As the curtain rose for the third act, Othmar himself entered his wife's box. Damaris shrank farther and farther back against the wall, though she knew well that the keenest eyes could not find her out in her obscurity. Her breath came hard and fast like a panting hare's; the great tears rose to her eyes; she suddenly realised what this world was which held him so closely. She saw his wife give him the same slight smile that she gave to others: no more. She saw him bend before her with the same low bow the others gave; she saw him converse with the gentlemen near him; from time to time he glanced round the house. Once or twice his wife turned her head and spoke to him as she spoke to the others. To this child who had the heart of Juliet, the soul of Heloise, the conventionalities of the world seemed like the frost of death.
'She is his; he is hers: and she does not care!'
That was all she could think of as she watched them across that sea of light. The wit of the play amused him, and Othmar looked less weary and more animated than usual. To her he appeared happy.
Rosselin called thrice to her through the door before she heard him and let him enter.
'You should not dream like that when you are at the Français. You should study. What more admirable lessons can you have?' he said angrily. 'Poets may dream if they like. They speak best in their trances. Those who would only interpret them must never dare to do so. Have I not told you so a score of times? There is nothing poetic about the stage; it is all hard, prosaic, literal. If you will dream go and bury yourself under green leaves, under yellow corn; do not come to the theatres of the world.'
Damaris for once did not even hear him. He looked across the house and saw Othmar.
'Come,' he said to her, 'you will miss the last train that pauses at Trappes if you do not come away now. Never will they forgive me for leaving before the close! But that will not matter much. They know I am old; they can think I am ill. Come, or you will be too late.'
'Wait a little,' said Damaris, in a shamed, hushed voice; her face grew red as she spoke.
Rosselin glanced impatiently at the box on the other side of the house. He said nothing; he waited, artist as he was in all the fibres of his nature; his eyes and his ears and his art were all with Got, with the Coquelins, with the moving and speaking persons of the stage: yet a little corner of his heart ached still for the child.
'What wretchedness she prepares for herself!' he thought with pity and sorrow combined. 'She will never be a great artist, because with her feeling will always take the mastery. You are only a great artist if when you suffer, though you suffer horribly, you can study what you feel, you can make your own heart strings into a lyre. If you cannot do that, you are only a creature that loves another. Ah, my dear! No one ever conquered the world so!'