"I leave that to you."
"It's very awkward," Sir Percy murmured. "I thought you would be sure to see that it is always better to settle these unpleasant matters—out of court, if I may use the expression. I'm so afraid that Miss Cartright will air her grievance."
"She can wash as much dirty linen as she likes and air it every day in your theater," said John, fiercely. "But my brother George shall not go on a voyage round the world. You've nothing else to ask me? Nothing about my plans for the near future?"
"No, no. I've a success, as you know, and I don't expect I shall want another play for months. You've seen my performance, of course?"
"No," said John, curtly, "I've not."
And when he left the actor-manager's dressing-room he knew that he had wounded him more deeply by that simple negative than by all the mighty insults imaginable.
However, notwithstanding his successful revenge John left the theater in a rage and went off to his club with the hope of finding a sympathetic listener into whose ears he could pour the tale of Sir Percy's megalomania; but by ill luck there was nobody suitable in the smoking-room that night. To be sure, Sir Philip Cranbourne was snoring in an armchair, and Sir Philip Cranbourne was perhaps a bigger man in the profession than Sir Percy Mortimer. Yet, he was not so much bigger but that he would have welcomed a tale against the younger theatrical knight whose promotion to equal rank with himself he had resented very much. Sir Philip, however, was fast asleep, and John doubted if he hated Sir Percy sufficiently to welcome being woken up to hear a story against him—particularly a story by a playwright, one of that miserable class for which Sir Philip as an actor had naturally a very profound contempt. Moreover, thinking the matter over, John came to the conclusion that the story, while it would tell against Sir Percy would also tell against himself, and he decided to say nothing about it. When he was leaving the club he ran into Mr. Winnington-Carr, who greeted him airily.
"Evening, Touchwood!"
"Good evening."
"What's this I hear about Hugh going to Sierra Leone? Bit tough, isn't it, sending him over to a plague spot like that? You saw that paragraph in The Penguin? Things we should like to know, don't you know? Why John Touchwood's brother is taking up a post in the tropics and whether John himself is really sorry to see him go."