On the way to his apartment Mr Pilkington continued in the minor key. He was a great deal more communicative than she herself would have been to such a comparative stranger as she was, but she knew that men were often like this. Over in London, she had frequently been made the recipient of the most intimate confidences by young men whom she had met for the first time the same evening at a dance. She had been forced to believe that there was something about her personality that acted on a certain type of man like the crack in the dam, setting loose the surging flood of their eloquence. To this class Otis Pilkington evidently belonged: for, once started, he withheld nothing.
“It isn’t that I’m dependent on Aunt Olive or anything like that,” he vouchsafed, as he stirred the tea in his Japanese-print hung studio. “But you know how it is. Aunt Olive is in a position to make it very unpleasant for me if I do anything foolish. At present, I have reason to know that she intends to leave me practically all that she possesses. Millions!” said Mr Pilkington, handing Jill a cup. “I assure you, millions! But there is a hard commercial strain in her. It would have the most prejudicial effect upon her if, especially after she had expressly warned me against it, I were to lose a great deal of money over this production. She is always complaining that I am not a business man like my late uncle. Mr Waddesleigh Peagrim made a fortune in smoked hams.” Mr Pilkington looked at the Japanese prints, and shuddered slightly. “Right up to the time of his death he was urging me to go into the business. I could not have endured it. But, when I heard those two men discussing the play, I almost wished that I had done so.”
Jill was now completely disarmed. She would almost have patted this unfortunate young man’s head, if she could have reached it.
“I shouldn’t worry about the piece,” she said. “I’ve read somewhere or heard somewhere that it’s the surest sign of a success when actors don’t like a play.”
Mr Pilkington drew his chair an imperceptible inch nearer.
“How sympathetic you are!”
Jill perceived with chagrin that she had been mistaken after all. It was the love-light. The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles sprayed it all over her like a couple of searchlights. Otis Pilkington was looking exactly like a sheep, and she knew from past experience that that was the infallible sign. When young men looked like that, it was time to go.
“I’m afraid I must be off,” she said. “Thank you so much for giving me tea. I shouldn’t be a bit afraid about the play. I’m sure it’s going to be splendid. Good-bye.”
“You aren’t going already?”
“I must. I’m very late as it is. I promised —”
Whatever fiction Jill might have invented to the detriment of her soul was interrupted by a ring at the bell. The steps of Mr Pilkington’s Japanese servant crossing the hall came faintly to the sitting-room.
“Mr Pilkington in?”
Otis Pilkington motioned pleadingly to Jill.
“Don’t go!” he urged. “It’s only a man I know. He has probably come to remind me that I am dining with him tonight. He won’t stay a minute. Please don’t go.”
Jill sat down. She had no intention of going now. The cheery voice at the front door had been the cheery voice of her long-lost uncle, Major Christopher Selby.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1.
Uncle Chris walked breezily into the room, flicking a jaunty glove. He stopped short on seeing that Mr Pilkington was not alone.
“Oh, I beg your pardon! I understood —” He peered at Jill uncertainly. Mr Pilkington affected a dim, artistic lighting-system in his studio, and people who entered from the great outdoors generally had to take time to accustom their eyes to it. “If you’re engaged —”
“Er—allow me — Miss Mariner — Major Selby.”
“Hullo, Uncle Chris!” said Jill.
“God bless my soul!” ejaculated that startled gentleman adventurer, and collapsed onto a settee as if his legs had been mown from under him.
“I’ve been looking for you all over New York,” said Jill.