"MacConnell, let me introduce Mr. Bartley
Alexander. I say! It's going famously
to-night, Mac. And what an audience!
You'll never do anything like this again, mark me.
A man writes to the top of his bent only once."
The playwright gave Mainhall a curious look
out of his deep-set faded eyes and made a
wry face. "And have I done anything so
fool as that, now?" he asked.
"That's what I was saying," Mainhall lounged
a little nearer and dropped into a tone
even more conspicuously confidential.
"And you'll never bring Hilda out like
this again. Dear me, Mac, the girl
couldn't possibly be better, you know."
MacConnell grunted. "She'll do well
enough if she keeps her pace and doesn't
go off on us in the middle of the season,
as she's more than like to do."
He nodded curtly and made for the door,
dodging acquaintances as he went.
"Poor old Hugh," Mainhall murmured.
"He's hit terribly hard. He's been wanting
to marry Hilda these three years and more.
She doesn't take up with anybody, you know.
Irene Burgoyne, one of her family, told me in
confidence that there was a romance somewhere
back in the beginning. One of your countrymen,
Alexander, by the way; an American student
whom she met in Paris, I believe. I dare say
it's quite true that there's never been any one else."
Mainhall vouched for her constancy with a loftiness
that made Alexander smile, even while a kind of
rapid excitement was tingling through him.
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