ENTRY INTO THE THEATRICAL WORLD
I
Once, on a short visit to London, Edward Henry had paid half-a-crown
to be let into a certain enclosure with a very low ceiling. This
enclosure was already crowded with some three hundred people, sitting
and standing. Edward Henry had stood in the only unoccupied spot he
could find, behind a pillar. When he had made himself as comfortable
as possible by turning up his collar against the sharp winds that
continually entered from the street, he had peered forward, and seen
in front of his enclosure another and larger enclosure also crowded
with people, but more expensive people. After a blank interval of
thirty minutes a band had begun to play at an incredible distance in
front of him, extinguishing the noises of traffic in the street. After
another interval an oblong space rather further off even than the band
suddenly grew bright, and Edward Henry, by curving his neck first
to one side of the pillar and then to the other, had had tantalizing
glimpses of the interior of a doll's drawing-room and of male and
female dolls therein.
He could only see, even partially, the inferior half of the
drawing-room--a little higher than the heads of the dolls--because the
rest was cut off from his vision by the lowness of his own ceiling.
The dolls were talking, but he could not catch clearly what they said,
save at the rare moments when an omnibus or a van did not happen to be
thundering down the street behind him. Then one special doll had come
exquisitely into the drawing-room, and at the sight of her the five
hundred people in front of him, and numbers of other people perched
hidden beyond his ceiling, had clapped fervently and even cried aloud
in their excitement. And he, too, had clapped fervently, and had
muttered "Bravo!" This special doll was a marvel of touching and
persuasive grace, with a voice--when Edward Henry could hear it--that
melted the spine. This special doll had every elegance and seemed to
be in the highest pride of youth.
At the close of the affair, as this special doll sank into the embrace
of a male doll from whom she had been unjustly separated, and then
straightened herself, deliciously and confidently smiling, to take the
tremendous applause of Edward Henry and the rest, Edward Henry thought
that he had never assisted at a triumph so genuine and so inspiring.
Oblivious of the pain in his neck, and of the choking, foul atmosphere
of the enclosure, accurately described as the Pit, he had gone forth
into the street with a subconscious notion in his head that the
special doll was more than human, was half divine. And he had said
afterwards, with immense satisfaction, at Bursley: "Yes, I saw Rose
Euclid in 'Flower of the Heart.'"
He had never set eyes on her since.
And now, on this day at Wilkins's, he had seen in the restaurant, and
he saw again before him in his private parlour, a faded and stoutish
woman, negligently if expensively dressed, with a fatigued, nervous,
watery glance, an unnatural, pale-violet complexion, a wrinkled skin
and dyed hair; a woman of whom it might be said that she had escaped
grandmotherhood, if indeed she had escaped it, by mere luck--and he
was point-blank commanded to believe that she and Rose Euclid were the
same person.
It was one of the most shattering shocks of all his career,
which nevertheless had not been untumultuous. And within his
dressing-gown--which nobody remarked upon--he was busy picking up and
piecing together, as quickly as he could, the shivered fragments of
his ideas.
He literally did not recognize Rose Euclid. True, fifteen years had
passed since the night in the pit! And he himself was fifteen years
older. But in his mind he had never pictured any change in Rose
Euclid. True, he had been familiar with the enormous renown of
Rose Euclid as far back as he could remember taking any interest in
theatrical advertisements! But he had not permitted her to reach an
age of more than about thirty-one or two. Whereas he now perceived
that even the exquisite doll in paradise that he had gloated over from
his pit must have been quite thirty-five--then....
Well, he scornfully pitied Rose Euclid! He blamed her for not having
accomplished the miracle of eternal youth. He actually considered that
she had cheated him. "Is this all? What a swindle!" he thought, as he
was piecing together the shivered fragments of his ideas into a new
pattern. He had felt much the same as a boy, at Bursley Annual Wakes
once, on entering a booth which promised horrors and did not supply
them. He had been "done" all these years....
Reluctantly he admitted that Rose Euclid could not help her age. But,
at any rate, she ought to have grown older beautifully, with charming
dignity and vivacity--in fact, she ought to have contrived to be old
and young simultaneously. Or, in the alternative, she ought to have
modestly retired into the country and lived on her memories and such
money as she had not squandered. She had no right to be abroad.
At worst, she ought to have _looked_ famous. And, because her name and
fame and photographs as an emotional actress had been continually in
the newspapers, therefore she ought to have been refined, delicate,
distinguished and full of witty and gracious small-talk. That she had
played the heroine of "Flower of the Heart" four hundred times, and
the heroine of "The Grenadier" four hundred and fifty times, and the
heroine of "The Wife's Ordeal" nearly five hundred times, made it
incumbent upon her, in Edward Henry's subconscious opinion, to possess
all the talents of a woman of the world and all the virgin freshness
of a girl. Which shows how cruelly stupid Edward Henry was in
comparison with the enlightened rest of us.
Why (he protested secretly), she was even tongue-tied!
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Machin," she said awkwardly, in a weak voice,
with a peculiar gesture as she shook hands. Then, a mechanical,
nervous giggle; and then silence!
"Happy to make your acquaintance, sir," said Mr. Seven Sachs, and the
arch-famous American actor-author also lapsed into silence. But the
silence of Mr. Seven Sachs was different from Rose Euclid's. He
was not shy. A dark and handsome, tranquil, youngish man, with
a redoubtable square chin, delicately rounded at the corners, he
strikingly resembled his own figure on the stage; and moreover, he
seemed to regard silence as a natural and proper condition. He simply
stood, in a graceful posture, with his muscles at ease, and waited.
Mr. Bryany, behind, seemed to be reduced in stature, and to have
become apologetic for himself in the presence of greatness.
Still, Mr. Bryany did say something.
Said Mr. Bryany:
"Sorry to hear you've been seedy, Mr. Machin!"
"Oh, yes!" Rose Euclid blurted out, as if shot. "It's very good of you
to ask us up here."
Mr. Seven Sachs concurred, adding that he hoped the illness was not
serious.
Edward Henry said it was not.
"Won't you sit down, all of you?" said Edward Henry.
"Miss--er--Euclid--"
They all sat down except Mr. Bryany.
"Sit down, Bryany," said Edward Henry. "I'm glad to be able to return
your hospitality at the Turk's Head."
This was a blow for Mr. Bryany, who obviously felt it, and grew even
more apologetic as he fumbled with assumed sprightliness at a chair.
"Fancy your being here all the time!" said he. "And me looked for you
everywhere--"
"Mr. Bryany," Seven Sachs interrupted him calmly, "have you got those
letters off?"
"Not yet, sir."
Seven Sachs urbanely smiled. "I think we ought to get them off
to-night."
"Certainly," agreed Mr. Bryany with eagerness, and moved towards the
door.
"Here's the key of my sitting-room," Seven Sachs stopped him,
producing a key.
Mr. Bryany, by a mischance catching Edward Henry's eye as he took the
key, blushed.
In a moment Edward Henry was alone with the two silent celebrities.
"Well," said Edward Henry to himself, "I've let myself in for it this
time--no mistake! What in the name of common sense am I doing here?"
Rose Euclid coughed and arranged the folds of her dress.
"I suppose, like most Americans, you see all the sights," said Edward
Henry to Seven Sachs--the Five Towns is much visited by Americans.
"What do you think of my dressing-gown?"
"Bully!" said Seven Sachs, with the faintest twinkle. And Rose Euclid
gave the mechanical, nervous giggle.
"I can do with this chap," thought Edward Henry.
The gentleman-in-waiting entered with the supper menu.
"Thank heaven!" thought Edward Henry.
Rose Euclid, requested to order a supper after her own mind, stared
vaguely at the menu for some moments, and then said that she did not
know what to order.
"Artichokes?" Edward Henry blandly suggested.
Again the giggle, followed this time by a flush! And suddenly Edward
Henry recognized in her the entrancing creature of fifteen years ago!
Her head thrown back, she had put her left hand behind her and was
groping with her long fingers for an object to touch. Having found at
length the arm of another chair, she drew her fingers feverishly
along its surface. He vividly remembered the gesture in "Flower of the
Heart." She had used it with terrific effect at every grand emotional
crisis of the play. He now recognized even her face!
"Did Mr. Bryany tell you that my two boys are coming up?" said she. "I
left them behind to do some telephoning for me."
"Delighted!" said Edward Henry. "The more the merrier!"
And he hoped that he spoke true.
But her two boys!
"Mr. Marrier--he's a young manager. I don't know whether you know him;
very, very talented. And Carlo Trent."
"Same name as my dog," Edward Henry indiscreetly murmured--and
his fancy flew back to the home he had quitted; and Wilkins's and
everybody in it grew transiently unreal to him.
"Delighted!" he said again.
He was relieved that her two boys were not her offspring. That, at
least, was something gained.
"_You_ know--the dramatist," said Rose Euclid, apparently disappointed
by the effect on Edward Henry of the name of Carlo Trent.
"Really!" said Edward Henry. "I hope he won't mind me being in a
dressing-gown."
The gentleman-in-waiting, obsequiously restive, managed to choose the
supper himself. Leaving, he reached the door just in time to hold it
open for the entrance of Mr. Marrier and Mr. Carlo Trent, who were
talking with noticeable freedom and emphasis, in an accent which in
the Five Towns is known as the "haw haw," the "lah-di-dah" or the
"Kensingtonian" accent.
II
Within ten minutes, within less than ten minutes, Alderman Edward
Henry Machin's supper-party at Wilkins's was so wonderfully changed
for the better that Edward Henry might have been excused for not
recognizing it as his own.
The service at Wilkins's, where they profoundly understood human
nature, was very intelligent. Somewhere in a central bureau at
Wilkins's sat a psychologist, who knew, for example, that a supper
commanded on the spur of the moment must be produced instantly if it
is to be enjoyed. Delay in these capricious cases impairs the
ecstasy and therefore lessens the chance of other similar meals
being commanded at the same establishment. Hence, no sooner had the
gentleman-in-waiting disappeared with the order than certain esquires
appeared with the limbs and body of a table which they set up in
Edward Henry's drawing-room, and they covered the board with a damask
cloth and half covered the damask cloth with flowers, glasses and
plates, and laid a special private wire from the skirting-board near
the hearth to a spot on the table beneath Edward Henry's left hand, so
that he could summon courtiers on the slightest provocation with
the minimum of exertion. Then immediately brown bread-and-butter and
lemons and red-pepper came, followed by oysters, followed by bottles
of pale wine, both still and sparkling. Thus, before the principal
dishes had even begun to frizzle in the distant kitchens, the
revellers were under the illusion that the entire supper was waiting
just outside the door....
Yes, they were revellers now! For the advent of her young men had
transformed Rose Euclid, and Rose Euclid had transformed the general
situation. At the table, Edward Henry occupied one side of it, Mr.
Seven Sachs occupied the side opposite, Mr. Marrier, the very, very
talented young manager, occupied the side to Edward Henry's left, and
Rose Euclid and Carlo Trent together occupied the side to his right.
Trent and Marrier were each about thirty years of age. Trent, with a
deep voice, had extremely lustrous eyes, which eyes continually dwelt
on Rose Euclid in admiration. Apparently, all she needed in this
valley was oysters and admiration, and she now had both in unlimited
quantities.
"Oysters are darlings," she said, as she swallowed the first.
Carlo Trent kissed her hand, respectfully--for she was old enough to
be his mother.
"And you are the greatest tragic actress in the world, Ra-ose!" said
he in the Kensingtonian bass.
A few moments earlier Rose Euclid had whispered to Edward Henry that
Carlo Trent was the greatest dramatic poet in the world. She flowered
now beneath the sun of those dark lustrous eyes and the soft rain
of that admiration from the greatest dramatic poet in the world. It
really did seem to Edward Henry that she grew younger. Assuredly she
grew more girlish and her voice improved. And then the bottles
began to pop, and it was as though the action of uncorking wine
automatically uncorked hearts also. Mr. Seven Sachs, sitting square
and upright, smiled gaily at Edward Henry across the gleaming table
and raised a glass. Little Marrier, who at nearly all times had a most
enthusiastic smile, did the same. In the result five glasses met over
the central bed of chrysanthemums. Edward Henry was happy. Surrounded
by enigmas--for he had no conception whatever why Rose Euclid had
brought any of the three men to his table--he was nevertheless
uplifted.
As he looked about him, at the rich table, and at the glittering
chandelier overhead (albeit the lamps thereof were inferior to his
own), and at the expanses of soft carpet, and at the silken-textured
walls, and at the voluptuous curtains, and at the couple of impeccable
gentlemen in-waiting, and at Joseph, who knew his place behind his
master's chair--he came to the justifiable conclusion that money was
a marvellous thing, and the workings of commerce mysterious and
beautiful. He had invented the Five Towns Thrift Club; working men
and their wives in the Five Towns were paying their twopences
and sixpences and shillings weekly into his club, and finding
the transaction a real convenience--and lo! he was entertaining
celebrities at Wilkins's.
For, mind you, they were celebrities. He knew Seven Sachs was a
celebrity because he had verily seen him act--and act very well--in
his own play, and because his name in letters a foot high had
dominated all the hoardings of the Five Towns. As for Rose Euclid,
could there be a greater celebrity? Such was the strange power of the
popular legend concerning her that even now, despite the first fearful
shock of disappointment, Edward Henry could not call her by her name
without self-consciously stumbling over it, without a curious thrill.
And further, he was revising his judgment of her, as well as lowering
her age slightly. On coming into the room she had doubtless been
almost as startled as himself, and her constrained muteness had been
probably due to a guilty feeling in the matter of passing too open
remarks to a friend about a perfect stranger's manner of eating
artichokes. The which supposition flattered him. (By the way, he
wished she had brought the young friend who had shared her amusement
over his artichokes.) With regard to the other two men, he was quite
ready to believe that Carlo Trent was the world's greatest dramatic
poet, and to admit the exceeding talent of Mr. Marrier as a theatrical
manager.... In fact, unmistakable celebrities, one and all! He himself
was a celebrity. A certain quality in the attitude of each of his
guests showed clearly that they considered him a celebrity, and not
only a celebrity but a card--Bryany must have been talking--and the
conviction of this rendered him happy. His magnificent hunger
rendered him still happier. And the reflection that Brindley owed him
half-a-crown put a top on his bliss!
"I like your dressing-gown, Mr. Machin," said Carlo Trent, suddenly,
after his first spoonful of soup.
"Then I needn't apologize for it!" Edward Henry replied.
"It is the dressing-gown of my dreams," Carlo Trent went on.
"Well," said Edward Henry, "as we're on the subject, I like your
shirt-front."
Carlo Trent was wearing a soft shirt. The other three shirts were
all rigidly starched. Hitherto Edward Henry had imagined that a
fashionable evening shirt should be, before aught else, bullet-proof.
He now appreciated the distinction of a frilled and gently flowing
breast-plate, especially when a broad purple eyeglass ribbon wandered
across it. Rose Euclid gazed in modest transport at Carlo's chest.
"The colour," Carlo proceeded, ignoring Edward Henry's compliment,
"the colour is inspiring. So is the texture. I have a woman's delight
in textures. I could certainly produce better hexameters in such a
dressing-gown."
Although Edward Henry, owing to an unfortunate hiatus in his
education, did not know what a hexameter might be, he was artist
enough to comprehend the effect of attire on creative work, for he had
noticed that he himself could make more money in one necktie than
in another, and he would instinctively take particular care in the
morning choice of a cravat on days when he meditated a great coup.
"Why don't you get one?" Marrier suggested.
"Do you really think I could?" asked Carlo Trent, as if the
possibility were shimmering far out of his reach like a rainbow.
"Rather!" smiled Harrier. "I don't mind laying a fiver that Mr.
Machin's dressing-gown came from Drook's in Old Bond Street." But
instead of saying "Old" he said "Ehoold."
"It did," Edward Henry admitted.
Mr. Marrier beamed with satisfaction.
"Drook's, you say," murmured Carlo Trent. "Old Bond Street," and wrote
down the information on his shirt cuff.
Rose Euclid watched him write.
"Yes, Carlo," said she. "But don't you think we'd better begin to talk
about the theatre? You haven't told me yet if you got hold of Longay
on the 'phone."
"Of course we got hold of him," said Marrier. "He agrees with me that
'The Intellectual' is a better name for it."
Rose Euclid clapped her hands.
"I'm so glad!" she cried. "Now what do _you_ think of it as a name,
Mr. Machin--'The Intellectual Theatre'? You see it's most important we
should settle on the name, isn't it?"
It is no exaggeration to say that Edward Henry felt a wave of cold
in the small of his back, and also a sinking away of the nevertheless
quite solid chair on which he sat. He had more than the typical
Englishman's sane distrust of that morbid word 'Intellectual.' His
attitude towards it amounted to active dislike. If ever he used it, he
would on no account use it alone; he would say, "Intellectual and all
that sort of thing!" with an air of pushing violently away from him
everything that the phrase implied. The notion of baptizing a theatre
with the fearsome word horrified him. Still, he had to maintain
his nerve and his repute. So he drank some champagne, and smiled
nonchalantly as the imperturbable duellist smiles while the pistols
are being examined.
"Well--" he murmured.
"You see," Marrier broke in, with the smile ecstatic, almost dancing
on his chair. "There's no use in compromise. Compromise is and always
has been the curse of this country. The unintellectual drahma is
dead--dead. Naoobody can deny that. All the box-offices in the West
are proclaiming it--"
"Should you call your play intellectual, Mr. Sachs?" Edward Henry
inquired across the table.
"I scarcely know," said Mr. Seven Sachs, calmly. "I know I've played
it myself fifteen hundred and two times, and that's saying nothing of
my three subsidiary companies on the road."
"What _is_ Mr. Sachs's play?" asked Carlo Trent, fretfully.
"Don't you know, Carlo?" Rose Euclid patted him. "'Overheard.'"
"Oh! I've never seen it."
"But it was on all the hoardings!"
"I never read the hoardings," said Carlo. "Is it in verse?"
"No, it isn't," Mr. Seven Sachs briefly responded. "But I've made over
six hundred thousand dollars out of it."
"Then of course it's intellectual!" asserted Mr. Marrier, positively.
"That proves it. I'm very sorry I've not seen it either; but it must
be intellectual. The day of the unintellectual drahma is over. The
people won't have it. We must have faith in the people, and we can't
show our faith better than by calling our theatre by its proper
name--'The Intellectual Theatre'!"
("_His_ theatre!" thought Edward Henry. "What's he got to do with
it?")
"I don't know that I'm so much in love with your 'Intellectual,'"
muttered Carlo Trent.
"_Aren't_ you?" protested Rose Euclid, shocked.
"Of course I'm not," said Carlo. "I told you before, and I tell
you now, that there's only one name for the theatre--'The Muses'
Theatre!'"
"Perhaps you're right!" Rose agreed, as if a swift revelation had come
to her. "Yes, you're right."
("She'll make a cheerful sort of partner for a fellow," thought Edward
Henry, "if she's in the habit of changing her mind like that every
thirty seconds." His appetite had gone. He could only drink.)
"Naturally, I'm right! Aren't we going to open with my play, and isn't
my play in verse?... I'm sure you'll agree with me, Mr. Machin, that
there is no real drama except the poetical drama."
Edward Henry was entirely at a loss. Indeed, he was drowning in his
dressing-gown, so favourable to the composition of hexameters.
"Poetry ..." he vaguely breathed.
"Yes, sir," said Carlo Trent. "Poetry."
"I've never read any poetry in my life," said Edward Henry, like a
desperate criminal. "Not a line."
Whereupon Carlo Trent rose up from his seat, and his eyeglasses
dangled in front of him.
"Mr. Machin," said he with the utmost benevolence. "This is the most
interesting thing I've ever come across. Do you know, you're precisely
the man I've always been wanting to meet?... The virgin mind. The
clean slate.... Do you know, you're precisely the man that it's my
ambition to write for?"
"It's very kind of you," said Edward Henry, feebly; beaten, and
consciously beaten.
(He thought miserably:
"What would Nellie think if she saw me in this gang?")
Carlo Trent went on, turning to Rose Euclid:
"Rose, will you recite those lines of Nashe?"
Rose Euclid began to blush.
"That bit you taught me the day before yesterday?"
"Only the three lines! No more! They are the very essence of
poetry--poetry at its purest. We'll see the effect of them on Mr.
Machin. We'll just see. It's the ideal opportunity to test my theory.
Now, there's a good girl!"
"Oh! I can't. I'm too nervous," stammered Rose.
"You can, and you must," said Carlo, gazing at her in homage. "Nobody
in the world can say them as well as you can. Now!"
Rose Euclid stood up.
"One moment," Carlo stopped her. "There's too much light. We can't do
with all this light. Mr. Machin--do you mind?"
A wave of the hand and all the lights were extinguished, save a lamp
on the mantelpiece, and in the disconcertingly darkened room Rose
Euclid turned her face towards the ray from this solitary silk-shaded
globe.
Her hand groped out behind her, found the table-cloth and began to
scratch it agitatedly. She lifted her head. She was the actress,
impressive and subjugating, and Edward Henry felt her power. Then she
intoned:
"Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye."
And she ceased and sat down. There was a silence.
"_Bra_ vo!" murmured Carlo Trent.
"Bra_vo_!" murmured Mr. Marrier.
Edward Henry in the gloom caught Mr. Seven Sachs's unalterable
observant smile across the table.
"Well, Mr. Machin?" said Carlo Trent.
Edward Henry had felt a tremor at the vibrations of Rose Euclid's
voice. But the words she uttered had set up no clear image in his
mind, unless it might be of some solid body falling from the air, or
of a young woman named Helen, walking along Trafalgar Road, Bursley,
on a dusty day, and getting the dust in her eyes. He knew not what to
answer.
"Is that all there is of it?" he asked at length.
Carlo Trent said:
"It's from Thomas Nashe's 'Song in Time of Pestilence.' The closing
lines of the verse are:
'I am sick, I must die--
Lord, have mercy on me!'"
"Well," said Edward Henry, recovering, "I rather like the end. I think
the end's very appropriate."
Mr. Seven Sachs choked over his wine, and kept on choking.
III
Mr.. Marrier was the first to recover from this blow to the prestige
of poetry. Or perhaps it would be more honest to say that Mr.. Marrier
had suffered no inconvenience from the _contretemps_. His apparent
gleeful zest in life had not been impaired. He was a born optimist,
of an extreme type unknown beyond the circumferences of theatrical
circles.
"I _say_," he emphasized, "I've got an ideah. We ought to be
photographed like that. Do you no end of good." He glanced
encouragingly at Rose Euclid. "Don't you see it in the illustrated
papers? A prayvate supper-party at Wilkins's Hotel. Miss Ra-ose Euclid
reciting verse at a discussion of the plans for her new theatre in
Piccadilly Circus. The figures, reading from left to right, are, Mr.
Seven Sachs, the famous actor-author, Miss Rose Euclid, Mr. Carlo
Trent, the celebrated dramatic poet, Mr. Alderman Machin, the
well-known Midlands capitalist, and so on!" Mr. Marrier repeated, "and
so on."
"It's a notion," said Rose Euclid, dreamily.
"But how _can_ we be photographed?" Carlo Trent demanded with
irritation.
"Perfectly easy."
"Now?"
"In ten minutes. I know a photographer in Brook Street."
"Would he come at once?" Carlo Trent frowned at his watch.
"Rather!" Mr. Marrier gaily soothed him, as he went over to the
telephone. And Mr. Marrier's bright, boyish face radiated forth the
assurance that nothing in all his existence had more completely filled
him with sincere joy than this enterprise of procuring a photograph
of the party. Even in giving the photographer's number--he was one
of those prodigies who remember infallibly all telephone numbers--his
voice seemed to gloat upon his project.
(And while Mr. Marrier, having obtained communication with the
photographer, was saying gloriously into the telephone: "Yes,
Wilkins's. No. Quite private. I've got Miss Rose Euclid here, and Mr.
Seven Sachs"--while Mr. Marrier was thus proceeding with his list of
star attractions, Edward Henry was thinking:
"'_Her_ new theatre'--now! It was 'his' a few minutes back!... 'The
well-known Midlands capitalist,' eh? Oh! Ah!")
He drank again. He said to himself: "I've had all I can digest of this
beastly balloony stuff." (He meant the champagne.) "If I finish the
glass I'm bound to have a bad night." And he finished the glass, and
planked it down firmly on the table.
"Well," he remarked aloud cheerfully. "If we're to be photographed, I
suppose we shall want a bit more light on the subject."
Joseph sprang to the switches.
"Please!" Carlo Trent raised a protesting hand.
The switches were not turned. In the beautiful dimness the greatest
tragic actress in the world and the greatest dramatic poet in the
world gazed at each other, seeking and finding solace in mutual
esteem.
"I suppose it wouldn't do to call it the Euclid Theatre?" Rose
questioned casually, without moving her eyes.
"Splendid!" cried Mr. Marrier from the telephone.
"It all depends whether there are enough mathematical students in
London to fill the theatre for a run," said Edward Henry.
"Oh! D'you think so?" murmured Rose, surprised and vaguely puzzled.
At that instant Edward Henry might have rushed from the room and
taken the night-mail back to the Five Towns, and never any more have
ventured into the perils of London, if Carlo Trent had not turned his
head, and signified by a curt, reluctant laugh that he saw the joke.
For Edward Henry could no longer depend on Mr. Seven Sachs. Mr. Seven
Sachs had to take the greatest pains to keep the muscles of his face
in strict order. The slightest laxity with them--and he would have
been involved in another and more serious suffocation.
"No," said Carlo Trent, "'The Muses' Theatre' is the only possible
title. There is money in the poetical drama." He looked hard at Edward
Henry, as though to stare down the memory of the failure of Nashe's
verse. "I don't want money. I hate the thought of money. But money is
the only proof of democratic appreciation, and that is what I need,
and what every artist needs.... Don't you think there's money in the
poetical drama, Mr. Sachs?"
"Not in America," said Mr. Sachs. "London is a queer place."
"Look at the runs of Stephen Phillips's plays!"
"Yes.... I only reckon to know America."
"Look at what Pilgrim's made out of Shakspere."
"I thought you were talking about poetry," said Edward Henry too
hastily.
"And isn't Shakspere poetry?" Carlo Trent challenged.
"Well, I suppose if you put it in that way, he _is_!" Edward Henry
cautiously admitted, humbled. He was under the disadvantage of never
having either seen or read "Shakspere." His sure instinct had always
warned him against being drawn into "Shakspere."
"And has Miss Euclid ever done anything finer than Constance?"
"I don't know," Edward Henry pleaded.
"Why--Miss Euclid in 'King John'--"
"I never saw 'King John,'" said Edward Henry.
"_Do you mean to say_," expostulated Carlo Trent in italics, "_that
you never saw Rose Euclid as Constance_?"
And Edward Henry, shaking his abashed head, perceived that his life
had been wasted.
Carlo, for a few moments, grew reflective and softer.
"It's one of my earliest and most precious boyish memories,"
he murmured, as he examined the ceiling. "It must have been in
eighteen--"
Rose Euclid abandoned the ice with which she had just been served, and
by a single gesture drew Carlo's attention away from the ceiling,
and towards the fact that it would be clumsy on his part to indulge
further in the chronology of her career. She began to blush again.
Mr. Marrier, now back at the table after a successful expedition,
beamed over his ice:
"It was your 'Constance' that led to your friendship with the Countess
of Chell, wasn't it, Ra-ose? You know," he turned to Edward Henry,
"Miss Euclid and the Countess are virry intimate."
"Yes, I know," said Edward Henry.
Rose Euclid continued to blush. Her agitated hand scratched the back
of the chair behind her.
"Even Sir John Pilgrim admits I can act Shakspere," she said in a
thick mournful voice, looking at the cloth as she pronounced the
august name of the head of the dramatic profession. "It may surprise
you to know, Mr. Machin, that about a month ago, after he'd quarrelled
with Selina Gregory, Sir John asked me if I'd care to star with him on
his Shaksperean tour round the world next spring, and I said I would
if he'd include Carlo's poetical play, 'The Orient Pearl,' and he
wouldn't! No, he wouldn't! And now he's got little Cora Pryde! She
isn't twenty-two, and she's going to play Juliet! Can you imagine such
a thing! As if a mere girl could play Juliet!"
Carlo observed the mature actress with deep satisfaction, proud of
her, and proud also of himself.
"I wouldn't go with Pilgrim now," exclaimed Rose, passionately, "not
if he went down on his knees to me!"
"And nothing on earth would induce me to let him have 'The Orient
Pearl'!" Carlo Trent asseverated with equal passion. "He's lost that
for ever!" he added grimly. "It won't be he who'll collar the profits
out of that! It'll just be ourselves!"
"Not if he went down on his knees to me!" Rose was repeating to
herself with fervency.
The calm of despair took possession of Edward Henry. He felt that
he must act immediately--he knew his own mood, by long experience.
Exploring the pockets of the dressing-gown which had aroused the
longing of the greatest dramatic poet in the world, he discovered in
one of them precisely the piece of apparatus he required--namely, a
slip of paper suitable for writing. It was a carbon duplicate of the
bill for the dressing-gown, and showed the word "Drook" in massive
printed black, and the figures £4, 4s. in faint blue. He drew a pencil
from his waistcoat and inscribed on the paper:
"Go out, and then come back in a couple of minutes and tell me someone
wants to speak to me urgently in the next room."
With a minimum of ostentation he gave the document to Joseph, who,
evidently well trained under Sir Nicholas, vanished into the next room
before attempting to read it.
"I hope," said Edward Henry to Carlo Trent, "that this money-making
play is reserved for the new theatre?"
"Utterly," said Carlo Trent.
"With Miss Euclid in the principal part?"
"Rather!" sang Mr. Marrier. "Rather!"
"I shall never, never appear at any other theatre, Mr. Machin!" said
Rose, with tragic emotion, once more feeling with her fingers along
the back of her chair. "So I hope the building will begin at once. In
less than six months we ought to open."
"Easily!" sang the optimist.
Joseph returned to the room, and sought his master's attention in a
whisper.
"What is it?" Edward Henry asked irritably. "Speak up!"
"A gentleman wishes to know if he can speak to you in the next room,
sir."
"Well, he can't."
"He said it was urgent, sir."
Scowling, Edward Henry rose. "Excuse me," he said. "I won't be a
moment. Help yourselves to the liqueurs. You chaps can go, I fancy."
The last remark was addressed to the gentlemen-in-waiting.
The next room was the vast bedroom with two beds in it. Edward Henry
closed the door carefully, and drew the _portière_ across it. Then he
listened. No sound penetrated from the scene of the supper.
"There _is_ a telephone in this room, isn't there?" he said to Joseph.
"Oh, yes, there it is! Well, you can go."
"Yes, sir."
Edward Henry sat down on one of the beds by the hook on which hung
the telephone. And he cogitated upon the characteristics of certain
members of the party which he had just left. "I'm a 'virgin mind,'
am I?" he thought. "I'm a 'clean slate'? Well!... Their notion of
business is to begin by discussing the name of the theatre! And they
haven't even taken up the option! Ye gods! 'Intellectual'! 'Muses'!
'The Orient Pearl.' And she's fifty--that I swear! Not a word yet of
real business--not one word! He may be a poet. I daresay he is. He's
a conceited ass. Why, even Bryany was better than that lot. Only
Sachs turned Bryany out. I like Sachs. But he won't open his mouth....
'Capitalist'! Well, they spoilt my appetite, and I hate champagne!...
The poet hates money.... No, he 'hates the thought of money.' And
she's changing her mind the whole blessed time! A month ago she'd
have gone over to Pilgrim, and the poet too, like a
house-a-fire!...Photographed indeed! The bally photographer will be
here in a minute!... They take me for a fool!... Or don't they know
any better?... Anyhow, I am a fool.... I must teach 'em summat!"
He seized the telephone.
"Hello!" he said into it. "I want you to put me on to the drawing-room
of Suite No. 48, please. Who? Oh, me! I'm in the bedroom of Suite No.
48. Machin, Alderman Machin. Thanks. That's all right."
He waited. Then he heard Harrier's Kensingtonian voice in the
telephone asking who he was.
"Is that Mr. Machin's room?" he continued, imitating with a broad
farcical effect the acute Kensingtonianism of Mr. Marrier's tones. "Is
Miss Ra-ose Euclid there? Oh! She is! Well, you tell her that Sir John
Pilgrim's private secretary wishes to speak to her? Thanks. All right.
_I_'ll hold the line."
A pause. Then he heard Rose's voice in the telephone, and he resumed:
"Miss Euclid? Yes. Sir John Pilgrim. I beg pardon! Banks? Oh, _Banks_!
No, I'm not Banks. I suppose you mean my predecessor. He's left. Left
last week. No, I don't know why. Sir John instructs me to ask if you
and Mr. Trent could lunch with him to-morrow at wun-thirty? What?
Oh! at his house. Yes. I mean flat. Flat! I said flat. You think you
could?"
Pause. He could hear her calling to Carlo Trent.
"Thanks. No, I don't know exactly," he went on again. "But I know the
arrangement with Miss Pryde is broken off. And Sir John wants a play
at once. He told me that! At once! Yes. 'The Orient Pearl.' That was
the title. At the Royal first, and then the world's tour. Fifteen
months at least in all, so I gathered. Of course I don't speak
officially. Well, many thanks. Saoo good of you. I'll tell Sir John
it's arranged. One-thirty to-morrow. Good-bye!"
He hung up the telephone. The excited, eager, effusive tones of Rose
Euclid remained in his ears. Aware of a strange phenomenon on his
forehead, he touched it. He was perspiring.
"I'll teach 'em a thing or two," he muttered.
And again:
"Serves her right.... 'Never, never appear at any other theatre, Mr.
Machin!' ... 'Bended knees!' ... 'Utterly!' ... Cheerful partners! Oh!
cheerful partners!"
He returned to his supper-party. Nobody said a word about the
telephoning. But Rose Euclid and Carlo Trent looked even more like
conspirators than they did before; and Mr. Marrier's joy in life
seemed to be just the least bit diminished.
"So sorry!" Edward Henry began hurriedly, and, without consulting the
poet's wishes, subtly turned on all the lights. "Now, don't you think
we'd better discuss the question of taking up the option? You know, it
expires on Friday."
"No," said Rose Euclid, girlishly. "It expires to-morrow. That's why
it's so _fortunate_ we got hold of you to-night."
"But Mr. Bryany told me Friday. And the date was clear enough on the
copy of the option he gave me."
"A mistake of copying," beamed Mr. Marrier. "However, it's all right."
"Well," observed Edward Henry with heartiness, "I don't mind telling
you that for sheer calm coolness you take the cake. However, as Mr.
Marrier so ably says, it's all right. Now I understand if I go into
this affair I can count on you absolutely, and also on Mr. Trent's
services." He tried to talk as if he had been diplomatizing with
actresses and poets all his life.
"A--absolutely!" said Rose.
And Mr. Carlo Trent nodded.
"You Iscariots!" Edward Henry addressed them, in the silence of the
brain, behind his smile. "You Iscariots!"
The photographer arrived with certain cases, and at once Rose Euclid
and Carlo Trent began instinctively to pose.
"To think," Edward Henry pleasantly reflected, "that they are hugging
themselves because Sir John Pilgrim's secretary happened to telephone
just while I was out of the room!"