In the pauses between the acts Eurydice sat in a trance. Stella amused herself with picking out the kind of people she would have liked to know. One in particular in a box to the right of them, she found herself liking. His frosty-blue eyes had the consciousness of strength in them; the line of his jaw and the ironic, well-chiseled mouth spoke of a will that had felt and surmounted shocks. He was still a young man in the early thirties, but he had made his place in the world. He looked as secure as royalty. With a strange little thrill that was almost resentment Stella realized that she knew the woman beside him. Marian sat there very straight and slim in the guarded radiance of her youth, as intact as some precious ivory in a museum. She was Stella's greatest friend; that is to say, she gave to her the greatest amount of pleasure procurable in her life.
Stella couldn't have told why her heart sprang to meet Marian Young's. She had nothing in common with her. They had met at a course of lectures on the Renaissance, and out of a casual meeting had grown a singular, unequal, relationship.
Marian saw Stella very rarely, but she told her everything. She hadn't, however, told her of this new man. His strong, clever face had in it something different, something unnecessarily different, from Marian's other young men.
He lifted his head, and looked up toward the balconies above him. His eyes did not meet Stella's, but she took from them the strangest sensation of her life. A pang of sheer pity shot through her. There was no reason for pity; he looked aggressively strong and perfectly sure of himself. He even looked sure of Marian, and not without reason. He was all the things Marian liked best in a man, courageous, successful, handsome. Providence had thrown in his brains. That was the unnecessary quality.
Stella wondered a little wistfully what it must be like to talk to a really clever man. Her father was very clever, but he was not socially pliable, and he didn't exactly talk to Stella; he merely expressed in her presence conclusions at which he had arrived. It clarified his ideas, but it didn't do anything particular to Stella's.
Sir Richard Verny was taking trouble to talk to Marian; he bent his powerful head toward the girl and told her about Siberia. He knew Siberia well; he had often started from there upon important Arctic explorations. Marian wondered when he was going to propose. Siberia did as well as anything else till then. She knew he was going to propose; she didn't know anything at all about Siberia. She did not see Stella; it had not occurred to her that any one she knew could be sitting in the gallery.
The curtain rose again, and the last act began.
Chaliapine did not turn defeat into victory; no rabbit rose triumphantly, to satisfy the British public, out of a top-hat. Chaliapine led his people into a fire, and they were burned to death.
Some of them were frightened, and he had to comfort them, to hold them, and sustain them till the end. He had nothing at all to do it with, but he did sustain them. They all went into the flames, singing their disheartening music till the smoke covered them. Chaliapine sang longest, but there was nothing victorious in his last notes. They were very beautiful and final; then they weakened and were still.
The stillness went on for some time afterward. Everybody had been killed, and life had been so unendurable that they had faced death without much effort to avoid it. They could have avoided it if they had given up their faith. Their faith had vanished off the face of the earth, but they hadn't given it up.