“Or your pupil,” the girl said, in a low voice, standing near him as she rose.
The play was over. In the robing and descending through the corridors there were the usual chatter, meaning looks, confidential asides. It is always at the last moment, in the hurry, as in a postscript, that woman says what she means, or what for the moment she wishes to be thought to mean. In the crowd on the main stairway the two parties saw each other at a distance, but without speaking.
“Is it true that Lyon is 'epris' there?” Carmen whispered to Henderson when she had scanned and thoroughly inventoried Margaret.
“You know as much as I do.”
“Well, you did stay a long time,” she said, in a lower tone.
As Margaret's party waited for their carriage she saw Mrs. Eschelle and her daughter enter a shining coach, with footman and coachman in livery. Henderson stood raising his hat. A little white hand was shaken to him from the window, and a sweet, innocent face leaned forward—a face with dark, eyes and golden hair, lit up with a radiant smile. That face for the moment was New York to Margaret, and New York seemed a vain show.
Carmen threw herself back in her seat as if weary. Mrs. Eschelle sat bolt-upright.
“What in the world, child, made you go on so tonight?”
“I don't know.”
“What made you snub Mr. Lyon so often?”