‘Good gracious! what makes you wish anything so absurd?’
‘It’s not absurd. Doesn’t the newspaper speak of your “impassioned love-making?” And then people—lovers, I mean—are always kissing each other on the stage.’
‘Just as they do sometimes in real life;’ and with that he suited the action to the word.
‘Don’t, Mr Summers, please.’ And she pushed him away, and her eyes flashed through her tears, and she looked very pretty.
Mr Summers sat down on a chair and was unfeeling enough to laugh. ‘Why, what a little goose you are!’ he said.
‘I don’t see it at all.’ This with a toss of her head. Certainly, it is not pleasant to be called a goose.
‘You must know, if you come to think of it, that both love-making and kissing on the stage are only so much make-believe, however real they may seem to the audience. During the last six months, it has been my fate to have to make love to about a dozen different ladies; and during the next six months I shall probably have to do the same thing to as many more; but to imagine on that account that I really care for any of them, or that they really care for me, would be as absurd as to suppose that because in the piece we shall play to-morrow night I shall hunt Tom Bowles—who is the villain of the drama—through three long acts, and kill him in the fourth, he and I must necessarily hate each other. The fact is that Tom and I are the best of friends, and generally contrive to lodge together when on our travels.’
Elsie was half convinced that she had made a goose of herself, but of course was not prepared to admit it. ‘I see that Miss Wylie is acting in your company,’ she said. ‘I saw her in London about a year ago; she is very, very pretty.’
‘Miss Wylie is a very charming woman.’
‘And you make love to her?’