“Oh no, I’ve never had anybody definite in my mind, but I think I should be able to say at once if the man you had chosen was the right one. Don’t ask me to describe him, because I couldn’t do it. You used to tease me about marrying a curly-headed actor, but Arthur Madden seems to me much more of a curly-headed actor than Jack is.”
“In fact, you thoroughly disapprove of poor Arthur?” Sylvia pressed.
“Oh dear, no! Oh, not at all! Please don’t think that. I’m only anxious that you shouldn’t throw yourself away.”
“Remnants always go cheap,” said Sylvia. “However, don’t worry. I’ll be quite sure of myself before I marry anybody again.”
The summer passed away quickly in a complexity of arrangements for the opening performance at the Pierian Hall. Sylvia stayed three or four times at Dulwich and grew very fond of Mrs. Madden, who never referred again to the subject of marriage. She also went up to Warwickshire with Olive and the children, much to the pleasure of Mr. Fanshawe, who was now writing a supplementary volume called More Warwickshire Worthies. In London she scarcely met any old friends; indeed, she went out of her way to avoid people like the Clarehavens, because they would not have been interested in what she was doing. By this time Sylvia had reached the point of considering everybody either for the interest and belief he evinced in her success or by the use he could be to her in securing it. The first rapturous egoism of Arthur’s own success in London had worn off with time, and he was able to devote himself entirely to running about for Sylvia, which gradually made her regard him more and more as a fixture. As for Lucian Hope, he thought of nothing but the great occasion, and would have fought anybody who had ventured to cast a breath of doubt upon the triumph at hand. The set that he had painted was exactly what Sylvia required, and though both Arthur and Jack thought it would distract the audience’s attention by puzzling them, they neither of them on Sylvia’s account criticized it at all harshly.
At last in mid-October the very morning of the day arrived, so long anticipated with every kind of discussion that its superficial resemblance to other mornings seemed heartless and unnatural. It was absurd that a milkman’s note should be the same as yesterday, that servants should shake mats on front-door steps as usual, and that the maid who knocked at Sylvia’s door should not break down beneath the weightiness of her summons. Nor, when Sylvia looked out of the window, were Jack and Arthur and Ronald and Lucian pacing with agitated steps the pavement below, an absence of enthusiasm, at any rate on the part of Arthur and Lucian, that hurt her feelings, until she thought for a moment how foolishly unreasonable she was being.
As soon as Sylvia was dressed she went round to the Airdales’; everybody she met on the way inspired her with a longing to confide in him the portentousness of the day, and she found herself speculating whether several business men, who were hurrying to catch the nine-o’clock train, had possibly an intention of visiting the Pierian Hall that afternoon. She was extremely annoyed to find, when she reached the Airdales’ house, that neither Jack nor Olive was up.
“Do they know the time?” she demanded of the maid, in a scandalized voice. “Their clock must have stopped.”
“Oh no, miss, I don’t think so. Breakfast is at ten, as usual. There’s Mr. Airdale’s dressing-room bell going now, miss. That ’ll be for his shaving-water. Shall I say you’re waiting to see him?”
What a ridiculous time to begin shaving, Sylvia thought.