“I think our excellent old landlady Mrs. Pottage has already written to you something of what I wanted to talk about. The fact is, Miss O’Finn, I have been completely subjugated by your little girl. And what an actress! I don’t know if you’ve met Mrs. Pottage’s friend with the queer name?”
“Mrs. Bugbird?”
“Just so. Well, your daughter’s imitation of Mrs. Bugbird is simply marvellous. She has genius, that child. And genius is not a word that one uses lightly in our profession. No, Miss O’Finn, it is a word that one uses with caution, with extreme caution. But I don’t mind telling you that during the last week I have been staggered by her possibilities.”
“I’m afraid she comes of precocious parents,” said Nancy. “My husband went on the stage when he was only sixteen, and I made my first appearance ten years earlier. In my case, I’m afraid that such early promise was fatal.”
“I’m sure you do yourself an injustice,” said Mr. Plimmer. “You are feeling discouraged at the moment. It is not to be wondered at. But I venture to think that the proposal I am going to make to you will open a brighter vista. How do you find the wine?”
“Delicious,” said Nancy, who might as well have been drinking water, so little was she aware of her glass.
“It is good, isn’t it? I’m bound to say Gaston never lets me down. I don’t know if Mrs. Pottage told you that the occasion of my finding myself under her hospitable roof was my engagement with the Lights of Home company. A queer old-fashioned melodrama, one at which we are tempted to laugh nowadays. But I accepted the engagement with a purpose. One is never too old to learn, in our profession. I wanted to get the feeling of the audience for melodrama. Of course, in my early days I played a good deal in melodrama, but during the last ten years I have been mostly on tour with London successes. Last year, I had an idea for an original play, and while I was resting I embodied my wandering fancies in tangible shape. I have written, Miss O’Finn, what I do not hesitate to call the finest domestic drama of our time, The Custody of the Child. A striking title, eh? The subject is, as you may guess, divorce, but treated, I need hardly say, in a thoroughly pleasant manner. I abominate these modern plays—Ibsen and all that kind of thing. Thank goodness, the great majority of our countrymen are with me there. We don’t want that kind of raking in muckheaps. No, the moment that the British drama forgets that it is founded upon British family life, the British drama is dead. I hope you agree with me?”
Nancy supposed that he was more likely to stop talking if she agreed with him than if she argued with him. So she nodded her head in emphatic approval.
“I knew the mother of that child must be an intelligent woman.”
“Surely you haven’t been discussing the present state of the drama with Letizia?” said Nancy.