Dea, when fatigued, suffered from perspirations and drowsiness, and took a daily siesta, as we have already seen.  One day, while she was lying asleep on the bearskin, Gwynplaine was out, and Ursus bent down softly and applied his ear to Dea’s heart.  He seemed to listen for a few minutes, and then stood up, murmuring, “She must not have any shock.  It would find out the weak place.”

The crowd continued to flock to the performance of “Chaos Vanquished.”  The success of the Laughing Man seemed inexhaustible.  Every one rushed to see him; no longer from Southwark only, but even from other parts of London.  The general public began to mingle with the usual audience, which no longer consisted of sailors and drivers only; in the opinion of Master Nicless, who was well acquainted with crowds, there were in the crowd gentlemen and baronets disguised as common people.  Disguise is one of the pleasures of pride, and was much in fashion at that period.  This mixing of the aristocratic element with the mob was a good sign, and showed that their popularity was extending to London.  The fame of Gwynplaine has decidedly penetrated into the great world.  Such was the fact.  Nothing was talked of but the Laughing Man.  He was talked about even at the Mohawk Club, frequented by noblemen.

In the Green Box they had no idea of all this.  They were content to be happy.  It was intoxication to Dea to feel, as she did every evening, the crisp and tawny head of Gwynplaine.  In love there is nothing like habit.  The whole of life is concentrated in it.  The reappearance of the stars is the custom of the universe.  Creation is nothing but a mistress, and the sun is a lover.  Light is a dazzling caryatid supporting the world.  Each day, for a sublime minute, the earth, covered by night, rests on the rising sun.  Dea, blind, felt a like return of warmth and hope within her when she placed her hand on the head of Gwynplaine.

To adore each other in the shadows, to love in the plenitude of silence; who could not become reconciled to such an eternity?

One evening Gwynplaine, feeling within him that overflow of felicity which, like the intoxication of perfumes, causes a sort of delicious faintness, was strolling, as he usually did after the performance, in the meadow some hundred paces from the Green Box.  Sometimes in those high tides of feeling in our souls we feel that we would fain pour out the sensations of the overflowing heart.  The night was dark but clear.  The stars were shining.  The whole fair-ground was deserted.  Sleep and forgetfulness reigned in the caravans which were scattered over Tarrinzeau Field.

One light alone was unextinguished.  It was the lamp of the Tadcaster Inn, the door of which was left ajar to admit Gwynplaine on his return.