"I wouldn't go with Pilgrim now," exclaimed Rose, passionately, "not
if he went down on his knees to me!"
"And nothing on earth would induce me to let him have 'The Orient
Pearl'!" Carlo Trent asseverated with equal passion. "He's lost that
for ever!" he added grimly. "It won't be he who'll collar the profits
out of that! It'll just be ourselves!"
"Not if he went down on his knees to me!" Rose was repeating to
herself with fervency.
The calm of despair took possession of Edward Henry. He felt that
he must act immediately--he knew his own mood, by long experience.
Exploring the pockets of the dressing-gown which had aroused the
longing of the greatest dramatic poet in the world, he discovered in
one of them precisely the piece of apparatus he required--namely, a
slip of paper suitable for writing. It was a carbon duplicate of the
bill for the dressing-gown, and showed the word "Drook" in massive
printed black, and the figures L4, 4s. in faint blue. He drew a pencil
from his waistcoat and inscribed on the paper:
"Go out, and then come back in a couple of minutes and tell me someone
wants to speak to me urgently in the next room."
With a minimum of ostentation he gave the document to Joseph, who,
evidently well trained under Sir Nicholas, vanished into the next room
before attempting to read it.
"I hope," said Edward Henry to Carlo Trent, "that this money-making
play is reserved for the new theatre?"
"Utterly," said Carlo Trent.
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