The greenroom walls looked grim in the sputtering candle-light, but they had naught to say.
The door from the stage opened, and in came Nell. There was something sadly beautiful and pathetic in her face. She had enjoyed but now one of the grandest triumphs known to the theatre, and yet she seemed oblivious to the applause and bravas, to the lights and to the royalty.
A large bouquet of flowers was in her arms–a bouquet of red roses. Her lips touched them reverently. Her eyes, however, were far away in a dream of the past.
“From the hand of the King of England!” she mused softly to herself. “The King? How like his face to the youthful cavalier, who weary and worn reined in his steed a summer’s day, now long ago, and took a gourd of water from my hand. Could he have been the King? Pooh, pooh! I dream again.”
She turned away, as from herself, with a heart-heavy laugh. The manager entered from the stage.
“See, Jack, my flowers,” she said, again in an ecstasy of happiness. “Are they not exquisite?”
“He took them from Castlemaine’s hand to throw to you,” snarled Hart, jealously.
“The sweeter, then!” and Nell broke into a tantalizing laugh. “Mayhap he was teaching the player-king to do likewise, Jack,” she added, roguishly, as she arranged the flowers in a vase.
“I am in no mood for wit-thrusts,” replied Hart as he fretfully paced the room. “You played that scene like an icicle.”
“In sooth, your acting froze me,” slyly retorted Nell, kindly but pointedly. She took the sweetest roses from the bunch, kissed them and arranged them in her bosom.