"You're the manager of this company," said the Leading Lady, "and you ought long ago to have put down such shameless goings on. Did you see the way they went out together, and do you think people are blind? We shall be the talk of the town; but I'll not be implicated in it. My name musn't be used lightly." The manager smiled grimly. "I leave to-morrow. Understand that."
"I decline to understand it. You will fulfil your engagement, and if it is necessary for me to take steps to prevent your departure, I must do so for the sake of the others. I will swear a declaration against you!"
He was aware that he was talking the most arrant nonsense, but he relied on the feminine mind to assist him with its fears, and with its ignorance of legal subtleties.
"I shall be sorry to do so against a lady whom I esteem and respect so much, and of whose talents I have so high an opinion, but no other course will be open to me. If I allowed you to go, the diggers would rise against me. And quite right they would be! Why, my dear lady," he said, cunningly, "you know as well as I do that we are nothing without you--that you are the soul of the company--that there is not your equal on the colonial stage!"
The Leading Lady began to soften beneath the influence of such gross flattery, but it would not do to give way at once.
"I will not stop to be insulted!"
"No one shall insult you."
"But some one has--you know who--and she shall not do so again--no, not if you swear a million declarations!"
"Come, now, tell me all about it," said the manager, taking her arm, and walking slowly with her up and down the stage. "By the way, the Honourable Mr. Simpson, the Warden of Moonlight Flat, said last night, when you were playing Ophelia--you know him; he was in the theatre with the Commissioner of the Goldfields and the Resident Magistrate----"
"Yes, yes," said the Leading Lady impatiently, "what did he say?"