And the steamer sped—thud, thud, thud—over the dark sea, where the noise of the waves sounded like the roar of multitudes of men. Huge clouds in the east were tinged with red, as though London were about to loom above the horizon in all its glory, filling the vast expanse with its rumors and its lights....
CURTAIN RISES
I
“Lily ... who’s Lily? A New Zealander: really? Ah well, we will look into the matter; it will be settled later on ...”
Clifton, when he returned home that evening, gnawed his mustache and clenched his fists with rage. Ah, he would not soon forget his arrival in London! To get there and be chucked! Was that what he had come from New York for? To see Lily’s place at the Castle filled by another troupe of the Hauptmanns—the Hauptmanns again, those fat freaks!—and nothing to be said or done?
“Engagement not valid. Ought at least to have waited for the London agency’s signed contract before leaving!”
Intent upon his vexations of the moment, he described his day to Mrs. Clifton. What had staggered him, done for him, was his visit to the agent, where they hadn’t seemed to know Lily!
He had rushed at once to others, just to show them who Miss Lily was! But he got the same reply wherever he went: