"Oh, that's tommyrot," he said disrespectfully. "Their women folk don't
know--that's all."
Eileen now began to feel like a criminal round whom the toils thicken.
In the most fashionable of her three Halls, she sang a little French
song. And she had taught Master Harold his French.
Of course, even if Nelly were seen by Eileen's friends or acquaintances,
detection was not sure. Eileen was always in such sedate gowns, never
low-cut, her manners were so suppressed, her hair done so differently,
and what a difference hair made! In fact, it was in her private life that
she felt herself more truly the actress. On the boards her real secret
self seemed to flash forth, full of verve, dash, roguery, devilry. Should
she take to a wig, or to character songs in appropriate costumes? No, she
would run the risk. It gave more spice to life. Every evening now was an
adventure, nay three adventures, and when she snuggled herself up at
midnight in her demure white bed, overlooked by the crucifix, she felt
like the hunted were-wolf, safely back in human shape. And she became
more audacious, letting herself go, so as to widen the chasm between
Nelly and Eileen, and make anybody who should suspect her be sure he was
wrong. And occasionally she paid for all this fever and gaiety by fits of
the blackest melancholy.
She had gradually dropped her habit of prayer, but in one of her dark
moods she found herself slipping to her knees and crying: "Oh, Holy
Mother, look down on Thy distressed daughter, and deliver her from the
body of this death. So many wooers and no spark of love in herself; a
woman who sings love-songs with lips no man has touched, a lone-of-soul
who can live neither with the respectable nor with the Bohemians, who
loves you, _sanctissima Maria_, without being sure you exist. Oh, Holy
Mother of God, advocate of sinners, pray for me. If I had only something
solid to cling to--a babe to suckle with its red grotesque little face.
You will say cling to the cross, but is not my whole life also a
crucifixion? I am rent in twain that a thousand fools may laugh nightly.
Oh, Holy Mother, make me at one with myself; it is the atonement I
need. Send me the child's heart, and I will light a hundred candles to
you.... Or do you now prefer electricity? Oh, Maria mavourneen, I cannot
pray to you, for there is a mocking devil within me, and you will not
cast her out." And she burst into hysteric tears.