Miss Van Tuyn looked round. She seemed bored. Paris, perhaps, had spoiled her for the acting in London, or the play so far did not interest her. Braybrooke glanced at her rather anxiously. He did not approve of the way in which he and his guests were seated in the box, and was sure she did not like it. Craven ought to be beside her.
"What do you think of it?" he murmured.
"The operatic types aren"t bad."
She leaned with an elbow on the edge of the box and looked vaguely about the house.
"I shall insist on a change of seats after the interval!" thought Braybrooke.
A few minutes pa.s.sed. Then the door of the box opposite was opened and Lady Wrackley appeared, followed by Dindie Ackroyde and the two young men who had dined with them. Lady Wrackley, looking--Craven thought--like a remarkably fine pouter pigeon, came to the front of the box and stared about the house, while the young man with the turned-up nose gently, yet rather familiarly, withdrew from her a long coat of ermine. Meanwhile Mrs. Ackroyde sat down, keeping on her cloak, which was the colour of an Indian sky at night, and immediately became absorbed in the traffic of the stage. It was obvious that she really cared for art, while Lady Wrackley cared about the effect she was creating on the audience. It seemed a long time before she sat down, and let the two young men sit down too. But suddenly there was applause and no one was looking at her. Moscovitch had walked upon the stage.
"_That_ man can act!"
Miss Van Tuyn had spoken.
"He gets you merely by coming on. That is acting!"
And immediately she was intent on the stage.
When the curtain fell Braybrooke got up resolutely and stood at the back of the box. Craven, too stood up, and they all discussed the play.
"It"s a character study, simply that," said Miss Van Tuyn. "The persistent lover who can"t leave off--"
"Trying to love!" interposed Lady Sellingworth. "Following the great illusion."
And they debated whether the great singer was an idealist or merely a sensualist, or perhaps both. Miss Van Tuyn thought he was only the latter, and Braybrooke agreed with her. But Lady Sellingworth said no.
"He is in love with love, I think, and everyone who is in love with love is seeking the flame in the darkness. We wrong many people by dubbing them mere sensualists. The mystery has a driving force which many cannot resist."
"What mystery, dearest?" said Miss Van Tuyn, not without irony.
But at this moment there was a tap at the door of the box, and Craven opened it to find Mrs. Ackroyde and the young man with the severe eyes waiting outside.
"May we come in? Is there room?" said Mrs. Ackroyde.
There was plenty of room.
"Lena will be happier without us," Mrs. Ackroyde explained, without a smile, and looking calmly at Lady Sellingworth. "If I sit quite at the back here I can smoke a cigarette without being stopped. Bobbie you might give me a match."
The severe young man, who looked like a sad sensualist, one of those men who try to cloak intensity with grimness, did as he was bid, and they renewed the discussion which had been stopped for a moment, bringing the newcomers into it. Lady Sellingworth explained that the mystery she had spoken of was the inner necessity to try to find love which drives many human beings. She spoke without sentimentality, almost with a sort of scientific coldness as one stating facts not to be gainsaid. Mrs.
Ackroyde said she liked the theory. It was such a comfortable one.
Whenever she made a sidestep she would now be able to feel that she was driven to it by an inner necessity, planted in her family by the Immanent Will, or whatever it was that governed humanity. As she spoke she looked at the man she had called Bobbie, who was Sir Robert Syng, private secretary to a prominent minister, and when she stopped speaking he said he had never been able to believe in free will, though he always behaved as if he thought he possessed it.
Miss Van Tuyn thereupon remarked that as some people are born with tempers and intellects and some without them, perhaps it was the same with free will. She was quite positive she had a free will, but the very first time she had seen Sir Robert she had had her doubts about his having that precious possession. This sally, designed to break up the general conversation and to fasten Sir Robert"s attention on herself, led to an animated discussion between her and Mrs. Ackroyde"s "man." But Mrs. Ackroyde, though her large dark eyes showed complete understanding of the manoeuvre, did not seem to mind, and, turning her attention to Craven, she began to speak about acting. Meanwhile Lady Sellingworth went out into the corridor with Braybrooke to "get a little air."
While Mrs. Ackroyde talked Craven felt that she was thinking about him with an enormously experienced mind. She had been married twice, and was now a widow. No woman knew more about life and the world in a general way than she did. Her complete but quiet self-possession, her rather blunt good nature, and her perfect health, had carried her safely, and as a rule successfully, through multifarious experiences and perhaps through many dangers. It was impossible to conceive of her being ever "knocked out" by any happening however untoward it might be. She was one of the stalwarts of the "old guard." Craven certainly did not dislike her. But now he felt almost afraid of her. For he knew her present interest in him arose from suspicions about him and Lady Sellingworth which were floating through her brain. She had heard something; had been informed of something; someone had hinted; someone had told. How do such things become suspected in a city like London? Craven could not imagine how the "old guard" had come already to know of his new friendship with Lady Sellingworth. But he was now quite sure that he had been talked about, and that Mrs. Ackroyde was considering him, his temperament, his character, his possibilities in connexion with the famous Adela, once of the "old guard," but long since traitress to it.
And he felt as if he were made of gla.s.s beneath those experienced and calmly investigating eyes, as he talked steadily about acting till the bell went for the second act, and Lady Sellingworth and Braybrooke returned to the box.
"Come and see me," said Mrs. Ackroyde, getting up. "You never come near me. And come down to Coombe to lunch one Sunday."
"Thank you very much. I will."
"And bring Adela with you!"
With a casual nod or two, and a "Come, Bobbie, I am sure you have flirted quite enough with Beryl by this time!" she went out of the box, followed by her grim but good-looking cavalier.
"You must sit in front through this act."
Braybrooke spoke.
"Oh, but--"
"No, really--I insist! You don"t see properly behind."
Craven took the chair between the two women. As he did so he glanced at Miss Van Tuyn. His chair was certainly nearer to hers than to Lady Sellingworth"s, much nearer. Syng had sat in it and must have moved it. As she half turned and said something to Craven her bare silky arm touched his sleeve, and their faces were very near together. Her eyes spoke to him definitely, called him to be young again with her. And as the curtain went up she whispered:
"It was I who insisted on a party of four to-night."
Lady Sellingworth and Braybrooke were talking together, and Craven answered:
"To Mr. Braybrooke?"
"Yes; so that we might have a nice little time. And Adela and he are old friends and contemporaries! I knew they would be happy together."
Craven shrank inwardly as he heard Miss Van Tuyn say "Adela," but he only nodded and tried to return adequately the expression in her eyes.
Then he looked across the theatre, and saw Mrs. Ackroyde speaking to Lady Wrackley. After a moment they both gazed at him, and, seeing his eyes fixed on her, Lady Wrackley let go her smile at him and made a little gesture with her hand.
"She knows too--d.a.m.n her!" thought Craven, impolitely.
He set his teeth.
"They know everything, these women! It"s useless to try to have the smallest secret from them!"
And then he said to himself what so many have said:
"What does it matter what they know, what they think, what they say? I don"t care!"
But he did care. He hated their knowing of his friendship with Lady Sellingworth, and it seemed to him that they were scattering dust all over the dew of his feeling.
The second act of the play was more interesting than the first, but, as Miss Van Tuyn said, the whole thing was rather a clever character study than a solidly constructed and elaborately worked out play. It was the fascination of Moscovitch which held the audience tight and which brought thunders of applause when the curtain fell.
"If that man acted in French he could have enormous success in Paris,"
said Miss Van Tuyn. "You have chosen well," she added, turning to Braybrooke. "You have introduced us to a great temperament."
Braybrooke was delighted, and still more delighted when Lady Sellingworth and Craven both said that it was the best acting they had seen in London for years.
"But it comes out of Russia, I suppose," said Lady Sellingworth. "Poor, wonderful, horrible, glorious Russia!"