I've been a bad
+girl, haven't I?"
+
+She felt for his hand again, and this time he allowed it to remain
+stiffly in her grasp. It was like being grudgingly recognized by
+somebody very dignified who had his doubts about you but reserved
+judgment.
+
+The cab drew up at the door of the house in Ovingdon Square which
+Jill's Uncle Christopher had settled upon as a suitable address for a
+gentleman of his standing. Jill put up her face to be kissed, like a
+penitent child.
+
+"I'll never be naughty again!"
+
+For a flickering instant Derek hesitated. The drive, long as it was,
+had been too short wholly to restore his equanimity. Then the sense of
+her nearness, her sweetness, the faint perfume of her hair, and her
+eyes, shining softly in the darkness so close to his own, overcame
+him. He crushed her to him.
+
+Jill disappeared into the house with a happy laugh. It had been a
+terrible day, but it had ended well.
+
+"The Albany," said Derek to the cabman.
+
+He leaned back against the cushions. His senses were in a whirl. The
+cab rolled on. Presently his exalted mood vanished as quickly as it
+had come. Jill absent always affected him differently from Jill
+present. He was not a man of strong imagination, and the stimulus of
+her waned when she was not with him. Long before the cab reached the
+Albany the frown was back on his face.
+
+
+IV
+
+Arriving at the Albany, he found Freddie Rooke lying on his spine in a
+deep arm-chair. His slippered feet were on the mantelpiece, and he was
+restoring his wasted tissues with a strong whisky-and-soda. One of
+the cigars which Barker, the valet, had stamped with the seal of his
+approval was in the corner of his mouth. The _Sporting Times_, with a
+perusal of which he had been soothing his fluttered nerves, had fallen
+on the floor beside the chair. He had finished reading, and was now
+gazing peacefully at the ceiling, his mind a perfect blank. There was
+nothing the matter with Freddie.
+
+"Hullo, old thing," he observed as Derek entered. "So you buzzed out
+of the fiery furnace all right? I was wondering how you had got along.
+How are you feeling? I'm not the man I was! These things get the old
+system all stirred up! I'll do anything in reason to oblige and help
+things along and all that, but to be called on at a moment's notice to
+play Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego rolled into one, without
+rehearsal or make-up, is a bit too thick! No, young feller-me-lad! If
+theatre fires are going to be the fashion this season, the Last of the
+Rookes will sit quietly at home and play solitaire. Mix yourself a
+drink of something, old man, or something of that kind. By the way,
+your jolly old mater. All right? Not even singed? Fine! Make a long
+arm and gather in a cigar."
+
+And Freddie, having exerted himself to play the host in a suitable
+manner, wedged himself more firmly into his chair and blew a cloud of
+smoke.
+
+Derek sat down. He lit a cigar, and stared silently at the fire. From
+the mantelpiece Jill's photograph smiled down, but he did not look at
+it. Presently his attitude began to weigh upon Freddie. Freddie had
+had a trying evening What he wanted just now was merry prattle, and
+his friend did not seem disposed to contribute his share. He removed
+his feet from the mantelpiece and wriggled himself sideways, so that
+he could see Derek's face. Its gloom touched him. Apart from his
+admiration for Derek, he was a warmhearted young man, and sympathized
+with affliction when it presented itself for his notice.
+
+"Something on your mind, old bean?" he enquired delicately.
+
+Derek did not answer for a moment. Then he reflected that, little as
+he esteemed the other's mentality, he and Freddie had known each other
+a long time, and that it would be a relief to confide in some one. And
+Freddie, moreover, was an old friend of Jill and the man who had
+introduced him to her.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"I'm listening, old top," said Freddie. "Release the film."
+
+Derek drew at his cigar, and watched the smoke as it curled to the
+ceiling.
+
+"It's about Jill."
+
+Freddie signified his interest by wriggling still further sideways.
+
+"Jill, eh?"
+
+"Freddie, she's so damned impulsive!"
+
+Freddie nearly rolled out of his chair. This, he took it, was what
+writing-chappies called a coincidence.
+
+"Rummy you should say that," he ejaculated. "I was telling her exactly
+the same thing myself only this evening." He hesitated. "I fancy I can
+see what you're driving at, old thing. The watchword is 'What ho, the
+mater!' yes, no? You've begun to get a sort of idea that if Jill
+doesn't watch her step, she's apt to sink pretty low in the betting,
+what? I know exactly what you mean! You and I know all right that
+Jill's a topper. But one can see that to your mater she might seem a
+bit different. I mean to say, your jolly old mater only judging by
+first impressions, and the meeting not having come off quite as
+scheduled.... I say, old man," he broke off, "fearfully sorry and all
+that about that business. You know what I mean! Wouldn't have had it
+happen for the world. I take it the mater was a trifle peeved? Not to
+say perturbed and chagrined? I seemed to notice it at dinner."
+
+"She was furious, of course. She did not refer to the matter when we
+were alone together, but there was no need to. I knew what she was
+thinking."
+
+Derek threw away his cigar. Freddie noted this evidence of an
+overwrought soul with concern.
+
+"The whole thing," he conceded, "was a bit unfortunate."
+
+Derek began to pace the room.
+
+"Freddie."
+
+"On the spot, old man."
+
+"Something's got to be done."
+
+"Absolutely!" Freddie nodded solemnly. He had taken this matter
+greatly to heart. Derek was his best friend, and he had always been
+extremely fond of Jill. It hurt him to see things going wrong. "I'll
+tell you what, old bean. Let _me_ handle this binge for you."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Me! The Final Rooke!" He jumped up, and leaned against the
+mantelpiece. "I'm the lad to do it. I've known Jill for years. She'll
+listen to me. I'll talk to her like a Dutch uncle and make her
+understand the general scheme of things. I'll take her out to tea
+to-morrow and slang her in no uncertain voice! Leave the whole thing
+to _me_, laddie!"
+
+Derek considered.
+
+"It might do some good," he said.
+
+"Good?" said Freddie. "It's _it_, dear boy! It's a wheeze! You toddle
+off to bed and have a good sleep. I'll fix the whole thing for you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LADY UNDERHILL RECEIVES A SHOCK
+
+I
+
+
+There are streets in London into which the sun seems never to
+penetrate. Some of these are in fashionable quarters, and it is to be
+supposed that their inhabitants find an address which looks well on
+note-paper a sufficient compensation for the gloom that goes with it.
+The majority, however, are in the mean neighbourhoods of the great
+railway termini, and appear to offer no compensation whatever. They
+are lean, furtive streets, grey as the January sky with a sort of
+arrested decay. They smell of cabbage and are much prowled over by
+vagrom cats. At night they are empty and dark, and a stillness broods
+on them, broken only by the cracked tingle of an occasional piano
+playing one of the easier hymns, a form of music to which the dwellers
+in the dingy houses are greatly addicted. By day they achieve a
+certain animation through the intermittent appearance of women in
+aprons, who shake rugs out of the front doors or, emerging from areas,
+go down to the public-house on the corner with jugs to fetch the
+supper-beer. In almost every ground-floor window there is a card
+announcing that furnished lodgings may be had within. You will find
+these streets by the score if you leave the main thoroughfares and
+take a short cut on your way to Euston, to Paddington, or to Waterloo.
+But the dingiest and deadliest and most depressing lie round about
+Victoria. And Daubeny Street, Pimlico, is one of the worst of them
+all.
+
+On the afternoon following the events recorded, a girl was dressing in
+the ground-floor room of Number Nine, Daubeny Street. A tray bearing
+the remains of a late breakfast stood on the rickety table beside a
+bowl of wax flowers. From beneath the table peered the green cover of
+a copy of _Variety_. A grey parrot in a cage by the window cracked
+seed and looked out into the room with a satirical eye. He had seen
+all this so many times before--Nelly Bryant arraying herself in her
+smartest clothes to go out and besiege agents in their offices off the
+Strand. It happened every day. In an hour or two she would come back
+as usual, say "Oh, Gee!" in a tired sort of voice, and then Bill the
+parrot's day proper would begin. He was a bird who liked the sound of
+his own voice, and he never got the chance of a really sustained
+conversation till Nelly returned in the evening.
+
+"Who cares?" said Bill, and cracked another seed.
+
+If rooms are an indication of the characters of their occupants, Nelly
+Bryant came well out of the test of her surroundings. Nothing can make
+a London furnished room much less horrible than it intends to be, but
+Nelly had done her best. The furniture, what there was of it, was of
+that lodging-house kind which resembles nothing else in the world. But
+a few little touches here and there, a few instinctively tasteful
+alterations in the general scheme of things, had given the room almost
+a cosy air. Later on, with the gas lit, it would achieve something
+approaching homeliness. Nelly, like many another nomad, had taught
+herself to accomplish a good deal with poor material. On tour in
+America, she had sometimes made even a bedroom in a small hotel
+tolerably comfortable, than which there is no greater achievement.
+Oddly, considering her life, she had a genius for domesticity.
+
+To-day, not for the first time, Nelly was feeling unhappy. The face
+that looked back at her out of the mirror at which she was arranging
+her most becoming hat was weary. It was only a moderately pretty face,
+but loneliness and underfeeding had given it a wistful expression that
+had charm. Unfortunately, it was not the sort of charm which made a
+great appeal to the stout, whisky-nourished men who sat behind
+paper-littered tables, smoking cigars, in the rooms marked "Private"
+in the offices of theatrical agents. Nelly had been out of a "shop"
+now for many weeks--ever since, in fact, "Follow the Girl" had
+finished its long run at the Regal Theatre.
+
+"Follow the Girl," an American musical comedy, had come over from New
+York with an American company, of which Nelly had been a humble unit,
+and, after playing a year in London and some weeks in the number one
+towns, had returned to New York. It did not cheer Nelly up in the long
+evenings in Daubeny Street to reflect that, if she had wished, she
+could have gone home with the rest of the company. A mad impulse had
+seized her to try her luck in London, and here she was now, marooned.
+
+"Who cares?" said Bill.
+
+For a bird who enjoyed talking he was a little limited in his remarks
+and apt to repeat himself.
+
+"I do, you poor fish!" said Nelly, completing her manoeuvres with
+the hat and turning to the cage. "It's all right for you--you have a
+swell time with nothing to do but sit there and eat seed--but how do
+you suppose I enjoy tramping around looking for work and never finding
+any?"
+
+She picked up her gloves. "Oh, well!" she said. "Wish me luck!"
+
+"Good-bye, boy!" said the parrot, clinging to the bars.
+
+Nelly thrust a finger into the cage, and scratched his head.
+
+"Anxious to get rid of me, aren't you? Well, so long."
+
+"Good-bye, boy!"
+
+"All right, I'm going. Be good!"
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" barked Bill the parrot, not committing himself to
+any promises.
+
+For some moments after Nelly had gone he remained hunched on his
+perch, contemplating the infinite. Then he sauntered along to the
+seed-box and took some more light nourishment. He always liked to
+spread his meals out, to make them last longer. A drink of water to
+wash the food down, and he returned to the middle of the cage, where
+he proceeded to conduct a few intimate researches with his beak under
+his left wing. After which he mewed like a cat, and relapsed into
+silent meditation once more. He closed his eyes and pondered on his
+favourite problem--Why was he a parrot? This was always good for an
+hour or so, and it was three o'clock before he had come to his
+customary decision that he didn't know. Then, exhausted by brain-work
+and feeling a trifle hipped by the silence of the room, he looked
+about him for some way of jazzing existence up a little. It occurred
+to him that if he barked again it might help.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!"
+
+Good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. It was not real
+excitement. Something rather more dashing seemed to him to be
+indicated. He hammered for a moment or two on the floor of his cage,
+ate a mouthful of the newspaper there, and stood with his head on one
+side, chewing thoughtfully. It didn't taste as good as usual. He
+suspected Nelly of having changed his _Daily Mail_ for the _Daily
+Express_ or something. He swallowed the piece of paper, and was struck
+by the thought that a little climbing exercise might be what his soul
+demanded. (You hang on by your beak and claws and work your way up to
+the roof. It sounds tame, but it's something to do.) He tried it. And,
+as he gripped the door of the cage it swung open. Bill the parrot now
+perceived that this was going to be one of those days. He had not had
+a bit of luck like this for months.
+
+For a while he sat regarding the open door. Unless excited by outside
+influences, he never did anything in a hurry. Then proceeding
+cautiously, he passed out into the room. He had been out there before,
+but always chaperoned by Nelly. This was something quite different. It
+was an adventure. He hopped on to the window-sill. There was a ball of
+yellow wool there, but he had lunched and could eat nothing. He cast
+around in his mind for something to occupy him, and perceived suddenly
+that the world was larger than he had supposed. Apparently there was a
+lot of it outside the room. How long this had been going on he did not
+know, but obviously it was a thing to be investigated. The window was
+open at the bottom, and just outside the window were what he took to
+be the bars of another and larger cage. As a matter of fact they were
+the railings which afforded a modest protection to Number Nine. They
+ran the length of the house, and were much used by small boys as a
+means of rattling sticks. One of these stick-rattlers passed as Bill
+stood there looking down. The noise startled him for a moment, then he
+seemed to come to the conclusion that this sort of thing was to be
+expected if you went out into the great world and that a parrot who
+intended to see life must not allow himself to be deterred by trifles.
+He crooned a little, and finally, stepping in a stately way over the
+window-sill, with his toes turned in at right angles, caught at the
+top of the railing with his beak, and proceeded to lower himself.
+Arrived at the level of the street, he stood looking out.
+
+A dog trotted up, spied him, and came to sniff.
+
+"Good-bye, boy!" said Bill chattily.
+
+The dog was taken aback. Hitherto, in his limited experience, birds
+had been birds and men men. Here was a blend of the two. What was to
+be done about it? He barked tentatively, then, finding that nothing
+disastrous ensued, pushed his nose between two of the bars and barked
+again. Any one who knew Bill could have told him that he was asking
+for it, and he got it. Bill leaned forward and nipped his nose. The
+dog started back with a howl of agony. He was learning something new
+every minute.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill sardonically.
+
+He perceived trousered legs, four of them, and, cocking his eye
+upwards, saw that two men of the lower orders stood before him. They
+were gazing down at him in the stolid manner peculiar to the
+proletariat of London in the presence of the unusual. For some minutes
+they stood drinking him in, then one of them gave judgment.
+
+"It's a parrot!" He removed a pipe from his mouth and pointed with the
+stem. "A perishin' parrot, Erb."
+
+"Ah!" said Erb, a man of few words.
+
+"A parrot," proceeded the other. He was seeing clearer into the matter
+every moment. "That's a parrot, that is Erb. My brother Joe's wife's
+sister had one of 'em. Come from abroad, _they_ do. My brother Joe's
+wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. Red-'aired gel she was. Married a feller
+down at the Docks _She_ 'ad one of 'em. Parrots they're called."
+
+He bent down for a closer inspection, and inserted a finger through
+the railings. Erb abandoned his customary taciturnity and spoke words
+of warning.
+
+"Tike care 'e don't sting yer, 'Enry!"
+
+Henry seemed wounded.
+
+"Woddyer mean, sting me? I know all abart parrots, I do. My brother
+Joe's wife's sister 'ad one of 'em. They don't 'urt yer, not if you're
+kind to 'em. You know yer pals when you see 'em, don't yer, mate?" he
+went on, addressing Bill, who was contemplating the finger with one
+half-closed eye.
+
+"Good-bye, boy," said the parrot, evading the point.
+
+"Jear that?" cried Henry delightedly. "'Goo'-bye, boy!' 'Uman they
+are!"
+
+"'E'll 'ave a piece out of yer finger," warned Erb the suspicious.
+
+"Wot, 'im?" Henry's voice was indignant. He seemed to think that his
+reputation as an expert on parrots had been challenged. "'E wouldn't
+'ave no piece out of my finger."
+
+"Bet yer a narf-pint 'e would 'ave a piece out of yer finger,"
+persisted the sceptic.
+
+"No blinkin' parrot's goin' to 'ave no piece of no finger of mine! My
+brother Joe's wife's sister's parrot never 'ad no piece out of no
+finger of mine!" He extended the finger further and waggled it
+enticingly beneath Bill's beak. "Cheerio, matey!" he said winningly.
+"Polly want a nut?"
+
+Whether it was mere indolence or whether the advertised docility of
+that other parrot belonging to Henry's brother's wife's sister had
+caused him to realize that there was a certain standard of good
+conduct for his species one cannot say; but for a while Bill merely
+contemplated temptation with a detached eye.
+
+"See!" said Henry.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill.
+
+"_Wow-Wow-Wow_!" yapped the dog, suddenly returning to the scene and
+going on with the argument at the point where he had left off.
+
+The effect on Bill was catastrophic. Ever a high-strung bird, he lost
+completely the repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere and the
+better order of parrot. His nerves were shocked, and, as always under
+such conditions, his impulse was to bite blindly. He bit, and
+Henry--one feels sorry for Henry: he was a well-meaning man--leaped
+back with a loud howl.
+
+"'That'll be 'arf a pint," said Erb, always the business man.
+
+There was a lull in the rapid action. The dog, mumbling softly to
+himself, had moved away again and was watching affairs from the edge
+of the sidewalk. Erb, having won his point, was silent once more.
+Henry sucked his finger. Bill, having met the world squarely and shown
+it what was what, stood where he was, whistling nonchalantly.
+
+Henry removed his finger from his mouth. "Lend the loan of that stick
+of yours, Erb," he said tensely.
+
+Erb silently yielded up the stout stick which was his inseparable
+companion. Henry, a vastly different man from the genial saunterer of
+a moment ago, poked wildly through the railings. Bill, panic-stricken
+now and wishing for nothing better than to be back in his cosy cage,
+shrieked loudly for help. And Freddie Rooke, running round the corner
+with Jill, stopped dead and turned pale.
+
+"Good God!" said Freddie.
+
+
+II
+
+In pursuance of his overnight promise to Derek, Freddie Rooke had got
+in touch with Jill through the medium of the telephone immediately
+after breakfast, and had arranged to call at Ovingdon Square in the
+afternoon. Arrived there, he found Jill with a telegram in her hand.
+Her Uncle Christopher, who had been enjoying a breath of sea-air down
+at Brighton, was returning by an afternoon train, and Jill had
+suggested that Freddie should accompany her to Victoria, pick up Uncle
+Chris, and escort him home. Freddie, whose idea had been a
+_tete-a-tete_ involving a brotherly lecture on impetuosity, had
+demurred but had given way in the end; and they had set out to walk to
+Victoria together. Their way had lain through Daubeny Street, and they
+turned the corner just as the brutal onslaught on the innocent Henry
+had occurred. Bill's shrieks, which were of an appalling timbre,
+brought them to a halt.
+
+"What is it?" cried Jill.
+
+"It sounds like a murder!"
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"I don't know, you know. This is the sort of street chappies are
+murdering people in all the time."
+
+They caught sight of the group in front of them, and were reassured.
+Nobody could possibly be looking so aloof and distrait as Erb if there
+were a murder going on.
+
+"It's a bird!"
+
+"It's a jolly old parrot. See it? Just inside the railings."
+
+A red-hot wave of rage swept over Jill. Whatever her defects--and
+already this story has shown her far from perfect--she had the
+excellent quality of loving animals and blazing into fury when she saw
+them ill-treated. At least three draymen were going about London with
+burning ears as the result of what she had said to them on discovering
+them abusing their patient horses. Zoologically, Bill the parrot was
+not an animal, but he counted as one with Jill, and she sped down
+Daubeny Street to his rescue--Freddie, spatted and hatted and
+trousered as became the man of fashion, following disconsolately,
+ruefully aware that he did not look his best sprinting like that. But
+Jill was cutting out a warm pace, and he held his hat on with one
+neatly-gloved hand and did what he could to keep up.
+
+Jill reached the scene of battle, and, stopping, eyed Henry with a
+baleful glare. We, who have seen Henry in his calmer moments and know
+him for the good fellow he was, are aware that he was more sinned
+against than sinning. If there is any spirit of justice in us, we are
+pro-Henry. In his encounter with Bill the parrot, Henry undoubtedly
+had right on his side. His friendly overtures, made in the best spirit
+of kindliness, had been repulsed. He had been severely bitten. And he
+had lost half a pint of beer to Erb. As impartial judges we have no
+other course before us than to wish Henry luck and bid him go to it.
+But Jill, who had not seen the opening stages of the affair, thought
+far otherwise. She merely saw in Henry a great brute of a man poking
+at a defenceless bird with a stick.
+
+She turned to Freddie, who had come up at a gallop and was wondering
+why the deuce this sort of thing happened to him out of a city of six
+millions.
+
+"Make him stop, Freddie!"
+
+"Oh, I say, you know, what?"
+
+"Can't you see he's hurting the poor thing? Make him leave off!
+Brute!" she added to Henry (for whom one's heart bleeds), as he jabbed
+once again at his adversary.
+
+Freddie stepped reluctantly up to Henry, and tapped him on the
+shoulder. Freddie was one of those men who have a rooted idea that a
+conversation of this sort can only be begun by a tap on the shoulder.
+
+"'Look here, you know, you can't do this sort of thing, you know!"
+said Freddie.
+
+Henry raised a scarlet face.
+
+"'Oo are _you_?" he demanded.
+
+This attack from the rear, coming on top of his other troubles, tried
+his restraint sorely.
+
+"Well--" Freddie hesitated. It seemed silly to offer the fellow one of
+his cards. "Well, as a matter of fact, my name's Rooke...."
+
+"And who," pursued Henry, "arsked _you_ to come shoving your ugly mug
+in 'ere?"
+
+"Well, if you put it that way...."
+
+"'E comes messing abart," said Henry complainingly, addressing the
+universe, "and interfering in what don't concern 'im and mucking
+around and interfering and messing abart.... Why," he broke off in a
+sudden burst of eloquence, "I could eat two of you for a relish wiv me
+tea, even if you '_ave_ got white spats!"
+
+Here Erb, who had contributed nothing to the conversation, remarked
+"Ah!" and expectorated on the sidewalk. The point, one gathers, seemed
+to Erb well taken. A neat thrust, was Erb's verdict.
+
+"Just because you've got white spats," proceeded Henry, on whose
+sensitive mind these adjuncts of the costume of the well-dressed man
+about town seemed to have made a deep and unfavourable impression,
+"you think you can come mucking around and messing abart and
+interfering and mucking around. This bird's bit me in the finger, and
+'ere's the finger, if you don't believe me--and I'm going to twist 'is
+ruddy neck, if all the perishers with white spats in London come
+messing abart and mucking around, so you take them white spats of
+yours 'ome and give 'em to the old woman to cook for your Sunday
+dinner!"
+
+And Henry, having cleansed his stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
+which weighs upon the heart, shoved the stick energetically once more
+through the railings.
+
+Jill darted forward. Always a girl who believed that, if you want a
+thing well done, you must do it yourself, she had applied to Freddie
+for assistance merely as a matter of form. All the time she had felt
+that Freddie was a broken reed, and such he had proved himself.
+Freddie's policy in this affair was obviously to rely on the magic of
+speech, and any magic his speech might have had was manifestly offset
+by the fact that he was wearing white spats and that Henry,
+apparently, belonged to some sort of league or society which had for
+its main object the discouragement of white spats. It was plainly no
+good leaving the conduct of the campaign to Freddie. Whatever was to
+be done must be done by herself. She seized the stick and wrenched it
+out of Henry's hand.
+
+"Woof-woof-woof!" said Bill the parrot.
+
+No dispassionate auditor could have failed to detect the nasty ring of
+sarcasm. It stung Henry. He was not normally a man who believed in
+violence to the gentler sex outside a clump on the head of his missus
+when the occasion seemed to demand it; but now he threw away the
+guiding principles of a lifetime and turned on Jill like a tiger.
+
+"Gimme that stick!"
+
+"Get back!"
+
+"Here, I say, you know!" said Freddie.
+
+Henry, now thoroughly overwrought, made a rush at Jill; and Jill, who
+had a straight eye, hit him accurately on the side of the head.
+
+"Goo!" said Henry, and sat down.
+
+And then, from behind Jill, a voice spoke.
+
+"What's all this?"
+
+A stout policeman had manifested himself from empty space.
+
+"This won't do!" said the policeman.
+
+Erb, who had been a silent spectator of the fray, burst into speech.
+
+"She 'it 'im!"
+
+The policeman looked at Jill. He was an officer of many years' experience
+in the Force, and time had dulled in him that respect for good clothes
+which he had brought with him from Little-Sudbury-in-the-Wold in the days
+of his novitiate. Jill was well dressed, but, in the stirring epoch of the
+Suffrage disturbances, the policeman had been kicked on the shins and even
+bitten by ladies of an equally elegant exterior. Hearts, the policeman
+knew, just as pure and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the lowlier
+air of Seven Dials, but you have to pinch them just the same when they
+disturb the peace. His gaze, as it fell upon Jill, red-handed as it were
+with the stick still in her grasp, was stern.
+
+"Your name, please, and address, miss?" he said.
+
+A girl in blue with a big hat had come up, and was standing staring
+open-mouthed at the group. At the sight of her Bill the parrot uttered
+a shriek of welcome. Nelly Bryant had returned, and everything would
+now be all right again.
+
+"Mariner," said Jill, pale and bright-eyed. "I live at Number
+Twenty-two, Ovingdon Square."
+
+"And yours, sir?"
+
+"Mine? Oh, ah, yes. I see what you mean. Rooke, you know. F. L. Rooke.
+I live at the Albany and all that sort of thing."
+
+The policeman made an entry in his note-book.
+
+"Officer," cried Jill, "this man was trying to kill that parrot and I
+stopped him...."
+
+"Can't help that, miss. You 'adn't no right to hit a man with a stick.
+You'll 'ave to come along."
+
+"But, I say, you know!" Freddie was appalled. This sort of thing had
+happened to him before, but only on Boat-Race Night at the Empire,
+where it was expected of a chappie. "I mean to say!"
+
+"And you, too, sir. You're both in it."
+
+"But...."
+
+"Oh, come along, Freddie," said Jill quietly. "It's perfectly absurd,
+but it's no use making a fuss."
+
+"That," said the policeman cordially, "is the right spirit!"
+
+
+III
+
+Lady Underhill paused for breath. She had been talking long and
+vehemently. She and Derek were sitting in Freddie Rooke's apartment at
+the Albany, and the subject of her monologue was Jill. Derek had been
+expecting the attack, and had wondered why it had not come before. All
+through supper on the previous night, even after the discovery that
+Jill was supping at a near-by table with a man who was a stranger to
+her son, Lady Underhill had preserved a grim reticence with regard to
+her future daughter-in-law. But to-day she had spoken her mind with
+all the energy which comes of suppression. She had relieved herself
+with a flow of words of all the pent-up hostility that had been
+growing within her since that first meeting in this same room. She had
+talked rapidly, for she was talking against time. The Town Council of
+the principal city in Derek's constituency in the north of England had
+decided that to-morrow morning should witness the laying of the
+foundation stone of their new Town Hall, and Derek as the sitting
+member was to preside at the celebration. Already Barker had been
+dispatched to telephone for a cab to take him to the station, and at
+any moment their conversation might be interrupted. So Lady Underhill
+made the most of what little time she had.
+
+Derek listened gloomily, scarcely rousing himself to reply. His mother
+would have been gratified could she have known how powerfully her
+arguments were working on him. That little imp of doubt which had
+vexed him in the cab as he drove home from Ovingdon Square had not
+died in the night. It had grown and waxed more formidable. And now,
+aided by this ally from without, it had become a Colossus straddling
+his soul. Derek looked frequently at the clock, and cursed the unknown
+cabman whose delay was prolonging the scene. Something told him that
+only flight could serve him now. He never had been able to withstand
+his mother in one of her militant moods. She seemed to numb his
+faculties. Other members of his family had also noted this quality in
+Lady Underhill, and had commented on it bitterly in the smoking-rooms
+of distant country-houses at the hour when men meet to drink the final
+whisky-and-soda and unburden their souls.
+
+Lady Underhill, having said all she had to say, recovered her breath
+and began to say it again. Frequent iteration was one of her strongest
+weapons. As her brother Edwin, who was fond of homely imagery, had
+often observed, she could talk the hind-leg off a donkey.
+
+"You must be mad, Derek, to dream of handicapping yourself at this
+vital stage of your career with a wife who not only will not be a help
+to you, but must actually be a ruinous handicap. I am not blaming you
+for imagining yourself in love in the first place, though I really
+should have thought that a man of your strength and character
+would.... However, as I say, I am not blaming you for that.
+Superficially, no doubt, this girl might be called attractive. I do
+not admire the type myself, but I suppose she has that quality--in my
+time we should have called it boldness--which seems to appeal to the
+young men of to-day. I could imagine her fascinating a weak-minded
+imbecile like your friend Mr. Rooke. But that you.... Still, there is
+no need to go into that. What I am trying to point out is that in
+your position, with a career like yours in front of you--it's quite
+certain that in a year or two you will be offered some really big and
+responsible position--you would be insane to tie yourself to a girl
+who seems to have been allowed to run perfectly wild, whose uncle is a
+swindler...."
+
+"She can't be blamed for her uncle."
+
+"... Who sups alone with strange men in public restaurants...."
+
+"I explained that."
+
+"You may have explained it. You certainly did not excuse it or make it
+a whit less outrageous. You cannot pretend that you really imagine
+that an engaged girl is behaving with perfect correctness when she
+allows a man she has only just met to take her to supper at the Savoy,
+even if she did know him slightly years and years ago. It is very
+idyllic to suppose that a childhood acquaintance excuses every breach
+of decorum, but I was brought up to believe otherwise. I don't wish to
+be vulgar, but what it amounts to is that this girl was having
+supper--supper! In my days girls were in bed at supper-time!--with a
+strange man who picked her up at a theatre!"
+
+Derek shifted uneasily. There was a part of his mind which called upon
+him to rise up and challenge the outrageous phrase and demand that it
+be taken back. But he remained silent. The imp-Colossus was too strong
+for him. She is quite right, said the imp. That is an unpleasant but
+accurate description of what happened. He looked at the clock again,
+and wished for the hundredth time that the cab would come. Jill's
+photograph smiled at him from beside the clock. He looked away, for,
+when he found his eyes upon it, he had an odd sensation of baseness,
+as if he were playing some one false who loved and trusted him.
+
+"Well, I am not going to say any more," she said, getting up and
+buttoning her glove. "I will leave you to think it over. All I will
+say is that, though I only met her yesterday, I can assure you that I
+am quite confident that this girl is just the sort of harum-scarum
+so-called 'modern' girl who is sure some day to involve herself in a
+really serious scandal. I don't want her to be in a position to drag
+you into it as well. Yes, Barker, what is it? Is Sir Derek's cab
+here?"
+
+The lantern-jawed Barker had entered softly, and was standing
+deferentially in the doorway. There was no emotion on his face beyond
+the vague sadness which a sense of what was correct made him always
+wear like a sort of mask when in the presence of those of superior
+station.
+
+"The cab will be at the door very shortly, m'lady. If you please, Sir
+Derek, a policeman has come with a message."
+
+"A policeman?"
+
+"With a message from Mr. Rooke."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I have had a few words of conversation with the constable, sir," said
+Barker sadly, "and I understand from him that Mr. Rooke and Miss
+Mariner have been arrested."
+
+"Arrested! What are you talking about?"
+
+"Mr. Rooke desired the officer to ask you to be good enough to step
+round and bail them out!"
+
+The gleam in Lady Underhill's eye became a flame, but she controlled
+her voice.
+
+"Why were Miss Mariner and Mr. Rooke arrested, Barker?"
+
+"As far as I can gather, m'lady, Miss Mariner struck a man in the
+street with a stick, and they took both her and Mr. Rooke to the
+Chelsea Police Station."
+
+Lady Underhill glanced at Derek, who was looking into the fire.
+
+"This is a little awkward, Derek," she said suavely. "If you go to the
+police-station, you will miss your train."
+
+"I fancy, m'lady, it would be sufficient if Sir Derek were to dispatch
+me with a cheque for ten pounds."
+
+"Very well. Tell the policeman to wait a moment."
+
+"Very good, m'lady."
+
+Derek roused himself with an effort. His face was drawn and gloomy. He
+sat down at the writing-table, and took out his cheque-book. There was
+silence for a moment, broken only by the scratching of the pen. Barker
+took the cheque and left the room.
+
+"Now, perhaps," said Lady Underhill, "you will admit that I was
+right!" She spoke in almost an awed voice, for this occurrence at just
+this moment seemed to her very like a direct answer to prayer. "You
+can't hesitate now! You _must_ free yourself from this detestable
+entanglement!"
+
+Derek rose without speaking. He took his coat and hat from where they
+lay on a chair.
+
+"Derek! You will! Say you will!"
+
+Derek put on his coat.
+
+"Derek!"
+
+"For heaven's sake, leave me alone, mother. I want to think."
+
+"Very well. I will leave you to think it over, then." Lady Underhill
+moved to the door. At the door she paused for a moment, and seemed
+about to speak again, but her mouth closed resolutely. She was a
+shrewd woman, and knew that the art of life is to know when to stop
+talking. What words have accomplished, too many words can undo.
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, mother."
+
+"I'll see you when you get back?"
+
+"Yes. No. I don't know. I'm not certain when I shall return. I may go
+away for a bit."
+
+The door closed behind Lady Underhill. Derek sat down again at the
+writing-table. He wrote a few words on a sheet of paper, then tore it
+up. His eye travelled to the mantelpiece. Jill's photograph smiled
+happily down at him. He turned back to the writing-table, took out a
+fresh piece of paper, thought for a few moments, and began to write
+again.
+
+The door opened softly.
+
+"The cab is at the door, Sir Derek," said Barker.
+
+Derek addressed an envelope, and got up.
+
+"All right. Thanks. Oh, Barker, stop at a district-messenger office on
+your way to the police-station, and have this sent off at once."
+
+"Very good, Sir Derek," said Barker.
+
+Derek's eyes turned once more to the mantelpiece. He stood looking for
+an instant, then walked quickly out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+UNCLE CHRIS BANGS THE TABLE
+
+I
+
+
+A taxi-cab stopped at the door of Number Twenty-two, Ovingdon Square.
+Freddie Rooke emerged, followed by Jill. While Freddie paid the
+driver, Jill sniffed the afternoon air happily. It had turned into a
+delightful day. A westerly breeze, springing up in the morning, had
+sent the thermometer up with a run and broken the cold spell which had
+been gripping London. It was one of those afternoons which intrude on
+the bleakness of winter with a false but none the less agreeable
+intimation that Spring is on its way. The sidewalks were wet
+underfoot, and the gutters ran with thawed snow. The sun shone
+exhilaratingly from a sky the colour of a hedge-sparrow's egg.
+
+"Doesn't everything smell lovely, Freddie," said Jill, "after our
+prison-life!"
+
+"Topping!"
+
+"Fancy getting out so quickly! Whenever I'm arrested, I must always
+make a point of having a rich man with me. I shall never tease you
+about that fifty-pound note again."
+
+"Fifty-pound note?"
+
+"It certainly came in handy to-day!"
+
+She was opening the door with her latch-key, and missed the sudden
+sagging of Freddie's jaw, the sudden clutch at his breast-pocket, and
+the look of horror and anguish that started into his eyes. Freddie was
+appalled. Finding himself at the police-station penniless with the
+exception of a little loose change, he had sent that message to Derek,
+imploring assistance, as the only alternative to spending the night in
+a cell, with Jill in another. He had realized that there was a risk of
+Derek taking the matter hardly, and he had not wanted to get Jill into
+trouble, but there seemed nothing else to do. If they remained where
+they were overnight, the thing would get into the papers, and that
+would be a thousand times worse. And if he applied for aid to Ronny
+Devereux or Algy Martyn or anybody like that all London would know
+about it next day. So Freddie, with misgivings, had sent the message
+to Derek, and now Jill's words had reminded him that there was no need
+to have done so. Years ago he had read somewhere or heard somewhere
+about some chappie who always buzzed around with a sizable banknote
+stitched into his clothes, and the scheme had seemed to him ripe to a
+degree. You never knew when you might find yourself short of cash and
+faced by an immediate call for the ready. He had followed the
+chappie's example. And now, when the crisis had arrived, he had
+forgotten--absolutely forgotten!--that he had the dashed thing on his
+person at all.
+
+He followed Jill into the house, groaning in spirit, but thankful
+that she had taken it for granted that he had secured their release in
+the manner indicated. He did not propose to disillusion her. It would
+be time enough to take the blame when the blame came along. Probably
+old Derek would simply be amused and laugh at the whole bally affair
+like a sportsman. Freddie cheered up considerably at the thought.
+
+Jill was talking to the parlourmaid whose head had popped up over the
+banisters flanking the stairs that led to the kitchen.
+
+"Major Selby hasn't arrived yet, miss."
+
+"That's odd. I suppose he must have taken a later train."
+
+"There's a lady in the drawing-room, miss, waiting to see him. She
+didn't give any name. She said she would wait till the major came.
+She's been waiting a goodish while."
+
+"All right, Jane. Thanks. Will you bring up tea?"
+
+They walked down the hall. The drawing-room was on the ground floor, a
+long, dim room that would have looked like a converted studio but for
+the absence of bright light. A girl was sitting at the far end by the
+fireplace. She rose as they entered.
+
+"How do you do?" said Jill. "I'm afraid my uncle has not come back
+yet...."
+
+"Say!" cried the visitor. "You _did_ get out quick!"
+
+Jill was surprised. She had no recollection of ever having seen the
+other before. Her visitor was a rather pretty girl, with a sort of
+jaunty way of carrying herself which made a piquant contrast to her
+tired eyes and wistful face. Jill took an immediate liking to her. She
+looked so forlorn and pathetic.
+
+"My name's Nelly Bryant," said the girl. "That parrot belongs to me."
+
+"Oh, I see."
+
+"I heard you say to the cop that you lived here, so I came along to
+tell your folks what had happened, so that they could do something.
+The maid said that your uncle was expected any minute, so I waited."
+
+"That was awfully good of you."
+
+"Dashed good," said Freddie.
+
+"Oh, no! Honest, I don't know how to thank you for what you did. You
+don't know what a pal Bill is to me. It would have broken me all up if
+that plug-ugly had killed him."
+
+"But what a shame you had to wait so long."
+
+"I liked it."
+
+Nelly Bryant looked about the room wistfully. This was the sort of
+room she sometimes dreamed about. She loved its subdued light and the
+pulpy cushions on the sofa.
+
+"You'll have some tea before you go, won't you?" said Jill, switching
+on the lights.
+
+"It's very kind of you."
+
+"Why, hullo!" said Freddie. "By Jove! I say! We've met before, what?"
+
+"Why, so we have!"
+
+"That lunch at Oddy's that young Threepwood gave, what?"
+
+"I wonder you remember."
+
+"Oh, I remember. Quite a time ago, eh? Miss Bryant was in that show.
+'Follow the Girl,' Jill, at the Regal."
+
+"Oh, yes. I remember you took me to see it."
+
+"Dashed odd meeting again like this!" said Freddie. "Really rummy!"
+
+Jane, the parlourmaid, entering with tea, interrupted his comments.
+
+"You're American, then?" said Jill interested. "The whole company came
+from New York, didn't they?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'm half American myself, you know. I used to live in New York when I
+was very small, but I've almost forgotten what it was like. I remember
+a sort of overhead railway that made an awful noise...."
+
+"The Elevated!" murmured Nelly devoutly. A wave of home-sickness
+seemed to choke her for a moment.
+
+"And the air. Like champagne. And a very blue sky."
+
+"Yes," said Nelly in a small voice.
+
+"I shouldn't half mind popping over New York for a bit," said Freddie,
+unconscious of the agony he was inflicting. "I've met some very sound
+sportsmen who came from there. You don't know a fellow named
+Williamson, do you?"
+
+"I don't believe I do."
+
+"Or Oakes?"
+
+"No."
+
+"That's rummy! Oakes has lived in New York for years."
+
+"So have about seven million other people," interposed Jill. "Don't be
+silly, Freddie. How would you like somebody to ask of you if you knew
+a man named Jenkins in London?"
+
+"I _do_ know a man named Jenkins in London," replied Freddie
+triumphantly.
+
+Jill poured out a cup of tea for her visitor, and looked at the clock.
+
+"I wonder where Uncle Chris has got to," she said. "He ought to be
+here by now. I hope he hasn't got into any mischief among the wild
+stockbrokers down at Brighton."
+
+Freddie laid down his cup on the table and uttered a loud snort.
+
+"Oh, Freddie, darling!" said Jill remorsefully. "I forgot!
+Stockbrokers are a painful subject, aren't they!" She turned to Nelly.
+"There's been an awful slump on the Stock Exchange to-day, and he
+got--what was the word, Freddie?"
+
+"Nipped!" said Freddie with gloom.
+
+"Nipped!"
+
+"Nipped like the dickens!"
+
+"Nipped like the dickens!" Jill smiled at Nelly. "He had forgotten all
+about it in the excitement of being a jailbird, and I went and
+reminded him."
+
+Freddie sought sympathy from Nelly.
+
+"A silly ass at the club named Jimmy Monroe told me to take a flutter
+in some rotten thing called Amalgamated Dyes. You know how it is, when
+you're feeling devilish fit and cheery and all that after dinner, and
+somebody sidles up to you and slips his little hand in yours and tells
+you to do some fool thing. You're so dashed happy you simply say
+'Right-ho, old bird! Make it so!' That's the way I got had!"
+
+Jill laughed unfeelingly.
+
+"It will do you good, Freddie. It'll stir you up and prevent you being
+so silly again. Besides, you know you'll hardly notice it. You've much
+too much money as it is."
+
+"It's not the money. It's the principle of the thing. I hate looking a
+frightful chump."
+
+"Well, you needn't tell anybody. We'll keep it a secret. In fact,
+we'll start at once, for I hear Uncle Chris outside. Let us dissemble.
+We are observed!... Hullo, Uncle Chris!"
+
+She ran down the room, as the door opened, and kissed the tall,
+soldierly man who entered.
+
+"Well, Jill, my dear."
+
+"How late you are. I was expecting you hours ago."
+
+"I had to call on my broker."
+
+"Hush! Hush!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing.... We've got visitors. You know Freddie Rooke, of
+course?"
+
+"How are you, Freddie, my boy?"
+
+"Cheerio!" said Freddie. "Pretty fit?"
+
+"And Miss Bryant," said Jill.
+
+"How do you do?" said Uncle Chris in the bluff, genial way which, in
+his younger days, had charmed many a five-pound note out of the
+pockets of his fellow-men and many a soft glance out of the eyes of
+their sisters, their cousins, and their aunts.
+
+"Come and have some tea," said Jill. "You're just in time."
+
+"Tea? Capital!"
+
+Nelly had subsided shyly into the depths of her big arm-chair. Somehow
+she felt a better and a more important girl since Uncle Chris had
+addressed her. Most people felt like that after encountering Jill's
+Uncle Christopher. Uncle Chris had a manner. It was not precisely
+condescending, and yet it was not the manner of an equal. He treated
+you as an equal, true, but all the time you were conscious of the fact
+that it was extraordinarily good of him to do so. Uncle Chris affected
+the rank and file of his fellow-men much as a genial knight of the
+Middle Ages would have affected a scurvy knave or varlet if he had
+cast aside social distinctions for a while and hobnobbed with the
+latter in a tavern. He never patronized, but the mere fact that he
+abstained from patronizing seemed somehow impressive.
+
+To this impressiveness his appearance contributed largely. He was a
+fine, upstanding man, who looked less than his forty-nine years in
+spite of an ominous thinning of the hair which he tended and brushed
+so carefully. He had a firm chin, a mouth that smiled often and
+pleasantly beneath the closely-clipped moustache, and very bright blue
+eyes which met yours in a clear, frank, honest gaze. Though he had
+served in his youth in India, he had none of the Anglo-Indian's
+sun-scorched sallowness. His complexion was fresh and sanguine. He
+looked as if he had just stepped out of a cold tub--a misleading
+impression, for Uncle Chris detested cold water and always took his
+morning bath as hot as he could get it.
+
+It was his clothes, however, which, even more than his appearance,
+fascinated the populace. There is only one tailor in London, as
+distinguished from the ambitious mechanics who make coats and
+trousers, and Uncle Chris was his best customer. Similarly, London is
+full of young fellows trying to get along by the manufacture of
+foot-wear, but there is only one boot-maker in the true meaning of the
+word--the one who supplied Uncle Chris. And, as for hats, while it is
+no doubt a fact that you can get at plenty of London shops some sort
+of covering for your head which will keep it warm, the only
+hatter--using the term in its deeper sense--is the man who enjoyed the
+patronage of Major Christopher Selby. From foot to head, in short,
+from furthest South to extremest North, Uncle Chris was perfect. He
+was an ornament to his surroundings. The Metropolis looked better for
+him. One seems to picture London as a mother with a horde of untidy
+children, children with made-up ties, children with wrinkled coats and
+baggy trouser-legs, sighing to herself as she beheld them, then
+cheering up and murmuring with a touch of restored complacency, "Ah,
+well, I still have Uncle Chris!"
+
+"Miss Bryant is American, Uncle Chris," said Jill.
+
+Uncle Chris spread his shapely legs before the fire, and glanced down
+kindly at Nelly.
+
+"Indeed?" He took a cup of tea and stirred it. "I was in America as a
+young man."
+
+"Whereabouts?" asked Nelly eagerly.
+
+"Oh, here and there and everywhere. I travelled considerably."
+
+"That's how it is with me," said Nelly, overcoming her diffidence as
+she warmed to the favourite topic. "I guess I know most every town in
+every State, from New York to the last one-night stand. It's a great
+old country, isn't it?"
+
+"It is!" said Uncle Chris. "I shall be returning there very shortly."
+He paused meditatively. "Very shortly indeed."
+
+Nelly bit her lip. It seemed to be her fate to-day to meet people who
+were going to America.
+
+"When did you decide to do that?" asked Jill.
+
+She had been looking at him, puzzled. Years of association with Uncle
+Chris had enabled her to read his moods quickly, and she was sure that
+there was something on his mind. It was not likely that the others had
+noticed it, for his manner was as genial and urbane as ever. But
+something about him, a look in his eyes that came and went, an
+occasional quick twitching of his mouth, told her that all was not
+well. She was a little troubled, but not greatly. Uncle Chris was not
+the sort of man to whom grave tragedies happened. It was probably some
+mere trifle which she could smooth out for him in five minutes, once
+they were alone together. She reached out and patted his sleeve
+affectionately. She was fonder of Uncle Chris than of anyone in the
+world except Derek.
+
+"The thought," said Uncle Chris, "came to me this morning, as I read
+my morning paper while breakfasting. It has grown and developed during
+the day. At this moment you might almost call it an obsession. I am
+very fond of America. I spent several happy years there. On that
+occasion I set sail for the land of promise, I admit, somewhat
+reluctantly. Of my own free will I might never have made the
+expedition. But the general sentiment seemed so strongly in favour of
+my doing so that I yielded to what I might call a public demand. The
+willing hands for my nearest and dearest were behind me, pushing, and
+I did not resist them. I have never regretted it. America is a part of
+every young man's education. You ought to go there, Freddie."
+
+"Rummily enough," said Freddie, "I was saying just before you came in
+that I had half a mind to pop over. Only it's rather a bally fag,
+starting. Getting your luggage packed and all that sort of thing."
+
+Nelly, whose luggage consisted of one small trunk, heaved a silent
+sigh. Mingling with the idle rich carried its penalties.
+
+"America," said Uncle Chris, "taught me poker, for which I can never
+be sufficiently grateful. Also an exotic pastime styled Craps--or,
+alternatively, 'rolling the bones'--which in those days was a very
+present help in time of trouble. At Craps, I fear, my hand in late
+years has lost much of its cunning. I have had little opportunity of
+practising. But as a young man I was no mean exponent of the art. Let
+me see," said Uncle Chris meditatively. "What was the precise ritual?
+Ah! I have it, 'Come, little seven!'"
+
+"'Come, eleven!'" exclaimed Nelly excitedly.
+
+"'Baby....' I feel convinced that in some manner the word baby entered
+into it."
+
+"'Baby needs new shoes!'"
+
+"'Baby needs new shoes!' Precisely!"
+
+"It sounds to me," said Freddie, "dashed silly."
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Nelly reproachfully.
+
+"Well, what I mean is, there's no sense in it, don't you know."
+
+"It is a noble pursuit," said Uncle Chris firmly. "Worthy of the great
+nation that has produced it. No doubt, when I return to America, I
+shall have opportunities of recovering my lost skill."
+
+"You aren't returning to America," said Jill. "You're going to stay
+safe at home like a good little uncle. I'm not going to have you
+running wild all over the world at your age."
+
+"Age?" declaimed Uncle Chris. "What is my age? At the present moment I
+feel in the neighbourhood of twenty-one, and Ambition is tapping me on
+the shoulder and whispering 'Young man, go West!' The years are
+slipping away from me, my dear Jill--slipping so quickly that in a few
+minutes you will be wondering why my nurse does not come to fetch me.
+The wanderlust is upon me. I gaze around me at all this prosperity in
+which I am lapped," said Uncle Chris, eyeing the arm-chair severely,
+"all this comfort and luxury which swaddles me, and I feel staggered.
+I want activity. I want to be braced!"
+
+"You would hate it," said Jill composedly. "You know you're the
+laziest old darling in the world."
+
+"Exactly what I am endeavouring to point out. I _am_ lazy. Or, I was
+till this morning."
+
+"Something very extraordinary must have happened this morning. I can
+see that."
+
+"I wallowed in gross comfort. I was what Shakespeare calls a 'fat and
+greasy citizen'!"
+
+"Please, Uncle Chris!" protested Jill. "Not while I'm eating buttered
+toast!"
+
+"But now I am myself again."
+
+"That's splendid."
+
+"I have heard the beat of the off-shore wind," chanted Uncle Chris,
+"and the thresh of the deep-sea rain. I have heard the song--How long!
+how long! Pull out on the trail again!"
+
+"He can also recite 'Gunga Din,'" said Jill to Nelly. "I really must
+apologize for all this. He's usually as good as gold."
+
+"I believe I know how he feels," said Nelly softly.
+
+"Of course you do. You and I, Miss Bryant, are of the gipsies of the
+world. We are not vegetables like young Rooke here."
+
+"Eh, what?" said the vegetable, waking from a reverie. He had been
+watching Nelly's face. Its wistfulness attracted him.
+
+"We are only happy," proceeded Uncle Chris, "when we are wandering."
+
+"You should see Uncle Chris wander to his club in the morning," said
+Jill. "He trudges off in a taxi, singing wild gipsy songs, absolutely
+defying fatigue."
+
+"That," said Uncle Chris, "is a perfectly justified slur. I shudder at
+the depths to which prosperity has caused me to sink." He expanded his
+chest. "I shall be a different man in America. America would make a
+different man of _you_, Freddie."
+
+"I'm all right, thanks!" said that easily satisfied young man.
+
+Uncle Chris turned to Nelly, pointing dramatically.
+
+"Young woman, go West! Return to your bracing home, and leave this
+enervating London! You...."
+
+Nelly got up abruptly. She could endure no more.
+
+"I believe I'll have to be going now," she said. "Bill misses me if
+I'm away long. Good-bye. Thank you ever so much for what you did."
+
+"It was awfully kind of you to come round," said Jill.
+
+"Good-bye, Major Selby."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Rooke."
+
+Freddie awoke from another reverie.
+
+"Eh? Oh, I say, half a jiffy. I think I may as well be toddling along
+myself. About time I was getting back to dress for dinner and all
+that. See you home, may I, and then I'll get a taxi at Victoria.
+Toodle-oo, everybody."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Freddie escorted Nelly through the hall and opened the front door for
+her. The night was cool and cloudy and there was still in the air that
+odd, rejuvenating suggestion of Spring. A wet fragrance came from the
+dripping trees.
+
+"Topping evening!" said Freddie conversationally.
+
+"Yes."
+
+They walked through the square in silence. Freddie shot an
+appreciative glance at his companion. Freddie, as he would have
+admitted frankly, was not much of a lad for the modern girl. The
+modern girl, he considered, was too dashed rowdy and exuberant for a
+chappie of peaceful tastes. Now, this girl, on the other hand, had all
+the earmarks of being something of a topper. She had a soft voice.
+Rummy accent and all that, but nevertheless a soft and pleasing voice.
+She was mild and unaggressive, and these were qualities which Freddie
+esteemed. Freddie, though this was a thing he would not have admitted,
+was afraid of girls, the sort of girls he had to take down to dinner
+and dance with and so forth. They were too dashed clever, and always
+seemed to be waiting for a chance to score off a fellow. This one was
+not like that. Not a bit. She was gentle and quiet and what not.
+
+It was at this point that it came home to him how remarkably quiet she
+was. She had not said a word for the last five minutes. He was just
+about to break the silence, when, as they passed under a street lamp,
+he perceived that she was crying--crying very softly to herself, like
+a child in the dark.
+
+"Good God!" said Freddie appalled. There were two things in life with
+which he felt totally unable to cope--crying girls and dog-fights. The
+glimpse he had caught of Nelly's face froze him into a speechlessness
+which lasted until they reached Daubeny Street and stopped at her
+door.
+
+"Good-bye," said Nelly.
+
+"Good-bye-ee!" said Freddie mechanically. "That's to say, I mean to
+say, half a second!" he added quickly. He faced her nervously, with
+one hand on the grimy railings. This wanted looking into. When it came
+to girls trickling to and fro in the public streets, weeping, well, it
+was pretty rotten and something had to be done about it. "What's up?"
+he demanded.
+
+"It's nothing. Good-bye."
+
+"But, my dear old soul," said Freddie, clutching the railing for moral
+support, "it is something. It must be! You might not think it, to look
+at me, but I'm really rather a dashed shrewd chap, and I can _see_
+there's something up. Why not give me the jolly old scenario and see
+if we can't do something?"
+
+Nelly moved as if to turn to the door, then stopped. She was
+thoroughly ashamed of herself.
+
+"I'm a fool!"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Yes, I am. I don't often act this way, but, oh, gee! hearing you all
+talking like that about going to America, just as if it was the
+easiest thing in the world, only you couldn't be bothered to do it,
+kind of got me going. And to think I could be there right now if I
+wasn't a bonehead!"
+
+"A bonehead?"
+
+"A simp. I'm all right as far up as the string of near-pearls, but
+above that I'm reinforced concrete."
+
+Freddie groped for her meaning.
+
+"Do you mean you've made a bloomer of some kind?"
+
+"I pulled the worst kind of bone. I stopped on in London when the rest
+of the company went back home, and now I've got to stick."
+
+"Rush of jolly old professional engagements, what?"
+
+Nelly laughed bitterly.
+
+"You're a bad guesser. No, they haven't started to fight over me yet.
+I'm at liberty, as they say in the _Era_."
+
+"But, my dear old thing," said Freddie earnestly, "if you've nothing
+to keep you in England, why not pop back to America? I mean to say,
+home-sickness is the most dashed blighted thing in the world. There's
+nothing gives one the pip to such an extent. Why, dash it, I remember
+staying with an old aunt of mine up in Scotland the year before last
+and not being able to get away for three weeks or so, and I
+raved--absolutely gibbered--for the sight of the merry old metrop.
+Sometimes I'd wake up in the night, thinking I was back at the Albany,
+and, by Jove, when I found I wasn't I howled like a dog! You take my
+tip, old soul, and pop back on the next boat."
+
+"Which line?"
+
+"How do you mean, which line? Oh, I see, you mean which line? Well ...
+well ... I've never been on any of them, so it's rather hard to say.
+But I hear the Cunard well spoken of, and then again some chappies
+swear by the White Star. But I should imagine you can't go far wrong,
+whichever you pick. They're all pretty ripe, I fancy."
+
+"Which of them is giving free trips? That's the point."
+
+"Eh? Oh!" Her meaning dawned upon Freddie. He regarded her with deep
+consternation. Life had treated him so kindly that he had almost
+forgotten that there existed a class which had not as much money as
+himself. Sympathy welled up beneath his perfectly fitting waistcoat.
+It was a purely disinterested sympathy. The fact that Nelly was a girl
+and in many respects a dashed pretty girl did not affect him. What
+mattered was that she was hard up. The thought hurt Freddie like a
+blow. He hated the idea of anyone being hard up.
+
+"I say!" he said. "Are you broke?"
+
+Nelly laughed.
+
+"Am I? If dollars were doughnuts, I wouldn't even have the hole in the
+middle."
+
+Freddie was stirred to his depths. Except for the beggars in the
+streets, to whom he gave shillings, he had not met anyone for years
+who had not plenty of money. He had friends at his clubs who
+frequently claimed to be unable to lay their hands on a bally penny,
+but the bally penny they wanted to lay their hands on generally turned
+out to be a couple of thousand pounds for a new car.
+
+"Good God!" he said.
+
+There was a pause. Then, with a sudden impulse, he began to fumble in
+his breast-pocket. Rummy how things worked out for the best, however
+scaly they might seem at the moment. Only an hour or so ago he had
+been kicking himself for not having remembered that fifty-pound note,
+tacked on to the lining of his coat, when it would have come in handy
+at the police-station. He now saw that Providence had had the matter
+well in hand. If he had remembered it and coughed it up to the
+constabulary then, he wouldn't have had it now. And he needed it now.
+A mood of quixotic generosity had surged upon him. With swift fingers
+he jerked the note free from its moorings and displayed it like a
+conjurer exhibiting a rabbit.
+
+"My dear old thing," he said, "I can't stand it! I absolutely cannot
+stick it at any price! I really must insist on your trousering this.
+Positively!"
+
+Nelly Bryant gazed at the note with wide eyes. She was stunned. She
+took it limply, and looked at it under the dim light of the gas-lamp
+over the door.
+
+"I couldn't!" she cried.
+
+"Oh, but really! You must!"
+
+"But this is a fifty-pound!"
+
+"Absolutely! It will take you back to New York, what? you asked which
+line was giving free trips. The Freddie Rooke Line, by Jove, sailings
+every Wednesday and Saturday! I mean, what?"
+
+"But I can't take two hundred and fifty dollars from you!"
+
+"Oh, rather. Of course you can."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+"You'll think--" Nelly's pale face flushed. "You'll think I told you
+all about myself just--just because I wanted to...."
+
+"To make a touch? Absolutely not! Rid yourself of the jolly old
+supposition entirely. You see before you, old thing, a chappie who
+knows more about borrowing money than any man in London. I mean to
+say, I've had my ear bitten more often than anyone, I should think.
+There are sixty-four ways of making a touch--I've had them all worked
+on me by divers blighters here and there--and I can tell any of them
+with my eyes shut. I know you weren't dreaming of any such thing."
+
+The note crackled musically in Nelly's hand.
+
+"I don't know what to say!"
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"I don't see why.... Gee! I wish I could tell you what I think of
+you!"
+
+Freddie laughed amusedly.
+
+"Do you know," he said, "that's exactly what the beaks--the masters,
+you know--used to say to me at school."
+
+"Are you sure you can spare it?"
+
+"Oh, rather."
+
+Nelly's eyes shone in the light of the lamp.
+
+"I've never met anyone like you before. I don't know how...."
+
+Freddie shuffled nervously. Being thanked always made him feel pretty
+rotten.
+
+"Well, I think I'll be popping," he said. "Got to get back and dress
+and all that. Awfully glad to have seen you, and all that sort of
+rot."
+
+Nelly unlocked the door with her latch-key, and stood on the step.
+
+"I'll buy a fur-wrap," she said, half to herself.
+
+"Great wheeze! I should!"
+
+"And some nuts for Bill!"
+
+"Bill?"
+
+"The parrot."
+
+"Oh, the jolly old parrot! Rather! Well, cheerio!"
+
+"Good-bye.... You've been awfully good to me."
+
+"Oh, no," said Freddie uncomfortably. "Any time you're passing...."
+
+"Awfully good.... Well, good-bye."
+
+"Toodle-oo!"
+
+"Maybe we'll meet again some day."
+
+"I hope so. Absolutely!"
+
+There was a little scurry of feet. Something warm and soft pressed for
+an instant against Freddie's cheek, and, as he stumbled back, Nelly
+Bryant skipped up the steps and vanished through the door.
+
+"Good God!"
+
+Freddie felt his cheek. He was aware of an odd mixture of
+embarrassment and exhilaration.
+
+From the area below a slight cough sounded. Freddie turned sharply. A
+maid in a soiled cap, worn coquettishly over one ear, was gazing
+intently up through the railings. Their eyes met. Freddie turned a
+warm pink. It seemed to him that the maid had the air of one about to
+giggle.
+
+"Damn!" said Freddie softly, and hurried off down the street. He
+wondered whether he had made a frightful ass of himself, spraying
+bank-notes all over the place like that to comparative strangers. Then
+a vision came to him of Nelly's eyes as they had looked at him in the
+lamp-light, and he decided--no, absolutely not. Rummy as the gadget
+might appear, it had been the right thing to do. It was a binge of
+which he thoroughly approved. A good egg!
+
+
+II
+
+Jill, when Freddie and Nelly left the room, had seated herself on a
+low stool, and sat looking thoughtfully into the fire. She was
+wondering if she had been mistaken in supposing that Uncle Chris was
+worried about something. This restlessness of his, this desire for
+movement, was strange in him. Hitherto he had been like a dear old
+cosy cat, revelling in the comfort which he had just denounced so
+eloquently. She watched him as he took up his favourite stand in
+front of the fire.
+
+"Nice girl," said Uncle Chris. "Who was she?"
+
+"Somebody Freddie met," said Jill diplomatically. There was no need to
+worry Uncle Chris with details of the afternoon's happenings.
+
+"Very nice girl." Uncle Chris took out his cigar-case. "No need to ask
+if I may, thank goodness." He lit a cigar. "Do you remember, Jill,
+years ago, when you were quite small, how I used to blow smoke in your
+face?"
+
+Jill smiled.
+
+"Of course I do. You said that you were training me for marriage. You
+said that there were no happy marriages except where the wife didn't
+mind the smell of tobacco. Well, it's lucky, as a matter of fact, for
+Derek smokes all the time."
+
+Uncle Chris took up his favourite stand against the fireplace.
+
+"You're very fond of Derek, aren't you, Jill?"
+
+"Of course I am. You are, too, aren't you?"
+
+"Fine chap. Very fine chap. Plenty of money, too. It's a great
+relief," said Uncle Chris, puffing vigorously. "A thundering relief."
+He looked over Jill's head down the room. "It's fine to think of you
+happily married, dear, with everything in the world that you want."
+
+Uncle Chris' gaze wandered down to where Jill sat. A slight mist
+affected his eyesight. Jill had provided a solution for the great
+problem of his life. Marriage had always appalled him, but there was
+this to be said for it, that married people had daughters. He had
+always wanted a daughter, a smart girl he could take out and be proud
+of; and fate had given him Jill at precisely the right age. A child
+would have bored Uncle Chris--he was fond of children, but they made
+the deuce of a noise and regarded jam as an external ornament--but a
+delightful little girl of fourteen was different. Jill and he had been
+very close to each other since her mother had died, a year after the
+death of her father, and had left her in his charge. He had watched
+her grow up with a joy that had a touch of bewilderment in it--she
+seemed to grow so quickly--and had been fonder and prouder of her at
+every stage of her tumultuous career.
+
+"You're a dear," said Jill. She stroked the trouser-leg that was
+nearest. "How _do_ you manage to get such a wonderful crease? You
+really are a credit to me!"
+
+There was a momentary silence. A shade of embarrassment made itself
+noticeable in Uncle Chris' frank gaze. He gave a little cough, and
+pulled at his moustache.
+
+"I wish I were, my dear," he said soberly. "I wish I were. I'm afraid
+I'm a poor sort of a fellow, Jill."
+
+Jill looked up.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"A poor sort of a fellow," repeated Uncle Chris. "Your mother was
+foolish to trust you to me. Your father had more sense. He always said
+I was a wrong 'un."
+
+Jill got up quickly. She was certain now that she had been right, and
+that there was something on her uncle's mind.
+
+"What's the matter, Uncle Chris? Something's happened. What is it?"
+
+Uncle Chris turned to knock the ash off his cigar. The movement gave
+him time to collect himself for what lay before him. He had one of
+those rare volatile natures which can ignore the blows of fate so long
+as their effects are not brought home by visible evidence of disaster.
+He lived in the moment, and, though matters had been as bad at
+breakfast-time as they were now, it was not till now, when he
+confronted Jill, that he had found his cheerfulness affected by them.
+He was a man who hated ordeals, and one faced him now. Until this
+moment he had been able to detach his mind from a state of affairs
+which would have weighed unceasingly upon another man. His mind was a
+telephone which he could cut off at will, when the voice of Trouble
+wished to speak. The time would arrive, he had been aware, when he
+would have to pay attention to that voice, but so far he had refused
+to listen. Now it could be evaded no longer.
+
+"Jill."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Uncle Chris paused again, searching for the best means of saying what
+had to be said.
+
+"Jill, I don't know if you understand about these things, but there
+was what is called a slump on the Stock Exchange this morning. In
+other words...."
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"Of course I know all about that," she said. "Poor Freddie wouldn't
+talk about anything else till I made him. He was terribly blue when he
+got here this afternoon. He said he had got 'nipped' in Amalgamated
+Dyes. He had lost about two hundred pounds, and was furious with a
+friend of his who had told him to buy margins."
+
+Uncle Chris cleared his throat.
+
+"Jill, I'm afraid I've got bad news for you. I bought Amalgamated
+Dyes, too." He worried his moustache. "I lost heavily, very heavily."
+
+"How naughty of you! You know you oughtn't to gamble."
+
+"Jill, you must be brave. I--I--well, the fact is--it's no good
+beating about the bush--I lost everything! Everything!"
+
+"Everything?"
+
+"Everything! It's all gone! All fooled away. It's a terrible business.
+This house will have to go."
+
+"But--but doesn't the house belong to me?"
+
+"I was your trustee, dear." Uncle Chris smoked furiously. "Thank
+heaven you're going to marry a rich man!"
+
+Jill stood looking at him, perplexed. Money, as money, had never
+entered into her life. There were things one wanted which had to be
+paid for with money, but Uncle Chris had always looked after that. She
+had taken them for granted.
+
+"I don't understand," she said.
+
+And then suddenly she realized that she did, and a great wave of pity
+for Uncle Chris flooded over her. He was such an old dear. It must be
+horrible for him to have to stand there, telling her all this. She
+felt no sense of injury, only the discomfort of having to witness the
+humiliation of her oldest friend. Uncle Chris was bound up
+inextricably with everything in her life that was pleasant. She could
+remember him, looking exactly the same, only with a thicker and wavier
+crop of hair, playing with her patiently and unwearied for hours in
+the hot sun, a cheerful martyr. She could remember sitting up with him
+when she came home from her first grownup dance, drinking cocoa and
+talking and talking and talking till the birds outside sang the sun
+high up into the sky and it was breakfast time. She could remember
+theatres with him, and jolly little suppers afterwards; expeditions
+into the country, with lunches at queer old inns; days on the river,
+days at Hurlingham, days at Lords', days at the Academy. He had always
+been the same, always cheerful, always kind. He was Uncle Chris, and
+he would always be Uncle Chris, whatever he had done or whatever he
+might do. She slipped her arm in his and gave it a squeeze.
+
+"Poor old thing!" she said.
+
+Uncle Chris had been looking straight out before him with those fine
+blue eyes of his. There had been just a touch of sternness in his
+attitude. A stranger, coming into the room at that moment, would have
+said that here was a girl trying to coax her blunt, straightforward,
+military father into some course of action of which his honest nature
+disapproved. He might have been posing for a statue of Rectitude. As
+Jill spoke, he seemed to cave in.
+
+"Poor old thing?" he repeated limply.
+
+"Of course you are! And stop trying to look dignified and tragic!
+Because it doesn't suit you. You're much too well dressed."
+
+"But, my dear, you don't understand! You haven't realized!"
+
+"Yes, I do. Yes, I have!"
+
+"I've spent all your money--_your_ money!"
+
+"I know! What does it matter?"
+
+"What does it matter! Jill, don't you hate me?"
+
+"As if anyone could hate an old darling like you!"
+
+Uncle Chris threw away his cigar, and put his arms round Jill. For a
+moment a dreadful fear came to her that he was going to cry. She
+prayed that he wouldn't cry. It would be too awful. It would be a
+memory of which she could never rid herself. She felt as though he
+were someone extraordinarily young and unable to look after himself,
+someone she must soothe and protect.
+
+"Jill," said Uncle Chris, choking, "you're--you're--you're a little
+warrior!"
+
+Jill kissed him and moved away. She busied herself with some flowers,
+her back turned. The tension had been relieved, and she wanted to give
+him time to recover his poise. She knew him well enough to be sure
+that, sooner or later, the resiliency of his nature would assert
+itself. He could never remain long in the depths.
+
+The silence had the effect of making her think more clearly than in
+the first rush of pity she had been able to do. She was able now to
+review the matter as it affected herself. It had not been easy to
+grasp, the blunt fact that she was penniless, that all this comfort
+which surrounded her was no longer her own. For an instant a kind of
+panic seized her. There was a bleakness about the situation which made
+one gasp. It was like icy water dashed in the face. Realization had
+almost the physical pain of life returning to a numbed limb. Her hands
+shook as she arranged the flowers, and she had to bite her lip to keep
+herself from crying out.
+
+She fought panic eye to eye, and beat it down. Uncle Chris, swiftly
+recovering by the fireplace, never knew that the fight had taken
+place. He was feeling quite jovial again now that the unpleasant
+business of breaking the news was over, and was looking on the world
+with the eye of a debonair gentleman-adventurer. As far as he was
+concerned, he told himself, this was the best thing that could have
+happened. He had been growing old and sluggish in prosperity. He
+needed a fillip. The wits by which he had once lived so merrily had
+been getting blunt in their easy retirement. He welcomed the
+opportunity of matching them once more against the world. He was
+remorseful as regarded Jill, but the optimist in him, never crushed
+for long, told him that Jill would be all right. She would step from
+the sinking ship to the safe refuge of Derek Underhill's wealth and
+position, while he went out to seek a new life. Uncle Chris' blue eyes
+gleamed with a new fire as he pictured himself in this new life. He
+felt like a hunter setting out on a hunting expedition. There were
+always adventures and the spoils of war for the man with brains to
+find them and gather them in. But it was a mercy that Jill had
+Derek....
+
+Jill was thinking of Derek, too. Panic had fled, and a curious
+exhilaration had seized upon her. If Derek wanted her now, it would be
+because his love was the strongest thing in the world. She would come
+to him like the beggar-maid to Cophetua.
+
+Uncle Chris broke the silence with a cough. At the sound of it, Jill
+smiled again. She knew it for what it was, a sign that he was himself
+again.
+
+"Tell me, Uncle Chris," she said, "just how bad is it? When you said
+everything was gone, did you really mean everything, or were you being
+melodramatic? Exactly how do we stand?"
+
+"It's dashed hard to say, my dear. I expect we shall find there are a
+few hundreds left. Enough to see you through till you get married.
+After that it won't matter." Uncle Chris flicked a particle of dust
+off his coat-sleeve. Jill could not help feeling that the action was
+symbolical of his attitude towards life. He nicked away life's
+problems with just the same airy carelessness. "You mustn't worry
+about me, my dear. I shall be all right. I have made my way in the
+world before, and I can do it again. I shall go to America and try my
+luck there. Amazing how many opportunities there are in America.
+Really, as far as I am concerned, this is the best thing that could
+have happened. I have been getting abominably lazy. If I had gone on
+living my present life for another year or two, why, dash it, I
+honestly believe I should have succumbed to some sort of senile decay.
+Positively I should have got fatty degeneration of the brain! This
+will be the making of me."
+
+Jill sat down on the lounge and laughed till there were tears in her
+eyes. Uncle Chris might be responsible for this disaster, but he was
+certainly making it endurable. However greatly he might be deserving
+of censure, from the standpoint of the sterner morality, he made
+amends. If he brought the whole world crashing in chaos about one's
+ears, at least he helped one to smile among the ruins.
+
+"Did you ever read 'Candide,' Uncle Chris?"
+
+"'Candide'?" Uncle Chris shook his head. He was not a great reader,
+except of the sporting press.
+
+"It's a book by Voltaire. There's a character in it called Doctor
+Pangloss, who thought that everything was for the best in this best of
+all possible worlds."
+
+Uncle Chris felt a touch of embarrassment. It occurred to him that he
+had been betrayed by his mercurial temperament into an attitude which,
+considering the circumstances, was perhaps a trifle too jubilant. He
+gave his moustache a pull, and reverted to the minor key.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't think that I don't appreciate the terrible, the criminal
+thing I have done! I blame myself," said Uncle Chris cordially, nicking
+another speck of dust off his sleeve. "I blame myself bitterly. Your
+mother ought never to have made me your trustee, my dear. But she always
+believed in me, in spite of everything, and this is how I have repaid
+her." He blew his nose to cover a not unmanly emotion. "I wasn't fitted
+for the position. Never become a trustee, Jill. It's the devil, is trust
+money. However much you argue with yourself, you can't--dash it, you
+simply can't believe that it's not your own, to do as you like with,
+There it sits, smiling at you, crying 'Spend me! Spend me!' and you find
+yourself dipping--dipping--till one day there's nothing left to dip
+for--only a far-off rustling--the ghosts of dead bank-notes. That's how it
+was with me. The process was almost automatic. I hardly knew it was going
+on. Here a little--there a little. It was like snow melting on a
+mountain-top. And one morning--all gone!" Uncle Chris drove the point home
+with a gesture. "I did what I could. When I found that there were only a
+few hundreds left, for your sake I took a chance. All heart and no head!
+There you have Christopher Selby in a nutshell! A man at the club, a fool
+named--I've forgotten his damn name--recommended Amalgamated Dyestuffs as
+a speculation. Monroe, that was his name, Jimmy Monroe. He talked about
+the future of British Dyes now that Germany was out of the race, and ...
+well, the long and short of it was that I took his advice and bought on
+margin. Bought like the devil. And this morning Amalgamated Dyestuffs went
+all to blazes. There you have the whole story!"
+
+"And now," said Jill, "comes the sequel!"
+
+"The sequel?" said Uncle Chris breezily. "Happiness, my dear,
+happiness! Wedding bells and--and all that sort of thing!" He
+straddled the hearth-rug manfully, and swelled his chest out. He would
+permit no pessimism on this occasion of rejoicing. "You don't suppose
+that the fact of your having lost your money--that is to say--er--of
+_my_ having lost your money--will affect a splendid young fellow like
+Derek Underhill? I know him better than to think that! I've always
+liked him. He's a man you can trust! Besides," he added reflectively,
+"there's no need to tell him! Till after the wedding, I mean. It won't
+be hard to keep up appearances here for a month or so."
+
+"Of course we must tell him!"
+
+"You think it wise?"
+
+"I don't know about it being wise. It's the only thing to do. I must
+see him to-night. Oh, I forgot. He was going away this afternoon for a
+day or two."
+
+"Capital! It will give you time to think it over."
+
+"I don't want to think it over. There's nothing to think about."
+
+"Of course, yes, of course. Quite so."
+
+"I shall write him a letter."
+
+"Write, eh?"
+
+"It's easier to put what one wants to say in a letter."
+
+"Letters," began Uncle Chris, and stopped as the door opened. Jane,
+the parlourmaid, entered, carrying a salver.
+
+"For me?" asked Uncle Chris.
+
+"For Miss Jill, sir."
+
+Jill took the note off the salver.
+
+"It's from Derek."
+
+"There's a messenger-boy waiting, miss," said Jane. "He wasn't told if
+there was an answer."
+
+"If the note is from Derek," said Uncle Chris, "it's not likely to
+want an answer. You said he left town to-day."
+
+Jill opened the envelope.
+
+"Is there an answer, miss?" asked Jane, after what she considered a
+suitable interval. She spoke tenderly. She was a great admirer of
+Derek, and considered it a pretty action on his part to send notes
+like this when he was compelled to leave London.
+
+"Any answer, Jill?"
+
+Jill seemed to rouse herself. She had turned oddly pale.
+
+"No, no answer, Jane."
+
+"Thank you, miss," said Jane, and went off to tell the cook that in
+her opinion Jill was lacking in heart. "It might have been a bill
+instead of a love-letter," said Jane to the cook with indignation,
+"the way she read it. I like people to have a little feeling!"
+
+Jill sat turning the letter over and over in her fingers. Her face was
+very white. There seemed to be a big, heavy, leaden something inside
+her. A cold hand clutched her throat. Uncle Chris, who at first had
+noticed nothing untoward, now began to find the silence sinister.
+
+"No bad news, I hope, dear?"
+
+Jill turned the letter between her fingers.
+
+"Jill, is it bad news?"
+
+"Derek has broken off the engagement," said Jill in a dull voice. She
+let the note fall to the floor, and sat with her chin in her hands.
+
+"What!" Uncle Chris leaped from the hearth-rug, as though the fire had
+suddenly scorched him. "What did you say?"
+
+"He's broken it off."
+
+"The hound!" cried Uncle Chris. "The blackguard! The--the--I never
+liked that man! I never trusted him!" He fumed for a moment.
+"But--but--it isn't possible. How can he have heard about what's
+happened? He couldn't know. It's--it's--it isn't possible!"
+
+"He doesn't know. It has nothing to do with that."
+
+"But...." Uncle Chris stooped to where the note lay. "May I...?"
+
+"Yes, you can read it if you like."
+
+Uncle Chris produced a pair of reading-glasses, and glared through
+them at the sheet of paper as though it were some loathsome insect.
+
+"The hound! The cad! If I were a younger man," shouted Uncle Chris,
+smiting the letter violently, "if I were.... Jill! My dear little
+Jill!"
+
+He plunged down on his knees beside her, as she buried her face in her
+hands and began to sob.
+
+"My little girl! Damn that man! My dear little girl! The cad! The
+devil! My own darling little girl! I'll thrash him within an inch of
+his life!"
+
+The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away the minutes. Jill got up. Her
+face was wet and quivering, but her mouth had set in a brave line.
+
+"Jill, dear!"
+
+She let his hand close over hers.
+
+"Everything's happening all at once this afternoon, Uncle Chris, isn't
+it!" She smiled a twisted smile. "You look so funny! Your hair's all
+rumpled, and your glasses are over on one side!"
+
+Uncle Chris breathed heavily through his nose.
+
+"When I meet that man...." he began portentously.
+
+"Oh, what's the good of bothering! It's not worth it! Nothing's worth
+it!" Jill stopped and faced him, her hands clenched. "Let's get away!
+Let's get right away! I want to get right away, Uncle Chris! Take me
+away! Anywhere! Take me to America with you! I must get away!"
+
+Uncle Chris raised his right hand, and shook it. His reading-glasses,
+hanging from his left ear, bobbed drunkenly.
+
+"We'll sail by the next boat! The very next boat, dammit! I'll take
+care of you, dear. I've been a blackguard to you, my little girl. I've
+robbed you, and swindled you. But I'll make up for it, by George! I'll
+make up for it! I'll give you a new home, as good as this, if I die
+for it. There's nothing I won't do! Nothing! By Jove!" shouted Uncle
+Chris, raising his voice in a red-hot frenzy of emotion, "I'll work!
+Yes, by Gad, if it comes right down to it, I'll work!"
+
+He brought his fist down with a crash on the table where Derek's
+flowers stood in their bowl. The bowl leaped in the air and tumbled
+over, scattering the flowers on the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+JILL CATCHES THE 10.10
+
+I
+
+
+In the lives of each one of us, as we look back and review them in
+retrospect, there are certain desert wastes from which memory winces
+like some tired traveller faced with a dreary stretch of road. Even
+from the security of later happiness we cannot contemplate them
+without a shudder.
+
+It took one of the most competent firms in the metropolis four days to
+produce some sort of order in the confusion resulting from Major
+Selby's financial operations; and during those days Jill existed in a
+state of being which could be defined as living only in that she
+breathed and ate and comported herself outwardly like a girl and not a
+ghost.
+
+Boards announcing that the house was for sale appeared against the
+railings through which Jane the parlourmaid conducted her daily
+conversations with the tradesmen. Strangers roamed the rooms eyeing
+and appraising the furniture. Uncle Chris, on whom disaster had had a
+quickening and vivifying effect, was everywhere at once, an impressive
+figure of energy. One may be wronging Uncle Chris, but to the eye of
+the casual observer he seemed in these days of trial to be having the
+time of his life.
+
+Jill varied the monotony of sitting in her room--which was the only
+place in the house where one might be sure of not encountering a
+furniture-broker's man with a note-book and pencil--by taking long
+walks. She avoided as far as possible the small area which had once
+made up the whole of London for her, but even so she was not always
+successful in escaping from old acquaintances. Once, butting through
+Lennox Gardens on her way to that vast, desolate King's Road which
+stretches its length out into regions unknown to those whose London
+is the West End, she happened upon Freddie Rooke, who had been paying
+a call in his best, and a pair of white spats which would have cut his
+friend Henry to the quick. It was not an enjoyable meeting. Freddie,
+keenly alive to the awkwardness of the situation, was scarlet and
+incoherent; and Jill, who desired nothing less than to talk with one
+so intimately connected in her mind with all that she had lost, was
+scarcely more collected. They parted without regret. The only
+satisfaction that came to Jill from the encounter was the knowledge
+that Derek was still out of town. He had wired for his things, said
+Freddie, and had retreated further north. Freddie, it seemed, had been
+informed of the broken engagement by Lady Underhill in an interview
+which appeared to have left a lasting impression on his mind. Of
+Jill's monetary difficulties he had heard nothing.
+
+After this meeting, Jill felt a slight diminution of the oppression
+which weighed upon her. She could not have borne to have come
+unexpectedly upon Derek, and, now that there was no danger of that,
+she found life a little easier. The days passed somehow, and finally
+there came the morning, when, accompanied by Uncle Chris--voluble and
+explanatory about the details of what he called "getting everything
+settled"--she rode in a taxi to take the train for Southampton. Her
+last impression of London was of rows upon rows of mean houses, of
+cats wandering in back-yards among groves of home-washed
+underclothing, and a smoky greyness which gave way, as the train raced
+on, to the clearer grey of the suburbs and the good green and brown of
+the open country.
+
+Then the bustle and confusion of the liner; the calm monotony of the
+journey, when one came on deck each morning to find the vessel so
+manifestly in the same spot where it had been the morning before that
+it was impossible to realize that many hundred miles of ocean had
+really been placed behind one; and finally the Ambrose Channel
+lightship and the great bulk of New York rising into the sky like a
+city of fairyland, heartening yet sinister, at once a welcome and a
+menace.
+
+"There you are, my dear?" said Uncle Chris indulgently, as though it
+were a toy he had made for her with his own hands. "New York!"
+
+They were standing on the boat-deck, leaning over the rail. Jill
+caught her breath. For the first time since disaster had come upon her
+she was conscious of a rising of her spirits. It is impossible to
+behold the huge buildings which fringe the harbour of New York without
+a sense of expectancy and excitement. There had remained in Jill's
+mind from childhood memories a vague picture of what she now saw, but
+it had been feeble and inadequate. The sight of this towering city
+seemed somehow to blot out everything that had gone before. The
+feeling of starting afresh was strong upon her.
+
+Uncle Chris, the old traveller, was not emotionally affected. He
+smoked placidly and talked in a wholly earthy strain of grape-fruit
+and buckwheat cakes.
+
+It was now, also for the first time, that Uncle Chris touched upon
+future prospects in a practical manner. On the voyage he had been
+eloquent but sketchy. With the land of promise within biscuit-throw
+and the tugs bustling about the great liner's skirts like little dogs
+about their mistress, he descended to details.
+
+"I shall get a room somewhere," said Uncle Chris, "and start looking
+about me. I wonder if the old Holland House is still there. I fancy I
+heard they'd pulled it down. Capital place. I had a steak there in the
+year.... But I expect they've pulled it down. But I shall find
+somewhere to go. I'll write and tell you my address directly I've got
+one."
+
+Jill removed her gaze from the sky-line with a start.
+
+"Write to me?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you about that?" said Uncle Chris cheerily--avoiding
+her eye, however, for he had realized all along that it might be a
+little bit awkward breaking the news. "I've arranged that you shall go
+and stay for the time being down at Brookport--on Long Island, you
+know--over in that direction--with your Uncle Elmer. Daresay you've
+forgotten you have an Uncle Elmer, eh?" he went on quickly, as Jill
+was about to speak. "Your father's brother. Used to be in business,
+but retired some years ago and goes in for amateur farming. Corn
+and--and corn," said Uncle Chris. "All that sort of thing. You'll like
+him. Capital chap! Never met him myself, but always heard," said Uncle
+Chris, who had never to his recollection heard any comments upon Mr.
+Elmer Mariner whatever, "that he was a splendid fellow. Directly we
+decided to sail, I cabled to him, and got an answer saying that he
+would be delighted to put you up. You'll be quite happy there."
+
+Jill listened to this programme with dismay. New York was calling to
+her, and Brookport held out no attractions at all. She looked down
+over the side at the tugs puffing their way through the broken blocks
+of ice that reminded her of a cocoanut candy familiar to her
+childhood.
+
+"But I want to be with you," she protested.
+
+"Impossible, my dear, for the present. I shall be very busy, very busy
+indeed for some weeks, until I have found my feet. Really, you would
+be in the way. He--er--travels the fastest who travels alone! I must
+be in a position to go anywhere and do anything at a moment's notice.
+But always remember, my dear," said Uncle Chris, patting her shoulder
+affectionately, "that I shall be working for you. I have treated you
+very badly, but I intend to make up for it. I shall not forget that
+whatever money I may make will really belong to you." He looked at her
+benignly, like a monarch of finance who has earmarked a million or two
+for the benefit of a deserving charity. "You shall have it all, Jill."
+
+He had so much the air of having conferred a substantial benefit upon
+her that Jill felt obliged to thank him. Uncle Chris had always been
+able to make people grateful for the phantom gold which he showered
+upon them. He was as lavish a man with the money he was going to get
+next week as ever borrowed a five-pound note to see him through till
+Saturday.
+
+"What are you going to do, Uncle Chris?" asked Jill curiously. Apart
+from a nebulous idea that he intended to saunter through the city
+picking dollar-bills off the sidewalk, she had no inkling of his
+plans.
+
+Uncle Chris toyed with his short moustache. He was not quite equal to
+a direct answer on the spur of the moment. He had a faith in his star.
+Something would turn up. Something always had turned up in the old
+days, and doubtless, with the march of civilization, opportunities had
+multiplied. Somewhere behind those tall buildings the Goddess of Luck
+awaited him, her hands full of gifts, but precisely what those gifts
+would be he was not in a position to say.
+
+"I shall--ah--how shall I put it--?"
+
+"Look round?" suggested Jill.
+
+"Precisely," said Uncle Chris gratefully. "Look round. I daresay you
+have noticed that I have gone out of my way during the voyage to make
+myself agreeable to our fellow-travellers? I had an object.
+Acquaintances begun on shipboard will often ripen into useful
+friendships ashore. When I was a young man I never neglected the
+opportunities which an ocean voyage affords. The offer of a book here,
+a steamer-rug there, a word of encouragement to a chatty bore in the
+smoke-room--these are small things, but they may lead to much. One
+meets influential people on a liner. You wouldn't think it to look at
+him, but that man with the eye-glasses and the thin nose I was talking
+to just now is one of the richest men in Milwaukee!"
+
+"But it's not much good having rich friends in Milwaukee when you are
+in New York!"
+
+"Exactly. There you have put your finger on the very point I have been
+trying to make. It will probably be necessary for me to travel. And
+for that I must be alone. I must be a mobile force. I should dearly
+like to keep you with me, but you can see for yourself that for the
+moment you would be an encumbrance. Later on, no doubt, when my
+affairs are more settled...."
+
+"Oh, I understand. I'm resigned. But, oh dear! it's going to be very
+dull down at Brookport."
+
+"Nonsense, nonsense! It's a delightful spot."
+
+"Have you been there?"
+
+"No. But of course everybody knows Brookport. Healthy,
+invigorating.... Sure to be. The very name.... You'll be as happy as
+the days are long!"
+
+"And how long will the days be!"
+
+"Come, come. You mustn't look on the dark side."
+
+"Is there another?" Jill laughed. "You are an old humbug, Uncle Chris.
+You know perfectly well what you're condemning me to. I expect
+Brookport will be like a sort of Southend in winter. Oh, well, I'll be
+brave. But do hurry and make a fortune, because I want to come to New
+York."
+
+"My dear," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "if there is a dollar lying
+loose in this city, rest assured that I shall have it! And, if it's
+not loose, I will detach it with the greatest possible speed. You have
+only known me in my decadence, an idle and unprofitable London
+clubman. I can assure you that lurking beneath the surface, there is
+a business acumen given to few men...."
+
+"Oh, if you are going to talk poetry," said Jill, "I'll leave you.
+Anyhow, I ought to be getting below and putting my things together."
+
+
+II
+
+If Jill's vision of Brookport as a wintry Southend was not entirely
+fulfilled, neither was Uncle Chris' picture of it as an earthly
+paradise. At the right time of the year, like most of the summer
+resorts on the south shore of Long Island, it is not without its
+attractions; but January is not the month which most people would
+choose for living in it. It presented itself to Jill on first
+acquaintance in the aspect of a wind-swept railroad station, dumped
+down far away from human habitation in the middle of a stretch of flat
+and ragged country that reminded her a little of parts of Surrey. The
+station was just a shed on a foundation of planks which lay flush with
+the rails. From this shed, as the train clanked in, there emerged a
+tall, shambling man in a weather-beaten overcoat. He had a
+clean-shaven, wrinkled face, and he looked doubtfully at Jill with
+small eyes. Something in his expression reminded Jill of her father,
+as a bad caricature of a public man will recall the original. She
+introduced herself.
+
+"If you're Uncle Elmer," she said, "I'm Jill."
+
+The man held out a long hand. He did not smile. He was as bleak as the
+east wind that swept the platform.
+
+"Glad to meet you again," he said in a melancholy voice. It was news
+to Jill that they had met before. She wondered where. Her uncle
+supplied the information. "Last time I saw you, you were a kiddy in
+short frocks, running round and shouting to beat the band." He looked
+up and down the platform. "_I_ never heard a child make so much
+noise!"
+
+"I'm quite quiet now," said Jill encouragingly. The recollection of
+her infant revelry seemed to her to be distressing her relative.
+
+It appeared, however, that it was not only this that was on his mind.
+
+"If you want to drive home," he said, "we'll have to 'phone to the
+Durham House for a hack." He brooded a while, Jill remaining silent at
+his side, loath to break in upon whatever secret sorrow he was
+wrestling with. "That would be a dollar," he went on. "They're
+robbers in these parts! A dollar! And it's not over a mile and a half.
+Are you fond of walking?"
+
+Jill was a bright girl, and could take a hint.
+
+"I love walking," she said. She might have added that she preferred to
+do it on a day when the wind was not blowing quite so keenly from the
+East, but her uncle's obvious excitement at the prospect of cheating
+the rapacity of the sharks at the Durham House restrained her. Her
+independent soul had not quite adjusted itself to the prospect of
+living on the bounty of her fellows, relatives though they were, and
+she was desirous of imposing as light a burden upon them as possible.
+"But how about my trunk?"
+
+"The expressman will bring that up. Fifty cents!" said Uncle Elmer in
+a crushed way. The high cost of entertaining seemed to be afflicting
+this man deeply.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Jill. She could not see how this particular
+expenditure was to be avoided. Anxious as she was to make herself
+pleasant, she declined to consider carrying the trunk to their
+destination. "Shall we start, then?"
+
+Mr. Mariner led the way out into the ice-covered road. The wind
+welcomed them like a boisterous dog. For some minutes they proceeded
+in silence.
+
+"Your aunt will be glad to see you," said Mr. Mariner at last in the
+voice with which one announces the death of a dear friend.
+
+"It's awfully kind of you to have me to stay with you," said Jill. It
+is a human tendency to think, when crises occur, in terms of
+melodrama, and unconsciously she had begun to regard herself somewhat
+in the light of a heroine driven out into the world from the old home,
+with no roof to shelter her head. The promptitude with which these
+good people, who, though relatives, were after all complete strangers,
+had offered her a resting-place touched her. "I hope I shan't be in
+the way."
+
+"Major Selby was speaking to me on the telephone just now," said Mr.
+Mariner, "and he said that you might be thinking of settling down in
+Brookport. I've some nice little places round here which you might
+like to look at. Rent or buy. It's cheaper to buy. Brookport's a
+growing place. It's getting known as a summer resort. There's a
+bungalow down on the shore I'd like to show you to-morrow. Stands in
+a nice large plot of ground, and if you bought it for twelve thousand
+you'd be getting a bargain."
+
+Jill was too astonished to speak. Plainly Uncle Chris had made no
+mention of the change in her fortunes, and this man looked on her as a
+girl of wealth. She could only think how typical this was of Uncle
+Chris. There was a sort of boyish impishness about him. She could see
+him at the telephone, suave and important. He would have hung up the
+receiver with a complacent smirk, thoroughly satisfied that he had
+done her an excellent turn.
+
+"I put all my money into real estate when I came to live here," went
+on Mr. Mariner. "I believe in the place. It's growing all the time."
+
+They had come to the outskirts of a straggling village. The lights in
+the windows gave a welcome suggestion of warmth, for darkness had
+fallen swiftly during their walk and the chill of the wind had become
+more biting. There was a smell of salt in the air now, and once or
+twice Jill had caught the low booming of waves on some distant beach.
+This was the Atlantic pounding the sandy shore of Fire Island.
+Brookport itself lay inside, on the lagoon called the Great South Bay.
+
+They passed through the village, bearing to the right, and found
+themselves in a road bordered by large gardens in which stood big,
+dark houses. The spectacle of these stimulated Mr. Mariner to
+something approaching eloquence. He quoted the price paid for each,
+the price asked, the price offered, the price that had been paid five
+years ago. The recital carried them on for another mile, in the course
+of which the houses became smaller and more scattered, and finally,
+when the country had become bare and desolate again, they turned down
+a narrow lane and came to a tall, gaunt house standing by itself in a
+field.
+
+"This is Sandringham," said Mr. Mariner.
+
+"What!" said Jill. "What did you say?"
+
+"Sandringham. Where we live. I got the name from your father. I
+remember him telling me there was a place called that in England."
+
+"There is." Jill's voice bubbled. "The King lives there."
+
+"Is that so?" said Mr. Mariner. "Well, I bet he doesn't have the
+trouble with help that we have here. I have to pay our girl fifty
+dollars a month, and another twenty for the man who looks after the
+furnace and chops wood. They're all robbers. And if you kick they quit
+on you!"
+
+
+III
+
+Jill endured Sandringham for ten days; and, looking back on that
+period of her life later, she wondered how she did it. The sense of
+desolation which had gripped her on the station platform increased
+rather than diminished as she grew accustomed to her surroundings. The
+east wind died away, and the sun shone fitfully with a suggestion of
+warmth, but her uncle's bleakness appeared to be a static quality,
+independent of weather conditions. Her aunt, a faded woman, with a
+perpetual cold in the head, did nothing to promote cheerfulness. The
+rest of the household consisted of a gloomy child, "Tibby," aged
+eight; a spaniel, probably a few years older, and an intermittent cat,
+who, when he did put in an appearance, was the life and soul of the
+party, but whose visits to his home were all too infrequent for Jill.
+
+The picture which Mr. Mariner had formed in his mind of Jill as a
+wealthy young lady with a taste for house property continued as vivid
+as ever. It was his practice each morning to conduct her about the
+neighbourhood, introducing her to the various houses in which he had
+sunk most of the money he had made in business. Mr. Mariner's life
+centred around Brookport real estate, and the embarrassed Jill was
+compelled to inspect sitting-rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and master's
+bedrooms till the sound of a key turning in a lock gave her a feeling
+of nervous exhaustion. Most of her uncle's houses were converted
+farm-houses, and, as one unfortunate purchaser had remarked, not so
+darned converted at that. The days she spent at Brookport remained in
+Jill's memory as a smell of dampness and chill and closeness.
+
+"You want to buy," said Mr. Mariner every time he shut a front-door
+behind them. "Not rent. Buy. Then, if you don't want to live here, you
+can always rent in the summer."
+
+It seemed incredible to Jill that the summer would ever come. Winter
+held Brookport in its grip. For the first time in her life she was
+tasting real loneliness. She wandered over the snow-patched fields
+down to the frozen bay, and found the intense stillness, punctuated
+only by the occasional distant gunshot of some optimist trying for
+duck, oppressive rather than restful. She looked on the weird beauty
+of the ice-bound marshes which glittered red and green and blue in the
+sun with unseeing eyes; for her isolation was giving her time to
+think, and thought was a torment.
+
+On the eighth day came a letter from Uncle Chris--a cheerful, even
+rollicking letter. Things were going well with Uncle Chris, it seemed.
+As was his habit, he did not enter into details, but he wrote in a
+spacious way of large things to be, of affairs that were coming out
+right, of prosperity in sight. As tangible evidence of success, he
+enclosed a present of twenty dollars for Jill to spend in the
+Brookport shops.
+
+The letter arrived by the morning mail, and two hours later Mr.
+Mariner took Jill by one of his usual overland routes to see a house
+nearer the village than most of those which she had viewed. Mr.
+Mariner had exhausted the supply of cottages belonging to himself, and
+this one was the property of an acquaintance. There would be an
+agent's fee for him in the deal, if it went through, and Mr. Mariner
+was not a man who despised money in small quantities.
+
+There was a touch of hopefulness in his gloom this morning, like the first
+intimation of sunshine after a wet day. He had been thinking the thing
+over, and had come to the conclusion that Jill's unresponsiveness when
+confronted with the houses she had already seen was due to the fact that
+she had loftier ideas than he had supposed. Something a little more
+magnificent than the twelve thousand dollar places he had shown her was
+what she desired. This house stood on a hill looking down on the bay, in
+several acres of ground. It had its private landing-stage and bath-house,
+its dairy, its sleeping-porches--everything, in fact, that a sensible girl
+could want. Mr. Mariner could not bring himself to suppose that he would
+fail again to-day.
+
+"They're asking a hundred and five thousand," he said, "but I know
+they'd take a hundred thousand. And, if it was a question of cash
+down, they would go even lower. It's a fine house. You could entertain
+there. Mrs. Bruggenheim rented it last summer, and wanted to buy, but
+she wouldn't go above ninety thousand. If you want it, you'd better
+make up your mind quick. A place like this is apt to be snapped up in
+a hurry."
+
+Jill could endure it no longer.
+
+"But, you see," she said gently, "all I have in the world is twenty
+dollars!"
+
+There was a painful pause. Mr. Mariner shot a swift glance at her in
+the hope of discovering that she had spoken humorously, but was
+compelled to decide that she had not.
+
+"Twenty dollars!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Twenty dollars," said Jill.
+
+"But your father was a rich man." Mr. Mariner's voice was high and
+plaintive. "He made a fortune over here before he went to England."
+
+"It's all gone. I got nipped," said Jill, who was finding a certain
+amount of humour in the situation, "in Amalgamated Dyes."
+
+"Amalgamated Dyes?"
+
+"They're something," explained Jill, "that people get nipped in."
+
+Mr. Mariner digested this.
+
+"You speculated?" he gasped.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You shouldn't have been allowed to do it," said Mr. Mariner warmly.
+"Major Selby, your uncle, ought to have known better than to allow
+you."
+
+"Yes, oughtn't he?" said Jill demurely.
+
+There was another silence, lasting for about a quarter of a mile.
+
+"Well, it's a bad business," said Mr. Mariner.
+
+"Yes," said Jill. "I've felt that myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The result of this conversation was to effect a change in the
+atmosphere of Sandringham. The alteration in the demeanour of people
+of parsimonious habit, when they discover that the guest they are
+entertaining is a pauper and not, as they had supposed, an heiress, is
+subtle but well marked. In most cases, more well marked than subtle.
+Nothing was actually said, but there are thoughts that are almost as
+audible as words. A certain suspense seemed to creep into the air, as
+happens when a situation has been reached which is too poignant to
+last. Greek Tragedy affects the reader with the same sense of
+overhanging doom. Things, we feel, cannot go on as they are.
+
+That night, after dinner, Mrs. Mariner asked Jill to read to her.
+
+"Print tries my eyes so, dear," said Mrs. Mariner.
+
+It was a small thing, but it had the significance of that little cloud
+that arose out of the sea like a man's hand. Jill appreciated the
+portent. She was, she perceived, to make herself useful.
+
+"Of course I will," she said cordially. "What would you like me to
+read?"
+
+She hated reading aloud. It always made her throat sore, and her eye
+skipped to the end of each page and took the interest out of it long
+before the proper time. But she proceeded bravely, for her conscience
+was troubling her. Her sympathy was divided equally between these
+unfortunate people who had been saddled with an undesired visitor and
+herself who had been placed in a position at which every independent
+nerve in her rebelled. Even as a child she had loathed being under
+obligations to strangers or those whom she did not love.
+
+"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Mariner, when Jill's voice had roughened
+to a weary croak. "You read so well." She wrestled ineffectually with
+her handkerchief against the cold in the head from which she had
+always suffered. "It would be nice if you would do it every night,
+don't you think? You have no idea how tired print makes my eyes."
+
+On the following morning after breakfast, at the hour when she had
+hitherto gone house-hunting with Mr. Mariner, the child Tibby, of whom
+up till now she had seen little except at meals, presented himself to
+her, coated and shod for the open and regarding her with a dull and
+phlegmatic gaze.
+
+"Ma says will you please take me for a nice walk!"
+
+Jill's heart sank. She loved children, but Tibby was not an
+ingratiating child. He was a Mr. Mariner in little. He had the family
+gloom. It puzzled Jill sometimes why this branch of the family should
+look on life with so jaundiced an eye. She remembered her father as a
+cheerful man, alive to the small humours of life.
+
+"All right, Tibby. Where shall we go?"
+
+"Ma says we must keep on the roads and I mustn't slide."
+
+Jill was thoughtful during the walk. Tibby, who was no
+conversationist, gave her every opportunity for meditation. She
+perceived that in the space of a few hours she had sunk in the social
+scale. If there was any difference between her position and that of a
+paid nurse and companion it lay in the fact that she was not paid. She
+looked about her at the grim countryside, gave a thought to the chill
+gloom of the house to which she was about to return, and her heart
+sank.
+
+Nearing home, Tibby vouched his first independent observation.
+
+"The hired man's quit!"
+
+"Has he?"
+
+"Yep. Quit this morning."
+
+It had begun to snow. They turned and made their way back to the
+house. The information she had received did not cause Jill any great
+apprehension. It was hardly likely that her new duties would include
+the stoking of the furnace. That and cooking appeared to be the only
+acts about the house which were outside her present sphere of
+usefulness.
+
+"He killed a rat once in the wood-shed with an axe," said Tibby
+chattily. "Yessir! Chopped it right in half, and it bled!"
+
+"Look at the pretty snow falling on the trees," said Jill faintly.
+
+At breakfast next morning, Mrs. Mariner having sneezed, made a
+suggestion.
+
+"Tibby, darling, wouldn't it be nice if you and cousin Jill played a
+game of pretending you were pioneers in the Far West?"
+
+"What's a pioneer?" enquired Tibby, pausing in the middle of an act of
+violence on a plate of oatmeal.
+
+"The pioneers were the early settlers in this country, dear. You have
+read about them in your history book. They endured a great many
+hardships, for life was very rough for them, with no railroads or
+anything. I think it would be a nice game to play this morning."
+
+Tibby looked at Jill. There was doubt in his eye. Jill returned his
+gaze sympathetically. One thought was in both their minds.
+
+"There is a string to this!" said Tibby's eye.
+
+Mrs. Mariner sneezed again.
+
+"You would have lots of fun," she said.
+
+"What'ud we do?" asked Tibby cautiously. He had been had this way
+before. Only last summer, on his mother's suggestion that he should
+pretend he was a shipwrecked sailor on a desert island, he had
+perspired through a whole afternoon cutting the grass in front of the
+house to make a shipwrecked sailor's simple bed.
+
+"I know," said Jill. "We'll pretend we're pioneers stormbound in their
+log cabin in the woods, and the wolves are howling outside, and they
+daren't go out, so they make a lovely big fire and sit in front of it
+and read."
+
+"And eat candy," suggested Tibby, warming to the idea.
+
+"And eat candy," agreed Jill.
+
+Mrs. Mariner frowned.
+
+"I was going to suggest," she said frostily, "that you shovelled the
+snow away from the front steps!"
+
+"Splendid!" said Jill. "Oh, but I forgot. I want to go to the village
+first."
+
+"There will be plenty of time to do it when you get back."
+
+"All right. I'll do it when I get back."
+
+It was a quarter of an hour's walk to the village. Jill stopped at the
+post-office.
+
+"Could you tell me," she asked, "when the next train is to New York?"
+
+"There's one at ten-ten," said the woman behind the window. "You'll
+have to hurry."
+
+"I'll hurry!" said Jill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DRY-SALTERS WING DEREK
+
+I
+
+
+Doctors, laying down the law in their usual confident way, tell us
+that the vitality of the human body is at its lowest at two o'clock in
+the morning: and that it is then, as a consequence, that the mind is
+least able to contemplate the present with equanimity, the future with
+fortitude, and the past without regret. Every thinking man, however,
+knows that this is not so. The true zero hour, desolate, gloom-ridden,
+and spectre-haunted, occurs immediately before dinner while we are
+waiting for that cocktail. It is then that, stripped for a brief
+moment of our armour of complacency and self-esteem, we see ourselves
+as we are--frightful chumps in a world where nothing goes right; a
+grey world in which, hoping to click, we merely get the raspberry;
+where, animated by the best intentions, we nevertheless succeed in
+perpetrating the scaliest bloomers and landing our loved ones
+neck-deep in the gumbo.
+
+So reflected Freddie Rooke, that priceless old bean, sitting
+disconsolately in an arm-chair at the Drones Club about two weeks
+after Jill's departure from England, waiting for his friend Algy
+Martyn to trickle in and give him dinner.
+
+Surveying Freddie, as he droops on his spine in the yielding leather,
+one is conscious of one's limitations as a writer. Gloom like his
+calls for the pen of a master. Zola could have tackled it nicely.
+Gorky might have made a stab at it. Dostoevsky would have handled it
+with relish. But for oneself the thing is too vast. One cannot wangle
+it. It intimidates. It would have been bad enough in any case, for
+Algy Martyn was late as usual and it always gave Freddie the pip to
+have to wait for dinner: but what made it worse was the fact that the
+Drones was not one of Freddie's clubs and so, until the blighter Algy
+arrived, it was impossible for him to get his cocktail. There he sat,
+surrounded by happy, laughing young men, each grasping a glass of the
+good old mixture-as-before, absolutely unable to connect. Some of
+them, casual acquaintances, had nodded to him, waved, and gone on
+lowering the juice,--a spectacle which made Freddie feel much as the
+wounded soldier would have felt if Sir Philip Sidney, instead of
+offering him the cup of water, had placed it to his own lips and
+drained it with a careless "Cheerio!" No wonder Freddie experienced
+the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoi's
+Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling
+his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city
+reservoir, he turns to the cupboard, only to find the vodka-bottle
+empty.
+
+Freddie gave himself up to despondency: and, as always in these days
+when he was mournful, he thought of Jill. Jill's sad case was a
+continual source of mental anguish to him. From the first he had
+blamed himself for the breaking-off of her engagement with Derek. If
+he had not sent the message to Derek from the police-station, the
+latter would never have known about their arrest, and all would have
+been well. And now, a few days ago, had come the news of her financial
+disaster, with its attendant complications.
+
+It had descended on Freddie like a thunderbolt through the medium of
+Ronny Devereux.
+
+"I say," Ronny had said, "have you heard the latest? Your pal,
+Underhill, has broken off his engagement with Jill Mariner."
+
+"I know; rather rotten, what!"
+
+"Rotten? I should say so! It isn't done. I mean to say, chap can't
+chuck a girl just because she's lost her money. Simply isn't on the
+board, old man!"
+
+"Lost her money? What do you mean?"
+
+Ronny was surprised. Hadn't Freddie heard? Yes, absolute fact. He had
+it from the best authority. Didn't know how it had happened and all
+that, but Jill Mariner had gone completely bust; Underhill had given
+her the miss-in-baulk; and the poor girl had legged it, no one knew
+where. Oh, Freddie had met her and she had told him she was going to
+America? Well, then, legged it to America. But the point was that the
+swine Underhill had handed her the mitten just because she was broke,
+and that was what Ronny thought so bally rotten. Broker a girl is,
+Ronny meant to say, more a fellow should stick to her.
+
+"But--" Freddie rushed to his hero's defence. "But it wasn't that at
+all. Something quite different. I mean, Derek didn't even know Jill
+had lost her money. He broke the engagement because...." Freddie
+stopped short. He didn't want everybody to know of that rotten arrest
+business, as they infallibly would if he confided in Ronny Devereux.
+Sort of thing he would never hear the last of. "He broke it off
+because of something quite different."
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Ronny sceptically.
+
+"But he did, really!"
+
+Ronny shook his head.
+
+"Don't you believe it, old son. Don't you believe it. Stands to reason
+it must have been because the poor girl was broke. You wouldn't have
+done it and I wouldn't have done it, but Underhill did, and that's all
+there is to it. I mean, a tick's a tick, and there's nothing more to
+say. Well, I know he's been a pal of yours, Freddie, but, next time I
+meet him, by Jove, I'll cut him dead. Only I don't know him to speak
+to, dash it!" concluded Ronny regretfully.
+
+Ronny's news had upset Freddie. Derek had returned to the Albany a
+couple of days ago, moody and silent. They had lunched together at the
+Bachelors, and Freddie had been pained at the attitude of his
+fellow-clubmen. Usually, when he lunched at the Bachelors, his table
+became a sort of social centre. Cheery birds would roll up to pass the
+time of day, and festive old eggs would toddle over to have coffee and
+so forth, and all that sort of thing. Jolly! On this occasion nobody
+had rolled, and all the eggs present had taken their coffee elsewhere.
+There was an uncomfortable chill in the atmosphere of which Freddie
+had been acutely conscious, though Derek had not appeared to notice
+it. The thing had only come home to Derek yesterday at the Albany,
+when the painful episode of Wally Mason had occurred. It was this
+way....
+
+"Hullo, Freddie, old top! Sorry to have kept you waiting."
+
+Freddie looked up from his broken meditations, to find that his host
+had arrived.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"A quick bracer," said Algy Martyn, "and then the jolly old
+food-stuffs. It's pretty late, I see. Didn't notice how time was
+slipping."
+
+Over the soup, Freddie was still a prey to gloom. For once the healing
+gin-and-vermouth had failed to do its noble work. He sipped sombrely,
+so sombrely as to cause comment from his host.
+
+"Pipped?" enquired Algy solicitously.
+
+"Pretty pipped," admitted Freddie.
+
+"Backed a loser?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Something wrong with the old tum?"
+
+"No.... Worried."
+
+"Worried?"
+
+"About Derek."
+
+"Derek? Who's...? Oh, you mean Underhill?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Algy Martyn chased an elusive piece of carrot about his soup plate,
+watching it interestedly as it slid coyly from the spoon.
+
+"Oh?" he said, with sudden coolness. "What about him?"
+
+Freddie was too absorbed in his subject to notice the change in his
+friend's tone.
+
+"A dashed unpleasant thing," he said, "happened yesterday morning at
+my place. I was just thinking about going out to lunch, when the
+door-bell rang and Barker said a chappie of the name of Mason would
+like to see me. I didn't remember any Mason, but Barker said the
+chappie said he knew me when I was a kid. So he loosed him into the
+room, and it turned out to be a fellow I used to know years ago down
+in Worcestershire. I didn't know him from Adam at first, but gradually
+the old bean got to work, and I placed him. Wally Mason his name was.
+Rummily enough, he had spoken to me at the Leicester that night when
+the fire was, but not being able to place him, I had given him the
+miss somewhat. You know how it is. Cove you've never been introduced
+to says something to you in a theatre, and you murmur something and
+sheer off. What?"
+
+"Absolutely," agreed Algy Martyn. He thoroughly approved of Freddie's
+code of etiquette. Sheer off. Only thing to do.
+
+"Well, anyhow, now that he had turned up again and told me who he was,
+I began to remember. We had been kids together, don't you know.
+(What's this? Salmon? Oh, right ho.) So I buzzed about and did the
+jovial host, you know; gave him a drink and a toofer, and all that
+sort of thing; and talked about the dear old days and what not. And so
+forth, if you follow me. Then he brought the conversation round to
+Jill. Of course he knew Jill at the same time when he knew me, down in
+Worcestershire, you see. We were all pretty pally in those days, if
+you see what I mean. Well, this man Mason, it seems, had heard
+somewhere about Jill losing her money, and he wanted to know if it was
+true. I said absolutely. Hadn't heard any details, but Ronny had told
+me, and Ronny had had it from some one who had stable information and
+all that sort of thing. 'Dashed shame, isn't it?' I said. 'She's gone
+to America, you know.' 'I didn't know,' he said. 'I understood she was
+going to be married quite soon.' Well, of course, I told him that that
+was off. He didn't say anything for a bit, then he said 'Off?' I said
+'Off.' 'Did she break it off?' asked the chappie. 'Well, no,' I said.
+'As a matter of fact Derek broke it off.' He said 'Oh!' (What? Oh yes,
+a bit of pheasant will be fine.) Where was I? Oh, yes. He said 'Oh!'
+Now, before this, I ought to tell you, this chappie Mason had asked
+me to come out and have a bit of lunch. I had told him I was lunching
+with Derek, and he said 'Right ho,' or words to that effect, 'Bring
+him along.' Derek had been out for a stroll, you see, and we were
+waiting for him to come in. Well, just at this point or juncture, if
+you know what I mean, in he came, and I said' Oh, what ho!' and
+introduced Wally Mason. 'Oh, do you know Underhill?' I said, or
+something like that. You know the sort of thing. And then...."
+
+Freddie broke off and drained his glass. The recollection of that
+painful moment had made him feverish. Social difficulties always did.
+
+"Then what?" enquired Algy Martyn.
+
+"Well, it was pretty rotten. Derek held out his hand, as a chappie
+naturally would, being introduced to a strange chappie, and Wally
+Mason, giving it an absolute miss, went on talking to me just as if we
+were alone, you know. Look here. Here was I, where this knife is.
+Derek over here--this fork--with his hand out. Mason here--this bit of
+bread. Mason looks at his watch, and says 'I'm sorry, Freddie, but I
+find I've an engagement for lunch. So long!' and biffed out, without
+apparently knowing that Derek was on the earth. I mean...." Freddie
+reached for his glass. "What I mean is, it was dashed embarrassing. I
+mean, cutting a fellow dead in my rooms. I don't know when I've felt
+so rotten!"
+
+Algy Martyn delivered judgment with great firmness.
+
+"Chappie was perfectly right!"
+
+"No, but I mean...."
+
+"Absolutely correct-o," insisted Algy sternly. "Underhill can't dash
+about all over the place giving the girl he's engaged to the mitten
+because she's broke, and expect no notice to be taken of it. If you
+want to know what I think, old man, your pal Underhill--I can't
+imagine what the deuce you see in him, but, school together and so
+forth, makes a difference, I suppose--I say, if you want to know what
+I think, Freddie, the blighter Underhill would be well advised either
+to leg it after Jill and get her to marry him or else lie low for a
+goodish while till people have forgotten the thing. I mean to say,
+fellows like Ronny and I and Dick Wimpole and Archie Studd and the
+rest of our lot--well, we all knew Jill and thought she was a topper
+and had danced with her here and there and seen her about and all
+that, and naturally we feel pretty strongly about the whole dashed
+business. Underhill isn't in our particular set, but we all know most
+of the people he knows, and we talk about this business, and the thing
+gets about, and there you are! My sister, who was a great pal of
+Jill's, swears that all the girls she knows mean to cut Underhill. I
+tell you, Freddie, London's going to get pretty hot for him if he
+doesn't do something dashed quick and with great rapidity!"
+
+"But you haven't got the story right, old thing!"
+
+"How not?"
+
+"Well, I mean you think and Ronny thinks and all the rest of you think
+that Derek broke off the engagement because of the money. It wasn't
+that at all."
+
+"What was it, then?"
+
+"Well.... Well, look here, it makes me seem a fearful ass and all
+that, but I'd better tell you. Jill and I were going down one of those
+streets near Victoria and a blighter was trying to slay a parrot...."
+
+"Parrot-shooting's pretty good in those parts, they tell me,"
+interjected Algy satirically.
+
+"Don't interrupt, old man. This parrot had got out of one of the
+houses, and a fellow was jabbing at it with a stick, and Jill--you
+know what she's like; impulsive, I mean, and all that--Jill got hold
+of the stick and biffed him with some vim, and a policeman rolled up
+and the fellow made a fuss and the policeman took Jill and me off to
+chokey. Well, like an ass, I sent round to Derek to bail us out, and
+that's how he heard of the thing. Apparently he didn't think a lot of
+it, and the result was that he broke off the engagement."
+
+Algy Martyn had listened to this recital with growing amazement.
+
+"He broke it off because of that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What absolute rot!" said Algy Martyn. "I don't believe a word of it!"
+
+"I say, old man!"
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," repeated Algy firmly.
+
+"And nobody else will either. It's dashed good of you, Freddie, to
+cook up a yarn like that to try and make things look better for the
+blighter, but it won't work. Such a damn silly story, too!" said Algy
+with some indignation.
+
+"But it's true!"
+
+"What's the use, Freddie, between old pals?" said Algy protestingly.
+"You know perfectly well that Underhill's a worm of the most
+pronounced order, and that, when he found out that Jill hadn't any
+money, he chucked her."
+
+"But why should Derek care whether Jill was well off or not? He's got
+enough money of his own."
+
+"Nobody," said Algy judicially, "has got enough money of his own.
+Underhill thought he was marrying a girl with a sizable chunk of the
+ready, and, when the fuse blew out, he decided it wasn't good enough.
+For Heaven's sake don't let's talk any more about the blighter. It
+gives me a pain to think of him."
+
+
+II
+
+Freddie returned to the Albany in a state of gloom and uneasiness.
+Algy's remarks, coming on top of the Wally Mason episode, had shaken
+him. The London in which he and Derek moved and had their being is
+nothing but a village, and it was evident that village gossip was
+hostile to Derek. People were talking about him. Local opinion had
+decided that he had behaved badly. Already one man had cut him.
+Freddie blenched at a sudden vision of streetfuls of men, long
+Piccadillys of men, all cutting him, one after the other. Something
+had got to be done.
+
+The subject was not an easy one to broach to his somewhat forbidding
+friend, as he discovered when the latter arrived about half an hour
+later. Derek had been attending the semi-annual banquet of the
+Worshipful Dry-Salters Company down in the City, understudying one of
+the speakers, a leading member of Parliament, who had been unable to
+appear; and he was still in the grip of that feeling of degraded
+repletion which City dinners induce.
+
+Yet, unfavourably disposed as, judging by his silence and the
+occasional moody grunts he uttered, he appeared to be to a discussion
+of his private affairs, it seemed to Freddie impossible that the night
+should be allowed to pass without some word spoken on the subject. He
+thought of Ronny and what Ronny had said, of Algy and what Algy had
+said, of Wally Mason and how Wally had behaved in this very room; and
+he nerved himself to the task.
+
+"Derek, old top."
+
+A grunt.
+
+"I say, Derek, old bean."
+
+Derek roused himself, and looked gloomily across the room to where he
+stood, warming his legs at the blaze.
+
+"Well?"
+
+Freddie found a difficulty in selecting words. A ticklish business,
+this. One that might well have disconcerted a diplomat. Freddie was no
+diplomat, and the fact enabled him to find a way in the present
+crisis. Equipped by nature with an amiable tactlessness and a happy
+gift of blundering, he charged straight at the main point, and landed
+on it like a circus elephant alighting on a bottle.
+
+"I say, you know, about Jill!"
+
+He stooped to rub the backs of his legs, on which the fire was playing
+with a little too fierce a glow, and missed his companion's start and
+the sudden thickening of his bushy eyebrows.
+
+"Well?" said Derek again.
+
+Freddie nerved himself to proceed. A thought flashed across his mind
+that Derek was looking exactly like Lady Underhill. It was the first
+time he had seen the family resemblance quite so marked.
+
+"Ronny Devereux was saying...." faltered Freddie.
+
+"Damn Ronny Devereux!"
+
+"Oh, absolutely! But...."
+
+"Ronny Devereux! Who the devil _is_ Ronny Devereux?"
+
+"Why, old man, you've heard me speak of him, haven't you? Pal of mine.
+He came down to the station with Algy and me to meet your mater that
+morning."
+
+"Oh, _that_ fellow? And he has been saying something about...?"
+
+"It isn't only Ronny, you know," Freddie hastened to interject. "Algy
+Martyn's talking about it, too. And lots of other fellows. And Algy's
+sister and a lot of peoples They're all saying...."
+
+"What are they saying?"
+
+Freddie bent down and chafed the back of his legs. He simply couldn't
+look at Derek while he had that Lady Underhill expression on the old
+map. Rummy he had never noticed before how extraordinarily like his
+mother he was. Freddie was conscious of a faint sense of grievance. He
+could not have put it into words, but what he felt was that a fellow
+had no right to go about looking like Lady Underhill.
+
+"What are they saying?" repeated Derek grimly.
+
+"Well...." Freddie hesitated. "That it's a bit tough.... On Jill, you
+know."
+
+"They think I behaved badly?"
+
+"Well.... Oh, well, you know!"
+
+Derek smiled a ghastly smile. This was not wholly due to mental
+disturbance. The dull heaviness which was the legacy of the
+Dry-Salters' dinner had begun to change to something more actively
+unpleasant. A sub-motive of sharp pain had begun to run through it,
+flashing in and out like lightning through a thunder-cloud. He felt
+sullen and vicious.
+
+"I wonder," he said with savage politeness, "if, when you chat with
+your friends, you would mind choosing some other topic than my private
+affairs."
+
+"Sorry, old man. But they started it, you know."
+
+"And, if you feel you've got to discuss me, kindly keep it to
+yourself. Don't come and tell me what your damned friends said to each
+other and to you and what you said to them, because it bores me. I'm
+not interested. I don't value their opinions as much as you seem to."
+Derek paused, to battle in silence with the imperious agony within
+him. "It was good of you to put me up here," he went on, "but I think
+I won't trespass on your hospitality any longer. Perhaps you'll ask
+Barker to pack my things to-morrow." Derek moved, as majestically as
+an ex-guest of the Worshipful Company of Dry-Salters may, in the
+direction of the door. "I shall go to the Savoy."
+
+"Oh, I say, old man! No need to do that."
+
+"Good night."
+
+"But, I say...."
+
+"And you can tell your friend Devereux that, if he doesn't stop poking
+his nose into my private business, I'll pull it off."
+
+"Well," said Freddie doubtfully, "of course I don't suppose you know,
+but.... Ronny's a pretty hefty bird. He boxed for Cambridge in the
+light-weights the last year he was up, you know. He...."
+
+Derek slammed the door. Freddie was alone. He stood rubbing his legs
+for some minutes, a rueful expression on his usually cheerful face.
+Freddie hated rows. He liked everything to jog along smoothly. What a
+rotten place the world was these days! Just one thing after another.
+First, poor old Jill takes the knock and disappears. He would miss
+her badly. What a good sort! What a pal! And now--gone. Biffed off.
+Next, Derek. Together, more or less, ever since Winchester, and
+now--bing!...
+
+Freddie heaved a sigh, and reached out for the _Sporting Times_, his
+never-failing comfort in times of depression. He lit another cigar and
+curled up in one of the arm-chairs. He was feeling tired. He had been
+playing squash all the afternoon, a game at which he was exceedingly
+expert and to which he was much addicted.
+
+Time passed. The paper slipped to the floor. A cold cigar followed it.
+From the depths of the chair came a faint snore....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hand on his shoulder brought Freddie with a jerk from troubled
+dreams. Derek was standing beside him. A bent, tousled Derek,
+apparently in pain.
+
+"Freddie!"
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+A spasm twisted Derek's face.
+
+"Have you got any pepsin?"
+
+Derek uttered a groan. What a mocker of our petty human dignity is
+this dyspepsia, bringing low the haughtiest of us, less than love
+itself a respecter of persons. This was a different Derek from the man
+who had stalked stiffly from the room two hours before. His pride had
+been humbled upon the rack.
+
+"Pepsin?"
+
+"Yes. I've got the most damned attack of indigestion."
+
+The mists of sleep rolled away from Freddie. He was awake again, and
+became immediately helpful. These were the occasions when the Last of
+the Rookes was a good man to have at your side. It was Freddie who
+suggested that Derek should recline in the arm-chair which he had
+vacated; Freddie who nipped round the corner to the all-night
+chemist's and returned with a magic bottle guaranteed to relieve an
+ostrich after a surfeit of tenpenny nails; Freddie who mixed and
+administered the dose.
+
+His ministrations were rewarded. Presently the agony seemed to pass.
+Derek recovered.
+
+One would say that Derek became himself again, but that the mood of
+gentle remorse which came upon him as he lay in the arm-chair was one
+so foreign to his nature. Freddie had never seen him so subdued. He
+was like a convalescent child. Between them, the all-night chemist and
+the Dry. Salters seemed to have wrought a sort of miracle. These
+temporary softenings of personality frequently follow City dinners.
+The time to catch your Dry-Salter in angelic mood is the day after the
+semi-annual banquet. Go to him then and he will give you his watch and
+chain.
+
+"Freddie," said Derek.
+
+They were sitting over the dying fire. The clock on the mantelpiece,
+beside which Jill's photograph had stood pointed to ten minutes past
+two. Derek spoke in a low, soft voice. Perhaps the doctors are right
+after all, and two o'clock is the hour at which our self-esteem
+deserts us, leaving in its place regret for past sins, good
+resolutions for future behaviour.
+
+"What do Martyn and the others say about ... you know?"
+
+Freddie hesitated. Pity to start all that again.
+
+"Oh, I know," went on Derek. "They say I behaved like a cad."
+
+"Oh, well...."
+
+"They are quite right. I did."
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't say that, you know. Faults on both sides and all that
+sort of rot."
+
+"I did!" Derek stared into the fire. Scattered all over London at that
+moment, probably a hundred Worshipful Dry-Salters were equally
+sleepless and subdued, looking wide-eyed into black pasts. "Is it true
+she has gone to America, Freddie?"
+
+"She told me she was going."
+
+"What a fool I've been!"
+
+The clock ticked on through the silence. The fire sputtered faintly,
+then gave a little wheeze, like a very old man. Derek rested his chin
+on his hands, gazing into the ashes.
+
+"I wish to God I could go over there and find her."
+
+"Why don't you?"
+
+"How can I? There may be an election coming on at any moment. I can't
+stir."
+
+Freddie leaped from his seat. The suddenness of the action sent a
+red-hot corkscrew of pain through Derek's head.
+
+"What the devil's the matter?" he demanded irritably. Even the gentle
+mood which comes with convalescence after a City dinner is not
+guaranteed to endure against this sort of thing.
+
+"I've got an idea, old bean!"
+
+"Well, there's no need to dance, is there?"
+
+"I've nothing to keep me here, you know. What's the matter with my
+popping over to America and finding Jill?" Freddie tramped the floor,
+aglow. Each beat of his foot jarred Derek, but he made no complaint.
+
+"Could you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Of course I could. I was saying only the other day that I had half a
+mind to buzz over. It's a wheeze! I'll get on the next boat and charge
+over in the capacity of a jolly old ambassador. Have her back in no
+time. Leave it to me, old thing! This is where I come out strong!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JILL IN SEARCH OF AN UNCLE
+
+I
+
+
+New York welcomed Jill, as she came out of the Pennsylvania Station in
+Seventh Avenue, with a whirl of powdered snow that touched her cheek
+like a kiss, the cold, bracing kiss one would expect from this vivid
+city. She stood at the station entrance, a tiny figure beside the huge
+pillars, looking round her with eager eyes. A wind was whipping down
+the avenue. The sky was a clear, brilliant tint of the brightest blue.
+Energy was in the air, and hopefulness. She wondered if Mr. Elmer
+Mariner ever came to New York. It was hard to see how even his gloom
+would contrive to remain unaffected by the exhilaration of the place.
+
+She took Uncle Chris' letter from her bag. He had written from an
+address on East Fifty-seventh Street. There would be just time to
+catch him before he went out to lunch. She hailed a taxi-cab which was
+coming out of the station.
+
+It was a slow ride, halted repeatedly by congestion of the traffic,
+but a short one for Jill. She was surprised at herself, a Londoner of
+long standing, for feeling so provincial and being so impressed. But
+London was far away. It belonged to a life that seemed years ago and
+a world from which she had parted for ever. Moreover, this was
+undeniably a stupendous city through which her taxi-cab was carrying
+her. At Times Square the stream of the traffic plunged into a
+whirlpool, swinging out of Broadway to meet the rapids which poured in
+from east, west, and north. On Fifth Avenue all the motor-cars in the
+world were gathered together. On the pavements, pedestrians, muffled
+against the nipping chill of the crisp air, hurried to and fro. And,
+above, that sapphire sky spread a rich velvet curtain which made the
+tops of the buildings stand out like the white minarets of some
+eastern city of romance.
+
+The cab drew up in front of a stone apartment house; and Jill, getting
+out, passed under an awning through a sort of mediaeval courtyard, gay
+with potted shrubs, to an inner door. She was impressed. Evidently the
+tales one heard of fortunes accumulated overnight in this magic city
+were true, and one of them must have fallen to the lot of Uncle Chris.
+For nobody to whom money was a concern could possibly afford to live
+in a place like this. If Croesus and the Count of Monte Cristo had
+applied for lodging there, the authorities would probably have looked
+on them a little doubtfully at first and hinted at the desirability of
+a month's rent in advance.
+
+In a glass case behind the inner door, reading a newspaper and chewing
+gum, sat a dignified old man in the rich uniform of a general in the
+Guatemalan army. He was a brilliant spectacle. He wore no jewellery,
+but this, no doubt, was due to a private distaste for display. As
+there was no one else of humbler rank at hand from whom Jill could
+solicit an introduction and the privilege of an audience, she took the
+bold step of addressing him directly.
+
+"I want to see Major Selby, please."
+
+The Guatemalan general arrested for a moment the rhythmic action of
+his jaws, lowered his paper and looked at her with raised eyebrows. At
+first Jill thought that he was registering haughty contempt, then she
+saw what she had taken for scorn was surprise.
+
+"Major Selby?"
+
+"Major Selby."
+
+"No Major Selby living here."
+
+"Major Christopher Selby."
+
+"Not here," said the associate of ambassadors and the pampered pet of
+Guatemala's proudest beauties. "Never heard of him in my life!"
+
+
+II
+
+Jill had read works of fiction in which at certain crises everything
+had "seemed to swim" in front of the heroine's eyes, but never till
+this moment had she experienced that remarkable sensation herself. The
+Saviour of Guatemala did not actually swim, perhaps, but he certainly
+flickered. She had to blink to restore his prismatic outlines to their
+proper sharpness. Already the bustle and noise of New York had begun
+to induce in her that dizzy condition of unreality which one feels in
+dreams, and this extraordinary statement added the finishing touch.
+
+Perhaps the fact that she had said "please" to him when she opened the
+conversation touched the heart of the hero of a thousand revolutions.
+Dignified and beautiful as he was to the eye of the stranger, it is
+unpleasant to have to record that he lived in a world which rather
+neglected the minor courtesies of speech. People did not often say
+"please" to him. "Here!" "Hi!" and "Gosh darn you!" yes; but seldom
+"please." He seemed to approve of Jill, for he shifted his chewing-gum
+to a position which facilitated speech, and began to be helpful.
+
+"What was the name again?"
+
+"Selby."
+
+"Howja spell it?"
+
+"S-e-l-b-y."
+
+"S-e-l-b-y. Oh, Selby?"
+
+"Yes, Selby."
+
+"What was the first name?"
+
+"Christopher."
+
+"Christopher?"
+
+"Yes, Christopher."
+
+"Christopher Selby? No one of that name living here."
+
+"But there must be."
+
+The veteran shook his head with an indulgent smile.
+
+"You want Mr. Sipperley," he said tolerantly. In Guatemala these
+mistakes are always happening. "Mr. George Sipperley. He's on the
+fourth floor. What name shall I say?"
+
+He had almost reached the telephone when Jill stopped him. This is an
+age of just-as-good substitutes, but she refused to accept any unknown
+Sipperley as a satisfactory alternative for Uncle Chris.
+
+"I don't want Mr. Sipperley. I want Major Selby."
+
+"Howja spell it once more?"
+
+"S-e-l-b-y."
+
+"S-e-l-b-y. No one of that name living here. Mr. Sipperley--" he spoke
+in a wheedling voice, as if determined, in spite of herself, to make
+Jill see what was in her best interests--"Mr. Sipperley's on the
+fourth floor. Gentleman in the real estate business," he added
+insinuatingly. "He's got blond hair and a Boston bull-dog."
+
+"He may be all you say, and he may have a dozen bull-dogs...."
+
+"Only one. Jack his name is."
+
+"... But he isn't the right man. It's absurd. Major Selby wrote to me
+from this address. This _is_ Eighteen East Fifty-seventh Street?"
+
+"This is Eighteen East Fifty-seventh Street," conceded the other
+cautiously.
+
+"I've got his letter here." She opened her bag, and gave an
+exclamation of dismay. "It's gone!"
+
+"Mr. Sipperley used to have a friend staying with him last Fall. A Mr.
+Robertson. Dark-complexioned man with a moustache."
+
+"I took it out to look at the address, and I was sure I put it back. I
+must have dropped it."
+
+"There's a Mr. Rainsby on the seventh floor. He's a broker down on
+Wall Street. Short man with an impediment in his speech."
+
+Jill snapped the clasp of her bag.
+
+"Never mind," she said. "I must have made a mistake. I was quite sure
+that this was the address, but it evidently isn't. Thank you so much.
+I'm so sorry to have bothered you."
+
+She walked away, leaving the Terror of Paraguay and all points west
+speechless: for people who said "Thank you so much" to him were even
+rarer than those who said "please." He followed her with an
+affectionate eye till she was out of sight, then, restoring his
+chewing-gum to circulation, returned to the perusal of his paper. A
+momentary suggestion presented itself to his mind that what Jill had
+really wanted was Mr. Willoughby on the eighth floor, but it was too
+late to say so now; and soon, becoming absorbed in the narrative of a
+spirited householder in Kansas who had run amuck with a hatchet and
+slain six, he dismissed the matter from his mind.
+
+
+III
+
+Jill walked back to Fifth Avenue, crossed it, and made her way
+thoughtfully along the breezy street which, flanked on one side by the
+Park and on the other by the green-roofed Plaza Hotel and the
+apartment houses of the wealthy, ends in the humbler and more
+democratic spaces of Columbus Circle. She perceived that she was in
+that position, familiar to melodrama, of being alone in a great city.
+The reflection brought with it a certain discomfort. The bag that
+dangled from her wrist contained all the money she had in the world,
+the very broken remains of the twenty dollars which Uncle Chris had
+sent her at Brookport. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep, and no
+immediately obvious means of adding to her capital. It was a situation
+which she had not foreseen when she set out to walk to Brookport
+station.
+
+She pondered over the mystery of Uncle Chris' disappearance, and found
+no solution. The thing was inexplicable. She was as sure of the
+address he had given in his letter as she was of anything in the
+world. Yet at that address nothing had been heard of him. His name was
+not even known. These were deeper waters than Jill was able to fathom.
+
+She walked on aimlessly. Presently she came to Columbus Circle, and,
+crossing Broadway at the point where that street breaks out into an
+eruption of automobile shops, found herself, suddenly hungry, opposite
+a restaurant whose entire front was a sheet of plate glass. On the
+other side of this glass, at marble-topped tables, apparently careless
+of their total lack of privacy, sat the impecunious, lunching, their
+every mouthful a spectacle for the passer-by. It reminded Jill of
+looking at fishes in an aquarium. In the centre of the window, gazing
+out in a distrait manner over piles of apples and grape-fruit, a
+white-robed ministrant at a stove juggled ceaselessly with buckwheat
+cakes. He struck the final note in the candidness of the
+establishment, a priest whose ritual contained no mysteries.
+Spectators with sufficient time on their hands to permit them to stand
+and watch were enabled to witness a New York midday meal in every
+stage of its career, from its protoplasmic beginnings as a stream of
+yellowish-white liquid poured on top of the stove to its ultimate
+Nirvana in the interior of the luncher in the form of an appetising
+cake. It was a spectacle which no hungry girl could resist. Jill went
+in, and, as she made her way among the tables, a voice spoke her name.
+
+"Miss Mariner!"
+
+Jill jumped, and thought for a moment that the thing must have been an
+hallucination. It was impossible that anybody in the place should have
+called her name. Except for Uncle Chris, wherever he might be, she
+knew no one in New York. Then the voice spoke again, competing
+valiantly with a clatter of crockery so uproarious as to be more like
+something solid than a mere sound.
+
+"I couldn't believe it was you!"
+
+A girl in blue had risen from the nearest table, and was staring at
+her in astonishment. Jill recognized her instantly. Those big,
+pathetic eyes, like a lost child's, were unmistakable. It was the
+parrot girl, the girl whom she and Freddie Rooke had found in the
+drawing-room at Ovingdon Square that afternoon when the foundations of
+the world had given way and chaos had begun.
+
+"Good gracious!" cried Jill. "I thought you were in London!"
+
+That feeling of emptiness and panic, the result of her interview with
+the Guatemalan general at the apartment house, vanished magically. She
+sat down at this unexpected friend's table with a light heart.
+
+"Whatever are you doing in New York?" asked the girl. "I never knew
+you meant to come over."
+
+"It was a little sudden. Still, here I am. And I'm starving. What are
+those things you're eating?"
+
+"Buckwheat cakes."
+
+"Oh, yes. I remember Uncle Chris talking about them on the boat. I'll
+have some."
+
+"But when did you come over?"
+
+"I landed about ten days ago. I've been down at a place called
+Brookport on Long Island. How funny running into you like this!"
+
+"I was surprised that you remembered me."
+
+"I've forgotten your name," admitted Jill frankly. "But that's
+nothing. I always forget names."
+
+"My name's Nelly Bryant."
+
+"Of course. And you're on the stage, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes. I've just got work with Goble and Cohn.... Hullo, Phil!"
+
+A young man with a lithe figure and smooth black hair brushed straight
+back from his forehead had paused at the table on his way to the
+cashier's desk.
+
+"Hello, Nelly."
+
+"I didn't know you lunched here."
+
+"Don't often. Been rehearsing with Joe up at the Century Roof, and had
+a quarter of an hour to get a bite. Can I sit down?"
+
+"Sure. This is my friend, Miss Mariner."
+
+The young man shook hands with Jill, flashing an approving glance at
+her out of his dark, restless eyes.
+
+"Pleased to meet you."
+
+"This is Phil Brown," said Nelly. "He plays the straight for Joe
+Widgeon. They're the best jazz-and-hokum team on the Keith Circuit."
+
+"Oh, hush!" said Mr. Brown modestly. "You always were a great little
+booster, Nelly."
+
+"Well, you know you are! Weren't you held over at the Palace last
+time? Well, then!"
+
+"That's true," admitted the young man. "Maybe we didn't gool 'em, eh?
+Stop me on the street and ask me! Only eighteen bows second house
+Saturday!"
+
+Jill was listening, fascinated.
+
+"I can't understand a word," she said. "It's like another language."
+
+"You're from the other side, aren't you?" asked Mr. Brown.
+
+"She only landed a week ago," said Nelly.
+
+"I thought so from the accent," said Mr. Brown. "So our talk sort of
+goes over the top, does it? Well, you'll learn American soon, if you
+stick around."
+
+"I've learned some already," said Jill. The relief of meeting Nelly
+had made her feel very happy. She liked this smooth-haired young man.
+"A man on the train this morning said to me, 'Would you care for the
+morning paper, sister?' I said, 'No, thanks, brother, I want to look
+out of the window and think!'"
+
+"You meet a lot of fresh guys on trains," commented Mr. Brown
+austerely. "You want to give 'em the cold-storage eye." He turned to
+Nelly. "Did you go down to Ike, as I told you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you cop?"
+
+"Yes. I never felt so happy in my life. I'd waited over an hour on
+that landing of theirs, and then Johnny Miller came along, and I
+yelled in his ear that I was after work, and he told me it would be
+all right. He's awfully good to girls who've worked in shows for him
+before. If it hadn't been for him I might have been waiting there
+still."
+
+"Who," enquired Jill, anxious to be abreast of the conversation, "is
+Ike?"
+
+"Mr. Goble. Where I've just got work. Goble and Cohn, you know."
+
+"I never heard of them!"
+
+The young man extended his hand.
+
+"Put it there!" he said. "They never heard of me! At least, the fellow
+I saw when I went down to the office hadn't! Can you beat it!"
+
+"Oh, did you go down there, too?" asked Nelly.
+
+"Sure. Joe wanted to get in another show on Broadway. He'd sort of got
+tired of vodevil. Say, I don't want to scare you, Nelly, but, if you
+ask me, that show they're putting out down there is a citron! I don't
+think Ike's got a cent of his own money in it. My belief is that he's
+running it for a lot of amateurs. Why, say, listen! Joe and I blow in
+there to see if there's anything for us, and there's a tall guy in
+tortoise-shell cheaters sitting in Ike's office. Said he was the
+author and was engaging the principals. We told him who we were, and
+it didn't make any hit with him at all. He said he had never heard of
+us. And, when we explained, he said no, there wasn't going to be any
+of our sort of work in the show. Said he was making an effort to give
+the public something rather better than the usual sort of thing. No
+specialities required. He said it was an effort to restore the Gilbert
+and Sullivan tradition. Say, who are these Gilbert and Sullivan guys,
+anyway? They get written up in the papers all the time and I never met
+any one who'd run across them. If you want my opinion, that show down
+there is a comic opera!"
+
+"For heaven's sake!" Nelly had the musical comedy performer's horror
+of the older-established form of entertainment. "Why, comic opera died
+in the year one!"
+
+"Well, these guys are going to dig it up. That's the way it looks to
+me." He lowered his voice. "Say, I saw Clarice last night," he said in
+a confidential undertone. "It's all right."
+
+"It is?"
+
+"We've made it up. It was like this...."
+
+His conversation took an intimate turn. He expounded for Nelly's
+benefit the inner history, with all its ramifications, of a recent
+unfortunate rift between himself and "the best little girl in
+Flatbush"--what he had said, what she had said, what her sister had
+said, and how it all came right in the end. Jill might have felt a
+little excluded, but for the fact that a sudden and exciting idea had
+come to her. She sat back, thinking.... After all, what else was she
+to do? She must do something....
+
+She bent forward and interrupted Mr. Brown in his description of a
+brisk passage of arms between himself and the best little girl's
+sister, who seemed to be an unpleasant sort of person in every way.
+
+"Mr. Brown."
+
+"Hello?"
+
+"Do you think there would be any chance for me if I asked for work at
+Goble and Cohn's?"
+
+"You're joking!" cried Nelly.
+
+"I'm not at all."
+
+"But what do you want with work?"
+
+"I've got to find some. And right away, too."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+Jill hesitated. She disliked discussing her private affairs, but there
+was obviously no way of avoiding it. Nelly was round-eyed and
+mystified, and Mr. Brown had manifestly no intention whatever of
+withdrawing tactfully. He wanted to hear all.
+
+"I've lost my money," said Jill.
+
+"Lost your money! Do you mean...?"
+
+"I've lost it all. Every penny I had in the world."
+
+"Tough!" interpolated Mr. Brown judicially. "I was broke once way out
+in a tank-town in Oklahoma. The manager skipped with our salaries.
+Last we saw of him he was doing the trip to Canada in nothing flat."
+
+"But how?" gasped Nelly.
+
+"It happened about the time we met in London. Do you remember Freddie
+Rooke, who was at our house that afternoon?"
+
+A dreamy look came into Nelly's eyes. There had not been an hour since
+their parting when she had not thought of that immaculate sportsman.
+It would have amazed Freddie, could he have known, but to Nelly Bryant
+he was the one perfect man in an imperfect world.
+
+"Do I!" she sighed ecstatically.
+
+Mr. Brown shot a keen glance at her.
+
+"Aha!" he cried facetiously. "Who is he, Nelly? Who is this blue-eyed
+boy?"
+
+"If you want to know," said Nelly, defiance in her tone, "he's the
+fellow who gave me fifty pounds, with no strings tied to it--get
+that!--when I was broke in London! If it hadn't been for him, I'd be
+there still."
+
+"Did he?" cried Jill. "Freddie!"
+
+"Yes. Oh, Gee!" Nelly sighed once more. "I suppose I'll never see him
+again in this world."
+
+"Introduce me to him, if you do," said Mr. Brown. "He sounds just the
+sort of little pal I'd like to have!"
+
+"You remember hearing Freddie say something about losing money in a
+slump on the Stock Exchange," proceeded Jill. "Well, that was how I
+lost mine. It's a long story, and it's not worth talking about, but
+that's how things stand, and I've got to find work of some sort, and
+it looks to me as if I should have a better chance of finding it on
+the stage than anywhere else."
+
+"I'm terribly sorry."
+
+"Oh, it's all right. How much would these people Goble and Cohn give
+me if I got an engagement?"
+
+"Only forty a week."
+
+"Forty dollars a week! It's wealth! Where are they?"
+
+"Over at the Gotham Theatre in Forty-second Street."
+
+"I'll go there at once."
+
+"But you'll hate it. You don't realize what it's like. You wait hours
+and hours and nobody sees you."
+
+"Why shouldn't I walk straight in and say that I've come for work?"
+
+Nelly's big eyes grew bigger.
+
+"But you couldn't!'
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why, you couldn't!"
+
+"I don't see why."
+
+Mr. Brown intervened with decision.
+
+"You're dead right," he said to Jill approvingly. "If you ask me,
+that's the only sensible thing to do. Where's the sense of hanging
+around and getting stalled? Managers are human guys, some of 'em.
+Probably, if you were to try it, they'd appreciate a bit of gall. It
+would show 'em you'd got pep. You go down there and try walking
+straight in. They can't eat you. It makes me sick when I see all those
+poor devils hanging about outside these offices, waiting to get
+noticed and nobody ever paying any attention to them. You push the
+office-boy in the face if he tries to stop you, and go in and make 'em
+take notice. And, whatever you do, don't leave your name and address!
+That's the old, moth-eaten gag they're sure to try to pull on you.
+Tell 'em there's nothing doing. Say you're out for a quick decision!
+Stand 'em on their heads!"
+
+Jill got up, fired by this eloquence. She called for her check.
+
+"Good-bye," she said. "I'm going to do exactly as you say. Where can I
+find you afterwards?" she said to Nelly.
+
+"You aren't really going?"
+
+"I am!"
+
+Nelly scribbled on a piece of paper.
+
+"Here's my address. I'll be in all evening."
+
+"I'll come and see you. Good-bye, Mr. Brown. And thank you."
+
+"You're welcome!" said Mr. Brown.
+
+Nelly watched Jill depart with wide eyes.
+
+"Why did you tell her to do that?" she said.
+
+"Why not?" said Mr. Brown. "I started something, didn't I? Well, I
+guess I'll have to be leaving, too. Got to get back to rehearsal. Say,
+I like that friend of yours, Nelly. There's no yellow streak about
+her! I wish her luck!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JILL IGNORES AUTHORITY
+
+I
+
+
+The offices of Messrs. Goble and Cohn were situated, like everything
+else in New York that appertains to the drama, in the neighbourhood of
+Times Square. They occupied the fifth floor of the Gotham Theatre on
+West Forty-second Street. As there was no lift in the building except
+the small private one used by the two members of the firm, Jill walked
+up the stairs, and found signs of a thriving business beginning to
+present themselves as early as the third floor, where half a dozen
+patient persons of either sex had draped themselves like roosting
+fowls upon the banisters. There were more on the fourth floor, and the
+landing of the fifth, which served the firm as a waiting-room, was
+quite full. It is the custom of New York theatrical managers--the
+lowest order of intelligence, with the possible exception of the
+_limax maximus_ or garden slug, known to science--to omit from their
+calculations the fact that they are likely every day to receive a
+large number of visitors, whom they will be obliged to keep waiting;
+and that these people will require somewhere to wait. Such
+considerations never occur to them. Messrs. Goble and Cohn had
+provided for those who called to see them one small bench on the
+landing, conveniently situated at the intersecting point of three
+draughts, and had let it go at that.
+
+Nobody, except perhaps the night-watchman, had ever seen this bench
+empty. At whatever hour of the day you happened to call, you would
+always find three wistful individuals seated side by side with their
+eyes on the tiny ante-room where sat the office-boy, the
+telephone-girl, and Mr. Goble's stenographer. Beyond this was the door
+marked "Private," through which, as it opened to admit some careless,
+debonair thousand-dollar-a-week comedian who sauntered in with a
+jaunty "Hello, Ike!" or some furred and scented female star, the rank
+and file of the profession were greeted, like Moses on Pisgah, with a
+fleeting glimpse of the promised land, consisting of a large desk and
+a section of a very fat man with spectacles and a bald head or a
+younger man with fair hair and a double chin.
+
+The keynote of the mass meeting on the landing was one of determined,
+almost aggressive smartness. The men wore bright overcoats with bands
+round the waist, the women those imitation furs which to the
+uninitiated eye appear so much more expensive than the real thing.
+Everybody looked very dashing and very young, except about the eyes.
+Most of the eyes that glanced at Jill were weary. The women were
+nearly all blondes, blondness having been decided upon in the theatre
+as the colour that brings the best results. The men were all so much
+alike that they seemed to be members of one large family--an illusion
+which was heightened by the scraps of conversation, studded with
+"dears," "old mans," and "honeys," which came to Jill's ears. A stern
+fight for supremacy was being waged by a score or so of lively and
+powerful young scents.
+
+For a moment Jill was somewhat daunted by the spectacle, but she
+recovered almost immediately. The exhilarating and heady influence of
+New York still wrought within her. The Berserk spirit was upon her,
+and she remembered the stimulating words of Mr. Brown, of Brown and
+Widgeon, the best jazz-and-hokum team on the Keith Circuit. "Walk
+straight in!" had been the burden of his inspiring address. She pushed
+her way through the crowd until she came to the small ante-room.
+
+In the ante-room were the outposts, the pickets of the enemy. In one
+corner a girl was hammering energetically and with great speed on a
+typewriter; a second girl, seated at a switchboard, was having an
+argument with Central which was already warm and threatened to descend
+shortly to personalities; on a chair tilted back so that it rested
+against the wall, a small boy sat eating sweets and reading the comic
+page of an evening newspaper. All three were enclosed, like zoological
+specimens, in a cage formed by a high counter terminating in brass
+bars.
+
+Beyond these watchers on the threshold was the door marked "Private."
+Through it, as Jill reached the outer defences, filtered the sound of
+a piano.
+
+Those who have studied the subject have come to the conclusion that
+the boorishness of New York theatrical managers' office-boys cannot be
+the product of mere chance. Somewhere, in some sinister den in the
+criminal districts of the town, there is a school where small boys are
+trained for these positions, where their finer instincts are
+rigorously uprooted and rudeness systematically inculcated by
+competent professors. Of this school the Cerberus of Messrs. Goble and
+Cohn had been the star scholar. Quickly seeing his natural gifts, his
+teachers had given him special attention. When he had graduated, it
+had been amidst the cordial good wishes of the entire staff. They had
+taught him all they knew, and they were proud of him. They felt that
+he would do them credit.
+
+This boy raised a pair of pink-rimmed eyes to Jill, sniffed, bit his
+thumb-nail, and spoke. He was a snub-nosed boy. His ears and hair were
+vermilion. His name was Ralph. He had seven hundred and forty-three
+pimples.
+
+"Woddyerwant?" enquired Ralph, coming within an ace of condensing the
+question into a word of one syllable.
+
+"I want to see Mr. Goble."
+
+"Zout!" said the Pimple King, and returned to his paper.
+
+There will, no doubt, always be class distinctions. Sparta had her
+kings and her helots, King Arthur's Round Table its knights and its
+scullions, America her Simon Legree and her Uncle Tom. But in no
+nation and at no period of history has any one ever been so brutally
+superior to any one else as is the Broadway theatrical office-boy to
+the caller who wishes to see the manager. Thomas Jefferson held these
+truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they
+are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that
+among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
+Theatrical office-boys do not see eye to eye with Thomas. From their
+pinnacle they look down on the common herd, the _canaille_, and
+despise them. They coldly question their right to live.
+
+Jill turned pink. Mr. Brown, her guide and mentor, foreseeing this
+situation, had, she remembered, recommended "pushing the office-boy in
+the face": and for a moment she felt like following his advice.
+Prudence, or the fact that he was out of reach behind the brass bars,
+restrained her. Without further delay she made for the door of the
+inner room. That was her objective, and she did not intend to be
+diverted from it. Her fingers were on the handle before any of those
+present divined her intention. Then the stenographer stopped typing
+and sat with raised fingers, aghast. The girl at the telephone broke
+off in mid-sentence and stared round over her shoulder. Ralph, the
+office-boy, outraged, dropped his paper and constituted himself the
+spokesman of the invaded force.
+
+"Hey!"
+
+Jill stopped and eyed the lad militantly.
+
+"Were you speaking to me?"
+
+"Yes, I _was_ speaking to you!"
+
+"Don't do it again with your mouth full," said Jill, turning to the
+door.
+
+The belligerent fire in the office-boy's pink-rimmed eyes was suddenly
+dimmed by a gush of water. It was not remorse that caused him to weep,
+however. In the heat of the moment he had swallowed a large, jagged
+sweet, and he was suffering severely.
+
+"You can't go in there!" he managed to articulate, his iron will
+triumphing over the flesh sufficiently to enable him to speak.
+
+"I _am_ going in there!"
+
+"That's Mr. Goble's private room."
+
+"Well, I want a private talk with Mr. Goble."
+
+Ralph, his eyes still moist, felt that the situation was slipping from
+his grip. This sort of thing had never happened to him before. "I tell
+ya he _zout_!"
+
+Jill looked at him sternly.
+
+"You wretched child!" she said, encouraged by a sharp giggle from the
+neighbourhood of the switchboard. "Do you know where little boys go
+who don't speak the truth? I can hear him playing the piano. Now he's
+singing! And it's no good telling me he's busy. If he was busy, he
+wouldn't have time to sing. If you're as deceitful as this at your
+age, what do you expect to be when you grow up? You're an ugly little
+boy, you've got red ears, and your collar doesn't fit! I shall speak
+to Mr. Goble about you."
+
+With which words Jill opened the door and walked in.
+
+"Good afternoon," she said brightly.
+
+After the congested and unfurnished discomfort of the landing, the
+room in which Jill found herself had an air of cosiness and almost of
+luxury. It was a large room, solidly upholstered. Along the further
+wall, filling nearly the whole of its space, stood a vast and gleaming
+desk, covered with a litter of papers which rose at one end of it to a
+sort of mountain of play-scripts in buff covers. There was a
+bookshelf to the left. Photographs covered the walls. Near the window
+was a deep leather lounge; to the right of this stood a small piano,
+the music-stool of which was occupied by a young man with untidy black
+hair that needed cutting. On top of the piano, taking the eye
+immediately by reason of its bold brightness, was balanced a large
+cardboard poster. Much of its surface was filled by a picture of a
+youth in polo costume bending over a blonde goddess in a bathing-suit.
+What space was left displayed the legend:
+
+ISAAC GOBLE AND JACOB COHN
+
+PRESENT
+
+THE ROSE OF AMERICA
+
+(A Musical Fantasy)
+
+BOOK AND LYRICS BY OTIS PILKINGTON
+
+MUSIC BY ROLAND TREVIS
+
+Turning her eyes from this, Jill became aware that something was going
+on at the other side of the desk, and she perceived that a second
+young man, the longest and thinnest she had ever seen, was in the act
+of rising to his feet, length upon length like an unfolding snake. At
+the moment of her entry he had been lying back in an office-chair, so
+that only a merely nominal section of his upper structure was visible.
+Now he reared his impressive length until his head came within
+measurable distance of the ceiling. He had a hatchet face and a
+receding chin, and he gazed at Jill through what she assumed were the
+"tortoise-shell cheaters" referred to by her recent acquaintance, Mr.
+Brown.
+
+"Er...?" said this young man enquiringly in a high, flat voice.
+
+Jill, like many other people, had a brain which was under the
+alternating control of two diametrically opposite forces. It was like
+a motor-car steered in turn by two drivers, the one a dashing,
+reckless fellow with no regard for the speed limits, the other a timid
+novice. All through the proceedings up to this point the dasher had
+been in command. He had whisked her along at a break-neck pace,
+ignoring obstacles and police regulations. Now, having brought her to
+this situation, he abruptly abandoned the wheel and turned it over to
+his colleague, the shrinker. Jill, greatly daring a moment ago, now
+felt an overwhelming shyness.
+
+She gulped, and her heart beat quickly. The thin man towered over her.
+The black-haired pianist shook his locks at her like Banquo.
+
+"I...." she began.
+
+Then, suddenly, womanly intuition came to her aid. Something seemed to
+tell her that these men were just as scared as she was. And, at the
+discovery, the dashing driver resumed his post at the wheel, and she
+began to deal with the situation with composure.
+
+"I want to see Mr. Goble."
+
+"Mr. Goble is out," said the long young man, plucking nervously at the
+papers on the desk. Jill had affected him powerfully.
+
+"Out!" She felt she had wronged the pimpled office-boy.
+
+"We are not expecting him back this afternoon. Is there anything I can
+do?"
+
+He spoke tenderly. This weak-minded young man was thinking that he had
+never seen anything like Jill before. And it was true that she was
+looking very pretty, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling.
+She touched a chord in the young man which seemed to make the world a
+flower-scented thing, full of soft music. Often as he had been in love
+at first sight before in his time, Otis Pilkington could not recall an
+occasion on which he had been in love at first sight more completely
+than now. When she smiled at him, it was as if the gates of heaven had
+opened. He did not reflect how many times, in similar circumstances,
+these same gates had opened before; and that on one occasion when they
+had done so it had cost him eight thousand dollars to settle the case
+out of court. One does not think of these things at such times, for
+they strike a jarring note. Otis Pilkington was in love. That was all
+he knew, or cared to know.
+
+"Won't you take a seat, Miss...."
+
+"Mariner," prompted Jill. "Thank you."
+
+"Miss Mariner. May I introduce Mr. Roland Trevis?"
+
+The man at the piano bowed. His black hair heaved upon his skull like
+seaweed in a ground swell.
+
+"My name is Pilkington. Otis Pilkington."
+
+The uncomfortable silence which always follows introductions was
+broken by the sound of the telephone-bell on the desk. Otis
+Pilkington, who had moved out into the room and was nowhere near the
+desk, stretched forth a preposterous arm and removed the receiver.
+
+"Yes? Oh, will you say, please, that I have a conference at present."
+Jill was to learn that people in the theatrical business never talked:
+they always held conferences. "Tell Mrs. Peagrim that I shall be
+calling later in the afternoon, but cannot be spared just now." He
+replaced the receiver. "Aunt Olive's secretary," he murmured in a soft
+aside to Mr. Trevis. "Aunt Olive wanted me to go for a ride." He
+turned to Jill. "Excuse me. Is there anything I can do for you, Miss
+Mariner?"
+
+Jill's composure was now completely restored. This interview was
+turning out so totally different from anything she had expected. The
+atmosphere was cosy and social. She felt as if she were back in
+Ovingdon Square, giving tea to Freddie Rooke and Ronny Devereux and
+the rest of her friends of the London period. All that was needed to
+complete the picture was a tea-table in front of her. The business
+note hardly intruded on the proceedings at all. Still, as business was
+the object of her visit, she felt that she had better approach it.
+
+"I came for work."
+
+"Work!" cried Mr. Pilkington. He, too, appeared to be regarding the
+interview as purely of a social nature.
+
+"In the chorus," explained Jill.
+
+Mr. Pilkington seemed shocked. He winced away from the word as though
+it pained him.
+
+"There is no chorus in 'The Rose of America,'" he said.
+
+"I thought it was a musical comedy."
+
+Mr. Pilkington winced again.
+
+"It is a musical _fantasy_!" he said. "But there will be no chorus. We
+shall have," he added, a touch of rebuke in his voice, "the services
+of twelve refined ladies of the ensemble."
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"It does sound much better, doesn't it!" she said. "Well, am I refined
+enough, do you think?"
+
+"I shall be only too happy if you will join us," said Mr. Pilkington
+promptly.
+
+The long-haired composer looked doubtful. He struck a note up in the
+treble, then whirled round on his stool.
+
+"If you don't mind my mentioning it, Otie, we have twelve girls
+already."
+
+"Then we must have thirteen," said Otis Pilkington firmly.
+
+"Unlucky number," argued Mr. Trevis.
+
+"I don't care. We must have Miss Mariner. You can see for yourself
+that she is exactly the type we need."
+
+He spoke feelingly. Ever since the business of engaging a company had
+begun, he had been thinking wistfully of the evening when "The Rose of
+America" had had its opening performance--at his aunt's house at
+Newport last summer--with an all-star cast of society favourites and
+an ensemble recruited entirely from debutantes and matrons of the
+Younger Set. That was the sort of company he had longed to assemble
+for the piece's professional career, and until this afternoon he had
+met with nothing but disappointment. Jill seemed to be the only girl
+in theatrical New York who came up to the standard he would have liked
+to demand.
+
+"Thank you very much," said Jill.
+
+There was another pause. The social note crept into the atmosphere
+again. Jill felt the hostess' desire to keep conversation circulating.
+
+"I hear," she said, "that this piece is a sort of Gilbert and Sullivan
+opera."
+
+Mr. Pilkington considered the point.
+
+"I confess," he said, "that, in writing the book, I had Gilbert before
+me as a model. Whether I have in any sense succeeded in...."
+
+"The book," said Mr. Trevis, running his fingers over the piano, "is
+as good as anything Gilbert ever wrote."
+
+"Oh, come, Rolie!" protested Mr. Pilkington modestly.
+
+"Better," insisted Mr. Trevis. "For one thing, it is up-to-date."
+
+"I _do_ try to strike the modern note," murmured Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"And you have avoided Gilbert's mistake of being too fanciful."
+
+"He _was_ fanciful," admitted Mr. Pilkington. "The music," he added,
+in a generous spirit of give and take, "has all Sullivan's melody with
+a newness of rhythm peculiarly its own. You will like the music."
+
+"It sounds," said Jill amiably, "as though the piece is bound to be a
+tremendous success."
+
+"We hope so," said Mr. Pilkington. "We feel that the time has come
+when the public is beginning to demand something better than what it
+has been accustomed to. People are getting tired of the brainless
+trash and jingly tunes which have been given them by men like Wallace
+Mason and George Bevan. They want a certain polish.... It was just the
+same in Gilbert and Sullivan's day. They started writing at a time
+when the musical stage had reached a terrible depth of inanity. The
+theatre was given over to burlesques of the most idiotic description.
+The public was waiting eagerly to welcome something of a higher class.
+It is just the same to-day. But the managers will not see it. 'The
+Rose of America' went up and down Broadway for months, knocking at
+managers' doors."
+
+"It should have walked in without knocking, like me," said Jill. She
+got up. "Well, it was very kind of you to see me when I came in so
+unceremoniously. But I felt it was no good waiting outside on that
+landing. I'm so glad everything is settled. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, Miss Mariner." Mr. Pilkington took her outstretched hand
+devoutly. "There is a rehearsal called for the ensemble at--when is
+it, Rolie?"
+
+"Eleven o'clock, day after to-morrow, at Bryant Hall."
+
+"I'll be there," said Jill. "Good-bye, and thank you very much."
+
+The silence which had fallen upon the room as she left it was broken
+by Mr. Trevis.
+
+"Some pip!" observed Mr. Trevis.
+
+Otis Pilkington awoke from day-dreams with a start.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"That girl.... I said she was some pippin!"
+
+"Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington icily, "is a most charming,
+refined, cultured, and vivacious girl, if you mean that."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Trevis. "That was what I meant!"
+
+
+II
+
+Jill walked out into Forty-second Street, looking about her with the
+eye of a conqueror. Very little change had taken place in the aspect
+of New York since she had entered the Gotham Theatre, but it seemed a
+different city to her. An hour ago, she had been a stranger, drifting
+aimlessly along its rapids. Now she belonged to New York, and New
+York belonged to her. She had faced it squarely, and forced from it
+the means of living. She walked on with a new jauntiness in her
+stride.
+
+The address which Nelly had given her was on the east side of Fifth
+Avenue. She made her way along Forty-second Street. It seemed the
+jolliest, alivest street she had ever encountered. The rattle of the
+Elevated as she crossed Sixth Avenue was music, and she loved the
+crowds that jostled her with every step she took.
+
+She reached the Fifth Avenue corner just as the policeman out in the
+middle of the street swung his Stop-and-Go post round to allow the
+up-town traffic to proceed on its way. A stream of cars which had been
+dammed up as far as the eye could reach began to flow swiftly past.
+They moved in a double line, red limousines, blue limousines, mauve
+limousines, green limousines. She stood waiting for the flood to
+cease, and, as she did so, there purred past her the biggest and
+reddest limousine of all. It was a colossal vehicle with a polar-bear
+at the steering-wheel and another at his side. And in the interior,
+very much at his ease, his gaze bent courteously upon a massive lady
+in a mink coat, sat Uncle Chris.
+
+For a moment he was so near to her that, but for the closed window,
+she could have touched him. Then the polar-bear at the wheel, noting a
+gap in the traffic, stepped on the accelerator and slipped neatly
+through. The car moved swiftly on and disappeared.
+
+Jill drew a deep breath. The Stop-and-Go sign swung round again. She
+crossed the avenue, and set out once more to find Nelly Bryant. It
+occurred to her, five minutes later, that a really practical and
+quick-thinking girl would have noted the number of the limousine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MR. PILKINGTON'S LOVE LIGHT
+
+I
+
+
+The rehearsals of a musical comedy--a term which embraces "musical
+fantasies"--generally begin in a desultory sort of way at that curious
+building, Bryant Hall, on Sixth Avenue just off Forty-second Street.
+There, in a dusty, uncarpeted room, simply furnished with a few wooden
+chairs and some long wooden benches, the chorus--or, in the case of
+"The Rose of America," the ensemble--sit round a piano and endeavour,
+with the assistance of the musical director, to get the words and
+melodies of the first-act numbers into their heads. This done, they
+are ready for the dance director to instil into them the steps, the
+groupings, and the business for the encores, of which that incurable
+optimist always seems to expect there will be at least six. Later, the
+principals are injected into the numbers. And finally, leaving Bryant
+Hall and dodging about from one unoccupied theatre to another,
+principals and chorus rehearse together, running through the entire
+piece over and over again till the opening night of the preliminary
+road tour.
+
+To Jill, in the early stages, rehearsing was just like being back at
+school. She could remember her first schoolmistress, whom the musical
+director somewhat resembled in manner and appearance, hammering out
+hymns on a piano and leading in a weak soprano an eager, baying pack
+of children, each anxious from motives of pride to out-bawl her
+nearest neighbour.
+
+The proceedings began on the first morning with the entrance of Mr.
+Saltzburg, the musical director, a brisk, busy little man with
+benevolent eyes behind big spectacles, who bustled over to the piano,
+sat down, and played a loud chord, designed to act as a sort of bugle
+blast, rallying the ladies of the ensemble from the corners where they
+sat in groups, chatting. For the process of making one another's
+acquaintance had begun some ten minutes before with mutual
+recognitions between those who knew each other from having been
+together in previous productions. There followed rapid introductions
+of friends. Nelly Bryant had been welcomed warmly by a pretty girl
+with red hair, whom she introduced to Jill as Babe; Babe had a willowy
+blonde friend, named Lois, and the four of them had seated themselves
+on one of the benches and opened a conversation; their numbers being
+added to a moment later by a dark girl with a Southern accent and
+another blonde. Elsewhere other groups had formed, and the room was
+filled with a noise like the chattering of starlings. In a body by
+themselves, rather forlorn and neglected, half a dozen solemn and
+immaculately dressed young men were propping themselves up against
+the wall and looking on, like men in a ball-room who do not dance.
+
+Jill listened to the conversation without taking any great part in it
+herself. She felt as she had done on her first day at school, a little
+shy and desirous of effacing herself. The talk dealt with clothes,
+men, and the show business, in that order of importance. Presently one
+of the young men sauntered diffidently across the room and added
+himself to the group with the remark that it was a fine day. He was
+received a little grudgingly, Jill thought, but by degrees succeeded
+in assimilating himself. A second young man drifted up; reminded the
+willowy girl that they had worked together in the western company of
+"You're the One"; was recognized and introduced, and justified his
+admission to the circle by a creditable imitation of a cat-fight. Five
+minutes later he was addressing the Southern girl as "honey," and had
+informed Jill that he had only joined this show to fill in before
+opening on the three-a-day with the swellest little song-and-dance act
+which he and a little girl who worked in the cabaret at Geisenheimer's
+had fixed up.
+
+On this scene of harmony and good-fellowship Mr. Saltzburg's chord
+intruded jarringly. There was a general movement, and chairs and
+benches were dragged to the piano. Mr. Saltzburg causing a momentary
+delay by opening a large brown music-bag and digging in it like a
+terrier at a rat-hole, conversation broke out again.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg emerged from the bag, with his hands full of papers,
+protesting.
+
+"Childrun! Chil-_drun_! If you please, less noise and attend to me!"
+He distributed sheets of paper. "Act One, Opening Chorus. I will play
+the melody three--four times. Follow attentively. Then we will sing it
+la-la-la, and after that we will sing the words. So!"
+
+He struck the yellow-keyed piano a vicious blow, producing a tinny and
+complaining sound. Bending forward with his spectacles almost touching
+the music, he plodded determinedly through the tune, then encored
+himself, and after that encored himself again. When he had done this,
+he removed his spectacles and wiped them. There was a pause.
+
+"Izzy," observed the willowy young lady chattily, leaning across Jill
+and addressing the Southern girl's blonde friend, "has promised me a
+sunburst!"
+
+A general stir of interest and a coming close together of heads.
+
+"What! Izzy!"
+
+"Sure, Izzy."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"He's just landed the hat-check privilege at the St. Aurea!"
+
+"You don't say!"
+
+"He told me so last night and promised me the sunburst. He was,"
+admitted the willowy girl regretfully, "a good bit tanked at the time,
+but I guess he'll make good." She mused awhile, a rather anxious
+expression clouding her perfect profile. She looked like a meditative
+Greek goddess. "If he doesn't," she added with maidenly dignity, "it's
+the last time _I_ go out with the big stiff. I'd tie a can to him
+quicker'n look at him!"
+
+A murmur of approval greeted this admirable sentiment.
+
+"Childrun!" protested Mr. Saltzburg. "Chil-drun! Less noise and
+chatter of conversation. We are here to work! We must not waste time!
+So! Act One, Opening Chorus. Now, all together. La-la-la...."
+
+"La-la-la...."
+
+"Tum-tum-tumty-tumty...."
+
+"Tum-tum-tumty...."
+
+Mr. Saltzburg pressed his hands to his ears in a spasm of pain.
+
+"No, no, no! Sour! Sour! Sour!... Once again. La-la-la...."
+
+A round-faced girl with golden hair and the face of a wondering cherub
+interrupted, speaking with a lisp.
+
+"Mithter Thalzburg."
+
+"Now what is it, Miss Trevor?"
+
+"What sort of a show is this?"
+
+"A musical show," said Mr. Saltzburg severely, "and this is a
+rehearsal of it, not a conversazione. Once more, please."
+
+The cherub was not to be rebuffed.
+
+"Is the music good, Mithter Thalzburg?"
+
+"When you have rehearsed it, you shall judge for yourself. Come
+now...."
+
+"Is there anything in it as good as that waltz of yours you played us
+when we were rehearthing 'Mind How You Go?' You remember. The one that
+went...."
+
+A tall and stately girl, with sleepy brown eyes and the air of a
+duchess in the servants' hall, bent forward and took a kindly interest
+in the conversation.
+
+"Oh, have you composed a varlse, Mr. Saltzburg?" she asked with
+pleasant condescension. "How interesting, really! Won't you play it
+for us?"
+
+The sentiment of the meeting seemed to be unanimous in favour of
+shelving work and listening to Mr. Saltzburg's waltz.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Saltzburg, do!"
+
+"Please!"
+
+"Some one told me it was a pipterino!"
+
+"I cert'nly do love waltzes!"
+
+"Please, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg obviously weakened. His fingers touched the keys
+irresolutely.
+
+"But, childrun!"
+
+"I am sure it would be a great pleasure to all of us," said the
+duchess graciously, "if you would play it. There is nothing I enjoy
+more than a good varlse."
+
+Mr. Saltzburg capitulated. Like all musical directors he had in his
+leisure moments composed the complete score of a musical play and
+spent much of his time waylaying librettists on the Rialto and trying
+to lure them to his apartment to listen to it, with a view to
+business. The eternal tragedy of a musical director's life is
+comparable only to that of the waiter who, himself fasting, has to
+assist others to eat. Mr. Saltzburg had lofty ideas on music, and his
+soul revolted at being compelled perpetually to rehearse and direct
+the inferior compositions of other men. Far less persuasion than he
+had received to-day was usually required to induce him to play the
+whole of his score.
+
+"You wish it?" he said. "Well, then! This waltz, you will understand,
+is the theme of a musical romance which I have composed. It will be
+sung once in the first act by the heroine, then in the second act as a
+duet for heroine and hero. I weave it into the finale of the second
+act, and we have an echo of it, sung off stage, in the third act. What
+I play you now is the second act duet. The verse is longer. So! The
+male voice begins."
+
+A pleasant time was had by all for ten minutes.
+
+"Ah, but this is not rehearsing, childrun!" cried Mr. Saltzburg
+remorsefully at the end of that period. "This is not business. Come
+now, the opening chorus of Act One, and please this time keep on the
+key. Before, it was sour, sour Come! La-la-la...."
+
+"Mr. Thalzburg!"
+
+"Miss Trevor?"
+
+"There was an awfully thweet fox-trot you used to play us. I do
+wish...."
+
+"Some other time, some other time! Now we must work. Come!
+La-la-la...."
+
+"I wish you could have heard it, girls" said the cherub regretfully.
+"Honetht, it was lalapalootha!"
+
+The pack broke into full cry.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+"Please, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+"Do play the fox-trot, Mr. Saltzburg!"
+
+"If it is as good as the varlse," said the duchess, stooping once more
+to the common level, "I am sure it must be very good indeed." She
+powdered her nose. "And one so rarely hears musicianly music nowadays,
+does one?"
+
+"Which fox-trot?" asked Mr. Saltzburg weakly.
+
+"Play 'em all!" decided a voice on the left.
+
+"Yes, play 'em all," bayed the pack.
+
+"I am sure that that would be charming," agreed the duchess, replacing
+her powder-puff.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg played 'em all. This man by now seemed entirely lost to
+shame. The precious minutes that belonged to his employers and should
+have been earmarked for "The Rose of America" flitted by. The ladies
+and gentlemen of the ensemble, who should have been absorbing and
+learning to deliver the melodies of Roland Trevis and the lyrics of
+Otis Pilkington, lolled back in their seats. The yellow-keyed piano
+rocked beneath an unprecedented onslaught. The proceedings had begun
+to resemble not so much a rehearsal as a happy home evening, and
+grateful glances were cast at the complacent cherub. She had, it was
+felt, shown tact and discretion.
+
+Pleasant conversation began again.
+
+"... And I walked a couple of blocks, and there was exactly the same
+model in Schwartz and Gulderstein's window at twenty-six fifty...."
+
+"... He got on Forty-second Street, and he was kinda fresh from the
+start. At Sixty-sixth he came sasshaying right down the car and said
+'Hello, patootie!' Well, I drew myself up...."
+
+"... Even if you are my sister's husband,' I said to him. Oh, I
+suppose I got a temper. It takes a lot to arouse it, y'know, but I c'n
+get pretty mad...."
+
+"... You don't know the half of it, dearie, you don't know the half of
+it! A one-piece bathing suit! Well, you could call it that, but the
+cop of the beach said it was more like a baby's sock. And when...."
+
+"... So I said 'Listen, Izzy, that'll be about all from you! My father
+was a gentleman, though I don't suppose you know what that means, and
+I'm not accustomed....'"
+
+"Hey!"
+
+A voice from the neighbourhood of the door had cut into the babble
+like a knife into butter; a rough, rasping voice, loud and compelling,
+which caused the conversation of the members of the ensemble to cease
+on the instant. Only Mr. Saltzburg, now in a perfect frenzy of
+musicianly fervour, continued to assault the decrepit piano, unwitting
+of an unsympathetic addition to his audience.
+
+"What I play you now is the laughing trio from my second act. It is a
+building number. It is sung by tenor, principal comedian, and
+soubrette. On the second refrain four girls will come out and two
+boys. The girls will dance with the two men, the boys with the
+soubrette. So! On the encore four more girls and two more boys. Third
+encore, solo-dance for specialty dancer, all on stage beating time by
+clapping their hands. On repeat, all sing refrain once more, and off.
+Last encore, the three principals and specialty dancer dance the dance
+with entire chorus. It is a great building number, you understand. It
+is enough to make the success of any musical play, but can I get a
+hearing? No! If I ask managers to listen to my music, they are busy!
+If I beg them to give me a libretto to set, they laugh--ha! ha!" Mr.
+Saltzburg gave a spirited and lifelike representation of a manager
+laughing ha-ha when begged to disgorge a libretto. "Now I play it once
+more!"
+
+"Like hell you do!" said the voice. "Say, what is this, anyway? A
+concert?"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg swung round on the music-stool, a startled and
+apprehensive man, and nearly fell off it. The divine afflatus left him
+like air oozing from a punctured toy-balloon, and, like such a
+balloon, he seemed to grow suddenly limp and flat. He stared with
+fallen jaw at the new arrival.
+
+Two men had entered the room. One was the long Mr. Pilkington. The
+other, who looked shorter and stouter than he really was beside his
+giraffe-like companion, was a thick-set, fleshy man in the early
+thirties with a blond, clean-shaven, double-chinned face. He had
+smooth, yellow hair, an unwholesome complexion, and light green eyes,
+set close together. From the edge of the semi-circle about the piano,
+he glared menacingly over the heads of the chorus at the unfortunate
+Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"Why aren't these girls working?"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg, who had risen nervously from his stool, backed away
+apprehensively from his gaze, and, stumbling over the stool, sat down
+abruptly on the piano, producing a curious noise like Futurist music.
+
+"I--We--Why, Mr. Goble...."
+
+Mr. Goble turned his green gaze on the concert audience, and spread
+discomfort as if it were something liquid which he was spraying
+through a hose. The girls who were nearest looked down flutteringly at
+their shoes: those further away concealed themselves behind their
+neighbours. Even the duchess, who prided herself on being the
+possessor of a stare of unrivalled haughtiness, before which the fresh
+quailed and those who made breaks subsided in confusion, was unable to
+meet his eyes: and the willowy friend of Izzy, for all her victories
+over that monarch of the hat-checks, bowed before it like a slim tree
+before a blizzard.
+
+Only Jill returned the manager's gaze. She was seated on the outer rim
+of the semi-circle, and she stared frankly at Mr. Goble. She had never
+seen anything like him before, and he fascinated her. This behaviour
+on her part singled her out from the throng, and Mr. Goble
+concentrated his attention on her.
+
+For some seconds he stood looking at her; then, raising a stubby
+finger, he let his eye travel over the company, and seemed to be
+engrossed in some sort of mathematical calculation.
+
+"Thirteen," he said at length. "I make it thirteen." He rounded on Mr.
+Pilkington. "I told you we were going to have a chorus of twelve."
+
+Mr. Pilkington blushed and stumbled over his feet.
+
+"Ah, yes ... yes," he murmured vaguely. "Yes!"
+
+"Well, there are thirteen here. Count 'em for yourself." He whipped
+round on Jill. "What's _your_ name? Who engaged you?"
+
+A croaking sound from the neighbourhood of the ceiling indicated the
+clearing of Mr. Pilkington's throat.
+
+"I--er--_I_ engaged Miss Mariner, Mr. Goble."
+
+"Oh, _you_ engaged her?"
+
+He stared again at Jill. The inspection was long and lingering, and
+affected Jill with a sense of being inadequately clothed. She returned
+the gaze as defiantly as she could, but her heart was beating fast.
+She had never yet been frightened of any man, but there was something
+reptilian about this fat, yellow-haired individual which disquieted
+her, much as cockroaches had done in her childhood. A momentary
+thought flashed through her mind that it would be horrible to be
+touched by him. He looked soft and glutinous.
+
+"All right," said Mr. Goble at last, after what seemed to Jill many
+minutes. He nodded to Mr. Saltzburg. "Get on with it! And try working
+a little this time! I don't hire you to give musical entertainments."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Goble, yes. I mean no, Mr. Goble!"
+
+"You can have the Gotham stage this afternoon," said Mr. Goble. "Call
+the rehearsal for two sharp."
+
+Outside the door, he turned to Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"That was a fool trick of yours, hiring that girl. Thirteen! I'd as
+soon walk under a ladder on a Friday as open in New York with a chorus
+of thirteen. Well, it don't matter. We can sack one of 'em after we've
+opened on the road." He mused for a moment. "Darned pretty girl,
+that!" he went on meditatively. "Where did you get her?"
+
+"She--ah--came into the office, when you were out. She struck me as
+being essentially the type we required for our ensemble, so
+I--er--engaged her. She--" Mr. Pilkington gulped. "She is a charming,
+refined girl!"
+
+"She's darned pretty," admitted Mr. Goble, and went on his way wrapped
+in thought, Mr. Pilkington following timorously. It was episodes like
+the one that had just concluded which made Otis Pilkington wish that
+he possessed a little more assertion. He regretted wistfully that he
+was not one of those men who can put their hat on the side of their
+heads and shoot out their chins and say to the world "Well, what about
+it!" He was bearing the financial burden of this production. If it
+should be a failure, his would be the loss. Yet somehow this coarse,
+rough person in front of him never seemed to allow him a word in the
+executive policy of the piece. He treated him as a child. He
+domineered and he shouted, and behaved as if he were in sole command.
+Mr Pilkington sighed. He rather wished he had never gone into this
+undertaking.
+
+Inside the room, Mr. Saltzburg wiped his forehead, his spectacles, and
+his hands. He had the aspect of one who wakes from a dreadful dream.
+
+"Childrun!" he whispered brokenly. "Childrun! If you please, once
+more. Act One, Opening Chorus. Come! La-la-la!"
+
+"La-la-la!" chanted the subdued members of the ensemble.
+
+
+II
+
+By the time the two halves of the company, ensemble and principals,
+melted into one complete whole, the novelty of her new surroundings
+had worn off, and Jill was feeling that there had never been a time
+when she had not been one of a theatrical troupe, rehearsing. The
+pleasant social gatherings round Mr. Saltzburg's piano gave way in a
+few days to something far less agreeable and infinitely more
+strenuous, the breaking-in of the dances under the supervision of the
+famous Johnson Miller. Johnson Miller was a little man with snow-white
+hair and the india-rubber physique of a juvenile acrobat. Nobody knew
+actually how old he was, but he certainly looked much too advanced in
+years to be capable of the feats of endurance which he performed
+daily. He had the untiring enthusiasm of a fox-terrier, and had
+bullied and scolded more companies along the rocky road that leads to
+success than any half-dozen dance-directors in the country, in spite
+of his handicap in being almost completely deaf. He had an almost
+miraculous gift of picking up the melodies for which it was his
+business to design dances, without apparently hearing them. He seemed
+to absorb them through the pores. He had a blunt and arbitrary manner,
+and invariably spoke his mind frankly and honestly--a habit which made
+him strangely popular in a profession where the language of equivoque
+is cultivated almost as sedulously as in the circles of international
+diplomacy. What Johnson Miller said to your face was official, not
+subject to revision as soon as your back was turned, and people
+appreciated this.
+
+Izzy's willowy friend summed him up one evening when the ladies of the
+ensemble were changing their practice-clothes after a particularly
+strenuous rehearsal, defending him against the Southern girl, who
+complained that he made her tired.
+
+"You bet he makes you tired," she said. "So he does me. I'm losing my
+girlish curves, and I'm so stiff I can't lace my shoes. But he knows
+his business and he's on the level, which is more than you can say of
+most of these guys in the show business."
+
+"That's right," agreed the Southern girl's blonde friend. "He does
+know his business. He's put over any amount of shows which would have
+flopped like dogs without him to stage the numbers."
+
+The duchess yawned. Rehearsing always bored her, and she had not been
+greatly impressed by what she had seen of "The Rose of America."
+
+"One will be greatly surprised if he can make a success of _this_
+show! I confess I find it perfectly ridiculous."
+
+"Ithn't it the limit, honetht!" said the cherub, arranging her golden
+hair at the mirror. "It maketh me thick! Why on earth ith Ike putting
+it on?"
+
+The girl who knew everything--there is always one in every
+company--hastened to explain.
+
+"I heard all about that. Ike hasn't any of his own money in the thing.
+He's getting twenty-five per cent of the show for running it. The
+angel is the long fellow you see jumping around. Pilkington his name
+is."
+
+"Well, it'll need to be Rockefeller later on," said the blonde.
+
+"Oh, they'll get thomebody down to fixth it after we've been out on
+the road a couple of days," said the cherub, optimistically. "They
+alwayth do. I've seen worse shows than this turned into hits. All it
+wants ith a new book and lyrics and a different thcore."
+
+"And a new set of principals," said the red-headed Babe. "Did you ever
+see such a bunch?"
+
+The duchess, with another tired sigh, arched her well-shaped eyebrows
+and studied the effect in the mirror.
+
+"One wonders where they pick these persons up," she assented
+languidly. "They remind me of a headline I saw in the paper this
+morning--'Tons of Hams Unfit for Human Consumption.' Are any of you
+girls coming my way? I Can give two or three of you a lift in my
+limousine."
+
+"Thorry, old dear, and thanks ever so much," said the cherub, "but I
+instructed Clarence, my man, to have the street-car waiting on the
+corner, and he'll be too upset if I'm not there."
+
+Nelly had an engagement to go and help one of the other girls buy a
+Spring suit, a solemn rite which it is impossible to conduct by
+oneself: and Jill and the cherub walked to the corner together. Jill
+had become very fond of the little thing since rehearsals began. She
+reminded her of a London sparrow. She was so small and perky and so
+absurdly able to take care of herself.
+
+"Limouthine!" snorted the cherub. The duchess' concluding speech
+evidently still rankled. "She gives me a pain in the gizthard!"
+
+"Hasn't she got a limousine?" asked Jill.
+
+"Of course she hasn't. She's engaged to be married to a demonstrator
+in the Speedwell Auto Company, and he thneaks off when he can get away
+and gives her joy-rides. That's all the limouthine she's got. It beats
+me why girls in the show business are alwayth tho crazy to make
+themselves out vamps with a dozen millionaires on a string. If Mae
+wouldn't four-flush and act like the Belle of the Moulin Rouge, she'd
+be the nithest girl you ever met. She's mad about the fellow she's
+engaged to, and wouldn't look at all the millionaires in New York if
+you brought 'em to her on a tray. She's going to marry him as thoon as
+he's thaved enough to buy the furniture, and then she'll thettle down
+in Harlem thomewhere and cook and mind the baby and regularly be one
+of the lower middle classes. All that's wrong with Mae ith that she's
+read Gingery Stories and thinkth that's the way a girl has to act when
+she'th in the chorus."
+
+"That's funny," said Jill. "I should never have thought it. I
+swallowed the limousine whole."
+
+The cherub looked at her curiously. Jill puzzled her. Jill had,
+indeed, been the subject of much private speculation among her
+colleagues.
+
+"This is your first show, ithn't it?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Thay, what are you doing in the chorus, anyway?"
+
+"Getting scolded by Mr. Miller mostly, it seems to me.
+
+"Thcolded by Mr. Miller! Why didn't you say 'bawled out by Johnny'?
+That'th what any of the retht of us would have said."
+
+"Well, I've lived most of my life in England. You can't expect me to
+talk the language yet."
+
+"I thought you were English. You've got an acthent like the fellow who
+plays the dude in thith show. Thay, why did you ever get into the show
+business?"
+
+"Well ... well, why did you? Why does anybody?"
+
+"Why did I? Oh, I belong there. I'm a regular Broadway rat. I wouldn't
+be happy anywhere elthe. I was born in the show business. I've got two
+thithters in the two-a-day and a brother in thtock in California and
+dad's one of the betht comedians on the burlethque wheel. But any one
+can thee you're different. There's no reathon why you should be
+sticking around in the chorus."
+
+"But there is. I've no money, and I can't do anything to make it."
+
+"Honetht?"
+
+"Honest."
+
+"That's tough." The cherub pondered, her round eyes searching Jill's
+face. "Why don't you get married?"
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"Nobody's asked me."
+
+"Somebody thoon will. At least, if he's on the level, and I think he
+is. You can generally tell by the look of a guy, and, if you ask me,
+friend Pilkington's got the licence in hith pocket and the ring all
+ordered and everything."
+
+"Pilkington!" cried Jill aghast.
+
+She remembered certain occasions during rehearsals, when, while the
+chorus idled in the body of the theatre and listened to the principals
+working at their scenes, the elongated Pilkington had suddenly
+appeared in the next seat and conversed sheepishly in a low voice.
+Could this be love? If so, it was a terrible nuisance. Jill had had
+her experience in London of enamoured young men who, running true to
+national form, declined to know when they were beaten, and she had not
+enjoyed the process of cooling their ardour. She had a kind heart, and
+it distressed her to give pain. It also got on her nerves to be dogged
+by stricken males who tried to catch her eye in order that she might
+observe their broken condition. She recalled one house-party in Wales
+where it rained all the time and she had been cooped up with a victim
+who kept popping out from obscure corners and beginning all his pleas
+with the words "I say, you know...!" She trusted that Otis Pilkington
+was not proposing to conduct a wooing on those lines. Yet he had
+certainly developed a sinister habit of popping out at the theatre. On
+several occasions he had startled her by appearing at her side as if
+he had come up out of a trap.
+
+"Oh, no!" cried Jill.
+
+"Oh, yeth!" insisted the cherub, waving imperiously to an approaching
+street-car. "Well, I must be getting up-town. I've got a date. Thee
+you later."
+
+"I'm sure you're mistaken."
+
+"I'm not."
+
+"But what makes you think so?"
+
+The cherub placed a hand on the rail of the car, preparatory to
+swinging herself on board.
+
+"Well, for one thing," she said, "he'th been stalking you like an
+Indian ever since we left the theatre! Look behind you. Good-bye,
+honey. Thend me a piece of the cake!"
+
+The street-car bore her away. The last that Jill saw of her was a wide
+and amiable grin. Then, turning, she beheld the snake-like form of
+Otis Pilkington towering at her side.
+
+Mr. Pilkington seemed nervous but determined. His face was half hidden
+by the silk scarf that muffled his throat, for he was careful of his
+health and had a fancied tendency to bronchial trouble. Above the
+scarf a pair of mild eyes gazed down at Jill through their
+tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles. It was hopeless for Jill to try to
+tell herself that the tender gleam behind the glass was not the love
+light in Otis Pilkington's eyes. The truth was too obvious.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington, his voice sounding
+muffled and far away through the scarf. "Are you going up-town?"
+
+"No, down-town," said Jill quickly.
+
+"So am I," said Mr. Pilkington.
+
+Jill felt annoyed, but helpless. It is difficult to bid a tactful
+farewell to a man who has stated his intention of going in the same
+direction as yourself. There was nothing for it but to accept the
+unspoken offer of Otis Pilkington's escort. They began to walk down
+Broadway together.
+
+"I suppose you are tired after the rehearsal?" enquired Mr.
+Pilkington in his precise voice. He always spoke as if he were
+weighing each word and clipping it off a reel.
+
+"A little. Mr. Miller is very enthusiastic."
+
+"About the piece?" Her companion spoke eagerly.
+
+"No; I meant hard-working."
+
+"Has he said anything about the piece?"
+
+"Well, no. You see, he doesn't confide in us a great deal, except to
+tell us his opinion of the way we do the steps. I don't think we
+impress him very much, to judge from what he says. But the girls say
+he always tells every chorus he rehearses that it is the worst he ever
+had anything to do with."
+
+"And the chor--the--er--ladies of the ensemble? What do they think of
+the piece?"
+
+"Well, I don't suppose they are very good judges, are they?" said Jill
+diplomatically.
+
+"You mean they do not like it?"
+
+"Some of them don't seem quite to understand it."
+
+Mr. Pilkington was silent for a moment.
+
+"I am beginning to wonder myself whether it may not be a little over
+the heads of the public," he said ruefully. "When it was first
+performed...."
+
+"Oh, has it been done before?"
+
+"By amateurs, yes, at the house of my aunt, Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim,
+at Newport, last summer. In aid of the Armenian orphans. It was
+extraordinarily well received on that occasion. We nearly made our
+expenses. It was such a success that--I feel I can confide in you. I
+should not like this repeated to your--your--the other ladies--it was
+such a success that, against my aunt's advice, I decided to give it a
+Broadway production. Between ourselves, I am shouldering practically
+all the expenses of the undertaking. Mr. Goble has nothing to do with
+the financial arrangements of 'The Rose of America.' Those are
+entirely in my hands. Mr. Goble, in return for a share in the profits,
+is giving us the benefit of his experience as regards the management
+and booking of the piece. I have always had the greatest faith in it.
+Trevis and I wrote it when we were in college together, and all our
+friends thought it exceptionally brilliant. My aunt, as I say, was
+opposed to the venture. She holds the view that I am not a good man of
+business. In a sense, perhaps, she is right. Temperamentally, no
+doubt, I am more the artist. But I was determined to show the public
+something superior to the so-called Broadway successes, which are so
+terribly trashy. Unfortunately, I am beginning to wonder whether it is
+possible, with the crude type of actor at one's disposal in this
+country, to give a really adequate performance of such a play as 'The
+Rose of America.' These people seem to miss the spirit of the piece,
+its subtle topsy-turvy humour, its delicate whimsicality. This
+afternoon," Mr. Pilkington choked. "This afternoon I happened to
+overhear two of the principals, who were not aware that I was within
+earshot, discussing the play. One of them--these people express
+themselves curiously--one of them said that he thought it a quince:
+and the other described it as a piece of gorgonzola cheese! That is
+not the spirit that wins success!"
+
+Jill was feeling immensely relieved. After all, it seemed, this poor
+young man merely wanted sympathy, not romance. She had been mistaken,
+she felt, about that gleam in his eyes. It was not the lovelight: it
+was the light of panic. He was the author of the play. He had sunk a
+large sum of money in its production, he had heard people criticizing
+it harshly, and he was suffering from what her colleagues in the
+chorus would have called cold feet. It was such a human emotion and he
+seemed so like an overgrown child pleading to be comforted that her
+heart warmed to him. Relief melted her defences. And when, on their
+arrival at Thirty-fourth Street Mr. Pilkington suggested that she
+partake of a cup of tea at his apartment, which was only a couple of
+blocks away off Madison Avenue, she accepted the invitation without
+hesitating.
+
+On the way to his apartment Mr. Pilkington continued in the minor key.
+He was a great deal more communicative than she herself would have
+been to such a comparative stranger as she was, but she knew that men
+were often like this. Over in London, she had frequently been made the
+recipient of the most intimate confidences by young men whom she had
+met for the first time the same evening at a dance. She had been
+forced to believe that there was something about her personality that
+acted on a certain type of man like the crack in the dam, setting
+loose the surging flood of their eloquence. To this class Otis
+Pilkington evidently belonged, for, once started, he withheld nothing.
+
+"It isn't that I'm dependent on Aunt Olive or anything like that," he
+vouchsafed, as he stirred the tea in his Japanese-print hung studio.
+"But you know how it is. Aunt Olive is in a position to make it very
+unpleasant for me if I do anything foolish. At present, I have reason
+to know that she intends to leave me practically all that she
+possesses. Millions!" said Mr. Pilkington, handing Jill a cup. "I
+assure you, millions! But there is a hard commercial strain in her. It
+would have the most prejudicial effect upon her if; especially after
+she had expressly warned me against it, I were to lose a great deal of
+money over this production. She is always complaining that I am not a
+business man like my late uncle. Mr. Waddesleigh Peagrim made a
+fortune in smoked hams." Mr. Pilkington looked at the Japanese prints,
+and shuddered slightly. "Right up to the time of his death he was
+urging me to go into the business. I could not have endured it. But,
+when I heard those two men discussing the play, I almost wished that I
+had done so."
+
+Jill was now completely disarmed. She would almost have patted this
+unfortunate young man's head, if she could have reached it.
+
+"I shouldn't worry about the piece," she said. "I've read somewhere or
+heard somewhere that it's the surest sign of a success when actors
+don't like a play."
+
+Mr. Pilkington drew his chair an imperceptible inch nearer.
+
+"How sympathetic you are!"
+
+Jill perceived with chagrin that she had been mistaken after all. It
+_was_ the love light. The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles sprayed it
+all over her like a couple of searchlights. Otis Pilkington was
+looking exactly like a sheep, and she knew from past experience that
+that was the infallible sign. When young men looked like that, it was
+time to go.
+
+"I'm afraid I must be off," she said. "Thank you so much for giving me
+tea. I shouldn't be a bit afraid about the play. I'm sure it's going
+to be splendid. Good-bye."
+
+"You aren't going already?"
+
+"I must. I'm very late as it is. I promised...."
+
+Whatever fiction Jill might have invented to the detriment of her soul
+was interrupted by a ring at the bell. The steps of Mr. Pilkington's
+Japanese servant crossing the hall came faintly to the sitting-room.
+
+"Mr. Pilkington in?"
+
+Otis Pilkington motioned pleadingly to Jill.
+
+"Don't go!" he urged. "It's only a man I know. He has probably come
+to remind me that I am dining with him to-night. He won't stay a
+minute. Please don't go."
+
+Jill sat down. She had no intention of going now. The cheery voice at
+the front door had been the cheery voice of her long-lost uncle, Major
+Christopher Selby.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+UNCLE CHRIS BORROWS A FLAT
+
+I
+
+
+Uncle Chris walked breezily into the room, flicking a jaunty glove. He
+stopped short on seeing that Mr. Pilkington was not alone.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon! I understood...." He peered at Jill
+uncertainly. Mr. Pilkington affected a dim, artistic lighting-system
+in his studio, and people who entered from the great outdoors
+generally had to take time to accustom their eyes to it. "If you're
+engaged...."
+
+"Er--allow me.... Miss Mariner.... Major Selby."
+
+"Hullo, Uncle Chris!" said Jill.
+
+"God bless my soul!" ejaculated that startled gentleman adventurer,
+and collapsed on to a settee as if his legs had been mown from under
+him.
+
+"I've been looking for you all over New York," said Jill.
+
+Mr. Pilkington found himself unequal to the intellectual pressure of
+the conversation.
+
+"Uncle Chris?" he said with a note of feeble enquiry in his voice.
+
+"Major Selby is my uncle."
+
+"Are you sure?" said Mr. Pilkington. "I mean...."
+
+Not being able to ascertain, after a moment's self-examination, what
+he did mean, he relapsed into silence.
+
+"Whatever are you doing here?" asked Uncle Chris.
+
+"I've been having tea with Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"But ... but why Mr. Pilkington?"
+
+"Well, he invited me."
+
+"But how do you know him?"
+
+"We met at the theatre."
+
+"Theatre?"
+
+Otis Pilkington recovered his power of speech.
+
+"Miss Mariner is rehearsing with a little play in which I am
+interested," he explained.
+
+Uncle Chris half rose from the settee. He blinked twice in rapid
+succession. Jill had never seen him so shaken from his customary
+poise.
+
+"Don't tell me you have gone on the stage, Jill!"
+
+"I have. I'm in the chorus...."
+
+"Ensemble," corrected Mr. Pilkington softly.
+
+"I'm in the ensemble of a piece called 'The Rose of America.' We've
+been rehearsing for ever so long."
+
+Uncle Chris digested this information in silence for a moment He
+pulled at his short moustache.
+
+"Why, of course!" he said at length. Jill, who knew him so well, could
+tell by the restored ring of cheeriness in his tone that he was
+himself again. He had dealt with this situation in his mind and was
+prepared to cope with it. The surmise was confirmed the next instant
+when he rose and stationed himself in front of the fire. Mr.
+Pilkington detested steam-heat and had scoured the city till he had
+found a studio apartment with an open fireplace. Uncle Chris spread
+his legs and expanded his chest. "Of course," he said. "I remember now
+that you told me in your letter that you were thinking of going on the
+stage. My niece," explained Uncle Chris to the attentive Mr.
+Pilkington, "came over from England on a later boat. I was not
+expecting her for some weeks. Hence my surprise at meeting her here.
+Of course. You told me that you intended to go on the stage, and I
+strongly recommended you to begin at the bottom of the ladder and
+learn the ground-work thoroughly before you attempted higher flights."
+
+"Oh, that was it?" said Mr. Pilkington. He had been wondering.
+
+"There is no finer training," resumed Uncle Chris, completely at his
+ease once more, "than the chorus. How many of the best-known actresses
+in America began in that way! Dozens. Dozens. If I were giving advice
+to any young girl with theatrical aspirations, I should say 'Begin in
+the chorus!' On the other hand," he proceeded, turning to Mr.
+Pilkington, "I think it would be just as well if you would not mention
+the fact of my niece being in that position to Mrs. Waddesleigh
+Peagrim. She might not understand."
+
+"Exactly," assented Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"The term 'chorus'...."
+
+"I dislike it intensely myself."
+
+"It suggests...."
+
+"Precisely."
+
+Uncle Chris inflated his chest again, well satisfied.
+
+"Capital!" he said. "Well, I only dropped in to remind you, my boy,
+that you and your aunt are dining with me to-night. I was afraid a
+busy man like you might forget."
+
+"I was looking forward to it," said Mr. Pilkington, charmed at the
+description.
+
+"You remember the address? Nine East Forty-first Street. I have moved,
+you remember."
+
+"So that was why I couldn't find you at the other place," said Jill.
+"The man at the door said he had never heard of you."
+
+"Stupid idiot!" said Uncle Chris testily. "These New York hall-porters
+are recruited entirely from homes for the feeble-minded. I suppose he
+was a new man. Well, Pilkington, my boy, I shall expect you at seven
+o'clock. Good-bye till then. Come, Jill."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Pilkington," said Jill.
+
+"Good-bye for the present, Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington, bending
+down to take her hand. The tortoise-shell spectacles shot a last soft
+beam at her.
+
+As the front door closed behind them, Uncle Chris heaved a sigh of
+relief.
+
+"Whew! I think I handled that little contretemps with diplomacy! A
+certain amount of diplomacy, I think!"
+
+"If you mean," said Jill severely, "that you told some disgraceful
+fibs...."
+
+"Fibs, my dear--or shall we say, artistic mouldings of the unshapely
+clay of truth--are the ... how shall I put it?... Well, anyway, they
+come in dashed handy. It would never have done for Mrs. Peagrim to
+have found out that you were in the chorus. If she discovered that my
+niece was in the chorus, she would infallibly suspect me of being an
+adventurer. And while," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "of course I
+_am_, it is nice to have one's little secrets. The good lady has had a
+rooted distaste for girls in that perfectly honourable but maligned
+profession ever since our long young friend back there was sued for
+breach of promise by a member of a touring company in his second year
+at college. We all have our prejudices. That is hers. However, I
+think, we may rely on our friend to say nothing about the matter....
+But why did you do it? My dear child, whatever induced you to take
+such a step?"
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"That's practically what Mr. Miller said to me when we were rehearsing
+one of the dances this afternoon, only he put it differently." She
+linked her arm in his. "What else could I do? I was alone in New York
+with the remains of that twenty dollars you sent me and no more in
+sight."
+
+"But why didn't you stay down at Brookport with your Uncle Elmer?"
+
+"Have you ever seen my Uncle Elmer?"
+
+"No. Curiously enough, I never have."
+
+"If you had, you wouldn't ask. Brookport! Ugh! I left when they tried
+to get me to understudy the hired man, who had resigned."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes, they got tired of supporting me in the state to which I was
+accustomed--I don't blame them!--so they began to find ways of making
+me useful about the home. I didn't mind reading to Aunt Julia, and I
+could just stand taking Tibby for walks. But, when it came to
+shoveling snow, I softly and silently vanished away."
+
+"But I can't understand all this. I suggested to your
+uncle--diplomatically--that you had large private means."
+
+"I know you did. And he spent all his time showing me over houses and
+telling me I could have them for a hundred thousand dollars cash
+down." Jill bubbled. "You should have seen his face when I told him
+that twenty dollars was all I had in the world!"
+
+"You didn't tell him that!"
+
+"I did."
+
+Uncle Chris shook his head, like an indulgent father disappointed in a
+favourite child.
+
+"You're a dear girl, Jill, but really you do seem totally lacking
+in ... how shall I put it?--finesse. Your mother was just the same. A
+sweet woman, but with no diplomacy, no notion of _handling_ a
+situation. I remember her as a child giving me away hopelessly on one
+occasion after we had been at the jam-cupboard. She did not mean any
+harm, but she was constitutionally incapable of a tactful negative at
+the right time." Uncle Chris brooded for a moment on the past. "Oh,
+well, it's a very fine trait, no doubt, though inconvenient. I don't
+blame you for leaving Brookport if you weren't happy there. But I wish
+you had consulted me before going on the stage."
+
+"Shall I strike this man?" asked Jill of the world at large. "How
+could I consult you? My darling, precious uncle, don't you realize
+that you had vanished into thin air, leaving me penniless? I had to do
+something. And, now that we are on the subject, perhaps you will
+explain your movements. Why did you write to me from that place on
+Fifty-seventh Street if you weren't there?"
+
+Uncle Chris cleared his throat.
+
+"In a sense ... when I wrote ... I _was_ there."
+
+"I suppose that means something, but it's beyond me. I'm not nearly as
+intelligent as you think, Uncle Chris, so you'll have to explain."
+
+"Well, it was this way, my dear. I was in a peculiar position you must
+remember. I had made a number of wealthy friends on the boat and it is
+possible that--unwittingly--I gave them the impression that I was as
+comfortably off as themselves. At any rate, that is the impression they
+gathered, and it hardly seemed expedient to correct it. For it is a
+deplorable trait in the character of the majority of rich people that they
+only--er--expand--they only show the best and most companionable side of
+themselves to those whom they imagine to be as wealthy as they are. Well,
+of course, while one was on the boat, the fact that I was sailing under
+what a purist might have termed false colours did not matter. The problem
+was how to keep up the--er--innocent deception after we had reached New
+York. A woman like Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim--a ghastly creature, my dear,
+all front teeth and exuberance, but richer than the Sub-Treasury--looks
+askance at a man, however agreeable, if he endeavours to cement a
+friendship begun on board ship from a cheap boarding-house on Amsterdam
+Avenue. It was imperative that I should find something in the nature of
+what I might call a suitable base of operations. Fortune played into my
+hands. One of the first men I met in New York was an old soldier-servant
+of mine, to whom I had been able to do some kindnesses in the old days. In
+fact--it shows how bread cast upon the waters returns to us after many
+days--it was with the assistance of a small loan from me that he was
+enabled to emigrate to America. Well, I met this man, and, after a short
+conversation, he revealed the fact that he was the hall-porter at that
+apartment-house which you visited, the one on Fifty-Seventh Street. At
+this time of the year, I knew, many wealthy people go south, to Florida
+and the Carolinas, and it occurred to me that there might be a vacant
+apartment in his building. There was. I took it."
+
+"But how on earth could you afford to pay for an apartment in a place
+like that?"
+
+Uncle Chris coughed.
+
+"I didn't say I paid for it. I said I took it. That is, as one might
+say, the point of my story. My old friend, grateful for favours
+received and wishing to do me a good turn, consented to become my
+accomplice in another--er--innocent deception. I gave my friends the
+address and telephone number of the apartment-house, living the while
+myself in surroundings of a somewhat humbler and less expensive
+character. I called every morning for letters. If anybody rang me up
+on the telephone, the admirable man answered in the capacity of my
+servant, took a message, and relayed it on to me at my boarding-house.
+If anybody called, he merely said that I was out. There wasn't a flaw
+in the whole scheme, my dear, and its chief merit was its beautiful
+simplicity."
+
+"Then what made you give it up? Conscience?"
+
+"Conscience never made me give up _anything_," said Uncle Chris
+firmly. "No, there were a hundred chances to one against anything
+going wrong, and it was the hundredth that happened. When you have
+been in New York longer, you will realize that one peculiarity of the
+place is that the working-classes are in a constant state of flux. On
+Monday you meet a plumber. Ah! you say, a plumber! Capital! On the
+following Thursday you meet him again, and he is a car-conductor. Next
+week he will be squirting soda in a drug-store. It's the fault of
+these dashed magazines, with their advertisements of correspondence
+courses--Are You Earning All You Should?--Write To Us and Learn
+Chicken-Farming By Mail.... It puts wrong ideas into the fellows'
+heads. It unsettles them. It was so in this case. Everything was going
+swimmingly, when my man suddenly conceived the idea that destiny had
+intended him for a chauffeur-gardener, and he threw up his position!"
+
+"Leaving you homeless!"
+
+"As you say, homeless--temporarily. But, fortunately--I have been
+amazingly lucky all through; it really does seem as if you cannot keep
+a good man down--fortunately my friend had a friend who was janitor at
+a place on East Forty-first Street, and by a miracle of luck the only
+apartment in the building was empty. It is an office-building, but,
+like some of these places, it has one small bachelor's apartment on
+the top floor."
+
+"And you are the small bachelor?"
+
+"Precisely. My friend explained matters to his friend--a few financial
+details were satisfactorily arranged--and here I am, perfectly happy
+with the cosiest little place in the world, rent free. I am even
+better off than I was before, as a matter of fact, for my new ally's
+wife is an excellent cook, and I have been enabled to give one or two
+very pleasant dinners at my new home. It lends verisimilitude to the
+thing if you can entertain a little. If you are never in when people
+call, they begin to wonder. I am giving dinner to your friend
+Pilkington and Mrs. Peagrim there to-night. Homey, delightful, and
+infinitely cheaper than a restaurant."
+
+"And what will you do when the real owner of the place walks in in the
+middle of dinner?"
+
+"Out of the question. The janitor informs me that he left for England
+some weeks ago, intending to make a stay of several months."
+
+"Well, you certainly think of everything."
+
+"Whatever success I may have achieved," replied Uncle Chris, with the
+dignity of a Captain of Industry confiding in an interviewer, "I
+attribute to always thinking of everything."
+
+Jill gurgled with laughter. There was that about her uncle which
+always acted on her moral sense like an opiate, lulling it to sleep
+and preventing it from rising up and becoming critical. If he had
+stolen a watch and chain, he would somehow have succeeded in
+convincing her that he had acted for the best under the dictates of a
+benevolent altruism.
+
+"What success _have_ you achieved?" she asked, interested. "When you
+left me, you were on your way to find a fortune. Did you find it?"
+
+"I have not actually placed my hands on it yet," admitted Uncle Chris.
+"But it is hovering in the air all round me. I can hear the beating of
+the wings of the dollar-bills as they flutter to and fro, almost
+within reach. Sooner or later I shall grab them. I never forget, my
+dear, that I have a task before me--to restore to you the money of
+which I deprived you. Some day--be sure--I shall do it. Some day you
+will receive a letter from me, containing a large sum--five
+thousand--ten thousand--twenty thousand--whatever it may be, with the
+simple words 'First Instalment.'" He repeated the phrase, as if it
+pleased him. "First Instalment!"
+
+Jill hugged his arm. She was in the mood in which she used to listen
+to him ages ago telling her fairy stories.
+
+"Go on!" she cried. "Go on! It's wonderful! Once upon a time Uncle
+Chris was walking along Fifth Avenue, when he happened to meet a poor
+old woman gathering sticks for firewood. She looked so old and tired
+that he was sorry for her, so he gave her ten cents which he had
+borrowed from the janitor, and suddenly she turned into a beautiful
+girl and said 'I am a fairy! In return for your kindness I grant you
+three wishes!' And Uncle Chris thought for a moment, and said, 'I want
+twenty thousand dollars to send to Jill!' And the fairy said, 'It
+shall be attended to. And the next article?'"
+
+"It is all very well to joke," protested Uncle Chris, pained by this
+flippancy, "but let me tell you that I shall not require magic
+assistance to become a rich man. Do you realize that at houses like
+Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's I am meeting men all the time who have only
+to say one little word to make me a millionaire? They are fat, grey
+men with fishy eyes and large waistcoats, and they sit smoking cigars
+and brooding on what they are going to do to the market next day. If I
+were a mind-reader I could have made a dozen fortunes by now. I sat
+opposite that old pirate, Bruce Bishop, for over an hour the very day
+before he and his gang sent Consolidated Pea-Nuts down twenty points!
+If I had known what was in the wind, I doubt if I could have
+restrained myself from choking his intentions out of the fellow. Well,
+what I am trying to point out is that one of these days one of these
+old oysters will have a fleeting moment of human pity and disgorge
+some tip on which I can act. It is that reflection that keeps me so
+constantly at Mrs. Peagrim's house." Uncle Chris shivered slightly. "A
+fearsome woman, my dear! Weighs a hundred and eighty pounds and as
+skittish as a young lamb in springtime! She makes me dance with her!"
+Uncle Chris' lips quivered in a spasm of pain, and he was silent for a
+moment. "Thank Heaven I was once a footballer!" he said reverently.
+
+"But what do you live on?" asked Jill. "I know you are going to be a
+millionaire next Tuesday week, but how are you getting along in the
+meantime?"
+
+Uncle Chris coughed.
+
+"Well, as regards actual living expenses, I have managed by a shrewd
+business stroke to acquire a small but sufficient income. I live in a
+boarding-house--true--but I contrive to keep the wolf away from its
+door--which, by the by, badly needs a lick of paint. Have you ever
+heard of Nervino?"
+
+"I don't think so. It sounds like a patent medicine."
+
+"It _is_ a patent medicine." Uncle Chris stopped and looked anxiously
+at her. "Jill, you're looking pale, my dear."
+
+"Am I? We had rather a tiring rehearsal."
+
+"Are you sure," said Uncle Chris seriously, "that it is only that? Are
+you sure that your vitality has not become generally lowered by the
+fierce rush of Metropolitan life? Are you aware of the things that can
+happen to you if you allow the red corpuscles of your blood to become
+devitalised? I had a friend...."
+
+"Stop! You're scaring me to death!"
+
+Uncle Chris gave his moustache a satisfied twirl.
+
+"Just what I meant to do, my dear. And, when I had scared you
+sufficiently--you wouldn't wait for the story of my consumptive
+friend. Pity! It's one of my best!--I should have mentioned that I had
+been having much the same trouble myself until lately, but the other
+day I happened to try Nervino, the great specific.... I was giving you
+an illustration of myself in action, my dear. I went to these Nervino
+people--happened to see one of their posters and got the idea in a
+flash--I went to them and said, 'Here am I, a presentable man of
+persuasive manners and a large acquaintance among the leaders of New
+York Society. What would it be worth to you to have me hint from time
+to time at dinner parties and so forth that Nervino is the rich man's
+panacea?' I put the thing lucidly to them. I said, 'No doubt you have
+a thousand agents in the city, but have you one who does not look like
+an agent and won't talk like an agent? Have you one who is inside the
+houses of the wealthy, at their very dinner-tables, instead of being
+on the front step, trying to hold the door open with his foot? That is
+the point you have to consider.' They saw the idea at once. We
+arranged terms--not as generous as I could wish, perhaps, but quite
+ample. I receive a tolerably satisfactory salary each week, and in
+return I spread the good word about Nervino in the gilded palaces of
+the rich. Those are the people to go for, Jill. They have been so
+busy wrenching money away from the widow and the orphan that they
+haven't had time to look after their health. You catch one of them
+after dinner, just as he is wondering if he was really wise in taking
+two helpings of the lobster Newburg, and he is clay in your hands. I
+draw my chair up to his and become sympathetic and say that I had
+precisely the same trouble myself until recently, and mention a dear
+old friend of mine who died of indigestion, and gradually lead the
+conversation round to Nervino. I don't force it on them. I don't even
+ask them, to try it. I merely point to myself, rosy with health, and
+say that I owe everything to it, and the thing is done. They thank me
+profusely and scribble the name down on their shirt-cuffs. And there
+you are! I don't suppose," said Uncle Chris philosophically, "that the
+stuff can do them any actual harm."
+
+They had come to the corner of Forty-first Street. Uncle Chris felt in
+his pocket and produced a key.
+
+"If you want to go and take a look at my little nest, you can let
+yourself in. It's on the twenty-second floor. Don't fail to go out on
+the roof and look at the view. It's worth seeing. It will give you
+some idea of the size of the city. A wonderful, amazing city, my dear,
+full of people who need Nervino. I shall go on and drop in at the club
+for half an hour. They have given me a fortnight's card at the Avenue.
+Capital place. Here's the key."
+
+Jill turned down Forty-first Street, and came to a mammoth structure
+of steel and stone which dwarfed the modest brown houses beside it
+into nothingness. It was curious to think of a private flat nestling
+on the summit of this mountain. She went in, and the lift shot her
+giddily upwards to the twenty-second floor. She found herself facing a
+short flight of stone steps, ending in a door. She mounted the steps,
+tried the key, and, turning it, entered a hall-way. Proceeding down
+the passage, she reached a sitting-room.
+
+It was a small room, but furnished with a solid comfort which soothed
+her. For the first time since she had arrived in New York, she had the
+sense of being miles away from the noise and bustle of the city. There
+was a complete and restful silence. She was alone in a nest of books
+and deep chairs, on which a large grandfather-clock looked down with
+that wide-faced benevolence peculiar to its kind. So peaceful was
+this eyrie, perched high up above the clamour and rattle of
+civilization, that every nerve in her body seemed to relax in a
+delicious content. It was like being in Peter Pan's house in the
+tree-tops.
+
+
+II
+
+Jill possessed in an unusual degree that instinct for exploration
+which is implanted in most of us. She was frankly inquisitive, and
+could never be two minutes in a strange room without making a tour of
+it and examining its books, pictures, and photographs. Almost at once
+she began to prowl.
+
+The mantelpiece was her first objective. She always made for other
+people's mantelpieces, for there, more than anywhere else, is the
+character of a proprietor revealed. This mantelpiece was sprinkled
+with photographs, large, small, framed and unframed. In the centre of
+it, standing all alone and looking curiously out of place among its
+large neighbours, was a little snapshot.
+
+It was dark by the mantelpiece. Jill took the photograph to the
+window, where the fading light could fall on it. Why, she could not
+have said, but the thing interested her. There was mystery about it.
+It seemed in itself so insignificant to have the place of honour.
+
+The snapshot had evidently been taken by an amateur, but it was one of
+those lucky successes which happen at rare intervals to amateur
+photographers to encourage them to proceed with their hobby. It showed
+a small girl in a white dress cut short above slim, black legs,
+standing in the porch of an old house, one hand swinging a sun-bonnet,
+the other patting an Irish terrier which had planted its front paws
+against her waist and was looking up into her face with that grave
+melancholy characteristic of Irish terriers. The sunlight was
+evidently strong, for the child's face was puckered in a twisted
+though engaging grin. Jill's first thought was "What a jolly kid!" And
+then, with a leaping of the heart that seemed to send something big
+and choking into her throat, she saw that it was a photograph of
+herself.
+
+With a swooping bound memory raced back over the years. She could feel
+the hot sun on her face, hear the anxious voice of Freddie Rooke--then
+fourteen and for the first time the owner of a camera--imploring her
+to stand just like that because he wouldn't be half a minute only some
+rotten thing had stuck or something. Then the sharp click, the
+doubtful assurance of Freddie that he thought it was all right if he
+hadn't forgotten to shift the film (in which case she might expect to
+appear in combination with a cow which he had snapped on his way to
+the house), and the relieved disappearance of Pat, the terrier, who
+didn't understand photography. How many years ago had that been? She
+could not remember. But Freddie had grown to long-legged manhood, she
+to an age of discretion and full-length frocks, Pat had died, the old
+house was inhabited by strangers ... and here was the silent record of
+that sun-lit afternoon, three thousand miles away from the English
+garden in which it had come into existence.
+
+The shadows deepened. The top of the great building swayed gently,
+causing the pendulum of the grandfather-clock to knock against the
+sides of its wooden case. Jill started. The noise, coming after the
+dead silence, frightened her till she realized what it was. She had a
+nervous feeling of not being alone. It was as if the shadows held
+goblins that peered out at the intruder. She darted to the mantelpiece
+and replaced the photograph. She felt like some heroine of a
+fairy-story meddling with the contents of the giant's castle. Soon
+there would come the sound of a great footstep thud--thud....
+
+_Thud._
+
+Jill's heart gave another leap. She was perfectly sure she had heard a
+sound. It had been just like the banging of a door. She braced
+herself, listening, every muscle tense. And then, cleaving the
+stillness, came a voice from down the passage--
+
+    "Just see them Pullman porters,
+    Dolled up with scented waters
+    Bought with their dimes and quarters!
+      See, here they come! Here they come!"
+
+For an instant Jill could not have said whether she was relieved or
+more frightened than ever. True, that numbing sense of the uncanny had
+ceased to grip her, for Reason told her that spectres do not sing
+rag-time songs. On the other hand, owners of apartments do, and she
+would almost as readily have faced a spectre as the owner of this
+apartment. Dizzily, she wondered how in the world she was to explain
+her presence. Suppose he turned out to be some awful-choleric person
+who would listen to no explanations.
+
+    "Oh, see those starched-up collars!
+    Hark how their captain hollers
+      'Keep time! Keep time!'
+    It's worth a thousand dollars
+    To see those tip-collectors...."
+
+Very near now. Almost at the door.
+
+    "Those upper-berth inspectors,
+    Those Pullman porters on parade!"
+
+A dim, shapeless figure in the black of the doorway. The scrabbling of
+fingers on the wall.
+
+"Where are you, dammit?" said the voice, apparently addressing the
+electric-light switch.
+
+Jill shrank back, desperate fingers pressing deep into the back of an
+arm-chair. Light flashed from the wall at her side. And there, in the
+doorway, stood Wally Mason in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE AMBASSADOR ARRIVES
+
+I
+
+
+In these days of rapid movement, when existence has become little more
+than a series of shocks of varying intensity, astonishment is the
+shortest-lived of all the emotions. There was an instant in which Jill
+looked at Wally and Wally at Jill with the eye of total amazement, and
+then, almost simultaneously, each began--the process was
+subconscious--to regard this meeting not as an isolated and
+inexplicable event, but as something resulting from a perfectly
+logical chain of circumstances.
+
+"Hullo!" said Wally.
+
+"Hullo!" said Jill.
+
+It was not a very exalted note on which to pitch the conversation, but
+it had the merit of giving each of them a little more time to collect
+themselves.
+
+"This is.... I wasn't expecting you!" said Wally.
+
+"I wasn't expecting _you_!" said Jill.
+
+There was another pause, in which Wally, apparently examining her last
+words and turning them over in his mind, found that they did not
+square with his preconceived theories.
+
+"You weren't expecting me?"
+
+"I certainly was not!"
+
+"But ... but you knew I lived here?"
+
+Jill shook her head. Wally reflected for an instant, and then put his
+finger, with a happy inspiration, on the very heart of the mystery.
+
+"Then how on earth did you get here?"
+
+He was glad he had asked that. The sense of unreality which had come
+to him in the first startling moment of seeing her and vanished under
+the influence of logic had returned as strong as ever. If she did not
+know he lived in this place, how in the name of everything uncanny had
+she found her way here? A momentary wonder as to whether all this was
+not mixed up with telepathy and mental suggestion and all that sort of
+thing came to him. Certainly he had been thinking of her all the time
+since their parting at the Savoy Hotel that night three weeks and more
+back.... No, that was absurd. There must be some sounder reason for
+her presence. He waited for her to give it.
+
+Jill for the moment felt physically incapable of giving it. She shrank
+from the interminable explanation which confronted her as a weary
+traveller shrinks from a dusty, far-stretching desert. She simply
+could not go into all that now. So she answered with a question.
+
+"When did you land in New York?"
+
+"This afternoon. We were supposed to dock this morning, but the boat
+was late." Wally perceived that he was being pushed away from the main
+point, and jostled his way back to it. "But what are you doing here?"
+
+"It's such a long story."
+
+Her voice was plaintive. Remorse smote Wally. It occurred to him that
+he had not been sufficiently sympathetic. Not a word had he said on
+the subject of her change of fortunes. He had just stood and gaped and
+asked questions. After all, what the devil did it matter how she came
+to be here? He had anticipated a long and tedious search for her
+through the labyrinth of New York, and here Fate had brought her to
+his very door, and all he could do was to ask why, instead of being
+thankful. He perceived that he was not much of a fellow.
+
+"Never mind," he said. "You can tell me when you feel like it." He
+looked at her eagerly. Time seemed to have wiped away that little
+misunderstanding under the burden of which they had parted. "It's too
+wonderful finding you like this!" He hesitated. "I heard
+about--everything," he said awkwardly.
+
+"My--" Jill hesitated too. "My smash?"
+
+"Yes. Freddie Rooke told me. I was terribly sorry."
+
+"Thank you," said Jill.
+
+There was a pause. They were both thinking of that other disaster
+which had happened. The presence of Derek Underhill seemed to stand
+like an unseen phantom between them. Finally Wally spoke at random,
+choosing the first words that came into his head in his desire to
+break the silence.
+
+"Jolly place, this, isn't it?"
+
+Jill perceived that an opening for those tedious explanations had been
+granted her.
+
+"Uncle Chris thinks so," she said demurely.
+
+Wally looked puzzled.
+
+"Uncle Chris? Oh, your uncle?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But--he has never been here."
+
+"Oh, yes. He's giving a dinner-party here to-night!"
+
+"He's ... what did you say?"
+
+"It's all right. I only began at the end of the story instead of the
+beginning. I'll tell you the whole thing. And then ... then I suppose
+you will be terribly angry and make a fuss."
+
+"I'm not much of a lad, as Freddie Rooke would say, for making fusses.
+And I can't imagine being terribly angry with you."
+
+"Well, I'll risk it. Though, if I wasn't a brave girl, I should leave
+Uncle Chris to explain for himself and simply run away."
+
+"Anything is better than that. It's a miracle meeting you like this,
+and I don't want to be deprived of the fruits of it. Tell me anything,
+but don't go."
+
+"You'll be furious."
+
+"Not with you."
+
+"I should hope not with me. I've done nothing. I am the innocent
+heroine. But I'm afraid you will be very angry with Uncle Chris."
+
+"If he's your uncle, that passes him. Besides, he once licked the
+stuffing out of me with a whangee. That forms a bond. Tell me all."
+
+Jill considered. She had promised to begin at the beginning, but it
+was difficult to know what was the beginning.
+
+"Have you ever heard of Captain Kidd?" she asked at length.
+
+"You're wandering from the point, aren't you?"
+
+"No, I'm not. _Have_ you heard of Captain Kidd?"
+
+"The pirate? Of course."
+
+"Well, Uncle Chris is his direct lineal descendant. That really
+explains the whole thing."
+
+Wally looked at her enquiringly.
+
+"Could you make it a little easier?" he said.
+
+"I can tell you everything in half a dozen words, if you like. But it
+will sound awfully abrupt."
+
+"Go ahead."
+
+"Uncle Chris has stolen your apartment."
+
+Wally nodded slowly.
+
+"I see. Stolen my apartment."
+
+"Of course you can't possibly understand. I shall have to tell you the
+whole thing, after all."
+
+Wally listened with flattering attention as she began the epic of
+Major Christopher Selby's doings in New York. Whatever his emotions,
+he certainly was not bored.
+
+"So that's how it all happened," concluded Jill.
+
+For a moment Wally said nothing. He seemed to be digesting what he had
+heard.
+
+"I see," he said at last. "It's a variant of those advertisements they
+print in the magazines. 'Why pay rent? Own somebody else's home!'"
+
+"That _does_ rather sum it up," said Jill.
+
+Wally burst into a roar of laughter.
+
+"He's a corker!"
+
+Jill was immensely relieved. For all her courageous bearing, she had
+not relished the task of breaking the news to Wally. She knew that he
+had a sense of humour, but a man may have a sense of humour and yet
+not see anything amusing in having his home stolen in his absence.
+
+"I'm so glad you're not angry."
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Most men would be."
+
+"Most men are chumps."
+
+"It's so wonderful that it happened to be you. Suppose it had been an
+utter stranger! What could I have done?"
+
+"It would have been the same thing. You would have won him over in two
+minutes. Nobody could resist you."
+
+"That's very sweet of you."
+
+"I can't help telling the truth. Washington was just the same."
+
+"Then you don't mind Uncle Chris giving his dinner-party here
+to-night?"
+
+"He has my blessing."
+
+"You really are an angel," said Jill gratefully. "From what he said, I
+think he looks on it as rather an important function. He has invited a
+very rich woman, who has been showing him a lot of hospitality--a Mrs.
+Peagrim...."
+
+"Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim?"
+
+"Yes? Why, do you know her?"
+
+"Quite well. She goes in a good deal for being Bohemian and knowing
+people who write and paint and act and so on. That reminds me. I gave
+Freddie Rooke a letter of introduction to her."
+
+"Freddie Rooke!"
+
+"Yes. He suddenly made up his mind to come over. He came to me for
+advice about the journey. He sailed a couple of days before I did. I
+suppose he's somewhere in New York by now, unless he was going on to
+Florida. He didn't tell me what his plans were."
+
+Jill was conscious of a sudden depression. Much as she liked Freddie,
+he belonged to a chapter in her life which was closed and which she
+was trying her hardest to forget. It was impossible to think of
+Freddie without thinking of Derek, and to think of Derek was like
+touching an exposed nerve. The news that Freddie was in New York
+shocked her. New York had already shown itself a city of chance
+encounters. Could she avoid meeting Freddie?
+
+She knew Freddie so well. There was not a dearer or a better-hearted
+youth in the world, but he had not that fine sensibility which pilots
+a man through the awkwardnesses of life. He was a blunderer. Instinct
+told her that, if she met Freddie, he would talk of Derek, and, if
+thinking of Derek was touching an exposed nerve, talking of him would
+be like pressing on that nerve with a heavy hand. She shivered.
+
+Wally was observant.
+
+"There's no need to meet him if you don't want to," he said.
+
+"No," said Jill doubtfully.
+
+"New York's a large place. By the way," he went on, "to return once
+more to the interesting subject of my lodger, does your uncle sleep
+here at nights, do you know?"
+
+Jill looked at him gratefully. He was no blunderer. Her desire to
+avoid Freddie Rooke was, he gave her tacitly to understand, her
+business, and he did not propose to intrude on it. She liked him for
+dismissing the subject so easily.
+
+"No, I think he told me he doesn't."
+
+"Well, that's something, isn't it! I call that darned nice of him! I
+wonder if I could drop back here somewhere about eleven o'clock. Are
+the festivities likely to be over by then? If I know Mrs. Peagrim, she
+will insist on going off to one of the hotels to dance directly after
+dinner. She's a confirmed trotter."
+
+"I don't know how to apologize," began Jill remorsefully.
+
+"Please don't. It's absolutely all right." His eye wandered to the
+mantelpiece, as it had done once or twice during the conversation. In
+her hurry Jill had replaced the snapshot with its back to the room,
+and Wally had the fidgety air of a man whose most cherished possession
+is maltreated. He got up now and, walking across, turned the
+photograph round. He stood for a moment, looking at it. Jill had
+forgotten the snapshot. Curiosity returned to her.
+
+"Where _did_ you get that?" she asked.
+
+Wally turned.
+
+"Oh, did you see this?"
+
+"I was looking at it just before you nearly frightened me to death by
+appearing so unexpectedly."
+
+"Freddie Rooke sold it to me fourteen years ago."
+
+"Fourteen years ago?"
+
+"Next July," added Wally. "I gave him five shillings for it."
+
+"Five shillings! The little brute!" cried Jill indignantly. "It must
+have been all the money you had in the world!"
+
+"A trifle more, as a matter of fact. All the money I had in the world
+was three-and-six. But by a merciful dispensation of Providence the
+curate had called that morning and left a money-box for subscriptions
+to the village organ-fund.... It's wonderful what you can do with a
+turn for crime and the small blade of a pocket-knife! I don't think I
+have ever made money quicker!" He looked at the photograph again. "Not
+that it seemed quick at the moment. I died at least a dozen agonizing
+deaths in the few minutes I was operating. Have you ever noticed how
+slowly time goes when you are coaxing a shilling and a sixpence out of
+somebody's money-box? Centuries! But I was forgetting. Of course
+you've had no experience."
+
+"You poor thing!"
+
+"It was worth it."
+
+"And you've had it ever since!"
+
+"I wouldn't part with it for all Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's millions,"
+said Wally with sudden and startling vehemence, "if she offered me
+them." He paused. "She hasn't, as a matter of fact."
+
+There was a silence. Jill looked at Wally furtively as he returned to
+his seat. She was seeing him with new eyes. It was as if this trifling
+incident had removed some sort of a veil. He had suddenly become more
+alive. For an instant she had seen right into him, to the hidden deeps
+of his soul. She felt shy and embarrassed.
+
+"Pat died," she said at length. She felt the necessity of saying
+something.
+
+"I liked Pat."
+
+"He picked up some poison, poor darling.... How long ago those days
+seem, don't they?"
+
+"They are always pretty vivid to me. I wonder who has that old house
+of yours now."
+
+"I heard the other day," said Jill more easily. The odd sensation of
+embarrassment was passing. "Some people called ... what was the
+name?... Debenham, I think."
+
+Silence fell again. It was broken by the front-door bell, like an
+alarm-clock that shatters a dream.
+
+Wally got up.
+
+"Your uncle," he said.
+
+"You aren't going to open the door?"
+
+"That was the scheme."
+
+"But he'll get such a shock when he sees you."
+
+"He must look on it in the light of rent. I don't see why I shouldn't
+have a little passing amusement from this business."
+
+He left the room. Jill heard the front door open. She waited
+breathlessly. Pity for Uncle Chris struggled with the sterner feeling
+that it served him right.
+
+"Hullo!" she heard Wally say.
+
+"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" replied an exuberant voice. "Wondered if I'd find
+you in, and all that sort of thing. I say, what a deuce of a way up it
+is here. Sort of get a chappie into training for going to heaven,
+what? I mean, what?"
+
+Jill looked about her like a trapped animal. It was absurd, she felt,
+but every nerve in her body cried out against the prospect of meeting
+Freddie. His very voice had opened old wounds and set them throbbing.
+
+She listened in the doorway. Out of sight down the passage, Freddie
+seemed by the sounds to be removing his overcoat. She stole out and
+darted like a shadow down the corridor that led to Wally's bedroom.
+The window of the bedroom opened on to the wide roof which Uncle Chris
+had eulogized. She slipped noiselessly out, closing the window behind
+her.
+
+
+II
+
+"I say, Mason, old top," said Freddie, entering the sitting-room, "I
+hope you don't mind my barging in like this, but the fact is things
+are a bit thick. I'm dashed worried, and I didn't know another soul I
+could talk it over with. As a matter of fact, I wasn't sure you were
+in New York at all, but I remembered hearing you say in London that
+you were popping back almost at once, so I looked you up in the
+telephone book and took a chance. I'm dashed glad you _are_ back. When
+did you arrive?"
+
+"This afternoon."
+
+"I've been here two or three days. Well, it's a bit of luck catching
+you. You see, what I want to ask your advice about...."
+
+Wally looked at his watch. He was not surprised to find that Jill had
+taken to flight. He understood her feelings perfectly, and was anxious
+to get rid of the inopportune Freddie as soon as possible.
+
+"You'll have to talk quick, I'm afraid," he said. "I've lent this
+place to a man for the evening, and he's having some people to dinner.
+What's the trouble?"
+
+"It's about Jill."
+
+"Jill?"
+
+"Jill Mariner, you know. You remember Jill? You haven't forgotten my
+telling you all that? About her losing her money and coming over to
+America?"
+
+"No. I remember you telling me that."
+
+Freddie seemed to miss something in his companion's manner, some note
+of excitement and perturbation.
+
+"Of course," he said, as if endeavouring to explain this to himself,
+"you hardly knew her, I suppose. Only met once since you were kids and
+all that sort of thing. But I'm a pal of hers and I'm dashed upset by
+the whole business, I can tell you. It worries me, I mean to say. Poor
+girl, you know, landed on her uppers in a strange country. Well, I
+mean, it worries me. So the first thing I did when I got here was to
+try to find her. That's why I came over, really, to try to find her.
+Apart from anything else, you see, poor old Derek is dashed worried
+about her."
+
+"Need we bring Underhill in?"
+
+"Oh, I know you don't like him and think he behaved rather rummily and
+so forth, but that's all right now."
+
+"It is, is it?" said Wally drily.
+
+"Oh, absolutely. It's all on again."
+
+"What's all on again?"
+
+"Why, I mean he wants to marry Jill. I came over to find her and tell
+her so."
+
+Wally's eyes glowed.
+
+"If you have come over as an ambassador...."
+
+"That's right. Jolly old ambassador. Very word I used myself."
+
+"I say, if you have come over as an ambassador with the idea of
+reopening negotiations with Jill on behalf of that infernal swine...."
+
+"Old man!" protested Freddie, pained. "Pal of mine, you know."
+
+"If he is, after what's happened, your mental processes are beyond
+me."
+
+"My what, old son?"
+
+"Your mental processes."
+
+"Oh, ah!" said Freddie, learning for the first time that he had any.
+
+Wally looked at him intently. There was a curious expression on his
+rough-hewn face.
+
+"I can't understand you, Freddie. If ever there was a fellow who might
+have been expected to take the only possible view of Underhill's
+behaviour in this business, I should have said it was you. You're a
+public-school man. You've mixed all the time with decent people. You
+wouldn't do anything that wasn't straight yourself to save your life.
+Yet it seems to have made absolutely no difference in your opinion of
+this man Underhill that he behaved like an utter cad to a girl who
+was one of your best friends. You seem to worship him just as much as
+ever. And you have travelled three thousand miles to bring a message
+from him to Jill--Good God! _Jill_!--to the effect, as far as I can
+understand it, that he has thought it over and come to the conclusion
+that after all she may possibly be good enough for him!"
+
+Freddie recovered the eye-glass which the raising of his eyebrows had
+caused to fall, and polished it in a crushed sort of way. Rummy, he
+reflected, how chappies stayed the same all their lives as they were
+when they were kids. Nasty, tough sort of chap Wally Mason had been as
+a boy, and here he was, apparently, not altered a bit. At least the
+only improvement he could detect was that, whereas in the old days
+Wally, when in an ugly mood like this, would undoubtedly have kicked
+him, he now seemed content with mere words. All the same, he was being
+dashed unpleasant. And he was all wrong about poor Derek. This last
+fact he endeavoured to make clear.
+
+"You don't understand," he said. "You don't realize. You've never met
+Lady Underhill, have you?"
+
+"What has she got to do with it?"
+
+"Everything, old bean, everything. If it hadn't been for her, there
+wouldn't have been any trouble of any description, sort, or order. But
+she barged in and savaged poor old Derek till she absolutely made him
+break off the engagement."
+
+"If you call him 'poor old Derek' again, Freddie," said Wally
+viciously, "I'll drop you out of the window and throw your hat after
+you! If he's such a gelatine-backboned worm that his mother can...."
+
+"You don't know her, old thing! She's _the_ original hellhound!"
+
+"I don't care what...."
+
+"Must be seen to be believed," mumbled Freddie.
+
+"I don't care what she's like! Any man who could...."
+
+"Once seen, never forgotten!"
+
+"Damn you! Don't interrupt every time I try to get a word in!"
+
+"Sorry, old man! Shan't occur again!"
+
+Wally moved to the window, and stood looking out. He had had much more
+to say on the subject of Derek Underhill, but Freddie's interruptions
+had put it out of his head, and he felt irritated and baffled.
+
+"Well, all I can say is," he remarked savagely, "that, if you have
+come over here as an ambassador to try and effect a reconciliation
+between Jill and Underhill, I hope to God you'll never find her."
+
+Freddie emitted a weak cough, like a very far-off asthmatic old sheep.
+He was finding Wally more overpowering every moment. He had rather
+forgotten the dear old days of his childhood, but this conversation
+was beginning to refresh his memory: and he was realizing more vividly
+with every moment that passed how very Wallyish Wally was--how
+extraordinarily like the Wally who had dominated his growing intellect
+when they were both in Eton suits. Freddie in those days had been all
+for peace, and he was all for peace now. He made his next observation
+diffidently.
+
+"I _have_ found her!"
+
+Wally spun round.
+
+"What!"
+
+"When I say that, I don't absolutely mean I've seen her. I mean I know
+where she is. That's what I came round to see you about. Felt I must
+talk it over, you know. The situation seems to me dashed rotten and
+not a little thick. The fact is, old man, she's gone on the stage. In
+the chorus, you know. And, I mean to say, well, if you follow what I'm
+driving at, what, what?"
+
+"In the chorus?"
+
+"In the chorus!"
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+Freddie groped for his eyeglass, which had fallen again. He regarded
+it a trifle sternly. He was fond of the little chap, but it was always
+doing that sort of thing. The whole trouble was that, if you wanted to
+keep it in its place, you simply couldn't register any sort of emotion
+with the good old features: and, when you were chatting with a fellow
+like Wally Mason, you had to be registering something all the time.
+
+"Well, that was a bit of luck, as a matter of fact. When I first got
+here, you know, it seemed to me the only thing to do was to round up a
+merry old detective and put the matter in his hands, like they do in
+stories. _You_ know. Ring at the bell. 'And this, if I mistake not,
+Watson, is my client now.' And then in breezes client and spills the
+plot. I found a sleuth in the classified telephone directory, and
+toddled round. Rummy chaps, detectives! Ever met any? I always thought
+they were lean, hatchet-faced Johnnies with inscrutable smiles. This
+one looked just like my old Uncle Ted, the one who died of apoplexy.
+Jovial, puffy-faced bird, who kept bobbing up behind a fat cigar. Have
+you ever noticed what whacking big cigars these fellows over here
+smoke? Rummy country, America. You ought to have seen the way this
+blighter could shift his cigar right across his face with moving his
+jaw-muscles. Like a flash! Most remarkable thing you ever saw, I give
+you my honest word! He...."
+
+"Couldn't you keep your Impressions of America for the book you're
+going to write, and come to the point?" said Wally rudely.
+
+"Sorry, old chap," said Freddie meekly. "Glad you reminded me.
+Well.... Oh, yes. We had got as far as the jovial old human
+bloodhound, hadn't we? Well, I put the matter before this chappie.
+Told him I wanted to find a girl, showed him a photograph, and so
+forth. I say," said Freddie, wandering off once more into speculation,
+"why is it that coves like that always talk of a girl as 'the little
+lady'? This chap kept saying 'We'll find the little lady for you!' Oh,
+well, that's rather off the rails, isn't it? It just floated across my
+mind and I thought I'd mention it. Well, this blighter presumably
+nosed about and made enquiries for a couple of days, but didn't effect
+anything that you might call substantial. I'm not blaming him, mind
+you. I shouldn't care to have a job like that myself. I mean to say,
+when you come to think of what a frightful number of girls there are
+in this place, to have to ... well, as I say, he did his best but
+didn't click; and then this evening, just before I came here, I met a
+girl I had known in England--she was in a show over there--a girl
+called Nelly Bryant...."
+
+"Nelly Bryant? I know her."
+
+"Yes? Fancy that! She was in a thing called 'Follow the Girl' in
+London. Did you see it by any chance? Topping show! There was one
+scene where the...."
+
+"Get on! Get on! I wrote it."
+
+"You wrote it?" Freddie beamed simple-hearted admiration. "My dear old
+chap, I congratulate you! One of the ripest and most all-wool musical
+comedies I've ever seen. I went twenty-four times. Rummy I don't
+remember spotting that you wrote it. I suppose one never looks at the
+names on the programme. Yes, I went twenty-four times The first time I
+went was with a couple of chappies from...."
+
+"Listen, Freddie!" said Wally feverishly. "On some other occasion I
+should dearly love to hear the story of your life, but just now...."
+
+"Absolutely, old man. You're perfectly right. Well, to cut a long
+story short, Nelly Bryant told me that she and Jill were rehearsing
+with a piece called 'The Rose of America.'"
+
+"'The Rose of America!'"
+
+"I think that was the name of it."
+
+"That's Ike Goble's show. He called me up on the phone about it half
+an hour ago. I promised to go and see a rehearsal of it to-morrow or
+the day after. And Jill's in that?"
+
+"Yes. How about it? I mean, I don't know much about this sort of
+thing, but do you think it's the sort of thing Jill ought to be
+doing?"
+
+Wally was moving restlessly about the room. Freddie's news had
+disquieted him. Mr. Goble had a reputation.
+
+"I know a lot about it," he replied, "and it certainly isn't." He
+scowled at the carpet. "Oh, damn everybody!"
+
+Freddie paused to allow him to proceed, if such should be his wish,
+but Wally had apparently said his say. Freddie went on to point out an
+aspect of the matter which was troubling him greatly.
+
+"I'm sure poor old Derek wouldn't like her being in the chorus!"
+
+Wally started so violently that for a moment Freddie was uneasy.
+
+"I mean Underhill," he corrected himself hastily.
+
+"Freddie," said Wally, "you're an awfully good chap, but I wish you
+would exit rapidly now! Thanks for coming and telling me, very good of
+you. This way out!"
+
+"But, old man...!"
+
+"Now what?"
+
+"I thought we were going to discuss this binge and decide what to do
+and all that sort of thing."
+
+"Some other time. I want to think about it."
+
+"Oh, you will think about it?"
+
+"Yes, I'll think about it."
+
+"Topping! You see, you're a brainy sort of fellow, and you'll probably
+hit something."
+
+"I probably shall, if you don't go."
+
+"Eh? Oh, ah, yes!" Freddie struggled into his coat. More than ever did
+the adult Wally remind him of the dangerous stripling of years gone
+by. "Well, cheerio!"
+
+"Same to you!"
+
+"You'll let me know if you scare up some devilish fruity wheeze, won't
+you? I'm at the Biltmore."
+
+"Very good place to be. Go there now."
+
+"Right ho! Well, toodle-oo!"
+
+"The elevator is at the foot of the stairs," said Wally. "You press
+the bell and up it comes. You hop in and down you go! It's a great
+invention! Good night!"
+
+"Oh, I say. One moment...."
+
+"Good _night_!" said Wally.
+
+He closed the door, and ran down the passage.
+
+"Jill!" he called. He opened the bedroom window and stepped out.
+"Jill!"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Jill!" called Wally once again, but again there was no answer.
+
+Wally walked to the parapet, and looked over. Below him the vastness
+of the city stretched itself in a great triangle, its apex the
+harbour, its sides the dull silver of the East and Hudson Rivers.
+Directly before him, crowned with its white lantern, the Metropolitan
+Tower reared its graceful height to the stars. And all around, in the
+windows of the tall buildings that looked from this bastion on which
+he stood almost squat, a million lights stared up at him, the
+unsleeping eyes of New York. It was a scene of which Wally, always
+sensitive to beauty, never tired: but to-night it had lost its appeal.
+A pleasant breeze from the Jersey shore greeted him with a quickening
+whisper of springtime and romance, but it did not lift the heaviness
+of his heart. He felt depressed and apprehensive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MR. GOBLE MAKES THE BIG NOISE
+
+I
+
+
+Spring, whose coming the breeze had heralded to Wally as he smoked
+upon the roof, floated graciously upon New York two mornings later.
+The city awoke to a day of blue and gold and to a sense of hard times
+over and good times to come. In his apartment on Park Avenue, Mr Isaac
+Goble, sniffing the gentle air from the window of his breakfast-room,
+returned to his meal and his _Morning Telegraph_ with a resolve to
+walk to the theatre for rehearsal: a resolve which had also come to
+Jill and Nelly Bryant, eating stewed prunes in their boarding-house in
+the Forties. On the summit of his sky-scraper, Wally Mason, performing
+Swedish exercises to the delectation of various clerks and
+stenographers in the upper windows of neighbouring buildings, felt
+young and vigorous and optimistic, and went in to his shower-bath
+thinking of Jill. And it was of Jill, too, that young Pilkington
+thought, as he propped his long form up against the pillows and sipped
+his morning cup of tea. For the first time in several days a certain
+moodiness which had affected Otis Pilkington left him, and he dreamed
+happy day-dreams.
+
+The gaiety of Otis was not, however, entirely or even primarily due to
+the improvement in the weather. It had its source in a conversation
+which had taken place between himself and Jill's Uncle Chris on the
+previous night. Exactly how it had come about, Mr. Pilkington was not
+entirely clear, but, somehow, before he was fully aware of what he was
+saying, he had begun to pour into Major Selby's sympathetic ears the
+story of his romance. Encouraged by the other's kindly receptiveness,
+he had told him all--his love for Jill, his hopes that some day it
+might be returned, the difficulties complicating the situation owing
+to the known prejudices of Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim concerning girls
+who formed the personnel of musical comedy ensembles. To all these
+outpourings Major Selby had listened with keen attention, and finally
+had made one of those luminous suggestions, so simple yet so shrewd,
+which emanate only from your man of the world. It was Jill's girlish
+ambition, it seemed from Major Selby's statement, to become a force in
+the motion-picture world. The movies were her objective.
+
+What, he broke off to ask, did Pilkington think of the idea?
+
+Pilkington thought the idea splendid. Miss Mariner, with her charm and
+looks, would be wonderful in the movies.
+
+There was, said Uncle Chris, a future for the girl in the movies.
+
+Mr. Pilkington agreed cordially. A great future indeed.
+
+"Observe," proceeded Uncle Chris, gathering speed and expanding his
+chest as he spread his legs before the fire, "how it would simplify
+the whole matter if Jill were to become a motion-picture artist and
+win fame and wealth in her profession. You go to your excellent aunt
+and announce that you are engaged to be married to Jill Mariner. There
+is a momentary pause. 'Not _the_ Jill Mariner?' falters Mrs. Peagrim.
+'Yes, the famous Miss Mariner!' you reply. Well, I ask you, my boy,
+can you see her making any objection? Such a thing would be absurd.
+No, I can see no flaw in the project whatsoever." Here Uncle Chris, as
+he had pictured Mrs. Peagrim doing, paused for a moment. "Of course,
+there would be the preliminaries."
+
+"The preliminaries?"
+
+Uncle Chris' voice became a melodious coo. He beamed upon Mr.
+Pilkington.
+
+"Well, think for yourself, my boy! These things cannot be done without
+money. I do not propose to allow my niece to waste her time and her
+energy in the rank and file of the profession, waiting years for a
+chance that might never come. There is plenty of room at the top, and
+that, in the motion-picture profession, is the place to start. If Jill
+is to become a motion-picture artist, a special company must be formed
+to promote her. She must be made a feature, a star, from the
+beginning. Whether," said Uncle Chris, smoothing the crease of his
+trousers, "you would wish to take shares in the company yourself...."
+
+"Oo...!"
+
+"... is a matter," proceeded Uncle Chris, ignoring the interruption,
+"for you yourself to decide. Possibly you have other claims on your
+purse. Possibly this musical play of yours has taken all the cash you
+are prepared to lock up. Possibly you may consider the venture too
+speculative. Possibly ... there are a hundred reasons why you may not
+wish to join us. But I know a dozen men--I can go down Wall Street
+to-morrow and pick out twenty men--who will be glad to advance the
+necessary capital. I can assure you that I personally shall not
+hesitate to risk--if one can call it risking--any loose cash which I
+may have lying idle at my banker's."
+
+He rattled the loose cash which he had lying idle in his
+trouser-pocket--fifteen cents in all--and stopped to flick a piece of
+fluff off his coat-sleeve. Mr. Pilkington was thus enabled to insert a
+word.
+
+"How much would you want?" he enquired.
+
+"That," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "is a little hard to say. I
+should have to look into the matter more closely in order to give you
+the exact figures. But let us say for the sake of argument that you
+put up--what shall we say?--a hundred thousand? fifty thousand? ...
+no, we will be conservative. Perhaps you had better not begin with
+more than ten thousand. You can always buy more shares later. I don't
+suppose I shall begin with more than ten thousand myself."
+
+"I could manage ten thousand all right."
+
+"Excellent. We make progress, we make progress. Very well, then. I go
+to my Wall Street friends and tell them about the scheme, and say
+'Here is ten thousand dollars! What is your contribution?' It puts the
+affair on a business-like basis, you understand. Then we really get to
+work. But use your own judgment, my boy, you know. Use your own
+judgment. I would not think of persuading you to take such a step, if
+you felt at all doubtful. Think it over. Sleep on it. And, whatever
+you decide to do, on no account say a word about it to Jill. It would
+be cruel to raise her hopes until we are certain that we are in a
+position to enable her to realize them. And, of course, not a word to
+Mrs. Peagrim."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Very well, then, my boy," said Uncle Chris affably. "I will leave you
+to turn the whole thing over in your mind. Act entirely as you think
+best. How is your insomnia, by the way? Did you try Nervino? Capital!
+There's nothing like it. It did wonders for _me_! Good night, good
+night!"
+
+Otis Pilkington had been turning the thing over in his mind, with an
+interval for sleep, ever since. And the more he thought of it, the
+better the scheme appeared to him. He winced a little at the thought
+of the ten thousand dollars, for he came of prudent stock and had been
+brought up in habits of parsimony, but, after all, he reflected, the
+money would be merely a loan. Once the company found its feet, it
+would be returned to him a hundred-fold. And there was no doubt that
+this would put a completely different aspect on his wooing of Jill, as
+far as Aunt Olive was concerned. Why, a cousin of his--young Brewster
+Philmore--had married a movie-star only two years ago, and nobody had
+made the slightest objection. Brewster was to be seen with his bride
+frequently beneath Mrs. Peagrim's roof. Against the higher strata of
+Bohemia Mrs. Peagrim had no prejudice at all. Quite the reverse, in
+fact. She liked the society of those whose names were often in the
+papers and much in the public mouth. It seemed to Otis Pilkington, in
+short, that Love had found a way. He sipped his tea with relish, and
+when the Japanese valet brought in the toast all burned on one side,
+chided him with a gentle sweetness which, one may hope, touched the
+latter's Oriental heart and inspired him with a desire to serve his
+best of employers more efficiently.
+
+At half-past ten, Otis Pilkington removed his dressing-gown and began
+to put on his clothes to visit the theatre. There was a rehearsal-call
+for the whole company at eleven. As he dressed, his mood was as sunny
+as the day itself.
+
+And the day, by half-past ten, was as sunny as ever Spring day had
+been in a country where Spring comes early and does its best from the
+very start. The blue sky beamed down on a happy city. To and fro the
+citizenry bustled, aglow with the perfection of the weather.
+Everywhere was gaiety and good cheer, except on the stage of the
+Gotham Theatre, where an early rehearsal, preliminary to the main
+event, had been called by Johnson Miller in order to iron some of the
+kinks out of the "My Heart and I" number, which, with the assistance
+of the male chorus, the leading lady was to render in Act One.
+
+On the stage of the Gotham gloom reigned--literally, because the stage
+was wide and deep and was illumined only by a single electric light;
+and figuratively, because things were going even worse than usual with
+the "My Heart and I" number, and Johnson Miller, always of an
+emotional and easily stirred temperament, had been goaded by the
+incompetence of his male chorus to a state of frenzy. At about the
+moment when Otis Pilkington shed his flowered dressing-gown and
+reached for his trousers (the heather-mixture with the red twill),
+Johnson Miller was pacing the gangway between the orchestra pit and
+the first row of the orchestra chairs, waving one hand and clutching
+his white locks with the other, his voice raised the while in agonized
+protest.
+
+"Gentlemen, you silly idiots," complained Mr. Miller loudly, "you've
+had three weeks to get these movements into your thick heads, and you
+haven't done a damn thing right! You're all over the place! You don't
+seem able to turn without tumbling over each other like a lot of
+Keystone Kops! What's the matter with you? You're not doing the
+movements I showed you; you're doing some you have invented
+yourselves, and they are rotten! I've no doubt you think you can
+arrange a number better than I can, but Mr. Goble engaged me to be the
+director, so kindly do exactly as I tell you. Don't try to use your
+own intelligence, because you haven't any. I'm not blaming you for it.
+It wasn't your fault that your nurses dropped you on your heads when
+you were babies. But it handicaps you when you try to think."
+
+Of the seven gentlemanly members of the male ensemble present, six
+looked wounded by this tirade. They had the air of good men wrongfully
+accused. They appeared to be silently calling on Heaven to see justice
+done between Mr. Miller and themselves. The seventh, a long-legged
+young man in faultlessly fitting tweeds of English cut, seemed, on the
+other hand, not so much hurt as embarrassed. It was this youth who now
+stepped down to the darkened footlights and spoke in a remorseful and
+conscience-stricken manner.
+
+"I say!"
+
+Mr. Miller, that martyr to deafness, did not hear the pathetic bleat.
+He had swung off at right angles and was marching in an overwrought
+way up the central aisle leading to the back of the house, his
+india-rubber form moving in convulsive jerks. Only when he had turned
+and retraced his steps did he perceive the speaker and prepare to take
+his share in the conversation.
+
+"What?" he shouted. "Can't hear you!"
+
+"I say, you know, it's my fault, really."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mean to say, you know...."
+
+"What? Speak up, can't you?"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg, who had been seated at the piano, absently playing a
+melody from his unproduced musical comedy, awoke to the fact that the
+services of an interpreter were needed. He obligingly left the
+music-stool and crept, crab-like, along the ledge of the stage-box. He
+placed his arm about Mr. Miller's shoulders and his lips to Mr.
+Miller's left ear, and drew a deep breath.
+
+"He says it is his fault!"
+
+Mr. Miller nodded adhesion to this admirable sentiment.
+
+"I know they're not worth their salt!" he replied.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg patiently took in a fresh stock of breath.
+
+"This young man says it is his fault that the movement went wrong!"
+
+"Tell him I only signed on this morning, laddie," urged the tweed-clad
+young man.
+
+"He only joined the company this morning!"
+
+This puzzled Mr. Miller.
+
+"How do you mean, warning?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg, purple in the face, made a last effort.
+
+"This young man is new," he bellowed carefully, keeping to words of
+one syllable. "He does not yet know the steps. He says this is his
+first day here, so he does not yet know the steps. When he has been
+here some more time he will know the steps. But now he does not know
+the steps."
+
+"What he means," explained the young man in tweeds helpfully, "is that
+I don't know the steps."
+
+"He does not know the steps!" roared Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"I know he doesn't know the steps," said Mr. Miller. "Why doesn't he
+know the steps? He's had long enough to learn them."
+
+"He is new!"
+
+"Hugh?"
+
+"New!"
+
+"Oh, new?"
+
+"Yes, new!"
+
+"Why the devil is he new?" cried Mr. Miller, awaking suddenly to the
+truth and filled with a sense of outrage. "Why didn't he join with the
+rest of the company? How can I put on chorus numbers if I am saddled
+every day with new people to teach? Who engaged him?"
+
+"Who engaged you?" enquired Mr. Saltzburg of the culprit.
+
+"Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"Mr. Pilkington," shouted Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"When?"
+
+"When?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+"Last night."
+
+Mr. Miller waved his hands in a gesture of divine despair, spun round,
+darted up the aisle, turned, and bounded back.
+
+"What can I do?" he wailed. "My hands are tied! I am hampered! I am
+handicapped! We open in two weeks and every day I find somebody new in
+the company to upset everything I have done. I shall go to Mr. Goble
+and ask to be released from my contract. I shall.... Come along, come
+along, come along now!" he broke off suddenly. "Why are we wasting
+time? The whole number once more. The whole number once more from the
+beginning!"
+
+The young man tottered back to his gentlemanly colleagues, running a
+finger in an agitated manner round the inside of his collar. He was
+not used to this sort of thing. In a large experience of amateur
+theatricals he had never encountered anything like it. In the
+breathing-space afforded by the singing of the first verse and refrain
+by the lady who played the heroine of "The Rose of America," he found
+time to make an enquiry of the artist on his right.
+
+"I say! Is he always like this?"
+
+"Who? Johnny?"
+
+"The sportsman with the hair that turned white in a single night. The
+barker on the sky-line. Does he often get the wind up like this?"
+
+His colleague smiled tolerantly.
+
+"Why, that's nothing!" he replied. "Wait till you see him really cut
+loose! That was just a gentle whisper!"
+
+"My God!" said the newcomer, staring into a bleak future.
+
+The leading lady came to the end of her refrain, and the gentlemen of the
+ensemble, who had been hanging about up-stage, began to curvet nimbly down
+towards her in a double line; the new arrival, with an eye on his nearest
+neighbour, endeavouring to curvet as nimbly as the others. A clapping of
+hands from the dark auditorium indicated--inappropriately--that he had
+failed to do so. Mr. Miller could be perceived--dimly--with all his
+fingers entwined in his hair.
+
+"Clear the stage!" yelled Mr. Miller. "Not you!" he shouted, as the
+latest addition to the company began to drift off with the others.
+"You stay!"
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Yes, you. I shall have to teach you the steps by yourself, or we
+shall get nowhere. Go up-stage. Start the music again, Mr. Saltzburg.
+Now, when the refrain begins, come down. Gracefully! Gracefully!"
+
+The young man, pink but determined, began to come down gracefully. And
+it was while he was thus occupied that Jill and Nelly Bryant, entering
+the wings which were beginning to fill up as eleven o'clock
+approached, saw him.
+
+"Whoever is that?" said Nelly.
+
+"New man," replied one of the chorus gentlemen. "Came this morning."
+
+Nelly turned to Jill.
+
+"He looks just like Mr. Rooke!" she exclaimed.
+
+"He _is_ Mr. Rooke!" said Jill.
+
+"He can't be!"
+
+"He _is_!"
+
+"But what is he doing here?"
+
+Jill bit her lip.
+
+"That's just what I'm going to ask him myself," she said.
+
+
+II
+
+The opportunity for a private conversation with Freddie did not occur
+immediately. For ten minutes he remained alone on the stage, absorbing
+abusive tuition from Mr. Miller: and at the end of that period a
+further ten minutes was occupied with the rehearsing of the number
+with the leading lady and the rest of the male chorus. When, finally,
+a roar from the back of the auditorium announced the arrival of Mr.
+Goble and at the same time indicated Mr. Goble's desire that the stage
+should be cleared and the rehearsal proper begin, a wan smile of
+recognition and a faint "What ho!" was all that Freddie was able to
+bestow upon Jill, before, with the rest of the ensemble, they had to
+go out and group themselves for the opening chorus. It was only when
+this had been run through four times and the stage left vacant for two
+of the principals to play a scene that Jill was able to draw the Last
+of the Rookes aside in a dark corner and put him to the question.
+
+"Freddie, what are you doing here?"
+
+Freddie mopped his streaming brow. Johnson Miller's idea of an opening
+chorus was always strenuous. On the present occasion, the ensemble
+were supposed to be guests at a Long Island house-party, and Mr.
+Miller's conception of the gathering suggested that he supposed
+house-party guests on Long Island to consist exclusively of victims of
+St. Vitus' dance. Freddie was feeling limp, battered, and exhausted:
+and, from what he had gathered, the worst was yet to come.
+
+"Eh?" he said feebly.
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Oh, ah, yes! I see what you mean! I suppose you're surprised to find
+me in New York, what?"
+
+"I'm not surprised to find you in New York. I knew you had come over.
+But I am surprised to find you on the stage, being bullied by Mr.
+Miller."
+
+"I say," said Freddie in an awed voice. "He's a bit of a nut, that
+lad, what? He reminds me of the troops of Midian in the hymn. The
+chappies who prowled and prowled around. I'll bet he's worn a groove
+in the carpet. Like a jolly old tiger at the Zoo at feeding time.
+Wouldn't be surprised at any moment to look down and find him biting a
+piece out of my leg!"
+
+Jill seized his arm and shook it.
+
+"Don't _ramble_, Freddie! Tell me how you got here."
+
+"Oh, that was pretty simple. I had a letter of introduction to this
+chappie Pilkington who's running this show, and, we having got
+tolerably pally in the last few days, I went to him and asked him to
+let me join the merry throng. I said I didn't want any money, and the
+little bit of work I would do wouldn't make any difference, so he said
+'Right ho!' or words to that effect, and here I am."
+
+"But why? You can't be doing this for fun, surely?"
+
+"Fun!" A pained expression came into Freddie's face. "My idea of fun
+isn't anything in which jolly old Miller, the bird with the snowy
+hair, is permitted to mix. Something tells me that that lad is going
+to make it his life-work picking on me. No, I didn't do this for fun.
+I had a talk with Wally Mason the night before last, and he seemed to
+think that being in the chorus wasn't the sort of thing you ought to
+be doing, so I thought it over and decided that I ought to join the
+troupe too. Then I could always be on the spot, don't you know, if
+there was any trouble. I mean to say, I'm not much of a chap and all
+that sort of thing, but still I might come in handy one of these
+times. Keep a fatherly eye on you, don't you know, and what not!"
+
+Jill was touched. "You're a dear, Freddie!"
+
+"I thought, don't you know, it would make poor old Derek a bit easier
+in his mind."
+
+Jill froze.
+
+"I don't want to talk about Derek, Freddie, please."
+
+"Oh, I know what you must be feeling. Pretty sick, I'll bet, what? But
+if you could see him now...."
+
+"I don't want to talk about him!"
+
+"He's pretty cut up, you know. Regrets bitterly and all that sort of
+thing. He wants you to come back again."
+
+"I see! He sent you to fetch me?"
+
+"That was more or less the idea."
+
+"It's a shame that you had all the trouble. You can get messenger-boys
+to go anywhere and do anything nowadays. Derek ought to have thought
+of that."
+
+Freddie looked at her doubtfully.
+
+"You're spoofing, aren't you? I mean to say, you wouldn't have liked
+that!"
+
+"I shouldn't have disliked it any more than his sending you."
+
+"Oh, but I wanted to pop over. Keen to see America and so forth."
+
+Jill looked past him at the gloomy stage. Her face was set, and her
+eyes sombre.
+
+"Can't you understand, Freddie? You've known me a long time. I should
+have thought that you would have found out by now that I have a
+certain amount of pride. If Derek wanted me back, there was only one
+thing for him to do--come over and find me himself."
+
+"Rummy! That's what Mason said, when I told him. You two don't realize
+how dashed busy Derek is these days."
+
+"Busy!"
+
+Something in her face seemed to tell Freddie that he was not saying
+the right thing, but he stumbled on.
+
+"You've no notion how busy he is. I mean to say, elections coming on
+and so forth. He daren't stir from the metrop."
+
+"Of course I couldn't expect him to do anything that might interfere
+with his career, could I?"
+
+"Absolutely not. I knew you would see it!" said Freddie, charmed at
+her reasonableness. All rot, what you read about women being
+unreasonable. "Then I take it it's all right, eh?"
+
+"All right?"
+
+"I mean you will toddle home with me at the earliest opp. and make
+poor old Derek happy?"
+
+Jill laughed discordantly.
+
+"Poor old Derek!" she echoed. "He has been badly treated, hasn't he?"
+
+"Well, I wouldn't say that," said Freddie doubtfully. "You see, coming
+down to it, the thing was more or less his fault, what?"
+
+"More or less!"
+
+"I mean to say...."
+
+"More or less!"
+
+Freddie glanced at her anxiously. He was not at all sure now that he
+liked the way she was looking or the tone in which she spoke. He was
+not a keenly observant young man, but there did begin at this point to
+seep through to his brain-centres a suspicion that all was not well.
+
+"Let me pull myself together!" said Freddie warily to his immortal
+soul. "I believe I'm getting the raspberry!" And there was silence for
+a space.
+
+The complexity of life began to weigh upon Freddie. Life was like one
+of those shots at squash which seem so simple till you go to knock the
+cover off the ball, when the ball sort of edges away from you and you
+miss it. Life, Freddie began to perceive, was apt to have a nasty
+back-spin on it. He had never had any doubt when he had started, that
+the only difficult part of this expedition to America would be the
+finding of Jill. Once found, he had presumed that she would be
+delighted to hear his good news and would joyfully accompany him home
+on the next boat. It appeared now, however, that he had been too
+sanguine. Optimist as he was, he had to admit that, as far as could be
+ascertained with the naked eye, the jolly old binge might be said to
+have sprung a leak.
+
+He proceeded to approach the matter from another angle.
+
+"I say!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"You do love old Derek, don't you? I mean to say, you know what I
+mean, _love_ him and all that sort of rot?"
+
+"I don't know!"
+
+"You don't know! Oh, I say, come now! You must _know_! Pull up your
+socks, old thing.... I mean, pull yourself together! You either love a
+chappie or you don't."
+
+Jill smiled painfully.
+
+"How nice it would be if everything were as simple and straightforward
+as that. Haven't you ever heard that the dividing line between love
+and hate is just a thread? Poets have said so a great number of
+times."
+
+"Oh, poets!" said Freddie, dismissing the genus with a wave of the
+hand. He had been compelled to read Shakespeare and all that sort of
+thing at school, but it had left him cold, and since growing to man's
+estate he had rather handed the race of bards the mitten. He liked
+Doss Chiderdoss' stuff in the _Sporting Times_, but beyond that he was
+not much of a lad for poets.
+
+"Can't you understand a girl in my position not being able to make up
+her mind whether she loves a man or despises him?"
+
+Freddie shook his head.
+
+"No," he said. "It sounds dashed silly to me!"
+
+"Then what's the good of talking?" cried Jill. "It only hurts."
+
+"But--won't you come back to England?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, I say! Be a sport! Take a stab at it!"
+
+Jill laughed again--another of those grating laughs which afflicted
+Freddie with a sense of foreboding and failure. Something had
+undoubtedly gone wrong with the works. He began to fear that at some
+point in the conversation--just where he could not say--he had been
+less diplomatic than he might have been.
+
+"You speak as if you were inviting me to a garden-party! No, I won't
+take a stab at it. You've a lot to learn about women, Freddie!"
+
+"Women _are_ rum!" conceded that perplexed ambassador.
+
+Jill began to move away.
+
+"Don't go!" urged Freddie.
+
+"Why not? What's the use of talking any more? Have you ever broken an
+arm or a leg, Freddie?"
+
+"Yes," said Freddie, mystified. "As a matter of fact, my last year at
+Oxford, playing soccer for the college in a friendly game, some
+blighter barged into me and I came down on my wrist. But...."
+
+"It hurt?"
+
+"Like the deuce!"
+
+"And then it began to get better, I suppose. Well, used you to hit it,
+and twist it, and prod it, or did you leave it alone to try and heal?
+I won't talk any more about Derek! I simply won't! I'm all smashed up
+inside, and I don't know if I'm ever going to get well again, but at
+least I'm going to give myself a chance. I'm working as hard as ever I
+can and I'm forcing myself not to think of him. I'm in a sling,
+Freddie, like your wrist, and I don't want to be prodded. I hope we
+shall see a lot of each other while you're over here--you always were
+the greatest dear in the world--but you mustn't mention Derek again,
+and you mustn't ask me to go home. If you avoid those subjects, we'll
+be as happy as possible. And now I'm going to leave you to talk to
+poor Nelly. She has been hovering round for the last ten minutes,
+waiting for a chance to speak to you. She worships you, you know!"
+
+Freddie started violently.
+
+"Oh, I say! What rot!"
+
+Jill had gone, and he was still gaping after her, when Nelly Bryant
+moved towards him--shyly, like a worshipper approaching a shrine.
+
+"Hello, Mr. Rooke!" said Nelly.
+
+"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" said Freddie.
+
+Nelly fixed her large eyes on his face. A fleeting impression passed
+through Freddie's mind that she was looking unusually pretty this
+morning: nor was the impression unjustified. Nelly was wearing for the
+first time a Spring suit which was the outcome of hours of painful
+selection among the wares of a dozen different stores, and the
+knowledge that the suit was just right seemed to glow from her like an
+inner light. She felt happy, and her happiness had lent an unwonted
+colour to her face and a soft brightness to her eyes.
+
+"How nice it is, your being here!"
+
+Freddie waited for the inevitable question, the question with which
+Jill had opened their conversation; but it did not come. He was
+surprised, but relieved. He hated long explanations, and he was very
+doubtful whether loyalty to Jill could allow him to give them to
+Nelly. His reason for being where he was had to do so intimately with
+Jill's most private affairs. A wave of gratitude to Nelly swept
+through him when he realized that she was either incurious or else too
+delicate-minded to show inquisitiveness.
+
+As a matter of fact, it was delicacy that kept Nelly silent. Seeing
+Freddie here at the theatre, she had, as is not uncommon with fallible
+mortals, put two and two together and made the answer four when it
+was not four at all. She had been deceived by circumstantial evidence.
+Jill, whom she had left in England wealthy and secure, she had met
+again in New York penniless as the result of some Stock Exchange
+cataclysm in which, she remembered with the vagueness with which one
+recalls once-heard pieces of information, Freddie Rooke had been
+involved. True, she seemed to recollect hearing that Freddie's losses
+had been comparatively slight, but his presence in the chorus of "The
+Rose of America" seemed to her proof that after all they must have
+been devastating. She could think of no other reason except loss of
+money which could have placed Freddie in the position in which she now
+found him, so she accepted it; and, with the delicacy which was innate
+in her and which a hard life had never blunted, decided, directly she
+saw him, to make no allusion to the disaster.
+
+Such was Nelly's view of the matter, and sympathy gave to her manner a
+kind of maternal gentleness which acted on Freddie, raw from his late
+encounter with Mr. Johnson Miller and disturbed by Jill's attitude in
+the matter of poor old Derek, like a healing balm. His emotions were
+too chaotic for analysis, but one thing stood out clear from the
+welter--the fact that he was glad to be with Nelly as he had never
+been glad to be with a girl before, and found her soothing as he had
+never supposed a girl could be soothing.
+
+They talked desultorily of unimportant things, and every minute found
+Freddie more convinced that Nelly was not as other girls. He felt that
+he must see more of her.
+
+"I say," he said. "When this binge is over ... when the rehearsal
+finishes, you know, how about a bite to eat?"
+
+"I should love it. I generally go to the Automat."
+
+"The how-much? Never heard of it."
+
+"In Times Square. It's cheap, you know."
+
+"I was thinking of the Cosmopolis."
+
+"But that's so expensive."
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Much the same as any of the other places, isn't
+it?"
+
+Nelly's manner became more motherly than ever. She bent forward and
+touched his arm affectionately.
+
+"You haven't to keep up any front with me," she said gently. "I don't
+care whether you're rich or poor or what. I mean, of course I'm
+awfully sorry you've lost your money, but it makes it all the easier
+for us to be real pals, don't you think so?"
+
+"Lost my money?"
+
+"Well, I know you wouldn't be here if you hadn't. I wasn't going to
+say anything about it, but, when you talked of the Cosmopolis, I just
+had to. You lost your money in the same thing Jill Mariner lost hers,
+didn't you? I was sure you had, the moment I saw you here. Who cares?
+Money isn't everything!"
+
+Astonishment kept Freddie silent for an instant: after that he
+refrained from explanations of his own free will. He accepted the
+situation and rejoiced in it. Like many other wealthy and modest young
+men, he had always had a sneaking suspicion at the back of his mind
+that any girl who was decently civil to him was so from mixed
+motives--or, more likely, motives that were not even mixed. Well, dash
+it, here was a girl who seemed to like him although under the
+impression that he was broke to the wide. It was an intoxicating
+experience. It made him feel a better chap. It fortified his
+self-respect.
+
+"You know," he said, stammering a little, for he found a sudden
+difficulty in controlling his voice. "You're a dashed good sort!"
+
+"I'm awfully glad you think so."
+
+There was a silence--as far, at least, as he and she were concerned.
+In the outer world, beyond the piece of scenery under whose shelter
+they stood, stirring things, loud and exciting things, seemed to be
+happening. Some sort of an argument appeared to be in progress. The
+rasping voice of Mr. Goble was making itself heard from the unseen
+auditorium. These things they sensed vaguely, but they were too
+occupied with each other to ascertain details.
+
+"What was the name of that place again?" asked Freddie. "The
+what-ho-something?"
+
+"The Automat?"
+
+"That's the little chap! We'll go there, shall we?"
+
+"The food's quite good. You go and help yourself out of slot-machines,
+you know."
+
+"My favourite indoor sport!" said Freddie with enthusiasm. "Hullo!
+What's up? It sounds as if there were dirty work at the cross-roads!"
+
+The voice of the assistant stage-manager was calling, sharply excited,
+agitation in every syllable.
+
+"All the gentlemen of the chorus on the stage, please! Mr. Goble wants
+all the chorus-gentlemen on the stage!"
+
+"Well, cheerio for the present," said Freddie. "I suppose I'd better
+look into this."
+
+He made his way on to the stage.
+
+
+III
+
+There is an insidious something about the atmosphere of a rehearsal of
+a musical play which saps the finer feelings of those connected with
+it. Softened by the gentle beauty of the Spring weather, Mr. Goble had
+come to the Gotham Theatre that morning in an excellent temper, firmly
+intending to remain in an excellent temper all day. Five minutes of
+"The Rose of America" had sent him back to the normal; and at ten
+minutes past eleven he was chewing his cigar and glowering at the
+stage with all the sweetness gone from his soul. When Wally Mason
+arrived at a quarter past eleven and dropped into the seat beside him,
+the manager received him with a grunt and even omitted to offer him a
+cigar. And when a New York theatrical manager does that, it is a
+certain sign that his mood is of the worst.
+
+One may find excuses for Mr. Goble. "The Rose of America" would have
+tested the equanimity of a far more amiable man: and on Mr. Goble what
+Otis Pilkington had called its delicate whimsicality jarred
+profoundly. He had been brought up in the lower-browed school of
+musical comedy, where you shelved the plot after the opening number
+and filled in the rest of the evening by bringing on the girls in a
+variety of exotic costumes, with some good vaudeville specialists to
+get the laughs. Mr. Goble's idea of a musical piece was something
+embracing trained seals, acrobats, and two or three teams of skilled
+buck-and-wing dancers, with nothing on the stage, from a tree to a
+lamp-shade, which could not suddenly turn into a chorus-girl. The
+austere legitimateness of "The Rose of America" gave him a pain in the
+neck. He loathed plot, and "The Rose of America" was all plot.
+
+Why, then, had the earthy Mr. Goble consented to associate himself
+with the production of this intellectual play? Because he was subject,
+like all other New York managers, to intermittent spasms of the idea
+that the time is ripe for a revival of comic opera. Sometimes,
+lunching in his favourite corner in the Cosmopolis grill-room, he
+would lean across the table and beg some other manager to take it from
+him that the time was ripe for a revival of comic opera--or, more
+cautiously, that pretty soon the time was going to be ripe for a
+revival of comic opera. And the other manager would nod his head and
+thoughtfully stroke his three chins and admit that, sure as God made
+little apples, the time was darned soon going to be ripe for a revival
+of comic opera. And then they would stuff themselves with rich food
+and light big cigars and brood meditatively.
+
+With most managers these spasms, which may be compared to twinges of
+conscience, pass as quickly as they come, and they go back to coining
+money with rowdy musical comedies, quite contented. But Otis
+Pilkington, happening along with the script of "The Rose of America"
+and the cash to back it, had caught Mr. Goble in the full grip of an
+attack, and all the arrangements had been made before the latter
+emerged from the influence. He now regretted his rash act.
+
+"Say, listen," he said to Wally, his gaze on the stage, his words
+proceeding from the corner of his mouth, "you've got to stick around
+with this show after it opens on the road. We'll talk terms later. But
+we've got to get it right, don't care what it costs. See?"
+
+"You think it will need fixing?"
+
+Mr. Goble scowled at the unconscious artists, who were now going
+through a particularly arid stretch of dialogue.
+
+"Fixing! It's all wrong! It don't add up right! You'll have to rewrite
+it from end to end."
+
+"Well, I've got some idea about it. I saw it played by amateurs last
+summer, you know. I could make a quick job of it, if you want me to.
+But will the author stand for it?"
+
+Mr. Goble allowed a belligerent eye to stray from the stage, and
+twisted it round in Wally's direction.
+
+"Say, listen! He'll stand for anything I say. I'm the little guy that
+gives orders round here. I'm the big noise!"
+
+As if in support of this statement he suddenly emitted a terrific
+bellow. The effect was magical. The refined and painstaking artists on
+the stage stopped as if they had been shot. The assistant
+stage-director bent sedulously over the footlights, which had now been
+turned up, shading his eyes with the prompt script.
+
+"Take that over again!" shouted Mr. Goble. "Yes, that speech about
+life being like a water-melon. It don't sound to me as though it meant
+anything." He cocked his cigar at an angle, and listened fiercely. He
+clapped his hands. The action stopped again. "Cut it!" said Mr. Goble
+tersely.
+
+"Cut the speech, Mr. Goble?" queried the obsequious assistant
+stage-director.
+
+"Yes. Cut it. It don't mean nothing!"
+
+Down the aisle, springing from a seat at the back, shimmered Mr.
+Pilkington, wounded to the quick.
+
+"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"That is the best epigram in the play."
+
+"The best what?"
+
+"Epigram. The best epigram in the play."
+
+Mr. Goble knocked the ash off his cigar. "The public don't want
+epigrams. The public don't like epigrams. I've been in the show
+business fifteen years, and I'm telling you! Epigrams give them a pain
+under the vest. All right, get on."
+
+Mr. Pilkington fluttered agitatedly. This was his first experience of
+Mr. Goble in the capacity of stage-director. It was the latter's
+custom to leave the early rehearsals of the pieces with which he was
+connected to a subordinate producer, who did what Mr. Goble called the
+breaking-in. This accomplished, he would appear in person, undo most
+of the other's work, make cuts, tell the actors how to read their
+lines, and generally enjoy himself. Producing plays was Mr. Goble's
+hobby. He imagined himself to have a genius in that direction, and it
+was useless to try to induce him to alter any decision to which he
+might have come. He regarded those who did not agree with him with the
+lofty contempt of an Eastern despot.
+
+Of this Mr. Pilkington was not yet aware.
+
+"But, Mr. Goble ...!"
+
+The potentate swung irritably round on him.
+
+"What is it? What _is_ it? Can't you see I'm busy?"
+
+"That epigram...."
+
+"It's out!"
+
+"But ...!"
+
+"It's out!"
+
+"Surely," protested Mr. Pilkington almost tearfully, "I have a
+voice...."
+
+"Sure you have a voice," retorted Mr. Goble, "and you can use it any
+old place you want, except in my theatre. Have all the voice you like!
+Go round the corner and talk to yourself! Sing in your bath! But don't
+come using it here, because I'm the little guy that does all the
+talking in this theatre! That fellow makes me tired," he added
+complainingly to Wally, as Mr. Pilkington withdrew like a foiled
+python. "He don't know nothing about the show business, and he keeps
+butting in and making fool suggestions. He ought to be darned glad
+he's getting his first play produced and not trying to teach me how to
+direct it." He clapped his hands imperiously. The assistant
+stage-manager bent over the footlights. "What was that that guy said?
+Lord Finchley's last speech. Take it again."
+
+The gentleman who was playing the part of Lord Finchley, an English
+character actor who specialized in London "nuts," raised his eyebrows,
+annoyed. Like Mr. Pilkington, he had never before come into contact
+with Mr. Goble as stage-director, and, accustomed to the suaver
+methods of his native land, he was finding the experience trying. He
+had not yet recovered from the agony of having that water-melon line
+cut out of his part. It was the only good line, he considered, that he
+had. Any line that is cut out of an actor's part is always the only
+good line he has.
+
+"The speech about Omar Khayyam?" he enquired with suppressed
+irritation.
+
+"I thought that was the way you said it. All wrong! It's Omar _of_
+Khayyam."
+
+"I think you will find that Omar Khayyam is the--ah--generally
+accepted version of the poet's name," said the portrayer of Lord
+Finchley adding beneath his breath. "You silly ass!"
+
+"You say Omar _of_ Khayyam," bellowed Mr. Goble. "Who's running this
+show, anyway?"
+
+"Just as you please."
+
+Mr. Goble turned to Wally.
+
+"These actors...." he began, when Mr. Pilkington appeared again at his
+elbow.
+
+"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"
+
+"What is it _now_?"
+
+"Omar Khayyam was a Persian poet. His _name_ was Khayyam."
+
+"That wasn't the way _I_ heard it," said Mr. Goble doggedly. "Did
+_you_?" he enquired of Wally. "I thought he was born at Khayyam."
+
+"You're probably quite right," said Wally, "but, if so, everybody else
+has been wrong for a good many years. It's usually supposed that the
+gentleman's name was Omar Khayyam. Khayyam, Omar J. Born A.D. 1050,
+educated privately and at Bagdad University. Represented Persia in the
+Olympic Games of 1072, winning the sitting high-jump and the
+egg-and-spoon race. The Khayyams were quite a well-known family in
+Bagdad, and there was a lot of talk when Omar, who was Mrs. Khayyam's
+pet son, took to drink and writing poetry. They had had it all fixed
+for him to go into his father's date business."
+
+Mr. Goble was impressed. He had a respect for Wally's opinion, for
+Wally had written "Follow the Girl" and look what a knock-out that had
+been. He stopped the rehearsal again.
+
+"Go back to that Khayyam speech!" he said interrupting Lord Finchley
+in mid-sentence.
+
+The actor whispered a hearty English oath beneath his breath. He had
+been up late last night, and, in spite of the fair weather, he was
+feeling a trifle on edge.
+
+"' In the words of Omar of Khayyam'...."
+
+Mr. Goble clapped his hands.
+
+"Cut that 'of,'" he said. "The show's too long, anyway."
+
+And, having handled a delicate matter in masterly fashion, he leaned
+back in his chair and chewed the end off another cigar.
+
+For some minutes after this the rehearsal proceeded smoothly. If Mr.
+Goble did not enjoy the play, at least he made no criticisms except to
+Wally. To him he enlarged from time to time on the pain which "The
+Rose of America" caused him.
+
+"How I ever came to put on junk like this beats me," confessed Mr.
+Goble frankly.
+
+"You probably saw that there was a good idea at the back of it,"
+suggested Wally. "There is, you know. Properly handled, it's an idea
+that could be made into a success."
+
+"What would you do with it?"
+
+"Oh, a lot of things," said Wally warily. In his younger and callower
+days he had sometimes been rash enough to scatter views on the
+reconstruction of plays broadcast, to find them gratefully absorbed
+and acted upon and treated as a friendly gift. His affection for Mr.
+Goble was not so overpowering as to cause him to give him ideas for
+nothing now.
+
+"Any time you want me to fix it for you, I'll come along. About one
+and a half per cent of the gross would meet the case, I think."
+
+Mr. Goble faced him, registering the utmost astonishment and horror.
+
+"One and a half per cent for fixing a show like this? Why, darn it,
+there's hardly anything to do to it! It's--it's _in_!"
+
+"You called it junk just now."
+
+"Well, all I meant was that it wasn't the sort of thing I cared for
+myself. The public will eat it. Take it from me, the time is just
+about ripe for a revival of comic opera."
+
+"This one will want all the reviving you can give it. Better use a
+pulmotor."
+
+"But that long boob, that Pilkington ... he would never stand for my
+handing you one and a half per cent."
+
+"I thought _you_ were the little guy who arranged things round here."
+
+"But he's got money in the show."
+
+"Well, if he wants to get any out, he'd better call in somebody to
+rewrite it. You don't have to engage me if you don't want to. But I
+know I could make a good job of it. There's just one little twist the
+thing needs and you would have quite a different piece."
+
+"What's that?" enquired Mr. Goble casually.
+
+"Oh, just a little ... what shall I say? ... a little touch of
+what-d'you-call-it and a bit of thingummy. You know the sort of thing!
+That's all it wants."
+
+Mr. Goble gnawed his cigar, baffled.
+
+"You think so, eh?" he said at length.
+
+"And perhaps a suspicion of _je-ne-sais-quoi_," added Wally.
+
+Mr. Goble worried his cigar, and essayed a new form of attack.
+
+"You've done a lot of work for me," he said. "Good work!"
+
+"Glad you liked it," said Wally.
+
+"You're a good kid. I like having you around. I was half thinking of
+giving you a show to do this Fall. Corking book. French farce. Ran
+two years in Paris. But what's the good, if you want the earth?"
+
+"Always useful, the earth. Good thing to have."
+
+"See here, if you'll fix up this show for half of one per cent, I'll
+give you the other to do."
+
+"You shouldn't slur your words so. For a moment I thought you said
+'half of one per cent. One and a half of course you really said.
+
+"If you won't take half, you don't get the other."
+
+"All right," said Wally. "There are lots of other managers in New
+York. Haven't you seen them popping about? Rich, enterprising men, and
+all of them love me like a son."
+
+"Make it one per cent," said Mr. Goble, "and I'll see if I can fix it
+with Pilkington."
+
+"One and a half."
+
+"Oh, damn it, one and a half, then," said Mr. Goble morosely. "What's
+the good of splitting straws?"
+
+"Forgotten Sports of the Past--Splitting the Straw. All right. If you
+drop me a line to that effect, legibly signed with your name, I'll
+wear it next my heart. I shall have to go now. I have a date.
+Good-bye. Glad everything's settled and everybody's happy."
+
+For some moments after Wally had left, Mr. Goble sat hunched up in his
+orchestra-chair, smoking sullenly, his mood less sunny than ever.
+Living in a little world of sycophants, he was galled by the off-hand
+way in which Wally always treated him. There was something in the
+latter's manner which seemed to him sometimes almost contemptuous. He
+regretted the necessity of having to employ him. There was, of course,
+no real necessity why he should have employed Wally. New York was full
+of librettists who would have done the work equally well for half the
+money, but, like most managers, Mr. Goble had the mental processes of
+a sheep. "Follow the Girl" was the last outstanding musical success in
+New York theatrical history: Wally had written it, therefore nobody
+but Wally was capable of re-writing "The Rose of America." The thing
+had for Mr. Goble the inevitability of Fate. Except for deciding
+mentally that Wally had swelled head, there was nothing to be done.
+
+Having decided that Wally had swelled head, and not feeling much
+better, Mr. Goble concentrated his attention on the stage. A good deal
+of action had taken place there during the recently concluded
+business talk, and the unfortunate Lord Finchley was back again,
+playing another of his scenes. Mr. Goble glared at Lord Finchley. He
+did not like him, and he did not like the way he was speaking his
+lines.
+
+The part of Lord Finchley was a non-singing role. It was a type part.
+Otis Pilkington had gone to the straight stage to find an artist, and
+had secured the not uncelebrated Wentworth Hill, who had come over
+from London to play in an English comedy which had just closed. The
+newspapers had called the play thin, but had thought that Wentworth
+Hill was an excellent comedian. Mr. Hill thought so, too, and it was
+consequently a shock to his already disordered nerves when a bellow
+from the auditorium stopped him in the middle of one of his speeches
+and a rasping voice informed him that he was doing it all wrong.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Hill, quietly but dangerously, stepping
+to the footlights.
+
+"All wrong!" repeated Mr. Goble.
+
+"Really?" Wentworth Hill, who a few years earlier had spent several
+terms at Oxford University before being sent down for aggravated
+disorderliness, had brought little away with him from that seat of
+learning except the Oxford manner. This he now employed upon Mr. Goble
+with an icy severity which put the last touch to the manager's
+fermenting state of mind. "Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me
+just how you think that part should be played?"
+
+Mr. Goble marched down the aisle.
+
+"Speak out to the audience," he said, stationing himself by the
+orchestra pit. "You're turning your head away all the darned time."
+
+"I may be wrong," said Mr. Hill, "but I have played a certain amount,
+don't you know, in pretty good companies, and I was always under the
+impression that one should address one's remarks to the person one was
+speaking to, not deliver a recitation to the gallery. I was taught
+that that was the legitimate method."
+
+The word touched off all the dynamite in Mr. Goble. Of all things in
+the theatre he detested most the "legitimate method." His idea of
+producing was to instruct the cast to come down to the footlights and
+hand it to 'em. These people who looked up-stage and talked to the
+audience through the backs of their necks revolted him.
+
+"Legitimate! That's a hell of a thing to be! Where do you get that
+legitimate stuff? You aren't playing Ibsen!"
+
+"Nor am I playing a knockabout vaudeville sketch."
+
+"Don't talk back at me!"
+
+"Kindly don't shout at _me_! Your voice is unpleasant enough without
+your raising it."
+
+Open defiance was a thing which Mr. Goble had never encountered
+before, and for a moment it deprived him of breath. He recovered it,
+however, almost immediately.
+
+"You're fired!"
+
+"On the contrary," said Mr. Hill, "I'm resigning." He drew a
+green-covered script from his pocket and handed it with an air to the
+pallid assistant stage-director. Then, more gracefully than ever
+Freddie Rooke had managed to move down-stage under the tuition of
+Johnson Miller, he moved up-stage to the exit. "I trust that you will
+be able to find someone who will play the part according to your
+ideas!"
+
+"I'll find," bellowed Mr. Goble at his vanishing back, "a chorus-man
+who'll play it a damned sight better than you!" He waved to the
+assistant stage-director. "Send the chorus-men on the stage!"
+
+"All the gentlemen of the chorus on the stage, please!" shrilled the
+assistant stage-director, bounding into the wings like a retriever.
+"Mr. Goble wants all the chorus-gentlemen on the stage!"
+
+There was a moment, when the seven male members of "The Rose of
+America" ensemble lined up self-consciously before his gleaming eyes,
+when Mr. Goble repented of his brave words. An uncomfortable feeling
+passed across his mind that Fate had called his bluff and that he
+would not be able to make good. All chorus-men are exactly alike, and
+they are like nothing else on earth. Even Mr. Goble, anxious as he was
+to overlook their deficiencies, could not persuade himself that in
+their ranks stood even an adequate Lord Finchley.
+
+And then, just as a cold reaction from his fervid mood was about to
+set in, he perceived that Providence had been good to him. There, at
+the extreme end of the line, stood a young man who, as far as
+appearance went, was the ideal Lord Finchley--as far as appearance
+went, a far better Lord Finchley than the late Mr. Hill. He beckoned
+imperiously.
+
+"You at the end!"
+
+"Me?" said the young man.
+
+"Yes, you. What's your name?"
+
+"Rooke. Frederick Rooke, don't you know."
+
+"You're English, aren't you?"
+
+"Eh? Oh, yes, absolutely!"
+
+"Ever played a part before?"
+
+"Part? Oh, I see what you mean. Well, in amateur theatricals, you
+know, and all that sort of rot."
+
+His words were music to Mr. Goble's ears. He felt that his Napoleonic
+action had justified itself by success. His fury left him. If he had
+been capable of beaming, one would have said that he beamed at
+Freddie.
+
+"Well, you play the part of Lord Finchley from now on. Come to my
+office this afternoon for your contract. Clear the stage. We've wasted
+enough time."
+
+Five minutes later, in the wings, Freddie, receiving congratulations
+from Nelly Bryant, asserted himself.
+
+"_Not_ the Automat to-day, I _think_, what? Now that I'm a jolly old
+star and all that sort of thing, it can't be done. Directly this is
+over we'll roll round to the Cosmopolis. A slight celebration is
+indicated, what? Right ho! Rally round, dear heart, rally round!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+JILL EXPLAINS
+
+I
+
+
+The lobby of the Hotel Cosmopolis is the exact centre of New York, the
+spot where at certain hours one is sure of meeting everybody one
+knows. The first person that Nelly and Freddie saw, as they passed
+through the swing doors, was Jill. She was seated on the chair by the
+big pillar in the middle of the hall.
+
+"What ho!" said Freddie. "Waiting for someone?"
+
+"Hullo, Freddie. Yes, I'm waiting for Wally Mason. I got a note from
+him this morning, asking me to meet him here. I'm a little early. I
+haven't congratulated you yet. You're wonderful!"
+
+"Thanks, old girl. Our young hero _is_ making pretty hefty strides in
+his chosen profesh, what? Mr. Rooke, who appears quite simple and
+unspoiled by success, replied to our representative's enquiry as to
+his future plans, that he proposed to stagger into the grill-room and
+imbibe about eighteen dollars' worth of lunch. Yes, it _is_ a bit of
+all right, taking it by and large, isn't it? I mean to say, the
+salary, the jolly old salary, you know ... quite a help when a
+fellow's lost all his money!"
+
+Jill was surprised to observe that the Last of the Rookes was
+contorting his face in an unsightly manner that seemed to be an
+attempt at a wink, pregnant with hidden meaning. She took her cue
+dutifully, though without understanding.
+
+"Oh, yes," she replied.
+
+Freddie seemed grateful. With a cordial "Cheerio!" he led Nelly off to
+the grill-room.
+
+"I didn't know Jill knew Mr. Mason," said Nelly, as they sat down at
+their table.
+
+"No?" said Freddie absently, running an experienced eye over the bill
+of fare. He gave an elaborate order. "What was that? Oh, absolutely!
+Jill and I and Wally were children together."
+
+"How funny you should all be together again like this."
+
+"Yes. Oh, good Lord!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"It's nothing. I meant to send a cable to a pal of mine in England,
+I'll send it after lunch."
+
+Freddie took out his handkerchief, and tied a knot in it. He was
+slightly ashamed of the necessity of taking such a precaution, but it
+was better to be on the safe side. His interview with Jill at the
+theatre had left him with the conviction that there was only one thing
+for him to do, and that was to cable poor old Derek to forget
+impending elections and all the rest of it and pop over to America at
+once. He knew that he would never have the courage to re-open the
+matter with Jill himself. As an ambassador he was a spent force. If
+Jill was to be wooed from her mood of intractibility, Derek was the
+only man to do it. Freddie was convinced that, seeing him in person,
+she would melt and fall into his arms. Too dashed absurd, Freddie
+felt, two loving hearts being separated like this and all that sort
+of thing. He replaced his handkerchief in his pocket, relieved, and
+concentrated himself on the entertainment of Nelly. A simple task for
+the longer he was with this girl, the easier did it seem, to talk to
+her.
+
+Jill, left alone in the lobby, was finding the moments pass quite
+pleasantly. She liked watching the people as they came in. One or two
+of the girls of the company fluttered in like birds, were swooped upon
+by their cavaliers, and fluttered off to the grill-room. The
+red-headed Babe passed her with a genial nod, and, shortly after, Lois
+Denham, the willowy recipient of sunbursts from her friend Izzy of the
+hat-checks, came by in company with a sallow, hawk-faced young man
+with a furtive eye, whom Jill took--correctly--to be Izzy himself.
+Lois was looking pale and proud, and, from the few words which came to
+Jill's ears as they neared her, seemed to be annoyed at having been
+kept waiting.
+
+It was immediately after this that the swing-doors revolved rather
+more violently than usual, and Mr. Goble burst into view.
+
+There was a cloud upon Mr. Goble's brow, seeming to indicate that his
+grievance against life had not yet been satisfactorily adjusted; but
+it passed as he saw Jill, and he came up to her with what he would
+probably have claimed to be an ingratiating smile.
+
+"Hullo!" said Mr. Goble. "All alone?"
+
+Jill was about to say that the condition was merely temporary when the
+manager went on.
+
+"Come and have a bit of lunch."
+
+"Thank you very much," said Jill, with the politeness of dislike, "but
+I'm waiting for someone."
+
+"Chuck him!" advised Mr. Goble cordially.
+
+"No, thanks, I couldn't, really."
+
+The cloud began to descend again upon Mr. Goble's brow. He was
+accustomed to having these invitations of his treated as royal
+commands.
+
+"Come along!"
+
+"I'm afraid it's impossible."
+
+Mr. Goble subjected her to a prolonged stare, seemed about to speak,
+changed his mind, and swung off moodily in the direction of the
+grill-room. He was not used to this sort of treatment.
+
+He had hardly gone, when Wally appeared.
+
+"What was he saying to you?" demanded Wally abruptly, without
+preliminary greeting.
+
+"He was asking me to lunch."
+
+Wally was silent for a moment. His good-natured face wore an unwonted
+scowl.
+
+"He went in there, of course?" he said, pointing to the grill-room.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then let's go into the other room," said Wally. He regained his good
+humour. "It was awfully good of you to come. I didn't know whether you
+would be able to."
+
+"It was very nice of you to invite me."
+
+Wally grinned.
+
+"How perfect our manners are! It's a treat to listen! How did you know
+that that was the one hat in New York I wanted you to wear?"
+
+"Oh, these things get about. Do you like it?"
+
+"It's wonderful. Let's take this table, shall we?"
+
+
+II
+
+They sat down. The dim, tapestry-hung room soothed Jill. She was
+feeling a little tired after the rehearsal. At the far end of the room
+an orchestra was playing a tune that she remembered and liked. Her
+mind went back to the last occasion on which she and Wally had sat
+opposite each other at a restaurant. How long ago it seemed! She
+returned to the present to find Wally speaking to her.
+
+"You left very suddenly the other night," said Wally.
+
+"I didn't want to meet Freddie."
+
+Wally looked at her commiseratingly.
+
+"I don't want to spoil your lunch," he said, "but Freddie knows all.
+He has tracked you down. He met Nelly Bryant, whom he seems to have
+made friends with in London, and she told him where you were and what
+you were doing. For a girl who fled at his mere approach the night
+before last, you don't seem very agitated by the news," he said, as
+Jill burst into a peal of laughter.
+
+"You haven't heard?"
+
+"Heard what?"
+
+"Freddie got Mr. Pilkington to put him in the chorus of the piece. He
+was rehearsing when I arrived at the theatre this morning, and having
+a terrible time with Mr. Miller. And, later on, Mr. Goble had a
+quarrel with the man who was playing the Englishman, and the man threw
+up his part, and Mr. Goble said he could get any one in the chorus to
+play it just as well, and he chose Freddie. So now Freddie is one of
+the principals, and bursting with pride!"
+
+Wally threw his head back and uttered a roar of appreciation which
+caused a luncher at a neighbouring table to drop an oyster which he
+was poising in mid-air.
+
+"Don't make such a noise!" said Jill severely. "Everyone's looking at
+you."
+
+"I must! It's the most priceless thing I ever heard. I've always
+maintained and I always will maintain that for pure lunacy nothing can
+touch the musical comedy business. There isn't anything that can't
+happen in musical comedy. 'Alice in Wonderland' is nothing to it."
+
+"Have you felt that, too? That's exactly how I feel. It's like a
+perpetual 'Mad Hatter's Tea-Party.'"
+
+"But what on earth made Freddie join the company at all?"
+
+A sudden gravity descended upon Jill. The words had reminded her of
+the thing which she was perpetually striving to keep out of her
+thoughts.
+
+"He said he wanted to be there to keep an eye on me."
+
+Gravity is infectious. Wally's smile disappeared. He, too, had been
+recalled to thoughts which were not pleasant.
+
+Wally crumbled his roll. There was a serious expression on his face.
+
+"Freddie was quite right. I didn't think he had so much sense."
+
+"Freddie was not right," flared Jill. The recollection of her
+conversation with that prominent artist still had the power to fire
+her independent soul. "I'm not a child. I can look after myself. What
+I do is my own business."
+
+"I'm afraid you're going to find that your business is several
+people's business. I am interested in it myself. I don't like your
+being on the stage. Now bite my head off!"
+
+"It's very kind of you to bother about me...."
+
+"I said 'Bite my head off!' I didn't say 'Freeze me!' I take the
+licence of an old friend who in his time has put worms down your
+back, and I repeat--I don't like your being on the stage."
+
+"I shouldn't have thought you would have been so"--Jill sought for a
+devastating adjective--"so mid-Victorian!"
+
+"As far as you are concerned, I'm the middest Victorian in existence.
+Mid is my middle name." Wally met her indignant gaze squarely.
+"I--do--not--like--your--being--on--the--stage! Especially in any
+company which Ike Goble is running."
+
+"Why Mr. Goble particularly?"
+
+"Because he is not the sort of man you ought to be coming in contact
+with."
+
+"What nonsense!"
+
+"It isn't nonsense at all. I suppose you've read a lot about the
+morals of theatrical managers...."
+
+"Yes. And it seemed to be exaggerated and silly."
+
+"So it is. There's nothing wrong with most of them. As a general
+thing, they are very decent fellows--extraordinarily decent if you
+think of the position they are in. I don't say that in a business way
+there's much they won't try to put over on you. In the theatre, when
+it comes to business, everything goes except biting and gouging.
+'There's never a law of God or man runs north of fifty-three.' If you
+alter that to 'north of Forty-first Street' it doesn't scan as well,
+but it's just as true. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that
+the Golden Rule is suspended there. You get used to it after you have
+been in the theatre for a while, and, except for leaving your watch
+and pocket-book at home when you have to pay a call on a manager and
+keeping your face to him so that he can't get away with your back
+collar-stud, you don't take any notice of it. It's all a game. If a
+manager swindles you, he wins the hole and takes the honour. If you
+foil him, you are one up. In either case, it makes no difference to
+the pleasantness of your relations. You go on calling him by his first
+name, and he gives you a couple of cigars out of his waistcoat pocket
+and says you're a good kid. There is nothing personal in it. He has
+probably done his best friend out of a few thousand dollars the same
+morning, and you see them lunching together after the ceremony as
+happily as possible. You've got to make allowances for managers. They
+are the victims of heredity. When a burglar marries a hat-check girl,
+their offspring goes into the theatrical business automatically, and
+he can't shake off the early teaching which he imbibed at his father's
+knee. But morals...."
+
+Wally broke off to allow the waiter to place a fried sole before him.
+Waiters always select the moment when we are talking our best to
+intrude themselves.
+
+"As regards morals," resumed Wally, "that is a different matter. Most
+managers are respectable, middle-aged men with wives and families.
+They are in the business to make money, and they don't want anything
+else out of it. The girls in their companies are like so many clerks
+to them, just machines that help to bring the money in. They don't
+know half a dozen of them to speak to. But our genial Ike is not like
+that." Wally consumed a mouthful of sole. "Ike Goble is a bad citizen.
+He paws! He's a slinker and a prowler and a leerer. He's a pest and a
+worm! He's fat and soft and flabby. He has a greasy soul, a withered
+heart, and an eye like a codfish. Not knocking him, of course!" added
+Wally magnanimously. "Far be it from me to knock anyone! But, speaking
+with the utmost respect and viewing him in the most favourable light,
+he is a combination of tom-cat and the things you see when you turn
+over a flat stone! Such are the reasons why I am sorry that you are in
+his company."
+
+Jill had listened to this diatribe with a certain uneasiness. Her
+brief encounters with Mr. Goble told her that every word was probably
+true. She could still feel the unpleasant sensation of being inspected
+by the eye which Wally had compared--quite justly--to that of a
+codfish. But her pride forbade any admission of weakness.
+
+"I can take care of myself," she said.
+
+"I don't doubt it," said Wally. "And you could probably take care of
+yourself if you fell into a muddy pond. But I shouldn't like to stand
+on the bank and watch you doing it. I know what girls in the chorus
+have to go through. Hanging about for hours in draughts, doing
+nothing, while the principals go through their scenes, and yelled at
+if they try to relieve the tedium of captivity with a little light
+conversation...."
+
+"Yes," admitted Jill. "There has been a good lot of that."
+
+"There always is. I believe if the stage-carpenter was going to stick
+a screw in a flat, they would call a chorus-rehearsal to watch him do
+it.... Jill, you must get out of it. It's no life for you. The
+work...."
+
+"I like the work."
+
+"While it's new, perhaps, but...."
+
+Jill interrupted him passionately.
+
+"Oh, can't you understand!" she cried. "I want the work. I need it. I
+want something to do, something to occupy my mind. I hate talking
+about it, but you know how things are with me. Freddie must have told
+you. Even if he didn't, you must have guessed, meeting me here all
+alone and remembering how things were when we last met. You must
+understand! Haven't you ever had a terrible shock or a dreadful
+disappointment that seemed to smash up the whole world? And didn't you
+find that the only possible thing to do was to work and work and work
+as hard as ever you could? When I first came to America, I nearly went
+mad. Uncle Chris sent me down to a place on Long Island, and I had
+nothing to do all day but think. I couldn't stand it. I ran away and
+came to New York and met Nelly Bryant and got this work to do. It
+saved me. It kept me busy all day and tired me out and didn't give me
+time to think. The harder it is, the better it suits me. It's an
+antidote. I simply wouldn't give it up now. As for what you were
+saying, I must put up with that. The other girls do, so why shouldn't
+I?"
+
+"They are toughened to it."
+
+"Then I must get toughened to it. What else is there for me to do? I
+must do something."
+
+"Marry me!" said Wally, reaching across the table and putting his hand
+on hers. The light in his eyes lit up his homely face like a lantern.
+
+
+III
+
+The suddenness of it startled Jill into silence. She snatched her hand
+away and drew back, looking at him in wonderment. She was confusedly
+aware of a babble of sound--people talking, people laughing, the
+orchestra playing a lively tune. All her senses seemed to have become
+suddenly more acute. She was intensely alive to small details. Then,
+abruptly, the whole world condensed itself into two eyes that were
+fastened upon hers--compelling eyes which she felt a panic desire to
+avoid.
+
+She turned her head away, and looked out into the restaurant. It
+seemed incredible that all these people, placidly intent upon their
+food and their small talk, should not be staring at her, wondering
+what she was going to say; nudging each other and speculating. Their
+detachment made her feel alone and helpless. She was nothing to them
+and they did not care what happened to her, just as she had been
+nothing to those frozen marshes down at Brookport. She was alone in an
+indifferent world, with her own problems to settle for herself.
+
+Other men had asked Jill to marry them--a full dozen of them, here and
+there in country houses and at London dances, before she had met and
+loved Derek Underhill; but nothing that she had had in the way of
+experience had prepared her for Wally. These others had given her time
+to marshal her forces, to collect herself, to weigh them thoughtfully
+in the balance. Before speaking, they had signalled their devotion in
+a hundred perceptible ways--by their pinkness, their stammering
+awkwardness, by the glassy look in their eyes. They had not shot a
+proposal at her like a bullet from out of the cover of a conversation
+that had nothing to do with their emotions at all.
+
+Yet, now that the shock of it was dying away, she began to remember
+signs she would have noticed, speeches which ought to have warned
+her....
+
+"Wally!" she gasped.
+
+She found that he affected her in an entirely different fashion from
+the luckless dozen of those London days. He seemed to matter more, to
+be more important, almost--though she rebelled at the word--more
+dangerous.
+
+"Let me take you out of it all! You aren't fit for this sort of life.
+I can't bear to see you...."
+
+Jill bent forward and touched his hand. He started as though he had
+been burned. The muscles of his throat were working.
+
+"Wally, it's--" She paused for a word. "Kind" was horrible. It would
+have sounded cold, almost supercilious. "Sweet" was the sort of thing
+she could imagine Lois Denham saying to her friend Izzy. She began her
+sentence again. "You're a dear to say that, but...."
+
+Wally laughed chokingly.
+
+"You think I'm altruistic? I'm not. I'm just as selfish and
+self-centred as any other man who wants a thing very badly. I'm as
+altruistic as a child crying for the moon. I want you to marry me
+because I love you, because there never was anybody like you, because
+you're the whole world, because I always have loved you. I've been
+dreaming about you for a dozen years, thinking about you, wondering
+about you--wondering where you were, what you were doing, how you
+looked. I used to think that it was just sentimentality, that you
+merely stood for a time of my life when I was happier than I have ever
+been since. I used to think that you were just a sort of peg on which
+I was hanging a pleasant sentimental regret for days which could never
+come back. You were a memory that seemed to personify all the other
+memories of the best time of my life. You were the goddess of old
+associations. Then I met you in London, and it was different. I wanted
+you--_you_! I didn't want you because you recalled old times and were
+associated with dead happiness, I wanted _you_! I knew I loved you
+directly you spoke to me at the theatre that night of the fire. I
+loved your voice and your eyes and your smile and your courage. And
+then you told me you were engaged. I might have expected it, but I
+couldn't keep my jealousy from showing itself, and you snubbed me as I
+deserved. But now ... things are different now. Everything's
+different, except my love."
+
+Jill turned her face to the wall beside her. A man at the next table,
+a corpulent, red-faced man, had begun to stare. He could have heard
+nothing, for Wally had spoken in a low voice; but plainly he was aware
+that something more interesting was happening at their table than at
+any of the other tables, and he was watching with a bovine
+inquisitiveness which affected Jill with a sense of outrage. A moment
+before, she had resented the indifference of the outer world. Now,
+this one staring man seemed like a watching multitude. There were
+tears in her eyes, and she felt that the red-faced man suspected it.
+
+"Wally...." Her voice broke. "It's impossible."
+
+"Why? Why, Jill?"
+
+"Because.... Oh, it's impossible!"
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"Because...." He seemed to find a difficulty in speaking. "Because of
+Underhill?"
+
+Jill nodded. She felt wretched. The monstrous incongruity of her
+surroundings oppressed her. The orchestra had dashed into a rollicking
+melody, which set her foot tapping in spite of herself. At a near-by
+table somebody was shouting with laughter. Two waiters at a
+service-stand were close enough for her to catch snatches of their
+talk. They were arguing about an order of fried potatoes. Once again
+her feelings veered round, and she loathed the detachment of the
+world. Her heart ached for Wally. She could not look at him, but she
+knew exactly what she would see if she did--honest, pleading eyes
+searching her face for something which she could not give.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+The table creaked. Wally was leaning further forward. He seemed like
+something large and pathetic--a big dog in trouble. She hated to be
+hurting him. And all the time her foot tapped accompaniment to the
+rag-time tune.
+
+"But you can't live all your life with a memory," said Wally.
+
+Jill turned and faced him. His eyes seemed to leap at her, and they
+were just as she had pictured them.
+
+"You don't understand," she said gently. "You don't understand."
+
+"It's ended. It's over."
+
+Jill shook her head.
+
+"You can't still love him, after what has happened!"
+
+"I don't know," said Jill unhappily.
+
+The words seemed to bewilder Wally as much as they had bewildered
+Freddie.
+
+"You don't know?"
+
+Jill shut her eyes tight. Wally quivered. It was a trick she had had
+as a child. In perplexity, she had always screwed up her eyes just
+like that, as if to shut herself up in herself.
+
+"Don't talk for a minute, Wally," she said. "I want to think."
+
+Her eyes opened.
+
+"It's like this," she said. He had seen her look at him in exactly the
+same way a hundred times. "I don't suppose I can make you understand,
+but this is how it is. Suppose you had a room, and it was full--of
+things. Furniture. And there wasn't any space left. You--you couldn't
+put anything else in till you had taken all that out, could you? It
+might not be worth anything, but it would still be there, taking up
+all the room."
+
+Wally nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I see."
+
+"My heart's full, Wally dear. I know it's just lumber that's choking
+it up, but it's difficult to get it out. It takes time getting it out.
+I put it in, thinking it was wonderful furniture, the most wonderful
+in the world, and--I was cheated. It was just lumber. But it's there.
+It's still there. It's there all the time. And what am I to do?"
+
+The orchestra crashed, and was silent. The sudden stillness seemed to
+break a spell. The world invaded the little island where they sat. A
+chattering party of girls and men brushed past them. The waiter,
+judging that they had been there long enough, slipped a strip of
+paper, decorously turned upside down, in front of Wally. He took the
+money, and went away to get change.
+
+Wally turned to Jill.
+
+"I understand," he said. "All this hasn't happened, and we're just as
+good pals as before?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But...." He forced a laugh ... "mark my words, a time may come, and
+then...!"
+
+"I don't know," said Jill.
+
+"A time may come," repeated Wally. "At any rate, let me think so. It
+has nothing to do with me. It's for you to decide, absolutely. I'm not
+going to pursue you with my addresses! If ever you get that room of
+yours emptied, you won't have to hang out a 'To Let' sign. I shall be
+waiting, and you will know where to find me. And, in the meantime,
+yours to command, Wallace Mason. Is that clear?"
+
+"Quite clear." Jill looked at him affectionately. "There's nobody I'd
+rather open that room to than you, Wally. You know that."
+
+"Is that the solemn truth?"
+
+"The solemn truth."
+
+"Then," said Wally, "in two minutes you will see a startled waiter.
+There will be about fourteen dollars change out of that twenty he took
+away. I'm going to give it all to him."
+
+"You mustn't!"
+
+"Every cent!" said Wally firmly. "And the young Greek brigand who
+stole my hat at the door is going to get a dollar! That, as our
+ascetic and honourable friend Goble would say, is the sort of little
+guy _I_ am!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The red-faced man at the next table eyed them as they went out,
+leaving behind them a waiter who clutched totteringly for support at
+the back of a chair.
+
+"Had a row," he decided, "but made it up."
+
+He called for a toothpick.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MR. GOBLE PLAYS WITH FATE
+
+I
+
+
+On the boardwalk at Atlantic City, that much-enduring seashore resort
+which has been the birthplace of so many musical plays, there stands
+an all-day and all-night restaurant, under the same management and
+offering the same hospitality as the one in Columbus Circle at which
+Jill had taken her first meal on arriving in New York. At least, its
+hospitality is noisy during the waking and working hours of the day;
+but there are moments when it has an almost cloistral peace, and the
+customer, abashed by the cold calm of its snowy marble and the silent
+gravity of the white-robed attendants, unconsciously lowers his voice
+and tries to keep his feet from shuffling, like one in a temple. The
+members of the chorus of "The Rose of America," dropping in by ones
+and twos at six o'clock in the morning about two weeks after the
+events recorded in the last chapter, spoke in whispers and gave their
+orders for breakfast in a subdued undertone.
+
+The dress-rehearsal had just dragged its weary length to a close. It
+is the custom of the dwellers in Atlantic City, who seem to live
+entirely by pleasure, to attend a species of vaudeville
+performances--incorrectly termed a sacred concert--on Sunday nights,
+and it had been one o'clock in the morning before the concert scenery
+could be moved out of the theatre and the first act set of "The Rose
+of America" moved in. And, as by some unwritten law of the drama no
+dress-rehearsal can begin without a delay of at least an hour and a
+half, the curtain had not gone up on Mr. Miller's opening chorus till
+half-past two. There had been dress-parades, conferences, interminable
+arguments between the stage-director and a mysterious man in
+shirt-sleeves about the lights, more dress-parades, further
+conferences, hitches with regard to the sets, and another outbreak of
+debate on the subject of blues, ambers, and the management of the
+"spot," which was worked by a plaintive voice, answering to the name
+of Charlie, at the back of the family circle. But by six o'clock a
+complete, if ragged, performance had been given, and the chorus, who
+had partaken of no nourishment since dinner on the previous night, had
+limped off round the corner for a bite of breakfast before going to
+bed.
+
+They were a battered and a draggled company, some with dark circles
+beneath their eyes, others blooming with the unnatural scarlet of the
+make-up which they had been too tired to take off. The Duchess,
+haughty to the last, had fallen asleep with her head on the table. The
+red-headed Babe was lying back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.
+The Southern girl blinked like an owl at the morning sunshine out on
+the boardwalk.
+
+The Cherub, whose triumphant youth had brought her almost fresh
+through a sleepless night, contributed the only remark made during the
+interval of waiting for the meal.
+
+"The fascination of a thtage life! Why girls leave home!" She looked
+at her reflection in the little mirror of her vanity-bag. "It _is_ a
+face!" she murmured reflectively. "But I should hate to have to go
+around with it long!"
+
+A sallow young man, with the alertness peculiar to those who work on
+the night-shifts of restaurants, dumped a tray down on the table with
+a clatter. The Duchess woke up. Babe took her eyes off the ceiling.
+The Southern girl ceased to look at the sunshine. Already, at the mere
+sight of food, the extraordinary recuperative powers of the theatrical
+worker had begun to assert themselves. In five minutes these girls
+would be feeling completely restored and fit for anything.
+
+Conversation broke out with the first sip of coffee, and the calm of
+the restaurant was shattered. Its day had begun.
+
+"It's a great life if you don't weaken," said the Cherub hungrily
+attacking her omelette. "And the wortht is yet to come! I thuppose all
+you old dears realithe that this show will have to be rewritten from
+end to end, and we'll be rehearthing day and night all the time we're
+on the road."
+
+"Why?" Lois Denham spoke with her mouth full. "What's wrong with it?"
+
+The Duchess took a sip of coffee.
+
+"Don't make me laugh!" she pleaded. "What's wrong with it? What's
+right with it, one would feel more inclined to ask!"
+
+"One would feel thtill more inclined," said the Cherub, "to athk why
+one was thuch a chump as to let oneself in for this sort of thing when
+one hears on all sides that waitresses earn thixty dollars a month."
+
+"The numbers are all right," argued Babe. "I don't mean the melodies,
+but Johnny has arranged some good business."
+
+"He always does," said the Southern girl. "Some more buckwheat cakes,
+please. But what about the book?"
+
+"I never listen to the book."
+
+The Cherub laughed.
+
+"You're too good to yourself! I listened to it right along, and take
+it from me it's sad! Of courthe they'll have it fixed. We can't open
+in New York like this. My professional reputation wouldn't thtand it!
+Didn't you thee Wally Mason in front, making notes? They've got him
+down to do the re-writing."
+
+Jill, who had been listening in a dazed way to the conversation,
+fighting against the waves of sleep which flooded over her, woke up.
+
+"Was Wally--was Mr. Mason there?"
+
+"Sure. Sitting at the back."
+
+Jill could not have said whether she was glad or sorry. She had not
+seen Wally since that afternoon when they had lunched together at the
+Cosmopolis, and the rush of the final weeks of rehearsals had given
+her little opportunity for thinking of him. At the back of her mind
+had been the feeling that sooner or later she would have to think of
+him, but for two weeks she had been too tired and too busy to
+re-examine him as a factor in her life. There had been times when the
+thought of him had been like the sunshine on a winter day, warming her
+with almost an impersonal glow in moments of depression. And then some
+sharp, poignant memory of Derek would come to blot him out.
+
+She came out of her thoughts to find that the talk had taken another
+turn.
+
+"And the wortht of it is," the Cherub was saying, "we shall rehearthe
+all day and give a show every night and work ourselves to the bone,
+and then, when they're good and ready, they'll fire one of us!"
+
+"That's right!" agreed the Southern girl.
+
+"They couldn't!" Jill cried.
+
+"You wait!" said the Cherub. "They'll never open in New York with
+thirteen girls. Ike's much too thuperstitious."
+
+"But they wouldn't do a thing like that after we've all worked so
+hard!"
+
+There was a general burst of sardonic laughter. Jill's opinion of the
+chivalry of theatrical managers seemed to be higher than that of her
+more experienced colleagues.
+
+"They'll do anything," the Cherub assured her.
+
+"You don't know the half of it, dearie," scoffed Lois Denham. "You
+don't know the half of it!"
+
+"Wait till you've been in as many shows as I have," said Babe, shaking
+her red locks. "The usual thing is to keep a girl slaving her head off
+all through the road-tour and then fire her before the New York
+opening."
+
+"But it's a shame! It isn't fair!"
+
+"If one is expecting to be treated fairly," said the Duchess with a
+prolonged yawn, "one should not go into the show-business."
+
+And, having uttered this profoundly true maxim, she fell asleep again.
+
+The slumber of the Duchess was the signal for a general move. Her
+somnolence was catching. The restorative effects of the meal were
+beginning to wear off. There was a call for a chorus rehearsal at four
+o'clock, and it seemed the wise move to go to bed and get some sleep
+while there was time. The Duchess was roused from her dreams by means
+of a piece of ice from one of the tumblers; bills were paid; and the
+company poured out, yawning and chattering, into the sunlight of the
+empty boardwalk.
+
+Jill detached herself from the group, and made her way to a seat
+facing the sea. Tiredness had fallen upon her like a leaden weight,
+crushing all the power out of her limbs, and the thought of walking to
+the boarding-house where, from motives of economy, she was sharing a
+room with the Cherub, paralysed her.
+
+It was a perfect morning, clear and cloudless, with the warm
+freshness of a day that means to be hotter later on. The sea sparkled
+in the sun. Little waves broke lazily on the grey sand. Jill closed
+her eyes, for the brightness of sun and water was trying; and her
+thoughts went back to what the Cherub had said.
+
+If Wally was really going to rewrite the play, they would be thrown
+together. She would be obliged to meet him, and she was not sure that
+she was ready to meet him. Still, he would be somebody to talk to on
+subjects other than the one eternal topic of the theatre, somebody who
+belonged to the old life. She had ceased to regard Freddie Rooke in
+this light; for Freddie, solemn with his new responsibilities as a
+principal, was the most whole-hearted devotee of "shop" in the
+company. Freddie nowadays declined to consider any subject for
+conversation that did not have to do with "The Rose of America" in
+general and his share in it in particular. Jill had given him up, and
+he had paired off with Nelly Bryant. The two were inseparable. Jill
+had taken one or two meals with them, but Freddie's professional
+monologues, of which Nelly seemed never to weary, were too much for
+her. As a result she was now very much alone. There were girls in the
+company whom she liked, but most of them had their own intimate
+friends, and she was always conscious of not being really wanted. She
+was lonely, and, after examining the matter as clearly as her tired
+mind would allow, she found herself curiously soothed by the thought
+that Wally would be near to mitigate her loneliness.
+
+She opened her eyes, blinking. Sleep had crept upon her with an
+insidious suddenness, and she had almost fallen over on the seat. She
+was just bracing herself to get up and begin the long tramp to the
+boarding-house, when a voice spoke at her side.
+
+"Hullo! Good morning!"
+
+Jill looked up.
+
+"Hullo, Wally!"
+
+"Surprised to see me?"
+
+"No. Milly Trevor said she had seen you at the rehearsal last night."
+
+Wally came round the bench and seated himself at her side. His eyes
+were tired, and his chin dark and bristly.
+
+"Had breakfast?"
+
+"Yes, thanks. Have you?"
+
+"Not yet. How are you feeling?"
+
+"Rather tired."
+
+"I wonder you're not dead. I've been through a good many
+dress-rehearsals, but this one was the record. Why they couldn't have
+had it comfortably in New York and just have run through the piece
+without scenery last night, I don't know, except that in musical
+comedy it's etiquette always to do the most inconvenient thing. They
+know perfectly well that there was no chance of getting the scenery
+into the theatre till the small hours. You must be worn out. Why
+aren't you in bed?"
+
+"I couldn't face the walk. I suppose I ought to be going, though."
+
+She half rose, then sank back again. The glitter of the water
+hypnotized her. She closed her eyes again. She could hear Wally
+speaking, then his voice grew suddenly faint and far off, and she
+ceased to fight the delicious drowsiness.
+
+Jill awoke with a start. She opened her eyes, and shut them again at
+once. The sun was very strong now. It was one of those prematurely
+warm days of early Spring which have all the languorous heat of late
+summer. She opened her eyes once more, and found that she was feeling
+greatly refreshed. She also discovered that her head was resting on
+Wally's shoulder.
+
+"Have I been asleep?"
+
+Wally laughed.
+
+"You have been having what you might call a nap." He massaged his left
+arm vigorously. "You needed it. Do you feel more rested now?"
+
+"Good gracious! Have I been squashing your poor arm all the time? Why
+didn't you move?"
+
+"I was afraid you would fall over. You just shut your eyes and toppled
+sideways."
+
+"What's the time?"
+
+Wally looked at his watch.
+
+"Just on ten."
+
+"Ten!" Jill was horrified. "Why, I have been giving you cramp for
+about three hours! You must have had an awful time!"
+
+"Oh, it was all right. I think I dozed off myself. Except that the
+birds didn't come and cover us with leaves; it was rather like the
+'Babes in the Wood.'"
+
+"But you haven't had any breakfast! Aren't you starving?"
+
+"Well, I'm not saying I wouldn't spear a fried egg with some vim if it
+happened to float past. But there's plenty of time for that. Lots of
+doctors say you oughtn't to eat breakfast, and Indian fakirs go
+without food for days at a time in order to develop their souls. Shall
+I take you back to wherever you're staying? You ought to get a proper
+sleep in bed."
+
+"Don't dream of taking me. Go off and have something to eat."
+
+"Oh, that can wait. I'd like to see you safely home."
+
+Jill was conscious of a renewed sense of his comfortingness. There was
+no doubt about it, Wally was different from any other man she had
+known. She suddenly felt guilty, as if she were obtaining something
+valuable under false pretences.
+
+"Wally!"
+
+"Hullo?"
+
+"You--you oughtn't to be so good to me!"
+
+"Nonsense! Where's the harm in lending a hand--or, rather, an arm--to
+a pal in trouble?"
+
+"You know what I mean. I can't ... that is to say ... it isn't as
+though ... I mean...."
+
+Wally smiled a tired, friendly smile.
+
+"If you're trying to say what I think you're trying to say, don't! We
+had all that out two weeks ago. I quite understand the position. You
+mustn't worry yourself about it." He took her arm, and they crossed
+the boardwalk. "Are we going in the right direction? You lead the way.
+I know exactly how you feel. We're old friends, and nothing more. But,
+as an old friend, I claim the right to behave like an old friend. If
+an old friend can't behave like an old friend, how _can_ an old friend
+behave? And now we'll rule the whole topic out of the conversation.
+But perhaps you're too tired for conversation?"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"Then I will tell you about the sad death of young Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Well, when I say death, I use the word in a loose sense. The human
+giraffe still breathes, and I imagine, from the speed with which he
+legged it back to his hotel when we parted, that he still takes
+nourishment. But really he is dead. His heart is broken. We had a
+conference after the dress-rehearsal, and our friend Mr. Goble told
+him in no uncertain words--in the whole course of my experience I have
+never heard words less uncertain--that his damned rotten high-brow
+false-alarm of a show--I am quoting Mr. Goble--would have to be
+rewritten by alien hands. And these are them! On the right, alien
+right hand. On the left, alien left hand. Yes, I am the instrument
+selected for the murder of Pilkington's artistic aspirations. I'm
+going to rewrite the show. In fact, I have already rewritten the first
+act and most of the second. Goble foresaw this contingency and told me
+to get busy two weeks ago, and I've been working hard ever since. We
+shall start rehearsing the new version to-morrow and open in Baltimore
+next Monday with practically a different piece. And it's going to be a
+pippin, believe _me_, said our hero modestly. A gang of composers has
+been working in shifts for two weeks, and, by chucking out nearly all
+of the original music, we shall have a good score. It means a lot of
+work for you, I'm afraid. All the business of the numbers will have to
+be re-arranged."
+
+"I like work," said Jill. "But I'm sorry for Mr. Pilkington."
+
+"He's all right. He owns seventy per cent of the show. He may make a
+fortune. He's certain to make a comfortable sum. That is, if he
+doesn't sell out his interest in pique--or dudgeon, if you prefer it.
+From what he said at the close of the proceedings, I fancy he would
+sell out to anybody who asked him. At least, he said that he washed
+his hands of the piece. He's going back to New York this
+afternoon--won't even wait for the opening. Of course, _I'm_ sorry for
+the poor chap in a way, but he had no right, with the excellent
+central idea which he got, to turn out such a rotten book. Oh, by the
+way!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Another tragedy! Unavoidable, but pathetic. Poor old Freddie! He's
+out!"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Out!" repeated Wally firmly.
+
+"But didn't you think he was good last night?"
+
+"He was awful! But that isn't why. Goble wanted his part rewritten as
+a Scotchman, so as to get McAndrew, the fellow who made such a hit
+last season in 'Hoots, Mon!' That sort of thing is always happening in
+musical comedy. You have to fit parts to suit whatever good people
+happen to be available at the moment. My heart bleeds for Freddie, but
+what can one do? At any rate he isn't so badly off as a fellow was in
+one of my shows. In the second act he was supposed to have escaped
+from an asylum, and the management, in a passion for realism, insisted
+that he should shave his head. The day after he shaved it, they heard
+that a superior comedian was disengaged and fired him. It's a ruthless
+business."
+
+"The girls were saying that one of us would be dismissed."
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't think that's likely."
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"So do I. What are we stopping for?"
+
+Jill had halted in front of a shabby-looking house, one of those
+depressing buildings which spring up overnight at seashore resorts and
+start to decay the moment the builders have left them.
+
+"I live here."
+
+"Here?" Wally looked at her in consternation. "But...."
+
+Jill smiled.
+
+"We working-girls have got to economize. Besides, it's quite
+comfortable--fairly comfortable--inside, and it's only for a week."
+She yawned. "I believe I'm falling asleep again. I'd better hurry in
+and go to bed. Good-bye, Wally dear. You've been wonderful. Mind you
+go and get a good breakfast."
+
+
+II
+
+When Jill arrived at the theatre at four o'clock for the chorus
+rehearsal, the expected blow had not fallen. No steps had apparently
+been taken to eliminate the thirteenth girl whose presence in the cast
+preyed on Mr. Goble's superstitious mind. But she found her colleagues
+still in a condition of pessimistic foreboding. "Wait!" was the gloomy
+watchword of "The Rose of America" chorus.
+
+The rehearsal passed off without event. It lasted until six o'clock,
+when Jill, the Cherub, and two or three of the other girls went to
+snatch a hasty dinner before returning to the theatre to make up. It
+was not a cheerful meal. Reaction had set in after the over-exertion
+of the previous night, and it was too early for first-night excitement
+to take its place. Everybody, even the Cherub, whose spirits seldom
+failed her, was depressed, and the idea of an overhanging doom had
+grown. It seemed now to be merely a question of speculating on the
+victim, and the conversation gave Jill, as the last addition to the
+company, and so the cause of swelling the ranks of the chorus to the
+unlucky number, a feeling of guilt. She was glad when it was time to
+go back to the theatre.
+
+The moment she and her companions entered the dressing-room, it was
+made clear to them that the doom had fallen. In a chair in the corner,
+all her pretence and affectation swept away in a flood of tears, sat
+the unhappy Duchess, the centre of a group of girls anxious to
+console, but limited in their ideas of consolation to an occasional
+pat on the back and an offer of a fresh pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"It's tough, honey!" somebody was saying as Jill came in.
+
+Somebody else said it was fierce, and a third girl declared it to be
+the limit. A fourth girl, well-meaning but less helpful than she would
+have liked to be, was advising the victim not to worry.
+
+The story of the disaster was brief and easily told. The Duchess,
+sailing in at the stage-door, had paused at the letterbox to see if
+Cuthbert, her faithful auto-salesman, had sent her a good-luck
+telegram. He had, but his good wishes were unfortunately neutralized
+by the fact that the very next letter in the box was one from the
+management, crisp and to the point, informing the Duchess that her
+services would not be required that night or thereafter. It was the
+subtle meanness of the blow that roused the indignation of "The Rose
+of America" chorus, the cunning villainy with which it had been timed.
+
+"Poor Mae, if she'd opened to-night, they'd have had to give her two
+weeks' notice or her salary. But they can fire her without a cent just
+because she's only been rehearsing and hasn't given a show!"
+
+The Duchess burst into fresh flood of tears.
+
+"Don't you worry, honey!" advised the well-meaning girl who would have
+been in her element looking in on Job with Bildad the Shuhite and his
+friends. "Don't you worry!"
+
+"It's tough!" said the girl who had adopted that form of verbal
+consolation.
+
+"It's fierce!" said the girl who preferred that adjective.
+
+The other girl, with an air of saying something new, repeated her
+statement that it was the limit. The Duchess cried forlornly
+throughout. She had needed this engagement badly. Chorus salaries are
+not stupendous, but it is possible to save money by means of them
+during a New York run, especially if you have spent three years in a
+milliner's shop and can make your own clothes, as the Duchess, in
+spite of her air of being turned out by Fifth Avenue modistes, could
+and did. She had been looking forward, now that this absurd piece was
+to be rewritten by someone who knew his business and had a good chance
+of success, to putting by just those few dollars that make all the
+difference when you are embarking on married life. Cuthbert, for all
+his faithfulness, could not hold up the financial end of the
+establishment unsupported for at least another eighteen months; and
+this disaster meant that the wedding would have to be postponed again.
+So the Duchess, abandoning that aristocratic manner criticized by some
+of her colleagues as "up-stage" and by others as "Ritz-y," sat in her
+chair and consumed pocket-handkerchiefs as fast as they were offered
+to her.
+
+Jill had been the only girl in the room who had spoken no word of
+consolation. This was not because she was not sorry for the Duchess.
+She had never been sorrier for any one in her life. The pathos of that
+swift descent from haughtiness to misery had bitten deep into her
+sensitive heart. But she revolted at the idea of echoing the banal
+words of the others. Words were no good, she thought, as she set her
+little teeth and glared at an absent management--a management just
+about now presumably distending itself with a luxurious dinner at one
+of the big hotels. Deeds were what she demanded. All her life she had
+been a girl of impulsive action, and she wanted to act impulsively
+now. She was in much the same Berserk mood as had swept her, raging,
+to the defence of Bill the parrot on the occasion of his dispute with
+Henry of London. The fighting spirit which had been drained from her
+by the all-night rehearsal had come back in full measure.
+
+"What are you going to _do_?" she cried. "Aren't you going to _do_
+something?"
+
+Do? The members of "The Rose of America" ensemble looked doubtfully at
+one another. Do? It had not occurred to them that there was anything
+to be done. These things happened, and you regretted them, but as for
+doing anything, well, what _could_ you do?
+
+Jill's face was white and her eyes were flaming. She dominated the
+roomful of girls like a little Napoleon. The change in her startled
+them. Hitherto they had always looked on her as rather an unusually
+quiet girl. She had always made herself unobtrusively pleasant to them
+all. They all liked her. But they had never suspected her of
+possessing this militant quality. Nobody spoke, but there was a
+general stir. She had flung a new idea broadcast, and it was beginning
+to take root. Do something? Well, if it came to that, why not?
+
+"We ought all to refuse to go on to-night unless they let her go on!"
+Jill declared.
+
+The stir became a movement. Enthusiasm is catching, and every girl is
+at heart a rebel. And the idea was appealing to the imagination.
+Refuse to give a show on the opening night! Had a chorus ever done
+such a thing? They trembled on the verge of making history.
+
+"Strike?" quavered somebody at the back.
+
+"Yes, strike!" cried Jill.
+
+"Hooray! That's the thtuff!" shouted the Cherub, and turned the scale.
+She was a popular girl, and her adherence to the Cause confirmed the
+doubters. "Thtrike!"
+
+"Strike! Strike!"
+
+Jill turned to the Duchess, who had been gaping amazedly at the
+demonstration. She no longer wept, but she seemed in a dream.
+
+"Dress and get ready to go on," Jill commanded. "We'll all dress and
+get ready to go on. Then I'll go and find Mr. Goble and tell him what
+we mean to do. And, if he doesn't give in, we'll stay here in this
+room, and there won't be a performance!"
+
+
+III
+
+Mr. Goble, with a Derby hat on the back of his head and an unlighted
+cigar in the corner of his mouth, was superintending the erection of
+the first act set when Jill found him. He was standing with his back
+to the safety-curtain glowering at a blue canvas, supposed to
+represent one of those picturesque summer skies which you get at the
+best places on Long Island. Jill, coming down-stage from the staircase
+that led to the dressing-room, interrupted his line of vision.
+
+"Get out of the light!" bellowed Mr. Goble, always a man of direct
+speech, adding "Damn you!" for good measure.
+
+"Please move to one side," interpreted the stage-director. "Mr. Goble
+is looking at the set."
+
+The head carpenter, who completed the little group, said nothing.
+Stage carpenters always say nothing. Long association with fussy
+directors has taught them that the only policy to pursue on opening
+nights is to withdraw into the silence, wrap themselves up in it, and
+not emerge until the enemy has grown tired and gone off to worry
+somebody else.
+
+"It don't look right!" said Mr. Goble, cocking his head on one side.
+
+"I see what you mean, Mr. Goble," assented the stage-director
+obsequiously. "It has perhaps a little too much--er--not quite
+enough--yes, I see what you mean!"
+
+"It's too--damn--BLUE!" rasped Mr. Goble, impatient of the vacillating
+criticism. "That's what's the matter with it."
+
+The head carpenter abandoned the silent policy of a lifetime. He felt
+impelled to utter. He was a man who, when not at the theatre, spent
+most of his time in bed, reading all-fiction magazines; but it so
+happened that once, last summer, he had actually seen the sky; and he
+considered that this entitled him to speak almost as a specialist on
+the subject.
+
+"Ther sky _is_ blue!" he observed huskily. "Yessir! I seen it!"
+
+He passed into the silence again, and, to prevent a further lapse,
+stopped up his mouth with a piece of chewing-gum.
+
+Mr. Goble regarded the silver-tongued orator wrathfully. He was not
+accustomed to chatterboxes arguing with him like this. He would
+probably have said something momentous and crushing, but at this point
+Jill intervened.
+
+"Mr. Goble."
+
+The manager swung round on her.
+
+"What _is_ it?"
+
+It is sad to think how swiftly affection can change to dislike in this
+world. Two weeks before, Mr. Goble had looked on Jill with favour. She
+had seemed good in his eyes. But that refusal of hers to lunch with
+him, followed by a refusal some days later to take a bit of supper
+somewhere, had altered his views on feminine charm. If it had been
+left to him, as most things were about this theatre, to decide which
+of the thirteen girls should be dismissed, he would undoubtedly have
+selected Jill. But at this stage in the proceedings there was the
+unfortunate necessity of making concessions to the temperamental
+Johnson Miller. Mr. Goble was aware that the dance-director's services
+would be badly needed in the re-arrangement of the numbers during the
+coming week or so, and he knew that there were a dozen managers
+waiting eagerly to welcome him if he threw up his present job, so he
+had been obliged to approach him in quite a humble spirit and enquire
+which of his female chorus could be most easily spared. And, as the
+Duchess had a habit of carrying her haughty languor on to the stage
+and employing it as a substitute for the chorea which was Mr. Miller's
+ideal, the dance-director had chosen her. To Mr. Goble's dislike of
+Jill, therefore, was added now something of the fury of the baffled
+potentate.
+
+"'Jer want?" he demanded.
+
+"Mr. Goble is extremely busy," said the stage-director. "Extremely."
+
+A momentary doubt as to the best way of approaching her subject had
+troubled Jill on her way downstairs, but, now that she was on the
+battlefield confronting the enemy, she found herself cool, collected,
+and full of a cold rage which steeled her nerves without confusing her
+mind.
+
+"I came to ask you to let Mae D'Arcy go on to-night."
+
+"Who the hell's Mae D'Arcy?" Mr. Goble broke off to bellow at a
+scene-shifter who was depositing the wall of Mrs. Stuyvesant van
+Dyke's Long Island residence too far down stage. "Not there, you fool!
+Higher up!"
+
+"You gave her notice this evening," said Jill.
+
+"Well, what about it?"
+
+"We want you to withdraw it."
+
+"Who's 'we'?"
+
+"The other girls and myself."
+
+Mr. Goble jerked his head so violently that the Derby hat flew off, to
+be picked up, dusted, and restored by the stage-director.
+
+"Oh, so you don't like it? Well, you know what you can do...."
+
+"Yes," said Jill, "we do. We are going to strike."
+
+"What?"
+
+"If you don't let Mae go on, we shan't go on. There won't be a
+performance to-night, unless you like to give one without a chorus."
+
+"Are you crazy?"
+
+"Perhaps. But we're quite unanimous."
+
+Mr. Goble, like most theatrical managers, was not good at words over
+two syllables.
+
+"You're what?"
+
+"We've talked it over, and we've all decided to do what I said."
+
+Mr. Goble's hat shot off again, and gambolled away into the wings,
+with the stage-director bounding after it like a retriever.
+
+"Whose idea's this?" demanded Mr. Goble. His eyes were a little foggy,
+for his brain was adjusting itself but slowly to the novel situation.
+
+"Mine."
+
+"Oh, yours! I thought as much!"
+
+"Well," said Jill, "I'll go back and tell them that you will not do
+what we ask. We will keep our make-up on in case you change your
+mind."
+
+She turned away.
+
+"Come back!"
+
+Jill proceeded toward the staircase. As she went, a husky voice spoke
+in her ear.
+
+"Go to it, kid! You're all right!"
+
+The head-carpenter had broken his Trappist vows twice in a single
+evening, a thing which had not happened to him since the night three
+years ago, when, sinking wearily into a seat in a dark corner for a
+bit of a rest, he found that one of his assistants had placed a pot of
+red paint there.
+
+
+IV
+
+To Mr. Goble, fermenting and full of strange oaths, entered Johnson
+Miller. The dance-director was always edgey on first nights, and
+during the foregoing conversation had been flitting about the stage
+like a white-haired moth. His deafness had kept him in complete
+ignorance that there was anything untoward afoot, and he now
+approached Mr. Goble with his watch in his hand.
+
+"Eight twenty-five," he observed. "Time those girls were on stage."
+
+Mr. Goble, glad of a concrete target for his wrath, cursed him in
+about two hundred and fifty rich and well-selected words.
+
+"Huh?" said Miller, hand to ear.
+
+Mr. Goble repeated the last hundred and eleven words, the pick of the
+bunch.
+
+"Can't hear!" said Mr. Miller regretfully. "Got a cold."
+
+The grave danger that Mr. Goble, a thick-necked man, would undergo
+some sort of a stroke was averted by the presence of mind of the
+stage-director, who, returning with the hat, presented it like a
+bouquet to his employer, and then, his hands being now unoccupied,
+formed them into a funnel and through this flesh-and-blood megaphone
+endeavoured to impart the bad news.
+
+"The girls say they won't go on!"
+
+Mr. Miller nodded.
+
+"I _said_ it was time they were on."
+
+"They're on strike!"
+
+"It's not," said Mr. Miller austerely, "what they _like_, it's what
+they're paid for. They ought to be on stage. We should be ringing up
+in two minutes."
+
+The stage-director drew another breath, then thought better of it. He
+had a wife and children, and, if dadda went under with apoplexy, what
+became of the home, civilization's most sacred product? He relaxed the
+muscles of his diaphragm, and reached for pencil and paper.
+
+Mr. Miller inspected the message, felt for his spectacle-case, found
+it, opened it, took out his glasses, replaced the spectacle-case, felt
+for his handkerchief, polished the glasses, replaced the handkerchief,
+put the glasses on, and read. A blank look came into his face.
+
+"Why?" he enquired.
+
+The stage-director, with a nod of the head intended to imply that he
+must be patient and all would come right in the future, recovered the
+paper, and scribbled another sentence. Mr. Miller perused it.
+
+"Because Mae D'Arcy has got her notice?" he queried, amazed. "But the
+girl can't dance a step."
+
+The stage-director, by means of a wave of the hand, a lifting of both
+eyebrows, and a wrinkling of the nose, replied that the situation,
+unreasonable as it might appear to the thinking man, was as he had
+stated and must be faced. What, he enquired--through the medium of a
+clever drooping of the mouth and a shrug of the shoulders--was to be
+done about it?
+
+Mr. Miller remained for a moment in meditation.
+
+"I'll go and talk to them," he said.
+
+He flitted off, and the stage-director leaned back against the
+asbestos curtain. He was exhausted, and his throat was in agony, but
+nevertheless he was conscious of a feeling of quiet happiness. His
+life had been lived in the shadow of the constant fear that some day
+Mr. Goble might dismiss him. Should that disaster occur, he felt there
+was always a future for him in the movies.
+
+Scarcely had Mr. Miller disappeared on his peace-making errand, when
+there was a noise like a fowl going through a quickset hedge, and Mr.
+Saltzburg, brandishing his baton as if he were conducting an unseen
+orchestra, plunged through the scenery at the left upper entrance and
+charged excitedly down the stage. Having taken his musicians twice
+through the overture, he had for ten minutes been sitting in silence,
+waiting for the curtain to go up. At last, his emotional nature
+cracking under the strain of this suspense, he had left his
+conductor's chair and plunged down under the stage by way of the
+musician's bolthole to ascertain what was causing the delay.
+
+"What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?" enquired Mr.
+Saltzburg. "I wait and wait and wait and wait and wait.... We cannot
+play the overture again. What is it? What has happened?"
+
+Mr. Goble, that overwrought soul, had betaken himself to the wings
+where he was striding up and down with his hands behind his back,
+chewing his cigar. The stage-director braced himself once more to the
+task of explanation.
+
+"The girls have struck!"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg blinked through his glasses.
+
+"The girls?" he repeated blankly.
+
+"Oh, damn it!" cried the stage-director, his patience at last giving
+way. "You know what a girl is, don't you?"
+
+"They have what?"
+
+"Struck! Walked out on us! Refused to go on!"
+
+Mr. Saltzburg reeled under the blow.
+
+"But it is impossible! Who is to sing the opening chorus?"
+
+In the presence of one to whom he could relieve his mind without fear
+of consequences, the stage-director became savagely jocular.
+
+"That's all arranged," he said. "We're going to dress the carpenters
+in skirts. The audience won't notice anything wrong."
+
+"Should I speak to Mr. Goble?" queried Mr. Saltzburg doubtfully.
+
+"Yes, if you don't value your life," returned the stage-director.
+
+Mr. Saltzburg pondered.
+
+"I will go and speak to the childrun," he said. "I will talk to them.
+They know _me_! I will make them be reasonable."
+
+He bustled off in the direction taken by Mr. Miller, his coat-tails
+flying behind him. The stage-director, with a tired sigh, turned to
+face Wally, who had come in through the iron pass-door from the
+auditorium.
+
+"Hullo!" said Wally cheerfully. "Going strong? How's everybody at
+home? Fine? So am I! By the way, am I wrong or did I hear something
+about a theatrical entertainment of some sort here to-night?" He
+looked about him at the empty stage. In the wings, on the prompt side,
+could be discerned the flannel-clad forms of the gentlemanly members
+of the male ensemble, all dressed up for Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke's
+tennis party. One or two of the principals were standing perplexedly
+in the lower entrance. The O.P. side had been given over by general
+consent to Mr. Goble for his perambulations. Every now and then he
+would flash into view through an opening in the scenery. "I understood
+that to-night was the night for the great revival of comic opera.
+Where are the comics, and why aren't they opping?"
+
+The stage-director repeated his formula once more.
+
+"The girls have struck!"
+
+"So have the clocks," said Wally. "It's past nine."
+
+"The chorus refuse to go on."
+
+"No, really! Just artistic loathing of the rotten piece, or is there
+some other reason?"
+
+"They're sore because one of them has been given her notice, and they
+say they won't give a show unless she's taken back. They've struck.
+That Mariner girl started it."
+
+"She did!" Wally's interest became keener. "She would!" he said
+approvingly. "She's a heroine!"
+
+"Little devil! I never liked that girl!"
+
+"Now there," said Wally, "is just the point on which we differ. I have
+always liked her, and I've known her all my life. So, shipmate, if you
+have any derogatory remarks to make about Miss Mariner, keep them
+where they belong--_there_!" He prodded the other sharply in the
+stomach. He was smiling pleasantly, but the stage-director, catching
+his eye, decided that his advice was good and should be followed. It
+is just as bad for the home if the head of the family gets his neck
+broken as if he succumbs to apoplexy.
+
+"You surely aren't on their side?" he said.
+
+"Me!" said Wally. "Of course I am. I'm always on the side of the
+down-trodden and oppressed. If you know of a dirtier trick than firing
+a girl just before the opening, so that they won't have to pay her two
+weeks' salary, mention it. Till you do, I'll go on believing that it
+is the limit. Of course I'm on the girls' side. I'll make them a
+speech if they want me to, or head the procession with a banner if
+they are going to parade down the boardwalk. I'm for 'em, Father
+Abraham, a hundred thousand strong. And then a few! If you want my
+considered opinion, our old friend Goble has asked for it and got it.
+And I'm glad--glad--glad, if you don't mind my quoting Pollyanna for a
+moment. I hope it chokes him!"
+
+"You'd better not let him hear you talking like that!"
+
+"_Au contraire_, as we say in the Gay City, I'm going to make a point
+of letting him hear me talk like that! Adjust the impression that I
+fear any Goble in shining armour, because I don't. I propose to speak
+my mind to him. I would beard him in his lair, if he had a beard.
+Well, I'll clean-shave him in his lair. That will be just as good. But
+hist! whom have we here? Tell me, do you see the same thing I see?"
+
+Like the vanguard of a defeated army, Mr. Saltzburg was coming
+dejectedly across the stage.
+
+"Well?" said the stage-director.
+
+"They would not listen to me," said Mr. Saltzburg brokenly. "The more
+I talked the more they did not listen!" He winced at a painful memory.
+"Miss Trevor stole my baton, and then they all lined up and sang the
+'Star-Spangled Banner'!"
+
+"Not the words?" cried Wally incredulously. "Don't tell me they knew
+the words!"
+
+"Mr. Miller is still up there, arguing with them. But it will be of no
+use. What shall we do?" asked Mr. Saltzburg helplessly. "We ought to
+have rung up half an hour ago. What shall we do-oo-oo?"
+
+"We must go and talk to Goble," said Wally. "Something has got to be
+settled quick. When I left, the audience was getting so impatient that
+I thought he was going to walk out on us. He's one of those nasty,
+determined-looking men. So come along!"
+
+Mr. Goble, intercepted as he was about to turn for another walk
+up-stage, eyed the deputation sourly and put the same question that
+the stage-director had put to Mr. Saltzburg.
+
+"Well?"
+
+Wally came briskly to the point.
+
+"You'll have to give in," he said, "or else go and make a speech to
+the audience, the burden of which will be that they can have their
+money back by applying at the box-office. These Joans of Arc have got
+you by the short hairs!"
+
+"I won't give in!"
+
+"Then give out!" said Wally. "Or pay out, if you prefer it. Trot along
+and tell the audience that the four dollars fifty in the house will be
+refunded."
+
+Mr. Goble gnawed his cigar.
+
+"I've been in the show business fifteen years...."
+
+"I know. And this sort of thing has never happened to you before. One
+gets new experiences."
+
+Mr. Goble cocked his cigar at a fierce angle, and glared at Wally.
+Something told him that Wally's sympathies were not wholly with him.
+
+"They can't do this sort of thing to _me_!" he growled.
+
+"Well, they are doing it to someone, aren't they," said Wally, "and,
+if it's not you, who is it?"
+
+"I've a damned good mind to fire them all!"
+
+"A corking idea! I can't see a single thing wrong with it except that
+it would hang up the production for another five weeks and lose you
+your bookings and cost you a week's rent of this theatre for nothing
+and mean having all the dresses made over and lead to all your
+principals going off and getting other jobs. These trifling things
+apart, we may call the suggestion a bright one."
+
+"You talk too damn much!" said Mr. Goble, eyeing him with distaste.
+
+"Well, go on, _you_ say something. Something sensible."
+
+"It is a very serious situation...." began the stage-director.
+
+"Oh, shut up!" said Mr. Goble.
+
+The stage-director subsided into his collar.
+
+"I cannot play the overture again," protested Mr. Saltzburg. "I
+cannot!"
+
+At this point Mr. Miller appeared. He was glad to see Mr. Goble. He
+had been looking for him, for he had news to impart.
+
+"The girls," said Mr. Miller, "have struck! They won't go on!"
+
+Mr. Goble, with the despairing gesture of one who realizes the
+impotence of words, dashed off for his favourite walk up stage. Wally
+took out his watch.
+
+"Six seconds and a bit," he said approvingly, as the manager returned.
+"A very good performance. I should like to time you over the course in
+running-kit."
+
+The interval for reflection, brief as it had been, had apparently
+enabled Mr. Goble to come to a decision.
+
+"Go," he said to the stage-director, "and tell 'em that fool of a
+D'Arcy girl can play. We've got to get that curtain up."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Goble."
+
+The stage-director galloped off.
+
+"Get back to your place," said the manager to Mr. Saltzburg, "and play
+the overture again."
+
+"Again!"
+
+"Perhaps they didn't hear it the first two times," said Wally.
+
+Mr. Goble watched Mr. Saltzburg out of sight. Then he turned to Wally.
+
+"That damned Mariner girl was at the bottom of this! She started the
+whole thing! She told me so. Well, I'll settle _her_! She goes
+to-morrow!"
+
+"Wait a minute," said Wally. "Wait one minute! Bright as it is, that
+idea is _out_!"
+
+"What the devil has it got to do with you?"
+
+"Only this, that if you fire Miss Mariner, I take that neat script
+which I've prepared and I tear it into a thousand fragments. Or nine
+hundred. Anyway, I tear it. Miss Mariner opens in New York, or I pack
+up my work and leave."
+
+Mr. Goble's green eyes glowed.
+
+"Oh, you're stuck on her, are you?" he sneered. "I see!"
+
+"Listen, dear heart," said Wally, gripping the manager's arm, "I can
+see that you are on the verge of introducing personalities into this
+very pleasant little chat. Resist the impulse! Why not let your spine
+stay where it is instead of having it kicked up through your hat? Keep
+to the main issue. Does Miss Mariner open in New York or does she
+not?"
+
+There was a tense silence. Mr. Goble permitted himself a swift review
+of his position. He would have liked to do many things to Wally,
+beginning with ordering him out of the theatre, but prudence
+restrained him. He wanted Wally's work. He needed Wally in his
+business: and, in the theatre, business takes precedence of personal
+feelings.
+
+"All right!" he growled reluctantly.
+
+"That's a promise," said Wally. "I'll see that you keep it." He looked
+over his shoulder. The stage was filled with gaily-coloured dresses.
+The mutineers had returned to duty. "Well, I'll be getting along. I'm
+rather sorry we agreed to keep clear of personalities, because I
+should have liked to say that, if ever they have a skunk-show at
+Madison Square Garden, you ought to enter--and win the blue ribbon.
+Still, of course, under our agreement my lips are sealed, and I can't
+even hint at it. Good-bye. See you later, I suppose?"
+
+Mr. Goble, giving a creditable imitation of a living statue, was
+plucked from his thoughts by a hand upon his arm. It was Mr. Miller,
+whose unfortunate ailment had prevented him from keeping abreast of
+the conversation.
+
+"What did he say?" enquired Mr. Miller, interested. "I didn't hear
+what he said!"
+
+Mr. Goble made no effort to inform him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE COST OF A ROW
+
+I
+
+
+Otis Pilkington had left Atlantic City two hours after the conference
+which had followed the dress-rehearsal, firmly resolved never to go near
+"The Rose of America" again. He had been wounded in his finest feelings.
+There had been a moment, when Mr. Goble had given him the choice between
+having the piece rewritten and cancelling the production altogether, when
+he had inclined to the heroic course. But for one thing Mr. Pilkington
+would have defied the manager, refused to allow his script to be touched,
+and removed the play from his hands. That one thing was the fact that, up
+to the day of the dress-rehearsal, the expenses of the production had
+amounted to the appalling sum of thirty-two thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents, all of which had to come out of Mr.
+Pilkington's pocket. The figures, presented to him in a neatly typewritten
+column stretching over two long sheets of paper, had stunned him. He had
+had no notion that musical plays cost so much. The costumes alone had come
+to ten thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents, and
+somehow that odd fifty cents annoyed Otis Pilkington as much as anything
+on the list. A dark suspicion that Mr. Goble, who had seen to all the
+executive end of the business, had a secret arrangement with the costumer
+whereby he received a private rebate, deepened his gloom. Why, for ten
+thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents you could
+dress the whole female population of New York State and have a bit left
+over for Connecticut. So thought Mr. Pilkington, as he read the bad news
+in the train. He only ceased to brood upon the high cost of costuming when
+in the next line but one there smote his eye an item of four hundred and
+ninety-eight dollars for "Clothing." Clothing! Weren't costumes clothing?
+Why should he have to pay twice over for the same thing? Mr. Pilkington
+was just raging over this, when something lower down in the column caught
+his eye. It was the words:--
+
+Clothing .... 187.45
+
+At this Otis Pilkington uttered a stifled cry, so sharp and so
+anguished that an old lady in the next seat, who was drinking a glass
+of milk, dropped it and had to refund the railway company thirty-five
+cents for breakages. For the remainder of the journey she sat with one
+eye warily on Mr. Pilkington, waiting for his next move.
+
+This adventure quieted Otis Pilkington down, if it did not soothe him.
+He returned blushingly to a perusal of his bill of costs, nearly every
+line of which contained some item that infuriated and dismayed him.
+"Shoes" ($213.50) he could understand, but what on earth was "Academy.
+Rehl. $105.50"? What was "Cuts ... $15"? And what in the name of
+everything infernal was this item for "Frames," in which mysterious
+luxury he had apparently indulged to the extent of ninety-four dollars
+and fifty cents? "Props" occurred on the list no fewer than seventeen
+times. Whatever his future, at whatever poor-house he might spend his
+declining years, he was supplied with enough props to last his
+lifetime.
+
+Otis Pilkington stared blankly at the scenery that flitted past the
+train windows. (Scenery! There had been two charges for scenery!
+"Friedmann, Samuel ... Scenery ... $3711" and "Unitt and Wickes ...
+Scenery ... $2120"). He was suffering the torments of the ruined
+gamester at the roulette-table. Thirty-two thousand eight hundred and
+fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents! And he was out of pocket ten
+thousand in addition from the cheque he had handed over two days ago
+to Uncle Chris as his share of the investment of starting Jill in the
+motion-pictures. It was terrible! It deprived one of the power of
+thought.
+
+The power of thought, however, returned to Mr. Pilkington almost
+immediately, for, remembering suddenly that Roland Trevis had assured
+him that no musical production, except one of those elaborate
+girl-shows with a chorus of ninety, could possibly cost more than
+fifteen thousand dollars at an outside figure, he began to think about
+Roland Trevis, and continued to think about him until the train pulled
+into the Pennsylvania Station.
+
+For a week or more the stricken financier confined himself mostly to
+his rooms, where he sat smoking cigarettes, gazing at Japanese prints,
+and trying not to think about "props" and "rehl." Then, gradually, the
+almost maternal yearning to see his brain-child once more, which can
+never be wholly crushed out of a young dramatist, returned to
+him--faintly at first, then getting stronger by degrees till it could
+no longer be resisted. Otis Pilkington, having instructed his Japanese
+valet to pack a few simple necessaries in a suit-case, took a cab to
+the Grand Central Station and caught an afternoon train for Rochester,
+where his recollection of the route planned for the tour told him "The
+Rose of America" would now be playing.
+
+Looking into his club on the way, to cash a cheque, the first person
+he encountered was Freddie Rooke.
+
+"Good gracious!" said Otis Pilkington. "What are you doing here?"
+
+Freddie looked up dully from his reading. The abrupt stoppage of his
+professional career--his life-work, one might almost say--had left
+Freddie at a very loose end; and so hollow did the world seem to him
+at the moment, so uniformly futile all its so-called allurements,
+that, to pass the time, he had just been trying to read the _National
+Geographic Magazine_.
+
+"Hullo!" he said. "Well, might as well be here as anywhere, what?" he
+replied to the other's question.
+
+"But why aren't you playing?"
+
+"They sacked me! They've changed my part to a bally Scotchman! Well, I
+mean to say, I couldn't play a bally Scotchman!"
+
+Mr. Pilkington groaned in spirit. Of all the characters in his musical
+fantasy on which he prided himself, that of Lord Finchley was his pet.
+And he had been burked, murdered, blotted out, in order to make room
+for a bally Scotchman.
+
+"The character's called 'The McWhustle of McWhustle' now!" said
+Freddie sombrely.
+
+The McWhustle of McWhustle! Mr. Pilkington almost abandoned his trip
+to Rochester on receiving this devastating piece of information.
+
+"He comes on in Act One in kilts!"
+
+"In kilts! At Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke's garden-party! On Long
+Island!"
+
+"It isn't Mrs. Stuyvesant van Dyke any longer, either," said Freddie.
+"She's been changed to the wife of a pickle manufacturer."
+
+"A pickle manufacturer!"
+
+"Yes. They said it ought to be a comedy part."
+
+If agony had not caused Mr. Pilkington to clutch for support at the
+back of a chair, he would undoubtedly have wrung his hands.
+
+"But it _was_ a comedy part!" he wailed. "It was full of the subtlest,
+most delicate satire on Society. They were delighted with it at
+Newport! Oh, this is too much! I shall make a strong protest! I shall
+insist on these parts being kept as I wrote them! I shall.... I must
+be going at once, or I shall miss my train." He paused at the door.
+"How was business in Baltimore?"
+
+"Rotten!" said Freddie, and returned to his _National Geographic
+Magazine_.
+
+Otis Pilkington tottered into his cab. He was shattered by what he had
+heard. They had massacred his beautiful play and, doing so had not
+even made a success of it by their own sordid commercial lights.
+Business at Baltimore had been rotten! That meant more expense,
+further columns of figures with "frames" and "rehl." in front of them!
+He staggered into the station.
+
+"Hey!" cried the taxi-driver.
+
+Otis Pilkington turned.
+
+"Sixty-five cents, mister, if _you_ please! Forgetting I'm not your
+private shovoor, wasn't you?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington gave him a dollar. Money--money! Life was just one long
+round of paying out and paying out.
+
+
+II
+
+The day which Mr. Pilkington had selected for his visit to the
+provinces was a Tuesday. "The Rose of America" had opened at Rochester
+on the previous night, after a week at Atlantic City in its original
+form and a week at Baltimore in what might be called its second
+incarnation. Business had been bad in Atlantic City and no better in
+Baltimore, and a meagre first-night house at Rochester had given the
+piece a cold reception, which had put the finishing touches to the
+depression of the company in spite of the fact that the Rochester
+critics, like those of Baltimore, had written kindly of the play. One
+of the maxims of the theatre is that "out-of-town notices don't
+count," and the company had refused to be cheered by them.
+
+It is to be doubted, however, if even crowded houses would have
+aroused much response from the principals and chorus of "The Rose of
+America." For two weeks without a break they had been working under
+forced draught, and they were weary in body and spirit. The new
+principals had had to learn parts in exactly half the time usually
+given for that purpose, and the chorus, after spending five weeks
+assimilating one set of steps and groupings, had been compelled to
+forget them and rehearse an entirely new set. From the morning after
+the first performance at Atlantic City, they had not left the theatre
+except for sketchy half-hour meals.
+
+Jill, standing listlessly in the wings while the scene-shifters
+arranged the Second Act set, was aware of Wally approaching from the
+direction of the pass-door.
+
+"Miss Mariner, I believe?" said Wally. "I suppose you know you look
+perfectly wonderful in that dress? All Rochester's talking about it,
+and there is some idea of running excursion trains from Troy and
+Utica. A great stir it has made!"
+
+Jill smiled. Wally was like a tonic to her during these days of
+overwork. He seemed to be entirely unaffected by the general
+depression, a fact which he attributed himself to the happy accident
+of being in a position to sit back and watch the others toil. But in
+reality Jill knew that he was working as hard as any one. He was
+working all the time, changing scenes, adding lines, tinkering with
+lyrics, smoothing over principals whose nerves had become strained by
+the incessant rehearsing, keeping within bounds Mr. Goble's passion
+for being the big noise about the theatre. His cheerfulness was due to
+the spirit that was in him, and Jill appreciated it. She had come to
+feel very close to Wally since the driving rush of making over "The
+Rose of America" had begun.
+
+"They seemed quite calm to-night," she said. "I believe half of them
+were asleep."
+
+"They're always like that in Rochester. They cloak their deeper
+feelings. They wear the mask. But you can tell from the glassy look in
+their eyes that they are really seething inwardly. But what I came
+round about was--(a)--to give you this letter...."
+
+Jill took the letter, and glanced at the writing. It was from Uncle
+Chris. She placed it on the axe over the fire-buckets for perusal
+later.
+
+"The man at the box-office gave it to me," said Wally, "when I looked
+in there to find out how much money there was in the house to-night.
+The sum was so small that he had to whisper it."
+
+"I'm afraid the piece isn't a success."
+
+"Nonsense! Of course it is! We're doing fine. That brings me to
+section (b) of my discourse. I met poor old Pilkington in the lobby,
+and he said exactly what you have just said, only at greater length."
+
+"Is Mr. Pilkington here?"
+
+"He appears to have run down on the afternoon train to have a look at
+the show. He is catching the next train back to New York! Whenever I
+meet him, he always seems to be dashing off to catch the next train
+back to New York! Poor chap! Have you ever done a murder? If you
+haven't, don't! I know exactly what it feels like, and it feels
+rotten! After two minutes' conversation with Pilkington, I could
+sympathize with Macbeth when he chatted with Banquo. He said I had
+killed his play. He nearly wept, and he drew such a moving picture of
+a poor helpless musical fantasy being lured into a dark alley by thugs
+and there slaughtered that he almost had me in tears too. I felt like
+a beetle-browed brute with a dripping knife and hands imbrued with
+innocent gore."
+
+"Poor Mr. Pilkington!'
+
+"Once more you say exactly what he said, only more crisply. I
+comforted him as well as I could, told him all was for the best and so
+on, and he flung the box-office receipts in my face and said that the
+piece was as bad a failure commercially as it was artistically. I
+couldn't say anything to that, seeing what a house we've got to-night,
+except to bid him look out to the horizon where the sun will shortly
+shine. In other words, I told him that business was about to buck up
+and that later on he would be going about the place with a sprained
+wrist from clipping coupons. But he refused to be cheered, cursed me
+some more for ruining his piece, and ended by begging me to buy his
+share of it cheap."
+
+"You aren't going to?"
+
+"No, I am not--but simply and solely for the reason that, after that
+fiasco in London, I raised my right hand--thus--and swore an oath that
+never, as long as I lived, would I again put up a cent for a
+production, were it the most obvious cinch on earth. I'm gun-shy. But
+if he does happen to get hold of any one with a sporting disposition
+and a few thousands to invest, that person will make a fortune. This
+piece is going to be a gold-mine."
+
+Jill looked at him in surprise. With anybody else but Wally she would
+have attributed this confidence to author's vanity. But with Wally,
+she felt, the fact that the piece, as played now, was almost entirely
+his own work did not count. He viewed it dispassionately, and she
+could not understand why, in the face of half-empty houses, he should
+have such faith in it.
+
+"But what makes you think so? We've been doing awfully badly so far."
+
+Wally nodded.
+
+"And we shall do awfully badly in Syracuse the last half of this week.
+And why? For one thing, because the show isn't a show at all at
+present. Why should people flock to pay for seats for what are
+practically dress-rehearsals of an unknown play? Half the principals
+have had to get up in their parts in two weeks, and they haven't had
+time to get anything out of them. They are groping for their lines all
+the time. The girls can't let themselves go in the numbers, because
+they are wondering if they are going to remember the steps. The show
+hasn't had time to click together yet. It's just ragged. Take a look
+at it in another two weeks! I _know_! I don't say musical comedy is a
+very lofty form of art, but still there's a certain amount of science
+about it. If you go in for it long enough, you learn the tricks, and
+take it from me that, if you have a good cast and some catchy numbers
+it's almost impossible not to have a success. We've got an excellent
+cast now, and the numbers are fine. I tell you--as I tried to tell
+Pilkington, only he wouldn't listen--that this show is all right.
+There's a fortune in it for somebody. But I suppose Pilkington is now
+sitting in the smoking-car of an east-bound train, trying to get the
+porter to accept his share in the piece instead of a tip!"
+
+If Otis Pilkington was not actually doing that, he was doing
+something like it. Sunk in gloom, he bumped up and down on an
+uncomfortable seat, wondering why he had ever taken the trouble to
+make the trip to Rochester. He had found exactly what he had expected
+to find, a mangled caricature of his brain-child playing to a house
+half empty and wholly indifferent. The only redeeming feature, he
+thought vindictively, as he remembered what Roland Trevis had said
+about the cost of musical productions, was the fact that the new
+numbers were undoubtedly better than those which his collaborator had
+originally supplied.
+
+And "The Rose of America," after a disheartening Wednesday matinee and
+a not much better reception on the Wednesday night, packed its baggage
+and moved to Syracuse, where it failed just as badly. Then for another
+two weeks it wandered on from one small town to another, up and down
+New York State and through the doldrums of Connecticut, tacking to and
+fro like a storm-battered ship, till finally the astute and discerning
+citizens of Hartford welcomed it with such a reception that hardened
+principals stared at each other in a wild surmise, wondering if these
+things could really be: and a weary chorus forgot its weariness and
+gave encore after encore with a snap and vim which even Mr. Johnson
+Miller was obliged to own approximated to something like it. Nothing
+to touch the work of his choruses of the old days, of course, but
+nevertheless fair, quite fair.
+
+The spirits of the company revived. Optimism reigned. Principals
+smiled happily and said they had believed in the thing all along. The
+ladies and gentlemen of the ensemble chattered contentedly of a year's
+run in New York. And the citizens of Hartford fought for seats, and,
+if they could not get seats, stood up at the back.
+
+Of these things Otis Pilkington was not aware. He had sold his
+interest in the piece two weeks ago for ten thousand dollars to a
+lawyer acting for some client unknown, and was glad to feel that he
+had saved something out of the wreck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+JILL RECEIVES NOTICE
+
+I
+
+
+The violins soared to one last high note; the bassoon uttered a final
+moan; the pensive person at the end of the orchestra-pit just under
+Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's box, whose duty it was to slam the drum at
+stated intervals, gave that much-enduring instrument a concluding
+wallop; and, laying aside his weapons, allowed his thoughts to stray
+in the direction of cooling drinks. Mr. Saltzburg lowered the baton
+which he had stretched quivering towards the roof and sat down and
+mopped his forehead. The curtain fell on the first act of "The Rose of
+America," and simultaneously tremendous applause broke out from all
+over the Gotham Theatre, which was crammed from floor to roof with
+that heterogeneous collection of humanity which makes up the audience
+of a New York opening performance. The applause continued like the
+breaking of waves on a stony beach. The curtain rose and fell, rose
+and fell, rose and fell again. An usher, stealing down the central
+aisle, gave to Mr. Saltzburg an enormous bouquet of American Beauty
+roses, which he handed to the prima donna, who took it with a
+brilliant smile and a bow, nicely combining humility with joyful
+surprise. The applause, which had begun to slacken, gathered strength
+again. It was a superb bouquet, nearly as big as Mr. Saltzburg
+himself. It had cost the prima donna close on a hundred dollars that
+morning at Thorley's, but it was worth every cent of the money.
+
+The house-lights went up. The audience began to move up the aisles to
+stretch its legs and discuss the piece during the intermission. There
+was a general babble of conversation. Here, a composer who had not got
+an interpolated number in the show was explaining to another composer
+who had not got an interpolated number in the show the exact source
+from which a third composer who had got an interpolated number in the
+show had stolen the number which he had got interpolated. There, two
+musical comedy artists who were temporarily resting were agreeing that
+the prima donna was a dear thing but that, contrary as it was to their
+life-long policy to knock anybody, they must say that she was
+beginning to show the passage of years a trifle and ought to be warned
+by some friend that her career as an _ingenue_ was a thing of the
+past. Dramatic critics, slinking in twos and threes into dark corners,
+were telling each other that "The Rose of America" was just another of
+those things but it had apparently got over. The general public was of
+the opinion that it was a knock-out.
+
+"Otie, darling," said Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim, leaning her ample
+shoulder on Uncle Chris' perfectly fitting sleeve and speaking across
+him to young Mr. Pilkington, "I do congratulate you, dear. It's
+perfectly delightful! I don't know when I have enjoyed a musical piece
+so much. Don't you think it's perfectly darling, Major Selby?"
+
+"Capital!" agreed that suave man of the world, who had been bored as
+near extinction as makes no matter. "Congratulate you, my boy!"
+
+"You clever, clever thing!" said Mrs. Peagrim, skittishly striking her
+nephew on the knee with her fan. "I'm proud to be your aunt! Aren't
+you proud to know him, Mr. Rooke?"
+
+The fourth occupant of the box awoke with a start from the species of
+stupor into which he had been plunged by the spectacle of the
+McWhustle of McWhustle in action. There had been other dark moments in
+Freddie's life. Once, back in London, Parker had sent him out into the
+heart of the West End without his spats and he had not discovered
+their absence till he was half-way up Bond Street. On another
+occasion, having taken on a stranger at squash for a quid a game, he
+had discovered too late that the latter was an ex-public-school
+champion. He had felt gloomy when he had learned of the breaking-off
+of the engagement between Jill Mariner and Derek Underhill, and sad
+when it had been brought to his notice that London was giving Derek
+the cold shoulder in consequence. But never in his whole career had he
+experienced such gloom and such sadness as had come to him that
+evening while watching this unspeakable person in kilts murder that
+part that should have been his. And the audience, confound them, had
+roared with laughter at every damn silly thing the fellow had said!
+
+"Eh?" he replied. "Oh, yes, rather, absolutely!"
+
+"We're _all_ proud of you, Otie darling," proceeded Mrs. Peagrim.
+"The piece is a wonderful success. You will make a fortune out of it.
+And just think, Major Selby, I tried my best to argue the poor, dear
+boy out of putting it on! I thought it was so rash to risk his money
+in a theatrical venture. But then," said Mrs. Peagrim in extenuation,
+"I had only seen the piece when it was done at my house at Newport,
+and of course it really was rather dreadful nonsense then! I might
+have known that you would change it a great deal before you put it on
+in New York. As I always say, plays are not written, they are
+rewritten! Why, you have improved this piece a hundred per cent, Otie!
+I wouldn't know it was the same play!"
+
+She slapped him smartly once more with her fan, ignorant of the gashes
+she was inflicting. Poor Mr. Pilkington was suffering twin torments,
+the torture of remorse and the agonized jealousy of the unsuccessful
+artist. It would have been bad enough to have to sit and watch a large
+audience rocking in its seats at the slap-stick comedy which Wally
+Mason had substituted for his delicate social satire: but, had this
+been all, at least he could have consoled himself with the sordid
+reflection that he, as owner of the piece, was going to make a lot of
+money out of it. Now, even this material balm was denied him. He had
+sold out, and he was feeling like the man who parts for a song with
+shares in an apparently goldless gold mine, only to read in the papers
+next morning that a new reef has been located. Into each life some
+rain must fall. Quite a shower was falling now into young Mr.
+Pilkington's.
+
+"Of course," went on Mrs. Peagrim, "when the play was done at my
+house, it was acted by amateurs. And you know what amateurs are! The
+cast to-night is perfectly splendid. I do think that Scotchman is the
+most killing creature! Don't you think he is wonderful, Mr. Rooke?"
+
+We may say what we will against the upper strata of Society, but it
+cannot be denied that breeding tells. Only by falling back for support
+on the traditions of his class and the solid support of a gentle
+up-bringing was the Last of the Rookes able to crush down the words
+that leaped to his lips and to substitute for them a politely
+conventional agreement. If Mr. Pilkington was feeling like a too
+impulsive seller of gold mines, Freddie's emotions were akin to those
+of the Spartan boy with the fox under his vest. Nothing but Winchester
+and Magdalen could have produced the smile which, though twisted and
+confined entirely to his lips, flashed on to his face and off again at
+his hostess' question.
+
+"Oh, rather! Priceless!"
+
+"Wasn't that part an Englishman before?" asked Mrs. Peagrim. "I
+thought so. Well, it was a stroke of genius changing it. This
+Scotchman is too funny for words. And such an artist!"
+
+Freddie rose shakily. One can stand just so much.
+
+"Think," he mumbled, "I'll be pushing along and smoking a cigarette."
+
+He groped his way to the door.
+
+"I'll come with you, Freddie my boy," said Uncle Chris, who felt an
+imperative need of five minutes' respite from Mrs. Peagrim. "Let's get
+out into the air for a moment. Uncommonly warm it is here."
+
+Freddie assented. Air was what he felt he wanted most.
+
+Left alone in the box with her nephew, Mrs. Peagrim continued for some
+moments in the same vein, innocently twisting the knife in the open
+wound. It struck her from time to time that darling Otie was perhaps a
+shade unresponsive, but she put this down to the nervous strain
+inseparable from a first night of a young author's first play.
+
+"Why," she concluded, "you will make thousands and thousands of
+dollars out of this piece. I am sure it is going to be another 'Merry
+Widow.'"
+
+"You can't tell from a first night audience," said Mr. Pilkington
+sombrely, giving out a piece of theatrical wisdom he had picked up at
+rehearsals.
+
+"Oh, but you can. It's so easy to distinguish polite applause from the
+real thing. No doubt many of the people down here have friends in the
+company or other reasons for seeming to enjoy the play, but look how
+the circle and the gallery were enjoying it! You can't tell me that
+that was not genuine. They love it. How hard," she proceeded
+commiseratingly, "you must have worked, poor boy, during the tour on
+the road to improve the piece so much! I never liked to say so before
+but even you must agree with me now that that original version of
+yours, which was done down at Newport, was the most terrible nonsense!
+And how hard the company must have worked too! Otie," cried Mrs.
+Peagrim, aglow with the magic of a brilliant idea, "I will tell you
+what you must really do. You must give a supper and dance to the
+whole company on the stage to-morrow night after the performance."
+
+"What!" cried Otis Pilkington, startled out of his lethargy by this
+appalling suggestion. Was he, the man who, after planking down
+thirty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty, nine dollars, sixty-eight
+cents for "props" and "frames" and "rehl," had sold out for a paltry
+ten thousand, to be still further victimized?
+
+"They do deserve it, don't they, after working so hard?"
+
+"It's impossible," said Otis Pilkington vehemently. "Out of the
+question."
+
+"But, Otie, darling, I was talking to Mr. Mason when he came down to
+Newport to see the piece last summer, and he told me that the
+management nearly always gives a supper to the company, especially if
+they have had a lot of extra rehearsing to do."
+
+"Well, let Goble give them a supper if he wants to."
+
+"But you know that Mr. Goble, though he has his name on the programme
+as the manager, has really nothing to do with it. You own the piece,
+don't you?"
+
+For a moment Mr. Pilkington felt an impulse to reveal all, but
+refrained. He knew his Aunt Olive too well. If she found out that he
+had parted at a heavy loss with this valuable property, her whole
+attitude towards him would change--or, rather it would revert to her
+normal attitude, which was not unlike that of a severe nurse to a
+weak-minded child. Even in his agony there had been a certain faint
+consolation, due to the entirely unwonted note of respect in the voice
+with which she had addressed him since the fall of the curtain. He
+shrank from forfeiting this respect, unentitled though he was to it.
+
+"Yes," he said in his precise voice. "That, of course, is so."
+
+"Well, then!" said Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"But it seems so unnecessary! And think what it would cost."
+
+This was a false step. Some of the reverence left Mrs. Peagrim's
+voice, and she spoke a little coldly. A gay and gallant spender
+herself, she had often had occasion to rebuke a tendency to
+over-parsimony in her nephew.
+
+"We must not be mean, Otie!" she said.
+
+Mr. Pilkington keenly resented her choice of pronouns. "We" indeed!
+Who was going to foot the bill? Both of them, hand in hand, or he
+alone, the chump, the boob, the easy mark who got this sort of thing
+wished on him!
+
+"I don't think it would be possible to get the stage for a
+supper-party," he pleaded, shifting his ground. "Goble wouldn't give
+it to us."
+
+"As if Mr. Goble would refuse you anything after you have written a
+wonderful success for this theatre! And isn't he getting his share of
+the profits? Directly after the performance you must go round and ask
+him. Of course he will be delighted to give you the stage. I will be
+hostess," said Mrs. Peagrim radiantly. "And now, let me see, whom
+shall we invite?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington stared gloomily at the floor, too bowed down by his
+weight of cares to resent the "we," which had plainly come to stay. He
+was trying to estimate the size of the gash which this preposterous
+entertainment would cleave in the Pilkington bank-roll. He doubted if
+it was possible to go through with it under five hundred dollars; and,
+if, as seemed only too probable, Mrs. Peagrim took the matter in hand
+and gave herself her head, it might get into four figures.
+
+"Major Selby, of course," said Mrs. Peagrim musingly, with a cooing
+note in her voice. Long since had that polished man of affairs made a
+deep impression upon her. "Of course Major Selby, for one. And Mr.
+Rooke. Then there are one or two of my friends who would be hurt if
+they were left out. How about Mr. Mason? Isn't he a friend of yours?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington snorted. He had endured much and was prepared to endure
+more, but he drew the line at squandering his money on the man who had
+sneaked up behind his brain-child with a hatchet and chopped its
+precious person into little bits.
+
+"He is _not_ a friend of mine," he said stiffly, "and I do not wish
+him to be invited!"
+
+Having attained her main objective, Mrs. Peagrim was prepared to yield
+minor points.
+
+"Very well, if you do not like him," she said. "But I thought he was
+quite an intimate of yours. It was you who asked me to invite him to
+Newport last summer."
+
+"Much," said Mr. Pilkington coldly, "has happened since last summer."
+
+"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Peagrim again. "Then we will not include
+Mr. Mason. Now, directly the curtain has fallen, Otie dear, pop right
+round and find Mr. Goble and tell him what you want."
+
+
+II
+
+It is not only twin-souls in this world who yearn to meet each other.
+Between Otis Pilkington and Mr. Goble there was little in common, yet,
+at the moment when Otis set out to find Mr. Goble, the thing which Mr.
+Goble desired most in the world was an interview with Otis. Since the
+end of the first act, the manager had been in a state of mental
+upheaval. Reverting to the gold-mine simile again, Mr. Goble was in
+the position of a man who has had a chance of purchasing such a mine
+and now, learning too late of the discovery of the reef, is feeling
+the truth of the poet's dictum that "of all sad words of tongue or
+pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.'" The electric
+success of "The Rose of America" had stunned Mr. Goble; and realizing,
+as he did, that he might have bought Otis Pilkington's share dirt
+cheap at almost any point of the preliminary tour, he was having a bad
+half hour with himself. The only ray in the darkness which brooded on
+his indomitable soul was the thought that it might still be possible,
+by getting hold of Mr. Pilkington before the notices appeared, and
+shaking his head sadly and talking about the misleading hopes which
+young authors so often draw from an enthusiastic first-night reception
+and impressing upon him that first-night receptions do not deceive
+your expert who has been fifteen years in the show-business and
+mentioning gloomily that he had heard a coupla the critics roastin'
+the show to beat the band ... by doing all these things, it might
+still be possible to depress Mr. Pilkington's young enthusiasm and
+induce him to sell his share at a sacrifice price to a great-hearted
+friend who didn't think the thing would run a week but was willing to
+buy as a sporting speculation, because he thought Mr. Pilkington a
+good kid, and after all these shows that flop in New York sometimes
+have a chance on the road.
+
+Such were the meditations of Mr. Goble, and, on the final fall of the
+curtain, amid unrestrained enthusiasm on the part of the audience, he
+had despatched messengers in all directions with instructions to find
+Mr. Pilkington and conduct him to the presence. Meanwhile, he waited
+impatiently on the empty stage.
+
+The sudden advent of Wally Mason, who appeared at this moment, upset
+Mr. Goble terribly. Wally was a factor in the situation which he had
+not considered. An infernal, tactless fellow, always trying to make
+mischief and upset honest merchants, Wally, if present at the
+interview with Otis Pilkington, would probably try to act in restraint
+of trade and would blurt out some untimely truth about the prospects
+of the piece. Not for the first time, Mr. Goble wished Wally a sudden
+stroke of apoplexy.
+
+"Went well, eh?" said Wally amiably. He did not like Mr. Goble, but on
+the first night of a successful piece personal antipathies may be
+sunk. Such was his effervescent good humour at the moment that he was
+prepared to treat Mr. Goble as a man and a brother.
+
+"H'm!" replied Mr. Goble doubtfully, paving the way.
+
+"What are you h'ming about?" demanded Wally, astonished. "The thing's
+a riot."
+
+"You never know," responded Mr. Goble in the minor key.
+
+"Well!" Wally stared. "I don't know what more you want. The audience
+sat up on its hind legs and squealed, didn't they?"
+
+"I've an idea," said Mr. Goble, raising his voice as the long form of
+Mr. Pilkington crossed the stage towards them, "that the critics will
+roast it. If you ask _me_," he went on loudly, "it's just the sort of
+show the critics will pan the life out of. I've been fifteen years in
+the...."
+
+"Critics!" cried Wally. "Well, I've just been talking to Alexander of
+the _Times_, and he said it was the best musical piece he had ever
+seen and that all the other men he had talked to thought the same."
+
+Mr. Goble turned a distorted face to Mr. Pilkington. He wished that
+Wally would go. But Wally, he reflected, bitterly, was one of those
+men who never go. He faced Mr. Pilkington and did the best he could.
+
+"Of course it's got a _chance_," he said gloomily. "Any show has got a
+_chance_! But I don't know.... I don't know...."
+
+Mr. Pilkington was not interested in the future prospects of "The Rose
+of America." He had a favour to ask, and he wanted to ask it, have it
+refused if possible, and get away. It occurred to him that, by
+substituting for the asking of a favour a peremptory demand, he might
+save himself a thousand dollars.
+
+"I want the stage after the performance to-morrow night, for a supper
+to the company," he said brusquely.
+
+He was shocked to find Mr. Goble immediately complaisant.
+
+"Why, sure," said Mr. Goble readily. "Go as far as you like!" He took
+Mr. Pilkington by the elbow and drew him up-stage, lowering his voice
+to a confidential undertone. "And now, listen," he said, "I've
+something I want to talk to you about. Between you and I and the
+lamp-post, I don't think this show will last a month in New York. It
+don't add up right! There's something all wrong about it."
+
+Mr. Pilkington assented with an emphasis which amazed the manager. "I
+quite agree with you! If you had kept it the way it was
+originally...."
+
+"Too late for that!" sighed Mr. Goble, realizing that his star was in
+the ascendant. He had forgotten for the moment that Mr. Pilkington was
+an author. "We must make the best of a bad job! Now, you're a good kid
+and I wouldn't like you to go around town saying that I had let you
+in. It isn't business, maybe, but, just because I don't want you to
+have any kick coming, I'm ready to buy your share of the thing and
+call it a deal. After all, it may get money on the road. It ain't
+likely, but there's a chance, and I'm willing to take it. Well,
+listen, I'm probably robbing myself, but I'll give you fifteen
+thousand if you want to sell."
+
+A hated voice spoke at his elbow.
+
+"I'll make you a better offer than that," said Wally. "Give me your
+share of the show for three dollars in cash and I'll throw in a pair
+of sock-suspenders and an Ingersoll. Is it a go?"
+
+Mr. Goble regarded him balefully.
+
+"Who told you to butt in?" he enquired sourly.
+
+"Conscience!" replied Wally. "Old Henry W. Conscience! I refuse to
+stand by and see the slaughter of the innocents. Why don't you wait
+till he's dead before you skin him!" He turned to Mr. Pilkington.
+"Don't you be a fool!" he said earnestly. "Can't you see the thing is
+the biggest hit in years? Do you think Jesse James here would be
+offering you a cent for your share if he didn't know there was a
+fortune in it? Do you imagine...?"
+
+"It is immaterial to me," interrupted Otis Pilkington loftily, "what
+Mr. Goble offers. I have already sold my interest!"
+
+"What!" cried Mr. Goble.
+
+"When?" cried Wally.
+
+"I sold it half-way through the road-tour," said Mr. Pilkington, "to a
+lawyer, acting on behalf of a client whose name I did not learn."
+
+In the silence which followed this revelation, another voice spoke.
+
+"I should like to speak to you for a moment, Mr. Goble, if I may." It
+was Jill, who had joined the group unperceived.
+
+Mr. Goble glowered at Jill, who met his gaze composedly.
+
+"I'm busy!" snapped Mr. Goble. "See me to-morrow!"
+
+"I would prefer to see you now."
+
+"You would prefer!" Mr. Goble waved his hands despairingly, as if
+calling on heaven to witness the persecution of a good man.
+
+Jill exhibited a piece of paper stamped with the letter-heading of the
+management.
+
+"It's about this," she said. "I found it in the box as I was going
+out."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"It seems to be a fortnight's notice."
+
+"And that," said Mr. Goble, "is what it _is_!"
+
+Wally uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Do you mean to say...?"
+
+"Yes, I do!" said the manager, turning on him. He felt that he had
+out-manoeuvred Wally. "I agreed to let her open in New York, and
+she's done it, hasn't she? Now she can get out. I don't want her. I
+wouldn't have her if you paid me. She's a nuisance in the company,
+always making trouble, and she can go."
+
+"But I would prefer not to go," said Jill.
+
+"You would prefer!" The phrase infuriated Mr. Goble. "And what has
+what you would prefer got to do with it?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Jill, "I forgot to tell you before, but I own
+the piece!"
+
+
+III
+
+Mr. Goble's jaw fell. He had been waving his hands in another spacious
+gesture, and he remained frozen with outstretched arms, like a
+semaphore. This evening had been a series of shocks for him, but this
+was the worst shock of all.
+
+"You--what!" he stammered.
+
+"I own the piece," repeated Jill. "Surely that gives me authority to
+say what I want done and what I don't want done."
+
+There was a silence, Mr. Goble, who was having difficulty with his
+vocal chords, swallowed once or twice. Wally and Mr. Pilkington stared
+dumbly. At the back of the stage, a belated scene-shifter, homeward
+bound, was whistling as much as he could remember of the refrain of a
+popular song.
+
+"What do you mean you own the piece?" Mr. Goble at length gurgled.
+
+"I bought it."
+
+"You bought it?"
+
+"I bought Mr. Pilkington's share through a lawyer for ten thousand
+dollars."
+
+"Ten thousand dollars! Where did you get ten thousand dollars?" Light
+broke upon Mr. Goble. The thing became clear to him. "Damn it!" he
+cried. "I might have known you had some man behind you! You'd never
+have been so darned fresh if you hadn't had some John in the
+background, paying the bills! Well, of all the...."
+
+He broke off abruptly, not because he had said all that he wished to
+say, for he had only touched the fringe of his subject, but because at
+this point Wally's elbow smote him in the parts about the third button
+of his waistcoat and jarred all the breath out of him.
+
+"Be quiet!" said Wally dangerously. He turned to Jill. "Jill, you
+don't mind telling me how you got ten thousand dollars, do you?"
+
+"Of course not, Wally. Uncle Chris sent it to me. Do you remember
+giving me a letter from him at Rochester? The cheque was in that."
+
+Wally stared.
+
+"Your uncle! But he hasn't any money!"
+
+"He must have made it somehow."
+
+"But he couldn't! How could he?"
+
+Otis Pilkington suddenly gave tongue. He broke in on them with a loud
+noise that was half a snort and half a yell. Stunned by the
+information that it was Jill who had bought his share in the piece,
+Mr. Pilkington's mind had recovered slowly and then had begun to work
+with a quite unusual rapidity. During the preceding conversation he
+had been doing some tense thinking, and now he saw all.
+
+"It's a swindle! It's a deliberate swindle!" shrilled Mr. Pilkington.
+The tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles flashed sparks. "I've been made a
+fool of! I've been swindled! I've been robbed!"
+
+Jill regarded him with wide eyes.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You know what I mean!"
+
+"I certainly do not! You were perfectly willing to sell the piece."
+
+"I'm not talking about that! You know what I mean! I've been robbed!"
+
+Wally snatched at his arm as it gyrated past him in a gesture of
+anguish which rivalled the late efforts in that direction of Mr.
+Goble, who was now leaning against the safety-curtain trying to get
+his breath back.
+
+"Don't be a fool," said Wally curtly. "Talk sense! You know perfectly
+well that Miss Mariner wouldn't swindle you."
+
+"She may not have been in it," conceded Mr. Pilkington. "I don't know
+whether she was or not. But that uncle of hers swindled me out of ten
+thousand dollars! The smooth old crook!"
+
+"Don't talk like that about Uncle Chris!" said Jill, her eyes
+flashing. "Tell me what you mean."
+
+"Yes, come on, Pilkington," said Wally grimly. "You've been scattering
+some pretty serious charges about. Let's hear what you base them on.
+Be coherent for a couple of seconds."
+
+Mr. Goble filled his depleted lungs.
+
+"If you ask me...." he began.
+
+"We don't," said Wally curtly. "This has nothing to do with you.
+Well," he went on, "we're waiting to hear what this is all about."
+
+Mr. Pilkington gulped. Like most men of weak intellect who are preyed
+on by the wolves of the world, he had ever a strong distaste for
+admitting that he had been deceived. He liked to regard himself as a
+shrewd young man who knew his way about and could take care of
+himself.
+
+"Major Selby," he said, adjusting his spectacles, which emotion had
+caused to slip down his nose, "came to me a few weeks ago with a
+proposition. He suggested the formation of a company to start Miss
+Mariner in the motion-pictures."
+
+"What!" cried Jill.
+
+"In the motion-pictures," repeated Mr. Pilkington. "He wished to know
+if I cared to advance any capital towards the venture. I thought it
+over carefully and decided that I was favourably disposed towards the
+scheme. I...." Mr. Pilkington gulped again. "I gave him a cheque for
+ten thousand dollars!"
+
+"Of all the fools!" said Mr. Goble with a sharp laugh. He caught
+Wally's eye and subsided once more.
+
+Mr. Pilkington's fingers strayed agitatedly to his spectacles.
+
+"I may have been a fool," he cried shrilly, "though I was perfectly
+willing to risk the money had it been applied to the object for which
+I gave it. But when it comes to giving ten thousand dollars just to
+have it paid back to me in exchange for a very valuable piece of
+theatrical property ... my own money ... handed back to me...!"
+
+Words failed Mr. Pilkington.
+
+"I've been deliberately swindled!" he added, after a moment, harking
+back to the main motive.
+
+Jill's heart was like lead. She could not doubt for an instant the
+truth of what the victim had said. Woven into every inch of the
+fabric, plainly hall-marked on its surface, she could perceive the
+signature of Uncle Chris. If he had come and confessed to her himself,
+she could not have been more certain that he had acted precisely as
+Mr. Pilkington had charged. There was that same impishness, that same
+bland unscrupulousness, that same pathetic desire to do her a good
+turn however it might affect anybody else which, if she might compare
+the two things, had caused him to pass her off on unfortunate Mr.
+Mariner of Brookport as a girl of wealth with tastes in the direction
+of real estate.
+
+Wally was not so easily satisfied.
+
+"You've no proof whatever...."
+
+Jill shook her head.
+
+"It's true, Wally. I know Uncle Chris. It must be true."
+
+"But, Jill...!"
+
+"It must be. How else could Uncle Chris have got the money?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington, much encouraged by this ready acquiescence in his
+theories, got under way once more.
+
+"The man's a swindler! A swindler! He's robbed me! I have been robbed!
+He never had any intention of starting a motion-picture company. He
+planned it all out...!"
+
+Jill cut into the babble of his denunciations. She was sick at heart,
+and she spoke almost listlessly.
+
+"Mr. Pilkington!" The victim stopped. "Mr. Pilkington, if what you say
+is true, and I'm afraid there is no doubt that it is, the only thing I
+can do is to give you back your property. So will you please try to
+understand that everything is just as it was before you gave my uncle
+the money. You've got back your ten thousand dollars and you've got
+back your piece, so there's nothing more to talk about."
+
+Mr. Pilkington, dimly realizing that the financial aspect of the
+affair had been more or less satisfactorily adjusted, was nevertheless
+conscious of a feeling that he was being thwarted. He had much more to
+say about Uncle Chris and his methods of doing business, and it irked
+him to be cut short like this.
+
+"Yes, but I do not think.... That's all very well, but I have by no
+means finished...."
+
+"Yes, you have," said Wally.
+
+"There's nothing more to talk about," repeated Jill. "I'm sorry this
+should have happened, but you've nothing to complain about now, have
+you? Good night."
+
+And she turned quickly away, and walked towards the door.
+
+"But I hadn't _finished_!" wailed Mr. Pilkington, clutching at Wally.
+He was feeling profoundly aggrieved. If it is bad to be all dressed up
+and no place to go, it is almost worse to be full of talk and to have
+no one to talk it to. Otis Pilkington had at least another twenty
+minutes of speech inside him on the topic of Uncle Chris, and Wally
+was the nearest human being with a pair of ears.
+
+Wally was in no mood to play the part of confidant. He pushed Mr.
+Pilkington earnestly in the chest and raced after Jill. Mr.
+Pilkington, with the feeling that the world was against him, tottered
+back into the arms of Mr. Goble, who had now recovered his breath and
+was ready to talk business.
+
+"Have a good cigar," said Mr. Goble, producing one. "Now, see here,
+let's get right down to it. If you'd care to sell out for twenty
+thousand...."
+
+"I would _not_ care to sell out for twenty thousand!" yelled the
+overwrought Mr. Pilkington. "I wouldn't sell out for a million! You're
+a swindler! You want to rob me! You're a crook!"
+
+"Yes, yes," assented Mr. Goble gently. "But, all joking aside, suppose
+I was to go up to twenty-five thousand...?" He twined his fingers
+lovingly in the slack of Mr. Pilkington's coat. "Come now! You're a
+good kid I Shall we say twenty-five thousand?"
+
+"We will _not_ say twenty-five thousand! Let me go!"
+
+"Now, now, _now_!" pleaded Mr. Goble. "Be sensible! Don't get all
+worked up! Say, _do_ have a good cigar!"
+
+"I _won't_ have a good cigar!" shouted Mr. Pilkington.
+
+He detached himself with a jerk, and stalked with long strides up the
+stage. Mr. Goble watched him go with a lowering gaze. A heavy sense of
+the unkindness of fate was oppressing Mr. Goble. If you couldn't gyp a
+bone-headed amateur out of a piece of property, whom could you gyp?
+Mr. Goble sighed. It hardly seemed to him worth while going on.
+
+
+IV
+
+Out in the street Wally had overtaken Jill, and they faced one another
+in the light of a street lamp. Forty-first Street at midnight is a
+quiet oasis. They had it to themselves.
+
+Jill was pale, and she was breathing quickly, but she forced a smile.
+
+"Well, Wally," she said. "My career as a manager didn't last long, did
+it?"
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+Jill looked down the street.
+
+"I don't know," she said. "I suppose I shall have to start trying to
+find something."
+
+"But...."
+
+Jill drew him suddenly into the dark alley-way leading to the
+stage-door of the Gotham Theatre's nearest neighbour, and, as she did
+so, a long, thin form, swathed in an overcoat and surmounted by an
+opera-hat, flashed past.
+
+"I don't think I could have gone through another meeting with Mr.
+Pilkington," said Jill. "It wasn't his fault, and he was quite
+justified, but what he said about Uncle Chris rather hurt."
+
+Wally, who had ideas of his own similar to those of Mr. Pilkington on
+the subject of Uncle Chris and had intended to express them, prudently
+kept them unspoken.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "there is no doubt...?"
+
+"There can't be. Poor Uncle Chris! He is like Freddie. He means well!"
+
+There was a pause. They left the alley and walked down the street.
+
+"Where are you going now?" asked Wally.
+
+"I'm going home."
+
+"Where's home?"
+
+"Forty-ninth Street. I live in a boarding-house there."
+
+A sudden recollection of the boarding-house at which she had lived in
+Atlantic City smote Wally, and it turned the scale. He had not
+intended to speak, but he could not help himself.
+
+"Jill!" he cried. "It's no good. I _must_ say it! I want to get you
+out of all this. I want to take care of you. Why should you go on
+living this sort of life, when.... Why won't you let me...?"
+
+He stopped. Even as he spoke, he realized the futility of what he was
+saying. Jill was not a girl to be won with words.
+
+They walked on in silence for a moment. They crossed Broadway, noisy
+with night traffic, and passed into the stillness on the other side.
+
+"Wally," said Jill at last.
+
+She was looking straight in front of her. Her voice was troubled.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Jill hesitated.
+
+"Wally, you wouldn't want me to marry you if you knew you weren't the
+only man in the world that mattered to me, would you?"
+
+They had reached Sixth Avenue before Wally replied.
+
+"No!" he said.
+
+For an instant, Jill could not have said whether the feeling that shot
+through her like the abrupt touching of a nerve was relief or
+disappointment. Then suddenly she realized that it was disappointment.
+It was absurd to her to feel disappointed, but at that moment she
+would have welcomed a different attitude in him. If only this problem
+of hers could be taken forcefully out of her hands, what a relief it
+would be. If only Wally, masterfully insistent, would batter down her
+hesitations and _grab_ her, knock her on the head and carry her off
+like a caveman, care less about her happiness and concentrate on his
+own, what a solution it would be.... But then he wouldn't be Wally....
+Nevertheless, Jill gave a little sigh. Her new life had changed her
+already. It had blunted the sharp edge of her independence. To-night
+she was feeling the need of some one to lean on--some one strong and
+cosy and sympathetic who would treat her like a little girl and shield
+her from all the roughness of life. The fighting spirit had gone out
+of her, and she was no longer the little warrior facing the world with
+a brave eye and a tilted chin. She wanted to cry and be petted.
+
+"No!" said Wally again. There had been the faintest suggestion of a
+doubt when he had spoken the word before, but now it shot out like a
+bullet. "And I'll tell you why. I want _you_--and, if you married me
+feeling like that, it wouldn't be you. I want Jill, the whole Jill,
+and nothing but Jill, and, if I can't have that, I'd rather not have
+anything. Marriage isn't a motion-picture close-up with slow fade-out
+on the embrace. It's a partnership, and what's the good of a
+partnership if your heart's not in it? It's like collaborating with a
+man you dislike.... I believe you wish sometimes--not often, perhaps,
+but when you're feeling lonely and miserable--that I would pester and
+bludgeon you into marrying me.... What's the matter?"
+
+Jill had started. It was disquieting to have her thoughts read with
+such accuracy.
+
+"Nothing," she said.
+
+"It wouldn't be any good," Wally went on, "because it wouldn't be
+_me_. I couldn't keep that attitude up, and I know I should hate
+myself for ever having tried it. There's nothing in the world I
+wouldn't do to help you, though I know it's no use offering to do
+anything. You're a fighter, and you mean to fight your own battle. It
+might happen that, if I kept after you and badgered you and nagged
+you, one of these days, when you were feeling particularly all alone
+in the world and tired of fighting for yourself, you might consent to
+marry me. But it wouldn't do. Even if you reconciled yourself to it,
+it wouldn't do. I suppose the cave-woman sometimes felt rather
+relieved when everything was settled for her with a club, but I'm sure
+the caveman must have had a hard time ridding himself of the thought
+that he had behaved like a cad and taken a mean advantage. I don't
+want to feel like that. I couldn't make you happy if I felt like that.
+Much better to have you go on regarding me as a friend ... knowing
+that, if ever your feelings do change, that I am right there,
+waiting...."
+
+"But by that time _your_ feelings will have changed!"
+
+Wally laughed.
+
+"Never!"
+
+"You'll meet some other girl...."
+
+"I've met every girl in the world! None of them will do!" The
+lightness came back into Wally's voice. "I'm sorry for the poor
+things, but they won't do! Take 'em away! There's only one girl in the
+world for me--oh, confound it! why is it that one always thinks in
+song-titles! Well, there it is. I'm not going to bother you. We're
+pals. And, as a pal, may I offer you my bank-roll?"
+
+"No!" said Jill. She smiled up at him. "I believe you would give me
+your coat if I asked you for it!"
+
+Wally stopped.
+
+"Do you want it? Here you are!"
+
+"Wally, behave! There's a policeman looking at you!"
+
+"Oh, well, if you won't! It's a good coat, all the same."
+
+They turned the corner and stopped before a brown-stone house, with a
+long ladder of untidy steps running up to the front door.
+
+"Is this where you live?" Wally asked. He looked at the gloomy place
+disapprovingly. "You do choose the most awful places!"
+
+"I don't choose them. They're thrust on me. Yes, this is where I live.
+If you want to know the exact room, it's the third window up there
+over the front door. Well, good night."
+
+"Good night," said Wally. He paused. "Jill."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I know it's not worth mentioning, and it's breaking our agreement to
+mention it, but you _do_ understand, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, Wally dear, I understand."
+
+"I'm round the corner, you know, waiting! And if you ever _do_ change,
+all you've got to do is just to come to me and say 'It's all
+right!'...."
+
+Jill laughed a little shakily.
+
+"That doesn't sound very romantic!"
+
+"Not sound romantic? If you can think of any three words in the
+language that sound more romantic, let me have them! Well, never mind
+how they sound, just say them, and watch the result! But you must get
+to bed. Good night."
+
+"Good night, Wally."
+
+She passed in through the dingy door. It closed behind her, and Wally
+stood for some moments staring at it with a gloomy repulsion. He
+thought he had never seen a dingier door.
+
+Then he started to walk back to his apartment. He walked very quickly,
+with clenched hands. He was wondering if after all there was not
+something to be said for the methods of the caveman when he went
+a-wooing. Twinges of conscience the caveman may have had when all was
+over, but at least he had established his right to look after the
+woman he loved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MRS. PEAGRIM BURNS INCENSE
+
+
+"They tell me ... I am told ... I am informed ... No, one moment, Miss
+Frisby."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim wrinkled her fair forehead. It has been truly said that
+there is no agony like the agony of literary composition, and Mrs.
+Peagrim was having rather a bad time getting the requisite snap and
+ginger into her latest communication to the Press. She bit her lip,
+and would have passed her twitching fingers restlessly through her
+hair but for the thought of the damage which such an action must do to
+her coiffure. Miss Frisby, her secretary, an anaemic and negative young
+woman, waited patiently, pad on knee, and tapped her teeth with her
+pencil.
+
+"Please do not make that tapping noise, Miss Frisby," said the
+sufferer querulously. "I cannot think. Otie, dear, can't you suggest a
+good phrase? You ought to be able to, being an author."
+
+Mr. Pilkington, who was strewn over an arm-chair by the window, awoke
+from his meditations, which, to judge from the furrow just above the
+bridge of his tortoise-shell spectacles and the droop of his weak
+chin, were not pleasant. It was the morning after the production of
+"The Rose of America," and he had passed a sleepless night, thinking
+of the harsh words he had said to Jill. Could she ever forgive him?
+Would she have the generosity to realize that a man ought not to be
+held accountable for what he says in the moment when he discovers that
+he has been cheated, deceived, robbed--in a word, hornswoggled? He had
+been brooding on this all night, and he wanted to go on brooding now.
+His aunt's question interrupted his train of thought.
+
+"Eh?" he said vaguely, gaping.
+
+"Oh, don't be so absent-minded!" snapped Mrs. Peagrim, not
+unjustifiably annoyed. "I am trying to compose a paragraph for the
+papers about our party to-night, and I can't get the right phrase....
+Read what you've written, Miss Frisby."
+
+Miss Frisby, having turned a pale eye on the pothooks and twiddleys in
+her note-book, translated them in a pale voice.
+
+"'Surely of all the leading hostesses in New York Society there can be
+few more versatile than Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim. I am amazed every
+time I go to her delightful home on West End Avenue to see the scope
+and variety of her circle of intimates. Here you will see an
+ambassador with a fever....'"
+
+"With a _what_?" demanded Mrs. Peagrim sharply.
+
+"'Fever,' I thought you said," replied Miss Frisby stolidly. "I wrote
+'fever.'"
+
+"'Diva.' Do use your intelligence, my good girl. Go on."
+
+"Here you will see an ambassador with a diva from the opera,
+exchanging the latest gossip from the chancelleries for intimate news
+of the world behind the scenes. There, the author of the latest novel
+talking literature to the newest debutante. Truly one may say that
+Mrs. Peagrim has revived the saloon.'"
+
+Mrs. Peagrim bit her lip.
+
+"'Salon.'"
+
+"'Salon,'" said Miss Frisby unemotionally. "They tell me, I am told, I
+am informed....'" She paused. "That's all I have."
+
+"Scratch out those last words," said Mrs. Peagrim irritably. "You
+really are hopeless, Miss Frisby! Couldn't you see that I had stopped
+dictating and was searching for a phrase? Otie, what is a good phrase
+for 'I am told'?"
+
+Mr. Pilkington forced his wandering attention to grapple with the
+problem.
+
+"'I hear,'" he suggested at length.
+
+"Tchah!" ejaculated his aunt. Then her face brightened. "I have it.
+Take dictation, please, Miss Frisby. 'A little bird whispers to me
+that there were great doings last night on the stage of the Gotham
+Theatre after the curtain had fallen on "The Rose of America," which,
+as everybody knows, is the work of Mrs. Peagrim's clever young nephew,
+Otis Pilkington.'" Mrs. Peagrim shot a glance at her clever young
+nephew, to see how he appreciated the boost, but Otis' thoughts were
+far away once more. He was lying on his spine, brooding, brooding.
+Mrs. Peagrim resumed her dictation. "'In honour of the extraordinary
+success of the piece, Mrs. Peagrim, who certainly does nothing by
+halves, entertained the entire company to a supper-dance after the
+performance. A number of prominent people were among the guests, and
+Mrs. Peagrim was a radiant and vivacious hostess. She has never looked
+more charming. The high jinks were kept up to an advanced hour, and
+every one agreed that they had never spent a more delightful evening.'
+There! Type as many copies as are necessary, Miss Frisby, and send
+them out this afternoon with photographs."
+
+Miss Frisby having vanished in her pallid way, the radiant and
+vivacious hostess turned on her nephew again.
+
+"I must say, Otie," she began complainingly, "that, for a man who has
+had a success like yours, you are not very cheerful. I should have
+thought the notices of the piece would have made you the happiest man
+in New York."
+
+There was once a melodrama where the child of the persecuted heroine
+used to dissolve the gallery in tears by saying "Happiness? What _is_
+happiness, moth-aw?" Mr. Pilkington did not use these actual words,
+but he reproduced the stricken infant's tone with great fidelity.
+
+"Notices! What are notices to me?"
+
+"Oh, don't be so affected!" cried Mrs. Peagrim. "Don't pretend that
+you don't know every word of them by heart!"
+
+"I have not seen the notices, Aunt Olive," said Mr. Pilkington dully.
+
+Mrs. Peagrim looked at him with positive alarm. She had never been
+overwhelmingly attached to her long nephew, but since his rise to fame
+something resembling affection had sprung up in her, and his attitude
+now disturbed her.
+
+"You can't be well, Otie!" she said solicitously. "Are you ill?"
+
+"I have a severe headache," replied the martyr. "I passed a wakeful
+night."
+
+"Let me go and mix you a dose of the most wonderful mixture," said
+Mrs. Peagrim maternally. "Poor boy! I don't wonder, after all the
+nervousness and excitement.... You sit quite still and rest. I will be
+back in a moment."
+
+She bustled out of the room, and Mr. Pilkington sagged back into his
+chair. He had hardly got his meditations going once more, when the
+door opened and the maid announced "Major Selby."
+
+"Good morning," said Uncle Chris breezily, sailing down the fairway
+with outstretched hand. "How are--oh!"
+
+He stopped abruptly, perceiving that Mrs. Peagrim was not present
+and--a more disturbing discovery--that Otis Pilkington was. It would
+be exaggeration to say that Uncle Chris was embarrassed. That
+master-mind was never actually embarrassed. But his jauntiness
+certainly ebbed a little, and he had to pull his moustache twice
+before he could face the situation with his customary _aplomb_. He had
+not expected to find Otis Pilkington here, and Otis was the last man
+he wished to meet. He had just parted from Jill, who had been rather
+plain-spoken with regard to the recent financial operations; and,
+though possessed only of a rudimentary conscience, Uncle Chris was
+aware that his next interview with young Mr. Pilkington might have
+certain aspects bordering on awkwardness and he would have liked time
+to prepare a statement for the defence. However, here the man was, and
+the situation must be faced.
+
+"Pilkington!" he cried. "My dear fellow! Just the man I wanted to
+see! I'm afraid there has been a little misunderstanding. Of course,
+it has all been cleared up now, but still I must insist on making a
+personal explanation; really, I must insist. The whole matter was a most
+absurd misunderstanding. It was like this...."
+
+Here Uncle Chris paused in order to devote a couple of seconds to
+thought. He had said it was "like this," and he gave his moustache
+another pull as though he were trying to drag inspiration out of it.
+His blue eyes were as frank and honest as ever, and showed no trace of
+the perplexity in his mind, but he had to admit to himself that, if he
+managed to satisfy his hearer that all was for the best and that he
+had acted uprightly and without blame, he would be doing well.
+
+Fortunately, the commercial side of Mr. Pilkington was entirely
+dormant this morning. The matter of the ten thousand dollars seemed
+trivial to him in comparison with the weightier problems which
+occupied his mind.
+
+"Have you seen Miss Mariner?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes. I have just parted from her. She was upset, poor girl, of
+course, exceedingly upset."
+
+Mr. Pilkington moaned hollowly.
+
+"Is she very angry with me?"
+
+For a moment the utter inexplicability of the remark silenced Uncle
+Chris. Why Jill should be angry with Mr. Pilkington for being robbed
+of ten thousand dollars he could not understand, for Jill had told him
+nothing of the scene that had taken place on the previous night. But
+evidently this point was to Mr. Pilkington the nub of the matter, and
+Uncle Chris, like the strategist he was, re-arranged his forces to
+meet the new development.
+
+"Angry?" he said slowly. "Well, of course...."
+
+He did not know what it was all about, but no doubt if he confined
+himself to broken sentences which meant nothing light would shortly be
+vouchsafed to him.
+
+"In the heat of the moment," confessed Mr. Pilkington, "I'm afraid I
+said things to Miss Mariner which I now regret."
+
+Uncle Chris began to feel on solid ground again.
+
+"Dear, dear!" he murmured regretfully.
+
+"I spoke hastily."
+
+"Always think before you speak, my boy."
+
+"I considered that I had been cheated...."
+
+"My dear boy!" Uncle Chris' blue eyes opened wide. "Please! Haven't I said
+that I could explain all that? It was a pure misunderstanding...."
+
+"Oh, I don't care about that part of it...."
+
+"Quite right," said Uncle Chris cordially. "Let bygones be bygones.
+Start with a clean slate. You have your money back, and there's no
+need to say another word about it. Let us forget it," he concluded
+generously. "And, if I have any influence with Jill, you may count on
+me to use it to dissipate any little unfortunate rift which may have
+occurred between you."
+
+"You think there's a chance that she might overlook what I said?"
+
+"As I say, I will use any influence I may possess to heal the breach.
+I like you, my boy. And I am sure that Jill likes you. She will make
+allowances for any ill-judged remarks you may have uttered in a moment
+of heat."
+
+Mr. Pilkington brightened, and Mrs. Peagrim, returning with a
+medicine-glass, was pleased to see him looking so much better.
+
+"You are a positive wizard, Major Selby," she said archly. "What have
+you been saying to the poor boy to cheer him up so? He has a bad
+headache this morning."
+
+"Headache?" said Uncle Chris, starting like a war-horse that has heard
+the bugle. "I don't know if I have ever mentioned it, but _I_ used to
+suffer from headaches at one time. Extraordinarily severe headaches. I
+tried everything, until one day a man I knew recommended a thing
+called--don't know if you have ever heard of it...."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim, in her role of ministering angel, was engrossed with her
+errand of mercy. She was holding the medicine-glass to Mr.
+Pilkington's lips, and the seed fell on stony ground.
+
+"Drink this, dear," urged Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"Nervino," said Uncle Chris.
+
+"There!" said Mrs. Peagrim. "That will make you feel much better. How
+well _you_ always look, Major Selby!"
+
+"And yet at one time," said Uncle Chris perseveringly, "I was a
+martyr...."
+
+"I can't remember if I told you last night about the party. We are
+giving a little supper-dance to the company of Otie's play after the
+performance this evening. Of course you will come?"
+
+Uncle Chris philosophically accepted his failure to secure the ear of
+his audience. Other opportunities would occur.
+
+"Delighted," he said. "Delighted."
+
+"Quite a simple, Bohemian little affair," proceeded Mrs. Peagrim. "I
+thought it was only right to give the poor things a little treat after
+they have all worked so hard."
+
+"Certainly, certainly. A capital idea."
+
+"We shall be quite a small party. If I once started asking anybody
+outside our _real_ friends, I should have to ask everybody."
+
+The door opened.
+
+"Mr. Rooke," announced the maid.
+
+Freddie, like Mr. Pilkington, was a prey to gloom this morning. He had
+read one or two of the papers, and they had been disgustingly lavish
+in their praise of The McWhustle of McWhustle. It made Freddie despair
+of the New York Press. In addition to this, he had been woken up at
+seven o'clock, after going to sleep at three, by the ringing of the
+telephone and the announcement that a gentleman wished to see him: and
+he was weighed down with that heavy-eyed languor which comes to those
+whose night's rest is broken.
+
+"Why, how do you do, Mr. Rooke!" said Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"How-de-do," replied Freddie, blinking in the strong light from the
+window. "Hope I'm not barging in and all that sort of thing? I came
+round about this party to-night, you know."
+
+"Oh, yes?"
+
+"Was wondering," said Freddie, "if you would mind if I brought a
+friend of mine along? Popped in on me from England this morning. At
+seven o'clock," said Freddie plaintively. "Ghastly hour, what? Didn't
+do a thing to the good old beauty sleep! Well, what I mean to say is,
+I'd be awfully obliged if you'd let me bring him along."
+
+"Why, of course," said Mrs. Peagrim. "Any friend of yours, Mr.
+Rooke...."
+
+"Thanks awfully. Special reason why I'd like him to come, and all
+that. He's a fellow named Underhill. Sir Derek Underhill. Been a pal
+of mine for years and years."
+
+Uncle Chris started.
+
+"Underhill! Is Derek Underhill in America?"
+
+"Landed this morning. Routed me out of bed at seven o'clock."
+
+"Oh, do you know him, too, Major Selby?" said Mrs. Peagrim. "Then I'm
+sure he must be charming!"
+
+"Charming," began Uncle Chris in measured tones, "is an adjective
+which I cannot...."
+
+"Well, thanks most awfully," interrupted Freddie. "It's fearfully good
+of you to let me bring him along. I must be staggering off now. Lot of
+things to do."
+
+"Oh, must you go already?"
+
+"Absolutely must. Lots of things to do."
+
+Uncle Chris extended a hand to his hostess.
+
+"I think I will be going along, too, Mrs. Peagrim. I'll walk a few
+yards with you, Freddie, my boy. There are one or two things I would
+like to talk over. Till to-night, Mrs. Peagrim."
+
+"Till to-night, Major Selby." She turned to Mr. Pilkington as the door
+closed. "What charming manners Major Selby has. So polished. A sort of
+old-world courtesy. So smooth!"
+
+"Smooth," said Mr. Pilkington dourly, "is right!"
+
+
+II
+
+Uncle Chris confronted Freddie sternly outside the front door.
+
+"What does this mean? Good God, Freddie, have you no delicacy?"
+
+"Eh?" said Freddie blankly.
+
+"Why are you bringing Underhill to this party? Don't you realize that
+poor Jill will be there? How do you suppose she will feel when she
+sees that blackguard again? The cad who threw her over and nearly
+broke her heart!"
+
+Freddie's jaw fell. He groped for his fallen eyeglass.
+
+"Oh, my aunt! Do you think she will be pipped?"
+
+"A sensitive girl like Jill?"
+
+"But, listen. Derek wants to marry her."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Oh, absolutely. That's why he's come over."
+
+Uncle Chris shook his head.
+
+"I don't understand this. I saw the letter myself which he wrote to
+her, breaking off the engagement."
+
+"Yes, but he's dashed sorry about all that now. Wishes he had never
+been such a mug, and all that sort of thing. As a matter of fact,
+that's why I shot over here in the first place. As an ambassador,
+don't you know. I told Jill all about it directly I saw her, but she
+seemed inclined to give it a miss rather, so I cabled old Derek to pop
+here in person. Seemed to me, don't you know, that Jill might be more
+likely to make it up and all that if she saw old Derek."
+
+Uncle Chris nodded, his composure restored.
+
+"Very true. Yes, certainly, my boy, you acted most sensibly. Badly as
+Underhill behaved, she undoubtedly loved him. It would be the best
+possible thing that could happen if they could be brought together. It
+is my dearest wish to see Jill comfortably settled. I was half hoping
+that she might marry young Pilkington."
+
+"Good God! The Pilker!"
+
+"He is quite a nice young fellow," argued Uncle Chris. "None too many
+brains, perhaps, but Jill would supply that deficiency. Still, of
+course, Underhill would be much better."
+
+"She ought to marry someone," said Freddie earnestly. "I mean, all rot
+a girl like Jill having to knock about and rough it like this."
+
+"You're perfectly right."
+
+"Of course," said Freddie thoughtfully, "the catch in the whole dashed
+business is that she's such a bally independent sort of girl. I mean
+to say, it's quite possible she may hand Derek the mitten, you know."
+
+"In that case, let us hope that she will look more favourably on young
+Pilkington."
+
+"Yes," said Freddie. "Well, yes. But--well, I wouldn't call the Pilker
+a very ripe sporting proposition. About sixty to one against is the
+way I should figure it if I were making a book. It may be just because
+I'm feeling a bit pipped this morning--got turfed out of bed at seven
+o'clock and all that--but I have an idea that she may give both of
+them the old razz. May be wrong, of course."
+
+"Let us hope that you are, my boy," said Uncle Chris gravely. "For in
+that case I should be forced into a course of action from which I
+confess that I shrink."
+
+"I don't follow."
+
+"Freddie, my boy, you are a very old friend of Jill's and I am her
+uncle. I feel that I can speak plainly to you. Jill is the dearest
+thing to me in the world. She trusted me, and I failed her. I was
+responsible for the loss of her money, and my one object in life is to
+see her by some means or other in a position equal to the one of which
+I deprived her. If she married a rich man, well and good. That,
+provided she marries him because she is fond of him, will be the very
+best thing that can happen. But if she does not, there is another way.
+It may be possible for me to marry a rich woman."
+
+Freddie stopped, appalled.
+
+"Good God! You don't mean ... you aren't thinking of marrying Mrs.
+Peagrim!"
+
+"I wouldn't have mentioned names, but, as you have guessed.... Yes, if
+the worst comes to the worst, I shall make the supreme sacrifice.
+To-night will decide. Good-bye, my boy. I want to look in at my club
+for a few minutes. Tell Underhill that he has my best wishes."
+
+"I'll bet he has!" gasped Freddie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DEREK LOSES ONE BIRD AND SECURES ANOTHER
+
+
+It is safest for the historian, if he values accuracy, to wait till a
+thing has happened before writing about it. Otherwise he may commit
+himself to statements which are not borne out by the actual facts.
+Mrs. Peagrim, recording in advance the success of her party at the
+Gotham Theatre, had done this. It is true that she was a "radiant and
+vivacious hostess," and it is possible, her standard not being very
+high, that she had "never looked more charming." But, when she went on
+to say that all present were in agreement that they had never spent a
+more delightful evening, she deceived the public. Uncle Chris, for
+one; Otis Pilkington, for another, and Freddie Rooke, for a third,
+were so far from spending a delightful evening that they found it hard
+to mask their true emotions and keep a smiling face to the world.
+
+Otis Pilkington, indeed, found it impossible, and, ceasing to try,
+left early. Just twenty minutes after the proceedings had begun, he
+seized his coat and hat, shot out into the night, made off blindly up
+Broadway, and walked twice round Central Park before his feet gave out
+and he allowed himself to be taken back to his apartment in a taxi.
+Jill had been very kind and very sweet and very regretful, but it was
+only too manifest that on the question of becoming Mrs. Otis
+Pilkington her mind was made up. She was willing to like him, to be a
+sister to him, to watch his future progress with considerable
+interest, but she would not marry him.
+
+One feels sorry for Otis Pilkington in his hour of travail. This was
+the fifth or sixth time that this sort of thing had happened to him,
+and he was getting tired of it. If he could have looked into the
+future--five years almost to a day from that evening--and seen himself
+walking blushfully down the aisle of St. Thomas' with Roland Trevis'
+sister Angela on his arm, his gloom might have been lightened. More
+probably, however, it would have been increased. At the moment, Roland
+Trevis' sister Angela was fifteen, frivolous, and freckled and, except
+that he rather disliked her and suspected her--correctly--of laughing
+at him, amounted to just _nil_ in Mr. Pilkington's life. The idea of
+linking his lot with hers would have appalled him, enthusiastically
+though he was in favour of it five years later.
+
+However, Mr. Pilkington was unable to look into the future, so his
+reflections on this night of sorrow were not diverted from Jill. He
+thought sadly of Jill till two-thirty, when he fell asleep in his
+chair and dreamed of her. At seven o'clock his Japanese valet, who had
+been given the night off, returned home, found him, and gave him
+breakfast. After which, Mr. Pilkington went to bed, played three games
+of solitaire, and slept till dinner-time, when he awoke to take up the
+burden of life again. He still brooded on the tragedy which had
+shattered him. Indeed, it was only two weeks later, when at a dance he
+was introduced to a red-haired girl from Detroit, that he really got
+over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The news was conveyed to Freddie Rooke by Uncle Chris. Uncle Chris,
+with something of the emotions of a condemned man on the scaffold
+waiting for a reprieve, had watched Jill and Mr. Pilkington go off
+together into the dim solitude at the back of the orchestra chairs,
+and, after an all too brief interval, had observed the latter whizzing
+back, his every little movement having a meaning of its own--and that
+meaning one which convinced Uncle Chris that Freddie, in estimating
+Mr. Pilkington as a sixty to one chance, had not erred in his judgment
+of form.
+
+Uncle Chris found Freddie in one of the upper boxes, talking to Nelly
+Bryant. Dancing was going on down on the stage, but Freddie, though
+normally a young man who shook a skilful shoe, was in no mood for
+dancing to-night. The return to the scenes of his former triumphs and
+the meeting with the companions of happier days, severed from him by a
+two-weeks' notice, had affected Freddie powerfully. Eyeing the happy
+throng below, he experienced the emotions of that Peri who, in the
+poem, "at the gate of Eden stood disconsolate."
+
+Excusing himself from Nelly and following Uncle Chris into the
+passage-way outside the box, he heard the other's news listlessly. It
+came as no shock to Freddie. He had never thought Mr. Pilkington
+anything to write home about, and had never supposed that Jill would
+accept him. He said as much. Sorry for the chap in a way, and all
+that, but had never imagined for an instant that he would click.
+
+"Where is Underhill?" asked Uncle Chris agitated.
+
+"Derek? Oh, he isn't here yet."
+
+"But why isn't he here? I understood that you were bringing him with
+you."
+
+"That was the scheme, but it seems he had promised some people he met
+on the boat to go to a theatre and have a bit of supper with them
+afterwards. I only heard about it when I got back this morning."
+
+"Good God, boy! Didn't you tell him that Jill would be here to-night?"
+
+"Oh, rather. And he's coming on directly he can get away from these
+people. Ought to be here any moment now."
+
+Uncle Chris plucked at his moustache gloomily. Freddie's detachment
+depressed him. He had looked for more animation and a greater sense of
+the importance of the issue.
+
+"Well, pip-pip for the present," said Freddie, moving toward the box.
+"Have to be getting back. See you later."
+
+He disappeared, and Uncle Chris turned slowly to descend the stairs.
+As he reached the floor below, the door of the stage-box opened, and
+Mrs. Peagrim came out.
+
+"Oh, Major Selby!" cried the radiant and vivacious hostess. "I
+couldn't think where you had got to. I have been looking for you
+everywhere."
+
+Uncle Chris quivered slightly, but braced himself to do his duty.
+
+"May I have the pleasure...?" he began, then broke off as he saw the
+man who had come out of the box behind his hostess. "Underhill!" He
+grasped his hand and shook it warmly. "My dear fellow! I had no notion
+that you had arrived!"
+
+"Sir Derek came just a moment ago," said Mrs. Peagrim.
+
+"How are you, Major Selby?" said Derek. He was a little surprised at
+the warmth of his reception. He had not anticipated this geniality.
+
+"My dear fellow, I'm delighted to see you," cried Uncle Chris. "But,
+as I was saying, Mrs. Peagrim, may I have the pleasure of this dance?"
+
+"I don't think I will dance this one," said Mrs. Peagrim surprisingly.
+"I'm sure you two must have ever so much to talk about. Why don't you
+take Sir Derek and give him a cup of coffee?"
+
+"Capital idea!" said Uncle Chris. "Come this way, my dear fellow. As
+Mrs. Peagrim says, I have ever so much to talk about. Along this
+passage, my boy. Be careful. There's a step. Well, well, well! It's
+delightful to see you again!" He massaged Derek's arm affectionately.
+Every time he had met Mrs. Peagrim that evening he had quailed
+inwardly at what lay before him, should some hitch occur to prevent
+the re-union of Derek and Jill: and now that the other was actually
+here, handsomer than ever and more than ever the sort of man no girl
+could resist, he declined to admit the possibility of a hitch. His
+spirits soared. "You haven't seen Jill yet, of course?"
+
+"No." Derek hesitated. "Is Jill.... Does she.... I mean...."
+
+Uncle Chris resumed his osteopathy. He kneaded his companion's
+coat-sleeve with a jovial hand.
+
+"My dear fellow, of course! I am sure that a word or two from you will
+put everything right. We all make mistakes. I have made them myself. I
+am convinced that everything will be perfectly all right.... Ah, there
+she is. Jill, my dear, here is an old friend to see you!"
+
+
+II
+
+Since the hurried departure of Mr. Pilkington, Jill had been sitting
+in the auditorium, lazily listening to the music and watching the
+couples dancing on the stage. She found herself drifting into a mood
+of gentle contentment, and was at a loss to account for this. She was
+happy--quietly and peacefully happy, when she was aware that she ought
+to have been both agitated and apprehensive. When she had anticipated
+the recent interview with Otis Pilkington, which she had known was
+bound to come sooner or later, it had been shrinkingly and with
+foreboding. She hated hurting people's feelings, and, though she read
+Mr. Pilkington's character accurately enough to know that time would
+heal any anguish which she might cause him, she had had no doubt that
+the temperamental surface of that long young man, when he succeeded in
+getting her alone, was going to be badly bruised. And it had fallen
+out just as she had expected. Mr. Pilkington had said his say and
+departed, a pitiful figure, a spectacle which should have wrung her
+heart. It had not wrung her heart. Except for one fleeting instant
+when she was actually saying the fatal words, it had not interfered
+with her happiness at all; and already she was beginning to forget
+that the incident had ever happened.
+
+And, if the past should have depressed her, the future might have been
+expected to depress her even more. There was nothing in it, either
+immediate or distant, which could account for her feeling gently
+contented. And yet, as she leaned back in her seat, her heart was
+dancing in time to the dance-music of Mrs. Peagrim's hired orchestra.
+It puzzled Jill.
+
+And then, quite suddenly, yet with no abruptness or sense of
+discovery, just as if it were something which she had known all along,
+the truth came upon her. It was Wally, the thought of Wally, the
+knowledge that Wally existed, that made her happy. He was a solid,
+comforting, reassuring fact in a world of doubts and perplexities. She
+did not need to be with him to be fortified, it was enough just to
+think of him. Present or absent, his personality heartened her like
+fine weather or music or a sea-breeze--or like that friendly, soothing
+night-light which they used to leave in her nursery when she was
+little, to scare away the goblins and see her safely over the road
+that led to the gates of the city of dreams.
+
+Suppose there were no Wally...?
+
+Jill gave a sudden gasp, and sat up, tingling. She felt as she had
+sometimes felt as a child, when, on the edge of sleep, she had dreamed
+that she was stepping off a precipice and had woken, tense and alert,
+to find that there was no danger after all. But there was a difference
+between that feeling and this. She had woken, but to find that there
+was danger. It was as though some inner voice was calling to her to be
+careful, to take thought. Suppose there were no Wally?... And why
+should there always be Wally? He had said confidently enough that
+there would never be another girl.... But there were thousands of
+other girls, millions of other girls, and could she suppose that one
+of them would not have the sense to snap up a treasure like Wally? A
+sense of blank desolation swept over Jill. Her quick imagination,
+leaping ahead, had made the vague possibility of a distant future an
+accomplished fact. She felt, absurdly, a sense of overwhelming loss.
+
+Into her mind, never far distant from it, came the thought of Derek.
+And, suddenly, Jill made another discovery. She was thinking of Derek,
+and it was not hurting. She was thinking of him quite coolly and
+clearly and her heart was not aching.
+
+She sat back and screwed her eyes tight, as she had always done when
+puzzled. Something had happened to her, but how it had happened and
+when it had happened and why it had happened she could not understand.
+She only knew that now for the first time she had been granted a
+moment of clear vision and was seeing things truly.
+
+She wanted Wally. She wanted him in the sense that she could not do
+without him. She felt nothing of the fiery tumult which had come upon
+her when she first met Derek. She and Wally would come together with a
+smile and build their life on an enduring foundation of laughter and
+happiness and good-fellowship. Wally had never shaken and never would
+shake her senses as Derek had done. If that was love, then she did not
+love Wally. But her clear vision told her that it was not love. It
+might be the blazing and crackling of thorns, but it was not the fire.
+She wanted Wally. She needed him as she needed the air and the
+sunlight.
+
+She opened her eyes and saw Uncle Chris coming down the aisle towards
+her. There was a man with him, and, as they moved closer in the dim
+light, Jill saw that it was Derek.
+
+"Jill, my dear," said Uncle Chris, "here is an old friend to see you!"
+
+And, having achieved their bringing together, he proceeded to withdraw
+delicately whence he had come. It is pleasant to be able to record
+that he was immediately seized upon by Mrs. Peagrim, who had changed
+her mind about not dancing, and led off to be her partner in a
+fox-trot, in the course of which she trod on his feet three times.
+
+"Why, Derek!" said Jill cheerfully. Except for a mild wonder how he
+came to be there, she found herself wholly unaffected by the sight of
+him. "Whatever are _you_ doing here?"
+
+Derek sat down beside her. The cordiality of her tone had relieved,
+yet at the same time disconcerted him. Man seldom attains to perfect
+contentment in this world, and Derek, while pleased that Jill
+apparently bore him no ill-will, seemed to miss something in her
+manner which he would have been glad to find there.
+
+"Jill!" he said huskily.
+
+It seemed to Derek only decent to speak huskily. To his orderly mind
+this situation could be handled only in one way. It was a plain,
+straight issue of the strong man humbling himself--not too much of
+course, but sufficiently: and it called, in his opinion, for the low
+voice, the clenched hand, and the broken whisper. Speaking as he had
+spoken, he had given the scene the right key from the start--or would
+have done if she had not got in ahead of him and opened it on a note
+of absurd cheeriness? Derek found himself resenting her cheeriness.
+Often as he had attempted during the voyage from England to visualize
+to himself this first meeting, he had never pictured Jill smiling
+brightly at him. It was a jolly smile, and made her look extremely
+pretty, but it jarred upon him. A moment before he had been half
+relieved, half disconcerted: now he was definitely disconcerted. He
+searched in his mind for a criticism of her attitude, and came to the
+conclusion that what was wrong with it was that it was too friendly.
+Friendliness is well enough in its way, but in what should have been a
+tense clashing of strong emotions it did not seem to Derek fitting.
+
+"Did you have a pleasant trip?" asked Jill. "Have you come over on
+business?"
+
+A feeling of bewilderment came upon Derek. It was wrong, it was all
+wrong. Of course, she might be speaking like this to cloak intense
+feeling, but, if so, she had certainly succeeded. From her manner, he
+and she might be casual acquaintances. A pleasant trip! In another
+minute she would be asking him how he had come out on the sweepstake
+on the ship's run. With a sense of putting his shoulder to some heavy
+weight and heaving at it, he sought to lift the conversation to a
+higher plane.
+
+"I came to find _you_!" he said; still huskily but not so huskily as
+before. There are degrees of huskiness, and Derek's was sharpened a
+little by a touch of irritation.
+
+"Yes?" said Jill.
+
+Derek was now fermenting. What she ought to have said, he did not
+know, but he knew that it was not "Yes?" "Yes?" in the circumstances
+was almost as bad as "Really?"
+
+There was a pause. Jill was looking at him with a frank and
+unembarrassed gaze which somehow deepened his sense of annoyance. Had
+she looked at him coldly, he could have understood and even
+appreciated it. He had been expecting coldness, and had braced himself
+to combat it. He was still not quite sure in his mind whether he was
+playing the role of a penitent or a King Cophetua, but in either
+character he might have anticipated a little temporary coldness, which
+it would have been his easy task to melt. But he had never expected to
+be looked at as if he were a specimen in a museum, and that was how he
+was feeling now. Jill was not looking at him--she was inspecting him,
+examining him, and he chafed under the process.
+
+Jill, unconscious of the discomfort she was causing, continued to
+gaze. She was trying to discover in just what respect he had changed
+from the god he had been. Certainly not in looks. He was as handsome
+as ever--handsomer, indeed, for the sunshine and clean breezes of the
+Atlantic had given him an exceedingly becoming coat of tan. And yet he
+must have changed, for now she could look upon him quite
+dispassionately and criticize him without a tremor. It was like seeing
+a copy of a great painting. Everything was there, except the one thing
+that mattered, the magic and the glamour. It was like.... She suddenly
+remembered a scene in the dressing-room when the company had been in
+Baltimore. Lois Denham, duly the recipient of the sunburst which her
+friend Izzy had promised her, had unfortunately, in a spirit of
+girlish curiosity, taken it to a jeweller to be priced, and the
+jeweller had blasted her young life by declaring it a paste imitation.
+Jill recalled how the stricken girl--previous to calling Izzy on the
+long distance and telling him a number of things which, while probably
+not news to him, must have been painful hearing--had passed the vile
+object round the dressing-room for inspection. The imitation was
+perfect. It had been impossible for the girls to tell that the stones
+were not real diamonds. Yet the jeweller, with his sixth sense, had
+seen through them in a trifle under ten seconds. Jill came to the
+conclusion that her newly-discovered love for Wally Mason had equipped
+her with a sixth sense, and that by its aid she was really for the
+first time seeing Derek as he was.
+
+Derek had not the privilege of being able to read Jill's thoughts. All
+he could see was the outer Jill, and the outer Jill, as she had always
+done, was stirring his emotions. Her daintiness afflicted him. Not for
+the first, the second, or the third time since they had come into each
+other's lives, he was astounded at the strength of the appeal which
+Jill had for him when they were together, as contrasted with its
+weakness when they were apart. He made another attempt to establish
+the scene on a loftier plane.
+
+"What a fool I was!" he sighed. "Jill! Can you ever forgive me?"
+
+He tried to take her hand. Jill skilfully eluded him.
+
+"Why, of course I've forgiven you, Derek, if there was, anything to
+forgive."
+
+"Anything to forgive!" Derek began to get into his stride. These were
+the lines on which he had desired the interview to develop. "I was a
+brute! A cad!"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"I was. Oh, I have been through hell!"
+
+Jill turned her head away. She did not want to hurt him, but nothing
+could have kept her from smiling. She had been so sure that he would
+say that sooner or later.
+
+"Jill!" Derek had misinterpreted the cause of her movement, and had
+attributed it to emotion. "Tell me that everything is as it was
+before."
+
+Jill turned.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't say that, Derek."
+
+"Of course not!" agreed Derek in a comfortable glow of manly remorse.
+He liked himself in the character of the strong man abashed. "It would
+be too much to expect, I know. But, when we are married...."
+
+"Do you really want to marry me?"
+
+"Jill!"
+
+"I wonder!"
+
+"How can you doubt it?"
+
+Jill looked at him.
+
+"Have you thought what it would mean?"
+
+"What it would mean?"
+
+"Well, your mother...."
+
+"Oh!" Derek dismissed Lady Underhill with a grand gesture.
+
+"Yes," persisted Jill, "but, if she disapproved of your marrying me
+before, wouldn't she disapprove a good deal more now, when I haven't a
+penny in the world and am just in the chorus...."
+
+A sort of strangled sound proceeded from Derek's throat.
+
+"In the chorus!"
+
+"Didn't you know? I thought Freddie must have told you."
+
+"In the chorus!" Derek stammered. "I thought you were here as a guest
+of Mrs. Peagrim's."
+
+"So I am--like all the rest of the company."
+
+"But.... But...."
+
+"You see, it would be bound to make everything a little difficult,"
+said Jill. Her face was grave, but her lips were twitching. "I mean,
+you are rather a prominent man, aren't you, and if you married a
+chorus-girl...."
+
+"Nobody would know," said Derek limply.
+
+Jill opened her eyes.
+
+"Nobody would _know_!" She laughed. "But, of course, you've never met
+our Press-agent. If you think that nobody would know that a girl in
+the company had married a baronet who was a member of parliament and
+expected to be in the Cabinet in a few years, you're wronging him! The
+news would be on the front page of all the papers the very next
+day--columns of it, with photographs. There would be articles about it
+in the Sunday papers. Illustrated! And then it would be cabled to
+England and would appear in the papers there.... You see, you're a
+very important person, Derek."
+
+Derek sat clutching the arms of his chair. His face was chalky. Though
+he had never been inclined to underestimate his importance as a figure
+in the public eye, he had overlooked the disadvantages connected with
+such an eminence. He gurgled wordlessly. He had been prepared to brave
+Lady Underhill's wrath and assert his right to marry whom he pleased,
+but this was different.
+
+Jill watched him curiously and with a certain pity. It was so easy to
+read what was passing in his mind. She wondered what he would say, how
+he would flounder out of his unfortunate position. She had no
+illusions about him now. She did not even contemplate the possibility
+of chivalry winning the battle which was going on within him.
+
+"It would be very awkward, wouldn't it?" she said.
+
+And then pity had its way with Jill. He had treated her badly; for a
+time she had thought that he had crushed all the heart out of her: but
+he was suffering, and she hated to see anybody suffer.
+
+"Besides," she said, "I'm engaged to somebody else."
+
+As a suffocating man, his lips to the tube of oxygen, gradually comes
+back to life, Derek revived--slowly as the meaning of her words sank
+into his mind, then with a sudden abruptness.
+
+"What?" he cried.
+
+"I'm going to marry somebody else. A man named Wally Mason."
+
+Derek swallowed. The chalky look died out of his face, and he flushed
+hotly. His eyes, half relieved, half indignant, glowed under their
+pent-house of eyebrow. He sat for a moment in silence.
+
+"I think you might have told me before!" he said huffily.
+
+Jill laughed.
+
+"Yes, I suppose I ought to have told you before."
+
+"Leading me on...!"
+
+Jill patted him on the arm.
+
+"Never mind, Derek! It's all over now. And it was great fun, wasn't
+it!"
+
+"Fun!"
+
+"Shall we go and dance? The music is just starting."
+
+"I _won't_ dance!"
+
+Jill got up.
+
+"I must," she said. "I'm so happy I can't keep still. Well, good-bye,
+Derek, in case I don't see you again. It was nice meeting after all
+this time. You haven't altered a bit!"
+
+Derek watched her flit down the aisle, saw her jump up the little
+ladder on to the stage, watched her vanish into the swirl of the
+dance. He reached for a cigarette, opened his case, and found it
+empty. He uttered a mirthless, Byronic laugh. The thing seemed to him
+symbolic.
+
+
+III
+
+Not having a cigarette of his own, Derek got up and went to look for
+the only man he knew who could give him one: and after a search of a
+few minutes came upon Freddie all alone in a dark corner, apart from
+the throng. It was a very different Freddie from the moody youth who
+had returned to the box after his conversation with Uncle Chris. He
+was leaning against a piece of scenery with his head tilted back and a
+beam of startled happiness on his face. So rapt was he in his
+reflections that he did not become aware of Derek's approach until the
+latter spoke.
+
+"Got a cigarette, Freddie?"
+
+Freddie withdrew his gaze from the roof.
+
+"Hullo, old son! Cigarette? Certainly and by all means. Cigarettes?
+Where are the cigarettes? Mr. Rooke, forward! Show cigarettes." He
+extended his case to Derek, who helped himself in sombre silence,
+finding his boyhood's friend's exuberance hard to bear. "I say, Derek,
+old scream, the most extraordinary thing has happened! You'll never
+guess. To cut a long story short and come to the blow-out of the
+scenario, I'm engaged! Engaged, old crumpet! You know what I
+mean--engaged to be married!"
+
+"Ugh!" said Derek gruffly, frowning over his cigarette.
+
+"Don't wonder you're surprised," said Freddie, looking at him a little
+wistfully, for his friend had scarcely been gushing, and he would have
+welcomed a bit of enthusiasm. "Can hardly believe it myself."
+
+Derek awoke to a sense of the conventions.
+
+"Congratulate you," he said. "Do I know her?"
+
+"Not yet, but you will soon. She's a girl in the company--in the
+chorus as a matter of fact. Girl named Nelly Bryant. An absolute
+corker. I'll go further--a topper. You'll like her, old man."
+
+Derek was looking at him, amazed.
+
+"Good Heavens!" he said.
+
+"Extraordinary how these things happen," proceeded Freddie. "Looking
+back, I can see, of course, that I always thought her a topper, but
+the idea of getting engaged--I don't know--sort of thing that doesn't
+occur to a chappie, if you know what I mean. What I mean to say is, we
+had always been the greatest of pals and all that, but it never struck
+me that she would think it much of a wheeze getting hooked up for life
+with a chap like me. We just sort of drifted along and so forth. All
+very jolly and what not. And then this evening--I don't know. I had a
+bit of a hump, what with one thing and another, and she was most
+dashed sweet and patient and soothing and--and--well, and what not,
+don't you know, and suddenly--deuced rummy sensation--the jolly old
+scales seemed to fall, if you follow me, from my good old eyes; I
+don't know if you get the idea. I suddenly seemed to look myself
+squarely in the eyeball and say to myself, 'Freddie, old top, how do
+we go? Are we not missing a good thing?' And, by Jove, thinking it
+over, I found that I was absolutely correct-o! You've no notion how
+dashed sympathetic she is, old man! I mean to say, I had this hump,
+you know, owing to one thing and another, and was feeling that life
+was more or less of a jolly old snare and delusion, and she bucked me
+up and all that, and suddenly I found myself kissing her and all that
+sort of rot, and she was kissing me and so on and so forth, and she's
+got the most ripping eyes, and there was nobody about, and the long
+and the short of it was, old boy, that I said, 'Let's get married!'
+and she said, 'When?' and that was that, if you see what I mean. The
+scheme now is to pop down to the City Hall and get a licence, which it
+appears you have to have if you want to bring this sort of binge off
+with any success and vim, and then what ho for the padre! Looking at
+it from every angle, a bit of a good egg, what? Happiest man in the
+world, and all that sort of thing."
+
+At this point in his somewhat incoherent epic Freddie paused. It had
+occurred to him that he had perhaps laid himself open to a charge of
+monopolising the conversation.
+
+"I say! You'll forgive my dwelling a bit on this thing, won't you?
+Never found a girl who would look twice at me before, and it's rather
+unsettled the old bean. Just occurred to me that I may have been
+talking about my own affairs a bit. Your turn now, old thing. Sit
+down, as the blighters in the novels used to say, and tell me the
+story of your life. You've seen Jill, of course?"
+
+"Yes," said Derek shortly.
+
+"And it's all right, eh? Fine! We'll make a double wedding of it,
+what? Not a bad idea, that! I mean to say, the man of God might make a
+reduction for quantity and shade his fee a bit. Do the job half
+price!"
+
+Derek threw down the end of his cigarette, and crushed it with his
+heel. A closer observer than Freddie would have detected long ere this
+the fact that his demeanour was not that of a happy and successful
+wooer.
+
+"Jill and I are not going to be married," he said.
+
+A look of blank astonishment came into Freddie's cheerful face. He
+could hardly believe that he had heard correctly. It is true that, in
+gloomier mood, he had hazarded the theory to Uncle Chris that Jill's
+independence might lead her to refuse Derek, but he had not really
+believed in the possibility of such a thing even at the time, and now,
+in the full flood of optimism consequent on his own engagement, it
+seemed even more incredible.
+
+"Great Scott!" he cried. "Did she give you the raspberry?"
+
+It is to be doubted whether the pride of the Underhills would have
+permitted Derek to reply in the affirmative, even if Freddie had
+phrased his question differently; but the brutal directness of the
+query made such a course impossible for him. Nothing was dearer to
+Derek than his self-esteem, and, even at the expense of the truth, he
+was resolved to shield it from injury. To face Freddie and confess
+that any girl in the world had given him, Derek Underhill, what he
+coarsely termed the raspberry was a task so revolting as to be utterly
+beyond his powers.
+
+"Nothing of the kind!" he snapped. "It was because we both saw that
+the thing would be impossible. Why didn't you tell me that Jill was in
+the chorus of this damned piece?"
+
+Freddie's mouth slowly opened. He was trying not to realize the
+meaning of what his friend was saying. His was a faithful soul, and
+for years--to all intents and purposes for practically the whole of
+his life--he had looked up to Derek and reverenced him. He absolutely
+refused to believe that Derek was intending to convey what he seemed
+to be trying to convey; for, if he was, well ... by Jove ... it was
+too rotten and Algy Martyn had been right after all and the fellow was
+simply....
+
+"You don't mean, old man," said Freddie with an almost pleading note
+in his voice, "that you're going to back out of marrying Jill because
+she's in the chorus?"
+
+Derek looked away, and scowled. He was finding Freddie, in the
+capacity of inquisitor, as trying as he had found him in the role of
+exuberant fiance. It offended his pride to have to make explanations
+to one whom he had always regarded with a patronizing tolerance as not
+a bad fellow in his way but in every essential respect negligible.
+
+"I have to be sensible," he said, chafing as the indignity of his
+position intruded itself more and more. "You know what it would
+mean.... Paragraphs in all the papers.... photographs ... the news
+cabled to England ... everybody reading it and misunderstanding....
+I've got my career to think of.... It would cripple me...."
+
+His voice trailed off, and there was silence for a moment. Then
+Freddie burst into speech. His good-natured face was hard with
+unwonted scorn. Its cheerful vacuity had changed to stony contempt.
+For the second time in the evening the jolly old scales had fallen
+from Freddie's good old eyes, and, as Jill had done, he saw Derek as
+he was.
+
+"My sainted aunt!" he said slowly. "So that's it, what? Well, I've
+always thought a dashed lot of you, as you know. I've always looked up
+to you as a bit of a nib and wished I was like you. But, great Scott!
+if that's the sort of a chap you are, I'm deuced glad I'm not! I'm
+going to wake up in the middle of the night and think how unlike you I
+am and pat myself on the back! Ronny Devereux was perfectly right. A
+tick's a tick, and that's all there is to say about it. Good old Ronny
+told me what you were, and, like a silly ass, I wasted a lot of time
+trying to make him believe you weren't that sort of chap at all. It's
+no good standing there looking like your mother," said Freddie firmly.
+"This is where we jolly well part brass-rags! If we ever meet again,
+I'll trouble you not to speak to me, because I've a reputation to keep
+up! So there you have it in a bally nutshell!"
+
+Scarcely had Freddie ceased to administer it to his former friend in a
+bally nutshell, when Uncle Chris, warm and dishevelled from the dance
+as interpreted by Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim, came bustling up, saving
+Derek the necessity of replying to the harangue.
+
+"Well, Underhill, my dear fellow," began Uncle Chris affably,
+attaching himself to the other's arm, "what...?"
+
+He broke off, for Derek, freeing his arm with a wrench, turned and
+walked rapidly away. Derek had no desire to go over the whole thing
+again with Uncle Chris. He wanted to be alone, to build up, painfully
+and laboriously, the ruins of his self-esteem. The pride of the
+Underhills had had a bad evening.
+
+Uncle Chris turned to Freddie.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked blankly.
+
+"I'll tell you what's the jolly old matter!" cried Freddie. "The
+blighter isn't going to marry poor Jill after all! He's changed his
+rotten mind! It's off!"
+
+"Off?"
+
+"Absolutely off!"
+
+"Absolutely off?"
+
+"Napoo!" said Freddie. "He's afraid of what will happen to his blasted
+career if he marries a girl who's been in the chorus."
+
+"But, my dear boy!" Uncle Chris blinked. "But, my dear boy! This is
+ridiculous.... Surely, if I were to speak a word...."
+
+"You can if you like. _I_ wouldn't speak to the man again if you paid
+me! But it won't do any good, so what's the use?"
+
+Slowly Uncle Chris adjusted his mind to the disaster.
+
+"Then you mean...?"
+
+"It's off!" said Freddie.
+
+For a moment Uncle Chris stood motionless. Then, with a sudden jerk,
+he seemed to stiffen his backbone. His face was bleak, but he pulled
+at his moustache jauntily.
+
+"_Morituri te salutant!_" he said. "Good-bye, Freddie, my boy."
+
+He turned away, gallant and upright, the old soldier.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Freddie.
+
+"Over the top!" said Uncle Chris.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I am going," said Uncle Chris steadily, "to find Mrs. Peagrim!"
+
+"Good God!" cried Freddie. He followed him, protesting weakly, but the
+other gave no sign that he had heard. Freddie saw him disappear into
+the stage-box, and, turning, found Jill at his elbow.
+
+"Where did Uncle Chris go?" asked Jill. "I want to speak to him."
+
+"He's in the stage-box, with Mrs. Peagrim."
+
+"With Mrs. Peagrim?"
+
+"Proposing to her," said Freddie solemnly.
+
+Jill stared.
+
+"Proposing to Mrs. Peagrim? What do you mean?"
+
+Freddie drew her aside, and began to explain.
+
+
+IV
+
+In the dimness of the stage-box, his eyes a little glassy and a dull
+despair in his soul, Uncle Chris was wondering how to begin. In his
+hot youth he had been rather a devil of a fellow in between dances, a
+coo-er of soft phrases and a stealer of never very stoutly withheld
+kisses. He remembered one time in Bangalore ... but that had nothing
+to do with the case. The point was, how to begin with Mrs. Peagrim.
+The fact that twenty-five years ago he had crushed in his arms beneath
+the shadows of the deodars a girl whose name he had forgotten, though
+he remembered that she had worn a dress of some pink stuff, was
+immaterial and irrelevant. Was he to crush Mrs. Peagrim in his arms?
+Not, thought Uncle Chris to himself, on a bet. He contented himself
+for the moment with bending an intense gaze upon her and asking if she
+was tired.
+
+"A little," panted Mrs. Peagrim, who, though she danced often and
+vigorously, was never in the best of condition, owing to her habit of
+neutralizing the beneficent effects of exercise by surreptitious
+candy-eating. "I'm a little out of breath."
+
+Uncle Chris had observed this for himself, and it had not helped him
+to face his task. Lovely woman loses something of her queenly dignity
+when she puffs. Inwardly, he was thinking how exactly his hostess
+resembled the third from the left of a troupe of performing sea-lions
+which he had seen some years ago on one of his rare visits to a
+vaudeville house.
+
+"You ought not to tire yourself," he said with a difficult tenderness.
+
+"I _am_ so fond of dancing," pleaded Mrs. Peagrim. Recovering some of
+her breath, she gazed at her companion with a sort of short-winded
+archness. "You are always so sympathetic, Major Selby."
+
+"Am I?" said Uncle Chris. "Am I?"
+
+"You know you are!"
+
+Uncle Chris swallowed quickly.
+
+"I wonder if you have ever wondered," he began, and stopped. He felt
+that he was not putting it as well as he might. "I wonder if it has
+ever struck you that there's a reason." He stopped again. He seemed to
+remember reading something like that in an advertisement in a
+magazine, and he did not want to talk like an advertisement. "I wonder
+if it has ever struck you, Mrs. Peagrim," he began again, "that any
+sympathy on my part might be due to some deeper emotion which.... Have
+you never suspected that you have never suspected...." Uncle Chris
+began to feel that he must brace himself up. Usually a man of fluent
+speech, he was not at his best to-night. He was just about to try
+again, when he caught his hostess' eye, and the soft gleam in it sent
+him cowering back into the silence as if he were taking cover from an
+enemy's shrapnel.
+
+Mrs. Peagrim touched him on the arm.
+
+"You were saying...?" she murmured encouragingly.
+
+Uncle Chris shut his eyes. His fingers pressed desperately into the
+velvet curtain beside him. He felt as he had felt when a raw
+lieutenant in India, during his first hill-campaign, when the
+etiquette of the service had compelled him to rise and walk up and
+down in front of his men under a desultory shower of jezail-bullets.
+He seemed to hear the damned things _whop-whopping_ now ... and almost
+wished that he could really hear them. One or two good bullets just
+now would be a welcome diversion.
+
+"Yes?" said Mrs. Peagrim.--
+
+"Have you never felt," babbled Uncle Chris, "that, feeling as I feel,
+I might have felt ... that is to say might be feeling a feeling...?"
+
+There was a tap at the door of the box. Uncle Chris started violently.
+Jill came in.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said. "I wanted to speak...."
+
+"You wanted to speak to me?" said Uncle Chris, bounding up.
+"Certainly, certainly, certainly, of course. If you will excuse me for
+a moment?"
+
+Mrs. Peagrim bowed coldly. The interruption had annoyed her. She had
+no notion who Jill was, and she resented the intrusion at this
+particular juncture intensely. Not so Uncle Chris, who skipped out
+into the passage like a young lamb.
+
+"Am I in time?" asked Jill in a whisper.
+
+"In time?"
+
+"You know what I mean. Uncle Chris, listen to me! You are not to
+propose to that awful woman. Do you understand?"
+
+Uncle Chris shook his head.
+
+"The die is cast!"
+
+"The die isn't anything of the sort," said Jill. "Unless...." She
+stopped, aghast. "You don't mean that you have done it already?"
+
+"Well, no. To be perfectly accurate, no. But...."
+
+"Then that's all right. I know why you were doing it, and it was very
+sweet of you, but you mustn't."
+
+"But, Jill, you don't understand."
+
+"I do understand."
+
+"I have a motive...."
+
+"I know your motive. Freddie told me. Don't you worry yourself about
+me, dear, because I am all right. I am going to be married."
+
+A look of ecstatic relief came into Uncle Chris' face.
+
+"Then Underhill...?"
+
+"I am not marrying Derek. Somebody else. I don't think you know him,
+but I love him, and so will you." She pulled his face down and kissed
+him. "Now you can go back."
+
+Uncle Chris was almost too overcome to speak. He gulped a little.
+
+"Jill," he said shakily, "this is a ... this is a great relief."
+
+"I knew it would be."
+
+"If you are really going to marry a rich man...."
+
+"I didn't say he was rich."
+
+The joy ebbed from Uncle Chris' face.
+
+"If he is not rich, if he cannot give you everything of which I...."
+
+"Oh, don't be absurd! Wally has all the money anybody needs. What's
+money?"
+
+"What's money?" Uncle Chris stared. "Money, my dear child, is ... is ...
+well, you mustn't talk of it in that light way. But, if you think you will
+really have enough...?"
+
+"Of course we shall. Now you can go back. Mrs. Peagrim will be
+wondering what has become of you."
+
+"Must I?" said Uncle Chris doubtfully.
+
+"Of course. You must be polite."
+
+"Very well," said Uncle Chris. "But it will be a little difficult to
+continue the conversation on what you might call general lines.
+However!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Back in the box, Mrs. Peagrim was fanning herself with manifest
+impatience.
+
+"What did that girl want?" she demanded.
+
+Uncle Chris seated himself with composure. The weakness had passed,
+and he was himself again.
+
+"Oh, nothing, nothing. Some trivial difficulty, which I was able to
+dispose of in a few words."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim would have liked to continue her researches, but a
+feeling that it was wiser not to stray too long from the main point
+restrained her. She bent towards him.
+
+"You were going to say something when that girl interrupted us."
+
+Uncle Chris shot his cuffs with a debonair gesture.
+
+"Was I? Was I? To be sure, yes. I was saying that you ought not to let
+yourself get tired. Deuce of a thing, getting tired. Plays the dickens
+with the system."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim was disconcerted. The atmosphere seemed to have changed,
+and she did not like it. She endeavoured to restore the tone of the
+conversation.
+
+"You are so sympathetic," she sighed, feeling that she could not do
+better than to begin again at that point. The remark had produced
+good results before and it might do so a second time.
+
+"Yes," agreed Uncle Chris cheerily. "You see, I have seen something of
+all this sort of thing, and I realize the importance of it. I know
+what all this modern rush and strain of life is for a woman in your
+position. Parties every night ... dancing ... a thousand and one calls
+on the vitality ... bound to have an effect sooner or later,
+unless--_unless_," said Uncle Chris solemnly, "one takes steps. Unless
+one acts in time. I had a friend--" His voice sank--"I had a very dear
+friend over in London, Lady Alice--but the name would convey
+nothing--the point is that she was in exactly the same position as
+you. On the rush all the time. Never stopped. The end was inevitable.
+She caught cold, hadn't sufficient vitality to throw it off, went to a
+dance in mid-winter, contracted pneumonia...." Uncle Chris sighed.
+"All over in three days," he said sadly. "Now at that time," he
+resumed, "I did not know what I know now. If I had heard of Nervino
+then...." He shook his head. "It might have saved her life. It _would_
+have saved her life. I tell you, Mrs. Peagrim, that there is nothing,
+there is no lack of vitality which Nervino cannot set right. I am no
+physician myself, I speak as a layman, but it acts on the red
+corpuscles of the blood...."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim's face was stony. She had not spoken before, because he
+had given her no opportunity, but she spoke now in a hard voice.
+
+"Major Selby!"
+
+"Mrs. Peagrim?"
+
+"I am not interested in patent medicines!"
+
+"One can hardly call Nervino that," said Uncle Chris reproachfully.
+"It is a sovereign specific. You can get it at any drug store. It
+comes in two sizes, the dollar-fifty--or large--size, and the...."
+
+Mrs. Peagrim rose majestically.
+
+"Major Selby, I am tired...."
+
+"Precisely. And, as I say, Nervino...."
+
+"Please," said Mrs. Peagrim coldly, "go to the stage-door and see if
+you can find my limousine. It should be waiting in the street."
+
+"Certainly," said Uncle Chris. "Why, certainly, certainly,
+certainly."
+
+He left the box and proceeded across the stage. He walked with a
+lissom jauntiness. His eye was bright. One or two of those whom he
+passed on his way had the idea that this fine-looking man was in pain.
+They fancied that he was moaning. But Uncle Chris was not moaning. He
+was humming a gay snatch from the lighter music of the 'nineties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+WALLY MASON LEARNS A NEW EXERCISE
+
+I
+
+
+Up on the roof of his apartment, far above the bustle and clamour of
+the busy city, Wally Mason, at eleven o'clock on the morning after
+Mrs. Peagrim's Bohemian party, was greeting the new day, as was his
+custom, by going through his ante-breakfast exercises. Mankind is
+divided into two classes--those who do setting-up exercises before
+breakfast and those who know they ought to but don't. To the former
+and more praiseworthy class Wally had belonged since boyhood. Life
+might be vain and the world a void, but still he touched his toes the
+prescribed number of times and twisted his muscular body about
+according to the ritual. He did so this morning a little more
+vigorously than usual, partly because he had sat up too late the night
+before and thought too much and smoked too much, with the result that
+he had risen heavy-eyed, at the present disgraceful hour, and partly
+because he hoped by wearying the flesh to still the restlessness of
+the spirit. Spring generally made Wally restless, but never previously
+had it brought him this distracted feverishness. So he lay on his back
+and waved his legs in the air, and it was only when he had risen and
+was about to go still further into the matter that he perceived Jill
+standing beside him.
+
+"Good Lord!" said Wally.
+
+"Don't stop," said Jill. "I'm enjoying it.'
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"Oh, I only just arrived. I rang the bell, and the nice old lady who
+is cooking your lunch told me you were out here.'
+
+"Not lunch. Breakfast."
+
+"Breakfast! At this hour?"
+
+"Won't you join me?"
+
+"I'll join you. But I had my breakfast long ago."
+
+Wally found his despondency magically dispelled. It was extraordinary
+how the mere sight of Jill could make the world a different place. It
+was true the sun had been shining before her arrival, but in a flabby,
+weak-minded way, not with the brilliance it had acquired immediately
+he heard her voice.
+
+"If you don't mind waiting for about three minutes while I have a
+shower and dress...."
+
+"Oh, is the entertainment over?" asked Jill, disappointed. "I always
+arrive too late for everything."
+
+"One of these days you shall see me go through the whole programme,
+including shadow-boxing and the goose-step. Bring your friends! But at
+the moment I think it would be more of a treat for you to watch me eat
+an egg. Go and look at the view. From over there you can see Hoboken."
+
+"I've seen it. I don't think much of it."
+
+"Well, then, on this side we have Brooklyn. There is no stint. Wander
+to and fro and enjoy yourself. The rendezvous is in the sitting-room
+in about four moments."
+
+Wally vaulted through the passage-window and disappeared. Then he
+returned and put his head out.
+
+"I say!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Just occurred to me. Your uncle won't be wanting this place for half
+an hour or so, will he? I mean, there will be time for me to have a
+bite of breakfast?"
+
+"I don't suppose he will require your little home till some time in
+the evening."
+
+"Fine!"
+
+Wally disappeared again, and a few moments later Jill heard the faint
+splashing of water. She walked to the parapet and looked down. On the
+windows of the nearer buildings the sun cast glittering beams, but
+further away a faint, translucent mist hid the city. There was Spring
+humidity in the air. In the street she had found it oppressive: but on
+the breezy summit of this steel-and-granite cliff the air was cool and
+exhilarating. Peace stole into Jill's heart as she watched the boats
+dropping slowly down the East River, which gleamed like dull steel
+through the haze. She had come to Journey's End, and she was happy.
+Trouble and heartache seemed as distant as those hurrying black ants
+down on the streets. She felt far away from the world on an enduring
+mountain of rest. She gave a little sigh of contentment and turned to
+go in as Wally called.
+
+In the sitting-room her feeling of security deepened. Here, the world
+was farther away than ever. Even the faint noises which had risen to
+the roof were inaudible, and only the cosy tick-tock of the
+grandfather's clock punctuated the stillness.
+
+She looked at Wally with a quickening sense of affection. He had the
+divine gift of silence at the right time. Yes, this was home. This was
+where she belonged.
+
+"It didn't take me in, you know," said Jill at length, resting her
+arms on the table and regarding him severely.
+
+Wally looked up.
+
+"What didn't take you in?"
+
+"That bath of yours. Yes, I know you turned on the cold shower, but
+you stood at a safe distance and watched it _show_!"
+
+Wally waved his fork.
+
+"As Heaven is my witness.... Look at my hair! Still damp! And I can
+show you the towel."
+
+"Well, then, I'll bet it was the hot water. Why weren't you at Mrs.
+Peagrim's party last night?"
+
+"It would take too long to explain all my reasons, but one of them was
+that I wasn't invited. How did it go off?"
+
+"Splendidly. Freddie's engaged!"
+
+Wally lowered his coffee cup.
+
+"Engaged! You don't mean what is sometimes slangily called betrothed?"
+
+"I do. He's engaged to Nelly Bryant. Nelly told me all about it when
+she got home last night. It seems that Freddie said to her 'What ho!'
+and she said 'You bet!' and Freddie said 'Pip pip!' and the thing was
+settled." Jill bubbled. "Freddie wants to go into vaudeville with
+her!"
+
+"No! The Juggling Rookes? Or Rooke and Bryant, the cross-talk team, a
+thoroughly refined act, swell dressers on and off?"
+
+"I don't know. But it doesn't matter. Nelly is domestic. She's going
+to have a little home in the country, where she can grow chickens and
+pigs."
+
+"Father's in the pigstye, you can tell him by his hat, eh?"
+
+"Yes. They will be very happy. Freddie will be a father to her
+parrot."
+
+Wally's cheerfulness diminished a trifle. The contemplation of
+Freddie's enviable lot brought with it the inevitable contrast with
+his own. A little home in the country.... Oh, well!
+
+
+II
+
+There was a pause. Jill was looking a little grave.
+
+"Wally!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+She turned her face away, for there was a gleam of mischief in her
+eyes which she did not wish him to observe.
+
+"Derek was at the party!"
+
+Wally had been about to butter a piece of toast. The butter, jerked
+from the knife by the convulsive start which he gave, popped up in a
+semi-circle and plumped on to the tablecloth. He recovered himself
+quickly.
+
+"Sorry!" he said. "You mustn't mind that. They want me to be
+second-string for the "Boosting the Butter" event at the next Olympic
+Games, and I'm practising all the time.... Underhill was there, eh?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You met him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Wally fiddled with his knife.
+
+"Did he come over.... I mean ... had he come specially to see you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I see."
+
+There was another pause.
+
+"He wants to marry you?"
+
+"He said he wanted to marry me."
+
+Wally got up and went to the window. Jill could smile safely now, and
+she did, but her voice was still grave.
+
+"What ought I to do, Wally? I thought I would ask you as you are such
+a friend."
+
+Wally spoke without turning.
+
+"You ought to marry him, of course."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"You ought to marry him, of course," said Wally doggedly. "You love
+him, and the fact that he came all the way to America must mean that
+he still loves you. Marry him!"
+
+"But...." Jill hesitated. "You see, there's a difficulty."
+
+"What difficulty?"
+
+"Well ... it was something I said to him just before he went away. I
+said something that made it a little difficult."
+
+Wally continued to inspect the roofs below.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Well ... it was something ... something that I don't believe he liked ...
+something that may interfere with his marrying me."
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I told him I was going to marry _you_!"
+
+Wally spun round. At the same time he leaped in the air. The effect of
+the combination of movements was to cause him to stagger across the
+room and, after two or three impromptu dance steps which would have
+interested Mrs. Peagrim, to clutch at the mantelpiece to save himself
+from falling. Jill watched him with quiet approval.
+
+"Why, that's wonderful, Wally! Is that another of your morning
+exercises? If Freddie does go into vaudeville, you ought to get him to
+let you join the troupe."
+
+Wally was blinking at her from the mantelpiece.
+
+"Jill!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"What--what--what...!"
+
+"Now, don't talk like Freddie, even if you are going into vaudeville
+with him."
+
+"You said you were going to marry _me_?"
+
+"I said I was going to marry you!"
+
+"But--do you mean...?"
+
+The mischief died out of Jill's eyes. She met his gaze frankly and
+seriously.
+
+"The lumber's gone, Wally," she said. "But my heart isn't empty. It's
+quite, quite full, and it's going to be full for ever and ever and
+ever."
+
+Wally left the mantelpiece, and came slowly towards her.
+
+"Jill!" He choked. "Jill!"
+
+Suddenly he pounced on her and swung her off her feet She gave a
+little breathless cry.
+
+"Wally! I thought you didn't approve of cavemen!"
+
+"This," said Wally, "is just another new morning exercise I've thought
+of!"
+
+Jill sat down, gasping.
+
+"Are you going to do that often, Wally?"
+
+"Every day for the rest of my life!"
+
+"Goodness!"
+
+"Oh, you'll get used to it. It'll grow on you."
+
+"You don't think I am making a mistake marrying you?"
+
+"No, no! I've given the matter a lot of thought, and ... in fact, no,
+no!"
+
+"No," said Jill thoughtfully. "I think you'll make a good husband. I
+mean, suppose we ever want the piano moved or something.... Wally!"
+she broke off suddenly.
+
+"You have our ear."
+
+"Come out on the roof," said Jill. "I want to show you something
+funny."
+
+Wally followed her out. They stood at the parapet together, looking
+down.
+
+"There!" said Jill, pointing.
+
+Wally looked puzzled.
+
+"I see many things, but which is the funny one?"
+
+"Why, all these people. Over there--and there--and there. Scuttering
+about and thinking they know everything there is to know, and not one
+of them has the least idea that I am the happiest girl on earth!"
+
+"Or that I'm the happiest man! Their ignorance is--what is the word I
+want? Abysmal. They don't know what it's like to stand beside you and
+see that little dimple in your chin.... They don't know you've _got_ a
+little dimple in your chin.... They don't know.... They don't know....
+Why, I don't suppose a single one of them even knows that I'm just
+going to kiss you!"
+
+"Those girls in that window over there do," said Jill. "They are
+watching us like hawks."
+
+"Let 'em!" said Wally briefly.
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT
+
+
+Jill had money, Jill was engaged to be married to Sir Derek Underhill.
+Suddenly Jill becomes penniless, and she is no longer engaged. With a
+smile, in which there is just a tinge of recklessness, she refuses to
+be beaten and turns to face the world. Instead she went to New York
+and became a member of the chorus of "The Rose of America," and Mr.
+Wodehouse is enabled to lift the curtain of the musical comedy world.
+
+There is laughter and drama in _Jill the Reckless_, and the action
+never flags from the moment that Freddie Rooke confesses that he has
+had a hectic night, down to the point where Wally says briefly "Let
+'em," which is page 313.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jill the Reckless, by
+P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JILL THE RECKLESS ***
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