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merchant, he made it up with a stoutness practically unlimited, and Kathleen surprised and delighted even
herself by the quickness with which she changed from one to the other of the minor characters fairies,
servants, and messengers. It was at the end of the second act that Mabel, whose costume, having
reached the height of elegance, could not be bettered and therefore did not need to be changed, said to
Gerald, sweltering under the weighty magnificence of his beast-skin:
"I say, you might let us have the ring back."
"I'm going to," said Gerald, who had quite forgotten it. "I'll give it you in the next scene. Only don't
lose it, or go putting it on. You might go out all together and never be seen again, or you might get seven
times as visible as anyone else, so that all the rest of us would look like shadows beside you, you'd be so
thick, or ,"
"Ready!" said Kathleen, bustling in, once more a wicked sister.
Gerald managed to get his hand into his pocket under his hearthrug, and when he rolled his eyes in
agonies of sentiment, and said, "Farewell, dear Beauty! Return quickly, for if you remain long absent from
your faithful beast he will assuredly perish," he pressed a ring into her hand and added: "This is a magic
ring that will give you anything you wish. When you desire to return to your own disinterested beast, put
on the ring and utter your wish. Instantly you will be by my side."
Beauty-Mabel took the ring, and it was the ring.
The curtains closed to warm applause from two pairs of hands.
The next scene went splendidly. The sisters were almost too natural in their disagreeableness, and
Beauty's annoyance when they splashed her Princess's dress with real soap and water was considered a
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miracle of good acting. Even the merchant rose to something more than mere pillows, and the curtain fell
on his pathetic assurance that in the absence of his dear Beauty he was wasting away to a shadow. And
again two pairs of hands applauded.
"Here, Mabel, catch hold," Gerald appealed from under the weight of a towel-horse, the tea-urn, the
tea-tray, and the green baize apron of the boot boy, which together with four red geraniums from the
landing, the pampas-grass from the drawing-room fireplace, and the india-rubber plants from the
drawing-room window were to represent the fountains and garden of the last act. The applause had died
away.
"I wish," said Mabel, taking on herself the weight of the tea-urn, "I wish those creatures we made
were alive. We should get something like applause then."
"I'm jolly glad they aren't, said Gerald, arranging the baize and the towel-horse. "Brutes! It makes me
feel quite silly when I catch their paper eyes."
The curtains were drawn back. There lay the hearthrug-coated beast, in flat abandonment among the
tropic beauties of the garden, the pampas-grass shrubbery, the india-rubber plant bushes, the
geranium-trees and the urn fountain. Beauty was ready to make her great entry in all the thrilling
splendour of despair. And then suddenly it all happened.
Mademoiselle began it: she applauded the garden scene with hurried little clappings of her quick
French hands. Eliza's fat red palms followed heavily, and then someone else was clapping, six or seven
people, and their clapping made a dull padded sound. Nine faces instead of two were turned towards the
stage, and seven out of the nine were painted, pointed paper faces. And every hand and every face was
alive. The applause grew louder as Mabel glided forward, and as she paused and looked at the audience
her unstudied pose of horror and amazement drew forth applause louder still; but it was not loud enough
to drown the shrieks of Mademoiselle and Eliza as they rushed from the room, knocking chairs over and
crushing each other in the doorway. Two distant doors banged, Mademoiselle's door and Eliza's door.
"Curtain! curtain! quick!" cried Beauty-Mabel, in a voice that wasn't Mabel's or the Beauty's. "Jerry
those things have come alive. Oh, whatever shall we do?"
Gerald in his hearthrugs leaped to his feet. Again that flat padded applause marked the swish of
cloths on clothes-line as Jimmy and Kathleen drew the curtains.
"What's up?" they asked as they drew.
"You've done it this time!" said Gerald to the pink, perspiring Mabel. "Oh, bother these strings!"
"Can't you burst them? I've done it?" retorted Mabel. "I like that!"
"More than I do," said Gerald. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]