Philip's disposition had been so curiously affected by the emotions of
the last few months that he was not in the least surprised to find
himself, that evening, torn by a very curious and unfamiliar spasm of
jealousy. After an hour or so of indecision he made his way, as usual, to
the theatre, but instead of going at once to Elizabeth's room, he slipped
in at the back of the stalls. The house was crowded, and, seated in the
stage box, alone and gloomy, his somewhat austere demeanour intensified
by the severity of his evening clothes, sat Sylvanus Power with the air
of a conqueror. Philip, unaccountably restless, left his seat in a very
few minutes, and, making his way to the box office, scribbled a line to
Elizabeth. The official to whom he handed it looked at him in surprise.
"Won't you go round yourself, Mr. Ware?" he suggested. "Miss Dalstan has
another ten minutes before she is on."
Philip shook his head.
"I'm looking for a man I know," he replied evasively. "I'll be somewhere
about here in five minutes."
The answer came in less than that time. It was just a scrawled line in
pencil:
"Forgive me, dear. I will explain everything in the morning, if you will
come to my rooms at eleven o'clock. This evening I have a hateful duty to
perform and I cannot see you."
Philip, impatient of the atmosphere of the theatre, wandered out into the
streets with the note in his pocket. Broadway was thronged with people, a
heterogeneous, slowly-moving throng, the hardest crowd to apprehend, to
understand, of any in the world. He looked absently into the varying
stream of faces, stared at the whirling sky-signs, the lights flashing
from the tall buildings, heard snatches of the music from the open doors
of the cafes and restaurants. Men, and even women, elbowed him,
unresenting, out of the way, without the semblance of an apology. It
seemed to him that his presence there, part of the drifting pandemonium
of the pavement, was in a sense typical of his own existence in New York.
He had given so much of his life into another's hands and now the anchor
was dragging. He was suddenly confronted with the possibility of a rift
in his relations with Elizabeth; with a sudden surging doubt, not of
Elizabeth herself but simply a feeling of insecurity with regard to their
future. He only realised in those moments how much he had leaned upon
her, how completely she seemed to have extended over him and his troubled
life some sort of sheltering influence, to which he had succumbed with an
effortless, an almost fatalistic impulse, finding there, at any rate, a
refuge from the horrors of his empty days. It was all abstract and
impersonal at first, this jealousy which had come so suddenly to disturb
the serenity of an almost too perfect day, but as the hours passed it
seemed to him that his thoughts dwelt more often upon the direct cause of
his brief separation from Elizabeth. He turned in at one of the clubs of
which he had been made a member, and threw himself gloomily into an
easy-chair. His thoughts had turned towards the grim, masterful
personality of the man who seemed to have obtruded himself upon their
lives. What did it mean when Elizabeth told him she was engaged for
to-night? She was supping with him somewhere--probably at that moment
seated opposite to him at a small, rose-shaded table in one of the many
restaurants of the city which they had visited together. He, Sylvanus
Power, his supplanter, was occupying the place that belonged to him,
ordering her supper, humouring her little preferences, perhaps sharing
with her that little glow of relief which comes with the hour of rest,
after the strain of the day's work. The suggestion was intolerable.
To-morrow he would have an explanation! Elizabeth belonged to him.
The sooner the world knew it, the better, and this man first of all. He
read her few lines again, hastily pencilled, and evidently written
standing up. There was a certain ignominy in being sent about his
business, just because this colossus from the West had appeared and
claimed--what? Not his right!--he could have no right! What then?...
Philip ordered a drink, tore open an evening paper, and tried to read.
The letters danced before his eyes, the whisky and soda stood neglected
at his elbow. Afterwards he found himself looking into space. There was
something cynical, challenging almost, in the manner in which that man
had taken Elizabeth away from him, had acknowledged his introduction,
even had treated the author of a play, a writer, as some sort of a
mountebank, making his living by catering for the amusements of the
world. How did that man regard such gifts as his, he wondered?--Sylvanus
Power, of whom he had seen it written that he was one of the conquerors
of nature, a hard but splendid utilitarian, the builder of railways in
China and bridges for the transit of his metals amid the clouds of the
mountain tops. In the man's absence, his harshness, almost uncouthness,
seemed modified. He was a rival, without a doubt, and to-night a favoured
one. How well had he known Elizabeth? For how long? Was it true, that
rumour he had once heard--that the first step in her fortunes had been
due to the caprice of a millionaire? He found the room stifling, but the
thought of the streets outside unnerved him. He looked about for some
distraction.
The room was beginning to fill--actors, musicians, a few journalists, a
great many men of note in the world of Bohemia kept streaming in. One
or two of them nodded to him, several paused to speak.
"Hullo, Ware!" Noel Bridges exclaimed. "Not often you give us a look in.
What are you doing with yourself here all alone?"
Philip turned to answer him, and suddenly felt the fire blaze up again.
He saw his questioner's frown, saw him even bite his lip as though
conscious of having said a tactless thing. The actor probably understood
the whole situation well enough.
"I generally go into the Lotus," Philip lied. "To-night I had a fancy to
come here."
"The Lotus is too far up town for us fellows," Bridges remarked. "We need
a drink, a little supper, and to see our pals quickly when the night's
work is over. I hear great things of the new play, Mr. Ware, but I don't
know when you'll get a chance to produce it. Were you in the house
tonight?"
"Only for a moment."
"Going stronger than ever," Bridges continued impressively. "Yes, thanks,
I'll take a Scotch highball," he added, in response to Philip's mute
invitation, "plenty of ice, Mick. There wasn't a seat to be had in the
house, and I wouldn't like to say what old Fink had to go through before
he could get his box for the great Sylvanus."
"His box?" Philip queried.
"The theatre belongs to Sylvanus Power, you know," Bridges explained. "He
built it five years ago."
"For a speculation?"
The actor fidgeted for a moment with his tumbler.
"No, for Miss Dalstan," he replied.
Philip set his teeth hard. The temptation to pursue the conversation was
almost overpowering. The young man himself, though a trifle embarrassed,
seemed perfectly willing to talk. At least it was better to know the
truth! Then another impulse suddenly asserted itself. Whatever he was to
know he must learn from her lips and from hers only.
"Well, I should think it's turned out all right," he remarked.
Noel Bridges shrugged his shoulders.
"The rent, if it were figured out at a fair interest on the capital,
would be something fabulous," he declared. "You see, the place was
extravagantly built--without any regard to cost. The dressing rooms, as
you may have noticed, are wonderful, and all the appointments are unique.
I don't fancy the old man's ever had a quarter's rent yet that's paid him
one per cent, on the money. See you later, perhaps, Mr. Ware," the young
man concluded, setting down his tumbler. "I'm going in to have a grill.
Why don't you come along?"
Philip hesitated for a second and then, somewhat to the other's surprise,
assented. He was conscious that he had been, perhaps, just a little
unresponsive to the many courtesies which had been offered him here and
at the other kindred clubs. They had been ready to receive him with open
arms, this little fraternity of brain-workers, and his response had been,
perhaps, a little doubtful, not from any lack of appreciation but partly
from that curious diffidence, so hard to understand but so fundamentally
English, and partly because of that queer sense of being an impostor
which sometimes swept over him, a sense that he was, after all, only
the ghost of another man, living a subjective life; that, reason it out
however he might, there was something of the fraud in any personality
he might adopt. And yet, deep down in his heart he was conscious of so
earnest a desire to be really one of them, this good-natured,
good-hearted, gay-spirited little throng, with their delightful
intimacies, their keen interest in each other's welfare, their potent,
almost mysterious geniality, which seemed to draw the stranger of kindred
tastes so closely under its influence. Philip, as he sat at the long
table with a dozen or so other men, did his best that night to break
through the fetters, tried hard to remember that his place amongst them,
after all, was honest enough. They were writers and actors and
journalists. Well, he too was a writer. He had written a play which they
had welcomed with open arms, as they had done him. In this world of
Bohemia, if anywhere, he surely had a right to lift up his head and
breathe--and he would do it. He sat with them, smoking and talking, until
the little company began to thin out, establishing all the time a new
reputation, doing a great deal to dissipate that little sense of
disappointment which his former non-responsiveness had created.
"He's a damned good fellow, after all," one of them declared, as at last
he left the room. "He is losing his Britishness every day he stays here."
"Been through rough times, they say," another remarked.
"He is one of those," an elder member pronounced, taking his pipe for a
moment from his mouth, "who was never made for happiness. You can always
read those men. You can see it behind their eyes."
Nevertheless, Philip walked home a saner and a better man. He felt
somehow warmed by those few hours of companionship. The senseless part of
his jealousy was gone, his trust in Elizabeth reestablished. He looked at
the note once more as he undressed. At eleven o'clock on the following
morning in her rooms!