Arnold Bennett: Lo! 'Twas a Gala Night!

"By no means," said Cecil, accepting them. "But I have brought here to-night three guests, including two ladies. Imagine my position."

"I imagine it," the Directeur responded. "But you will not deny that the Minister has always the right to cancel an invitation. Seats ought to be sold subject to the contingency of that right being exercised."

At that moment still another official plunged into the room.

"She is not here yet!" he sighed, as if in extremity.

"It is unfortunate," Cecil sympathetically put in.

"It is more than unfortunate, dear monsieur," said the Directeur, gesticulating. "It is unthinkable. The performance must begin at nine-thirty, and it must begin with the garden scene from 'Faust,' in which Mademoiselle Malva takes Marguerite."

"Why not change the order?" Cecil suggested.

"Impossible. There are only two other items. The first act of 'Lohengrin,' with Madame Félise, and the ballet 'Sylvia.' We cannot commence with the ballet. No one ever heard of such a thing. And do you suppose that Félise will sing before Malva? Not for millions. Not for a throne. The etiquette of sopranos is stricter than that of Courts. Besides, to-night we cannot have a German opera preceding a French one."

"Then the President and their Majesties will have to wait a little, till Malva arrives," Cecil said.

"Their Majesties wait! Impossible!"

"Impossible!" echoed the other official, aghast.

Two more officials entered. And the atmosphere of alarm, of being scotched, of being up a tree of incredible height, the atmosphere which at that moment permeated the whole of the vast region behind the scenes of the Paris Opéra, seemed to rush with them into the bureau of the Directeur and to concentrate itself there.

"Nine-twenty! And she couldn't dress in less than fifteen minutes."

"You have sent to the Hotel du Louvre?" the Directeur questioned despairingly.

"Yes, Monsieur the Directeur. She left there two hours ago."

Cecil coughed.

"I could have told you as much," he remarked, very distinctly

"What!" cried the Directeur. "You know Mademoiselle Malva?"

"She is among my intimate friends," said Cecil smoothly.

"Perhaps you know where she is?"

"I have a most accurate idea," said Cecil.

"Where?"

"I will tell you when I am seated in my box with my friends," Cecil answered.

"Dear monsieur," panted the Directeur, "tell us at once! I give you my word of honour that you shall have your box."

Cecil bowed.

"Certainly," he said. "I may remark that I had gathered information which led me to anticipate this difficulty with the Minister of Fine Arts ——"

"But Malva, Malva — where is she?"

"Be at ease. It is only nine-twenty-three, and Mademoiselle Malva is less than three minutes away, and ready dressed. I was observing that I had gathered information which led me to anticipate this difficulty with the Minister of Fine Arts, and accordingly I took measures to protect myself. There is no such thing as absolute arbitrary power, dear Directeur, even in a Republic, and I have proved it. Mademoiselle Malva is in room No. 429 at the Grand Hotel, across the road. . . . Stay, she will not come without this note."

He handed out a small, folded letter from his waistcoat pocket.

Then he added: "Adieu, Monsieur the Directeur. You have just time to reach the State entrance in order to welcome the Presidential and Imperial party."

At nine-thirty, Cecil and his friends were ushered by a trinity of subservient officials into their box, which had been mysteriously emptied of its previous occupants. And at the same moment the monarchs, with monarchical punctuality, accompanied by the President, entered the Presidential box in the middle of the grand tier of the superb auditorium. The distinguished and dazzling audience rose to its feet, and the band played the National Anthem.

"You fixed it up then?" Belmont whispered under cover of the National Anthem. He was beaten, after all.

"Oh, yes!" said Cecil lightly. "A trivial misconception, nothing more. And I have made a little out of it, too."

"Indeed! Much?"

"No, not much! Two thousand francs. But you must remember that I have been less than half an hour in making them."

The curtain rose on the garden scene from "Faust."

IV.

"My dear," said Eve.

When a woman has been definitely linked with a man, either by betrothal or by marriage, there are moments, especially at the commencement, when she assumes an air and a tone of absolute exclusive possession of him. It is a wonderful trick, which no male can successfully imitate, try how he will. One of these moments had arrived in the history of Eve Fincastle and her millionaire lover. They sat in a large, deserted public room, all gold, of the Grand Hotel. It was midnight less a quarter, and they had just returned, somewhat excited and flushed, from the glories of the gala performances. During the latter part of the evening, Eve had been absent from Cecil's box for nearly half an hour.

Kitty Sartorius and Lionel Belmont were conversing in an adjoining salon.

"Yes," said Cecil.

"Are you quite, quite sure that you love me?"

Only one answer is possible to such a question. Cecil gave it.

"That is all very well," Eve pursued with equal gravity and charm. "But it was really tremendously sudden, wasn't it? I can't think what you see in me, dearest."

"My dear Eve," Cecil observed, holding her hand, "the best things, the most enduring things, very often occur suddenly."

"Say you love me," she persisted.

So he said it, this time. Then her gravity deepened, though she smiled.

"You've given up all those — those schemes and things of yours, haven't you?" she questioned.

"Absolutely," he replied.

"My dear, I'm so glad. I never could understand why ——"

"Listen," he said. "What was I to do? I was rich. I was bored. I had no great attainments. I was interested in life and in the arts, but not desperately, not vitally. You may, perhaps, say I should have taken up philanthropy. Well, I'm not built that way. I can't help it, but I'm not a born philanthropist, and the philanthropist without a gift for philanthropy usually does vastly more harm than good. I might have gone into business. Well, I should only have doubled my millions, while boring myself all the time. Yet the instinct which I inherited from my father, the great American instinct to be a little cleverer and smarter than someone else, drove me to action. It was part of my character, and one can't get away from one's character. So finally I took to these rather original 'schemes,' as you call them. They had the advantage of being exciting and sometimes dangerous, and though they were often profitable, they were not too profitable. In short, they amused me and gave me joy. They also gave me you."

Eve smiled again, but without committing herself.

"But you have abandoned them now completely?" she said.

"Oh, yes," he answered.

"Then what about this Opéra affair to-night?" She sprang the question on him sharply. She did her best to look severe, but the endeavour ended with a laugh.

"I meant to tell you," he said. "But how — how did you know? How did you guess?"

"You forget that I am still a journalist," she replied, "and still on the staff of my paper. I wished to interview Malva to-night for the Journal, and I did so. It was she who let out things. She thought I knew all about it; and when she saw that I didn't she stopped and advised me mysteriously to consult you for details."

"It was the scandal at the gala performance last autumn that gave me an action for making a corner in seats at the very next gala performance that should ever occur at the Paris Opéra," Cecil began his confession. "I knew that seats could be got direct from more or less minor officials at the Ministry of Fine Arts, and also that a large proportion of the people invited to these performances were prepared to sell their seats. You can't imagine how venal certain circles are in Paris. It just happened that the details and date of to-night's performance were announced on the day we arrived here. I could not resist the chance. Now you comprehend sundry strange absences of mine during the week. I went to a reporter on the Echo de Paris whom I knew, and who knows everybody. And we got out a list of the people likely to be invited and likely to be willing to sell their seats. We also opened negotiations at the Ministry."