Marriage?
What did she care about marriage?
Her heart melted within her when she looked into his deep, friendly eyes, and she shivered with delightful anguish when she considered his shining, russet hair.
There was nothing that he could have asked her that she would not gladly have given him.
The thought never entered his lovely head.
‘Of course he likes me,’ she said to herself.
‘He likes me better than anyone, he even admires me, but I don’t attract him that way.’
She did everything to seduce him except slip into bed with him, and she only did not do that because there was no opportunity.
She began to fear that they knew one another too well for it to seem possible that their relations should change, and she reproached herself bitterly because she had not rushed to a climax when first they came in contact with one another.
He had too sincere an affection for her now ever to become her lover.
She found out when his birthday was and gave him a gold cigarette case which she knew was the thing he wanted more than anything in the world.
It cost a good deal more than she could afford and he smilingly reproached her for her extravagance.
He never dreamt what ecstatic pleasure it gave her to spend her money on him.
When her birthday came along he gave her half a dozen pairs of silk stockings.
She noticed at once that they were not of very good quality, poor lamb, he had not been able to bring himself to spring to that, but she was so touched that he should give her anything that she could not help crying.
‘What an emotional little thing you are,’ he said, but he was pleased and touched to see her tears.
She found his thrift rather an engaging trait.
He could not bear to throw his money about.
He was not exactly mean, but he was not generous.
Once or twice at restaurants she thought he undertipped the waiter, but he paid no attention to her when she ventured to remonstrate.
He gave the exact ten per cent, and when he could not make the exact sum to a penny asked the waiter for change.
‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be,’ he quoted from Polonius.
When some member of the company, momentarily hard up, tried to borrow from him it was in vain.
But he refused so frankly, with so much heartiness, that he did not affront.
‘My dear old boy, I’d love to lend you a quid, but I’m absolutely stony.
I don’t know how I’m going to pay my rent at the end of the week.’
For some months Michael was so much occupied with his own parts that he failed to notice how good an actress Julia was.
Of course he read the reviews, and their praise of Julia, but he read summarily, without paying much attention till he came to the remarks the critics made about him.
He was pleased by their approval, but not cast down by their censure.
He was too modest to resent an unfavourable criticism.
‘I suppose I was rotten,’ he would say ingenuously.
His most engaging trait was his good humour.
He bore Jimmie Langton’s abuse with equanimity.
When tempers grew frayed during a long rehearsal he remained serene.
It was impossible to quarrel with him.
One day he was sitting in front watching the rehearsal of an act in which he did not appear.
It ended with a powerful and moving scene in which Julia had the opportunity to give a fine display of acting.
When the stage was being set for the next act Julia came through the pass door and sat down beside Michael.
He did not speak to her, but looked sternly in front of him.
She threw him a surprised look. It was unlike him not to give her a smile and a friendly word.
Then she saw that he was clenching his jaw to prevent its trembling and that his eyes were heavy with tears.
‘What’s the matter, darling?’
‘Don’t talk to me.
You dirty little bitch, you’ve made me cry.’
‘Angel!’
The tears came to her own eyes and streamed down her face.
She was so pleased, so flattered.
‘Oh, damn it,’ he sobbed.
‘I can’t help it.’
He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dried his eyes. (‘I love him, I love him, I love him.’) Presently he blew his nose.