It was all very well for Charles to believe that the world was governed
by magic. Art is magic, but she ought to have known that it is a magic
which operates only among a very few, and that the many who are moved
only by cunning are always taking advantage of them.... Poor Charles!
Betrayed at every turn by his own simplicity, betrayed even by her
eagerness to help him!
'It is too bad,' said Clara, with tears in her eyes. 'We can't do
anything. Besides I would never send any one to prison, whatever they
did. But what a dirty mean little toad.... How did he find out?'
'I don't know. He's the kind of man who hangs about the theatre and
borrows five shillings on Friday night.'
Gone was the magic of the stage, gone the power in Charles. He looked
just a tired, seedy fellow, more than a little ashamed of himself. He
hung his head and muttered,--
'This always happens when I am rich. I've been terribly unhappy about
it. I didn't think I could tell you. I went into a shop yesterday to
buy a revolver, but I bought a photograph frame instead, because the
man was so pleasant that I couldn't bear the idea of his helping me to
end my life.... I seem to muddle everything I touch, and yet no one
has ever dared to say that I am not a great artist.'
Clara walked away from him across the stage. There had been muddles
before, but nothing so bad as this.
As she walked, she found that in watching him she had learned the art
of treading the stage, and of becoming that something more than herself
which is necessary for dramatic presentation. This sudden acquisition
gave her a delighted thrill, and once again her life was flooded with
magic, so that this new trouble, like her old, seemed very remote, and
she could understand Charles's pretending that he must end his life
even to the point of attempting to buy a revolver, which became
impossible directly some one spoke pleasantly to him. She felt
confident and secure and of the theatre which was a sanctuary that
nothing in the outside world could violate.
'Don't worry, Carlo,' she said. 'I'll see that it is put straight.'
'Then you'll come back and stop this nonsense about living alone?'
'When _The Tempest_ is done we'll see about it. I don't want to risk
that. _The Tempest_ is what matters now.'
'Are you going to play in it?'
'I don't know yet.... Will you go out into the auditorium and tell me
what you think of my voice?'
Charles went up into the dress circle, and Clara, practising her
newly-acquired art, turned to an imaginary Ferdinand--more vivid and
actual to her now--and declaimed,--
'I do not know
One of my sex! no woman's face remember,
Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen
More that I may call men, than you, good friend,
And my dear father: how features are abroad,
I am skilless of; but, by my modesty,--
The jewel in my dower,--I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you.'
She stopped. The vivid, actual Ferdinand of her imagination changed
into the form of the lean, hungry-looking man of the book-shop. He
turned towards her, and his face was noble in its suffering, powerful
and strong to bear the burden upon the mind behind it. Very sweet and
gentle was the expression in his eyes, in most pathetic contrast to the
rugged hardness which a passionate self-control had shaped upon his
features.... Her heart ached under this astonishment that in this
phantom she could see and know and love his face upon which in life her
eyes had never fallen.
'Go on,' called Charles, from the dress circle.... 'Admirable.... I
never thought you could do it.'
'That's enough,' she replied, with a violent effort to shake free of
her bewilderment and sweet anguish.
'If I meet him,' she said in her heart, 'I shall love him and there
will be nothing else.'