AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Well, it seems we're at the opposite end of the dress circle," he said to her, smiling. "But how can you be so shy when you're so lovely? When you're more beautiful than any woman I've ever beheld?"
"I'm jealous of you, of the hours we've spent together. Believe me, the world will ruin it, Lord Alex."
"Ah, that's not possible," he said with utter innocence.
Elliott stood at the curtained doorway. "Where on earth can Alex be? What could possess him to wander off at a time like this? Oh, this is past all patience."
"Elliott, Alex is the least of our worries!" Julie said. "He's probably found another American heiress. The third consecutive love of his life in one week."
Elliott gave a faintly bitter smile as they went on into the box. The woman he'd glimpsed in the car had been all hat, ribbons and hair flying. Maybe it was just the bit of good fortune his son required.
A curved tier; a giant amphitheatre save it was covered over; and only one-half of the oval. At the far end lay the stage, obviously, hidden by a wall of soft shimmering curtains; and sunk beneath and before it, a gathering of men and women making horrid sounds with their stringed instruments and horns. She put her hands to her ears.
Alex led her down the little step to the front row of this small section. The soft red chairs at the railing were theirs. She turned to her left. Across the dimly lighted gulf she saw Ramses! She saw the pale-faced woman, with large sad eyes. Lord Rutherford had settled directly behind them; and at his arm was a dark-skinned Egyptian, beautifully clad as the other men.
She tried to take her eyes off them; she did not fully understand the tumult inside her, as she continued to stare. Then Ramses put his arm around the woman. He embraced her tightly as if to comfort her, and the woman lowered her eyes, and there was a sudden glisten of tears on her cheeks! Ramses kissed this woman, and the woman, inclining towards him, returned his kiss!
How the pain passed through her as she saw this! It was like a knife travelling down her face suddenly, slicing her open. She turned her head, shaken; staring before her in the dark.
It seemed she would have cried out if she could. But why, what did she feel? A hatred for the woman swelled inside her; burning her. Give Antony the elixir.
Suddenly the great theatre went dark. A man appeared before the audience; applause broke out all around her, then rose in a deafening noise. Like so much in modern times, it was overwhelming yet strangely contained.
The man bowed, lifted his hands, then turned and faced the musicians, who had become quiet and still. At his signal, they played in concert; the sound rose, huge and searing and beautiful.
It seemed to touch her, this sound. She felt Alex's hand cover her hand. The sound surrounded her, swept her away from her pain suddenly.
"Modern times," she whispered. Was she too weeping? She did not want to hate! She did not want this pain! In memory again, she saw Ramses above her in the darkness; had it been a tomb? She felt the elixir filling her mouth. And then he backed away from her in terror. Ramses. But was she sorry that he had done it? Could she really curse him?
She was alive!
Elliott ducked outside the curtain into the lighted foyer behind the box, to read the note in the electric light.
"It was at the desk at Shepheard's, sir," said the boy, waiting for the coin which Elliott fished from his pocket and held out.
Father, will see you at the opera or at the ball afterwards. Sorry to be so
mysterious, but have met the most entrancing female companion. Alex.
Infuriating. But so be it! He went back into the darkened hall.
Ramses hadn't thought it possible to enjoy this spectacle. He was furious still with Elliott that he had been dragged here against his will. And indeed, the opera would have been ludicrous had it not been so beautiful--the fat "Egyptian" figures down there singing in Italian against a backdrop of painted temples and statues which appeared to be utterly grotesque. But the melodies overcame him, even as they worsened Julie's pain. Julie leaned against his shoulder in the privacy of the darkness. The lovely voices rising in the gloom touched his heart. These hours wouldn't be the agony he had imagined; it even occurred to his cowardly soul that perhaps Cleopatra had fled Cairo, that she was lost now in the modern world, beyond all hope of his finding her. And this both released him and terrified him. What would her loneliness be as the weeks and months passed; what would her rage demand?
She lifted the magical opera glasses. She peered at Ramses and Julie, astonished at the intimate focus. The woman was crying, no doubt of it. Her dark eyes were fixed on the stage, where the ugly little man sang the beautiful song, "Celeste Aida," his voice enormous, the melody enough to break the heart.
She was about to put down the glasses when suddenly Julie Stratford whispered something to her partner. They rose together, Julie Stratford hurrying through the curtain, and Ramses following.
Quickly, Cleopatra touched Alex's hand.
"You stay here," she whispered in his ear.
He seemed to think it quite the normal thing. He didn't try to stop her. She hurried through the alcove behind their little section of the theatre, and moved slowly and cautiously out into the grand room of the second floor.
It was almost empty. Servants behind a marble-top counter poured drinks for a few old men who looked quite miserable in their black-and-white uniforms, one of them pulling at his collar in obvious annoyance.
At a far table, against a great arched window hung with tapestried drapery, Julie Stratford and Ramses talked in whispers that she could not possibly hear. She moved closer, behind a stand of potted trees, and lifted the opera glasses, bringing their faces close again; but not the words.
Julie Stratford shook her head, recoiling. Ramses held her hand, he would not let her go. What was she saying with such passion? And how he pleaded with her; she knew that authority, that insistence, but Julie Stratford was strong just as she herself had been strong.
