Sally's anxiety with regard to her ebullient brother was not lessened bythe receipt shortly afterwards of a telegram from Miss Winch in Chicago.
Have you been feeding Fillmore meat?
the telegram ran: and, while Sally could not have claimed that shecompletely understood it, there was a sinister suggestion aboutthe message which decided her to wait no longer before makinginvestigations. She tore herself away from the joys of furnishing andwent round to the headquarters of the Fillmore Nicholas TheatricalEnterprises Ltd. (Managing Director, Fillmore Nicholas) without delay.
Ginger, she discovered on arrival, was absent from his customary post,his place in the outer office being taken by a lad of tender years andpimply exterior, who thawed and cast off a proud reserve on hearingSally's name, and told her to walk right in. Sally walked right in, andfound Fillmore with his feet on an untidy desk, studying what appearedto be costume-designs.
"Ah, Sally!" he said in the distrait, tired voice which speaks of vastpreoccupations. Prosperity was still putting in its silent, deadly workon the Hope of the American Theatre. What, even at as late an epoch asthe return from Detroit, had been merely a smooth fullness around theangle of the jaw was now frankly and without disguise a double chin. Hewas wearing a new waistcoat and it was unbuttoned. "I am rather busy,"he went on. "Always glad to see you, but I am rather busy. I have ahundred things to attend to."
"Well, attend to me. That'll only make a hundred and one. Fill, what'sall this I hear about a revue?"
Fillmore looked as like a small boy caught in the act of stealing jamas it is possible for a great theatrical manager to look. He had beenwondering in his darker moments what Sally would say about that projectwhen she heard of it, and he had hoped that she would not hear of ituntil all the preparations were so complete that interference would beimpossible. He was extremely fond of Sally, but there was, he knew,a lamentable vein of caution in her make-up which might lead her tocriticize. And how can your man of affairs carry on if women are buzzinground criticizing all the time? He picked up a pen and put it down;buttoned his waistcoat and unbuttoned it; and scratched his ear with oneof the costume-designs.
"Oh yes, the revue!"
"It's no good saying 'Oh yes'! You know perfectly well it's a crazyidea."
"Really... these business matters... this interference..."
"I don't want to run your affairs for you, Fill, but that money of minedoes make me a sort of partner, I suppose, and I think I have a right toraise a loud yell of agony when I see you risking it on a..."
"Pardon me," said Fillmore loftily, looking happier. "Let me explain.Women never understand business matters. Your money is tied upexclusively in 'The Primrose Way,' which, as you know, is a tremendoussuccess. You have nothing whatever to worry about as regards any newproduction I may make."
"I'm not worrying about the money. I'm worrying about you."
A tolerant smile played about the lower slopes of Fillmore's face.
"Don't be alarmed about me. I'm all right."
"You aren't all right. You've no business, when you've only just gotstarted as a manager, to be rushing into an enormous production likethis. You can't afford it."
"My dear child, as I said before, women cannot understand these things.A man in my position can always command money for a new venture."
"Do you mean to say you have found somebody silly enough to put upmoney?"
"Certainly. I don't know that there is any secret about it. Yourfriend, Mr. Carmyle, has taken an interest in some of my forthcomingproductions."
"What!" Sally had been disturbed before, but she was aghast now.
This was something she had never anticipated. Bruce Carmyle seemed to becreeping into her life like an advancing tide. There appeared to be noeluding him. Wherever she turned, there he was, and she could do nothingbut rage impotently. The situation was becoming impossible.
Fillmore misinterpreted the note of dismay in her voice.
"It's quite all right," he assured her. "He's a very rich man. Largeprivate means, besides his big income. Even if anything goes wrong..."
"It isn't that. It's..."
The hopelessness of explaining to Fillmore stopped Sally. And while shewas chafing at this new complication which had come to upset the orderlyroutine of her life there was an outburst of voices in the other office.Ginger's understudy seemed to be endeavouring to convince somebody thatthe Big Chief was engaged and not to be intruded upon. In this he wasunsuccessful, for the door opened tempestuously and Miss Winch sailedin.
"Fillmore, you poor nut," said Miss Winch, for though she might wrap upher meaning somewhat obscurely in her telegraphic communications, whenit came to the spoken word she was directness itself, "stop pickingstraws in your hair and listen to me. You're dippy!"
The last time Sally had seen Fillmore's fiancee, she had been impressedby her imperturbable calm. Miss Winch, in Detroit, had seemed a girlwhom nothing could ruffle. That she had lapsed now from this sereneplacidity, struck Sally as ominous. Slightly though she knew her, shefelt that it could be no ordinary happening that had so animated hersister-in-law-to-be.
"Ah! Here you are!" said Fillmore. He had started to his feetindignantly at the opening of the door, like a lion bearded in its den,but calm had returned when he saw who the intruder was.
"Yes, here I am!" Miss Winch dropped despairingly into a swivel-chair,and endeavoured to restore herself with a stick of chewing-gum."Fillmore, darling, you're the sweetest thing on earth, and I love you,but on present form you could just walk straight into Bloomingdale andthey'd give you the royal suite."
"My dear girl..."
"What do you think?" demanded Miss Winch, turning to Sally.
"I've just been telling him," said Sally, welcoming this ally, "Ithink it's absurd at this stage of things for him to put on an enormousrevue..."
"Revue?" Miss Winch stopped in the act of gnawing her gum. "What revue?"She flung up her arms. "I shall have to swallow this gum," she said."You can't chew with your head going round. Are you putting on a revuetoo?"
Fillmore was buttoning and unbuttoning his waistcoat. He had a houndedlook.
"Certainly, certainly," he replied in a tone of some feverishness. "Iwish you girls would leave me to manage..."
"Dippy!" said Miss Winch once more. "Telegraphic address: Tea-Pot,Matteawan." She swivelled round to Sally again. "Say, listen! This boymust be stopped. We must form a gang in his best interests and gethim put away. What do you think he proposes doing? I'll give you threeguesses. Oh, what's the use? You'd never hit it. This poor wandering ladhas got it all fixed up to star me--me--in a new show!"
Fillmore removed a hand from his waistcoat buttons and waved itprotestingly.
"I have used my own judgment..."
"Yes, sir!" proceeded Miss Winch, riding over the interruption. "That'swhat he's planning to spring on an unsuspicious public. I'm sittingpeacefully in my room at the hotel in Chicago, pronging a few cents'worth of scrambled eggs and reading the morning paper, when thetelephone rings. Gentleman below would like to see me. Oh, ask him towait. Business of flinging on a few clothes. Down in elevator. Brightsunrise effects in lobby."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"The gentleman had a head of red hair which had to be seen to bebelieved," explained Miss Winch. "Lit up the lobby. Management hadswitched off all the electrics for sake of economy. An Englishman hewas. Nice fellow. Named Kemp."
"Oh, is Ginger in Chicago?" said Sally. "I wondered why he wasn't on hislittle chair in the outer office.
"I sent Kemp to Chicago," said Fillmore, "to have a look at the show. Itis my policy, if I am unable to pay periodical visits myself, to send arepresentative..."
"Save it up for the long winter evenings," advised Miss Winch, cuttingin on this statement of managerial tactics. "Mr. Kemp may have beenthere to look at the show, but his chief reason for coming was to tellme to beat it back to New York to enter into my kingdom. Fillmore wantedme on the spot, he told me, so that I could sit
around in this officehere, interviewing my supporting company. Me! Can you or can you not,"inquired Miss Winch frankly, "tie it?"
"Well..." Sally hesitated.
"Don't say it! I know it just as well as you do. It's too sad forwords."
"You persist in underestimating your abilities, Gladys," said Fillmorereproachfully. "I have had a certain amount of experience in theatricalmatters--I have seen a good deal of acting--and I assure you that as acharacter-actress you..."
Miss Winch rose swiftly from her seat, kissed Fillmore energetically,and sat down again. She produced another stick of chewing-gum, thenshook her head and replaced it in her bag.
"You're a darling old thing to talk like that," she said, "and I hate towake you out of your daydreams, but, honestly, Fillmore, dear, do juststep out of the padded cell for one moment and listen to reason. I knowexactly what has been passing in your poor disordered bean. You tookElsa Doland out of a minor part and made her a star overnight. She goesto Chicago, and the critics and everybody else rave about her. As amatter of fact," she said to Sally with enthusiasm, for hers was anhonest and generous nature, "you can't realize, not having seen herplay there, what an amazing hit she has made. She really is a sensation.Everybody says she's going to be the biggest thing on record. Verywell, then, what does Fillmore do? The poor fish claps his hand to hisforehead and cries 'Gadzooks! An idea! I've done it before, I'll do itagain. I'm the fellow who can make a star out of anything.' And he pickson me!"
"My dear girl..."
"Now, the flaw in the scheme is this. Elsa is a genius, and if he hadn'tmade her a star somebody else would have done. But little Gladys? That'ssomething else again." She turned to Sally. "You've seen me in action,and let me tell you you've seen me at my best. Give me a maid's part,with a tray to carry on in act one and a couple of 'Yes, madam's' in acttwo, and I'm there! Ellen Terry hasn't anything on me when it comes tosaying 'Yes, madam,' and I'm willing to back myself for gold, notes,or lima beans against Sarah Bernhardt as a tray-carrier. But there Ifinish. That lets me out. And anybody who thinks otherwise is going tolose a lot of money. Between ourselves the only thing I can do reallywell is to cook..."
"My dear Gladys!" cried Fillmore revolted.
"I'm a heaven-born cook, and I don't mind notifying the world to thateffect. I can cook a chicken casserole so that you would leave home andmother for it. Also my English pork-pies! One of these days I'll takean afternoon off and assemble one for you. You'd be surprised! Butacting--no. I can't do it, and I don't want to do it. I only went on thestage for fun, and my idea of fun isn't to plough through a star partwith all the critics waving their axes in the front row, and me knowingall the time that it's taking money out of Fillmore's bankroll thatought to be going towards buying the little home with stationarywash-tubs... Well, that's that, Fillmore, old darling. I thought I'djust mention it."
Sally could not help being sorry for Fillmore. He was sitting with hischin on his hands, staring moodily before him--Napoleon at Elba. It wasplain that this project of taking Miss Winch by the scruff of the neckand hurling her to the heights had been very near his heart.
"If that's how you feel," he said in a stricken voice, "there is nothingmore to say."
"Oh, yes there is. We will now talk about this revue of yours. It'soff!"
Fillmore bounded to his feet; he thumped the desk with a well-nourishedfist. A man can stand just so much.
"It is not off! Great heavens! It's too much! I will not put up withthis interference with my business concerns. I will not be tied andhampered. Here am I, a man of broad vision and... and... broad vision...I form my plans... my plans... I form them... I shape my schemes... andwhat happens? A horde of girls flock into my private office while Iam endeavouring to concentrate... and concentrate... I won't stand it.Advice, yes. Interference, no. I... I... I... and kindly remember that!"
The door closed with a bang. A fainter detonation announced thewhirlwind passage through the outer office. Footsteps died away down thecorridor.
Sally looked at Miss Winch, stunned. A roused and militant Fillmore wasnew to her.
Miss Winch took out the stick of chewing-gum again and unwrapped it.
"Isn't he cute!" she said. "I hope he doesn't get the soft kind," shemurmured, chewing reflectively.
"The soft kind."
"He'll be back soon with a box of candy," explained Miss Winch, "and hewill get that sloshy, creamy sort, though I keep telling him I like theother. Well, one thing's certain. Fillmore's got it up his nose. He'sbeginning to hop about and sing in the sunlight. It's going to be hardwork to get that boy down to earth again." Miss Winch heaved a gentlesigh. "I should like him to have enough left in the old stocking topay the first year's rent when the wedding bells ring out." She bitmeditatively on her chewing-gum. "Not," she said, "that it matters. I'dbe just as happy in two rooms and a kitchenette, so long as Fillmorewas there. You've no notion how dippy I am about him." Her freckled faceglowed. "He grows on me like a darned drug. And the funny thing is thatI keep right on admiring him though I can see all the while that he'sthe most perfect chump. He is a chump, you know. That's what I loveabout him. That and the way his ears wiggle when he gets excited. Chumpsalways make the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump.Tap his forehead first, and if it rings solid, don't hesitate. All theunhappy marriages come from the husband having brains. What good arebrains to a man? They only unsettle him." She broke off and scrutinizedSally closely. "Say, what do you do with your skin?"
She spoke with solemn earnestness which made Sally laugh.
"What do I do with my skin? I just carry it around with me."
"Well," said Miss Winch enviously, "I wish I could train my darned foolof a complexion to get that way. Freckles are the devil. When I waseight I had the finest collection in the Middle West, and I've beenadding to it right along. Some folks say lemon-juice'll cure 'em. Minelap up all I give 'em and ask for more. There's only one way of gettingrid of freckles, and that is to saw the head off at the neck."
"But why do you want to get rid of them?"
"Why? Because a sensitive girl, anxious to retain her future husband'slove, doesn't enjoy going about looking like something out of a dimemuseum."
"How absurd! Fillmore worships freckles."
"Did he tell you so?" asked Miss Winch eagerly.
"Not in so many words, but you can see it in his eye."
"Well, he certainly asked me to marry him, knowing all about them, Iwill say that. And, what's more, I don't think feminine lovelinessmeans much to Fillmore, or he'd never have picked on me. Still, it iscalculated to give a girl a jar, you must admit, when she picks up amagazine and reads an advertisement of a face-cream beginning, 'Yourhusband is growing cold to you. Can you blame him? Have you really triedto cure those unsightly blemishes?'--meaning what I've got. Still, Ihaven't noticed Fillmore growing cold to me, so maybe it's all right."
It was a subdued Sally who received Ginger when he called at herapartment a few days later on his return from Chicago. It seemed to her,thinking over the recent scene, that matters were even worse thanshe had feared. This absurd revue, which she had looked on as a mereisolated outbreak of foolishness, was, it would appear, only a specimenof the sort of thing her misguided brother proposed to do, a sampleselected at random from a wholesale lot of frantic schemes. Fillmore,there was no longer any room for doubt, was preparing to expresshis great soul on a vast scale. And she could not dissuade him. Ahumiliating thought. She had grown so accustomed through the years tobeing the dominating mind that this revolt from her authority made herfeel helpless and inadequate. Her self-confidence was shaken.
And Bruce Carmyle was financing him... It was illogical, but Sally couldnot help feeling that when--she had not the optimism to say "if"--helost his money, she would somehow be under an obligation to him, asif the disaster had been her fault. She disliked, with a whole-heartedintensity, the thought of being under an obligation to Mr. Carmyle.
Ginger said he had looked in to inspect th
e furniture on the chance thatSally might want it shifted again: but Sally had no criticisms to makeon that subject. Weightier matters occupied her mind. She sat Gingerdown in the armchair and started to pour out her troubles. It soothedher to talk to him. In a world which had somehow become chaotic againafter an all too brief period of peace, he was solid and consoling.
"I shouldn't worry," observed Ginger with Winch-like calm, when she hadfinished drawing for him the picture of a Fillmore rampant against abackground of expensive revues. Sally nearly shook him.
"It's all very well to tell me not to worry," she cried. "How can I helpworrying? Fillmore's simply a baby, and he's just playing the fool. Hehas lost his head completely. And I can't stop him! That is the awfulpart of it. I used to be able to look him in the eye, and he wouldwag his tail and crawl back into his basket, but now I seem to have noinfluence at all over him. He just snorts and goes on running round incircles, breathing fire."
Ginger did not abandon his attempts to indicate the silver lining.
"I think you are making too much of all this, you know. I mean to say,it's quite likely he's found some mug... what I mean is, it's justpossible that your brother isn't standing the entire racket himself.Perhaps some rich Johnnie has breezed along with a pot of money. Itoften happens like that, you know. You read in the paper that somemanager or other is putting on some show or other, when really the chapwho's actually supplying the pieces of eight is some anonymous lad inthe background."
"That is just what has happened, and it makes it worse than ever.Fillmore tells me that your cousin, Mr. Carmyle, is providing themoney."
This did interest Ginger. He sat up with a jerk.
"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed.
"Yes," said Sally, still agitated but pleased that she had at lastshaken him out of his trying attitude of detachment.
Ginger was scowling.
"That's a bit off," he observed.
"I think so, too."
"I don't like that."
"Nor do I."
"Do you know what I think?" said Ginger, ever a man of plain speech anda reckless plunger into delicate subjects. "The blighter's in love withyou."
Sally flushed. After examining the evidence before her, she had reachedthe same conclusion in the privacy of her thoughts, but it embarrassedher to hear the thing put into bald words.
"I know Bruce," continued Ginger, "and, believe me, he isn't the sort ofcove to take any kind of flutter without a jolly good motive. Of course,he's got tons of money. His old guvnor was the Carmyle of Carmyle, Brent& Co.--coal mines up in Wales, and all that sort of thing--and I supposehe must have left Bruce something like half a million. No need for thefellow to have worked at all, if he hadn't wanted to. As far as havingthe stuff goes, he's in a position to back all the shows he wants to.But the point is, it's right out of his line. He doesn't do that sortof thing. Not a drop of sporting blood in the chap. Why I've known himstick the whole family on to me just because it got noised about thatI'd dropped a couple of quid on the Grand National. If he's reallybrought himself to the point of shelling out on a risky proposition likea show, it means something, take my word for it. And I don't see whatelse it can mean except... well, I mean to say, is it likely that he'sdoing it simply to make your brother look on him as a good egg and apal, and all that sort of thing?"
"No, it's not," agreed Sally. "But don't let's talk about it any more.Tell me all about your trip to Chicago."
"All right. But, returning to this binge for a moment, I don't seehow it matters to you one way or the other. You're engaged to anotherfellow, and when Bruce rolls up and says: 'What about it?' you've simplyto tell him that the shot isn't on the board and will he kindly meltaway. Then you hand him his hat and out he goes."
Sally gave a troubled laugh.
"You think that's simple, do you? I suppose you imagine that a girlenjoys that sort of thing? Oh, what's the use of talking about it? It'shorrible, and no amount of arguing will make it anything else. Do let'schange the subject. How did you like Chicago?"
"Oh, all right. Rather a grubby sort of place."
"So I've always heard. But you ought not to mind that, being aLondoner."
"Oh, I didn't mind it. As a matter of fact, I had rather a good time.Saw one or two shows, you know. Got in on my face as your brother'srepresentative, which was all to the good. By the way, it's rummy howyou run into people when you move about, isn't it?"
"You talk as if you had been dashing about the streets with your eyesshut. Did you meet somebody you knew?"
"Chap I hadn't seen for years. Was at school with him, as a matter offact. Fellow named Foster. But I expect you know him, too, don't you? Byname, at any rate. He wrote your brother's show."
Sally's heart jumped.
"Oh! Did you meet Gerald--Foster?"
"Ran into him one night at the theatre."
"And you were really at school with him?"
"Yes. He was in the footer team with me my last year."
"Was he a scrum-half, too?" asked Sally, dimpling.
Ginger looked shocked.
"You don't have two scrum-halves in a team," he said, pained at thisignorance on a vital matter. "The scrum-half is the half who works thescrum and..."
"Yes, you told me that at Roville. What was Gerald--Mr. Foster then? Asix and seven-eighths, or something?"
"He was a wing-three," said Ginger with a gravity befitting his theme."Rather fast, with a fairly decent swerve. But he would not learn togive the reverse pass inside to the centre."
"Ghastly!" said Sally.
"If," said Ginger earnestly, "a wing's bottled up by his wing and theback, the only thing he can do, if he doesn't want to be bundled intotouch, is to give the reverse pass."
"I know," said Sally. "If I've thought that once, I've thought it ahundred times. How nice it must have been for you meeting again. Isuppose you had all sorts of things to talk about?"
Ginger shook his head.
"Not such a frightful lot. We were never very thick. You see, this chapFoster was by way of being a bit of a worm."
"What!"
"A tick," explained Ginger. "A rotter. He was pretty generally barred atschool. Personally, I never had any use for him at all."
Sally stiffened. She had liked Ginger up to that moment, and later on,no doubt, she would resume her liking for him: but in the immediatemoment which followed these words she found herself regarding him withstormy hostility. How dare he sit there saying things like that aboutGerald?
Ginger, who was lighting a cigarette without a care in the world,proceeded to develop his theme.
"It's a rummy thing about school. Generally, if a fellow's good atgames--in the cricket team or the footer team and so forth--hecan hardly help being fairly popular. But this blighter Fostersomehow--nobody seemed very keen on him. Of course, he had a few of hisown pals, but most of the chaps rather gave him a miss. It may have beenbecause he was a bit sidey... had rather an edge on him, you know...Personally, the reason I barred him was because he wasn't straight.You didn't notice it if you weren't thrown a goodish bit with him, ofcourse, but he and I were in the same house, and..."
Sally managed to control her voice, though it shook a little.
"I ought to tell you," she said, and her tone would have warned him hadhe been less occupied, "that Mr. Foster is a great friend of mine."
But Ginger was intent on the lighting of his cigarette, a delicateoperation with the breeze blowing in through the open window. His headwas bent, and he had formed his hands into a protective framework whichhalf hid his face.
"If you take my tip," he mumbled, "you'll drop him. He's a wrong 'un."
He spoke with the absent-minded drawl of preoccupation, and Sally couldkeep the conflagration under no longer. She was aflame from head tofoot.
"It may interest you to know," she said, shooting the words out likebullets from between clenched teeth, "that Gerald Foster is the man I amengaged to marry."
Ginger's head came slowly up from his cuppe
d hands. Amazement was in hiseyes, and a sort of horror. The cigarette hung limply from his mouth. Hedid not speak, but sat looking at her, dazed. Then the match burnt hisfingers, and he dropped it with a start. The sharp sting of it seemed towake him. He blinked.
"You're joking," he said, feebly. There was a note of wistfulness in hisvoice. "It isn't true?"
Sally kicked the leg of her chair irritably. She read insolentdisapproval into the words. He was daring to criticize...
"Of course it's true..."
"But..." A look of hopeless misery came into Ginger's pleasant face. Hehesitated. Then, with the air of a man bracing himself to a dreadful,but unavoidable, ordeal, he went on. He spoke gruffly, and his eyes,which had been fixed on Sally's, wandered down to the match on thecarpet. It was still glowing, and mechanically he put a foot on it.
"Foster's married," he said shortly. "He was married the day before Ileft Chicago."
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