MAXINE GIVES BACK THE DIAMONDS

I tried to answer the question, to decide something; but my brain felt dead. "I can't think now. I must trust to luck—trust to luck," I said to myself, desperately, as Marianne dressed me. "By and by I'll think it all out."

But after that my part gave me no more time to think. I was not Maxine de Renzie, but Princess HÉlÈne of Hungaria, whose tragic fate was even more sure and swift than miserable Maxine's. When Princess HÉlÈne had died in her lover's arms, however (died as Maxine had not deserved to die), and I was able to pick up the tangled threads of my own life, where I'd laid them down, the questions were still crying out for answer, and must somehow be decided at once.

First, there was Raoul to be put off and got out of the way—Raoul, my best beloved, whose help and protection I needed so much, yet must forego, and hurt him instead.

The stage-door keeper had orders to let him "come behind," and so he was already waiting at the door of my little boudoir by the time HÉlÈne had died, the curtain had gone down, and Maxine de Renzie had been able to leave the stage.

As we went together into the room, he caught both my hands, crushing them tightly in his, and kissing them over and over again. But his face was pale and sad, and a new fear sprang up in my heart, like a sudden live flame among red ashes.

"What is it, Raoul?—why do you look like that?" I asked; while inside my head another question sounded like a shriek. "What if some word had come to him in the theatre—about the treaty?"

Then I could have cried as a child cries, with the snapping of the tension, when he answered: "It was only that terrible last scene, darling. I've seen you die in other parts. But it never affected me like this. Perhaps it's because you didn't belong to me in those days. Or is it that you were more realistic in your acting to-night than ever before? Anyway, it was awful—so horribly real. It was all I could do to sit still and not jump out of the box to save you. Prince Cyril was a poor chap not to thwart the villain. I should have killed him in the third act, and then HÉlÈne might have been happily married, instead of dying."

"I believe you would have killed him," I said.

"I know I should. It's a mistake not to be jealous. I admit that I'm jealous. But such jealousy is a compliment to a woman, my dearest, not an insult."

"How you feel things!" I exclaimed. "Even a play on the stage—"

"If the woman I love is the heroine."

"Will you ever be blasÉ, like the rest of the men I know?" I laughed, though I could have sobbed.

"Never, I think. It isn't in me. Do you despise me for my enthusiasm?"

"I only love you the more," I said, wondering every instant, in a kind of horrid undertone, how I was to get him away.

"I admit I wasn't made for diplomacy," he went on. "I wish, I had money enough to get out of it and take you off the stage, away into some beautiful, peaceful world, where we need think of nothing but our love for each other, and the good we might do others because of our love, and to keep our world beautiful. Would you go with me?"

"Ah, if I could!" I sighed. "If I could go with you to-morrow, away into that beautiful, peaceful world. But-who knows? Meanwhile—"

"Meanwhile, you don't mean to send me away from you?" he pleaded, in a coaxing way he has, which is part of his charm, and makes him seem like a boy. "You don't know what it is, after that scene of your death on the stage, where I couldn't get to you—where another man was your lover—to touch you again, alive and warm, your own adorable, vivid self. You will let me go home with you, in your carriage, anyhow as far as the house, and kiss you good-night there, even if you're so tired you must drive me out then?"

I would have given all my success of that night, and more, to say "yes." But instead I had to stumble into excuses. I had to argue that we mustn't be seen leaving the theatre together—yet, until everyone knew that we were engaged. As for letting him come to me at home, if he dreamt how my head ached, he wouldn't ask it. I almost broke down as I said this; and poor Raoul was so sorry for me that he immediately offered to leave me at once.

"It's a great sacrifice, though, to give up what I've been looking forward to for days," he said, "and to let you go from me to-night of all nights."

"Why to-night of all nights?", I asked quickly, my coward conscience frightening me again.

"Only because I love you more than ever, and—it's a stupid feeling, of course, I suppose all the fault of that last scene in the play—yet I feel as if—But no, I don't want to say it."

"You must say it," I cried.

"Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then. I feel as if I were in danger of losing you. It's just a feeling—a weight on my heart. Nothing more. Rather womanish, isn't it?"

"Not womanish, but foolish," I said. "Shake off the feeling, as one wakes up from a nightmare. Think of to-morrow. Meeting then will be all the sweeter." As I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying different words mockingly. "If there be any meeting—to-morrow, or ever."

I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly:

"Before we say good-bye, I've something to show you—something you'll like very much. Wait here till I get it from the next room."

Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and there, a dear old, comfortable, dependable thing. She was delighted with my success, which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the least excited, because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would have thought the sky must be about to fall if I had failed. She was as placid as she was on other, less important nights, far more placid than she would have been if she had known that she was guarding not only my jewellery, but a famous diamond necklace, worth at least five hundred thousand francs.

There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box. I had felt perfectly safe in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on earth—short of a bomb explosion—could tempt the good creature out of my dressing-room in my absence, and that even if a bomb did explode, she would try to be blown up with my jewel box clutched in her hands.

Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brushing a little stage dust off my third act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the box (which always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my carriage) until the electric light over the dressing table set the diamonds on fire.

Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones. I had no idea how magnificent they were. Not that there were a great many of them. The necklace was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat tassels depending from it. But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp came, were as large as my little finger nail, and the largest were almost the size of a filbert. All were of perfect colour and fire, extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, as well as flawless. Besides, the necklace had a history which would have made it interesting even if it hadn't been intrinsically of half its value.

With the first thrill of pleasure I had felt since I knew that the treaty had disappeared I lifted the beautiful diamonds from the box, and slipped them into a small embroidered bag of pink and silver brocade which lay on the table. It was a foolish but pretty little bag, which a friend had made and sent to me at the theatre a few nights ago, and was intended to carry a purse and handkerchief. But I had never used it yet. Now it seemed a convenient receptacle for the necklace, and I suddenly planned out my way of giving it to Raoul.

At first, earlier in the evening, I had meant to put the diamonds in his hands and say, "See what I have for you!" But now I had changed my mind, because he must be induced to go away as quickly as possible—quite, quite away from the theatre, so that there would be no danger of his seeing Count Godensky at the stage door. I was not sorry that Raoul was jealous, because, as he said, his jealousy was a compliment to me; and it is possible only for a cold man never to be jealous of a woman in my profession, who lives in the eyes of the world. But I did not want him to be jealous of the Russian; and he would be horribly jealous, if he thought that he had the least cause.

If I showed him the diamonds now, he would want to stop and talk. He would ask me questions which I would rather not answer until I'd seen Ivor Dundas again, and knew better what to say—whether truth or fiction. Still, I wished Raoul to have the necklace to-night, because it would mean all the difference to him between constant, gnawing anxiety, and the joy of deliverance. Let him have a happy night, even though I was sending him away, even though I did not know what to-morrow might bring, either for him or for me.

I tied the gold cords of the bag in two hard knots, and went out with it to Raoul in the next room.

"This holds something precious," I said, smiling at him, and making a mystery. "You'll value the something, I know—partly for itself, partly because I—because I've been at a lot of trouble to get it for you. When you see it, you'll be more resigned not to see me—just for tonight. But you're to write me a letter, please, and describe accurately every one of your sensations on opening the bag. Also, you may say in your letter a few kind things about me, if you like. And I want it to come to me when I first wake up to-morrow morning. So go now, dearest, and have the sensations, and write about them. I shall be thinking of you every minute, asleep or awake."

"Why mayn't I look now?" asked Raoul, taking the soft mass of pink and silver from me, in the nice, clumsy way a big man has of handling a woman's things.

"Because—just because. But perhaps you'll guess why, by and by," I said. Then I held up my face to be kissed, and he bundled the small bag away in an inside pocket of his coat, as carelessly as if it held nothing but a handkerchief and a pair of gloves.

"Be careful!" I couldn't help exclaiming. But I don't think he heard, for he had me in his arms and was kissing me as if he knew the fear in my heart—the fear that it might be for the last time.

'This holds something precious,' I said.

"This holds something precious," I said.