Damaris gazed at her without a word; her eyes were strained, her very lips were pale, she breathed quickly and painfully, the theatre seemed to circle round and round her, and across its intense light of all the many faces there she saw but this one. When the second act began she had no ears for it and no consciousness of what was said or done in it. She never once looked at the stage. Her eyes remained rivetted on the wife of Othmar; the voices of the actors were a mere dull babble to her: when the audience laughed she knew not why they laughed, when they applauded, she had no knowledge why they did so; all she saw was that delicate colourless beauty on the other side of the house with the great jewels shining on it like stars.
She looked, and looked, and looked till her eyes swam and her heart grew sick.
This was the woman whom he loved, this great lady leaning there with that look of utter indifference on her face, with that slight smile as this man or the other entered her box, with the diamonds shining in the whiteness of her breast, with her uncovered shoulders gleaming white as snow; a hothouse flower in all the rarity, the languor, the perfection, which the hothouse gives. The same sense which had come to her in the drawing-rooms of St. Pharamond came again to the child; a sense of rudeness, of rusticity, of inferiority, of coarseness in herself as contrasted with that patrician elegance, that pale and languid loveliness, that marvellous charm of the world and of its highest form of culture.
'What can I look like to him!' she thought with humiliation. 'Beside her I must seem to him like some rude peasant——'
All that she had felt vaguely before the mirrors of St. Pharamond came back upon her embittered, intensified, made conscious. She realised the immense distance that there was between her and Othmar as she saw his wife. She realised the grace and splendour of this life in the world which they led. She realised the passion which she had given to her. She realised that she herself could only stand outside his life, like a beggar outside his gates.
When the curtain fell again, Rosselin looked at her with impatience.
'You looked at that woman always, never at the stage,' he said angrily. 'She is a great lady; leagues above you, leagues beyond you; you have nothing in common with her. But one day you may force her to hear you in this very house if you choose. Will you choose?'
'She will not care,' said Damaris.
Tears were standing in her eyes; the sense of an infinite loneliness, and of a great inferiority, were on her. What would it matter if she ever became famous yonder on those classic boards? That great lady would come and see her for an hour—smile or censure—then forget. The dreams which she had nurtured of compelling the admiration of the world, seemed to dissolve like a mirage before the mere presence of Othmar's wife. 'She would not care,' she said wearily.