“Such a batch of commonplace lovers. They went about in search of a confidant. And I find that I am as commonplace as any of the crew.”
“Nay, friend Dick; ’twas your confidante who went in search of you. I tell you, Dick, that when I heard two days ago that your Elizabeth Linley had made up her mind to marry Mr. Long, I gave Mr. Colman notice that I would not play during the rest of the week, and I posted down here to do my best to comfort you, my poor boy! Oh, do not stare so at me, Dick! I am as great a fool as any woman can be, and that is saying much; and I would not have confessed this to you if you had not been manly enough to tell me that you love her still. I can only respond to your manliness, Dick, by my womanliness; but I have done it now, and yet you are only bewildered.”
“I am bewildered indeed,” said Dick, and he spoke the truth. “I do not quite understand what—that is, I do not quite understand you.”
“Oh, do you fancy that I expected you to understand me when I do not understand myself?” she cried, opening and closing her fan nervously half a dozen times, and then giving the most scrupulous attention to the design painted on the satin between the ivory ribs. “Ah, what a fool a really wise woman—a woman of worldly wisdom—can be when her turns comes, Dick!” she said, after a rather lengthy pause.
Dick was more bewildered than ever. His knowledge of women was never very profound. He was slightly afraid of this enigma enwrapped—but not too laboriously—in brocade and misty lace.
“I think that you are a very kind woman, Mrs. Abington,” said he at last. “’Twas very kind of you to come here solely because—because—well, solely out of the goodness of your own heart; and if you call this being a fool——”
He was startled by her outburst of laughter—really merry, spontaneous actress’s laughter; it almost amounted to a paroxysm as she lay back on the pretty gilded sofa in the most charming attitude of self-abandonment. Joyous humour danced in her eyes—and tears as well; and once again she had closed her fan and was pointing it at him quite roguishly. And the tears that had been in her eyes dropped down upon the roseate expanse of her bosom, and two others took the place in her eyes of those that had fallen, and her bosom was tremulous.
He looked at her, and was more bewildered than ever. What did this mingling of laughter and tears and mocking gestures and throbbing pulses mean? Was the woman in earnest? Was the actress acting?
He felt himself as bewildered as he could imagine a man being whose boat is suddenly capsized when sailing in what he fancies to be smooth water, but finds to be a whirlpool.
He somehow had lost confidence in his own power of judgment. He was forced to apply to her for an explanation of her attitude. But before he had opened his lips, that whirlpool of a woman was spinning him round on another course.