FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119  
120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   >>   >|  
ed on, was an exciting form of torment. The setting was different, tropical instead of Northern, and the half-native heroine was more passionate, more emotional, more animal than Joan. Nevertheless, the drama was a repetition. As Prosper had laid his trap for Joan, silently, subtly undermining her whole mental structure, using her loneliness, playing upon the artist soul of her, so did this Englishman lay his trap for Zona. He was more cruel than Prosper, rougher, necessarily more dramatic, but there was all the essence of the original drama, the ensnarement of a simple, direct mind by a complex and skillful one. Joan's surrender, Prosper's victory, were there. He wondered how Joan could act it, play the part in cold blood. Now he was condemned to live in his own imagination through Joan's tragedy. There was that first pitifulness of a tamed and broken spirit; then later, in London, the agony of loneliness, of separation, of gradual awakening to the change in her master's heart. Prosper had written the words, but it was Joan who, with her voice, the music of memory-shaken heart-strings, made the words alive and meaningful. Others in the audience might wonder over the girl's ability to interpret this unusual experience, to make it natural, human, inevitable. But Prosper did not wonder. He knew that simply she forced herself to re-live this most painful part of her own life and to re-live it articulately. What, in God's name, had induced her to do it? Necessity? Poverty? Morena? All at once he remembered Betty's belief, that Joan was the manager's mistress--his wild, beautiful Joan, Joan the creation of his own wizardry. This thought gave him such pain that he whitened. "Prosper," murmured Betty, "you must tell me what is wrong. Evidently your nerves are in bad shape. Is the excitement too much for you?" "I believe it is," he said, avoiding her eyes and moving stiff, white lips; "I've never seen such acting. I--I--Morena says he'll let me see her in her dressing-room afterwards. You see, Betty, I'm badly shaken up." "Ye-es," drawled Betty, and looked at him through narrowed lids, and she sat with this look on her face and with her fingers locked, when Prosper, not giving her further notice, followed Morena out. "Jasper,"--Prosper held his friend back in the middle of a passage that led to the dressing-rooms,--"I want very particularly to see Miss West alone. I am very much moved by her performance and I want to te
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119  
120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Prosper

 

Morena

 

dressing

 
loneliness
 
shaken
 

Evidently

 
nerves
 

wizardry

 

Necessity

 

Poverty


induced
 

articulately

 

remembered

 

belief

 

thought

 
whitened
 

creation

 

manager

 

mistress

 
beautiful

murmured

 
notice
 

Jasper

 

giving

 

fingers

 

locked

 

friend

 
performance
 

passage

 

middle


narrowed

 

painful

 

moving

 

avoiding

 

acting

 

drawled

 

looked

 

excitement

 

audience

 

rougher


necessarily

 

Englishman

 

playing

 

artist

 

dramatic

 

skillful

 
complex
 

surrender

 

victory

 

direct