Lushington liked a good many of his French colleagues in literature,
and had at least one friend among them, a young man of vast learning
and exquisite taste, who was almost an invalid. For a moment, he
thought of going to see this particular one amongst them all, but he
realised all at once that he did not wish to see any one at all that
day. He went out and wandered towards the Quai Voltaire, and smelt the
Seine and nosed an old book here and there at the stalls. Later he went
and ate something in an eating-house on the outskirts of the Latin
Quarter, and then went back to his hotel, smoked several more pipes by
the open window, and went to bed.
That was the first day, and the second was very like it, so that it is
not necessary to describe it in detail in order to produce an
impression of profound dulness in the reader's mind. Lushington's hair
continued to be as preternaturally smooth as before, his beard was as
glossy and his complexion as blooming and child-like, and yet the look
of pain that Margaret had seen in his face was there most of the time
during those two days.
But in the evening he crossed the river and went to hear Romeo and
Juliet, for he knew that it was the last night on which Madame Bonanni
would sing before she left for the London season. He sat in the second
row of the orchestra stalls, and never moved from his seat during the
long performance. No secret intuition told him that Margaret was in the
house, and that if he stood up and looked round after the second act he
might see her and Madame De Rosa going out and coming back again and
sitting at the end of a back row. He did not want to see any one he
knew, and the surest way of avoiding acquaintances was to sit perfectly
still while most people went out between the acts. His face only
betrayed that the music pleased him, by turning a shade paler now and
then; at the places he liked best, he shut his eyes, as if he did not
care to see Madame Bonanni or the fat tenor.
She sang very beautifully that night, especially after the second act,
and Lushington thought he had hardly ever heard so much real feeling in
her marvellous voice. Afterwards he walked home, and he heard it all
the way, and for an hour after he had gone to bed, when he fell asleep
at last, and dreamt that he himself had turned into a very fat tenor
and was singing Romeo, but the Juliet was Margaret Donne instead of
Madame Bonanni, and though she sang like an angel, she was evidently
disgusted by his looks; which was very painful indeed, and made him
sing quite out of tune and perspire terribly.