"He will write to me before I write to him."
"It is too cruel of you," said her companion.
"Yes, my dear, you may laugh; but you have no burlesque parts to play. And you have nobody sitting in the stalls watching your every movement, and keeping you in a fright about what he is thinking of you."
"No," said Annie Brunel, rather absently, "I have nobody to watch me like that. If I had, I should not be able to go upon the stage, I think."
"And the bitter things he says about the profession—and particularly about Mr. Gannet, and Mr. Marks, and Mr. Jobson—all because they are young men, and he fancies they may be so polite as to lift a glove for me if I let it fall. You know, my dear, that I don't encourage them. If there's any fun at rehearsal, you know that I don't begin it."
"When we met you just now——"
"That was only some of Mr. Murphy's nonsense. Oh, I declare to you, no one knows what I have suffered. The other evening, when he and I got into a cab, he glared at the man who opened the door for us. And the fuss he makes about cosmetique and bismuth is something dreadful."
"He must be a monster."
There now ensued a little fragment of thorough comedy. For a moment the elderly young lady, who had been assuming throughout the tone of a spoiled child, stood irresolute. There was a petulance on her face, and she had half a mind to go away in high dudgeon from one who was evidently laughing at her. Then through this petulance there broke a sort of knowing smile, while a glimmer of mischievous intelligence appeared in her eyes; and then, with an unaffected comical giggle, she once more threw her arms round Annie Brunel's neck and kissed her.
"I'm very wicked, I know," she said, with a shrug of the shoulders, "but I can't help it. What's bred in the bone, you know. And it's all the men's fault, for they keep teasing one so. As for him, if he writes to me, and makes an apology, and promises to be a good boy, I'll make friends with him. And I'll be very good myself—for a week."