Selfish he had been, but the shell of his selfishness had been broken by many hard knocks, and the real self, once so comfortably housed within, was finding itself, though all a-shiver still with the cold.
Let him suffer as he might and must, he couldn't desert these people whom he had undertaken to help out of the trouble in which by his inexperience he had landed them.
He was responsible for putting on "Lord Bob," and his was the principal part. Crudely as he knew that he played it, the performance could not go on without him. If he refused to act the curtain could not ring up, and the money in the theatre would have to be refunded to the disappointed audience. There were not many dollars there—at all events not many would remain for the company after the local manager had taken out his share, but there would be enough with what had come in on the two previous nights, to pay the ever-growing bill at the hotel.
Loveland felt that it would have been almost easier to shoot himself than to give the signal for the curtain to ring up; yet the moment came when he could delay no longer. He was not actor enough to forget in his acting the world beyond the stage. He did not lose his lines; but, conscious of Lesley's eyes upon him, he felt as stiff, as jerky in every movement, as a mechanical doll.
It was worse between acts than when he was on the stage, for he pictured Lesley's head and her aunt's bent near to one another, while he and his affairs were discussed in whispers, perhaps with stifled laughter. It seemed to him that the evening would never end; but at last the curtain went down on the third act, and Loveland was making a "bolt" for his dressing room when one of the stage hands intercepted him, holding out an envelope.
"Say, you're the manager of this show, ain't you?" asked the man.
"I suppose I am at present," said Loveland, not attempting to evade responsibility.
"Well, then, this is for you," and the letter was in his hand.
"To the Manager of the Company producing 'Lord Bob,'" was the address pencilled in an attractive handwriting, which might be that of a man or a woman.
Val hesitated for an instant, and then tore open the envelope. On a sheet of the Ashville theatre paper were written the words, "A friend and agent of Sidney Cremer will be obliged by a few words with the Manager of the Company, in the private room of the Manager of the Opera House, kindly lent for the occasion."