Part 10 (2/2)

”Thank you both,” I stammered, trying not to look embarra.s.sed. ”But--I know you're all tired, and--.”

”And perhaps you have some nice engagement,” piped Lisa.

”It's too late for respectable British young men to have engagements in naughty Paris,” said Lady Mountstuart, laughing again (she looks very handsome when she laughs, and knows it). ”Isn't that true, Mr. Dundas?”

”It depends upon the engagement,” I managed to reply calmly. But then, as Di suddenly turned and looked straight at me with marked coldness, the blood sprang up to my face. I began to stammer again like a young a.s.s of a schoolboy. ”I'm afraid that I--er--the fact is, I _am_ engaged.

A matter of business. I wish I could get out of it, but I can't, and--er--I shall have to run off, or I will be late.

Good-bye,--good-bye.” Then I mumbled something about hoping to see them again before they left Paris, and escaped, knowing that I had made a horrid mess of my excuses. Di was laughing at something West said, as I turned away, and though perhaps his remark and her laugh had nothing to do with me, my ears burned, and there was a cold lump of iron, or something that felt like it, where my heart ought to have been.

Now was Lord Robert's time to propose--now, when she believed me faithless and unworthy--if he but knew it. And I was afraid that he would know it.

I got out into the open air, feeling half-dazed as one of the under porters called me a cab. I gave the name of a street in the direction, but at some distance from Maxine's, lest ears should hear which ought not to hear: and it was only when we were well away from the hotel that I amended my first instructions. Even then, I mentioned the street leading into the one where I was due, not the street itself.

”_Depechez vous_” I added, for I had delayed eight or ten minutes longer than I ought, and this had upset the exactness of my calculations. The man obeyed; nevertheless, instead of reaching the top of Maxine's street at two or three minutes before twelve, as I had intended, it was nearly ten minutes past when I got out of my cab at the corner: and when I came to the gate of the house a clock somewhere was striking the quarter hour after midnight.

MAXINE DE RENZIE'S PART

CHAPTER VIII

MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF

How I got through the play on that awful night, I don't know.

When I went onto the stage to take up my cue, soon after the beginning of the first act, my brain was a blank. I could not remember a single line that I had to say. I couldn't even see through the dazzling mist which floated before my eyes, to recognise Raoul in the box where I knew he would be sitting unless--something had happened. But presently I was conscious of one pair of hands clapping more than all the rest. Yes, Raoul was there. I felt his love reaching out to me and warming my chilled heart like a ray of suns.h.i.+ne that finds its way through shadows.

I must not fail. For his sake, I must not fail. I never had failed, and I would not now--above all, not now.

It was the thought of Raoul that gave me back my courage; and though I couldn't have said one word of my part before I came on the stage to answer that first cue, by the time the applause had died down enough to let me speak, each line seemed to spring into my mind as it was needed.

Then I got out of myself and into the part, as I always do, but had feared not to do to-night. The audience was mine, to play with as I liked, to make laugh, to make cry, and clap its hands or shout ”Brava-brava!”

Yet for once I feared it, feared that great crowd of people out there, as a lion tamer must at some time or other fear one of his lions. ”What if they know all I've done?” The question flashed across my brain. ”What if a voice in the auditorium should suddenly shout that Maxine de Renzie had betrayed France for money, English money?” How these hands which applauded would tingle to seize me by the throat and choke my life out.

Still, with these thoughts murmuring in my head like a kind of dreadful undertone, I went on. An actress can always go on--till she breaks. I think that she can't be bent, as other women can: and I envy the women who haven't had to learn the lesson of hardening themselves. It seems to me that they must suffer less.

At last came the end of the first act. But there were five curtain calls. Five times I had to go back and smile, and bow, and look delighted with the ovation I was having. Then, when the time came that I could escape, I met on the way to my dressing-room men carrying big harps and crowns, baskets and bunches of flowers which had been sent up to me on the stage. I pushed past, hardly glancing at them, for I knew that Raoul would be waiting.

There he was, radiant with his unselfish pride in me--my big, handsome lover, looking more like the Apollo Belvedere come alive and dressed in modern clothes than like an ordinary diplomatic young man from the Foreign Office. But then, of course, he is really quite out of place in diplomacy. Since he can't exist on a marble pedestal or some Old Master's canvas, he ought at least to be a poet or an artist--and so he is at heart; not one, but both; and a dreamer of beautiful dreams, as beautiful and n.o.ble as his own clear-cut face, which might be cold if it were not for the eyes, and lips.

There were people about, and we spoke like mere acquaintances until I'd led Raoul into the little boudoir which adjoins my dressing-room.

Then--well, we spoke no longer like mere acquaintances. That is enough to say. And we had five minutes together, before I was obliged to send him away, and go to dress for the second act.

The touch of Raoul's hands, and those lips of his that are not cold, gave me strength to go through all that was yet to come. There's something almost magical in the touch--just a little, little touch--of the one we love best. For a moment we can forget everything else, even if it were death itself waiting just round the corner. I've flirted with more than one man, sometimes because I liked him and it amused me,--as with Ivor Dundas,--sometimes because I had to win him for politic reasons. But I never knew that blessed feeling until I met Raoul du Laurier. It was a heavenly rest now to lay my head for a minute on his shoulder, just shutting my eyes, without speaking a word.

I thought--for I was worn out, body and soul, with the strain of keeping up and hiding my secret--that when I was dead the best paradise would be to lean so on Raoul's shoulder, never moving, for the first two or three hundred years of eternity. But as the peaceful fancy cooled my brain, back darted remembrance, like a poisonous snake. I reminded myself how little I deserved such a paradise, and how my lover's dear arms would put me away, in a kind of unbelieving horror, if he knew what I had done, and how I had betrayed his trust in me.

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