Part 33 (1/2)

”You're a cunning devil, captain. You've the wheedling tongue of Satan himself and his black soul, too, I doubt not. You're all ears and eyes when money's to be picked up. Take that for what you did for me to-night.”

Sally drew five guineas from her pocket and flung them on the table. A couple would have rolled on to the floor, but Rofflash grabbed them in time. Sally burst into one of her hard, mirthless laughs.

”Trust you for looking after coin. See here, you Judas. Vane promised to meet me at Spring Gardens to-morrow night. When I see him I shall believe him, not before. You must work it so that he comes.”

”Hang me, Sally, but that's a hard nut to crack.”

”Not too hard for your tiger's teeth. I'll double those five guineas if you bring it off.”

Rofflash relished the proposition, but he pretended to find difficulties and held out for higher pay. To Sally money was as water. She agreed to make the ten into fifteen. Rofflash swearing that he'd do his best, took his departure and left the lady, like Archibald Dorrimore, to drink herself into insensibility.

”The devil looks after his own,” chuckled Rofflash as he swaggered down the Strand. ”It'll go hard if I don't squeeze fifty guineas out of that idiot Dorrimore over to-morrow night's work! He'd give that to have the pleasure of running the scribbler through the body. Lord, if I'd breathed a word of _that_ to Sally! No fool like an old fool, they say.

Bah! The foolishest thing in Christendom is a woman when she's in love.”

And Captain Jeremy Rofflash plodded on, well pleased with himself. He took the road which would lead him to Moorfields and Grub Street.

CHAPTER XX

”WHAT DID I TELL THEE, POLLY?”

Lavinia went to her first rehearsal in a strange confusion of spirits, but came through the ordeal successfully. She was letter perfect, and she remembered all Spiller's instructions. Mr. Huddy was pleased to say that he thought she would do.

She left the theatre for her lodgings in Little Queen Street in a flutter of excitement. Otway's ”Orphan” might be dull and lachrymose, the part of Serina might be insignificant, but to Lavinia the play was the most wonderful thing. It meant a beginning. She had got the chance she had longed for. She saw herself in imagination a leading lady.

But when she returned to her lodgings a reaction set in. She was depressed. Life had suddenly become drab and dull. She was thinking of Lancelot Vane, but not angrily, as was the case the previous night when she walked away her head high in the air after seeing Sally Salisbury--of all women in the world!--in his arms. She was in a tumult of pa.s.sion, and when that subsided tears of indignation rushed to her eyes. She made no excuses for her recreant lover, no allowances for accidents and misadventures. She did not, indeed, think he had set out to insult her, but the unhappy fact was patent that he knew the wanton Sally, and that he had a tender regard for her. Lavinia's reading of the thing was that in her anxiety she had arrived at the trysting place too soon. Ten minutes later and Vane would have got rid of his old love and taken on with his new one. Oh, it was humiliating to think of!

Lavinia walked away in her rage. By the time she reached Little Queen Street, the storm had pa.s.sed. She had arrived at the conclusion that all men were faithless, selfish, dishonourable. For the future she would have naught to do with them.

The excitement of the rehearsal, the sense of independence she felt when all was got through with credit, lent her buoyancy, but it did not last.

The dream she had once had of playing to an audience and seeing only Lancelot Vane in the first row of the pit applauding and eager to congratulate her, was gone. She was done with him for ever. So she told herself. And to strengthen this resolve she recalled his weaknesses, his vacillation, his distrust in himself, his lapses into inebriety. Yet no sooner had she gone over his sins than she felt pity and inclined to forgiveness. But not forgiveness for his faithlessness. That was unpardonable.

Mrs. Egleton, her fellow lodger, had the night before gone to bed sober and was inclined to be complaisant and to interest herself in Lavinia.

She was pleased to hear that Huddy had praised her.

”If he asks you to join his company, don't you refuse,” said Mrs.

Egleton. ”He's got a rough tongue when he's put out, but he knows his business. Three months' experience will do wonders. I must come and see you on _the_ night. When is it to be?”

Lavinia said she hadn't the least idea.

”Oh, well, you'll soon know.”

Mrs. Egleton was right. In the next issue of the _Daily Post_ appeared this advertis.e.m.e.nt:--

”At the desire of several persons of quality for the benefit of Mr.

Huddy, at the New Theatre in the Haymarket. To-morrow being Thursday, the 24th day of February, will be presented a tragedy called 'The Orphan; or, the Unhappy Marriage,' written by the late Mr. Otway, with a new prologue to be spoken by Mr. Roger, who plays the part of Chamont. The part of Acas...o...b.. Mr. Huddy; Monimia, Mrs.