“Because, whatever else he is, he is absolutely free from self-consciousness. And your argument, though undoubtedly a true one, suggests self-consciousness. Oh, I hate the word duty even! To say that a thing is one’s duty implies one is thinking about oneself, though no doubt from most excellent motives and for the sake of other people. But when you get a boy like Hugh, whose huge kindly instincts take the place of duty, it would be really like corrupting him to suggest that he had duties, or that talents were given him for reasons.”
Edith walked up and down the room considering this.
“Do you remember Comte’s remark when the doctors told him he was dying? He said ‘Quel per te irréparable,’” continued Peggy. “There’s the opposite of Hugh.”
“All the same, it was an irreparable loss,” said Edith, “and so are the years in which Mr. Grainger remains a private nightingale. He told me this evening that he had been asked whether he would sing in three Wagner operas next year. Oh, make him, Peggy! Or hasn’t he got stern parents of any description, or musical uncles who will cut him off with a penny if he doesn’t?”
“Well, we’ll try. I didn’t know they had made him a definite offer. But though you might not think it, Hugh is wonderfully obstinate. People clatter and shriek all around him, and he sits in the middle, brilliant and smiling and patient till they have quite finished. And then he goes on exactly as before.”
“He might do worse,” said Mrs. Allbutt. “By the way, will you ask him to the box for the first night of ‘Gambits’? You haven’t asked anybody else yet have you?”
“No; I didn’t know whether you wanted anybody in particular. I think three will be enough. Four in a box usually means that the two men are frigidly polite to one another; and both sit at the very back of the box and see nothing whatever. It’s much better to be three, so that we can all put our elbows on the cushion. Were you at the rehearsal to-day?”
“Oh, yes; I went to see a little more of my grave dug! From the way things are getting on, it should be quite ready for me to lie down in on Thursday night.”
“My dear, what nonsense! Besides, every manager likes rehearsals to go badly. Good rehearsals mean a bad first night. Bad rehearsals give a sort of courage of despair, which is far the most efficient sort. Oh, Edith, it’s good too, and you know it! Dear Andrew Robb! What a name to have chosen! Anyhow, I don’t think a soul has guessed who wrote it.”
“I don’t see how anybody could have,” said Edith. “Nobody knows except you and Mr. Jervis, and I never speak to him in the theatre. He always comes to see me afterwards, and we make what we can out of the rather undecipherable notes I have scribbled.”