“Ally,” said Mildred reprovingly.
“I mean to say, don’t you know—”
“Ally,” said Mildred again. “That’s enough.”
His classical features assumed a haughty expression, that olive complexion which Mildred thought the most beautiful thing in the universe perceptibly darkened; and he passed a hand backward from the brow, over his sleek, well-brushed hair, with a grand gesture.
“It’s all mighty fine,” he said to Mildred afterwards; “but I’m not accustomed to be talked to like that. And I don’t like it.”
Mildred was severe with him. “How can you be so abjectly ungrateful—after all she has done for us?”
But Miss Verinder intended to do much more for them yet.
Alwyn was a really good fellow, but, as is not infrequently the case with young actors who have not quite realised their full ambition, he was just a little touchy. Perhaps the slight prick given to him by Miss Verinder was really a valuable stimulus. At any rate, Mildred found that he had begun to bustle about with a new activity.
Next time he saw Miss Verinder he told her, rather grandly, that he had found a play. It was a very remarkable piece of work by that well-known author Mr. Sherwood—real literature, with psychology in it as well as characterisation, and, what was more to the point, a thumping fine part for Alwyn.
“Been the rounds for the last three years, but I don’t mind that,” said Alwyn, even more grandly. “That doesn’t frighten me. It was too good for them to spot it. The same thing happened to Ring a Ring o’ Roses”; and he named several other plays that, after being rejected by everybody, had made huge successes. “Of course, it’s high-brow. But I want high-brow.”