“You have shown me that I have not quite failed to share the dream with you. You approve ‛The Guerdon.’ With all my heart I thank you. That is my guerdon. I am a happy man to-night. I am grateful to the men and women who have embodied the people in the play as I knew them, but as you could not know them but for this acting, since outside my brain and that quiet room in Cleavedge these play-people had never ventured. Out of a grateful heart I thank you all.”
Anne shrank farther back as she listened to Richard talking here as simply, as quietly as he had talked to her in that quiet room. His allusion to it brought it before her so vividly that the theatre, the audience were blotted out. She was back in that room, the bees humming in the beautiful garden, their hum and the scent of the flowers they were rifling coming in through the windows, open to the light breeze. She knew that Richard was speaking to her, telling her not to grieve, to remember that he was sincerely glad to carry with him the memory of the days that had left him only memory. Kit, seeing Anne’s face, came forward to take her chair and give her his place, a little back of his aunt.
“Don’t look like that, honey!” he whispered. “People will notice, and hang and quarter me! There’s always someone about who knows too much! I don’t care if Latham did write ‛The Guerdon!’ ‛But notta Carlotta! I gotta Carlotta!’ However you pity him, you can’t marry us both, dear! Latham is happy! That’s true. Look at him!”
Richard was acknowledging the applause of his modest speech; his smile was bright, his face shining. Ted Wilberforce was clapping with all his might over little Anne’s head, and little Anne was waving both arms over the rail of the box, leaning out of it dangerously, and shouting shrilly:
“You dear, you dear, you dear!” to the delight of everyone within range of her clear, childish voice.
Miss Carrington fell back in her chair after her emphatic applause of Richard. She looked at Kit proudly, amusement and satisfaction in her eyes.
“Fancy being the power behind the throne, the victorious rival in a scene like this, Master Kit! I’ve always thought you a nice lad, Christopher, but I never expected to see you before the public, which does not suspect your glory, the scorner of such a creature as yonder splendid Helen; the victor over the winner of the laurels which muses and men bestow! Is it possible that I ever bought you copper-toed boots, and ordered mutton tallow on your properly scornful nose!” she said.
The fourth act followed, a worthy climax to the play, and when the final curtain was rung down on “The Guerdon” Richard’s triumph was complete. His box was full of flowers, masses of roses and orchids bearing bits of cardboard, each with a well-known name engraved on it.
“Too bad this isn’t a church!” observed little Anne, to whom flowers and altars were synonymous.
“I’ll send them all to the nearest church in your name, little Anne!” declared Richard. “Now you and Ted come with me to the manager’s room. I’m going to bid you good-bye there. Kit and Miss Dallas are coming. They will not come to my supper of celebration, and you’re too small to sup with me. So we’ll part, to meet again in Cleavedge in the spring.”