The excitement of the bath was always considerable, but this evening, with Sylvia’s assistance, it became acute. Sylvius hit his nurse in the eye with the soap, and Rose, wrought up to a fever of emulation, managed to hurl the sponge into the grate.
Jack was enthusiastic about Sylvia’s scheme. She was not quite sure that he understood exactly at what she was aiming, but he wished her so well that in any case his criticism would have had slight value; he gave instead his devoted attention, and that seemed a pledge of success. Success! Success! it sounded like a cataract in her ears, drowning every other sound. She wondered if the passion of her life was to be success. On no thoughts urged so irresistibly had she ever sailed to sleep, nor had she ever wakened in such a buoyancy, greeting the day as a swimmer greets the sea.
“Now what about the backing?” Jack asked.
“Backing? I’ll back myself. You’ll be my manager. I’ve enough to hire the Pierian Hall for a day and a night. I’ve enough to pay for one scene. Which reminds me I must get hold of Ronald Walker. You’ll sing, Jack, two songs? Oh, and there’s Arthur Madden. He’ll sing, too.”
“Who’s he?” Olive asked.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you about him?” said Sylvia, almost too nonchalantly, she feared. “He’s rather good. Quite good, really. I’ll tell you about him sometime. By the way, I’ve talked so much about myself and my plans that I’ve never asked about other people. How’s the countess?”
Olive looked grave. “We don’t ever see them, but everybody says that Clarehaven is going the pace tremendously.”
“Have they retreated to Devonshire?”
“Oh no! Didn’t you hear? I thought I’d told you in one of my letters. He had to sell the family place. Do you remember a man called Leopold Hausberg?”
“Do I not?” Sylvia exclaimed. “He took a flat once for a chimpanzee instead of Lily.”