“Yes; but remindin’ the Duke of that always brings on an attack,” said Bobby solicitously. “Look at him twitchin’ now.... Steady, Peto! Woa-a, old mannums!”
“Take him for a tatta while I finish the rehearsal,” commanded Mrs. Gudrun, rising from Teddy’s chair in an upsurge of expensive draperies. “Write to this Aphasia girl, Teddy, and say I’ll see her to-morrow, between three and four p. m. After all, the whole-souled adoration of one’s own sex is worth having,” the lady said, as, heralded by the rustling of silken robes, the barbaric clash of jeweled ornaments, and wafts of fashionable perfume, she sailed back to the boards.
When Aphasia got her reply, p.p. Teddy, some hours later, there was very little of whole-souled adoration in her reception of the missive.
“I s’pose she looks on me as the dirt under her feet, like Alfred. But I won’t let that put me off makin’ the sacrifice that’s for his good—the ungrateful thing! I ’ope she’ll make ’im a nice wife, that’s all,” she sobbed, as she took from her collar-and-cuff drawer the flat brown-paper parcel containing the garnet ring, the photographs, and the letters. And she dressed herself in her best, with a large lace collar over a cloth jacket, and the once fashionable low-necked pneumonia-blouse, to which the girls of her class so fondly cling, and went to meet the lady whom, in terms borrowed from the latest penny romance, she called her “haughty rival.”
Mrs. Gudrun received her with excessive graciousness. A costume rehearsal was in progress, and the lady was in the hands of her maids and dressers. “I suppose this is the first time you have ever been behind the scenes?” she inquired. “Look about you as much as you like, and then you will be able to say to your friends: ‘I have been in Mrs. Gudrun’s dressing-room.’ You see, I am in the gown I wear in the first act. It is by Babin; and if you write for a ladies’ paper, you will remember to say so, please.”
“I don’t write for any ladies’ paper,” said Aphasia. “I couldn’t spell well enough—not if they ast me ever so. But it’s a lovely gownd, and I suppose all that stuff on your face is what makes you look so young an’ ’andsome—from a long way off.”
Mrs. Gudrun’s famous features assumed a look of cold displeasure. She assumed the majestic air that suited her so eminently well, and asked the young person’s business.
“It’s quite private, and I’ll thank you to send away your maids, if you’ve no objection,” said the dauntless Aphasia. “The fact is,” she continued, when the indignant menials had been waved from the apartment, “as I’ve come to make you a present—a present of a young man——”
“Look here, my good young woman,” began the incensed manageress.
Aphasia suddenly handed her the brown-paper parcel, and the wrath of Mrs. Gudrun was turned to trembling. She was sure this was an escaped lunatic. Aphasia profited by the lull in the storm to explain. She had come to hand over her Alfred—stock, goodwill, and fixtures. He had forgotten to be off with the old love before he went on with the new, but the old love bore no malice. All was now over.