“But it’s nothing to do with his fame that has made me love him. Of course I don’t mean to say that I wasn’t influenced by all that. You know what I mean?”
Miss Verinder was breathing fast and moving her hands restlessly.
Then her whole heart melted in tenderness as the girl, analysing sensations, hopes, and fears, described the love itself. Yes, this was the real thing. This was the first wonder and glory of sudden overpowering love, of the love that takes possession and for ever changes its victim, and yet itself will never change. Miss Verinder recognized it and acknowledged it. All the bliss and torture that Mildred told of had been felt by herself a quarter of a century ago. And she was feeling it now while she listened; the years had gone; she and Mildred were both of them love-sick girls.
“You are so kind,” said Mildred presently, conscious of the flood of sympathy that was pouring forth to sustain and float her onward in her romantic narration.
After a little while Miss Verinder asked who the famous man was.
“But who is he, Mildred? You haven’t told me yet.”
Mildred, smiling proudly, said he was Alwyn Beckett, the actor. At the moment he was not actually before the public, but he was understudying the two big parts in a play called Five Old Men and a Dog.
“Ah, yes.”
An actor; a young actor! Miss Verinder at once became inwardly calm again. The young man was not of course truly famous; but some sort of unsubstantial fame he hoped to attain one day. Even the opposition of the parents was not solidly founded; they merely objected to the young man because they did not like his shadowy precarious profession, and because, further, they doubted if he would do any good in it. All her sympathy remained, but while Mildred went on talking about the attitude of Mr. and Mrs. Parker she ceased to listen with attention. This was a trifling commonplace little business when compared with the real romances, the big romances of life.
But then Mildred banged out something that gave her a violent shock; indeed it shook her to her very foundations. She gasped, and uttered a faint cry.