Part 12 (1/2)

Then I could have cried as a child cries, with the snapping of the tension, when he answered: ”It was only that terrible last scene, darling. I've seen you die in other parts. But it never affected me like this. Perhaps it's because you didn't belong to me in those days. Or is it that you were more realistic in your acting to-night than ever before? Anyway, it was awful--so horribly real. It was all I could do to sit still and not jump out of the box to save you. Prince Cyril was a poor chap not to thwart the villain. I should have killed him in the third act, and then Helene might have been happily married, instead of dying.”

”I believe you would have killed him,” I said.

”I know I should. It's a mistake not to be jealous. I admit that I'm jealous. But such jealousy is a compliment to a woman, my dearest, not an insult.”

”How you feel things!” I exclaimed. ”Even a play on the stage--”

”If the woman I love is the heroine.”

”Will you ever be blase, like the rest of the men I know?” I laughed, though I could have sobbed.

”Never, I think. It isn't in me. Do you despise me for my enthusiasm?”

”I only love you the more,” I said, wondering every instant, in a kind of horrid undertone, how I was to get him away.

”I admit I wasn't made for diplomacy,” he went on. ”I wish, I had money enough to get out of it and take you off the stage, away into some beautiful, peaceful world, where we need think of nothing but our love for each other, and the good we might do others because of our love, and to keep our world beautiful. Would you go with me?”

”Ah, if I could!” I sighed. ”If I could go with you to-morrow, away into that beautiful, peaceful world. But-who knows? Meanwhile--”

”Meanwhile, you don't mean to send me away from you?” he pleaded, in a coaxing way he has, which is part of his charm, and makes him seem like a boy. ”You don't know what it is, after that scene of your death on the stage, where I couldn't get to you--where another man was your lover--to touch you again, alive and warm, your own adorable, vivid self. You _will_ let me go home with you, in your carriage, anyhow as far as the house, and kiss you good-night there, even if you're so tired you must drive me out then?”

I would have given all my success of that night, and more, to say ”yes.”

But instead I had to stumble into excuses. I had to argue that we mustn't be seen leaving the theatre together--yet, until everyone knew that we were engaged. As for letting him come to me at home, if he dreamt how my head ached, he wouldn't ask it. I almost broke down as I said this; and poor Raoul was so sorry for me that he immediately offered to leave me at once.

”It's a great sacrifice, though, to give up what I've been looking forward to for days,” he said, ”and to let you go from me to-night of all nights.”

”Why to-night of all nights?”, I asked quickly, my coward conscience frightening me again.

”Only because I love you more than ever, and--it's a stupid feeling, of course, I suppose all the fault of that last scene in the play--yet I feel as if--But no, I don't want to say it.”

”You must say it,” I cried.

”Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then. I feel as if I were in danger of losing you. It's just a feeling--a weight on my heart. Nothing more. Rather womanish, isn't it?”

”Not womanish, but foolish,” I said. ”Shake off the feeling, as one wakes up from a nightmare. Think of to-morrow. Meeting then will be all the sweeter.” As I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying different words mockingly. ”If there be any meeting--to-morrow, or ever.”

I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly:

”Before we say good-bye, I've something to show you--something you'll like very much. Wait here till I get it from the next room.”

Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and there, a dear old, comfortable, dependable thing. She was delighted with my success, which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the least excited, because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would have thought the sky must be about to fall if I had failed. She was as placid as she was on other, less important nights, far more placid than she would have been if she had known that she was guarding not only my jewellery, but a famous diamond necklace, worth at least five hundred thousand francs.

There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box. I had felt perfectly safe in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on earth--short of a bomb explosion--could tempt the good creature out of my dressing-room in my absence, and that even if a bomb did explode, she would try to be blown up with my jewel box clutched in her hands.

Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brus.h.i.+ng a little stage dust off my third act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the box (which always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my carriage) until the electric light over the dressing table set the diamonds on fire.

Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones. I had no idea how magnificent they were. Not that there were a great many of them. The necklace was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat ta.s.sels depending from it. But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp came, were as large as my little finger nail, and the largest were almost the size of a filbert. All were of perfect colour and fire, extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, as well as flawless.

Besides, the necklace had a history which would have made it interesting even if it hadn't been intrinsically of half its value.