Now, the strange thing is—this cruel and treacherous practice is not confined to Africa. Sometimes pits are dug before young feet and carefully hidden beneath boughs of friendship and flowers of love. Right here in our great city, if we listen closely, we may hear the crashing fall of the victim!
CHAPTER XXIII
THE WOMAN IN THE BOX
At the Globe Theatre they were settling down to a long and brilliant run. Thrall had staged the old play splendidly, costumed it royally, rehearsed it to exact precision of movement, and cast it with such knowledge, such consideration for the requirements of each character that the fiery Tybalt, the stately Prince, the benignant Friar Laurence, and the grotesque Peter were not more judiciously placed than the Apothecary, Gregory, or the Page. "Romeo and Juliet" had "caught the town"; for once the matinée girl had two idols in the same theatre. Never, never had Thrall been so raved over. In his desire to make himself look as youthful as possible for the early acts, he had permitted the Lefebvres to costume him in white, from his cap and floating ostrich plume down to his shoes; but shoes with yellow leathered heels, cloak lined with a golden yellow satin, that reappeared in such trunk puffings and love-knots of yellow lustre that all suggestion of coldness was lost in extreme richness and delicacy. Indeed, in grace and beauty and extravagance, he was the ideal courtly young popinjay of Verona—the idolized only son and heir of the mighty family of Montague.
And Juliet? Truly they were a pair to joy the eye of poet or of painter! From the moment when she appeared upon the scene and the laughing mockery of her "How now! who calls?" to the Nurse, had changed into the respectful "Madam, I am here!" to her mother, the public had been enslaved by the vividness of the dark and changeful beauty of her girlish face.
For Thrall's was the artificial youth of the wig, the grease paint; of skilful costuming and brilliant acting; a youth that does not care to come quite down to the footlights. But Sybil was so young that even some of the dear gaucheries of the still growing girl showed faintly in her and made tender tears start to some very worldly eyes; therefore but little was expected from her in the way of acting. So, when at the end of the first act Juliet learns from the Nurse that the young masker is really a Montague, her moaning words,
"My only love sprung from my only hate;
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!"
were given in tones so helpless and amazed, and she stood so dazed and motionless under the shock of her discovery, that with a great roar of applause the audience hailed the actress in her!
Sybil had given much thought to her part, and she had advanced some ideas of her own now and then when Thrall was teaching her the "business" of the play, as, for instance, in the potion scene. The Juliets generally rave and wildly scream the line: