“There were actors. Comedy, and tragedy, history, everything worth doing, in the legitimate, was in our répertoire. We changed our bill every night, and sometimes twice a day. Ay, and we changed our parts, sir. I remember Terry O’Bane and I reversing the parts of Othello and Iago on alternate nights for two weeks at a stretch. I played Lord Stamford to his Puttick in ‘The Golden Dawn.’ He played Shylock to my Bassanio. I will not bore you with these details. Ah! poor old Terry! Poor dear old Terry!”
He stopped and looked down at his hands, and neither of us spoke.
“When I say that Terry O’Bane and I were friends, I want to tell you that we were friends as only artists can be friends. We loved each other. For three years we worked together side by side—never a suspicion of envy, never a suspicion of jealousy. I remember one night, after Terry’s delivery of Jaques’ speech on the fool, he did not get a hand. I found him weeping in the wings. ‘Old fellow!’ I said, but he gripped me by the arm. ‘Colly boy,’ he answered, ‘I was thinking of you. I knew how distressed you would be!’ Think of that! His only concern was that I should be distressed. Ah! in those days....”
He stretched his long white fingers and examined them; then, turning suddenly to my wife, he said:
“I want to ask you, mademoiselle” (he persisted in calling her ‘mademoiselle’ all the evening), “to make allowances in what I am about to tell you for the tempora et mores. In my young days love had a different significance to what it has now. In this modern world I observe nothing but expediency and opportunism. No one is prepared to sacrifice, to run risks. The love between O’Bane and me was an epic of self-sacrifice, and it ran its full course. It found its acid test on the day when Sophie Wiles joined our company at Leeds.”
He stood up, and his voice trembled in a low whisper. Looking at Alice, he said:
“She was as beautiful, as fragile, as adorable as you are, mademoiselle. Strange how these great secrets are conveyed imperceptibly. O’Bane and I looked at each other, and instinctively we understood. We said nothing. We made no comment about her. We were entirely solicitous of each other’s feelings. We referred to her as ‘Miss Wiles’ and we addressed her as ‘Miss Wiles.’ Before we had been three weeks on the road I knew that if I had not known O’Bane’s feelings I should have gone to her and said, ‘Sophie, my darling, my angel, I love you, I adore you. Will you marry me?’ But would it have been chivalrous to do this, knowing O’Bane’s sentiments? We were two months on the road before the matter reached its climax. And during that time—under an unspoken compact—neither of us made love to Sophie. And then, one night, I could bear it no longer. I saw the drawn and hungry look in my colleague’s eye as he watched her from the wings. I went up to him and whispered, ‘Old fellow, go in and win. She’s worthy of you.’ He understood me at once, and he pressed my hand. ‘Colly,’ he said, ‘you’re right. This can’t go on. Meet me after the show and come round to my rooms.’”
The old actor’s lips were trembling. He drew his chair nearer to my wife’s. “I cannot tell you of the heart-burning interview I had with my old friend that night. Each tried to give way to the other. It was very terrible, very moving. At length we decided that the only solution would be to put the matter to a hazard. We could not cut cards or throw dice. It seemed profane. We decided to play a game of chess. We set out the pieces and began. But at the end of a few moments it was apparent that each was trying to let the other win. ‘Stay,’ I said; ‘we must leave the verdict to impartial destiny, after all,’ and I rose. On the sideboard—as it might be here—was a large bowl of Gloire-de-Dijon roses. I took the largest bloom and said, ‘Terry, old boy, if there are an odd number of petals in this rose, she is yours. If an even number, I will pay her court.’ He agreed. Slowly and deliberately, petal by petal, I destroyed the beautiful bloom. There were fifty-eight petals. When Terry saw the last petal fall he turned white and swayed. I helped him to the easy-chair and handed him a little grog. It was nearly dawn. Already the birds were twittering on the window-sill.”
He turned and gazed at the window as though even now the magic of that early morning was upon him.
“The dawn was clear for me, but for my friend how dark and foreboding! Or so it seemed to both of us at that hour. But, as Mahomet said, ‘With women, life is a condition of flux.’ At eleven o’clock that morning I was on my bended knees to Sophie. I poured out all my pent-up feelings of the two months. There are some things too sacred to repeat even to those who are—dear to us.”