“Oh, anything you like!”—and, without looking at her, he marched off into the billiard-room.
“I hope there is nothing the matter with his head,” thought Annie, anxiously, as she got into the carriage.
Annie went to the station to meet her sister-in-law, without any of the nervousness she had once felt before an interview with that imperious beauty. If Lilian should resent the change in her position at the Grange, Annie was quite ready to go, and was rather hoping that Mrs. Falconer’s arrival might pave the way for her own departure. She bought the Era on her entrance into the station, and, having some minutes to wait before the train from London was due, went into the waiting-room, cut the leaves of the paper roughly with a pencil she happened to have in her pocket, and glanced through the pages eagerly. She found what she wanted—a notice of a morning performance in which she knew that Aubrey Cooke was to play a part; and, with flushed cheeks and beating heart, she read that he had made the chief success in the piece, in a character so well played that the critic pronounced him “the coming comedian.” Annie knew that this sentence was one she had heard before of other young actors who never came to anything in particular. But her pleasure in reading this testimony to his talent was none the less great, and with trembling fingers, she almost involuntarily drew a shaky line with her pencil down that part of the notice which referred to him.
She was looking brilliant when she met Lilian, who complimented her on her appearance, and said she had heard from her brothers that she would now have to subside meekly into the second place, since Annie had grown into such a charming woman.
“But you might have let me know you were on the stage,” said Lilian, with good-humored reproach. “I find now that I know several of the actors who were with you at the Regency. And only think! I went there one night when you were playing in the piece, and never recognized you.”
“I recognized you, though.”
“Did you? Can you see people you know among the audience when you are acting?”
“Oh, yes! And I saw Colonel Richardson.”
“Most people can see him when you are about,” broke in Stephen, who had come from town with his cousin, but had sat silent in the carriage until now.
This was a bolder speech than he would have ventured to make in the old times to Lilian, Annie thought. She noted that the cripple had grown much older-looking; his face, which had once been handsome, was thin and wasted, and he looked sullen and discontented.