"Forgive me," she said, quite low, while she looked away. "I--of course
I ought to be pleased at anything which made you happy, but--oh, I hated
it!"
"Theodora," he said, "I ask you--do not act with me ever--to what end?
We know each other's hearts, and I hope it would pain you were I to
marry any other woman, as much as in like circumstances it would pain
me."
"Yes, it would pain me," she said, simply. "But, oh, we must not speak
thus! Please, please talk of the music, or the--the--oh, anything but
ourselves."
And he tried hard for the few moments which remained before the curtain
rose again. Tried hard, but it was all dust and ashes; and as he left
the box and returned to his own seat next door his heart felt like lead.
How would he be able to follow the rules he had laid down for himself
during his week of meditations in Paris alone?
"You see, dear Lady Bracondale," Morella Winmarleigh had been saying,
"Hector knows that woman with the pearls. He is sitting talking to her
now."
"Hector knows every one, Morella. Lend me your glasses, mine do not seem
to work to-night. Yes, I suppose by some she would be considered
pretty," Lady Bracondale continued, when the lorgnette was fixed to her
focus. "What do you think, dear?"
"Pretty!" exclaimed Miss Winmarleigh. "Oh no! Much too white, and,
oh--er--foreign-looking. We must find out who she is."
The matter was not difficult. Half the house had been interested in the
new-comer, the beautiful new-comer with the wonderful pearls, who must
be worth while in some way, or she would not be under the wing of
Florence Devlyn.
By the time Hector again entered their box in the last act, Miss
Winmarleigh had obtained all the information she wanted from one of the
many visitors who came to pay their court to the heiress. And the
information reassured her. Only the wife of a colonial millionaire; no
one of her world or who could trouble her.
Early next morning, while she sat in her white flannel dressing-gown,
her hair screwed in curling-pins, after the Brantinghams' ball, she
wrote in her journal the customary summary of her day, and ended with:
"H.B. returned--same as usual, running after a new woman, nobody of
importance; but I had better watch it, and clinch matters between him
and me before Goodwood. Ordered the pink silk after all, from the new
little dressmaker, and beat her down three pounds as to price. Begun
Marvaloso hair tonic."