The Dark Flower eBook

And the last evening before she went they took her to see “Carmen” at the Opera.  He remembered that she wore a nearly high white frock, and a dark carnation in the ribbon tying her crinkly hair, that still hung loose.  How wonderfully entranced she sat, drunk on that opera that he had seen a score of times; now touching his arm, now Sylvia’s, whispering questions:  “Who’s that?” “What’s coming now?” The Carmen roused her to adoration, but Don Jose was ’too fat in his funny little coat,’ till, in the maddened jealousy of the last act, he rose superior.  Then, quite lost in excitement, she clutched Lennan’s arm; and her gasp, when Carmen at last fell dead, made all their neighbours jump.  Her emotion was far more moving than that on the stage; he wanted badly to stroke, and comfort her and say:  “There, there, my dear, it’s only make-believe!” And, when it was over, and the excellent murdered lady and her poor fat little lover appeared before the curtain, finally forgetting that she was a woman of the world, she started forward in her seat and clapped, and clapped.  Fortunate that Johnny Dromore was not there to see!  But all things coming to an end, they had to get up and go.  And, as they made their way out to the hall, Lennan felt a hot little finger crooked into his own, as if she simply must have something to squeeze.  He really did not know what to do with it.  She seemed to feel this half-heartedness, soon letting it go.  All the way home in the cab she was silent.  With that same abstraction she ate her sandwiches and drank her lemonade; took Sylvia’s kiss, and, quite a woman of the world once more, begged that they would not get up to see her off—­for she was to go at seven in the morning, to catch the Irish mail.  Then, holding out her hand to Lennan, she very gravely said: 

“Thanks most awfully for taking me to-night.  Good-bye!”

He stayed full half an hour at the window, smoking.  No street lamp shone just there, and the night was velvety black above the plane-trees.  At last, with a sigh, he shut up, and went tiptoe-ing upstairs in darkness.  Suddenly in the corridor the white wall seemed to move at him.  A warmth, a fragrance, a sound like a tiny sigh, and something soft was squeezed into his hand.  Then the wall moved back, and he stood listening—­no sound, no anything!  But in his dressing-room he looked at the soft thing in his hand.  It was the carnation from her hair.  What had possessed the child to give him that?  Carmen!  Ah!  Carmen!  And gazing at the flower, he held it away from him with a sort of terror; but its scent arose.  And suddenly he thrust it, all fresh as it was, into a candle-flame, and held it, burning, writhing, till it blackened to velvet.  Then his heart smote him for so cruel a deed.  It was still beautiful, but its scent was gone.  And turning to the window he flung it far out into the darkness.

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