He had that night been specially eloquent and awfully indignant as to the wrongs done to Ireland by England. He had dealt with millions of which Great Britain was supposed by him to have robbed her poor sister. He was not a good financier, but he did in truth believe in the millions. He had not much capacity for looking into questions of political economy, but he had great capacity for arguing about them and for believing his own arguments. The British Parliament was to him an abomination. He read the papers daily, and he saw that the number of votes on his side fell from sixty to forty, and thirty, and twenty; and he found also that the twenty were men despised by their own countrymen as well as Englishmen; that they were men trained to play a false game in order to achieve their objects;—and yet he believed in the twenty against all the world, and threw in his lot without a scruple and without a doubt. Nor did he understand at all the strength of his own words. He had been silenced in Ireland and had rigorously obeyed the pledge that he had given. For he was a man to whom personally his word was a bond. Now he had come over to London, and being under no promise, had begun again to use the words which came to him without an effort. As he would sweep back his long hair from his brows, and send sparks of fire out of his eyes, he would look to be the spirit of patriotic indignation; but he did not know that he was thus powerful. To tell the truth,—and as he had said,—to earn a few shillings was the object of his ambition. But now, on this evening, three London policemen in their full police uniform, with their fearful police helmets on, had appeared in the room in which his dramatic associates had on this evening given way to Gerald O'Mahony's eloquence. Nothing had been said to him; but as he came home he was aware that two policemen had watched him. And he was aware also that his words had been taken down in shorthand. Then he had encountered his daughter, and all her love troubles. He had heard her expound her views as to life, and had listened as she had expressed her desire to meet with some Marquis de Carabas. She had said nothing with which he could find fault; but her whole views of life were absolutely different from his. According to his ideas, there should be no Marquises, no singing girls making huge fortunes—only singing girls in receipt of modest sums of money; and that when dire necessity compelled them. There should be no gorgeous theatres flaring with gas, and certainly no policemen to take down men's words. Everything in the world was wrong,—except those twenty Members of Parliament.
Three or four days after this, Rachel found that a report was abroad at the theatre that she had dissolved her engagement with Mr. Jones. At this time the three policemen had already expressed their opinion about Mr. O'Mahony; but they, for the present, may be left in obscurity. "Est-il vrai que M. Jones n'existe plus?" These words were whispered to her, as she was dressing, by Madame Socani, while Mr. O'Mahony had gone out to say a word to a police detective, who had called to see him at the theatre. As Madame Socani was an American woman, there was no reason why she should not have asked the question in English—were it not that as it referred to an affair of love it may be thought that French was the proper language.
"Mr. Jones isn't any more, as far as I am concerned," said Rachel, passing on.
"Oh, he has gone!" said Madame Socani, following her into the slips. They were both going on to the stage, but two minutes were allowed to them, while Mahomet M. Moss declared, in piteous accents, the woe which awaited him because Alberta,—who was personated by Rachel,—had preferred the rustic Trullo to him who was by birth a Prince of the Empire.
"Yes, Mr. Jones has gone, Madame,—as you are so anxious to know."
"But why? Can it be that there was no Mr. Jones?" Then Rachel flashed round upon the woman. "I suppose there was no Mr. Jones?"
"O, mio tesor." These last three words were sung in a delicious contralto voice by Elmira,—the Madame Socani of the occasion,—and were addressed to the Prince of the Empire, who, for the last six weeks, had been neglecting her charms. Rachel was furious at the attack made upon her, but in the midst of her fury she rushed on to the stage, and kneeling at the feet of Elmira, declared her purpose of surrendering the Prince altogether. The rustic Trullo was quite sufficient for her. "Go, fond girl. Trullo is there, tying up the odoriferous rose." Then they all four broke out into that grand quartette, in the performance of which M. Le Gros had formed that opinion which had induced him to hold out such golden hopes to Rachel. Rachel looked up during one of her grand shakes and saw Frank Jones seated far back among the boxes. "Oh, he hasn't left London yet," she said to herself, as she prepared for another shake.
"Your papa desires me to say with his kindest love, that he has had to leave the theatre." This came from Mr. Moss when the piece was ended.
He was dressed as princes of the empire generally do dress on the stage, and she as the daughter of the keeper of the king's garden.
"So they tell me; very well. I will go home. I suppose he has had business."