The Good Companions by J.B. Priestley — Read

No, Susie has not married Inigo. On the other hand, she has not married anybody else. There have been times when rumours and little paragraphs in the gossip columns have sent Inigo flying round to see her (not that he is not always seeing her), but she has laughed and told him not to be silly. Once, it is true, there was real danger -- for, after all, nobody can deny that Sir Douglas Heath-Watchett is an extremely attractive young man -- and that was the time when poor Inigo, convinced that all was lost, fled to Norway and tried to fish. He returned, however, to find Susie still laughing and Sir Douglas booking a passage to Florida, where there are fish even larger than those in Norway. Susie says she is too young to marry yet and that life is too amusing. When she finds herself on the point of being relegated to minor parts or, alternatively, when there is no more fun in being a star comedienne with a huge and rapturous public of her own, then, she declares, she will grab the first nice man she sees and hurl him into the nearest registry office. No doubt Inigo will contrive to be that man.

He has the best chance, for he sees her almost every other day, and they go here, there, and everywhere together. Both of them -- as everybody should realize by this time -- make absurdly large sums of money. Susie talks gravely enough about her salary, being nothing if not a child of the theatre, but to Inigo the whole thing is still an elaborate joke. He watches with droll amazement the rising tide of performing fees, sheet music royalties, gramophone royalties, and so forth. Mr. Pitsner still seems a quite unreal person, and Inigo would never be very surprised if the money Mr. Pitsner hands over suddenly melted into thin air or turned, like fairy gold, into a heap of withered leaves on the bank counter. It is incredible that he should make so much money out of what seems to him a mere parlour trick. His writing, however, is a very serious business. He has published a volume of essays, so sternly literary that it is almost impossible to read them, entitled The Last Knapsack and Other Papers. The only copy ever seen is in Miss Dean's dressing-room. She pretends to laugh at it, but in secret she is rather proud of the fact that it is dedicated "To Susie, the Best Companion," and she is determined to read it all through, one day. Inigo says that the book has had such a poor sale simply because he was foolish enough to publish it at his own expense. The next book, now in preparation, is to be brought out at the expense of the publisher, who will then be compelled, Inigo declares, to make everybody read it.