"Did you imagine for a moment that I was laughing at you!" And his rich drawling voice was so convincing that she believed him immediately. "Indeed, I was not! There was something very funny just then that you missed. Why, I wouldn't laugh at you for all the world!"
Arethusa smiled through her tears at him like a veritable bit of April.
"I didn't like to think you would. But.... But.... It seemed just exactly like you were!"
"You misjudged me dreadfully!"
And this time he sounded so reproachful that she was just as ashamed of herself for so misjudging him, as she had been humiliated the moment before because she had thought herself the object of his mirth.
"I ... I'm sorry," she faltered. Would Mr. Bennet ever be able to forgive such a misinterpretation of his charming laugh?
But Mr. Bennet was a truly magnanimous soul, and it seemed that he would.
So an atmosphere of enjoyment once more restored, Arethusa turned her attention back to the chorus ladies, who had in the meantime clothed themselves in garments belonging less to the hours of rest and more to those of activity, and responded to their antics to amuse as she had before that most unfortunate episode.
She sighed a gusty sigh of real forlornness when the curtain had descended in such a way that it could not possibly be construed by even inexperienced theatergoers to mean anything but that it was all over.
"It doesn't last near long enough, not near!" she said, regretfully, as she was being helped into the Green Cloak.