She opened her lips, as if to call it forth; but then she seemed to lose her breath, and, all at once, she slipped down in a dead faint at their feet.
THE NIGHT OF NIGHTS: THE PRINCESS IN THE TRANSFORMATION SCENE
If the police believed Christina when she revived enough to say that it had seemed to her as if the hair were soaked in blood it was more than Herrick did. He only wondered that they let her go and if they were perhaps not spreading a net about her as they had spread one about Denny.
But thereafter she was very composed, allowed herself to be taken quietly home, and took a sedative so as to get some sleep. Herrick came in from an errand at four and found the house subdued to the ordinary atmosphere--high-pressured enough in itself--of the house of an actress before a big first night.
Down in the drawing-room Mrs. Hope said they must not talk about anything exciting or Christina would be sure to feel it. But she herself seemed to feel that the fact of her coming appearance in the Inghams' box was about the only satisfactory piece of calmness in connection with her daughter's future. She congratulated herself anew upon the outcome of an old bout with Christina in which the girl had wished to go to supper afterward with Wheeler rather than with the devoted Inghams, and in which Mrs. Hope had unwontedly conquered. She said now that she wished she had spoken to the Inghams about inviting Herrick; it could have been arranged so easily.
When Christina came in she allowed herself to be fondly questioned as to how she felt and even to be petted and pitied. She was perhaps no more like a person in a dream than she would have been before the same occasion if Ingham had never been shot; when she spoke at all she varied between the angelic and the snappish; and before very long she excused herself and went to her room. She was to have a light supper sent up and Mrs. Hope adjured Herrick not to worry!
He duly sent his roses and his telegram of good wishes, but that she could really interest herself in the play at such a time seemed horrible to him and he arrived at the theater still puzzled and rather resentful of the intrusion of this unreal issue.
But the first thrill of the lighted lobby, glowing and odorous with the stands of Christina's flowers; the whirr of arriving motors; the shining of jeweled and silken women with bare shoulders and softly pluming hair; the expectant crowd; the managerial staff, in sacrificial evening dress, smiling nervously, catching their lips with their teeth; the busy movements of uniformed ushers; the clapping down of seats; the high, light chatter, a little forced, a little false, sparkling against the memory of those darker issues that clung about Christina's skirts; the whole, thrilling, judging, waiting house; all this began to affect Herrick like strong drink on jaded nerves. From his seat in the third row he observed Mrs. Hope and the Inghams take their places; the attention of the audience leaped like lightning on them. Just then one man came into the box opposite and drawing his chair into its very front, sat down. It was Cuyler Ten Euyck.