“No. How vexing it is! It is just like—” and she stopped.
“We must stay where we are, I suppose; it is rather a pity to miss being there when Kean first comes on.”
She was in a fretful agony of impatience. She rose and looked out of the window, thought she heard somebody on the stairs, went outside on the landing, returned, walked up and down, and mentally cursed her husband, not profanely—she dared not do that—but with curses none the less intense. Poor man! he had been kept by a job he had to finish. She might have thought this possible, and, in fact, did think it possible; but it made no difference in the hatred which she permitted to rise against him. At last her animosity relaxed, and she began to regard him with more composure, and even with pleasure.
“Had you not better go and leave me here, so that we may follow? I do not know what has happened, and I am sure he would be so sorry if you were to be disappointed.”
She turned her eyes anxiously towards the Major.
“That will never do. You know nothing about the theatre. No! no!”
She paused and stamped her little foot, and looked again out of the window.
The coachman knocked at the door, and when she went down asked her how long he had to wait.
She came back, and throwing herself on a chair, fairly gave way to her mortification, and cried out, “It is too bad—too bad!—it is, really.”
“I’ll tell you what,” replied the Major. “Do you mind coming with me? We will leave one of the tickets which I have bought, and we can add a message that he is to follow, and that we will keep his place for him. Put on your bonnet at once, and I will scribble a line to him.”