La Reine Blanche had never acted better. She gave her whole attention to her part. She did not seem to see that one pair of eyes had watched her with such wild entreaty and passionate love in their beautiful depths.
There was one box at which she never looked but once, and it was when, in obedience to her husband's command, "Bid farewell to your sisters," she slowly repeated:
"'Ye jewels of our father, with washed eyes
Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are;
And, like a sister, am most loth to call
Your faults as they are named. Love well our father:
To your professed bosoms I commit him;
But yet, alas! stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
So farewell to you both.'"
Everyone in the house saw her brilliant eyes fixed on Lord Valentine's box as she repeated those words, but perhaps no one but the actress herself saw that Sydney's eyes drooped in shame and confusion, while a scarlet blush stained her cheek.
Ah, she, and no other, comprehended the bitter meaning of Queenie's words as she fixed her blue eyes mournfully on the sister who had wronged her so deeply.
"This is her last night," Sydney murmured to herself, "but is it true that she will go into a convent? I must see her, I must know the truth for certain. I will go round to her dressing-room and ask her."
When the act was over she complained of sickness and asked Lord Valentine to take her down to the carriage.
Lord Valentine complied and left her sitting in the carriage, the coachman mounting to his box.
But in a moment, before the two prancing horses had started, Sydney slipped out of the carriage so noiselessly that the man drove on never dreaming but that she was shut up within.
Then she ran round breathlessly to the private entrance of the theater. She told the man who kept the door that she had an engagement with Madame De Lisle and desired him to show her to that lady's dressing-room.