Roland was much too busy blessing the good angels of Kingsway to reply at once. R. P. de Parys, sympathetic soul, placed a wrong construction on his silence.
“Poor old Roly!” he said. “It’s quite broken him up. The best thing we can do is all to go off and talk it over at the Savoy, over a bit of lunch.”
“Well,” said Miss Verepoint, “what are you going to do—rebuild the Windsor or try and get another theater?”
The authors were all for rebuilding the Windsor. True, it would take time, but it would be more satisfactory in every way. Besides, at this time of the year it would be no easy matter to secure another theater at a moment’s notice.
To R. P. de Parys and Bromham Rhodes the destruction of the Windsor Theater had appeared less in the light of a disaster than as a direct intervention on the part of Providence. The completion of that tiresome second act, which had brooded over their lives like an ugly cloud, could now be postponed indefinitely.
“Of course,” said R. P. de Parys, thoughtfully, “our contract with you makes it obligatory on you to produce our revue by a certain date—but I dare say, Bromham, we could meet Roly there, couldn’t we?”
“Sure!” said Rhodes. “Something nominal, say a further five hundred on account of fees would satisfy us. I certainly think it would be better to rebuild the Windsor, don’t you, R. P.?”
“I do,” agreed R. P. de Parys, cordially. “You see, Roly, our revue has been written to fit the Windsor. It would be very difficult to alter it for production at another theater. Yes, I feel sure that rebuilding the Windsor would be your best course.”
There was a pause.
“What do you think, Roly-poly?” asked Miss Verepoint, as Roland made no sign.
“Nothing would delight me more than to rebuild the Windsor, or to take another theater, or do anything else to oblige,” he said, cheerfully. “Unfortunately, I have no more money to burn.”
It was as if a bomb had suddenly exploded in the room. A dreadful silence fell upon his hearers. For the moment no one spoke. R. P. de Parys woke with a start out of a beautiful dream of prawn curry and Bromham Rhodes forgot that he had not tasted food for nearly two hours. Miss Verepoint was the first to break the silence.
“Do you mean to say,” she gasped, “that you didn’t insure the place?”
Roland shook his head. The particular form in which Miss Verepoint had put the question entitled him, he felt, to make this answer.
“Why didn’t you?” Miss Verepoint’s tone was almost menacing.
“Because it did not appear to me to be necessary.”
Nor was it necessary, said Roland to his conscience. Mr. Montague had done all the insuring that was necessary—and a bit over.
Miss Verepoint fought with her growing indignation, and lost. “What about the salaries of the people who have been rehearsing all this time?” she demanded.
“I’m sorry that they should be out of an engagement, but it is scarcely my fault. However, I propose to give each of them a month’s salary. I can manage that, I think.”
Miss Verepoint rose. “And what about me? What about me, that’s what I want to know. Where do I get off? If you think I’m going to marry you without your getting a theater and putting up this revue you’re jolly well mistaken.”
Roland made a gesture which was intended to convey regret and resignation. He even contrived to sigh.
“Very well, then,” said Miss Verepoint, rightly interpreting this behavior as his final pronouncement on the situation. “Then everything’s jolly well off.”
She swept out of the room, the two authors following in her wake like porpoises behind a liner. Roland went to his bureau, unlocked it and took out a bundle of documents. He let his fingers stray lovingly among the fire insurance policies which energetic Mr. Montague had been at such pains to secure from so many companies.
“And so,” he said softly to himself, “am I.”
THE EPISODE OF THE LIVE WEEKLY
Fourth of a Series of Six Stories [First published in Pictorial Review, August 1916]
It was with a start that Roland Bleke realized that the girl at the other end of the bench was crying. For the last few minutes, as far as his preoccupation allowed him to notice them at all, he had been attributing the subdued sniffs to a summer cold, having just recovered from one himself.
He was embarrassed. He blamed the fate that had led him to this particular bench, but he wished to give himself up to quiet deliberation on the question of what on earth he was to do with two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, to which figure his fortune had now risen.
The sniffs continued. Roland’s discomfort increased. Chivalry had always been his weakness. In the old days, on a hundred and forty pounds a year, he had had few opportunities of indulging himself in this direction; but now it seemed to him sometimes that the whole world was crying out for assistance.
Should he speak to her? He wanted to; but only a few days ago his eyes had been caught by the placard of a weekly paper bearing the title of ‘Squibs,’ on which in large letters was the legend “Men Who Speak to Girls,” and he had gathered that the accompanying article was a denunciation rather than a eulogy of these individuals. On the other hand, she was obviously in distress.
Another sniff decided him.
“I say, you know,” he said.
The girl looked at him. She was small, and at the present moment had that air of the floweret surprized while shrinking, which adds a good thirty-three per cent. to a girl’s attractions. Her nose, he noted, was delicately tip-tilted. A certain pallor added to her beauty. Roland’s heart executed the opening steps of a buck-and-wing dance.
“Pardon me,” he went on, “but you appear to be in trouble. Is there anything I can do for you?”
She looked at him again—a keen look which seemed to get into Roland’s soul and walk about it with a searchlight. Then, as if satisfied by the inspection, she spoke.
“No, I don’t think there is,” she said. “Unless you happen to be the proprietor of a weekly paper with a Woman’s Page, and need an editress for it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, that’s all any one could do for me—give me back my work or give me something else of the same sort.”
“Oh, have you lost your job?”
“I have. So would you mind going away, because I want to go on crying, and I do it better alone. You won’t mind my turning you out, I hope, but I was here first, and there are heaps of other benches.”
“No, but wait a minute. I want to hear about this. I might be able—what I mean is—think of something. Tell me all about it.”
There is no doubt that the possession of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds tones down a diffident man’s diffidence. Roland began to feel almost masterful.
“Why should I?”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
“There’s something in that,” said the girl reflectively. “After all, you might know somebody. Well, as you want to know, I have just been discharged from a paper called ‘Squibs.’ I used to edit the Woman’s Page.”
“By Jove, did you write that article on ‘Men Who Speak–-‘?”
The hard manner in which she had wrapped herself as in a garment vanished instantly. Her eyes softened. She even blushed. Just a becoming pink, you know!
“You don’t mean to say you read it? I didn’t think that any one ever really read ‘Squibs.’”
“Read it!” cried Roland, recklessly abandoning truth. “I should jolly well think so. I know it by heart. Do you mean to say that, after an article like that, they actually sacked you? Threw you out as a failure?”