But he made as though he did not hear her, gravely handed her the music, then, turning away, took up his violin and signed to Sigrid to begin the next dance.
Poor Blanche was eagerly claimed by her next partner, and with burning cheeks and eyes bright with unshed tears, was whirled off though her feet seemed weighted and almost refused to keep time with that violin whose tones seemed to tear her heart. “I have no longer any power over him,” she thought. “I have so shocked and disgusted him that he will not even recognize me—will not answer me when I speak to him! How much nobler he is than these little toads with whom I have to dance, these wretches who flatter me, yet all the time despise me in their hearts! Oh, what a fool I have been to throw away a heart like that, to be dazzled by a mere name, and, worst of all, to lose not only his love but his respect! I shall see his face in a moment as we go past that corner. There he is! How sad and stern he looks, and how resolutely he goes on playing! I shall hate this tune all my life long. I have nothing left but the power to give him pain—I who long to help him, who am tortured by this regret!”
All this time she was answering the foolish words of her partner at random. And the evening wore on, and she laughed mechanically and talked by rote, and danced, oh, how wearily! thinking often of a description of the Inferno she had lately seen in one of the magazines, in which the people were obliged to go on pretending to amuse themselves, and dancing, as she now danced, when they only longed to lie down and die.
“But, after all, I can stop,” she reflected. “I am not in the Inferno yet—at least I suppose not, though I doubt if it can be much worse than this. How pretty and innocent that little fair-haired girl looks—white net and lilies of the valley; I should think it must be her first dance. Will she ever grow like me, I wonder? Perhaps some one will say to her, ‘That is the celebrated Lady Romiaux.’ Perhaps she will read the newspapers when the case comes on, as it must come soon. They may do her terrible harm. Oh, if only I could undo the past! I never thought of all this at the time. I never thought till now of any one but myself.”
That thought of the possibility of stopping the dismal mockery of enjoyment came to her again, and she eagerly seized the first opportunity of departure; but when once the strain of the excitement was over her strength all at once evaporated. Feeling sick and faint, she lay back in a cushioned chair in the cloak-room; her gold plush mantle and the lace mantilla which she wore on her head made her look ghastly pale, and the maid came up to her with anxious inquiries.
“It is nothing but neuralgia,” she replied wearily. “Let them call my carriage.”
And then came a confused sound of wheels outside in the street and shouts echoing through the night, while from above came the sound of the dancers, and that resolute, indefatigable violin still going on with the monotonous air of “Sir Roger de Coverley,” as though it were played by a machine rather than by a man with a weary head and a heavy heart. Blanche wandered back to recollections of Balholm; she saw that merry throng in the inn parlor, she saw Ole Kvikne with his kindly smile, and Herr Falck with his look of content, and she flew down the long lines of merry dancers once more to meet Frithiof—the boyish, happy-looking Frithiof with whom she had danced “Sir Roger” two years ago.
“Lady Romiaux’s carriage is at the door,” said a voice, and she hastily got up, made her way through the brightly lighted hall, and with a sense of relief stepped into her brougham. Still the violin played on, its gay tune ringing out with that strange sadness which dance music at a distance often suggests. Blanche could bear it no longer; she drew up the carriage window, sank back into the corner, and broke into a passionate fit of weeping.
It was quite possible for Lady Romiaux to go, but the dance was not yet over, and Frithiof and Sigrid had, of course, to stay to the bitter end. Sigrid, tired as she was herself, had hardly a thought for anything except her twin. As that long, long evening wore on it seemed to her that if possible she loved him better than she had ever done before; his quiet endurance appealed to her very strongly, but for his sake she eagerly wished for the end, for she saw by the look of his forehead that one of his worst headaches had come on.
And at length the programme had been toiled through. She hurried downstairs to put on her cloak and hat, rejoining Frithiof in a few minutes in the crowded hall, where he stood looking, to her fond fancy, a thousand times nobler and grander than any of the other men about him.