y when that hand is so fair and gracious. May I be permitted,
madam--you will impute it to gratitude rather than audacity--I--I--"
(whimper), "madam" (with sudden severity), "I am gone!"

These last words he pronounced with the right arm at an angle of
forty-five degrees, and the fingers pointing horizontally. The stage had
taught him this grace also. In his day, an actor who had three words to
say, such as, "My lord's carriage is waiting," came on the stage with
the right arm thus elevated, delivered his message in the tones of a
falling dynasty, wheeled like a soldier, and retired with the left
arm pointing to the sky and the right hand extended behind him like a
setter's tail.

Left to herself, Mabel was uneasy. "Ernest is so warm-hearted." This was
the way she put it even to herself. He admired her acting and wished to
pay her a compliment. "What if I carried him the verses?" She thought
she should surely please him by showing she was not the least jealous
or doubtful of him. The poor child wanted so to win a kind look from
her husband; but ere she could reach the window Sir Charles Pomander had
entered it.

Now Sir Charles was naturally welcome to Mrs. Vane; for all she knew of
him was, that he had helped her on the road to her husband.

_Pomander._ "What, madam! all alone here as in Shropshire?"

_Mabel._ "For the moment, sir."

_Pomander._ "Force of habit. A husband with a wife in Shropshire is so
like a bachelor."

_Mabel._ "Sir!"

_Pomander._ "And our excellent Ernest is such a favorite!"

_Mabel._ "No wonder, sir!"

_Pomander._ "Few can so pass from the larva state of country squire to
the butterfly nature of beau."

_Mabel._ "Yes" (sadly), "I find him changed."

_Pomander._ "Changed! Transformed. He is now the prop of the
'Cocoa-Tree,' the star of Ranelagh, the Lauzun of the green-room."

_Mabel._ "The green-room! Where is that? You mean kindly, sir; but you
make me unhappy."

_Pomander._ "The green-room, my dear madam, is the bower where houris
put off their wings, and goddesses become dowdies; where Lady Macbeth
weeps over her lap-dog, dead from repletion; and Belvidera soothes her
broken heart with a dozen of oysters. In a word, it is the place where
actors and actresses become men and women, and act their own parts with
skill, instead of a poet's clumsily."

_Mabel._ "Actors! actresses! Does Mr. Vane frequent such--"

_Pomander._ "He has earned in six months a reputation many a fine
g