第38章 CHAPTER XIII(2)

"Do tell me, Mr. Germaine," she said. "Did you ever see a theater anywhere so full as this theater is to-night?" She handed me her opera-glass as she spoke. I moved to the front of the box to look at the audience. It was certainty a wonderful sight. Every available atom of space (as I gradually raised the glass from the floor to the ceiling of the building) appeared to be occupied. Looking upward and upward, my range of view gradually reached the gallery. Even at that distance, the excellent glass which had been put into my hands brought the faces of the audience close to me. I looked first at the pe rsons who occupied the front row of seats in the gallery stalls. Moving the opera-glass slowly along the semicircle formed by the seats, I suddenly stopped when I reached the middle. My heart gave a great leap as if it would bound out of my body. There was no mistaking _that_ face among the commonplace faces near it. I had discovered Mrs. Van Brandt! She sat in front--but not alone. There was a man in the stall immediately behind her, who bent over her and spoke to her from time to time. She listened to him, so far as I could see, with something of a sad and weary look. Who was the man? I might, or might not, find that out. Under any circumstances, I determined to speak to Mrs. Van Brandt. The curtain rose for the ballet. I made the best excuse I could to my friends, and instantly left the box. It was useless to attempt to purchase my admission to the gallery. My money was refused. There was not even standing room left in that part of the theater. But one alternative remained. I returned to the street, to wait for Mrs. Van Brandt at the gallery door until the performance was over. Who was the man in attendance on her--the man whom I had seen sitting behind her, and talking familiarly over her shoulder? While I paced backward and forward before the door, that one question held possession of my mind, until the oppression of it grew beyond endurance. I went back to my friends in the box, simply and solely to look at the man again. What excuses I made to account for my strange conduct I cannot now remember. Armed once more with the lady's opera-glass (I borrowed it and kept it without scruple), I alone, of all that vast audience, turned my back on the stage, and riveted my attention on the gallery stalls. There he sat, in his place behind her, to all appearance spell-bound by the fascinations of the graceful dancer. Mrs. Van Brandt, on the contrary, seemed to find but little attraction in the spectacle presented by the stage. She looked at the dancing (so far as I could see) in an absent, weary manner. When the applause broke out in a perfect frenzy of cries and clapping of hands, she sat perfectly unmoved by the enthusiasm which pervaded the theater. The man behind her (annoyed, as I supposed, by the marked indifference which she showed to the performance) tapped her impatiently on the shoulder, as if he thought that she was quite capable of falling asleep in her stall. The familiarity of the action--confirming the suspicion in my mind which had already identified him with Van Brandt--so enraged me that I said or did something which obliged one of the gentlemen in the box to interfere. "If you can't control yourself," he whispered, "you had better leave us." He spoke with the authority of an old friend. I had sense enough left to take his advice, and return to my post at the gallery door. A little before midnight the performance ended. The audience began to pour out of the theater. I drew back into a corner behind the door, facing the gallery stairs, and watched for her. After an interval which seemed to be endless, she and her companion appeared, slowly descending the stairs. She wore a long dark cloak; her head was protected by a quaintly shaped hood, which looked (on _her_) the most becoming head-dress that a woman could wear. As the two passed me, I heard the man speak to her in a tone of sulky annoyance.

"It's wasting money," he said, "to go to the expense of taking _you_ to the opera."

"I am not well," she answered with her head down and her eyes on the ground. "I am out of spirits to-night."

"Will you ride home or walk?"

"I will walk, if you please." I followed them unperceived, waiting to present myself to her until the crowd about them had dispersed. In a few minutes they turned into a quiet by-street. I quickened my pace until I was close at her side, and then I took off my hat and spoke to her. She recognized me with a cry of astonishment. For an instant her face brightened radiantly with the loveliest expression of delight that I ever saw on any human countenance. The moment after, all was changed. The charming features saddened and hardened. She stood before me like a woman overwhelmed by shame--without uttering a word, without taking my offered hand. Her companion broke the silence.