“Does living in public life teach one that? I should have thought it would have taught one to howl with the wolves, to be always on the look-out for ways of pleasing the public and stroking people the right way, to dread nothing so much as alienating or offending your audience.”
“Many people would agree with that view, but I believe it is false for all that. Why meddle with what does not concern you? Your work is to live your own life, to be just and independent, to be true to your own conscience, and to be a hard-working actor. You have nothing to do with the result on other people, you can never tell what it may be; and even if you pare down your actions till you fancy they will please everyone you will end by forfeiting the esteem of all. It’s like the old fable of the man who first rode his ass to market and finally carried it.”
“Certainly Macneillie’s life is ruled in the way you approve,” said Ralph thoughtfully. “There never was a manager who so sturdily refused to bow down to the public. He will not humour the depraved taste for morbid and dubious plays which has taken possession of the country of late, but insists on giving only what is really good. The result, however, is that while a manager who runs one of these risky modern plays makes a fortune, Macneillie merely earns a competence.”
“That may be,” said Mrs. Hereford, “but the result also is that the one Manager is a curse to his country and the other a Godsend. Your habit of mind isn’t so commercial that you measure success by the solid gold it brings in.”
“I hope not,” said Ralph laughing. “But to one who knows how hard and wearing and anxious the life of such a man is bound to be, want of great visible success seems rather rough. However, to return to the point we started from, it is a great comfort to know that you don’t think I was wrong to speak to Evereld yesterday. And a greater comfort still to know that she has you for a friend; one never feels safe somehow with a man like Sir Matthew Mactavish, but if she may turn to you in any difficulty I shall not worry half so much.”
“I will promise you to be to her just what I would try to be to one of my own sisters,” said Mrs. Hereford. “And you, too, must promise to treat us all as friends. Come in whenever you like, this week; you must make the most of your chance of seeing Evereld.”
Macneillie in the meantime had been learning to know Ralph’s future wife. He had been a little surprised at first to find that she was a decidedly reserved girl, not strikingly pretty, rather short, and wholly unlike the being he would have expected Ralph to fall in love with. This was, however, merely his first impression, he had not been two minutes in the room with her before he observed how well her head was set on her shoulders; how in spite of her want of height there was that indescribable touch of dignity in her carriage which he had vainly tried to impart to many a novice on the stage. Then she spoke to him during a pause in the general talk, most of her talking he discovered was done to fill up gaps, and when she spoke a sort of transformation scene took place. Her face suddenly became lovely, the china-blue eyes seemed to radiate light and sweetness, the colour deepened in the softly-rounded cheeks and the most charming dimple made itself seen.
“We are all so much looking forward to ‘The Winter’s Tale’ to night,” she said.
“You have not seen Ralph act before?” asked Macneillie, knowing quite well what the answer would be but wishing for another variety of the transformation scene.
The blue eyes seemed to deepen in colour and an exquisite tenderness softened the whole face.