I’ve taken a couple of rooms at the Adelphi, so that we can have a real talk.’
‘The Adelphi’s a bit grand, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, well, you don’t come back from America every day.
Damn the expense.’
‘Extravagant little thing, aren’t you?
I didn’t know when we’d dock, so I told my people I’d wire when I was getting down to Cheltenham.
I’ll tell them I’ll be coming along tomorrow.’
When they got to the hotel Michael came to Julia’s room, at her suggestion, so that they could talk in peace and quiet.
She sat on his knees, with her arm round his neck, her cheek against his.
‘Oh, it’s so good to be home again,’ she sighed.
‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ he said, not understanding that she referred to his arms and not to his arrival.
‘D’you still like me?’
‘Rather.’
She kissed him fondly.
‘Oh, you don’t know how I’ve missed you.’
‘I was an awful flop in America,’ he said.
‘I didn’t tell you in my letters, because I thought it would only worry you.
They thought me rotten.’
‘Michael,’ she cried, as though she could not believe him.
‘The fact is, I suppose, I’m too English.
They don’t want me another year.
I didn’t think they did, but just as a matter of form I asked them if they were going to exercise their option and they said no, not at any price.’
Julia was silent.
She looked deeply concerned, but her heart was beating with exultation.
‘I honestly don’t care, you know.
I didn’t like America.
It’s a smack in the eye of course, it’s no good denying that, but the only thing is to grin and bear it.
If you only knew the people one has to deal with!
Why, compared with some of them, Jimmie Langton’s a great gentleman.
Even if they had wanted me to stay I should have refused.’
Though he put a brave face on it, Julia felt that he was deeply mortified.
He must have had to put up with a good deal of unpleasantness.
She hated him to have been made unhappy, but, oh, she was so relieved.
‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked quietly.
‘Well, I shall go home for a bit and think things over.
Then I shall go to London and see if I can’t get a part.’
She knew that it was no good suggesting that he should come back to Middlepool.
Jimmie Langton would not have him.
‘You wouldn’t like to come with me, I suppose?’
Julia could hardly believe her ears.
‘Me?
Darling, you know I’d go anywhere in the world with you.’
‘Your contract’s up at the end of this season, and if you want to get anywhere you’ve got to make a stab at London soon.
I saved every bob I could in America, they all called me a tight-wad but I just let them talk, I’ve brought back between twelve and fifteen hundred pounds.’
‘Michael, how on earth can you have done that?’
‘I didn’t give much away, you know,’ he smiled happily.
‘Of course it’s not enough to start management on, but it’s enough to get married on, I mean we’d have something to fall back on if we didn’t get parts right away or happened to be out of a job for a few months.’
It took Julia a second or two to understand what he meant.
‘D’you mean to say, get married now?’
‘Of course it’s a risk, without anything in prospect, but one has to take a risk sometimes.’