Jerome couldn’t wait till morning to break the news to Curry, but got
the impresario out of bed. There were new lines of worry and care in the
good man’s face, but his enthusiasm over the offer which had been made
his erstwhile business manager was wholly unfettered. At first he blinked
sleepily, and said: “Well—well....” in a somewhat solemn, deliberating
way. But when he woke up sufficiently to realize that it wasn’t for
advice but for congratulation that the business manager had roused him,
then Curry became satisfactorily boisterous. In fact, they both became a
little boisterous, for Jerome had smuggled in sandwiches and a bottle of
something, and insisted upon an impromptu celebration right on the spot.
It was well along toward morning before the weary maestro was left to a
little snatch of needed slumber. As for Jerome, he didn’t go to bed at
all. He felt it would be out of the question even to think of bed. And
he wanted to be on hand early to corner Lili with the facts and give
her, he told himself, some general instructions. He whistled along the
waterfront, deserted and very full of echoes at this hour, and finally
settled down on a barrel of tar to wait for sun-up.
Jerome had scarcely seen Lili since the arrival in Borneo—and had,
indeed, given her deliberately a wide berth. It was essential, he felt,
to begin making it plain to all the world that they weren’t living
together any more. Now he began wondering how she was making out, and
what she had been up to. Poor Lili, he thought. She seemed so helpless,
so little able to look out for herself. He must see what could be done.
Perhaps he could arrange to send her part of his salary for awhile. He
would see how reasonably she took the news of his desertion.
The songbirds began to appear, clad in outlandish togs which had been
acquired helter-skelter in a mart where there was little in the way of
choice. They were all in good spirits, however. “On to Yokohama!” had
been adopted as the company slogan. After that—well, no one seemed to
care to bother very much yet about the future. Things would turn up, as
they always did, somehow or other.
Jerome was just deciding that happy-go-lucky Lili had overslept, as she
so frequently did, and debated ascertaining her lodgings and going off to
hunt her up, when suddenly he beheld her coming along, garbed in a queer
pink dress and wearing an enormous hat trimmed with blue roses and fur.
She had a little white dog on a leash, and it strained sniffingly ahead,
running in a spindle-legged, sidling manner. She was right upon Jerome
before she discovered him.
“Oh, Jerry!” she cried. And at first her eyes beamed with the sheer
pleasure of encountering him; but almost at once they took on a hurt,
reproachful look, and all the beam was gone out of them. Her lips went
into a disappointed little pout.
He wasted no words, but acquainted her simply and frankly with the facts
in the case. Their ways were to sever. Tomorrow at this hour they would
be hundreds of miles apart. It was unlikely they would ever meet again.
“Oh, but Jerry....” she faltered.
“It’s up to you,” he concluded, “to do the rest. They know we’ve not
been getting on. Now it will be very easy. You may tell them anything
you like. I don’t care how strong you make your case—I guess I can stand
up under the strain. But I should think that simple desertion would be
about as good as anything. Just one request: Please don’t tell them I was
in the habit of hitting you with clubs. I’d hate any one to think that
of me. But I know you’ll work it out. And if you want to say I fell in
love with some one else—if that would help—why, go ahead, only please
have a heart and don’t make her some little painted fool. I’ve written
my address on this piece of paper”—he handed it over—“and if you have
trouble financing things for awhile, just get in touch with me and I’ll
see what I can do, though as you know, I’m not by any means a pluto
_yet_!”
She seemed a little bewildered by it all. As a matter of fact, it was a
rather bewildering speech. And before she had quite found her bearings,
Lili murmured, with tears threatening: “We were so happy together once,
Jerry—oh, I could cry my eyes out at the way you’re treating me!”
“But,” he reminded her, “you know it was already agreed we were going to
separate. There’s no use going into all that again. And I don’t think we
better be too thick together this morning, either. What you tell ’em must
be convincing.”
But she had had time to get over the first shock, and her manner now grew
assertive. “Oh,” she cried, “that’s all very well, my fine fellow, but
you don’t seem to be considering _my_ feelings in the matter. You just
skip out and leave the hard part for me. If that isn’t just like a man!”