GIVE up the stage!” echoed Mr. Chown, assuming an appearance of thunderstruck amazement.
“Don’t act at me, my friend,” said Mary. “You must have had the probability in mind ever since I told you I was married.”
He had; that was the worst of women; an agent sweated blood to make a woman into a star, and the thankless creature manned and retired. But Mary had not immediately retired and he thought he had reasonable grounds for hoping that she would continue to pay him his commission for many years; a woman who married well and yet remained on the stage could surely be acting only because she liked it, and Mr. Chown had a lure to dangle before her which could hardly fail of its effect upon any actress who cared two straws for her profession.
He remembered the day when he had rung up Rossiter and had said, “Mary’s married,” and Rossiter had replied, “Right, I’ll watch her,” and, a little later, had told him “Mary will do. She can play Sans-Gêne.”
That was the bait he had for Mary. When (if ever), London tired of “Granada the Gay,” she was to play Sans-Gêne. She was to stand absolutely at the head of her profession. He reviewed musical comedy and could think of no woman’s part in all its repertoire which was so signally the blue riband of the lighter stage; and Rossiter destined it for the wear of Mary Arden!
“Listen to this, Mary. Do you know what Rossiter is doing next?”
“I’ll see it from the stalls,” she said.
“No. You’ll be it. You’ll be Sans-Gêne in ‘The Duchess of Dantzig.’ ”
“I didn’t tell you I’m retiring from the stage, did I? All I said was that it’s possible.”
“Ah!” said Chown, watching his bait at work.