"You needn"t fob him off on my account," Whitaker interposed. "We can finish our confab later--Monday--any time. It"s time for me to be getting up-town, anyway."
"It isn"t that," Drummond explained doggedly. "Only--the man"s a bore, and--"
"It isn"t Jules Max?" Whitaker demanded excitedly. "Not little Jules Max, who used to stage manage our amateur shows?"
"That"s the man," Drummond admitted with plain reluctance.
"Then have him in, by all means. I want to say howdy to him, if nothing more. And then I"ll clear out and leave you to his troubles."
Drummond hesitated; whereupon the office boy, interpreting a.s.sent, precipitately vanished to usher in the client. His employer laughed a trifle sourly.
"Ben"s a little too keen about pleasing Max," he said. "I think he looks on him as the fountainhead of free seats. Max has developed into a heavy-weight entrepreneur, you know."
"Meaning theatrical manager? Then why not say so? But I might"ve guessed he"d drift into something of the sort."
A moment later Whitaker was vigorously pumping the unresisting--indeed the apparently boneless--hand of a visibly flabbergasted gentleman, who suffered him for the moment solely upon suspicion, if his expression were a reliable index of his emotion.
In the heyday of his career as a cunning and successful promoter of plays and players, Jules Max indulged a hankering for the picturesquely eccentric that sat oddly upon his commonplace personality. The hat that had made Hammerstein famous Max had appropriated--straight crown, flat brim and immaculate gloss--bodily. Beneath it his face was small of feature, and fat. Its trim little mustache lent it an air of conventionality curiously at war with a pince-nez which sheltered his near-sighted eyes, its enormous, round, horn-rimmed lenses sagging to one side with the weight of a wide black ribbon. His nose was insignificant, his mouth small and pursy. His short, round little body was invariably by day dressed in a dark gray morning-coat, white-edged waistcoat, a.s.sertively-striped trousers, and patent-leather shoes with white spats. He had a pa.s.sion for lemon-coloured gloves of thinnest kid and slender malacca walking-sticks. His dignity was an awful thing, as ingrained as his strut.
He rea.s.serted the dignity now with a jerk of his maltreated hand, as well as with an appreciable effort betrayed by his resentful glare.
"Do I know you?" he demanded haughtily. "If not, what the devil do you mean by such conduct, sir?"
With a laugh, Whitaker took him by the shoulders and spun him round smartly into a convenient chair.
"Sit still and let me get a _good_ look," he implored. "Think of it!
Juley Max daring to put on side with me! The impudence of you, Juley!
I"ve a great mind to play horse with you. How dare you go round the streets looking like that, anyway?"
Max recovered his breath, readjusted his gla.s.ses, and resumed his stare.
"Either," he observed, "you"re Hugh Whitaker come to life or a d.a.m.ned outrage."
"Both, if you like."
"You sound like both," complained the little man. "Anyway, you were drowned in the Philippines or somewhere long ago, and I never waste time on a dead one.... Drummond--" He turned to the lawyer with a vastly business-like air.
"No, you don"t!" Whitaker insisted, putting himself between the two men.
"I admit that you"re a great man; you might at least admit that I"m a live one."
A mollified smile moderated the small man"s manner. "That"s a bargain,"
he said, extending a pale yellow paw; "I"m glad to see you again, Hugh.
When did you recrudesce?"
"An hour ago," Drummond answered for him; "blew in here as large as life and twice as important. He"s been running a gold farm out in New Guinea.
What do you know about that?"
"It"s very interesting," Max conceded. "I shall have to cultivate him; I never neglect a man with money. If you"ll stick around a few minutes, Hugh, I"ll take you up-town in my car." He turned to Drummond, completely ignoring Whitaker while he went into the details of some action he desired the lawyer to undertake on his behalf. Then, having talked steadily for upwards of ten minutes, he rose and prepared to go.
"You"ve asked him, of course?" he demanded of Drummond, nodding toward Whitaker.
Drummond flushed slightly. "No chance," he said. "I was on the point of doing it when you b.u.t.ted in."
"What"s this?" inquired Whitaker.
Max delivered himself of a startling bit of information: "He"s going to get married."
Whitaker stared. "Drummond? Not really?"
Drummond acknowledged his guilt brazenly: "Next week, in fact."
"But why didn"t you say anything about it?"
"You didn"t give me an opening. Besides, to welcome a deserter from the Great Beyond is enough to drive all other thoughts from a man"s mind."
"There"s to be a supper in honour of the circ.u.mstances, at the Beaux Arts to-night," supplemented Max. "You"ll come, of course."
"Do you think you could keep me away with a dog?"
"Wouldn"t risk spoiling the dog," said Drummond. He added with a tentative, questioning air: "There"ll be a lot of old-time acquaintances of yours there, you know."
"So much the better," Whitaker declared with spirit. "I"ve played dead long enough."
"As you think best," the lawyer acceded. "Midnight, then--the Beaux Arts."
"I"ll be there--and furthermore, I"ll be waiting at the church a week hence--or whenever it"s to come off. And now I want to congratulate you." Whitaker held Drummond"s hand in one of those long, hard grips that mean much between men. "But mostly I want to congratulate her. Who is she?"
"Sara Law," said Drummond, with pride in his quick color and the lift of his chin.
"Sara Law?" The name had a familiar ring, yet Whitaker failed to recognize it promptly.
"The greatest living actress on the English-speaking stage," Max announced, preening himself importantly. "My own discovery."
"You don"t mean to say you haven"t heard of her. Is New Guinea, then, so utterly abandoned to the march of civilization?"
"Of course I"ve heard--but I have been out of touch with such things,"
Whitaker apologized. "When shall I see her?"
"At supper, to-night," said the man of law. "It"s really in her honour--"
"In honour of her retirement," Max interrupted, fussing with a gardenia on his lapel. "She retires from the stage finally, and forever--she says--when the curtain falls to-night."
"Then I"ve got to be in the theatre to-night--if that"s the case," said Whitaker. "It isn"t my notion of an occasion to miss."
"You"re right there," Max told him bluntly. "It"s no small matter to me--losing such a star; but the world"s loss of its greatest artist--_ah!_" He kissed his finger-tips and ecstatically flirted the caress afar.
""Fraid you won"t get in, though," Drummond doubted darkly. "Everything in the house for this final week was sold out a month ago. Even the speculators are cleaned out."
"_Tut!_" the manager reproved him loftily. "Hugh is going to see Sara Law act for the last time from my personal box--aren"t you, Hugh?"