"My name is Pilkington. Otis Pilkington."
The uncomfortable silence which always follows introductions was broken by the sound of the telephone-bell on the desk. Otis Pilkington, who had moved out into the room and was nowhere near the desk, stretched forth a preposterous arm and removed the receiver.
"Yes? Oh, will you say, please, that I have a conference at present."
Jill was to learn that people in the theatrical business never talked: they always held conferences. "Tell Mrs. Peagrim that I shall be calling later in the afternoon, but cannot be spared just now." He replaced the receiver. "Aunt Olive"s secretary," he murmured in a soft aside to Mr. Trevis. "Aunt Olive wanted me to go for a ride." He turned to Jill. "Excuse me. Is there anything I can do for you, Miss Mariner?"
Jill"s composure was now completely restored. This interview was turning out so totally different from anything she had expected. The atmosphere was cosy and social. She felt as if she were back in Ovingdon Square, giving tea to Freddie Rooke and Ronny Devereux and the rest of her friends of the London period. All that was needed to complete the picture was a tea-table in front of her. The business note hardly intruded on the proceedings at all. Still, as business was the object of her visit, she felt that she had better approach it.
"I came for work."
"Work!" cried Mr. Pilkington. He, too, appeared to be regarding the interview as purely of a social nature.
"In the chorus," explained Jill.
Mr. Pilkington seemed shocked. He winced away from the word as though it pained him.
"There is no chorus in "The Rose of America,"" he said.
"I thought it was a musical comedy."
Mr. Pilkington winced again.
"It is a musical _fantasy_!" he said. "But there will be no chorus. We shall have," he added, a touch of rebuke in his voice, "the services of twelve refined ladies of the ensemble."
Jill laughed.
"It does sound much better, doesn"t it!" she said. "Well, am I refined enough, do you think?"
"I shall be only too happy if you will join us," said Mr. Pilkington promptly.
The long-haired composer looked doubtful. He struck a note up in the treble, then whirled round on his stool.
"If you don"t mind my mentioning it, Otie, we have twelve girls already."
"Then we must have thirteen," said Otis Pilkington firmly.
"Unlucky number," argued Mr. Trevis.
"I don"t care. We must have Miss Mariner. You can see for yourself that she is exactly the type we need."
He spoke feelingly. Ever since the business of engaging a company had begun, he had been thinking wistfully of the evening when "The Rose of America" had had its opening performance--at his aunt"s house at Newport last summer--with an all-star cast of society favourites and an ensemble recruited entirely from debutantes and matrons of the Younger Set. That was the sort of company he had longed to a.s.semble for the piece"s professional career, and until this afternoon he had met with nothing but disappointment. Jill seemed to be the only girl in theatrical New York who came up to the standard he would have liked to demand.
"Thank you very much," said Jill.
There was another pause. The social note crept into the atmosphere again. Jill felt the hostess" desire to keep conversation circulating.
"I hear," she said, "that this piece is a sort of Gilbert and Sullivan opera."
Mr. Pilkington considered the point.
"I confess," he said, "that, in writing the book, I had Gilbert before me as a model. Whether I have in any sense succeeded in...."
"The book," said Mr. Trevis, running his fingers over the piano, "is as good as anything Gilbert ever wrote."
"Oh, come, Rolie!" protested Mr. Pilkington modestly.
"Better," insisted Mr. Trevis. "For one thing, it is up-to-date."
"I _do_ try to strike the modern note," murmured Mr. Pilkington.
"And you have avoided Gilbert"s mistake of being too fanciful."
"He _was_ fanciful," admitted Mr. Pilkington. "The music," he added, in a generous spirit of give and take, "has all Sullivan"s melody with a newness of rhythm peculiarly its own. You will like the music."
"It sounds," said Jill amiably, "as though the piece is bound to be a tremendous success."
"We hope so," said Mr. Pilkington. "We feel that the time has come when the public is beginning to demand something better than what it has been accustomed to. People are getting tired of the brainless trash and jingly tunes which have been given them by men like Wallace Mason and George Bevan. They want a certain polish.... It was just the same in Gilbert and Sullivan"s day. They started writing at a time when the musical stage had reached a terrible depth of inanity. The theatre was given over to burlesques of the most idiotic description.
The public was waiting eagerly to welcome something of a higher cla.s.s.
It is just the same to-day. But the managers will not see it. "The Rose of America" went up and down Broadway for months, knocking at managers" doors."
"It should have walked in without knocking, like me," said Jill. She got up. "Well, it was very kind of you to see me when I came in so unceremoniously. But I felt it was no good waiting outside on that landing. I"m so glad everything is settled. Good-bye."
"Good-bye, Miss Mariner." Mr. Pilkington took her outstretched hand devoutly. "There is a rehearsal called for the ensemble at--when is it, Rolie?"
"Eleven o"clock, day after to-morrow, at Bryant Hall."
"I"ll be there," said Jill. "Good-bye, and thank you very much."
The silence which had fallen upon the room as she left it was broken by Mr. Trevis.
"Some pip!" observed Mr. Trevis.
Otis Pilkington awoke from day-dreams with a start.
"What did you say?"
"That girl.... I said she was some pippin!"
"Miss Mariner," said Mr. Pilkington icily, "is a most charming, refined, cultured, and vivacious girl, if you mean that."
"Yes," said Mr. Trevis. "That was what I meant!"
II
Jill walked out into Forty-second Street, looking about her with the eye of a conqueror. Very little change had taken place in the aspect of New York since she had entered the Gotham Theatre, but it seemed a different city to her. An hour ago, she had been a stranger, drifting aimlessly along its rapids. Now she belonged to New York, and New York belonged to her. She had faced it squarely, and forced from it the means of living. She walked on with a new jauntiness in her stride.
The address which Nelly had given her was on the east side of Fifth Avenue. She made her way along Forty-second Street. It seemed the jolliest, alivest street she had ever encountered. The rattle of the Elevated as she crossed Sixth Avenue was music, and she loved the crowds that jostled her with every step she took.