“Don’t frighten me, Jeffrey,” she said, with a faint smile.
“I have agreed with Brown, the manager,” he went on, “that you should play Juliet for a week, and after that some other of the big characters for a month, and he is to pay you ten pounds a week.”
Doris looked up, surprised. Ten pounds per week is a large sum for merely provincial actresses.
He smiled grimly.
“You think it a great deal? In a day or two you will get offers from London of twenty, thirty, forty pounds. But I am in no hurry. I have not been in a hurry all through. I want you to feel your feet, to feel secure in all the big parts here in the provinces before you appear in London. Then your success will be assured whatever you may undertake.”
“You think of everything, Jeffrey,” she said, gratefully.
“I have nothing else to think of, nothing else to tell you!” he responded, quietly, almost pathetically. “I have set my heart upon you being a great actress and”—he paused—“I think it would break, if you failed. But there is no need to speak of failure after last night.”
He got up as he spoke and folded the newspaper.
“I’m going down to the theatre,” he said; he was never quite contented away from it. “You’d better look over your part this morning. Take it into the open air as you did the other day; it seems to succeed.”
“Very well,” she said, obediently.