The nice woman laughed.
"Go into the profession!" she exclaimed—"I? Good gracious, what an idea! No; Tony has a very flattering opinion of his wife's abilities, but I don't think even he goes the length of fancying I could act."
"You'd be as good as a certain leading lady we know of, at any rate. Nobody could be much worse than our respected manageress, I'll take my oath!"
"Jeannie," said the "Duchess" sharply, "don't quarrel with your bread-and-butter!"
"I'm not," said the girl; "I'm criticising it—a very different matter, my dear. I hate these amateurs with money, even if they do take out companies and give shops to us pros. She queers the best line I've got in the piece every night because she won't speak up and nobody knows what it's an answer to. The real type of the 'confidential actress' is Miss Westland; no danger of her allowing anyone in the audience to overhear what she says!"
"Tony believes she'll get on all right," said Mrs. Carew, "when she has had more experience. You do, too, don't you, Mrs. Bowman?"
The "Duchess" replied vaguely that "experience did a great deal." She had profited by her own, and at the "aristocratic mother" period of her career no longer canvassed in dressing-rooms the capabilities of the powers that paid the treasury.
"Get on?" echoed Jeannie Macy, struggling into her jacket, "of course she'll get on; she has oof! If it's very much she's got, you'll see her by-and-by with a theatre of her own in London. Money, influence, or talent, you must have one of the three in the profession, and for a short-cut give me either of the first two. Sweet dreams, both of you; I've got a hot supper waiting for me, and I can smell it spoiling from here!" The door banged behind her; and Mrs. Carew turned to the "Duchess" with a smile.
"You're coming round to us afterwards, aren't you?" she said.
"Yes, Carew asked the husband in the morning: I hope he's got some coppers; I reminded him. It's such a bother having to keep an account of how we stand after every deal. We'll be round about half-past twelve. Are you going?"