“Oh, you don’t know Lilith, Miss Abercarne! She’s always in love with somebody or other, and as she’s had time to forget the man she was in love with when we left town, she is obliged to fall in love with somebody here to fill up the time.”
However, Chris could give no information, and would not interest herself in the matter. Her head ached; she had been too hard at work to spare the time for a proper luncheon, but had had a sandwich brought out to her, which she had scarcely found time to eat. Nobody had thought of bringing her a cup of tea. She had promised her mother, who was in dread lest the barn should be set on fire, as the result of the afternoon’s entertainment, not to leave the building until everybody else had gone away, and a servant had been sent to put out the lights.
While the performers were changing their dress, therefore, in the screened-off spaces on either side of the stage, which had been fitted up as dressing-rooms, she occupied herself in putting out such of the footlights as had not put themselves out, and in taking down the curtains and folding them up.
By the time this was done, the performers were leaving the building in a body, tired and rather cross, smarting as they were with the sense that the whole thing had been something like a failure, and that they had not been well treated by somebody. Donald, who had not dared to come near Chris since the severe snub he had received on the previous day, hung about for a brief space in the rear of the rest, talking loudly, though somewhat vaguely, and pushing about the chairs, in the hope of attracting her attention.
But Chris never once looked round; so he presently followed the others, feeling more bitterly than they, that he had been made a fool of, and rendered ridiculous to the eyes of the world.
CHAPTER XVI. MR. RICHARD’S MANIA.
Chris was busy with the “properties,” which had been collected from different parts of the house, without any formality of asking Mr. Bradfield’s permission to use them. Curtains, carpets, valuable Persian rugs, swords, spears, ancient armour (some of it from Birmingham), and “antique” cabinets (chiefly from Germany, by way of Wardour Street).
These had all been treated with scant consideration by the performers, and they now lay scattered about the stage, or were piled in heaps at the back of it, behind the curtains which served as a back-cloth.
Chris knelt down, and began to look over the things, to see what mischief had been done. But she had not been long on her knees when she heard the door of the barn creak, and someone enter softly. Supposing the intruder to be Donald, she did not look round until he had got upon the stage. When she did glance in his direction, she found that the visitor was not Donald, but Mr. Richard. He wore a caped cloak, and held his hat in his hand; and it suddenly occurred to Chris that he was the handsome stranger who had roused the admiration of Lilith. She rose from her knees, and held out her hand with a smile. Mr. Richard’s face became instantly bright with pleasure. But as his smile of greeting died away, a look of anxiety came over his features, which it was easy enough to understand. He was troubled because she looked so tired. It was in answer to his look, for he uttered no word, that she said: