Never before had Eve possessed so sweet a frock, and the touch of it sent a pleasurable thrill through her body. When she had finished dressing, every vestige of the drab, houseworking little figure had been transformed into a simple expression of fragile and delicious womanhood. Very gloriously she had felt this to be so as she stood before the mirror waiting for Wynne to return and take her to the theatre.
But he did not return. A messenger boy came instead, with a scribbled note asking for his “dress things, as I shan’t have time to get back before the play begins.”
Thus Eve was denied even a moment to wish him well, and took her stall unnoticed and alone.
As she looked at Lane Quiltan’s profile she wondered how he felt at being forced to take a second place to Wynne in every point of prominence. For some reason she conceived that he would not be troubled over-much. There was a repose and stability in his looks which suggested a mental balance not easily disturbed by small-weight issues.
At long range she liked and felt the wish to know him better.
“Steadfast, substantial,” she reasoned; “very unlike Wynne. He is hoping for the success of the play, not of himself. He won’t mind sacrificing himself to get it.”
It came to her that both she and Quiltan were contributing their share toward the making of Wynne Rendall, and both she and Quiltan were being left a little behind in the doing of it.
The curtain rose, and half an hour later Eve knew that Wynne had made good all he boasted he would do—and more. The spirit of the play shone through the lines with a truth of definition that was truly remarkable. The values of the human emotions portrayed were perfect. It was an example of the purest artistry and the surest perception. Not an idea was blurred—not an inflection out of place. Through an infinity of natural detail, rendered with mirrored exactitude, ran the soul and intention of the play, like the dominant theme of a great orchestral fugue. Even the veriest tyro in matters dramatic realized that no mere assembly of actors and actresses, however brilliant, could have achieved so faultless an effect without a master hand to guide them. What Wynne had learnt in the Paris ateliers years before he had set upon the stage. The words of the old Maitre had soaked in: “To we artists the human figure exists in masses of light and shade. It is not made up of legs and hands, and breasts, and ears and teeth. No, by the good God, no!” Wynne had remembered, and here was the distillation of the words. Here was his canvas with its faithful chiaroscuro of life.
But of all the people in the house that night only Eve knew the palette whereon the colours had been mixed. One by one she recognized and silently named them, and sometimes she glowed with pride, for many owed their brilliance and their being to herself.
“Well done, Wynne! Oh, well done!” she breathed, as the curtain fell.