Then all at once they appealed to the unhappy-looking man in the corner of the stalls. “Is Mr. Sherwood there? I say. Can’t you help us with a suggestion? Can’t you write in some lines here? You must have some opinion. Sherwood!”
And Emmie with a shock of surprise understood that he was the author.
They all turned against him in furious indignation. “Did you hear what he said? Mr. Leahurst, did you hear him? Here are we toiling for him--grinding our hearts out for him--and he says--Oh, great Scott, that puts the lid on everything.”
Mr. Leahurst went down to the orchestra, and said, “There’s no need for us to lose our tempers.”
“Certainly not,” said the producer, crimson with passionate wrath.
Miss Millbank, stepping forward, said she had never been asked to speak such tommy-rot. Stuff that she could not feel!
“My dear,” said Mr. Leahurst, mildly and forlornly, “you are doing your best. It’s not your fault if you don’t quite hit it off.”
This made Miss Millbank exceedingly angry. “What?” she said. “Don’t you like my reading?”
“So far as I have been able to ascertain,” said Mr. Leahurst, “it’s a Marian D’Arcy part. Well, you aren’t Marian, are you?”
The rehearsal went on again, and as Mr. Leahurst presently returned to his seat beside Emmie, she took the opportunity of telling him that, in the opinion of herself and Alwyn, the girl engaged for the lady’s-maid was even worse than Miss Millbank.
Mr. Leahurst blinked his eyelids and very slowly lit a cigarette.
This Miss Yates, the incompetent and affected lady’s-maid, came into the stalls after a little while and talked to him in a friendly chaffing manner. But he did not stay; he got up and went off to some sacred managerial room. The young lady flopped down in a row of stalls at a little distance from Emmie, and occupied herself with a tiny gold-framed mirror and a lip-stick. She had brought with her also a large cardboard hat-box. Holding the box on high, she called to a pallid young man.
“Bertie! Be a dear, and put this in Mr. Leahurst’s car will you? And ask some one to let me know as soon as he’s ready.”
Both Mildred and Alwyn had been as much amazed as rejoiced on observing Emmie’s success with Mr. Leahurst. When the rehearsal was over, each of them in turn thanked her and congratulated her; and Emmie, pleased with herself without being vainglorious, told Alwyn how she had plainly said that Miss Millbank was no good.