The Adventures of Sally

Gerald accepted the invitation. He spoke at considerable length, though with little variety. It appeared definitely established in his mind that Providence had invented Spanish influenza purely with a view to wrecking his future. But now he seemed less aloof, more open to sympathy. The brief thunderstorm had cleared the air. Sally lost that sense of detachment and exclusion which had weighed upon her.

"Well," said Gerald, at length, looking at his watch, "I suppose I had better be off."

"Rehearsal?"

"Yes, confound it. It's the only way of getting through the day. Are you coming along?"

"I'll come directly I've unpacked and tidied myself up."

"See you at the theatre, then."

Sally went out and rang for the lift to take her up to her room.

2

The rehearsal had started when she reached the theatre. As she entered the dark auditorium, voices came to her with that thin and reedy effect which is produced by people talking in an empty building. She sat down at the back of the house, and, as her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, was able to see Gerald sitting in the front row beside a man with a bald head fringed with orange hair whom she took correctly to be Mr. Bunbury, the producer. Dotted about the house in ones and twos were members of the company whose presence was not required in the first act. On the stage, Elsa Doland, looking very attractive, was playing a scene with a man in a bowler hat. She was speaking a line, as Sally came in.

"Why, what do you mean, father?"

"Tiddly-omty-om," was the bowler-hatted one's surprising reply. "Tiddly-omty-om... long speech ending in 'find me in the library.' And exit," said the man in the bowler hat, starting to do so.

For the first time Sally became aware of the atmosphere of nerves. Mr. Bunbury, who seemed to be a man of temperament, picked up his walking-stick, which was leaning against the next seat, and flung it with some violence across the house.

"For God's sake!" said Mr. Bunbury.

"Now what?" inquired the bowler hat, interested, pausing hallway across the stage.

"Do speak the lines, Teddy," exclaimed Gerald. "Don't skip them in that sloppy fashion."

"You don't want me to go over the whole thing?" asked the bowler hat, amazed.

"Yes!"

"Not the whole damn thing?" queried the bowler hat, fighting with incredulity.

"This is a rehearsal," snapped Mr. Bunbury. "If we are not going to do it properly, what's the use of doing it at all?"

This seemed to strike the erring Teddy, if not as reasonable, at any rate as one way of looking at it. He delivered the speech in an injured tone and shuffled off. The atmosphere of tenseness was unmistakable now. Sally could feel it. The world of the theatre is simply a large nursery and its inhabitants children who readily become fretful if anything goes wrong. The waiting and the uncertainty, the loafing about in strange hotels in a strange city, the dreary rehearsing of lines which had been polished to the last syllable more than a week ago—these things had sapped the nerve of the Primrose Way company and demoralization had set in. It would require only a trifle to produce an explosion.

Elsa Doland now moved to the door, pressed a bell, and, taking a magazine from the table, sat down in a chair near the footlights. A moment later, in answer to the ring, a young woman entered, to be greeted instantly by an impassioned bellow from Mr. Bunbury.

"Miss Winch!"

The new arrival stopped and looked out over the footlights, not in the pained manner of the man in the bowler hat, but with the sort of genial indulgence of one who has come to a juvenile party to amuse the children. She was a square, wholesome, good-humoured looking girl with a serious face, the gravity of which was contradicted by the faint smile that seemed to lurk about the corner of her mouth. She was certainly not pretty, and Sally, watching her with keen interest, was surprised that Fillmore had had the sense to disregard surface homeliness and recognize her charm. Deep down in Fillmore, Sally decided, there must lurk an unsuspected vein of intelligence.

"Hello?" said Miss Winch, amiably.

Mr. Bunbury seemed profoundly moved.

"Miss Winch, did I or did I not ask you to refrain from chewing gum during rehearsal?"

"That's right, so you did," admitted Miss Winch, chummily.

"Then why are you doing it?"

Fillmore's fiancée revolved the criticized refreshment about her tongue for a moment before replying.

"Bit o' business," she announced, at length.

"What do you mean, a bit of business?"

"Character stuff," explained Miss Winch in her pleasant, drawling voice. "Thought it out myself. Maids chew gum, you know."

Mr. Bunbury ruffled his orange hair in an over-wrought manner with the palm of his right hand.

"Have you ever seen a maid?" he asked, despairingly.

"Yes, sir. And they chew gum."