“No,” he said smoothly, “a woman wouldn’t.”
I had one other experience with Andrew, when driving. My husband sent me to capture a scene-painter, and bring him, if possible, to the theatre. The man was that despised unhappy thing, a Eurasian. He was poor; and he drank too much. But I had seen a fan he had painted, and some water-colour sketches of Kandy which he had done. I knew that he was—in part at least—a genius. We found him after a great deal of trouble. He came out to my gharri, and I greeted him, as I would always greet an artist, and stated my business. He took off his shabby sombrero and climbed up to the seat I indicated beside me. Andrew broke into excited vernacular. The man beside me flushed, and started to move.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
“I tell him I no let Eurasian man sit beside my master’s wife. He must come back here with me and Sais.”
I was in a fine rage. I made Andrew get out and walk the several miles that stretched between us and the theatre. That night I had my husband tell him that, when he went out with me, he was, under no circumstances, to speak, unless I spoke to him.
But it was the day of our first performance that I really established myself in Andrew’s mind as a person of importance. I went to the theatre about four o’clock to see if the ayah I had engaged to help me at the theatre had put my dressing-room into proper trim. As I passed in, I noticed Andrew sitting on the lowest rung of a bamboo ladder. He was looking very vicious. He muttered “Salaam” rather than said it, and didn’t rise. I went into my dressing-room, and then marched on to the stage, to attack the poor stage manager.
“Am I to dress in that fearful hole?” I asked him sweetly.
Some one laughed. I turned round.
“I beg your pardon,” said Jimmie M‘Allister, “but do come and see the governor’s quarters.” Jimmie was, of all the boys in our company, my first favourite.
I followed him downstairs, and the stage manager followed me. I looked into my husband’s quarters.