The Profiteers Part 11

"But breakfast," the Honourable Jimmy put in,--"a man ought to be dashed careful where he breakfasts. A man is known by his breakfast companions, what?"

"Young fellow," Wingate asked, "where is Sarah?"

"Have no fear," was the blissful reply. "Sarah is coming to the supper.

She's filling her old 'bus up with peaches from the Gaiety. Not being allowed to sit inside with any of them, I was sent on ahead."

"You dog!" Maurice White exclaimed.

"Dog yourself," was the prompt retort. "Opportunity is a fine thing.

Sometimes I have a gruesome fear that Sarah does not altogether trust me."

Kendrick, who had been straightening his tie before the gla.s.s, now swung around.

"This way to the lift, boys," he said. "Time we put in an appearance."

The reception room of the Arcadian suite was already fairly well crowded.

Wingate shook hands with his host, a cheery, theatrical-loving soul, and was presented to many other people. Where he was not introduced he found a pleasing absence of formality, which facilitated conversation and rapidly widened his circle of acquaintances. Kendrick came over and slapped him on the back.

"Wingate, my lad," he exclaimed, "you're going some! You're the bright boy of the party. Whom are you taking into supper?"

"Me!" said a rather shrill but not unmusical voice from Wingate's side.

"Introduce us, please, Mr. Kendrick. We have been making furtive conversation for the last five minutes."

"It is a great occasion," Kendrick declared. "I present Mr. John Wingate, America's greatest financier, most successful soldier, and absolutely inevitable President, to Miss Flossie Lane, England's greatest musical comedy artist."

Miss Lane grabbed Wingate's arm.

"Let's go in to supper," she suggested. "All the best places will be taken if we don't hurry."

"One word," Kendrick begged, relapsing for a moment into his ordinary manner as he touched Wingate on the shoulder. "Dredlinton is here, rather drunk and very quarrelsome. I heard him telling some one about having found you dining alone with his wife to-night. Phipps was listening. Look at him, as black as a thundercloud! Keep your head if Dredlinton gets troublesome."

Wingate nodded and was promptly led away. They found places about half-way down the great horseshoe table, laden with flowers and every sort of cold delicacy. There were champagne bottles at every other place, a small crowd of waiters, eager to justify their existence,--a rollicking, Bohemian crowd, the _jeunesse doree_ of London, and all the talent and beauty of the musical comedy stage. It was a side of life with which Wingate was somewhat unfamiliar. Nevertheless, his feet that night were resting upon the clouds. Any form of life was sweet to him. The new joy in his heart warmed his pulses, lightened his tongue, unlocked a new geniality. He was disposed to talk with everybody. The young lady by his side, however, had other views.

"Do you like our show, Mr. Wingate?" she asked. "Or perhaps you don't go to musical comedies? I am in 'Lady Diana,' you know."

"One of the very first things I am going to see," Wingate replied, "but as a matter of fact, I only arrived from America a few days ago. I hear that you are a great success."

It took the young lady very nearly a quarter of an hour to explain how greatly the play might be improved and strengthened by the allotment to her of a few more songs and another dance, and she also recounted the argument she had had with the stage manager as to her absence from the stage during the greater part of Act Two.

"I am not vain," she concluded, with engaging frankness, "but on the other hand I am not foolish, and I know quite well that many people--a great part of the audience, in fact--come because they see my name upon the boards, and I have numberless complaints because I am only on for such a short time in what should be the most important act of the play. I tell them it's nothing to do with me, but as long as my name is displayed outside the theatre and I know how they feel about it, I feel a certain responsibility. Now you are a very clever man, and a man of the world, Mr. Wingate. What do you think about it?"

"I think that you are quite right," he declared, with satisfactory emphasis.

"You don't know Mr. Maken, our manager, I suppose?" she enquired.

Wingate shook his head.

"As a matter of fact," he confessed, "I know very few theatrical people."

"What a pity you're not fond of the stage!" she sighed, with a world of regret in her very blue eyes. "You might have a theatre of your own, and a leading lady, and all the rest of it."

"It sounds rather fascinating," he admitted, "under certain circ.u.mstances. All the same, I don't think I should like to make a business of what is such a great pleasure."

"I thought, with American men," she said archly, "that their business was their pleasure."

"To a certain extent, I suppose," he admitted, "but then, you see, I am half English. My mother was English although she was married in America, and I was born there."

"How did you manage about serving?" she enquired.

"I gave both a turn," he explained. "I turned out for England first and then for America."

"How splendid of you!" she murmured, raising her fine eyes admiringly and then dropping them in a most effective manner. "But wasn't it a shocking waste of time and lives! Just fancy, in all those years, how many undeveloped geniuses must have been killed without ever having had their chance! How miserably upside down the whole world was, too! Four years and more during which a supper party, except at a private house, was an impossibility!"

"I suppose," Wingate admitted, a little staggered, "that taken from that point of view the war was an unfortunate infliction."

"And after all," the young lady went on, "here we are at the end of it very much as though it had never happened. Do you think they will be able to stop wars in the future?"

"I don't know," he confessed. "I suppose international differences must be settled somehow or other. Personally, I think a wrestling match, or something of that sort--"

"Now you're making fun of me," she interrupted reproachfully. "I see you don't want to talk about serious things. Do you admire Miss Orford?" she asked, indicating another musical comedy lady who was seated opposite, and who had shown occasional signs of a desire to join in the conversation.

Wingate took his cue from his questioner's tone and glance.

"A little too thin," he hazarded.

"Molly is almost painfully thin," his companion conceded, with apparent reluctance, "and I think she makes up far more than she need."

"Bad for the complexion in time, I suppose," he observed.

"I don't know. Molly's been doing it for a great many years. She understudies me, you know, at the theatre. Would you like me to send you word if ever I'm unable to play?"

"Quite unnecessary," he replied, with the proper amount of warmth. "I should be far too brokenhearted to attend if you were not there. Besides, is Miss Orford clever?"

"Don't ask me," her friend sighed. "She doesn't even do me the compliment of imitating me. Tell me, don't you love supping here?"

"Under present circ.u.mstances," he agreed.

"I love it, too," she murmured, with an answering flash of the eyes. "I am not sure," she went on, "that I care about these large parties, although I always like to come when Sir Frederick asks me. He is such a dear, isn't he?"

"He is a capital host," Wingate a.s.sented.

"I am so fond of really interesting conversation," the young lady further confided. "I love to have a man who really amounts to something tell me about his life and work."

"Mr. Peter Phipps, for instance?" he suggested. "Didn't I see you lunching here with him the other day?"

She looked across the table, towards where Phipps was sitting hand in hand with a young lady in blue, and apparently being very entertaining.

Miss Flossie caught a glimpse of Wingate's expression.

"You don't like Mr. Phipps," she said. "You don't think I ought to lunch with him."