One day she and Kitty Clive were at it ding-dong; the green-room was full
of actors, male and female, but there were no strangers, and the ladies
were saying things which the men of this generation only think; at last
Mrs. Woffington finding herself roughly, and, as she thought, unjustly
handled, turned upon the assembly and said: "What man did ever I ruin in
all my life? Speak who can!"
And there was a dead silence.
"What woman is there here at as much as three pounds per week even, that
hasn't ruined two at the very least?"
Report says there was a dead silence again, until Mrs. Clive perked up,
and said she had only ruined one, and that was his own fault!
Mrs. Woffington declined to attach weight to this example. "Kitty Clive
is the hook without the bait," said she; and the laugh turned, as it
always did, against Peggy's antagonist.
Thus much was speedily shown to Mr. Vane, that, whatever were Mrs.
Woffington's intentions toward him, interest had at present nothing to do
with them; indeed it was made clear that even were she to surrender her
liberty to him, it would only be as a princess, forging golden chains for
herself with her own royal hand.
Another fortnight passed to the mutual satisfaction of the lovers. To
Vane it was a dream of rapture to be near this great creature, whom
thousands admired at such a distance; to watch over her, to take her to
the theater in a warm shawl, to stand at the wing and receive her as she
came radiant from her dressing-room, to watch her from her rear as she
stood like some power about to descend on the stage, to see her
falcon-like stoop upon the said stage, and hear the burst of applause
that followed, as the report does the flash; to compare this with the
spiritless crawl with which common artists went on, tame from their first
note to their last; to take her hand when she came off, feel how her
nerves were strung like a greyhound's after a race, and her whole frame
in a high even glow, with the great Pythoness excitement of art.
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