The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 119: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~~ *, 102 REYNOLDS’ WORKS — ance several persons had been thus admitted to that priv- ileged region, but that their presence was distasteful to the fair danseuse, and she had stipulated against a repetition of what she had regarded as an annoyance. One or two noble- men threatened and blustered, but. the stage authorities were inexorable, and the claimants for admission behind the scenes were compelled to retire in dudgeon and mortification. Outside the theatre, however, the astute Alfred, Lord Harold Staunton’s valet, was keeping watch. Handsomely dressed, and without appearing to have any particular object in view, he was smoking his cigar in the most finished style of indolent dandyism, so that no one could have fancied that he was any other than one of the rakish loungers who infest the opera colonnades from seven in the evening until past midnight. Pacing thus leisurely to and fro in the neighbourhood of the stage door, he presently beheld some of the minor performers and ballet-girls issuing forth, either singly or in twos and threes, and looking very different indeed in their own habitual garb from what they were when bedecked in their stage costumes. Anon, some underling rushed out to order a cab, into which one of the superior performers or better paid actresses stepped, and away the vehicle rolled. A few minutes passed, and then a private carriage being summoned to the stage door, Grisi, the queen of song, was handed iorth by some male companion, with whom she took her departure in the splendid equipage. Then several more street cabs were called into requisition by the dispersing artistes; another private carriage or two likewise drew up, received their well-paid owners, and dashed away again. All this time Alfred was lounging about with as much seeming listlessness as heretofore, but in reality keeping a keen watch upon every female who issued from the stage door, in the expectation of recognizing the charming counte- nance of Signora Vivaldi. But when a long interval had elapsed and she did not make her appearance, he began to think she must have taken her departure by some other means of egress from the theatre. Still, however, he resolved to watch the stage door until it closed; and presently a neat little equipage was summoned from the adjacent street leading out of the Haymarket, by the theatrical underling before alluded to. This equipage consisted of a light and Gomichoo (E(@) m