"Roderick Duncan, it would be better for you, and for Patricia as well, if you never saw each other again. You might far better, and with much greater hope of happiness, cast your future lot with some other woman whom you have never thought of as a wife, than marry Patricia Langdon upon such terms as you have outlined. Have you known her so intimately all your life without understanding her at all? She might have forgiven disloyalty, or unfaithfulness, or at least have condoned such—but an offense against her pride? Never! You would be undergoing much less risk if you should select an utterly unknown woman from one of these boxes, and should take her out of this theatre now, and marry her instead!"
Having delivered this remarkable statement, Beatrice burst into laughter. Duncan, suddenly alive to her beauty and her nearness, deeply impressed by what she had said, and fully alive to the truth of her utterances, retained the grasp he had upon her hands, and drew her toward him, quickly.
"Why not?" he demanded, hotly. "I'll do it if you say the word! But not a strange woman. You, Beatrice—you!! I'll dare you!!! We'll go to the 'Little Church Around the Corner.' I dare you! I dare you, Beatrice! They always have a wedding ceremony on tap, there; if you've got the sand, come on. It offers a solution of everything. Come on, Bee—marry me!"
She raised her eyes to his, and he understood, instantly, how he had wounded her; he saw that her laughter had not been real, and that she was very near to tears. But the fact that she shrank away from his impetuous words and manner, only spurred him on anew. He caught her hands again.
"Let's do it, Beatrice," he said rapidly, bending forward with sudden eagerness. "I hate all this mess and muddle of affairs. I hate it! Say yes, Bee."
He stood with his back toward the curtains at the rear of the box; she was facing them. He saw her eyes dilate suddenly, and he had the sensation that she had discovered another person near them, or in the act of entering the box; and then, with more astonishment than he would have believed himself capable of feeling, he realized that Beatrice Brunswick had thrown herself forward and that her white arms were wound clingingly about his neck; at the same time, with evident design, she turned him still more, so that he could not see the curtains which screened the entrance to the box.
The last and final shock of that eventful day, came to him then, for he did turn, in spite of Beatrice's restraining arms—he turned to find that the curtains were drawn apart, and in the opening thus created stood Patricia Langdon. Duncan knew that she had both seen and heard.
He could not have moved, had he attempted to do so, although somewhere deep down inside of him he felt that it was his duty to untwine those clinging arms and somehow to account for the appalling situation. Beyond where Patricia stood, he saw and recognized two other figures that were moving steadily forward toward them, but he had the subconscious assurance in his soul that neither Stephen Langdon nor his lawyer, Melvin, had noticed the scene which Patricia had discovered. He could not guess that it had been the consequence of sudden inspiration on the part of Beatrice, who had thrown her arms around his neck at the very instant when she had intended to administer a rebuff.
He did not imagine that she had discovered the approach of Patricia before she made this outward demonstration in acceptance of his mad proposal. Duncan felt very guilty indeed, in that trying moment; nevertheless, he was not one to attempt an ignominious escape from a predicament in which he believed himself to be wholly at fault. But Beatrice was not yet through with acting a part. She drew away from Duncan quickly, with an exclamation of mingled disappointment, pleasure and alarm. She cried out the single ejaculation, "Oh!" and dropped backward upon the chair she had recently occupied. But there was a gleam of mischief in her eyes, which belied the confusion otherwise expressed upon her face.
"So sorry to have interrupted you at such a critical moment," said Patricia coolly, at once master of herself and of the situation. "Good-evening, Beatrice. I hope you have enjoyed the opera. I decided to come at the last moment, and met my father at the door of the theatre, as I was entering. He insisted on seeing Mr. Melvin to-night, so we drove to his house together and brought him here. I thought I would enjoy the last act."