The success of his novel had had no such effect upon him as this. It was entrancing to think that in a few moments the words he had written would come to him clothed in various voices, the people his brain had pictured would move before him in flesh and blood, doing what he had ordained that they should do. When the curtain rose, he had forgotten his personal problem, had forgotten Betty. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hand.
The scene was of a tropical island, palms, a strip of turquoise sea. A girl pushed aside the great fronds of ferns and stepped down to the beach. At her appearance the audience broke into applause. She was a tall girl, her stained legs and arms bare below her ragged dress, her black hair hung wild and free about her face and neck. As the daughter of a native mother and an English father, her beauty had been made to seem both Saxon and savage. Stained and painted, darkened below the great gray eyes, Joan with her brows and her classic chin and throat, Joan with her secret, dangerous eyes and lithe, long body, made an arresting picture enough against the setting of vivid green and blue. She moved slowly, deliberately, naturally, and stood, hands on hips, to watch a ship sail into the turquoise harbor. It was not like acting, she seemed really to look. She threw back her head and gave a call. It was the name of her stage brother, but it came from her deep chest and through her long column of a throat like music. Prosper brought down his hands on the railing before him, half pushed himself up, turned a blind look upon Betty, who laid a restraining hand upon his arm.
He whispered a name, which Betty could not make out, then he sat down, moistened his lips with his tongue, and sat through the entire first act and neither moved nor spoke. As the curtain went down he stood up.
“I must go out,” he said, and hesitated in the back of the box till Jasper came over to him with an anxious question. Then he began to stammer nervously. “Don’t tell her, Jasper, don’t tell her.”
“Tell her what, man? Tell whom?” Jasper gave him a shake. “Don’t you like Jane? Isn’t she wonderful?”
“Yes, yes, extraordinary!”
“Made for the part?”
“No.” Prosper’s face twisted into a smile. “No. The part came second, she was there first. Morena, promise me you won’t tell her who wrote the play.”
“Look here, Prosper, suppose you tell me what’s wrong. Have you seen a ghost?”
Prosper laughed; then, seeing Betty, her face a rigid question, he struggled to lay hands upon his self-control.