“Your hand, friend, your hand,” she said, taking the manager’s hand. “When next you try to win a woman’s love, don’t throw away her confidence; for you will never get it back again entire.”
Hart bowed his head under the rebuke; and she entered her room.
CHAPTER IV
Flowers and Music feed naught but Love.
The manager stood a moment looking through the half-closed door at Nell. There was a strange mingling of contending forces at work in his nature. To be sure, he had trifled with the affections of the Spanish dancing-girl, a new arrival from Madrid and one of the latest attractions of the King’s House; but it was his pride, when he discovered that Nell’s sharp eyes had found him out, that suffered, not his conscience. Was he not the fascinating actor-manager of the House? Could he prevent the ladies loving him? Must he be accused of not loving Nell, simply because his charms had edified the shapely new-comer? Nell’s rebuke had depressed him, but there was a smouldering fire within. “’Slife!” he muttered. “If I do not steal my way into Nell’s heart, I’ll abandon the rouge-box and till the soil.”
As he approached his tiring-room, he bethought him that it would be well first to have an oversight of the theatre. He turned accordingly and pulled open the door that led to the stage.
As he did so, a figure fell into the greenroom, grasping devotedly a violin, lest his fall might injure it. Strings had been biding his time, waiting an opportunity to see Nell, and had fallen asleep behind the door.
“How now, dog!” exclaimed the manager when he saw who the intruder was.
Strings hastened to his feet and hobbled across the room.