The Summons | Page 9

But he could have taken back his words the next moment.
In spite of Hillyard's aloof and disinterested air, the night had brought
its excitement and in a strength of which he himself was unaware. It
lifted now the veils behind which a man will hide his secret thoughts!
He turned swiftly to Hardiman with a boyish light upon his face.
"Oh, I am not in doubt of what to-night means to me! Not for a moment.
If it's failure, it means that I begin again to-morrow on something else;
and again after that, and again after that, until success does come.
Playwriting is my profession, and failures are a necessary part of
it--just as much a part as the successes. But even if the great success
were to come now, it wouldn't mean quite so much to me perhaps as it
might to other people." He paused, and a smile broke upon his face. "I
live expecting a messenger. There! That's my secret delivered over to
you under the excitement of a first night."
And as he spoke the colour mounted into his face. He turned away in
confusion. His play was nearer at his heart than he had thought; the
enthusiasm which seemed to be greeting it had stirred him unwisely.
"Tell me," he said hurriedly, "who all these people in the stalls are."
He peeped down between the edge of the curtain and the side wall of
the box whilst Hardiman stood up behind him.
"Yes, I will be your man from Cook's," said Hardiman genially.
His heart warmed to the young man both on account of his outburst and
of the shame which had followed upon the heels of it. Few beliefs had
survived in Hardiman after forty years of wandering up and down the
flowery places of the earth; but one--he had lectured Harry Luttrell
upon it on a night at Stockholm--continually gained strength in him.

Youth must beget visions and man must preserve them if great work
were to be done; and so easily the visions lost their splendour and their
inspiration. Of all the ways of tarnishing the vision, perhaps talk was
the most murderous. Hillyard possessed them. Hillyard was ashamed
that he had spoken of them. Therefore he had some chance of retaining
them.
"Yes, I will show you the celebrities." He pointed out the leading critics
and the blue stockings of the day. His eyes roamed over the stalls. "Do
you see the man with the broad face and the short whiskers in the
fourth row? The man who looks just a little too like a country
gentleman to be one? That is Sir Chichester Splay. He made a fortune
in a murky town of Lancashire, and, thirsting for colour, came up to
London determined to back a musical comedy. That is the way the
craving for colour takes them in the North. His wish was gratified. He
backed 'The Patchouli Girl,' and in that shining garden he got stung. He
is now what they call an amateur. No first night is complete without
him. He is the half-guinea Mecænas of our days."
Hillyard looked down at Sir Chichester Splay and smiled at his
companion's description.
"You will meet him to-night at supper, and if your play is a
success--not otherwise--you will stay with him in Sussex."
"No!" cried Hillyard; but Sir Charles was relentless in his insistence.
"You will. His wife will see to that. Who the pretty girl beside him is I
do not know. But the more or less young man on the other side of her,
talking to her with an air of intimacy a little excessive in a public place,
is Mario Escobar. He is a Spaniard, and has the skin-deep politeness of
his race. He is engaged in some sort of business, frequents some sort of
society into which he is invited by the women, and he is not very
popular amongst men. He belongs, however, to some sort of club. That
is all I know about him. One would think he had guessed we were
speaking of him," Hardiman added.
For at that moment Mario Escobar raised his dark, sleek head, and his

big, soft eyes--the eyes of a beautiful woman--looked upwards to the
box. It seemed to Hillyard for a moment that they actually exchanged a
glance, though he himself was out of sight behind the curtain, so direct
was Escobar's gaze. It was, however, merely the emptiness of the box
which had drawn the Spaniard's attention. He was neatly groomed, of a
slight figure, tall, and with his eyes, his thin olive face, his small black
moustache and clean-cut jaw he made without doubt an effective and
arresting figure.
"Now turn your head," said Hardiman, "the other way, and notice the
big, fair man