Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/568

 for myself—had called us to London, where we became important representatives on the staff of a leading journal. It was in this capacity that Felix fell in with Theresa Meadows, one of the most brilliant actresses on the stage. He admired her from the first, not, mark you, with the admiration of his salad days. That would have counted for little; but with the admiration that comes of ripe experience and judgment. You know what that means when a man has passed the thirties? It means that when he does admire, all his heart and soul are in the admiration. The case, in such circumstances, becomes one for serious consideration.

Theresa Meadows was not, of course, the name she played under. It is not my intention, with all due respect, to tell you that. If I did, every play-goer of ten years' standing would at once recognise it. There is only one actress I know of who could sustain the part of. But there; if I mention that character all excuse for concealing her identity would be gone. So kindly brush up your theatrical reminiscences, and solve this little puzzle for yourself.

Was she pretty? Yes, Theresa Meadows was pretty. And, what doesn't often happen, she was prettier off the stage than on. Distance did not do justice to her complexion. In its native state there was no violet powder about it. It had the trick of creating tints of its own, this side of the footlights, though I am not going to perjure myself by saying that Nature's was the sole palette employed on the other side.

Well, Felix got an introduction, and he and the actress became very good friends. Her triumph on the stage had not turned her head. There was not the slightest trace of affectation in her manner, and Felix averred that she was even a greater success at the domestic hearth than before the footlights. She appealed as irresistibly to the household gods as to those vehement ones enthroned in the gallery of the Theatre Royal.

There were, of course, many suitors for her hand, and it was currently reported that she had rejected a dozen or so. Felix had not yet ventured on a declaration, and I awaited with some anxiety that psychological moment, for I knew it must come.

One evening Felix turned into my chambers. He was very white, though the hand he gave me was like a burning coal. I wheeled a chair to the fire, and handed him a cigar.

"I see how it is," I said; smoke first—confess after."

We puffed away in silence for ten minutes.

"Refused?" I then remarked.

"Precisely," he replied, just as laconically.

"Without conditions?

"Without conditions."

"Humph! That is a double confession of failure for which I was scarcely prepared."

"Why, pray?"

"Why? Because you have failed as a lover, and, what is much worse in my eyes, as a diplomatist into the bargain."

"Diplomatist! To the deuce with your diplomacy. What part can finesse play with a pulse running to fever heat?"

"That does present a difficulty, certainly. Volcanoes and that sort of thing do not,