"Who's
there?" said a voice. He entered and then replied: "I am."
Rose Euclid was smoking a cigarette and scratching the arm of an
easy-chair behind her. Her maid stood near by with a whisky-and-soda.
"Sorry you can't go on with the rehearsal, Miss Euclid," said Edward
Henry very quickly. "However, we must do the best we can. But Mr.
Marrier thought you'd like to hear this. It's part of an interview
with me that's going to appear to-morrow in the press."
Without pausing, he went on to read: "I found Mr. Alderman Machin, the
hero of the Five Towns and the proprietor and initiator of London's
newest and most up-to-date and most intellectual theatre, surrounded
by a complicated apparatus of telephones and typewriters in his
managerial room at the Regent. He received me very courteously. "Yes,"
he said in response to my question, "the rumour is quite true. The
principal part in 'The Orient Pearl' will be played on the first night
by Miss Euclid's understudy, Miss Olga Cunningham, a young woman of
very remarkable talent. No, Miss Euclid is not ill or even indisposed.
But she and I have had a grave difference of opinion. The point
between us was whether Miss Euclid's speeches ought to be clearly
audible in the auditorium. I considered they ought. I may be wrong.
I may be provincial. But that was and is my view. At the
dress-rehearsal, seated in the gallery, I could not hear her lines.
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