Henry glanced at the manuscript. He happened to look at the list of the persons of the drama. As he read the list he started and turned abruptly to the Countess, intending to ask her for some explanation. The words were suspended on his lips. It was but too plainly useless to speak to her. Her head lay back on the rail of the chair. She seemed to be half asleep already. The flush on her face had deepened: she looked like a woman who was in danger of having a fit.
He rang the bell, and directed the man who answered it to send one of the chambermaids upstairs. His voice seemed to partially rouse the Countess; she opened her eyes in a slow drowsy way. “Have you read it?” she asked.
It was necessary as a mere act of humanity to humour her. “I will read it willingly,” said Henry, “if you will go upstairs to bed. You shall hear what I think of it tomorrow morning. Our heads will be clearer, we shall be better able to make the fourth act in the morning.”
The chambermaid came in while he was speaking. “I am afraid the lady is ill,” Henry whispered. “Take her up to her room.” The woman looked at the Countess and whispered back, “Shall we send for a doctor, sir?”
Henry advised taking her upstairs first, and then asking the manager’s opinion. There was great difficulty in persuading her to rise, and accept the support of the chambermaid’s arm. It was only by reiterated promises to read the play that night, and to make the fourth act in the morning, that Henry prevailed on the Countess to return to her room.
Left to himself, he began to feel a certain languid curiosity in relation to the manuscript. He looked over the pages, reading a line here and a line there. Suddenly he changed colour as he read—and looked up from the manuscript like a man bewildered. “Good God! what does this mean?” he said to himself.
His eyes turned nervously to the door by which Agnes had left him. She might return to the drawing-room, she might want to see what the Countess had written. He looked back again at the passage which had startled him—considered with himself for a moment—and, snatching up the unfinished play, suddenly and softly left the room.
XXVI
Entering his own room on the upper floor, Henry placed the manuscript on his table, open at the first leaf. His nerves were unquestionably shaken; his hand trembled as he turned the pages, he started at chance noises on the staircase of the hotel.
The scenario, or outline, of the Countess’s play began with no formal prefatory phrases. She presented herself and her work with the easy familiarity of an old friend.
“Allow me, dear Mr. Francis Westwick, to introduce to you the persons in my proposed play. Behold them, arranged symmetrically in a line.
“My Lord. The Baron. The Courier. The Doctor. The Countess.
“I don’t trouble myself, you see, to invest fictitious family names. My characters are sufficiently distinguished by their social titles, and by the striking contrast which they present one with another.
“The First Act opens—
“No! Before I open the First Act, I must announce, in justice to myself, that this play is entirely the work of my own invention. I scorn to borrow from actual events; and, what is more extraordinary still, I have not stolen one of my ideas from the modern French drama. As the manager of an English theatre, you will naturally refuse to believe this. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters—except the opening of my first act.
“We are at Homburg, in the famous Salon d’Or, at the height of the season. The Countess (exquisitely dressed) is seated at the green table. Strangers of all nations are standing behind the players, venturing their money or only looking on. My Lord is among the strangers. He is struck by the Countess’s personal appearance, in which beauties and defects are fantastically mingled in the most attractive manner. He watches the Countess’s game, and places his money where he sees her deposit her own little stake. She looks round at him, and says, ‘Don’t trust to my colour; I have been unlucky the whole evening. Place your stake on the other colour, and you may have a chance of winning.’ My Lord (a true Englishman) blushes, bows, and obeys. The Countess proves to be a prophet. She loses again. My Lord wins twice the sum that he has risked.
“The Countess rises from the table. She has no more money, and she offers my Lord her chair.
“Instead of taking it, he politely places his winnings in her hand, and begs her to accept the loan as a favour to himself. The Countess stakes again, and loses again. My Lord smiles superbly, and presses a second loan on her. From that moment her luck turns. She wins, and wins largely. Her brother, the Baron, trying his fortune in another room, hears of what is going on, and joins my Lord and the Countess.
“Pay attention, if you please, to the Baron. He is delineated as a remarkable and interesting character.
“This noble person has begun life with a single-minded devotion to the science of experimental chemistry, very surprising in a young and handsome man with a brilliant future before him. A profound knowledge of the occult sciences has persuaded the Baron that it is possible to solve the famous problem called the ‘Philosopher’s Stone.’ His own pecuniary resources have long since been exhausted by his costly experiments. His sister has next supplied him with the small fortune at her disposal: reserving only the family jewels, placed in the charge of her banker and friend
