Josef, pale as a statue, had taken a place in the shadow of the box, back from the reach of opera-gla.s.ses. His hands trembled, and at times his lips twitched backward, as one who has lost control through too long a strain.

"Do look out for him," Katrine had said to Dermott, the night before, between tears and a smile. "I can get through it all right, but I am fearful it may kill Josef. He takes me very seriously, you know."

A heavy knocking came. The leader took his place. The overture began, and when the curtain rose Campa.n.a.li received the genuine ovation which was his due. At the conclusion of that great duet, "Be Mine the Delight," there was the vision of Marguerite at the spinning-wheel, and, after three years, Francis Ravenel saw Katrine, but in a blurred vision with fold upon fold of gauze between them. Finally the soldiers and maidens disappeared, and there came an expectant hush. One heard _now_!

The pause was marked, intentional, before there came toward the footlights, in their most relentless glare, a girl with gladness and joy in her very walk. Neither a heavy German peasant girl nor a French soubrette. No dreary, timid, _madchen_, but a glad young soul conscious of nothing save joy, with the beauty in her face of youth and power as she looked at the gay throng of the fair. Then, with the gaze of the entire house upon her, her eyes encountered those of Faust. There was no start of surprise, but, as though drawn to him by a law beyond control, her eyes rested in his, and with no gesture, without a note sung, with nothing but a change in expression, one understood great love had come to her, the first love of a woman, which is never lived over nor forgotten.

And Francis Ravenel, sitting back of the others in the box, recalled that look and drew behind the curtains. In memory, soft arms were round his throat as a voice, the same, yet not the same, sang:

"No signor, not a lady am I, Nor yet a beauty, And do not need an arm To guide me on my way."

A golden voice, with tones so breathed they had the liquidness of the bluebird's call, as Paris held its breath before the beauty and wonder of it; a voice which Frank remembered amid the pine and honeysuckle underneath the night blue of the Carolinas, saying:

"G.o.d keep you always just as you are, beloved."

From the first scene to the clear end, when, in the divine trio, Campa.n.a.li, Rigard, and Katrine caught fire from each other and went mad together, in that great, strong music where right triumphs, as the song climbs higher and higher in its great insistence, it was such triumph as no first performance had been in the memory of our generation, a success that admitted no cavilling or question, a success indisputable and unparalleled, and before the performance was ended the papers were chronicling, for the ends of the earth, that a world star had arisen in the firmament of song.

McDermott's face was an open book for all who cared to read. The one woman on earth for him was triumphing, and his thoughts were all for her, and Master Josef saw and noted even in his excitement and trembling.

Frank, too, gloried in Katrine's success, but underneath the pleasure there was a senseless jealousy, a resentment of the position in which it placed her to him. And the conduct of Dermott McDermott during the evening was another bitter morsel for his palate; for the Irishman carried an air of ownership of everything, even of Josef; gave an appraising and managerial attention to the audience; and bowed to Katrine, when she smiled at him over a huge bunch of green orchids with an Irish flag in the ribbons, with such an air of proprietorship that it made the time scarcely endurable to Frank. But he played the game by a masterly method, and drew nearer to Anne, looking into her eyes with the devotion which he knew so well how to a.s.sume, despising himself as he did so. But after the last _brava_ had been given and he had put his mother into the brougham, saying, abruptly, that he preferred to walk, his heart and head came to an unexpected encounter. He stood alone, unnoting the pa.s.sers-by, oblivious of the superfluous praise of Katrine's voice which he heard in the broken talk, looking into the distant sky at the two great towers of Notre Dame.

It was not far to the De Nemours' house. Although very late, it would doubtless be filled with friends congratulating Katrine, and under the circ.u.mstances, he reasoned, there could seem no precipitancy in calling immediately to offer congratulations.

He found the house a blaze of light, with servants going back and forth with arms full of flowers. In front there were many carriages and fiacres. By the entrance arch were several newspaper men, one of whom spoke Frank's name as he pa.s.sed. Everywhere there was an air of bustle and disorder. On the second floor he saw lights being carried from one room to another, as though hurried preparations were being made.

Giving his card to the French servant, who had ushered him with an important and excited manner into a small reception-room, he waited. His heart throbbed like a school-boy's with his first love. In a minute he would see her, would hold her hand. In his pocket he carried a letter, one of Katrine's many letters, to "The Dear Unknown."

"I have not forgotten this old love," she had written, "I shall never forget. I never close my eyes without thinking of him nor without a prayer for him upon my lips."

Suddenly there came a laugh, a jolly, musical sound of real mirth, and he heard Dermott's voice dominating and directing on the upper floor.

Immediately after there came a silence, and then, from the turn in the stairs, he heard the same voice, with a touch of insolence, speaking to the servant to whom he had given the card:

"Say to Mr. Ravenel that Mademoiselle Dulany regrets that it is impossible for her to see him." And then, with a dramatic note, "Tell him," the Irishman added, "she leaves within an hour to sing before the Queen."

XXII

FRANK AND KATRINE MEET AT THE VAN RENSSELAER'S

In the three months which followed Katrine's great success, Frank heard of her constantly, always with a curious self-belittling and a reviewing of his own conduct, fine in its self-depreciation. He had betrayed the great unspoken trust of the finest human being he had ever known, and afterward dallied, for fear of rebuff to his vanity, from squaring the account as well as he could by giving her a chance to refuse him openly.

He felt that he could never again be to her what he had been. Three years of such work as she had done would change her ideals much.

He reflected, too, upon the changes in himself, one of the greatest being his recognition of the sound virtues of Dermott McDermott. There had been times when circ.u.mvention by this son of Erin had been so masterly, so deft, so unexpected that Frank had felt like extending a congratulating hand. Once he had actually laughed aloud, at a board meeting, over an election which McDermott had dictated. But these things a.s.sumed a new importance when he thought of Dermott's love for Katrine, for the queer Celtic genius was singularly unattuned to failure in anything, and never, in any matter save that of the railroad, could Frank claim a complete victory. And those who believed the railroad issue still unsettled were not wanting.

Soon after the Paris visit, Frank heard, through Anne Lennox, of the death of Madame de Nemours. The letter reiterated, as well, that Katrine had sung to England's good old Queen. Before this confirmation Frank had doubted this statement as one of the outputs of Dermott's oriental imagination.

In August, having had no letter from Katrine or his mother for over a month, he accepted Nick van Rensselaer's invitation to Waring-on-the-Sea, with no knowledge whatever as to the other members of the party. As he was driven up the carriageway, under great New England pines, and saw the shining sea and the far-off Magnolia hills, he thought, for the first time, of other guests who would probably be there, and recalled with annoyance how one meets the same people everywhere. After he had dressed for dinner, he stood looking from the balcony of his room into the twilight thinking of Katrine, and wondering why her monthly letter had not arrived.

At the foot of the stairs he encountered Sally Porter, whom he had not met since she had been his mother's guest at Ravenel, three years before.

"Why, Frank Ravenel!" she cried, at sight of him. "I thought you were in--where did we hear he was, mother?"

"Several places, my dear," her mother responded, placidly.

"Java, j.a.pan, or Jupiter," Nick van Rensselaer broke in, coming forward with outstretched hand. "How are you, old man!"

As Frank returned the grip he looked over Nick's shoulder to a merry group which stood near the entrance to the music-room, and his amazed eyes rested upon Katrine Dulany. A new Katrine, yet still the old. She wore white lace. Her black hair was parted and rippled over the ears into a low coil. There was even more the look of an August peach to her than he remembered: dusky pink with decided yellow in the curve of her chin, as he had once laughingly a.s.serted. But the softness and uplifted expression of the misty blue eyes were the same, and added to all was the repose of manner which comes only from the consciousness of power or of sorrows lived beyond.

For a moment he seemed unable to make any effort to go to her, and then came to him an intense consciousness of himself, of her, and their mutual past. As their eyes met, however, he discovered that whatever embarra.s.sment existed was his own, for Katrine saw him, seemed to make sure that her eyes did not deceive her, and with a glad smile stretched both hands toward him.

"Why, it's Mr. Ravenel!" she cried.

Her eyes rested in his as she spoke. "It has been three, oh, so many years, since we have met," she began, with a smile.

"Don't," he answered, holding her hands. "It was only yesterday."

"Three yesterdays," she said, with the old "make-believe" look in her eyes. "Half a week. Somehow it seems longer, doesn't it?"

"I was sorry to miss seeing you in Paris last May," Frank said. "I wanted so much to congratulate you; but congratulations would have been an old story even at that time."

"Everything was in such a ferment the night you called," she explained.

"Josef was quite beside himself, and I was rushing off somewhere, I remember, and I didn't get the card until afterward," again the perfectly frank, sweet look, "but I recall that it gave me pleasure to know you came."

At dinner Francis found, with some annoyance, that he was placed between Mrs. Dysart and Miss Porter, at the remote end of the table from Katrine, whom he could see at Nick van Rensselaer's right, showing her dimples and the flash of white teeth and scarlet lips as she told some story of her own.

He noted how easily she was first, so sure of herself and her power, but with a marked deference to the women as well as to the men who courted her attention so openly. "Such considered conduct!" he commented to himself, approvingly.

No chance came to him to talk to Katrine again that night, but, a.n.a.lytical as he was of woman, he could discern no smallest sign that it was by any design of hers, nor that she noted his presence more than that of another. She neither avoided nor sought his glance, and it was not until midnight that he had even a word alone with her.

"I am going to sing," she said, turning with a pretty smile toward a group in which he was standing.

In a minute he came forward and led her to the piano. "The Serenade," he said.

Her eyes gleamed through the long lashes as she looked away from him.

"Ah," she answered, "I seem to have outgrown it!"

XXIII

AN INTERRUPTED CONFESSION