‘That will not be a very easy matter to accomplish, Emily.’
‘Listen, Julia, and I’ll tell you a secret. There is a young man acting in this company—a Mr Percy Montmorency. He is all I could wish—handsome, clever, accomplished, and vastly agreeable.’
‘Then you have made your selection?’
‘Not so, Julia. His profession renders our union impossible. He may be heir to a peerage; he may be a lawyer’s clerk. There is the most delightful mystery as to our antecedents, we play-actors! For instance, who would suppose that I was the rich West Indian heiress, who utilised her amateur theatrical talents, and adopted her present profession? And all in order to escape being pestered into an unwelcome and distasteful marriage. Heigh-ho! I wish I had never seen this captivating fellow.’
Mrs Sydney sighed as she rejoined: ‘Ah, Emily, there is the danger of your present mode of life. Before you know where you are, finding yourself over head and ears in love with some handsome fellow, even of whose very name you are ignorant. As to the position in society of his progenitors, that is a point which would require the research of the Society of Antiquaries.’
The actress looked solemnly in the face of her friend, and taking both her hands within her own, replied: ‘Julia, there is a fascination in the life of a successful actress, of which you can form no conception. There is the delight of selecting the costume you are to wear on the eventful evening. No trifle to a woman, as you will admit. Then there is the actual pleasure of wearing it, not for the sake of some half-dozen friends, whose envy in consequence is a poor reward, but the object of admiration to hundreds of spectators nightly! Then, instead of monotonous domesticity, executing crewel-work to the accompaniment of the snoring in an armchair of a bored husband, we have the nightly welcome from a thousand pair of hands, and the final call before the curtain amidst an avalanche of flowers! Your name on every tongue, your photo. in every print-shop in London, and your acts and deeds the subject of conversation at every dinner-table in the metropolis!’
Mrs Sydney shook her head with a melancholy smile as the actress finished her oration. ‘I am still unconverted, Emily.’
‘Quite right, Julia. If we were all actresses, there would be no audiences.’
The inexorable call-boy here put a compulsory finish to the interview between the two friends, with the words ‘Lady Teazle.’