roducing this country gentleman to this
green-room, he gave a mighty impulse and opportunity to Vane's love;
an opportunity which he forgot the timid, inexperienced Damon might
otherwise never have found.

Here diplomacy was not policy, for, as my sagacious reader has perhaps
divined, Sir Charles Pomander _was after her himself._

CHAPTER III.

YES, Sir Charles was _after_ Mrs. Woffington. I use that phrase because
it is a fine generic one, suitable to different kinds of love-making.

Mr. Vane's sentiments were an inexplicable compound; but respect,
enthusiasm, and deep admiration were the uppermost.

The good Sir Charles was no enigma. He had a vacancy in his
establishment--a very high situation, too, for those who like that sort
of thing--the head of his table, his left hand when he drove in the
Park, etc. To this he proposed to promote Mrs. Woffington. She was
handsome and witty, and he liked her. But that was not what caused him
to pursue her; slow, sagacious, inevitable as a beagle.

She was celebrated, and would confer great _eclat_ on him. The scandal
of possessing her was a burning temptation. Women admire celebrity in a
man; but men adore it in a woman.

"The world," says Philip, "is a famous man; What will not women love so
taught?"

I will try to answer this question.

The women will more readily forgive disgusting physical deformity for
Fame's sake than we. They would embrace with more rapture a famous
orang-outang than we an illustrious chimpanzee; but when it comes to
moral deformity the tables are turned.

Had the queen pardoned Mr. Greenacre and Mrs. Manning, would the great
rush have been on the hero, or the heroine? Why, on Mrs. Macbeth! To her
would the blackguards have brought honorable proposals, and the gentry
liberal ones.

Greenacre would have found more female admirers than I ever shall; but
the grand stream of sexual admiration would have set Mariaward. This
fact is as dark as night; but it is as sure as the sun.

The next day "the friends" (most laughable of human substantives!) met
in the theater, and again visited the green-room; and this time Vane
determined to do himself more justice. He was again disappointed; the
actress's manner was ceremoniously polite. She was almost constantly on
the stage, and in a hurry when off it; and, when there was a word to be
got with her the ready, glib Sir Charles was sure to get it. Vane could
not help thinking it hard that a man who pro