“What other man would be capable of such generosity? And you ask nothing—you who might demand so much!”
De Roux was absent on official business. Dunoisse remained some hours, went away, and returned to dinner. Madame de Roux had a box at the Italiens for that evening. It was perfectly proper that the sub-Adjutant of the 999th should escort his Colonel’s wife.
The opera was “Semiramide.” Carnavale was in the stalls, wearing the crimson dress-coat dedicated to that special opera. On nights when “Der Freischütz” was given he appeared in apricot,—when “Lucia” was performed you saw him in pale blue. Giulia Gigi sang,—upon that night of all the nights the glorious artist reached the apex of her triumph. The great pure voice flowed forth, the soul was caught upon and carried away by wave upon wave of wonderful music; the Opera-House was filled with them; the atmosphere, saturated with mille-fleurs and frangipani, was electrical with human passion. Dunoisse looked, not at the beautiful singer, who trod the stage and sang as one inspired, but at Henriette.... Her head was thrown back, her transparent eyelids were closed, her delicate nostrils quivered, her throat throbbed and swelled. The curve of it suggested the swan dying in melody. For Dunoisse the music was she. She sat forwards upon her chair of velvet, and the diamond cross upon her bosom wakened into vibrant light and sank into soft suggestive shadow as she drew and exhaled deep, sighing breaths. Below the line of her short glove a blue vein leaped in her delicate wrist. To see it was to long to kiss it. Dunoisse’s eyes could not keep away.
And Gigi sang more and more divinely, and at the end of her greatest scena, sweeping off the stage like a human tornado, you might, had you been sitting in the shadow of velvet curtains, in a certain box upon the Grand Tier, occupied by two people who hardly looked at the stage, have seen her seize from the grasp of a giant fireman in a shining helmet, tight shell-jacket with enormous shoulder-straps and cavalry trousers, a glittering pewter—pour down that statuesque throat of hers a copious draught of English porter, frothing, mellow, and mild; kick out her imperial train with one backward movement of a foot too solid for a fairy’s, and storm back again amidst the thundering cries of “Bis!” and “Brava!” to grant the demanded encore.
Who grudges the Gigi her porter? I have seen the nightingale, that unrivaled soloist, at the finish of a marvelous series of runs and trills, a fine frenzy of jug-jug-jugging, look about him, preen his snuff-colored breast-feathers, and presently hop down to a lower branch and help himself to a snack. Why, then, should we chide the prima-donna for her draught of stout, or cavil at the grilled lobsters, risotto, or macaroni dressed with chillies and tomatoes, that her soul loves? For are not these, by the alchemy of digestion, equally with the earwig, woodlouse, or grub of the other singer, transmuted into heavenly sounds?
Henriette said to Dunoisse, as the great waves of melody broke over them:
“You said that night in the boudoir that you would not take advice from me as a sister. But I am your sister!—nothing but your sister! Let us make a compact upon that?”
Dunoisse agreed, without enthusiasm. She thanked him in a velvety whisper. Presently she said:
“If all men were as noble as you, this world would be a happy place for women. How wonderful to have met a nature such as yours! Another man would have kissed me—that night when I made my terrible confession. But I knew that I was secure,—I rested upon your honor. Let it be always thus between us. Let me always feel when I am with you that I am a soul without a body—a pure spirit floating in clear ether with my friend.”