In
their blindness of heart they would prefer the ugly little French girl
with her shrill voice and absurd caperings; their clapping would be
half-hearted, polite, and there would be no passionate, insistent pair of
hands to beat up their flagging enthusiasm and bring her back once more
into the arena, bowing in regal scorn of them.
For he, Robert, had brought her back twice, just because he wouldn't
stop--had beaten his hands till even now they were hot and swollen. She
had not known, and he would not have had her know for the whole world.
That was part of the mystery. You yourself were as nothing.
But it did hurt intolerably to think that perhaps because he was not there
she would not be called back so often. It was as though he betrayed
her--broke his allegiance. That afternoon, when it had seemed that the
evening could never really come, he had told himself that this was the
last time; but now, standing on the dim outskirts of the crowd, the
photographs that he hadn't been able to fit into his pockets held fast in
his burning hands, he saw how impossible, how even wrong and faithless
that decision had been. So long as a shilling remained to him he had to
go, he had to take his place among her loyal people. It meant being
"found out" hopelessly and violently. They--the mysterious "they" of
authority--might destroy him utterly. That would be the most splendid
thing of all. He would have done all that he could do.
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