I

I

It was not till the following Friday that Sally was able to start for Detroit. She arrived on the Saturday morning and drove to the Hotel Statler. Having ascertained that Gerald was stopping in the hotel and having phoned up to his room to tell him to join her, she went into the dining-room and ordered breakfast.

She felt low-spirited as she waited for the food to arrive. The nursing of Mr. Faucitt had left her tired, and she had not slept well on the train. But the real cause of her depression was the fact that there had been a lack of enthusiasm in Gerald’s greeting over the telephone just now. He had spoken listlessly, as though the fact of her returning after all these weeks was a matter of no account, and she felt hurt and perplexed.

A cup of coffee had a stimulating effect. Men, of course, were always like this in the early morning. It would, no doubt, be a very different Gerald who would presently bound into the dining-room, quickened and restored by a cold shower-bath. In the meantime, here was food, and she needed it.

She was pouring out her second cup of coffee when a stout young man, of whom she had caught a glimpse as he moved about that section of the hotel lobby which was visible through the open door of the dining-room, came in and stood peering about as though in search of someone. The momentary sight she had had of this young man had interested Sally. She had thought how extraordinarily like he was to her brother Fillmore. Now she perceived that it was Fillmore himself.

Sally was puzzled. What could Fillmore be doing so far west? She had supposed him to be a permanent resident of New York. But, of course, your man of affairs and vast interests flits about all over the place. At any rate, here he was, and she called him. And, after he had stood in the doorway looking in every direction except the right one for another minute, he saw her and came over to her table.

“Why, Sally?” His manner, she thought, was nervous⁠—one might almost have said embarrassed. She attributed this to a guilty conscience. Presently he would have to break to her the news that he had become engaged to be married without her sisterly sanction, and no doubt he was wondering how to begin. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Europe.”

“I got back a week ago, but I’ve been nursing poor old Mr. Faucitt ever since then. He’s been ill, poor old dear. I’ve come here to see Mr. Foster’s play, The Primrose Way, you know. Is it a success?”

“It hasn’t opened yet.”

“Don’t be silly, Fill. Do pull yourself together. It opened last Monday.”

“No, it didn’t. Haven’t you heard? They’ve closed all the theatres because of this infernal Spanish influenza. Nothing has been playing this week. You must have seen it in the papers.”

“I haven’t had time to read the papers. Oh, Fill, what an awful shame!”

“Yes, it’s pretty tough. Makes the company all on edge. I’ve had the darndest time, I can tell you.”

“Why, what have you got to do with it?”

Fillmore coughed.

“I⁠—er⁠—oh, I didn’t tell you that. I’m sort of⁠—er⁠—mixed up in the show. Cracknell⁠—you remember he was at college with me⁠—suggested that I should come down and look at it. Shouldn’t wonder if he wants me to put money into it and so on.”

“I thought he had all the money in the world.”

“Yes, he has a lot, but these fellows like to let a pal in on a good thing.”

“Is it a good thing?”

“The play’s fine.”

“That’s what Mr. Faucitt said. But Mabel Hobson⁠ ⁠…”

Fillmore’s ample face registered emotion.

“She’s an awful woman, Sally! She can’t act, and she throws her weight about all the time. The other day there was a fuss about a paper-knife⁠ ⁠…”

“How do you mean, a fuss about a paper-knife?”

“One of the props, you know. It got mislaid. I’m certain it wasn’t my fault⁠ ⁠…”

“How could it have been your fault?” asked Sally wonderingly. Love seemed to have the worst effects on Fillmore’s mentality.

“Well⁠—er⁠—you know how it is. Angry woman⁠ ⁠… blames the first person she sees⁠ ⁠… This paper-knife⁠ ⁠…”

Fillmore’s voice trailed off into pained silence.

“Mr. Faucitt said Elsa Doland was good.”

“Oh, she’s all right,” said Fillmore indifferently. “But⁠—” His face brightened and animation crept into his voice. “But the girl you want to watch is Miss Winch. Gladys Winch. She plays the maid. She’s only in the first act, and hasn’t much to say, except ‘Did you ring, madam?’ and things like that. But it’s the way she says ’em! Sally, that girl’s a genius! The greatest character actress in a dozen years! You mark my words, in a darned little while you’ll see her name up on Broadway in electric light. Personality? Ask me! Charm? She wrote the words and music! Looks?⁠ ⁠…”

“All right! All right! I know all about it, Fill. And will you kindly inform me how you dared to get engaged without consulting me?”

Fillmore blushed richly.

“Oh, do you know?”

“Yes. Mr. Faucitt told me.”

“Well⁠ ⁠…”

“Well?”

“Well, I’m only human,” argued Fillmore.

“I call that a very handsome admission. You’ve got quite modest, Fill.”

He had certainly changed for the better since their last meeting.

It was as if someone had punctured him and let out all the pomposity. If this was due, as Mr. Faucitt had suggested, to the influence of Miss Winch, Sally felt that she could not but approve of the romance.

“I’ll introduce you sometime,” said Fillmore.

“I want to meet her very much.”

“I’ll have to be going now. I’ve got to see Bunbury. I thought he might be in here.”

“Who’s Bunbury?”

“The producer. I suppose he is breakfasting in his room. I’d better go up.”

“You are busy, aren’t you. Little marvel! It’s lucky they’ve got you to look after them.”

Fillmore retired and Sally settled down to wait for Gerald, no longer hurt by his manner over the telephone. Poor Gerald! No wonder he had seemed upset.

A few minutes later he came in.

“Oh, Jerry darling,” said Sally, as he reached the table, “I’m so sorry. I’ve just been hearing about it.”

Gerald sat down. His appearance fulfilled the promise of his voice over the telephone. A sort of nervous dullness wrapped him about like a garment.

“It’s just my luck,” he said gloomily. “It’s the kind of thing that couldn’t happen to anyone but me. Damned fools! Where’s the sense in shutting the theatres, even if there is influenza about? They let people jam against one another all day in the stores. If that doesn’t hurt them why should it hurt them to go to theatres? Besides, it’s all infernal nonsense about this thing. I don’t believe there is such a thing as Spanish influenza. People get colds in their heads and think they’re dying. It’s all a fake scare.”

“I don’t think it’s that,” said Sally. “Poor Mr. Faucitt had it quite badly. That’s why I couldn’t come earlier.”

Gerald did not seem interested either by the news of Mr. Faucitt’s illness or by the fact that Sally, after delay, had at last arrived. He dug a spoon sombrely into his grapefruit.

“We’ve been hanging about here day after day, getting bored to death all the time⁠ ⁠… The company’s going all to pieces. They’re sick of rehearsing and rehearsing when nobody knows if we’ll ever open. They were all keyed up a week ago, and they’ve been sagging ever since. It will ruin the play, of course. My first chance! Just chucked away.”

Sally was listening with a growing feeling of desolation. She tried to be fair, to remember that he had had a terrible disappointment and was under a great strain. And yet⁠ ⁠… it was unfortunate that self-pity was a thing she particularly disliked in a man. Her vanity, too, was hurt. It was obvious that her arrival, so far from acting as a magic restorative, had effected nothing. She could not help remembering, though it made her feel disloyal, what Mr. Faucitt had said about Gerald. She had never noticed before that he was remarkably self-centred, but he was thrusting the fact upon her attention now.

“That Hobson woman is beginning to make trouble,” went on Gerald, prodding in a despairing sort of way at scrambled eggs. “She ought never to have had the part, never. She can’t handle it. Elsa Doland could play it a thousand times better. I wrote Elsa in a few lines the other day, and the Hobson woman went right up in the air. You don’t know what a star is till you’ve seen one of these promoted clothes-props from the Follies trying to be one. It took me an hour to talk her round and keep her from throwing up her part.”

“Why not let her throw up her part?”

“For heaven’s sake talk sense,” said Gerald querulously. “Do you suppose that man Cracknell would keep the play on if she wasn’t in it? He would close the show in a second, and where would I be then? You don’t seem to realize that this is a big chance for me. I’d look a fool throwing it away.”

“I see,” said Sally, shortly. She had never felt so wretched in her life. Foreign travel, she decided, was a mistake. It might be pleasant and broadening to the mind, but it seemed to put you so out of touch with people when you got back. She analysed her sensations, and arrived at the conclusion that what she was resenting was the fact that Gerald was trying to get the advantages of two attitudes simultaneously. A man in trouble may either be the captain of his soul and superior to pity, or he may be a broken thing for a woman to pet and comfort. Gerald, it seemed to her, was advertising himself as an object for her commiseration, and at the same time raising a barrier against it. He appeared to demand her sympathy while holding himself aloof from it. She had the uncomfortable sensation of feeling herself shut out and useless.

“By the way,” said Gerald, “there’s one thing. I have to keep her jollying along all the time, so for goodness’ sake don’t go letting it out that we’re engaged.”

Sally’s chin went up with a jerk. This was too much.

“If you find it a handicap being engaged to me⁠ ⁠…”

“Don’t be silly.” Gerald took refuge in pathos. “Good God! It’s tough! Here am I, worried to death, and you⁠ ⁠…”

Before he could finish the sentence, Sally’s mood had undergone one of those swift changes which sometimes made her feel that she must be lacking in character. A simple, comforting thought had come to her, altering her entire outlook. She had come off the train tired and gritty, and what seemed the general out-of-jointness of the world was entirely due, she decided, to the fact that she had not had a bath and that her hair was all anyhow. She felt suddenly tranquil. If it was merely her grubby and dishevelled condition that made Gerald seem to her so different, all was well. She put her hand on his with a quick gesture of penitence.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ve been a brute, but I do sympathize, really.”

“I’ve had an awful time,” mumbled Gerald.

“I know, I know. But you never told me you were glad to see me.”

“Of course I’m glad to see you.”

“Why didn’t you say so, then, you poor fish? And why didn’t you ask me if I had enjoyed myself in Europe?”

“Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Yes, except that I missed you so much. There! Now we can consider my lecture on foreign travel finished, and you can go on telling me your troubles.”

Gerald accepted the invitation. He spoke at considerable length, though with little variety. It appeared definitely established in his mind that Providence had invented Spanish influenza purely with a view to wrecking his future. But now he seemed less aloof, more open to sympathy. The brief thunderstorm had cleared the air. Sally lost that sense of detachment and exclusion which had weighed upon her.

“Well,” said Gerald, at length, looking at his watch, “I suppose I had better be off.”

“Rehearsal?”

“Yes, confound it. It’s the only way of getting through the day. Are you coming along?”

“I’ll come directly I’ve unpacked and tidied myself up.”

“See you at the theatre, then.”

Sally went out and rang for the lift to take her up to her room.