One of the two, with whom Clarence was conversing in a lively manner that showed his heart had not been irreparably broken as the result of his recent interview with Ruth, we may dismiss. Like Clarence, she is of no importance to the story. The other, who, not finding Bailey’s measured remarks very gripping, was allowing her gaze to wander idly around the room, has this claim to a place in the scheme of things, that she had a wordless part in the comedy in which Percy Shanklyn had appeared as the English dude and was on terms of friendship with him.
Consequently, seeing him enter the room, as he did at that moment, she signalled him to approach.
“It’s a little feller who was with me in ‘The Man from Out West’,” she explained to Bailey as Percy made his way toward them. At which Bailey’s prim mouth closed with an air of disapproval.
The feminine element of the stage he found congenial to his business-harassed brain, but with the “little fellers” who helped them to keep the national drama sizzling he felt less in sympathy; and he resented extremely his companion’s tactlessness in inciting this infernal mummer to intrude upon his privacy.
He prepared to be cold and distant with Percy. And when Bailey, never a ray of sunshine, deliberately tried to be chilly, those with him at the time generally had the sensation that winter was once more in their midst.
Percy, meanwhile, threaded his way among the tables, little knowing that fate had already solved the problem which had worried him the greater part of the day.
He had come to the restaurant as a relief from his thoughts. If he could find some kind friend who would invite him to supper, well and good. If not, he was feeling so tired and depressed that he was ready to take the bull by the horns and pay for his meal himself. He had obeyed Miss Freda Reece’s signal because it was impossible to avoid doing so; but one glance at Bailey’s face had convinced him that not there was his kind host.
“Why, Perce,” said Miss Reece, “I ain’t saw you in years. Where you been hiding yourself?”
Percy gave a languid gesture indicative of the man of affairs whose time is not his own.
“Percy,” continued Miss Reece, “shake hands with my friend Mr. Bannister. I been telling him about how you made such a hit as the pin in ‘Pinafore’!”