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"If you repudiate such a proceeding with such energy, why do you like her for it?" "It isn't what I like her for." "What else, then? That's intensely characteristic." Mrs. Alsager reflected, looking down at the fire; she had the air of having half-a-dozen reasons to choose from. But the one she produced was unexpectedly simple; it might even have been prompted by despair at not finding others.
"Mrs. Alsager." Violet Grey smiled more deeply. "It's the same thing." "And how did Mrs. Alsager save you?" "By letting me look at her. By letting me hear her speak. By letting me know her." "And what did she say to you?" "Kind things encouraging, intelligent things." "Ah, the dear woman!" Wayworth cried. "You ought to like her she likes YOU. She was just what I wanted," the actress added.
Alsager, more and more his good genius and, as he repeatedly assured her, his ministering angel, confirmed him in this superior policy and urged him on to every form of artistic devotion. She had, naturally, never been more interested than now in his work; she wanted to hear everything about everything.
"Certainly my leading lady won't make Nona much like YOU!" Wayworth one day gloomily remarked to Mrs. Alsager. There were days when the prospect seemed to him awful. "So much the better. There's no necessity for that." "I wish you'd train her a little you could so easily," the young man went on; in response to which Mrs. Alsager requested him not to make such cruel fun of her.
Alsager, the gentleman who for years had contributed no small share of celebrity to the great reputation of the "Times" newspaper, by the masterly manner in which he conducted the money-market department of that journal. At the time when I was first introduced to Mr. Alsager, he was living opposite Horsemonger-Lane Prison; and upon Mr.
Alsager, who contended that it might not be a joking matter to the poor girl. To this Wayworth, who now professed to hate talking about the passions he might have inspired, could only reply that he meant it couldn't make a difference to Mrs. Alsager.
"Oh, the woman I meant!" the young man exclaimed, looking at the London lamps as he rolled by them. "I wish to God she had known YOU!" he added, as the carriage stopped. After they had passed into the house he said to his companion: "You see she WON'T pull me through." "Forgive her be kind to her!" Mrs. Alsager pleaded. "I shall only thank her. The play may go to the dogs."
They looked at each other with eyes that, for a lurid moment, saw the worst of the worst; but before they parted they had exchanged vows and confidences that were dedicated wholly to the ideal. It is not to be supposed, however, that the knowledge that Mrs. Alsager would help him made Wayworth less eager to help himself.
"I wondered whether you wouldn't read it to me," said Mrs. Alsager, as they lingered a little near the fire before he took leave. She looked down at the fire sideways, drawing her dress away from it and making her proposal with a shy sincerity that added to her charm.
Alsager, of whom indeed her imagination appeared adequately to have disposed. Wayworth once remarked to her that Nona Vincent was supposed to be a good deal like his charming friend; but she gave a blank "Supposed by whom?" in consequence of which he never returned to the subject. He confided his nervousness as freely as usual to Mrs.
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