Books: Jill the Reckless)

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Mr Pilkington snorted. He had endured much and was prepared to endure
more, but he drew the line at squandering his money on the man who
had sneaked up behind his brain-child with a hatchet and chopped its
precious person into little bits.

"He is _not_ a friend of mine," he said stiffly, "and I do not wish
him to be invited!"

Having attained her main objective, Mrs Peagrim was prepared to yield
minor points.

"Very well, if you do not like him," she said. "But I thought he was
quite an intimate of yours. It was you who asked me to invite him to
Newport last summer."

"Much," said Mr Pilkington coldly, "has happened since last summer."

"Oh, very well," said Mrs Peagrim again. "Then we will not include Mr
Mason. Now, directly the curtain has fallen, Otie dear, pop right
round and find Mr Goble and tell him what you want."

2.

It is not only twin-souls in this world who yearn to meet each other.
Between Otis Pilkington and Mr Goble there was little in common, yet,
at the moment when Otis set out to find Mr Goble, the thing which Mr
Goble desired most in the world was an interview with Otis. Since the
end of the first act, the manager had been in a state of mental
upheaval. Reverting to the gold-mine simile again, Mr Goble was in
the position of a man who has had a chance of purchasing such a mine
and now, learning too late of the discovery of the reef, is feeling
the truth of the poet's dictum that of all sad words of tongue or pen
the saddest are these--"It might have been." The electric success of
"The Rose of America" had stunned Mr Goble: and, realizing, as he
did, that he might have bought Otis Pilkington's share dirt cheap at
almost any point of the preliminary tour, he was having a bad half
hour with himself. The only ray in the darkness which brooded on his
indomitable soul was the thought that it might still be possible, by
getting hold of Mr Pilkington before the notices appeared and shaking
his head sadly and talking about the misleading hopes which young
authors so often draw from an enthusiastic first-night reception and
impressing upon him that first-night receptions do not deceive your
expert who has been fifteen years in the show-business and mentioning
gloomily that he had heard a coupla the critics roastin' the show to
beat the band . . . by doing all these things, it might still be
possible to depress Mr Pilkington's young enthusiasm and induce him
to sell his share at a sacrifice price to a great-hearted friend who
didn't think the thing would run a week but was willing to buy as a
sporting speculation, because he thought Mr Pilkington a good kid and
after all these shows that flop in New York sometimes have a chance
on the road.

Such were the meditations of Mr Goble, and, on the final fall of the
curtain amid unrestrained enthusiasm on the part of the audience, he
had despatched messengers in all directions with instructions to find
Mr Pilkington and conduct him to the presence. Meanwhile, he waited
impatiently on the empty stage.

The sudden advent of Wally Mason, who appeared at this moment, upset
Mr Goble terribly. Wally was a factor in the situation which he had
not considered. An infernal, tactless fellow, always trying to make
mischief and upset honest merchants, Wally, if present at the
interview with Otis Pilkington, would probably try to act in
restraint of trade and would blurt out some untimely truth about the
prospects of the piece. Not for the first time, Mr Goble wished Wally
a sudden stroke of apoplexy.

"Went well, eh?" said Wally amiably. He did not like Mr Goble, but on
the first night of a successful piece personal antipathies may be
sunk. Such was his effervescent good-humor at the moment that he was
prepared to treat Mr Goble as a man and a brother.

"H'm!" replied Mr Goble doubtfully, paving the way.

"What are you h'ming about?" demanded Wally, astonished. "The thing's
a riot."

"You never know," responded Mr Goble in the minor key.

"Well!" Wally stared. "I don't know what more you want. The audience
sat up on its hind legs and squealed, didn't they?"

"I've an idea," said Mr Goble, raising his voice as the long form of
Mr Pilkington crossed the stage towards them, "that the critics will
roast it. If you ask _me_," he went on loudly, "it's just the sort of
show the critics will pan the life out of. I've been fifteen years in
the . . ."

"Critics!" cried Wally. "Well, I've just been talking to Alexander of
the _Times_, and he said it was the best musical piece he had ever
seen and that all the other men he had talked to thought the same."

Mr Goble turned a distorted face to Mr Pilkington. He wished that
Wally would go. But Wally, he reflected bitterly, was one of those
men who never go. He faced Mr Pilkington and did the best he could.

"Of course it's got a _chance_," he said gloomily. "Any show has got
a _chance!_ But I don't know . . . I don't know . . ."

Mr Pilkington was not interested in the future prospects of "The Rose
of America." He had a favor to ask, and he wanted to ask it, have it
refused if possible, and get away. It occurred to him that, by
substituting for the asking of a favor a peremptory demand, he might
save himself a thousand dollars.

"I want the stage after the performance tomorrow night, for a supper
to the company," he said brusquely.

He was shocked to find Mr Goble immediately complaisant.

"Why, sure," said Mr Goble readily. "Go as far as you like!" He took
Mr Pilkington by the elbow and drew him up-stage, lowering his voice
to a confidential undertone. "And now, listen," he said, "I've
something I want to talk to you about. Between you and I and the
lamp-post, I don't think this show will last a month in New York. It
don't add up right! There's something all wrong about it."

Mr Pilkington assented with an emphasis which amazed the manager. "I
quite agree with you! If you had kept it the way it was originally . . ."

"Too late for that!" sighed Mr Goble, realizing that his star was in
the ascendant. He had forgotten for the moment that Mr Pilkington was
an author. "We must make the best of a bad job! Now, you're a good
kid and I wouldn't like you to go around town saying that I had let
you in. It isn't business, maybe, but, just because I don't want you
to have any kick coming, I'm ready to buy your share of the thing and
call it a deal. After all, it may get money on the road. It ain't
likely, but there's a chance, and I'm willing to take it. Well,
listen, I'm probably robbing myself, but I'll give you fifteen
thousand, if you want to sell."

A hated voice spoke at his elbow.

"I'll make you a better offer than that," said Wally. "Give me your
share of the show for three dollars in cash and I'll throw in a pair
of sock-suspenders and an Ingersoll. Is it a go?"

Mr Goble regarded him balefully.

"Who told you to butt in?" he enquired sourly.

"Conscience!" replied Wally. "Old Henry W. Conscience! I refuse to
stand by and see the slaughter of the innocents. Why don't you wait
till he's dead before you skin him!" He turned to Mr Pilkington.
"Don't you be a fool!" he said earnestly. "Can't you see the thing is
the biggest hit in years? Do you think Jesse James here would be
offering you a cent for your share if he didn't know there was a
fortune in it? Do you imagine . . . ?"

"It is immaterial to me," interrupted Otis Pilkington loftily, "what
Mr Goble offers. I have already sold my interest!"

"What!" cried Mr Goble.

"When?" cried Wally.

"I sold it half way through the road-tour," said Mr Pilkington, "to a
lawyer, acting on behalf of a client whose name I did not learn."

In the silence which followed this revelation, another voice spoke.

"I should like to speak to you for a moment, Mr Goble, if I may." It
was Jill, who had joined the group unperceived.

Mr Goble glowered at Jill, who met his gaze composedly.

"I'm busy!" snapped Mr Goble. "See me tomorrow!"

"I would prefer to see you now."

"You would prefer!" Mr Goble waved his hands despairingly, as if
calling on heaven to witness the persecution of a good man.

Jill exhibited a piece of paper stamped with the letter-heading of
the management.

"It's about this," she said. "I found it in the box as I was going
out."

"What's that?"

"It seems to be a fortnight's notice."

"And that," said Mr Goble, "is what it _is!_"

Wally uttered an exclamation.

"Do you mean to say . . . ?"

"Yes, I do!" said the manager, turning on him. He felt that he had
out-maneuvred Wally. "I agreed to let her open in New York, and she's
done it, hasn't she? Now she can get out. I don't want her. I
wouldn't have her if you paid me. She's a nuisance in the company,
always making trouble, and she can go."

"But I would prefer not to go," said Jill.

"You would prefer!" The phrase infuriated Mr Goble. "And what has
what you would prefer got to do with it?"

"Well, you see," said Jill, "I forgot to tell you before, but I own
the piece!"

3.

Mr Goble's jaw fell. He had been waving his hands in another spacious
gesture, and he remained frozen with out-stretched arms, like a
semaphore. This evening had been a series of shocks for him, but this
was the worst shock of all.

"You--what!" he stammered.

"I own the piece," repeated Jill. "Surely that gives me authority to
say what I want done and what I don't want done."

There was a silence. Mr Goble, who was having difficulty with his
vocal chords, swallowed once or twice. Wally and Mr Pilkington stared
dumbly. At the back of the stage, a belated scene-shifter, homeward
bound, was whistling as much as he could remember of the refrain of a
popular song.

"What do you mean you own the piece?" Mr Goble at length gurgled.

"I bought it."

"You bought it!"

"I bought Mr Pilkington's share through a lawyer for ten thousand
dollars."

"Ten thousand dollars! Where did you get ten thousand dollars?" Light
broke upon Mr Goble. The thing became clear to him. "Damn it!" he
cried. "I might have known you had some man behind you! You'd never
have been so darned fresh if you hadn't had some John in the
background, paying the bills! Well, of all the . . ."

He broke off abruptly, not because he had said all that he wished to
say, for he had only touched the fringe of his subject, but because
at this point Wally's elbow smote him in the parts about the third
button of his waistcoat and jarred all the breath out of him.

"Be quiet!" said Wally dangerously. He turned to Jill. "Jill, you
don't mind telling me how you got ten thousand dollars, do you?"

"Of course not, Wally. Uncle Chris sent it to me. Do you remember
giving me a letter from him at Rochester? The check was in that."

Wally stared.

"Your uncle! But he hasn't any money!"

"He must have made it somehow."

"But he couldn't! How could he?"

Otis Pilkington suddenly gave tongue. He broke in on them with a loud
noise that was half a snort and half a yell. Stunned by the
information that it was Jill who had bought his share in the piece,
Mr Pilkington's mind had recovered slowly and then had begun to work
with a quite unusual rapidity. During the preceding conversation he
had been doing some tense thinking, and now he saw all.

"It's a swindle! It's a deliberate swindle!" shrilled Mr Pilkington.
The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles flashed sparks. "I've been made a
fool of! I've been swindled! I've been robbed!"

Jill regarded him with wide eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean!"

"I certainly do not! You were perfectly willing to sell the piece."

"I'm not talking about that! You know what I mean! I've been robbed!"

Wally snatched at his arm as it gyrated past him in a gesture of
anguish which rivalled the late efforts in that direction of Mr
Goble, who was now leaning against the safety-curtain trying to get
his breath back.

"Don't be a fool," said Wally curtly. "Talk sense! You know perfectly
well that Miss Mariner wouldn't swindle you."

"She may not have been in it," conceded Mr Pilkington. "I don't know
whether she was or not. But that uncle of her swindled me out of ten
thousand dollars! The smooth old crook!"

"Don't talk like that about Uncle Chris!" said Jill, her eyes
flashing. "Tell me what you mean."

"Yes, come on, Pilkington," said Wally grimly. "You've been
scattering some pretty serious charges about. Let's hear what you
base them on. Be coherent for a couple of seconds."

Mr Goble filled his depleted lungs.

"If you ask me . . ." he began.

"We don't," said Wally curtly. "This has nothing to do with you.
Well," he went on, "we're waiting to hear what this is all about."

Mr Pilkington gulped. Like most men of weak intellect who are preyed
on by the wolves of the world, he had ever a strong distaste for
admitting that he had been deceived. He liked to regard himself as a
shrewd young man who knew his way about and could take care of
himself.

"Major Selby," he said, adjusting his spectacles, which emotion had
caused to slip down his nose, "came to me a few weeks ago with a
proposition. He suggested the formation of a company to start Miss
Mariner in the motion-pictures."

"What!" cried Jill.

"In the motion-pictures," repeated Mr Pilkington. "He wished to know
if I cared to advance any capital towards the venture. I thought it
over carefully and decided that I was favorably disposed towards the
scheme. I . . ." Mr Pilkington gulped again. "I gave him a check for
ten thousand dollars!"

"Of all the fools!" said Mr Goble with a sharp laugh. He caught
Wally's eye and subsided once more.

Mr Pilkington's fingers strayed agitatedly to his spectacles.

"I may have been a fool," he cried shrilly, "though I was perfectly
willing to risk the money, had it been applied to the object for
which I gave it. But when it comes to giving ten thousand dollars
just to have it paid back to me in exchange for a very valuable
piece, of theatrical property . . . my own money . . . handed back to
me . . . !"

Words failed Mr Pilkington.

"I've been deliberately swindled!" he added after a moment, harking
back to the main motive.

Jill's heart was like lead. She could not doubt for an instant the
truth of what the victim had said. Woven into every inch of the
fabric, plainly hall-marked on its surface, she could perceive the
signature of Uncle Chris. If he had come and confessed to her
himself, she could not have been more certain that he had acted
precisely as Mr Pilkington had charged. There was that same
impishness, that same bland unscrupulousness, that same pathetic
desire to do her a good turn however it might affect anybody else
which, if she might compare the two things, had caused him to pass
her off on unfortunate Mr Mariner of Brookport as a girl of wealth
with tastes in the direction of real estate.

Wally was not so easily satisfied.

"You've no proof whatever . . ."

Jill shook her head.

"It's true, Wally. I know Uncle Chris. It must be true."

"But, Jill . . . !"

"It must be. How else could Uncle Chris have got the money?"

Mr Pilkington, much encouraged by this ready acquiescence in his
theories, got under way once more.

"The man's a swindler! A swindler! He's robbed me! I have been
robbed! He never had any intention of starting a motion-picture
company. He planned it all out . . . !"

Jill cut into the babble of his denunciations. She was sick at heart,
and she spoke almost listlessly.

"Mr Pilkington!" The victim stopped. "Mr Pilkington, if what you say
is true, and I'm afraid there is no doubt that it is, the only thing
I can do is to give you back your property. So will you please try to
understand that everything is just as it was before you gave my uncle
the money. You've got back your ten thousand dollars and you've got
back your piece, so there's nothing more to talk about."

Mr Pilkington, dimly realizing that the financial aspect of the
affair had been more or less satisfactorily adjusted was nevertheless
conscious of a feeling that he was being thwarted. He had much more
to say about Uncle Chris and his methods of doing business, and it
irked him to be cut short like this.

"Yes, but I do think. . . . That's all very well, but I have by no
means finished . . ."

"Yes, you have," said Wally.

"There's nothing more to talk about," repeated Jill. "I'm sorry this
should have happened, but you've nothing to complain about now, have
you? Good night."

And she turned quickly away, and walked towards the door.

"But I hadn't _finished!_" wailed Mr Pilkington, clutching at Wally.
He was feeling profoundly aggrieved. If it is bad to be all dressed
up and no place to go, it is almost worse to be full of talk and to
have no one to talk it to. Otis Pilkington had at least another
twenty minutes of speech inside him on the topic of Uncle Chris, and
Wally was the nearest human being with a pair of ears.

Wally was in no mood to play the part of confidant. He pushed Mr
Pilkington earnestly in the chest and raced after Jill. Mr
Pilkington, with the feeling that the world was against him, tottered
back into the arms of Mr Goble, who had now recovered his breath and
was ready to talk business.

"Have a good cigar," said Mr Goble, producing one. "Now, see here,
let's get right down to it. If you'd care to sell out for twenty
thousand . . ."

"I would _not_ care to sell out for twenty thousand!" yelled the
overwrought Mr Pilkington. "I wouldn't sell out for a million! You're
a swindler! You want to rob me! You're a crook!"

"Yes, yes," assented Mr Goble gently. "But, all joking aside, suppose
I was to go up to twenty-five thousand . . . ?" He twined his fingers
lovingly in the slack of Mr Pilkington's coat. "Come now! You're a
good kid! Shall we say twenty-five thousand?"

"We will _not_ say twenty-five thousand! Let me go!"

"Now, now, _now!_" pleaded Mr Goble. "Be sensible! don't get all
worked up! Say, _do_ have a good cigar!"

"I _won't_ have a good cigar!" shouted Mr Pilkington.

He detached himself with a jerk, and stalked with long strides up the
stage. Mr Goble watched him go with a lowering gaze. A heavy sense of
the unkindness of fate was oppressing Mr Goble. If you couldn't gyp a
bone-headed amateur out of a piece of property, whom could you gyp?
Mr Goble sighed. It hardly seemed to him worth while going on.

4.

Out in the street Wally had overtaken Jill, and they faced one
another in the light of a street lamp. Forty-first Street at midnight
is a quiet oasis. They had it to themselves.

Jill was pale, and she was breathing quickly, but she forced a smile.

"Well, Wally," she said. "My career as a manager didn't last long,
did it?"

"What are you going to do?"

Jill looked down the street.

"I don't know," she said. "I suppose I shall have to start trying to
find something."

"But . . ."

Jill drew him suddenly into the dark alley-way leading to the
stage-door of the Gotham Theatre's nearest neighbor: and, as she did
so, a long, thin form, swathed in an overcoat and surmounted by an
opera-hat, flashed past.

"I don't think I could have gone through another meeting with Mr
Pilkington," said Jill. "It wasn't his fault, and he was quite
justified, but what he said about Uncle Chris rather hurt."

Wally, who had ideas of his own similar to those of Mr Pilkington on
the subject of Uncle Chris and had intended to express them,
prudently kept them unspoken.

"I suppose," he said, "there is no doubt . . . ?"

"There can't be. Poor Uncle Chris! He is like Freddie. He means
well!"

There was a pause. They left the alley and walked down the street.

"Where are you going now?" asked Wally.

"I'm going home."

"Where's home?"

"Forty-ninth Street. I live in a boarding-house there." A sudden
recollection of the boarding-house at which she had lived in Atlantic
City smote Wally, and it turned the scale. He had not intended to
speak, but he could not help himself.

"Jill!" he cried. "It's no good. I must say it! I want to get you out
of all this. I want to take care of you. Why should you go on living
this sort of life, when. . . . Why won't you let me . . . ?"

He stopped. Even as he spoke, he realized the futility of what he was
saying. Jill was not a girl to be won with words.

They walked on in silence for a moment. They crossed Broadway, noisy
with night traffic, and passed into the stillness on the other side.

"Wally," said Jill at last.

She was looking straight in front of her. Her voice was troubled.

"Yes?"

Jill hesitated.

"Wally, you wouldn't want me to marry you if you knew you weren't the
only man in the world that mattered to me, would you?"

They had reached Sixth Avenue before Wally replied.

"No!" he said.

For an instant, Jill could not have said whether the feeling that
shot through her like the abrupt touching of a nerve was relief or
disappointment. Then suddenly she realized that it was disappointment.
It was absurd to her to feel disappointed, but at that moment she
would have welcomed a different attitude in him. If only this problem
of hers could be taken forcefully out of her hands, what a relief it
would be. If only Wally, masterfully insistent, would batter down her
hesitations and _grab_ her, knock her on the head and carry her off
like a caveman, care less about her happiness and concentrate on his
own, what a solution it would be. . . . But then he wouldn't be Wally.
. . . Nevertheless, Jill gave a little sigh. Her new life had changed
her already. It had blunted the sharp edge of her independence.
Tonight she was feeling the need of some one to lean on--some one
strong and cosy and sympathetic who would treat her like a little girl
and shield her from all the roughness of life. The fighting spirit had
gone out of her, and she was no longer the little warrior facing the
world with a brave eye and a tilted chin. She wanted to cry and be
petted.

"No!" said Wally again. There had been the faintest suggestion of a
doubt when he had spoken the word before, but now it shot out like a
bullet. "And I'll tell you why. I want _you_--and, if you married me
feeling like that, it wouldn't be you. I want Jill, the whole Jill,
and nothing but Jill, and, if I can't have that, I'd rather not have
anything. Marriage isn't a motion-picture close-up with slow fade-out
on the embrace. It's a partnership, and what's the good of a
partnership if your heart's not in it? It's like collaborating with a
man you dislike. . . . I believe you wish sometimes--not often,
perhaps, but when you're feeling lonely and miserable--that I would
pester and bludgeon you into marrying me. . . . What's the matter?"

Jill had started. It was disquieting to have her thoughts read with
such accuracy.

"Nothing," she said.

"It wouldn't be any good," Wally went on "because it wouldn't be
_me_. I couldn't keep that attitude up, and I know I should hate
myself for ever having tried it. There's nothing in the world I
wouldn't do to help you, though I know it's no use offering to do
anything. You're a fighter, and you mean to fight your own battle. It
might happen that, if I kept after you and badgered you and nagged
you, one of these days, when you were feeling particularly all alone
in the world and tired of fighting for yourself, you might consent to
marry me. But it wouldn't do. Even if you reconciled yourself to it,
it wouldn't do. I suppose, the cave-woman sometimes felt rather
relieved when everything was settled for her with a club, but I'm
sure the caveman must have had a hard time ridding himself of the
thought that he had behaved like a cad and taken a mean advantage. I
don't want to feel like that. I couldn't make you happy if I felt
like that. Much better to have you go on regarding me as a friend . . .
knowing that, if ever your feelings do change, that I am right there,
waiting."

"But by that time _your_ feelings will have changed."

Wally laughed.

"Never!"

"You'll meet some other girl . . ."

"I've met every girl in the world! None of them will do!" The
lightness came back into Wally's voice. "I'm sorry for the poor
things, but they won't do! Take 'em away! There's only one girl in
the world for me--oh, confound it! why is it that one always thinks
in song-titles! Well, there it is. I'm not going to bother you. We're
pals. And, as a pal, may I offer you my bank-roll?"

"No!" said Jill. She smiled up at him. "I believe you would give me
your coat if I asked you for it!"

Wally stopped.

"Do you want it? Here you are!"

"Wally, behave! There's a policeman looking at you!"

"Oh, well, if you won't! It's a good coat, all the same."

They turned the corner, and stopped before a brown-stone house, with
a long ladder of untidy steps running up to the front door.

"Is this where you live?" Wally asked. He looked at the gloomy place
disapprovingly. "You do choose the most awful places!"

"I don't choose them. They're thrust on me. Yes, this is where I
live. If you want to know the exact room, it's the third window up
there over the front door. Well, good night."

"Good night," said Wally. He paused. "Jill."

"Yes?"

"I know it's not worth mentioning, and it's breaking our agreement to
mention it, but you do understand, don't you?"

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