“Why are you fussed?” Gantry inquired. “Are you ashamed of your performance?”

“No,” Anelida said truthfully, and she added in a hurry, “I know it’s very bad in patches.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“What else have you played?”

“Only bits at the Bonaventure.”

“No dra-mat-ic ac-ad-emy?” he said, venomously spitting out the consonants. “No agonizing in devoted little groups? No depicting! No going to bed with Stanislavsky and rising with Method?”

Anelida, who was getting her second wind, grinned at him.

“I admire Stanislavsky,” she said. “Intensely.”

“Very well. Very well. Now, attend to me. I am going to tell you about your performance.”

He did so at some length and in considerable detail. He was waspish, didactic, devastating and overwhelmingly right. For the most part she listend avidly and in silence, but presently she ventured to ask for elucidation. He answered, and seemed to be pleased.

“Now,” he said, “those are all the things that were amiss with your performance. You will have concluded that I wouldn’t have told you about them if I didn’t think you were an actress. Most of your mistakes were technical. You will correct them. In the meantime I have a suggestion to make. Just that. No promises. It’s in reference to a play that may never go into production. I believe you have already read it. You will do so again, if you please, and to that end you will come to the Unicorn at ten o’clock next Thursday morning. Hi! Monty!”

Anelida was getting used to the dreamlike situation in which she found herself. It had, in its own right, a kind of authenticity. When the Management, that bourne to which all unknown actresses aspired, appeared before her in the person of Montague Marchant, she was able to make a reasonable response. How pale was Mr. Marchant, how matt his surface, how immense his aplomb! He talked of the spring weather, of the flowers in the conservatory and, through some imperceptible gradation, of the theatre. She was, he understood, an actress.

“She’s playing Eliza Doolittle,” Gantry remarked.

“Of course. Nice notices,” Marchant murmured and tidily smiled at her. She supposed he must have seen them.

“I’ve been bullying her about her performance,” Gantry continued.

“What a bad man!” Marchant said lightly. “Isn’t he?”

“I suggest you take a look at it.”

“Now, you see, Miss Lee, he’s trying to bully me.”

“You mustn’t let him,” Anelida said.

“Oh, I’m well up to his tricks. Are you liking Eliza?”

“Very much indeed. It’s a great stroke of luck for me to try my hand at her.”

“How long is your season?”

“Till Sunday. We change every three weeks.”

“God, yes. Club policy.”

“That’s it.”

“I see no good reason,” Gantry said, “for fiddling about with this conversation. You know the part I told you about in Dicky’s new play? She’s going to read it for me. In the meantime, Monty, my dear, you’re going to look at the piece and then pay a call on the Bonaventure.” He suddenly displayed the cockeyed charm for which he was famous. “No promises made, no bones broken. Just a certain amount of very kind trouble taken because you know I wouldn’t ask it idly. Come, Monty, do say you will.”

“I seem,” Marchant said, “to be cornered,” and it was impossible to tell whether he really minded.

Anelida said, “It’s asking altogether too much — please don’t be cornered.”

“I shall tell you quite brutally if I think you’ve wasted my time.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Ah, Dicky!” Marchant said. “May I inquire if you’re a party to this conspiracy?”

Richard was there again, beside her. “Conspiracy?” he said. “I’m up to my neck in it. Why?”

Gantry said, “The cloak-and-dagger business is all mine, however. Dicky’s a puppet.”

“Aren’t we all!” Marchant said. “I need another drink. So, I should suppose, do you.”

Richard had brought them. “Anelida,” he asked, “what have they been cooking?”

For the third time, Anelida listened to her own incredible and immediate future.

“I’ve turned bossy, Richard,” Gantry said. “I’ve gone ahead on my own. This child’s going to take a running jump at reading your wench in Heaven. Monty’s going to have a look at the play and see her Eliza. I tell him he’ll be pleased. Too bad if you think she can’t make it.” He looked at Anelida and a very pleasant smile broke over his face. He flipped the brim of her hat with a thumb and forefinger. “Nice hat,” he said.

Richard’s hand closed painfully about her arm. “Timmy!” he shouted. “You’re a splendid fellow! Timmy!”

“The author, at least,” Marchant said drily, “would appear to be pleased.”

“In that case,” Gantry proposed, “let’s drink to the unknown quantity. To your bright eyes, Miss Potential.”

“I may as well go down gracefully,” Marchant said. “To your Conspiracy, Timmy. In the person of Anelida Lee.”

They had raised their glasses to Anelida when a voice behind them said, “I don’t enjoy conspiracies in my own house, Monty, and I’m afraid I’m not mad about what I’ve heard of this one. Do let me in on it, won’t you?”

It was Miss Bellamy.

Miss Bellamy had not arrived in the conservatory unaccompanied. She had Colonel Warrender in attendance upon her. They had been followed by Charles Templeton, Pinky Cavendish and Bertie Saracen. These three had paused by Gracefield to replenish their glasses and then moved from the dining-room into the conservatory, leaving the door open. Gracefield, continuing his round, was about to follow them. The conglomerate of voices in the rooms behind had mounted to its extremity, but above it, high-pitched, edged with emotion, a single voice rang out: Mary Bellamy’s. There, in the conservatory she was, for all to see. She faced Anelida and leant slightly towards her.

“No, no, no, my dear. That really is not quite good enough.”

A sudden lull, comparable to that which follows the lowering of houselights in a crowded theatre, was broken by the more distant babble in the further room and by the inconsequent, hitherto inaudible, excursions of the musicians. Heads were turned towards the conservatory. Warrender came to the door. Gracefield found himself moved to one side; Octavius was there, face to face with Warrender. Gantry’s voice said:

“Mary. This won’t do.”

“I think,” Octavius said, “if I may, I would like to go to my niece.”

“Not yet,” Warrender said. “Do you mind?’ He shut the door and cut off the voices in the conservatory.

For a moment the picture beyond the glass walls was held. Mary Bellamy’s lips worked. Richard faced her and was speaking. So were Charles and Gantry. It was like a scene from a silent film. Then, with a concerted movement, the figures of Gantry, Charles, Richard and Warrender, their backs to their audience, hid Miss Bellamy and Anelida.

“Ah, there you are, Occy!” a jovial not quite sober voice exclaimed. “I was going to ask you, old boy. D’you remember…”

It was Octavius’s old acquaintance, Dr. Harkness, now rather tight. As if he had given a signal, everybody began to talk again very loudly indeed. Charles broke from the group and came through the glass door, shutting it quickly behind him. He put his hand on Octavius’s arm.

“It’s all right, Browne, I assure you,” he said. “It’s nothing. Dicky is taking care of her. Believe me, it’s all right.” He turned to Gracefield. “Tell them to get on with it,” he said. “At once.”

Gracefield gave his butler’s inclination and moved away.

Octavius said, “But all the same I would prefer to join Anelida.”

Charles looked at him. “How would you have liked,” he said, “to have spent the greater part of your life among aliens?”

Octavius blinked. “My dear Templeton,” he said, “I don’t know. But if you’ll forgive me I find myself in precisely that situation at the moment and I should still like to go to my niece.”