I did n't believe she would go with us even if we asked her, but Berri said we 'd rush out after the third act and buy her some flowers and send an usher behind the scenes with them. We ended by doing this—we got her a big box of roses—and writing a note asking her to meet us at the stage door when the performance was ended. Berri signed it "Front row—extreme left."
We did n't get an answer to it, at least not in words; but when the curtain went up again on a scene in the convent garden, Miss Ysobelle had one of our roses in her hair and another at her belt, and I began to feel excited at the prospect of meeting her. In fact, the whole last act had a personal interest for us that the others had not. It was almost like being on the stage and enjoying everything from the inside. I even felt rather sorry for the rest of the audience who were sitting there perfectly oblivious to the intrigue going on in the blaze of the footlights, before their unsuspecting eyes. One thing struck us both as rather odd at first. Miss Ysobelle, except for the roses, scrupulously ignored us through the entire act. She not only never winked at us, she never even looked at us. In fact, she gave us both the impression that she had become absorbed in something at the other side of the house. I could n't understand this, and neither could Berri, although he said there was probably some theatrical etiquette connected with her averted gaze, or perhaps the stage-manager had told her to be more dignified. We decided to ask her about it at supper. Well, we never got a chance to ask her, but we found out soon enough for ourselves.
As we had the last seats on the left side of the front row, we were naturally the last to get into the middle aisle on the way out, or, rather, we and the people who had the corresponding seats on the other side of the house were the last. We met them when we reached the end of our row, and had to stop a moment as they stood there putting on their overcoats and blocking the way. One of them I noticed particularly,—a great, big thug of a creature who had shiny black hair slicked up in front with a barbery flourish, and a very fancy waistcoat and cravat. They kept just ahead of us on the way out, and laughed a good deal. Berri and I were unusually silent.
We did n't go quite to the stage door, as the electric light fizzing right over it made everything in the little alley as bright as day. Neither of us was very keen to join the group loitering near by, so we stood a little back in the shadow and waited. Finally some men with their collars turned up came out; then two women with thick veils on. They seemed to be in a great hurry, and for a few seconds we were afraid that one of them might be Miss Ysobelle; but we remembered how tall she was and did n't run after them. Then more men came, and more girls,—some of whom were joined by men waiting at the door. It seemed at last as if the whole company must have come out, and Berri and I were beginning to think that Miss Mae Ysobelle must have left before we arrived, when the door opened once more and she appeared with our box of flowers in her arms. For a moment she stood on the step and looked around expectantly.
"I think we ought to go up," Berri murmured nervously; but I thought it would be better to wait and join her as she passed by.
Then a queer thing happened. Just as she decided to leave the step, who should go up to her but the big thug with the shiny hair and loud waistcoat? He lifted his hat and shook hands with her very cordially, then took the box of flowers—our flowers—and strolled away with her out of the alley to the street. As they passed by, we heard her exclaim, "Say, it was awful nice of you to send those Jacques. When Myrtle seen me open the box—" The rest of the sentence was lost in the rattle of a cab.
Berri and I waited a moment before coming out of the shadow. Then we looked at each other, and Berri shrieked with laughter. We laughed all the way back to Cambridge. The people in the car must have thought—I don't know what they could have thought. For a long time we could n't imagine why things had turned out as they had until Berri remembered that he had signed the note "Front row—extreme left." He had meant our left, but Miss Ysobelle no doubt thought that it referred to her left,—which was quite another matter.
XV
I've been dead to the world for more than a month; it seems about a year. Yet when I came to look at the situation squarely, there wasn't anything else to do exactly. It was a case of getting the drop on my exams or letting them get the drop on me. Of course, I could have sort of fooled with them and thought I was learning something about them and then perhaps have scraped through in one or two and failed in the others. And this, as a matter of fact, was the way in which Tucker Ludlow and I did go at them at first. Tucker came up to my room two or three times, armed with some type-written notes on Greek architecture that he had bought at one of the book stores in the Square. The first time he came was rather late in the afternoon. He examined everything in my room, and we talked a good deal; he had been out West once, and seemed to know much more about that part of the country than I did. However, we finally got to work and had read about two pages of the notes when Hemington came in. He saw that we were grinding, and said he would n't sit down and interrupt us, especially as he ought to be in his own room, grinding himself. He did n't actually sit down, but leaned against the mantelpiece and smoked for a while, and then compromised by half sitting on the arm of a chair in a temporary way and swinging his leg. When at last he got up to leave, it was so near dinner that Ludlow went with him, and said he would continue some other time. He left the notes with me, and at first I thought I should study them alone, but as Ludlow and I had agreed to grind the course up together, there did n't seem to be any point in getting ahead of him; so in a few minutes I went to dinner myself.
The next time Ludlow came to study was in the evening. He proposed that I should read the notes aloud, as he found the architectural terms so hard to pronounce; we were to stop and talk over anything we did n't understand. I made myself comfortable in a chair near the lamp, and Ludlow drew up to the fire. After droning along for about ten minutes about triglyphs and epistyles and entablatures and all that sort of thing, I suddenly had a jealous feeling that he was getting more good from the performance than I was, for he had n't asked a question, while I had n't understood a single sentence. Finally, without looking up, I said,—