The playwright shook his head.
“It moves too slow for Gloriana,” he said. “It is too much the work of the apprentice. And she’d smell out its weakness before we were half through the first act, for that crabbed old woman—whom God protect!—has got the keenest nose in the realm in matters dramatical. The old harridan is wonderful in some ways.” The tone of the playwright was more reverent than the words it expressed.
“Well, it is a plaguy ill business, William Shakespeare,” said the tragedian, again having serious recourse to his tankard. “A plaguy ill business altogether, what with this affair of last night, which is very like to land us all in the Jug, and young Parflete’s hurt, and now this offence to Gloriana. However, it is a poor heart that repines. ’Tis all in the great comedy, my William, ’tis all in the great comedy. Sit ye down, man, and cut yourself a piece of this most excellent pasty, and I’ll call the drawer, who shall comfort you with an honest quart of this right excellent ale.”
Mr. William Shakespeare, however, had little use just now for this robust philosophy. Mutton pasties and tankards of ale did not appeal to him this morning. Far more serious matters were afoot.
At this moment, Anne Feversham chanced to enter the inn parlor. And it was almost as if that sweetly forlorn figure had been conjured up by the instancy of the poet’s thoughts. She was still in her boy’s dress. Here was the natural grace, the delicacy of limb and feature, the perfect harmony of mind and mansion of the true Rosalind.
Indeed, that shy and slender grace was the ideal of the poet’s fancy. He knew now that it was the sight of her in hawking dress in the tailor’s shop that had set his mind upon the Forest of Arden. And now her presence in that room kindled once again the eager mind. An idea sprang into it; an idea audacious, impulsive, extravagant, yet not wholly outside the region of the possible.
If only this creature, all charm and grace, could be taught to play the part at so short a notice!
There was no need for the poet to put into words that which had flashed through his brain. Nay, hardly did he need to look at Richard Burbage for his friend to read that which was published already in a face so expressive that it declared his lightest thought.
“Yes, why not?” said the playwright suddenly, without context.
Burbage shook his head. He had a clear perception of the idea that had kindled the mind of his friend, but it was hardly to be taken seriously.