Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/80

 Charlie Frohman's nose. What he said to a fireman who tried to stop him smoking behind the scenes. How he'd thrashed a cheeky waiter, and an elevator-man who insulted him, and a cabman who tried to overcharge him. And even how he'd silenced Maurice Barrymore with the superior brilliance of his repartee."

He never boasted to her of his previous conquests. No doubt they had been merely mirrors, as she said. As long as they gave him a flattering reflection, he treasured them. As soon as one grew tarnished in the brightness of her complacency, he tossed her into the matrimonial dust-box, paid for the breakage like a gentleman, and looked for another glass. An audience was a sea of mirrors to him, and the image that he saw reflected there was that of a fine, upstanding, robust hero who never did a human thing on the stage or said a true one. He was an actor by virtue of the fact that he "put across the footlights" the fictitious personality that had made him popular. And he did not know it was fictitious. Obviously he did not know it. He saw himself in the eyes of admiration only, and never suspected the truth about himself.

At the dress rehearsal there began to appear one truth about him that few of us suspected: he could not act. He had almost no imagination. He had a certain easy grace, a confident manner, and a