During this dialogue Mowbray made good his escape. The blow had been struck! Who had struck it at the decisive moment? Who had dared to snatch his prey from him? Could it be Lebeau? He again! At the thought Mowbray's face grew dark with hatred.
CHAPTER IX.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Slowly the curtain rose. In the great hall of the palace the good Lord Leonato, sovereign of a fantastic country which only Shakespeare knew, having at his two sides his daughter Hero and his niece Beatrice, with all his court about him, receives the messenger who comes to announce the victory of his troops and their imminent return.
Such is the spectacle from the auditorium; but the spectacle of the auditorium, seen from the stage, is otherwise curious; to modern eyes it would seem like a glimpse of fairyland.
A myriad candles shed from on high upon four thousand spectators a flood of soft, white light. The snowy wainscoting relieved with gold, the toilets of the men and women, the naked shoulders, the diamonds, the orders,—all seemed to stand forth in relief against the pervading brilliance. Soft pink, pearl-gray, pigeon-breast, sea-green, pale blue, violet, faint gold, the clear white of silk, the dull white of satin, the cream white of old laces, every shade which could reflect the light, are mingled in one delicious harmony. Through the silence which falls upon the audience the soft frou-frou of silk and the flutter of fans are alone audible. Every face is turned towards the stage, attentive, smiling, already charmed. In that age of extreme sociability one did not go to the theatre to enjoy individual, egotistical comfort in a corner, but to share in common a pleasure which increased by the fact that it was shared. Those were looked for at Drury Lane whom one had met at Almack's, at the Pantheon, at Ranelagh, those whom one had seen thirty years earlier at Vauxhall and Marylebone Gardens.
From a box Prince Orloff displays his gigantic figure, his diamonds, and his handsome face, which had vanquished a Czarina. It was here that an adroit pickpocket, only two years before, had failed to relieve him of his famous snuff-box, valued at a million francs.
Not far from him Lord Sandwich, the Jemmy Twitcher of the popular song and the bête noir of all London, appears quite consoled for the tragic death of his lady-love, Miss Reay, who had been assassinated within the year by an amorous clergyman. The grim figure of Charles James Fox looms in the back of another box, the front of which is occupied by the Duchess of Rutland and the Duchess of Devonshire, the irresistible Georgiana, who will soon become his election broker and buy up votes for him (Honi soit qui mal y pense!) at the price of a kiss.
A little farther away, following the circular rank of columns, sit the inseparable trio, Lady Archer, Lady Buckinghamshire and Mrs. Hobart, the three wild faro-players whom the Lord Chief Justice menaced with the pillory, and whom the caricaturist Gillray nailed there for all time. Lady Vereker has also come to applaud her little friend. In the second tier of boxes is enthroned Mrs. Robinson, fresh from teaching the Prince of Wales his first lesson in love. That man, whose fund of small-talk seems inexhaustible and insolent, but whose intelligent face catches every eye, is Sheridan, who has become director of Drury Lane by buying up Garrick's share. At his side lounges the exquisitely languid figure of a young woman, of late Miss Linley, the singer, now Mrs. Sheridan; for he has acquired her, thanks to his audacity, having run away with her in the face and eyes of her family and no end of suitors, while upon the adventure he has founded a comedy, the success of which is his wife's dowry.