“Sure thing you’re in on it—nobody more so—we won’t let you off. Nail him for me, will you, Miss Fitch?” and Cary rushed away.
“Why, it will be no celebration at all without you!” breathed Fanny Fitch, with a glance which would certainly have turned Tom Lockhart crazy. Black felt himself proof against it, even though his eyes told him that it was worth getting if a man had a taste for that sort of thing. She went on quickly: “You won’t make us—I don’t mind saying you won’t make me, personally—so unhappy?”
“I’m sure you won’t be that, Miss Fitch, with all your fellow actors to tell you how skillful your acting was.”
“Skillful! Oh, but I don’t like that word!”
“Why not? All acting means skill, doesn’t it?”
“But—if you didn’t see more than that in it—I shall be dreadfully hurt, Mr. Black. I meant to put—my heart into it! It was such a wonderful play—it deserved no less than that, did it?”
“No less. And had no less from you all, I think.”
“Oh, they were all splendid!” agreed Fanny, rallying instantly to this call. “Miss Ray was perfect, especially. Of course she had the glorious advantage of the last word—and how effectively she used it! There was skill for you, indeed. I didn’t know Miss Ray was so clever!”
“That’s generous of you,” said Black—and if there was only a half-veiled irony in his tone now, Fanny didn’t recognize it. The ambulance drivers were hovering close, waiting for their chance. Black got away at length, and it was with a curious sense of contentment that he listened to something Mrs. Red Pepper Burns was saying as he passed her: “Each one took his or her part tellingly, but of course the honours rest with Miss Ray. She didn’t act, she was that American girl summoning us all. I can hear that last call yet!”
“My jolly, so can I!” Red’s lips shut together in a tight line.