PUBLICITY‘Benedick,’ murmured Tadema, just loudly enough for the cadence of his fine voice to be audible all round the dressing-room.
The intonation did not quite satisfy his fastidious ear.
‘Benedick,’ he repeated, giving the word this time a sadness and a certain pride.
Then, with an assumption of carelessness which could have been only for his personal benefit, since he was entirely without other audience, he took up the copy of the illustrated weekly once more and studied afresh the full-page snapshots of himself and Chloe standing on the steps of her mother’s house in Brook Street.
Her new oiled make-up looked very well, he thought. She was youthful, yet sophisticated and arresting without being actually vulgar. A dear girl.
Of himself he was not so sure. Snapshots were notorious
