Part 20 (2/2)

He looked at her a little sadly, yet without any sign of real feeling.

To him she represented nothing more than a doll with brains, from whose intelligence he had profited, but of whose beauty he was weary.

”You know what our poet says, Nita,” he reminded her. ”'Love is like the rustling of the wind in the almond trees before dawn.' We cannot command it. It comes to us or leaves us without reason.”

She looked across the auditorium once more and spoke with her head turned away from her companion.

”There is no one in the East,” she said, ”because those who write me weekly send news of my lord's doings. There is no one in the East, because there they give the body who know nothing of the soul. And so my Prince is safe amongst them. But here--these western women have other gifts. Is that she, master of my life and soul?”

”I met her this evening for the first time,” he replied.

She laughed drearily.

”Eyes may meet in the street without speech, a glance may burn its way into the soul. Once I thought that I might love again, because a stranger smiled at me in the Bois, and he had grey eyes, and that look about his mouth which a woman craves for. He pa.s.sed on, and I forgot.

You see, my lord was still there.--So this is the woman.”

”Who knows?” he answered.

Immelan came into the box a little abruptly. There was a cloud upon his face which he did his best to conceal. Almost simultaneously, a messenger from behind the scenes arrived for Nita. She rose to her feet and wrapped her green cloak closely around her lissom figure.

”In a quarter of an hour,” she said, ”I have to appear again. It is to be good-night, then?”

She raised her eyes to his, and for a moment the appeal which knows no nationality shone out of their velvety depths. She stood before him simply, like a slave who pleads. Not a muscle of Prince Shan's face moved.

”It is to be good-night, Nita,” he answered calmly.

Her head drooped, and she pa.s.sed out. She had the air of a flower whose petals have been bruised. Immelan looked after her curiously, almost compa.s.sionately.

”It is finished, then, with the little one, Prince?” he enquired.

”It is finished,” was the calm reply.

Immelan stroked his short moustache thoughtfully.

”Is it wise?” he ventured. ”She has been faithful and a.s.siduous. She knows many things.”

Prince Shan's eyes were filled with mild wonder.

”She has had some years of my occasional companions.h.i.+p,” he said. ”It is surely as much as she could hope for or expect. We are not like you Westerners, Immelan,” he went on. ”Our women are the creatures of our will. We call them, or we send them away. They know that, and they are prepared.”

”It seems a little brutal,” Immelan muttered.

”You prefer your method?” his companion asked. ”Yet you practise deceit.

Your fancy wanders, and you lie about it. You lose your dignity, my friend. No woman is worth a man's lie.”

Immelan was leaning back in his chair, gazing steadfastly across the crowded theatre.

<script>