Soon she was more composed and happier.She sat very close to Martin, her knee against his and his hand near to hers, just touching the outside of her palm.Her ring sparkled and the three little pearls smiled at her.As he breathed she breathed too, and it seemed to her that their bodies rose and fell as one body.Without looking directly at him, which would, she knew, embarrass him before all those hungry people behind her, she could out of the corner of her eye see the ruddy brown of his cheek and the hard thick curve of his shoulder.She was his, she belonged to no one else in the world, she was his utterly.Utterly.Ever so swiftly and gently her hand brushed for an instant over his; he responded, crooking his little finger for a moment inside hers.She smiled; she turned round and looked at the people triumphantly, she felt a deep contented rest in her heart, rich and full, proud and arrogant, the mother, the lover, the sister, the child, everything to him she was...
People came in, the theatre filled, and a hum of talk arose, then the orchestra began to tune, and soon music was playing, and Maggie would have loved to listen but the people must chatter.
When suddenly the lights went down the only thing of which she was conscious was that Martin's hand had suddenly seized hers roughly, sharply, and was crushing it, pressing the ring into the flesh so that it hurt.Her first excited wondering thought then was:
"He doesn't care for me any more only as a friend.--There's the other now..." and a strange shyness, timidity, and triumph overwhelmed her so that her eyes were full of tears and her body trembling.
But as the play continued she must listen.It was her very first play and soon it was thrilling to her so that she forgot, for a time, even Martin.Or rather Martin was mingled with it, absorbed in it, part of it, and she was there too sharing with him the very action of the story.It was a very old-fashioned play about a little Charity girl who was brought up by a kindly middle-aged gentleman who cared for nothing but books.He brought her up on his own plan with a view to marrying her afterwards.But meanwhile, of course, she saw a handsome young soldier who was young like herself, and she was naturally bored with the studious gentleman.Maggie shared all the feelings of the Charity girl.Had she been brought up, say by a man like Mr.Trenchard and then had met Martin, why, of course, she could have gone only one way.
The soldier was not like Martin, being slim and curled and beautiful, nor was the studious gentleman like Mr.Trenchard, being thin and tall with a face like a monk and a beautiful voice.But the girl was like Maggie, prettier of course, and with artful ways, but untidy a little and not very well educated.At the first interval, when the lights were up and the band was playing and the people walking, Martin whispered:
"Do you like it, Maggie?"
"I love it," she answered.
And then they just sat there, without another word between them, pressed close together.
A little song ran through the play--one of Burns's most famous songs, although Maggie, who had never read anything, did not know that.The verses were:
O my luve's like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June: O my luve's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune!
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I: And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry:
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun;I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve, And fare thee weel a while! And Iwill come again, my Luve, Tho' it were ten thousand mile.
First the handsome soldier sang this to the Charity girl, and then, because it was a sentimental tune, it was always turning up through the play, and if one of the characters were not singing it the orchestra was quietly playing it.Maggie loved it; she was not sentimental but she was simple, and the tune seemed at once to belong to herself and to Martin by natural right.
As the story developed it became more unreal and Maggie's unerring knowledge of the difference between sense and nonsense refused to credit the tall handsome villainness who confronted the Charity girl at the ball.The Charity girl had no right to be at the ball and people stood about in unnatural groups and pretended not to listen to the loud development of the plot and no one seemed to use any of their faculties.Then at the end, when the middle-aged gentleman nobly surrendered his Charity girl to the handsome soldier, the little tune came back again and all was well.
They came out of the theatre into lights and shadows and mists cabs and omnibuses and crowds of people...Maggie clung to Martin's arm.It seemed to her, dazzled for an instant, that a great are of white piercing light cut the black street and that in the centre of this arc a tree, painted green, stood, and round the tree figures, dark shapes, and odd shadows danced.She shaded her eyes with her hand.The long shining line of Shaftesbury Avenue ran out, from her feet, into thick clusters of silver lights.The tree had vanished and now there were policemen and ladies in hats and strange mysterious houses.She caught above it all, between the roofs, the pale flat river of the evening sky and in this river stars like golden buttons floated.The moon was there too, a round amber coin with the laughing face stamped upon it.
"What time is it?" she asked Martin.
"Half-past five," he said."How early the moon rises.It's only climbing now.See the chimney's tossing it about.""I must get home."