CHAPTER XIX.
AN UNREHEARSED EFFECT
I would have given the world to have been able to rise from my seat, leave the theatre, and go straight home. But the power to do it was not in me. I knew there was a storm in the air. I felt it about me on every side. I am sure I am not a nervous person, as a rule. But just then I was simply a bundle of nerves; on tenterhooks all the time as to what was going to happen next. And then Jane’s shoes were inflicting such agonies on my unfortunate feet that I would have slipped them off had it not been for the conviction that I should never be able to get into them again if I did; and what would happen if I had to march out of the theatre in my crimson-stockinged feet? In such a case, would it be more dignified to carry Jane’s shoes with me in my hand, or to leave them behind me on the floor?
That pretty lady on the stage finished her encored song, and I had not caught a word or a note!—and generally I do not allow a single thing to escape me. Under cover of the clapping, an attendant handed Mr Hammond a note. I knew in an instant who it was from, if only by the eagerness with which the four in the box observed the manner of its reception. Not that I looked at them. I looked at no one, I did not dare, keeping my eyes fixed as much as possible on vacancy. For, wherever I looked, there was some presumptuous man who looked back at me in a manner which was simply indescribable. But one need not look to see; and I was quite aware that each of those four men was leaning as far over the edge of the box as was consistent with safety, in order that they might have the earliest possible information of the adventures of that missive.
They soon had it. Mr Hammond rent the envelope open; took out a card—something told me it was Basil Carter’s—read what was written on the back of it, and tore it into shreds, which he dropped between his knees.
“No answer,” he said to the attendant, “except that you can tell ’em to go to blazes.”
Then, as if such language was a matter of no consequence, he turned to me, continuing his previous most extraordinary remarks, completely regardless of the performance on the stage, and of the people all around us, too.
“Frightfully sorry to seem to rush you, Miss Norah. Fact is, when judge’s box is within a furlong, if you don’t want to get left behind, you’re bound to bustle. I’ve got it all on this time—every copper—must bar taking chances—a certainty is what I’m after. A certainty it is, if you’ll consent. Let’s put our piles together—come in with me on the same horse—Matrimony, out of True Love, by Unbounded Admiration. She’s the mare to carry two as if they were one; and if you ride her with a gentle hand, she keeps on winning all the time. Miss Norah, say that it’s a go.”
I suppose, looking back, that that extraordinary speech was intended to be regarded as a proposal of marriage. I do not see, now, what else it could have been meant for. But I did not see it then. Considering the circumstances under which it was made, it was not strange.
I do not know if it is customary for proposals to be made in the stalls of a theatre. I sincerely hope, for the lady’s sake, that it is not; especially if the subject is treated in the singular manner in which it was treated then. Not only was the phraseology very peculiar, but many of the people about us could not help hearing most of what he said; so that I had a dreadful feeling that they were more amused by his remarks than by those of the performers on the stage. No woman, I suppose, likes the declaration of a man’s passion to be made a public mock of, even when it comes from such a ridiculous creature as Walter Hammond.
Voices came to us from the pit—as before, vulgar voices.