" She
seated herself nervously and nodded her head at Carroll in an excited
and mysterious manner.
"What is it?" he asked. "Have you and Reggie--"
"Listen," Marion repeated. "Our fortunes are made; that is what's the
matter--and I've made them. If you took half the interest in your work
I do, you'd have made yours long ago. Last night," she began,
impressively, "I went to a large supper at the Savoy, and I sat next
to Charley Wimpole. He came in late, after everybody had finished, and
I attacked him while he was eating his supper. He said he had been
rehearsing 'Caste' after the performance; that they've put it on as a
stop-gap on account of the failure of 'The Triflers,' and that he knew
revivals were of no use; that he would give any sum for a good modern
comedy. That was my cue, and I told him I knew of a better comedy than
any he had produced at his theatre in five years, and that it was
going begging. He laughed, and asked where was he to find this
wonderful comedy, and I said, 'It's been in your safe for the last two
months and you haven't read it.' He said, 'Indeed, how do you know
that?' and I said, 'Because if you'd read it, it wouldn't be in your
safe, but on your stage.' So he asked me what the play was about, and
I told him the plot and what sort of a part his was, and some of his
scenes, and he began to take notice. He forgot his supper, and very
soon he grew so interested that he turned his chair round and kept
eying my supper-card to find out who I was, and at last remembered
seeing me in 'The New Boy'--and a rotten part it was, too--but he
remembered it, and he told me to go on and tell him more about your
play.
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