"I fancied that might be the reason," said the Professor; "the same idea occurred to me. So I wrote to him again, but——No, I'm afraid both letters reached him. Now Mobsby used to answer—I'll give him credit for that. He wasn't enterprising, but he was civil, at all events; he made excuses for declining my work. This Mr. Jordan seems to have no enterprise, and no politeness either. We don't go to the Royal any more, my dears! I put my foot down about that. For the future when we take tickets for a theatre, they shall be for the Grand."
"The Royal always has the best companies, though," pouted Hilda; "and the audience at the Grand is so dirty."
"For all that we shall go to the Grand," repeated the Professor; "it's the only dignified protest I can make. While the Royal remains under this fellow's management it will see no money of mine. I am quite firm on that point—unless of course diplomacy effects anything," he added, "unless diplomacy effects anything."
"Diplomacy can't effect much with a man who doesn't answer your letters," said Hilda. Her voice was tart.
"What more do you think of doing, then, father?" inquired Bee. "Have you a plan?"
"I never let the grass grow under my feet, you know; when there is an opportunity, I make the most of it. A friend at court may do a great deal, and the other afternoon——" He sipped slowly, and spread his handkerchief across his knee. "It seemed almost providential; I don't do such a thing once in two months, but it was a very hot day, and I was tired and thirsty; it was on my way home from Great Hunby. I turned into the 'George' for something to drink, my dear, and I made the acquaintance of Mr. Jordan's business manager. The thin edge of the wedge, perhaps! though I am never sanguine. Of course I did no more than mention the opera—the merest word—but he seemed interested. The next time we meet I shall refer to it again. It may lead to something. He was intelligent. He may pull the strings. I'm never sanguine, but it stands to reason that the business manager of a theatre has a lot to say in the conduct of affairs. If I cultivate him——" He looked about him impatiently. "You might pass me the tobacco-jar, my dear."
She got up, and took it from the mantelpiece, and gave it to him.
"Here it is, father. If you cultivate him, you think he might use his influence with Mr. Jordan?"
"Just so. But festina lente, my dear—hasten slowly. Don't look too far ahead. It's because people look too far ahead that they trip in reading aloud. The same principle, exactly! The eye travels too fast, and the tongue stumbles. Half the mistakes that the pupils make in reading blank verse are due to the fact that they look too far ahead. In life, as in reading, we should clearly enunciate one word at a time. What was I going to say?... Yes, having made his acquaintance, there's no telling what it may lead to if I show the young man a little hospitality. It's quite on the cards that Mr. Jordan may sing a different tune and ask me to let him hear the opera. If he should do that, I—I am not vindictive—if he should do that, and give the work his honest consideration, we would certainly go to the Royal as usual."
The prospect of his showing a new young man a little hospitality smoothed the frown from Hilda's brow. The young men of Beckenhampton were mercenary, and girls who had been her schoolfellows and knew her age—girls who had no other attraction than their fathers' incomes—had married in their teens. She was not without a lurking fear of being "left on the shelf," as she phrased it; in which misgiving she resembled a multitude of girls who look equally superior to the fear and the phrase. It is, indeed, an unpleasant comment on our method of bringing up the maiden that in the minds of even the most modest girls, the eagerness to marry should precede the wish to marry any man in particular. To the blunter and less refined sensibilities of the male there seems something a little indelicate in this impartial eagerness.