Who was she? Whence had she come?
A hundred ready tongues asked the question which none appeared able to answer.
There was but one man in the house who made sure of Etta Romney's identity, and he was a Roumanian.
Count Odin had witnessed the girl's début from a box on the second tier.
"She is a great actress," he said to his companion, Felix Horowitz, a young attaché from the Hungarian Embassy; "I am going to make love to her."
The young man looked up quickly.
"I promise you failure," he said—"a woman who can speak of England like that will marry none but an Englishman."
CHAPTER III
SUCCESS AND AFTERWARDS
Etta Romney sat in her little dressing-room when the play was over, so very tired after all she had done that even the congratulations of Mr. Charles Izard failed to give her pleasure.
Unlike the successful actress of our time, she had not yet attracted the attention of the "flower" brigade, as little Dulcie Holmes, one of her friends in the theatre, would call them; and despite her success and the astonishment it had provoked, no baskets of roses decorated her dressing-table, nor were expensive bouquets thrown "negligently" to the various corners of the room. Two red roses in a cheap vase; a bunch of narcissi, which had obviously come from the flower-girls of the Criterion, witnessed her triumph in lonely majesty. Even the redoubtable Mr. Izard, not anticipating the splendor of the evening, had forgotten to "command" a basket for his star. He, good man, had but one word for his surprising fortune. "It's bully," he said—and repeated the conviction usque ad nauseam.
Etta sat alone, but it was not for many minutes after the curtain fell. Little Dulcie Holmes, the artist's daughter, who had a "walking part" at twenty-four shillings a week, came leaping into the room presently and catching her friend in both arms kissed her rapturously.
"Oh, Etta," she cried ardently, "oh, my dear—they won't go away even now. Can't you hear them calling for you?"
"They are too kind to me," was the quiet response, "and all because I love Derbyshire. Isn't it absurd?—but, of course, I'm very pleased, Dulcie."
"Think of it, dear Etta. Your very first night and Mr. Izard in such a state that he'd give you a hundred a week if you asked him. Of course, you won't play for nothing now, Etta."
"I've never thought of it," said Etta still without apparent emotion ... and then with a very sweet smile, she asked, "What would you say if I told you that I was about to give up the theatre altogether, Dulcie?"
Dulcie opened her eyes so wide (and they were pretty blue eyes too) that the rest of her piquant face was quite dwarfed by them.
"Give up the theatre. You're joking. Here Lucy—here's Etta talking of giving up the theatre. Now, what do you say to that?"
Lucy Grey, a pretty brunette, whose share in the triumph was the saucy delivery of the momentous line, "Oh, Captain, how could you?" (she playing a maid's part for thirty shillings a week), would not believe that Dulcie could possibly be serious.
"Whatever will the papers say to-morrow?" she exclaimed. "Did you ever think she could do it? I didn't, and I'm not going to say that I did. Why, here's Mr. Izard quite beside himself."
"And he'll be beside Etta just now wanting her to sign a three years' engagement as principal. Now, you take my advice and don't you do it, dear—not unless he'll pay you a hundred a week. That's where girls ruin their prospects, taking on things just when they're excited. If it were me, wouldn't I ask him something! Perhaps he'll play hot and cold—they sometimes do; but your fortune's made, Etta, and I can't think why you take it so quietly. How I should dance and sing if I were you——"
Etta had begun to gather up the heavy tresses of her long black hair by this time; but she did so slowly and deliberately as one whom success had neither surprised nor agitated. Could the two young girls about her have read her thoughts they would have been astonished indeed. Not idly had she asked Dulcie Holmes what people would say if she gave up the theatre entirely. For give it up she must. In one short month her father would return from the Continent. She must be at home by that time, and none must ever know that she had left her home.
"We'll talk it all over in the morning," she said, still smiling—"I want both of you to come and see me to-morrow. We shall have read the papers by that time. Whatever will they say about me?"
"It doesn't matter what they say. Everyone in London will be talking about you before the week's out. All the same, the papers are going to be nice. Lucy's cousin was in the vestibule between the acts and he heard the critics talking. They called you 'immense,' dear. That means bad luck for the play, but everything for you. You just wait until the morning comes."
"I fear I'll have to," said Etta, with a sly look toward them; but just then there came a tap on the door and who should it be but a messenger with the intimation that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Izard expected Miss Etta Romney to supper at the Carlton Hotel as soon as she could conveniently join their party. To the extreme astonishment both of Dulcie Holmes and Lucy Grey, Etta appeared to be distressed beyond words by this customary invitation.
"Oh, I never can go; I dare not go—whatever shall I do?" she asked.
"Not go!" cried Dulcie, almost too amazed to speak; "why, of course you must go. Charles would send soldiers to fetch you if you refused. The star always sups with him on a first night. I never heard of such a thing. She talks of not going, Lucy!"
"That's the excitement," said Lucy wisely. "I should be just the same in her place. She wants a glass of wine. She'll break out crying just now if she doesn't get one."
Their solicitude for Etta was very pretty and really honest. They were too fond of her to be jealous. Women who love loyally welcome their friends successes; men rarely do. Dulcie and Lucy might say "what a lucky girl she is;" but they would not have wished her to be less so.
As for Etta herself, the invitation perplexed her to distraction. How if she met some one who knew her at the Carlton. It was very unlikely she thought. Fifteen years passed in a French convent with few English pupils do not admit of many embarrassing acquaintances. The subsequent years, lived chiefly in the park of a mediæval country house rarely open to strangers, were not likely to be more dangerous. Etta knew that discovery might be disastrous to her beyond the ordinary meaning of the term; but her cleverness told her that the risk of it was very small. It was then after eleven o'clock. She remembered that they turned the people out of the Carlton Hotel at half-past twelve.
"Tell Mr. Izard that I will come," she said to the messenger, and then to the girls, "You won't forget to-morrow. Run round early and we'll read the newspapers together. And, dear girls, we'll spend Sunday at Henley, as I promised you."
They kissed her affectionately, promising not to forget. There was not so much pleasure in their lives that they should pass it by when a good fairy approached them. Sharing rooms