University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.

I was punctual. The hour was fortunately chosen. Mam'selle
was in the Green Room alone. Her ugly little protector was
absent—where, it mattered not to me,—so long as he was absent;
and I had at length the felicity of speaking to the fair creature,
whom, hitherto, I had not been permitted to approach. My
address, I had reason to believe, said little in my favour. I was
flushed, confused, agitated. I feel that I stammered while
speaking the most customary nonsense; and I was so little the
master of my own faculties, that I could not tell whether her
composure was less or more than mine. But, in either event, perhaps,
I had no reason for annoyance. If the woman, in such a
case, preserves her composure—if she be any thing of a veteran
in the arts of life—it does not displease her to look on the bashfulness
of the unsophisticated heart of youth. There is a compliment
conveyed by his terrors which is grateful, because of its
freshness, to the heart which is no longer so: and if she was not
composed—if like myself she trembled and was confounded, then
it followed that my emotion must have escaped her sight. My
friend, the Editor, congratulated me on my leaving the apartment
upon the obvious impression which I had made. Before we left

her the company began to pour in—the various assemblage of a
good stock-management. There were others too, not of the company,—who
possessed the privileges of the interior—to whom the
wires might be shown, and the mechanism of the magic, without
danger. There were the Editors—a numerous tribe—the writers
for the stage, some of the proprietors of the establishment, and a
few of the dashing bloods of the town. To all of these the Prima
Donna was the eye of attraction—the centre of the solar system in
that little world. I felt myself very small and very awkward,
when I witnessed the dashing freedom and consequential airs of
most around me, as they approached to converse with one whose
very glance had so completely unsettled my nervous system.—
Finally, the little, old Italian, her protector, made his appearance,
and with his entrée you would have fancied that we had suddenly
fallen in with a mountain of ice. Every thing was frigid
after his appearance. The dandies bowed at a more respectful
distance, at the object of their previous devotion, while his little
fiery eyes seemed to scrutinize every countenance with suspicion,
and to find in every movement abundant cause to congratulate
himself on having arrived in the very nick of time to prevent the
worst of mischiefs.

To me, he gave less attention than I feared would have fallen
to my lot. I had even begun to think that he failed to recognize
me, and should certainly have believed so, but for a single sentence
which he uttered with a sinister grin, as we underwent the
usual forms of introduction to one another.

“You be love music, vera moch, sare, I remembair, eh?”

The remark was simple in the ears of all but the Prima Donna
and myself. I took care to regard it as such in the reply I made
at the moment; but I remembered it, and availed myself of the
opening which it gave me—for purposes of explanation—to call
upon the couple at their residence.