Perhaps after all the music of Aglipogue’s violin did move them; perhaps it was only that they had dined too well; perhaps because the company was so small that twice men found themselves dancing with their own wives; for any, or all, or none of these reasons, they tired of dancing early and were ready for Angela’s much-advertised “show.”
Terry had been dancing with Ruth, and she knew that there was something that he wanted to say to her. She guessed that it was something about Gloria, but she did not want to talk to Terry about Gloria. He could not understand and she regretted that she had tried to make him understand. She could not discuss Gloria with any one, not even Terry. She knew what she had to do and her whole mind was set on that. If she talked to Terry his lack of faith would weaken her purpose. She left him now, abruptly, ignoring the look of reproach in his eyes, and walked beside Professor Pendragon, who was moving slowly on his crutches, a little behind the others. She meant to stay close beside him through the rest of the night.
In the room that had been the scene of the children’s party that afternoon a stage had been put up—a low platform covered with a black velvet carpet and divided in half by a black curtain on which the signs of the Zodiac were embroidered in gold thread. The Christmas tree was still in the room, but unlighted and shoved away into an obscure corner. To Ruth it looked pitiful, like an old man, Father Christmas perhaps, who sat back watching with sorrowful eyes the unchristmas-like amusements of modern humanity. There was a piano on the stage. For a woman who was herself “unmusical,” Angela had more pianos in her house than any one in the world, Ruth decided.
In a semicircle, very close to the stage, chairs had been placed, and here the company seated themselves, with much more or less witty comment about what they might expect from behind the mysterious curtain. Behind them was another row of chairs, which, carrying out Mr. Peyton-Russell’s “lord of the manor” pose, the household servants had been invited to occupy. They came, with quiet curiosity, one or two of the maids stifling yawns that led Ruth to suspect they would much rather have gone to bed.
The semi-circular arrangement of the chairs made those at the ends of the row much closer to the stage than those in the centre. On one of these end chairs sat Professor Pendragon, his crutches resting beside him on the floor, and next to him sat Ruth. Then came some of the dinner guests, the other house guests, including Gloria and Prince Aglipogue, being at the farther end of the row; the room was dimly lighted and the stage itself had only one light, a ghostly green lamp, seemingly suspended in the middle of the black curtain, in the shape of a waning moon. Instinctively voices were hushed and people talked to each other in whispers. Only Ruth and Professor Pendragon did not speak. She could not know of what he was thinking, but she knew that in herself thought was suspended. She sat watching her hand clasping the tiny revolver concealed in her girdle.
John Peyton-Russell then announced that Miss Gilchrist (if she had a Christian name no one ever heard it) had consented to recite some of her own poems. The relaxation of the company, almost visible, was half disappointment, half relief. The stage set had led them to expect something unusual, and they were only going to be bored.
Miss Gilchrist seated herself at the piano, on which she accompanied herself. Ruth did not know if her words were as bad as her music, for she did not understand them, and from certain whispered comments she knew that no one else did, with the possible exception of Miss Gilchrist herself.
Some one else—a pretty, blond young thing with a “parlour voice,” sang an old English Christmas carol that sounded like sacrilege. Then Prince Aglipogue sang. Ruth never hated him so much as when he sang because then as at no other time he created the illusion of an understanding soul. His painting was obvious trickery; his violin playing of a quality that did not discredit the composer, for he had been trained to a parrot-like perfection; but when he sang he created the illusion of greatness—Purcell, Brahms, Richard Strauss—it did not matter whose music he sang; one felt that he understood, and it angered Ruth that when she closed her eyes she forgot the singer and could understand how Gloria might marry and even love the possessor of this voice.
Aglipogue always maintained that the war had ruined his career. He had an opera engagement in Germany in 1914, and when the war came he could not go to fill it. So he had remained in the States, and his amazing versatility had enabled him to earn a living as an artist. Now the end of the war had opened new opportunities and he was going to South America in concert work. Ruth had never quite believed his boasting. She did not think that any man’s work could be bigger than himself—that any artist could express something bigger than that contained in his own soul; and the soul of Prince Aglipogue was a weak, cowardly, hateful thing. Yet his voice moved her, attracted and repelled, cast a spell over her, exotic, fascinating, yet sinister as if the music were only a prelude to the wicked necromancy of the Hindoo that was to follow.
The voice ceased, and Prince Aglipogue, alone of all the company unmoved by his own voice, resumed his place at Gloria’s side. For a brief breathing minute no one moved. John Peyton-Russell seemed to have forgotten his cue. Then he rose and told them that the real surprise was to come, an exhibition of magic by Karkotaka, a famous Indian Mahatma. It was the first time that Ruth had ever heard George’s Hindoo name and she suspected that it was no more his real name than was George. She thought she remembered an Indian story in which a certain Karkotaka figured as king of the serpents, a sort of demi-god.