Thrall had taken his idea in part from a picture he had seen abroad. The balcony of Juliet's wide-open window, all swathed in vines, lay before the audience. The silken ladder, plainly seen between the tubbed oranges, dangled from the ledge; the room in some disorder; the bed-curtains drawn close; low burnt candles on the dressing-table; Juliet with feet thrust into small Turkish mules, all free from pearls or ornament of any kind—a sort of idealized robe de chambre, white, trailing voluminously, frothed with lace, its open wing-like sleeves touching the floor, fell free from chin to foot, while all the dark mass of hair tumbling riotously over shoulders and clouding about her level, tragic brows suggested the new dear freedom of the nuptial chamber.
In the picture, then, that the public loved, Romeo, close cap on head, long travelling cloak depending from his shoulders—being under the ban of the law—was secretly about to leave his few hours-made bride. Out on the balcony, with right foot on the silken ladder, he rested the left bent knee upon the balcony's ledge. With right arm aloft he steadied himself by holding to the vines above, while with his left arm he crushed the slender, white-robed figure close. Upon his breast her face was resting, with maddening lips and glowing eyes uplifted, her round young arms wreathing his neck; the warm, soft hair flowing over his hand and arm, seeming to him magnetic, alive, tingling!
So he stood, a gracious shape, with regular fine features, with heavy amorous lids and sweeping black lashes that, downcast, helped to soften the almost savage love burning in the blue depths of his bold eyes.
No more perfect picture of physical beauty and passionate, romantic love could be imagined, and it was nightly received with admiring applause, beneath which his whisper came to her: "My beloved! my beloved!"
And her eyes would sink and all her throat flush red, for she had lived a lover's life-time during that one storm-shaken kiss—and she understood!
Others, too, there were who, though they heard no whispered word, saw the lowered lids and moving lips of Thrall, and, knowing him of old, guessed the rest.
And Roberts groaned and Manice was so like a spitting cat that poor Jim said wearily one night: "Look out, Thrall! I know the wrong side of woman pretty well, and that bleached friend of yours is going to play you a trick before long—either you or—or—" He could not force himself to speak the name, but looked so piteously at the manager that Thrall nodded, answeringly: "All right, Jim! all right! She can try all the tricks she likes on me! The—the other person's safe enough—they don't come in contact, you know! Why, you're all to pieces, and imagine things!"
"She's dangerous, I tell you!" persisted Jim.
"She's a coward!" contemptuously replied Thrall. "Besides, if you must know, I've succeeded in shipping her. She's to be starred in a comedy next season. Jake Huntley takes her out."
"Humph!" said Jim, "that must cost you something?"