LITMIR.BIZ

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awful moment had come at last. A more miserable-looking set of people I never saw. I always imagined that the actors behind the scenes were as gay off the stage as on it; but I found to my astonishment that they were all suffering more or less from severe mental depression. Ralph and Aurelia were now sitting ruefully together on an ottoman beside the painting table, littered with its various rouges and creams and stage appliances. Even Charles, who had established Evelyn on a chair in the wings at the side she had to come on from, and was now drinking champagne with due regard to his paint—even Charles owned to being nervous.

      "I wish to goodness Mrs. Wright would begin!" he said. "Ah, there she goes!"—as she ascended the stage steps. "There goes the bell. We are in for it now. She starts, and I come on next. Up goes the curtain. Where the devil has my book got to?"

      In another moment he was in the wings, intent on his part; then I saw him throw down his book and go jauntily forward. A moment more, and there was a thunder of applause. All the actors looked at each other, and smiled a feeble smile.

      "He will do," said General Marston, the Indian officer, who, now in the dress of an old-fashioned livery servant, proceeded to mount the steps. It dawned upon me that I was missing the play, and I hurried back to find Charles convulsing the audience with the utmost coolness, and evidently enjoying himself exceedingly. Then Evelyn came on—But who cares to read a description of a play? It is sufficient to say that Aurelia looked charming, and many were the whispered comments on her magnificent jewels; but on the stage Evelyn surpassed her, as much as Aurelia surpassed Evelyn off it.

      Ralph and Carr did well, but Charles was the favorite with every one, from the Duchess of Crushington in the front seat to the scullery-maid on the staircase. He was so bold, so wicked, so insinuating, in his plumed cap and short cloak, so elegantly refined when he wiped his sword upon his second's handkerchief. He took every one's heart by storm. Ralph, who represented all the virtues, with rather thick ankles and a false mustache, was nowhere. When the curtain fell for the last time, amid great and continued applause, the "heavy mother," Ralph, Aurelia, all were well received as they passed before it; but Charles, who appeared last, was the hero of the evening.

      "He is engaged to his cousin, Miss Derrick, isn't he?" said a lady near me, in a loud whisper to a friend.

      "Hush! no. Charles can't marry. Head over ears in debt. They say she is attached to one of her cousins, but I forget which. I am not sure it was not the other one."

      "Then it is the second son who is going to be married, is it? I know I heard something about one of them being engaged."

      "Yes, the second son is engaged to that good-looking girl in diamonds, who acted Florence Mordaunt. A lot of money, I believe, but not much in the way of family. Grandfather sold mouse-traps in Birmingham, so people say."

      "She looks like it!" replied the other, who had daughters out, and could not afford to let any praise of other girls pass. "No breeding or refinement; and she will be stout later, you will see."

      The play being over, a general movement now set in towards the drawing-room, where the band was already installed, and making its presence known by an inspiriting valse tune. In a few moments twenty, thirty, forty couples were swaying to the music; Aurelia in her acting costume was dancing away with Ralph in his red stockings; Carr with the "heavy mother," and Charles in prosaic evening-dress was flying past with Evelyn, who, now that she had effaced her beautiful stage complexion, looked pale and grave as ever.

      I suppose it was a capital ball. Every one seemed to enjoy it. I did not dance myself, but I liked watching the others; and after a time Charles, who had been dancing indefatigably with two school-room girls with pigtails, came and flung himself down on the other half of the ottoman on which I was sitting.

      "Three times with each!" he said, in a voice of extreme exhaustion. "No favoritism. I have done for to-night now."

      "What! Are you not going to dance any more?"

      "No, not unless Evelyn will give me another turn later, which she probably won't. There she goes with Lord Breakwater again. How I do dislike that young man! And look at Carr—valsing with Aurelia! He seems to be leaping on her feet a good deal, and she looks as if she were telling him so, does not she? There! they have subsided into the bay-window. I thought she would not stand it long. He does not dance as well as he acts. Heigh-ho! Come in to supper with me, Middleton. The supper-room will be emptier now, and I am dying of hunger. You must be the same, for you had no regular dinner any more than we had. Come along. We will get a certain little table for two that I know of, in the bay-window where I took the fair pigtail just now, to the evident anxiety of the parental chignon who was at the large table. We will have a good feed in peace and quietness."

      In a few minutes we were established in a quiet nook in the supper-room, which was now half empty, and were making short work of everything before us.

      "How well Carr acted!" said Charles at last, leaning back, and leisurely sipping his champagne. "I can think of something besides food now. Did not you think he acted well?"

      "Yes," I said, "but you cut him out."

      "Did I!" said Charles, absently, beckoning to some lobster salad which was passing. "Have some? Do, Middleton. We can but die once. You won't? Well I will. Have you often seen Carr act before?"

      "Never," I said. "I never met him till I came on board the Bosphorus at——"

      "Indeed! Oh! I fancied you were quite old friends."

      "We made great friends on the steamer."

      "Did you see much of him in London?" he asked, filling up his glass and mine.

      "Not much, naturally," I said, laughing. "I was in London only two nights."

      "Ah! I forgot. Very good of you, I am sure, to come down here so soon after your arrival. You would hardly have seen him at all since you landed, then?"

      "Carr? Yes," I replied, thinking Charles's talk was becoming very vague; though when I rallied him about it next day he assured me it had been very much to the point indeed. "We dined and went to the play together, and had rather a nasty accident into the bargain on our way home."

      "What kind of accident?"

      I told him the particulars, which seemed to interest him very much.

      "And you had all those jewels of poor Sir John's with you, no doubt," continued Charles. "You said you had them on you day and night. I wonder you were not relieved of them."

      "That is just what Carr said," I went on; "for he lost something of his, poor fellow. However, I had left them with Jane in a—in a safe place."

      I did not think it necessary to mention the tea-caddy.

      "Oh! so Carr knew you had charge of them, did he?" said Charles. "Have some of these grapes, Middleton; the white ones are the best."

      "Yes," I said, "he was the only person who had any idea of such a thing. I am very careful, I can tell you; and I did not mean to have half the ship's company know that I had valuables to such an amount upon me. When I told Jane about them—"

      "Oh, then, Jane—I beg her pardon, Miss Middleton—was aware you had them with you?"

      "Of course," I replied; "and she was quite astonished at them when I showed them to her."

      "I hope," continued Charles, with his charming smile—all the more charming because it was so rare—"that Miss Middleton will add me to the number of her friends some day. I live in London, you know; but I wonder at ladies caring to live there. No poultry or garden, to which the feminine mind usually clings."

      "Jane seems to like it," I said.

      "Yes," replied Charles, meditatively. "I dare say she is very wise. A woman who lives alone is much safer in town than in an isolated house in the country, in case of fire, or thieves, or——"

      "Well, I don't know that," I said. "I don't see that they are so very safe. Why, only the night before I came down here——" I stopped. I had looked up to

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