"Not while I’m here, she won’t!" exclaimed Rose Euclid standing up, and
enunciating her words with marvellous clearness.
Edward Henry glanced at her, and then continued to read: "Suggestions
for headlines. ’Piquant quarrel between manager and star actress.’
’Unparalleled situation.’ ’Trouble at the Regent Theatre.’"
"Mr. Machin," said Rose Euclid, "you are not a gentleman."
"You’d hardly think so, would you?" mused Edward Henry, as if mildly
interested in this new discovery of Miss Euclid’s.
"Maria," said the star to her maid, "go and tell Mr. Marrier I’m
coming."
"And I’ll go back to the gallery," said Edward Henry. "It’s the place
for people like me, isn’t it? I daresay I’ll tear up this paper later,
Miss Euclid--we’ll see."
IV.
On the next night a male figure in evening dress and a pale overcoat
might have been seen standing at the corner of Piccadilly Circus and
Lower Regent Street, staring at an electric sign in the shape of a
shield which said in its glittering, throbbing speech of incandescence:
THE REGENT
ROSE EUCLID
IN
THE ORIENT PEARL
The figure crossed the Circus, and stared at the sign from a new point
of view. Then it passed along Coventry Street, and stared at the sign
from yet another point of view. Then it reached Shaftesbury Avenue, and
stared again. Then it returned to its original station. It was the
figure of Edward Henry Machin, savouring the glorious electric sign of
which he had dreamed. He lit a cigarette, and thought of Seven Sachs
gazing at the name of Seven Sachs in fire on the façade of a Broadway
theatre in New York. Was not this London phenomenon at least as fine?
He considered it was. The Regent Theatre existed--there it stood!
(What a name for a theatre!) Its windows were all illuminated. Its
entrance-lamps bathed the pavement in light, and in this radiance stood
the commissionaires in their military pride and their new uniforms. A
line of waiting automobiles began a couple of yards to the north of the
main doors and continued round all sorts of dark corners and up all
manner of back streets toward Golden Square itself. Marrier had had the
automobiles counted and had told him the number--, but such was Edward
Henry’s condition that he had forgotten. A row of boards reared on the
pavement against the walls of the façade said: "Stalls Full," "Private
Boxes Full," "Dress Circle Full," "Upper Circle Full," "Pit Full,"
"Gallery Full." And attached to the ironwork of the glazed entrance
canopy was a long board which gave the same information in terser form:
"House Full." The Regent had indeed been obliged to refuse quite a lot
of money on its opening night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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