There was a half-tone of difference, too, in her voice
when she raised it again, a firmer vibration, as if she passed,
deliberate and aware, out of one phase into another.
"No," she went on, "I am not shy on this occasion; indeed, I feel that I
should like to keep your eyes upon me for a long time to-night, and go
on talking far past your patience or my wit. For I cannot think it
likely that our ways will cross again." Here her words grew suddenly low
and hurried. "If I may tresspass upon your interest so much further, I
have to tell you that my connection with the stage closes with this
evening's performance. To-morrow I join the Anglican Order of the
Sisters of St. Paul--the Baker Institution--in Calcutta, as a novice.
They have taken me without much question because--because the plague
hospitals of this cheerful country"--she contrived a smile--"have made a
great demand upon their body. That is all. I have nothing more to say."
It was, after all, ineffective, the denouement, or perhaps it was too
effective. In any case it was received in silence, the applause that was
ready falling back on itself, inconsistent and absurd. The incredulity
of Llewellyn Stanhope might have been electric had it found words, but
that gentleman's protests were made in violent whispers, to which Hilda,
who sat playing with a faded rose, seemed to pay no attention whatever.
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