Chapter 4 - Page 2

"Yes," he said, sharply. "He will do, I think. H'm, yes. Why, yes."

"You're a friend of Mr. Callan's, aren't you?" Mrs. Hartly asked, "What
a dear, nice man he is! You should see him at rehearsals. You know I'm
doing his 'Boldero'; he's given me a perfectly lovely part--perfectly
lovely. And the trouble he takes. He tries every chair on the stage."

"H'm; yes," Fox interjected, "he likes to have his own way."

"We _all_ like that," the great actress said. She was quoting from her
first great part. I thought--but, perhaps, I was mistaken--that all her
utterances were quotations from her first great part. Her husband looked
at his watch.

"Are you coming to this confounded flower show?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, turning her mysterious eyes upon him, "I'll go and get
ready."

She disappeared through an inner door. I expected to hear the
pistol-shot and the heavy fall from the next room. I forgot that it was
not the end of the fifth act.

Fox put my manuscript into his breast pocket.

"Come along, Granger," he said to me, "I want to speak to you. You'll
have plenty of opportunity for seeing Mrs. Hartly, I expect. She's tenth
on your list. Good-day, Hartly."

Hartly's hand was wavering between his moustache and his watch pocket.

"Good-day," he said sulkily.

"You must come and see me again, Mr. Granger," Mrs. Hartly said from
the door. "Come to the Buckingham and see how we're getting on with your
friend's play. We must have a good long talk if you're to get my local
colour, as Mr. Fox calls it."

"To gild refined gold; to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet--"

I quoted banally.

"That's it," she said, with a tender smile. She was fastening a button
in her glove. I doubt her recognition of the quotation.

When we were in our hansom, Fox began:

"I'm relieved by what I've seen of your copy. One didn't expect this
sort of thing from you. You think it a bit below you, don't you? Oh, I
know, I know. You literary people are usually so impracticable; you know
what I mean. Callan said you were the man. Callan has his uses; but one
has something else to do with one's paper. I've got interests of my own.
But you'll do; it's all _right_. You don't mind my being candid, do you,
now?" I muttered that I rather liked it.

"Well then," he went on, "now I see my way."

"I'm glad you do," I murmured. "I wish I did."

"Oh, that will be all right," Fox comforted. "I dare say Callan has