She was not particularly distressed because she knew that it would not be possible for her to sing again until the following winter in New York. She had sobbed too much, with her face buried in the pillow. Had these sobs been born of weakness, all might have been well; but rage had mothered them, and thus her voice was in a very bad way. This morning she was noticeably hoarse, and there was a break in the arietta. No, she did not fret over this side of the calamity. The sting of it all lay in the fact that she had been outraged in the matter of personal liberty, with no act of reprisal to ease her immediate longing to be avenged.
Nora, as she stood in the full morning sunlight, was like to gladden the eyes of all mankind. She was beautiful, and all adjectives applicable would but serve to confuse rather than to embellish her physical excellence. She was as beautiful as a garden rose is, needing no defense, no ramparts of cloying phrases. The day of poets is gone, otherwise she would have been sung in cantos. She was tall, shapely, deep-bosomed, fine-skinned. Critics, in praising her charms, delved into mythology and folk-lore for comparisons, until there wasn’t a goddess left on Olympus or on Northland’s icy capes; and when these images became a little shop-worn, referred to certain masterpieces of the old fellows who had left nothing more to be said in oils. Nora enjoyed it all.
She had not been happy in the selection of her stage name; but she had chosen Eleonora da Toscana because she believed there was good luck in it. Once, long before the world knew of her, she had returned home from Italy unexpectedly. “Molly, here’s Nora, from Tuscany!” her delighted father had cried: who at that time had a nebulous idea that Tuscany was somewhere in Ireland because it had a Celtic ring to it. Being filled with love of Italy, its tongue, its history, its physical beauty, she naïvely translated “Nora from Tuscany” into Italian, and declared that when she went upon the stage she would be known by that name. There had been some smiling over the pseudonym; but Nora was Irish enough to cling to it. By and by the great music-loving public ceased to concern itself about her name; it was her fresh beauty and her wonderful voice they craved to see and hear. Kings and queens, emperors and empresses, princes and princesses,—what is called royalty and nobility in the newspapers freely gave her homage. Quite a rise in the world for a little girl who had once lived in a shabby apartment in New York and run barefooted on the wet asphalts, summer nights!
But Nora was not recalling the happy scenes of her childhood; indeed, no; she was still threatening Paris. Once there, she would not lack for reprisals. To have played on her pity! To have made a lure of her tender concern for the unfortunate! Never would she forgive such baseness. And only a little while ago she had been as happy as the nightingale to which they compared her. Never had she wronged any one; she had been kindness and thoughtfulness to all with whom she had come in contact. But from now on!... Her fingers tightened round the bars. She might have posed as Dido when she learned that the noble Æneas was dead. War, war; woe to the moths who fluttered about her head hereafter!
Ah, but had she been happy? Her hands slid down the bars. Her expression changed. The mouth drooped, the eagle-light in her eyes dimmed. From out the bright morning, somewhere, had come weariness, and with this came weakness, and finally, tears.
She heard the key turn in the lock. They had never come so early before. She was astonished to see that her jailer did not close the door as usual. He put down the breakfast tray on the table. There was tea and toast and fruit.
“Mademoiselle, there has been a terrible mistake,” said the man humbly.
“Ah! So you have found that out?” she cried.
“Yes. You are not the person for whom this room was intended.” Which was half a truth and perfectly true, paradoxical as it may seem. “Eat your breakfast in peace. You are free, Mademoiselle.”
“Free? You will not hinder me if I walk through that door?”