“Rat me!” said the spokesman of the fashionable group, looking round with what Pamela thought was a very offensive leer. “If my Lord Harborough sets the example, who are we that we should refuse to follow it? After you, my Lord Marquis.” Pamela had often heard the name of the great Marquis, especially of late, but she had never yet seen him. She now gazed at him with shrewd eyes of disapproval. “Ah, my Lord, you may have a fine taste in coaches and in the horses to draw them, and a superlative delicate taste in play-actresses, but to my mind ’tis mortal poor taste to be bringing those grey hairs that are under your wig, and an honoured name, and all your privilege to the undoing of one poor girl! You should keep that smile for your grand-nephews--Mr. W.’s brats--you should indeed, my Lord!” My Lord Harborough raised himself from a profound bow over the hand which Felicity Falcon extended to him in a careless sort of way, more as if she were dropping something out of it than yielding it to his caress. The smile he gave her as he straightened himself was full of ardent admiration. Although he failed to meet with her favour, Pamela could not but admit that he had a very splendid presence, and that any woman’s head, much less that of a young player on her promotion, might well be turned by receiving attention from such a quarter. My Lord Marquis now waved the company from the room with a politely compelling gesture, as of a host who bids his guests pass before him; kissed his hand to Miss Falcon, and himself departed. “Now, my dear girl, my dear girl, the hat!” cried she, turning upon Pamela. And Pamela had the strange thought that Miss Falcon--even though she had stepped off the boards--had not ceased acting for one single moment, and that no emotion had been more cleverly counterfeited than the playfulness with which she was now herself addressed. Indeed, when Felicity Falcon first contemplated her countenance in the mirror under that confection in which Miss Pounce considered her own genius had reached its most perfect expression, so deep an air of tragedy spread itself over her features that the sprightly milliner thought in dismay, “Heaven be good to me; to see her one would think my lovely feathers were crowning a hearse!” But as if she guessed her companion’s thoughts, the play-actress instantly resumed a jocund air, and, twisting her head from side to side, treated her own reflection to smiles of different meanings, as though testing their effect; mischief, archness, innocent mirth, mockery, melancholy, chased each other across her fair countenance like shadows over a pool, and in each Miss Pounce could have cried out to her to stay it, vowing that she was more perfect in it than the last.