“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 L4, 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.”