The words were harsh. The tears started to her eyes as she heard them, and a hot colour rose over her face and throat. She was silent.
'She never speaks of him. How fine that is!' thought Rosselin. 'Most female creatures at her years babble of what fills their thoughts, as birds chatter of the spring in April.'
Aloud he said:
'You will not do any good to-day. You look ill, and you are restless. Come with me to Paris; I will show you something which will interest you—and the weather is fine though cold. Let us walk to Magny.'
She went with him in silence.
The day was drawing to a close as the train sped through the dark fields of winter and entered Paris. A city was always terrible and hateful to her. She loved air and light and the solitude of sea and land. Crowds hurt her, and the labyrinth of streets had never ceased to oppress and to bewilder her. She felt amidst the walls and roofs as a young eagle feels barred up in a cage. He talked to her of many things with that picturesque detail with which his great knowledge of the city and of the world filled his conversation. He endeavoured to interest and distract her; he strove to amuse and arouse her. But he felt that he succeeded but indifferently. Her thoughts were not with him; she was silent and she was nervous.
When night fell he took her with him to the Théâtre Français; not for the first time. It was the night of a première of a great dramatist. The house was filled with the choicest critics of Paris; the most famous actors occupied the classic stage. Behind the grating of the hidden box to which he led her she could see without being seen. Before this she had been only taken to rehearsals in the daytime; she had never seen a great theatre in the full blaze of one of its gala nights. It blinded and oppressed her. She longed for the coolness, for the shadows, for the dewy stillness of the country. The pungent scents, the blazing lights, the multitude of faces, the hum of voices, made her afraid; afraid as she had not been all alone in the hours of night adrift in her boat on the sea.
'Watch and listen and learn,' said Rosselin. 'You may be on this stage one day, or on none.'
She did not reply: the new play had begun; the most famous players in Paris acted with that exquisite grace and ease which characterise them; the play was witty and brilliant; each scene had its separate success, each phrase its separate charm. Rosselin himself, vividly interested and keenly critical, gave all his attention to the stage, and for the time forgot his companion. When the curtain fell upon the first act he turned to speak to her; he was startled to see that her face was pale as death, and her eyes, wide open and fascinated, were fastened on the opposite side of the house. He looked where she was looking, and saw a great lady with a bouquet of orchids lying on the cushion before her, and several gentlemen in her box behind her.
'Ah, Madame Nadine!' murmured Rosselin. 'She does not often deign to honour a first night, even when it is Sardou's. She is going to some great ball afterwards, I suppose, for look at her diamonds, and she has her Russian orders on. Voilà une véritable grande dame!'