Miss Hamilton, when she came off for her changes, spoke of nothing but the business in hand and said little enough about that. She was indrawn and formal in her dealings with her dresser. Martyn wondered uneasily how much Poole had told her of their interviews, whether she had any strong views or prejudices about her husband’s niece or shared his resentment that Martyn herself had been cast as an understudy.

The heat radiated by the strong lights of the dressing-rooms intensified their characteristic smells. With business-like precision Miss Hamilton would aim an atomizer at her person and spray herself rhythmically with scent while Martyn, standing on a chair, waited to slip a dress over her head. After the end of the second act when she was about this business in the star-room, Poole came in: ‘That went very nicely, Ella,’ he said.

Martyn paused with the dress in her hands. Miss Hamilton extended her whitened arms and, with a very beautiful movement, turned to him.

‘Oh, darling,’ she said. ‘Did it? Did it really?’

Martyn thought she had never seen anyone more lovely than her employer was then. Hers was the kind of beauty that declared itself when most simply arrayed. The white cloth that protected her hair added a Holbein-like emphasis to the bones and subtly turning planes of her face. There was a sort of naïvety and warmth in her posture: a touching intimacy. Martyn saw Poole take the hands that were extended to him and she turned her head away, not liking, with the voluminous dress in her arms, to climb down from her station on the chair. She felt suddenly desolate and shrunken within herself.

‘Was it really right?’ Miss Hamilton said.

‘You were, at least.’

‘But—otherwise?’

‘Much as one would expect.’

‘Where’s John?’

‘In the circle, under oath not to come down until I say so.’

‘Pray God he keep his oath,’ she quoted sombrely.

‘Hallo, Kate,’ Poole said.

‘Kate?’ Miss Hamilton asked. ‘Why, Kate?’

‘I suspect her,’ said Poole, ‘of being a shrew. Get on with your job, Kate. What are you doing up there?’

Miss Hamilton said, ‘Really, darling!’ and moved away to the chair. Martyn slipped the dress over her head, jumped down and began to fasten it. She did this to a running accompaniment from Poole. He whispered to himself anxiously as if he were Martyn, muttered and grunted as if Miss Hamilton complained that the dress was tight, and thus kept up a preposterous dialogue, matching his words to their actions. This was done so quaintly and with so little effort that Martyn had much ado to keep a straight face and Miss Hamilton was moved to exasperated laughter. When she was dressed she took him by the arms. ‘Since when, my sweet, have you become a dressing-room comedian?’

‘Oh, God, your only jig-maker!’

‘Last act, please, last act,’ said the call-boy in the passage.

‘Come on,’ she said, and they went out together.