In the middle of my dance the Queen arose and left the theatre with all her attendants. I saw her rise and go!
I thought the floor would open and engulf me. What had I done to offend her? Was she indignant that I had made her wait? Was this her way of punishing me for my discourtesy, or did my dances displease her? What was I to think?
I went home in utter despair.
I had just realised one of my dearest wishes, that of dancing before the Queen. Never had I experienced such dejection. I should have preferred a thousand times that she had not come.
I learned afterward at the theatre that a telephone message had come shortly after noon to the effect that the Queen wished to see Loie Fuller, but that she would have to leave at four o’clock.
The manager, who had supposed that the Queen was coming to see the Hippodrome, had not attached any importance to the intimation regarding me, and did not even take the trouble to find out whether I was there or not.
Next morning all the papers recorded that the Queen of England had come to the Hippodrome, despite her many appointments and engagements made some time earlier, and so forth and so forth.
There was not a word about me.
However, as I had written to the Queen to ask her to come it seemed to me that I ought to excuse myself for my apparent discourtesy. I wrote to her accordingly, telling her how distressed I was at my failure to appear earlier—a failure that would not have occurred if some one had come to apprise me. I regretted that the message had not been forwarded to me instead of to the manager.
That same evening one of my friends came to tell me that she had written the day before to one of the Queen’s maids of honour, whom she knew personally, asking her to come and see me dance at the Hippodrome.