‘I want to see him particularly. Will you tell him, darling?’

‘Of course, Aunty Ella,’ Miss Gainsford said rather miserably and added, ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. Of course, Ella, darling.’ With a wan smile she was gone.

‘Oh, dear!’ Miss Hamilton sighed and catching Martyn’s eye in the looking-glass made a rueful face. ‘If only—’ she began and stopped unaccountably, her gaze still fixed on Martyn’s image. ‘Never mind,’ she said.

There was a noisy footfall in the passage followed by a bang on the door, and, with scarcely a pause for permission, by the entry of a large, florid and angry-looking man wearing a sweater, a leather waistcoat, a muffler and a very old duffel coat.

‘Good morning, John darling,’ said Miss Hamilton gaily and extended her hand. The newcomer planted a smacking kiss on it and fixed Martyn with a china-blue and bulging pair of eyes. Martyn turned away from this embarrassing regard.

‘What have we here?’ he demanded. His voice was loud and rumbling.

‘My new dresser. Dr Rutherford, Martyn.’

‘Stay me with flagons!’ said Dr Rutherford. He turned on Miss Hamilton. ‘That fool of a wench Gainsford said you wanted me,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

‘John, what have you been saying to that child?’

‘I? Nothing. Nothing to what I could, and, mark you, what I ought to say to her. I merely asked if, for the sake of my sanity, she’d be good enough to play the central scene without a goddam simper on her fat and wholly unsuitable dial.’

‘You’re frightening her.’

‘She’s terrifying me. She may be your niece, Ella—’

‘She’s not my niece. She’s Ben’s niece.’

‘If she was the Pope’s niece she’d still be a goddam pain in the neck. I wrote this part for an intelligent actress who could be made to look reasonably like Adam. What do you give me? A moronic amateur who looks like nothing on God’s earth.’

‘She’s extremely pretty.’

‘Lollypops! Adam’s too damn easy on her. The only hope lies in shaking her up. Or kicking her out and I’d do that myself if I had my way. It ought to have been done a month back. Even now—’

‘Oh, my dear John! We open in two days you might remember.’

‘An actress worth her salt’d memorize it in an hour. I told her—’

‘I do beg you,’ she said, ‘to leave her to Adam. After all, he is the producer, John, and he’s very wise.’

Dr Rutherford pulled out of some submerged pocket a metal box. From this he extracted a pinch of snuff which he took with loud and uncouth noises.

‘In a moment,’ he said, ‘you’ll be telling me the author ought to keep out of the theatre.’

‘That’s utter nonsense.’

‘Let them try to keep me out,’ he said and burst into a neighing laugh.

Miss Hamilton slightly opened her mouth, hardened her upper lip, and with the closest attention, painted it a purplish red. ‘Really,’ she said briskly, ‘you’d much better behave prettily, you know. You’ll end by having her on your hands with a nervous breakdown.’