THE NIGHT OF THE OPERA.
It was getting rather dull at the Hôtel Splendide. The novelty of having
a king in their midst, who went about unattended in citizen’s dress, and
bowed to all who looked as if they wished him to bow to them, was
wearing off, and he could go in and out as often as he liked without
being followed or stared at. The grand duchess, too, whose apartments
were screened from the great unwashed, had had her Sunday dinner-party,
with scions of French royalty in the Bourbon line for her guests, and a
band of music outside. The woman from Chicago, who had flirted so
outrageously with her eyes with the Russian, while his little wife sat
by smiling placidly and suspecting no evil because the Chicagoan
professed to speak no language but English, of which her husband did not
understand a word, had departed for other fields. The French count, who
had beaten his American bride of three weeks’ standing, had also gone,
and the hotel had subsided into a state of great respectability and
circumspection.
“Positively we are stagnating, with nothing to gossip about except Jack
and myself, and nothing going on in town,” Grace Haynes said to Bertha,
with whom she continued on the most friendly terms.
But the stagnation came to an end and the town woke up when it was known
that Miss Sanderson from San Francisco was to appear in opera at the
Casino. Everybody had heard of the young prima donna, and all were
anxious to see her. Mrs. Hallam took a box for Mrs. Haynes, Grace, and
herself, but, although there was plenty of room, Bertha was not included
in the party. Nearly all the guests were going from the third floor,
which would thus be left entirely to the servants, and Mrs. Hallam, who
was always suspecting foreigners of pilfering from her, did not dare
leave her rooms alone, so Bertha must stay and watch them. She had done
this before when Mrs. Hallam was at the Casino, but to-night it seemed
particularly hard, as she wished to see Miss Sanderson so much that she
would willingly have stood in the rear seats near the door, where a
crowd always congregated. But there was no help for it, and after seeing
Mrs. Hallam and her party off she went into the salon, and, taking an
easy-chair and a book, sat down to enjoy the quiet and the rest. She was
very tired, for Mrs. Hallam had kept her unusually busy that day,
arranging the dress she was going to wear, and sending her twice down
the long, steep hill into the town in quest of something needed for her
toilet. It was very still in and around the hotel, and at last, overcome
by fatigue and drowsiness, Bertha’s book dropped into her lap and she
fell asleep with her head thrown back against the cushioned chair and
one hand resting on its arm. Had she tried she could not have chosen a
more graceful position, or one which showed her face and figure to
better advantage, and so thought Rex Hallam, when, fifteen or twenty
minutes later, he stepped into the room and stood looking at her.
Ever since his visit to the Homestead he had found his thoughts
constantly turning to Aix-les-Bains, and had made up his mind to go on a
certain ship, when he accidentally met Fred Thurston, who was stopping
in New York for two or three days before sailing. There was an
invitation to dinner at the Windsor, and as a result Rex packed his
trunk, and, securing a vacant berth, sailed for Havre with the Thurstons
a week earlier than he had expected to sail. Fred was sick all the
voyage and kept his berth, but Louie seemed perfectly well, and had
never been so happy since she was a child playing with Rex under the
magnolias in Florida as she was now, walking and talking with him upon
the deck, where, with her piquant, childish beauty, she attracted a
great deal of attention and provoked some comment from the censorious
when it was known that she had a husband sick in his berth. But Louie
was guiltless of any intentional wrong-doing. She had said to Bertha in
Boston, that she believed Fred was going to die, he was so good; and,
with a few exceptions, when the Hyde nature was in the ascendant, he had
kept good ever since. He had urged Rex’s going with them quite as
strongly as Louie, and when he found himself unable to stay on deck, he
had bidden Louie go and enjoy herself, saying, however:
“I know what a flirt you are, but I can trust Rex Hallam, on whom your
doll beauty has never made an impression and never will; so go and be
happy with him.”
This was not a pleasant thing to say, but it was like Fred Thurston to
say it, and he looked curiously at Louie to see how it would affect her.
There was a flush on her face for a moment, while the tears sprang to
her eyes. But she was of too sunny a disposition to be miserable long,
and, thinking to herself, “Just for this one week I will be happy,” she
tied on her pretty sea-cloak and hood, and went on deck, and was happy
as a child when something it has lost and mourned is found again. At
Paris they separated, the Thurstons going on to Switzerland, and Rex to
Aix-les-Bains, laden with messages of love to Bertha, who had been the
principal subject of Louie’s talk during the voyage. In a burst of
confidence Rex had told her of Rose Arabella Jefferson’s photograph, and
Louie had laughed merrily over the mistake, saying:
“You will find Bertha handsomer than her picture. I think you will fall
in love with her; and—if—you—do——” she spoke the last words very slowly,
while shadow after shadow flitted over her face as if she were fighting
some battle with herself; then, with a bright smile, she added, “I shall
be glad.”
Rex’s journey from Paris to Aix was accomplished without any worse
mishap than a detention of the train for three hours or more, so that it
was not until his aunt had been gone some time that he reached the
hotel, where he was told that Mrs. Hallam and party were at the Casino.
“I suppose she has a salon. I will go there and wait till she returns,”
Rex said, and then followed a servant up-stairs and along the hall in
the direction of the salon.
He had expected to find it locked, and was rather surprised when he saw
the open door and the light inside, and still more surprised as he
entered the room to find a young lady so fast asleep that his coming did
not disturb her. He readily guessed who she was, and for a moment stood
looking at her admiringly, noting every point of beauty from the long
lashes shading her cheeks to the white hand resting upon the arm of the
chair.
“Phineas was right. She is handsome as blazes, but I don’t think it is
quite the thing for me to stand staring at her this way. It is taking an
unfair advantage of her. I must present myself properly,” he thought,
and, stepping into the hall, he knocked rather loudly upon the door.
Bertha awoke with a start and sprang to her feet in some alarm as, in
response to her “Entrez,” a tall young man stepped into the room and
stood confronting her with a good deal of assurance.
“You must have made a mistake, sir. This is Mrs. Hallam’s salon,” she
said, rather haughtily, while Rex replied:
“Yes, I know it. Mrs. Hallam is my aunt, and you must be Miss Leighton.”
“Oh!” Bertha exclaimed, her attitude changing at once, as she recognized
the stranger. “Your aunt is expecting you, but not quite so soon. She
will be very sorry not to have been here to meet you. She has gone to
the opera. Miss Sanderson is in town.”
“So they told me at the office,” Rex said, explaining that he had
crossed a little sooner than he had intended, but did not telegraph his
aunt, as he wished to surprise her. He then added, “I am too late for
dinner, but I suppose I can have my supper up here, which will be better
than climbing the three flights of stairs again. That scoop of an
elevator has gone ashore for repairs, and I had to walk up.”
Ringing the bell, he ordered his supper, while Bertha started to leave
the salon, saying she hoped he would make himself comfortable until his
aunt returned.
“Don’t go,” he said, stepping between her and the door to detain her.
“Stay and keep me company. I have been shut up in a close railway
carriage all day with French and Germans, and am dying to talk to some
one who speaks English.”
He made her sit down in the chair from which she had risen when he came
in, and, drawing another near to her, said, “You do not seem like a
stranger, but rather like an old acquaintance. Why, for a whole week I
have heard of little else but you.”
“Of me!” Bertha said, in surprise.
He replied, “I crossed with Mr. and Mrs. Fred Thurston. She, I believe,
is your cousin, and was never tired of talking of you, and has sent more
love to you than one man ought to carry for some one else.”
“Cousin Louie! Yes, I knew she was coming about this time. And you
crossed with her?” Bertha said, thinking what a fine-looking man he was,
while there came to her mind what Louie had said of his graciousness of
manner, which made every woman think she was especially pleasing to him,
whether she were old or young, pretty or plain, rich or poor. He talked
so easily and pleasantly and familiarly that it was difficult to think
of him as a stranger, and she was not sorry that he had bidden her stay.
When supper was on the table he looked it over a moment, and then said
to the waiter, “Bring dishes and napkins enough for two;” then to
Bertha, “If I remember the _table d’hôtes_ abroad, they are not of a
nature to make one refuse supper at ten o’clock; so I hope you are ready
to join me.”
Bertha had been treated as second-class so long that she had almost come
to believe she _was_ second-class, and the idea of sitting down to
supper with Rex Hallam in his aunt’s salon took her breath away.
“Don’t refuse,” he continued. “It will be so much jollier than eating
alone, and I want you to pour my coffee.”
He brought her a chair, and before she realized what she was doing she
found herself sitting opposite him quite _en famille_, and chatting as
familiarly as if she had known him all her life. He told her of his
visit to the Homestead, his drive with Dorcas, and his meeting with
Phineas Jones, over which she laughed merrily, feeling that America was
not nearly so far away as it had seemed before he came. When supper was
over and the table cleared, he began to talk of books and pictures,
finding that as a rule they liked the same authors and admired the same
artists.
“By the way,” he said, suddenly, “why are you not at the opera with my
aunt? Are you not fond of music?”
“Yes, very,” Bertha replied, “but some one must stay with the rooms.
Mrs. Hallam is afraid to leave them alone.”
“Ah, yes. Afraid somebody will steal her diamonds, which she keeps
doubly and trebly locked, first in a padded box, then in her trunk, and
last in her room. Well, I am glad for my sake that you didn’t go. But
isn’t it rather close up here? Suppose we go down. It’s a glorious
moonlight night, and there must be a piazza somewhere.”
Bertha thought of the broad, vine-wreathed piazza, with its easy-chairs,
where it would be delightful to sit with Reginald Hallam, but she must
not leave her post, and she said so.
“Oh, I see; another case of the boy on the burning deck,” Rex said,
laughing. “I suppose you are right; but I never had much patience with
that boy. I shouldn’t have stayed till I was blown higher than a kite,
but should have run with the first sniff of fire. You think I’d better
go down? Not a bit of it; if you stay here, I shall. It can’t be long
now before they come. Zounds! I beg your pardon. Until I said _they_, I
had forgotten to inquire for Mrs. Haynes and Grace. They are well, I
suppose, and with my aunt?”
Bertha said they were, and Rex continued:
“Grace and I are great friends. She’s a little peculiar,—wants to vote,
and all that sort of thing,—but I like her immensely.”
Then he talked on indifferent subjects until Mrs. Hallam was heard
coming along the hall, panting and talking loudly, and evidently out of
humor. The elevator, which Rex said had been drawn off for repairs, was
still off, and she had been obliged to walk up the stairs, and didn’t
like it. Bertha had risen to her feet as soon as she heard her voice,
while Rex, too, rose and stood behind her in the shadow, so his aunt did
not see him as she entered the room, and, sinking into the nearest
chair, said, irritably:
“Hurry and help me off with my things. I’m half dead. Whew! Isn’t that
lamp smoking? How it smells here! Open another window. The lift is not
running, and I had to walk up the stairs.”
“I knew it stopped earlier in the evening, but supposed it was running
now. I am very sorry,” Bertha said, and Mrs. Hallam continued:
“You ought to have found out and been down there to help me up.”
“I didn’t come any too soon,” Rex thought, stepping out from the shadow,
and saying, in his cheery voice, “Halloo, auntie! All tuckered out,
aren’t you, with those horrible stairs! I tried them, and they took the
wind out of me.”
“Oh, Rex, Rex!” Mrs. Hallam cried, throwing her arms around the tall
young man, who bent over her and returned her caresses, while he
explained that he did not telegraph, as he wished to surprise her, and
that he had reached the hotel half an hour or so after she left it.
“Why didn’t you come at once to the Casino? There was plenty of room in
our box, and you must have been so dull here.”
Rex replied: “Not at all dull, with Miss Leighton for company. I ordered
my supper up here and had her join me. So you see I have made myself
quite at home.”
“I see,” Mrs. Hallam said, with a tone in her voice and a shutting
together of her lips which Bertha understood perfectly.
She had gathered up Mrs. Hallam’s mantle and bonnet and opera-glass and
fan and gloves by this time; and, knowing she was no longer needed, she
left the room just as Mrs. Haynes and Grace, who had heard Rex’s voice,
entered it.