But whether he meant the _marrons glacés_ or the first visit of his beloved elders to the glorious flat cannot be decided.
Certain it is, however, that deep in the minds of both the spouses was the idea that the new life, the new heaven on the new earth, had now fairly begun.
'Yes,' said Henry with judicial calm, after he had read Mr. Doxey's stage version of _Love in Babylon_, 'it makes a nice little piece.'
'I'm glad you like it, old chap,' said Doxey. 'I thought you would.'
They were in Henry's study, seated almost side by side at Henry's great American roll-top desk.
'You've got it a bit hard in places,' Henry pursued. 'But I'll soon put that right.'
'Can you do it to-day?' asked the adapter.
'Because I know old Johnny Pilgrim wants to shove a new curtain-raiser into the bill at once. If I could take him this to-morrow----'
'I'll post it to you to-night,' said Henry. 'But I shall want to see Mr. Pilgrim myself before anything is definitely arranged.'
'Oh, of course,' Mr. Doxey agreed. 'Of course. I'll tell him.'
Henry softened the rigour of his collaborator's pen in something like half an hour. The perusal of this trifling essay in the dramatic form (it certainly did not exceed four thousand words, and could be played in twenty-five minutes) filled his mind with a fresh set of ideas. He suspected that he could write for the stage rather better than Mr. Doxey, and he saw, with the eye of faith, new plumes waving in his cap. He was aware, because he had read it in the papers, that the English drama needed immediate assistance, and he determined to render that assistance. The first instalment of _The Plague-Spot_ had just come out in the July number of _Macalistair's Magazine_, and the extraordinary warmth of its reception had done nothing to impair Henry's belief in his gift for pleasing the public. Hence he stretched out a hand to the West End stage with a magnanimous gesture of rescuing the fallen.
And yet, curiously enough, when he entered the stage-door of Prince's Theatre one afternoon, to see John Pilgrim, he was as meek as if the world had never heard of him.
He informed the doorkeeper that he had an appointment with Mr. Pilgrim, whereupon the doorkeeper looked him over, took a pull at a glass of rum-and-milk, and said he would presently inquire whether Mr. Pilgrim could see anyone. The passage from the portals of the theatre to Mr. Pilgrim's private room occupied exactly a quarter of an hour.