Part 50 (1/2)
”I c-couldn't,” reatest draan to cry
”Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech!”
”Here!” said Edward Henry, gruffly ”Get out of my way! I'll settle 'em! Get out of ely scornful glances
The ain, and the next second Edward Henry was facing an auditoriu up, chiefly in the aisles and crowded at the entrances, and quite half the people aving, and quite a quarter of thee elapsed
His ears were stunned But it see with marvellous perfection He perceived that he had been utterly wrong about ”The Orient Pearl” And that all his advisers had been splendidly right He had failed to catch its charnificent representative audience drawn froht of the season--had not failed
It occurred to him to raise his hand And as he raised his hand it occurred to hiic hush fell upon the nificent audience, which owned all that endless line of automobiles outside Edward Henry, in the hush, took a pull at his cigarette
”Ladies and gentle his voice well--for municipal politics had ratulate you This evening you--have succeeded!”
There was a roar, confused,He distinctly heard a man in the front row of the stalls say: ”Well, for sheer nerve--!” And then go off into a peal of laughter
He se of him
”You hast, ad, triumphant
Noard Henry had had no intention ofcake He had ht But he saw that he had treated a West End audience as a West End audience had never before been treated, and that his audacity had conquered Hence he determined not to refuse the cake
”Didn't I tell you I'd settle 'e”
VI
One hour later, in the double-bedded chamber at the Majestic, as his wife lay in bed and he washis chin in the ain, after an immeasurable interval, the rock-bottom of reality
Nellie, even when he could only see her face--and that in a mirror!--was the most real phenoe faculty of dispelling all unreality round about her
”Well,” he said, ”how did you get on in the box?”
”Oh!” she replied, ”I got on very ith the Woldo woman She's one of our sort But I'm not _so_ set up with your Elsie April”
”Dash this collar!”
Nellie continued:
”And I can tell you another thing, I don't envy Mr Rollo Wrissell”
”What's Wrissell got to do with it?”
”She means to marry him”