An Engagement of Convenience: A NovelZangwill, Louis
General
An Engagement of Convenience: A Novel
Zangwill, Louis
Fiction
They found the theatre easily, and, from their snug box, enjoyed a most
lurid melodrama, which amply redeemed the promise of the hoarding, and
was played by a vigorous company who seemed in no wise dismayed by
yawning spaces and a thin scattering of audience. Nay, the thrills were
even more than the adventurers had reckoned on, for pistol shots
suddenly rang out in the third act, and Lady Betty clutched hard at the
curtain of the box. She presently realised, however, that the iniquitous
foreign nobleman with the fur overcoat and large moustachios, whose
veiled hand had directed the remorseless persecution of the good and
righteous, had at last paid for his misdeeds, and with this passing of
the villain Lady Betty found that her sense of poetic justice was
abundantly satisfied; though the luckless heroine, appearing on the
scene just then, and incautiously picking up the fallen pistol, was at
once arrested as the manifest murderess. Then the curtain went down, and
Lady Betty rose.
"We must not stay to the end. Our day is over, and I want to give you
the promised souvenir of our brief friendship."
There was a catch in her voice, and he understood that the sob had been
suppressed with difficulty. He felt it was for him now to be strong; to
set the note of stoic resignation, even as she had led off their
adventures with a mood that had made this day the most wonderful of all
his life.
"Ah, your strange, strange souvenir!" he laughed. "You must admit I have
waited patiently."
"It was very wicked of me," she admitted. "But I shall keep you tortured
with curiosity till the moment I give it to you. I have it at home. We
had better drive back all the way, if we can find a vehicle."
They slipped out of the box and along the corridor and into the open
road. It was a keen night, but very clear. The perspective of street
lamps stretched endlessly on either hand. There was a plentiful
sprinkling of people about, and the tram-cars were still passing. At the
kerb were a few cabs, waiting for possible clients, so they selected the
smartest of the vehicles; and the driver, who had been standing flinging
his arms about for warmth, climbed into his seat, stolidly indifferent
that "fares" from the theatre should wish to go so far afield into the
regions of the elect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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