"In the theatrical line, I'm sure," declared Alvina.
"Do you think so?" said Miss Pinnegar. "Can't be! Can't be!"
"He couldn't be anything else, don't you think?"
"Oh I _can't_ believe it, I can't."
But now Mr. May had laid his detaining hand on James's arm. And now
he was shaking his employer by the hand. And now James, in his cheap
little cap, was smiling a formal farewell. And Mr. May, with a
graceful wave of his grey-suède-gloved hand, was turning back to the
Moon and Stars, strutting, whilst James was running home on
tip-toe, in his natural hurry.
Alvina hastily retreated, but Miss Pinnegar stood it out. James
started as he nipped into the shop entrance, and found her
confronting him.
"Oh--Miss Pinnegar!" he said, and made to slip by her.
"Who was that man?" she asked sharply, as if James were a child whom
she could endure no more.
"Eh? I beg your pardon?" said James, starting back.
"Who was that man?"
"Eh? Which man?"
James was a little deaf, and a little husky.
"The man--" Miss Pinnegar turned to the door. "There! That man!"
James also came to the door, and peered out as if he expected to see
a sight. The sight of Mr. May's tight and perky back, the jaunty
little hat and the grey suède hands retreating quite surprised him.
He was angry at being introduced to the sight.
"Oh," he said. "That's my manager." And he turned hastily down the
shop, asking for his dinner.
Miss Pinnegar stood for some moments in pure oblivion in the shop
entrance. Her consciousness left her. When she recovered, she felt
she was on the brink of hysteria and collapse. But she hardened
herself once more, though the effort cost her a year of her life.
She had never collapsed, she had never fallen into hysteria.
She gathered herself together, though bent a little as from a blow,
and, closing the shop door, followed James to the living room, like
the inevitable. He was eating his dinner, and seemed oblivious of
her entry. There was a smell of Irish stew.
"What manager?" said Miss Pinnegar, short, silent, and inevitable in
the doorway.
But James was in one of his abstractions, his trances.
"What manager?" persisted Miss Pinnegar.
But he still bent unknowing over his plate and gobbled his Irish
stew.
"Mr. Houghton!" said Miss Pinnegar, in a sudden changed voice. She
had gone a livid yellow colour. And she gave a queer, sharp little
rap on the table with her hand.
James started. He looked up bewildered, as one startled out of
sleep.
"Eh?" he said, gaping. "Eh?"
"Answer me," said Miss Pinnegar. "What manager?"
"Manager? Eh? Manager? What manager?"
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