had just time to slip into her dress. Yet even then, as she laid the white bouquet down on her dressing table, something stirred in her, despite herself, that almost made her forget her fear. Merely with his name pinned to a few flowers, Jason had brought into that crowded, hot-house dressing room, something of his own fierce personality, a free breath of the open sea and his keen love of struggle and adventure. And Marianne discovered that no other evidence of affection had done as much for her as those few syllables.
While Agathe was putting the finishing touches to her hair and setting a few diamond stars among the thickly piled locks, Marianne remembered Adelaide's astonishing question: '
It was ridiculous, of course she was sure! How could she hesitate for a single moment between the American and Napoleon? She was honest enough to admit the American's charm, but the Emperor was something different. Besides, he loved her with all his heart and all his power while there was absolutely nothing to show that Adelaide's supposition was right. She had decreed, without ever seeing him, that Jason loved her but Marianne herself thought differently. The American felt guilty towards her and whatever she might have thought before, he was a man of honour. He was sincerely anxious to wipe out the wrong he had done her, that was all. None the less, Marianne admitted that she would be very glad to see him again. It would be so wonderful if he too were there tonight to share her triumph.
She was ready and the image reflected in her mirror was indeed very lovely. Leroy's much-talked-of dress was, in fact, a masterpiece of simplicity. The heavy, pearly satin with its long train lined with cloth of gold was moulded to her body like a wet sheet, only widening a little at the hem, with an effrontery which only a woman with her figure and her legs could have carried off. With its dizzily plunging neckline that showed off to the full the emeralds and diamonds Napoleon had given her, the dress undressed more than it covered her, but what might have been indecent on another became, on her, merely the height of beauty and elegance. Leroy has predicted that by the next day his salons would be besieged by a host of women all wanting a dress like it.
'But I shall not let them have it,' he had declared firmly. 'I have my reputation to think of and there is not one in a thousand could wear such a dress so regally.'
Slowly, and without taking her eyes from herself, Marianne pulled on the long, green lace gloves. Tonight, she was fascinated by her own reflection. Her beauty seemed to her like a promise of triumph. The diamond stars in her black hair flashed fire.
For a fraction of a second, she hesitated between the two bouquets that lay before her. The violets or the camellias? She was tempted to choose the latter, which would have gone better with her dress, but could she slight the flowers of the man she loved for such a reason? Quickly, with one last look at the delicate white flowers, she picked up the violets and made her way to the door while outside in the passage the stage manager was calling:
'Mademoiselle Maria Stella, on stage please!'
The duet from 'Vestal' had just finished in a storm of applause led by Napoleon himself with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Her trembling hand clasped firmly in that of Elleviou, who was flushed with pride, Marianne made her bow with a feeling of triumph so fierce that her head seemed to spin with it. But her eyes were less on the packed house now giving them a standing ovation, than on the man in the uniform of a colonel of chasseurs sitting up there in the big, flower-filled box and smiling back at her with such love in his eyes. Next to him, was a very pretty, dark woman with a chiselled profile, his youngest and favourite sister, the Princess Pauline, and from time to time he leaned towards her as though asking her opinion.
'You've got them!' Elleviou muttered under his breath. 'Every thing will be all right now. Courage! They are all yours.'
She scarcely heard him. The applause was like triumphal music filling her ears with its wonderful tempestuous sound. Was there any more intoxicating noise in the whole world? Her eyes never left the man in the box, and she looked up at him, seeing nothing else but him and dedicating all this dazzling success to him alone.
He dominated the vast black hole which had almost made her faint with terror when she came on stage so little time ago. But the panic had passed. She was herself again and not afraid any more, Elleviou was right. Nothing could touch her now.
Silence fell once more, an expectant silence that was yet more living than all the bravos that had gone before. It was as though the whole audience were holding its breath. Marianne's fingers tightened on the bouquet of violets as she began to sing the aria from the 'Calif of Baghdad'. Never had her voice, trained now to cope with the most difficult tests, been so wholly at her command. It soared out across the audience, warm and flexible, containing in its pure notes all the pearls and jewels of the east, the burning scent of desert and the joyous happiness of children playing in a fountain's spray. Marianne herself, bent like a bow string towards the Emperor's box, sang for one man alone, forgetting all the others whom she carried with her along the magic pathway of her music.
Once again, it was a triumph, noisy, uproarious, indescribable. The theatre seemed to explode into frenzied applause and a sweet smelling storm of flowers began to rain down on the stage. Across the orchestra pit, a radiant Marianne could look out on a standing audience, wild with applause.
On all sides there were cries of 'Encore! Encore!'
She took a few steps forward to the front of the stage. Her eyes left the imperial box at last and, meeting the conductor's look, she nodded to him to begin the aria again. Then she lowered her eyes while gradually the audience quietened down and the musicians resumed their instruments. Once again, the music began to spin its enticing thread.
But suddenly a movement in one of the stage boxes caught Marianne's attention. A man had just come in and instantly her eye was drawn to him. She thought for a second that it was Jason Beaufort, whom she had sought in vain among the rapt faces before her. It was not him but someone else at the sight of whom Marianne's blood seemed to freeze in her veins. He was very tall with broad shoulders encased in dark blue velvet and thick fair hair brushed in the latest style and the face above the high, white muslin cravat bore a cynical expression. He was a handsome man in spite of the thin scar that ran across one cheek from the corner of his mouth to his ear, but Marianne gazed at him with the incredulous horror belonging to those who have seen a ghost.
She wanted to cry out, to try and overcome the terror which was taking possession of her but no sound came. She felt as though she were in a bad dream, or else going mad. It could not be true. This frightful thing could not be happening to her. At one blow she saw the wonderful, delicate world she had built up for herself at the cost of so much suffering crumble to pieces at her feet. Her mouth opened, gasping for air, but the impression of nightmare became more terrifying while the audience, the imperial box with its dark red roses, the great velvet and gold curtains, the footlights and the conductor's startled face all merged into one infernal kaleidoscope. Marianne put up her hands with a small pitiful movement, trying with all her strength to push the spectre back into the darkness from which it had risen. But the spectre would not go. He was looking at her now, and he was smiling…
Marianne gave one small desperate cry and then collapsed on to the flower-studded stage while, towering above the uproar which arose all about him, her husband, Francis Cranmere, the man she had believed that she had killed, bent forward to look down on the stage and on the slender white form that lay there, twinkling with tiny stars in the stage lights. He was still smiling.
When she opened her eyes, some minutes later, Marianne saw a ring of anxious faces bending over her, against a background of flowers, and realized that she was in her dressing room. Arcadius and Adelaide were there, Agathe was bathing her temples with something cool and Corvisart was holding her hand. Elleviou was there too and Fortunee Hamelin while, towering over them all, was the resplendent figure of the Grand Marshal Duroc, despatched no doubt by the Emperor.
Seeing her open her eyes, Fortunee immediately seized her friend's free hand.
'What happened?' she asked affectionately.
