ill do your
best."

"But, laddie!"

"Think," said Mr. Benham, solemnly, "of all that depends on it! The
other actors! The small-part people thrown out of a job! Myself--but no!
Perhaps you had better touch very lightly or not at all on my connection
with the thing. Well, you know how to handle it. I feel I can leave
it to you. Pitch it strong! Good-bye, my dear old man, and a thousand
thanks. I'll do the same for you another time." He moved towards the
door, leaving Archie transfixed. Half-way there he turned and came back.
"Oh, by the way," he said, "my lunch. Have it put on your bill, will
you? I haven't time to stay and settle. Good-bye! Good-bye!"

CHAPTER XIII. RALLYING ROUND PERCY

It amazed Archie through the whole of a long afternoon to reflect how
swiftly and unexpectedly the blue and brilliant sky of life can cloud
over and with what abruptness a man who fancies that his feet are on
solid ground can find himself immersed in Fate's gumbo. He recalled,
with the bitterness with which one does recall such things, that that
morning he had risen from his bed without a care in the world, his
happiness unruffled even by the thought that Lucille would be leaving
him for a short space. He had sung in his bath. Yes, he had chirruped
like a bally linnet. And now--

Some men would have dismissed the unfortunate affairs of Mr. George
Benham from their mind as having nothing to do with themselves, but
Archie had never been made of this stern stuff. The fact that Mr.
Benham, apart from being an agreeable companion with whom he had lunched
occasionally in New York, had no claims upon him affected him little. He
hated to see his fellowman in trouble. On the other hand, what could
he do? To seek Miss Silverton out and plead with her--even if he did
it without cooing--would undoubtedly establish an intimacy between them
which, instinct told him, might tinge her manner after Lucille's return
with just that suggestion of Auld Lang Syne which makes things so
awkward.

His whole being shrank from extending to Miss Silverton that inch which
the female artistic temperament is so apt to turn into an ell; and when,
just as he was about to go in to dinner, he met her in the lobby and she
smiled brightly at him and informed him that her eye was now completely
recovered, he shied away like a startled mustang of the prairie, and,
abandoning his intention of worrying the table d'hote in the same room
with the amiable creature,