My Lord Harborough raised himself from a profound bow over the hand which Felicity Falcon extended to him in a careless sort of way, more as if she were dropping something out of it than yielding it to his caress. The smile he gave her as he straightened himself was full of ardent admiration. Although he failed to meet with her favour, Pamela could not but admit that he had a very splendid presence, and that any woman’s head, much less that of a young player on her promotion, might well be turned by receiving attention from such a quarter.
My Lord Marquis now waved the company from the room with a politely compelling gesture, as of a host who bids his guests pass before him; kissed his hand to Miss Falcon, and himself departed.
“Now, my dear girl, my dear girl, the hat!” cried she, turning upon Pamela.
And Pamela had the strange thought that Miss Falcon—even though she had stepped off the boards—had not ceased acting for one single moment, and that no emotion had been more cleverly counterfeited than the playfulness with which she was now herself addressed.
Indeed, when Felicity Falcon first contemplated her countenance in the mirror under that confection in which Miss Pounce considered her own genius had reached its most perfect expression, so deep an air of tragedy spread itself over her features that the sprightly milliner thought in dismay, “Heaven be good to me; to see her one would think my lovely feathers were crowning a hearse!”
But as if she guessed her companion’s thoughts, the play-actress instantly resumed a jocund air, and, twisting her head from side to side, treated her own reflection to smiles of different meanings, as though testing their effect; mischief, archness, innocent mirth, mockery, melancholy, chased each other across her fair countenance like shadows over a pool, and in each Miss Pounce could have cried out to her to stay it, vowing that she was more perfect in it than the last.
Indeed, the delicate loveliness set in the flying powdered curls, crowned with the soft splendour of the feathers, marked, so to speak, by the three notes of black, was a vision worth gazing upon. The sheen of the white satin she had chosen for her robe flung up the ivory of her shoulders and throat. Miss Pounce almost regretted to see the obligatory smear of rouge put on each pale cheek; by which, however, the lily fairness gained something exotic, feverish, that seemed to match very well with the swift passion of her art.
“It’ll be such a Lady Teazle as never was,” thought the milliner; and was wondering whether she could yet find a seat for herself in the theatre, when, turning suddenly dark, haunted eyes upon her, Miss Falcon said like a child:
“Oh, do let me find you here when I come back, you kind thing!” and, without giving Madame Mirabel’s head woman time to reply, she added: “I know you will,” and whisked back to the dressing-table.
Her hand hovered over a closed jewel-case, then, shrugging her shoulders, she drew out a string of pearls and clasped it round her throat.