"I say, if you have come over as an amba.s.sador with the idea of reopening negotiations with Jill on behalf of that infernal swine ..."
"Old man!" protested Freddie, pained. "Pal of mine, you know."
"If he is, after what"s happened, your mental processes are beyond me."
"My what, old son?"
"Your mental processes."
"Oh, ah!" said Freddie, learning for the first time that he had any.
Wally looked at him intently. There was a curious expression on his rough-hewn face.
"I can"t understand you, Freddie. If ever there was a fellow who might have been expected to take the only possible view of Underhill"s behavior in this business, I should have said it was you.
You"re a public-school man. You"ve mixed all the time with decent people. You wouldn"t do anything that wasn"t straight yourself to save your life, it seems to have made absolutely no difference in your opinion of this man Underhill that he behaved like an utter cad to a girl who was one of your best friends. You seem to worship him just as much as ever. And you have travelled three thousand miles to bring a message from him to Jill--Good G.o.d! _Jill!_--to the effect, as far as I understand it, that he has thought it over and come to the conclusion that after all she may possibly be good enough for him!"
Freddie recovered the eye-gla.s.s which the raising of his eyebrows had caused to fall, and polished it in a crushed sort of way. Rummy, he reflected, how chappies stayed the same all their lives as they were when they were kids. Nasty, tough sort of chap Wally Mason had been as a boy, and here he was, apparently, not altered a bit. At least, the only improvement he could detect was that, whereas in the old days Wally, when in an ugly mood like this, would undoubtedly have kicked him, he now seemed content with mere words. All the same, he was being dashed unpleasant. And he was all wrong about poor old Derek. This last fact he endeavored to make clear.
"You don"t understand," he said. "You don"t realize. You"ve never met Lady Underhill, have you?"
"What has she got to do with it?"
"Everything, old bean, everything. If it hadn"t been for her, there wouldn"t have been any trouble of any description, sort, or order.
But she barged in and savaged poor old Derek till she absolutely made him break off the engagement."
"If you call him "poor old Derek" again, Freddie," said Wally viciously, "I"ll drop you out of the window and throw your hat after you! If he"s such a gelatine-backboned worm that his mother can ..."
"You don"t know her, old thing! She"s the original h.e.l.lhound!"
"I don"t care what ..."
"Must be seen to be believed," mumbled Freddie.
"I don"t care what she"s like! Any man who could ..."
"Once seen, never forgotten!"
"d.a.m.n you! Don"t interrupt every time I try to get a word in!"
"Sorry, old man! Shan"t occur again!"
Wally moved to the window, and stood looking out. He had had much more to say on the subject of Derek Underhill, but Freddie"s interruptions had put it out of his head, and he felt irritated and baffled.
"Well, all I can say is," he remarked savagely, "that, if you have come over here as an amba.s.sador to try and effect a reconciliation between Jill and Underhill, I hope to G.o.d you"ll never find her."
Freddie emitted a weak cough, like a very far-off asthmatic old sheep. He was finding Wally more overpowering every moment. He had rather forgotten the dear old days of his childhood, but this conversation was beginning to refresh his memory: and he was realizing more vividly with every moment that pa.s.sed how very Wallyish Wally was,--how extraordinarily like the Wally who had dominated his growing intellect when they were both in Eton suits.
Freddie in those days had been all for peace, and he was all for peace now. He made his next observation diffidently.
"I _have_ found her!"
Wally spun round.
"What!"
"When I say that, I don"t absolutely mean. I"ve seen her. I mean I know where she is. That"s what I came round to see you about. Felt I must talk it over, you know. The situation seems to me dashed rotten and not a little thick. The fact is, old man, she"s gone on the stage. In the chorus, you know. And, I mean to say, well, if you follow what I"m driving at, what, what?"
"In the chorus!"
"In the chorus!"
"How do you know?"
Freddie groped for his eye-gla.s.s, which had fallen again.
He regarded it a trifle sternly. He was fond of the little chap, but it was always doing that sort of thing. The whole trouble was that, if you wanted to keep it in its place, you simply couldn"t register any sort of emotion with the good old features: and, when you were chatting with a fellow like Wally Mason, you had to be registering something all the time.
"Well, that was a bit of luck, as a matter of fact. When I first got here, you know, it seemed to me the only thing to do was to round up a merry old detective and put the matter in his hands, like they do in stories. You know! Ring at the bell. "And this, if I mistake not, Watson, is my client now." And then in breezes client and spills the plot. I found a sleuth in the cla.s.sified telephone directory, and toddled round. Rummy chaps, detectives! Ever met any? I always thought they were lean, hatchet-faced Johnnies with inscrutable smiles. This one looked just like my old Uncle Ted, the one who died of apoplexy. Jovial, puffy-faced bird, who kept bobbing up behind a fat cigar. Have you ever noticed what whacking big cigars these fellows over here smoke? Rummy country, America. You ought to have seen the way this blighter could shift his cigar right across his face without moving his jaw-muscles. Like a flash! Most remarkable thing you ever saw, I give you my honest word! He ..."
"Couldn"t you keep your Impressions of America for the book you"re going to write, and come to the point?" said Wally rudely.
"Sorry, old chap," said Freddie meekly. "Glad you reminded me. Well ... Oh, yes. We had got as far as the jovial old human bloodhound, hadn"t we? Well, I put the matter before this chappie. Told him I wanted to find a girl, showed him a photograph, and so forth. I say,"
said Freddie, wandering off once more into speculation, "why is it that coves like that always talk of a girl as "the little lady"? This chap kept saying "We"ll find the little lady for you!" Oh, well, that"s rather off the rails, isn"t it? It just floated across my mind and I thought I"d mention it. Well, this blighter presumably nosed about and made enquiries for a couple of days, but didn"t effect anything that you might call substantial. I"m not blaming him, mind you. I shouldn"t care to have a job like that myself. I mean to say, when you come to think of what a frightful number of girls there are in this place, to have to ... well, as I say, he did his best but didn"t click; and then this evening, just before I came here, I met a girl I had known in England--she was in a show over there--a girl called Nelly Bryant ..."
"Nelly Bryant? I know her."
"Yes? Fancy that! She was in a thing called "Follow the Girl" in London. Did you see it by any chance? Topping show! There was one scene where the ..."
"Get on! Get on! I wrote it,"
"You wrote it?" Freddie beamed simple-hearted admiration. "My dear old chap, I congratulate you! One of the ripest and most all-wool musical comedies I"ve ever seen. I went twenty-four times. Rummy I don"t remember spotting that you wrote it. I suppose one never looks at the names on the programme. Yes, I went twenty-four times. The first time I went was with a couple of chappies from ..."
"Listen, Freddie!" said Wally feverishly. "On some other occasion I should dearly love to hear the story of your life, but just now ..."
"Absolutely, old man. You"re perfectly right. Well, to cut a long story short, Nelly Bryant told me that she and Jill were rehearsing with a piece called "The Rose of America.""
""The Rose of America!""
"I think that was the name of it."
"That"s Ike Goble"s show. He called me up on the phone about it half an hour ago. I promised to go and see a rehearsal of it tomorrow or the day after. And Jill"s in that?"
"Yes. How about it? I mean, I don"t know much about this sort of thing, but do you think it"s the sort of thing Jill ought to be doing?"
Wally was moving restlessly about the room. Freddie"s news had disquieted him. Mr Goble had a reputation.
"I know a lot about it," he replied, "and it certainly isn"t." He scowled at the carpet. "Oh, d.a.m.n everybody!"
Freddie paused to allow him to proceed, if such should be his wish, but Wally had apparently said his say. Freddie went on to point out an aspect of the matter which was troubling him greatly.