On the whole, therefore, you will see that the affair was an unprecedented success; and if some did go away puzzled as to whether it was a burlesque or a tragedy, nobody was to blame for their obtuseness. There certainly are scenes in this admirable comedy not provocative of laughter; but such was the bad taste of Madam O'Connor that she joined in with the Philistines mentioned farther back, and laughed straight through the piece from start to finish, until the tears ran down her cheeks.
She said afterwards she was hysterical, and Olga Bohun, who was quite as bad as she, said, "no wonder."
Now, however, it is all over, and the actors and actresses have disappeared, to make way for the gauze, the electric light, and the tableaux; whilst the audience is making itself happy with iced champagne and conversation, kind and otherwise (very much otherwise), about the late performance.
Olga Bohun, who is looking all that the heart of man can desire in white lace and lilies, leaving the impromptu theatre, goes in search of Hermia, who, with Owen Kelly, is to appear in the opening tableau. She makes her way to the temporary green-room, an inner hall, hidden from the outer world by means of a hanging velvet curtain, and with a staircase at the lower end that leads to some of the upper corridors. Here she finds Ulic Ronayne, Miss Browne, Monica, Desmond, and Kelly.
She has barely time to say something trivial to Miss Browne, when a pale light appearing at the top of the staircase attracts the attention of all below. Instinctively they raise their eyes towards it, and see a tall figure clad in white descending the stairs slowly and with a strange sweet gravity. Is it an angel come to visit them, or Hermia Herrick?
It resolves itself into Hermia at last, but a beautiful Hermia,—a lovely apparition,—a woman indeed still, but "with something of an angel-light" playing in her dark eyes and round her dusky head. Always a distinguished-looking woman, if too cold for warmer praise, she is now at least looking supremely beautiful.
She is dressed as Galatea, in a clinging garment of the severest Greek style, with no jewels upon her neck, and with her exquisite arms bare to the shoulder. One naked sandalled foot can be seen as she comes leisurely to them step by step. She is holding a low Etruscan lamp in one hand upon a level with her head, and there is just the faintest suspicion of a smile about her usually irresponsive lips.
No one speaks until her feet touch the hall, when a little murmur, indistinct, yet distinctly admiring, arises to greet her.
"I hope I don't look foolish," she says, with as much nervousness in her tone as can possibly be expected from her.
"Oh, Hermia, you are looking too lovely," says Olga, with a burst of genuine enthusiasm. "Is she not, Owen?"