第256章

THE DIARY CONTINUED.

"WE went to the San Carlo. Armadale's stupidity showed itself, even in such a simple matter as taking a box. He had confounded an opera with a play, and had chosen a box close to the stage, with the idea that one's chief object at a musical performance is to see the faces of the singers as plainly as possible!

Fortunately for our ears, Bellini's lovely melodies are, for the most part, tenderly and delicately accompanied--or the orchestra might have deafened us.

"I sat back in the box at first, well out of sight; for it was impossible to be sure that some of my old friends of former days at Naples might not be in the theater. But the sweet music gradually tempted me out of my seclusion. I was so charmed and interested that I leaned forward without knowing it, and looked at the stage.

"I was made aware of my own imprudence by a discovery which, for the moment, literally chilled my blood. One of the singers, among the chorus of Druids, was looking at me while he sang with the rest. His head was disguised in the long white hair, and the lower part of his face was completely covered with the flowing white beard proper to the character. But the eyes with which he looked at me were the eyes of the one man on earth whom I have most reason to dread ever seeing again--Manuel!

"If it had not been for my smelling-bottle, I believe I should have lost my senses. As it was, I drew back again into the shadow. Even Armadale noticed the sudden change in me: he, as well as Midwinter, asked if I was ill. I said I felt the heat, but hoped I should be better presently; and then leaned back in the box, and tried to rally my courage. I succeeded in recovering self-possession enough to be able to look again at the stage (without showing myself) the next time the chorus appeared. There was the man again! But to my infinite relief he never looked toward our box a second time. This welcome indifference, on his part, helped to satisfy me that I had seen an extraordinary accidental resemblance, and nothing more. I still hold to this conclusion, after having had leisure to think; but my mind would be more completely at ease than it is if I had seen the rest of the man's face without the stage disguises that hid it from all investigation.

"When the curtain fell on the first act, there was a tiresome ballet to be performed (according to the absurd Italian cust om), before the opera went on. Though I had got over my first fright, I had been far too seriously startled to feel comfortable in the theater. I dreaded all sorts of impossible accidents; and when Midwinter and Armadale put the question to me, I told them I was not well enough to stay through the rest of the performance.

"At the door of the theater Armadale proposed to say good-night.

But Midwinter--evidently dreading the evening with _me_--asked him to come back to supper, if I had no objection. I said the necessary words, and we all three returned together to this house.

"Ten minutes' quiet in my own room (assisted by a little dose of eau-de-cologne and water) restored me to myself. I joined the men at the supper-table. They received my apologies for taking them away from the opera, with the complimentary assurance that I had not cost either of them the slightest sacrifice of his own pleasure. Midwinter declared that he was too completely worn out to care for anything but the two great blessings, unattainable at the theater, of quiet and fresh air. Armadale said--with an Englishman's exasperating pride in his own stupidity wherever a matter of art is concerned--that he couldn't make head or tail of the performance. The principal disappointment, he was good enough to add, was mine, for I evidently understood foreign music, and enjoyed it. Ladies generally did. His darling little Neelie--"I was in no humor to be persecuted with his 'Darling Neelie'

after what I had gone through at the theater. It might have been the irritated state of my nerves, or it might have been the eau-de-cologne flying to my head, but the bare mention of the girl seemed to set me in a flame. I tried to turn Armadale's attention in the direction of the supper-table. He was much obliged, but he had no appetite for more. I offered him wine next, the wine of the country, which is all that our poverty allows us to place on the table. He was much obliged again. The foreign wine was very little more to his taste than the foreign music; but he would take some because I asked him; and he would drink my health in the old-fashioned way, with his best wishes for the happy time when we should all meet again at Thorpe Ambrose, and when there would be a mistress to welcome me at the great house.

"Was he mad to persist in this way? No; his face answered for him. He was under the impression that he was making himself particularly agreeable to me.

"I looked at Midwinter. He might have seen some reason for interfering to change the conversation, if he had looked at me in return. But he sat silent in his chair, irritable and overworked, with his eyes on the ground, thinking.

"I got up and went to the window. Still impenetrable to a sense of his own clumsiness, Armadale followed me. If I had been strong enough to toss him out of the window into the sea, I should certainly have done it at that moment. Not being strong enough, Ilooked steadily at the view over the bay, and gave him a hint, the broadest and rudest I could think of, to go.

" 'A lovely night for a walk,' I said, 'if you are tempted to walk back to the hotel.'

"I doubt if he heard me. At any rate, I produced no sort of effect on him. He stood staring sentimentally at the moonlight;and--there is really no other word to express it--_blew_ a sigh.

I felt a presentiment of what was coming, unless I stopped his mouth by speaking first.

" 'With all your fondness for England,' I said, 'you must own that we have no such moonlight as that at home.'

"He looked at me vacantly, and blew another sigh.