"
"Not smaller than they are now," Gladys observed. "_Au revoir._" And
with one of those tantalising and perplexing smiles, with which some
women, consciously or unconsciously, counteract--and sometimes,
perhaps, for reasons best known to themselves--completely nullify the
needless severity of their speech, shook hands with Shiel, and left
him.
CHAPTER XVIII
STAGE THREE
The weeks sped by. Gladys Martin went on the Stage, and thanks to
beauty and influence, rather than to talent--though in the latter
respect she was certainly not wanting--she became an immediate
success. Her photos, some taken alone, and some with Bromley Burnham,
occupied a conspicuous place in all the weekly illustrateds, and in
innumerable shop windows. People talked of her as they do of all
actresses. Some said her father was a broken-down peer; some, a needy
parson, and some, a policeman! Some said the Duke of Warminster was
madly in love with her; others that Seaton Smyth, the notorious
Cabinet Minister, was pining for a divorce on her behalf, and others,
that she was seldom seen off the stage--she was entertaining the King
of the Belgians.
"I've met her," Lilian Rosenberg said to Shiel, as they stopped one
evening to gaze at Gladys's portraits outside the Imperial Theatre.
"She came to our place to have a dream interpreted, and I thought
nothing of her. I don't admire her the least bit in the world, do
you?"
"I do," Shiel replied, rather sharply.
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