CHAPTER XVIII
AT THE CARLTON
With characteristic amiability, combined with that courage which had caused impatient people, who snubbed her in vain, to say she had the hide of a rhinoceros, Miss Luscombe had accepted the blow of Rathbone's proposal—the proposal which she had taken for an offer of marriage, but which was really an offer to go on the stage. She set to work at once making little efforts (most of which she knew to be futile) to arrange the matter. After all, if she should succeed in getting him some sort of a part, mightn't he, out of gratitude?... And she saw visions. Again, he had evidently got it very badly, this mania for acting and dressing up, and he had really quite enough money, if he chose to devote it to this object only; why shouldn't he take a theatre—make himself the manager and jeune premier, or, for the matter of that, vieux dernier—it really didn't matter—and let her be the leading lady? That was if he failed in every other scheme. She wrote letters to various people whom she knew on the stage, mentioning Rathbone's enormous willingness to take anything, his gentlemanly appearance, and, she felt sure, really some talent, though no experience. Most people took no notice, but after a while she received an offer for him to play one of the gentlemen in the chorus of Our Miss Gibbs in a second-rate little touring company of the smaller northern provincial towns.
It was an excuse for an interview, certainly; but this for a man who wished to play Romeo! And if, in his enthusiasm, he should actually accept it, it would take him away from her. However, hearing that she had some news for him, he, in his delighted gratitude, asked her to tea at the Carlton.
They were seated in the Palm Court eating their tea-cakes and sandwiches to the sound of "The Teddy Bear's Picnic," which made one feel cheerful and reckless, followed by "Simple Aveu," a thin, sentimental solo on the violin that made one feel resigned and melancholy. It was played by a man with a three-cornered face and a very bald head, who gazed at the ceiling as if in a kind of swoon—a swoon that might have been induced either by tender ecstasy or acute boredom.
All around them were noisy Americans, neatly dressed, and a good many prim, self-conscious ladies on the stage who had come on from their matinées and were accompanied mostly either by very young and rather chinless adorers, or by fat, fatuous men with dark moustaches, hair inclined to curl, and clothes a shade too gorgeous.
Here and there a simple, provincial-looking family were to be seen who had come up for a few days and had been to an afternoon performance, and were talking with great animation of the rights and wrongs of the hero and heroine of the play. It was characteristic of the provincials that they were really excited about the play itself, hardly knowing who were performing, while the suburbanites took interest only in the actors, all of whom they knew well by name and reputation, even their private life—at least, as much of it as got into the Prattler, The Perfect Lady, and Home Chirps.