“It’s quite private, and I’ll thank you to send away your maids, if you’ve no objection,” said the dauntless Aphasia. “The fact is,” she continued, when the indignant menials had been waved from the apartment, “as I’ve come to make you a present—a present of a young man——”
“Look here, my good young woman,” began the incensed manageress.
Aphasia suddenly handed her the brown-paper parcel, and the wrath of Mrs. Gudrun was turned to trembling. She was sure this was an escaped lunatic. Aphasia profited by the lull in the storm to explain. She had come to hand over her Alfred—stock, goodwill, and fixtures. He had forgotten to be off with the old love before he went on with the new, but the old love bore no malice. All was now over.
“And you may marry ’im whenever you like,” sobbed Aphasia.
“I never heard anything so indecent in the whole course of my life,” said Mrs. Gudrun, rising in offended majesty. “Marry Mr. De Boo, indeed! If I had married every leading man I’ve played love-scenes with since I adopted this profession, I should be a female Brigham Young! ‘In love with me!’ Perhaps he is; it’s rather a common complaint among the men I know. As for Mr. De Boo, if he has low connections and vulgar entanglements, they are nothing to me. Good-day! Stop! You had better take this parcel of rubbish with you. Dawkins—the stage-door!”
And Aphasia found herself being ushered along the passage. Bewildered and dazzled by the glaring lights, the excitement and the strangeness, she ran almost into the arms of De Boo himself as he emerged from his dressing-room next the manageress’s. Had he overheard? There had been a curtained-over door on that side. Under his paint his handsome features were black with rage; he caught the girl’s shoulders in a furious grip, and spluttered in her ear:
“Damn you! Damn you, you sneaking creature! You have made a pretty mess of things for me—haven’t you?—with your blab about my father and the boot-business, and my letters and the ring I gave you. To my dying day I’ll never speak to you again!”
He threw her from him savagely and strode away.
Aphasia stood outside the theater and shook with sobs. It chanced—or did not chance, so queer are the vagaries of Destiny—that Ulick Snowle, the president of the New Stage-Door Club, happened to be passing; he had just called in at the box-office to privately book the first three rows of the upper circle on behalf of the club, the Old Stage-Doorers having secured the gallery. Both clubs were originally one, the Old Stage-Doorers having thrown off the younger club as the cuttlefish gets rid of the supernumerary limb which in time becomes another cuttlefish. And the unwritten compact between both clubs is that if one applauds a new production, the other shall execrate the same—an arrangement which contributes hugely to the liveliness of first-nights.