The Hillman Part 43

Sophy shook her head. They were in the taxicab now and on their way.

"Too late!" she sighed. "Besides, my sense of economy revolts at the idea of your empty box. If Louise is tired to-night, though, I warn you that I shall insist upon supper."

"It's a bargain," John promised. "We'll drive Louise home, and then I'll take you back to Luigi's. We haven't been out together for some time, have we?"

She looked up at him with a little grimace and patted his hand.

"You have neglected me," she said. "I think all these fine ladies have turned your head."

She drew a little closer to him and pa.s.sed her arm through his. John made no responsive movement. He was filled with resentment at the sensation of pleasure that her affectionate gesture gave him.

"I might as well try to flirt with a statue!" she declared, discontentedly. "What makes you so unlike other people, you man of granite? You used to kiss me very clumsily when I asked you to, and now--why, how hot your hand is!"

John pushed her away almost roughly.

"Yes, I know I did," he admitted, "and now I don't want to any more, do you see? It's this cursed place and this cursed life! One's feet seem always on the sands. I wouldn't have believed it when I first came here.

Don't tease me, Sophy," he added, turning toward her suddenly. "I am rather inclined to despise myself these last few weeks. Don't make me worse--don't make me loathe myself!"

She shrugged her shoulders a little pettishly as she leaned back in the cab.

"You are nothing but a crank," she declared; "you and your brother, too!

You've lived among those flinty rocks till you've become almost like them yourselves."

The taxi drew up at the theater. John, with a little sigh of relief, was already out upon the pavement. Sophy's eyes were still s.h.i.+ning at him through her veil, as she walked lightly and gracefully by his side, but he led the way in silence down the stairs to the box that he had taken for the season.

"And now," she exclaimed with a pout, as she leaned back in the corner, "my little reign is over! You will sit in the front seat and you will look at Louise, and feel Louise, and your eyes will s.h.i.+ne Louise, until the moment for your escape comes, when you can go round to the back and meet her; and then you will try to make excuses to get rid of me, so that you can drive her home alone!"

"Rubbish, Sophy!" he answered, as he drew a chair to her side. "You know quite well that I can't sit in the front of the box, for the very prosaic reason that I haven't changed my clothes. We shall both have to linger here in the shadows."

"Well, there is some comfort in that, at any rate," Sophy confessed. "If I become absolutely overcome by my emotions, I can hold your hand."

"You had better not," John observed. "The stage manager has his eye on you. If his own artists won't behave in the theater, what can he expect of the audience?"

Sophy made a little grimace. "If they stop my three pounds a week," she murmured, "I shall either have to starve or become your valet!"

The curtain was up and the play in progress--a work of genius rather in its perfectly balanced development and its phraseology than in any originality of motive. Louise, married as an ingenue, so quickly transformed into the brilliant woman of society poking mild fun at the unsympathetic husband to whom she has been sold while still striving to do her duty as a wife, easily dominated every situation. The witty speeches seemed to sparkle upon her lips. While she was upon the stage, every spoken sentence was listened to with rapt attention. Graillot, seated as usual among the shadows of the opposite box, moved his head appreciatively each time she spoke, as if punctuating the measured insolence of her brilliance.

Exquisitely gowned, full of original and daring gestures, she moved about the stage as if her feet scarcely touched the boards. She was full of fire and life in the earlier stages of the comedy. She heaped mild ridicule upon her husband and his love-affairs, exchanged light sallies with her guests, or parried with resourceful subtlety the constant appeals of the man she loved.

The spell of it all, against which he had so often fought, came over John anew. He set his chair back against the wall and watched and listened, a veritable sense of hypnotism creeping over his senses.

Presently the same impulse which had come to him so many times before induced him to turn his head, to read in the faces of the audience the reflection of her genius. He had often watched those long lines of faces changing, each in its own way, under the magic of her art. To-night he looked beyond. He knew very well that his search had a special object.

Suddenly he gripped the arms of his chair. In the front row of the pit, sitting head and shoulders taller than the men and women who lounged over the wooden rest in front of them, was Stephen. More than ever, among these unappropriate surroundings, he seemed to represent something almost patriarchal, a forbidding and disapproving spirit sitting in judgment upon some modern and unworthy wantonness. His face, stern and grave, showed little sign of approval or disapproval, but to John's apprehending eyes the critical sense was there, the verdict foredoomed.

He understood as in a flash that Stephen had come there to judge once more the woman whom his brother desired.

At last the second act ended, and John pushed back his chair. Sophy, whose apprehensions were remarkably acute, especially where John was concerned, lifted the edge of the curtain and understood. She exchanged a quick glance with her companion.

"He won't like it!" she whispered.

"If only we could get him away before the next act!" John muttered.

They both glanced once more into the auditorium below. Many of the spectators had left their places to stroll about. Not so Stephen.

Unflinchingly he sat there, with an air of dogged patience. He had bought a program and was reading the names, one by one.

"Is there nothing we can do?" Sophy asked. "Couldn't we send a message--persuade him that the last act isn't worth staying for?"

John shook his head.

"Stephen has come here with a purpose," he said gloomily. "I might have guessed it. He will see it through. He will sit there till the end."

The curtain went up again and the play moved on, with subtle yet inevitable dramatic power, toward the hated and dreaded crisis. Louise's moment of combined weakness and strength was so wonderfully natural, so very human, that its approach sent a thrill of antic.i.p.ation through the audience. The intense lifelikeness of the play predominated over every other feeling. It was as if real things were happening, as if they were watching and listening to a woman at the moment of her choice. And then at last the tense moment, the sudden cessation of her husband's foolish laughter and futile taunts, the supreme denouement with its interval of breathless silence.

John, who was slowly tearing his program to pieces, turned his head toward the spot where his brother was sitting in the dimmer light.

Stephen's countenance seemed to have changed into the color as well as the likeness of those granite rocks. The line of faces on either side of him appeared now curiously featureless. His eyes were still riveted upon that closed door, his eyebrows had come together in a stupendous frown.

Sophy had parted the curtain and was peeping through.

"Nothing in the world could make him understand!" she murmured. "Do you think it would be of any use if we met him outside?"

John shook his head.

"You can't convince people," he replied, "when you are unconvinced yourself."

The play came to an end presently, amid a storm of applause. The grim figure in the front of the pit remained motionless and silent. He was one of the last to leave, and John watched his retreating figure with a sigh. Sophy drew him away.

"We had better hurry round," she said. "Louise is always very quick getting ready."

They found her, as a matter of fact, in the act of leaving. She welcomed them naturally enough, but John fancied that her greeting showed some signs of embarra.s.sment.

"You knew that I was going out to supper to-night?" she asked. "Or didn't I tell you? The prince has asked the French people from His Majesty's to meet M. Graillot at supper. I am hurrying home to dress."

John handed her into her waiting automobile in silence. She glanced into his face.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing!"

"The prince would have asked you, without a doubt," Louise continued, "but he knows that you are not really interested in the stage, and this party is entirely French--they do not speak a word of English. _Au revoir!_ Sophy, take care of him, and mind you behave yourselves!"

She waved her hand to them both and threw herself back among the cus.h.i.+ons as the car glided off. John walked to the corner of the street in gloomy silence. Then he remembered his companion. He stopped short.

"Sophy," he begged, "don't hold me to my promise. I don't want to take you out to supper to-night. I am not in the humor for it."

"Don't be foolis.h.!.+" she replied. "If you stay alone, you will only imagine things and be miserable. We needn't have any supper, unless you like. Let me come and sit in your rooms with you."

"No!" he decided, almost roughly. "I am losing myself, Sophy. I am losing something of my strength every day. Louise doesn't help as she might. Don't stay with me, please. I am beginning to have moods, and when they come on I want to be alone."

She drew a little closer to him.