Evelyn had played Di Vernon's part for thirty nights exactly when just as she was going on the stage, on the evening of the thirty-first day, a call-boy put a telegram into her hand and she had scarcely opened it when she discovered that it was from her father.
"I am passing through London upon my way to Paris," it said; "perhaps I shall be in the theatre. If not, come to me afterwards to De Kyser's Hotel. I will engage a room for you there."
She told the boy that there was no answer to the message and immediately passed to the garden scene she had played so often and always with such sweetness and light. The thought that her father might be in the house excited her strangely. Difficult as it is for a player upon the stage to identify those in the stalls, she peered intently, nevertheless, at the serried ranks before her and was conscious of a sense of disappointment when her search was vain. A second thought suggested that her father might be hidden by the curtains of a private box; and with this in her mind she found herself playing, not, as it were, to an audience of strangers, but to one who loved her and had never understood her. Surely her father would read something of her own story, of her loyalty to her old home, and the depth of feeling which had sent her from it when he listened to Di Vernon and her sweet sincerity. This was her hope, though she knew not whether the Earl were present or no. To her anxious questions during the entractes, old Jacobs, the stage-door keeper, declared that no one "hadn't come round from the front not since he'd drunk his supper beer"—a vague answer, insomuch as the beer in question made its appearance at six o'clock and continued to do so at short intervals until eleven.
She must suffer her curiosity, therefore; and take what profit of it she might. When the play was over and no news came from the front, she concluded with a natural regret that her father had not been present; and she was just wondering how she would get to De Kyser's Hotel and exactly where it might be when old Jacobs himself, unable to find a messenger, came round to tell her that a carriage stood at the door ready for her ... and that it was a "nobby one" to boot.
"She's footlights enough for a ballet," the old man said, with the patronizing air of one who did not keep motor cars and thought very little of those who did. "He says he comes from your father, but I shouldn't wonder if it were from Buckingham Palace. Will you go, Miss, or shall I say something civil to him?"
Evelyn hastened to say that she would go; and, putting on her furs, she went out to the carriage. This was waiting in the Haymarket, and the driver appeared to be quite a boy, an open-faced, honest-looking lad, who told her frankly that he was not to take her to De Kyser's Hotel, but to a house at Hampstead where the Earl expected her.
"There's a Mr. Fillimore there, Miss," he said. "I think he's a clergyman. They said you would know, and it would be all right for you to stop the night. The gentlemen are going away early in the morning. I believe—at least I heard the butler saying so——"
It was rather startling, but Evelyn suspected nothing. That old chatter-box, the Vicar of Moretown, had relatives at Hampstead, she knew, and nothing would be more natural than that he should have accompanied her father to town. None the less, it was annoying to have to go as she was; and nothing but the Earl's known intention to travel abroad almost immediately induced her to consent.
"Could you bring me back to-night if I wished?" she asked the lad.
He answered: "Oh, certainly, Miss. I'm up half the night carrying ladies about sometimes."