"I have been asked," John replied, a little doubtfully. "I don't quite know whether I want to. Is it being given by the prince or by the management?"
"The management," Sophy assured him. "Do come and take me! It's going to be rather fun."
The curtain went up upon the second act. John, from the shadows of the box, listened attentively. The subject was not a particularly new one, but the writing was brilliant. There was the old Marquis de Guy, a roué, a degenerate, but still overbearing and full of personality, from whose lips came some of Graillot's most brilliant sayings; Louise, his wife; and Faraday, a friend of the old marquis, and obviously the intended lover of his wife.
"I don't see anything so terrible in this," John remarked, as the curtain went down once more and thunders of applause greeted some wonderful lines of Graillot's.
"It's wonderful!" Sophy declared. "Try and bear the thread of it all in your mind. For two acts you have been asked to focus your attention upon the increasing brutality of the marquis. Remember that, won't you?"
"Not likely to forget it," John replied. "How well they all act!"
There was a quarter of an hour's interval before the curtain rose again. Rumors concerning the last act had been floating about for weeks, and the house was almost tense with excitement as the curtain went up. The scene was the country château of the Marquis de Guy, who brought a noisy crowd of companions from Paris without any warning. His wife showed signs of dismay at his coming. He had brought with him women whom she declined to receive.
The great scene between her husband and herself took place in the square hall of the château, on the first floor. The marquis is on the way to the room of one of his guests. Louise reaffirms her intention of leaving the house. Her husband laughs at her. Her position is helpless.
"What can you do?" he mocks.
She shrugs her shoulders and passes into her room. The marquis sinks upon a settee, and presently is joined by one of the ladies who have traveled with him from Paris. He talks to her of the pictures upon the wall. She is impatient to meet the Marquis de Guy.