“I want to get her out of this business.”
“You would not achieve your object that way. She is pretty enough to ensure her getting another engagement, and while she is with me she is unlikely to come to any harm. No; I shall engage her and re-engage her for one crowd after another, in the hope that she will surfeit of walking on, and that it will soak into her little head that she is not destined for a great career. And now, good night, Mr. Churchill—some matters of business——”
But Henry did not move at once.
“I am not at all sure,” he said, “you are going about this business in the best way.”
Eliphalet smiled. “Of course you are not. But then you are not a student of human nature, and by profession I am. Good night, again.”
But Henry Churchill disregarded Mr. Cardomay’s advice, and wrote a letter to Mary urging her to abandon a profession in which she was doomed to failure, and accept his hand in marriage. This foolishly-constructed affair fired her determination to show him, at all costs, that she could succeed, and moreover to say that she never wished to see or hear from him again. Both letters, in a fit of emotional confidence, she showed to Flora, who, being a meddlesome little busybody, decided that it was merely a lovers’ quarrel, and determined to act as intermediary and secretly keep the unhappy young man informed as to his sweetheart’s doings.
Now it was just at this critical time that Sydney Lennox (he who was reputed to have ticked off Dot Boucicault before a West End company) chanced to cast a favouring eye upon the cherry-lipped Eunice. Sydney Lennox was attracting a good deal of attention in the company, for it was common knowledge that in a few weeks’ time he was taking out a tour of his own. The younger members would haunt his exits in the hope of a chance word with him, and many there were who besought him to give them work. Then one night, during one of his waits, Eunice boldly bearded the lion and asked if he couldn’t find her a part to play.
Mr. Lennox blew a cloud of cigarette-smoke towards the ceiling and watched it disappear.
“Can you act, then?” he demanded.
“Oh, I’m certain I could if I had the chance.”