Whatever interest or hope
was still kept alive in solitary breasts the world never knew. By the
significant irony of Fate, even the old-time semaphore that should have
signaled her was abandoned and forgotten.
The mention of her name--albeit in a quiet, unconcerned voice--in the
dress-circle of a San Francisco theatre, during the performance of a
popular female star, was therefore so peculiar that it could only have
come from the lips of some one personally interested in the lost vessel.
Yet the speaker was a youngish, feminine-looking man of about thirty,
notable for his beardlessness, in the crowded circle of bearded and
moustachioed Californians, and had been one of the most absorbed of
the enthusiastic audience. A weak smile of vacillating satisfaction
and uneasiness played on his face during the plaudits of his
fellow-admirers, as if he were alternately gratified and annoyed. It
might have passed for a discriminating and truthful criticism of the
performance, which was a classical burlesque, wherein the star displayed
an unconventional frankness of shapely limbs and unrestrained gestures
and glances; but he applauded the more dubious parts equally with the
audience.
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