“Are you going to tell him about it?” she asked in alarm.
“I will tell you,” he said, “now. If you come with me to-morrow to London, you can begin at once in a musical comedy on tour.” She gave a gasp. “Oh,” he said, “you wish to hear no more. You are anxious to return to the Drill Hall. You are, perhaps, cold?” He was very cold, but not too cold to play his fish.
“Cold? I could listen all night to this.” Mr. Chown envied her the undistinguished cloak she wore: per ardua ad astra.
“Well,” he said, “it is true that the work I have to offer you is very different from the restrained, the almost caged existence you have been enduring. But you will begin in the chorus. You have stage fright to get over, and all the green sickness of a raw beginner. My friend Hubert Rossiter”—even Mary Ellen had heard of Rossiter—“will take you and I shall see that he passes you on from company to company. Soon you will play small parts, and then leading parts. Possibly, for experience, a pantomime at Christmas. And while you are learning your business in this way you will be paid all the time.”
“How much?” she asked promptly.
“Exactly what you are worth,” he said. “You won’t starve and I call your attention to this point. I act as your agent and I take a ten per cent commission of your salary. That is all I take, and you will see that it is to my interests that your salary shall be large. If I did not believe that your salary in a very few years will be considerable, I should not be standing bareheaded and without a coat in a Staithley by-street. The train to London leaves at ten in the morning. Am I to take a ticket for you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“It is a curious fact,” he remarked, “that I do not know your name. Mine is Chown. Lexley Chown.”
“Mine’s Mary Ellen Bradshaw,” she said, jettisoning the name of Pate as useless cargo now.
“Mary,” he mused. “I think we’ll keep the Mary. But we’ll improve the rest. And now that you and I have settled this between ourselves, when do I see Mr. Pate?”