She had missed her turn at the third Hall, but she did not care. She went on and gave a spiritless performance. It fell dead, but she cared less. Her head throbbed with a dozen possibilities. She was still undiscovered. As she sat resting on her couch ere resuming her work-a-day gown, her nerves stretched to snapping point, and old Irish songs crooning themselves irrelevantly in her brain, a telegram was handed her.
"He has found out," she thought, going hot and cold. She tore open the pink envelope... and burst into a shriek of laughter. The dresser rushed in, wondering. Nelly O'Neill merely held her sides, jollity embodied. "Oh, the Show, the Show!" she gasped, the tears streaking her painted cheeks.
The telegram that hung between her fingers in two sheets ran: "Reply prepaid. I don't know the ways of the stage so I send you this as a sure way of reaching you to ask when and where I may have the pleasure of calling upon your friend, Miss O'Keeffe, and renewing the study of Plato.--Robert Maper, Hotel Belgravia."
"Any answer, miss?" said the imperturbable doorkeeper.
The answer flashed irresistibly into her mind as he spoke. Oh, she would play up to Bob Maper. Doubtless he imagined her fallen to the level of her _metier_, though he wasn't insulting. She scribbled hastily: "Robert Maper, Hotel Belgravia. I am waiting at the Hall for you. Come and take me to supper.--EILEEN O'NEILL." She gave instructions he was to be admitted. Then she relapsed into her hysteric amusement. "Oh, the merry master of marionettes, the night my love comes from beyond the seas, you send me to supper with Robert Maper." She waited with impatience. Now that the long-dreaded discovery had come, she was consumed with curiosity as to its effect upon the discoverer. At last she remembered to wash off the rouge and the messes necessary for stage-perspective. Her winsome face came back to her in the mirror, angelic by contrast, and while she was looking wonderingly at this mystic flashing mask of hers, there was a knock, and in another instant she was looking into the eyes burning unchanged under the white marble mantel-piece.
"Ah, there you are!" she said gaily, and shook his hand as though they had met the evening before. "Where shall we go?"
He accepted the situation. "I don't know--I thought you would know."
"I don't--I never supped with a man in my life."
He flushed with complex pleasure and surprise. "Really! Oh, Eileen!"
"Hush! Call me Nelly, if you must be Christian. I suppose you think you may, now."
"I--I beg your pardon," he stammered, disconcerted.
"Don't look so gaspy--poor little thing! It shall be thrown back into the water. Will you carry my bouquet?"
"With pleasure." He grasped it eagerly, and carried it towards the stage door and a hansom.
"It wanted only that," she said. "Oh, the Show, the Show!"
"I don't understand you."
"Do I understand myself?" They got into the hansom. "W............
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