“You must do what you think best,” said Gaunt gloomily. “Leave me to stagnate. I’m no good to my country. Ha!”

“If you call raising twelve thousand for colonial patriotic funds no good…”

“I’m a useless hulk,” said Gaunt, and even Dikon was reminded of the penultimate scene in Jane Eyre.

“What are you grinning at, blast you?” Gaunt demanded.

“You don’t look precisely like a useless hulk. I’ll stay a little longer if you’ll have me.”

“Well, let’s hear about this new place. You’re looking wonderfully self-conscious. What hideous surprise have you got up your sleeve?”

Dikon put his attaché case on the writing table and opened it.

“There’s a princely fan mail to-day,” he said, and laid a stack of typed sheets and photographs on one side.

“Good! I adore being adored. How many have written a little something themselves and wonder if I can advise them how to have their plays produced?”

“Four. One lady has sent a copy of her piece. She has dedicated it to you. It’s a fantasy.”

“God!”

“Here is Dr. Forster’s letter, and one enclosed from a Dr. James Ackrington who appears to be a celebrity from Harley Street. Perhaps you’d like to read them.”

“I should hate to read them.”

“I think you’d better, sir.”

Gaunt grimaced, took the letters and lowered himself into a chair by the writing desk. Dikon watched him rather nervously.

Geoffrey Gaunt had spent twenty-seven of his forty-five years on the stage, and the last sixteen had seen him firmly established in the first rank. He was what used to be called a romantic actor, but he was also an intelligent one. His greatest distinction lay in his genius for making an audience hear the sense as well as the music of Shakespearean verse.