The Park Lane Theatre in Oxford Street, about two hundred yards east of the Marble Arch, was one of the most successful houses of those many theatres which have sprung up in London during the last few years. Its reputation was thoroughly high-class, and more particularly that of a theatre patronised by Society. It was in fact, the St. James's of that quarter of London. Here was no pit, and the gallery seats were half-a-crown for example.

The long and successful run of a play at the Park Lane had just concluded, and the theatrical journalists were hazarding this or that surmise as to what would be next produced. For some reason or other there seemed to be a sort of mystery. The syndicate which owned the theatre would make no announcements through their manager, save only that the theatre had been let.

Inquiries elicited nothing. This or that well-known entrepreneur, when asked the question had denied that he was interested in any forthcoming production at the theatre. There was a good deal of speculation on the point, and the play-going public itself was beginning to be interested.

Then, one morning, there appeared in the Daily Wire a paragraph, displayed in a prominent position, which stated that the theatre had been leased to Mr. Aubrey Flood, the well-known actor-manager, and the paragraph—obviously inspired—went on to hint at a most sensational development, of which the public might shortly expect news in the columns of the great Radical daily.

A few days after the public had been informed of the Duke of Paddington's extraordinary and terrible experiences, Mr. Aubrey Flood sat in his private room at the theatre. It was twelve o'clock noon, and he was dictating some letters to his secretary. The room was large and comfortable, and was reached by a short passage at the back of the dress circle. The walls were hung with framed photographs, many of them of great size, and signed by names which were famous in the dramatic world. There was a curious likeness to each other in all these photographs, when one regarded them closely. Men and women of entirely different faces and figures had all, nevertheless, the same curiously conscious look lurking in the eyes and pose. They seemed well aware, in their beauty of face and figure or splendour of costume, that they were there for one purpose—to be looked at.

Here and there the photographs were diversified by valuable old play-bills in gold frames, and close to the door was a page torn out of a ledger, the writing now faded and brown with years. It was a salary list of some forgotten provincial theatre, and the names of famous actors—at the time it was written utterly unknown to fame—were set down there in a thin, old-fashioned script. Heading the list one saw "Henry Irving, £1 10s. 0d.," the weekly salary at that date of, perhaps, the greatest actor England has ever known.

A huge writing-table was covered with papers, and there were two telephones, one hanging upon the wall, the other resting on its plated stand upon the table. Upon another table, much higher than the ordinary, and standing at one side of the room was a complete model theatre. Carefully executed studies of scenery half a yard square lay by the side of the model, and a complete miniature tableau had been built up upon the tiny stage, while the characters of the toy drama were represented by the little oblong cubes of wood, variously coloured.

To complete the picture, it should be stated that, by the side of Mr. Aubrey Flood, nearer, indeed, to him than the telephone, stood a square bottle of cut-glass, a tumbler, and a syphon of soda-water.

There was a knock at the door, and the stage door-keeper entered with a card.

"Mr. Lionel C. Westwood, to see you, sir," he said.

"Ask him to come in at once," Flood answered.

Mr. Lionel C. Westwood had, more or less, created his own profession, which was that of a very special sort of theatrical journalist. He had been tried for dramatic criticism on more than one paper, but had abandoned this form of writing for what he speedily found to be the more lucrative one of collecting early dramatic intelligence. He wrote, too, the column of Green Room Gossip in more than one important paper, and was, indeed, of extreme use to managers who wished to contradict a rumour or to start one.

He came hurriedly into the room—a short, easy, alert young man, wearing a voluminous frock-coat, and with a mixed aspect of extreme hurry and cordiality.

"Oh, my dear Aubrey," he said, shaking the manager's hand with effusive geniality, "so here you are! Directly I saw the paragraph in the Wire I wrote to you, asking for fuller information. Now, you won't mind telling me all there is to know, will you?"

"Sit down, Lionel," said the actor. "Will you have a drink?"

"No, thank you," replied the little man, "I never take anything in the morning. Now, what is all this? What are you going to do? What are you going to produce? That's what I want to know. All London is wondering!" He rapped with his fingers upon the table, and his face suddenly assumed a curiously ferret-like look "What is it, Aubrey, dear boy?" he concluded.

Flood leant back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

"It is a very big thing indeed, Lionel," he said, "and I don't know, dear boy, that I should be justified in letting you into it just yet. Why, we only read the play to the company this afternoon!"

Mr. Lionel C. Westwood's ears seemed positively to twitch as he elicited this first piece of information.

"Oh!" he said, with a sudden gleam of satisfaction. "Well, that is something, at any rate. That is an item, Aubrey."

"I am afraid that is as far as I shall be able to go," the shrewd manager replied.

This little comedy progressed for some twenty minutes, until at last Mr. Lionel C. Westwood was worked up into the right state of frantic curiosity and excitement. Then Aubrey Flood explained dimly the purpose and scope of the new play, hinted reluctantly at the achievement of a new star, a young actress of wonderful power and extreme beauty, who had hitherto been quite unknown in the provinces, and finally, with a gush of friendship, "Well, as it is you, Lionel, dear boy, though I would not do it for anybody else," promised the journalist that he might come to the theatre again that afternoon and form one of the privileged few, in addition to the company itself, who would be present at the reading of the play by its author, Mr. James Fabian Rose.

Mr. Lionel C. Westwood went away more than contented, and Aubrey Flood resumed his correspondence. The train was laid and the match was applied to it. The Daily Wire, of course, was at the disposal of the syndicate, and would further its objects in every way through Mr. Goodrick. At the same time, the editor was quite shrewd enough to know that his paper was more particularly read by the middle-classes, and content to sacrifice items of excessive interest concerning the play in order that it might be widely advertised.

For they were all very greatly in earnest, these people. Even Aubrey Flood himself, while he was business man enough to regard this speculation as an excellent one, and believe that he would make a great deal of money over it, was nevertheless about to produce this epoch-making play from a real and earnest adherence to the doctrines it was to inculcate.

There is a general opinion that your actor-manager and your actor are persons consumed by two inherent thirsts—applause and money. In a sense—perhaps in a very general sense—this is true, but there are still those actors and actresses whose life is not entirely occupied with their own personality and chances of success. In the most egotistical of all occupations there are yet men and women who are animated by the spirit of altruism, and the hope of helping a great movement. Aubrey Flood was one of these men. He was as convinced a Socialist as Fabian Rose himself. He was enlisted under that banner, and he was prepared to go to any length to uphold it in the forefront of the great battle which was imminent. At the same time, Mr. Aubrey Flood saw no reason why propaganda should not pay!

He was dictating his letters, when once more the stage door-keeper came into the room with another card. It was that of Miss Mary Marriott.

Flood started.

"Show Miss Marriott in at once," he said, and his face changed a little, while a new light of interest came into his eyes.

Your theatrical manager is not, as a rule, a person very susceptible to the charms of the ladies with whom he is constantly associated, though perhaps that is not quite the best way to put it. He is susceptible, but in a somewhat cynical and contemptuous way. The conquests in the world of the limelight are not always too difficult, and a man who pursues them out of habit and inclination very often learns to put a low figure upon achievement. But in the case of Mary Marriott, Aubrey Flood, who was no better or no worse than his colleagues, had felt differently. It does not necessarily mean that when a manager makes love to his leading lady, or to any lady in his company, he necessarily has the slightest real emotion in doing so. It is, indeed, part of the day's work, and half of the day's necessity. That is all.

But Flood had never met any one like Mary Marriott before. He was impressed by her beauty; he recognised her talent; he believed absolutely in her artistic capacities. At the same time he found himself feeling for this girl something to which he had long been a stranger—a feeling of reverence, or perhaps chivalry, would more easily describe it.

Yes, when he was with her he remembered his younger days when, as a boyish undergraduate from Oxford, he had played tennis with the daughters of the squire on the lawns of his father's rectory. Then all women passably fair and passably young had been mysterious goddesses. Mary Marriott sometimes brought the hardened and cynical man of the world, whose only real passion was for the cause of Socialism, back to the ideals of his youth, and he counted himself fortunate that fate had thrown her in his way.

Mary came into the room. He rose and shook her heartily by the hand.

"My dear Miss Marriott," he said—an intimate of his would have noticed a slight change in his way of addressing her, for to most lady members of his company he would have said "my dear," "to what do I owe this call? I thought we were all going to meet at half-past two to hear the play read! Do sit down."

Mary smiled at him. She liked Mr. Flood. She knew the sickening familiarities of the men who had controlled some of the companies in which she had been.

At first it had been horrible, then she had become a little accustomed and blunted to it. She had endured without any signs of outrage the familiar touch upon the arm, the bold intimacy of voice and manner. It was refreshing now to meet a man who behaved to her as a gentleman behaves to a lady in a society where the footlights are not.

In fact, everything was refreshing, new, and exhilarating to Mary now, since that day, that terrible day of fog and gloom, when, after her long and perilous search for an engagement she had sat in her little attic flat in Bloomsbury and the mustard-bearded man had knocked at the door with all the suddenness of wonder of the fairy godmother herself to Cinderella.

She sat down, and there was a moment's pause.

"Well, do you know, Mr. Flood," she said at length, hesitating a little, and feeling embarrassed, "I have come to ask you a most extraordinary favour."

All sorts of ideas crossed the swift, cinematographic mind of the manager. It could not be that she wanted an advance of salary, because all the company were to be paid for rehearsals, and directly the contract had been signed with him and Fabian Rose, Mary Marriott's half-salary had begun. It could not be that she wanted more "fat" in the part, because she realised the rigidity of Rose's censorship in such a matter; and, besides, she was too much an artist to want the centre of the stage all the time. What could it be? His face showed nothing of his thoughts. All he said was, "Miss Marriott, I am sure you will not ask me anything that I shall not be able to grant."

"But I think on this occasion you might have some difficulty, Mr. Flood," Mary answered, with half a smile—the man thought he had never seen such charm and such self-possession.

Her voice was like a silver bell, heard far away on a mountain side. No, it wasn't, it was like water falling into water—like a tiny waterfall, falling into a deep, translucent pool in a wood!

"Go on, Miss Marriott," he replied, with a smile.

"I want to bring some one to the reading of the play this afternoon," she said.

"That is all right," he answered; "but provided, of course, that your friend will not divulge anything about the play more than we allow him to do. Why, I have just given little Lionel C. Westwood permission to come and hear the play read. Of course, Mr. Rose must have a say in the matter. But who do you want to bring?"

"I have asked Mr. Rose," Mary replied. "I saw him this morning, and he raised no objections, provided only that you gave your consent."

"Well, then, it is a foregone conclusion," Flood returned; "but who is it?"

"Well," Mary answered, "it is the Duke of Paddington."

Aubrey Flood looked at her for a moment, his eyes wide with amazement.

"The man himself! By Jove!" he said, "the very man! Do you think this is wise?"

"He has given me his promise," Mary answered, "that he comes merely as an interested spectator."

"Oh, well, then," Flood answered, "if that is the case, by all means let him come, Miss Marriott. Of course, if Rose does not mind, I am sure I don't; but when you first mentioned his name I had a flitting vision that he was coming for—not at all in a friendly way—in fact, to gather material for a libel action in case his personality is indicated too plainly in the play."

"But it is not, Mr. Flood, is it?" Mary asked.

"Oh, no," the actor answered; "his personality is not indicated at all. We don't caricature people, we indicate types. He is—— Well, perhaps I should hardly even have used the word indicate at all—he is merely used as a peg upon which to hang our theories. I have read the play and you have not, and I am sure that what I say is quite correct. At the same time, you know, Miss Marriott, all London will guess at whom we are hitting in the first instance—not so much because he happens to be an individual enemy of the Cause as that he is representative of the army of monopolists we are endeavouring to destroy."

"I am sure he won't mind at all," Mary Marriott said, and Flood noticed with an odd uneasiness that she flushed a little. "I have had the privilege of seeing something of the duke lately, and he really seems to be taking an interest in the socialistic movement, though of course from quite a different point of view to ours."

"I see," Flood replied slowly. "Miss Marriott, you are trying——" And then he stopped, he thought it better to leave his thought unspoken.

"Very well, then," he replied, "so be it. Bring him, by all means."

"May I telephone?" Mary said, "or, rather would you have a message telephoned to Grosvenor Street, Mr. Flood? The duke is staying with Lord Camborne, and I promised that if it was possible for him to hear the reading of the play I would let him know. If you telephone to him that there is no objection he will arrive here at half-past two o'clock."

"By all means," Flood answered, "I will do it myself. I have had a good many interesting experiences in my lifetime, but this will be the first time that I have talked to a duke over the telephone." He laughed a little sardonically as Mary rose.

"By the way, what are you going to do now?" he said.

"It is nearly one o'clock. I am going home to my flat for lunch," Mary answered.

"No, you are not, Miss Marriott," he answered. "You are coming out to lunch with me, if you please."

Mary hesitated for a moment, then smiled radiantly, and thanked him. "It is very kind of you," she said. "Of course I will, since you ask me."

Together, a few minutes afterwards, they left the theatre and drove down to Frascati's.

The lunch was bright and merry. Upon the stage the usual convenances are not observed, because, indeed, it would be impossible that they should be. Apart from them any abuses of stage life, and the danger which belongs to the meeting of youngish men and women without the usual restraints of society, without the usual restraints which society imposes, there is, nevertheless, in many instances a real and true camaraderie of the sexes which is as charming as it is without offence.

The girl lunched with the actor-manager, gaily and happily. The simple omelette, fines herbes, the red mullet and the grilled kidneys were perfectly cooked, and the bottle of Beaune—well, it was Moulin À Vent, and what more can be said?

They talked over the play from various points of view. First of all it was from the aspect of its probable success. They agreed that this seemed assured. Then they talked eagerly, keenly of the artistic possibilities of it. Mary had read a scene or two—Fabian Rose had given her the typewritten manuscript—but of the play as a whole she had no more than a vague idea. This, to both of them, was the most interesting part of their talk.

Aubrey was an artist in every way. He was a successful artist and had combined commercial success with his real work, otherwise he would not have been a "successful artist." But he cared very much, nevertheless, for the splendour of what he believed to be the greatest art in the world. He was sincere, as Mary was also, in his belief in the high mission of the stage.

Finally, over their coffee, they talked of what the play—already assumed successful and important—would mean to Socialism.

Mary was but a new convert. Her ideas about the cause to which, in her young enthusiasm, she had pledged herself were nebulous. She had much to learn. She was learning much. Yet her heart warmed up as Aubrey Flood let his words go, and told her of his ambitions that this play should indeed be a great thing for the Cause. He was a clever and well-known actor, a successful manager, under a new aspect altogether. She had met people like Aubrey Flood before, but no single one of them had ever shown her that beneath his life of the theatre lay any deep and underlying motive, and it uplifted her, she felt that strange sense of brotherhood which those who are united against the world always know. She recognised that Aubrey Flood, beneath his exterior, was as keen and convinced a Socialist as Fabian Rose, or Mr. Conrad. The fact substantiated her own new theories and induced in her the throbbing sense of being an officer in a great army.

"I wish I had known before," she said to him as they were preparing to leave the restaurant. "I wish I had known before, then, indeed, I might have had an ethical motive in my life, which I now see and feel has been lacking for a long time."

"You are now," he answered, "catching something of our own enthusiasm, and it is by the most extraordinary chain of events that Rose and you, Conrad and myself have come into touch with the Duke of Paddington himself. Conrad, of course, would tell you that Providence had designed it. I cannot go so far as that. I simply say that it is chance. All the same, it is a most marvellous thing. We are going to startle England."

Mary looked at him for a moment. They had just got into the hansom which was to drive them back to the theatre.

"I don't see, Mr. Flood," she said in a quiet voice, "why it is any more easy to believe that something you call 'chance' brings things about than it is difficult to believe that something Mr. Conrad calls 'Providence' should effect the same results."

Flood looked at her in his turn. Here was a most strange young lady of the stage, indeed. He tried to think of something to say, but could not. The simple logic of her answer forbade retort.

Indeed, why should any one want to gather up "coincidences," call the controlling power of them "chance," and not admit that Providence itself had ordered them?

He could not think beyond that, and he was silent. He remembered his old father at the country rectory. He remembered the simple faith of his father and mother and his sisters, and he realised with a sudden shock of pain that the reason why he strove to call the strange Directorship of the affairs of life by a name which had no especial meaning was because he was not prepared to submit to the teachings and the order of the Faith.

Mary also seemed to realise that her words had struck home to a heart which was not yet entirely atrophied by the rush of life in the world of the stage.

She turned to him and smiled slightly, rather sadly, indeed.

"Mr. Flood," she said, "you and I were both born in the same country but perhaps you have been over the frontier for a long time."

"And perhaps," he answered, and while he did so his voice sounded in his own ears strange and unfamiliar, "and perhaps even a theatrical manager may some day ask for his passport to return."

They drew up at the stage door of the Park Lane Theatre.

Mary did not go back to Mr. Flood's room. She went straight on to the stage. The curtain was up. The house was swathed in brown holland, and only a faint light came down from the glass dome in the roof, showing the whole place melancholy and bizarre. The stage itself was a great expanse of dirty boards, stretching right away to a brick wall at the back, in which was a huge slit, with two dingily-painted doors covering it, by which scenery was brought into the scene-dock a little behind.

Two or three chairs were set down by the unlighted footlights, and there was a tiny table by one of them. The limits of the scene which would be set one day were marked off by chalk lines upon the boards. Two or three nondescript men in soft felt hats wandered about in the wings, and on the prompt side, up a ladder and standing on the platform above where is the switchboard which controls the stage lights, the electrician—in a dirty white linen coat—was twisting wires from one plug to another, and noisily whistling the last popular song.

It was a scene of drab materialism, and the two or three little groups of people who stood here and there neither added to it nor gave it any animation.

As Mary went "on" the actors and actresses who were waiting there looked at her with curious eyes. One or two she knew—they were often at the Actors' Association. Who her colleagues as principals were she had not been told, and as yet had no idea, save only of course that she was to act with Aubrey Flood himself.

She saw, however, with a little thrill of pleasure that Dorothy French was there. She herself had obtained a small part for her little friend from Fabian Rose. Dolly came hurrying up to her, the girl's high-heeled shoes echoing strangely upon the boards and sending out a muffled drum-like note into the dim, shrouded auditorium beyond.

"Oh, Mary dear," Dolly whispered, "I am so glad to see you! I have not seen you for such a long time, and it's been so awfully good of you to find a shop for me. But what an extraordinary business it all is! None of us seem to know anything about it. The whole thing is a perfect mystery, and is it really true?" she continued, with a touch of envy, "is it really true, Mary dear, that you are going to play lead?"

Mary sighed a little. "Well," she said, "I suppose it is."

"Then you know all about it?" Dolly answered quickly. "Now, do tell me, Mary, what it is all about. The papers are full of rumours."

Mary realised what she had often realised before in her stage career, that friendships last for a tour, and are spoiled by the first hintings of success. She had always been fond of little Dolly French, pretty little Dolly French; but here at the very first intimation of her own promotion, was Dolly, with a changed voice and a different look in her eyes, wearing an eager, questioning envious look.

"I know very little, Dolly," she answered rather shortly, "and what I do know I must not tell. Everybody will know soon, of course."

Dorothy looked at her for a moment in silence. Then she said: "Oh, Mary! I see that you are already feeling the responsibilities of being Lead." She tittered rather bitterly, turned away, and rejoined the group from which she had come.

Every one seemed to watch Mary for a few moments—she was standing quite by herself—when there was a noise of footsteps and a group of people came through the pass-door and down the three or four steps which led to the stage itself.

Aubrey Flood was the first, without a hat and in an ordinary lounge suit. James Fabian Rose, carrying a roll of brown paper in his hand, and wearing a tweed overcoat and soft felt hat, followed him.

Behind the two was another man, who walked close to the pioneers, and looked round him with an air of unfamiliarity.

He was a tallish, clean-shaven young man who wore a heavy fur coat.

Mary turned round and went up to the group.

"Yes," Aubrey Flood said; "yes, Miss Marriott, here indeed is his Grace, who has come to hear how we are going to attack him."

The duke looked at Flood with a half smile, there seemed to be something condescending in it, then he turned eagerly to Mary. "Oh, Miss Marriott," he said, "you cannot think how interesting all this is to me, and how grateful I am to you for enabling me to see it all."

He looked up and round, and there was something in his voice that showed he was alert and aware—aware and curious.

"We shall be about half an hour before we begin to read the play, your Grace," Aubrey Flood said. "Would you like to be shown over the theatre—that is, have you ever been over a theatre from the 'behind-the-scenes' point of view, as it were?"

"No, I have not," the duke answered, "and I should like to very much."

At the same moment the stage manager came hurrying up to Aubrey Flood. The actor turned to the duke and to Mary Marriott.

"Miss Marriott," he said, "would you show the duke something of the theatre? I must talk to Mr. Howard."

Mary and the duke moved away together.

"I don't quite know what to show you," she said, "and will you really be interested in the way we present our illusions?"

"Miss Marriott," the duke answered, "I want to know all sorts of things which I have never known before. I've always been boxed up, so to say. Life has been rather a monotonous procession for me up to the present. Now I am simply greedy and eager for new sensations."

"Then, come along," the girl answered; "come along, and I will show you the mechanism by which we produce our effects."

"Oh, no," the duke answered, "you cannot show me that, Miss Marriott, at all. You can show me a mere mechanism which surrounds and assists art. That is all you can show me. It will be in the future that you will show me art itself."

She looked at him with a quiet, considering eye, forgetting for a moment who he was: "Do you know," she said, "I think you must be an artist."

The duke looked at her rather strangely.