A Damsel in Distress

The sun that had shone so brightly on Belpher Castle at noon, when

Maud and Reggie Byng set out on their journey, shone on the

West-End of London with equal pleasantness at two o'clock. In

Little Gooch Street all the children of all the small shopkeepers

who support life in that backwater by selling each other vegetables

and singing canaries were out and about playing curious games of

their own invention. Cats washed themselves on doorsteps,

preparatory to looking in for lunch at one of the numerous garbage

cans which dotted the sidewalk. Waiters peered austerely from the

windows of the two Italian restaurants which carry on the Lucretia

Borgia tradition by means of one shilling and sixpenny _table d'hôte_

luncheons. The proprietor of the grocery store on the corner was

bidding a silent farewell to a tomato which even he, though a

dauntless optimist, had been compelled to recognize as having

outlived its utility. On all these things the sun shone with a

genial smile. Round the corner, in Shaftesbury Avenue, an east wind

was doing its best to pierce the hardened hides of the citizenry;

but it did not penetrate into Little Gooch Street, which, facing

south and being narrow and sheltered, was enabled practically to

bask.

Mac, the stout guardian of the stage door of the Regal Theatre,

whose gilded front entrance is on the Avenue, emerged from the

little glass case in which the management kept him, and came out to

observe life and its phenomena with an indulgent eye. Mac was

feeling happy this morning. His job was a permanent one, not

influenced by the success or failure of the productions which

followed one another at the theatre throughout the year; but he

felt, nevertheless, a sort of proprietary interest in these

ventures, and was pleased when they secured the approval of the

public. Last night's opening, a musical piece by an American

author and composer, had undoubtedly made a big hit, and Mac was

glad, because he liked what he had seen of the company, and, in the

brief time in which he had known him, had come to entertain a warm

regard for George Bevan, the composer, who had travelled over from

New York to help with the London production.

George Bevan turned the corner now, walking slowly, and, it seemed

to Mac, gloomily towards the stage door. He was a young man of

about twenty-seven, tall and well knit, with an agreeable,

clean-cut face, of which a pair of good and honest eyes were the

most noticeable feature. His sensitive mouth was drawn down a

little at the corners, and he looked tired.