‘Yes, and sometimes I hate Pa for ever letting me go nigh to it. I suppose it all comes of Ma marrying a Frenchman; for Pa used to teach me to say those long speeches in rhyme out of the French plays, and then I got a taste for recitation. But I hate French now, and I hate the theatre. It’s nothing but worry and vexation. There was only five pounds ten in the stalls to-night besides the tickets Pa and Ma sold, and the dress circle was not half full. Did you notice a dark fat man in a private box, who threw a bouquet to Miss Harlington?’
‘Do you mean a gentleman with a hook nose, Mamzelle, and his fingers all over big rings?’
‘Yes. Well, that was Isaacs, proprietor of the “Evening Scrutator.” A nasty beast, always smelling of cigars and rum-and-water. He hates me because I keep myself respectable, and he never suffers any one of his critics to say a good word about me.’
‘Who are they, Mamzelle?’
‘The critics? Tomfools who write in the papers, and don’t know good acting from bad, and if they did daren’t say so. Why, they praise Miss Harlington—who played “Princess Pretty pet” in the burlesque!’
‘Oh, yes,’ cried Madeline, in rapture. ‘Her in the pink dress with the spangles and the flowers in her hair. Oh, wasn’t she lovely, Mamzelle?’
Mathilde tossed her head under the brush, and flushed With virtuous contempt.
‘A bandy-legged thing with a voice like a goat. Did you hear the creature sing? I wonder they don’t hiss her off the stage. But the men run after her, and she’s kept by an earl; and there she is every day in her victoria, driving in the Row among real ladies, while I must go down to rehearsal in the bus. It’s disgusting—that’s what it is. Do take care. Madeline—you’re brushing it all the wrong way.’
She added as an afterthought, less in real consideration for her hearer than as a parade of her own wrongs—
‘Never you be an actress, child. Sweep a crossing first, or serve behind a counter, or do anything dreadful. The stage isn’t fit for any decent person, and so I’ve told Pa and Ma a thousand times.’