And so they drifted down the hours until the evening theatre and Carminetta.  They said and did nothing in particular, but they just enjoyed themselves.  In point of fact, they were emotionally tired, and, besides, they wanted to forget how the time sped by.  The quiet day was, in its own way too, a preparation for the evening feast, and they were both in the mood to enjoy the piece intensely when it came.  The magnificence of the new theatre in which it was staged all helped.  Its wide, easy stairways, its many conveniences, its stupendous auditorium, its packed house, ushered it well in.  Even the audience seemed different from that of last night.

Julie settled herself with a sigh of satisfaction to listen and watch.  And they both grew silent as the opera proceeded.  At first Julie could not contain her delight.  “Oh, she’s perfect, Peter,” she exclaimed—­“a little bit of life!  Look how she shakes her hair back and how impudent she is—­just like one of those French girls you know too much about!  And she’s boiling passion too.  And a regular devil.  I love her, Peter!”

“She’s very like you, Julie,” said Peter.

Julie flashed a look at him.  “Rubbish!” she said, but was silent.

They watched while Carminetta set herself to win her bet and steal the heart of the hero from the Governor’s daughter.  They watched her force the palace ballroom, and forgot the obvious foolishness of a great deal of it in the sense of the drama that was being worked out.  The whole house grew still.  The English girl, with her beauty, her civilisation, her rank and place, made her appeal to her fiance; and the Spanish bastard dancer, with her daring, her passion, her naked humanity, so coarse and so intensely human, made her appeal also.  And they watched while the young conventionally-bred officer hesitated; they watched till Carminetta won.

Julie, leaning forward, held her breath and gazed at the beautiful fashionable room on the stage, gazed through the open French windows to the moonlit garden and the night beyond, and gazed, though at last she could hardly see, at the Spanish girl.  That great renunciation held them both entranced.  So bitter-sweet, so humanly divine, the passionate, heart-broken, heroic song of farewell, swelled and thrilled about them.  And with the last notes the child of the gutter reached up and up till she made the supreme self-sacrifice, and stepped out of the gay room into the dark night for the sake of the man she loved too much to love.

Then Julie bowed her head into her hands, and in the silence and darkness of their box burst into tears.  And so, for the first and last time, Peter heard her really weep.

He said foolish man-things to comfort her.  She looked up at last, smiling, her brown eyes challengingly brave through her tears, “Peter, forgive me,” she said.  “I shouldn’t be such a damned fool!  You never thought I could be like that, did you?  But it was so superbly done, I couldn’t help it.  It’s all over now—­all over, Peter,” she added soberly.  “I want to sit in the lounge to-night for a little, if you don’t mind.  Could you possibly get a taxi?  I don’t want to walk.”