A PROPOSAL
Miss Luscombe was looking out of the window, looking up to the street,
waiting. At last she saw from her basement (the "tank," as her friends
called it) a glimpse on the pavement of a pair of feet that she knew.
They were the feet of Mr. John Ryland Rathbone. She hastened to prepare
herself for his visit.
It is obvious that people who live in a basement must look at life from
a different point of view from all others. The proudest of women in that
position must necessarily see it _de bas en haut_. The woman looking out
of the drawing-room or higher for the person she is expecting to see
gets more or less of a bird's-eye view. She sees the top of a hat first,
and the person necessarily foreshortened. From the dining-room or
ground-floor window she sees the approaching visitor through glass, but
practically on a level, almost face to face, and therefore is incapable
of judging him on the whole or of taking a very large view, since any
object placed close to the eye deprives one of a sense of
proportion--shuts out everything else. But from a basement window things
are very different. It is wonderful how much character one learns to see
in feet, and it is still more curious how, to the accustomed eye, their
expression can vary from time to time. Flora saw at a glance by the
obstinate stamp, the bad-tempered look of his boots, by the nervous
impatience of his stride, that Mr. Rathbone was coming to see her in a
state of agitation. One would hardly have believed that, without having
seen his face at all, she would be so prepared for his behaviour when he
arrived as to greet him anxiously from the door, even before he came in,
with "Good heavens, what _is_ the matter?"
"How do you know anything is the matter?"
"I guessed. I saw your steps."
"Everything is going wrong about the play. The expenses get larger every
day. To sell even _one_ ticket for a charity, they tell me, is simply
out of the question! I must invite everybody, and even then most of them
won't come. Just think, my dear Miss Luscombe, all this trouble, worry,
and expense for amateurs to play _Romeo and Juliet_ at an invitation
performance to an absolutely empty house!"
"Why do you think it will be empty?... Your friends?"
"My friends? You're my only friend! Every chap at the Club I have spoken
to about it said they would be out of town that day. One or two said
they would come on afterwards and join me at supper. Supper! I said it
was a _matinée_; so then they suggested I should give a dinner
afterwards. And even women, they're quite as bad. I mentioned it to Lady
Walmer. She is always so keen on going everywhere, and makes a hobby of
odd charities and things. She said she was going yachting that day, and
also that she was going to a wedding."
"What does it matter just about Lady Walmer?"
"Nothing, but it's an indication. Do we want to have no one in a theatre
but the dressmakers who made the costumes? Miss Luscombe--Flora! I am
beginning to think we'd better chuck it."
"Oh, Mr. Rathbone! The waste and the disappointment!"
"It would be a greater waste to make an utter fool of oneself in an
empty house than to postpone it. I'm nervous. I'm really frightened. I'm
beginning to see that I've been a fool. As to disappointment, _that_,
Flora, you could console me for if you chose."
"Oh, Mr. Rathbone!"
"You really have been so sweet, so patient, it's my opinion that you are
an angel!"
"Oh, indeed I'm not!"
"Well, you have the patience of one. You never think about yourself.
You're all kindness and sweetness and thought for other people. To speak
perfectly frankly, you have only one tiny fault, Flora. And that is,
that you seem a _little_ artificial. But it's my opinion that such
affectations as you have are natural to you and you can't help them, and
you would be an ideal wife."
Flora was actually silent with gratification. She did not even laugh.
"Look here, Flora, we'd better chuck the performance altogether. Let's
give it up, and have a show instead at St. George's, Hanover Square."
"Are you making fun of me?" she asked, in a trembling voice, "because
that would not be right. It wouldn't be nice of you--in fact, it would
be rather cruel."
"You don't mean to say you care for me the least little bit?" He took
both her hands and stared hard at her face. "Is there something real
about you then?" he continued.
Tears came to her eyes. She turned her head away.
"This seems too good to be true," she murmured.
"Let's be married," he cried, "on the day we were going to have the
show. Let's go to Oberammergau for our honeymoon, and don't let us ever
go near the theatre again. Will you, dear? Or am I dreaming?"
"Of course. I always have," she answered ingenuously; "but I hadn't a
scrap of hope, and I didn't know how much I cared for you."
"Dear Flora, I shall give up the stage and devote all my time to you."
"So will I," she said. "I shall never want to act again."
"Nor I, never--never!"
"I shall rush home and countermand everything," he cried.
"Oh, go not yet; it is not yet near day," she quoted in the tender voice
she used for recitation.
He burst into peals of laughter, and put his arms round her and kissed
her impetuously.
"Oh, Flora, what a fool I have been all this time! And you knew it--you
knew it perfectly well. I thought when we were rehearsing that once you
said the words, 'O Romeo, wherefore art _thou_ Romeo?' with rather
marked emphasis on the 'thou'...."
"Do you know that I never cared for any one but you in my life, Flora?"
"Oh, oh! Why is 'C. L.' tattooed on your wrist?"
"I'll have it taken out. I'll have Flora put on instead. I'll have
anything you like tattooed in your honour--a hunting scene, a snap-shot
of the Coronation--anything you like."
"No, please not. I don't like it; I can't bear it. It's the only thing I
ever haven't liked about you. But we'll forget it now, won't we?" she
said.
"And I'll forget the stage. Oh, Flora, how I have worried you! Forgive
me. We won't think of anything but each other now."
They repeated this sentiment again and again in these and other words
for about an hour and a half, and forgot to turn up lights and ring the
bell.
* * * * *
The first real love scene Flora had ever acted in was a triumphant
success.