Mabel. “Yes” (sadly), “I find him changed.”
Pomander. “Changed! Transformed. He is now the prop of the 'Cocoa-Tree,' the star of Ranelagh, the Lauzun of the green-room.”
Mabel. “The green-room! Where is that? You mean kindly, sir; but you make me unhappy.”
Pomander. “The green-room, my dear madam, is the bower where houris put off their wings, and goddesses become dowdies; where Lady Macbeth weeps over her lap-dog, dead from repletion; and Belvidera soothes her broken heart with a dozen of oysters. In a word, it is the place where actors and actresses become men and women, and act their own parts with skill, instead of a poet's clumsily.”
Mabel. “Actors! actresses! Does Mr. Vane frequent such—”
Pomander. “He has earned in six months a reputation many a fine gentleman would give his ears for. Not a scandalous journal his initials have not figured in; not an actress of reputation gossip has not given him for a conquest.”
“How dare you say this to me?” cried Mrs. Vane, with a sudden flash of indignation, and then the tears streamed over her lovely cheeks; and even a Pomander might have forborne to torture her so; but Sir Charles had no mercy.
“You would be sure to learn it,” said he; “and with malicious additions. It is better to hear the truth from a friend.”
“A friend? He is no friend to a house who calumniates the husband to the wife. Is it the part of a friend to distort dear Ernest's kindliness and gayety into ill morals; to pervert his love of poetry and plays into an unworthy attachment to actors and—oh!” and the tears would come. But she dried them, for now she hated this man; with all the little power of hatred she had, she detested him. “Do you suppose I did not know Mrs. Woffington was to come to us to-day?” cried she, struggling passionately against her own fears and Sir Charles's innuendoes.
“What!” cried he; “you recognized her? You detected the actress of all work under the airs of Lady Betty Modish?”