“Rather!” said Joyce, delighted.
“You are the only one of the crowd that can sing worth a cent,” said the stage-manager with a seasonable mixture of profanity. “I ’ll pull you through. Perhaps he’s not coming back at all. One never knows. If he does n’t and you go all right, there’s no reason why you should n’t stick to it.”
Walker spoke exactly four lines, sang once in a quartette and had a couplet solo. Otherwise he made himself useful in the chorus. But it was a part, his name was down in the bill. The value of the step, moral, pecuniary and professional was considerable. Joyce felt that his luck had turned at last. Here was the gate into the profession proper open to him.
The news soon spread through the company. A “call” for rehearsal on Monday morning for the chorus and those of the principals concerned in the change was posted up. He felt himself a person of some importance. McKay congratulated him; and Blake, although he said, “You swells get all the fat,” spoke by no means enviously. The others cracked jokes and suggested drinks all round, which, being sent for by Joyce, were consumed in the dressing-room. Annie Stevens squeezed his hand, during their dance together, and whispered a word of pleasure. He had no idea that so infinitesimal a success could have masqueraded as such a triumph. He longed to get back to his room to write it all to Yvonne.
At the stage-door, after the performance, he met Annie Stevens, who had hurried through her dressing.
“I’m glad for your sake, but I’m sorry for my own,” she said, after they had walked a few steps.
“Why, what difference can it make to you?” asked Joyce laughing.
“I shall have to play and sing with somebody else.”
“True. I was forgetting. Yes, it will seem funny. I shall miss you too.”
“I don’t believe you care one bit,” said the girl.