All unconscious of the eyes that watched her—the eyes she believed closed forever in the sleep of death, the clever actress went on with her part, and, shrinking closer to Eliot's side, Una whispered with a strange, foreboding fear:
"Let us go home before she sees us. Do not let her find out that we are still living."
Man-like, he smiled at her terror, and whispered back:
"My darling, we have nothing to fear from Madame Lorraine's hatred now. Can you not trust to your husband to protect you?"
"Yes—oh, yes," the girl-wife murmured; but the chill foreboding of evil did not leave her mind, and she shrunk back into the shadow of the heavy box-curtain, praying in her heart that Mme. Lorraine's hateful glance might not find her out.
Perhaps it might not have done so, for, to madame's credit be it said, she did not ogle the boxes after the manner of some actresses. She was intent on her part, and, beyond the knowledge that she had a large and fashionable audience, she took no particular interest in the throng of people.
But a perverse spirit had entered into Eliot Van Zandt, and seeing the woman so cool, calm, and heartless, he longed to let her know that her vengeance failed of its aim and her victims escaped her. He pictured to himself her jealous, impotent fury when she should know that both he and her Little Nobody lived, and that they were happily married and beyond the reach of her venom.
And in that last belief he made his great mistake.
He whispered his thoughts to Una. In truth, he was longing to take his exquisite vengeance on his enemy.