‘If a gentleman giving the name of Colonel Stanley should call, show him in here.’
‘He is outside, sir,’ replied the boy.
‘Show him in at once,’ whereupon there entered a small wizen-faced old gentleman, with snow-white hair, and supporting himself on a stick. Montmorency advanced, shook hands with a great show of cordiality, and placed a chair, on which Colonel Stanley slowly seated himself, gazing round the small apartment with an unfeigned expression of curiosity. ‘So this is a theatrical dressing-room. You are pretty snug.’
The room certainly deserved the encomium of the old colonel. Paintings in oil and water colours nearly covered the walls; fancy pipes and cigar-boxes and scent-bottles littered the tables; a case of champagne reposed in one corner, while in the other was a small pile of seltzer water.
The colonel, after indulging in a sigh, proceeded: ‘I have called, Harry, before I return to Yorkshire, to make one more appeal to you to give up your present mode of life, settle down as a landed proprietor in your native county, and marry Miss Anstruther.’
It was now the turn of the young man to sigh as he replied: ‘Impossible, my dear sir. I am already wedded—to the stage.’
‘That may be; but unions can easily be dissolved by a divorce, especially in these days.’
‘Not where the contracting parties are so attached to each other as I am to my profession. No, sir. If a man could take a wife on lease, for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, the case would be different. But the feeling that my lot in life was fixed—cut and dried, so to speak—the matter won’t bear a thought.’ The young man felt strongly inclined to indulge in a stage-walk, but the limited area of the apartment forbade such a physical relief. If the reader should consider the remarks of the actor somewhat flippant, it must be borne in mind that no one whose character did not fall under that definition would have acted as Harry Stanley had done.
The old man scowled as he resumed: ‘I wonder you can respect yourself, dizened out and painted like a mummer at a pantomime.’
‘I am of the same calling as the glory of England, Shakspeare the actor’——