When the curtain was up, Martyn returned to the improvised dressing-room on the stage and there, having for the moment no duties, she listened to the invisible play and tried to discipline her most unruly heart.

Bennington’s last exit was followed in the play by his suicide, offstage. Jacko, who had, it seemed, a passion for even the simplest of off-stage stunts, had come round from the front of the house to supervise the gunshot. He stood near the entry into the dressing-room passage with a stage-hand who carried an effects-gun. This was fired at the appropriate moment and as they were stationed not far from Martyn in her canvas room, she leapt at the report which was nerve-shatteringly successful. The acrid smell of the discharge drifted into her roofless shelter.

Evidently Bennington was standing nearby. His voice, carefully lowered to a murmur, sounded just beyond the canvas wall. ‘And that,’ he said, ‘takes me right off, thank God. Give me a cigarette, Jacko, will you?’ There was a pause. The stagehand moved away. A match scraped and Bennington said: ‘Come to my room and have a drink.’

‘Thank you, Ben, not now,’ Jacko whispered. ‘The curtain comes down in five minutes.’

‘Followed by a delicious post-mortem conducted by the Great Producer and the Talented Author. Entrancing prospect! How did I go, Jacko?’

‘No actor,’ Jacko returned, ‘cares to be told how he goes in anything but terms of extravagant praise. You know how clever you always are. You are quite as clever tonight as you have always been. Moreover you showed some discretion.’

Martyn heard Bennington chuckle. ‘There’s still tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I reserve my fire, old boy. I bide my time.’

There was a pause. Martyn heard one of them fetch a long sigh: Jacko, evidently, because Bennington as if in answer to it said: ‘Oh, nonsense.’ After a moment he added: ‘The kid’s all right,’ and when Jacko didn’t answer: ‘Don’t you think so?’

‘Why, yes,’ said Jacko.

On the stage the voices of Helena Hamilton and Adam Poole built towards a climax. The call-boy came round behind the set and went down the passage chanting: ‘All on for the Curtain please. All on.’

Martyn shifted the chair in the dressing-room and moved noisily. There was a brief silence.

‘I don’t give a damn if she can hear,’ Bennington said more loudly. ‘Wait a moment. Stay where you are. I was asking you what you thought of Gay’s performance. She’s all right. Isn’t she?’

‘Yes, yes. I must go.’

‘Wait a bit. If the fools left her alone she’d go tremendously. I tell you what, old boy. If our Eccentric Author exercises his talent for wisecracking on that kid tonight I’ll damn well take a hand.’

‘You will precipitate a further scene, and that is to be avoided.’