Hardly had I opened my mouth than this remark, or question, or whatever it was intended for, was addressed to me by a woman who occupied the seat upon my left. There was not much of her, but she made up in acidity—or it seemed as if she did—what she lacked in size. The undressed portion of her—which was disproportionately large—was covered with jewels. She looked to me to be about fifty, though, I daresay, she would have given her age as thirty-five. Being spoken to in such a fashion by a perfect stranger, and such a shrimp of a thing, precipitated me back into the condition of mental confusion from which I had just been emerging. When I myself get to a theatre early, and am enjoying the performance, I hate people to come in late. And when to that offence they add the capital crime of talking out loud, or even in an audible whisper—and there is a certain sort of whisper which is almost more audible than a shout—I sometimes ask myself why they were not drowned when they were young. In a mazy sort of mist I was disposed to wonder if other people could possibly be asking themselves the same question about me. I became hazily conscious that I was an object of general attention. People were murmuring among themselves. I even suspected the performers on the stage of regarding me with a malevolent eye.
It was a painful situation. I could not stand up and explain to the audience that it was not my fault I had entered in such a whirlwind fashion, apparently in the very middle of a song. I could not tell them that if I had had my way I should not have been there at all. Still less could I rise up, then and there, and march straight out again. All I could do was sit still, and burn.
On the other hand, Mr Hammond showed not the slightest sign of discomfiture. I was not only aware that he was smiling in a most significant manner, but he went so far as to allow himself to touch me with the point of his elbow, nudged me, in fact, with it in the side. And he said:
“Gay old kicker.”
I do not pretend to be versed in stable slang, but it was impossible to suppose that the phrase conveyed a compliment, especially as a reference from a gentleman to a lady of ripened years—I should not have been surprised if she had been more than fifty. Unfortunately, the reference was as obvious as it was audible. I felt my next-door neighbour draw herself up in a way which made a creepy-crawly feeling go all over me. I looked at her with what was intended to be an air of deprecation, and an intimation that I was in no way to be confounded with that dreadful Walter Hammond. And as I did so I became conscious that on the other side of her was a man—an old man, a very old man, and, also, I am afraid, a wicked old man. He was big and bald, with a red face, a weedy, white moustache, and an expression which I should describe as a mixture of ferocity, depravity, and—though I am reluctant to write it—drink. Picture my sensations when—as I turned to the little woman, who, I fear, poor thing, was his wife; before I really realised his presence, or how he was staring at me with his great eyes: and, emphatically, before I had the dimmest suspicion of what he was about to do—he winked at me—positively winked, not once, nor twice, but thrice—ostentatiously, without the least attempt at concealment. The little woman did not catch him in the act; goodness only knows what would have happened if she had. What he meant by it, or what he took me for, I have not the faintest notion. I was beginning to wonder what everyone took me for. Although I know my face became as red as fire, I went cold all over. Just then the singing on the stage ceased, people broke into applause. In the midst of their clapping I became aware that Walter Hammond was addressing me in a strain which as nearly as possible deprived me of the small remainder of my breath.
Whether, under any circumstances, a reasonable being would have supposed that that was a proper place, or a fitting moment, to enter on a subject of the kind, I cannot say, but, considering that, to all intents and purposes, we were strangers, and how he had treated me in the days gone by—not to speak of the way in which he had behaved to Eveleen—his doing so, then and there, was—well, beyond anything. I was so bewildered, and the people made such a noise, and he had such a queer way of expressing himself, that at first I did not understand what he was after.
“Don’t believe in entering a filly unless you mean running her to win.” I repeat that I have no pretension whatever to an acquaintance with the language of the turf; so that if there is anything muddled about his metaphors as I repeat them, I presume that the fault is mine. “If I had my way should always penalise entries which weren’t on the job. Whenever I’m in I’m there to win. That’s me, Miss Norah, straight. I’m no mole—always do what I do do out in the open—no burrowing for me. When I go for a mark, I aim for all I’m worth. Same with a girl. Mayn’t seem like a marrying man—have been told I’m like a cock, hard to bag. As girls go, small wonder they only bag crocks. But when I’m in for marriage, I mean getting there—there’s no stopping me—foul riding couldn’t do it—and there’s no fear of foul riding from you, because you’re different from any girl I ever met. Miss Norah, I love you!”
As ill luck would have it the applause died away just as he uttered those words—and just as I was approaching the dumfounded stage. An encore had been conceded; the singer was preparing to re-commence, when Mr Hammond delivered himself of that paralysing piece of information in a tone of voice which had been designed to reach my ears in spite of the din, and which rose above the sudden silence in a sort of roar. In consequence, those fatal words—“Miss Norah, I love you!”—must have been heard all over the stalls, by nearly everyone in the pit, and by goodness knows who else besides. It was delightful for me. I should have liked to have sunk into the ground. A voice came from somewhere at the back—a vulgar voice.
“You’re quite right, sir; and so say all of us; we all love Norah.”
Giggles came from every side. Regardless of what I felt, that extraordinary man did not seem to care in the least what anybody thought of him. Merely dropping his voice a tone or two, he actually went straight on: