Poor Nina!--It was a shame he should treat so faithful a friend so ill;
he might have remembered her a little more had not his head been stuffed
with foolish fancies. Well, as soon as he had changed his clothes and
swallowed a bit of food he would jump into a hansom and go along to the
New Theatre; he would be too late to judge of Nina's Grace Mainwaring as
a whole, but he would have a little chat with her in the wings.
He was later in getting there than he had expected; indeed, as he made
his way to the side of the stage, he discovered that his _locum tenens_
had just been recalled and was singing for the second time the
well-known serenade, "The Starry Night"--and very well he sang it, too,
confound him! Lionel said to himself. And here was Nina, standing on a
small platform at the top of a short ladder, and waiting until the
passionate appeal of her sweetheart (in the garden without) should be
finished. She did not know of the presence of the new-comer. Lionel
might have pulled her skirts, it is true, to apprise her of his being
there; but that would not have been decorous; besides, he dared not
distract her attention from the business of the stage.
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