I'll swear there's no singing woman outside the King's Theatre--or
inside, for the matter of that--who can hold a candle by the side of
her. Have you forgotten the pretty baggage who so charmed us at the
Maiden Head?"
"Not I, faith. I was but jesting. And so you've fixed upon her. But I
hear that Mr. Rich has set his face against so many songs. He won't take
your Polly merely because she can sing."
"Mr. Rich is a fool--in some things," rejoined Gay hastily. "He can
dance, I grant you, and posture as no other man can, and he thinks he
can act! I heard him once at a party of friends. My good Spiller, if his
vanity ever prompted him to air his voice on the stage, the people would
think he was mocking them, and one half would laugh and the other half
boo and hiss."
"I know--I know. Still, he holds command, and he likes his own way, no
man better."
"No doubt, but whatever a man wills he has to give up when a woman says
yea or nay. My good duchess means to have a word with him over the
songs."
"If that's so John Rich had better capitulate at once. He's as good as
beaten."
Lavinia could only catch a word of this talk here and there. She was
being pestered by half a dozen sparkish admirers who were somewhat taken
aback when they discovered that the "gentlewoman who had never appear'd
on any stage before" could more than hold her own in repartee and give
the fops of fashion as good as or better than they gave.
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