"Now that you have embarked upon this--" Lady Ver said, when I ventured
into her sitting-room, hearing no voices, about six o'clock. (Mr.
Carruthers had left me at the door at the end of our walk, and I had been
with the angels at tea ever since.) "Now that you have embarked upon this
opera, I say, you will have to dine at Willis's with us. I won't be in
when Charlie arrives from Paris. A blowy day like to-day his temper is
sure to be impossible."
"Very well," I said.
Of what use, after all, for an adventuress like me to have sensitive
feelings.
"And I am leaving this house at a quarter to seven, I wish you to know,
Evangeline, pet," she called after me, as I flew off to dress. As a rule
Lady Ver takes a good hour to make herself into the attractive darling she
is in the evening. She has not to do much, because she is lovely by
nature, but she potters and squabbles with Welby, to divert herself, I
suppose.
However, to-night, with the terror upon her of a husband fresh from a
rough Channel passage going to arrive at seven o'clock, she was actually
dressed and down in the hall when I got there punctually at 6.45, and in
the twinkle of an eye we were rolling in the electric to Willis's. I have
only been there once before, and that to lunch in Mrs. Carruthers's days
with some of the ambassadors; and it does feel gay going to a restaurant
at night. I felt more excited than ever in my life, and such a situation,
too!
Lord Robert--_fruit défendu!_--and Mr. Carruthers--_empressé_--and to be
kept in bounds!
More than enough to fill the hands of a maiden of sixteen fresh from a
convent, as old Count Someroff used to say when he wanted to express a
really difficult piece of work.
They were waiting for us just inside the door, and again I noticed that
they were both lovely creatures, and both exceptionally distinguished
looking.
Lady Ver nodded to a lot of people before we took our seats in a nice
little corner. She must have an agreeable time with so many friends. She
said something which sounds so true in one of our talks, and I thought of
it then.
"It is wiser to marry the life you like, because after a little the man
doesn't matter." She has evidently done that, but I wish it could be
possible to have both--the man and the life. Well! Well!
One has to sit rather close on those sofas, and as Lord Robert was not the
host, he was put by me. The other two at a right-angle to us.
I felt exquisitely gay--in spite of having an almost high black dress on
and not even any violets.
It was dreadfully difficult not to speak nicely to my neighbor, his
directness and simplicity are so engaging, but I did try hard to
concentrate myself on Christopher and leave him alone, only--I don't know
why--the sense of his being so near me made me feel, I don't quite know
what. However, I hardly spoke to him--Lady Ver shall never say I did not
play fair--though, insensibly, even she herself drew me into a friendly
conversation, and then Lord Robert looked like a happy school-boy.
We had a delightful time.
Mr. Carruthers is a perfect host. He has all the smooth and exquisite
manners of the old diplomats, without their false teeth and things. I wish
I were in love with him, or even I wish something inside me would only let
me feel it was my duty to marry him; but it jumps up at me every time I
want to talk to myself about it, and says, "Absolutely impossible."
When it came to starting for the opera, "Mr. Carruthers will take you in
his brougham, Evangeline," Lady Ver said, "and I will be protected by
Robert. Come along, Robert," as he hesitated.
"Oh, I say, Lady Ver!" he said, "I would love to come with you, but won't
it look rather odd for Miss Evangeline to arrive alone with Christopher?
Consider his character!"
Lady Ver darted a glance of flame at him and got into the electric, while
Christopher, without hesitation, handed me into his brougham. Lord Robert
and I were two puppets, a part I do not like playing.
I was angry altogether. She would not have dared to have left me go like
this if I had been any one who mattered. Mr. Carruthers got in, and tucked
his sable rug round me. I never spoke a word for a long time, and Covent
Garden is not far off, I told myself. I can't say why I had a sense of
_malaise_.
There was a strange look in his face as a great lamp threw a light on it.
"Evangeline," he said, in a voice I have not yet heard, "when are you
going to finish playing with me? I am growing to love you, you know."
"I am very sorry to hear it," I said, gently. "I don't want you to. Oh,
please _don't_!" as he took my hand. "I--I--if you only knew how I _hate_
being touched!"
He leaned back and looked at me. There is something which goes to the head
a little about being in a brougham with nice fur rugs alone with some one
at night. The lights flashing in at the windows, and that faint scent of a
very good cigar. I felt fearfully excited. If it had been Lord Robert, I
believe--well----
He leaned over very close to me. It seemed in another moment he would kiss
me, and what could I do then? I couldn't scream, or jump out in Leicester
Square, could I?
"Why do you call me Evangeline?" I said, by way of putting him off. "I
never said you might."
"Foolish child!--I shall call you what I please. You drive me mad. I don't
know what you were born for. Do you always have this effect on people?"
"What effect?" I said, to gain time; we had got nearly into Long Acre.
"An effect that causes one to lose all discretion. I feel I would give my
soul to hold you in my arms."
I told him I did not think it was at all nice or respectful of him to talk
so--that I found such love revolting.
"You tell me in your sane moments I am most unsuitable to you--you try to
keep away from me--and then when you get close you begin to talk this
stuff! I think it is an insult!" I said, angry and disdainful. "When I
arouse devotion and tenderness in some one, then I shall listen, but to
you and to this--never!"
"Go on," he said. "Even in the dim light you look beautiful when cross."
"I am not cross," I answered. "Only absolutely disgusted."
By that time, thank goodness, we had got into the stream of carriages
close to the opera-house. Mr. Carruthers, however, seemed hardly to notice
this.
"Darling," he said, "I will try not to annoy you; but you are so fearfully
provoking. I--tell you truly, no man would find it easy to keep cool with
you."
"Oh, I don't know what it is, being cool, or not cool," I said, wearily.
"I am tired of every one. Even as tiny a thing as Malcolm Montgomerie gets
odd like this!"
He leaned back and laughed, and then said, angrily: "Impertinence! I will
wring his neck!"
"Thank Heaven we have arrived!" I exclaimed, as we drove under the
portico. I gave a great sigh of relief.
Really, men are very trying and tiresome, and if I shall always have to
put up with these scenes through having red hair, I almost wish it were
mouse-colored, like Cicely Parker's. Mrs. Carruthers often said, "You
need not suppose, Evangeline, that you are going to have a quiet life with
your coloring; the only thing one can hope for is that you will screw on
your head."
Lady Ver and Lord Robert were already in the hall waiting for us, but the
second I saw them I knew she had been saying something to Lord Robert. His
face, so gay and _debonnaire_ all through dinner, now looked set and
stern, and he took not the slightest notice of me as we walked to the
box--the big one next the stage on the pit tier.
Lady Ver appeared triumphant--her eyes were shining with big blacks in the
middle, and such bright spots of pink in her cheeks--she looked lovely;
and I can't think why, but I suddenly felt I hated her. It was horrid of
me, for she was so kind, and settled me in the corner behind the curtain
where I could see and not be seen, rather far back, while she and Lord
Robert were quite in the front. It was "Carmen"--the opera. I had never
seen it before.
Music has such an effect--every note seems to touch some emotion in me. I
feel wicked, or good, or exalted, or--or--oh, some queer feeling that I
don't know what it is--a kind of electric current down my back, and as
if--as if I would like to love some one and have them to kiss me. Oh, it
sounds perfectly dreadful what I have written, but I can't help it--that
is what some music does to me, and I said always I should tell the truth
here.
From the very beginning note to the end I was feeling--feeling--Oh, how I
understand her--Carmen!--_fruit défendu_ attracted her so--the beautiful,
wicked, fascinating snake. I also wanted to dance, and to move like that,
and I unconsciously quivered perhaps. I was cold as ice, and fearfully
excited. The back of Lord Robert's beautifully set head impeded my view at
times. How exquisitely groomed he is! And one could see at a glance _his_
mother had not been a housemaid! I never have seen anything look so well
bred as he does.
Lady Ver was talking to him in a cooing, low voice after the first act,
and the second act, and indeed even when the third act had begun. He
seemed much more _empressé_ with her than he generally does. It--it hurt
me, that and the music and the dancing, and Mr. Carruthers whispering
passionate little words at intervals, even though I paid no attention to
them; but altogether I, too, felt a kind of madness.
Suddenly Lord Robert turned round, and for five seconds looked at me, his
lovely, expressive blue eyes swimming with wrath and reproach and--oh, how
it hurt me!--contempt. Christopher was leaning over the back of my chair,
quite close, in a devoted attitude.
Lord Robert did not speak, but if a look could wither I must have turned
into a dead oak-leaf. It awoke some devil in me. What had _I_ done to be
annihilated so! _I_ was playing perfectly fair--keeping my word to Lady
Ver, and--oh, I felt as if it were breaking my heart.
But that look of Lord Robert's! It drove me to distraction, and every
instinct to be wicked and attractive that I possess came up in me. I
leaned over to Lady Ver, so that I must be close to him, and I said little
things to her, never one word to him; but I moved my seat, making it
certain the corner of his eye must catch sight of me, and I allowed my
shoulders to undulate the faintest bit to that Spanish music. Oh, I can
dance as Carmen, too! Mrs. Carruthers had me taught every time we went to
Paris. She loved to see it herself.
I could hear Christopher breathing very quickly. "My God!" he whispered,
"a man would go to hell for you."
Lord Robert got up abruptly and went out of the box.
Then it was as if Don José's dagger plunged into my heart, not Carmen's.
That sounds high-flown, but I mean it--a sudden, sick, cold sensation, as
if everything was numb. Lady Ver turned round pettishly to Christopher.
"What on earth is the matter with Robert?" she said.
"There is a Persian proverb which asserts a devil slips in between two
winds," said Christopher. "Perhaps that is what has happened in this box
to-night."
Lady Ver laughed harshly, and I sat there still as death. And all the time
the music and the movement on the stage went on. I am glad she is murdered
in the end--glad! Only I would like to have seen the blood gush out. I am
fierce--fierce--sometimes.