The shrill voice of the call-boy now uttered the words ‘Charles Surface.’
‘There is my call. So adieu for the present. Go in front, and call for me at the end of the show; and we will have a steak at the Albion together, and drink to the speedy nuptials of my bête noire, Miss Anstruther.’
‘With whom?’
‘Any one! I care not—no offence, Jack—so I am free.’
Vallance proceeded straight to box A, and having tapped at the door, found himself face to face with Colonel Stanley, who eagerly exclaimed: ‘Well, Vallance, has my plan succeeded?’
‘I fear not, sir.’
‘Give him a second dose the first opportunity. I never knew it fail. If you want to make a man fall in love with a particular woman, tell him she is half engaged, and she will instantly go up twenty per cent. in his estimation. That is how I came to marry his mother. Directly my father told me that Fred Spencer was mad after her, and that she was half inclined to marry him, I rushed to the attack, stormed the fortress, and carried off the prize! I wasn’t going to let that puppy Spencer march off with her. A fellow with not a tithe of my personal recommendations.’ Here the colonel paused, as he beheld the countenance of his auditor completely engrossed with the scene; for in the lovely Lady Teazle of the play, Jack Vallance had recognised the West Indian heiress, Emily Anstruther!
SCENE II.
Along one of the tortuous passages leading to the dressing-rooms, a gentleman is conducting a lady, preceded by the dresser. They have evidently come from the audience part of the theatre, as they are both in modern evening dress. Presently the dresser pauses at a door, and after tapping, enters; and returns to invite the lady to invade the sacred precincts of the dressing-room of Miss Fonblanque, the representative of Lady Teazle. After a few whispered words to her escort, the lady accepts the invitation, and in another moment is clasped in the embrace of the actress. ‘My dear Julia!’
‘My darling Emily!’