The sweet singer was on the stage. Edith Darrell leaned forward, forgetting everything in a trance of delight. It seemed as though her very soul were carried away in the spell of that enchanting voice. A score of "double barrels" were turned to their box—Beatrix Stuart was an old story—but who was the dark beauty? As she sat, leaning forward, breathless, trance-bound, the singer vanished, the curtain fell.
"Oh!" it was a deep drawn sigh of pure delight. She drew back, lifted her impassioned eyes, and met the smiling ones of Sir Victor Catheron.
"You did not know I was here," he said. "You were so enraptured I would not speak. Once it would have enraptured me too, but I am afraid my rapturous days are past."
"Sir Victor Catheron speaks as though he were an octogenarian. I have heard it is 'good form' to outlive at twenty, every earthly emotion. Mr. Stuart yonder prides himself on having accomplished the feat I may be stupid, but I confess being blase, doesn't strike me in the light of an advantage?"
"But if blase be your normal state? I don't think I ever tried to cultivate the vanitas vanitatem style of thing, but if it will come? Our audience are enthusiastic enough—see! They have made her come back."
She came back, and held out both hands to the audience, and the pretty gesture, and the charming smile, redoubled the applause. Then silence fell, and softly and sweetly over that silence, floated the tender, pathetic words of "Way down upon the Swanee River." You might have heard a pin drop. Even Sir Victor looked moved. For Edith, she sat scarcely breathing—quivering with ecstasy. As the last note was sung, as the fair songster kissed hands and vanished, as the house arose from its spell, and re-rang with enthusiasm, Edith turned again to the young baronet, the brown eyes luminous with tears, the lips quivering. He bent above her, saying something, he could hardly have told what, himself—carried away for once in his life, by the witchery of two dark eyes.
Mr. Charles Stuart, standing in the background, beheld it all.
"Hard hit," he murmured to his mustache, but his face, as he gave his mother his arm, and led her forth, told nothing.
An old adorer escorted Miss Stuart. Miss Darrell and her camellias, came last, on the arm of the baronet.
That night, two brown eyes, haunted Sir Victor Catheron's slumbers—two brown eyes sparkling through unshed tears—two red lips trembling like the lips of a child.