ther.

A sharp knock, on his door this time, warned him that the _calesino_ was
ready.

"Hallo! Signor Francese."

There was profound silence in the adjoining room, then a hurried
whispering. There was somebody close by, who was listening to
them!--Paul de Gery rushed downstairs. He longed to be far away from
that hotel parlor, to escape the haunting memory of the horrors that had
been disclosed to him.

As the post-chaise started, he saw, between the cheap white curtains
that hang at every window in the South, a pale face with the hair of a
goddess and great blazing eyes, watching for him to pass. But a glance
at Aline's portrait soon banished that disturbing vision, and, cured
forever of his former passion, he travelled until evening through an
enchanted country with the pretty bride of the breakfast, who carried
away in the folds of her modest dress, of her maidenly cloak, all the
violets of Bordighera.

[Illustration: "_The First Night of 'Revolte.'_"]

CHAPTER XXV

THE FIRST NIGHT OF "REVOLTE."

"Ready for the first act!"

That cry from the stage manager, standing, with his hands at his mouth
like a trumpet, at the foot of the actors' stairway, soars upward in its
lofty well, rolls hither and thither, loses itself in the recesses of
passage-ways filled with the noise of closing doors and hurried
footsteps, of despairing calls to the wig-maker and the dressers, while
on the landings of the different floors, slowly and majestically,
holding their heads perfectly still for fear of disarranging the
slightest detail of their costumes, all the characters of the first act
of _Revolte_ appear one by one, clad in elegant modern ball costumes,
with much creaking of new shoes, rustling of silk trains, and clanking
of handsome bracelets pushed up by the gloves in process of being
buttoned. They all seem excited, nervous, pale under their paint, and
little shivers pass in waves of shadow over the skilfully prepared
velvety flesh of shoulders drenched with white lead. They talk but
little, their mouths are dry. The most self-assured, while affecting to
smile, have in their eyes and their voices the hesitation of
absent-mindedness, that feeling of apprehension of the battle before the
footlights which will always be one of the most potent attractions of
the actor's profession, its piquancy, its ever-recurring springtime.

On the crowded stage, where scene-shifters and machinists are running
hither and thithe