with Bond Street photographers; four receipts; one bill; a dignified
protest from a country clergyman who had been shocked by the line: "Oh,
you're not sending me down with _that_ woman, Rhoda? She's God's first
and most _perfect_ bore." There was an ill-written request for leave to
translate his play into French, three news-cuttings to herald his new
play, a conventional letter from his mother, two petitions for free
stalls from impecunious friends and nine invitations to luncheon or
dinner. He had hardly finished reading them, when a pencilled note, sent
by hand from Mrs. Shelley, made the tenth.
Eric piled his correspondence under the butter-dish to await his
secretary's arrival and turned methodically to _The Times_. Half-an-hour
later he rang for his housekeeper and subjected her book to scrutiny. A
leather-bound journal with a snap-lock lay on his table, and he next
wrote his diary for the previous day. "_So to dinner--rather late--with
Lady Poynter to meet her nephew, Capt. Gaymer (R. F. C). Mrs. O'Rane (as
beautiful as ever, but too voluble for my taste), Mrs. Shelley and Lady
Barbara Neave. Meredithian debate on wine with Lord P., which I would
give anything to put into a play. Bridge; but I cut out._" He hesitated
and drummed with his fingers on the thick creamy pages. "_Took Lady B.
home rather late and circuitously._"
Then his secretary knocked and settled herself on the edge of an
arm-chair.
"Good-morning," Eric began. "Will you write first of all to the manager
of the bank----"
The telephone rang with a dull drone at the foot of his bed, and the
girl made tentative movements of discreet departure.
"No, you deal with this!" Eric cried. "Out of London. You're not sure
when I shall be back. Can you take a message?"
The girl picked up the instrument, while Eric glanced again through his
letters.
"Hullo! Yes. Yes. He's--away, I'm afraid. . . . But, you see, he's
_away_. . . ." She looked despairingly at Eric. "He's _awa-ay_!" Then
breathlessly she clapped the receiver back.
"It was Lady Barbara Somebody; I couldn't hear the surname. She said you
weren't away and she _must_ speak to you. I thought it was best----"
Eric had to collect himself before answering. In the sane cold light of
early morning the overnight escapade was a draggled, unromantic bit of
folly. If he met Barbara again, he would make things as easy as
possible: there would be no allusions, no sly smiles; the whole thing
was to be forgotten. And yet she was already digging it from under the
lightly sprinkled earth. If she were throwing herself on his mercy, it
was unnecessary; he had said "Good-_bye_ . . ." very distinctly. And she
must surely know that she need not beg him not to talk. . . .
"You were quite right," he told his secretary. "Where were we? Oh, the
manager----"
The bell rang again. Eric frowned and picked up the receiver, while the
girl, after a moment's hesitation, tip-toed out of the room. Barbara had
already disturbed his time-table for thirty seconds. . . .
"Hullo? Mr. Lane is away at present," he said. There was a pause. "I
told you yesterday, Lady Barbara. Just as when you say 'Not at home.'
. . . I'm exceedingly busy and I _must_ have a few days to myself.
Good-bye."
The constant factor in her overnight autobiography was that every one
had always done what Barbara wanted; but, if she fancied that she was
going to break into a working-day with any of her nonsense, she would be
disappointed.
At the other end of the line a gentle, rather tired voice said:
"Don't cut me off. If you _know_ the trouble I've had to get hold of
you! Eric, why aren't you in the book? Another device for escaping your
adorers? I've been pursuing you round London for a good half-hour; then
your people at the theatre----"
"Is it anything _important_?" he interrupted curtly.
"It's very important that you should listen _most_ politely and
carefully and patiently and attentively when I'm talking to you. So far
you haven't asked how I am, you haven't told me how you are----"
"I've _suggested_ that I'm very busy," he interrupted her again.
"But I don't allow that sort of thing to stand in the way."
"And _I_ don't allow any one to break into my time. Good-bye----"
"Eric, don't you dare ring me off! I want to know whether you'll lunch
here to-day. I've collected rather an amusing party."
"I'm afraid I can't."
"Where _are_ you lunching? At home? Then you can certainly come. . . . I
don't care _who's_ lunching with you. . . . If you don't--Well, you'll
see. In the meantime, has Marion Shelley invited you to dine to-night
and are you going?"
"Yes, to the first; no, to the second," Eric answered. "Lady
Barbara----"
"It must be 'yes' to the second, too, dear Eric. I rang her up at
cock-crow to say that you wanted her to invite us together. You do, you
know; you want to see whether last night's impression was true; that's
why I asked you to lunch. . . . Now I want to know if you've a rehearsal
to-day, because, if so----"
"Lady Barbara, I am going to cut you off," said Eric distinctly.
He hung up the receiver and was about to ring for his secretary, when
his memory was arrested by the picture of Barbara springing to her feet,
reviling him, collapsing on the sofa and bursting into tears. "Bully
her, and she cries," he murmured impatiently. "Don't bully her, and she
bullies you. I'm not cut out for the part of tame cat. Another
forty-eight hours, and she'll expect me to drive round London and look
at dresses with her. . . ." But if his petulance had made her cry again
. . . Eric hunted for a pen and, without involving himself in delicacies
of address, wrote--"_I am not discourteous by preference, but you drive
me to it. La comedia e finita._" He left the note unsigned and asked his
secretary to have it sent by hand to Berkeley Square. When it had left
him past recall, he felt that he could have done better; and he knew
that he would have done best of all by not writing. . . . But he was
irritated by her too insistent unconventionality; irritated and yet
rawly elated by his ascendancy over her.
His secretary returned, and he dictated to her until half-past nine
struck. It was his signal to get up so that he could be dressed by ten,
so that he could work from ten till one, so that he could walk out and
lunch at one-thirty, observing his time-table punctually.
The telephone rang again, and Mrs. Shelley enquired tonelessly whether
he had received her invitation.
"Oh, Eric! I _did_ hope you could come!" she exclaimed. "Can't you
reconsider? Poor Babs seems so anxious to see you again."
Mrs. Shelley, then, had the wit to guess where the initiative lay.
"I'm afraid that the privilege of gratifying Lady Barbara's whims----"
He forgot how he had meant to finish the sentence, and there was a
pause.
"Don't you like her, Eric?" asked Mrs. Shelley. "Most people fall a
victim the first time they meet her."
"I've outgrown the susceptible age," he laughed. "And, anyway, I'm
working. It's awfully kind of you to invite me, Mrs. Shelley----"
"Eric, I wish you'd reconsider," she interrupted before he could repeat
his refusal. "I feel you'll be doing her a kindness by coming; you
amused her and turned her thoughts. . . . I was dreadfully distressed
last night; she looked as if she were going into a decline. . . ."
In contrast to Mrs. Shelley's toneless voice Eric heard again Barbara's
abrupt, startling cry, "You're hopeless, hopeless!"--just before she
collapsed limply on the sofa and cried about something which she would
not explain. . . .
"You make it impossible for me to refuse," he said with an uneasy laugh.
"I'm so grateful! I _knew_ you'd come, Eric."
He threw back the bed-clothes and rang for his bath.
"I suppose Lady Barbara will think _she_ knew I was coming, too," he
said to himself. "I don't mind being made a fool of _once_. . . ."
At noon he tidied his papers and lighted a cigarette while he waited for
a call from his agent. The "Divorce" was being produced in America; and
for an arid, perplexing half-hour Mr. Grierson, with eyes half-closed in
the grey smoke of his cigar, pushed cables, letters, copies and a draft
agreement across the table.
"Stay and have some lunch," Eric suggested, as half-past twelve struck.
"Manders is due any time now. He wants me to make certain alterations in
the 'Bomb-Shell,' and you can keep me in countenance. I'm getting rather
tired of being told: 'Of course, with great respect, Lane, you're a
new-comer to the theatre. . . .' New-comer I may be, but it doesn't lie
in Manders' mouth to say so, if he'll trouble to calculate how many
thousands I've put in his pocket. . . . Isn't this the sort of time when
one has a cocktail?"
Grierson's eyes lighted up at the suggestion, and Eric rang for ice. He
was in the middle of his preparations when Harry Manders entered in a
suit of light tweeds, clutching a flat-brimmed bowler hat in one hand
and a leather-topped cane in the other.
"'Mornin', Eric. Hullo, Phil! Sinister combination for a poor devil of
an actor-manager--author _and_ agent. What's this you're givin' me?
Well, only up to the top--On my honour, boy, only up to the top!" He
nodded over the brimming glass with a knowing "Well, chin-chin!" and
subsided diagonally into a chair with his legs across one arm.
"I thought Grierson's age and experience might save my play from further
amateur surgery," Eric explained.
"Tootaloo," chirped Manders resiliently and dragged a crumpled script
from his pocket. Eric's obstinate assurance would have exasperated any
other manager, but, as Manders wearily said, "I've been too long at the
game to lose my temper."
With that they settled to work and argued their way through the marked
passages of Manders' copy heatedly and without reaching conviction or
agreement. Once Grierson rose and shook a second cocktail; twice a maid
announced that luncheon was on the table. Something, which he attributed
to his broken night, made Eric unreasonable to a point where he knew
that he was being unreasonable. He was too tired for anything except
sustained obstinacy, and his companions grated on him.
"Oh, let's have something to eat!" he exclaimed at length. "The second
act's got to stand as I wrote it. We shan't do any good by talking. . . ."
"Now don't you be in a hurry, boy," began Manders. "_Turn_ back to the
beginning. . . ."
Eric looked at his watch.
"Don't forget we've a rehearsal," he said. "I don't know what there is
for lunch, but it will be tepid."
"Then let's wait for it to get cold. Now, in the first act you
said--Damn!"
He flapped the script impatiently on his knee as the now familiar knock
of Eric's parlour-maid was heard yet again.
"Lady Barbara Neave to see you, sir," she whispered a little
breathlessly.
"Will you please say that I can't possibly see any one?" Eric answered
curtly. "Tell her that two gentlemen have come to see me on business.
Ask her to leave a message."
He turned to find Manders smiling, as though to say, "Why didn't you
tell us? _We_ should have understood. We're men of the world."
"The _first_ act," Eric repeated earnestly. "_As_ you will, but do go
ahead with it. I want some lunch."
For five seconds the three men turned the limp, dog's-eared pages until
they had found the place. Manders cleared his throat unreservedly and
then looked up with an expression of ebbing patience, as the door opened
again. This time there was no knock, and Lady Barbara walked in after
hesitating for a moment on the threshold to identify Eric. She was
wearing a black dress with a transparent film of grey hanging from the
shoulders, a black hat shaped like a butterfly's wings with her hair
visible through the spider's web crown. One hand swung a sable stole,
the other carried to and from her mouth a half-eaten apple.
"Eric, _please_ invite me to lunch with you!" she begged. "You've such
delicious food. I was shewn into your dining-room and I could hardly
resist it. There's a dressed crab--I behaved _perfectly_, I didn't touch
it--and, if all three of you had the weeniest little bit less, there'd
be enough for us all. Hullo, there's Mr. Manders!"
She shook hands and waited for Eric to introduce Grierson.
"You're interrupting an important discussion, Lady Barbara."
"Is it about your new play? Oh, then I can help! But, if you knew how
hungry I was----"
"They're expecting you to lunch at home," Eric interrupted. "You told me
you had a party."
"But I've just telephoned to say that I've been invited to lunch here!
I've burnt your boats. Father was perfectly furious, because mother's
lunching with Connie Maitland, and he counted on me to see him through."
As she smiled at Eric with her head on one side, he realized that work
was over for the morning.
"I daresay there will be enough for four," he answered.
"Then for goodness' sake let's begin before any one else turns up
unexpectedly!" she cried, catching him by the sleeves and drawing him to
the door.
Grierson and Manders smiled and followed them, carefully brushing
cigar-ash from their clothes and smoothing the back of their hair.
2
Elation battled with annoyance in Eric's mind throughout luncheon.
Barbara had sought him out, when a hundred other men--several of them,
like George Oakleigh, undisguisedly in love with her--might have been
preferred to him; but he was offended by her proprietory attitude
towards his work and life. Manders would have the whole story, too,
helped out with first-rate mimicry, running through the Thespian Club by
dinner-time; it would spread in twenty-fours through all of the London
that knew him and half of the London that knew her; and Eric Lane would
be quoted as the latest foil or companion in the latest Barbara Neave
story. One did not even want the girl to be made a peg for Manders'
wit. . . .
The luncheon, Eric observed morosely, was cheaply successful, for
Barbara talked with barely concealed desire to lay Grierson and Manders
under her spell. By intuition or accident she gave them what tickled
their interest most keenly--intimate stories about herself or her
friends, the proved history of what to them had hitherto been but
alluring gossip, anecdotes of Government House and the minor secrets and
scandals of her father's three terms of office. Eric felt that it was a
_little_ below the dignity of a girl, who was after all the daughter of
a distinguished former viceroy, to be discussing herself and her friends
so freely. . . .
They had lost count of time when Grierson looked furtively at his watch
and jumped apologetically to his feet. As he hurried out of the room
Barbara again asked Eric whether he had a rehearsal that day.
"Because I want to come," she explained wheedlingly, with her head on
one side.
Her eyes were dark and tired after her overnight excitement; she had
exhausted herself with talking; and for a moment Eric forgot to be
irritated and only saw her as a child whom it would be ungracious to
disappoint. Then he remembered one phase of a rambling story in which
her love of getting her own way had caused her cavalier of the day to
wait in his car from midnight until six because she had forgotten to
leave a message that she had already gone home. In the story Eric could
not remember any apology from Barbara. Triumphs came so quickly and
easily that she expected everything and valued nothing; a man was
sufficiently rewarded by being allowed to fall in love with her. . . .
"I'm afraid rehearsals aren't open to the public," he told her,
brusquely enough to dismiss the appeal, he hoped, but not so brusquely
as to hurt her.
She looked at him with the glint of defiance which he had seen once
before; then she turned to Manders.
"Please, I want to come to the rehearsal," she begged. "It's your
theatre, Mr. Manders."
"It's my play," Eric interrupted.
She turned her head long enough to say:
"I was asking Mr. Manders."
"But it happens that I also----"
Manders intervened with a clucking noise of the tongue.
"Keep the ring, keep the ring!" he cried. "You got out o' bed the wrong
side, Eric boy. Don't quarrel, do-ant quarrel! If Lady Barbara wants to
come, let her! It's against the rules, but I'll make an exception for
her." The girl rewarded him with a glowing smile. "You'll be bored, my
dear, I warn you."
"Oh, if I am, I can talk to Eric."
"Look here, Manders, if a rehearsal's worth taking at all, it's worth
taking seriously," cried Eric petulantly. "I've plenty of other use for
my time."
Manders was faintly amused by the outburst and wholly unmoved. Dire
experience of the jealous and irascible had taught him that he could not
afford to let other people lose their tempers.
"Lady Barbara will promise not to talk," he prophesied. "We're late,
boy."
"I shall talk afterwards," she warned them. "At dinner to-night--Mr.
Manders, I can't get Eric to see what bad plays he writes and what good
plays he might turn out. He's very funny about it."
"Authors are a rum lot!" said Manders jocosely, slapping Eric's
shoulder. "See about a taxi, boy. I don't let my people keep me waiting
and I don't want them to wait for me."
It was a defeat for Eric, formally recorded by Barbara with that glint
of triumph which was beginning to fill him with misgiving. They drove in
silence to a side street off Shaftesbury Avenue and groped their way
through the stage-door down a cork-screw staircase and along several
short passages which branched disconcertingly to right or left as soon
as Barbara fancied that she could walk ahead with impunity. From above
came the mechanical runs and flourishes of a piano-organ against the
drone of traffic; somewhere below there was a rapid squeak of voices.
The corridors and stairs were wrapped in warm darkness, and, after one
stumble, Eric felt a hand running down his sleeve and twining round his
fingers.
"Are you angry with me?" Barbara whispered. "You were so _grumpy_ in the
taxi. And I made such a success of your lunch. Mr. Manders and Mr.
Grierson loved me, and I made even you smile."
Eric tried to locate Manders in the velvety darkness before replying.
"You were very amusing," he answered unenthusiastically. "But it's
possible to be amusing even when you're making rather a nuisance of
yourself to several _very_ busy men."
A sigh fluttered wistfully through the darkness, and he felt her drawing
closer to him.
"Aren't you a _little_ bit brutal, Eric?"
"Don't you find every one brutal who doesn't fetch and carry and wait
out in the snow for you all night--and give you material for new
stories? . . . Stand still while I find the handle."
He led her through a studded iron door into the twilit auditorium. The
stalls were swathed in holland covers, and there was a brooding warm
desolation which invited undertones. Barbara looked with growing
interest at a sprawling group of two men and three women on the stage.
Without make-up they were white and featureless in the glare of the
foot-lights; they were jaded and a little impatient, too, but Manders,
who seemed to make his personality unyielding and metallic on entering a
theatre, galvanized them into alertness. A wooden platform had been
built over the middle of the orchestra; and, as soon as he had disposed
of Barbara in the stalls, Eric mounted it and seated himself in an
arm-chair. Manders cautiously squeezed past him, script in hand, to the
stage; there was a preliminary cough, a cry of "Beginners, please!" and
the rehearsal opened.
Eric allowed the first act to be played without interruption; at the end
he jumped up and entered into whispered conversation with Manders,
turning the leaves of the manuscript and tapping them impressively with
his pencil. One player after another emerged from the wings and stood
listening, nodding and discussing as each point was thrashed out. A few
minutes later Manders came down into the stalls and sat by Barbara.
"Just a breather," he explained. "No good nagging your people,
particularly when they've been at the job for years and you're a
new-comer. . . . Some of my spoiled darlings find that a little Eric
goes a long way. You're sure you're not bored, my dear?"
"I can't _see_ very well," Barbara answered. "If I had a chair on the
little platform----"
Manders wasted an unseen wink on her.
"Well, you mustn't talk to Eric, that's all. And, if you see you're
making him nervous, you must run away."
He helped her up and accommodated her with a property foot-stool by
Eric's chair, leaving her for a moment's resentful scrutiny by a young
woman who had been arguing with winsome persuasiveness about a speech
which Eric under pressure from Manders had consented to cut.
"Who's that, Eric?" Barbara whispered, as he settled into place.
"Mabel Elstree."
"H'm. She doesn't seem to like my being here. . . . Does _everybody_
call you Eric?"
"You're well placed to answer that. Now, Lady Barbara, remember your
promise: no talking!"
The act was played a second time, taking form and life as all warmed to
their work. Eric watched with critical narrowed eyes, no longer
scattering pencil-marks in the margin of the script, restrained,
impassive and absorbed. Barbara sat with her hands clasped round her
ankles and her head resting against his knee. Only when the act was
ended did he seem to become aware of her; then he edged away and stood
up.
"Better! Very much better! Just turn to the place where----" He rustled
back into the middle of the act and had it played through to the
curtain.
Half-an-hour later Barbara emerged into sunshine. Eric was tired and
rather husky, but pleased and hopeful. His earlier irritability was
forgotten save when it obtruded itself reproachfully to remind him that
he had been scantly civil to the girl by his side.
"The next thing is a taxi," he murmured, as they came out into
Shaftesbury Avenue.
"You wouldn't dream of taking me home and offering me some tea?" she
suggested.
"I would not, Lady Barbara," he answered cheerfully. "Your practice of
visiting young unmarried men in their rooms should be promptly checked.
But I'll drop you in Berkeley Square, if you like."
"That would be more--respectable. It's curious how you seem to have made
up your mind not to do anything I ask you."
"It doesn't seem to make much difference to the result."
She ceased pouting and smiled self-confidently for a moment. Then her
assurance left her, and she slipped her arm timidly through his.
"Am I being a nuisance, Eric? You said so, and--oh, it _did_ hurt! I
honestly enjoyed myself this afternoon; and I wasn't so very much in the
way, was I? Don't you like me to enjoy myself? Don't you like to see me
happy? Are you sure you're not a little bit sorry you were so brutal to
me?"
"My conscience is quite easy, thanks. Lady Barbara----"
He hesitated and felt himself flushing.
"Yes?"
"Lady Barbara--, I don't understand you, I don't begin to understand
you."
"You won't write a good play till you do," she laughed. "All your women
are romantic dolls. We're much better and much worse than you think. But
that wasn't what you started to say."
"I know. . . . Well, you oughtn't to have come to my rooms last night.
And you oughtn't to have come to-day, though that wasn't as bad. . . .
What d'you imagine people like Grierson or Manders think? What d'you
imagine Mabel Elstree thinks, when you sit with your head against my
knee?"
She withdrew her arm and walked for some time without speaking.
"I'm sorry if I'm compromising you with your friends," she said at
length.
"And whether you compromise yourself doesn't matter?"
"I suppose I'm used to it," she sighed; then, with one of her April
changes, the sigh turned into a provocative laugh. "If _you_ don't mind
being compromised by _me_, I'd make you write a _wonderful_ play. My
technique's so good. All you have to do is to fall in love with me----"
"I shan't have the opportunity," he interrupted. "We meet to-night at
Mrs. Shelley's----"
"And we were so _positive_ that we weren't going!" she murmured. "You
don't want to see me again?"
Eric hailed a passing taxi.
"I like meeting you," he told her frankly enough. "You amuse me--and you
interest me enormously. But I've work to do . . . for one thing. . . ."
She seated herself in the taxi and held out her hand through the window.
"You might come and call for me to-night," she suggested.
Eric shook his head. He was shy of entering a house to which he had not
been officially admitted, confronting a strange butler, being pushed
into a room to wait for her, meeting and explaining himself to Lord
Crawleigh or one of the brothers, who would look superciliously at
"Babs' latest capture." . . .