So, at half-past seven, Maud Sartoris sailed in, torquoise-blue and all, and, holding out her hand with a forgiving smile, murmured gushingly to her hostess, “We thought it so friendly of you, dear Mrs Palmer, to invite us like that at a moment’s notice, as soon as you knew we were engaged to Will, and that Will couldn’t possibly go unless he took us with him! We want to see this new piece at the Harmony so much; a first night to us quiet clerical folks, you know, is always such a treat. We’re immensely obliged to you.”
Dinner went off well, as it usually did where Florian was of the party. To give Florian his due, he bubbled and sparkled, like the Apollinaris spring, with unfailing effervescence. That evening, too, he was in specially fine form; it amused him to hear Mr Joaquin Holmes discourse with an air of profound conviction on his own prophetic art, and then watch him glancing across the table under his long dark eyelashes to see between whiles how Florian took it. The follies and foibles of mankind were nuts to Florian. It gave the epicurean philosopher a calm sense of pleasure in his own superiority to see Rue and Arthur Sartoris drinking in open-mouthed the mysterious hints and self-glorificatory nonsense of the man whom he knew by his own confession to be a cheat and a humbug. Their eyes seldom met; Joaquin Holmes avoided such disconcerting experiences; but whenever they did, Florian’s were brimful of suppressed amusement, while the Seer’s had a furtive hang-dog air as of one who at once would deprecate exposure and beseech indulgence.
After dinner, the Seer kept them laughing so long at his admirable stories of the Far West of his childhood (which Arthur Sartoris received with the conventional “Ah really, now, Mr Holmes!” of forced clerical disapprobation) that they were barely in time for the beginning of the opera. As they entered, the tenor held possession of the stage. Will didn’t think so much of him; Florian, his head on one side in a critical attitude, observed oracularly, at the end of his first song, that the Papadopoli was perhaps not wholly without capabilities. That’s the sort of criticism that Florian loved best; it enables a man to hedge in accordance with the event. If the fellow turns out well in the near future, you can say you declared from the very first he had capabilities; if the public doesn’t catch on, you can remark with justice that he hasn’t developed what little promise he once showed, and that from the beginning you never felt inclined to say much for him.
Presently, from the rear of the stage, down the mimic rocks that formed the background of the scenery, a beautiful woman, entering almost unobserved, sprang lightly from boulder to boulder of the torrent bed, with the true elastic step of a mountain-bred maiden. She had a fine ripe figure, very lithe and vigorous-looking; her features were full, but extremely regular; her mouth, though large and somewhat rich in the lips, was yet rosy and attractive. Eyes full of fire, and a rounded throat, with a waxy softness of outline that recalled a nightingale’s, gave point to her beauty. She was exquisitely dressed in a pale cream bodice, with what passes on the stage for a peasant kirtle, and round her rich brown neck she wore a drooping circlet of half-barbaric-looking lance-like red coral pendants. Before she opened her mouth, her mere form and grace of movement took the house by surprise. A little storm of applause burst spontaneous at once from stalls, boxes, and gallery. The singer paused, and curtsied. She looked lovelier still as she flushed up with excitement. Every eye in the house was instinctively fixed upon her.
Will had been gazing round the boxes as the actress entered, to see what friends of his they might contain, and to nod recognition. The burst of applause recalled him suddenly to what was passing on the stage. He looked round and stared at her. For a moment he saw only a very beautiful girl, in the prime of her days, gracefully clad for her part, and most supple in her movements. At the self-same instant, before he had time to note more, the singer opened her mouth, and began to pour forth on his ear lavish floods of liquid music. Will started with surprise; in a flash of recognition, voice and face came back to him. He seized Florian by the arm. “Great God!” he cried, “it’s Linnet!”
Florian struck a little attitude. “Oh, unexpected felicity! Oh, great gain!” he murmured, in his supremest manner. “You’re right! So it is! A most undoubted Linnet!”
And Linnet it was; dressed in the impossible peasant costume of theatrical fancy; grown fuller and more beautiful about the neck and throat; with her delicate voice highly trained and developed by all that Italian or Bavarian masters could suggest to improve it; but Linnet still for all that—the same beautiful, simple, sweet Linnet as ever.
Joaquin Holmes glanced at the programme. “And this,” he murmured low, “is Signora Carlotta Casalmonte that I spoke about.”
Florian’s eyes opened wide. “Why, of course!” he exclaimed with a start. “I wonder we didn’t see it. It’s a mere translation: Casalmonte—Hausberger: Carlotta—Carolina—Lina—Linnet; there you have it!” And he turned, self-applausive of his own cleverness, to Rue, who sat beside him.
As for Rue, her first feeling was a sudden flush of pain; so this girl had come back to keep Will still apart from her! One moment later that feeling gave place with lightning speed to another; would he care for this peasant woman so much, and regret her so deeply, if he saw her here in England, another man’s wife, and an actress on the stage, dressed up in all the vulgar tinsel gew-gaws, surrounded by all the sordid disenchanting realities of theatrical existence?