“An immense success, my dear Miss Marlowe. You have hit them hard!” he said, smiling and nodding.
That he had only spoken truly was patent from the welcome which she received when she made her first appearance. A roar went up and shook the very chandelier, as the slim, graceful, girlish figure entered from the wings.
As is usual, I believe, with actors, for some minutes she could not see beyond the footlights; but presently she began to distinguish faces in the hazy glow, and she saw the handsome, tanned face she had expected—and longed for!
He had come then, as he had promised!
He was in the box he had occupied on the preceding night; leaning forward, his hands clasped on the velvet edge, his eyes following her every movement.
She lost all consciousness of the rest of the audience, and played only to those rapt, attentive eyes.
Every word she uttered she spoke to him, every glance of the blue eyes—which grew violet when she was agitated—though bent upon the Romeo on the stage, was meant for the one face in the vast audience.
She played, if anything, better than she had played last night, and the manager came to her to tell her so.
“Better and better, Miss Marlowe!” he said, bowing and smiling. “If you go on like this——”
“The house is crammed,” said Jeffrey, who was standing near the wings with a shawl to throw over Doris’s shoulders, for like that of most country theatres, the Barton one was rich in draughts.