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"Otie darling," said Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim, leaning her ample shoulder on Uncle Chris' perfectly fitting sleeve and speaking across him to young Mr Pilkington, "I do congratulate you, dear. It's perfectly delightful! I don't know when I have enjoyed a musical piece so much. Don't you think it's perfectly darling, Major Selby?"
The violins soared to one last high note: the bassoon uttered a final moan: the pensive person at the end of the orchestra-pit, just under Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim's box, whose duty it was to slam the drum at stated intervals, gave that much-enduring instrument a concluding wallop; and, laying aside his weapons, allowed his thoughts to stray in the direction of cooling drinks.
Do you realize that at houses like Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim's I am meeting men all the time who have only to say one little word to make me a millionaire? They are fat, gray men with fishy eyes and large waistcoats, and they sit smoking cigars and brooding on what they are going to do to the market next day. If I were a mind-reader I could have made a dozen fortunes by now.
"I wouldn't part with it for all Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim's millions," said Wally with sudden and startling vehemence, "if she offered me them." He paused. "She hasn't, as a matter of fact." There was a silence. Jill looked at Wally furtively, as he returned to his seat. She was seeing him with new eyes. It was as if this trifling incident had removed some sort of a veil.
The problem was how to keep up the er innocent deception after we had reached New York. A woman like Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim a ghastly creature, my dear, all front teeth and exuberance, but richer than the Sub-Treasury looks askance at a man, however agreeable, if he endeavors to cement a friendship begun on board ship from a cheap boarding-house on Amsterdam Avenue.
So there you have it in a bally nutshell!" Scarcely had Freddie ceased to administer it to his former friend in a bally nutshell, when Uncle Chris, warm and dishevelled from the dance as interpreted by Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim, came bustling up, saving Derek the necessity of replying to the harangue.
Encouraged by the other's kindly receptiveness, he had told him all his love for Jill, his hopes that some day it might be returned, the difficulties complicating the situation owing to the known prejudices of Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim concerning girls who formed the personnel of musical comedy ensembles.
Mr Waddesleigh Peagrim made a fortune in smoked hams." Mr Pilkington looked at the Japanese prints, and shuddered slightly. "Right up to the time of his death he was urging me to go into the business. I could not have endured it. But, when I heard those two men discussing the play, I almost wished that I had done so." Jill was now completely disarmed.
How many of the best-known actresses in America began in that way! Dozens. Dozens. If I were giving advice to any young girl with theatrical aspirations, I should say 'Begin in the chorus! On the other hand," he proceeded, turning to Pilkington, "I think it would be just as well if you would not mention the fact of my niece being in that position to Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim.
"Some of them don't seem quite to understand it." Mr Pilkington was silent for a moment. "I am beginning to wonder myself whether it may not be a little over the heads of the public," he said ruefully. "When it was first performed . . ." "Oh, has it been done before?" "By amateurs, yes, at the house of my aunt, Mrs Waddesleigh Peagrim, at Newport, last Summer. In aid of the Armenian orphans.
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