'You see,' he murmured in Alexander's ear, as the curtain fell on the first act,
'one almost never sees a part like that done without smartness or mawkishness.
Of course, Hilda is Irish,--the Burgoynes have been stage people for generations,--and she has the Irish voice. It's delightful to hear it in a London theatre. That laugh, now, when she doubles over at the hips--who ever heard it out of Galway? She saves her hand, too. She's at her best in the second act.
She's really MacConnell's poetic motif, you see; makes the whole thing a fairy tale.'
The second act opened before Philly Doyle's underground still, with Peggy and her battered donkey come in to smuggle a load of potheen across the bog, and to bring Philly word of what was doing in the world without, and of what was happening along the roadsides and ditches with the first gleam of fine weather.
Alexander, annoyed by Mainhall's sighs and exclamations, watched her with keen, half-skeptical interest. As Mainhall had said, she was the second act; the plot and feeling alike depended upon her lightness of foot, her lightness of touch, upon the shrewdness and deft fancifulness that played alternately, and sometimes together, in her mirthful brown eyes. When she began to dance, by way of showing the gossoons what she had seen in the fairy rings at night, the house broke into a prolonged uproar. After her dance she withdrew from the dialogue and retreated to the ditch wall back of Philly's burrow, where she sat singing 'The Rising of the Moon' and making a wreath of primroses for her donkey.
When the act was over Alexander and Mainhall strolled out into the corridor.
They met a good many acquaintances; Mainhall, indeed, knew almost every one, and he babbled on incontinently, screwing his small head about over his high collar. Presently he hailed a tall, bearded man, grim- browed and rather battered-looking, who had his opera cloak on his arm and his hat in his hand, and who seemed to be on the point of leaving the theatre.
'MacConnell, let me introduce Mr. Bartley Alexander. I say! It's going famously to-night, Mac. And what an audience! You'll never do anything like this again, mark me. A man writes to the top of his bent only once.'
The playwright gave Mainhall a curious look out of his deep-set faded eyes and made a wry face. 'And have I done anything so fool as that, now?' he asked.
'That's what I was saying,' Mainhall lounged a little nearer and dropped into a tone even more conspicuously confidential. 'And you'll never bring Hilda out like this again. Dear me, Mac, the girl couldn't possibly be better, you know.'
MacConnell grunted. 'She'll do well enough if she keeps her pace and doesn't go off on us in the middle of the season, as she's more than like to do.'
He nodded curtly and made for the door, dodging acquaintances as he went.
'Poor old Hugh,' Mainhall murmured. 'He's hit terribly hard. He's been wanting to marry Hilda these three years and more. She doesn't take up with anybody, you know. Irene Burgoyne, one of her family, told me in confidence that there was a romance somewhere back in the beginning. One of your countrymen, Alexander, by the way; an American student whom she met in Paris, I believe. I dare say it's quite true that there's never been any one else.' Mainhall vouched for her constancy with a loftiness that made Alexander smile, even while a kind of rapid excitement was tingling through him. Blinking up at the lights, Mainhall added in his luxurious, worldly way: 'She's an elegant little person, and quite capable of an extravagant bit of sentiment like that. Here comes Sir Harry Towne. He's another who's awfully keen about her. Let me introduce you. Sir Harry Towne, Mr. Bartley Alexander, the American engineer.'
Sir Harry Towne bowed and said that he had met Mr. Alexander and his wife in Tokyo.
Mainhall cut in impatiently.
'I say, Sir Harry, the little girl's going famously to-night, isn't she?'
Sir Harry wrinkled his brows judiciously. 'Do you know, I thought the dance a bit conscious to-night, for the first time. The fact is, she's feeling rather seedy, poor child. Westmere and I were back after the first act, and we thought she seemed quite uncertain of herself. A little attack of nerves, possibly.'
He bowed as the warning bell rang, and Mainhall whispered: 'You know Lord Westmere, of course,--the stooped man with the long gray mustache, talking to Lady Dowle. Lady Westmere is very fond of Hilda.'
When they reached their box the house was darkened and the orchestra was playing 'The Cloak of Old Gaul.' In a moment Peggy was on the stage again, and Alexander applauded vigorously with the rest. He even leaned forward over the rail a little. For some reason he felt pleased and flattered by the enthusiasm of the audience. In the half-light he looked about at the stalls and boxes and smiled a little consciously, recalling with amusement Sir Harry's judicial frown. He was beginning to feel a keen interest in the slender, barefoot donkey-girl who slipped in and out of the play, singing, like some one winding through a hilly field.
He leaned forward and beamed felicitations as warmly as Mainhall himself when, at the end of the play, she came again and again before the curtain, panting a little and flushed, her eyes dancing and her eager, nervous little mouth tremulous with excitement.
When Alexander returned to his hotel-- he shook Mainhall at the door of the theatre-- he had some supper brought up to his room, and it was late before he went to bed. He had not thought of Hilda Burgoyne for years; indeed, he had almost forgotten her. He had last written to her from Canada, after he first met Winifred, telling her that everything was changed with him--that he had met a woman whom he would marry if he could; if he could not, then all the more was everything changed for him. Hilda had never replied to his letter. He felt guilty and unhappy about her for a time, but after Winifred promised to marry him he really forgot Hilda altogether. When he wrote her that everything was changed for him, he was telling the truth. After he met Winifred Pemberton he seemed to himself like a different man. One night when he and Winifred were sitting together on the bridge, he told her that things had happened while he was studying abroad that he was sorry for,--one thing in particular,--and he asked her whether she thought she ought to know about them. She considered a moment and then said 'No, I think not, though I am glad you ask me. You see, one can't be jealous about things in general; but about particular, definite, personal things,'--here she had thrown her hands up to his shoulders with a quick, impulsive gesture--'oh, about those I should be very jealous. I should torture myself--I couldn't help it.' After that it was easy to forget, actually to forget. He wondered to-night, as he poured his wine, how many times he had thought of Hilda in the last ten years. He had been in London more or less, but he had never happened to hear of her. 'All the same,' he lifted his glass, 'here's to you, little Hilda. You've made things come your way, and I never thought you'd do it.
'Of course,' he reflected, 'she always had that combination of something homely and sensible, and something utterly wild and daft. But I never thought she'd do anything. She hadn't much ambition then, and she was too fond of trifles. She must care about the theatre a great deal more than she used to. Perhaps she has me to thank for something, after all. Sometimes a little jolt like that does one good. She was a daft, generous little thing. I'm glad she's held her own since.
