But if Nina had gone away--depriving him of her pleasant companionship, her quick sympathy, her grave and almost matron-like remonstrances--there was another quite ready to take her place. Miss Burgoyne did not at all appear to regret the disappearance from the theatre of Antonia Rossi. She was kinder to this young man than ever; she showered her experienced blandishments upon him, even when she rallied him about his gloomy looks or listless demeanor. All the time he was not on the stage, and not engaged in dressing, he usually spent in her sitting-room; there were cigarettes and lemonade awaiting him; and when she herself could not appear, at all events she could carry on a sort of conversation with him from the inner sanctuary; and often she would come out and finish her make-up before the large mirror while she talked to him. "They tell me you gamble," she said to him on one occasion, in her blunt way. "Not much," he said. "What good do you get out of it?" she asked again. "Oh, well, it is a sort of distraction. It keeps people from thinking." "And what have you to think about?" continued Grace Mainwaring, regarding herself in the glass. "What dreadful crimes have you to forget? You want to drown remorse, do you? I dare say you ought; but I don't believe it all the same. You men don't care what you do, and poor girls' hearts get broken. But gambling! Well, I imagine most men have one vice or another, but gambling has always seemed to me the stupidest thing one could take to. Drink kills you, but I suppose you get some fun out of it. What fun do you get out of gambling? Too serious, isn't it? And then the waste of money. The fact is, you want somebody to take care of you, Master Lionel; and a fine job she'll have of it, whoever undertakes it!" "Why should it be a she," he asked, "assuming that I am incapable of managing my own affairs?" "Because it is the way of the world," she answered, promptly. "And you, of all people, need somebody to look after you. Why should you have to take to gambling, at your time of life? You're not shamming _ennui_, are you, to imitate your swell acquaintances? _Ennui!_ I could cure their _ennui_ for them, if they'd only come to _me_!" she added, somewhat scornfully. "A cure for _ennui_?" he said. "That would be valuable; what is it?" "I'd tell them to light a wax match and put it up their nostril and hold it there till it went out," she answered, with some sharpness. "It would make them jump, anyway, wouldn't it?" he said, listlessly. "It would give them something to claim their very earnest attention for at least a fortnight," Miss Burgoyne observed, with decision; and then she had to ask him to open the door, for it was time for her to get up to the wings.