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Updated: May 13, 2025
Mary was there to welcome them, and with her was her fashionable aunt, Miss Constance Hastings, who was also distantly related to Cleo, through the marriage of Cleo's aunt to Mary's father's brother remote but definite, just the same. A perceptible stir was occasioned by the entrance of the girls; and since they were really quite a small troop, they walked in in pairs.
But Cleo's audacious mistake had wrought a miracle on the audience, destroying the stage-illusion, and rousing its dormant light of intelligence. Its capacity for being profoundly played upon and emotionally excited by the inartistic unrealities of absurd characterisation and of absurd combinations of circumstance had been rendered unresponsive.
"The title sounds appropriate, but it would take more words to fill out a tune!" "Starboard watch ahoy! Starboard watch ahoy! And who can feel-e-e-eel, while on the blue the vessel ke-e-ell." This was Cleo's contribution done in all sharps, and as Louise warned them, the title wouldn't do for a girl-sized song. "No, that's too old," objected Helen. "It's out of print. Try 'Sailing."
That had been a pure accident, of course, but it had enabled her to divine a good deal. Cleo's appearance she had taken particular notice of her face had at least narrowed that vast dreadfulness which had till then tortured her. But it was a face that by no means pleased her. "However," continued Helen, "it seems I've been talking about you instead of about myself.
The anticipation of the topic arising was not an agreeable one, and it was likewise unpleasant to dwell upon the possibility of embarrassment arising from Cleo's habit of embellishment. He wondered what her schemes were, though he could not take them seriously.
If they were to be condemned to eat stuff like that it would be better to quit. One might have fancied from his tone that it was Cléo's fault that such a suggestion should be made. Cléo listened patiently and Bompard sat evidently approving.
There was one other lady, plentifully powdered, and two other men of the party, but the host was the most garrulous of all, pouring out the most fulsome flattery of Cleo's acting and assuring her the critics hadn't treated her fairly and that all artistic aspiration was wasted on the British public. The same ground was traversed again and again, the bulk of the conversation centering round Cleo.
In the theatrical enterprise he was to figure under his present assumed name, though that was only likely to come within the public cognizance as the name borne by Cleo's husband, a personage none of his friends would think of associating with himself. He thought he might thus fairly count on remaining undiscovered, though, of course, he could not provide against chance encounters.
Cleo's audacity had caught the audience by the throat so that it could not breathe. Her all-consuming egotism had driven her to this device for satisfying her rage for the world's admiration.
"We've been getting along capitally, Mr. Druce and I," he broke off to explain to the two women. "It's well on towards dinner-time, and the children ought to be coming in soon." Cleo seemed relieved to find that Morgan hadn't been bored. Her mother, in whose strange, deep-cut features was suggested something of the spirit of Cleo's face, was a brisk-looking, homely matron of fifty.
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