Mary Caspar’s cold was really frightful, but she couldn’t help herself, poor girl. Once more she took ’em all to Arcadee—Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara and Dick and the Babe and Helen and Lucy Nanna and certainly Uncle Phil. As for poor Father, he leaned back against the wall with his hands in his pockets, and almost wished he hadn’t come. There was something about that girl taking ’em all to Arcadee that somehow—no, dash it all, he must learn to keep that upper lip a bit stiffer.
“’Core!” shouted Father—but so feebly that nobody heard him.
“Only a hundred a week,” said Mr. Hollins in the ear of the Chairman of the Syndicate in the box below. “Dirt cheap.”
“Sign her for five years at double the salary,” said the Chairman of the Syndicate in the ear of the famous manager.
“Nothing like a provincial training,” said Mr. Hollins. “Teaches ’em how to get right home to the heart of the people.”
“’Core!” roared the Chairman of the Syndicate.
“Absolute nailer,” said Uncle Phil.
And then her acting! It was so perfectly easy and natural that it really didn’t seem like acting at all. Her speaking voice, for all that it hurt her so, was clear and low and quite agreeable; and wiser men than Uncle Phil have thought that such a voice as that is the greatest charm in any young woman. Not quite so ultra-refined perhaps as that of the seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls; not quite so much torture was inflicted upon the letter “o,” that honest vocable. Icy tones had been Adela’s that morning in the opinion of the heir to the barony; those of the new-risen star of Blackhampton were clear and unaffected and ringing with human sympathy. No wonder that the sensitive mechanism behind the chocolate waistcoat was thrown clean out of gear.
She acted beautifully that fine scene inside the fireplace with a nondescript entity, by the name of Buttons, which his proper name is Mr. Graves and a man of genius; acted it beautifully during the time her wicked sisters had left her at home to work like a menial while they had gone to the Prince Charming’s ball.
After the Principal Girl had sung another ballad, to the entire satisfaction of all that was best in the life of the metropolis, the great and good Mr. Lover handed up to her a noble box of chocolates from an unknown friend in front.