“Look here,” she said, “could you translate for me, please, something His Lordship just said to me as the curtain fell? Put it into English, I mean?”
It was my turn to be puzzled. “Madame” was, I thought, seated with Mayor O’Dwyer. Had she wandered about, moved to another box?
“His Lordship?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Your Lord Mayor, with whom I am sitting.”
I hadn’t thought of O’Dwyer in terms of a peer.
“Yes, yes,” she continued, “as the applause, that very surprising applause rang out at the end, the Lord Mayor turned to me and said, ‘Lady, you’re in!’ Just like that. Now will you please translate for me what it is? Tell me, is that good or bad?”
Laughingly I replied, “What do you think?”
“I really don’t know” was her serious and sincere response.
The simple fact was that Dame Ninette de Valois, D.B.E., D. Litt., to whose untiring efforts Sadler’s Wells owes its success, its existence, its very being, honestly thought the company was failing in New York.
This most gala of gala nights was crowned by a large and extremely gay supper party given by Mayor O’Dwyer, at Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the Mayor of the City of New York. It was a warm and balmy night, with an Indian Summer moon—one of those halcyon nights all too rare. Because of this, it was possible to stage the supper in that most idyllic of settings, on the spacious lawn overlooking the moon-drenched East River, with the silhouettes of the great bridges etched in silver lights against the glow from the hundreds of colored lights strung over the lawn. Beneath all this gleamed the white linen of the many tables, the sparkle of crystal, the gloss of the silver.