Chapter XII: The Night of the Opera

It was getting rather dull at the Hôtel Splendide. The novelty of having a king in their midst, who went about unattended in citizen’s dress, and bowed to all who looked as if they wished him to bow to them, was wearing off, and he could go in and out as often as he liked without being followed or stared at. The grand duchess, too, whose apartments were screened from the great unwashed, had had her Sunday dinner-party, with scions of French royalty in the Bourbon line for her guests, and a band of music outside. The woman from Chicago, who had flirted so outrageously with her eyes with the Russian, while his little wife sat by smiling placidly and suspecting no evil because the Chicagoan professed to speak no language but English, of which her husband did not understand a word, had departed for other fields. The French count, who had beaten his American bride of three weeks’ standing, had also gone, and the hotel had subsided into a state of great respectability and circumspection.

“Positively we are stagnating, with nothing to gossip about except Jack and myself, and nothing going on in town,” Grace Haynes said to Bertha, with whom she continued on the most friendly terms.

But the stagnation came to an end and the town woke up when it was known that Miss Sanderson from San Francisco was to appear in opera at the Casino. Everybody had heard of the young prima donna, and all were anxious to see her. Mrs. Hallam took a box for Mrs. Haynes, Grace, and herself, but, although there was plenty of room, Bertha was not included in the party. Nearly all the guests were going from the third floor, which would thus be left entirely to the servants, and Mrs. Hallam, who was always suspecting foreigners of pilfering from her, did not dare leave her rooms alone, so Bertha must stay and watch them. She had done this before when Mrs. Hallam was at the Casino, but to-night it seemed particularly hard, as she wished to see Miss Sanderson so much that she would willingly have stood in the rear seats near the door, where a crowd always congregated. But there was no help for it, and after seeing Mrs. Hallam and her party off she went into the salon, and, taking an easy-chair and a book, sat down to enjoy the quiet and the rest. She was very tired, for Mrs. Hallam had kept her unusually busy that day, arranging the dress she was going to wear, and sending her twice down the long, steep hill into the town in quest of something needed for her toilet. It was very still in and around the hotel, and at last, overcome by fatigue and drowsiness, Bertha’s book dropped into her lap and she fell asleep with her head thrown back against the cushioned chair and one hand resting on its arm. Had she tried she could not have chosen a more graceful position, or one which showed her face and figure to better advantage, and so thought Rex Hallam, when, fifteen or twenty minutes later, he stepped into the room and stood looking at her.

Ever since his visit to the Homestead he had found his thoughts constantly turning to Aix-les-Bains, and had made up his mind to go on a certain ship, when he accidentally met Fred Thurston, who was stopping in New York for two or three days before sailing. There was an invitation to dinner at the Windsor, and as a result Rex packed his trunk, and, securing a vacant berth, sailed for Havre with the Thurstons a week earlier than he had expected to sail. Fred was sick all the voyage and kept his berth, but Louie seemed perfectly well, and had never been so happy since she was a child playing with Rex under the magnolias in Florida as she was now, walking and talking with him upon the deck, where, with her piquant, childish beauty, she attracted a great deal of attention and provoked some comment from the censorious when it was known that she had a husband sick in his berth. But Louie was guiltless of any intentional wrong-doing. She had said to Bertha in Boston, that she believed Fred was going to die, he was so good; and, with a few exceptions, when the Hyde nature was in the ascendant, he had kept good ever since. He had urged Rex’s going with them quite as strongly as Louie, and when he found himself unable to stay on deck, he had bidden Louie go and enjoy herself, saying, however:

“I know what a flirt you are, but I can trust Rex Hallam, on whom your doll beauty has never made an impression and never will; so go and be happy with him.”

This was not a pleasant thing to say, but it was like Fred Thurston to say it, and he looked curiously at Louie to see how it would affect her. There was a flush on her face for a moment, while the tears sprang to her eyes. But she was of too sunny a disposition to be miserable long, and, thinking to herself, “Just for this one week I will be happy,” she tied on her pretty sea-cloak and hood, and went on deck, and was happy as a child when something it has lost and mourned is found again. At Paris they separated, the Thurstons going on to Switzerland, and Rex to Aix-les-Bains, laden with messages of love to Bertha, who had been the principal subject of Louie’s talk during the voyage. In a burst of confidence Rex had told her of Rose Arabella Jefferson’s photograph, and Louie had laughed merrily over the mistake, saying:

“You will find Bertha handsomer than her picture. I think you will fall in love with her; and—if—you—do——” she spoke the last words very slowly, while shadow after shadow flitted over her face as if she were fighting some battle with herself; then, with a bright smile, she added, “I shall be glad.”

Rex’s journey from Paris to Aix was accomplished without any worse mishap than a detention of the train for three hours or more, so that it was not until his aunt had been gone some time that he reached the hotel, where he was told that Mrs. Hallam and party were at the Casino.

“I suppose she has a salon. I will go there and wait till she returns,” Rex said, and then followed a servant up-stairs and along the hall in the direction of the salon.

He had expected to find it locked, and was rather surprised when he saw the open door and the light inside, and still more surprised as he entered the room to find a young lady so fast asleep that his coming did not disturb her. He readily guessed who she was, and for a moment stood looking at her admiringly, noting every point of beauty from the long lashes shading her cheeks to the white hand resting upon the arm of the chair.

“Phineas was right. She is handsome as blazes, but I don’t think it is quite the thing for me to stand staring at her this way. It is taking an unfair advantage of her. I must present myself properly,” he thought, and, stepping into the hall, he knocked rather loudly upon the door.

Bertha awoke with a start and sprang to her feet in some alarm as, in response to her “Entrez,” a tall young man stepped into the room and stood confronting her with a good deal of assurance.

“You must have made a mistake, sir. This is Mrs. Hallam’s salon,” she said, rather haughtily, while Rex replied:

“Yes, I know it. Mrs. Hallam is my aunt, and you must be Miss Leighton.”

“Oh!” Bertha exclaimed, her attitude changing at once, as she recognized the stranger. “Your aunt is expecting you, but not quite so soon. She will be very sorry not to have been here to meet you. She has gone to the opera. Miss Sanderson is in town.”

“So they told me at the office,” Rex said, explaining that he had crossed a little sooner than he had intended, but did not telegraph his aunt, as he wished to surprise her. He then added, “I am too late for dinner, but I suppose I can have my supper up here, which will be better than climbing the three flights of stairs again. That scoop of an elevator has gone ashore for repairs, and I had to walk up.”

Ringing the bell, he ordered his supper, while Bertha started to leave the salon, saying she hoped he would make himself comfortable until his aunt returned.

“Don’t go,” he said, stepping between her and the door to detain her. “Stay and keep me company. I have been shut up in a close railway carriage all day with French and Germans, and am dying to talk to some one who speaks English.”

He made her sit down in the chair from which she had risen when he came in, and, drawing another near to her, said, “You do not seem like a stranger, but rather like an old acquaintance. Why, for a whole week I have heard of little else but you.”

“Of me!” Bertha said, in surprise.

He replied, “I crossed with Mr. and Mrs. Fred Thurston. She, I believe, is your cousin, and was never tired of talking of you, and has sent more love to you than one man ought to carry for some one else.”

“Cousin Louie! Yes, I knew she was coming about this time. And you crossed with her?” Bertha said, thinking what a fine-looking man he was, while there came to her mind what Louie had said of his graciousness of manner, which made every woman think she was especially pleasing to him, whether she were old or young, pretty or plain, rich or poor. He talked so easily and pleasantly and familiarly that it was difficult to think of him as a stranger, and she was not sorry that he had bidden her stay.

When supper was on the table he looked it over a moment, and then said to the waiter, “Bring dishes and napkins enough for two;” then to Bertha, “If I remember the _table d’hôtes_ abroad, they are not of a nature to make one refuse supper at ten o’clock; so I hope you are ready to join me.”

Bertha had been treated as second-class so long that she had almost come to believe she _was_ second-class, and the idea of sitting down to supper with Rex Hallam in his aunt’s salon took her breath away.

“Don’t refuse,” he continued. “It will be so much jollier than eating alone, and I want you to pour my coffee.”

He brought her a chair, and before she realized what she was doing she found herself sitting opposite him quite _en famille_, and chatting as familiarly as if she had known him all her life. He told her of his visit to the Homestead, his drive with Dorcas, and his meeting with Phineas Jones, over which she laughed merrily, feeling that America was not nearly so far away as it had seemed before he came. When supper was over and the table cleared, he began to talk of books and pictures, finding that as a rule they liked the same authors and admired the same artists.

“By the way,” he said, suddenly, “why are you not at the opera with my aunt? Are you not fond of music?”

“Yes, very,” Bertha replied, “but some one must stay with the rooms. Mrs. Hallam is afraid to leave them alone.”

“Ah, yes. Afraid somebody will steal her diamonds, which she keeps doubly and trebly locked, first in a padded box, then in her trunk, and last in her room. Well, I am glad for my sake that you didn’t go. But isn’t it rather close up here? Suppose we go down. It’s a glorious moonlight night, and there must be a piazza somewhere.”

Bertha thought of the broad, vine-wreathed piazza, with its easy-chairs, where it would be delightful to sit with Reginald Hallam, but she must not leave her post, and she said so.

“Oh, I see; another case of the boy on the burning deck,” Rex said, laughing. “I suppose you are right; but I never had much patience with that boy. I shouldn’t have stayed till I was blown higher than a kite, but should have run with the first sniff of fire. You think I’d better go down? Not a bit of it; if you stay here, I shall. It can’t be long now before they come. Zounds! I beg your pardon. Until I said _they_, I had forgotten to inquire for Mrs. Haynes and Grace. They are well, I suppose, and with my aunt?”

Bertha said they were, and Rex continued:

“Grace and I are great friends. She’s a little peculiar,—wants to vote, and all that sort of thing,—but I like her immensely.”

Then he talked on indifferent subjects until Mrs. Hallam was heard coming along the hall, panting and talking loudly, and evidently out of humor. The elevator, which Rex said had been drawn off for repairs, was still off, and she had been obliged to walk up the stairs, and didn’t like it. Bertha had risen to her feet as soon as she heard her voice, while Rex, too, rose and stood behind her in the shadow, so his aunt did not see him as she entered the room, and, sinking into the nearest chair, said, irritably:

“Hurry and help me off with my things. I’m half dead. Whew! Isn’t that lamp smoking? How it smells here! Open another window. The lift is not running, and I had to walk up the stairs.”

“I knew it stopped earlier in the evening, but supposed it was running now. I am very sorry,” Bertha said, and Mrs. Hallam continued:

“You ought to have found out and been down there to help me up.”

“I didn’t come any too soon,” Rex thought, stepping out from the shadow, and saying, in his cheery voice, “Halloo, auntie! All tuckered out, aren’t you, with those horrible stairs! I tried them, and they took the wind out of me.”

“Oh, Rex, Rex!” Mrs. Hallam cried, throwing her arms around the tall young man, who bent over her and returned her caresses, while he explained that he did not telegraph, as he wished to surprise her, and that he had reached the hotel half an hour or so after she left it.

“Why didn’t you come at once to the Casino? There was plenty of room in our box, and you must have been so dull here.”

Rex replied: “Not at all dull, with Miss Leighton for company. I ordered my supper up here and had her join me. So you see I have made myself quite at home.”

“I see,” Mrs. Hallam said, with a tone in her voice and a shutting together of her lips which Bertha understood perfectly.

She had gathered up Mrs. Hallam’s mantle and bonnet and opera-glass and fan and gloves by this time; and, knowing she was no longer needed, she left the room just as Mrs. Haynes and Grace, who had heard Rex’s voice, entered it.