When he saw how faithfully Lady Hermione rendered the picture, Sir Ronald repented of having asked her to undertake it. He went to meet her as she came off the stage.
“Smile at me,” he said. “Was I mad, Hermione, to ask you to look like that sorrowful queen? Smile at me, that I may forget it, or it will haunt me all night.”
She smiled, but her lips quivered. How little he dreamed the time was to come when he would see the face he loved in sadder guise than that of the murdered queen.
“My king, when I find him,” she said, laughingly, “will not slay me.”
“Nor shall my queen die while I live,” he replied; and then Lady Hermione hastened away. She could not listen to love words, even from him, just then.
Then came a very beautiful tableau of Antony and Cleopatra, followed by some taken from scenes in Lord Lytton’s novels.
Lady Hermione bore her part in all, but her heart and soul trembled with the passion of anguish and sorrow into which she had thrown herself so as to fully represent the murdered queen.
“If we succeed to-morrow night as well as we have done at rehearsal,” said Mr. Eyrle, “the fête at Leeholme will be long remembered.”
Yet the picture that haunted him was the bright-faced, golden-haired girl, clasping rich flowers to her breast, and called “Sunshine.”