“No, I am not tired of life,” said Spenser Churchill. “But I shall take my pretty little letter myself. Adieu!” and he nodded, and smiled himself out of the room.
CHAPTER XIV.
A BROKEN TRYST.
Doris went home with her heart beating, every nerve throbbing with the thrill of a woman’s first love; and it was not until she had her hand upon the door that she fully realized the task that lay before her.
She had to tell Jeffrey. To tell him that all his lifelong plans for her were shattered and cast to the winds; that, just at the moment of success, success won by hard, persistent work and untiring effort, on his part and hers, she, Doris Marlowe, who was to have been the actress of the day, was going to retire from the stage forever.
She scarcely realized it herself yet, and yet she knew that it must be. The future wife of the heir to the marquisate of Stoyle could not be permitted to remain an actress, to be gazed at by a nightly mob, to be cheered or hissed by a public audience. She sighed as the thought came home to her, not for herself, and the sacrifice of fame, but for Jeffrey. It would be hard for him to bear, very, very hard; but she did not doubt that he would give his consent. As she had said to Lord Neville, Jeffrey could not find it in his heart to refuse her anything she wanted very much, and she did want to marry this handsome young lover, whose simple touch had power to move her, very much indeed.
She opened the door. Jeffrey was seated at a small table, covered with papers and old letters. He was bending over them with an air and attitude of deep abstraction, and he did not hear her light footfall as she crossed the room, and laid her small hand rather tremulously upon his stooping shoulders.
“Doris!” he exclaimed, looking up with a start, and covering the papers before him with both his thin, gnarled hands.
“Why, Jeffrey, dear, did I frighten you?” she said gently. “What are you doing? You look as if you were trying to write a play!”
He smiled constrainedly and began collecting the papers and letters in a nervous, hurried fashion.