XXXIII
The reception in honor of the little company of French tragedians, at which almost the whole of the English stage and a sprinkling of society people were present, was a complete success. Louise made a charming hostess, and Sir Edward more than ever justified his reputation for saying the right thing to the right person at the right moment. The rooms were crowded with throngs of distinguished people, who all seemed to have plenty to say to one another.
The only person, perhaps, who found himself curiously ill at ease was John. He heard nothing but French on all sides of him—a language which he read with some facility, but which he spoke like a schoolboy. He had been wandering about for more than an hour before Louise discovered him. She at once left her place and crossed the room to where he was standing by the wall.
"Cheer up!" she begged, with a delightful smile. "I am afraid that you are being bored to death. Will you not come and be presented to our guests?"
"For goodness' sake, no!" John implored. "I have never seen one of them act, and my French is appalling. I am all right, dear. It's quite enough pleasure to see you looking so beautiful, and to think that I am going to be allowed to drive you home afterward."
Louise looked into a neighboring mirror, and gazed critically at her own reflected image. The lines of her figure, fine and subtle, seemed traced by the finger of some great sculptor underneath her faultlessly made white-satin gown. She studied her white neck and shoulders and her perfectly shaped head, seeking everywhere for some detail with which an impartial critic might find fault.
She had a curious feeling that at that precise moment she had reached the zenith of her power and her charm. Her audience at the theater had been wonderfully sympathetic, had responded with rare appreciation to every turn of her voice, to every movement and gesture. The compliments, too, which she had been receiving from the crowds who had bent over her fingers that night had been no idle words. Many distinguished men had looked at her with a light in their eyes which women understand so well—a light questioning yet respectful, which provokes yet begs for something in the way of response.
She was conscious, acutely conscious, of the atmosphere she had created around her. She was glorying in the subtle outward signs of it. She was in love with herself; in love, too, with this delightful new feeling of loving. It would have given her more joy than anything else in the world, in that moment of her triumph, to have passed her arm through John's, to have led him up to them all, and to have said:
"After all, you see, I am a very simple sort of woman. I have done just the sort of simple thing that other women do, and I am glad of it—very glad and very happy!"
Her lips moved to the music of her thoughts. John leaned toward her.