"To-morrow morning?"

"Ye-es."

"That is to say, to-morrow morning you will have 2250 in actual cash--coin, notes--actually in your possession?"

Miss Euclid's disengaged hand was feeling out behind her again for some surface upon which to express its emotion and hers.

"Well--" she stopped, flushing.

("These people are astounding," Edward Henry reflected, like a G.o.d.

"She's not got the money. I knew it!")

"It's like this, Mr. Machin," Marrier began.

"Excuse me, Mr. Marrier," Edward Henry turned on him, determined if he could to eliminate the optimism from that beaming face. "Any friend of Miss Euclid's is welcome here, but you've already talked about this theatre as 'ours,' and I just want to know where you come in."

"Where I come in?" Marrier smiled, absolutely unperturbed. "Miss Euclid has appointed me general manajah."

"At what salary, if it isn't a rude question?"

"Oh! We haven't settled details yet. You see the theatre isn't built yet."

"True!" said Edward Henry. "I was forgetting! I was thinking for the moment that the theatre was all ready and going to be opened to-morrow night with 'The Orient Pearl.' Have you had much experience of managing theatres, Mr. Marrier? I suppose you have."

"Eho yes!" exclaimed Mr. Marrier. "I began life as a lawyah's clerk, but--"

"So did I," Edward Henry interjected.

"How interesting!" Rose Euclid murmured with fervency, after puffing forth a long shaft of smoke.

"However, I threw it up," Marrier went on.

"I didn't," said Edward Henry. "I got thrown out!"

Strange that in that moment he was positively proud of having been dismissed from his first situation! Strange that all the company, too, thought the better of him for having been dismissed! Strange that Marrier regretted that he also had not been dismissed! But so it was.

The possession of much ready money emits a peculiar effluence in both directions--back to the past, forward into the future.

"I threw it up," said Marrier, "because the stage had an irresistible attraction for me. I'd been stage-manajah for an amateur company, you knaoo. I found a shop as stage-manajah of a company touring 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' I stuck to that for six years, and then I threw that up too. Then I've managed one of Miss Euclid's provincial tours. And since I met our friend Trent I've had the chance to show what my ideas about play-producing really are. I fancy my production of Trent's one-act play won't be forgotten in a hurry.... You know--'The Nymph'?

You read about it, didn't you?"

"I did not," said Edward Henry. "How long did it run?"

"Oh! It didn't run. It wasn't put on for a run. It was part of one of the Sunday night shows of the Play-Producing Society, at the Court Theatre. Most intellectual people in London, you know. No such audience anywhere else in the wahld!" His rather chubby face glistened and shimmered with enthusiasm. "You bet!" he added. "But that was only by the way. My real game is management--general management. And I think I may say I know what it is?"

"Evidently!" Edward Henry concurred. "But shall you have to give up any other engagement in order to take charge of The Muses' Theatre?

Because if so--"

Mr. Marrier replied:

"No."

Edward Henry observed:

"Oh!"

"But," said Marrier, rea.s.suringly, "if necessary I would throw up any engagement--you understand me, any--in favour of The Intellectual Theatah--as I prefer to call it. You see, as I own part of the option--"

By these last words Edward Henry was confounded, even to muteness.

"I forgot to mention, Mr. Machin," said Rose Euclid, very quickly.

"I've disposed of a quarter of my half of the option to Mr. Marrier.

He fully agreed with me it was better that he should have a proper interest in the theatre."

"Why of course!" cried Mr. Harrier, uplifted.

"Let me see," said Edward Henry, after a long breath, "a quarter. That makes it that you have to find 562, 10s. to-morrow, Mr. Marrier."

"Yes."

"To-morrow morning--you'll be all right?"

"Well, I won't swear for the morning, but I shall turn up with the stuff in the afternoon, anyhow. I've two men in tow, and one of them's a certainty."

"Which?"

"I don't know which," said Mr. Marrier. "How-evah, you may count on yours sincerely, Mr. Machin."

There was a pause.

"Perhaps I ought to tell you," Rose Euclid smiled, "perhaps I ought to tell you that Mr. Trent is also one of our partners. He has taken another quarter of my half."

Edward Henry controlled himself.

"Excellent!" said he, with glee. "Mr. Trent's money all ready, too?"

"I am providing most of it--temporarily," said Rose Euclid.

"I see. Then I understand you have your three quarters of 2250 all ready in hand."

She glanced at Mr. Seven Sachs.

"Have I, Mr. Sachs?"

And Mr. Sachs, after an instant's hesitation, bowed in a.s.sent.

"Mr. Sachs is not exactly going into the speculation, but he is lending us money on the security of our interests. That's the way to put it, isn't it, Mr. Sachs?"

Mr. Sachs once more bowed.