Jill the Reckless

Uncle Chris coughed.

"Well, as regards actual living expenses, I have managed by a shrewd business stroke to acquire a small but sufficient income. I live in a boarding-house—true—but I contrive to keep the wolf away from its door—which, by the by, badly needs a lick of paint. Have you ever heard of Nervino?"

"I don't think so. It sounds like a patent medicine."

"It is a patent medicine." Uncle Chris stopped and looked anxiously at her. "Jill, you're looking pale, my dear."

"Am I? We had rather a tiring rehearsal."

"Are you sure," said Uncle Chris seriously, "that it is only that? Are you sure that your vitality has not become generally lowered by the fierce rush of Metropolitan life? Are you aware of the things that can happen to you if you allow the red corpuscles of your blood to become devitalised? I had a friend...."

"Stop! You're scaring me to death!"

Uncle Chris gave his moustache a satisfied twirl.

"Just what I meant to do, my dear. And, when I had scared you sufficiently—you wouldn't wait for the story of my consumptive friend. Pity! It's one of my best!—I should have mentioned that I had been having much the same trouble myself until lately, but the other day I happened to try Nervino, the great specific.... I was giving you an illustration of myself in action, my dear. I went to these Nervino people—happened to see one of their posters and got the idea in a flash—I went to them and said, 'Here am I, a presentable man of persuasive manners and a large acquaintance among the leaders of New York Society. What would it be worth to you to have me hint from time to time at dinner parties and so forth that Nervino is the rich man's panacea?' I put the thing lucidly to them. I said, 'No doubt you have a thousand agents in the city, but have you one who does not look like an agent and won't talk like an agent? Have you one who is inside the houses of the wealthy, at their very dinner-tables, instead of being on the front step, trying to hold the door open with his foot? That is the point you have to consider.' They saw the idea at once. We arranged terms—not as generous as I could wish, perhaps, but quite ample. I receive a tolerably satisfactory salary each week, and in return I spread the good word about Nervino in the gilded palaces of the rich. Those are the people to go for, Jill. They have been so busy wrenching money away from the widow and the orphan that they haven't had time to look after their health. You catch one of them after dinner, just as he is wondering if he was really wise in taking two helpings of the lobster Newburg, and he is clay in your hands. I draw my chair up to his and become sympathetic and say that I had precisely the same trouble myself until recently, and mention a dear old friend of mine who died of indigestion, and gradually lead the conversation round to Nervino. I don't force it on them. I don't even ask them, to try it. I merely point to myself, rosy with health, and say that I owe everything to it, and the thing is done. They thank me profusely and scribble the name down on their shirt-cuffs. And there you are! I don't suppose," said Uncle Chris philosophically, "that the stuff can do them any actual harm."

They had come to the corner of Forty-first Street. Uncle Chris felt in his pocket and produced a key.

"If you want to go and take a look at my little nest, you can let yourself in. It's on the twenty-second floor. Don't fail to go out on the roof and look at the view. It's worth seeing. It will give you some idea of the size of the city. A wonderful, amazing city, my dear, full of people who need Nervino. I shall go on and drop in at the club for half an hour. They have given me a fortnight's card at the Avenue. Capital place. Here's the key."

Jill turned down Forty-first Street, and came to a mammoth structure of steel and stone which dwarfed the modest brown houses beside it into nothingness. It was curious to think of a private flat nestling on the summit of this mountain. She went in, and the lift shot her giddily upwards to the twenty-second floor. She found herself facing a short flight of stone steps, ending in a door. She mounted the steps, tried the key, and, turning it, entered a hall-way. Proceeding down the passage, she reached a sitting-room.

It was a small room, but furnished with a solid comfort which soothed her. For the first time since she had arrived in New York, she had the sense of being miles away from the noise and bustle of the city. There was a complete and restful silence. She was alone in a nest of books and deep chairs, on which a large grandfather-clock looked down with that wide-faced benevolence peculiar to its kind. So peaceful was this eyrie, perched high up above the clamour and rattle of civilization, that every nerve in her body seemed to relax in a delicious content. It was like being in Peter Pan's house in the tree-tops.

II

Jill possessed in an unusual degree that instinct for exploration which is implanted in most of us. She was frankly inquisitive, and could never be two minutes in a strange room without making a tour of it and examining its books, pictures, and photographs. Almost at once she began to prowl.

The mantelpiece was her first objective. She always made for other people's mantelpieces, for there, more than anywhere else, is the character of a proprietor revealed. This mantelpiece was sprinkled with photographs, large, small, framed and unframed. In the centre of it, standing all alone and looking curiously out of place among its large neighbours, was a little snapshot.

It was dark by the mantelpiece. Jill took the photograph to the window, where the fading light could fall on it. Why, she could not have said, but the thing interested her. There was mystery about it. It seemed in itself so insignificant to have the place of honour.

The snapshot had evidently been taken by an amateur, but it was one of those lucky successes which happen at rare intervals to amateur photographers to encourage them to proceed with their hobby. It showed a small girl in a white dress cut short above slim, black legs, standing in the porch of an old house, one hand swinging a sun-bonnet, the other patting an Irish terrier which had planted its front paws against her waist and was looking up into her face with that grave melancholy characteristic of Irish terriers. The sunlight was evidently strong, for the child's face was puckered in a twisted though engaging grin. Jill's first thought was "What a jolly kid!" And then, with a leaping of the heart that seemed to send something big and choking into her throat, she saw that it was a photograph of herself.

With a swooping bound memory raced back over the years. She could feel the hot sun on her face, hear the anxious voice of Freddie Rooke—then fourteen and for the first time the owner of a camera—imploring her to stand just like that because he wouldn't be half a minute only some rotten thing had stuck or something. Then the sharp click, the doubtful assurance of Freddie that he thought it was all right if he hadn't forgotten to shift the film (in which case she might expect to appear in combination with a cow which he had snapped on his way to the house), and the relieved disappearance of Pat, the terrier, who didn't understand photography. How many years ago had that been? She could not remember. But Freddie had grown to long-legged manhood, she to an age of discretion and full-length frocks, Pat had died, the old house was inhabited by strangers ... and here was the silent record of that sun-lit afternoon, three thousand miles away from the English garden in which it had come into existence.

The shadows deepened. The top of the great building swayed gently, causing the pendulum of the grandfather-clock to knock against the sides of its wooden case. Jill started. The noise, coming after the dead silence, frightened her till she realized what it was. She had a nervous feeling of not being alone. It was as if the shadows held goblins that peered out at the intruder. She darted to the mantelpiece and replaced the photograph. She felt like some heroine of a fairy-story meddling with the contents of the giant's castle. Soon there would come the sound of a great footstep thud—thud....

Thud.

Jill's heart gave another leap. She was perfectly sure she had heard a sound. It had been just like the banging of a door. She braced herself, listening, every muscle tense. And then, cleaving the stillness, came a voice from down the passage—

For an instant Jill could not have said whether she was relieved or more frightened than ever. True, that numbing sense of the uncanny had ceased to grip her, for Reason told her that spectres do not sing rag-time songs. On the other hand, owners of apartments do, and she would almost as readily have faced a spectre as the owner of this apartment. Dizzily, she wondered how in the world she was to explain her presence. Suppose he turned out to be some awful-choleric person who would listen to no explanations.

Very near now. Almost at the door.

A dim, shapeless figure in the black of the doorway. The scrabbling of fingers on the wall.

"Where are you, dammit?" said the voice, apparently addressing the electric-light switch.

Jill shrank back, desperate fingers pressing deep into the back of an arm-chair. Light flashed from the wall at her side. And there, in the doorway, stood Wally Mason in his shirt-sleeves.

CHAPTER XIII

Jill shook her head. Wally reflected for an instant, and then put his finger, with a happy inspiration, on the very heart of the mystery.

"Then how on earth did you get here?"

He was glad he had asked that. The sense of unreality which had come to him in the first startling moment of seeing her and vanished under the influence of logic had returned as strong as ever. If she did not know he lived in this place, how in the name of everything uncanny had she found her way here? A momentary wonder as to whether all this was not mixed up with telepathy and mental suggestion and all that sort of thing came to him. Certainly he had been thinking of her all the time since their parting at the Savoy Hotel that night three weeks and more back.... No, that was absurd. There must be some sounder reason for her presence. He waited for her to give it.

Jill for the moment felt physically incapable of giving it. She shrank from the interminable explanation which confronted her as a weary traveller shrinks from a dusty, far-stretching desert. She simply could not go into all that now. So she answered with a question.

"When did you land in New York?"

"This afternoon. We were supposed to dock this morning, but the boat was late." Wally perceived that he was being pushed away from the main point, and jostled his way back to it. "But what are you doing here?"

"It's such a long story."

Her voice was plaintive. Remorse smote Wally. It occurred to him that he had not been sufficiently sympathetic. Not a word had he said on the subject of her change of fortunes. He had just stood and gaped and asked questions. After all, what the devil did it matter how she came to be here? He had anticipated a long and tedious search for her through the labyrinth of New York, and here Fate had brought her to his very door, and all he could do was to ask why, instead of being thankful. He perceived that he was not much of a fellow.

"Never mind," he said. "You can tell me when you feel like it." He looked at her eagerly. Time seemed to have wiped away that little misunderstanding under the burden of which they had parted. "It's too wonderful finding you like this!" He hesitated. "I heard about—everything," he said awkwardly.

"My—" Jill hesitated too. "My smash?"

"Yes. Freddie Rooke told me. I was terribly sorry."

"Thank you," said Jill.

There was a pause. They were both thinking of that other disaster which had happened. The presence of Derek Underhill seemed to stand like an unseen phantom between them. Finally Wally spoke at random, choosing the first words that came into his head in his desire to break the silence.

"Jolly place, this, isn't it?"

Jill perceived that an opening for those tedious explanations had been granted her.

"Uncle Chris thinks so," she said demurely.

Wally looked puzzled.

"Uncle Chris? Oh, your uncle?"

"Yes."

"But—he has never been here."

"Oh, yes. He's giving a dinner-party here to-night!"

"He's ... what did you say?"

"It's all right. I only began at the end of the story instead of the beginning. I'll tell you the whole thing. And then ... then I suppose you will be terribly angry and make a fuss."

"I'm not much of a lad, as Freddie Rooke would say, for making fusses. And I can't imagine being terribly angry with you."

"Well, I'll risk it. Though, if I wasn't a brave girl, I should leave Uncle Chris to explain for himself and simply run away."

"Anything is better than that. It's a miracle meeting you like this, and I don't want to be deprived of the fruits of it. Tell me anything, but don't go."

"You'll be furious."

"Not with you."

"I should hope not with me. I've done nothing. I am the innocent heroine. But I'm afraid you will be very angry with Uncle Chris."

"If he's your uncle, that passes him. Besides, he once licked the stuffing out of me with a whangee. That forms a bond. Tell me all."

Jill considered. She had promised to begin at the beginning, but it was difficult to know what was the beginning.

"Have you ever heard of Captain Kidd?" she asked at length.

"You're wandering from the point, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not. Have you heard of Captain Kidd?"

"The pirate? Of course."

"Well, Uncle Chris is his direct lineal descendant. That really explains the whole thing."

Wally looked at her enquiringly.

"Could you make it a little easier?" he said.

"I can tell you everything in half a dozen words, if you like. But it will sound awfully abrupt."

"Go ahead."

"Uncle Chris has stolen your apartment."

Wally nodded slowly.

"I see. Stolen my apartment."

"Of course you can't possibly understand. I shall have to tell you the whole thing, after all."

Wally listened with flattering attention as she began the epic of Major Christopher Selby's doings in New York. Whatever his emotions, he certainly was not bored.

"So that's how it all happened," concluded Jill.

For a moment Wally said nothing. He seemed to be digesting what he had heard.

"I see," he said at last. "It's a variant of those advertisements they print in the magazines. 'Why pay rent? Own somebody else's home!'"

"That does rather sum it up," said Jill.

Wally burst into a roar of laughter.

"He's a corker!"

Jill was immensely relieved. For all her courageous bearing, she had not relished the task of breaking the news to Wally. She knew that he had a sense of humour, but a man may have a sense of humour and yet not see anything amusing in having his home stolen in his absence.

"I'm so glad you're not angry."

"Of course not."

"Most men would be."

"Most men are chumps."

"It's so wonderful that it happened to be you. Suppose it had been an utter stranger! What could I have done?"

"It would have been the same thing. You would have won him over in two minutes. Nobody could resist you."

"That's very sweet of you."

"I can't help telling the truth. Washington was just the same."

"Then you don't mind Uncle Chris giving his dinner-party here to-night?"

"He has my blessing."

"You really are an angel," said Jill gratefully. "From what he said, I think he looks on it as rather an important function. He has invited a very rich woman, who has been showing him a lot of hospitality—a Mrs. Peagrim...."

"Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim?"

"Yes? Why, do you know her?"

"Quite well. She goes in a good deal for being Bohemian and knowing people who write and paint and act and so on. That reminds me. I gave Freddie Rooke a letter of introduction to her."

"Freddie Rooke!"

"Yes. He suddenly made up his mind to come over. He came to me for advice about the journey. He sailed a couple of days before I did. I suppose he's somewhere in New York by now, unless he was going on to Florida. He didn't tell me what his plans were."

Jill was conscious of a sudden depression. Much as she liked Freddie, he belonged to a chapter in her life which was closed and which she was trying her hardest to forget. It was impossible to think of Freddie without thinking of Derek, and to think of Derek was like touching an exposed nerve. The news that Freddie was in New York shocked her. New York had already shown itself a city of chance encounters. Could she avoid meeting Freddie?

She knew Freddie so well. There was not a dearer or a better-hearted youth in the world, but he had not that fine sensibility which pilots a man through the awkwardnesses of life. He was a blunderer. Instinct told her that, if she met Freddie, he would talk of Derek, and, if thinking of Derek was touching an exposed nerve, talking of him would be like pressing on that nerve with a heavy hand. She shivered.

Wally was observant.

"There's no need to meet him if you don't want to," he said.

"No," said Jill doubtfully.

"New York's a large place. By the way," he went on, "to return once more to the interesting subject of my lodger, does your uncle sleep here at nights, do you know?"

Jill looked at him gratefully. He was no blunderer. Her desire to avoid Freddie Rooke was, he gave her tacitly to understand, her business, and he did not propose to intrude on it. She liked him for dismissing the subject so easily.

"No, I think he told me he doesn't."

"Well, that's something, isn't it! I call that darned nice of him! I wonder if I could drop back here somewhere about eleven o'clock. Are the festivities likely to be over by then? If I know Mrs. Peagrim, she will insist on going off to one of the hotels to dance directly after dinner. She's a confirmed trotter."

"I don't know how to apologize," began Jill remorsefully.

"Please don't. It's absolutely all right." His eye wandered to the mantelpiece, as it had done once or twice during the conversation. In her hurry Jill had replaced the snapshot with its back to the room, and Wally had the fidgety air of a man whose most cherished possession is maltreated. He got up now and, walking across, turned the photograph round. He stood for a moment, looking at it. Jill had forgotten the snapshot. Curiosity returned to her.

"Where did you get that?" she asked.

Wally turned.

"Oh, did you see this?"

"I was looking at it just before you nearly frightened me to death by appearing so unexpectedly."

"Freddie Rooke sold it to me fourteen years ago."

"Fourteen years ago?"

"Next July," added Wally. "I gave him five shillings for it."

"Five shillings! The little brute!" cried Jill indignantly. "It must have been all the money you had in the world!"

"A trifle more, as a matter of fact. All the money I had in the world was three-and-six. But by a merciful dispensation of Providence the curate had called that morning and left a money-box for subscriptions to the village organ-fund.... It's wonderful what you can do with a turn for crime and the small blade of a pocket-knife! I don't think I have ever made money quicker!" He looked at the photograph again. "Not that it seemed quick at the moment. I died at least a dozen agonizing deaths in the few minutes I was operating. Have you ever noticed how slowly time goes when you are coaxing a shilling and a sixpence out of somebody's money-box? Centuries! But I was forgetting. Of course you've had no experience."

"You poor thing!"

"It was worth it."

"And you've had it ever since!"

"I wouldn't part with it for all Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim's millions," said Wally with sudden and startling vehemence, "if she offered me them." He paused. "She hasn't, as a matter of fact."

There was a silence. Jill looked at Wally furtively as he returned to his seat. She was seeing him with new eyes. It was as if this trifling incident had removed some sort of a veil. He had suddenly become more alive. For an instant she had seen right into him, to the hidden deeps of his soul. She felt shy and embarrassed.

"Pat died," she said at length. She felt the necessity of saying something.

"I liked Pat."

"He picked up some poison, poor darling.... How long ago those days seem, don't they?"

"They are always pretty vivid to me. I wonder who has that old house of yours now."

"I heard the other day," said Jill more easily. The odd sensation of embarrassment was passing. "Some people called ... what was the name?... Debenham, I think."

Silence fell again. It was broken by the front-door bell, like an alarm-clock that shatters a dream.

Wally got up.

"Your uncle," he said.

"You aren't going to open the door?"

"That was the scheme."

"But he'll get such a shock when he sees you."

"He must look on it in the light of rent. I don't see why I shouldn't have a little passing amusement from this business."

He left the room. Jill heard the front door open. She waited breathlessly. Pity for Uncle Chris struggled with the sterner feeling that it served him right.

"Hullo!" she heard Wally say.

"Hullo-ullo-ullo!" replied an exuberant voice. "Wondered if I'd find you in, and all that sort of thing. I say, what a deuce of a way up it is here. Sort of get a chappie into training for going to heaven, what? I mean, what?"

Jill looked about her like a trapped animal. It was absurd, she felt, but every nerve in her body cried out against the prospect of meeting Freddie. His very voice had opened old wounds and set them throbbing.

She listened in the doorway. Out of sight down the passage, Freddie seemed by the sounds to be removing his overcoat. She stole out and darted like a shadow down the corridor that led to Wally's bedroom. The window of the bedroom opened on to the wide roof which Uncle Chris had eulogized. She slipped noiselessly out, closing the window behind her.

II

"I say, Mason, old top," said Freddie, entering the sitting-room, "I hope you don't mind my barging in like this, but the fact is things are a bit thick. I'm dashed worried, and I didn't know another soul I could talk it over with. As a matter of fact, I wasn't sure you were in New York at all, but I remembered hearing you say in London that you were popping back almost at once, so I looked you up in the telephone book and took a chance. I'm dashed glad you are back. When did you arrive?"

"This afternoon."

"I've been here two or three days. Well, it's a bit of luck catching you. You see, what I want to ask your advice about...."

Wally looked at his watch. He was not surprised to find that Jill had taken to flight. He understood her feelings perfectly, and was anxious to get rid of the inopportune Freddie as soon as possible.

"You'll have to talk quick, I'm afraid," he said. "I've lent this place to a man for the evening, and he's having some people to dinner. What's the trouble?"

"It's about Jill."

"Jill?"

"Jill Mariner, you know. You remember Jill? You haven't forgotten my telling you all that? About her losing her money and coming over to America?"

"No. I remember you telling me that."

Freddie seemed to miss something in his companion's manner, some note of excitement and perturbation.

"Of course," he said, as if endeavouring to explain this to himself, "you hardly knew her, I suppose. Only met once since you were kids and all that sort of thing. But I'm a pal of hers and I'm dashed upset by the whole business, I can tell you. It worries me, I mean to say. Poor girl, you know, landed on her uppers in a strange country. Well, I mean, it worries me. So the first thing I did when I got here was to try to find her. That's why I came over, really, to try to find her. Apart from anything else, you see, poor old Derek is dashed worried about her."

"Need we bring Underhill in?"

"Oh, I know you don't like him and think he behaved rather rummily and so forth, but that's all right now."

"It is, is it?" said Wally drily.

"Oh, absolutely. It's all on again."

"What's all on again?"

"Why, I mean he wants to marry Jill. I came over to find her and tell her so."

Wally's eyes glowed.

"If you have come over as an ambassador...."

"That's right. Jolly old ambassador. Very word I used myself."

"I say, if you have come over as an ambassador with the idea of reopening negotiations with Jill on behalf of that infernal swine...."

"Old man!" protested Freddie, pained. "Pal of mine, you know."

"If he is, after what's happened, your mental processes are beyond me."

"My what, old son?"

"Your mental processes."

"Oh, ah!" said Freddie, learning for the first time that he had any.

Wally looked at him intently. There was a curious expression on his rough-hewn face.

"I can't understand you, Freddie. If ever there was a fellow who might have been expected to take the only possible view of Underhill's behaviour in this business, I should have said it was you. You're a public-school man. You've mixed all the time with decent people. You wouldn't do anything that wasn't straight yourself to save your life. Yet it seems to have made absolutely no difference in your opinion of this man Underhill that he behaved like an utter cad to a girl who was one of your best friends. You seem to worship him just as much as ever. And you have travelled three thousand miles to bring a message from him to Jill—Good God! Jill!—to the effect, as far as I can understand it, that he has thought it over and come to the conclusion that after all she may possibly be good enough for him!"

Freddie recovered the eye-glass which the raising of his eyebrows had caused to fall, and polished it in a crushed sort of way. Rummy, he reflected, how chappies stayed the same all their lives as they were when they were kids. Nasty, tough sort of chap Wally Mason had been as a boy, and here he was, apparently, not altered a bit. At least the only improvement he could detect was that, whereas in the old days Wally, when in an ugly mood like this, would undoubtedly have kicked him, he now seemed content with mere words. All the same, he was being dashed unpleasant. And he was all wrong about poor Derek. This last fact he endeavoured to make clear.

"You don't understand," he said. "You don't realize. You've never met Lady Underhill, have you?"

"What has she got to do with it?"

"Everything, old bean, everything. If it hadn't been for her, there wouldn't have been any trouble of any description, sort, or order. But she barged in and savaged poor old Derek till she absolutely made him break off the engagement."

"If you call him 'poor old Derek' again, Freddie," said Wally viciously, "I'll drop you out of the window and throw your hat after you! If he's such a gelatine-backboned worm that his mother can...."

"You don't know her, old thing! She's the original hellhound!"

"I don't care what...."

"Must be seen to be believed," mumbled Freddie.

"I don't care what she's like! Any man who could...."

"Once seen, never forgotten!"

"Damn you! Don't interrupt every time I try to get a word in!"

"Sorry, old man! Shan't occur again!"

Wally moved to the window, and stood looking out. He had had much more to say on the subject of Derek Underhill, but Freddie's interruptions had put it out of his head, and he felt irritated and baffled.

"Well, all I can say is," he remarked savagely, "that, if you have come over here as an ambassador to try and effect a reconciliation between Jill and Underhill, I hope to God you'll never find her."

Freddie emitted a weak cough, like a very far-off asthmatic old sheep. He was finding Wally more overpowering every moment. He had rather forgotten the dear old days of his childhood, but this conversation was beginning to refresh his memory: and he was realizing more vividly with every moment that passed how very Wallyish Wally was—how extraordinarily like the Wally who had dominated his growing intellect when they were both in Eton suits. Freddie in those days had been all for peace, and he was all for peace now. He made his next observation diffidently.

"I have found her!"

Wally spun round.

"What!"

"When I say that, I don't absolutely mean I've seen her. I mean I know where she is. That's what I came round to see you about. Felt I must talk it over, you know. The situation seems to me dashed rotten and not a little thick. The fact is, old man, she's gone on the stage. In the chorus, you know. And, I mean to say, well, if you follow what I'm driving at, what, what?"

"In the chorus?"

"In the chorus!"

"How do you know?"

Freddie groped for his eyeglass, which had fallen again. He regarded it a trifle sternly. He was fond of the little chap, but it was always doing that sort of thing. The whole trouble was that, if you wanted to keep it in its place, you simply couldn't register any sort of emotion with the good old features: and, when you were chatting with a fellow like Wally Mason, you had to be registering something all the time.

"Well, that was a bit of luck, as a matter of fact. When I first got here, you know, it seemed to me the only thing to do was to round up a merry old detective and put the matter in his hands, like they do in stories. You know. Ring at the bell. 'And this, if I mistake not, Watson, is my client now.' And then in breezes client and spills the plot. I found a sleuth in the classified telephone directory, and toddled round. Rummy chaps, detectives! Ever met any? I always thought they were lean, hatchet-faced Johnnies with inscrutable smiles. This one looked just like my old Uncle Ted, the one who died of apoplexy. Jovial, puffy-faced bird, who kept bobbing up behind a fat cigar. Have you ever noticed what whacking big cigars these fellows over here smoke? Rummy country, America. You ought to have seen the way this blighter could shift his cigar right across his face with moving his jaw-muscles. Like a flash! Most remarkable thing you ever saw, I give you my honest word! He...."

"Couldn't you keep your Impressions of America for the book you're going to write, and come to the point?" said Wally rudely.

"Sorry, old chap," said Freddie meekly. "Glad you reminded me. Well.... Oh, yes. We had got as far as the jovial old human bloodhound, hadn't we? Well, I put the matter before this chappie. Told him I wanted to find a girl, showed him a photograph, and so forth. I say," said Freddie, wandering off once more into speculation, "why is it that coves like that always talk of a girl as 'the little lady'? This chap kept saying 'We'll find the little lady for you!' Oh, well, that's rather off the rails, isn't it? It just floated across my mind and I thought I'd mention it. Well, this blighter presumably nosed about and made enquiries for a couple of days, but didn't effect anything that you might call substantial. I'm not blaming him, mind you. I shouldn't care to have a job like that myself. I mean to say, when you come to think of what a frightful number of girls there are in this place, to have to ... well, as I say, he did his best but didn't click; and then this evening, just before I came here, I met a girl I had known in England—she was in a show over there—a girl called Nelly Bryant...."

"Nelly Bryant? I know her."

"Yes? Fancy that! She was in a thing called 'Follow the Girl' in London. Did you see it by any chance? Topping show! There was one scene where the...."

"Get on! Get on! I wrote it."

"You wrote it?" Freddie beamed simple-hearted admiration. "My dear old chap, I congratulate you! One of the ripest and most all-wool musical comedies I've ever seen. I went twenty-four times. Rummy I don't remember spotting that you wrote it. I suppose one never looks at the names on the programme. Yes, I went twenty-four times The first time I went was with a couple of chappies from...."

"Listen, Freddie!" said Wally feverishly. "On some other occasion I should dearly love to hear the story of your life, but just now...."

"Absolutely, old man. You're perfectly right. Well, to cut a long story short, Nelly Bryant told me that she and Jill were rehearsing with a piece called 'The Rose of America.'"

"'The Rose of America!'"

"I think that was the name of it."

"That's Ike Goble's show. He called me up on the phone about it half an hour ago. I promised to go and see a rehearsal of it to-morrow or the day after. And Jill's in that?"

"Yes. How about it? I mean, I don't know much about this sort of thing, but do you think it's the sort of thing Jill ought to be doing?"

Wally was moving restlessly about the room. Freddie's news had disquieted him. Mr. Goble had a reputation.

"I know a lot about it," he replied, "and it certainly isn't." He scowled at the carpet. "Oh, damn everybody!"

Freddie paused to allow him to proceed, if such should be his wish, but Wally had apparently said his say. Freddie went on to point out an aspect of the matter which was troubling him greatly.

"I'm sure poor old Derek wouldn't like her being in the chorus!"

Wally started so violently that for a moment Freddie was uneasy.

"I mean Underhill," he corrected himself hastily.

"Freddie," said Wally, "you're an awfully good chap, but I wish you would exit rapidly now! Thanks for coming and telling me, very good of you. This way out!"

"But, old man...!"

"Now what?"

"I thought we were going to discuss this binge and decide what to do and all that sort of thing."

"Some other time. I want to think about it."

"Oh, you will think about it?"

"Yes, I'll think about it."

"Topping! You see, you're a brainy sort of fellow, and you'll probably hit something."

"I probably shall, if you don't go."

"Eh? Oh, ah, yes!" Freddie struggled into his coat. More than ever did the adult Wally remind him of the dangerous stripling of years gone by. "Well, cheerio!"

"Same to you!"

"You'll let me know if you scare up some devilish fruity wheeze, won't you? I'm at the Biltmore."

"Very good place to be. Go there now."

"Right ho! Well, toodle-oo!"

"The elevator is at the foot of the stairs," said Wally. "You press the bell and up it comes. You hop in and down you go! It's a great invention! Good night!"

"Oh, I say. One moment...."

"Good night!" said Wally.

He closed the door, and ran down the passage.

"Jill!" he called. He opened the bedroom window and stepped out. "Jill!"

There was no reply.

"Jill!" called Wally once again, but again there was no answer.

Wally walked to the parapet, and looked over. Below him the vastness of the city stretched itself in a great triangle, its apex the harbour, its sides the dull silver of the East and Hudson Rivers. Directly before him, crowned with its white lantern, the Metropolitan Tower reared its graceful height to the stars. And all around, in the windows of the tall buildings that looked from this bastion on which he stood almost squat, a million lights stared up at him, the unsleeping eyes of New York. It was a scene of which Wally, always sensitive to beauty, never tired: but to-night it had lost its appeal. A pleasant breeze from the Jersey shore greeted him with a quickening whisper of springtime and romance, but it did not lift the heaviness of his heart. He felt depressed and apprehensive.

CHAPTER XIV

Spring, whose coming the breeze had heralded to Wally as he smoked upon the roof, floated graciously upon New York two mornings later. The city awoke to a day of blue and gold and to a sense of hard times over and good times to come. In his apartment on Park Avenue, Mr Isaac Goble, sniffing the gentle air from the window of his breakfast-room, returned to his meal and his Morning Telegraph with a resolve to walk to the theatre for rehearsal: a resolve which had also come to Jill and Nelly Bryant, eating stewed prunes in their boarding-house in the Forties. On the summit of his sky-scraper, Wally Mason, performing Swedish exercises to the delectation of various clerks and stenographers in the upper windows of neighbouring buildings, felt young and vigorous and optimistic, and went in to his shower-bath thinking of Jill. And it was of Jill, too, that young Pilkington thought, as he propped his long form up against the pillows and sipped his morning cup of tea. For the first time in several days a certain moodiness which had affected Otis Pilkington left him, and he dreamed happy day-dreams.

The gaiety of Otis was not, however, entirely or even primarily due to the improvement in the weather. It had its source in a conversation which had taken place between himself and Jill's Uncle Chris on the previous night. Exactly how it had come about, Mr. Pilkington was not entirely clear, but, somehow, before he was fully aware of what he was saying, he had begun to pour into Major Selby's sympathetic ears the story of his romance. Encouraged by the other's kindly receptiveness, he had told him all—his love for Jill, his hopes that some day it might be returned, the difficulties complicating the situation owing to the known prejudices of Mrs. Waddesleigh Peagrim concerning girls who formed the personnel of musical comedy ensembles. To all these outpourings Major Selby had listened with keen attention, and finally had made one of those luminous suggestions, so simple yet so shrewd, which emanate only from your man of the world. It was Jill's girlish ambition, it seemed from Major Selby's statement, to become a force in the motion-picture world. The movies were her objective.

What, he broke off to ask, did Pilkington think of the idea?

Pilkington thought the idea splendid. Miss Mariner, with her charm and looks, would be wonderful in the movies.

There was, said Uncle Chris, a future for the girl in the movies.

Mr. Pilkington agreed cordially. A great future indeed.

"Observe," proceeded Uncle Chris, gathering speed and expanding his chest as he spread his legs before the fire, "how it would simplify the whole matter if Jill were to become a motion-picture artist and win fame and wealth in her profession. You go to your excellent aunt and announce that you are engaged to be married to Jill Mariner. There is a momentary pause. 'Not the Jill Mariner?' falters Mrs. Peagrim. 'Yes, the famous Miss Mariner!' you reply. Well, I ask you, my boy, can you see her making any objection? Such a thing would be absurd. No, I can see no flaw in the project whatsoever." Here Uncle Chris, as he had pictured Mrs. Peagrim doing, paused for a moment. "Of course, there would be the preliminaries."

"The preliminaries?"

Uncle Chris' voice became a melodious coo. He beamed upon Mr. Pilkington.

"Well, think for yourself, my boy! These things cannot be done without money. I do not propose to allow my niece to waste her time and her energy in the rank and file of the profession, waiting years for a chance that might never come. There is plenty of room at the top, and that, in the motion-picture profession, is the place to start. If Jill is to become a motion-picture artist, a special company must be formed to promote her. She must be made a feature, a star, from the beginning. Whether," said Uncle Chris, smoothing the crease of his trousers, "you would wish to take shares in the company yourself...."

"Oo...!"

"... is a matter," proceeded Uncle Chris, ignoring the interruption, "for you yourself to decide. Possibly you have other claims on your purse. Possibly this musical play of yours has taken all the cash you are prepared to lock up. Possibly you may consider the venture too speculative. Possibly ... there are a hundred reasons why you may not wish to join us. But I know a dozen men—I can go down Wall Street to-morrow and pick out twenty men—who will be glad to advance the necessary capital. I can assure you that I personally shall not hesitate to risk—if one can call it risking—any loose cash which I may have lying idle at my banker's."

He rattled the loose cash which he had lying idle in his trouser-pocket—fifteen cents in all—and stopped to flick a piece of fluff off his coat-sleeve. Mr. Pilkington was thus enabled to insert a word.

"How much would you want?" he enquired.

"That," said Uncle Chris meditatively, "is a little hard to say. I should have to look into the matter more closely in order to give you the exact figures. But let us say for the sake of argument that you put up—what shall we say?—a hundred thousand? fifty thousand? ... no, we will be conservative. Perhaps you had better not begin with more than ten thousand. You can always buy more shares later. I don't suppose I shall begin with more than ten thousand myself."

"I could manage ten thousand all right."

"Excellent. We make progress, we make progress. Very well, then. I go to my Wall Street friends and tell them about the scheme, and say 'Here is ten thousand dollars! What is your contribution?' It puts the affair on a business-like basis, you understand. Then we really get to work. But use your own judgment, my boy, you know. Use your own judgment. I would not think of persuading you to take such a step, if you felt at all doubtful. Think it over. Sleep on it. And, whatever you decide to do, on no account say a word about it to Jill. It would be cruel to raise her hopes until we are certain that we are in a position to enable her to realize them. And, of course, not a word to Mrs. Peagrim."

"Of course."

"Very well, then, my boy," said Uncle Chris affably. "I will leave you to turn the whole thing over in your mind. Act entirely as you think best. How is your insomnia, by the way? Did you try Nervino? Capital! There's nothing like it. It did wonders for me! Good night, good night!"

Otis Pilkington had been turning the thing over in his mind, with an interval for sleep, ever since. And the more he thought of it, the better the scheme appeared to him. He winced a little at the thought of the ten thousand dollars, for he came of prudent stock and had been brought up in habits of parsimony, but, after all, he reflected, the money would be merely a loan. Once the company found its feet, it would be returned to him a hundred-fold. And there was no doubt that this would put a completely different aspect on his wooing of Jill, as far as Aunt Olive was concerned. Why, a cousin of his—young Brewster Philmore—had married a movie-star only two years ago, and nobody had made the slightest objection. Brewster was to be seen with his bride frequently beneath Mrs. Peagrim's roof. Against the higher strata of Bohemia Mrs. Peagrim had no prejudice at all. Quite the reverse, in fact. She liked the society of those whose names were often in the papers and much in the public mouth. It seemed to Otis Pilkington, in short, that Love had found a way. He sipped his tea with relish, and when the Japanese valet brought in the toast all burned on one side, chided him with a gentle sweetness which, one may hope, touched the latter's Oriental heart and inspired him with a desire to serve his best of employers more efficiently.

At half-past ten, Otis Pilkington removed his dressing-gown and began to put on his clothes to visit the theatre. There was a rehearsal-call for the whole company at eleven. As he dressed, his mood was as sunny as the day itself.

And the day, by half-past ten, was as sunny as ever Spring day had been in a country where Spring comes early and does its best from the very start. The blue sky beamed down on a happy city. To and fro the citizenry bustled, aglow with the perfection of the weather. Everywhere was gaiety and good cheer, except on the stage of the Gotham Theatre, where an early rehearsal, preliminary to the main event, had been called by Johnson Miller in order to iron some of the kinks out of the "My Heart and I" number, which, with the assistance of the male chorus, the leading lady was to render in Act One.

On the stage of the Gotham gloom reigned—literally, because the stage was wide and deep and was illumined only by a single electric light; and figuratively, because things were going even worse than usual with the "My Heart and I" number, and Johnson Miller, always of an emotional and easily stirred temperament, had been goaded by the incompetence of his male chorus to a state of frenzy. At about the moment when Otis Pilkington shed his flowered dressing-gown and reached for his trousers (the heather-mixture with the red twill), Johnson Miller was pacing the gangway between the orchestra pit and the first row of the orchestra chairs, waving one hand and clutching his white locks with the other, his voice raised the while in agonized protest.

"Gentlemen, you silly idiots," complained Mr. Miller loudly, "you've had three weeks to get these movements into your thick heads, and you haven't done a damn thing right! You're all over the place! You don't seem able to turn without tumbling over each other like a lot of Keystone Kops! What's the matter with you? You're not doing the movements I showed you; you're doing some you have invented yourselves, and they are rotten! I've no doubt you think you can arrange a number better than I can, but Mr. Goble engaged me to be the director, so kindly do exactly as I tell you. Don't try to use your own intelligence, because you haven't any. I'm not blaming you for it. It wasn't your fault that your nurses dropped you on your heads when you were babies. But it handicaps you when you try to think."

Of the seven gentlemanly members of the male ensemble present, six looked wounded by this tirade. They had the air of good men wrongfully accused. They appeared to be silently calling on Heaven to see justice done between Mr. Miller and themselves. The seventh, a long-legged young man in faultlessly fitting tweeds of English cut, seemed, on the other hand, not so much hurt as embarrassed. It was this youth who now stepped down to the darkened footlights and spoke in a remorseful and conscience-stricken manner.

"I say!"

Mr. Miller, that martyr to deafness, did not hear the pathetic bleat. He had swung off at right angles and was marching in an overwrought way up the central aisle leading to the back of the house, his india-rubber form moving in convulsive jerks. Only when he had turned and retraced his steps did he perceive the speaker and prepare to take his share in the conversation.

"What?" he shouted. "Can't hear you!"

"I say, you know, it's my fault, really."

"What?"

"I mean to say, you know...."

"What? Speak up, can't you?"

Mr. Saltzburg, who had been seated at the piano, absently playing a melody from his unproduced musical comedy, awoke to the fact that the services of an interpreter were needed. He obligingly left the music-stool and crept, crab-like, along the ledge of the stage-box. He placed his arm about Mr. Miller's shoulders and his lips to Mr. Miller's left ear, and drew a deep breath.

"He says it is his fault!"

Mr. Miller nodded adhesion to this admirable sentiment.

"I know they're not worth their salt!" he replied.

Mr. Saltzburg patiently took in a fresh stock of breath.

"This young man says it is his fault that the movement went wrong!"

"Tell him I only signed on this morning, laddie," urged the tweed-clad young man.

"He only joined the company this morning!"

This puzzled Mr. Miller.

"How do you mean, warning?" he asked.

Mr. Saltzburg, purple in the face, made a last effort.

"This young man is new," he bellowed carefully, keeping to words of one syllable. "He does not yet know the steps. He says this is his first day here, so he does not yet know the steps. When he has been here some more time he will know the steps. But now he does not know the steps."

"What he means," explained the young man in tweeds helpfully, "is that I don't know the steps."

"He does not know the steps!" roared Mr. Saltzburg.

"I know he doesn't know the steps," said Mr. Miller. "Why doesn't he know the steps? He's had long enough to learn them."

"He is new!"

"Hugh?"

"New!"

"Oh, new?"

"Yes, new!"

"Why the devil is he new?" cried Mr. Miller, awaking suddenly to the truth and filled with a sense of outrage. "Why didn't he join with the rest of the company? How can I put on chorus numbers if I am saddled every day with new people to teach? Who engaged him?"

"Who engaged you?" enquired Mr. Saltzburg of the culprit.

"Mr. Pilkington."

"Mr. Pilkington," shouted Mr. Saltzburg.

"When?"

"When?"

"Last night."

"Last night."

Mr. Miller waved his hands in a gesture of divine despair, spun round, darted up the aisle, turned, and bounded back.

"What can I do?" he wailed. "My hands are tied! I am hampered! I am handicapped! We open in two weeks and every day I find somebody new in the company to upset everything I have done. I shall go to Mr. Goble and ask to be released from my contract. I shall.... Come along, come along, come along now!" he broke off suddenly. "Why are we wasting time? The whole number once more. The whole number once more from the beginning!"

The young man tottered back to his gentlemanly colleagues, running a finger in an agitated manner round the inside of his collar. He was not used to this sort of thing. In a large experience of amateur theatricals he had never encountered anything like it. In the breathing-space afforded by the singing of the first verse and refrain by the lady who played the heroine of "The Rose of America," he found time to make an enquiry of the artist on his right.

"I say! Is he always like this?"

"Who? Johnny?"

"The sportsman with the hair that turned white in a single night. The barker on the sky-line. Does he often get the wind up like this?"

His colleague smiled tolerantly.

"Why, that's nothing!" he replied. "Wait till you see him really cut loose! That was just a gentle whisper!"

"My God!" said the newcomer, staring into a bleak future.

The leading lady came to the end of her refrain, and the gentlemen of the ensemble, who had been hanging about up-stage, began to curvet nimbly down towards her in a double line; the new arrival, with an eye on his nearest neighbour, endeavouring to curvet as nimbly as the others. A clapping of hands from the dark auditorium indicated—inappropriately—that he had failed to do so. Mr. Miller could be perceived—dimly—with all his fingers entwined in his hair.

"Clear the stage!" yelled Mr. Miller. "Not you!" he shouted, as the latest addition to the company began to drift off with the others. "You stay!"

"Me?"

"Yes, you. I shall have to teach you the steps by yourself, or we shall get nowhere. Go up-stage. Start the music again, Mr. Saltzburg. Now, when the refrain begins, come down. Gracefully! Gracefully!"

The young man, pink but determined, began to come down gracefully. And it was while he was thus occupied that Jill and Nelly Bryant, entering the wings which were beginning to fill up as eleven o'clock approached, saw him.

"Whoever is that?" said Nelly.

"New man," replied one of the chorus gentlemen. "Came this morning."

Nelly turned to Jill.

"He looks just like Mr. Rooke!" she exclaimed.

"He is Mr. Rooke!" said Jill.

"He can't be!"

"He is!"

"But what is he doing here?"

Jill bit her lip.

"That's just what I'm going to ask him myself," she said.

II

The opportunity for a private conversation with Freddie did not occur immediately. For ten minutes he remained alone on the stage, absorbing abusive tuition from Mr. Miller: and at the end of that period a further ten minutes was occupied with the rehearsing of the number with the leading lady and the rest of the male chorus. When, finally, a roar from the back of the auditorium announced the arrival of Mr. Goble and at the same time indicated Mr. Goble's desire that the stage should be cleared and the rehearsal proper begin, a wan smile of recognition and a faint "What ho!" was all that Freddie was able to bestow upon Jill, before, with the rest of the ensemble, they had to go out and group themselves for the opening chorus. It was only when this had been run through four times and the stage left vacant for two of the principals to play a scene that Jill was able to draw the Last of the Rookes aside in a dark corner and put him to the question.

"Freddie, what are you doing here?"

Freddie mopped his streaming brow. Johnson Miller's idea of an opening chorus was always strenuous. On the present occasion, the ensemble were supposed to be guests at a Long Island house-party, and Mr. Miller's conception of the gathering suggested that he supposed house-party guests on Long Island to consist exclusively of victims of St. Vitus' dance. Freddie was feeling limp, battered, and exhausted: and, from what he had gathered, the worst was yet to come.

"Eh?" he said feebly.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh, ah, yes! I see what you mean! I suppose you're surprised to find me in New York, what?"

"I'm not surprised to find you in New York. I knew you had come over. But I am surprised to find you on the stage, being bullied by Mr. Miller."

"I say," said Freddie in an awed voice. "He's a bit of a nut, that lad, what? He reminds me of the troops of Midian in the hymn. The chappies who prowled and prowled around. I'll bet he's worn a groove in the carpet. Like a jolly old tiger at the Zoo at feeding time. Wouldn't be surprised at any moment to look down and find him biting a piece out of my leg!"

Jill seized his arm and shook it.

"Don't ramble, Freddie! Tell me how you got here."

"Oh, that was pretty simple. I had a letter of introduction to this chappie Pilkington who's running this show, and, we having got tolerably pally in the last few days, I went to him and asked him to let me join the merry throng. I said I didn't want any money, and the little bit of work I would do wouldn't make any difference, so he said 'Right ho!' or words to that effect, and here I am."

"But why? You can't be doing this for fun, surely?"

"Fun!" A pained expression came into Freddie's face. "My idea of fun isn't anything in which jolly old Miller, the bird with the snowy hair, is permitted to mix. Something tells me that that lad is going to make it his life-work picking on me. No, I didn't do this for fun. I had a talk with Wally Mason the night before last, and he seemed to think that being in the chorus wasn't the sort of thing you ought to be doing, so I thought it over and decided that I ought to join the troupe too. Then I could always be on the spot, don't you know, if there was any trouble. I mean to say, I'm not much of a chap and all that sort of thing, but still I might come in handy one of these times. Keep a fatherly eye on you, don't you know, and what not!"

Jill was touched. "You're a dear, Freddie!"

"I thought, don't you know, it would make poor old Derek a bit easier in his mind."

Jill froze.

"I don't want to talk about Derek, Freddie, please."

"Oh, I know what you must be feeling. Pretty sick, I'll bet, what? But if you could see him now...."

"I don't want to talk about him!"

"He's pretty cut up, you know. Regrets bitterly and all that sort of thing. He wants you to come back again."

"I see! He sent you to fetch me?"

"That was more or less the idea."

"It's a shame that you had all the trouble. You can get messenger-boys to go anywhere and do anything nowadays. Derek ought to have thought of that."

Freddie looked at her doubtfully.

"You're spoofing, aren't you? I mean to say, you wouldn't have liked that!"

"I shouldn't have disliked it any more than his sending you."

"Oh, but I wanted to pop over. Keen to see America and so forth."

Jill looked past him at the gloomy stage. Her face was set, and her eyes sombre.

"Can't you understand, Freddie? You've known me a long time. I should have thought that you would have found out by now that I have a certain amount of pride. If Derek wanted me back, there was only one thing for him to do—come over and find me himself."

"Rummy! That's what Mason said, when I told him. You two don't realize how dashed busy Derek is these days."

"Busy!"

Something in her face seemed to tell Freddie that he was not saying the right thing, but he stumbled on.

"You've no notion how busy he is. I mean to say, elections coming on and so forth. He daren't stir from the metrop."

"Of course I couldn't expect him to do anything that might interfere with his career, could I?"

"Absolutely not. I knew you would see it!" said Freddie, charmed at her reasonableness. All rot, what you read about women being unreasonable. "Then I take it it's all right, eh?"

"All right?"

"I mean you will toddle home with me at the earliest opp. and make poor old Derek happy?"

Jill laughed discordantly.

"Poor old Derek!" she echoed. "He has been badly treated, hasn't he?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that," said Freddie doubtfully. "You see, coming down to it, the thing was more or less his fault, what?"

"More or less!"

"I mean to say...."

"More or less!"

Freddie glanced at her anxiously. He was not at all sure now that he liked the way she was looking or the tone in which she spoke. He was not a keenly observant young man, but there did begin at this point to seep through to his brain-centres a suspicion that all was not well.

"Let me pull myself together!" said Freddie warily to his immortal soul. "I believe I'm getting the raspberry!" And there was silence for a space.

The complexity of life began to weigh upon Freddie. Life was like one of those shots at squash which seem so simple till you go to knock the cover off the ball, when the ball sort of edges away from you and you miss it. Life, Freddie began to perceive, was apt to have a nasty back-spin on it. He had never had any doubt when he had started, that the only difficult part of this expedition to America would be the finding of Jill. Once found, he had presumed that she would be delighted to hear his good news and would joyfully accompany him home on the next boat. It appeared now, however, that he had been too sanguine. Optimist as he was, he had to admit that, as far as could be ascertained with the naked eye, the jolly old binge might be said to have sprung a leak.

He proceeded to approach the matter from another angle.

"I say!"

"Yes?"

"You do love old Derek, don't you? I mean to say, you know what I mean, love him and all that sort of rot?"

"I don't know!"

"You don't know! Oh, I say, come now! You must know! Pull up your socks, old thing.... I mean, pull yourself together! You either love a chappie or you don't."

Jill smiled painfully.

"How nice it would be if everything were as simple and straightforward as that. Haven't you ever heard that the dividing line between love and hate is just a thread? Poets have said so a great number of times."

"Oh, poets!" said Freddie, dismissing the genus with a wave of the hand. He had been compelled to read Shakespeare and all that sort of thing at school, but it had left him cold, and since growing to man's estate he had rather handed the race of bards the mitten. He liked Doss Chiderdoss' stuff in the Sporting Times, but beyond that he was not much of a lad for poets.

"Can't you understand a girl in my position not being able to make up her mind whether she loves a man or despises him?"

Freddie shook his head.

"No," he said. "It sounds dashed silly to me!"

"Then what's the good of talking?" cried Jill. "It only hurts."

"But—won't you come back to England?"

"No."

"Oh, I say! Be a sport! Take a stab at it!"

Jill laughed again—another of those grating laughs which afflicted Freddie with a sense of foreboding and failure. Something had undoubtedly gone wrong with the works. He began to fear that at some point in the conversation—just where he could not say—he had been less diplomatic than he might have been.