§ 1.
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 artistes 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 the 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 the 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
tonight 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
upbringing 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 onto 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 tomorrow 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 his 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 now 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.”
§ 2.
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-humor 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 favor 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 favor a peremptory demand, he might
save himself a thousand dollars.
“I want the stage after the performance tomorrow 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 tomorrow!”
“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-maneuvred 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!”
§ 3.
Mr Goble’s jaw fell. He had been waving his hands in another spacious
gesture, and he remained frozen with out-stretched 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 check 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 tortoiseshell-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 her 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 favorably disposed towards the scheme.
I …” Mr Pilkington gulped again. “I gave him a check 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 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! 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.
§ 4.
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 neighbor: 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. Tonight 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.