CHAPTER II
THE MARQUIS EGMONT OF THE HOLY ANGELS
The Marquis, known familiarly as Egmont, was at the music hall the next night, not in his splendid dragoon uniform, nor yet in evening dress, but in ordinary clothes which suggested the notion of a disguise on Egmont’s part, to François.
Evidently, the company as a whole, and Diane in particular, had made a great hit, for the former furniture shop was packed with persons. François went through his juggling and his tricks with the Grandins without the slightest nervousness. Not so, Diane. She began to give signs of what is dangerous and even fatal to an actress—self-consciousness. No one noticed it except Jean, who saw everything with the sharp-sightedness of love.
When the performance was over, and the hall closing for the night, the old woman who took in the money at the door handed a note to Diane, who slipped it into her breast. When she got home and was alone in her little white room, she took the note out and read it. Many notes of the kind had Diane received in her short theatrical career, chiefly from young shopmen and susceptible lawyers’ clerks and the like, but this was from a marquis, and written upon beautiful paper. It was very respectful in tone, and asked Diane why she had been so cruel the night before, and what evening would she honor Captain, the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel with her company at supper. The foolish Diane kissed the note and slept with it under her pillow.
The next morning about ten o’clock, Diane went out on a shopping expedition in the streets of Bienville. She was one of those women who have an instinctive knowledge of how to make the best of herself. She adopted a demure style of dress, a trim little black gown and large black hat and a thin black veil, all of which gave her a nun-like appearance. When she raised her eyes, however, there was nothing of the nun about Diane.
She walked rapidly along the bustling streets of the town, and looked like a pretty governess somewhat alarmed at being out alone. In truth, Diane had been out in the world alone since her seventeenth year, and knew perfectly well how to take care of herself. She went into a paper shop to buy some writing paper elegant enough to reply to the Marquis’s note. As she walked out of the shop, she came face to face with the Marquis swinging along in his dashing uniform, and carrying his sabre in his arm. He smiled brilliantly at Diane and took off his glittering helmet with its red plumes, and bowed profoundly to her, but Diane, whose face became scarlet as the dragoon’s plumes, turned and ran as fast as she could, and was lost to sight, diving into a narrow and devious street. She heard footsteps behind her and kept her head down, thinking it was the Marquis, but the voice in her ear was that of Jean.
“That man means mischief as certainly as you live, Diane,” said Jean, who had a brusqueness and common sense sometimes most painful and uncompromising.
Diane stopped under an archway, dark even in the bright autumn morning.