CHAPTER VI.
MISS FLORA FITZALLAN.
“Love in a hut—with water and a crust
Is, Love forgive us! Cinders—ashes—dust!”
A pretty little house, parfaitement bien monté, in Halfmoon Street. Plenty of marqueterie and rococo about, heaps of china monstrosities, heaps of nude statuary and glowing pictures, and shoals of devices in the shape of soft armchairs and cushions and sofas, to contribute to the well-being of man.
Altogether a charming little ménage, of which the presiding deity is Miss Fitzallan, leading lady at the Bagatelle Theatre.
They have been playing “Hearts versus Diamonds” at the theatre to-night, a comedy in three long acts, with a lot of emotional acting, which, when it goes on week after week, is, to say the least, a trifle fatiguing.
The Prince and Princess, accompanied by a party of foreign royalties, have been amongst the audience, and have been demonstrative in their approval. Altogether the evening has been exciting, and the actors are glad when it is over, and each one can drop down from his stilts of artificial feeling to the level of real life.
Miss Fitzallan is tired too; her rôle has been the most arduous of all, perhaps, save that of the jeune amoureux, who has had to play the handsome but rejected lover, with a passion he can simulate better than he can feel. So the leading lady sinks back into her luxurious little light blue brougham, with an enormous sensation of relief, and is driven quickly to her bijou house, where a small but exquisite supper is laid out.
The covers are for two.
Herself and the jeune amoureux.