“It can’t be Tom,” said Mrs. Pembroke. “He never comes back until after the curtain is up, and sometimes not till the act is nearly over.”
Vansittart opened the box door, and a treble voice questioned, “Ices, sir?”
He made way for the young woman with the tray of ices, and insisted upon Mrs. Pembroke taking one of those parti-coloured slabs which have superseded the old-fashioned rose-pink strawberry ice. He sat down again, ashamed of his overstrained nerves, and looked at the great curtain, wondering whether in all that wide expanse there were any gimlet holes through which Fiordelisa’s ardent eyes might be watching him. The curtain rose, and the act began; but Vansittart had no longer any ear for the music he loved. His whole attention was concentrated upon the chorus singers. He watched and waited for their coming and going, searched out Lisa’s familiar figure amidst the throng that watched Valentine’s death-throes and Margherita’s despair. He singled her out again and again as the troupe moved about the spacious stage—now on one side, now on the other, in the foreground or the background, according to the exigencies of the scene. He watched the stage till the green curtain fell; and then he woke as from a dream, and began to wonder what he must do next. Something he must do assuredly, he told himself, as he helped Mrs. Pembroke with her wraps, and heard her chatter about the performance, which she denounced as second-rate, declaring further that she had been taken in by Lady Davenant’s gift of the box. Something he must do; first to ascertain what Fiordelisa’s intentions might be—whether she would denounce him to the police; next to make whatever atonement he could make to her for the loss of her lover. He was not going to run away this time, as he had done at Venice. He had been seen and recognized. He would be watched, no doubt as he left the theatre. This girl would make it her business to find out his name and residence. Even if he wanted to elude her, the thing would be impossible. He had been sitting there all the evening in a conspicuous box on the grand tier, and he had to get away from a sparsely filled theatre.
Again there was a knock at the box door. It came while he was putting on his overcoat, and before Mrs. Pembroke had begun to move off.
It was a boxkeeper this time, with a letter.
“For you, sir,” he said, handing it to Vansittart, after looking at the two men.
“An unaddressed envelope,” chirruped Mrs. Pembroke; “this savours of mystery.”
Vansittart put the letter into his pocket without a word. His most ardent desire at that moment was to get rid of the Pembrokes.
“Can I be of any use in fetching a cab?” he said in the hall.
“You can stop with my wife while I get one, if you don’t mind,” said Pembroke.