The house-lights went up. The audience began to move up the aisles to stretch its legs and discuss the piece during the intermission. There was a general babble of conversation. Here, a composer who had not got an interpolated number in the show was explaining to another composer who had not got an interpolated number in the show the exact source from which a third composer who had got an interpolated number in the show had stolen the number which he had got interpolated. There, two musical comedy artistes who were temporarily resting were agreeing that the prima donna was a dear thing but that, contrary as it was to their life-long policy to knock anybody, they must say that she was beginning to show the passage of the years a trifle and ought to be warned by some friend that her career as an ingenue was a thing of the past. Dramatic critics, slinking in twos and threes into dark corners, were telling each other that “The Rose of America” was just another of those things but it had apparently got over. The general public was of the opinion that it was a knock-out.
“Otie darling,” said Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim, leaning her ample shoulder on Uncle Chris’ perfectly fitting sleeve and speaking across him to young Mr Pilkington, “I do congratulate you, dear. It’s perfectly delightful! I don’t know when I have enjoyed a musical piece so much. Don’t you think it’s perfectly darling, Major Selby?”
“Capital!” agreed that suave man of the world, who had been bored as near extinction as makes no matter. “Congratulate you, my boy!”
“You clever, clever thing!” said Mrs Peagrim, skittishly striking her nephew on the knee with her fan. “I’m proud to be your aunt! Aren’t you proud to know him, Mr Rooke?”
The fourth occupant of the box awoke with a start from the species of stupor into which he had been plunged by the spectacle of the McWhustle of McWhustle in action. There had been other dark moments in Freddie’s life. Once, back in London, Parker had sent him out into the heart of the West End without his spats and he had not discovered their absence till he was half-way up Bond Street. On another occasion, having taken on a stranger at squash for a quid a game, he had discovered too late that the latter was an ex-public-school champion. He had felt gloomy when he had learned of the breaking-off of the engagement between Jill Mariner and Derek Underhill, and sad when it had been brought to his notice that London was giving Derek the cold shoulder in consequence. But never in his whole career had he experienced such gloom and such sadness as had come to him that evening while watching this unspeakable person in kilts murder the part that should have been his. And the audience, confound them, had roared with laughter at every damn silly thing the fellow had said!
“Eh?” he replied. “Oh, yes, rather, absolutely!”
“We’re all proud of you, Otie darling,” proceeded Mrs Peagrim. “The piece is a wonderful success. You will make a fortune out of it. And just think, Major Selby, I tried my best to argue the poor, dear boy out of putting it on! I thought it was so rash to risk his money in a theatrical venture. But then,” said Mrs Peagrim in extenuation, “I had only seen the piece when it was done at my house at Newport, and of course it really was rather dreadful nonsense then! I might have known that you would change it a great deal before you put it on in New York. As I always say, plays are not written, they are rewritten! Why, you have improved this piece a hundred per cent, Otie! I wouldn’t know it was the same play!”
She slapped him smartly once more with her fan, ignorant of the gashes she was inflicting. Poor Mr Pilkington was suffering twin torments, the torture of remorse and the agonized jealousy of the unsuccessful artist. It would have been bad enough to have to sit and watch a large audience rocking in its seats at the slap-stick comedy which Wally Mason had substituted for his delicate social satire: but, had this been all, at least he could have consoled himself with the sordid reflection that he, as owner of the piece, was going to make a lot of money out of it. Now, even this material balm was denied him. He had sold out, and he was feeling like the man who parts for a song with shares in an apparently goldless gold mine, only to read in the papers next morning that a new reef has been located. Into each life some rain must fall. Quite a shower was falling now into young Mr. Pilkington’s.