“You are a little dear, Toos, really. Will you allow me to pass by, Madame van der Stoor? your daughter has come to my aid.”
Madame van der Stoor, who, under a pseudonym, dabbled much in poetry, moved a step back, with an acrid smile about her lips. She felt a little disgusted at Emilie’s sans-gêne; she herself never [[8]]made an attempt to get a better view, it was not the thing to show an unfashionable interest in the entertainment.
Emilie and Cateau van der Stoor were soon standing on one chair, holding each other’s waists.
“Oh, how pretty!” cried Emilie, and then remained silent in rapt attention. From out of the billows of a foaming sea arose a rough-hewn cross of marble whiteness, round the base of which a fragile fair woman clung in mortal agony, whilst a heaving wave of tulle covered her feet; and with the fierceness of despair her slender fingers grasped the Rock of Ages.
“It is Lili,” was heard here and there.
“How graceful she is, that Lili!” whispered Emilie to Cateau. “But how can she hang there like that? How can she bear it so long?”
“She is surrounded with pillows; but still it must be very tiring,” said Toos. “Of course you can’t see anything of the pillows, miss.”
“Of course not. But it is very nice; I have never seen anything so poetic before.… Say, Toos, I thought you were going to take part?”
“So I am, but only in the last tableau, with Etienne van Erlevoort. I shall have to be going soon to dress.”
Quickly she got down from her chair. The light grew dim, the folding doors were closed. Applause rang throughout the room. But ere long the white vision of surging foam was repeated, and an angel hovered over the cross, and held out her hand to the swooning woman.