“Yes, I do wish I were you,—just long enough to see that you don't answer that girl's letter. Surely you don't mean to!”
“Hello! What have you got to do with it? Do you know the young woman?”
“No, I don't. But I can easily guess all about her. She's some romantic little girl, still pure and good, afflicted with one of those idiotic infatuations for an actor, which is sure to bring trouble to her if you don't behave like a white man. You want to show her the idiocy of writing those letters, by ignoring them. You know that actors who care to do themselves and the profession credit make it a rule never to answer a letter from a girl like that, unless to give her a word of advice. Come, my boy, don't disgrace yourself and profession. Don't spoil the life of a pretty but foolish girl who, if you do the right thing, will soon repent her silliness, and make some square young fellow a good wife.”
Bridges had continued to dress himself during this long speech, assuming a show of contemptuous indignation as it progressed. When Overfield, astonished at his own eloquence, had subsided, the young man replied, in a quiet but rather insolent tone:
“Look here, old man, don't try to work the Polonius racket on me. I don't like advice, and I'm going to meet that girl, see? She arranged the whole thing herself; she's to be at a certain spot at eleven-thirty P.M. with a cab. All I've got to do is to signify my assent in a single line, which I'm going to write and send by messenger as soon as I get out of here. Of course, if the girl was a friend of yours, it would be different, but she isn't, and if you want to remain on good terms with me, you won't put in your oar. Now that's all settled.”
“Is it? Well, young man, I don't want to remain on good terms with anybody I can't respect. I can't respect a man who would take advantage of a love-struck girl's ignorance of life. If you meet her, you will simply be obtaining favours on false pretences, anyhow, for you know you're not really half the fascinating, romantic, clever youth that you seem when you're on the stage speaking another man's thoughts. That girl is probably good, and she looks like some one I used to know. If I can save her, I will, by thunder!”
“Really, old man, you're quite worked up. If you could act half that well on the stage, you'd be doing lead, instead of dusting furniture while the audience gets settled in its seats.”
Old Yorick stood for a moment speechless, stung by the insult. Then he took up his hat, excitedly, and left the dressing-room without a word.
Some of the other members of the company wondered at the angry, flushed look on his face when he hurried through the corridor to the stage door. A few minutes later he was seen walking down the street, apparently much heated in mind. When he reached a certain café he went in, sat down, and called for whiskey. He remained alone in deep thought, mechanically and unconsciously answering the salutations bestowed upon him by two or three acquaintances who strolled in. Suddenly he nodded thrice, as if denoting the acquiescence of his judgment in some plan of action formed by his inventive faculty. He rose quickly, paid his bill at the cashier's desk, and moved rapidly across the street to the —— Hotel. Passing in through a broad entrance, he turned aside to a writing-room, where, without removing his soft hat, he sat down at a desk.
He was soon immersed in the composition of a letter, which caused him many contractions of the brow, many lapses during which he abstractedly stared at vacancy, many fresh beginnings, and the whole of the two hours allowed him before the evening's performance for dinner.