“Mr Goble.”
The manager swung round on her.
“What is it?”
It is sad to think how swiftly affection can change to dislike in this world. Two weeks before, Mr Goble had looked on Jill with favor. She had seemed good in his eyes. But that refusal of hers to lunch with him, followed by a refusal some days later to take a bit of supper somewhere, had altered his views on feminine charm. If it had been left to him, as most things were about his theatre, to decide which of the thirteen girls should be dismissed, he would undoubtedly have selected Jill. But at this stage in the proceedings there was the unfortunate necessity of making concessions to the temperamental Johnson Miller. Mr Goble was aware that the dance-director’s services would be badly needed in the re-arrangement of the numbers during the coming week or so, and he knew that there were a dozen managers waiting eagerly to welcome him if he threw up his present job, so he had been obliged to approach him in quite a humble spirit and enquire which of his female chorus could be most easily spared. And, as the Duchess had a habit of carrying her haughty languor onto the stage and employing it as a substitute for the chorea which was Mr. Miller’s ideal, the dancer-director had chosen her. To Mr Goble’s dislike of Jill, therefore, was added now something of the fury of the baffled potentate.
“’Jer want?” he demanded.
“Mr Goble is extremely busy,” said the stage-director. “Ex-tremely.”
A momentary doubt as to the best way of approaching her subject had troubled Jill on her way downstairs, but, now that she was on the battle-field confronting the enemy, she found herself cool, collected, and full of a cold rage which steeled her nerves without confusing her mind.
“I came to ask you to let Mae D’Arcy go on tonight.”
“Who the hell’s Mae D’Arcy?” Mr Goble broke off to bellow at a scene-shifter who was depositing the wall of Mrs Stuyvesant van Dyke’s Long Island residence too far down stage. “Not there, you fool! Higher up!”
“You gave her her notice this evening,” said Jill.