“Yes, let us. There are so many things I should like to ask him!”
“I also,” said Selden, and then fell silent, for the music had begun.
There is nothing lovelier to be seen anywhere than that Chopin suite as danced at the Paris Opéra....
“Do you regret that it is not you?” asked Selden, as the tall and willowy Ida Rubenstein came forward again and again to acknowledge the applause.
“Not the slightest—not the smallest bit,” and she nestled against his shoulder. “I know too well what is behind the scenes. Besides, I could never have been like that—I was not a great dancer.”
Selden put his hand over hers and held it tight. He could never get over his astonishment at the thought that this magnificent woman loved him, was his....
“We must hurry,” she added, “if we are going to catch the baron.”
“Wait a moment here,” said Selden, “and I will go around and get him. I should like to surprise him—I don’t think he knows.”
She nodded, and he hurried away to the door by which the baron would emerge into the foyer. Yes, there he was—not changed; and yet changed, too, in some subtle way—clouded, a little sad, with the lines about the eyes a trifle more pronounced.
Selden’s heart moved curiously, as he watched him coming forward; he had never before realized how fond he had grown of the old diplomat.