"The sportsman with the hair that turned white in a single night. The barker on the skyline. Does he often get the wind up like this?"
His colleague smiled tolerantly.
"Why, that"s nothing!" he replied. "Wait till you see him really cut loose! That was just a gentle whisper!"
"My G.o.d!" said the newcomer, staring into a bleak future. The leading lady came to the end of her refrain, and the gentlemen of the ensemble, who had been hanging about up-stage, began to curvet nimbly down towards her in a double line; the new arrival, with an eye on his nearest neighbor, endeavouring to curvet as nimbly as the others. A clapping of hands from the dark auditorium indicated--inappropriately--that he had failed to do so. Mr Miller could be perceived--dimly--with all his fingers entwined in his hair.
"Clear the stage!" yelled Mr Miller. "Not you!" he shouted, as the latest addition to the company began to drift off with the others.
"You stay!"
"Me?"
"Yes, you. I shall have to teach you the steps by yourself, or we shall get nowhere. Go on-stage. Start the music again, Mr Saltzburg.
Now, when the refrain begins, come down. Gracefully! Gracefully!"
The young man, pink but determined, began to come down gracefully.
And it was while he was thus occupied that Jill and Nelly Bryant, entering the wings which were beginning to fill up as eleven o"clock approached, saw him.
"Whoever is that?" said Nelly.
"New man," replied one of the chorus gentlemen. "Came this morning."
Nelly turned to Jill.
"He looks just like Mr Rooke!" she exclaimed.
"He _is_ Mr Rooke!" said Jill.
"He can"t be!"
"He _is_!"
"But what is he doing here?"
Jill bit her lip.
"That"s just what I"m going to ask him myself," she said.
2.
The opportunity for a private conversation with Freddie did not occur immediately. For ten minutes he remained alone on the stage, absorbing abusive tuition from Mr Miller: and at the end of that period a further ten minutes was occupied with the rehearsing of the number with the leading lady and the rest of the male chorus. When, finally, a roar from the back of the auditorium announced the arrival of Mr Goble and at the same time indicated Mr Goble"s desire that the stage should be cleared and the rehearsal proper begin, a wan smile of recognition and a faint "What ho!" was all that Freddie was able to bestow upon Jill, before, with the rest of the _ensemble_, they had to go out and group themselves for the opening chorus. It was only when this had been run through four times and the stage left vacant for two of the princ.i.p.als to play a scene that Jill was able to draw the Last of the Rookes aside in a dark corner and put him to the question.
"Freddie, what are you doing here?"
Freddie mopped his streaming brow. Johnson Miller"s idea of an opening chorus was always strenuous. On the present occasion, the ensemble were supposed to be guests at a Long Island house-party, and Mr Miller"s conception of the gathering suggested that he supposed house-party guests on Long Island to consist exclusively of victims of St Vitus" dance. Freddie was feeling limp, battered, and exhausted: and, from what he had gathered, the worst was yet to come.
"Eh?" he said feebly.
"What are you doing here?"
"Oh, ah, yes! I see what you mean! I suppose you"re surprised to find me in New York, what?"
"I"m not surprised to find you in New York. I knew you had come over.
But I am surprised to find you on the stage, being bullied by Mr Miller."
"I say," said Freddie in an awed voice. "He"s a bit of a nut, that lad, what! He reminds me of the troops of Midian in the hymn. The chappies who prowled and prowled around. I"ll bet he"s worn a groove in the carpet. Like a jolly old tiger at the Zoo at feeding time.
Wouldn"t be surprised at any moment to look down and find him biting a piece out of my leg!"
Jill seized his arm and shook it.
"Don"t _ramble_, Freddie! Tell me how you got here."
"Oh, that was pretty simple. I had a letter of introduction to this chappie Pilkington who"s running this show, and, we having got tolerably pally in the last few days, I went to him and asked him to let me join the merry throng. I said I didn"t want any money and the little bit of work I would do wouldn"t make any difference, so he said "Right ho!" or words to that effect, and here I am."
"But why? You can"t be doing this for fun, surely?"
"Fun!" A pained expression came into Freddie"s face. "My idea of fun isn"t anything in which jolly old Miller, the bird with the snowy hair, is permitted to mix. Something tells me that that lad is going to make it his life-work picking on me. No, I didn"t do this for fun.
I had a talk with Wally Mason the night before last, and he seemed to think that being in the chorus wasn"t the sort of thing you ought to be doing, so I thought it over and decided that I ought to join the troupe too. Then I could always be on the spot, don"t you know, if there was any trouble. I mean to say, I"m not much of a chap and all that sort of thing, but still I might come in handy one of these times. Keep a fatherly eye on you, don"t you know, and what not!"
Jill was touched.
"You"re a dear, Freddie!"
"I thought, don"t you know, it would make poor old Derek a bit easier in his mind."
Jill froze.
"I don"t want to talk about Derek, Freddie, please."
"Oh, I know what you must be feeling. Pretty sick, I"ll bet, what?
But if you could see him now ..."
"I don"t want to talk about him!"
"He"s pretty cut up, you know. Regrets bitterly and all that sort of thing. He wants you to come back again."
"I see! He sent you to fetch me?"
"That was more or less the idea."
"It"s a shame that you had all the trouble. You can get messenger-boys to go anywhere and do anything nowadays. Derek ought to have thought of that."
Freddie looked at her doubtfully.
"You"re spoofing, aren"t you? I mean to say, you wouldn"t have liked that!"
"I shouldn"t have disliked it any more than his sending you."