until the evening theatre and
_Carminetta_. They said and did nothing in particular, but they just
enjoyed themselves. In point of fact, they were emotionally tired, and,
besides, they wanted to forget how the time sped by. The quiet day was,
in its own way too, a preparation for the evening feast, and they were
both in the mood to enjoy the piece intensely when it came. The
magnificence of the new theatre in which it was staged all helped. Its
wide, easy stairways, its many conveniences, its stupendous auditorium,
its packed house, ushered it well in. Even the audience seemed different
from that of last night.

Julie settled herself with a sigh of satisfaction to listen and watch.
And they both grew silent as the opera proceeded. At first Julie could
not contain her delight. "Oh, she's perfect, Peter," she exclaimed--"a
little bit of life! Look how she shakes her hair back and how impudent
she is--just like one of those French girls you know too much about! And
she's boiling passion too. And a regular devil. I love her, Peter!"

"She's very like you, Julie," said Peter.

Julie flashed a look at him. "Rubbish!" she said, but was silent.

They watched while Carminetta set herself to win her bet and steal the
heart of the hero from the Governor's daughter. They watched her force
the palace ballroom, and forgot the obvious foolishness of a great deal
of it in the sense of the drama that was being worked out. The whole
house grew still. The English girl, with her beauty, her civilisation,
her rank and place, made her appeal to her fiance; and the Spanish
bastard dancer, with her daring, her passion, her naked humanity, so
coarse and so intensely human, made her appeal also. And they watched
while the young conventionally-bred officer hesitated; they watched till
Carminetta won.

Julie, leaning forward, held her breath and gazed at the beautiful
fashionable room on the stage, gazed through the open French windows to
the moonlit garden and the night beyond, and gazed, though at last she
could hardly see, at the Spanish girl. That great renunciation held them
both entranced. So bitter-sweet, so humanly divine, the passionate,
heart-broken, heroic song of farewell, swelled and thrilled about them.
And with the last notes the child of the gutter reached up and up till
she made the supreme self-sacrifice, and stepped out of the gay room into
the dark night for the sake of the man she loved too much to love.

Then Julie bow