"Why she's married—these three days. They did it very quietly; Miriam says because her mother hated it and hopes it won't be much known! All the same she's Basil Dashwood's wedded wife—he has come in just in time to take the receipts for Juliet. It's a good thing, no doubt, for there are at least two fortunes to be made out of her, and he'll give up the stage." Nick explained to Miss Tressilian, who had inquired, that the gentleman in question was the actor who was playing Mercutio, and he asked Biddy if she hadn't known that this was what they were telling him in Rosedale Road that morning. She replied that she had understood nothing but that she was to be where she was, and she sank considerably behind the drapery of the box. From this cover she was able to launch, creditably enough, the exclamation:
"Poor, poor Peter!"
Nick got up and stood looking at poor, poor Peter. "He ought to come round and speak to us, but if he doesn't see us I suppose he doesn't." He quitted the box as to go to the restored exile, and I may add that as soon as he had done so Florence Tressilian bounded over to the dusk in which Biddy had nestled. What passed immediately between these young ladies needn't concern us: it is sufficient to mention that two minutes later Miss Tressilian broke out:
"Look at him, dearest; he's turning his head this way!"
"Thank you, I don't care to watch his turns," said Biddy; and she doubtless demeaned herself in the high spirit of these words. It nevertheless happened that directly afterwards she had certain knowledge of his having glanced at his watch as if to judge how soon the curtain would rise again, as well as of his having then jumped up and passed quickly out of his place. The curtain had risen again without his reappearing and without Nick's returning. Indeed by the time Nick slipped in a good deal of the third act was over; and even then, even when the curtain descended, Peter had not come back. Nick sat down in silence to watch the stage, to which the breathless attention of his companions seemed attached, though Biddy after a moment threw round at him a single quick look. At the end of the act they were all occupied with the recalls, the applause and the responsive loveliness of Juliet as she was led out—Mercutio had to give her up to Romeo—and even for a few minutes after the deafening roar had subsided nothing was said among the three. At last Nick began:
"It's quite true he has just arrived; he's in Great Stanhope Street. They've given him several weeks, to make up for the uncomfortable way they bundled him off—to get there in time for some special business that had suddenly to be gone into—when he first went out: he tells me they even then promised that. He got into Southampton only a few hours ago, rushed up by the first train he could catch and came off here without any dinner."
"Fancy!" said Miss Tressilian; while Biddy more generally asked if Peter might be in good health and appeared to have been happy. Nick replied that he described his post as beastly but didn't seem to have suffered from it. He was to be in England probably a month, he was awfully brown, he sent his love to Biddy. Miss Tressilian looked at his empty stall and was of the opinion that it would be more to the point if he were to come in to see her.
"Oh he'll turn up; we had a goodish talk in the lobby where he met me. I think he went out somewhere."
"How odd to come so many thousand miles for this and then not to stay!" Biddy fluted.
"Did he come on purpose for this?" Miss Tressilian asked.