The library was a noble one for a London house. The late sun of the summer afternoon in town poured into the place and touched all the golden and crimson-laden shelves in glory. From floor to roof the great tomes winked and glittered in the light.
Here the sun fell upon the glazed-fronted cabinets, which held the priceless first editions of modern authors. There it illuminated those cabinets which confined and guarded the old black-letter editions of the bishop's famous collection of medieval missals. It was a dignified home of lettered culture and ease.
Lord Camborne was sitting in a great armchair of green leather. In his own house he smoked a pipe, and a well-seasoned briar was gripped in his left hand as he leaned forward and looked at his son. On the opposite side of the glowing fireplace, on each side of which stood pots of great Osmunda ferns, which glistened in the firelight as if they had been cunningly japanned, Lord Hayle was sitting. His face was quite white, his attitude one of strained attention, as he listened to the wordy and didactic utterances of the earl.
"I don't know what to make of it, my dear Gerald," the bishop said. "Upon my soul, I don't know what to make of it! Such a thing has never happened before in all my experience. Indeed, I don't suppose that such an occurrence has ever been known."
"You are quite right, father," Lord Hayle replied; "but that is not the question. The question is: Where is my poor friend? Where is John?"
The bishop threw out two shapely hands with a curious gesture of indecision and bewilderment. "Gerald," he said, "if I could answer that question I should satisfy the press of Europe and put society at rest."
"But it is the most extraordinary thing, father," Lord Hayle said. "Here is John involved in this terrible railway accident. As far as we know—as far as we can know, indeed—he was rescued from the débris of the broken carriage perfectly unhurt. That young Doctor Jenkins was perfectly certain that the man whom he rescued and told to lie down for half an hour, to avoid the nervous effects of the shock, must have been the Duke of Paddington. He has assured me, he has assured Colonel Simpson, he has assured everybody in short that it was certainly the duke! In three-quarters of an hour he goes back to find his patient, and, meanwhile meeting Colonel Simpson, who had come down the line in frightful anxiety about the duke, there—where John had been—was nobody at all! Do you suppose that, as the Pall Mall Gazette has hinted, that John was temporarily deranged by the shock and walked away and lost himself? There seems to be no other explanation."
"But that is impossible," the bishop replied. "If he had done so would he not have been found in an hour or two?"
"I suppose he would," Lord Hayle answered. "I suppose he would, father."
"Then, all I can say," the bishop said, with an air of finality, "all I can say is that the thing is as black and mysterious as anything I have ever known in the whole course of my experience. There we were, you and myself and your sister, lunching at Paul's with the duke, when the news came of the outrage in Piccadilly. The duke went up to town by the six o'clock train. The accident occurred, and now the whole of society is trembling in suspense to know what has happened to your friend. I cannot tell you, Gerald, how it has distressed me; and," the bishop continued, with a slight hesitation in his voice, "your sister also is very much upset."
"Well, naturally, Connie would be," Lord Hayle returned. "But think what it must be to me, father! It is worse for me than for anybody. You have met the duke, Connie has met him; but I have been his intimate friend for the whole of the time we have been up at Oxford together, and I am at a loose end, I am simply heart-broken."
"My dear Gerald," said the splendid old gentleman from the armchair, with some unctiousness, "God ordains these things, these trials, for all of us; but be sure that, in His own good time, all will come right. We must be patient and trust in the Divine Will."
The young man looked at his father with a curious expression upon his face. He was very fond of his distinguished parent, and had a reverence for his abilities, but somehow or other at that moment the bishop's adjuration did not seem to ring quite true. Youth is often intolerant of the pious complacency of late middle-age!
It was about seven o'clock. At nine o'clock there was a small dinner party. The Home Secretary was to be there.
"I wonder," Lord Hayle said, at length, "if Sir Anthony will have any news?"
"I am sure I hope so," the bishop answered. "I saw him this morning in Whitehall, and he told me that everything that could possibly be done was being done. The whole of Scotland Yard, in fact, is bending its attention to the discovery of the whereabouts of your friend."
"I wish," Lord Hayle returned grimly, "I wish we could have a Johnnie like Sherlock Holmes on John's trek. There don't seem to be any of that sort of people outside the magazines."
At that moment the door of the library opened, and the butler came in. He carried a pile of evening papers upon a tray.
"These are the latest editions, my lord," he said, bringing them up to the bishop.
The father and son took the papers and opened them hurriedly.
Huge head-lines greeted their eyes. "Where is the duke?" "Has the duke disappeared with intention?" "Last news of the missing duke." "Rumours that the Duke of Paddington has taken a berth on the Lucania under the name of John Smith." "If the duke does not return, what will this mean to the ground-rents of London?" and so forth, and so forth, and so forth.
The bishop put down the papers with a weary sigh.
"The same thing," he said, "my dear Gerald, the same sort of thing."
Lord Hayle looked up at his father.
"Yes," he answered, "what fools these journalists are!"
"No, my dear boy, they are not fools. When they have anything to write about, they write about it rather well. When they haven't, of course they must manufacture."
"A confounded swindle, I call it!" said Lord Hayle.
The bishop did not answer. He remembered how much he owed to the press of London and the provinces for his advancement in the Church.
"Well," Lord Hayle said, "I shall go up-stairs, father, to my own room and have a tub and a pipe, and think the whole thing over. I suppose we may hear something from Sir Anthony at dinner to-night."
"My dear boy," the bishop replied, "I'm sure I hope so."
Lord Hayle had already risen from his seat, and was walking towards the door of the library when the butler entered once more. He bore a silver salver, upon which was a card, and went straight up to Lord Camborne.
"My lord," he said, "there is a gentleman waiting in the morning-room. He desires to see you upon a most important matter. I told the gentleman that your lordship was probably engaged, but he would not be denied."
"I cannot see anybody," the bishop replied, rather irritably. "Take the card to the chaplain."
"I beg your lordship's pardon," said the butler, "but I think this is a gentleman whom your lordship would wish to see."
The bishop pulled out his single eye-glass—he was the only prelate upon the bench who wore one—and looked at the card upon the tray.
"Good gracious!" he said, with a sudden sharpness in his voice. "This fellow! How dare——"
"Who has come to see you?" Lord Hayle asked.
The bishop's face was flushed. There was indignation in his voice, contempt in his eyes, and angry irritation in his pose.
"Look here, Gerald!" he said, taking the card and holding it out to his son in answer. "Who do you suppose has come to see me? Look!"
Lord Hayle took up the card.
"By Jove!" he said. "James Fabian Rose! Why, that's the great Socialist Johnny, isn't it, father? The man who writes plays and lectures, and is on the County Council and all that. I think we had him down at Oxford once, and I am not sure that we did not drive him out of the town."
"That is the man," the bishop answered; "one of the most brilliant intellects and unscrupulous characters in London to-day. It is not too much to say, Gerald, that this man is a perfect danger and menace to society, and to our—our order."
"Then what has he come to see you for, father?"
"Goodness only knows!" said the bishop. "I certainly shall not see him."
The butler was an old and privileged family servant. He had said nothing while this dialogue was in progress. Now he turned to his master.
"If you will allow me to say so, my lord," he said, "I think the gentleman should be seen. I don't think that it is an ordinary visit at all. It bears no indication of being an ordinary visit at all."
The bishop snapped his fingers once or twice.
"Oh, well, Parker," he said, "show him in, show him in; but explain that I have only three minutes, and that I am very busy. Gerald, you might as well wait. It might be interesting for you to see this creature."
In half a minute the butler opened the door and showed in the man with the face as white as linen, the mustard-coloured beard and moustache, and the keen lamp-like eyes.
Rose was dressed in his usual lounge suit, cut with about as much regard to convention as a ham sandwich. His tall figure bent forwards in eagerness, and he was certainly a disreputable note in this stronghold of aristocracy. Yet, nevertheless, his personality blazed out in the room as if some one had lit a Roman candle in the library.
The bishop rose, stately, portly, splendid.
"Mr. Rose," he said, "to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? I am rather pressed for time."
"Something very important, indeed, my lord," the Socialist answered, in quick, incisive accents. "I should not have intruded upon you unless I had something most special to say."
"I understand that, Mr. Rose," the bishop replied, though the courteous smile with which he said it robbed his remark of something of its sting. "You and I, Mr. Rose, represent two quite different points of view, do we not?"
"I suppose we do," said the great Socialist, with a sudden vigour and amusement in his eyes; "but that is not what I have come here for to-night. May I ask, my lord," he said, looking towards Lord Camborne's son, "may I ask if this is Lord Hayle?"
"That is my name, Mr. Rose," the young man replied, rather startled at the sudden question.
"Oh, thank you," Rose said. "I have come here specially to see you to-night."
There was a moment's pause.
"Your business, Mr. Rose?" said the bishop once more.
"Is this," Rose rejoined. "The Duke of Paddington has sent me with a very special message to his friend, Lord Hayle. If Lord Hayle was not in London, his grace asked me to see Lord Camborne."
The bishop started violently. "My dear Mr. Rose," he said, in a deep voice, "what is all this? What is all this? The Duke of Paddington! Do you mean to say——"
"The Duke of Paddington, my lord," Rose answered, a subtle mockery becoming somewhat apparent in his voice, "the Duke of Paddington has been discovered!"
"Good Lord!" Lord Hayle shouted out suddenly, in the high-pitched voice of almost uncontrollable excitement. "You have found dear old John! Where is John, Mr. Rose?"
There was something so spontaneous and sincere in the young man's voice that the Socialist turned with a certain brightness and pleasure to the young man.
"Oh, sir!" he said, "the duke is lying at my house in Westminster. He has been kidnapped by criminal ruffians, and, I am sorry to say, has been tortured in order that large sums of money might be extorted from him. The doctors are with him now, and no serious injury has been done, but he is especially anxious to see you. I have a cab waiting, if you care to come at once."
"I'll have my coat on in a moment," Lord Hayle replied, and left the room.
The bishop went up to James Fabian Rose.
"Sir," he said, "our difference of opinion in social economics and political affairs shall not prevent me from gripping you very heartily by the hand."
It was three days after the strange and dramatic rescue of the Duke of Paddington, and he lay in a bright, cheerful bedroom in James Fabian Rose's house in Westminster. Providence had guided Rose and his companions to the underground cellar in the nick of time. The relentless ruffians who had captured the duke had been as good as their word. They had treated him with indescribable ferocity, though into the details of the horrors in the foundation of the old house it is not necessary to go.
When the police inspectors had brought him up from the deepest hole of all, he was unconscious, and had immediately been taken away to Rose's own house in a horse ambulance which had been summoned from the police headquarters of the district.
The actual discovery had been very simple. Directly the Inspector of Police recognised the man known as "Sidney," he had rushed after him, followed by the others. As it happened, for some time the police had been very anxious to discover the exact whereabouts of this particular ex-convict, to track him to his lair. It was obvious that when the man turned and bolted down the stairs there was something he wished to conceal, and, though there was no actual charge against him at the moment, the policeman had experience enough to know that something illegal was afoot. They had dashed into the kitchen to find it tenanted only by the old Jewish woman, but the door leading into the smaller kitchen was open, and Sidney was leaning over the trap-door in the floor pulling up another member of the gang who had been down in the pit with the victim.
The man's design had obviously been to get his comrade up, close the trap-door, and push the tub over it before the policemen could enter the kitchen. In all probability there would then have been no discovery at all, though the ruffian himself was by no means sure that the party were not in some way or other upon the track of the actual offence he had committed in kidnapping the duke. His guilty conscience had betrayed him.
When the scoundrel had been caught and handcuffed, and the duke had been discovered and carried up into the kitchen the man relapsed into a sullen silence. He had gathered at once from the remarks made by his captors that they were quite unaware of the identity of the prisoner. It did not, in fact, occur to any of the party, even to the police, to connect this insensible figure, half-clothed—the face covered with grime and dirt—with the missing peer.
"We will get the poor fellow off to the hospital at once, sir," Inspector Green had said to Rose. "These devils have been working some horrible thing upon him. I expect he is one of their pals who has given them away. I have seen some black things, but this is about as bad as any of them. I should not wonder"—he turned round with his face like a flint, and a voice that cut like a whip—"I should not wonder if this was a swinging job for you, Sidney O'Connor!"
"He certainly shall not go to the hospital," said Rose. "Not that they won't look after him thoroughly there; but I could not allow anybody whom I discovered myself in such a plight as this to do so. He must go to my house, and my wife and Miss Marriott will nurse him."
"Well, sir," said the officer, "it is only a very little distance farther to your house from here than to Charing Cross Hospital, and I will send the ambulance there if you really wish it. It's very kind of you, Mr. Rose."
"Certainly I do," Rose answered. "It is a duty, of course."
"And I," said Mary Marriott, "will drive back at once if a cab can be found for me, to tell Mrs. Rose that they are bringing this poor man."
"That will be very kind of you, Miss Marriott," Rose answered. "I am sorry that our expedition has come to so unpleasant and dramatic an end, for I do not suppose any of us would care to go on now?"
"No, indeed," said both the clergyman and the journalist in answer, and in a few minutes Mary's first experience of the dark under-currents of London life was at an end.
When the duke was comfortably installed in Rose's house the doctor pronounced him suffering from shocks and extreme weakness.
"He will be all right in a few days," he said. "He must now have absolute rest and nourishment. The actual harm inflicted upon him by the scoundrels with whom he was found is very slight. There are the merest superficial burns, and the cuts are trivial. It is the weakness and shock that are the most serious. The young man has a splendid constitution. He's as strong as an ox."
The doctor went away, leaving minute directions for the treatment of the patient.
The duke was in a semi-conscious condition. He realised dimly that he was out of the horrible place where he had lain for, so it seemed to him, an eternity. He knew that, somehow or other, he had been rescued, that he was now lying in a comfortable bed. A new life seemed slowly coming back into his veins as the meat jelly dissolved in his mouth. The horror was ended at last!
He had fallen at length into a deep slumber.
The party assembled in the drawing-room, discussing the extraordinary events of the morning, and Mrs. Rose was told every detail. The police and the County Council inspector were not there, but the chief inspector had promised to report later as to anything that should be learned of the truth of the mystery.
"Well," said Mr. Goodrick, with a little chuckle, "I went out this morning because I wanted to watch Miss Marriott, and because I am interested in the great experiment we are making with her. I had seen all that sort of thing before I knew Miss Marriott; in fact, I began my journalistic career by writing of such places as we have been among; but I never expected that I was going to get a journalistic scoop. This will make a fine column in to-morrow's paper. The junior members of my staff will be jealous of their editor-in-chief going out and bringing in copy! They will regard it as an infringement of their rights!" He chuckled once more, and rubbed his hands together, all the true pressman's delight at exclusive news glowing in his eyes.
"Yes," he went on, "it will be quite a big thing, especially as you were present, Rose—a real sensation! The Wire will solve the mystery that is agitating the mind of the public in a most startling fashion!"
A maid came into the room. "If you please, sir," she said to Rose, "Inspector Green is here, and wishes to see you immediately on a matter of great importance."
"Show him up, Annie," said the Socialist, and in a second or two more the inspector burst into the room, his usual calm and imperturbable manner strangely altered. He seemed to be labouring under some deep emotion.
"What is it, inspector?" Rose said, and instinctively all the people in the room rose up.
"The man," the inspector gasped, "the man we found in the cellar, ladies and gentlemen—it is—it is his Grace the Duke of Paddington himself!"
There was a dead silence. The faces of every one went pale with excitement.
"The Duke of Paddington?" Rose said in a startled and incredulous voice.
"His Grace himself, sir. As you know, his Grace's disappearance has been agitating the whole of Europe for the last day or two. It seems what happened was this. The duke was lying down on the side of the line after the railway accident. He was almost uninjured, but the doctor who rescued him ordered him to rest for half an hour. The gang of men in the slum hard by, attracted by the accident in the fog and the possibility of plunder, had come through a doorway in the wall which leads upon the line. They rifled the duke's pockets, and from their contents found out who he was.
"The leader of the gang, Sidney O'Connor, is one of the most dangerous and desperate criminals in the country, and, moreover, a man of great daring and resource. He it was who thought it would be an infinitely better stroke of business if he could kidnap the duke and hold him to ransom. Owing to the fog and the proximity of their den—it is one of the duke's own houses, by the way, you will remember—the kidnapping was easily affected, the duke being too weak and stunned by the accident to offer any resistance. It is by the mercy of Providence that we found him when we did. The old Jewish woman who keeps the den has confessed everything. How is his Grace, Mr. Rose?"
"Much better," said Mrs. Rose, "much better, inspector. The doctor has been here, and says he will be all right in a few days. He is suffering from extreme weakness and shock. He is now sleeping peacefully, and a nurse from the Westminster Hospital is with him."
Mr. Goodrick went up to the inspector. "Now look here, inspector," he said, "promise me one thing, that neither you nor your companions will give any of the details of this affair to the press. I shall see that it is well worth your while, all of you, to be silent until to-morrow morning. Can you answer for your colleague and the plain-clothes man who was with us?"
"Certainly I can, Mr. Goodrick," the inspector answered.
"Well, it will be worth five pounds each to them. And what about the County Council inspector?"
"He has gone back to Spring Gardens now, sir," Green replied, "but I can easily send a message up to him from Scotland Yard to that effect."
"I shall be most obliged if you will do so," said Mr. Goodrick, and then once more he gave a loud chuckle of triumph and rubbed his hands together. "Sensation!" he said in an ecstasy, "why, the Wire will have one of the biggest scoops of recent years to-morrow. Oh, what luck! Oh, what splendid luck! No other paper will have anything except the mere statement of the fact that the duke has been discovered under mysterious circumstances. Mrs. Rose, I must say good-bye; I must hurry off. Don't forget, inspector! Absolute secrecy!"
He made a comprehensive bow, which included all of them, patted Fabian genially upon the back, and rushed away.
"What do you suppose we had better do, inspector?" Rose asked.
"Well, sir, I don't quite know what there is to be done, except, perhaps, to telegraph to the head of the young gentleman's college at Oxford, and to Colonel Simpson, his agent. You see, the duke has no very near relatives, though he is connected with half the peerage. I shall take care, also, that the news is at once conveyed to Buckingham Palace. His Majesty has been most anxious during the last day or two, and inquiries are constantly reaching us. For the rest, I think it will be better that you should wait until his Grace regains consciousness and can say what he would like to be done."
The inspector had disappeared, and Rose, his wife, Mary, and Mr. Conrad, were left alone, looking at each other in amazement. Then suddenly Rose sat down and burst into laughter. The old elfin, mocking expression had returned to his face. The keen eyes twinkled with sardonic humour, the mustard-coloured beard and moustache wagged up and down, as the great man leant back in an ecstasy of mirth.
"All's well that ends well," he said at length, spluttering out his words. "Good heavens! what a marvellous day it has been! We go to the Duke of Paddington's property, so that Miss Marriott can get ideas for the part of the heroine in the play which is to draw all England to the iniquity of great landlords like the duke, who do nothing, and allow their agents to draw rents for rat-holes. Then we find the duke himself trussed up like a chicken in a gloomy cellar of one of his own filthy properties! What extraordinary tricks Fate does play sometimes! Who would have thought that such a thing could possibly happen? And, what is better still—what is more quaintly humorous than ever—here is the young gentleman with his hundred and fifty thousand a year and his great name and title, here! sleeping in my best bedroom—in the very headquarters of the party which is labouring to destroy monopolies such as his. I wonder what he will say when he wakes up and finds out where he is, poor fellow!"
"If he is a gentleman, as I suppose he is," said Mrs. Rose, "he will say 'Thank you'—not once, but several times, because, you know, Fabian dear, not only did you save his life, in the first instance by chance, but you brought him here instead of sending him to a hospital when you had no idea who he was."
"And that," Mary broke in, "is what I call practical socialism. Don't you allow, Mr. Rose, that the duke is a brother?"
"Oh, yes," the Socialist replied, "but no more and no less a brother because of his dukedom."
There was a tap at the door. The nurse had sent down a message that the gentleman upstairs was awake, had learned where he was, and would like to see Mr. Rose.
* * * * * *
This was what had occurred. For three days the duke had lain in bed, gradually growing stronger. Lord Hayle had visited him constantly, and when he was well enough to be moved he was to go straight to the Camborne's house in Grosvenor Street.
The sun poured into the bedroom—a cold, wintry sun, but still grateful enough after the fog and gloom of the last week. A fire crackled upon the hearth, and the duke lay propped up with pillows, smoking a cigarette. On a chair at the side of the bed sat Fabian Rose, and on a chair on the other side was Mr. Conrad, the clergyman. An animated conversation was in progress.
For the first time in his life the duke had met types to which he was utterly unaccustomed. He had known of Fabian Rose, of course; there was no one in England who did not know the great Socialist's name, and few people of the upper classes who had not, at some time or other, witnessed one of his immensely clever plays. But now the duke was finding that all his ideas were being rudely upset. They were in a process of transition. The man with the white face and the mustard-coloured beard, with the lambent humour, had captivated him. He felt drawn to Rose, though his predominant sensation when talking to his host was one of wild amazement, and as for the clergyman, the duke liked him also, though he was a type that he had never met before.
It was an odd situation indeed. Here was the great capitalist captured and cornered by two of the most militant Socialists of the day—and here—he was rather enjoying it!
"Well," he said, "I seem fated nowadays to be carried off into the camp of the enemy; but I like this captivity better than the first. All the same, I cannot in the least agree with you, Mr. Conrad, in what you say, that the law of England, as it stands at present, is simply in the interests of the classes with property. Poor people have just as much justice, I have always understood, as any others."
"It is not so," replied Mr. Conrad, shaking his head. "I wish it were. As I see it, as Rose sees it, as we Socialists see it, the law works wholly to protect property and the propertied, and to do whatever injustices the propertied people who control the State require of it.
"When a hungry man helps himself to the food he cannot pay for, a man in blue introduces him to a man on a bench, and the result of the interview is that the hungry one is put away and locked up for a lengthened time. When the people meet to discuss their miseries and to demand relief men in scarlet as well as in blue beat and cut them to death. The law of England, as it stands at present, is entirely built up upon what John Kenworthy has so aptly described as 'that Devil's Bible, the Codex Romanorum.' Rome built up a property system which asserted and maintained the rights of the selfish and cunning over those whom they cheated and robbed, and we have done precisely the same with similar results. It is just the same in England to-day as it is in Russia, though the English people are not able to assert themselves as their brethren in Russia are doing. Count Tolstoi has said that in both countries—in almost all countries, in fact, authority is in the hands of men who, like all the rest, are ever ready to sacrifice the commonweal if their own personal interests are at stake. These men encounter no resistance from the oppressed, and are wholly subject to the corrupting influence of authority itself. And yet we call ourselves a Christian nation!"
"And so we are, Mr. Conrad," the duke replied. "England is ruled and guided entirely by the Christian faith. If it were not so society would fall to pieces in a day."
"It is not so, believe me, duke," the clergyman answered; "and if society could but fall to pieces in a day, then indeed there would be a glorious opportunity to reconstruct it on really Christian lines! Jesus left no doubt as to the nature of His mission. He pictured Dives, the rich man, plunged into torment for nothing else than for being rich when another was poor—not, you will observe, only for being rich. He pictures Lazarus, who had not anything, poor and afflicted, as comforted and consoled. For that those evangelical nonconformists the Pharisees, derided the Great Teacher of mankind. Again, by the force of His personality, for it was not the scourge that He held in His hands alone, Jesus drove the usurers out of their business quarters in the Temple and named them thieves. 'Woe,' He said, 'to those who lay up treasures upon earth. Blessed,' He said, 'are the poor!' It is," he concluded, "to reconstruct real Christianity that the Socialists are labouring to-day."
The duke did not answer. He lay back upon his pillows, thinking deeply.
"These are very new thoughts to me," he said, "and you must forgive me if I cannot immediately assimilate them."
"Quite so," Fabian Rose broke in, "but perhaps some day your Grace will get more light upon these subjects. It is impossible for you and us to think alike in any particular. Our whole lives and environment have been entirely different. Some men upon a mountain survey a landscape; others see nothing but a map. I agree with Mr. Conrad to a certain extent, but he would be the very last person to call me an orthodox Christian all the same. As one looks round it really does often seem that when Christ died the religion of Christ died too. Instead of that we have only the 'Christian religion' nowadays. But we must not tire you, you must get up all your strength to-day, for your removal to Lord Camborne's house to-morrow—for your removal out of our lives," he concluded, with an unusual sadness in his voice, "for our ways lie very far apart."
"If you will allow me, Mr. Rose," the duke answered, "our ways will not lie very far apart. Thinking differently as we do, looking upon these problems through different pairs of spectacles, nevertheless it would be a grief to me if I thought that we were not to meet sometimes and to remain friends. What you have done for me is more than I can say, and I should be indeed ungrateful if the fact that we were in opposite camps prevented a hand-grasp now and then."
"Well, well," Rose answered, "I am sure it is very kind of you to say so, and we shall see what the future brings forth. At the same time it is only fair to tell you what I have not told you before—that I am organising an active campaign against you in the first instance, as a type of the class we desire to destroy, and for which we wish to substitute another."
"Dear me!" said the duke, smiling. "That sounds very dreadful, Mr. Rose. Do tell me what is going to happen. Are you going to blow up some more of my house in Piccadilly?"
"Oh, no," Rose replied, laughing. "Those are not our methods, and although they have not found out, I understand, who threw the bomb and destroyed the Florentine Vase, I am sure it was no member of the Socialistic party, to which I belong. We accomplish our ends by more peaceful methods, though infinitely stronger. No, duke, I will tell you frankly what is on the cards."
Mr. Rose paused for a moment, and then in a few sentences told his guest exactly, and in detail, all his plan for educating society to socialistic ideals by means of the theatre.
"And here," he concluded with a smile, as Mrs. Rose knocked at the door and entered with Mary Marriott, who was carrying a bunch of chrysanthemums in her hand, "and here is the girl who is to be the arch offender against your rights! Here is the heroine of the play! The artist whose influence shall be more powerful and far-reaching than a thousand lectures!"
The duke smiled. He was glad to see the beautiful girl whom he had got to know and like during the two or three times he had met her.
"Well," he said, "if privilege is to be destroyed it could be at no more kindly hands I am sure!"
"I brought you some chrysanthemums, your Grace," Mary said, flushing a little, "a sort of peace offering, because Mr. Rose told me yesterday that he was going to tell you all that we propose to do. I hope your Grace will accept them?"
They left the duke alone after a few minutes further chat, and for the rest of the day he saw no one but the doctor and a new valet who had been engaged for him.
The flowers which Mary Marriott had given him stood upon a table by the bed, and, as he regarded their delicate, fantastic beauty, so instinct with the decorative spirit of the Land of the Rising Sun, he thought a good deal of the giver. To the duke an actress had hitherto always meant some dull wench in a burlesque. On one occasion only had he been to a supper party given to some of these ornaments of the illustrated papers, and he had been so insufferably bored that he resolved the experience should be his last. He had known vaguely, of course, that ladies went on the stage nowadays, but the fact had never been brought home to him before he met Mary Marriott. How graceful she was! As graceful in every movement as any famous society beauty.
Her face was very lovely in its way, he thought, and though of quite a different type, it was almost as lovely as that of Lady Constance Camborne. What a pair they would make! What a bouquet of girls! It would be splendid to see them together, the dark girl and the fair.
He had much to occupy his mind as he lay alone. The novel which they had brought him lay unheeded upon the counterpane. He had stepped into a new world, of that there was no doubt at all, and had begun to realise how his great possessions and high rank had hitherto set him apart and barred him from much that was vivid and interesting, pulsating with life. He had always been exclusive; it was in his blood to be so, and his training had fostered the instinct. But he saw now that he would never be quite the same again. His curiosity was aroused, and his interest in classes of society of which he had never thought before. He determined to investigate. He would keep friends with Fabian Rose and his circle. If they were going to write a socialistic play, well, let them. It would be amusing to watch it, and, besides, it could not hurt him. He would get to know this Miss Marriott better, and he would ask her about her art, which seemed to be so dominant a purpose in her life. There were many things that he resolved he would do in the future. Then again, there was that young Arthur Burnside. The duke remembered how, during the afternoon before the accident, he had talked with Burnside in St. Paul's College, and had been able to give him the vacant librarianship at Paddington House, which had meant a total change in the young man's prospects. Yes! he would go to Paddington House one day, when he was staying with the Cambornes, and he would see how Burnside was getting on, and have a talk with him. Oh, yes, there were many things that he would do!
On the morning of the next day, a bright winter's morning, the duke left the hospitable house in Westminster. It was with real regret and with a sense of parting from old friends that he said "Good-bye." Mary Marriott was there. She was now in constant confabulation with Rose every morning, and she formed one of the little group who assembled on the steps of the house in the quiet street behind the Abbey.
A huge motor brougham, with Lord Camborne's coronet upon the panels, was waiting there. A groom in motoring livery stood by the door. The chauffeur took off his hat as the duke came out. It was not often that such splendour was seen in that quarter. Then the brougham rolled swiftly away, and another page in the young man's life was turned over.
He did not drive straight to Lord Camborne's house, but told the chauffeur to stop at Gerrard's in Regent Street, the florist's, and went into the shop, where the great masses of hothouse flowers made the air all Arabia for him and all comers. His purchase of lilies and roses was so stupendous that even the imperturbable young ladies in that floral temple showed more than their usual interest.
Indeed, the house of the Socialist would be gay that afternoon, and Mrs. Rose would be surrounded by a perfect garden of the flowers whose name she bore—a delicate thankoffering.
In a few minutes more the duke arrived at Lord Camborne's house in Grosvenor Street.
Both his host and Lord Hayle were out, but Lady Constance received him.
"Now, you are going to be very quiet, and not talk much," she said. "We are going to be most careful of you, after what you have gone through. I cannot tell you, duke, how agitated we have all been about you. Poor Gerald has been nearly mad with anxiety. He is so fond of you, you know. What terrible things you have been through—first the accident, and then that awful horror!" She shuddered.
She was very fair as she stood there, in her simple morning gown, with all the beauty of sympathy added to her supreme loveliness. As the duke was shown to his own rooms he felt once more that throbbing pulsation, that sudden exhilaration, which he had known when Lady Constance had come to lunch at Paul's and he had seen her for the first time. She did not know, nor could he tell her, how star-like she had been in his thoughts during the long, dark hours of his captivity, and how it was the radiant vision of her, etched into his memory, which had given strength to his obstinacy and power to resist the demands of his tormentors.
The Park Lane Theatre in Oxford Street, about two hundred yards east of the Marble Arch, was one of the most successful houses of those many theatres which have sprung up in London during the last few years. Its reputation was thoroughly high-class, and more particularly that of a theatre patronised by Society. It was in fact, the St. James's of that quarter of London. Here was no pit, and the gallery seats were half-a-crown for example.
The long and successful run of a play at the Park Lane had just concluded, and the theatrical journalists were hazarding this or that surmise as to what would be next produced. For some reason or other there seemed to be a sort of mystery. The syndicate which owned the theatre would make no announcements through their manager, save only that the theatre had been let.
Inquiries elicited nothing. This or that well-known entrepreneur, when asked the question had denied that he was interested in any forthcoming production at the theatre. There was a good deal of speculation on the point, and the play-going public itself was beginning to be interested.
Then, one morning, there appeared in the Daily Wire a paragraph, displayed in a prominent position, which stated that the theatre had been leased to Mr. Aubrey Flood, the well-known actor-manager, and the paragraph—obviously inspired—went on to hint at a most sensational development, of which the public might shortly expect news in the columns of the great Radical daily.
A few days after the public had been informed of the Duke of Paddington's extraordinary and terrible experiences, Mr. Aubrey Flood sat in his private room at the theatre. It was twelve o'clock noon, and he was dictating some letters to his secretary. The room was large and comfortable, and was reached by a short passage at the back of the dress circle. The walls were hung with framed photographs, many of them of great size, and signed by names which were famous in the dramatic world. There was a curious likeness to each other in all these photographs, when one regarded them closely. Men and women of entirely different faces and figures had all, nevertheless, the same curiously conscious look lurking in the eyes and pose. They seemed well aware, in their beauty of face and figure or splendour of costume, that they were there for one purpose—to be looked at.
Here and there the photographs were diversified by valuable old play-bills in gold frames, and close to the door was a page torn out of a ledger, the writing now faded and brown with years. It was a salary list of some forgotten provincial theatre, and the names of famous actors—at the time it was written utterly unknown to fame—were set down there in a thin, old-fashioned script. Heading the list one saw "Henry Irving, £1 10s. 0d.," the weekly salary at that date of, perhaps, the greatest actor England has ever known.
A huge writing-table was covered with papers, and there were two telephones, one hanging upon the wall, the other resting on its plated stand upon the table. Upon another table, much higher than the ordinary, and standing at one side of the room was a complete model theatre. Carefully executed studies of scenery half a yard square lay by the side of the model, and a complete miniature tableau had been built up upon the tiny stage, while the characters of the toy drama were represented by the little oblong cubes of wood, variously coloured.
To complete the picture, it should be stated that, by the side of Mr. Aubrey Flood, nearer, indeed, to him than the telephone, stood a square bottle of cut-glass, a tumbler, and a syphon of soda-water.
There was a knock at the door, and the stage door-keeper entered with a card.
"Mr. Lionel C. Westwood, to see you, sir," he said.
"Ask him to come in at once," Flood answered.
Mr. Lionel C. Westwood had, more or less, created his own profession, which was that of a very special sort of theatrical journalist. He had been tried for dramatic criticism on more than one paper, but had abandoned this form of writing for what he speedily found to be the more lucrative one of collecting early dramatic intelligence. He wrote, too, the column of Green Room Gossip in more than one important paper, and was, indeed, of extreme use to managers who wished to contradict a rumour or to start one.
He came hurriedly into the room—a short, easy, alert young man, wearing a voluminous frock-coat, and with a mixed aspect of extreme hurry and cordiality.
"Oh, my dear Aubrey," he said, shaking the manager's hand with effusive geniality, "so here you are! Directly I saw the paragraph in the Wire I wrote to you, asking for fuller information. Now, you won't mind telling me all there is to know, will you?"
"Sit down, Lionel," said the actor. "Will you have a drink?"
"No, thank you," replied the little man, "I never take anything in the morning. Now, what is all this? What are you going to do? What are you going to produce? That's what I want to know. All London is wondering!" He rapped with his fingers upon the table, and his face suddenly assumed a curiously ferret-like look "What is it, Aubrey, dear boy?" he concluded.
Flood leant back in his chair and lit a cigarette.
"It is a very big thing indeed, Lionel," he said, "and I don't know, dear boy, that I should be justified in letting you into it just yet. Why, we only read the play to the company this afternoon!"
Mr. Lionel C. Westwood's ears seemed positively to twitch as he elicited this first piece of information.
"Oh!" he said, with a sudden gleam of satisfaction. "Well, that is something, at any rate. That is an item, Aubrey."
"I am afraid that is as far as I shall be able to go," the shrewd manager replied.
This little comedy progressed for some twenty minutes, until at last Mr. Lionel C. Westwood was worked up into the right state of frantic curiosity and excitement. Then Aubrey Flood explained dimly the purpose and scope of the new play, hinted reluctantly at the achievement of a new star, a young actress of wonderful power and extreme beauty, who had hitherto been quite unknown in the provinces, and finally, with a gush of friendship, "Well, as it is you, Lionel, dear boy, though I would not do it for anybody else," promised the journalist that he might come to the theatre again that afternoon and form one of the privileged few, in addition to the company itself, who would be present at the reading of the play by its author, Mr. James Fabian Rose.
Mr. Lionel C. Westwood went away more than contented, and Aubrey Flood resumed his correspondence. The train was laid and the match was applied to it. The Daily Wire, of course, was at the disposal of the syndicate, and would further its objects in every way through Mr. Goodrick. At the same time, the editor was quite shrewd enough to know that his paper was more particularly read by the middle-classes, and content to sacrifice items of excessive interest concerning the play in order that it might be widely advertised.
For they were all very greatly in earnest, these people. Even Aubrey Flood himself, while he was business man enough to regard this speculation as an excellent one, and believe that he would make a great deal of money over it, was nevertheless about to produce this epoch-making play from a real and earnest adherence to the doctrines it was to inculcate.
There is a general opinion that your actor-manager and your actor are persons consumed by two inherent thirsts—applause and money. In a sense—perhaps in a very general sense—this is true, but there are still those actors and actresses whose life is not entirely occupied with their own personality and chances of success. In the most egotistical of all occupations there are yet men and women who are animated by the spirit of altruism, and the hope of helping a great movement. Aubrey Flood was one of these men. He was as convinced a Socialist as Fabian Rose himself. He was enlisted under that banner, and he was prepared to go to any length to uphold it in the forefront of the great battle which was imminent. At the same time, Mr. Aubrey Flood saw no reason why propaganda should not pay!
He was dictating his letters, when once more the stage door-keeper came into the room with another card. It was that of Miss Mary Marriott.
Flood started.
"Show Miss Marriott in at once," he said, and his face changed a little, while a new light of interest came into his eyes.
Your theatrical manager is not, as a rule, a person very susceptible to the charms of the ladies with whom he is constantly associated, though perhaps that is not quite the best way to put it. He is susceptible, but in a somewhat cynical and contemptuous way. The conquests in the world of the limelight are not always too difficult, and a man who pursues them out of habit and inclination very often learns to put a low figure upon achievement. But in the case of Mary Marriott, Aubrey Flood, who was no better or no worse than his colleagues, had felt differently. It does not necessarily mean that when a manager makes love to his leading lady, or to any lady in his company, he necessarily has the slightest real emotion in doing so. It is, indeed, part of the day's work, and half of the day's necessity. That is all.
But Flood had never met any one like Mary Marriott before. He was impressed by her beauty; he recognised her talent; he believed absolutely in her artistic capacities. At the same time he found himself feeling for this girl something to which he had long been a stranger—a feeling of reverence, or perhaps chivalry, would more easily describe it.
Yes, when he was with her he remembered his younger days when, as a boyish undergraduate from Oxford, he had played tennis with the daughters of the squire on the lawns of his father's rectory. Then all women passably fair and passably young had been mysterious goddesses. Mary Marriott sometimes brought the hardened and cynical man of the world, whose only real passion was for the cause of Socialism, back to the ideals of his youth, and he counted himself fortunate that fate had thrown her in his way.
Mary came into the room. He rose and shook her heartily by the hand.
"My dear Miss Marriott," he said—an intimate of his would have noticed a slight change in his way of addressing her, for to most lady members of his company he would have said "my dear," "to what do I owe this call? I thought we were all going to meet at half-past two to hear the play read! Do sit down."
Mary smiled at him. She liked Mr. Flood. She knew the sickening familiarities of the men who had controlled some of the companies in which she had been.
At first it had been horrible, then she had become a little accustomed and blunted to it. She had endured without any signs of outrage the familiar touch upon the arm, the bold intimacy of voice and manner. It was refreshing now to meet a man who behaved to her as a gentleman behaves to a lady in a society where the footlights are not.
In fact, everything was refreshing, new, and exhilarating to Mary now, since that day, that terrible day of fog and gloom, when, after her long and perilous search for an engagement she had sat in her little attic flat in Bloomsbury and the mustard-bearded man had knocked at the door with all the suddenness of wonder of the fairy godmother herself to Cinderella.
She sat down, and there was a moment's pause.
"Well, do you know, Mr. Flood," she said at length, hesitating a little, and feeling embarrassed, "I have come to ask you a most extraordinary favour."
All sorts of ideas crossed the swift, cinematographic mind of the manager. It could not be that she wanted an advance of salary, because all the company were to be paid for rehearsals, and directly the contract had been signed with him and Fabian Rose, Mary Marriott's half-salary had begun. It could not be that she wanted more "fat" in the part, because she realised the rigidity of Rose's censorship in such a matter; and, besides, she was too much an artist to want the centre of the stage all the time. What could it be? His face showed nothing of his thoughts. All he said was, "Miss Marriott, I am sure you will not ask me anything that I shall not be able to grant."
"But I think on this occasion you might have some difficulty, Mr. Flood," Mary answered, with half a smile—the man thought he had never seen such charm and such self-possession.
Her voice was like a silver bell, heard far away on a mountain side. No, it wasn't, it was like water falling into water—like a tiny waterfall, falling into a deep, translucent pool in a wood!
"Go on, Miss Marriott," he replied, with a smile.
"I want to bring some one to the reading of the play this afternoon," she said.
"That is all right," he answered; "but provided, of course, that your friend will not divulge anything about the play more than we allow him to do. Why, I have just given little Lionel C. Westwood permission to come and hear the play read. Of course, Mr. Rose must have a say in the matter. But who do you want to bring?"
"I have asked Mr. Rose," Mary replied. "I saw him this morning, and he raised no objections, provided only that you gave your consent."
"Well, then, it is a foregone conclusion," Flood returned; "but who is it?"
"Well," Mary answered, "it is the Duke of Paddington."
Aubrey Flood looked at her for a moment, his eyes wide with amazement.
"The man himself! By Jove!" he said, "the very man! Do you think this is wise?"
"He has given me his promise," Mary answered, "that he comes merely as an interested spectator."
"Oh, well, then," Flood answered, "if that is the case, by all means let him come, Miss Marriott. Of course, if Rose does not mind, I am sure I don't; but when you first mentioned his name I had a flitting vision that he was coming for—not at all in a friendly way—in fact, to gather material for a libel action in case his personality is indicated too plainly in the play."
"But it is not, Mr. Flood, is it?" Mary asked.
"Oh, no," the actor answered; "his personality is not indicated at all. We don't caricature people, we indicate types. He is—— Well, perhaps I should hardly even have used the word indicate at all—he is merely used as a peg upon which to hang our theories. I have read the play and you have not, and I am sure that what I say is quite correct. At the same time, you know, Miss Marriott, all London will guess at whom we are hitting in the first instance—not so much because he happens to be an individual enemy of the Cause as that he is representative of the army of monopolists we are endeavouring to destroy."
"I am sure he won't mind at all," Mary Marriott said, and Flood noticed with an odd uneasiness that she flushed a little. "I have had the privilege of seeing something of the duke lately, and he really seems to be taking an interest in the socialistic movement, though of course from quite a different point of view to ours."
"I see," Flood replied slowly. "Miss Marriott, you are trying——" And then he stopped, he thought it better to leave his thought unspoken.
"Very well, then," he replied, "so be it. Bring him, by all means."
"May I telephone?" Mary said, "or, rather would you have a message telephoned to Grosvenor Street, Mr. Flood? The duke is staying with Lord Camborne, and I promised that if it was possible for him to hear the reading of the play I would let him know. If you telephone to him that there is no objection he will arrive here at half-past two o'clock."
"By all means," Flood answered, "I will do it myself. I have had a good many interesting experiences in my lifetime, but this will be the first time that I have talked to a duke over the telephone." He laughed a little sardonically as Mary rose.
"By the way, what are you going to do now?" he said.
"It is nearly one o'clock. I am going home to my flat for lunch," Mary answered.
"No, you are not, Miss Marriott," he answered. "You are coming out to lunch with me, if you please."
Mary hesitated for a moment, then smiled radiantly, and thanked him. "It is very kind of you," she said. "Of course I will, since you ask me."
Together, a few minutes afterwards, they left the theatre and drove down to Frascati's.
The lunch was bright and merry. Upon the stage the usual convenances are not observed, because, indeed, it would be impossible that they should be. Apart from them any abuses of stage life, and the danger which belongs to the meeting of youngish men and women without the usual restraints of society, without the usual restraints which society imposes, there is, nevertheless, in many instances a real and true camaraderie of the sexes which is as charming as it is without offence.
The girl lunched with the actor-manager, gaily and happily. The simple omelette, fines herbes, the red mullet and the grilled kidneys were perfectly cooked, and the bottle of Beaune—well, it was Moulin à Vent, and what more can be said?
They talked over the play from various points of view. First of all it was from the aspect of its probable success. They agreed that this seemed assured. Then they talked eagerly, keenly of the artistic possibilities of it. Mary had read a scene or two—Fabian Rose had given her the typewritten manuscript—but of the play as a whole she had no more than a vague idea. This, to both of them, was the most interesting part of their talk.
Aubrey was an artist in every way. He was a successful artist and had combined commercial success with his real work, otherwise he would not have been a "successful artist." But he cared very much, nevertheless, for the splendour of what he believed to be the greatest art in the world. He was sincere, as Mary was also, in his belief in the high mission of the stage.
Finally, over their coffee, they talked of what the play—already assumed successful and important—would mean to Socialism.
Mary was but a new convert. Her ideas about the cause to which, in her young enthusiasm, she had pledged herself were nebulous. She had much to learn. She was learning much. Yet her heart warmed up as Aubrey Flood let his words go, and told her of his ambitions that this play should indeed be a great thing for the Cause. He was a clever and well-known actor, a successful manager, under a new aspect altogether. She had met people like Aubrey Flood before, but no single one of them had ever shown her that beneath his life of the theatre lay any deep and underlying motive, and it uplifted her, she felt that strange sense of brotherhood which those who are united against the world always know. She recognised that Aubrey Flood, beneath his exterior, was as keen and convinced a Socialist as Fabian Rose, or Mr. Conrad. The fact substantiated her own new theories and induced in her the throbbing sense of being an officer in a great army.
"I wish I had known before," she said to him as they were preparing to leave the restaurant. "I wish I had known before, then, indeed, I might have had an ethical motive in my life, which I now see and feel has been lacking for a long time."
"You are now," he answered, "catching something of our own enthusiasm, and it is by the most extraordinary chain of events that Rose and you, Conrad and myself have come into touch with the Duke of Paddington himself. Conrad, of course, would tell you that Providence had designed it. I cannot go so far as that. I simply say that it is chance. All the same, it is a most marvellous thing. We are going to startle England."
Mary looked at him for a moment. They had just got into the hansom which was to drive them back to the theatre.
"I don't see, Mr. Flood," she said in a quiet voice, "why it is any more easy to believe that something you call 'chance' brings things about than it is difficult to believe that something Mr. Conrad calls 'Providence' should effect the same results."
Flood looked at her in his turn. Here was a most strange young lady of the stage, indeed. He tried to think of something to say, but could not. The simple logic of her answer forbade retort.
Indeed, why should any one want to gather up "coincidences," call the controlling power of them "chance," and not admit that Providence itself had ordered them?
He could not think beyond that, and he was silent. He remembered his old father at the country rectory. He remembered the simple faith of his father and mother and his sisters, and he realised with a sudden shock of pain that the reason why he strove to call the strange Directorship of the affairs of life by a name which had no especial meaning was because he was not prepared to submit to the teachings and the order of the Faith.
Mary also seemed to realise that her words had struck home to a heart which was not yet entirely atrophied by the rush of life in the world of the stage.
She turned to him and smiled slightly, rather sadly, indeed.
"Mr. Flood," she said, "you and I were both born in the same country but perhaps you have been over the frontier for a long time."
"And perhaps," he answered, and while he did so his voice sounded in his own ears strange and unfamiliar, "and perhaps even a theatrical manager may some day ask for his passport to return."
They drew up at the stage door of the Park Lane Theatre.
Mary did not go back to Mr. Flood's room. She went straight on to the stage. The curtain was up. The house was swathed in brown holland, and only a faint light came down from the glass dome in the roof, showing the whole place melancholy and bizarre. The stage itself was a great expanse of dirty boards, stretching right away to a brick wall at the back, in which was a huge slit, with two dingily-painted doors covering it, by which scenery was brought into the scene-dock a little behind.
Two or three chairs were set down by the unlighted footlights, and there was a tiny table by one of them. The limits of the scene which would be set one day were marked off by chalk lines upon the boards. Two or three nondescript men in soft felt hats wandered about in the wings, and on the prompt side, up a ladder and standing on the platform above where is the switchboard which controls the stage lights, the electrician—in a dirty white linen coat—was twisting wires from one plug to another, and noisily whistling the last popular song.
It was a scene of drab materialism, and the two or three little groups of people who stood here and there neither added to it nor gave it any animation.
As Mary went "on" the actors and actresses who were waiting there looked at her with curious eyes. One or two she knew—they were often at the Actors' Association. Who her colleagues as principals were she had not been told, and as yet had no idea, save only of course that she was to act with Aubrey Flood himself.
She saw, however, with a little thrill of pleasure that Dorothy French was there. She herself had obtained a small part for her little friend from Fabian Rose. Dolly came hurrying up to her, the girl's high-heeled shoes echoing strangely upon the boards and sending out a muffled drum-like note into the dim, shrouded auditorium beyond.
"Oh, Mary dear," Dolly whispered, "I am so glad to see you! I have not seen you for such a long time, and it's been so awfully good of you to find a shop for me. But what an extraordinary business it all is! None of us seem to know anything about it. The whole thing is a perfect mystery, and is it really true?" she continued, with a touch of envy, "is it really true, Mary dear, that you are going to play lead?"
Mary sighed a little. "Well," she said, "I suppose it is."
"Then you know all about it?" Dolly answered quickly. "Now, do tell me, Mary, what it is all about. The papers are full of rumours."
Mary realised what she had often realised before in her stage career, that friendships last for a tour, and are spoiled by the first hintings of success. She had always been fond of little Dolly French, pretty little Dolly French; but here at the very first intimation of her own promotion, was Dolly, with a changed voice and a different look in her eyes, wearing an eager, questioning envious look.
"I know very little, Dolly," she answered rather shortly, "and what I do know I must not tell. Everybody will know soon, of course."
Dorothy looked at her for a moment in silence. Then she said: "Oh, Mary! I see that you are already feeling the responsibilities of being Lead." She tittered rather bitterly, turned away, and rejoined the group from which she had come.
Every one seemed to watch Mary for a few moments—she was standing quite by herself—when there was a noise of footsteps and a group of people came through the pass-door and down the three or four steps which led to the stage itself.
Aubrey Flood was the first, without a hat and in an ordinary lounge suit. James Fabian Rose, carrying a roll of brown paper in his hand, and wearing a tweed overcoat and soft felt hat, followed him.
Behind the two was another man, who walked close to the pioneers, and looked round him with an air of unfamiliarity.
He was a tallish, clean-shaven young man who wore a heavy fur coat.
Mary turned round and went up to the group.
"Yes," Aubrey Flood said; "yes, Miss Marriott, here indeed is his Grace, who has come to hear how we are going to attack him."
The duke looked at Flood with a half smile, there seemed to be something condescending in it, then he turned eagerly to Mary. "Oh, Miss Marriott," he said, "you cannot think how interesting all this is to me, and how grateful I am to you for enabling me to see it all."
He looked up and round, and there was something in his voice that showed he was alert and aware—aware and curious.
"We shall be about half an hour before we begin to read the play, your Grace," Aubrey Flood said. "Would you like to be shown over the theatre—that is, have you ever been over a theatre from the 'behind-the-scenes' point of view, as it were?"
"No, I have not," the duke answered, "and I should like to very much."
At the same moment the stage manager came hurrying up to Aubrey Flood. The actor turned to the duke and to Mary Marriott.