Mrs. Ritter. [Eating a cake] Yes, dear? [Mrs. Pampinelli calls her attention to the change in the manuscript. Mrs. Fell is making up her lips down at the table below the piano. Ritter is watching her, and Spindler is watching Ritter, and trying to assume his general deportment.]
Ritter. Are you in the show, Nelly?
Mrs. Fell. [Without turning, and applying the lip-stick, with the aid of the little mirror in her hand-bag] Who, me?
Ritter. Yes.
Mrs. Fell. [Half-turning, and giving him a melting look] Yes;—I play a chicken. [She returns to her mirror.]
Ritter. [Casually] In the last act, I suppose. [Nelly snaps her head around and pierces him with one of her looks.]
Mrs. Fell. No, and not in the last stages, either. [She resumes her make-up. Nelly is forever making up. But, she does know how to do it. Of course, she should, considering the years of her experience in the art. For Nelly Fell’s age amounts to an achievement; one of those attainments so absolutely undisputed that it is perfectly permissible to refer to it in any gathering. She says she’ll “soon be sixty”; but the short and simple annals of society record flutterings of the lady as far back as the first term of President Grant. And she’s still fluttering—a perennial ingenue, full of brittle moves and staccato vocalisms. She looks like a little French marquise, so chic, and twittery—and rich. For, of course, Nelly is wealthy—enormously so; it would be utterly impossible to have her hair and not have money; the feature is financial in itself; so silver-white, with a lovely bandau of small, pale-pink leaves, tipped with diamond dewdrops; all heightened tremendously by the creation in black velvet she is wearing. This gown is heavily trimmed with silver, and quite sleeveless, with two panels of the goods fastened at the waist on either side and trailing at least a yard. She has a preference for diamonds and pearls, obviously, for her ear-rings, dog-collar, bracelets and rings are all of those gems, and her long, triple-string necklace is of pearls. Altogether, Nelly is a very gorgeous little old lady—from the topmost ringlet of her aristocratic hair, to the pearl buckles on her tiny black-velvet slippers.]
Spindler. Mrs. Fell is the official promptress.
Mrs. Fell. [Turning her head and looking at Ritter] I prompt everybody. [She replaces her lip-stick in the hand-bag.]
Ritter. Yes?