MAXINE ACTS ON THE STAGE AND OFF

How I got through the play on that awful night, I don't know.

When I went onto the stage to take up my cue, soon after the beginning of the first act, my brain was a blank. I could not remember a single line that I had to say. I couldn't even see through the dazzling mist which floated before my eyes, to recognise Raoul in the box where I knew he would be sitting unless—something had happened. But presently I was conscious of one pair of hands clapping more than all the rest. Yes, Raoul was there. I felt his love reaching out to me and warming my chilled heart like a ray of sunshine that finds its way through shadows. I must not fail. For his sake, I must not fail. I never had failed, and I would not now—above all, not now.

It was the thought of Raoul that gave me back my courage; and though I couldn't have said one word of my part before I came on the stage to answer that first cue, by the time the applause had died down enough to let me speak, each line seemed to spring into my mind as it was needed. Then I got out of myself and into the part, as I always do, but had feared not to do to-night. The audience was mine, to play with as I liked, to make laugh, to make cry, and clap its hands or shout "Brava-brava!"

Yet for once I feared it, feared that great crowd of people out there, as a lion tamer must at some time or other fear one of his lions. "What if they know all I've done?" The question flashed across my brain. "What if a voice in the auditorium should suddenly shout that Maxine de Renzie had betrayed France for money, English money?" How these hands which applauded would tingle to seize me by the throat and choke my life out.

Still, with these thoughts murmuring in my head like a kind of dreadful undertone, I went on. An actress can always go on—till she breaks. I think that she can't be bent, as other women can: and I envy the women who haven't had to learn the lesson of hardening themselves. It seems to me that they must suffer less.

At last came the end of the first act. But there were five curtain calls. Five times I had to go back and smile, and bow, and look delighted with the ovation I was having. Then, when the time came that I could escape, I met on the way to my dressing-room men carrying big harps and crowns, baskets and bunches of flowers which had been sent up to me on the stage. I pushed past, hardly glancing at them, for I knew that Raoul would be waiting.

There he was, radiant with his unselfish pride in me—my big, handsome lover, looking more like the Apollo Belvedere come alive and dressed in modern clothes than like an ordinary diplomatic young man from the Foreign Office. But then, of course, he is really quite out of place in diplomacy. Since he can't exist on a marble pedestal or some Old Master's canvas, he ought at least to be a poet or an artist—and so he is at heart; not one, but both; and a dreamer of beautiful dreams, as beautiful and noble as his own clear-cut face, which might be cold if it were not for the eyes, and lips.

There were people about, and we spoke like mere acquaintances until I'd led Raoul into the little boudoir which adjoins my dressing-room. Then—well, we spoke no longer like mere acquaintances. That is enough to say. And we had five minutes together, before I was obliged to send him away, and go to dress for the second act.

The touch of Raoul's hands, and those lips of his that are not cold, gave me strength to go through all that was yet to come. There's something almost magical in the touch—just a little, little touch—of the one we love best. For a moment we can forget everything else, even if it were death itself waiting just round the corner. I've flirted with more than one man, sometimes because I liked him and it amused me,—as with Ivor Dundas,—sometimes because I had to win him for politic reasons. But I never knew that blessed feeling until I met Raoul du Laurier. It was a heavenly rest now to lay my head for a minute on his shoulder, just shutting my eyes, without speaking a word.

I thought—for I was worn out, body and soul, with the strain of keeping up and hiding my secret—that when I was dead the best paradise would be to lean so on Raoul's shoulder, never moving, for the first two or three hundred years of eternity. But as the peaceful fancy cooled my brain, back darted remembrance, like a poisonous snake. I reminded myself how little I deserved such a paradise, and how my lover's dear arms would put me away, in a kind of unbelieving horror, if he knew what I had done, and how I had betrayed his trust in me.

For ten years I'd been a political spy—yes. But I owed a grudge to Russia, which I'd promised my father to pay: and France is Russia's ally. Besides, it seems less vile to betray a country than to deceive a man you adore, who adores you in return. We women are true as truth itself to those we love. For them we would sacrifice the greatest cause. Always I had known this, and I had thought that I could prove myself truer than the truest, if I ever loved. Yet now I had betrayed my lover and sold his country; and, realising what I had done, as I hardly had realised it till this moment, I suffered torture in his arms.

Even if, by something like a miracle, we were saved from ruin, nothing on earth could wash the stain from my heart, which Raoul believed so good, so pure.

What can be more terrible for a woman than the secret knowledge that to hold a man's respect she must always keep one dark spot covered from his eyes? Such a woman needs no future punishment. She has all she deserves in this world. My punishment had begun, and it would always go on through my life with Raoul, I knew, even if no great disaster came. Into the heart of my happiness would come the thought of that hidden spot; how often, oh, how often, would I feel that thought stir like a black bat!

I could no longer rest with my eyes shut, at peace after the storm. I shuddered and sobbed, though my lids were dry, and Raoul tried to soothe me, thinking it was but my excitement in playing for the first time a heavy and exacting part. He little guessed how heavy and exacting it really was!

"Darling," he said, "you were wonderful. And how proud I was of you—how proud I am. I thought it would be impossible to worship you more than I did. But I love you a thousand times more than ever to-night."

It was true, I knew. I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. Since his dreadful misfortune in losing the diamonds, since I had comforted him for their loss, and insisted on giving him all I had to help him out of his trouble, he had seen in me the angel of his salvation. To-night his heart was almost breaking with love for me, who so ill deserved it. Now, I had news for him, which would make him long to shout for joy. If I chose, I could tell him that the jewels were safe. He would love me still more passionately in his happiness, which I had given, than in his grief; and I would take all his love as if it were my right, hiding the secret of my treachery as long as I could. But how long would that be? How could I be sure that the theft of the treaty had not already been discovered, and that the avalanche of ruin was not on its way to blot us for ever out of life and love?

The fear made me nestle nearer to him, and cling tightly, because I said to myself that perhaps I might never be in his arms again: that this might be the last time that his eyes—those eyes that are not cold—might look at me with love in them, as now.

"Suppose all these people out there had hated and hissed me, instead of applauding?" I asked. "Would you still be proud of me, still care for me?"

"I'd love you better, if there could be a 'better,'" he answered, holding me very close.

"You know, dearest one, most beautiful one, that I'm a jealous brute. I can't bear you to belong to others—even to the public that appreciates you almost as much as you deserve to be appreciated. Of course I'm proud that they adore you, but I'd like to take you away from them and adore you all by myself. Why, if the whole world turned against you, there'd be a kind of joy in that for me. I'd be so glad of the chance to face it for you, to shield you from it always."

"Then, what is there would make you love me less?" I went on, dwelling on the subject with a dreadful fascination, as one looks over the brink of a precipice.

"Nothing on God's earth—while you kept true to me."

"And if I weren't true—if I deceived you?"

"Why, I'd kill you—and myself after. But it makes me see red—a blazing scarlet—even to think of such a thing. Why should you speak of it—when it's beyond possibility, thank Heaven! I know you love me, or you wouldn't make such noble sacrifices to save me from ruin."

I shivered: and I shall not be colder when they lay me in my coffin. I wished that I had not looked over that precipice, down into blackness. Why dwell on horrors, when I might have five minutes of happiness—perhaps the last I should ever know? I remembered the piece of good news I had for Raoul. I would have told him then, but he went on, saying to me so many things sweet and blessed to hear, that I could not bear to cut him short, lest never after this should he speak words of love to me. Then—long before it ought, so it seemed—the clock in mydressing-room struck, and I knew that I hadn't another instant to spare. On some first nights I might have been willing to risk keeping the curtain down (though I am rather conscientious in such ways), but to-night I wanted, more than anything else, to have the play over, and to get home by midnight or before, so that my suspense might be ended, and I might know the worst—or best.

"I must go. You must leave me, dear," I said. "But I've some good news for you when there's time to explain, and a great surprise. I can't give you a minute until the last, for you know I've almost to open the third and fourth acts. But when the curtain goes down on my death scene, come behind again. I shan't take any calls—after dying, it's too inartistic, isn't it? And I never do. I'll see you for just a few more minutes here, in this room, before I dress to go home."

"For a few minutes!" Raoul caught me up. "But afterwards? You promised me long ago that I should have supper with you at your house—just you and I alone together—on the first night of the new play."

My heart gave a jump as he reminded me of this promise. Never before had I forgotten an engagement with Raoul. But this time I had forgotten. There had been so many miserable things to think of, that they had crowded the one pleasant thing out of my tortured brain. I drew away from him involuntarily with a start of surprise.

"You'd forgotten!" exclaimed Raoul, disappointed and hurt.

"Only for the instant," I said, "because I'm hardly myself. I'm tired and excited, unstrung, as I always am on first nights. But—"

"Would you rather not be bothered with me?" he asked wistfully, as I paused to think what I should do.

His eyes looked as if the light had suddenly gone out of them, and I couldn't bear that. It might too soon be struck out for ever, and by me.

"Don't say 'bothered'!" I reproached him. "That's a cruel word. The question is—I'm worn out. I don't think I shall be able to eat supper. My maid will want to put me to bed, the minute I get home. Poor old Marianne! She's such a tyrant, when she fancies it's for my good. It, generally ends in my obeying her—seldom in her obeying me. But we'll see how I feel when the last act's over. We'll talk of it when you come here—after my death." I tried to laugh, as I made that wretched jest, but I was sorry when I made it, and my laugh didn't ring true. There was a shadow on Raoul's face—that dear, sensitive face of his which shows too much feeling for a man in this work-a-day, strenuous world—but I had little time to comfort him.

"It will be like coming to life again, to see you," I said. "And now, good-bye! no, not good-bye, but au revoir."

I sent him away, and flew into my dressing-room next door, where Marianne was growing very nervous, and aimlessly shifting my make-up things on the dressing table, or fussing with some part of my dress for the next act.

"There's a letter for you, Mademoiselle," said she. "The stage-door keeper just brought it round. But you haven't time to read it now."

A wave of faintness swept over me. Supposing Ivor had had bad news, and thought it best to warn me without delay?

"I must read the letter," I insisted. "Give it to me at once."

Occasionally Marianne (who has been with me for many years, and is old enough to be my mother) argues a matter on which we disagree: but something in my voice, I suppose, made her obey me with extraordinary promptness. Then came a shock—and not of relief. I recognised on the envelope the handwriting of Count Godensky.

I know that I am not a coward. Yet it was only by the strongest effort of will that I forced myself to open that letter. I was afraid—afraid of a hundred things. But most of all, I was afraid of learning that the treaty was in his hands. It would be like him to tell me he had it, and try to drive some dreadful bargain.

Nerving myself, as I suppose a condemned criminal must nerve himself to go to the guillotine or the gallows, I opened the letter. For as long as I might have counted "one, two," slowly, the paper looked black before my eyes, as if ink were spilt over it, blotting out the words: but the dark smudge cleared away, and showed me—nothing, except that, if Alexis Godensky held a trump card, I was not to have a sight of it until later, when he chose.

"MY DEAR MAXINE," [he began his letter, though he had never been given the right to call me Maxine, and never had dared so to call me before] "I must see you, and talk to you this evening, alone. This for your own sake and that of another, even more than mine, though you know very well what it is to me to be with you. Perhaps you may be able to guess that this is important. I am so sure that you will guess, and that you will not only be willing but anxious to see me to-night, if you never were before, that I shall venture to be waiting for you at the stage door when you come out.

"Yours, in whatever way you will,

"ALEXIS."

If anything could have given me pleasure at that moment, it would have been to tear the letter in little pieces, with the writer looking on. Then to throw those pieces in his hateful face, and say, "That's your answer."

But he was not looking on, and even if he had been I could not have done what I wished. He knew that I would have to consent to see him, that he need have no fear I would profit by my knowledge of his intentions, to order him sent away from the stage door. I would have to see him. But how could I manage it after refusing—as I must refuse—to let Raoul go home with me? Raoul was coming to me after my death scene on the stage. At the very least, he would expect to put me into my carriage when I left the theatre, even if he went no further. Yet there would be Godensky, waiting, and Raoul would see him. What could I do to escape from such an impasse?