He could not prevent people admiring her, but he kept the love letter, the neat little cases of jewelry from her, and Doris—Doris Marlowe the actress—was as ignorant and unconscious of the wickedness of the world as the daughter of a country rector.
And as ignorant and innocent of love, save the love she had for the strange, grim being who had lavished so much on her.
She had read of love in books, had acted it on the stage, but it was as one who speaks a language he does not understand, and who marvels at the effect his words have upon his initiated hearers.
Once a young actor, who had played lovers’ parts with her during a season, had managed to speak with her alone—it was during the “wait” between acts—and in faltering accents had tried to tell her that he had dared to fall in love with the beautiful being so jealously guarded by the dragon. Doris had listened for a moment or two, with her lovely eyes wide open, with puzzled astonishment, then she said:
“Oh, please, don’t go on! I thought it was a part of the play,” and a smile flashed over her face.
The young fellow grew black, and as he passed her to go on the stage, muttered, “Heartless!”
But Doris was not heartless. She had smiled because her heart lay too deep for him to touch, because, like the Sleeping Beauty, it was waiting for the coming prince who should wake it into life and love, and the young actor was not that prince.
Doris sat thinking of the past, quite lost, until the striking of a church clock recalled her to the fact that a certain young lady was to play Juliet to-morrow, and that the aforesaid young lady had come out into the field to study it!
She took up the book with a sigh.
“I wish I could see some one play it,” she thought; and then there flashed into her mind the memory of one night Jeffrey had taken her to Drury Lane to see a famous actress in the part; but they did not see her after all, for during the first act there had been one of those slight but unmistakable movements in the audience which announces the entrance of some one of importance.