"Mes pauvres amis—I 'ave so many. They won't understand. They say: 'That's one of Gyp's leetle jokes.' They won't believe it—they won't dare."
She gave him her hand, and he touched it perfunctorily.
"It's as you like, of course. You have only to let me know."
"You are ver' kind."
He showed her to the door, and rang the bell for the servant. From his vantage point he saw the pale-blue chauffeur hold open the door of the pale-blue limousine. A few loiterers gaped. By an ironical chance a barrel-organ in the next street began to grind out the riotous, familiar gallop. It sounded far-off like a jeering echo:
"I'm Gyp Labelle;
If you dance with me
You dance to my tune. . ."
A danse macabre. He wondered if she had brains or heart enough to appreciate the full bitterness of that chance. He could see her, in his mind's eye, cowering back among the pale-blue cushions.
The next morning he received a note from her and a ticket for the first night of "Mademoiselle Pantalonne"—"with her regards and thanks."
3
He went. In the morning he had tossed the ticket aside, scornful and outraged by such a poor gesture of bravado. But the night brought the old restlessness. He was driven by curiosity that he believed was professional and impersonal. It was natural enough that he should want to see how a woman of her stuff acted under sentence of death. But once in the theatre h e became aware of a black and solitary pride because he alone of all these people could taste the full flavour of her performance. He had become omniscient. He saw behind the scenes. Whilst the orchestra played its jaunty overture he watched her. He saw her stare into her glass and dab on the paint, thicker and thicker, knowing now why she needed so much more, shrinking from the skull that was beginning to peer through the thin mask of flesh and blood. He foresaw the moment, probably before the footlights, when the naked horror of it all would leap out on her and tear her down. Even in that she would no doubt seek the consolation of notoriety. It would be in all the papers. If she had the nerve to carry on people would crowd to see her, as in the Roman days they had crowded to the circus (gloating and stroking themselves secretly, thinking: "It is not I who am dying"). Or she would seek dramatic refuge in her absurd palace and surround herself with tragic glamour, making use of her own death as she had used the death of that infatuated and unhappy prince.