right or left for their own delectation. He was meditating immediate flight back to his lodgings, with a hope of finding there a word for him from the chief — a word to remind him that men did live nowadays who had other aims besides their own advancement — other ideals besides the deification of self.
The curtain had descended on the first act, and traditionally, as the works of M. de Moliere demanded it, the three knocks were heard again without any interval. St. Just rose ready with a pretext for parting with his friend. The curtain was being slowly drawn up on the second act, and disclosed Alceste in wrathful conversation with Celimene.
Alceste’s opening speech is short. Whilst the actor spoke it Armand had his back to the stage; with hand outstretched, he was murmuring what he hoped would prove a polite excuse for thus leaving his amiable host while the entertainment had only just begun.
De Batz — vexed and impatient — had not by any means finished with his friend yet. He thought that his specious arguments — delivered with boundless conviction — had made some impression on the mind of the young man. That impression, however, he desired to deepen, and whilst Armand was worrying his brain to find a plausible excuse for going away, de Batz was racking his to find one for keeping him here.
Then it was that the wayward demon Chance intervened. Had St. Just risen but two minutes earlier, had his active mind suggested the desired excuse more readily, who knows what unspeakable sorrow, what heartrending misery, what terrible shame might have been spared both him and those for whom he cared? Those two minutes — did he but know it — decided the whole course of his future life. The excuse hovered on his lips, de Batz reluctantly was preparing to bid him good-bye, when Celimene, speaking common-place words enough in answer to her quarrelsome lover, caused him to drop the hand which he was holding out to his friend and to turn back towards the stage.
It was an exquisite voice that had spoken — a voice mellow and tender, with deep tones in it that betrayed latent power. The voice had caused Armand to look, the lips that spoke forged the first tiny link of that chain which riveted him forever after to the speaker.
It is difficult to say if such a thing really exists as love at first sight. Poets and romancists will have us believe that it does; idealists swear by it as being the only true love worthy of the name.
I do not know if I am prepared to admit their theory with regard to Armand St. Just. Mlle. Lange’s exquisite voice certainly had charmed him to the extent of making him forget his mistrust of de Batz and his desire to get away. Mechanically almost he sat down again, and leaning both elbows on the edge of the box, he rested his chin in his hand, and listened. The words which the late M. de Moliere puts into the mouth of Celimene are trite and flippant enough, yet every time that Mlle. Lange’s lips moved Armand watched her, entranced.
There, no doubt, the matter would have ended: a young man fascinated by a pretty woman on the stage — ‘tis a small matter, and one from which there doth not often spring a weary trail of tragic circumstances. Armand, who had a passion for music, would have worshipped at the shrine of Mlle. Lange’s perfect voice until the curtain came down on the last act, had not his friend de Batz seen the keen enchantment which the actress had produced on the young enthusiast.
Now de Batz was a man who never allowed an opportunity to slip by, if that opportunity led towards the furtherance of his own desires. He did not want to lose sight of Armand just yet, and here the good demon Chance had given him an opportunity for obtaining what he wanted.
He waited quietly until the fall of the curtain at the end of Act II.; then, as Armand, with a sigh of delight, leaned back in his chair, and closing his eyes appeared to be living the last half-hour all over again, de Batz remarked with well-assumed indifference:
“Mlle. Lange is a promising young actress. Do you not think so, my friend?”
“She has a perfect voice — it was exquisite melody to the ear,” replied Armand. “I was conscious of little else.”
“She is a beautiful woman, nevertheless,” continued de Batz with a smile. “During the next act, my good St. Just, I would suggest that you open your eyes as well as your ears.”
Armand did as he was bidden. The whole appearance of Mlle. Lange seemed in harmony with her voice. She was not very tall, but eminently graceful, with a small, oval face and slender, almost childlike figure, which appeared still more so above the wide hoops and draped panniers of the fashions of Moliere’s time.
Whether she was beautiful or not the young man hardly knew. Measured by certain standards, she certainly was not so, for her mouth was not small, and her nose anything but classical in outline. But the eyes were brown, and they had that half-veiled look in them — shaded with long lashes that seemed to make a perpetual tender appeal to the masculine heart: the lips, too, were full and moist, and the teeth dazzling white. Yes! — on the whole we might easily say that she was exquisite, even though we did not admit that she was beautiful.
Painter David has made a sketch of her; we have all seen it at the Musee Carnavalet, and all wondered why that charming, if irregular, little face made such an impression of sadness.
There are five acts in “Le Misanthrope,” during which Celimene is almost constantly on the stage. At the end of the fourth act de Batz said casually to his friend:
“I have the honour of personal acquaintanceship with Mlle. Lange. An you care for an introduction to her, we can go round to the green-room after the play.”
Did prudence then whisper, “Desist”? Did loyalty to the leader murmur, “Obey”? It were indeed difficult to say. Armand St. Just was not five-and-twenty, and Mlle. Lange’s melodious voice spoke louder than the whisperings of prudence or even than the call of duty.
He thanked de Batz warmly, and during the last half-hour, while the misanthropical lover spurned repentant Celimene, he was conscious of a curious sensation of impatience, a tingling of his nerves, a wild, mad longing to hear those full moist lips pronounce his name, and have those large brown eyes throw their half-veiled look into his own.
CHAPTER IV
MADEMOISELLE LANGE
The green-room was crowded when de Batz and St. Just arrived there after the performance. The older man cast a hasty glance through the open door. The crowd did not suit his purpose, and he dragged his companion hurriedly away from the contemplation of Mlle. Lange, sitting in a far corner of the room, surrounded by an admiring throng, and by innumerable floral tributes offered to her beauty and to her success.
De Batz without a word led the way back towards the stage. Here, by the dim light of tallow candles fixed in sconces against the surrounding walls, the scene-shifters were busy moving drop-scenes, back cloths and wings, and paid no heed to the two men who strolled slowly up and down silently, each wrapped in his own thoughts.
Armand walked with his hands buried in his breeches pockets, his head bent forward on his chest; but every now and again he threw quick, apprehensive glances round him whenever a firm step echoed along the empty stage or a voice rang clearly through the now deserted theatre.
“Are we wise to wait here?” he asked, speaking to himself rather than to his companion.
He was not anxious about his own safety; but the words of de Batz had impressed themselves upon his mind: “Heron and his spies we have always with us.”
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