The sound of it started an idea buzzing in the head of one of her audience–Charlie Hunt, who sat well in front, and in applauding raised his hands above the level of his head so that actors and audience alike might be encouraged by seeing that he gave the patronage of his approval.
He did not immediately connect Aurora’s English with a rankling remembered episode, but the thing was burrowing in his subconsciousness, and an arrow of light before long pierced his brain. He reconsidered the conclusion upon which he had rested with regard to the black crow who at the veglione had put to him an impertinent question. Could it be that not the particular lady whom he had fixed upon in his mind, as being fond of Landini, consequently jealous of Mrs. Hawthorne, had by it expressed her spite, but that–? He saw in a flash a different possibility.
When the show was over and the performers had issued from the dressing-rooms in the clothes of saner moments, Charlie Hunt approached Mrs. Hawthorne, who, flushed 266with excitement, was looking almost too much like an American Beauty rose. He paid his compliments in a tone tinged with irony, all the while watching her with a penetrating, inquiring, ironical eye. But the irony was wasted. She was too pleasantly engrossed to perceive it.
“Has anybody here seen Mr. Fane?” she asked after a time, when her glances had vainly sought him in every corner.
Estelle told her that she had not set eyes on him the whole evening; and, which was more conclusive, little Lily Foss said he had not been there.
267CHAPTER XV
Aurora, unable to see beyond the footlights, had never dreamed but Gerald was among the audience. Her capers had at moments been definitely directed at him. Discovering that he had kept away, she was not so much hurt as puzzled.
“Who’d have thought he cared enough about it to be so mean!” she said to herself. “Well,” she said further, “let him alone. He’ll come round in a day or two.”
She really expected him that same day. When he did not come, or the day after, or the day after that, she tried to recall passage for passage their talk on the subject of the show. She did not remember his saying anything that amounted to giving her a choice between renouncing it or renouncing his friendship.