“A new departure for V.M.C.,” this personage said. “We were all astonished.” (Who were “we”?) “Still, like the rest of us, one supposes, he must have his toys.”

Peregrine wondered if it would have been possible for him to have heard a more innocently offensive comment.

“It’s a matter of life and death to us,” he said. The personage looked at him with amusement.

“Is it really?” he said. “Well, yes. I can see that it is. I hope all goes well. But I am still surprised by the turn of V.M.C.’s fancy. I didn’t think he had any fancies.”

“I don’t really know him,” said Peregrine.

“Which of us does?” the personage rejoined. “He’s a legend in his own lifetime and the remarkable thing about that is: the legend is perfectly accurate.” Well content with this aphorism he chuckled and passed superbly on, leaving an aftermath of cigar, champagne and the very best unguents for the Man.

“If I were to become as fabulously rich as that,” Peregrine wondered, “would I turn into just such another? Can it be avoided?”

He found himself alongside Emily Dunne, who helped in Jeremy’s shop and was to play Joan Hart in The Glove. She had got the part by audition and on her performance, which Peregrine had seen, of Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

She had a pale face with dark eyes and a welcoming mouth. He thought she looked very intelligent and liked her voice, which was deepish.

“Have you got some champagne?” asked Peregrine. “And would you like something to eat?”

“Yes and no, thank you,” said Emily. “It’s a wonderful play. I can’t get over my luck, being in it. And I can’t get over The Dolphin, either.”

“I thought you looked as if you were quite enjoying it. You read Joan exactly right. One wants to feel it’s a pity she’s Will’s sister because she’s the only kind of woman who would ever suit him as a wife.”

“I think before they were both married she probably let him in by a side-window when he came home to Henley Street in the early hours after a night on the tiles.”

“Yes, of course she did. How right you are. Do you like cocktail parties?”

“Not really, but I always hope I will.”

“Tve given that up, even.”

“Do you know, when I was playing at The Mermaid over a year ago, I used to look across the river to The Dolphin, and then one day I walked over Blackfriars Bridge and stood in Wharfingers Lane and stared at it. And then an old, old stagehand I knew told me his father had been on the curtain there in the days of Adolphus Ruby. I got a sort of thing about it. I found a book in a sixpenny rack called The Buskin and the Boards. It was published in 1860 and it’s all about contemporary theatres and actors. Terribly badly written, you know, but there are some good pictures and The Dolphin’s one of the best.”

“Do let me see it.”

“Of course.”

“I had a thing about The Dolphin, too. What a pity we didn’t meet in Wharfingers Lane,” said Peregrine. “Do you like Jeremy’s models? Let’s go and look at them.”

They were placed about the foyer and were tactfully lit. Jeremy had been very intelligent: the sets made single uncomplicated gestures and were light and strong-looking and beautifully balanced. Peregrine and Emily had examined them at some length when it came to him that he should be moving among the guests. Emily seemed to be visited by the same notion. She said: “I think Marcus Knight is wanting to catch your eye. He looks a bit portentous to me.”

“Gosh! So he does. Thank you.”

As he edged through the party towards Marcus Knight, Peregrine thought: “That’s a pleasing girl.”

Knight received him with an air that seemed to be compounded of graciousness and overtones of huff. He was the centre of a group: Winter Meyer, Mrs. Greenslade, who acted as hostess and was beautifully dressed and excessively poised, Destiny Meade and one of the personages, who wore an expansive air of having acquired her.

“Ah, Perry, dear boy,” Marcus Knight said, raising his glass to salute. “I wondered if I should manage to have a word with you. Do forgive me,” he said jollily to the group. “If I don’t fasten my hooks in him now he’ll escape me altogether.” Somewhat, Peregrine thought, to her astonishment, Knight kissed Mrs. Greenslade’s hand. “Lovely, lovely party,” he said and moved away. Peregrine saw Mrs. Greenslade open her eyes very widely for a fraction of a second at the personage. “We’re amusing her,” he thought sourly.

“Perry,” Knight said, taking him by the elbow. “May we have a long, long talk about your wonderful play? And I mean that, dear boy. Your wonderful play.”

“Thank you, Marco.”

“Not here, of course,” Knight said, waving his disengaged hand, “not now. But soon. And, in the meantime, a thought.”

“Oops!” Peregrine thought. “Here we go.”

“Just a thought. I throw it out for what it’s worth. Don’t you feel — and I’m speaking absolutely disinterestedly — don’t you feel that in your Act Two, dear Perry, you keep Will Shakespeare offstage for rather a long time? I mean, having built up this tremendous tension—”

Peregrine listened to the celebrated voice and as he listened he looked at the really beautiful face with its noble brow and delicate bone structure. He watched the mouth and thought how markedly an exaggerated dip in the bow of the upper lip resembled that of the Droushout engraving and the so-called Grafton portrait. “I must put up with him,” Peregrine thought. “He’s got the prestige, he’s got the looks and his voice is like no other voice. God give me strength.”

“I’ll think very carefully about it, Marco,” he said and he knew that Knight knew he was going to do nothing of the sort. Knight, in a grand seignorial manner, clapped him on the shoulder. “We shall agree,” he cried, “like birds in their little nest.”

“I’m sure of it,” said Peregrine.

“One other thing, dear boy, and this is your private ear.” He steered Peregrine by the elbow into a corridor leading off to the boxes. “I find with some surprise,” he said, muting the exquisite voice, “that we are to have W. Hartly Grove in our company.”

“I thought he read Mr. W.H. quite well, didn’t you?”

“I could scarcely bring myself to listen,” said Knight.

“Oh,” Peregrine said coolly. “Why?”

“My dear man, do you know anything at all about Mr. Harry Grove?”

“Only that he is a reasonably good actor. Marco,” Peregrine said, “don’t let’s start any anti-Grove thing. For your information, and I’d be terribly grateful if you’d treat this as strictly—very strictly, Marco—between ourselves, I’ve had no hand in this piece of casting. It was done at the desire of the Management. They have been generous to a degree in every other respect and even if I’d wanted to I couldn’t have opposed them.”

“You had this person thrust upon you?”

“If you like to put it that way.”

“You should have refused.”

“I had no valid reason for doing so. It is a good piece of casting. I beg you, Marco, not to raise a rumpus at the outset. Time enough when anything happens to justify it.”

For a moment he wondered if Knight was going to produce a temperament then and there and throw in his part. But Peregrine felt sure Knight had a great desire to play Will Shakespeare and although, in the shadowy passage, he could see the danger signal of mounting purple in the oval face, the usual outburst did not follow this phenomenon.

Instead Knight said: “Listen. You think I am unreasonable. Allow me to tell you, Perry—”

“I don’t want to listen to gossip, Marco.”

“Gossip! My God! Anyone who accuses me of gossip does me an injury I won’t stomach. Gossip! Let me tell you I know for a fact that Harry Grove—” The carpet was heavy and they had heard no sound of an approach. The worst would have happened if Peregrine had not seen a shadow move across the gilt panelling. He closed his hand round Knight’s arm and stopped him.