“I know. Shall I take you home now?”

“Take me—?”.

“It’s my car, you know.”

“Then you can damn well take yourself home. I’ll walk.”

Furiously Roger leapt up and rushed back to the refreshment room, where he caused comment by demanding and drinking a tumbler of neat Scotch.

Neither Griselda nor Roger had noticed a bulky figure following them down to the redoubt. It was Hector. Beneath the earthworks, as a communication between the trench around the tower and the lakeshore, was a passage lined with stone, damp, chilly and unwelcoming. It was in this that he stationed himself, for here he could see the two figures, but was in no danger of being seen. He could not hear their soft conversation. But he saw the kiss. It was such a kiss as he had never conceived possible. It pierced his bowels like a spear, and a historic disquiet began therein. His stomach gave a warning squeal, and then the avalanche-like roar. There, in the passage, it seemed to him that it must be audible to the couple on the lakeshore, although they were twenty feet away. With tears in his eyes, and a sick horror in his heart, and with forty wildcats shrieking their rage in his entrails, Hector turned and ran back toward the military college.

He did not return to the ball, but neither had he the power of will to go home. Instead he paced a long avenue of trees, flanked on one side by the lake and on the other by the gardens of the college, until dawn. His head was bursting; he had, he was certain, seen the first horrible move in the seduction of the girl he loved, and what had he done? He had run away. Was this because he too, long ago, had boasted that he would smirch a girl’s honour at another, humbler Ball? His agony was incoherent and fearsome. But when the sun was already high he realized that he must get his coat and go home, so he returned to the square in the centre of the college.

There was a crowd there, and his appearance was greeted with a shout. This was the undefeated army of merrymakers who had remained until the very end of the Ball, while poorer spirits had driven home along the very avenue where Hector had walked away the weary night. Nothing would satisfy them except that Hector, now known as the hero of the greatest near-miss in the history of book-buying in Canada, should pose with them in a group photograph. And that was why, in the newspaper which appeared later that day, Hector was to be seen in the centre of the merry throng, between two girls with their arms around his neck, and a third saucily perched upon his knee. It was a splendid likeness, and the fact that he was described in the caption as Professor MacElroy did nothing to diminish the prestige which his pupils accorded him as a result of this publicity.

Seven

The dress rehearsal was over, and Valentine was near the end of her director’s harangue to the cast. The actors sat around her in their costumes, some upon the lawn and some on the properties of the play. Larry Pye had given them the light from a single large flood, and far above the moon rode proudly.

“I think that’s everything,” said Valentine. “Oh, no; I have a few personal notes on this page. Mr Leakey, you must not wear your Masonic ring on the stage. And Mr Shortreed, I know you took off your wrist-watch before your second entrance, but be very careful about that, won’t you? Will you two men check on each other tomorrow night five minutes before curtain time? And Professor Vambrace—”

“Mea culpa, mea culpa!” cried the Professor, with scholarly waggishness, burying his face in his hands.

“Yes; your spectacles in the vision scene. It’s very easy to forget. Can you find someone to keep an eye on you about that?”

“I’d be very happy to,” cried Miss Wildfang.

“There are one or two of you whom I should like to see privately for a moment before you go home. Mr—hm, no; Miss Vambrace is the only one, I think. Oh, yes, here’s a note I’d overlooked: there was some awfully odd makeup, particularly on you girls in the dance of Nymphs and Reapers. What have you been doing to yourselves?”

There was an uneasy silence.

“Who put that stuff on your faces?”

“Auntie Puss,” said a Nymph, faintly.

“Who?”

Valentine was conscious of someone tugging her skirt from behind. It was Mrs Forrester. “Shut up, Val,” she whispered.

“See me about it later,” said Valentine. “Now I want you all to feel happy and confident. It was a very good dress rehearsal. Nothing was seriously wrong and everything that was out of order can be corrected before tomorrow night. Don’t believe that old nonsense about a good dress rehearsal making a bad first night. Get some rest tomorrow if you can, and please be here by seven o’clock; if you are late you worry the Stage Manager, and that is inexcusable. Thank you all very much. Now your President wants to say something to you.”

Nellie rose, and her face was drawn into what she believed to be an expression of whimsical concern.

“Well,” she said; “I’m sure you’ll all agree with me that Miss Rich has done marvels, simply marvels, with the material she had. I’ve never seen you do better, in an experience of this club which goes back more years than I care to count. And I sincerely hope she’s right about a good dress rehearsal not meaning a bad first night. Some of us can remember occasions when the old saying was only too true. There’s a lot in some of these old beliefs. But we’ll hope for the best. It’s a pity that three names have been left off the programme, and that Mr Smith’s initials are wrong; there are two thousand programmes, and if we can get enough volunteer help the corrections can be made by hand tomorrow. Will anyone offer to help with corrections? I’d do it myself, but my day will be a very full one.”

There were no volunteers, except Mr Smith, one of Larry Pye’s assistants, who was determined that he should appear before the world as J. K. Smith and not A. K. Smith, as had wrongly been printed. Nellie continued.

“As you all know this is our first attempt at a Pastoral. It’s an experiment, and we are breaking new ground. Whether the public will like it remains to be seen. What the critics will say we simply won’t know until we see the papers. But whatever happens, we can say that we pioneered the Pastoral in Salterton, and when you try something new you have to take the rough with the smooth. And now I have a surprise for you; our good friend Mr Webster, to whom we owe so much for the use of his beautiful grounds, invites you to supper before you go home.”

This speech was greeted with great applause, for nothing appeals so strongly to the heart of the amateur actor as a thoroughly depressing estimate of his work, followed by a promise of food. As the group in the floodlight broke up, it was agreed that Miss Rich, though she undoubtedly knew her business, was too optimistic; after all, they knew enough about Theatre to be certain of one thing only, and that was that you could Never Tell. Even Professor Vambrace, so ardent a rationalist in the other affairs of life, clung to the superstition that a good dress rehearsal made a bad performance; everybody likes to be superstitious about something, and the stage provided the Professor with a holiday from the gritty scepticism which scoured the gloss off everything else he did. They moved away to take off their costumes somewhat disappointed that Valentine had not scarified them, told them that they were the worst actors in the world, regretted that she had ever consented to work with them. Nellie’s speech, though a good try, was not sufficiently gloomy to slake their masochistic thirst.

A few remained in the area of lawn which formed the stage, waiting to catch Valentine’s eye. But Nellie was lecturing her.