Thou art too slow to do thy master’s bidding,
When I deserve it, too!—
the whole audience rose in one surge of vehement applause. Pale as death, with her large eyes gleaming, and her delicate frame trembling like a leaf, Miss Vere trembled before the unexpected tempest, and it was some minutes before the scene could proceed. When it did so the actress seemed moved to the quick, and the pensive wail:
Talk thy tongue weary; speak
I have heard. I am a strumpet; and mine ear,
Therein false struck, can make no greater wound,
Nor tent to bottom that—
was uttered with a melancholy so infinite, pathos so despairing, that Sutherland, who had heard the excitement and enthusiasm, felt the words sink like lead into his heart. His own face was livid now, despite its tan, and a shiver ran through his veins.
A scene or two later, when Imogen is transformed into
Fidele, the actress still held her audience, but with a less mysterious fascination. In her boy’s dress, which was charmingly delicate and becoming, she fully warranted the exclamation of Belarius on first beholding her: