“But Mr. Grainger, probably among many more, said that it was quite obvious there couldn’t be an Andrew Robb. It did seem unlikely when he mentioned it.”
“But if it’s a huge and howling success, as I know it will be,” said Peggy, “won’t you unmask Andrew?”
Edith shook her head.
“Not till the play is established,” she said. “When it has run fifty nights I will.”
Again she groaned slightly.
“It hasn’t run one yet,” she said tragically, “and perhaps it won’t. Oh, Peggy, I know I have fallen between several large hard stools. ‘Gambits’ isn’t risky, so one section of the audience will yawn; it isn’t melodramatic, so another section will cough; it doesn’t contain any horse-play, so a third will fidget. I quite realise that now, and I shall join in the booing myself. How do you boo? Never mind, I shall soon know. And at the dress rehearsal this morning nobody appeared to know one single line of his part, and the curtain stuck at the end of the second act.
“Ah, but, as told you, a brilliant dress rehearsal means failure!” said Peggy. “And isn’t it just possible that a section of the audience will like a play because it is neither indecent nor farcical?”
“I don’t think so,” said Edith. “But in any case I shall be a Turveydrop of deportment, and shall join in the booing.”
“That will be insincere,” said Peggy.
They were in plenty of time for the rise of the curtain, and indeed the orchestra had only just begun to play what was called an “arrangement” from “La Tosca” when they took their places. Hugh, who with masculine cunning had directed his cabman to have nothing to do with the queue, but to drive boldly up the centre of Piccadilly and stop in the middle of it opposite the theatre, had got there before them, and was already in the box, watching the rapid filling-up of the theatre. Certainly the production of this piece had roused considerable interest, and some minutes before the curtain rose the house was packed in every corner, while the shrill buzz of conversation, always so eager and expectant on a first night, nearly drowned the arrangement from “La Tosca.” For London, whatever its faults may be, is, like Athens, passionately fond of anything new, and the production by one of the best-known actor-managers in the middle of the season of a play about the author of which nothing was known was an event that thoroughly aroused its curiosity. The stalls and boxes were crammed, the pit was one huddle of close-packed faces, and the gallery was as if a swarm of bees had settled on it. Higher and more shrill rose the buzz of conversation from all parts of the huge hothouse, glittering with lights. Then suddenly the lights went out, the orchestra stopped, a rustle of settlement sounded in the darkened theatre, and the curtain went up. Hugh, too, settled down with a sigh of contented expectancy.