Just now she dared not read the letter, dared not surrender to the softening influences that might melt the rigid purpose of her soul, and, kissing the flowers reverently, the mother laid them aside until a more convenient season, and began to walk slowly to and fro….
The play that night was "Kenilworth," and had been cast to admit some alterations made in the dramatization by Madame Orme, who frequently introduced startling innovations in her rendering of her parts, and in almost all her favourite rôles refused rigid adherence to the written text. The reputation of her beauty and former triumphs, the success achieved on the previous nights, and certain tart criticisms upon the freedom of her interpretation of Scott's lovely heroine—Leicester's wife—combined to draw a crowded house; and ere the curtain rose every box was occupied save one on the second tier near the stage.
As the crash of the orchestra died away, and the play opened with the interview between Lambourn and Foster, followed by Tressilian, and the encounter with Varney, the door of the box opened, and the American minister entered, accompanied by a lady and gentleman, who, after seating themselves and gathering back the folds of the box curtains, proceeded to scan the audience.
As they disposed themselves comfortably a white-haired man, watching through a crevice in the side scene, scribbled on a piece of paper which was handed into the dressing-room: "Second box, second tier, right-hand side. Two gentlemen, and a lady wearing a scarlet cloak."
Sitting between the minister and her husband, Mrs. Laurance with her brilliant wrappings was the most prominent of the group, and in the blaze of the gaslight looked at least thirty-five; a woman of large proportions compactly built, with broad shoulders that sustained a rather short thick neck, now exposed in extreme décolleté style, as if to aid the unsuccessful elongation of nature. Her sallow complexion was dark, almost bistre, and the strongly marked irregular features were only redeemed from positive plainness by the large fiery black eyes, whose beauty was somewhat marred by the intrusive boldness of their expression. Bowing to some one opposite, her very full lips parted smilingly over a set of sound strong teeth, rather uneven in outline, and of the yellowish cast often observed in persons of humble birth and arduous life. Her dusky hair, belonging to the family of neutral-brown, was elaborately puffed and frizzed, and in her ears hung large solitaire diamonds that glowed like globes of fire, and scattered rays that were reflected in the circlet around her throat.
Beside her sat her husband, leaning back with negligent grace, and carelessly stroking his silky black moustache with one gloved hand, while the other toyed with a jewelled opera glass. Although only two years her junior, she bore the appearance of much greater seniority, and the proud patrician cast of his handsome face contrasted as vividly with the coarser lower type of hers, as though in ancient Roman era he had veritably worn the clavus and the bulla, while she trudged in lowly guise among the hard-handed heroines of the proletarii.
Over his dreamy violet eyes arched the peculiarly fine jet brows that Mr. Palma had found so distinctive in Regina's face, and his glossy hair and beard possessed that purplish black tint so rarely combined with the transparent white complexion, which now gleamed conspicuously in his broad, full, untanned forehead.
The indolent insouciance of his bearing was quite in accord with his social record, as a proud high-born man of cultivated elegant tastes, and unmistakably dissipated tendencies, which doubtless would long ago have fructified in thoroughly demoralized habits had not his wife vigorously exerted her exigeant guardianship.
"Have you heard the last joke at Count T——'s expense?" said Mrs.
Laurance, tapping the arm of the minister with her gilded fan.
"Do you refer to the contretemps of the masks at the Grand Ball?"