“We shall meet at Philippi.”

Mac eyed George’s retreating back till he had turned the corner.

“A nice pleasant gentleman, Mr. Bevan,” he said.  “Too bad ’e’s got the pip the way ’e ’as, just after ‘avin’ a big success like this ‘ere.  Comes of bein’ a artist, I suppose.”

Miss Dore dived into her vanity case and produced a puff with which she proceeded to powder her nose.

“All composers are nuts, Mac.  I was in a show once where the manager was panning the composer because there wasn’t a number in the score that had a tune to it.  The poor geek admitted they weren’t very tuney, but said the thing about his music was that it had such a wonderful aroma.  They all get that way.  The jazz seems to go to their heads.  George is all right, though, and don’t let anyone tell you different.”

“Have you know him long, miss?”

“About five years.  I was a stenographer in the house that published his songs when I first met him.  And there’s another thing you’ve got to hand it to George for.  He hasn’t let success give him a swelled head.  The money that boy makes is sinful, Mac.  He wears thousand dollar bills next to his skin winter and summer.  But he’s just the same as he was when I first knew him, when he was just hanging around Broadway, looking out for a chance to be allowed to slip a couple of interpolated numbers into any old show that came along.  Yes.  Put it in your diary, Mac, and write it on your cuff, George Bevan’s all right.  He’s an ace.”

Unconscious of these eulogies, which, coming from one whose judgment he respected, might have cheered him up, George wandered down Shaftesbury Avenue feeling more depressed than ever.  The sun had gone in for the time being, and the east wind was frolicking round him like a playful puppy, patting him with a cold paw, nuzzling his ankles, bounding away and bounding back again, and behaving generally as east winds do when they discover a victim who has come out without his spring overcoat.  It was plain to George now that the sun and the wind were a couple of confidence tricksters working together as a team.  The sun had disarmed him with specious promises and an air of cheery goodfellowship, and had delivered him into the hands of the wind, which was now going through him with the swift thoroughness of the professional hold-up artist.  He quickened his steps, and began to wonder if he was so sunk in senile decay as to have acquired a liver.

He discarded the theory as repellent.  And yet there must be a reason for his depression.  Today of all days, as Mac had pointed out, he had everything to make him happy.  Popular as he was in America, this was the first piece of his to be produced in London, and there was no doubt that it was a success of unusual dimensions.  And yet he felt no elation.