‘That won’t be for nearly four years,’ answered Elsie with a pout. ‘What a long, long time to look forward to!’
‘We have only to be true to each other, which I am sure we shall be, and it will pass away far more quickly than you imagine. By that time, I hope to be earning enough money to find you a comfortable home.’
‘There’s my money, you know, Charley dear.’
‘I don’t mean to have anything to do with that. If I can’t earn enough to keep my wife, I’ll never marry.’
‘Oh!’
‘But I shall do that, dear. Why, I’m getting five guineas a week already; and if I’m not getting three times as much as that by the time you are twenty-one, I’ll swallow my wig.’
‘Your uncle will never forgive you for going on the stage.’
‘O yes, he will, by-and-by, when he sees that I am making a fair living by it and really mean to stick to it—having sown all my wild-oats; and above all, when he finds how well they speak of me in his favourite newspaper. And that reminds me that it was what the Telephone said about me that caused old Brooker our manager to raise my screw from four guineas a week to five. I cut the notice out of the paper, you may be sure. Here it is.’ Speaking thus, Master Charles produced his pocket-book; and drew from it a printed slip of paper, which he proceeded to read aloud: ‘“Although we have had occasion more than once to commend the acting of Mr Warden”—that’s me—“we were certainly surprised last evening by his very masterly rendering of the part of Captain Cleveland. His byplay was remarkably clever; and his impassioned love-making in the third act, where timidity or hesitation would have been fatal to the piece, brought down the house, and earned him two well-merited recalls. We certainly consider that there is no more promising jeune premier than Mr Warden now on the stage.” There, my pet, what do you think of that?’ asked the young actor as he put back the slip of paper into his pocket-book.
But his pet vouchsafed no answer. Her face was turned from him; a tear fell from her eye. His arms were round her in a moment. ‘My darling child, what can be the matter?’ he asked.
‘I—I wish you had never gone on the stage,’ said Elsie, with a sob in her voice. ‘I—I wish you were still a tea-broker!’