The Argosy — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

Ugly and Stupid. 6 At half-past eight the drawing-room was filled to overflowing. The curtain had risen, and the play proceeded most satisfactorily. Arthur quite justified the eulogiums that were indiscriminately heaped upon him. Mr. Finsbury, as the heavy swell, was painstaking and accurate, if a little heavier than was absolutely necessary. The vapid young men, one as the villain, the other as supplementary hero, acquitted themselves creditably enough. The hostess kept the audience genuinely amused by her clever impersonation of a scheming widow, while Mrs. Finsbury made so fair a picture in her every attitude, that her lack of histrionic power was readily forgiven by the spectators. And Gertrude? Gertrude, carefully got up by good-natured Mrs. Finsbury, really did, with the aid of darkened eye-lashes, rouge, powder, and becomingly-arranged hair, look almost pretty. She had little to say, but was on the stage a good deal; and here her natural self-possession stood her in good stead: she was perfectly at her ease. But beyond this, she contrived to throw into every word and gesture the expression of her deep interest in the hero. She followed the dialogue, her face betraying every emotion that it called up. In a word, she not only made something, but a good deal out of her part; made herself one of the objects of interest in the piece ; and once, in uttering the conventional protestations of undying affection to her lover, she clasped her hands on his arm, looking into his face with a passionate fervour of which she was her- self unconscious, her eyes glowing, her lips quivering, her face and volce expressing such an intensity of devotion, that Arthur was startled into forgetting his answer. It was over. Dancing was the next event on the programme, and people danced and talked it over in the complimentary style usual on such occasions. ‘‘ How good Mr. Hamilton was.” ‘‘ How lovely Mrs. Finsbury looked.” ‘How cleverly Mrs. Burnes acted.” But one and all were honestly enthusiastic over Gertrude. ‘She is a born actress.” ‘‘She was wonderful.” ‘It was so clever of her to make so much of that small part.” And to each and all Gertrude returned the same quiet smile of thanks. Arthur received his laurels with less than his usual easy self-complacency. He was distrait and even irritable. He was the only person in the house who did not congratulate Gertrude on her success. He never went near her. At the end of the evening, however, when nearly everyone not of the house party was gone, and two more dances must close the enter- tainment, he found himself close to Gertrude. He glanced at her, and, with a hesitation that those who knew him best would have supposed him incapable of, asked her to dance. All her rouge and eye-black washed off, she was once more to most peopte a sallow, uninteresting girl, But he could not forget those deep, earnest eyes, the intense fervour of her voice, the passionate emo- GOnlGaooks (GO