"I saw it
on the dresser, and I took it."
"Come, come, let's get on with the charade," urged the Man from Outside.
On the instant's pause, in which Zoe looked at her lover almost
involuntarily, and without fully understanding what he said, someone else
started forward with a smothered exclamation--of anger, of horror, of
dismay. It was Jean Jacques. He was suddenly transformed.
His eyes were darkened by hideous memory, his face alight with passion.
He caught from the girl's hands the guitar--Carmen's forgotten guitar
which he had not seen for seven years--how well he knew it! With both
hands he broke it across his knee. The strings, as they snapped, gave a
shrill, wailing cry, like a voice stopped suddenly by death. Stepping
jerkily to the fireplace he thrust it into the flame.
"Ah, there!" he said savagely. "There--there!" When he turned round
slowly again, his face--which he had never sought to control before he
had his great Accident seven years ago--was under his command. A strange,
ironic-almost sardonic-smile was on his lips.
"It's in the play," he said.
"No, it's not in the charade, Monsieur Barbille," said the Man from
Outside fretfully.
"That is the way I read it, m'sieu'," retorted Jean Jacques, and he made
a motion to the fiddler.
"The dance! The dance!" he exclaimed.
But yet he looked little like a man who wished to dance, save upon a
grave.
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