As his glance slowly travels earthwards he espies Zai, and starts slightly, but the sight of her sweet face gives real pathos and eloquence to his voice as he murmurs tenderly:
“Yolande! Beloved Yolande! Thou knowest not the vulture that gnaws my heart, or thou would’st pause in thy fiendish work. False Yolande! Thou hast never known what heart is, but—
“ ‘I will tell thee what it is to love.
It is to build with human thoughts a shrine,
Where Hope sits brooding like a beauteous dove,
Where life seems young and like a thing divine.
All tastes, all pleasures, all desires combine,
To consecrate this sanctuary of bliss.
Above, the stars in cloudless beauty shine.
Around, the streams their flowery margins kiss,
And if there’s Heaven on earth—that Heaven is surely this!’ ”
Carl Conway is really a very fair actor, and his voice is both musical and entrainante, and he spouts these lines with a wonderful passion and softness that appeal to all the women present, and as he speaks them, ever and anon his handsome brown eyes rest a second on the stage-box where poor little Zai sits well back in her corner.
Her eyes fixed on the beloved face, she forgets the existence of anyone else, her cheeks are flushed with excitement, her heart throbs fast, and a suspicion of a tear shines on her long lashes. Not a word does she utter, not a word does she hear; engrossed in this, the first love of her life, the play itself goes on without her taking in the gist of it. All she sees is Carl—Carl, with his superb face, and with his eyes full of the old, old passion as they linger on her and seem loth to turn away.
The curtain falls and rises twice over, and she thanks Providence that for once her people leave her alone so that she may gaze her fill. Who knows when they two will meet again—and how?
The girl’s poor heart grows cold as ice when the dénouement of the play comes, and Ferdinand, praying for the boon of a last kiss, the Lady Yolande yields her proud lips to him.
Yields them con amore, too, it seems to Zai, as she shrinks back from the sight with a jealous pang that makes her shiver and clasp her little hands desperately together.
Then the curtain falls for the last time, and she looks up and catches Lord Delaval’s eye.
It seems to be searching her very soul with a fixed, keen gaze that has something regretful about it, though his lips have a half-mocking smile.