Could it be Lady Dorothy?
Lady Dorothy Neal was something of an enigma to Hector Strong. He was making more than a million pounds a year, and yet she did not want to marry him. Sometimes he wondered if the woman were quite sane. Yet, mad or sane, he loved her.
A secretary knocked and entered. He waited submissively for half-an-hour until the Proprietor looked up.
"Well?"
"Lady Dorothy Neal would like to see you for a moment, Sir."
"Show her in."
Lady Dorothy came in brightly.
"What nice-looking men you have here," she said. "Who is the one in the blue waistcoat? He has curly hair."
"You didn"t come to talk about _him_?" said Hector reproachfully.
"I didn"t come to talk _to_ him really, but if you keep me waiting half-an-hour---- Why, what are you doing?"
Strong looked up from the note he was writing. The tender lines had gone from his face, and he had become the stern man of action again.
"I am giving instructions that the services of my commissionaire, hall-boy, and fifth secretary will no longer be required."
"Don"t do that," pleaded Dorothy.
Strong tore up the note and turned to her. "What do you want of me?" he asked.
She blushed and looked down. "I--I have written a--a play," she faltered.
He smiled indulgently. He did not write plays himself but he knew that other people did.
"When does it come off?" he asked.
"The manager says it will have to at the end of the week. It came _on_ a week ago."
"Well," he smiled, "if people don"t want to go, I can"t make them."
"Yes you can," she said boldly.
He gave a start. His brain working at lightning speed saw the possibilities in an instant. At one stroke he could win Lady Dorothy"s grat.i.tude, provide _The Daily Vane_ with a temporary policy and give a convincing exhibition of the power of his press.
"Oh, Mr. Strong----"
"Hector," he whispered. As he rose from his desk to go to her, he accidentally pressed the b.u.t.ton of the trap-door. The next moment he was alone.
"That the British public is always ready to welcome the advent of a clean and wholesome home-grown play is shown by the startling success of _Christina"s Mistake_, which is attracting such crowds to The King"s every night." So wrote _The Daily Vane_, and continued in the same strain for a column.
"Clubland is keenly exercised," wrote _The Evening Vane_, "over a problem of etiquette which arises in the Second Act of _Christina"s Mistake_, the great autumn success at The King"s Theatre. The point is shortly this. Should a woman ..." And so on.
"A pretty story is going the rounds," said _Slosh_, "anent that charming little lady, Estelle Rito, who plays the part of a governess in _Christina"s Mistake_, for which ("Manager" Barodo informs me) advance booking up to Christmas has already been taken. It seems that Miss Rito when shopping in the purlieus of Bond Street ..."
_Sloppy Chunks_ had a joke which set all the world laughing. It was called
"--BETWEEN THE ACTS.--"
--Flossie.-- Who"s the lady in the box with Mr. Johnson?
--Gussie.-- Hush! It"s his wife!
And Flossie giggled so much that she could hardly listen to the last Act of _Christina"s Mistake_, which she had been looking forward to for weeks!
The _Sunday Sermon_ offered free tickets to a hundred unmarried suburban girls, to which cla.s.s _Christina"s Mistake_ might be supposed to make a special religious appeal. But they had to collect coupons first for _The Sunday Sermon_.
And finally _The Times_ of two months later, said:
"A marriage has been arranged between Lady Dorothy Neal, daughter of the Earl of Skye, and the Hon. Geoffrey Bollinger."
Than a successful revenge nothing is sweeter in life. Hector Strong was not the man to spare any one who had done him an injury. Yet I think his method of revenging himself upon Lady Dorothy savoured of the diabolical. He printed a photograph of her in _The Daily Picture Gallery_. It was headed "The Beautiful Lady Dorothy Neal."
THE END