"What do you mean, my dear Miss Brunel?" said the manager, aghast. "You frighten me, I assure you. I calculated upon you; and after all this expense, and your agreement, and——"
"Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Melton," she said, quietly. "I mean to play the part so as to give every satisfaction both to you and myself, if I can. I only asked in the event of any accident."
"Come," said he, kindly, "I can't have you talk in that strain, with such a prospect before us. Why, we are going to set all London, as well as the Thames, on fire, and have the prices of the stalls going at a hundred per cent. premium. An accident! Bah! I wish Count Schönstein were here to laugh the notion out of your head."
So it was, therefore, that the play was put in full rehearsal for several days, and Mr. Melton looked forward hopefully to the success of his new venture. Sometimes he was a little disquieted by the remembrance of Miss Brunel's singular question; but he strove to banish it from his mind. He relied upon his new scenery and decorations, and upon Annie Brunel; the former were safe, and he would take care to secure the latter.
The gentlemen of the press had been good enough to mention the proposed revival in terms of generous anticipation. Altogether, Mr. Melton had every reason to hope for the best.
Occasionally he observed an unusual constraint in the manner of his chief favourite, and sometimes a listless indifference to what was going on around her. One or twice he had caught her standing idly behind the foot-lights, gazing into the empty theatre with a vague earnestness which revealed some inward purpose. He still trusted that all would go well; and yet he confessed to himself that there was something about the young actress's manner that he had never noticed before, and which he could not at all understand.
Mrs. Christmas seemed to share with him this uneasy feeling. He knew that the old lady was now in the habit of lecturing her pupil in a derisive way, as if trying to banish some absurd notion from her mind; and whenever he approached, Mrs. Christmas became silent.
For the first time during their long companionship Mrs. Christmas found her young friend incomprehensibly obstinate, not to say intractable. Night and day she strove to convince her that in anticipating nervousness and failure, she was rendering both inevitable; and yet she could not, by all her arguments and entreaties, remove this gloomy apprehension.
"I cannot explain the feeling," was the constant reply. "I only know it is there."
"But you, of all people, Miss Annie! Girls who have suddenly come to try the stage get fits of stage-fright naturally: but people who are born and bred to it, who have been on the stage since their childhood——"