Kate had gone with the Fulhams and they, with Blue-eyed Mary and Dr. von Shierbrand, sat together in the box which Mrs. Barsaloux had given them, and where, from time to time, she joined them. But chiefly she hovered around Marna in that dim vast world back of the curtain.
They said of Marna afterward that she was like a spirit. She seemed less and more than a woman, an evanescent essence of feminine delight. Her laughter, her tears, her swift emotions were all as something held for a moment before the eye and snatched away, to leave but the wavering eidolon of their loveliness. She sang with a young Italian who responded exquisitely to the swift, bright, unsubstantial beauty of her acting, and whom she seemed fairly to bathe in the amber loveliness of her voice.
Kate, quivering for her, seeming indefinably to be a part of her, suffering at the hesitancies of the audience and shaken with their approval, was glad when it was all over. She hastened out to be with the crowd and to hear what they were saying. They were warm in their praise, but Kate was dissatisfied. She longed for something more emphatic--some excess of acclaim. She wondered if they were waiting for more authoritative audiences to set the stamp of approval on Marna. It did not occur to her that they had found the performance too opalescent and elusive.
Kate wondered if the girl would feel that anything had been missing, but Marna seemed to be basking in the happiness of the hour. The great German prima donna had kissed her with tears in her eyes; the French baritone had spoken his compliments with convincing ardor; dozens had crowded about her with congratulations; and now, at the head of the glittering table in an opulent room, the little descendant of minstrels sat and smiled upon her friends. A gilded crown of laurel leaves rested on her dark hair; her white neck arose delicately from the yellowed lace and the shining silk; the sunny opals rested upon her shoulders.
"I drink," cried the French baritone, "to a voice of honey and an ivory throat."
"To a great career," supplemented David Fulham.
"And happiness," Kate broke in, standing with the others and forgetting to be abashed by the presence of so many. Then she called to Marna:--
"I was afraid they would leave out happiness."
Kate might have been the belated fairy godmother who brought this gift in the nick of time. Those at the table smiled at her indulgently,--she was so eager, so young, so almost fierce. She had dressed herself in white without frill or decoration, and the clinging folds of her gown draped her like a slender, chaste statue. She wore no jewels,--she had none, indeed,--and her dark coiled hair in no way disguised the shape of her fine head. The elaborate Polish contralto across from her, splendid as a mediaeval queen, threw Kate's simplicity into sharp contrast. Marna turned adoring eyes upon her; Mrs. Barsaloux, that inveterate encourager of genius, grieved that the girl had no specialty for her to foster; the foreigners paid her frank tribute, and there was no question but that the appraisement upon her that night was high.
As for Mama's happiness, for which Kate had put in her stipulation, it was coming post-haste, though by a circuitous road.