Arnold Bennett: Lo! 'Twas a Gala Night!

"How on earth do these ideas occur to you?" asked Eve.

"How can I tell?" Cecil answered. "It is because they occur to me that I am I — you see. Well, in twenty-four hours my reporter and two of his friends had interviewed half the interviewable people in Paris, and the Minister of Fine Arts had sent out his invitations, and I had obtained the refusal of over three hundred seats, at a total cost of about seventy-five thousand francs. Then I saw that my friend the incomparable Malva was staying at the Ritz, and the keystone idea of the entire affair presented itself to me. I got her to offer to sing. Of course, her rival Félise could not be behind her in a patriotic desire to cement the friendliness of two great nations. The gala performance blossomed into a terrific boom. We took a kind of office in the Rue de la Paix. We advertised very discreetly. Every evening, after bidding you 'Good-night,' I saw my reporter and Lecky, and arranged the development of the campaign. In three days we had sold all our seats, except one box, which I kept, for something like two hundred thousand francs."

"Then this afternoon you merely bought the box from yourself?"

"Exactly, my love. I had meant the surprise of getting a box to come a little later than it did — say at dinner; but you and Belmont, between you, forced it on."

"And that is all?"

"Not quite. The minions of the Minister of Fine Arts were extremely cross. And they meant to revenge themselves on me by depriving me of my box at the last moment. However, I got wind of that, and by the simplest possible arrangement with Malva I protected myself. The scheme — my last bachelor fling, Eve — has been a great success, and the official world of Paris has been taught a lesson which may lead to excellent results."

"And you have cleared a hundred and twenty-five thousand francs?"

"By no means. The profits of these undertakings are the least part of them. The expenses are heavy. I reckon the expenses will be nearly forty thousand francs. Then I must give Malva a necklace, and that necklace must cost twenty-five thousand francs."

"That leaves sixty thousand clear?" said Eve.

"Say sixty-two thousand."

"Why?"

"I was forgetting an extra two thousand made this evening."

"And your other 'schemes'?" Eve continued her cross-examination. "How much have they yielded?"

"The Devonshire House scheme was a dead loss. My dear, why did you lead me to destroy that fifty thousand pounds? Waste not, want not. There may come a day when we shall need that fifty thousand pounds; and then ——"

"Don't be funny," said Eve. "I am serious — very serious."

"Well, Ostend and Mr. Rainshore yielded twenty-one thousand pounds net. Bruges and the bracelet yielded nine thousand five hundred francs. Algiers and Biskra resulted in a loss of ——"

"Never mind the losses," Eve interrupted. "Are there any more gains?"

"Yes, a few. At Rome last year I somehow managed to clear fifty thousand francs. Then there was an episode at the Chancellory at Berlin. And ——"

"Tell me the total gains, my love," said Eve — "the gross gains."

Cecil consulted a pocket-book.

"A trifle," he answered. "Between thirty-eight and forty thousand pounds."

"My dear Cecil," the girl said, "call it forty thousand — a million francs — and give me a cheque. Do you mind?"

"I shall be charmed, my darling."

"And when we get to London," Eve finished, "I will hand it over to the hospitals anonymously."

He paused, gazed at her, and kissed her.

Then Kitty Sartorius entered, a marvellous vision, with Belmont in her wake. Kitty glanced hesitatingly at the massive and good-humoured Lionel.

"The fact is ——" said Kitty, and paused.

"We are engaged," said Lionel. "You aren't surprised?"

"Our warmest congratulations!" Cecil observed. "No. We can't truthfully say that we are staggered. It is in the secret nature of things that a leading lady must marry her manager — a universal law that may not be transgressed."

"Moreover," said Eve later, in Cecil's private ear, as they were separating for the night, "we might have guessed much earlier. Theatrical managers don't go scattering five-hundred pound bracelets all over the place merely for business reasons."

"But he only scattered one, my dear," Cecil murmured.

"Yes, well. That's what I mean."