Suddenly she flung open the dressing-room door.
Her look searched the room as with a hundred eyes, but no one was there. Only her maid, who, perched on a trunk, smiled as usual and went on flitting the comb through a long-haired golden wig.
“Vinnie!” came the amazed exclamation. “You! Why, that wasn’t you? It couldn’t have—Vinnie!” The excited actress held the maid at arm’s-length and scrutinized her as if she never had seen her before.
Vinnie’s expression was a mask of naïve perplexity. But, as she stared, a nervous, sheepish grin crept into her face. “Oh,” she suddenly recollected, with an artfully timorous voice, “I guess I know what you mean, Miss Dover. You heard me talking to myself just now.” Guiltily, she shied away from the star, and flouncing down on the trunk eyed her skittishly, while the apologetic strain ran on: “Why, I was only fooling, Miss Dover. You know you didn’t come as early as you said you would; so I was just trying to see what it would seem like to be a great actress.”
Sarah Dover did not appear to be listening. As she moved abstractedly about the room for a few minutes in silence, she scowled faintly and frequently bit her lip. Several times she gave Vinnie a quick, sharp glance. Then, turning abruptly, she pressed a lever on the wall and sat down at her escritoire, where she began to write hurriedly.
About fifteen minutes later, while Vinnie was telling her mistress how lovely she looked in the new wig, a series of “beg-pardon” raps came on the door, to the accompaniment of an obsequious voice. “Messenger, Miss Dover,” said the stage-manager. “Did you ring?”
Miss Dover hastened to the door and stepped outside. When she returned to the dressing-room to complete her toilet the atmosphere was subtly changed. The former freedom with which she had glibly called for this and that had diminished. The two were outwardly mistress and maid as much as ever; but the whole relation had subconsciously altered.
It came to a focus when, just before the star left the dressing-room, Vinnie sprang to brush off a splotch of powder from the black velvet gown. As Miss Dover thanked her, Vinnie restrained a smile. Something in the gracious tone seemed different from that which the mistress had heretofore used to the maid.
After the performance that night, as Vinnie was hanging up clothes, awaiting Miss Dover’s unusually delayed return, the assistant stage-manager appeared at the door.
“Miss Dover wants you to come out on the stage right away,” he announced.