CHAPTER XXXVIII
“World’s use is cold—world’s love is vain,—
World’s cruelty is bitter bane;
But pain is not the fruit of pain.”
E. B. Browning.
If life during the past three years had been difficult for Macneillie it had been tenfold more difficult for Christine Greville. As everyone had foreseen, her position called for a strength of character which she did not possess, for a power of endurance which she was only learning by slow degrees, and for that sound judgment and prompt womanly wisdom which had never been her strong point.
She had indeed resigned the cares and anxieties of Management, but this also meant that she was obliged to put up with whatever arrangements commended themselves to Barry Sterne at the theatre; and though he and his wife had always been good friends to her she was often unable to approve of his way of looking at things.
They had nearly come to a serious disagreement when he engaged Dudley the comedian assuring her that the man had quite lived down his past. And though time had more or less reconciled her to this belief, she was never quite without the instinct which had made Myra Kay shrink from the man in Scotland. She grew to feel a little more confidence in him when one day he happened to mention Ralph Denmead in her presence. It was not so much what he said, but rather his tone and expression when referring to Ralph.