That night he went to bed early and slept better than he had slept for
weeks. The next day he almost enjoyed, and when evening came, felt
desultory, even light-hearted.
Dining at his hotel, he overheard the people at the next table say they
were going to the Folies Bergeres to see Victoria Ray dance, and
suddenly Stephen made up his mind that he would go there too: for if
life had been running its usual course with him, he would certainly have
gone to see Victoria Ray in London. She had danced lately at the Palace
Theatre for a month or six weeks, and absorbed as he had been in his own
affairs, he had heard enough talk about this new dancer to know that she
had made what is called a "sensation."
The people at the next table were telling each other that Victoria Ray's
Paris engagement was only for three nights, something special, with
huge pay, and that there was a "regular scramble" for seats, as the girl
had been such a success in New York and London. The speakers, who were
English and provincial, had already taken places, but there did not
appear to be much hope that Stephen could get anything at the last
minute. The little spice of difficulty gave a fillip of interest,
however; and he remembered how the charming child on the boat had said
that she "liked doing difficult things." He wondered what she was doing
now; and as he thought of her, white and ethereal in the night and in
the dawn-light, she seemed to him like the foam-flowers that had
blossomed for an instant on the crests of dark waves, through which
their vessel forged.
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