THE RELENTLESS CITY. E. F. Benson
details of a protracted tour through the principal cities of the States. True son of his country, he realized that to pause spelled to be left behind.
As his manner was, Bilton did not sit down, but kept walking about, as if not to be caught idle either in mind or body. As in many of his countrymen, the habit of perpetually being ready and eager to snap up an opportunity had become a second nature to him, so that it was far more an effort to him to rest than to work. Working was as natural to him as breathing; to cease to work required the same sort of effort as to hold the breath. To him in his profession as impresario any movement, any glimpse at a room or a picture, could perhaps suggest what in the fertile alchemy of his mind might be transformed into a 'tip,' and he looked with special attention at two Watteau prints which hung on the walls; for in the second piece which Mrs. Emsworth was to produce under his direction a certain scene was laid in the gardens at Versailles, and the note of artificial naturalness had to be struck in the scenery as Watteau and no one else had struck it. Big trees cut formally and square in their lower branches, but with the topmost boughs left unpollarded; fountain in the centre, quite so, and a glimpse, just a glimpse, of the terrace of the palace with the two bronze fountains beneath the trees.
He stood a moment before the fireplace with eyes half closed, conjuring up the scene, and in particular seeing it with his mind's eye as a setting to that incomparable woman in whom, professionally, at this juncture, he was so deeply interested, to whom he was so managerially devoted, but of whom in other respects he was so profoundly weary. For a year he had been wildly in love with her, for another year he had slowly cooled towards her, and now it required all his steadiness of head and incessantly watchful will not to betray his tedium. Also in years he was now, though still only half way through the thirties, old enough in mind to wish to settle down. His capabilities for passionate attachments were a little cooling, and, with a cynical amusement at himself, he was beginning to realize that married domesticity, even as morals taught, was, though for other reasons, the placid river-bed into which the babbling mountain-streams of youth must eventually empty themselves. Rather bathos, perhaps, but he realized fully that everyone gets in life what they themselves bring to it. The only limitations imposed on a man are those which his own nature makes.
But these unedifying moralities did not occupy him long. They were the background to his thoughts, just as the terrace of Versailles was the background for the picture he was forming. In the foreground of the picture stood Mrs. Emsworth; on the terrace stood another figure, Sybil Massington.
He had let his cigar go out as he revolved these things in front of the two Watteau pictures, and then rose to drop it in the fireplace. A letter in an envelope torn once in half lay there, and he stooped and picked it up, laid the two pieces side by side on the table, and read it through. Then he put the pieces in his pocket, and, with that praiseworthy attention to detail which throughout his life had contributed so largely to his success, he took from the table a sheet of paper, folded it inside an envelope, tore it in half, and replaced the pieces in the grate where he had found the others. The whole thing was quickly and naturally done; it was merely one among a thousand million other cases in which his mind was ready to take advantage of any possible opportunity that Fate might cast in his way. The torn letter might conceivably at some future date be useful to him. Therefore he kept it. It is no use to guard against certainties—such was his gospel—for certainties in this life are so few as to be practically negligible. But he who guarded against contingencies and provided for possibilities was the winner in the long-run.
This done, he dismissed the matter from his mind, and, in order not to let the moments pass without seed, sketched out in some detail the plan of the stage as suggested by the two Watteau prints. He was deep in this when Mrs. Emsworth entered. The 'shiffong' suited her admirably.
'You have been waiting,' she said; 'I am sorry for keeping you. Oh, Harold, they love me over here; they just love me!'
His part was at his finger-tips.
'That doesn't seem to me in the least remarkable,' he said. 'You are a success; no one can be more. I want to be allowed to commemorate it.' And he handed her the jewel-case.
He was no niggard when business was involved; his business now was to keep her in a good temper, and the opal and diamond brooch he had chosen at Tiffany's was really admirable. Even Mrs. Palmer might have found it brought consolation to a wounded spirit.
'That is dear of you, Harold,' she said; 'I adore opals. Is it really for me? Thank you ever so much. It goes on now. Is it rather big for the morning? I think it is. A reason the more for wearing it.'
She pinned it into her dress, and sat down.
'Well?' she said.
'I came really to congratulate you,' said he; 'but as I am here, I suppose we may as well talk over some business that must be talked over. About your tour: are you willing to stop over here till April at least?'
'Yes; I don't see why not. I want to appear in London early in May.'
'Very well. I will draft an agreement, and send it you. Now, you may consider that with your extraordinary success of last night the theatre will be full for some weeks ahead. I propose your giving an evening performance on Saturdays as well as the matinee.'
'Terms?'
'Royalty. Twenty per cent, on total takings. It is worth your while.'
'Is it not more worth my while to be seen from Saturday till Monday at Mrs. Palmer's?'
'It would be if the theatre was not full. But you could fill it—for the present, anyhow—if you had a matinee every day. Besides, you can get down to Long Island with the utmost ease on Sunday morning.'
'I go to Mass on Sunday morning; you forget that!'
He smiled.
'I suggest, then, that you should omit that ceremony, if you want to go to Mrs. Palmer's. However, there is no hurry. Weigh the three things in your mind—eighty or ninety pounds by acting on Saturday evening, or Mass on Sunday morning, or Mrs. Palmer's on Sunday morning. There is another thing: I want to talk over the scenes in "Paris" with you. I am going to Mrs. Palmer's the Sunday after next. I will bring the models down with me, if you will promise to give me an hour. 'They will not be ready till then.'
'Yes. I am going there next Sunday and the Sunday after. They have a theatre there; she wants me to do something in the evening.'
Bilton thought a moment.
'What do I get?' he asked.
'The pleasure of seeing me act, silly.'
He shook his head.
'I'm afraid I must forget that pleasure,' he said. 'Your contract binds you to give no theatrical representations of any sort except under my direction.'
The gamin element rose to the surface in her.
'What a beast you are!' she said. 'It is for a charity!'
'And a cheque,' he observed.
'The cheque is purely informal. Besides, we shall be there together.'
He took a cigar out of his case, bit the end off with his long teeth, that gleamed extremely white between the very remarkable red of his lips.
'Look here, Dolly,' he said; 'there are two sides to the relations in which we are placed. One is purely businesslike; the other is purely sentimental. It is a pity to let them overlap. It spoils my devotion to you to feel that it is in a way mixed up with business, and it offends my instincts as a business man to let sentiment have a word to say in our bargains. Briefly, then, I forbid your acting for Mrs. Palmer unless you make it worth my while. After all, I didn't bring you out here for sentimental reasons; I brought you out because, from a financial point of view, I thought it would be good for both of us.'
'What do you want?' she asked.
'Half your cheque.'
'For something you haven't arranged, and which won't cost you a penny?'
'Yes. I am talking business. You can close with that offer any time to-day; to-morrow it will be two-thirds. I'm quite square