CHAPTER XXXII.—ON SHAKESPEARE AND SUPPER.

CARRIAGES by the score were waiting at the fine Corinthian entrance to the Legitimate, when Harold and Archie reached the theatre in their hansom. The façade of the Legitimate Theatre is so severely Corinthian that foreign visitors invariably ask what church it is.

It was probably the classical columns supporting the pediment of the entrance that caused Archie to abate his frivolous conversation with his friend in the hansom—Archie had been expressing the opinion that it was exhilarating—only exhilarating was not the word he used—to swear at a man who had once been a clergyman and who still wore the dress of a cleric. “A chap feels that his turn has come,” he had said. “No matter how wrong they are you can’t swear at them and tell them to come down out of that, when they’re in their own pulpits—they’d have you up for brawling. That’s why I like to take it out of old Playdell. He tells me, however, that there’s no dean in the Church that gathers in the decimals as he does in my shop. But, bless you! he saves me his screw three times over.”

But now that the classical front of the Legitimate came in view, Archie became solemn.

He possibly appreciated the feelings of a conscientious clergyman when about to enter his Church.

Shakespeare was a great responsibility.

So was Mrs. Mowbray.

The performance was not quite over; but before Archie had paid the hansomeer, the audience was streaming out from every door.

“Stand here and listen to what the people are saying.” whispered Archie. “I often do it. It is only in this way that you can learn how much appreciation for Shakespeare still remains in England.”

He took up his position with Harold at the foot of the splendid staircase of the theatre, where the people chatted together while waiting for their carriages.

With scarcely an exception, the remarks had a hearing upon the performance of “Cymbeline.” Only two ladies confined their criticisms to their respective medical advisers.

Of the others, one man said that Mrs. Mowbray bore a striking resemblance to her photographs.

A second said that she was the most beautiful woman in England.

A third said that she knocked sparks out of Polly Floss in the same line of business. (Polly Floss was the leading exponent of burlesque).

One woman said that Mrs. Mowbray was most picturesquely dressed.

A second said that she was most picturesquely undressed.

A third wondered if Liberty had got the exact tint of the robe that Mrs. Mowbray had worn in the second act.

“And yet some people say that there’s no appreciation of Shakespeare in England!” said Archie, as he led Harold round the stalls, over which the attendants were spreading covers, and on to Mrs. Mowbray’s private rooms.

“From the crowds that went out by every door, I judge that the theatre is making money, at any rate; and I suppose that’s the most practical test of appreciation,” said Harold.

“Oh, they don’t all pay,” said Archie. “That’s a feature of theatrical management that it takes an outsider some time to understand. Mrs. Mowbray should understand it pretty well by this time, so should her business manager. I’m just getting to understand it.”

“You mean to say that the people are allowed to come in without paying?”

“It amounts to that in the long run—literally the long run—of the piece, I believe. Upon my soul, there are some people who fancy that a chap runs a show as a sort of free entertainment for the public. The dramatic critics seem to fancy that a chap produces a play, simply in order to give them an opportunity of showing off their own cleverness in slating it. It seems that a writer-chap can’t show his cleverness in praising a piece, but only in slanging it.”

“I think that I’d try and make people pay for their seats.”

“I used always to pay for mine in the old days—but then, I was always squandering my money.”

“I have always paid for mine.”

“The manager says that if you asked people to pay, they’d be mortally offended and never enter the theatre again, and where would you be then?”

“Where, indeed?” said Harold. “I expect your manager must know his business thoroughly.”

“He does. It requires tact to get people to come to see Shakespeare,” said Archie. “But a chap can’t build a monument for himself without paying for it.”

“It would be ridiculous to expect it,” said Harold.

Pushing aside a magnificent piece of heavy drapery, Archie brought his friend into a passage illuminated by the electric light; and knocking at a door at the farther end, he was admitted by Mrs. Mowbray’s maid, into a prettily-furnished sitting-room and into the presence of Mrs. Mowbray, who was sitting robed in something very exquisite and cloud-like—not exactly a peignoir but something that suggested a peignoir.

She was like a picture by Romney. If one could imagine all the charm of all the pictures of Emma Hamilton (née Lyon) which Romney painted, meeting harmoniously in another creature, one would come within reasonable distance of seeing Mrs. Mowbray, as Harold saw her when he entered the room.

Even with the disadvantage of the exaggerated colour and the over-emphasized eye-lashes necessary for the searching illumination of the footlights, she was very lovely, Harold acknowledged.

But all the loveliness of Mrs. Mowbray produced but a trifling effect compared to that produced by her charm of manner. She was the most natural woman ever known.

The position of the natural man has been defined by an eminent authority. But who shall define the position of the natural woman?

It was Mrs. Mowbray’s perfect simplicity, especially when talking to men—as a matter of fact she preferred talking to men rather than to women—that made her seem so lovely—nay, that made a man feel that it was good for him to be in her presence. She was devoid of the smallest trace of affectation. She seemed the embodiment of truth. She never smiled for the sake of conventionality. But when she did smile, just as Harold entered the room, her head turning round so that her face was looking over her shoulder, she had all the spiritual beauty of the loveliest picture ever painted by Greuze, consequently the loveliest picture ever painted by the hand of man.

And yet she was so very human.

An Algy and an Eddy were already in the room—the first was a Marquis, the second was the eldest son of a duke. Both were handsome lads, of quiet manners, and both were in the Household Cavalry. Mrs. Mowbray liked to be surrounded by the youngest of men.

Harold had been acquainted with her long before she had become an actress. He had not had an opportunity of meeting her since; but he found that she remembered him very well.

She had heard of his father, she said, looking at him in a way that did not in the least suggest a picture by Greuze.

When people referred to his father they did not usually assume a look of innocence. Most of them would have had difficulty in assuming such a look under any circumstances.

“My father is frequently heard of,” said Harold.

“And your father’s son also,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “What a freak of Lady Innisfail’s! She lured you all across to Ireland. I heard so much. And what came of it, after all?”

“Acute admiration for the allurements of Lady Innisfail in my case, and a touch of acute rheumatism in my father’s case,” said Harold.

“Neither will be fatal to the sufferers,” said Mrs. Mowbray—“or to Lady Innisfail, for that matter,” she added.

“I should say not,” remarked Algy. “We all admire Lady Innisfail.”

“Few cases of acute admiration of Lady Innisfail have proved fatal, so far as I can hear, Lord Brackenthorpe,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “Young mem have suffered from it and have become exemplary husbands and parents.”

“And if they don’t live happy, that we may,” said Archie.

“That’s the end of the whole matter,” said. Harold.

“That’s the end of the orthodox fairy tale,” said Mrs. Mowbray. “Was your visit to Ireland a fairy story, Mr. Wynne?”

Harold wondered how much this woman knew of the details of his visit to Ireland. Before he-could think of an answer in the same strain, Mrs. Mowbray had risen from the little gilt sofa, and had taken a step or two toward her dressing-room. The look she tossed to Harold, when she turned round with her fingers on the handle of the door, was a marvellous one.

Had it been attempted by any other woman, it would have provoked derision on the part of the average man—certainly on the part of Harold Wynne. But, coming from Mrs. Mowbray, it conveyed—well, all that she meant it to convey. It was not merely fascinating, it was fascination itself.

It was such a look as this, he felt—but nearly a year had passed before he had thought of the parallel—that Venus had cast at Paris upon a momentous occasion. It was the glance of Venus Victrix. It made a man think—a year or so afterwards—of Ahola and Aholibah, of Ashtoreth, of Cleopatra, of Faustina, of Iseult, of Rosamond.

And yet the momentary expression of her features was as simple and as natural as that worn by one of Greuze’s girls.

“She’ll not be more than ten minutes,” said

Archie. “I don’t know how she manages to dress herself in the time.”

He did not exaggerate. Mrs. Mowbray returned in ten minutes, with no trace of paint upon her face, wearing a robe that seemed to surround her with fleecy clouds. The garment was not much more than an atmosphere—it was a good deal less substantial than the atmosphere of London in December or that of Sheffield in June.

“We shall have the pleasantest of suppers,” she said, “and the pleasantest of chats. I understand that Mr. Wynne has solved the Irish problem.”

“And what is the solution, Mrs. Mowbray?” said Lord Brackenthorpe.

“The solution—ah—‘a gray eye or so’,” said Mrs. Mowbray.

The little Mercutio swagger with which she gave point to the words, was better than anything she had done on the stage.

“And now, Mr. Wynne, you must lead the way with me to our little supper-room,” said she, before the laugh, in which everyone joined, at the pretty bit of comedy, had ceased.

Harold gave her his arm.

When at the point of entering the room—it was daintily furnished with old English oak and old English silver—Mrs. Mowbray said, in the most casual way possible, “I hope you will tell me all that may be told about that charming White Lady of the Cave. How amusing it must have been to watch the chagrin of Lord Fotheringay, when Mr. Airey gave him to understand that he meant to make love to that young person with the wonderful eyes.”

“It was intensely amusing, indeed,” said Harold, who had become prepared for anything that Mrs. Mowbray might say.

“Yes, you must have been amused; for, of course, you knew that Mr. Airey was not in earnest—that he had simply been told off by Miss Craven to amuse himself with the young person, in order to induce her to take her beautiful eyes off—off—someone else, and to turn them admiringly upon Mr. Airey.”

“That was the most amusing part of the comedy, of course,” said Harold.

“What fools some girls are!” laughed Mrs. Mowbray. It was well known that she disliked the society of women.

“It’s a wise provision of nature that the fools should be the girls.”

“Oh, I have known a fool or two among men,” said Mrs. Mowbray, with another laugh.

“Have known—did you say have known?” said Harold.

“Any girl who has lived in this world of ours for a quarter of a century, should have seen enough to make her aware of the fact that the best way to set about increasing the passion of, let us say, the average man—”

“No, the average man is passionless.”

“Well, the passion of whatever man you please—for a young woman whom he loves, or fancies he loves—it’s all the same in the end—is to induce him to believe that several other men are also in love with her.”

“That is one of the rudiments of a science of which you are the leading exponent,” said Harold.

“And yet Miss Craven was foolish enough to fancy that the man of whom she was thinking, would give himself up to think of her so soon as he believed that Mr. Airey was in love with her rival! Ah, here are our lentils and pulse. How good it is of you to imperil your digestions by taking supper with me, when only a few hours can have passed since you dined.”

“Digestion is not an immortal soul,” said Harold, “and I believe that immortal souls have been imperilled before now, for the sake of taking supper with the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Have you ever heard a woman say that I am beautiful?” she asked.

“Never,” said Harold. “That is the one sin which a woman never pardons in another.”

“You do not know women—” with a little pitying smile. “A woman will forgive a woman for being more beautiful than herself—for being less virtuous than herself, but never for being better-dressed than herself.”

“For how many of the three sins do you ask forgiveness of woman—two or three?” said Harold, gently.

But instead of making an answer, Mrs. Mowbray said something about the necessity of cherishing a digestion. It was disgraceful, she said, that bread-and-butter and arithmetic should be forced upon a school boy—that such magnificent powers of digestion as he possessed should not be utilized ta the uttermost.

Lord Brackenthorpe said he knew a clever artist chap, who had drawn a sketch of about a thousand people crowding over one another, in an American hotel, in order to see a boy, who had been overheard asking his mother what was the meaning of the word dyspepsia.

Mrs. Mowbray wondered if the melancholy of Hamlet was due to a weak digestion.

Harold said he thought it should rather be accepted as evidence that there was a Schleswig-Holstein question even in Hamlet’s day.

Meantime, the pheasants and sparkling red Burgundy were affording compensation for the absence of any brilliant talk.

Then the young men lit their cigarettes. Mrs. Mowbray had never been known to risk her reputation (for femininity) by letting a cigarette between her lips; but her femininity was in no way jeopardized—rather was it accentuated—by her liking to be in the neighbourhood of where cigarettes were being smoked—that is, when the cigarettes were good and when the smokers were pleasant young men with titles, or even unpleasant young men with thousands.

After the lapse of an hour, a message came regarding Mrs. Mowbray’s brougham. Her guests rose and she looked about for her wrap.

While Harold Wynne was laying it on her lovely shoulders, she kept her eyes fixed upon his. Hers were full of intelligence. When he had carefully fastened the gold clasp just beneath the hollow of her throat—it required very careful handling—she poised her head to the extent of perhaps a quarter of an inch to one side, and laughed; then she moved away from him, but turned her head so that her face was once more over her shoulder, like the face of the Greuze girl from whom she had learnt the trick.

He knew that she wanted him to ask her from whom she had heard the stories regarding Castle Innisfail and its guests.

He also knew that the reason she wanted him to ask her this question, was in order that she might have the delight of refusing to answer him, while keeping him in the expectancy of receiving an answer.

Such a delight would, of course, be a malicious one. But he knew that it would be a thoroughly womanly one, and he knew that Mrs. Mowbray was a thorough woman.

Therefore he laughed back at her and did not ask her anything—not even to take his arm out to her brougham.

Archie Brown did, and she took his arm, still looking over her shoulder at Harold.

It only needed that the lovely, wicked look should vanish in a sentence.

And it did.

The full lips parted, and the poise of the head was increased by perhaps the eighth part of an inch.

“‘A gray eye or so,’” she murmured.

Her laughter rang down the corridor.

“And the best of it all is, that no one can say a word against her character,” said Archie.

This was the conclusion of his rhapsody in the hansom, in which he and Harold were driving down Piccadilly—a rhapsody upon the beauty, the genius, and the expensiveness of Mrs. Mowbray.

Harold was silent. The truth was that he was thinking about something far apart from Mrs. Mowbray, her beauty, her doubtful genius, and her undoubted power of spending money.

“What do you say?” said Archie. “Great Godfrey! you don’t mean to say that you’ve heard a word breathed against her character?”

“On the contrary,” said Harold, “I’ve always heard it asserted that Mrs. Mowbray is the best dressed woman in London.”

“Give me your hand, old chap; I knew that I could trust you to do her justice,” cried Archie.