"Not 'happy,'" she said piously, "dazzled--only dazzled, dear Lady Darlington. Ladies like you and I can't be happy on the stage. It goes against the grain with you and I." Lady Darlington pouted. She was provokingly pretty when she pouted. She had pouted at Darlington on the day he met her. "But I _was_ happy," she declared. "You weren't satisfied in your heart; I'm sure you always felt there was better work to be done?" "Oh yes, but I hoped to get leading parts in time." "I mean purer work," explained the duchess, wincing, "social, helpful work." Lady Darlington laughed. She was prettier still when she laughed. She had laughed at Darlington on the day he proposed. "No, really not," she said frankly, "I never thought about it for a moment. Do you know, Duchess, I've always wanted to ask you--didn't you ache to go back to it after you married?" "Oh never," exclaimed the duchess; "I was grateful to Providence for letting me get away from it all. Circumstances made me go into the business, but I was never a pro--I mean to say a 'professional'--by nature. My father, the captain, died when I was quite a child, and I had my dear mother to support." "M'yes," murmured Lady Darlington, looking at the ceiling. "You were before my time, but of course I've heard.... Perhaps if I had been in the music-halls _I_ should have been glad to get away from it all," she added; "I was in the theatres, you know." "The 'smalls,' I think--I mean to say the 'minor provincial towns?'" said the duchess a shade tartly; "one of Jenkinson's Number II. companies, wasn't it?" "Lots of people considered it was better than the Number I.," returned Lady Darlington with pride, "and the _Rotherham Advertiser_ said a voice of such diapason as mine wasn't often heard in musical comedy." "Such what as yours?" "Diapason. Won't you have some muffin?" "They always serve me out so," said the duchess, "but I _will_ have just a mossel." She regarded her hostess anxiously; "I hope you aren't going to be mad?" she said. "I am mad," admitted Rosalind--her name was Rosalind--"mad with the longing for auld lang syne. If I weren't crazy I shouldn't own it, because you can't enter into my feelings a bit, but you're the only woman I meet who ought to be able to understand them. Long? Sometimes for a treat I tell the servants I'm not at home to anyone, and I shut myself up and long the tears into my eyes!" "You cry for the stage? Oh, but, my dear Lady Darlington, you mustn't give way, you must be firm with yourself. Think, just think, what an example you'd be setting if you took to it again! In our position we have the Country to consider. The middle classes say 'What's good enough for the Aristocracy must be good enough for us.' We have to consider our influence on those in a humbler sphere."