The Old Adam Part 36

... An offspring of the New Thought!"

He agreed that it was a delightful idea.

"Shall I be invited?" he asked.

She answered gravely: "I don't know."

"Are you going to play in it?"

She paused.... "Yes."

"Then you must let me come. Talking of plays--"

He stopped. He was on the edge of facetiously relating the episode of "The Orient Pearl" at Sir John Pilgrim's; but he withdrew in time.

Suppose that "The Orient Pearl" was the piece to be performed by the Azure Society! It might well be. It was (in his opinion) just the sort of play that that sort of society would choose. Nevertheless he was as anxious as ever to see Elsie April act. He really thought that she could and would transfigure any play. Even his profound scorn of New Thought (a subject of which he was entirely ignorant) began to be modified--and by nothing but the enchantment of the tone in which Elsie April murmured the words, "Azure Society!"

"How soon is the performance?" he demanded.

"Wednesday week," said she.

"That's the very day of my corner-stone-laying," he said. "However, it doesn't matter. My little affair will be in the afternoon."

"But it can't be," said she solemnly. "It would interfere with us, and we should interfere with it. Our annual conference takes place in the afternoon. All London will be there."

Said Mr. Marrier rather shamefaced:

"That's just it, Mr. Machin. It positively never occurred to me that the Azure Conference is to be on that very day. I never thought of it until nearly four o'clock. And then I scarcely knew how to explain it to you. I really don't know how it escaped me."

Mr. Marrier's trouble was now out, and he had declined in Edward Henry's esteem. Mr. Marrier was afraid of him. Mr. Marrier's list of personages was no longer a miracle of foresight; it was a mere coincidence. He doubted if Mr. Marrier was worth even his three pounds a week. Edward Henry began to feel ruthless, Napoleonic. He was capable of brus.h.i.+ng away the whole Azure Society and New Thought movement into limbo.

"You must please alter your date," said Elsie April. And she put her right elbow on the table and leaned her chin on it, and thus somehow established a domestic intimacy for the three amid all the blare and notoriety of the vast tea-room.

"Oh, but I can't!" he said easily, familiarly. It was her occasional "artichoke" manner that had justified him in a.s.suming this tone. "I can't!" he repeated. "I've told Sir John I can't possibly be ready any earlier, and on the day after he'll almost certainly be on his way to Ma.r.s.eilles. Besides, I don't _want_ to alter my date. My date is in the papers by this time."

"You've already done quite enough harm to the movement as it is," said Elsie April stoutly but ravis.h.i.+ngly.

"Me--harm to the movement?"

"Haven't you stopped the building of our church?"

"Oh! So you know Mr. Wrissell?"

"Very well indeed."

"Anybody else would have done the same in my place," Edward Henry defended himself. "Your cousin, Miss Euclid, would have done it, and Marrier here was in the affair with her."

"Ah!" exclaimed Elsie April. "But we didn't belong to the movement then! We didn't know.... Come now, Mr. Machin. Sir John Pilgrim will of course be a great show. But even if you've got him and manage to stick to him, we should beat you. You'll never get the audience you want if you don't change from Wednesday week. After all, the number of people who count in London is very small. And we've got nearly all of them. You've no idea--"

"I won't change from Wednesday week," said Edward Henry. This defiance of her put him into an extremely agitated felicity.

"Now, my dear Mr. Machin--"

He was actually aware of the charm she was exerting, and yet he discovered that he could easily withstand it.

"Now, my dear Miss April, please don't try to take advantage of your beauty!"

She sat up. She was apparently measuring herself and him.

"Then you won't change the day, truly?" Her urbanity was in no wise impaired.

"I won't," he laughed lightly. "I dare say you aren't used to people like me, Miss April."

(She might get the better of Seven Sachs, but not of him, Edward Henry Machin from the Five Towns!)

"Marrier," said he suddenly, with a bluff humorous downrightness, "you know you're in a very awkward position here, and you know you've got to see Alloyd for me before six o'clock. Be off with you. I will be responsible for Miss April."

("I'll show these Londoners!" he said to himself. "It's simple enough when you once get into it.")

And he did in fact succeed in dismissing Mr. Marrier, after the latter had talked Azure business with Miss April for a couple of minutes.

"I must go, too," said Elsie, imperturbable, impenetrable.

"One moment," he entreated, and masterfully signalled Marrier to depart.

After all, he was paying the fellow three pounds a week.

She watched Marrier thread his way out. Already she had put on her gloves.

"I must go," she repeated, her rich red lips then closed definitely.

"Have you a motor here?" Edward Henry asked.

"No."

"Then, if I may, I'll see you home."

"You may," she said, gazing full at him.

Whereby he was somewhat startled and put out of countenance.

V.

"Are we friends?" he asked roguishly.

"I hope so," she said, with no diminution of her inscrutability.

They were in a taxicab, rolling along the Embankment towards the Buckingham Palace Hotel, where she said she lived. He was happy. "Why am I happy?" he thought. "What is there in her that makes me happy?"