And then he saw. _John Denman and Molly Stanwell._ Denman's voice came
to him, hoarse and anguished.
"I can't live without you. What are we to do?"
Mr. Satterthwaite turned to go back the way he had come, but a hand
stayed him. Someone else stood in the doorway beside him, someone else
whose eyes had also seen.
Mr. Satterthwaite had only to catch one glimpse of her face to know how
wildly astray all his conclusions had been.
Her anguished hand held him there until those other two had passed up
the lane and disappeared from sight. He heard himself speaking to her,
saying foolish little things meant to be comforting, and ludicrously
inadequate to the agony he had divined. She only spoke once.
"Please," she said, "don't leave me."
He found that oddly touching. He was, then, of use to someone. And he
went on saying those things that meant nothing at all, but which were,
somehow, better than silence. They went that way to the Roscheimers'.
Now and then her hand tightened on his shoulder, and he understood that
she was glad of his company. She only took it away when they finally
came to their destination. She stood very erect, her head held high.
"Now," she said, "I shall dance! Do not be afraid for me, my friend. I
shall dance."
She left him abruptly. He was seized upon by Lady Roscheimer, much
bediamonded and very full of lamentations. By her he was passed on to
Claude Wickam.
"Ruined! Completely ruined. The sort of thing that always happens to
me. All these country bumpkins think they can dance. I was never even
consulted--"
His voice went on--went on interminably. He had found a sympathetic
listener, a man who _knew_. He gave himself up to an orgy of self-pity.
It only ended when the first strains of music began.
Mr. Satterthwaite came out of his dream. He was alert once more,
the critic. Wickam was an unutterable ass, but he could write
music--delicate gossamer stuff, intangible as a fairy web--yet with
nothing of the pretty-pretty about it.
The scenery was good. Lady Roscheimer never spared expense when aiding
her protégées. A glade of Arcady with lighting effects that gave it the
proper atmosphere of unreality.
Two figures dancing as they had danced through time immemorial. A
slender Harlequin flashing spangles in the moonlight with magic wand
and masked face, a white Columbine pirouetting like some immortal
dream--
Mr. Satterthwaite sat up. He had lived through this before. Yes,
surely--
Now his body was far away from Lady Roscheimer's drawing room. It was
in a Berlin museum gazing at a statuette of an immortal Columbine.
Harlequin and Columbine danced on. The wide world was theirs to dance
in.
Moonlight--and a human figure. Pierrot wandering through the wood,
singing to the moon. Pierrot who has seen Columbine and knows no rest.
The immortal two vanish, but Columbine looks back. She has heard the
song of a human heart.
Pierrot wandering on through the wood--darkness--his voice dies away in
the distance--
The village green--dancing of village girls--pierrots and pierrettes.
Molly as Pierrette. No dancer--Anna Denman was right there--but a fresh
tuneful voice as she sings her song, "Pierrette Dancing on the Green."
A good tune--Mr. Satterthwaite nodded approval. Wickam wasn't above
writing a tune when there was need for it. The majority of the village
girls made him shudder, but he realized that Lady Roscheimer was
determinedly philanthropical.
They press Pierrot to join the dance. He refuses. With white face
he wanders on--the eternal lover seeking his ideal. Evening falls.
Harlequin and Columbine, invisible, dance in and out of the unconscious
throng. The place is deserted, only Pierrot, weary, falls asleep on a
grassy bank. Harlequin and Columbine dance round him. He wakes and sees
Columbine. He woos her in vain, pleads, beseeches--
She stands uncertain. Harlequin beckons to her to begone. But she
sees him no longer. She is listening to Pierrot, to his song of love
outpoured once more. She falls into his arms, and the curtain comes
down.
The second act is Pierrot's cottage. Columbine sits on his hearth. She
is pale, weary. She listens--for what? Pierrot sings to her--woos her
back to thoughts of him once more. The evening darkens. Thunder is
heard. Columbine puts aside her spinning-wheel. She is eager, stirred.
She listens no longer to Pierrot. It is her own music that is in the
air, the music of Harlequin and Columbine. She is awake. She remembers.
A crash of thunder! Harlequin stands in the doorway. Pierrot cannot see
him, but Columbine springs up with a glad laugh. Children come running,
but she pushes them aside. With another crash of thunder the walls
fall, and Columbine dances out into the wild night with Harlequin.
Darkness, and through it the tune that Pierrette has sung. Light comes
slowly. The cottage once more. Pierrot and Pierrette, grown old and
gray, sit in front of the fire in two armchairs. The music is happy,
but subdued. Pierrette nods in her chair. Through the window comes a
shaft of moonlight, and with it the motif of Pierrot's long-forgotten
song. He stirs in his chair.
Faint music--fairy music--Harlequin and Columbine outside. The door
swings open and Columbine dances in. She leans over the sleeping
Pierrot, kisses him on the lips.
Crash! A peal of thunder. She is outside again. In the center of the
stage is the lighted window and through it are seen the two figures
of Harlequin and Columbine dancing slowly away, growing fainter and
fainter....
A log falls. Pierrette jumps up angrily, rushes across to the window,
and pulls the blind. So it ends, on a sudden discord.
Mr. Satterthwaite sat very still among the applause and vociferations.
At last he got up and made his way outside. He came upon Molly
Stanwell, flushed and eager, receiving compliments. He saw John Denman,
pushing and elbowing his way through the throng, his eyes alight with a
new flame. Molly came toward him, but, almost unconsciously, he put her
aside. It was not her he was seeking.
"My wife? Where is she?"
"I think she went out in the garden."
It was, however, Mr. Satterthwaite who found her, sitting on a stone
seat under a cypress tree. When he came up to her, he did an odd thing.
He knelt down and raised her hand to his lips.
"Ah!" she said. "You think I danced well?"
"You danced--as you always danced, Madame Kharsanova."