“I think I penetrated their secret: undoubtedly they began as lovers but they had long been particularly close friends. Is that common? I haven’t seen much of it, if it is. They were sillies, of course. Sir John would never hear a word that suggested that Milady was unsuitably cast as a young woman, though I know he was aware of it. And she was a silly because she played up to him, and clung quite pitiably to some mannerisms of youth. I knew them for years, you know; you only knew them on that tour. But I remember much later, when a newspaper interviewer touched the delicate point, Sir John said with great dignity and simplicity, ‘Ah, but you see, we always felt that our audiences were ready to make allowances if the physical aspect of a character was not ideally satisfied, because they knew that so many other fine things in our performances were made possible thereby.’

“He had a good point, you know. Look at some of the leading women in the Comédie Française; crone is not too hard a word when first you see them, but in ten minutes you are delighted with the art, and forget the appearance, which is only a kind of symbol, anyhow. Milady had extraordinary art, but alas, poor dear, she did run to fat. It’s better for an actress to become a bag of bones, which can always be equated somehow with elegance. Fat’s another thing. But what a gift of comedy she had, and how wonderfully it lit up a play like Rosemary, where she insisted on playing a character part instead of the heroine. Charity, Roly, charity.”

“You’re a queer one to be talking about charity. You ate Sir John. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. You ate that poor old ham.”

“That’s one of your belittling words, like ‘toady’. I’ve said it: I apprenticed myself to an egoism, and if in the course of time, because I was younger and had a career to make, the egoism became more mine than his, what about it? Destiny, m’boy? Inevitable, quonk?”

“Oh, God, don’t do that, it’s too horribly like him.”

“Thank you. I thought so myself. And, as I tell you, I worked to achieve it!

“You had quite a jolly time on the voyage to Canada, as I recall. But don’t you remember those rehearsals we held every day, in such holes and corners of the ship as the Purser could make available to us? Macgregor and I were too busy to be seasick, which was a luxury you didn’t deny yourself. You were sick the night of the ship’s concert. Those concerts are utterly a thing of the past. The Purser’s assistant was busy almost before the ship left Liverpool, ferreting out what possible talent there might be on board—ladies who could sing ‘The Rosary’ or men who imitated Harry Lauder. A theatrical company was a godsend to the poor man. And in the upshot C. Pengelly Spickernell sang ‘Melisande in the Wood’ and ‘The Floral Dance’ (nicely contrasted material, was what he called it) and Grover Paskin told funny stories (insecurely cemented together with ‘And that reminds me of the time—’) and Sir John recited Clarence’s Dream from Richard III; Milady made the speech hitting up the audience for money for the Seaman’s Charities, and did it with so much charm and spirit that they got a record haul.