Part 42 (1/2)
”Paul! Dear Paul!” she said in her soft childish tones.
Zouche stirred, and stretching out one hand, groped with it blindly in the air. Pequita took it, warming it between her own little palms.
”Paul!” she said; ”Do wake up! You have been asleep such a long time!”
He opened his eyes. The grey pallor pa.s.sed from his face; he lifted his head and smiled.
”So! There you are, Pequita!” he said gently; ”Dear little one! So brave and cheerful in your hard life!”
He lifted her small brown hand, and kissed it. The feverish tension of his brain relaxed,--and two large tears welled up in his eyes, and rolled down his cheeks. ”Poor little girl!” he murmured weakly; ”Poor little hard-working girl!”
All the men sat silent, watching the gradual softening of Zouche's drunken delirium by the mere gentle caress of the child; and Pasquin Leroy was conscious of a curious tightening of the muscles of his throat, and a straining compa.s.sion at his heart, which was more like acute sympathy with the griefs and sins of humanity than any emotion he had ever known. He saw that the thoughtful, pitiful eyes of Lotys were full of tears, and he longed, in quite a foolish, almost boyish fas.h.i.+on, to take her in his arms and by a whispered word of tenderness, persuade those tears away. Yet he was a man of the world, and had seen and known enough. But had he known them humanly? Or only from the usual standpoint of masculine egotism? As he thought this, a strain of sweet and solemn music stole through the room,--Louis Valdor had risen to his feet, and holding the violin tenderly against his heart, was coaxing out of its wooden cavity a plaintive request for sympathy and attention. Such delicious music thrilled upon the dead silence as might have fitted Sh.e.l.ley's exquisite lines.
”There the voluptuous nightingales, Are awake through all the broad noon-day, When one with bliss or sadness fails, And through the windless ivy-boughs Sick with sweet love, droops dying away On its mate's music-panting bosom; Another from the swinging blossom, Watching to catch the languid close Of the last strain; then lifts on high The wings of the weak melody, Till some new strain of feeling bear The song, and all the woods are mute; When there is heard through the dim air The rush of wings, and rising there Like many a lake-surrounded flute Sounds overflow the listener's brain, So sweet that joy is almost pain.”
”Thank G.o.d for music!” said Sergius Thord, as Valdor laid aside his bow; ”It exorcises the evil spirit from every modern Saul!”
”Sometimes!” responded Valdor; ”But I have known cases where the evil spirit has been roused by music instead of suppressed. Art, like virtue, has two sides!”
Zouche was still holding Pequita's hand. He looked ill and exhausted, like a man who had pa.s.sed through a violent paroxysm of fever.
”You are a good child, Pequita!” he was saying softly; ”Try to be always so!--it is difficult--but it is easier to a woman than to a man! Women have more of good in them than men!”
”How about the dance?” suggested Thord; ”The hour is late,--close on midnight--and Lotys must be tired.”
”Shall I dance now?” enquired Pequita.
Lotys smiled and nodded. Four or five of the company at once got up, and helped to push aside the table.
”Will you play for me, Monsieur Valdor?” asked the little girl, still standing by the side of Zouche.
”Of course, my child! What shall it be? Something to suggest a fairy hopping over mushrooms in the moonlight?--or Shakespeare's Ariel swinging on a cobweb from a bunch of may?”
Pequita considered, and for a moment did not reply, while Zouche, still holding her little brown hand, kissed it again.
”You are very fond of dancing?” asked Pasquin Leroy, looking at her dark face and big black eyes with increasing interest.
She smiled frankly at him.
”Yes! I would like to dance before the King!”
”Fie, fie, Pequita!” cried Johan Zegota, while murmurs of laughter and playful cries of 'Shame, Shame' echoed through the room.
”Why not?” said Pequita; ”It would do me good, and my father too! Such poor, sad people come to the theatre where I dance,--they love to see me, and I love to dance for them--but then--they too would be pleased if I could dance at the Royal Opera, because they would know I could then earn enough money to make my father comfortable.”
”What a very matter-of-fact statement in favour of kings!” exclaimed Max Graub;--”Here is a child who does not care a b.u.t.ton for a king as king; but she thinks he would be useful as a figure-head to dance to,--for idiotic Fas.h.i.+on, grouping itself idiotically around the figure-head, would want to see her dance also--and then--oh simple conclusion!--she would be able to support her father! Truly, a king has often been put to worse uses!”
”I think,” said Pasquin Leroy, ”I could manage to get you a trial at the Royal Opera, Pequita! I know the manager.”
She looked up with a sudden blaze of light in her eyes, sprang towards him, dropped on one knee with an exquisite grace, and kissed his hand.
”Oh!--you will be goodness itself!” she cried;--”And I will be grateful--indeed I will!--so grateful!”