The morning saw a triumph of her diplomacy too. She and her mother were
going to the theater together that afternoon. Coming down in the train,
she had learned that Dacer was taking Effie and some of her friends to
the matinée to see Eugene Valentine's new play, The Winged Victory. It
had not been easy to steer Mrs. Hazlitt toward this popular success;
she was displeased with anything that fell short of the Comédie
Française. Lita was obliged to stoop to tactics suggested by Aurelia.
She intimated very gently that when her father took her to the play he
never cared what it was so long as she was amused, and so she wouldn't
bore her mother with the Valentine play: she'd wait until she and Pat
were going on a spree--that very evening, perhaps--
Mrs. Hazlitt came to terms at once and sent for the tickets.
They came in a little late. The play had already begun, but Lita's
first glance was not at the stage. Yes, he was there--three nice little
girls in a row in the front of the box, and he in the back--but not
alone. A woman was whispering in his ear. Who was she? His fiancée?
His wife? Had he said anything which actually precluded the idea of
his being married? "I expect to quarrel a great deal with my wife."
That did not say more than that he had not quarreled with her so far.
These two were certainly not quarreling. She sat in great agony; not of
spirit only, for gradually a distinct physical ache developed in her
left side. She tried to glue her eyes to the stage, and did not hear a
word, except an occasional murmur from her mother: "What a silly play!"
The lights went up at the end of the act. Lita saw that the woman was
rather fat and not at all young--thirty at least--and yet she knew
that these sophisticated older women-- There was something sleek and
sumptuous about this one, all in black velvet and diamonds and fur. A
slight respite came to her when Dacer went out to smoke a cigarette.
Did this indicate indifference or merely intimacy? The white-skinned
woman moved to the front of the box and began making herself agreeable
to the children, particularly to the girl Lita had picked out as
Effie--a regular sister-in-law-to-be manner. She had looked forward
to the theater as a good time to tell her mother all about it, with a
casual "Oh, do you see that man over there--" She was suffering too
much to permit it. She became aware that her mother felt something
tense and portentous in the air; and she said suddenly, with a sound
instinct for red herrings, that she thought Valentine the handsomest
creature that she had ever seen. Her mother's reaction to this took up
most of the entr'acte.
Doctor Dacer never saw them at all. Mrs. Hazlitt was an adept at
getting out of a theater and finding her car before anyone else. She
and Lita were on their way uptown before the little girls in the box
had sorted out their coats and hats. A good many people, mostly men,
came in to tea; and when they had gone it was time for Lita to dress to
go and dine with her father. Dine! She felt she would never be able to
eat again--a very curious feeling.
When Mrs. Hazlitt went to her room Margaret was as usual waiting to
help her dress, but it was not usual for Margaret to wear such a long
face. She had entered the family as Lita's nurse, but was now Mrs.
Hazlitt's maid and the pivot on which all domestic machinery revolved.
As she unhooked Mrs. Hazlitt's dress her solemn voice came from the
middle of Mrs. Hazlitt's back: "I think you ought to know, mum, that
when I was brushing that heavy coat of Miss Lita's this afternoon I
found something in the pocket."
"Goodness, Margaret! What?"
Margaret fumbled under her apron and produced a folded, typewritten
sheet a little grimy about the edges. Mrs. Hazlitt seized it and read:
_Dear Eugene Valentine:_ May I not tell you what an inspiration
your art is to me in my daily life? I think I have every
photograph of you that was ever published, and one I bought at a
fair with your signature. Only this is not my favorite. I like
best the one as a miner from The Emerald Light. It is so strong
and virile. Oh, Mr. Valentine, you cannot guess how happy it would
make me if you would autograph one of these for me! I am not at
present living in New York, but I am often there for week-ends,
and could easily bring one of these pictures to the theater after
a matinée, if that would be easiest for you.
I shall not attempt to tell you what your art means to me, and
how you make other men seem, and I fear they always will seem like
they was pigmies beside you.
I take the great liberty of inclosing my own picture in case it
would interest you to see what a great admirer of yours looks like.
Being merely a rough draft, it was unsigned.
Of all the possibilities that crossed Mrs. Hazlitt's mind on reading
this document, the possibility that her daughter had not written it
was not one. Several suspicious circumstances at once popped into her
head--Lita's insistence on going to Valentine's play; her admiration
of him; her tentative suggestion about marriage; her alternate high
spirits and abstraction.
"And who was he?" Margaret went on. "That young fellar brought her home
yesterday?"
"A man brought her home yesterday?"
"Yes--the two of them in a taxi."
"What did he look like?"
"I couldn't see him very good; but I heard him say 'Until Sunday' as he
got back into the taxi; and when I opened the door for Miss Lita you
could see she was smiling all over her face, but not letting it out."
Ah, how well, in other days, Mrs. Hazlitt had known that beatific state!