So ’twas finally settled and the two hurried off to survey the rooms before the meeting appointed with Mr. Rich and Mr. Gay. ’Tis true they were plain, but they served, and had the merit to be near the playhouse—no small convenience when the perils that beset a lovely face in London be considered. The bargain was sealed with a kiss, and then Mrs. Diana made for the parlour once more to face the ordeal, her whole heart a prayer for fortitude and mercy. She had as yet none of the confidence she was to gain later, and, had the two gentlemen been Grand Inquisitors and she a fair heretic, could not have trembled worse. Mr. Rich and Mr. Gay, the author, sat by the table—the former in a handsome sober suit of grey cloth, the latter in the uncommon garb of a big gown folded about him and a little cap. He had himself carried round in a chair from his morning meal which he took late and luxurious. Indeed a somewhat free use of the pleasures of the table had left its mark on him and he looked but sickly and peevish to Diana’s thinking as she curtseyed low before her judges. She past as near Mr. Rich as she dared, breathing, “My name, Sir, is Lavinia Fenton.” He nodded.
“I beg to present Mrs. Lavinia Fenton to your favourable notice, Mr. Gay,” says Mr. Rich sedately. “You are aware, Sir, that your attractive conception of Polly is none too easy to meet and that I have been put to much trouble and in vain so far in the search. But last evening this young lady walked in carrying hope with her. Your own eyes will teach you, Sir, that her appearance is all we could desire, and my own ears vouch for a harmonious voice and neat manner of singing. You’ll therefore——”
“Humph!” says Mr. Gay.
It fell a little chilling into Mr. Rich’s periods, but he was used not only to Mr. Gay, but to the tribe of authors at large, and their irritability in face of their own precious bantlings, and laughed good-humouredly.
“Why, Sir, I know well that were Venus and Euphrosyne rolled into one they wouldn’t fill an author’s conception of his goddess. But yet——”
“The nose isn’t sufficiently impertinent,” says Mr. Gay, “and I would have the eyes more arch, more sparkling. Such as Bracegirdle’s whom I remember in Millamant. Ah, there was a dish for the gods! Ah, Rich, Rich, where is her like?”
“If you would have this young lady’s eyes sparkle, pay her a pretty compliment, Mr. Gay, as none can do so well, and I’ll wager they outshine Bracey’s. Come now! Bracey was a beginner once also! Cheer the young lady!”
’Twas kindly meant, but still Mr. Gay humphed.
“Her stature! I would have Polly an inch less—a dainty rogue a man may pick up betwixt his finger and thumb. I disparage not the young lady’s appearance when I say I can figure her rather as the Mourning Bride than my bewitching Polly. There is a melancholy in her eye.”
And ’twas at that moment that Diana, forgetting her own alarms in a statement so preposterous, broke into a roulade of laughter resembling a string of pearls, so round and mellow it fell from her rosy lips, and then, terrified, she stopt all of a sudden, and clasped her hands to her heart, fearing she had spoiled her chance.