“MY DEAR MAXINE,” [he began his letter, though he had never been given the right to call me Maxine, and never had dared so to call me before] “I must see you, and talk to you this evening, alone. This for your own sake and that of another, even more than mine, though you know very well what it is to me to be with you. Perhaps you may be able to guess that this is important. I am so sure that you will guess, and that you will not only be willing but anxious to see me to-night, if you never were before, that I shall venture to be waiting for you at the stage door when you come out.
“Yours, in whatever way you will,
“ALEXIS.”
If anything could have given me pleasure at that moment, it would have been to tear the letter in little pieces, with the writer looking on. Then to throw those pieces in his hateful face, and say, “That’s your answer.”
But he was not looking on, and even if he had been I could not have done what I wished. He knew that I would have to consent to see him, that he need have no fear I would profit by my knowledge of his intentions, to order him sent away from the stage door. I would have to see him. But how could I manage it after refusing—as I must refuse—to let Raoul go home with me? Raoul was coming to me after my death scene on the stage. At the very least, he would expect to put me into my carriage when I left the theatre, even if he went no further. Yet there would be Godensky, waiting, and Raoul would see him. What could I do to escape from such an impasse?
CHAPTER IX
MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS
I tried to answer the question, to decide something; but my brain felt dead. “I can’t think now. I must trust to luck—trust to luck,” I said to myself, desperately, as Marianne dressed me. “By and by I’ll think it all out.”
But after that my part gave me no more time to think. I was not Maxine de Renzie, but Princess Hélène of Hungaria, whose tragic fate was even more sure and swift than miserable Maxine’s. When Princess Hélène had died in her lover’s arms, however (died as Maxine had not deserved to die), and I was able to pick up the tangled threads of my own life, where I’d laid them down, the questions were still crying out for answer, and must somehow be decided at once.
First, there was Raoul to be put off and got out of the way—Raoul, my best beloved, whose help and protection I needed so much, yet must forego, and hurt him instead.
The stage-door keeper had orders to let him “come behind,” and so he was already waiting at the door of my little boudoir by the time Hélène had died, the curtain had gone down, and Maxine de Renzie had been able to leave the stage.
As we went together into the room, he caught both my hands, crushing them tightly in his, and kissing them over and over again. But his face was pale and sad, and a new fear sprang up in my heart, like a sudden live flame among red ashes.