Everything was new, then—even the lady’s-maid.
“I acted on your hint,” he said to Emmie. “I gave her her marching papers—in all directions, I mean. Does that satisfy you?”
The excitement grew painful as the date of the postponed first night drew near. Now the bills were up, outside the theatre. The morning that they arrived, Mr. Leahurst invited Emmie into a little office near the stage door and showed her one of them pinned to the wall. She and Mildred studied it with rapture.
“Sole Lessee, Mr. Crauford. By arrangement with Mr. Somebody-else, Mr. Leahurst presents”—then came the gigantic lettering—“Marian D’Arcy and Alwyn Beckett in The Danger Signal.”
“That’s more like it, eh?” said Mr. Leahurst.
On the night itself Emmie and Mildred sat hidden in the recesses of a private box and trembled for forty-seven minutes—that is to say, till the end of the first act. After that they glowed and squeezed each other’s hands ecstatically. The act-drop had been raised about thirteen times, of which the first four raisings were certainly in accord with the desire of the audience. After the second act there could not linger even a faint doubt. The thing was unquestionably a triumphant success.
During this interval Mr. Leahurst came into the box and trumpeted. Dressed in his ordinary costume of dark grey frock-coat and trousers, he kept well at the back of the box so as not to be seen by the public, and he carefully concealed a lighted cigarette with the palm of his hand in order that nobody should detect that he was breaking the Lord Chamberlain’s regulations.
The ladies rose and went to welcome him with radiant faces.
“Oh, isn’t it glorious?” cried Mildred, going close to him, and in her joy seeming as if she wished to throw her arms round his neck and embrace him. “But we owe it all to you, Mr. Leahurst—every little bit of it. Alwyn knows that well. And Miss Verinder knows.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Mr. Leahurst, turning to go. “Bother. Burnt my hand!”