"But I'm not going to tell you about that now," he said, quietly. "Now I'm thinking of nothing but the play."
I rose hurriedly. "I'm afraid I'm not," I admitted. "I forgot to go to Miss Merrick as I promised."
He rose and went with me. From our places at the end of the left-side aisle it was easy to slip back of the boxes and behind the scenes. Godfrey waited in the wings while I tapped at the door of Miss Merrick's dressing-room and entered. The place seemed very full. Elman, the stage director, was in the group that surrounded the star, and Peyton, our leading man, the latter dressed for his entrance. Both came forward at once to shake hands. Miss Merrick, her eyes on the mirror, following the last touches of her make-up, smiled at me without turning. She was pale under her rouge, and her eyes seemed twice their usual size, but they brightened as she saw me.
"I'm not going to say a word," I told her. "You know how I feel."
It was clear that she hardly heard me.
"Look at all these," she said. "Everybody's awfully kind."
She waved her hand, indicating the masses of flowers around her, the litter of telegrams and notes.
"I'm actually frozen with fear," she went on. "But I always am. It will pass off soon after we begin. Am I speaking in my usual voice? It sounds like a whisper to me."
I reassured her and slipped away. Elman, Peyton, and her maid closed round her again. I heard her describing her symptoms in detail as I closed the door. I recognized them. They were also mine. The theater was dark and the curtain just rising as Godfrey and I returned to our seats. I was deeply thankful for the gloom that enveloped me. My mother, sitting at my right, reached out gently and took my hand, but I was hardly conscious of the action. For the moment there was nothing in the world but the lighted stage on which my familiar characters, my "dea', dea' dollies," as Maria Annunciata called them, were going through their parts.
The house was very still. Every head in the great audience was turned toward the stage, politely attentive, willing to be interested, waiting to know if interest was there. A moment dragged by, another and another—the longest of my life except the moments of the night, three months ago, when I had awaited news from Godfrey's sick-room. And now he was here beside me, superbly well, wholly himself again. At the thought my heart melted. My mind swerved for a second from the interest on which it was focused. I turned and glanced at him. He was leaning forward in his seat, his gray eyes fixed unwinkingly on the stage, his face pale under its coat of Palm Beach tan. For an instant he did not know that I was glancing at him; then he turned, and our eyes met in a look which taught me that of all in the crowded house he understood best what this hour meant to me, because it meant as much to him. It was as if we thought with one mind, responded with one nervous system to the influence around us.