"I can't help that. MacBride must go on for me."
He picked up a towel and was about to remove the grease paint from his
face, but stopped at the ejaculation that broke from her.
"You can't possibly go to-night," she burst out. "Evidently these
people"--she made an impatient gesture that indicated Alexandra--"don't
know that it's the last night of your season, and that you're booked to
leave for America in three days' time. Or probably they don't care. To
think of throwing up your part at a moment's notice and letting the
curtain come down in your absence is madness. You must stop for your
speech. If you want to you can go first thing to-morrow, though you'll
probably have a wire by then to say your wife's better and won't see you
for worlds!"
A boy put his head in at the door.
"Your call, sir," he announced.
Lambert got up, the towel still in his hand, the paint still on his
face. Alexandra watched the indecision in it. Had he enough strength
of mind to come? Or would he let self-interest prevail?
"Hugh, do be guided by me," begged Miss Mantel. "Think of your career.
There will be call on call for you at the end of the show. The house is
full of pressmen. Are you going to throw away hundreds of pounds' worth
of gratuitous advertisement?"
That last argument decided him. Publicity, the acclamation of the
crowd, the opportunity to pose before it, to deliver the
carefully-prepared speech, egotistical yet full of sham humility, were
temptations he was unable to resist. With a quiver of his painted lips
that owed nothing to solicitude for a wife who lay between life and
death, he said:
"I'll come in the morning;" and without looking at Alexandra, made for
the stage.
She heard the thunder of applause that greeted him. To the little tin
gods the plaudits of the multitude are as the music of the spheres.