He was good at remembering faces, while I was not good at all, and still I, too, was beginning to think that I had seen Madame, when Katy came up and said, “Now let me have your place, while you step aside, and see how soon I can make her uncomfortable.”
I stepped aside, standing a little to the right of Katy, whose face I could not see. But I saw Madame who, after a little, began to fidget in her chair and cast frequent glances across the table to where Katy stood, not looking at her all the time, but making it sufficiently manifest that she was watching her. Strangely, too, Madame began to lose. This made her more nervous than ever, and at last, folding her hands in a despairing kind of way, she said something to the man beside her. Following the direction of her eyes he saw Katy and at once came round to her. Bowing low he begged a thousand pardons, but did she speak French or English?
“Both,” she said, and he continued, rubbing his hands and bowing all the time, “So sorry, but Madame Felix, the lady in black, is not well,—is nervous,—and it affects her much to have Mademoiselle look at her with those eyes, which,—pardon,—if I were not a stranger I should compliment.”
Something in the eyes warned him not to compliment them, and he went on: “She loses courage; she loses money. In short, will Mademoiselle be so very good to go to some other table and watch somebody else. Am very sorry to ask it?”
“Certainly I will,” Katy said, turning her back upon Madame, who recovered her composure and began to play again.
Jack and I were watching her now almost as intently as Katy had done and with a more startling effect. Evidently she had not been aware of our presence before, and now when she saw us she seemed for a moment spellbound and stared at me as if I had been some unexpected apparition confronting her. Then she looked at Jack, who, I have always insisted, bowed slightly. He says he didn’t, but confesses to a half smile which so disconcerted her that she turned pale and, leaning back in her chair, whispered to the Count and left her seat.
“You are worse than Katy,” Jack said, with what sounded like a low whistle as he saw her going to another table as far from us as possible.
“I told you I would rout her,” Katy said, as she joined us, while Jack declared it was I who did it. “She actually turned green when she saw Annie,” he said. “Who the dickens can she be?”
“A miserable scheming woman,” Katy answered, and I knew she was thinking of Carl and his connection with Madame.
I was getting tired of the play-rooms and we went outside into the vestibule where we sat down so near the entrance to the little opera that we could hear the music distinctly. I did not care to go in that night, preferring to sit where I was and see the people pass and repass. After a moment Katy said, “There is something I want to tell you and may as well do it here. I am going to sing in public to-morrow night.”