Roused as from sleep, and seeing that Burbage and the others had indeed gone forth from the tiring-room, Hal ran to the entrance and out upon the stage, his mind in a whirl, taking his place before King Claudius with such abruptness that Burbage, surprised from his mood of melancholy self-absorption, sent him a sharp glance of reproof. This but increased his abashment, and he stared up at the placard that proclaimed the stage to be a room in the palace at Elsinore, in a kind of panic. The audience moved and murmured, restlessly, during the king's long speech, and Hal, imagining that his own embarrassment was perceptible to all, made an involuntary step backward toward the side of the stage. He thus trod on the toe of one of the noble spectators, who was making a note in his tables, and who retaliated with an ejaculation and a kick. Feeling that some means must be taken to attain composure, the more as his heart seemed to beat faster and his stomach to grow weaker, Hal remembered that he had previously found distraction in his wrath toward Gilbert Crowe. He therefore brought back to mind the brief passage in the tiring-room. So deeply did he lose himself in this recollection, gazing the while at the juniper burning on the stage to sweeten the air, that it was like a blow in the face when he suddenly became aware of a prolonged silence, and of the united gaze of all the actors upon himself.
"What wouldst thou have, Laertes?" the king was repeating for the third time.
Hal, aware now that his cue had been given more than once, opened his lips to reply, but his first line had fled completely from his mind. In his blank confusion he flashed a look of dismay toward the entrance. His eyes caught those of Shakespeare, who had parted the arras curtains sufficiently to be visible to the players. Rather in astonishment than in reproach, the poet, serving on occasion as prompter, uttered half audibly the forgotten words, and Hal, caught back as from the brink of a bottomless pit, spoke out with new-found vigor:
"Dread my lord.
Your leave and favor to return to France,"
and the ensuing lines. But his delivery did not quiet down the audience,—which, indeed, though it had hushed for a moment at the play's opening, and again at the appearance of the ghost, was not completely stilled, until at last, upon the king's turning to Hamlet, the "wondrous tongue" of Burbage spoke.
When Hal presently made exit to the tiring-room, after the king and courtiers, he craved the pardon of Master Shakespeare, but the latter merely said:
"Tut, Hal, it hath happened to all of us in our time."
The derisive smile of Crowe did not sweeten Harry's musings while he waited for his next going on. Indeed, he continued to brood bitterly on the exhibition he had made of himself, and the stay he had caused in the play. His chagrin was none the less for that it was his friend and benefactor Shakespeare that had nominated him for the part of Laertes, and whose play he had brought to a momentary halt. In deep dejection, when the time came, he returned to the stage with the boy-Ophelia for his scene with her and Corambis.
This passed so smoothly as to give Hal new heart, until it was near its very end; and then, having replied to Corambis's excellent advice with the words. "Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord," Hal happened to let his glance wander past the old man, and across a surging mass of heads in a part of the yard, to a certain face in one of the boxes; and that face had in it something to make his gaze remain delightedly upon it and his lips part in admiration.
Yes, the face was a lady's. Hal had never seen it before; of that he was instantly sure, for had he seen it he could not have forgotten it. He would not have seen it now but that its youthful possessor had removed her mask, which had become irksome to her skin. She seemed above all concern as to what might be thought of her for showing her face in a Bankside theatre. A proud and wilful face was hers, as if with the finest feminine beauty she had something of the uncurbed spirit and rashness of a fiery young gentleman. Her hair and eyes were dark, her skin fair and clear and smooth, her forehead not too high, her chin masterful but most exquisitely shaped, her cheeks rich with natural color. In fine, she was of pronounced beauty, else Master Marryott had not forgot himself to look at her. Upon her head was a small gray velvet hat, peaked, but not very high, and with narrow brim turned up at the sides. Her chin was elevated a little from contact with a white cambric ruff. Her gown was of murrey cloth with velvet stripes, and it tightly encased her figure, which was of a well-made and graceful litheness. The slashed sleeves, although puffed out, did not make too deep a secret of her shapely, muscular arms. She might have been in her twenty-second year.