All through that overlong entr'acte, she sat speechless; her brown pupils hard and bright; her white shoulders squared above the black sequined dress; her pale face, her red lips set to an almost sullen determination. And, as the entr'acte ended, those hard brown pupils fell to devisaging Mary O'Riordan. Till, visibly ill at ease, the cow-eyes under Mary's mop of gold hair turned away.
But it gave Aliette no pleasure to realize that, hurt, she had retaliated.
6
Everybody in front of the curtain and everybody behind the curtain knew--as it fell--that Patrick O'Riordan's poetic drama, "Khorassan," was a proved failure. Nevertheless, the audience, as is the polite custom of first-night audiences, applauded; and called on the author, white-faced in the glare of the footlights, for a speech.
"And in the morning," thought Julia Cavendish satirically, "we shall read of the great service rendered by Patrick O'Riordan via Letchingbury's bank-account, to art; and of the pressing need for more revivals of the poetic drama."
Julia could not help being a little pleased at the play's failure; in a way it mitigated her own. For that she had failed, lamentably, in her adventure, Ronnie's mother realized even better than Aliette. Hold her head high as she might, this consciousness of disaster persisted all through O'Riordan's overlong speech. The literary childishness went out of her, leaving the woman of the world conscious that she had done the foolish thing, that she had flaunted her son and her son's mistress before that little section of society which is a London first-night. Society, of course, had averted its face! Remained, therefore, only the assurance that Aliette's husband had seen the flaunting, and so must surely be forced into action.
"Poor Aliette," thought Julia. "Poor Ronnie." Her mind was all a weakness toward them, all a strength against the world. For herself, she needed no comforting; but them she wanted to take in her arms, to mother.
O'Riordan's speech ended. The house clapped, and emptied. The three left their box; and Ronnie--reluctantly leaving Julia and Aliette in the foyer--went off in search of the electric brougham.
Waiting in the crowd, both women knew themselves on show, the dual cynosure of a hundred furtive glances. People seemed anxious to escape without the need for recognizing them. The few smiles were frigid, standoffish--all for Julia, none for her companion. Hector's aunt, jostling by, cut the pair dead.
Aliette tried to think, "It doesn't matter; it doesn't matter a bit"; she tried to hold herself upright, to cut rather than be cut, to preserve--outwardly at least--the semblance of a dignity. But inwardly she knew herself all one tremble of undignified panic. If only one person, just one person in that jostling mob, would be really decent! If only Ronnie would be quicker with their carriage!