After all (he reflected), though domesticated, she was a woman.

He went to bed early. It seemed to him that his wife, his mother, and the nurse were active and whispering up and down the house till the very middle of the night. He arose not late, but they were all three afoot before him, active and whispering.

IX.

He found out on the morning after the highly complex transaction of getting his family from Bursley to London that London held more problems for him than ever. He was now not merely the proprietor of a theatre approaching completion, but really a theatrical manager with a play to produce, artistes to engage, and the public to attract. He had made two appointments for that morning at the Majestic (he was not at the Grand Babylon, because his wife had once stayed with him at the Majestic, and he did not want to add to his anxieties the business of accustoming her to a new and costlier luxury): one appointment at nine with Marrier, and the other at ten with Nellie, family, and Nurse. He had expected to get rid of Marrier before ten.

Among the exciting mail which Marrier had collected for him from the Grand Babylon and elsewhere was the following letter:

_Buckingham Palace Hotel._

DEAR FRIEND: We are all so proud of you. I should like some time to finish our interrupted conversation. Will you come and have lunch with me one day here at 1.30? You needn't write. I know how busy you are.

Just telephone you are coming. But don't telephone between 12 and 1, because at that time I _always_ take my const.i.tutional in St. James's Park.

Yours sincerely, E. A.

"Well," he thought. "That's a bit thick, that is! She's stuck me up with a dramatist I don't believe in, and a play I don't believe in, and an actress I don't believe in, and now she--"

Nevertheless, to a certain extent he was bluffing himself; for, as he pretended to put Elsie April back into her place, he had disturbing and delightful visions of her. A clever creature! Uncannily clever!

Wealthy! Under thirty! Broad-minded! No provincial prejudices! ... Her voice, that always affected his spine! Her delicious flattery! ... She was no mean actress either! And the multifariousness of her seductive charm! In fact, she was a regular woman of the world, such as you would read about--if you did read! ... He was sitting with her again in the obscurity of the discussion-room at the Azure Society's establishment.

His heart was beating again.

Pooh! ...

A single wrench, and he ripped up the letter and cast it into one of the red-lined waste-paper baskets with which the immense and rather shabby writing-room of the Majestic was dotted.

Before he had finished dealing with Mr. Marrier's queries and suggestions--some ten thousand in all--the clock struck, and Nellie tripped into the room. She was in black silk, with hints here and there of gold chains. As she had explained, she had nothing to wear, and was therefore obliged to fall back on the final resource of every woman in her state. For in this connection "nothing to wear" signified "nothing except my black silk"--at any rate, in the Five Towns.

"Mr. Marrier--my wife. Nellie, this is Mr. Marrier."

Mr. Marrier was profuse: no other word would describe his demeanour.

Nellie had the timidity of a young girl. Indeed, she looked quite youthful, despite the aging influences of black silk.

"So that's your Mr. Marrier! I understood from you he was a clerk!"

said Nellie tartly, suddenly retransformed into the shrewd matron as soon as Mr. Marrier had profusely gone. She had conceived Marrier as a sort of Penkethman. Edward Henry had hoped to avoid this interview.

He shrugged his shoulders in answer to his wife's remark.

"Well," he said, "where are the kids?"

"Waiting in the lounge with Nurse, as you said to be." Her mien delicately informed him that while in London his caprices would be her law, which she would obey without seeking to comprehend.

"Well," he went on, "I expect they'd like the parks as well as anything.

Suppose we take 'em and show 'em one of the parks? Shall we? Besides, they must have fresh air."

"All right," Nellie agreed. "But how far will it be?"

"Oh," said Edward Henry, "we'll crowd into a taxi!"

They crowded into a taxi, and the children found their father in high spirits. Maisie mentioned the doll. In a minute the taxi had stopped in front of a toy-shop surpa.s.sing dreams, and they invaded the toy-shop like an army. When they emerged, after a considerable interval, Nurse was carrying an enormous doll, and Nellie was carrying Maisie, and Ralph was lovingly stroking the doll's real shoes. Robert kept a profound silence--a silence which had begun in the train.

"You haven't got much to say, Robert," his father remarked when the taxi set off again.

"I know," said Robert gruffly. Among other things, he resented his best clothes on a week-day.

"What do you think of London?"

"I don't know," said Robert.

His eyes never left the window of the taxi.

Then they visited the theatre--a very fatiguing enterprise, and also, for Edward Henry, a very nervous one. He was as awkward in displaying that inchoate theatre as a newly-made father with his first-born. Pride and shame fought for dominion over him. Nellie was full of laudations.

Ralph enjoyed the ladders.

"I say," said Nellie, apprehensive for Maisie, on the pavement, "this child's exhausted already. How big's this park of yours? Because neither Nurse nor I can carry her very far."

"We'll buy a pram," said Edward Henry. He was staring at a newspaper placard which said: "Isabel Joy on the war-path again. Will she win?"

"But--"

"Oh, yes, we'll buy a pram! Driver--"

"A pram isn't enough. You'll want coverings for her, in this wind."

"Well, we'll buy the necessary number of eiderdowns and blankets, then,"

said Edward Henry. "Driver--"

A tremendous business! For, in addition to making the purchases, he had to feed his flock in an A-B-C shop, where among the unoccupied waitresses Maisie and her talkative winking doll enjoyed a triumph.

Still, there was plenty of time.

At a quarter-past twelve he was displaying the varied landscape beauties of the park to his family. Ralph insisted on going to the bridge over the lake, and Robert silently backed him. And therefore the entire party went. But Maisie was afraid of the water, and cried. Now, the worst thing about Maisie was that when once she had begun to cry it was very difficult to stop her. Even the most remarkable dolls were powerless to appease her distress.

"Give me the confounded pram, Nurse," said Edward Henry, "I'll cure her."

But he did not cure her. However, he had to stick grimly to the perambulator. Nellie tripped primly in black silk on one side of it.

Nurse had the wayward Ralph by the hand. And Robert, taciturn, stalked alone, adding up London and making a very small total of it.

Suddenly Edward Henry halted the perambulator and, stepping away from it, raised his hat. An excessively elegant young woman leading a Pekinese by a silver chain stopped as if smitten by a magic dart and held spellbound.

"How do you do, Miss April?" said Edward Henry loudly. "I was hoping to meet you. This is my wife. Nellie, this is Miss April." Nellie bowed stiffly in her black silk. Naught of the fresh maiden about her now!

And it has to be said that Elsie April, in all her young and radiant splendour and woman-of-the-worldliness, was equally stiff. "And there are my two boys. And this is my little girl in the pram."

Maisie screamed, and pushed an expensive doll out of the perambulator.

Edward Henry saved it by its boot as it fell.