The Old Adam Part 18

"Rather!" Mr. Marrier gaily soothed him, as he went over to the telephone. And Mr. Marrier's bright boyish face radiated forth the a.s.surance 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 Midland 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 this gla.s.s, I'm bound to have a bad night." And he finished the gla.s.s, 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 Theater?" 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 theater 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 t.i.tle. 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 Shakespeare."

"I thought you were talking about poetry," said Edward Henry too hastily.

"And isn't Shakespeare 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 seen or read "Shakespeare." His sure instinct had always warned him against being drawn into "Shakespeare."

"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 friends.h.i.+p with the Countess of Ch.e.l.l, 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 Shakespeare," she said in a thick, mournful voice, looking at the cloth as she p.r.o.nounced 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 Shakespearean 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 pa.s.sionately, "not if he went down on his knees tome!"

"And nothing on earth would induce me to let him have 'The Orient Pearl'!" Carlo Trent a.s.severated with equal pa.s.sion. "He's lost that forever," 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 ma.s.sive printed black, and the figures 4-4-0 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 doc.u.ment 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 princ.i.p.al 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.