Mrs Peagrim wrinkled her fair forehead. It has been truly said that there is no agony like the agony of literary composition, and Mrs. Peagrim was having rather a bad time getting the requisite snap and ginger into her latest communication to the press. She bit her lip, and would have passed her twitching fingers restlessly through her hair but for the thought of the damage which such an action must do to her coiffure. Miss Frisby, her secretary, an anaemic and negative young woman, waited patiently, pad on knee, and tapped her teeth with her pencil.
“Please do not make that tapping noise, Miss Frisby,” said the sufferer querulously. “I cannot think. Otie, dear, can't you suggest a good phrase? You ought to be able to, being an author.”
Mr Pilkington, who was strewn over an arm-chair by the window, awoke from his meditations, which, to judge from the furrow just above the bridge of his tortoiseshell spectacles and the droop of his weak chin, were not pleasant. It was the morning after the production of “The Rose of America,” and he had passed a sleepless night, thinking of the harsh words he had said to Jill. Could she ever forgive him? Would she have the generosity to realize that a man ought not to be held accountable for what he says in the moment when he discovers that he has been cheated, deceived, robbed,—in a word, hornswoggled? He had been brooding on this all night, and he wanted to go on brooding now. His aunt's question interrupted his train of thought.
“Eh?” he said vaguely, gaping.
“Oh, don't be so absent-minded!” snapped Mrs Peagrim, not unjustifiably annoyed. “I am trying to compose a paragraph for the papers about our party tonight, and I can't get the right phrase — Read what you've written, Miss Frisby.”
Miss Frisby, having turned a pale eye on the pothooks and twiddleys in her note-book, translated them in a pale voice.
“'Surely of all the leading hostesses in New York Society there can be few more versatile than Mrs Waddlesleigh Peagrim. I am amazed every time I go to her delightful home on West End Avenue to see the scope and variety of her circle of intimates. Here you will see an ambassador with a fever —'“
“With a
“'Fever,' I thought you said,” replied Miss Frisby stolidly. “I wrote 'fever'.”
“'Diva.' Do use your intelligence, my good girl. Go on.”
“'Here you will see an ambassador with a diva from the opera, exchanging the latest gossip from the chancelleries for intimate news of the world behind the scenes. There, the author of the latest novel talking literature to the newest debutante. Truly one may say that Mrs Peagrim has revived the saloon.'“
Mrs Peagrim bit her lip.
“'Salon'.”
“'Salon',” said Miss Frisby unemotionally. “'They tell me, I am told, I am informed —'“ She paused. “That's all I have.”
“Scratch out those last words,” said Mrs Peagrim irritably. “You really are hopeless, Miss Frisby! Couldn't you see that I had stopped dictating and was searching for a phrase? Otie, what is a good phrase for 'I am told'?”
Mr Pilkington forced his wandering attention to grapple with the problem.
“'I hear',” he suggested at length.
“Tchah!” ejaculated his aunt. Then her face brightened. “I have it. Take dictation, please, Miss Frisby. 'A little bird whispers to me that there were great doings last night on the stage of the Gotham Theatre after the curtain had fallen on “The Rose of America” which, as everybody knows, is the work of Mrs Peagrim's clever young nephew, Otis Pilkington.'“ Mrs Peagrim shot a glance at her clever young nephew, to see how he appreciated the boost, but Otis' thoughts were far away once more. He was lying on his spine, brooding, brooding. Mrs Peagrim resumed her dictation. “'In honor of the extraordinary success of the piece, Mrs Peagrim, who certainly does nothing by halves, entertained the entire company to a supper-dance after the performance. A number of prominent people were among the guests, and Mrs Peagrim was a radiant and vivacious hostess. She has never looked more charming. The high jinks were kept up to an advanced hour, and every one agreed that they had never spent a more delightful evening.' There! Type as many copies as are necessary, Miss Frisby, and send them out this afternoon with photographs.”
Miss Frisby having vanished in her pallid way, the radiant and vivacious hostess turned on her nephew again.
“I must say, Otie,” she began complainingly, “that, for a man who has had a success like yours, you are not very cheerful. I should have thought the notices of the piece would have made you the happiest man in New York.”
There was once a melodrama where the child of the persecuted heroine used to dissolve the gallery in tears by saying “Happiness? What
“Notices! What are notices to me?”
“Oh, don't be so affected!” cried Mrs Peagrim. “Don't pretend that you don't know every word of them by heart!”
“I have not seen the notices, Aunt Olive,” said Mr Pilkington dully.
Mrs Peagrim looked at him with positive alarm. She had never been overwhelmingly attached to her long nephew, but since his rise to fame something resembling affection had sprung up in her, and his attitude now disturbed her.
“You can't be well, Otie!” she said solicitously. “Are you ill?”
“I have a severe headache,” replied the martyr. “I passed a wakeful night.”
“Let me go and mix you a dose of the most wonderful mixture,” said Mrs. Peagrim maternally. “Poor boy! I don't wonder, after all the nervousness and excitement — You sit quite still and rest. I will be back in a moment.”
She bustled out of the room, and Mr Pilkington sagged back into his chair. He had hardly got his meditations going once more, when the door opened and the maid announced “Major Selby.”
