"Do?" exclaimed Edward Henry. "It's perfectly simple. All you have to

do is to act. God bless my soul, aren't you getting fifteen pounds a

week, and aren't you my acting manager? Act, then! You've done enough

hinting. You've proved that hints are no good. You'd have known that

from your birth up, Marrier, if you'd been born in the Five Towns. Act,

my boy."

"But haow? If she won't go on, she won't."

"Is her understudy in the theatre?"

"Yes. It's Miss Cunningham, you knaow."

"What salary does she get?"

"Ten pounds a week."

"What for?"

"Well--partly to understudy, I suppose."

"Let her earn it, then. Go on with the rehearsal. And let her play the

part to-morrow night. She'll be delighted, you bet."

"But--"

"Miss Lindop," Edward Henry interrupted, "will you please read to Mr.

Marrier what I've dictated?" He turned to Marrier. "It's an interview

with myself for one of to-morrow's papers."

Miss Lindop, with tears in her voice if not in her eyes, obeyed the

order and, drawing the paper from the machine, read its contents aloud.

Mr. Marrier started back--not in the figurative but in the literal

sense--as he listened.

"But you'll never send that out!" he exclaimed.

"Why not?"

"No paper will print it!"

"My dear Marrier," said Edward Henry. "Don't be a simpleton. You know

as well as I do that half-a-dozen papers will be delighted to print it.

And all the rest will copy the one that does print it. It'll be the

talk of London to-morrow, and Isabel Joy will be absolutely snuffed

out."

"Well," said Mr. Marrier. "I never heard of such a thing!"

"Pity you didn't, then!"

Mr. Marrier moved away.

"I say," he murmured at the door. "Don't you think you ought to read

that to Rose first?"

"I'll read it to Rose like a bird," said Edward Henry.

Within two minutes--it was impossible to get from his room to the

dressing-rooms in less--he was knocking at Rose Euclid's door. "Who's

there?" said a voice. He entered and then replied, "I am."

Rose Euclid was smoking a cigarette and scratching the arm of an

easy-chair behind her. Her maid stood near by with a whisky-and-soda.

"Sorry you can't go on with the rehearsal, Miss Euclid," said Edward

Henry very quickly. "However, we must do the best we can. But Mr.

Marrier thought you'd like to hear this. It's part of an interview with

me that's going to appear to-morrow in the press."

Without pausing, he went on to read: "'I found Mr. Alderman Machin, the

hero of the Five Towns and the proprietor and initiator of London's

newest and most up-to-date and most intellectual theatre, surrounded by

a complicated apparatus of telephones and typewriters in his managerial

room at the Regent. He received me very courteously. "Yes," he said in

response to my question, "The rumour is quite true. The principal part

in 'The Orient Pearl' will be played on the first night by Miss Euclid's

understudy, Miss Olga Cunningham, a young woman of very remarkable

talent. No; Miss Euclid is not ill or even indisposed. But she and I

have had a grave difference of opinion. The point between us was

whether Miss Euclid's speeches ought to be clearly audible in the

auditorium. I considered they ought. I may be wrong. I may be

provincial. But that was and is my view. At the dress-rehearsal,

seated in the gallery, I could not hear her lines. I objected. She

refused to consider the subject or to proceed with the rehearsal. _Hinc

illae lachrymae!_" ... "Not at all," said Mr. Machin in reply to a

question, "I have the highest admiration for Miss Euclid's genius. I

should not presume to dictate to her as to her art. She has had a very

long experience of the stage, very long, and doubtless knows better than

I do. Only, the Regent happens to be my theatre, and I'm responsible

for it. Every member of the audience will have a complete uninterrupted

view of the stage, and I intend that every member of the audience shall

hear every word that is uttered on the stage. I'm odd, I know. But then

I've a reputation for oddness to keep up. And by the way I'm sure that

Miss Cunningham will make a great reputation for herself."'"

"Not while I'm here, she won't!" exclaimed Rose Euclid standing up, and

enunciating her words with marvellous clearness.

Edward Henry glanced at her, and then continued to read: "Suggestions

for headlines. 'Piquant quarrel between manager and star actress.'

'Unparalleled situation.' 'Trouble at the Regent Theatre.'"

"Mr. Machin," said Rose Euclid, "you are not a gentleman."

"You'd hardly think so, would you?" mused Edward Henry, as if mildly

interested in this new discovery of Miss Euclid's.

"Maria," said the star to her maid, "go and tell Mr. Marrier I'm

coming."

"And I'll go back to the gallery," said Edward Henry. "It's the place

for people like me, isn't it? I daresay I'll tear up this paper later,

Miss Euclid--we'll see."

IV.

On the next night a male figure in evening dress and a pale overcoat

might have been seen standing at the corner of Piccadilly Circus and

Lower Regent Street, staring at an electric sign in the shape of a

shield which said in its glittering, throbbing speech of incandescence:

THE REGENT

ROSE EUCLID

IN

THE ORIENT PEARL

The figure crossed the Circus, and stared at the sign from a new point

of view. Then it passed along Coventry Street, and stared at the sign

from yet another point of view. Then it reached Shaftesbury Avenue, and

stared again. Then it returned to its original station. It was the

figure of Edward Henry Machin, savouring the glorious electric sign of

which he had dreamed. He lit a cigarette, and thought of Seven Sachs

gazing at the name of Seven Sachs in fire on the facade of a Broadway

theatre in New York. Was not this London phenomenon at least as fine?

He considered it was. The Regent Theatre existed--there it stood!

(What a name for a theatre!) Its windows were all illuminated. Its

entrance-lamps bathed the pavement in light, and in this radiance stood

the commissionaires in their military pride and their new uniforms. A

line of waiting automobiles began a couple of yards to the north of the

main doors and continued round all sorts of dark corners and up all

manner of back streets toward Golden Square itself. Marrier had had the

automobiles counted and had told him the number--, but such was Edward

Henry's condition that he had forgotten. A row of boards reared on the

pavement against the walls of the facade said: "Stalls Full," "Private

Boxes Full," "Dress Circle Full," "Upper Circle Full," "Pit Full,"

"Gallery Full." And attached to the ironwork of the glazed entrance

canopy was a long board which gave the same information in terser form:

"House Full." The Regent had indeed been obliged to refuse quite a lot

of money on its opening night.

After all, the inauguration of a new theatre was something, even in

London! Important personages had actually begged the privilege of

buying seats at normal prices, and had been refused. Unimportant

personages, such as those who boast in the universe that they had never

missed a first night in the West End for twenty, thirty, or even fifty

years, had tried to buy seats at abnormal prices, and had failed; which

was in itself a tragedy. Edward Henry at the final moment had yielded

his wife's stall to the instances of a Minister of the Crown, and at

Lady Woldo's urgent request had put her into Lady Woldo's private

landowner's box, where also was Miss Elsie April who "had already had

the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Machin." Edward Henry's first night was an

event of magnitude. And he alone was responsible for it. His volition

alone had brought into being that grand edifice whose light yellow walls

now gleamed in nocturnal mystery under the shimmer of countless electric

bulbs.

"There goes pretty nigh forty thousand pounds of my money!" he

reflected, excitedly.

And he reflected:

"After all, I'm somebody."

Then he glanced down Lower Regent Street and saw Sir John Pilgrim's much

larger theatre, now sublet to a tenant who also was lavish with displays

of radiance. And he reflected that on first nights Sir John Pilgrim, in

addition to doing all that he himself had done, would hold the great

role on the stage throughout the evening. And he admired the

astounding, dazzling energy of such a being, and admitted ungrudgingly:

"He's somebody too! I wonder what part of the world he's illuminating

just now!"

Edward Henry did not deny to his soul that he was extremely nervous. He

would not and could not face even the bare possibility that the first

play presented at the new theatre might be a failure. He had meant to

witness the production incognito among the crowd in the pit or in the

gallery. But, after visiting the pit a few moments before the curtain

went up, he had been appalled by the hard-hearted levity of the pit's

remarks on things in general. The pit did not seem to be in any way

chastened or softened by the fact that a fortune, that reputations, that

careers were at stake. He had fled from the packed pit. (As for the

gallery, he decided that he had already had enough of the gallery.)

He had wandered about corridors and to and fro in his own room and in

the wings, and even in the basement, as nervous as a lost cat or an

author, and as self-conscious as a criminal who knows himself to be on

the edge of discovery. It was a fact that he could not look people in

the eyes. The reception of the first act had been fairly amiable, and

he had suffered horribly as he listened for the applause. Catching

sight of Carlo Trent in the distance of a passage, he had positively run

away from Carlo Trent. The first entr'acte had seemed to last for about

three months. Its nightmarish length had driven him almost to lunacy.

The "feel" of the second act, so far as it mystically communicated

itself to him in his place of concealment, had been better. At the end

of the second fall of the curtain the applause had been enthusiastic.

Yes, enthusiastic!

Curiously, it was the revulsion caused by this new birth of hope that,

while the third act was being played, had driven him out of the theatre.

His wild hope needed ozone. His breast had to expand in the boundless

prairie of Piccadilly Circus. His legs had to walk. His arms had to

swing.

Now he crossed the Circus again to his own pavement and gazed like a

stranger at his own posters. On several of them, encircled in a scarlet

ring, was the sole name of Rose Euclid--impressive! (And smaller, but

above it, the legend "E. H. Machin. Sole proprietor.") He asked himself

impartially, as his eyes uneasily left the poster and slipped round the

Circus, deserted save by a few sinister and idle figures at that hour,

"Should I have sent that interview to the papers, or shouldn't I? ... I

wonder. I expect some folks would say on the whole I've been rather hard

on Rose since I first met her! ... Anyhow, she's speaking up all right

to-night!" He laughed shortly.

A newsboy floated up from the Circus bearing a poster with the name of

Isabel Joy on it in large letters.

He thought:

"Be blowed to Isabel Joy!"

He did not care a fig for Isabel Joy's competition now.

And then a small door opened in the wall close by, and an elegant,

cloaked woman came out on to the pavement. The door was the private

door leading to the private box of Lord Woldo, owner of the ground upon

which the Regent Theatre was built. The woman he recognised with

confusion as Elsie April, whom he had not seen alone since the Azure

Society's night.

"What are you doing out here, Mr. Machin?" she greeted him with pleasant

composure.

"I'm thinking," said he.

"It's going splendidly," she remarked. "Really! I'm just running round

to the stage door to meet dear Rose as she comes off. What a delightful

woman your wife is! So pretty, and so sensible!"

She disappeared round the corner before he could compose a suitable

husband's reply to this laudation of a wife.

Then the commissionaires at the entrance seemed to start into life. And

then suddenly several preoccupied men strode rapidly out of the theatre,

buttoning their coats, and vanished, phantom-like. Critics, on their way

to destruction!

The performance must be finishing. Hastily he followed in the direction

taken by Elsie April.

He was in the wings, on the prompt side. Close by stood the prompter,

an untidy youth with imperfections of teeth, clutching hard at the

red-scored manuscript of "The Orient Pearl." Sundry players, of varying

stellar degrees, were posed around in the opulent costumes designed by

Saracen Givington, A.R.A. Miss Lindop was in the background,

ecstatically happy, her cheeks a race-course of tears. Afar off, in the

centre of the stage, alone, stood Rose Euclid, gorgeous in green and

silver, bowing and bowing and bowing--bowing before the storm of

approval and acclamation that swept from the auditorium across the

footlights.

With a sound like that of tearing silk, or of a gigantic contralto

mosquito, the curtain swished down, and swished up, and swished down

again. Bouquets flew on to the stage from the auditorium (a custom

newly imported from the United States by Miss Euclid, and encouraged by

her, though contrary to the lofty canons of London taste). The actress

already held one huge trophy, shaped as a crown, to her breast. She

hesitated, and then ran to the wings, and caught Edward Henry by the

wrist impulsively, madly. They shook hands in an ecstasy. It was as

though they recognised in one another a fundamental and glorious worth;

it was as though no words could ever express the depth of appreciation,

affection and admiration which each intensely felt for the other; it was

as though this moment were the final consecration of twin lives whose

long, loyal comradeship had never been clouded by the faintest breath of

mutual suspicion. Rose Euclid was still the unparalleled star, the

image of grace and beauty and dominance upon the stage. And yet quite

clearly Edward Henry saw close to his the wrinkled, damaged, daubed face

and thin neck of an old woman; and it made no difference.

"Rose!" cried a strained voice, and Rose Euclid wrenched herself from

him and tumbled with half a sob into the clasping arms of Elsie April.

"You've saved the intellectual theatah for London, my boy! That's what

you've done!" Marrier was now gripping his hand. And Edward Henry was

convinced that he had.

The strident vigour of the applause showed no diminution. And through

the thick heavy rain of it could be heard the monotonous insistent

detonations of one syllable:

"'Thor! 'Thor! 'Thor! Thor! Thor!"

And then another syllable was added:

"Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech!"

Mechanically Edward Henry lit a cigarette. He had no consciousness of

doing so.

"Where is Trent?" people were asking.

Carlo Trent appeared up a staircase at the back of the stage.

"You've got to go on," said Marrier. "Now, pull yourself togethah. The

Great Beast is calling for you. Say a few wahds."

Carlo Trent in his turn seized the hand of Edward Henry, and it was for

all the world as though he were seizing the hand of an intellectual and

poetic equal, and wrung it.

"Come now!" Mr. Marrier, beaming, admonished him, and then pushed.

"What must I say?" stammered Carlo.

"Whatever comes into your head."

"All right! I'll say something."

A man in a dirty white apron, drew back the heavy mass of the curtain

about eighteen inches, and, Carlo Trent stepping forward, the glare of

the footlights suddenly lit his white face. The applause, now

multiplied fivefold and become deafening, seemed to beat him back

against the curtain. His lips worked. He did not bow.

"Cam back, you fool!" whispered Marrier.

And Carlo Trent stepped back into safe shelter.

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I c-couldn't," murmured the greatest dramatic poet in the world; and

began to cry.

"Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech!"

"Here!" said Edward Henry gruffly. "Get out of my way! I'll settle

'em. Get out of my way!" And he riddled Carlo Trent with a fusillade

of savagely scornful glances.

The man in the apron obediently drew back the curtain again, and the

next second Edward Henry was facing an auditorium crowded with his

patrons. Everybody was standing up, chiefly in the aisles and crowded at

the entrances, and quite half the people were waving, and quite a

quarter of them were shouting. He bowed several times. An age elapsed.

His ears were stunned. But it seemed to him that his brain was working

with marvellous perfection. He perceived that he had been utterly wrong

about "The Orient Pearl." And that all his advisers had been splendidly

right. He had failed to catch its charm and to feel its power. But

this audience--this magnificent representative audience drawn from

London in the brilliant height of the season--had not failed.

It occurred to him to raise his hand. And as he raised his hand it

occurred to him that his hand held a lighted cigarette. A magic hush

fell upon the magnificent audience, which owned all that endless line of

automobiles outside. Edward Henry, in the hush, took a pull at his

cigarette.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, pitching his voice well, for municipal

politics had made him a practised public speaker, "I congratulate you.

This evening you--have succeeded!"

There was a roar, confused, mirthful, humorously protesting. He

distinctly heard a man in the front row of the stalls say: "Well, for

sheer nerve--!" And then go off into a peal of laughter.

He smiled and retired.

Marrier took charge of him.

"You merit the entire confectioner's shop!" exclaimed Marrier, aghast,

admiring, triumphant.

Now Edward Henry had had no intention of meriting cake. He had merely

followed in speech the secret train of his thought. But he saw that he

had treated a West End audience as a West End audience had never before

been treated, and that his audacity had conquered. Hence he determined

not to refuse the cake.

"Didn't I tell you I'd settle 'em?" said he.

The band played "God Save the King."

VI.

One hour later, in the double-bedded chamber at the Majestic, as his

wife lay in bed and he was methodically folding up a creased white tie

and inspecting his chin in the mirror, he felt that he was touching

again, after an immeasurable interval, the rock-bottom of reality.

Nellie, even when he could see only her face, and that in a mirror, was

the most real phenomenon in his existence, and she possessed the strange

faculty of dispelling all unreality, round about her.

"Well," he said. "How did you get on in the box?"

"Oh!" she replied, "I got on very well with the Woldo woman. She's one

of our sort. But I'm not so set up with your Elsie April."

"Dash this collar!"

Nellie continued:

"And I can tell you another thing. I don't envy Mr. Rollo Wrissel."

"What's Wrissel got to do with it?"

"She means to marry him."

"Elsie April means to marry Wrissel?"

"He was in and out of the box all night. It was as plain as a

pikestaff."

"What's amiss with my Elsie April?" Edward Henry demanded.

"She's a thought too _pleasant_ for my taste," answered Nellie.

Astonishing, how pleasantness is regarded with suspicion in the Five

Towns, even by women who can at a pinch be angels!

VII.

Often during the brief night he gazed sleepily at the vague next bed and

mused upon the extraordinariness of women's consciences. His wife slept

like an innocent. She always did. It was as though she gently expired

every evening and returned gloriously to life every morning. The

sunshiny hours between three and seven were very long to him, but it was

indisputable that he did not hear the clock strike six, which was, at

any rate, proof of a little sleep to the good. At five minutes past

seven he thought he heard a faint rustling noise in the corridor, and he

arose and tiptoed to the door and opened it. Yes, the Majestic had its

good qualities! He had ordered that all the London morning daily papers

should be laid at his door as early as possible, and there the pile was,

somewhat damp, and as fresh as fruit, with a slight odour of ink. He

took it in.

His heart was beating as he climbed back into bed with it and arranged

pillows so that he could sit up, and unfolded the first paper. Nellie

had not stirred.

Once again he was disappointed in the prominence given by the powerful

London press to his London enterprise. In the first newspaper, a very

important one, he positively could not find any criticism of the

Regent's first night. There was nearly a page of the offensive Isabel

Joy, who was now appealing, through the newspapers, to the President of

the United States. Isabel had been christened the World-Circler, and

the special correspondents of the entire earth were gathered about her

carpeted cell. Hope still remained that she would reach London within

the hundred days. An unknown adherent of the cause for which she

suffered had promised to give ten thousand pounds to that cause if she

did so. Furthermore, she was receiving over sixty proposals of marriage

a day. And so on and so on! Most of this he gathered in an instant

from the headlines alone. Nauseating!

Another annoying item in the paper was a column and a half given to the

foundation-stone laying of the First New Thought Church, in Dean Street,

Soho--about a couple of hundred yards from its original site. He hated

the First New Thought Church as one always hates that to which one has

done an injury.

Then he found what he was searching for: "Regent Theatre. Production of

poetical drama at London's latest playhouse." After all, it was well

situated in the paper, on quite an important page, and there was over a

column of it. But in his nervous excitation his eyes had missed it.

His eyes now read it. Over half of it was given to a discussion of the

Don Juan legend and the significance of the Byronic character of

Haidee--obviously written before the performance. A description of the

plot occupied most of the rest, and a reference to the acting ended it.

"Miss Rose Euclid in the trying and occasionally beautiful part of

Haidee was all that her admirers could have wished" ... "Miss Cunningham

distinguished herself by her diction and bearing in the small part of

the Messenger." The final words were: "The reception was quite

favourable."

"Quite favourable," indeed! Edward Henry had a chill. Good heavens,

was not the reception ecstatically, madly, foolishly enthusiastic?

"Why!" he exclaimed within, "I never saw such a reception!" It was

true; but then he had never seen any other first night. He was shocked,

as well as chilled. And for this reason: For weeks past all the

newspapers, in their dramatic gossip, had contained highly sympathetic

references to his enterprise. According to the paragraphs, he was a

wondrous man, and the theatre was a wondrous house, the best of all

possible theatres, and Carlo Trent was a great writer, and Rose Euclid

exactly as marvellous as she had been a quarter of a century before, and

the prospects of the intellectual-poetic drama in London so favourable

as to amount to a certainty of success.

In those columns of dramatic gossip there was no flaw in the theatrical

world. In those columns of dramatic gossip no piece ever failed, though

sometimes a piece was withdrawn, regretfully and against the wishes of

the public, to make room for another piece. In those columns of

dramatic gossip theatrical managers, actors, and especially actresses,

and even authors, were benefactors of society, and therefore they were

treated with the deference, the gentleness, the heartfelt sympathy which

benefactors of society merit and ought to receive.

The tone of the criticism of the first night was different--it was

subtly, not crudely, different. But different it was.

The next newspaper said the play was bad and the audience indulgent. It

was very severe on Carlo Trent, and very kind to the players, whom it

regarded as good men and women in adversity--with particular laudations

for Miss Rose Euclid and the Messenger. The next newspaper said the

play was a masterpiece, and would be so hailed in any country but

England. England, however--! Unfortunately this was a newspaper whose

political opinions Edward Henry despised. The next newspaper praised

everything and everybody, and called the reception tumultuously

enthusiastic. And Edward Henry felt as though somebody, mistaking his

face for a slice of toast, had spread butter all over it. Even the

paper's parting assurance that the future of the higher drama in London

was now safe beyond question did not remove this delusion of butter.

The two following newspapers were more sketchy or descriptive, and

referred at some length to Edward Henry's own speech, with a kind of

sub-hint that Edward Henry had better mind what he was about. Three

illustrated papers had photographs of scenes and figures, but nothing

important in the matter of criticism. The rest were "neither one thing

nor the other," as they say in the Five Towns. On the whole, an

inscrutable press, a disconcerting, a startling, an appetite-destroying,

but not a hopeless press. The general impression which he gathered from

his perusals was that the author was a pretentious dullard, an absolute

criminal, a genius; that the actors and actresses were all splendid and

worked hard, though conceivably one or two of them had been set

impossible tasks--to wit, tasks unsuited to their personalities; that he

himself was a Napoleon, a temerarious individual, an incomprehensible

fellow; and that the future of the intellectual-poetic drama in London

was not a topic of burning actuality.... He remembered sadly the

superlative-laden descriptions, in those same newspapers, of the theatre

itself, a week or two back, the unique theatre in which the occupant of

every seat had a complete and uninterrupted view of the whole of the

proscenium opening. Surely that fact alone ought to have ensured proper

treatment for him!

Then Nellie woke up, and saw the scattered newspapers.

"Well," she asked; "what do they say?"

"Oh!" he replied lightly, with a laugh. "Just about what you'd expect.

Of course you know what a first-night audience always is. Too generous.

And ours was, particularly. Miss April saw to that. She had the Azure

Society behind her, and she was determined to help Rose Euclid.

However, I should say it was all right--I should say it was quite all

right. I told you it was a gamble, you know."

When Nellie, dressing, said that she considered she ought to go back

home that day, he offered no objection. Indeed he rather wanted her to

go. Not that he had a desire to spend the whole of his time at the

theatre, unhampered by provincial women in London. On the contrary, he

was aware of a most definite desire not to go to the theatre. He lay in

bed and watched with careless curiosity the rapid processes of Nellie's

toilette. He had his breakfast on the dressing-table (for he was not at

Wilkins's, neither at the Grand Babylon). Then he helped her to pack,

and finally he accompanied her to Euston, where she kissed him with

affectionate common sense and caught the twelve five. He was relieved

that nobody from the Five Towns happened to be going down by that train.

As he turned away from the moving carriage, the evening papers had just

arrived at the bookstalls. He bought the four chief organs--one green,

one yellowish, one white, one pink--and scanned them self-consciously on

the platform. The white organ had a good heading: "Re-birth of the

intellectual drama in London. What a provincial has done. Opinions of

the leading men." Two columns altogether! There was, however, little

in the two columns. The leading men had practised a sagacious caution.

They, like the press as a whole, were obviously waiting to see which way

the great elephantine public would jump. When the enormous animal had

jumped, they would all exclaim: "What did I tell you?" The other

critiques were colourless. At the end of the green critique occurred the

following sentence: "It is only fair to state, nevertheless, that the

play was favourably received by an apparently enthusiastic audience."

"Nevertheless!" ... "Apparently!"

Edward Henry turned the page to the theatrical advertisements.

[Illustration: Theatrical advertisement]

Unreal! Fantastic! Was this he, Edward Henry? Could it be still his

mother's son?

Still--"matinees every Wednesday and Saturday." "_Every_ Wednesday and

Saturday." That word implied and necessitated a long run, anyhow a run

extending over months. That word comforted him. Though he knew as well

as you do that Mr. Marrier had composed the advertisement, and that he

himself was paying for it, it comforted him. He was just like a child.

VIII.

"I say, Cunningham's made a hit!" Mr. Marrier almost shouted at him as

he entered the managerial room at the Regent.

"Cunningham? Who's Cunningham?"

Then he remembered. She was the girl who played the Messenger. She had

only three words to say, and to say them over and over again; and she

had made a hit!

"Seen the notices?" asked Marrier.

"Yes. What of them?"

"Oh! Well!" Marrier drawled. "What would you expect?"

"That's just what _I_ said!" observed Edward Henry.

"You did, did you?" Mr. Marrier exclaimed, as if extremely interested by

this corroboration of his views.

Carlo Trent strolled in; he remarked that he happened to be just

passing. But the discussion of the situation was not carried very far.

That evening the house was nearly full, except the pit and the gallery,

which were nearly empty. Applause was perfunctory.

"How much?" Edward Henry enquired of the box-office manager when figures

were added together.

"Thirty-one pounds two shillings."

"Hem!"

"Of course," said Mr. Marrier. "In the height of the London season,

with so many counter-attractions--! Besides, they've got to get used to

the idea of it."

Edward Henry did not turn pale. Still, he was aware that it cost him a

trifle over sixty pounds "to ring the curtain up" at every performance,

and this sum took no account of expenses of production nor of author's

fees. The sum would have been higher, but he was calculating as rent of

the theatre only the ground-rent plus six per cent. on the total price

of the building.

What disgusted him was the duplicity of the first-night audience, and he

said to himself violently: "I was right all the time, and I knew I was

right! Idiots! Chumps! Of course I was right!"

On the third night the house held twenty-seven pounds and sixpence.

"Naturally," said Mr. Marrier. "In this hot weathah--! I never knew

such a hot June! It's the open-air places that are doing us in the eye.

In fact I heard to-day that the White City is packed. They simply can't

bank their money quick enough."

It was on that day that Edward Henry paid salaries. It appeared to him

that he was providing half London with a livelihood: acting managers,

stage managers, assistant ditto, property men, stage hands,

electricians, prompters, call boys, box-office staff, general staff,

dressers, commissionaires, programme girls, cleaners, actors, actresses,

understudies, to say nothing of Rose Euclid at a purely nominal salary

of one hundred pounds a week. The tenants of the bars were grumbling,

but happily he was getting money from them.

The following day was Saturday. It rained--a succession of

thunderstorms. The morning and the evening performances produced

together sixty-eight pounds.

"Well," said Mr. Marrier. "In this kind of weathah you can't expect

people to come out, can you? Besides, this cursed week-ending habit--"

Which conclusions did not materially modify the harsh fact that Edward

Henry was losing over thirty pounds a day--or at the rate of over ten

thousand pounds a year.

He spent Sunday between his hotel and his club, chiefly in reiterating

to himself that Monday began a new week and that something would have to

occur on Monday.

Something did occur.

Carlo Trent lounged into the office early. The man was forever being

drawn to the theatre as by an invisible but powerful elastic cord. The

papers had a worse attack than ever of Isabel Joy, for she had been

convicted of transgression in a Chicago court of law, but a tremendous

lawyer from St. Louis had loomed over Chicago and, having examined the

documents in the case, was hopeful of getting the conviction quashed.

He had discovered that in one and the same document "Isabel" had been

spelt "Isobel," and, worse, Illinois had been deprived by a careless

clerk of one of its "l's." He was sure that by proving these grave

irregularities in American justice he could win on appeal.

Edward Henry glanced up suddenly from the newspaper. He had been

inspired.

"I say, Trent," he remarked, without any warning or preparation, "you're

not looking at all well. I want a change myself. I've a good mind to

take you for a sea voyage."

"Oh!" grumbled Trent. "I can't afford sea voyages."

"_I_ can!" said Edward Henry. "And I shouldn't dream of letting it cost

you a penny. I'm not a philanthropist. But I know as well as anybody

that it will pay us theatrical managers to keep you in health."

"You're not going to take the play off?" Trent demanded suspiciously.

"Certainly not!" said Edward Henry.

"What sort of a sea voyage?"

"Well--what price the Atlantic? Been to New York? ... Neither have I!

Let's go. Just for the trip. It'll do us good."

"You don't mean it!" murmured the greatest dramatic poet, who had never

voyaged farther than the Isle of Wight. His eyeglass swung to and fro.

Edward Henry feigned to resent this remark.

"Of course I mean it. Do you take me for a blooming gas-bag?" He rose.

"Marrier!" Then more loudly: "Marrier!" Mr. Marrier entered. "Do you

know anything about the sailings to New York?"

"Rather!" said Mr. Marrier, beaming. After all he was a most precious

aid.

"We may be able to arrange for a production in New York," said Edward

Henry to Carlo, mysteriously.

Mr. Marrier gazed at one and then at the other, puzzled.

CHAPTER X

ISABEL

I.

Throughout the voyage of the _Lithuania_ from Liverpool to New York,

Edward Henry, in common with some two thousand other people on board,

had the sensation of being hurried. He who in a cab rides late to an

important appointment arrives with muscles fatigued by mentally aiding

the horse to move the vehicle along. Thus were Edward Henry's muscles

fatigued, and the muscles of many others; but just as much more so as

the _Lithuania_ was bigger than a cab.

For the _Lithuania_, having been seriously delayed in Liverpool by men

who were most ridiculously striking for the fantastic remuneration of

one pound a week, was engaged on the business of making new records.

And every passenger was personally determined that she should therein

succeed. And, despite very bad June weather toward the end, she did

sail past the Battery on a grand Monday morning with a new record to her

credit.

So far, Edward Henry's plan was not miscarrying. But he had a very great

deal to do and very little time in which to do it, and whereas the

muscles of the other passengers were relaxed as the ship drew to her

berth Edward Henry's muscles were only more tensely tightened. He had

expected to see Mr. Seven Sachs on the quay, for in response to his

telegram from Queenstown, the illustrious actor-author had sent him an

agreeable wireless message in full Atlantic; the which had inspired

Edward Henry to obtain news by Marconi both from London and New York, at

much expense; from the east he had had daily information of the

dwindling receipts at the Regent Theatre, and from the west daily

information concerning Isabel Joy. He had not, however, expected Mr.

Seven Sachs to walk into the _Lithuania's_ music-saloon an hour before

the ship touched the quay. Nevertheless this was what Mr. Seven Sachs

did, by the exercise of those mysterious powers wielded by the

influential in democratic communities.

"And what are you doing here?" Mr. Seven Sachs greeted Edward Henry with

geniality.

Edward Henry lowered his voice.

"I'm throwing good money after bad," said he.

The friendly grip of Mr. Seven Sach's hand did him good, reassured him,

and gave him courage. He was utterly tired of the voyage, and also of

the poetical society of Carlo Trent, whose passage had cost him thirty

pounds, considerable boredom, and some sick-nursing during the final

days and nights. A dramatic poet with an appetite was a full dose for

Edward Henry; but a dramatic poet who lay on his back and moaned for

naught but soda water and dry land amounted to more than Edward Henry

could conveniently swallow.

He directed Mr. Sachs's attention to the anguished and debile organism

which had once been Carlo Trent, and Mr. Sachs was so sympathetic that

Carlo Trent began to adore him, and Edward Henry to be somewhat

disturbed in his previous estimate of Mr. Sachs's common sense. But at

a favourable moment Mr. Sachs breathed humorously into Edward Henry's

ear the question:

"What have you brought _him_ out for?"

"I've brought him out to lose him."

As they pushed through the bustle of the enormous ship, and descended

from the dizzy eminence of her boat deck by lifts and ladders down to

the level of the windy, sun-steeped rock of New York, Edward Henry said:

"Now I want you to understand, Mr. Sachs, that I haven't a minute to

spare. I've just looked in for lunch."

"Going on to Chicago?"

"She isn't in Chicago, is she?" demanded Edward Henry, aghast. "I

thought she'd reached New York!"

"Who?"

"Isabel Joy."

"Oh! Isabel's in New York, sure enough. She's right here. They say

she'll have to catch the _Lithuania_ if she's going to get away with

it."

"Get away with what?"

"Well--the goods."

The precious words reminded Edward Henry of an evening at Wilkins's, and

raised his spirits even higher. It was a word he loved.

"And I've got to catch the _Lithuania_, too!" said he. "But Trent

doesn't know! ... And, let me tell you, she's going to do the quickest

turn round that any ship ever did. The purser assured me she'll leave

at noon to-morrow unless the world comes to an end in the meantime. Now

what about a hotel?"

"You'll stay with me--naturally."

"But--" Edward Henry protested.

"Oh, yes, you will. I shall be delighted."

"But I must look after Trent."

"He'll stay with me too--naturally. I live at the Stuyvesant Hotel, you

know, on Fifth. I've a pretty good private suite there. I shall

arrange a little supper for to-night. My automobile is here."

"Is it possible that I once saved your life and have forgotten all about

it?" Edward Henry exclaimed. "Or do you treat everybody like this?"

"We like to look after our friends," said Mr. Sachs simply.

In the terrific confusion of the quay, where groups of passengers were

mounted like watch dogs over hillocks of baggage, Mr. Sachs stood

continually between the travellers and the administrative rigours and

official incredulity of a proud republic. And in the minimum of time

the fine trunk of Edward Henry and the modest packages of the poet were

on the roof of Mr. Sachs's vast car, the three men were inside, and the

car was leaping, somewhat in the manner of a motor boat at full speed,

over the cobbles of a wide, medieval street.

"Quick!" thought Edward Henry. "I haven't a minute to lose!"

His prayer reached the chauffeur. Conversation was difficult; Carlo

Trent groaned. Presently they rolled less perilously upon asphalt,

though the equipage still lurched. Edward Henry was forever bending his

head toward the window aperture in order to glimpse the roofs of the

buildings, and never seeing the roofs.

"Now we're on Fifth," said Mr. Sachs, after a fearful lurch, with pride.

Vistas of flags, high cornices, crowded pavements, marble, jewelry

behind glass--the whole seen through a roaring phantasmagoria of

competing and menacing vehicles!

And Edward Henry thought:

"This is my sort of place!"

The jolting recommenced. Carlo Trent rebounded, limply groaning,

between cushions and upholstery. Edward Henry tried to pretend that he

was not frightened. Then there was a shock as of the concussion of two

equally unyielding natures. A pane of glass in Mr. Seven Sachs's

limousine flew to fragments and the car stopped.

"I expect that's a spring gone!" observed Mr. Sachs with tranquillity.

"Will happen, you know, sometimes!"

Everybody got out. Mr. Sachs's presumption was correct. One of the

back wheels had failed to leap over a hole in Fifth Avenue some eighteen

inches deep and two feet long.

"What is that hole?" asked Edward Henry.

"Well," said Mr. Sachs. "It's just a hole. We'd better transfer to a

taxi." He gave calm orders to his chauffeur.

Four empty taxis passed down the sunny magnificence of Fifth Avenue and

ignored Mr. Sachs's urgent waving. The fifth stopped. The baggage was

strapped and tied to it: which process occupied much time. Edward

Henry, fuming against delay, gazed around. A nonchalant policeman on a

superb horse occupied the middle of the road. Tram cars passed

constantly across the street in front of his caracoling horse, dividing

a route for themselves in the wild ocean of traffic as Moses cut into

the Red Sea. At intervals a knot of persons, intimidated and yet

daring, would essay the voyage from one pavement to the opposite

pavement; there was no half-way refuge for these adventurers, as in

decrepit London; some apparently arrived; others seemed to disappear

forever in the feverish welter of confused motion and were never heard

of again. The policeman, easily accommodating himself to the

caracolings of his mount, gazed absently at Edward Henry, and Edward

Henry gazed first at the policeman, and then at the high decorated

grandeur of the buildings, and then at the Assyrian taxi into which Mr.

Sachs was now ingeniously inserting Carlo Trent. He thought:

"No mistake--this street is alive. But what cemeteries they must have!"

He followed Carlo, with minute precautions, into the interior of the

taxi. And then came the supremely delicate operation--that of

introducing a third person into the same vehicle. It was accomplished;

three chins and six knees fraternized in close intimacy; but the door

would not shut. Wheezing, snorting, shaking, complaining, the taxi drew

slowly away from Mr. Sachs's luxurious automobile and left it forlorn to

its chauffeur. Mr. Sachs imperturbably smiled. ("I have two other

automobiles," said Mr. Sachs.) In some sixty seconds the taxi stopped

in front of the tremendous glass awning of the Stuyvesant. The baggage

was unstrapped; the passengers were extracted one by one from the cell,

and Edward Henry saw Mr. Sachs give two separate dollar bills to the

driver.

"By Jove!" he murmured.

"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Sachs politely.

"Nothing!" said Edward Henry.

They walked into the hotel, and passed through a long succession of

corridors and vast public rooms surging with well-dressed men and women.

"What's all this crowd for?" asked Edward Henry.

"What crowd?" asked Mr. Sachs, surprised.

Edward Henry saw that he had blundered.

"I prefer the upper floors," remarked Mr. Sachs as they were being flung

upward in a gilded elevator, and passing rapidly all numbers from 1 to

14.

The elevator made an end of Carlo Trent's manhood. He collapsed. Mr.

Sachs regarded him, and then said:

"I think I'll get an extra room for Mr. Trent. He ought to go to bed."

Edward Henry enthusiastically concurred.

"And stay there!" said Edward Henry.

Pale Carlo Trent permitted himself to be put to bed. But, therein, he

proved fractious. He was anxious about his linen. Mr. Sachs telephoned

from the bedside, and a laundry maid came. He was anxious about his

best lounge suit. Mr. Sachs telephoned, and a valet came. Then he

wanted a siphon of soda water, and Mr. Sachs telephoned, and a waiter

came. Then it was a newspaper he required. Mr. Sachs telephoned and a

page came. All these functionaries, together with two reporters,

peopled Mr. Trent's bedroom more or less simultaneously. It was Edward

Henry's bright notion to add to them a doctor--a doctor whom Mr. Sachs

knew, a doctor who would perceive at once that bed was the only proper

place for Carlo Trent.

"Now," said Edward Henry, when he and Mr. Sachs were participating in a

private lunch amid the splendours and the grim silent service of the

latter's suite at the Stuyvesant, "I have fully grasped the fact that I

am in New York. It is one o'clock and after, and as soon as ever this

meal is over, I have just _got_ to find Isabel Joy. You must understand

that on this trip New York for me is merely a town where Isabel Joy

happens to be."

"Well," replied Mr. Sachs. "I reckon I can put you on to that. _She's

going to be photographed at two o'clock by Rentoul Smiles_. I happen to

know because Rent's a particular friend of mine."

"A photographer, you say?"

Mr. Sachs controlled himself. "Do you mean to say you've not heard of

Rentoul Smiles? ... Well, he's called 'Man's photographer.' He has

never photographed a woman! Won't! At least, wouldn't! But he's going

to photograph Isabel! So you may guess that he considers Isabel some

woman, eh?"

"And how will that help me?" inquired Edward Henry.

"Why! I'll take you up to Rent's," Mr. Sachs comforted him. "It's

close by--corner of Thirty-ninth and Fifth."

"Tell me," Edward Henry demanded, with immense relief. "She hasn't got

herself arrested yet, has she?"

"No. And she won't."

"Why not?"

"The police have been put wise," said Mr. Sachs.

"Put wise?"

"Yes. _Put wise!_"

"I see," said Edward Henry.

But he did not see. He only half saw.

"As a matter of fact," said Mr. Sachs, "Isabel can't get away with the

goods unless she fixes the police to lock her up for a few hours. And

she'll not succeed in that. Her hundred days are up in London next

Sunday. So there'll be no time for her to be arrested and bailed out

either at Liverpool or Fishguard. And that's her only chance. I've

seen Isabel, and if you ask me my opinion she's down and out."

"Never mind!" said Edward Henry with glee.

"I guess what you are after her for," said Mr. Seven Sachs, with an air

of deep knowledge.

"The deuce you do!"

"Yes, sir! And let me tell you that dozens of 'em have been after her

already. But she wouldn't! Nothing would tempt her."

"Never mind!" Edward Henry smiled.

II.

When Edward Henry stood by the side of Mr. Sachs in a doorway half

shielded by a portiere, and gazed unseen into the great studio of Mr.

Rentoul Smiles, he comprehended that he was indeed under powerful

protection in New York. At the entrance on Fifth Avenue he and Sachs

had passed through a small crowd of assorted men, chiefly young, whom

Sachs had greeted in the mass with the smiling words, "Well, boys!"

Other men were within. Still another went up with them in the elevator,

but no further. They were reporters of the entire world's press, to

each of whom Isabel Joy had been specially "assigned." They were

waiting; they would wait. Mr. Rentoul Smiles, having been warned by

telephone of the visit of his beloved friend Seven Sachs and his English

protege had been received at Smile's outer door by a clerk who knew

exactly what to do with them, and did it.

"Is she here?" Mr. Sachs had murmured.

"Yep," the clerk had negligently replied.

And now Edward Henry beheld the objective of his pilgrimage, her whose

personality, portrait, and adventures had been filling the newspapers of

two hemispheres for three weeks. She was not realistically like her

portraits. She was a little, thin, pale, obviously nervous woman, of

any age from thirty-five to fifty, with fair untidy hair, and pale

grey-blue eyes that showed the dreamer, the idealist, and the harsh

fanatic. She looked as though a moderate breeze would have overthrown

her, but she also looked, to the enlightened observer, as though she

would recoil before no cruelty and no suffering in pursuit of her

vision. The blind dreaming force behind her apparent frailty would

strike terror into the heart of any man intelligent enough to understand

it. Edward Henry had an inward shudder. "Great Scott!" he reflected.

"I shouldn't like to be ill and have Isabel for a nurse!"

And his mind at once flew to Nellie, and then to Elsie April. "And so

she's going to marry Wrissell!" he reflected, and could scarcely believe

it.

Then he violently wrenched his mind back to the immediate objective. He

wondered why Isabel Joy should wear a bowler hat and mustard-coloured

jacket that resembled a sporting man's overcoat; and why these garments

suited her. With a whip in her hand she could have sat for a jockey.

And yet she was a woman, and very feminine, and probably old enough to

be Elsie April's mother! A disconcerting world, he thought.

The "man's photographer," as he was described in copper on Fifth Avenue

and in gold on his own doors, was a big, loosely-articulated male, who

loured over the trifle Isabel like a cloud over a sheep in a great

field. Edward Henry could only see his broad bending back as he posed

in athletic attitudes behind the camera.

Suddenly Rentoul Smiles dashed to a switch, and Isabel's wistful face

was transformed into that of a drowned corpse, into a dreadful harmony

of greens and purples.

"Now," said Rentoul Smiles, in a deep voice that was like a rich

unguent. "We'll try again. We'll just play around that spot. Look into

my eyes. Not _at_ my eyes, my dear woman, _into_ them! Just a little

more challenge--a little more! That's it. Don't wink, for the land's

sake! Now!"

He seized a bulb at the end of a tube and slowly squeezed--squeezed it

tragically and remorselessly, twisting himself as if suffering in

sympathy with the bulb, and then in a wide sweeping gesture he flung the

bulb on to the top of the camera, and ejaculated:

"Ha!"

Edward Henry thought:

"I would give ten pounds to see Rentoul Smiles photograph Sir John

Pilgrim." But the next instant the forgotten sensation of hurry was

upon him once more. Quick, quick, Rentoul Smiles! Edward Henry's

scorching desire was to get done and leave New York.

"Now, Miss Isabel," Mr. Smiles proceeded, exasperatingly deliberate,

"d'you know, I feel kind of guilty? I have got a little farm out in

Westchester County and I'm making a little English pathway up the garden

with a gate at the end. I woke up this morning and began to think about

the quaint English form of that gate, and just how I would have it." He

raised a finger. "But I ought to have been thinking about you. I ought

to have been saying to myself, 'To-day I have to photograph Isabel Joy,'

and trying to understand in meditation the secrets of your personality.

I'm sorry! Now, don't talk. Keep like that. Move your head round. Go

on! Go on! Move it! Don't be afraid. This place belongs to you.

It's yours. Whatever you do, we've got people here who'll straighten up

after you.... D'you know why I've made money? I've made money so that

I can take _you_ this afternoon, and tell a two-hundred-dollar client to

go to the deuce. That's why I've made money. Put your back against the

chair, like an Englishwoman. That's it. No, don't _talk_, I tell you.

Now look joyful, hang it! Look joyful.... No, no! Joy isn't a

contortion. It's something right deep down. There, there!"

The lubricant voice rolled on while Rentoul Smiles manipulated the

camera. He clasped the bulb again, and again threw it dramatically

away.

"I'm through!" he said. "Don't expect anything very grand, Miss Isabel.

What I've been trying to do this afternoon is my interpretation of you

as I've studied your personality in your speeches. If I believed wholly

in your cause, or if I wholly disbelieved in it, my work would not have

been good. Any value that it has will be due to the sympathetic

impartiality of my spiritual attitude. Although"--he menaced her with

the licenced familiarity of a philosopher--"Although, lady, I must say

that I felt you were working against me all the time.... This way!"

(Edward Henry, recalling the comparative simplicity of the London

photographer at Wilkins's, thought: "How profoundly they understand

photography in America!")

Isabel Joy rose and glanced at the watch in her bracelet; then followed

the direction of the male hand, and vanished.

Rentoul Smiles turned instantly to the other doorway.

"How do, Rent?" said Seven Sachs, coming forward.

"How do, Seven?" Mr. Rentoul Smiles winked.

"This is my good friend, Alderman Machin, the theatre-manager from

London."

"Glad to meet you, sir."

"She's not gone, has she?" asked Sachs hurriedly.

"No, my housekeeper wanted to talk to her. Come along."

And in the waiting room, full of permanent examples of the results of

Mr. Rentoul Smiles's spiritual attitude toward his fellow men, Edward

Henry was presented to Isabel Joy. The next instant the two men and the

housekeeper had unobtrusively retired, and he was alone with his

objective. In truth Seven Sachs was a notable organiser.

III.

She was sitting down in a cosy-corner, her feet on a footstool, and she

seemed a negligible physical quantity as he stood in front of her. This

was she who had worsted the entire judicial and police system of

Chicago, who spoke pentecostal tongues, who had circled the globe, and

held enthralled--so journalists computed--more than a quarter of a

million of the inhabitants of Marseilles, Athens, Port Said, Candy,

Calcutta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokio, Hawaii, San Francisco, Salt Lake

City, Denver, Chicago, and lastly New York! This was she!

"I understand we're going home on the same ship!" he was saying.

She looked up at him, almost appealingly.

"You won't see anything of me, though," she said.

"Why not?"

"Tell me," said she, not answering his question. "What do they say of

me, really, in England? I don't mean the newspapers. For instance, the

Azure Society. Do you know of it?"

He nodded.

"Tell me," she repeated.

He related the episode of the telegram at the private first performance

of "The Orient Pearl."

She burst out, in a torrent of irrelevant protest:

"The New York police have not treated me right. It would have cost them

nothing to arrest me and let me go. But they wouldn't. Every man in

the force--you hear me, every man--has had strict orders to leave me

unmolested. It seems they resent my dealings with the police in

Chicago, where I brought about the dismissal of four officers, so they

say. And so I'm to be boycotted in this manner! Is that argument, Mr.

Machin? Tell me. You're a man, but honestly, is it argument? Why, it's

just as mean and despicable as brute force."

"I agree with you," said Edward Henry softly.

"Do you really think it will harm the militant cause? Do they _really_

think so? No, it will only harm me. I made a mistake in tactics. I

trusted--fool!--to the chivalry of the United States. I might have been

arrested in a dozen cities, but I, on purpose, reserved my last two

arrests for Chicago and New York, for the sake of the superior

advertisement, you see! I never dreamt!--Now it's too late. I am

defeated! I shall just arrive in London on the hundredth day. I shall

have made speeches at all the meetings. But I shall be short of one

arrest. And the ten thousand pounds will be lost to the cause. The

militants here--such as they are--are as disgusted as I am. But they

scorn me. And are they not right? Are they not right? There should be

no quarter for the vanquished."

"Miss Joy," said Edward Henry, "I've come over from England specially to

see you. I want to make up the loss of that ten thousand pounds as far

as I can. I'll explain at once. I'm running a poetical play of the

highest merit, called 'The Orient Pearl,' at my new theatre in

Piccadilly Circus. If you will undertake a small part in it, a part of

three words only, I'll pay you a record salary--sixty-six pounds

thirteen and fourpence a word, two hundred pounds a week!"

Isabel Joy jumped up.

"Are you another of them, then?" she muttered. "I did think from the

look of you that you would know a gentlewoman when you met one! Did you

imagine for the thousandth part of one second that I would stoop--"

"Stoop!" exclaimed Edward Henry. "My theatre is not a music-hall--"

"You want to make it into one!" she stopped him.

"Good-day to you," she said. "I must face those journalists again, I

suppose. Well, even they--! I came alone in order to avoid them. But

it was hopeless. Besides, is it my duty to avoid them--after all?"

It was while passing through the door that she uttered the last words.

"Where is she?" Seven Sachs enquired, entering.

"Fled!" said Edward Henry.

"Everything all right?"

"Quite!"

Mr. Rentoul Smiles came in.

"Mr. Smiles," said Edward Henry, "did you ever photograph Sir John

Pilgrim?"

"I did, on his last visit to New York. Here you are!"

He pointed to his rendering of Sir John.

"What did you think of him?"

"A great actor, but a mountebank, sir."

During the remainder of the afternoon Edward Henry saw the whole of New

York, with bits of the Bronx and Yonkers in the distance, from Seven

Sach's second automobile. In his third automobile he went to the

theatre and saw Seven Sachs act to a house of over two thousand dollars.

And lastly he attended a supper and made a speech. But he insisted upon

passing the remainder of the night on the _Lithuania_. In the morning

Isabel Joy came aboard early and irrevocably disappeared into her berth.

And from that moment Edward Henry spent the whole secret force of his

individuality in fervently desiring the _Lithuania_ to start. At two

o'clock, two hours late, she did start. Edward Henry's farewells to the

admirable and hospitable Mr. Sachs were somewhat absent-minded, for

already his heart was in London. But he had sufficient presence of mind

to make certain final arrangements.

"Keep him at least a week," said Edward Henry to Seven Sachs, "and I

shall be your debtor for ever and ever."

He meant Carlo Trent, still bedridden.

As from the receding ship he gazed in abstraction at the gigantic,

inconvenient word--common to three languages--which is the first thing

seen by the arriving, and the last thing seen by the departing, visitor,

he meditated:

"The dearness of living in the United States has certainly been

exaggerated."

For his total expenses, beyond the confines of the quay, amounted to one

cent, disbursed to buy an evening paper which had contained a brief

interview with himself concerning the future of the intellectual drama

in England. He had told the press-man that "The Orient Pearl" would run

a hundred nights. Save for putting "The Orient Girl" instead of "The

Orient Pearl," and two hundred nights instead of one hundred nights,

this interview was tolerably accurate.

IV.

Two entire interminable days of the voyage elapsed before Edward Henry

was clever enough to encounter Isabel Joy--the most famous and the least

visible person on the ship. He remembered that she had said: "You won't

see anything of me."

It was easy to ascertain the number of her stateroom--a double-berth

which she shared with nobody. But it was less easy to find out whether

she ever left it, and if so, at what time of day. He could not mount

guard in the long corridor; and the stewardesses on the _Lithuania_ were

mature, experienced and uncommunicative women, their sole weakness being

an occasional tendency to imagine that they, and not the captain, were

in supreme charge of the steamer. However, Edward Henry did at last

achieve his desire. And on the third morning, at a little before six

o'clock, he met a muffled Isabel Joy on the D deck. The D deck was wet,

having just been swabbed; and a boat, chosen for that dawn's boat drill,

ascended past them on its way from the sea level to the busy boat deck

above; on the other side of an iron barrier, large crowds of

early-rising third-class passengers were standing and talking, and

staring at the oblong slit of sea which was the only prospect offered by

the D deck; it was the first time that Edward Henry aboard had ever set

eyes on a steerage passenger; with all the conceit natural to the

occupant of a costly stateroom, he had unconsciously assumed that he and

his like had sole possession of the ship.

Isabel responded to his greeting in a very natural way. The sharp

freshness of the summer morning at sea had its tonic effect on both of

them; and as for Edward Henry, he lunged and plunged at once into the

subject which alone preoccupied and exasperated him. She did not seem

to resent it.

"You'd have the satisfaction of helping on a thing that all your friends

say ought to be helped," he argued. "Nobody but you can do it. Without

you, there'll be a frost. You would make a lot of money, which you

could spend in helping on things of your own. And surely it isn't the

publicity that you're afraid of!"

"No," she agreed. "I'm not afraid of publicity." Her pale grey-blue

eyes shone as they regarded the secret dream that for her hung always

unseen in the air. And she had a strange, wistful, fragile, feminine

mien in her mannish costume.

"Well then--"

"But can't you see it's humiliating?" cried she, as if interested in the

argument.

"It's not humiliating to do something that you can do well--I know you

can do it well--and get a large salary for it, and make the success of a

big enterprise by it. If you knew the play--"

"I do know the play," she said. "We'd lots of us read it in manuscript

long ago."

Edward Henry was somewhat dashed by this information.

"Well, what do you think of it?"

"I think it's just splendid!" said she with enthusiasm.

"And will it be any worse a play because you act a small part in it?"

"No," she said shortly.

"I expect you think it's a play that people ought to go and see, don't

you?"

"I do, Mr. Socrates," she admitted.

He wondered what she could mean, but continued:

"What does it matter what it is that brings the audience into the

theatre, so long as they get there and have to listen?"

She sighed.

"It's no use discussing with you," she murmured. "You're too simple for

this world. I daresay you're honest enough--in fact I think you

are--but there are so many things that you don't understand. You're

evidently incapable of understanding them."

"Thanks!" he replied, and paused to recover his self-possession. "But

let's get right down to business now. If you'll appear in this play,

I'll not merely give you two hundred pounds a week, but I'll explain to

you how to get arrested and still arrive in triumph in London before

midnight on Sunday."

She recoiled a step, and raised her eyes.

"How?" she demanded, as with a pistol.

"Ah!" he said. "That's just it. How? Will you promise?"

"I've thought of everything," she said musingly. "If the last day was

any day but Sunday I could get arrested on landing and get bailed out,

and still be in London before night. But on Sunday--no! So you needn't

talk like that."

"Still," he said, "it can be done."

"How," she demanded again.

"Will you sign a contract with me, if I tell you? ... Think of what your

reception in London will be if you win after all! Just think!"

Those pale eyes gleamed, for Isabel Joy had tasted the noisy flattery of

sympathetic and of adverse crowds, and her being hungered for it again;

the desire of it had become part of her nature.

She walked away, her hands in the pockets of her ulster, and returned.

"What is your scheme?"

"You'll sign?"

"Yes, if it works."

"I can trust you?"

The little woman of forty or so blazed up. "You can refrain from

insulting me by doubting my word," said she.

"Sorry! Sorry!" he apologised.

V.

That same evening, in the colossal many-tabled dining-saloon of the

_Lithuania_ Edward Henry sat as usual to the left of the purser's empty

chair at the purser's table, where were about a dozen other men. A page

brought him a marconigram. He opened it, and read the single word

"Nineteen." It was the amount of the previous evening's receipts at the

Regent, in pounds. He was now losing something like forty pounds a

night--without counting the expenses of the present excursion. The band

began to play as the soup was served, and the ship rolled politely,

gently, but nevertheless unmistakably, accomplishing one complete roll

to about sixteen bars of the music. Then the entire saloon was suddenly

excited. Isabel Joy had entered. She was in the gallery, near the

orchestra, at a small table alone. Everybody became aware of the fact

in an instant, and scores of necks on the lower floor were twisted to

glimpse the celebrity on the upper. It was remarked that she wore a

magnificent evening dress.

One subject of conversation now occupied all the tables. And it was

fully occupying the purser's table when the purser, generally a little

late, owing to the arduousness of his situation on the ship, entered and

sat down. Now the purser was a Northerner, from Durham, a delightful

companion in his lighter moods, but dour, and with a high conception of

authority and of the intelligence of dogs. He would relate that when he

and his wife wanted to keep a secret from their Yorkshire terrier they

had to spell the crucial words in talk, for the dog understood their

every sentence.

The purser's views about the cause represented by Isabel Joy were

absolutely clear. None could mistake them, and the few clauses which he

curtly added to the discussion rather damped the discussion, and there

was a pause.

"What should you do, Mr. Purser," said Edward Henry, "if she began to

play any of her tricks here?"

"If she began to play any of her tricks on this ship," answered the

purser, putting his hands on his stout knees, "we should know what to

do."

"Of course you can arrest?"

"Most decidedly. I could tell you things--" The purser stopped, for

experience had taught him to be very discreet with passengers until he

had voyaged with them at least ten times. He concluded: "The captain is

the representative of English law on an English ship."

And then, in the silence created by the resting orchestra, all in the

saloon could hear a clear, piercing woman's voice, oratorical at first

and then quickening:

"Ladies and gentlemen: I wish to talk to you to-night on the subject of

the injustice of men to women." Isabel Joy was on her feet and leaning

over the gallery rail. As she proceeded, a startled hush changed to

uproar. And in the uproar could be caught now and then a detached

phrase, such as "For example, this man-governed ship."

Possibly it was just this phrase that roused the Northerner in the

purser. He rose, and looked toward the captain's table. But the

captain was not dining in the saloon that evening. Then he strode to

the centre of the saloon, beneath the renowned dome which has been so

often photographed for the illustrated papers, and sought to destroy

Isabel Joy with a single marine glance. Having failed, he called out

loudly:

"Be quiet, madam. Resume your seat."

Isabel Joy stopped for a second, gave him a glance far more homicidal

than his own, and resumed her discourse.

"Steward," cried the purser, "take that woman out of the saloon."

The whole complement of first-class passengers was now standing up, and

many of them saw a plate descend from on high, and grace the purser's

shoulder. With the celerity of a sprinter the man of authority from

Durham disappeared from the ground floor and was immediately seen in the

gallery. Accounts differed, afterward, as to the exact order of events;

but it is certain that the leader of the band lost his fiddle, which was

broken by the lusty Isabel on the Purser's head. It was known later

that Isabel, though not exactly in irons, was under arrest in her

stateroom.

"She really ought to have thought of that for herself, if she's as smart

as she thinks she is," said Edward Henry privately.

VI.

Though he was on the way to high success, his anxieties and solicitudes

seemed to increase every hour. Immediately after Isabel Joy's arrest he

became more than ever a crony of the Marconi operator, and began to

despatch vivid and urgent telegrams to London, without counting the

cost. On the next day he began to receive replies. (It was the most

interesting voyage that the Marconi operator had had since the sinking

of the _Catherine of Siena_, in which episode his promptness through the

air had certainly saved two hundred lives.) Edward Henry could scarcely

sleep, so intense was his longing for Sunday night--his desire to be

safe in London with Isabel Joy! Nay, he could not properly eat! And

then the doubt entered his mind whether, after all, he would get to

London on Sunday night. For the _Lithuania_ was lagging. She might

have been doing it on purpose to ruin him. Every day, in the

auction-pool on the ship's run, it was the holder of the low field that

pocketed the money of his fellow men. The _Lithuania_ actually

descended below five hundred and forty knots in the twenty-four hours.

And no authoritative explanation of this behaviour was ever given. Upon

leaving New York there had been talk of reaching Fishguard on Saturday

evening. But now the prophesied moment of arrival had been put forward

to noon on Sunday. Edward Henry's sole consolation was that each day on

the eastward trip consisted of only twenty-three hours.

Further, he was by no means free from apprehension about the personal

liberty of Isabel Joy. Isabel had exceeded the programme arranged

between them. It had been no part of his scheme that she should cast

plates, nor even break violins on the shining crown of an august purser.

The purser was angry, and he had the captain, a milder man, behind him.

When Isabel Joy threatened a hunger-strike if she was not immediately

released, the purser signified that she might proceed with her

hunger-strike; he well knew that it would be impossible for her to

expire of inanition before the arrival at Fishguard.

The case was serious, because Isabel Joy had created a precedent.

Policemen and cabinet ministers had for many months been regarded as the

lawful prey of militants, but Isabel Joy was the first of the militants

to damage property and heads which belonged to persons of neither of

these classes. And the authorities of the ship were assuredly inclined

to hand Isabel Joy over to the police at Fishguard. What saved the

situation for Edward Henry was the factor which saved most situations,

namely, public opinion. When the saloon clearly realised that Isabel

Joy had done what she had done with the pure and innocent aim of winning

a wager, all that was Anglo-Saxon in the saloon ranged itself on the

side of true sport, and the matter was lifted above mere politics. A

subscription was inaugurated to buy a new fiddle, and to pay for

shattered crockery. And the amount collected would have purchased,

after settling for the crockery, a couple of dozen new fiddles. The

unneeded balance was given to seamen's orphanages. The purser was

approached. The captain was implored. Influence was brought to bear.

In short--the wheels that are within wheels went duly round. And Miss

Isabel Joy, after apologies and promises, was unconditionally released.

But she had been arrested.

And then, early on Sunday morning, the ship met a storm that had a sad

influence on divine service, a storm of the eminence that scares even

the brass-buttoned occupants of liners' bridges. The rumour went round

the ship that the captain would not call at Fishguard in such weather.

Edward Henry was ready to yield up his spirit in this fearful crisis,

which endured two hours. The captain did call at Fishguard, in pouring

rain, and men came aboard selling Sunday newspapers that were full of

Isabel's arrest on the steamer, and of the nearing triumph of her

arrival in London before midnight. And newspaper correspondents also

came aboard, and all the way on the tender, and in the sheds, and in the

train, Edward Henry and Isabel Joy were subjected to the journalistic

experiments of hardy interviewers. The train arrived at Paddington at 9

P.M. Isabel had won by three hours. The station was a surging throng

of open-mouthed people. Edward Henry would not lose sight of his

priceless charge, but he sent Marrier to despatch a telegram to Nellie,

whose wifely interest in his movements he had till then either forgotten

or ignored.

And even now his mind was not free. He saw in front of him still

twenty-four hours of anguish.

VII.

The next night, just before the curtain went up, he stood on the stage

of the Regent Theatre, and it is a fact that he was trembling--not with

fear but with simple excitement.

Through what a day he had passed! There had been the rehearsal in the

morning; it had gone off very well, save that Rose Euclid had behaved

impossibly, and that the Cunningham girl, the hit of the piece but

ousted from her part, had filled the place with just lamentations and

recriminations.

And then had followed the appalling scene with Rose Euclid. Rose,

leaving the theatre for lunch, had beheld the workmen removing her name

from the electric sign and substituting that of Isabel Joy. She was a

woman and an artist, and it would have been the same had she been a man

and an artist. She would not submit to this inconceivable affront. She

had resigned her role. She had ripped her contract to bits and flung

the bits to the breeze. Upon the whole Edward Henry had been glad. He

had sent for Miss Cunningham, who was Rose's understudy, had given her

instructions, called another rehearsal for the afternoon and effected a

saving of nearly half Isabel Joy's fantastic salary. Then he entered

into financial negotiations with four evening papers and managed to buy,

at a price, their contents-bills for the day. So that all the West End

was filled with men and boys wearing like aprons posters which bore the

words: "Isabel Joy to appear at the Regent to-night." A great and

original stroke!

And now he gazed through the peep-hole of the curtain upon a crammed and

half-delirious auditorium. The assistant stage manager ordered him off.

The curtain went up on the drama in hexameters. He waited in the wings,

and spoke soothingly to Isabel Joy who, looking juvenile in the airy

costume of the Messenger, stood flutteringly agog for her cue.... He

heard the thunderous crashing roar that met her entrance. He did not

hear her line.

He walked forth to the glazed balcony at the front of the house, where

in the entr'actes dandies smoked cigarettes baptised with girlish names.

He could see Piccadilly Circus, and he saw Piccadilly Circus thronged

with a multitude of loafers, who were happy in the mere spectacle of

Isabel Joy's name glowing on an electric sign. He went back at last to

the managerial room. Marrier was there, hero-worshipping.

"Got the figures yet?" he asked.

Marrier beamed.

"Two hundred and sixty pounds. As long as it keeps up it means a profit

of getting on for two hundred a naight!"

"But, dash it, man,--the house only holds two hundred and thirty!"

"But my good sir," said Marrier, "they're paying ten shillings a-piece

to stand up in the dress-circle."

Edward Henry dropped into a chair at the desk. A telegram was lying

there, addressed to himself.

"What's this?" he demanded.

"Just cam."

He opened it, and read: "I absolutely forbid this monstrous outrage on a

work of art. Trent."

"Bit late in the day, isn't he?" said Edward Henry, showing the telegram

to Marrier.

"Besides," Marrier observed, "he'll come round when he knows what his

royalties are."

"Well," said Edward Henry, "I'm going to bed." And he gave a

devastating yawn.

VIII.

One afternoon Edward Henry sat in the king of all the easy chairs in the

drawing-room of his house in Trafalgar Road, Bursley. Although the

month was September, and the weather warm even for September, a

swansdown quilt lay spread upon his knees. His face was pale, his hands

were paler; but his eye was clear and his visage enlightened. His beard

had grown to nearly its original dimensions. On a chair by his side

were a number of letters to which he had just dictated answers. At a

neighbouring table a young clerk was using a typewriter. Stretched at

full length on the sofa was Robert Machin, engaged in the perusal of the

second edition of that day's _Signal_. Of late Robert, having exhausted

nearly all available books, had been cultivating during his holidays an

interest in journalism, and he would give great accounts, in the

nursery, of events happening in each day's instalment of the _Signal's_

sensational serial. His heels kicked idly one against the other.

A powerful voice resounded in the lobby, and Doctor Stirling entered the

room with Nellie.

"Well, Doc!" Edward Henry greeted him.

"So you're in full blast again!" observed the doctor, using a metaphor

invented by the population of a district where the roar of furnaces

wakens the night.

"No!" Edward Henry protested, as an invalid always will. "I'm only just

keeping an eye on one or two pressing things."

"Of course he's in full blast!" said Nellie with calm conviction.

"What's this I hear about ye ganging away to the seaside, Saturday?"

asked the doctor.

"Well, can't I?" said Edward Henry.

"Ye can," said the doctor. "Let's have a look at ye, man."

"What was it you said I've had?" Edward Henry questioned.

"Colonitis."

"Yes, that's the word. I thought I couldn't have got it wrong. Well,

you should have seen my mother's face when I told her what you called

it. She said, 'He may call it that if he's a mind to, but we had another

name for it in my time.' You should have heard her sniff! ... Look

here, Doc, do you know you've had me down now for pretty near three

months?"

"Nay," said Stirling. "It's yer own obstinacy that's had ye down, man.

If ye'd listened to yer London doctor at first, mayhap ye wouldn't have

had to travel from Euston in an invalid's carriage. If ye hadn't had

the misfortune to be born an obstinate simpleton ye'd ha' been up and

about six weeks back. But there's no doing anything with you geniuses.

It's all nerves with you and your like."

"Nerves!" exclaimed Edward Henry, pretending to scorn. But he was

delighted at the diagnosis.

"Nerves," repeated the doctor firmly. "Ye go gadding off to America.

Ye get yeself mixed up in theatres.... How's the theatre? I see yer

famous play's coming to end next week."

"And what if it is?" said Edward Henry, jealous for reputations,

including his own. "It will have run for a hundred and one nights. And

right through August, too! No modern poetry play ever did run as long

in London, and no other ever will. I've given the intellectual theatre

the biggest ad. it ever had. And I've made money on it. I should have

made more if I'd ended the run a fortnight ago, but I was determined to

pass the hundredth night. And I shall do!"

"And what are ye for giving next?"

"I'm not for giving anything next, Doc. I've let the Regent for five

years at seven thousand five hundred pounds a year to a musical comedy

syndicate, since you're so curious. And when I've paid the ground rent

and taxes and repairs and something toward a sinking-fund, and six per

cent. on my capital I shall have not far off two thousand pounds a year

clear annual profit. You may say what you like, but that's what I call

business!"

It was a remarkable fact that, while giving undemanded information to

Doctor Stirling, Edward Henry was in reality defending himself against

the accusations of his wife--accusations which, by the way, she had

never uttered, but which he thought he read sometimes in her face. He

might of course have told his wife these agreeable details directly, and

in private. But he was a husband, and, like many husbands, apt to be

indirect.

Nellie said not a word.

"Then you're giving up London?" The doctor rose to depart.

"I am," said Edward Henry, almost blushing.

"Why?"

"Well," the genius answered. "Those theatrical things are altogether

too exciting and risky! And they're such queer people--Great Scott! I've

come out on the right side, as it happens, but--well, I'm not as young

as I was. I've done with London. The Five Towns are good enough for

me."

Nellie, unable to restrain a note of triumph, indiscreetly remarked with

just the air of superior sagacity that in a wife drives husbands to fury

and to foolishness:

"I should think so, indeed!"

Edward Henry leaped from his chair, and the swansdown quilt swathed his

slippered feet.

"Nell," he exploded, clenching his hand. "If you say that once more in

that tone--once more, mind!--I'll go and take a flat in London

to-morrow!"

The doctor crackled with laughter. Nellie smiled. Even Robert, who had

completely ignored the doctor's entrance, glanced round with creased

brows.

"Sit down, dearest," Nellie quietly enjoined the invalid.

But he would not sit down, and, to show his independence, he helped his

wife to escort Stirling into the lobby.

Robert, now alone with the ignored young clerk tapping at the table,

turned toward him, and in his deliberate, judicial, disdainful, childish

voice said to him:

"Isn't Father a funny man?"

THE END

THE NOVELS OF ARNOLD BENNETT

THE OLD WIVES' TALE: A Novel of Life.

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At the start THE GREAT MAN knows quite well that he is not great.

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HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND:

_An Idyllic Diversion._

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In the lightest comedy vein, Arnold Bennett treats of a serious economic

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_A Young Girl's Love-Story._

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Anna is another of the inhabitants of the Five Towns. The little group

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THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA:

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THE BOOK OF CARLOTTA presents the woman of genius--who belongs neither

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Carlotta is an extraordinary creation--a woman apart. She stands among

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Everything contributes to the last great climax entitled _Victory_.

ARNOLD BENNETT: POCKET PHILOSOPHIES

HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY:

A Study in Time Expenditure.

_On the Conservation of Time._

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In a series of delightfully personal essays Arnold Bennett discusses the

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THE HUMAN MACHINE:

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GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, Publishers

BY ARNOLD BENNETT

NOVELS

The Old Wives' Tale

Helen with the High Hand

The Matador of the Five Towns

The Book of Carlotta

Buried Alive

A Great Man

Leonora

Whom God Hath Joined

A Man from the North

Anna of the Five Towns

The Glimpse

POCKET PHILOSOPHIES

How to Live on 24 Hours A Day

The Human Machine

Literary Taste

Mental Efficiency

PLAYS

Cupid and Commonsense

What the Public Wants

Polite Farces

Milestones

The Honeymoon

MISCELLANEOUS

The Truth About an Author

The Feast of St. Friend

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