“I left it all to him,” said Diane, bursting into tears. “I could not find fault with him when he was doing me the greatest honor in the world, and he a marquis. And then,” she continued, recovering herself and speaking boldly, “I am as good as twelve men and a boy, anyhow to take care of myself.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” broke in Madame Grandin, cheerfully. “Marquises have their own way of doing things quite different from people like ourselves. The thing is, now, to get some one in Diane’s place and rehearse her so she can appear this night three weeks.”
At that Diane wept afresh. There was a strange shock in the thought of some one else in her place; she began to realize the tremendous dislocation of her life which was coming. This feeling grew upon her as she entered the little music hall, and she acted her part with extraordinary power, born of her beating heart, the tension of her soul.
When the performance was over, and she was putting on her hat in the little canvas den, she found herself trembling and weeping a little, and called to Jean in the next den, and he came to her.
“Oh, Jean!” she said, “think, in three weeks it will be the last time that I shall ever step upon the stage again! It will be the last time that I shall ever see those hundreds of eyes full of interest in me, and good will! It will be the last time that I shall make up and wear funny little short skirts, showing my ankles that are so nice! And I do so love to show my ankles! And it will be the last time that I shall ever see any of you as Diane, your fellow-player! After that, I shall be a marquise, the happiest person in the world, no doubt, but I shall never feel quite at ease with any of you again. I shall always be watching and thinking that I am being too kind to you or not kind enough. Oh, Jean!”
And then Diane did a strange thing for the happiest person in the world; she burst into a passion of tears.
“It’s enough to make you cry,” answered Jean stolidly. “You are being removed from one world into another. In our stage world everything goes right, and the villain is always punished before the curtain comes down. That’s why it is the theatre is a necessity of life; it represents the ideal world where the sinner always repents and is forgiven, and where lovers are always united in the end, and where the scoundrel is paid in full. We, who live in this ideal world, find the real world very dull in comparison.”
“That’s why, I suppose, I feel so badly about leaving the stage. But I never thought of anything to-day, when I felt Egmont’s arms around me and his lips were upon mine.”
Jean gave a strangled cry, and sat down heavily on the box which was the only seat in the little den.
“A man can’t stand everything, Diane!” he cried desperately. “In the name of God, don’t tell me anything more like that!”