Part 15 (1/2)

The play started again. Marion, astonished at her own violence, ashamed, shattered by conflicting emotions, speechless, could only bow her approval of the change, not that the manager cared a pin whether she approved or not.

_Was Delacour acting?_ Marion knew that he was not. And as the play proceeded it changed in character. The words were the words she had written. Many of them were the words he had used himself, but his pa.s.sion transformed them. They took on a new meaning. It was Maggie who was becoming a mean figure in spite of her grandiloquence--perhaps because of it. Her rigid principles, her petty, egotistic pride, her faultless demeanour jarred on the audience. Lenore, like a true artist, caught the novel side of the situation and emphasised it. Her Maggie dwindled, dwindled, until the man held the stage alone, dominated it.

Marion had never before seen his side of the miserable drama in which her happiness had made s.h.i.+pwreck, had never before seen her own character in this light. It was as if he were saying the truth at last, defending himself at last--which he had never done in real life.

Finally repulsed, silent under her scornful invective, Delacour gathered himself together and went off magnificent in defeat.

The curtain fell for the last time.

The tiny audience, strengthened by the rest of the cast who were not needed in the final scene, broke into rapturous applause. The manager, excited and radiant, clapped with the rest.

”He's immense. He's immense!” he kept on saying. ”Delacour's the making of it. He's immense! Hang Montgomery! He may have bronchitis till he's blue. Delacour makes the play. I will fetch him!”

He disappeared behind the curtain, and in a few minutes reappeared, dragging Delacour with him to introduce him to Marion.

”We have met before,” she said faintly, putting out her hand.

”Did we ever really meet?” he said gently, taking it for a second in his.

He seemed quite exhausted. Now that she saw him close at hand, he looked much older. And his face was grievously lined, deteriorated.

She tried to thank him, to express her grat.i.tude for the way he had extricated them from a great difficulty; but her words were so hesitating and frigid that the manager broke in, shaking him warmly by the hand.

Delacour bowed his thanks, murmured something conventional, and was gone.

Every one was in a hurry to go, too. Marion remained a moment longer talking to the manager, and then they went together through the royal box to the private entrance, where her brougham was waiting. Just as they reached it, he was called away, and an attendant let her out.

Waiting beside her brougham, in the rain, holding the door for her, was Delacour, in a shabby overcoat, his hat in his hand.

Again their eyes met in a long look. His, sombre, melancholy, humble, had a great appeal in them.

She seemed encased in some steel armour, which made movement and speech wellnigh impossible. She thanked him inaudibly.

He shut the door, said ”Home” to the coachman, and turned away.

The carriage drove off.

Then something in Marion snapped. Her other self, the poor woman in her whom she had denied and starved and brow-beaten, pounced upon her and called out suddenly, desperately:

”Forgive him. What is life without him? Think of the last ten years. Has there been one day in all those grinding years when you have not longed to see him? Has there ever been one day when you would not have given up your ease and luxury for a cottage with him? And now he has come back into your life. He still loves you. Are you going to lose him again? You were vindictive, and you know it. Go back now and kneel down in the wet street and ask him to forgive you. Quick! quick!--before it is too late.”

The other woman in her, the woman who had discarded him, stopped her ears.

”No, no; I had good reasons for breaking with him. They hold as good to-day as ten years ago.”

”Very well,” said the other scornfully. ”Then never dare to tell yourself again that you ever loved him. Let that lie cease. Your love was only pretty words and pride and self-seeking, and a miserable streak of pa.s.sion. What do you care what happens to him? Don't go back. You don't care for him. You never cared. Never, never. And he knows it. He is telling himself so now--at this moment.”

She stopped the brougham. She trembled so much that she could hardly tell the man to drive back to the theatre. He turned slowly, the horse evidently reluctant, and in a few minutes she was once more at the private entrance. The door was closed. No one was to be seen in the little _cul de sac_. The lamp over the door was out. She got out and rang--once, twice, and yet again. Then she realised that every one else had hurried away as precipitately as she had done, for the dawn was already in the sky. She dragged herself back into her carriage and drove home, shaking in every limb.

After all, it did not matter. She would get his address from the manager first thing to-morrow, and go straight on and see him, and sacrifice her pride, and beseech him to take her back. She had been too proud. She saw that at last. She would say so. She saw at last that resentment is disloyalty. She would say so. She was so sick of her present life that she would say anything. And he loved her still, thank G.o.d! And--thank G.o.d, too--she was rich. And it was obvious that he was poor. She had much to share with him. And she was still attractive. Other men still wished to marry her. She was pretty, still. All that she had, all that she still was, she would give him. And this long nightmare of the last ten years would pa.s.s at last, as that other nightmare of her youth had pa.s.sed--her wretched home, with a drunken father and a heartbroken mother. That had pa.s.sed, though at the time it had seemed as if it would endure for ever. Her parents had died, and her vulgar, kindly, rich aunt had adopted her. And now this second nightmare was at an end, too. The ache would go out of her life, the long daily hunger and thirst would cease. There would be no more dreadful homecomings after evenings of amus.e.m.e.nt; no more sick recoil and despair at waking and seeing the pale finger of the dawn upon the blind. She would be happy at last.