Yet, we have to
remember that six consecutive days of rehearsing the leading part of The
Fallen Age, at the New Gaiety Theatre where the plaster is not yet properly
dry, might have brought about an unhingement of spirits which, again, might
have led to eccentricities.
Mrs. Hauksbee came to "The Foundry" to tiffin with Mrs. Mallowe, her one bosom
friend, for she was in no sense "a woman's woman." And it was a woman's
tiffin, the door shut to all the world; and they both talked chiffons, which
is French for Mysteries.
"I've enjoyed an interval of sanity," Mrs. Hauksbee announced, after tiffin
was over and the two were comfortably settled in the little writing-room that
opened out of Mrs. Mallowe's bedroom.
"My dear girl, what has he done?" said Mrs. Mallowe, sweetly. It is noticeable
that ladies of a certain age call each other "dear girl," just as
commissioners of twenty-eight years' standing address their equals in the
Civil List as "my boy."
"There's no he in the case. Who am I that an imaginary man should be always
credited to me? Am I an Apache?"
"No, dear, but somebody's scalp is generally drying at your wigwam-door.
Soaking, rather."
This was an allusion to the Hawley Boy, who was in the habit of riding all
across Simla in the Rains, to call on Mrs.
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