"Then you must let me come. Talking of plays--"
He stopped. He was on the edge of facetiously relating the episode of "The Orient Pearl" at Sir John Pilgrim's; but he withdrew in time. Suppose that "The Orient Pearl" was the piece to be performed by the Azure Society! It might well be. It was (in his opinion) just the sort of play that that sort of society would choose. Nevertheless he was as anxious as ever to see Elsie April act. He really thought that she could and would transfigure any play. Even his profound scorn of New Thought (a subject of which he was entirely ignorant) began to be modified--and by nothing but the enchantment of the tone in which Elsie April murmured the words, "Azure Society!"
"How soon is the performance?" he demanded.
"That's the very day of my corner-stone-laying," he said. "However, it doesn't matter. My little affair will be in the afternoon."
"But it can't be," said she solemnly. "It would interfere with us, and we should interfere with it. Our annual conference takes place in the afternoon. All London will be there."
"That's just it, Mr. Machin. It positively never occurred to me that the Azure Conference is to be on that very day. I never thought of it until nearly four o'clock. And then I scarcely knew how to explain it to you. I really don't know how it escaped me."
Mr. Marrier's trouble was now out, and he had declined in Edward Henry's esteem. Mr. Marrier was afraid of him. Mr. Marrier's list of personages was no longer a miracle of foresight; it was a mere coincidence. He doubted if Mr. Marrier was worth even his three pounds a week. Edward Henry began to feel ruthless, Napoleonic. He was capable of brushing away the whole Azure Society and New Thought movement into limbo.
"You must please alter your date," said Elsie April. And she put her right elbow on the table and leaned her chin on it, and thus somehow established a domestic intimacy for the three amid all the blare and notoriety of the vast tea-room.
"Oh, but I can't!" he said easily, familiarly. It was her occasional "artichoke" manner that had justified him in assuming this tone. "I can't!" he repeated. "I've told Sir John I can't possibly be ready any earlier, and on the day after he'll almost certainly be on his way to Marseilles. Besides, I don't _want_ to alter my date. My date is in the papers by this time."