"You poor dear! Why not?"

"Just nervousness."

"Why, of course." The interlude of the fire had caused her to forget
his private and personal connection with the night's events. Her mind
went back to something he had said in the theatre. "Wally--" She
stopped, a little embarrassed. "I suppose I ought to call you Mr
Mason, but I've always thought of you . . ."

"Wally, if you please, Jill. It's not as though we were strangers. I
haven't my book of etiquette with me, but I fancy that about eleven
gallons of cold water down the neck constitutes an introduction. What
were you going to say?"

"It was what you said to Freddie about putting up money. Did you
really?"

"Put up the money for that ghastly play? I did. Every cent. It was
the only way to get it put on."

"But why . . . ? I forget what I was going to say!"

"Why did I want it put on? Well, it does seem odd, but I give you my
honest word that until tonight I thought the darned thing a
masterpiece. I've been writing musical comedies for the last few
years, and after you've done that for a while your soul rises up
within you and says, 'Come, come, my lad! You can do better than
this!' That's what mine said, and I believed it. Subsequent events
have proved that Sidney the Soul was pulling my leg!"