Mr Pilkington found himself unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation.
“Uncle Chris?” he said with a note of feeble enquiry in his voice.
“Major Selby is my uncle.”
“Are you sure?” said Mr Pilkington. “I mean —”
Not being able to ascertain, after a moment’s self-examination, what he did mean, he relapsed into silence.
“Whatever are you doing here?” asked Uncle Chris.
“I’ve been having tea with Mr Pilkington.”
“But — but why Mr Pilkington?”
“Well, he invited me.”
“But how do you know him?”
“We met at the theatre.”
“Theatre?”
Otis Pilkington recovered his power of speech.
“Miss Mariner is rehearsing with a little play in which I am interested,” he explained.
Uncle Chris half rose from the settee. He blinked twice in rapid succession. Jill had never seen him so shaken from his customary poise.
“Don’t tell me you have gone on the stage, Jill!”
“I have. I’m in the chorus —”
“Ensemble,” corrected Mr Pilkington softly.
“I’m in the ensemble of a piece called ‘The Rose of America.’ We’ve been rehearsing for ever so long.”
Uncle Chris digested this information in silence for a moment. He pulled at his short mustache.
“Why, of course!” he said at length. Jill, who know him so well, could tell by the restored ring of cheeriness in his tone that he was himself again. He had dealt with this situation in his mind and was prepared to cope with it. The surmise was confirmed the next instant when he rose and stationed himself in front of the fire. Mr Pilkington detested steam-heat and had scoured the city till he had found a studio apartment with an open fireplace. Uncle Chris spread his legs and expanded his chest. “Of course,” he said. “I remember now that you told me in your letter that you were thinking of going on the stage. My niece,” explained Uncle Chris to the attentive Mr Pilkington, “came over from England on a later boat. I was not expecting her for some weeks. Hence my surprise at meeting her here. Of course. You told me that you intended to go on the stage, and I strongly recommended you to begin at the bottom of the ladder and learn the ground-work thoroughly before you attempted higher flights.”
“Oh, that was it?” said Mr Pilkington. He had been wondering.
“There is no finer training,” resumed Uncle Chris, completely at his ease once more, “than the chorus. How many of the best-known actresses in America began in that way! Dozens. Dozens. If I were giving advice to any young girl with theatrical aspirations, I should say ‘Begin in the chorus!’ On the other hand,” he proceeded, turning to Pilkington, “I think it would be just as well if you would not mention the fact of my niece being in that position to Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim. She might not understand.”
“Exactly,” assented Mr Pilkington.
“The term ‘chorus’—”
“I dislike it intensely myself.”
“It suggests —”
“Precisely.”
Uncle Chris inflated his chest again, well satisfied.
“Capital!” he said. “Well, I only dropped in to remind you, my boy, that you and your aunt are dining with me tonight. I was afraid a busy man like you might forget.”
“I was looking forward to it,” said Mr Pilkington, charmed at the description.
“You remember the address? Nine East Forty-First Street. I have moved, you remember.”
“So that was why I couldn’t find you at the other place,” said Jill. “The man at the door said he had never heard of you.”
“Stupid idiot!” said Uncle Chris testily. “These New York hall-porters are recruited entirely from homes for the feeble-minded. I suppose he was a new man. Well, Pilkington, my boy, I shall expect you at seven o’clock. Goodbye till then. Come, Jill.”
“Good-bye, Mr Pilkington,” said Jill.
“Good-bye for the present, Miss Mariner,” said Mr Pilkington, bending down to take her hand. The tortoiseshell spectacles shot a last soft beam at her.
As the front door closed behind them, Uncle Chris heaved a sigh of relief.
“Whew! I think I handled that little contretemps with diplomacy! A certain amount of diplomacy, I think!”
“If you mean,” said Jill severely, “that you told some disgraceful fibs —”