Olive laughed. Margot said, “Yes, m’lady,” and made a curtsey, then fluttered off to telephone for breakfast, began to chuckle and the delicate chime of that mirth was soothing, after the rasp of Olive’s tirade. The girl seemed unresentful. Olive had never so seriously scolded her. Now she thought that she should talk to Mark about his folly. This idolatry was delightful to watch but unhealthy, a temptation to Margot. The girl had other pets in London. There was an amateur actress constantly wobbling on the edge of professional engagements. Two or three of the young painters experimented in stage setting. She deliberated and listed these artists to Mark while they were driving about the broad city in a hired victoria.
“All nice children and hopeless dabblers, old man. Beware of them or you’ll have the house filled with immigrants. Rand’s a giant beside any of them.”
“The little man ain’t so bad. Guess I’ll put him in as leading man for a woman in a Scotch play I’m going to work on after Christmas. That’ll shut Cora Boyle up. He’ll do, all right. I’ll offer him the part when I tell him ‘Todgers’ goes to Cain’s.”
“To—where?”
“It’s a warehouse in New York where dead plays go—the scenery, I mean.” Mark pointed to a full wreath of steam floating above the Pan American building, “Watch it go. No wind. Ought to last a minute.—Busted,” he sighed, as the lovely cream melted. “But I ain’t sorry this happened, Olive. Teach her she don’t know so much about the show business. ‘Todgers’ll’ make a little money here because the town’s packed full. But I’m afraid Philadelphia’ll be its Waterloo. Well, the Boston Transcript had three columns on ‘Captain Salvador.’ It’s in the biggest theatre in Boston and they had standing room only last night. Gurdy got a wire from a kid he knows in Harvard that a couple of professors came out of the woods and told their classes to go see the thing.”
His talk came turning back to “Captain Salvador” for the rest of the week. He was bodily listless after the strain of the Boston production. Gurdy forced him to play golf and tramp the spread city when Olive and Margot were at teas in the British colony. Russell often walked and every night dined with them, examining Margot with his sharp hazel eyes so that Gurdy fancied the man exhaling her essence with his cigarette smoke. He sat with Gurdy on Monday afternoon in the smoking car on the road to Philadelphia and observed, “Miss Walling’s very much interested in ‘Todgers.’ How will she take the blow when it fails, here? It’ll be a flat failure, tonight, Gurdy. See if it isn’t.”
“Margot and I are going to a dance. We shan’t see it flop.”
“It’ll flop very flat and hard. I’m a Philadelphian. You should warn Miss Walling.”
Mark startled Gurdy by warning Margot during tea in the small suite of the Philadelphia hotel while she stood at the tin voiced piano rattling tunes with one hand. Mark said nervously, “Now, sister, if ‘Todgers’ is a fluke here—why, I can’t waste time and cash fooling with it any longer.” He coughed and finished, “I’ll send your friend Dufford a check and—amen.”
“You’re an old duck,” said Margot, “and I’ll be good. Shan’t ever try to choose another play for you—never, never, never.” She tinkled the negro song from “Captain Salvador” tapping one foot so that the silver buckle sparkled. “Wish I could sing.... Life is like a—what’s good old life like, Gurdy?”