"I shall be uncommonly glad," admitted the other, "when Clarence earns three hundred a year. Do you know that if you had stayed on at Morden Place, this key would most likely have been found in your portmanteau."
Frederick Bulpert, arriving with his friends, asserted his position by attempting to kiss Gertie; she drew back, and Bulpert said manfully that if she could do without it he could also afford to dispense with the ceremony. He introduced his companions as two of the very best and brightest, and they intimated, by a modest shrug of the shoulders, that this might be taken as a correct description. The sisters of Westbourne Grove came bearing a highly-ornamental cardboard case with a decoration of angels, and containing a pair of gloves. They mentioned that if the size was not correct the gloves could be changed, and at once took seats in the corner of the room, whence they surveyed the company with a critical air, sighing in unison, as though regretting deeply their mad impulsiveness in accepting the invitation. On this, other presents were offered; Bulpert said his memento would come later on. One of his friends sat on the music-stool, and Sarah, the charwoman's daughter, entering at the first chord with a tray that held sandwiches and cakes, said to him casually, "Hullo, George, you on in this scene?" and handed around the refreshments. Bulpert's friend, disturbed by the incident, waited until the girl left the room, and then explained that he had met her in pantomime, the previous Christmas, at the West London Theatre; he argued forcibly that people encountered behind the footlights had no right to claim acquaintance outside. "Otherwise," contended Bulpert's friend, "we're none of us safe." He was induced to give his song, and the first lines,—
"I went to Margate, once I did, to spend my holidee,
Such funny things you seem to see beside the silver sea"
suggested that he was not one disposed to worship originality or make a fetish of invention. Bulpert, at the end, pointed out that his friend had omitted the last verse; the man at the pianoforte said there were some places where he was in the habit of giving the last verse; this, he declared flatteringly, was not one of them. Gertie's aunt came upstairs to announce that, the occasion being special, she had taken it upon herself to put up the shutters. If they excused her for half a second this would give her sufficient space to tittivate and smarten up.
"Say when you want me to liven 'em up, Gertie," remarked Bulpert.
"Go and be nice to those two sisters in the corner."
"When we're married," he said, "we'll often give little affairs of this kind. I'm a great believer in hospitality myself."
As he did not appear to make a great deal of headway with the Westbourne Grove ladies, he was recalled and the task handed over to Clarence Mills. Clarence scored an immediate success. The sisters, it seemed, prided themselves upon being tremendous readers; Clarence was acquainted with some of the writers who, to them, were only names. And the young hostess would have been able to survey the room with contentment, but for the fact that Miss Radford suddenly became depressed—with hands clasped over a knee she rocked to and fro in her chair. Gertie discovered that to her friend had just come the terrifying thought that no one loved her, nobody cared for her, and for all practical purposes Miss Radford might as well be dead and buried, with daisies growing over her grave. Gertie argued against this melancholy attitude, and the other explained that it came to her only at moments when every one else was jolly and cheerful, adding defiantly that she could not avoid it, and did not mean to avoid it.
"People," declared Miss Radford with truculence, "have to take me as they happen to find me!"
Bulpert's second friend, advancing with a pack of cards, asked if Miss Radford would kindly select one and tell him the description. "The Queen of Hearts? Nothing," said Bulpert's second friend, with a gallant bow, "nothing could be more appropriate." Miss Radford cried, "Oh, what a cheeky thing to say!" and at once bade farewell to melancholy.