With these thoughts in his mind, with his ear strained for the knocking at the door, he had to talk small talk to Mrs. Pembroke, to counterfeit amusement at her criticism of the people in the stalls—the man with two strips of hair combed in streaks over a bald head, the woman with corpulent arms bared to the shoulder, the country cousins. He had to laugh at her little jokes, and even to attempt one or two smart sayings on his own account.
The knocking came, and he almost started out of his seat.
“It can’t be Tom,” said Mrs. Pembroke. “He never comes back until after the curtain is up, and sometimes not till the act is nearly over.”
Vansittart opened the box door, and a treble voice questioned, “Ices, sir?”
He made way for the young woman with the tray of ices, and insisted upon Mrs. Pembroke taking one of those parti-coloured slabs which have superseded the old-fashioned rose-pink strawberry ice. He sat down again, ashamed of his overstrained nerves, and looked at the great curtain, wondering whether in all that wide expanse there were any gimlet holes through which Fiordelisa’s ardent eyes might be watching him. The curtain rose, and the act began; but Vansittart had no longer any ear for the music he loved. His whole attention was concentrated upon the chorus singers. He watched and waited for their coming and going, searched out Lisa’s familiar figure amidst the throng that watched Valentine’s death-throes and Margherita’s despair. He singled her out again and again as the troupe moved about the spacious stage—now on one side, now on the other, in the foreground or the background, according to the exigencies of the scene. He watched the stage till the green curtain fell; and then he woke as from a dream, and began to wonder what he must do next. Something he must do assuredly, he told himself, as he helped Mrs. Pembroke with her wraps, and heard her chatter about the performance, which she denounced as second-rate, declaring further that she had been taken in by Lady Davenant’s gift of the box. Something he must do; first to ascertain what Fiordelisa’s intentions might be—whether she would denounce him to the police; next to make whatever atonement he could make to her for the loss of her lover. He was not going to run away this time, as he had done at Venice. He had been seen and recognized. He would be watched, no doubt as he left the theatre. This girl would make it her business to find out his name and residence. Even if he wanted to elude her, the thing would be impossible. He had been sitting there all the evening in a conspicuous box on the grand tier, and he had to get away from a sparsely filled theatre.
Again there was a knock at the box door. It came while he was putting on his overcoat, and before Mrs. Pembroke had begun to move off.
It was a boxkeeper this time, with a letter.
“For you, sir,” he said, handing it to Vansittart, after looking at the two men.
“An unaddressed envelope,” chirruped Mrs. Pembroke; “this savours of mystery.”
Vansittart put the letter into his pocket without a word. His most ardent desire at that moment was to get rid of the Pembrokes.
“Can I be of any use in fetching a cab?” he said in the hall.
“You can stop with my wife while I get one, if you don’t mind,” said Pembroke.
Happily there were plenty of cabs that night, and it was only the carriage people who had to wait. Mr. Pembroke came back for his wife in two or three minutes.
“I’ve got a four-wheeler,” he said. “You’ll come home with us for a smoke and a drink, won’t you, Van?”
“Not tonight, thanks; it’s late—and—and—I’ve some letters to write.”
“Good night, then. I’m afraid you’ve been bored.”
“On the contrary. I was never more interested in my life.”
IX
“Though Love, and Life, and Death Should Come and Go”
Vansittart tore open the blank envelope under one of the lamps at the back of the vestibule, while the crowd about the doors was gradually melting away, and the question “Cab or carriage?” was being asked, often with a sad want of discrimination on the part of the questioners. The letter was from Lisa.
It was in English, mixed with little phrases in Italian, badly spelt and badly written, but quite plain enough for him to read.
“I knew you directly,” she wrote, “and your face brought back the past—that dreadful night, and all I suffered after the of him death. Come to see me, I pray you. It must that we talk together. Come soon, soon. I live with la Zia, in Stone Court, Bow Street, No. 24B, quite near the Opera House. Come tonight if she can.
He stood with the letter in his hand, pondering.
Should he do what the letter asked him? Yes, assuredly; although to obey that summons was to place himself unreservedly in Lisa’s power. He was in her power already, perhaps. She might have made her arrangements promptly, so that he should be watched and followed when he left the theatre, and his name and address discovered.
In any case, whatever risk there might be in going to Fiordelisa’s lodging, he did not for a moment hesitate. In his remorseful thoughts of the man he had killed, the
