Mr Pilkington, dimly realizing that the financial aspect of the affair had been more or less satisfactorily adjusted was nevertheless conscious of a feeling that he was being thwarted. He had much more to say about Uncle Chris and his methods of doing business, and it irked him to be cut short like this.
"Yes, but I do think. … That's all very well, but I have by no means finished …"
"Yes, you have," said Wally.
"There's nothing more to talk about," repeated Jill. "I'm sorry this should have happened, but you've nothing to complain about now, have you? Good night."
And she turned quickly away, and walked towards the door.
"But I hadn't finished!" wailed Mr Pilkington, clutching at Wally. He was feeling profoundly aggrieved. If it is bad to be all dressed up and no place to go, it is almost worse to be full of talk and to have no one to talk it to. Otis Pilkington had at least another twenty minutes of speech inside him on the topic of Uncle Chris, and Wally was the nearest human being with a pair of ears.
Wally was in no mood to play the part of confidant. He pushed Mr Pilkington earnestly in the chest and raced after Jill. Mr Pilkington, with the feeling that the world was against him, tottered back into the arms of Mr Goble, who had now recovered his breath and was ready to talk business.
"Have a good cigar," said Mr Goble, producing one. "Now, see here, let's get right down to it. If you'd care to sell out for twenty thousand …"
"I would not care to sell out for twenty thousand!" yelled the overwrought Mr Pilkington. "I wouldn't sell out for a million! You're a swindler! You want to rob me! You're a crook!"
"Yes, yes," assented Mr Goble gently. "But, all joking aside, suppose I was to go up to twenty-five thousand … ?" He twined his fingers lovingly in the slack of Mr Pilkington's coat. "Come now! You're a good kid! Shall we say twenty-five thousand?"
"We will not say twenty-five thousand! Let me go!"
"Now, now, now!" pleaded Mr Goble. "Be sensible! don't get all worked up! Say, do have a good cigar!"
"I won't have a good cigar!" shouted Mr Pilkington.
He detached himself with a jerk, and stalked with long strides up the stage. Mr Goble watched him go with a lowering gaze. A heavy sense of the unkindness of fate was oppressing Mr Goble. If you couldn't gyp a bone-headed amateur out of a piece of property, whom could you gyp? Mr Goble sighed. It hardly seemed to him worth while going on.
4.
Out in the street Wally had overtaken Jill, and they faced one another in the light of a street lamp. Forty-first Street at midnight is a quiet oasis. They had it to themselves.
Jill was pale, and she was breathing quickly, but she forced a smile.
"Well, Wally," she said. "My career as a manager didn't last long, did it?"
"What are you going to do?"
Jill looked down the street.
"I don't know," she said. "I suppose I shall have to start trying to find something."
"But …"
Jill drew him suddenly into the dark alley-way leading to the stage-door of the Gotham Theatre's nearest neighbor: and, as she did so, a long, thin form, swathed in an overcoat and surmounted by an opera-hat, flashed past.
"I don't think I could have gone through another meeting with Mr Pilkington," said Jill. "It wasn't his fault, and he was quite justified, but what he said about Uncle Chris rather hurt."
Wally, who had ideas of his own similar to those of Mr Pilkington on the subject of Uncle Chris and had intended to express them, prudently kept them unspoken.
"I suppose," he said, "there is no doubt … ?"
"There can't be. Poor Uncle Chris! He is like Freddie. He means well!"
There was a pause. They left the alley and walked down the street.
"Where are you going now?" asked Wally.
"I'm going home."
"Where's home?"
"Forty-ninth Street. I live in a boarding-house there." A sudden recollection of the boarding-house at which she had lived in Atlantic City smote Wally, and it turned the scale. He had not intended to speak, but he could not help himself.
"Jill!" he cried. "It's no good. I must say it! I want to get you out of all this. I want to take care of you. Why should you go on living this sort of life, when. … Why won't you let me … ?"
He stopped. Even as he spoke, he realized the futility of what he was saying. Jill was not a girl to be won with words.
They walked on in silence for a moment. They crossed Broadway, noisy with night traffic, and passed into the stillness on the other side.
"Wally," said Jill at last.
She was looking straight in front of her. Her voice was troubled.
"Yes?"
Jill hesitated.
"Wally, you wouldn't want me to marry you if you knew you weren't the only man in the world that mattered to me, would you?"
They had reached Sixth Avenue before Wally replied.
"No!" he said.
For an instant, Jill could not have said whether the feeling that shot through her like the abrupt touching of a nerve was relief or disappointment. Then suddenly she realized that it was disappointment. It was absurd to her to feel disappointed, but at that moment she would have welcomed a different attitude in him. If only this problem of hers could be taken forcefully out of her hands, what a relief it would be. If only Wally, masterfully insistent, would batter down her hesitations and grab her, knock her on the head and carry her off like a caveman, care less about her happiness and concentrate on his own, what a solution it would be. … But then he wouldn't be Wally. … Nevertheless, Jill gave a little sigh. Her new life had changed her already. It had blunted the sharp edge of her independence. Tonight she was feeling the need of some one to lean on—some one strong and cosy and sympathetic who would treat her like a little girl and shield her from all the roughness of life. The fighting spirit had gone out of her, and she was no longer the little warrior facing the world with a brave eye and a tilted chin. She wanted to cry and be petted.
"No!" said Wally again. There had been the faintest suggestion of a doubt when he had spoken the word before, but now it shot out like a bullet. "And I'll tell you why. I want you—and, if you married me feeling like that, it wouldn't be you. I want Jill, the whole Jill, and nothing but Jill, and, if I can't have that, I'd rather not have anything. Marriage isn't a motion-picture close-up with slow fade-out on the embrace. It's a partnership, and what's the good of a partnership if your heart's not in it? It's like collaborating with a man you dislike. … I believe you wish sometimes—not often, perhaps, but when you're feeling lonely and miserable—that I would pester and bludgeon you into marrying me. … What's the matter?"
Jill had started. It was disquieting to have her thoughts read with such accuracy.
"Nothing," she said.
"It wouldn't be any good," Wally went on "because it wouldn't be me. I couldn't keep that attitude up, and I know I should hate myself for ever having tried it. There's nothing in the world I wouldn't do to help you, though I know it's no use offering to do anything. You're a fighter, and you mean to fight your own battle. It might happen that, if I kept after you and badgered you and nagged you, one of these days, when you were feeling particularly all alone in the world and tired of fighting for yourself, you might consent to marry me. But it wouldn't do. Even if you reconciled yourself to it, it wouldn't do. I suppose, the cave-woman sometimes felt rather relieved when everything was settled for her with a club, but I'm sure the caveman must have had a hard time ridding himself of the thought that he had behaved like a cad and taken a mean advantage. I don't want to feel like that. I couldn't make you happy if I felt like that. Much better to have you go on regarding me as a friend … knowing that, if ever your feelings do change, that I am right there, waiting."