He had meant to make a speech on the day he went out of management, and the company, knowing this, grouped themselves on the stage when the curtain fell on the last act. Then, quite naturally, he knew it could not be done. The things about which one really feels have so small a part in speeches. So, when he found himself confronted by the most sympathetic audience before which an actor ever appeared, he learnt that all his art, technique and experience availed nothing. Those dear, honest, familiar faces dimmed as he looked toward them into a grey wet mist. Somewhere in his throat a new pulse started to throb—and throbbed burningly.
Eliphalet Cardomay shook his head like a child who is lost.
“I—I can’t,” he said. Then, with a feeble, impotent gesture of farewell, he turned away.
“Three cheers for him,” gasped Freddie Manning, his face scarlet with emotion.
And Eliphalet Cardomay bolted from the theatre.
During the performance he had managed to say a few words, individually, to those old corner-stones of his dramatic edifice who, for years and years, had worked the provincial theatres under his managership. That had been hard enough, God knows. Old Kitterson made no bones about it, and frankly howled when Eliphalet gripped him by the hand.
Scarcely less reserved was Freddie Manning—the least emotional of creatures.
“I’m hating it, Guv’nor,” he said.
He kissed all the ladies of the company and had a kind word for each, but Mornice he steadfastly avoided, for there was a limit to his powers of endurance, and he wished to escape without any show of weakness.
The last person he spoke to was his dresser.