The soft, hot, lingering touch thrilled the girl. She began to speak hurriedly, not knowing why she spoke nor what she wished to say: "Mistress Evelyn"—
"Yes, Audrey," said Evelyn, and laid a fluttering touch upon the other's lips, then in a moment spoke herself: "You are to remember always, though you love him not, Audrey, that he never was true lover of mine; that now and forever, and though you died to-night, he is to me but an old acquaintance,—Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View. Remember also that it was not your fault, nor his perhaps, nor mine, and that with all my heart I wish his happiness.... Ah, Mr. Lee, you found it? My thanks, sir."
Mr. Lee, having restored the glove with all the pretty froth of words which the occasion merited, and seen Mistress Evelyn turn aside to speak with Mr. Stagg, found himself mightily inclined to improve the golden opportunity and at once lay siege to this paragon from the playhouse. Two low bows, a three-piled, gold-embroidered compliment, a quotation from his "To Sylvia upon her Leaving the Theatre," and the young gentleman thought his lines well laid. But Sylvia grew restless, dealt in monosyllables, and finally retreated to Mistress Stagg's side. "Shall we not go home?" she whispered. "I—I am tired, and I have my part to study, the long speech at the end that I stumbled in last night. Ah, let us go!"
Mistress Stagg sighed over the girl's contumacy. It was not thus in Bath when she was young, and men of fashion flocked to compliment a handsome player. Now there was naught to do but to let the child have her way. She and Audrey made their curtsies, and Mr. Charles Stagg his bow, which was modeled after that of Beau Nash. Then the three went down the sunny path to the Palace gates, and Evelyn with the two gentlemen moved toward the house and the company within.
CHAPTER XXIX
AMOR VINCIT
By now it was early spring in Virginia, and a time of balm and pleasantness. The season had not entered into its complete heritage of gay hues, sweet odors, song, and wealth of bliss. Its birthday robe was yet a-weaving, its coronal of blossoms yet folded buds, its choristers not ready with their fullest pæans. But everywhere was earnest of future riches. In the forest the bloodroot was in flower, and the bluebird and the redbird flashed from the maple that was touched with fire to the beech just lifted from a pale green fountain. In Mistress Stagg's garden daffodils bloomed, and dim blue hyacinths made sweet places in the grass. The sun lay warm upon upturned earth, blackbirds rose in squadrons and darkened the yet leafless trees, and every wind brought rumors of the heyday toward which the earth was spinning. The days were long and sweet; at night a moon came up, and between it and the earth played soft and vernal airs. Then a pale light flooded the garden, the shells bordering its paths gleamed like threaded pearls, and the house showed whiter than a marble sepulchre. Mild incense, cool winds, were there, but quiet came fitfully between the bursts of noise from the lit theatre.
On such a night as this Audrey, clothed in red silk, with a band of false jewels about her shadowy hair, slipped through the stage door into the garden, and moved across it to the small white house and rest. Her part in the play was done; for all their storming she would not stay. Silence and herself alone, and the mirror in her room; then, sitting before the glass, to see in it darkly the woman whom she had left dead upon the boards yonder,—no, not yonder, but in a far country, and a fair and great city. Love! love! and death for love! and her own face in the mirror gazing at her with eyes of that long-dead Greek. It was the exaltation and the dream, mournful, yet not without its luxury, that ended her every day. When the candle burned low, when the face looked but dimly from the glass, then would she rise and quench the flame, and lay herself down to sleep, with the moonlight upon her crossed hands and quiet brow.
She passed through the grape arbor, and opened the door at which Haward had knocked that September night of the Governor's ball. She was in Mistress Stagg's long room; at that hour it should have been lit only by a dying fire and a solitary candle. Now the fire was low enough, but the room seemed aflare with myrtle tapers. Audrey, coming from the dimness without, shaded her eyes with her hand. The heavy door shut to behind her; unseeing still she moved toward the fire, but in a moment let fall her hand and began to wonder at the unwonted lights. Mistress Stagg was yet in the playhouse; who then had lit these candles? She turned, and saw Haward standing with folded arms between her and the door.