leading ladies, dominated him
entirely. He sat in the bar of the Great Eastern Hotel with tears in his
eyes, talking about what Miss Howe had done for him, and gave
unnecessary backsheesh to coolies who brought him small bills--so long,
that is, as they were the small bills of this season. When they had
reference to the liabilities of a former and less prosperous year he
waved them away with a bitter levity which belonged to the same period.
His view of his obligations was strictly chronological, and in taking it
he counted, like the poet, only happy hours. The bad debt and the bad
season went consistently together to oblivion; the sun of to-day's
remarkable receipts could not be expected to penetrate backwards. He had
only one fault to find with Miss Howe--she had no artistic conscience,
none whatever, and he found this with the utmost leniency, basking in
the consciousness that it made his own more conspicuous. She was
altogether in the grand style, if you understood Mr. Stanhope, but
nothing would induce her to do herself justice before Calcutta; she
seemed to have taken the measure of the place and to be as indifferent!
Try to ring in anything worth doing and she was off with the bit between
her teeth, and you simply had to put up with it. The second lead had a
great deal more ambition, and a very good little woman in her way, too,
but of course not half the talent. He was obliged to confess that Miss
Howe wasn't game for risks, especially after doing her Rosalind the
night the circus opened to a twenty-five rupee house. It was monstrous.
She seemed to think that nothing mattered so much as that everybody
should be paid on the first of the month. There was one other grievance,
which Llewellyn mentioned only in confidence with a lowered voice. That
was Bradley. Hilda wasn't lifting a finger to keep Bradley. Result was,
Bradley was crooking his elbow a great deal too often lately and going
off every way. He, Llewellyn, had put it to her if that was the way to
treat a man the _Daily Telegraph_ had spoken about as it had spoken
about Hamilton Bradley. Where was she--where was he--going to find
another? No, he didn't say marry Bradley; there were difficulties, and
after all that might be the very way to lose him. But a woman had an
influence, and that influence could never be more fittingly exercised
than in the cause of dramatic art, based on Mr. Stanhope's combinations.
Mr. Stanhope expressed himself more vaguely, but i