She answered gravely, "I don't know."
"Are you going to play in it?"
She paused.... "Yes."
"Then you must let me come. Talking of plays—"
He stopped. He was on the edge of facetiously relating the episode of "The Orient Pearl" at Sir John Pilgrim's. But he withdrew in time. Suppose that "The Orient Pearl" was the piece to be performed by the Azure Society! It might well be! It was (in his opinion) just the sort of play that that sort of society would choose! Nevertheless he was as anxious as ever to see Elsie April act. He really thought that she could and would transfigure any play. Even his profound scorn of New Thought (a subject of which he was entirely ignorant) began to be modified—and by nothing but the enchantment of the tone in which Elsie April murmured the words, "Azure Society!"
"How soon is the performance?" he demanded.
"Wednesday week," said she.
"That's the very day of my corner-stone-laying," he said. "However, it [202] doesn't matter. My little affair will be in the afternoon."
"But it can't be," said she, solemnly. "It would interfere with us, and we should interfere with it. Our Annual Conference takes place in the afternoon. All London will be there."
Said Mr. Marrier, rather shamefaced: