'In God's name has anything happened?'
(Something had happened but they did not know it. In her
dressing-room, half way through the performance, she had found a note:--
'DEAR MADAM,--Either you grant me a profitable interview after the
performance or the police will be informed to-morrow morning.
'CLAUDE CUMBERLAND.')
'I only wanted,' said Rodd, 'to ask you to convey my very best wishes
to Miss Day. Just that. Nothing more.'
Verschoyle stared at him, and Rodd laughed.
'No. I am not what you think. I have been and am always at your
service. To-night has been one of the most wretched of her life. I
have been watching the performance. Butcher and his audience have been
too much for them.'
'But the success was hers.'
'You do not know her well, if you imagine that such a success is what
she desires.'
An attendant came up to them with a note from Clara enclosing
Cumberland's. Verschoyle handed it to Rodd, who crumpled it up and
said,--
'I knew that was the danger-point. Will you take me to see her? I
know these people. I have done what I could. I kicked that fellow out
just after you had gone.'
'There is a supper in Sir Henry's room,' said Verschoyle, with an
uneasy glance at Rodd's shabby evening clothes. 'I will take you
there. Are you an actor?'
'No. I write. I remember you at the Hall when I was at Pembroke.'
That reassured Verschoyle. He liked this deep, quiet man, and felt
that he knew more than he allowed to appear, half-guessed indeed that
he had played some great and secret part in Clara's life. He
introduced him to Lady Bracebridge and her daughter, who had stayed to
watch the huge audience melt away and to hold a little reception with
congratulations on the success of 'their' play. Lady Bracebridge
noticed Rodd's boots at once, an old pair of cracked patent leathers,
but her daughter chattered to him,--
'Wasn't it all too sweet? I adore _The Tempest_. Caliban is such a
dear, isn't he?'
Rodd smiled grimly but politely.
They made their way on to the stage where they found Charles Mann
tipping the stage-hands. The stairs up from the stage were thronged
with brilliant personages, all happy, excited, drinking in the
atmosphere of success.... In Sir Henry's room Lady Butcher stood to
receive her guests. 'Too delightful! ... The most charming
production! ... Exquisite! ... Quite too awfully Ballet Russe!'
The players in their costumes, their eyes dilated with nervous
excitement, their lips trembling with their hunger for praise, moved
among the Jews, politicians, journalists, major and minor
celebrities.... Sir Henry moved from group to group. He was at his
most brilliantly witty.
But there was no Ariel. Several ladies who desired to ask her to lunch
in their anxiety to invest capital in the new star, clamoured to see
her.
'She is tired, poor child,' said Sir Henry, with an amorously
proprietary air.
'But she _must_ come,' said Lady Butcher, eager to exploit the interest
Clara had aroused, and she bustled away.
Charles Mann came in at that moment and he was at once surrounded with
twittering women.
'You must tell him,' said Rodd to Verschoyle, 'he must get out....
Will you let her go with him?'
'Never,' said Verschoyle, and awaiting his chance, he plucked Charles
by the sleeve, took him into a corner and gave him Cumberland's note.
Charles's face went a greeny gray.
'What does he mean?'
'Blackmail,' replied Verschoyle. 'You can't ask her to go on living
with that hanging over her head.'
'I can pay,' said Charles.
'She'll pay on for ever.'
'What else can I do?'
'Clear out, give her a chance. Let her make her own life so that it
can't touch her--whatever happens to you.'
'But I ...'
'Can you only think of yourself?'
'My work.'
'Look here, Mann. I've paid six hundred to keep this quiet. It hasn't
done it. I suppose they've squabbled over the spoils.'
'Six hundred.'
'Yes. What can you do? These people ask more and more and more.'
'It's ruin.'
'Yes. If you don't clear out.'
Charles began to look elderly and flabby.
'All right,' he said. 'When?'
'To-morrow morning. I'll see that you have money and you'll get as
much work as you like now--thanks to her.'
'You don't know what she's been to me, Verschoyle.'
'No. But I know what any other man would have been to her. You ought
to have told her.'
'To-morrow morning,' said Charles. 'I'll go.'
He turned away and basked in the smiles and congratulations of the
Bracebridge-Butcher set.