"Thanks! There's only the Man in the Ironed Mask irritating me now. His dumb admiration provokes me."
"But you provoke his dumb admiration. And are you sure it is admiration?"
"People don't go to see Shakespeare seventeen times. I wonder who he is—an Italian count most likely. Ah, how his teeth flash beneath his moustache!"
"You make me feel quite curious about him. Do you think I could peep at him from the wing?"
"No, mother, you shall not be put to the inconvenience. It would give you a crick in your neck. If you desire to see him, I will send for him."
"Very well, dear," said the older woman submissively, for she was accustomed to the gratification of her daughter's whims.
So when the Man in the Ironed Mask resumed his seat, a programme girl slipped a note into his hand. He read it, his face impassive as his Ironed Mask. When the play was over, he sauntered round to the squalid court in which the stage door was located and stalked nonchalantly up the stairs. The doorkeeper was too impressed by his air not to take him for granted. He seemed to go on instinctively till he arrived at a door placarded, "Miss Clorinda Bell—Private."
He knocked, and the silvery accents he had been listening to all the evening bade him come in. The beautiful Clorinda, clad in diaphanous white and radiating perfumes, received him with an intoxicating smile.
"It is so kind of you to come and see me," she said.
He made a stately inclination. "The obligation is mine," he said. "I am greatly interested in the drama. This is the seventeenth time I have been to see you."