Julie, leaning forward, held her breath and gazed at the beautiful fashionable room on the stage, gazed through the open French windows to the moonlit garden and the night beyond, and gazed, though at last she could hardly see, at the Spanish girl. That great renunciation held them both entranced. So bitter-sweet, so humanly divine, the passionate, heart-broken, heroic song of farewell, swelled and thrilled about them. And with the last notes the child of the gutter reached up and up till she made the supreme self-sacrifice, and stepped out of the gay room into the dark night for the sake of the man she loved too much to love.
Then Julie bowed her head into her hands, and in the silence and darkness of their box burst into tears. And so, for the first and last time, Peter heard her really weep.
He said foolish man-things to comfort her. She looked up at last, smiling, her brown eyes challengingly brave through her tears, "Peter, forgive me," she said. "I shouldn't be such a damned fool! You never thought I could be like that, did you? But it was so superbly done, I couldn't help it. It's all over now—all over, Peter," she added soberly. "I want to sit in the lounge to-night for a little, if you don't mind. Could you possibly get a taxi? I don't want to walk."
It was difficult to find one. Finally Peter and another officer made a bolt simultaneously and each got hold of a door of a car that was just coming up. Both claimed it, and the chauffeur looked round good-humouredly at the disputants. "Settle it which-hever way you like, gents," he said. "Hi don't care, but settle it soon."
"Let's toss," said Peter.
"Right-o," said the other man, and produced a coin.
"Tails," whispered Julie behind Peter, and "Tails!" he called.
The coin spun while the little crowd looked on in amusement, and tails it was. "Damn!" said the other, and turned away.
"A bad loser, Peter," said Julie; "and he's just been seeing Carminetta, too! But am I not lucky! I almost always win."
In the palm lounge Julie was very cheerful. "Coffee, Peter," she said, "and liqueurs."