Isobel never hesitated. I think that instinctively she accepted him
without demur. Her eyes flashed back to him all those nameless things
which his own greeting had left unspoken. She took his hands, and looked
him frankly in the face.
"All my life," she said softly, "I have wanted to meet someone who could
say that to me."
He was dressed in a suit of mediæval court clothes, black from head to
foot, and fashioned according to the period of the play in which he was
acting. But if he had worn the garments of a pierrot or a clown, one
would never have noticed it. The man's individuality, magnetic and
irresistible, triumphed easily. Mr. Grooten had passed away. It was the
great Feurgéres, whose sad shining eyes lingered so wistfully upon
Isobel's face.
"I can say more than that," he went on. "And now that I see you, Isobel,
I wonder that I have not said it long ago. You are like her, child--very
like her!"
"I am glad," Isobel murmured. "Please tell me--everything!"
"Everything--for me--is soon told," he answered, his voice dropping
almost to a whisper, his eyes still fixed upon Isobel's, yet looking her
through as though she were a shadow. "I loved your mother. I was the
man--whom your mother loved! The years of my life began and ended
there."
Their hands had fallen apart a little while before, but Isobel, with an
impulsive gesture, stooped down and raised the fingers of his left hand
to her lips. I turned away. It seemed like sacrilege to watch a man's
soul shining in his eyes. I walked to the other end of the long narrow
room, and examined the swords which lay ready for use against the wall.
It was not many minutes, however, before Feurgéres recalled me.
"To-night," he said, "I was coming to see Mr. Greatson."
"It is better," she murmured, "to have met you like this."
He smiled very slightly, yet it seemed to me that the curve of his lips
was almost a caress. There was certainly nothing left now of Mr.
Grooten.
"I think that I, too, am glad," he said. "Your mother suffered all her
life because she permitted herself to care for me. We mummers, you see,
Isobel, though the world loves to be amused, are always a little outside
the pale. I think," he added, with a curious little note of bitterness
in his tone, "that we are not reckoned worthy or capable of the domestic
affections."
"You do not believe--you cannot believe," she murmured, "that there are
many people who are so foolish! It is the dwellers in the world who are
mummers--those who live their foolish, orderly lives with their eyes
closed, and oppressed all the while with a nervous fear of what their
neighbours are thinking of them. Those are the mummers--but you--you,
Monsieur, are Feurgéres--the artist! You make music on the heartstrings
of the world!"
For myself I was astonished. I had not often seen Isobel so deeply
moved. I had never known her so ready, so earnest of speech. But
Feurgéres was almost agitated. For the first time I saw him without the
mask of his perfect self-control. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes were
soft as a woman's. He raised Isobel's hand to his lips, and his voice,
when he spoke, shook with real emotion.
"You are the daughter of your mother, dear Isobel," he said. "Beyond
that, what is there that I can say--I, who loved her!"
"You can tell me about her," Isobel said gently. "That is what I have
been hoping for!"
"A little, a very little," he answered, "and more to-night, if you will.
I have already written to Mr. Greatson, and I meant in a few hours to
tell him everything. But I would have you know this, Isobel, and
remember it always. Your mother was a holy woman. For my sake, for the
sake of the love she bore me, she abandoned a great position. She broke
down all the barriers of race, and all the conventions of a lifetime.
She lost every friend she had in the world; she even, perhaps, in some
measure, neglected her duty to you. Yet you were seldom out of her
thoughts, and her last words committed you to my distant care. I have,
perhaps, ill-fulfilled her charge, Isobel. Yet I have been watching over
you sometimes when you have not known it."
"You were my saviour once," she said, "you and Arnold here, when I
sorely needed help."
"I came from America at a moment's notice," he said, "when it seemed to
me that you might need my help. I broke the greatest contract I had ever
signed, and I placed my liberty, if not my life, at the mercy of your
wonderful police system. But those things count for little. I have been
forced, Isobel, to leave you very much to yourself. You come of a race
who would regard any association with me as defilement. And there is
always the chance that you may be able to take your proper position in
the world. That is why it has been my duty to keep away from you, why I
have been forced to leave to others what I would gladly have done
myself. To-night you will understand everything."
"Nothing that you can tell me of my family or myself," she answered,
"will ever make me forget that, whereas of them I know nothing, you have
been my guardian angel. It was you who rescued me from the one person in
this world of whom I have been miserably, hatefully afraid. It was not
my family who saved me. It was you!"
A shrill bell was ringing outside. We heard the commotion of hurrying
footsteps, the call-boy's summons, the creaking of moving scenery.
Feurgéres glanced at the watch which stood upon his table. His manner
seemed to undergo a sudden change. The man no longer revealed himself.
"The curtain is going up," he said. "I can stay with you but two minutes
longer. I am coming to see Mr. Greatson to-night, Isobel, after the
performance, and I wish to see him alone. This is at once our meeting
and our farewell."
"Our farewell!" she repeated doubtfully. "Surely you are not going to
leave us--so soon! You cannot mean that?"
"To-morrow," he said, "I leave for St. Petersburg. My engagement there
has been made many months ago. But even if it were not so, dear child,
our ways through life must always lie far apart. If the necessity for it
had not existed, I should not have left you to the care of--of even Mr.
Greatson. To be your guardian, Isobel, would not be seemly. That you
will better understand--to-morrow."
"Indeed!" she protested, "I would sooner hear it now from your own
lips--if, indeed, it must be so!"
He shook his head very slowly, but with a decision more finite than the
most emphatic negation which words could have framed.
"I must go away, Isobel," he said, "and you and I must remain apart. I
will only ask you to remember me by this. I am the man your mother
loved. Nothing else in my life is worth considering--but that. I am one
of those with whom fate has dealt a little hardly. I am as weary of my
work as I am of life itself. I go on because it was her wish. But I
cannot forget. The past remains--a blazing page of light. The present is
a very empty and a very cold place. My days here are a sort of
aftermath. My life ended with hers. To-night, for one moment--I want you
to take her place."
Isobel looked at him eagerly.
"Tell me how," she begged. "Tell me what to do!"
"It may sound very foolish," he said, with a faint smile, "but I have a
fancy, and I am sure that you will do as I ask. I want you to sit where
she sat night after night. You will find some flowers in her chair. Keep
them. They were the ones she preferred."
There was an imperative knocking at the door. Feurgéres caught up his
plumed hat and sword.
"I am ready," he said quietly. "Mr. Greatson, my servant will take you
to the box, which I beg that you and Isobel will occupy for the rest of
the evening. It is a harmless whim of mine, and I trust that it will not
inconvenience you."
With scarcely another word he left us, and a moment later we heard the
roar of applause which greeted his appearance on the stage. Isobel's
eyes kindled, and she moved restlessly towards the door.
"I do hope," she said, "that someone will come for us soon. I want to
hear every word. I hate to miss any of it."
The dark-visaged servant stood upon the threshold.
"I have orders from Monsieur Feurgéres," he announced respectfully, "to
conduct you to his box. If Mademoiselle will permit!"
We followed him on tiptoe to the front of the house. He unlocked the
door of the left-hand stage box with a key which he took from his
pocket.
"Monsieur will permit me to remark," he whispered, "that this is the
first time since I have been in the service of Monsieur Feurgéres that
anyone has occupied his private box. I trust that Mademoiselle will be
comfortable."
Then the door closed behind him, and we were left to ourselves.