The lady was getting angry. She came over to Fergusson and stood by his side.
“You mean to tell me,” she exclaimed, “that you have accepted a play for immediate production which I have not even seen, and in which the principal part is to be given to one of those crackpots down at the New Theatre, an amateur, an outsider—a woman no one ever heard of before.”
“You can’t exactly say that,” he interposed calmly. “I see you have her novel on your table there, and she is a woman who has been talked about a good deal lately. But the facts of the case are these. Matravers brought me a play a few days ago which almost took my breath away. It is by far the best thing of the sort I ever read. It is bound to be a great success. I can’t tell you any more now,—you shall read it yourself in a day or two. He was very easy to deal with as to terms, but he made one condition: that a certain part in it,—the principal one, I admit,—should be offered to this woman. I tried all I could to talk him out of it, but absolutely without effect. I was forced to consent. There is not a manager in London who would not jump at the play on any conditions. You know our position. ‘Her Majesty’ is a failure, and I haven’t a single decent thing to put on. I simply dared not let such a chance as this go by.”
“I never heard anything so ridiculous in my life,” the lady exclaimed. “No, I’m not blaming you, Reggie! I don’t suppose you could have done anything else. But this woman, what a nerve she must have to imagine that she can do it! I see her horrid Norwegian play has come to utter grief at the New Theatre.”
“She is a clever woman,” Fergusson remarked. “One can only hope for the best.”
She flashed a quiet glance at him.
“You know her, then,—you have been to see her.”
“Not yet,” Fergusson answered. “I am going to meet her to-morrow. Matravers has asked me to lunch.”
“Tell me about Matravers,” she said.
“I am afraid I do not know much. He is a very distinguished literary man, but his work has generally been critical or philosophical,—every one will be surprised to hear that he has written a play. You will find that there will be quite a stir about it. The reason why we have no plays nowadays which can possibly be classed as literature, is because the wrong class of man is writing for the stage. Smith and Francis and all these men have fine dramatic instincts, but they are not scholars. Their dialogue is mostly beneath contempt; there is a dash of conventionality in their best work. Now, Matravers is a writer of an altogether different type.”