Ralph laughed, for he knew that he was an adept at a certain south country dialect, and without more ado stood up and gave the Professor a short and highly humourous dialogue between a ploughman and his boy, with which he had often made Evereld and her governess laugh.
“Good,” said the Professor, his grey eyes twinkling, “I think you’ll do young man; but come to me to-morrow morning at nine o’clock and I’ll give you a few hints about voice production.”
Ralph coloured. “You are very good,” he said, “but to tell the truth I am at my wit’s end for money and much as I would like lessons can’t possibly afford them.”
“Pshaw! nonsense,” said the Professor, knitting his brows. “I’m already in your debt, for it might have fared ill with the child had you not taken care of her tonight. If I can give you a helping hand, nothing would please me better. And after the lesson you might go round with Ivy, and I’ll give you an introduction to the manager. He’s a man I knew well at one time.”
Ralph’s face lighted up. “I should be very grateful,” he said, eagerly, “for this waiting about for work is tedious enough, and I shall be starved out before long.”
He went home much cheered and with great expectations. The Professor interested him; there was something half mysterious about the white-haired old man which puzzled him and piqued his curiosity. He was particularly benevolent and kindly and yet he seemed as unpractical as a mere visionary, and was surely to blame in letting a child like Ivy go to and from the theatre each night alone.
Clearly the granddaughter was manager-in-chief as well as breadwinner, and as he thought of her winsome little face with its shrewd, light-blue eyes, slightly retroussé nose, and small, firm mouth he felt a keen desire to see more of her. She was so quaint in her brisk, housewifely arrangements, so deft and clever in all her ways; a little conscious at times, and quite capable of posing for effect, but lovable in spite of that.
“I could soon laugh her out of those little affectations,” he thought to himself. “And there is such a look of Evereld about her that she must at heart be good. She is very clever, possibly she is even cunning, and she has extraordinary tact—almost too much for such a child.”
He went to sleep and was haunted all night by that funny, pathetic, little face of the child actress. Together they fled from a thousand perils, and when next morning he saw her again face to face, it seemed to him that they were quite old companions.
“Good day,” said the Professor in his bland, pleasant voice as Ralph was ushered into the dreary little room. “Sit down for a minute, I have not yet finished with my other pupil. Now sir! don’t mumble like a bee in a bottle. You know well enough how to get the clear shock of the glottis and that’s the secret of voice production. You have the voice and the lungs and the knowledge of the method, but you are lazy, incorrigibly lazy!”