bathes in the fury of some queen of the stage.
He adored partly because he scarcely understood.

And then, at this moment, he was in the throes of a most unexpected
honeymoon. Claire, after refusing to have anything to do with him for
two years or more, had suddenly married him in such a hurry that, though
London gasped, Renfrew gasped still more. She had sent for him one
night, from her dressing-room, between the third act and the fourth of
an angry drama of passion. He came in and found her sitting in an
arm-chair by a table, on which lay a note containing his last proposal,
and a dagger with which she was about to commit a stage murder that had
carried her glory to the four quarters of the universe. Her face was
covered with powder, and in her long white dress she looked like a
phantom. As she spoke to him, she ran her thin fingers mechanically up
and down the blade of the dagger. When Renfrew was in the room, and the
door shut, she looked up at him and said:--

"Desmond, I'm going to frighten you more than I shall frighten the
audience out there."

And she pointed towards the hidden stage.

"How?" he said, looking at her hand and at the dagger.

"I'm going to marry you."

Renfrew turned paler than she was.

"Ah!" she cried. "You go white?"

"No, no," he murmured. "But--but I can't believe it."

"I will marry you when you like, to-morrow, whenever you can get a
licence."

"Oh, Claire!"

Suddenly she got up.

"Take me away from here," she said. "From this heat and noise. Take me
to some place where it is wild and desolate. I want to be in starlight,
with people who know nothing of me, and my trumpery talent. O God,
Desmond, you don't know how a woman can get to hate being famous! I
should like to act to-night to a circle of savages who had never heard
of me and of my glory."

"Curtain's up!" sang a shrill voice outside.

Claire picked up the dagger.

"Well?" she said. "Shall it be--?"

"Ah, yes--yes!" Renfrew answered in a choked voice.

She smiled and glided out, like a white snake, he thought.

And now--yes, those were really jackals whining, and Claire slept,
surrounded by a circle of Moors under the stars of Morocco.

Renfrew trembled at the astounding surprises of life. Now the devil of
the night--thought--had filled his veins with fever. He got up softly,
drew on his clothes, unfastened the canvas flap, and emerged, like a
shadow, from the mouth of the tent. The night was dewy and cool.