"I'll come to the matinée, if you'll promise not to perform," he answered. "If I'm not in court.... I know I'm old-fashioned, but I call it intolerable for you to blacken your eyes and rouge your face and make sport for any one who cares to spend a guinea or two for the chance of gaping at you. It cheapens you. I'd as soon put on tights and tie myself in knots on a strip of carpet outside a public-house."
Barbara leant against the table in helpless amazement.
"You're more of a Philistine than my own father!" she cried.
Jack smiled imperturbably.
"And what would you think if Lord Crawleigh came to that same matinée and gave a display of juggling with billiard-balls?"
"I should die happy," Barbara answered with a gurgle of laughter; then more seriously, "But why on earth shouldn't he? If he can do it, if the thing's all right in itself, why should the professionals have the monopoly? I'm very good."
"No doubt. But, if you had no more idea of dancing than I have, people would still flock to see Lady Barbara Neave. Now do you understand why I loathe the whole life you lead?"
When, late that night, she thought over the long succession of snubs and insults, Barbara chose this as the most wounding. She had recited and danced, acted and sung on occasions innumerable, always hearing and feeling that she was meeting the professionals on their own ground; they themselves hurried to congratulate her, and she fancied vaguely that she was paying the stage a delicate compliment.
"I've never been told that I hawked my father's position about for advertisement," she answered quietly.
"It's the result."