When the curtain fell on the first act of Thais, that evening, Hayden drew a long sigh. He had been enjoying it with that keen, pleasant appreciation, that boyish glow of enthusiasm which still remained with him. Then he turned his attention to the house and amused himself by picking out an occasional familiar face, and admiring the carefully dressed heads and charming gowns of the women about him, and the whole brilliant flower-garden effect of the audience.
Presently, he noticed with some surprise that in spite of a crowded house the two seats next him remained unoccupied; but just before the curtain rose again he turned his head suddenly to discover that one of the seats at least, the one farthest from him, was filled. The recognition of this fact came almost with a shock, a pleasurable shock, for the new arrival was a young and beautiful woman and his first feeling of surprise was shot with approbation at the noiselessness of her entrance, an approbation that he longed to express verbally.
She had slipped past several people, and taken her seat without any of the jingling of chains, rattling of draperies and dropping of small articles which usually proclaim the disturbing appearance of the late feminine arrival, and seem, in fact, her necessary concomitant. But this young woman though she had so recently entered yet managed by some magic at her command to convey the impression of having been in her seat all evening.
Hayden hated to stare at her. He was, in fact, entirely too well bred to do anything of the sort, and yet, quite disgracefully, he longed to do nothing on earth so much, and further he was inclined to justify himself in this social lawlessness.
If women, either wilfully or unconsciously, succeeded in making pictures of themselves, they must expect to be gazed at. That was all there was to the matter. Only, and there was the rub, Hayden couldn't very well profit by the courage of his convictions, in spite of his truculent self-assurance, for the simple reason that he wasn't capable of it.
The lady was, he decided by virtue of his stolen glances, about twenty-five years old, although her poise of manner indicated a composure beyond her years. And she was tall and slender, with a straight, regular profile, and dark hair which fell back from her face in soft natural waves, and was very simply arranged. She had, in fact, a simplicity, almost an austerity of what one might call personal effect, which formed a contrast, certainly interesting and to Hayden at least as certainly fascinating, between herself as she impressed one and her very elaborate and striking costume.
Her wonderful gown--even Hayden's untutored masculine senses appreciated its wonderfulness--was of some clinging green material which embraced her in certain faultless lines and folds of consummate art. About the hem it was embroidered with silver butterflies, irregularly disposed yet all seeming to flutter upward as if in the effort to reach her knees. These also decorated her low corsage and spread their wings upon her sleeves. She wore no jewels; and her only ornament was a large butterfly in silver, upon her breast, with diamond- and ruby-studded wings and ruby eyes.
A butterfly! Was he dreaming? Had he thought so much of butterflies that he saw them everywhere? For since his return from South America, Hayden had exhibited a marked interest in butterflies, although, curiously enough, this enthusiasm was not in the least entomological.
But to return to the lady. One foot was thrust a little from her gown, and Hayden was quick to notice that it was encased in a green satin slipper with a buckle which was a replica of the butterfly on her breast, only smaller in size. The whole idea of her costume struck him as fanciful, original and charming; and then--and then--it was only a coincidence, of course; but it started a train of thought which gradually merged into giddier hopes.
His admiration of her seemed to be universal, at least within the confines of the opera-house, for it was evident that either the lady or her gown, or both, attracted a vast deal of attention to which she on her part was either entirely oblivious or else so accustomed as to be indifferent. At last, she turned toward Hayden a little with a slight change in her expression which he translated as annoyance. He was at once overcome with a swift feeling of embarrassment, of compunction. It seemed to him that he must have sat with his eyes riveted on her. Resolutely, he turned them toward the stage until the poignant sweetness of the intermezzo began to dream through his consciousness as an echo of "that melody born of melody which melts the world into a sea," and then, involuntarily, without premeditation, obeying a seemingly enforced impulse, he had turned toward her and she had lifted her eyes, violet eyes, touched with all regret; and a sudden surprised ecstasy had invaded every corner of his heart and filled it with sweetness and warmth, for the music, that enchanting, never-to-be-forgotten intermezzo, had revealed to him--the fairy princess.
In a moment that he dreamed not of, around some unexpected corner of life, she had turned her feet and he, crass fool that he was, was not sure that it was she; like all faithless generations, he had waited for a sign, until at last, in the ebb and flow of the music, she had lifted her sweet eyes and he had known her finally, irrevocably, and for ever.
He could not gratify his own insistent longing to move nearer her, or to gaze and gaze at her, so during the next act he confined his glances rigorously to the stage. Almost immediately, however, after the curtain fell, he happened to glance, by mere chance, toward one of the boxes, and his heart stood still, for there far back in the shadowy depths, she was standing talking earnestly to a dark, thin woman in rose-color with drooping cerise wings in her shining black hair.
He turned involuntarily, half believing himself the victim of some hallucination and expecting to see her still sitting in her seat, only to find that she really had gone. For a moment, a cold chill ran down his back. How could she have vanished without his knowing it? It seemed incredible. What an uncanny way she had of coming and going! He glanced up at the box again where he fancied he had seen her; but the lady in cerise was now seated, talking to two or three men.
Good heavens! He began seriously to doubt the evidence of his senses. Had she, his fairy princess, ever really been in the house at all or had he dreamed her--her and her butterflies? Was she, after all, some fantasy born of the music and his dreaming imagination? And would it ever be possible to dream her again; or, if she were real, where, where could he find her? To discover a fairy princess and to lose her, lose her, as he ruefully confessed, like a needle in a haystack, was worse than never to have found her.
The final curtain fell. He rose with the rest of the house, dejectedly enough, let it be said, when, glancing at his feet, he saw one of the small butterflies that had evidently fallen from her shoe. He almost shouted. Cinderella had left her glass slipper at the ball, or what, in this case symbolized it, and he had found it. He slipped it carefully into his pocket and wasted no time in hastening home; but once in the seclusion of his own apartment, he drew it forth and carefully examined it. It was an exquisite trinket fashioned with infinite care and perfectly conceived, with delicate threadlike antennae, wings so thin as to be almost transparent, and ruby eyes. He smiled afresh with a kind of triumphant satisfaction.
Before him stretched a vista of golden opportunities, for this valuable and unique ornament must be returned. Naturally, it was a commission that he could intrust to no one but himself. Any one would concede that; and she, of course, in accepting it, would have to show a decent appreciation of his good offices; and they would probably discover mutual friends or acquaintances, or if they did not happen to possess such a thing as a friend or even an acquaintance in common, he would find exercise for his ingenuity by very speedily rectifying that difficulty. Either to invent or to discover some kind of a mutual friend or acquaintance was a task to which he felt himself fully equal, and with this comforting reflection uppermost in his mind, Hayden finally composed himself to slumber. Only, and this was his last conscious thought, he did wish she had looked happier. She was like a flower, exactly like the violets that drooped below the silver butterfly on her breast.
"Oh, faint, delicious, springtime violet!" But again--that little pang was like a stab at his heart--he did wish that her sweet eyes had not been touched with all regret.