"Well," said Edward Henry, reasoning. "What is an option? What does it mean? It means you are free to take something or leave it. I'm leaving it."
"But why?" demanded Mr. Marrier, gloomier.
Carlo Trent played with his eyeglasses and said not a word.
"Why?" Edward Henry replied. "Simply because I feel I'm not fitted for the job. I don't know enough. I don't understand. I shouldn't go the right way about the affair. For instance, I should never have guessed by myself that it was the proper thing to settle the name of the theatre before you'd got the lease of the land you're going to build it on. Then I'm old-fashioned. I hate leaving things to the last moment; but seemingly there's only one proper moment in these theatrical affairs, and that's the very last. I'm afraid there'd be [125] too much trusting in providence for my taste. I believe in trusting in providence, but I can't bear to see providence overworked. And I've never even tried to be intellectual, and I'm a bit frightened of poetry plays—"
"But you've not read my play!" Carlo Trent mutteringly protested.
"That is so," admitted Edward Henry.
"Will you read it?"
"Mr. Trent," said Edward Henry, "I'm not so young as I was."
"We're ruined!" sighed Rose Euclid, with a tragic gesture.
"Ruined?" Edward Henry took her up smiling. "Nobody is ruined who knows where he can get a square meal. Do you mean to tell me you don't know where you're going to lunch to-morrow?" And he looked hard at her.