‘Eugenia! If you are afraid, I am sure she will faint. I asked you because I thought you were just the person for it.’
‘But only think,’ said poor Clara, with an imploring voice, ‘to act, May! Why, acting is the most difficult thing in the world. Acting is quite a dreadful thing. I know many ladies who will not act.’
‘But it is not acting, Clara. Well! I will be Cinderella, and you shall be one of the sisters.’
‘No, dear May!’
‘Well, then, the Fairy?’ ‘No, dear, dear, dear May!’
‘Well, Duke of St. James, what am I to do with this rebellious troop?’
‘Let me be Cinderella!’
‘It is astonishing,’ said Miss Dacre, ‘the difficulty which you encounter in England, if you try to make people the least amusing or vary the regular dull routine, which announces dancing as the beautiful of diversions and cards as the sublime.’
‘We are barbarians,’ said the Duke. ‘We were not,’ said May Dacre. ‘What are tableaux, or acted charades, or romances, to masques, which were the splendid and various amusement of our ancestors. Last Christmas we performed “Comus” here with great effect; but then we had Arundel, and he is an admirable actor.’
‘Curse Arundel!’ thought the Duke. ‘I had forgotten him.’