Enrique tried to seem astonished.
"Ashamed?" he repeated. "How could I be? On the contrary——"
And his fingers closed over hers with unspeakable ardor.
At the end of the act, the audience began to applaud. Many enthusiastic voices called: "Author! Author!" Alicia clapped her hands wildly.
"Oh, how I'd like to know him!" cried she.
Enrique also applauded noisily, to please her. The curtain rose again, in the midst of that uproarious tempest of triumph, and the author appeared. His profile was aquiline; his theatrical triumphs and loose way of living had enveloped him in a cloud of prestige, blent of talent and scandal. He looked a little above forty, but his lithe body still kept all the graceful activity of youth. The spot-light brilliantly illuminated him; he smiled, with the arrogant expression and gestures of a conqueror. Still applauding, Alicia exclaimed to Enrique:
"Isn't he lovely? I've got to get some one to introduce me to him. My friend Candelas knows him very well."
And her big green eyes widened with emotion. Her curly reddish hair shook like a lion's mane, over her willful forehead. At that moment, Enrique Darlés once more felt himself small and obscure. He saw his love meant nothing in the exuberant life of this girl. While he had been holding her pretty little hand, a few minutes before, he had thought her conquered and in love with him. Now all of a sudden he beheld her transfigured, beside herself, her scatter-brained little head flung back in an attitude of giving, that offered the victorious playwright her snowy throat. Ethnological reasons underlie woman's adoration of everything strong, shining, violent.
"If I were not here," thought Darlés with melancholy, "surely she would go to him."
The student got back his gayety, during the second act. Alicia pressed up against him, slyly and nervously, and her restless curls produced little electric ticklings on his temples. When the play was done, the ovation broke out again, and the author once more appeared. Enrique's applause was only mild. For a moment he thought the playwright's eyes fell with avidity on Alicia. This painful impression still lay upon the student as they went out into the street. The young woman walked beside him, holding his arm and shivering with cold in her handsome gray cloak. The night was sharp. Rain had been falling. Alicia said: