The Education of Eric Lane. Stephen McKenna
me, Mrs. Shelley——"
"Eric, I wish you'd reconsider," she interrupted before he could repeat his refusal. "I feel you'll be doing her a kindness by coming; you amused her and turned her thoughts. … I was dreadfully distressed last night; she looked as if she were going into a decline. … "
In contrast to Mrs. Shelley's toneless voice Eric heard again Barbara's abrupt, startling cry, "You're hopeless, hopeless!"—just before she collapsed limply on the sofa and cried about something which she would not explain. …
"You make it impossible for me to refuse," he said with an uneasy laugh.
"I'm so grateful! I knew you'd come, Eric."
He threw back the bed-clothes and rang for his bath.
"I suppose Lady Barbara will think she knew I was coming, too," he said to himself. "I don't mind being made a fool of once. … "
At noon he tidied his papers and lighted a cigarette while he waited for a call from his agent. The "Divorce" was being produced in America; and for an arid, perplexing half-hour Mr. Grierson, with eyes half-closed in the grey smoke of his cigar, pushed cables, letters, copies and a draft agreement across the table.
"Stay and have some lunch," Eric suggested, as half-past twelve struck. "Manders is due any time now. He wants me to make certain alterations in the 'Bomb-Shell,' and you can keep me in countenance. I'm getting rather tired of being told: 'Of course, with great respect, Lane, you're a new-comer to the theatre. … ' New-comer I may be, but it doesn't lie in Manders' mouth to say so, if he'll trouble to calculate how many thousands I've put in his pocket. … Isn't this the sort of time when one has a cocktail?"
Grierson's eyes lighted up at the suggestion, and Eric rang for ice. He was in the middle of his preparations when Harry Manders entered in a suit of light tweeds, clutching a flat-brimmed bowler hat in one hand and a leather-topped cane in the other.
"'Mornin', Eric. Hullo, Phil! Sinister combination for a poor devil of an actor-manager—author and agent. What's this you're givin' me? Well, only up to the top—On my honour, boy, only up to the top!" He nodded over the brimming glass with a knowing "Well, chin-chin!" and subsided diagonally into a chair with his legs across one arm.
"I thought Grierson's age and experience might save my play from further amateur surgery," Eric explained.
"Tootaloo," chirped Manders resiliently and dragged a crumpled script from his pocket. Eric's obstinate assurance would have exasperated any other manager, but, as Manders wearily said, "I've been too long at the game to lose my temper."
With that they settled to work and argued their way through the marked passages of Manders' copy heatedly and without reaching conviction or agreement. Once Grierson rose and shook a second cocktail; twice a maid announced that luncheon was on the table. Something, which he attributed to his broken night, made Eric unreasonable to a point where he knew that he was being unreasonable. He was too tired for anything except sustained obstinacy, and his companions grated on him.
"Oh, let's have something to eat!" he exclaimed at length. "The second act's got to stand as I wrote it. We shan't do any good by talking. … "
"Now don't you be in a hurry, boy," began Manders. "Turn back to the beginning. … "
Eric looked at his watch.
"Don't forget we've a rehearsal," he said. "I don't know what there is for lunch, but it will be tepid."
"Then let's wait for it to get cold. Now, in the first act you said—Damn!"
He flapped the script impatiently on his knee as the now familiar knock of Eric's parlour-maid was heard yet again.
"Lady Barbara Neave to see you, sir," she whispered a little breathlessly.
"Will you please say that I can't possibly see any one?" Eric answered curtly. "Tell her that two gentlemen have come to see me on business. Ask her to leave a message."
He turned to find Manders smiling, as though to say, "Why didn't you tell us? We should have understood. We're men of the world."
"The first act," Eric repeated earnestly. "As you will, but do go ahead with it. I want some lunch."
For five seconds the three men turned the limp, dog's-eared pages until they had found the place. Manders cleared his throat unreservedly and then looked up with an expression of ebbing patience, as the door opened again. This time there was no knock, and Lady Barbara walked in after hesitating for a moment on the threshold to identify Eric. She was wearing a black dress with a transparent film of grey hanging from the shoulders, a black hat shaped like a butterfly's wings with her hair visible through the spider's web crown. One hand swung a sable stole, the other carried to and from her mouth a half-eaten apple.
"Eric, please invite me to lunch with you!" she begged. "You've such delicious food. I was shewn into your dining-room and I could hardly resist it. There's a dressed crab—I behaved perfectly, I didn't touch it—and, if all three of you had the weeniest little bit less, there'd be enough for us all. Hullo, there's Mr. Manders!"
She shook hands and waited for Eric to introduce Grierson.
"You're interrupting an important discussion, Lady Barbara."
"Is it about your new play? Oh, then I can help! But, if you knew how hungry I was——"
"They're expecting you to lunch at home," Eric interrupted. "You told me you had a party."
"But I've just telephoned to say that I've been invited to lunch here! I've burnt your boats. Father was perfectly furious, because mother's lunching with Connie Maitland, and he counted on me to see him through."
As she smiled at Eric with her head on one side, he realized that work was over for the morning.
"I daresay there will be enough for four," he answered.
"Then for goodness' sake let's begin before any one else turns up unexpectedly!" she cried, catching him by the sleeves and drawing him to the door.
Grierson and Manders smiled and followed them, carefully brushing cigar-ash from their clothes and smoothing the back of their hair.
2
Elation battled with annoyance in Eric's mind throughout luncheon. Barbara had sought him out, when a hundred other men—several of them, like George Oakleigh, undisguisedly in love with her—might have been preferred to him; but he was offended by her proprietory attitude towards his work and life. Manders would have the whole story, too, helped out with first-rate mimicry, running through the Thespian Club by dinner-time; it would spread in twenty-fours through all of the London that knew him and half of the London that knew her; and Eric Lane would be quoted as the latest foil or companion in the latest Barbara Neave story. One did not even want the girl to be made a peg for Manders' wit. …
The luncheon, Eric observed morosely, was cheaply successful, for Barbara talked with barely concealed desire to lay Grierson and Manders under her spell. By intuition or accident she gave them what tickled their interest most keenly—intimate stories about herself or her friends, the proved history of what to them had hitherto been but alluring gossip, anecdotes of Government House and the minor secrets and scandals of her father's three terms of office. Eric felt that it was a little below the dignity of a girl, who was after all the daughter of a distinguished former viceroy, to be discussing herself and her friends so freely. …
They had lost count of time when Grierson looked furtively at his watch and jumped apologetically to his feet. As he hurried out of the room Barbara again asked Eric whether he had a rehearsal that day.
"Because I want to come," she explained wheedlingly, with her head on one side.
Her eyes were dark