"Oh, here you are!" she said gladly. "I've been waiting quite a long time, and I've been in the blues, rather. The empty theatre, when one is the only person in it, suggests horrible possibilities for the future, don't you think?"
He answered her quickly. "No, I don't think anything of the sort. Mary, you are getting into that silly nervous state which comes to so many girls before the first night, the first important night, I mean. You must not do it, I won't allow it, I won't let you. You're overstrained, of course. We're all very much over-strained. So much depends upon the play. But, all the same, we all know that everything is sure and certain. So cheer up, Mary."
Flood had called her by her Christian name for two weeks now. The two had become friends. The celebrated young actor-manager and the unknown provincial actress had realised each other in the kindliest fashion. The girl had never met a cleverer, more artistic, nor more chivalrous man in the ranks of her profession, and Flood himself, a decent, clean-living citizen of London, had not grasped hands with a girl like Mary for many months.
Mary Marriott sighed. "Oh," she said, "it's all very well for you to talk in that way. But you know, Mr. Flood, how all of you have poured the whole thing on to me, as it were. You have insisted that I am the pivot of it all, and there are moments when it is too overwhelming and one gets tired and dispirited."
"Don't talk nonsense," he answered quickly.
"All right, then, I won't," she replied. "Now let's go into the question of that business in the second act. My idea is, that Lord Winchester should——"
He cut her short with a single exclamation. "That's a thing we can talk over later," he said. "At the moment I have something more important to say."
Mary stopped. Flood's voice was very earnest and urgent. She felt that he had discovered some flaw in the conduct of the rehearsals, that some very serious hitch had occurred.
Her voice was anxious as she said that they had better discuss the thing immediately. "I hope that it's nothing very serious," she said, alarmed by the disturbance in his voice. "I am going to lunch with the Roses, and as you're late I ought to be off in a few minutes. But what's gone wrong?"
"As yet," he replied, "nothing has gone wrong at all."