As the weary, excited audience began at last to press out of the stalls and boxes, there was a tap upon the door of the duke's, and Mr. Goodrick, the editor of the Daily Wire, entered. The little man's face was flushed with excitement, and he was smiling with pleasure.
Yet even under these conditions of animation he still seemed a quiet, insignificant little person, and did not in any way suggest the keen, sword-like intellect, the controller of a vast mass of public opinion that he was.
"Rose has sent me to say that supper will be ready in ten minutes," he began, "and Mary Marriott especially charged me to tell you how grateful she is that you have come here to-night. What a success! There has never been anything like it! All London will go mad about the thing to-morrow! I had three members of the staff here to-night—Masterman, who does the dramatic criticism, purely from the standpoint of dramatic art, don't you know; William Conrad, the parson's younger brother, who is one of our political people; and old Miss Saurin, who does the society and dress. They're all three gone down to the office in cabs in a state of lambent enthusiasm and excitement. We shall have a fine paper to-morrow morning!"
"I'm sure you will, Mr. Goodrick," the duke answered. "Perhaps finer than you know."
The little man laughed as he lit a cigarette and offered the case to his companion. "Yes," he said, "but this time it won't be a 'scoop' as it was when I first had the pleasure of meeting you. Good heavens! what a boom that was for the Wire. I shall never forget it as long as I live! We were absolutely the only paper in the kingdom to publish the full details of your disappearance and recovery. You don't know how much we owe you, your Grace, from the journalistic point of view. Such things don't come twice, more's the pity!"
"I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Goodrick," the duke replied slowly. "Perhaps to-night, within an hour or so, I am going to provide you with a 'scoop' as you call it, to which the first was a mere nothing!"
The editor stiffened as a setter stiffens in the stubble when the birds are near. "Your voice has no joking in it," he said. "There is meaning in your Grace's words—what is it?"
As he spoke a waiter came into the box. "Supper is prepared upon the stage, your Grace," he said. "Miss Marriott, Mr. Rose, and Mr. Aubrey Flood request the honour of your Grace's presence."
"Come along, Mr. Goodrick," the duke said, laughing a little. "You see you will have to wait an event like any one else in this world! But I promise you the 'scoop' all the same!"
They went out of the box, the waiter leading the way to the sliding iron "pass door," which led directly on to the stage. For the first few steps they were in semi-darkness, for a boxed-in screen had been hurriedly set by the carpenters to make a supper-room. Then, pushing open a canvas door, they came out into the improvised supper-room.