Neither was it a bad thing perhaps that another and very practical trouble began to press him hard. Though he was living in free quarters now, the bills contracted during his great London season began to come tumbling in, many for the second or third time. "To account rendered" was a legend with which he was becoming familiar to the point of disgust. The five hundred pounds was running very low; the diminished dividends could not meet his deficit. When Godfrey talked finance to him, as he often did, he was inclined to retort that there were finances in a more desperate condition than those of the estate of Hilsey and possessing no such new-born prospects of recovery—prospects born in sore travail, it is true, but there all the same for Godfrey's consolation.
But there was the farce! That persevering project emerged on the horizon again. It was in full rehearsal now; it was due in three weeks' time: it had got a third act at last, Mr. Claud Beverley and Mr. Langley Etheringham having apparently assuaged their differences. It had even got a name—a name, as Joe Halliday wrote in his enthusiasm, as superior to the name of Help Me Out Quickly as the play itself was to that bygone masterpiece. Arthur told Judith the name and, in spite of that resolution of his about relying on his own judgment, awaited her opinion anxiously. After all, in this case it was not his judgment, but, presumably, Mr. Claud Beverley's.
"'Did You Say Mrs.?' That's what you're going to call it, is it?"
"It's what they're going to call it. It's not my invention, you know."
"Well, I should think it must be vulgar enough, anyhow," said Judith.
"Oh, vulgar be hanged! That doesn't matter. Jolly good, I call it! Sort of piques your curiosity. Why did He say Mrs.?—That's what the public'll want to know, don't you see?"
"Or why did She say Mrs. perhaps!"
"There you are! Another puzzle! You see, you're curious yourself directly, Judith."
"Well, yes, I am rather," Judith confessed, laughing.
"I think He said it about Her—when she wasn't," Arthur maintained.