The rehearsal next day was so completely satisfactory that he was content to leave it on its merits, and on the following evening the first production of the new management at the Congreve went with a roar of triumph. There was no mistaking the verdict of the house, and the Press was as emphatic as the first night’s audience.
‘Vod did I dell you?’ Darco asked. ‘Vame and vorchune are at your veed. It vos a luggy day for us to meet. Vot? Not? I am Cheorge Darga!’
Paul was tired, excited, and elated all at once. He had promised to start for Belgium so soon as the verdict of the public was made clear, but he could afford to snatch the journey down to Castle Barfield, and to get a glimpse of the old father. He slept on the journey, and took the last five miles by cab. Armstrong was in his accustomed place amongst the dusty and neglected stock when Paul broke in upon him, somewhat grayer than ever, a little more bent, perhaps, but with just the old look of wise patience in his face, the shaggy eyebrows fringing just the old quiet twinkle in his eyes. He declined to express the least atom of surprise.
‘It’s you, Paul, is it?’ he asked tranquilly, rising to shake hands. ‘You’ve had a grand success, I’m learning. I read the notice in the Times.’
‘The play’s all right,’ said Paul. ‘And how’s all here?’
‘Oh,’ said his father, ‘we have our dwallin’ in the middle parts of fortune. We’re neither uplifted nor cast down. Come in, lad. Well all be glad to see ye.’
The old place was exactly as it always had been in his memory, and yet it was all shrunken and narrowed, and had grown meaner and more poverty-stricken than it had used to seem.
He settled down in his old place by the fireside, lit his pipe, listened to the local annals, and prepared to be questioned with respect to his own prospects and affairs.
‘You’ll be growing pretty well to do, Paul?’ said Armstrong.
‘Well, yes,’ said Paul, feeling at a pocket-book which lay at the right side of his tweed coat. ‘I’m getting pretty well-to-do.’