The play went on; Fanchon danced, and sobbed, and sung, and wept, and was mischievous as a scratching kitten, and gentle as a turtle-dove; took all the hearts by storm, and was triumphantly reunited to her lover at last.
I don't know how many young men in that audience were left without an atom of heart, how many would have given their two ears to be in handsome Landry Barbeaud's boots.
The roof nearly rose with the thunders of applause when the curtain fell, and Carl Walraven got up with the rest, his head whirling, his brain dizzy.
"Good Heaven!" he thought, stumbling along the dark, chilly streets to his hotel, "what a perfectly dazzling little witch she is! Was there ever such another sparkling, bewildering little fairy in the world before?"
Mr. Walraven spent the night in a fever of impatience. He was one of those men who, when they set their hearts on anything, find no peace, no rest, until they obtain it. He had come here partly through curiosity, partly because he dare not refuse Miriam; he had seen Mary Dane, and lo! at first sight he was dazzled and bewitched.
Next morning, at breakfast, Mr. Walraven obtained all the information he desired concerning Miss Mollie Dane. Some half dozen of the actors were stopping at the hotel, and proved very willing, under the influence of brandy and water, to give the free-handed stranger Miss Dane's biography as far as they knew it.
She was just as charming off the stage as on; just as pretty, just as saucy, just as captivating. She was wild and full of tricks as an unbroken colt; but she was a thoroughly good girl, for all that, lavish of her money to all who needed, and snubbing lovers incontinently. She was stopping up the street at another hotel, and she would in all probability be easily accessible about noon.
The seedy, strolling players drank their diluted brandy, smoked their cigars, and told Mr. Walraven all this. They rather laughed at the New York millionaire when he was out of sight. He had fallen in love with pretty, blue-eyed Mollie, no doubt, and that was a very stale story with the shabby players.
Noon came, and, speckless and respectable to the last degree, Mr. Walraven presented himself at the other hotel, and sent up his card with a waiter to Miss Dane.
The waiter ushered him into the hotel parlor, cold and prim as it is in the nature of hotel parlors to be. Mr. Walraven sat down and stared vaguely at the papered walls, rather at a loss as to what he should say to this piquant Mollie, and wondering how he would feel if she laughed at him.