Mr. Lionel C. Westwood went away more than contented, and Aubrey Flood resumed his correspondence. The train was laid and the match was applied to it. The Daily Wire, of course, was at the disposal of the syndicate, and would further its objects in every way through Mr. Goodrick. At the same time, the editor was quite shrewd enough to know that his paper was more particularly read by the middle-classes, and content to sacrifice items of excessive interest concerning the play in order that it might be widely advertised.
For they were all very greatly in earnest, these people. Even Aubrey Flood himself, while he was business man enough to regard this speculation as an excellent one, and believe that he would make a great deal of money over it, was nevertheless about to produce this epoch-making play from a real and earnest adherence to the doctrines it was to inculcate.
There is a general opinion that your actor-manager and your actor are persons consumed by two inherent thirsts—applause and money. In a sense—perhaps in a very general sense—this is true, but there are still those actors and actresses whose life is not entirely occupied with their own personality and chances of success. In the most egotistical of all occupations there are yet men and women who are animated by the spirit of altruism, and the hope of helping a great movement. Aubrey Flood was one of these men. He was as convinced a Socialist as Fabian Rose himself. He was enlisted under that banner, and he was prepared to go to any length to uphold it in the forefront of the great battle which was imminent. At the same time, Mr. Aubrey Flood saw no reason why propaganda should not pay!
He was dictating his letters, when once more the stage door-keeper came into the room with another card. It was that of Miss Mary Marriott.
Flood started.
"Show Miss Marriott in at once," he said, and his face changed a little, while a new light of interest came into his eyes.
Your theatrical manager is not, as a rule, a person very susceptible to the charms of the ladies with whom he is constantly associated, though perhaps that is not quite the best way to put it. He is susceptible, but in a somewhat cynical and contemptuous way. The conquests in the world of the limelight are not always too difficult, and a man who pursues them out of habit and inclination very often learns to put a low figure upon achievement. But in the case of Mary Marriott, Aubrey Flood, who was no better or no worse than his colleagues, had felt differently. It does not necessarily mean that when a manager makes love to his leading lady, or to any lady in his company, he necessarily has the slightest real emotion in doing so. It is, indeed, part of the day's work, and half of the day's necessity. That is all.
But Flood had never met any one like Mary Marriott before. He was impressed by her beauty; he recognised her talent; he believed absolutely in her artistic capacities. At the same time he found himself feeling for this girl something to which he had long been a stranger—a feeling of reverence, or perhaps chivalry, would more easily describe it.