What if this mixture do not work at all,
Shall I be married, then, to-morrow morning?
No, no;—this shall forbid it:—lie thou there—”
And here Polly is being carried away by the thrill of her own performance. Almost she believes she beholds a slight suggestion of admiration in the blue eyes of the critic who most assuredly is watching her efforts with a great deal of interest. Unhappily, however, in her preparation for this great occasion, Polly has forgotten the necessary stage equipment and now at this instant remembers that Juliet requires a dagger to make this moment properly realistic. The girl is in a delicious state of excitement. For the time being actually she is feeling herself the terrified and yet superbly courageous Juliet, and there on the parlor table, as though by direct inspiration, is reposing a steel paper cutter of the Professor’s.
With a quick movement of her hand Polly seizes the desired dagger, but also she seizes something else along with it, for the table cover comes off at the same instant, almost overwhelming Juliet in a rain of papers, ornaments and books.
Polly feels as though she would faint with chagrin and mortification, so suddenly and so uncomfortably is she brought back to the hard realities. “I am so dreadfully sorry,” she starts to say, but before she has finished, her attention is arrested by the behavior of the mysterious veiled lady.
She had given a hysterical giggle, first one, then another, as though she were never going to be able to stop. Meg’s face is also crimson with the effort to control her laughter, although she is looking nervously, almost imploringly, toward her strange visitor.
The solitary man in the room has simply turned his back upon the whole situation and is gazing steadfastly at the closed windows.
Polly thinks perhaps she is losing her senses, for there had been something familiar in that excited laughter which is now turning almost into a sob, and yet of course the idea was ridiculous. Polly then turned entreatingly toward Betty Ashton as her one sure rock of salvation in a vanishing world, and Betty never forgot the expression in her friend’s eyes, the look of wounded dignity, of disappointed affection, of almost resentful disbelief. For in Betty’s returning glance she found a confirmation of her worst fears.
The truth of the matter was that Betty had been suspicious of the little group of spectators of her friend’s recitation almost as soon as Polly began her speech. She was not under the pressure of so much excitement and had time and opportunity to look about and examine people and things more closely.