Various other people whom Julia knew more or less intimately, after one swift glance at the box, also kept their attention on that curtain; talking together, low-voiced.
And suddenly Julia grew aware that the white-gloved fingers of the woman beside her were gripping the ledge of their box as though it had been the arm of a dentist's chair, that the eyes of the woman beside her were focused as the eyes of a sleep-walker on the third row of the stalls. Instinctively, her own glance followed the line; and following, envisaged Aliette's husband.
To Julia, the female knight-errant a-tilt against the dragon "Convention," the presence of the Brunton family--for they were all there, Sir Simeon with his ambassadress, Rear-Admiral Billy, two of Sir Simeon's daughters by his first wife, and Hector--should have been the crown of her adventure; but to Julia Cavendish, society-woman, the happening was rather a shock. For the society-woman in her could not quite prevent herself from sympathizing with the peculiar position of Sir Simeon and Lady Brunton. Sympathy, however, turned to rage when they deliberately looked up at the box, and, with equal deliberation, looked away.
The two daughters did not look up; and the admiral gave no sign either of recognition or of partizanship. But Hector, at a word from his uncle, stared and continued to stare across the house.
Ronnie, perceiving the stare, deliberately drew his chair closer to Aliette's; and the momentary panic stilled in her mind. Her fingers loosened their grip on the velvet ledge; her eyes were no longer the vacant eyes of a sleep-walker. Coolly now she faced her husband's ill-mannered stare; coolly she forced a smile to her lips, and, pretending to examine her program, managed an aimless remark.
The pretense of nonchalance deceived even Hector. Hector turned to his cousin Moira and tried to talk with her. But hardly a word came to his lips. His heart thudded under the stiff of his shirt-front. He felt himself surrounded, pent in a cage, pent to sitting-posture. He wanted to heave himself upright, to smash the cage, to scatter the people surrounding him.
"Confound them!" he thought, "they all know. All these first-nighters know. Of set purpose, she has done me this shame."
Once again he saw himself as the lone bull, the lone bull before the scornful herd. He wanted to gore with his horns, to lash out with his hoofs; for his eyes--averted from the box--still held their picture: the two disdainful women, the tall disdainful man between them.
"Pretty bad form, I think," said Moira sympathetically.
"Curse her sympathy!" thought Hector.