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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36961-0.txt b/36961-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9598e12 --- /dev/null +++ b/36961-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6693 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl From His Town, by Marie Van Vorst + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Girl From His Town + +Author: Marie Van Vorst + +Illustrator: F. Graham Cootes + +Release Date: August 3, 2011 [EBook #36961] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Image] + + + + + THE + GIRL FROM HIS TOWN + + _By_ + MARIE VAN VORST + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + F. GRAHAM COOTES + + INDIANAPOLIS + THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + COPYRIGHT 1910 + The Bobbs-Merrill Company + + PRESS OF + BRAUNWORTH & CO. + BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS + BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I Dan Blair 1 + II The Duchess Approves 21 + III The Blairtown Soloist 28 + IV In The Coral Room 31 + V At The Carlton 47 + VI Galorey Seeks Advice 55 + VII At The Stage Entrance 70 + VIII Dan’s Simplicity 76 + IX Disappointment 85 + X The Boy From My Town 94 + XI Ruggles Gives a Dinner 109 + XII The Green Knight 128 + XIII The Face of Letty Lane 135 + XIV From India’s Coral Strands 155 + XV Galorey Gives Advice 174 + XVI The Musicale Program 187 + XVII Letty Lane Sings 199 + XVIII A Woman’s Way 207 + XIX Dan Awakes 214 + XX A Hand Clasp 225 + XXI Ruggles Returns 231 + XXII What Will You Take? 234 + XXIII In the Sunset Glow 242 + XXIV Ruggles’ Offer 250 + XXV Letty Lane Runs Away 268 + XXVI White and Coral 274 + XXVII At Maxim’s 290 + XXVIII Such Stuff as Dreams 299 + XXIX The Picture of It All 304 + XXX Sodawater Fountain Girl 309 + XXXI In Reality 315 + XXXII The Prince Accepts 319 + XXXIII The Things Above Ground 322 + + + + +THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN + + + + +CHAPTER I—DAN BLAIR + + +The fact that much he said, because of his unconscionable slang, was +incomprehensible did not take from the charm of his conversation as far +as the Duchess of Breakwater was concerned. The brightness of his +expression, his quick, clear look upon them, his beautiful young smile, +his not too frequent laugh, his “new gayness,” as the duchess called his +high spirits, his supernal youth, his _difference_, credited him with +what nine-tenths of the human race lack—charm. + +His tone was not too crudely western; neither did he suggest the ultra +East with which they were familiar. American women went down well enough +with them, but American men were unpopular, and when the visitor +arrived, Lady Galorey did not even announce him to the party gathered +for “the first shoot.” + +The others were in the armory when the ninth gun, a young chap, six feet +of him, blond as the wheat, cleanly set up and very good to look at, +came in with Lily, Duchess of Breakwater. Lady Galorey, his hostess, +greeted them. + +“Oh, here you are, are you? Lord Mersey, Sir John Fairthrope.” She +mumbled the rest of the names of her companions as though she did not +want them understood, then waved toward the young chap, calling him Mr. +Dan Blair, and he, as she hesitated, added: + +“From Blairtown, Montana.” + +“And give him a gun, will you, Gordon?” Lady Galorey spoke to her +husband. + +“I discovered Mr. Blair, Edie,” the duchess announced, “and he didn’t +even know there was a shoot on for to-day. Fancy!” + +“I guess,” Dan Blair said pleasantly, “I’ll just take a gun out of this +bunch,” and he chose one at random from several indicated to him by the +gamekeeper. “I get my best luck when I go it blind. Right! Thanks. +That’s so, Lady Galorey, I didn’t know there was to be any shooting +until the duchess let it out.” + +To himself he thought with good-natured amusement, “Afraid I’ll spoil +their game record, maybe!” and went out along with them, following the +insular noblemen like a ray of sun, smiling on the pretty woman who had +discovered him in the grounds where he had been poking about by himself. + +“Where, in Heaven’s name, did you ‘corral’—word of his own—the dear boy, +Edith? How did he get to Osdene Park, or in fact anywhere, just as he +is, fresh as from Eden?” + +“Thought I’d let him take you by surprise, dearest. Where’d you find +Dan?” + +“Down by the garden house feeding the rabbits, on his knees like a +little boy, his hands full of lettuces. I’d just come a cropper myself +on the mare. She fell, I’m sorry to say, Edie, and hacked her knees +quite a lot. One of those disguised ditches, you know. I was coming +along leading her when I ran on your friend.” + +The young duchess was slender as a willow, very brunette, with a +beautiful, discontented face. + +“I’m going to show Dan Blair off,” Lady Galorey responded, “going to +give the débutantes a chance.” + +Placidly nodding, the duchess lit a cigarette and began to quote from +Dan Blair’s conversation: “I fancy he won’t let them ‘worry him’; he’s +too ‘busy!’” + +“You mean that you’re going to keep him occupied?” + +The duchess didn’t notice this. + +“_Is_ he such a catch?” + +Neither of the women had walked out with the guns. The duchess had a bad +foot, and Lady Galorey never went anywhere she could help with her +husband. She now drew her chair up to the table in the morning-room, to +which they had both gone after the departure of the guns, and regarded +with satisfaction a quantity of stationery and the red leather desk +appointments. + +“Sit down and smoke if you like, Lily; I’m going to fill out some +lists.” + +“No, thanks, I’m going up to my rooms and get Parkins to ‘massey’ this +beastly foot of mine. I must have fallen on it. But tell me first, is +Mr. Blair a catch?” + +Lady Galorey had opened an address book and looked up from it to reply: + +“Something like ten million pounds.” + +“Heavens! Disgusting!” + +“The richest young man ‘west of some river or other.’ At any rate he +told me last night that it was ‘clean money.’ I dare say the river is +responsible for its cleanliness, but that fact seemed to give him +satisfaction.” + +The duchess was leaning on the table at Lady Galorey’s side. + +“Dan’s father took Gordon all over the West that time he went to the +States for a big hunt in the Rockies. He got to know Mr. Blair awfully +well and liked him. The old gentleman bought a little property about +that time that turned out to be a gold mine.” + +With persistency the duchess said: + +“How d’you know it is ‘clean money,’ Edith? Not that it makes a rap of +difference,” she laughed prettily, “but how do you know that he is rich +to this horrible extent?” + +Lady Galorey put down her address book impatiently: “Does he look like +an impostor?” + +The other returned: “Even the archangel fell, my dear Edith!” + +“Well,” returned her friend, “this one is too young to have fallen far,” +and she shut up her list in desperation. + +The duchess sat down on the edge of the lounge and raised her expressive +eyes to Lady Galorey, who once more looked at her sarcastically, and +went on: + +“Gordon liked the old gentleman: he was extraordinarily generous—quite a +type. They called the town after him—Blairtown: that is where the son +‘hails from.’ He was a little lad when Gordon was out and Mr. Blair +promised that Dan should come over here and see us one day, and this,” +she tapped the table with her pen, “seems to be the day, for he came +down upon us in this breezy way without even sending a wire, ‘just +turned up’ last night. Gordon’s mad about him. His father has been dead +a year, and he is just twenty-two.” + +“Good heavens!” murmured the duchess. Lady Galorey opened her address +book again. + +“Gordon’s got him terribly on his mind, my dear; he has forbidden any +gambling or any bridge as long as the boy is with us....” + +Her companion rose and thrust her hands into the pocket of her tweed +coat. She laughed softly, then went over to the long window where +without, across the pane, the early winter mists were flying, chased by +a furtive sun. + +“Gordon said that the boy’s father treated him like a king, and that +while the boy is here he is going to look out for him.” + +Over her shoulder the other threw out coldly: + +“You speak as though he were in a den of thieves. I didn’t know Gordon’s +honor was so fine. As for me, _I_ don’t gamble, you know.” + +Lady Galorey had decided that Lily’s insistent remaining gave her a +chance to fill her fountain pen. She was, therefore, carefully squirting +in the ink, and she flushed at her friend’s last words. + +Lady Galorey herself was the best bridge player in London, and cards +were her passion. She did not remind the lady in the window that there +were other games besides bridge, but kept both her tongue and her +temper. + +After a little silence in which the women followed each her own +thoughts, the duchess murmured: + +“I’ll toddle up-stairs, Edie—let you write. Where did you say we were +going to meet the guns for food?” + +“At the gate by the White Pastures. There’ll be a cart and a motor +going, whichever you like, around two.” + +“Right,” her grace nodded; “I’ll be on time, dearest.” + +And Lady Galorey with a relieved sigh heard the door close behind the +duchess. Wiping her fountain pen delicately with a bit of chamois, she +murmured: “Well, Dan Blair _is_ out of Eden, poor dear, if he met her by +the gate.” + +A fortune of a round ten million pounds was a small part of what this +young man had come into by direct inheritance from the Copper King of +Blairtown, Montana. For once the money figure had not been exaggerated, +but Lady Galorey did not know about the rest of Dan’s inheritance. + + * * * * * + +The young man whistling in his rooms in the bachelor quarters of Osdene +Park House, dressed for dinner without the aid of a valet. When Lord +Galorey had asked him “where his manservant was,” Dan had grinned. +“Gosh, I wouldn’t have one of those Johnnies hanging around me—never did +have! I can put on _my_ stockings all right! There was a chap on the +boat I came over in who let his man put on his stockings. Can you beat +that?” Blair had laughed again. “I think if anybody tickled my feet that +way I would be likely to kick him in the eye.” + +Dressing in his room he whistled under his breath a song from a newly +popular comic opera; and he intoned with his clear young voice a line of +the words: + +“_Should-you-go-to-Mandalay._” + +Out through his high window, if he had looked, he would have seen the +misty sweep of the park under the faint moonrise and fine shadows that +the leaves made in the veiled light, but he did not look out. He was +dressing for dinner without a valet and giving a great deal of care to +his toilet; for the first time he was to dine in the house of a nobleman +and in the presence of a duchess; not that it meant a great deal to +him—he thought it was “funny.” + +In Dan Blair’s twenty-two years of utterly happy days his one grief had +been the death of his father. As soon as the old man had died Dan had +gone off into the Rockies with his guides and not “shown up” for months. +When he came back to Blairtown, as he expressed it, “he packed his grip +and beat it while his shoes were good,” for the one place he could +remember his father had suggested for him to go. + +Blairtown was very much impressed when the heir came in from the Rockies +with “a big kill,” and the orphan’s case did not seem especially +disturbed. But no one in the town knew how the boy’s heart ached for the +old man. When Dan was six years old his father had literally picked him +up by the nape of his neck and thrown him into the water like a pup and +watched him swim. At eight he sent the boy off with a gun to rough-camp. +Then he took Dan down in the mines with the men. His education had been +won in Blairtown, at a school called public, but which in reality was +nothing more than a pioneer district school. + +On Sundays Dan dressed up and went with his father to church twice a day +and in the week-days his father took him to the prayer-meetings, and at +sixteen Dan went to college in California. He had just completed his +course when old Blair died. Then he inherited fifty million dollars. + +On the day of the shoot at Osdene, Dan dropped sixty birds. He tried +very hard not to be too pleased. “Gosh,” he thought to himself, “those +birds fell as though they were trained all right, and the other sports +were mad, I could see it.” He then fell to whistling softly the air he +had heard Lady Galorey play the night before from the new success at the +Gaiety, and finished it as his toilet completed itself. He took up a +gardenia from his dressing-table, and fastened it in his coat, stopping +on the stairs on the way down to look over into the hall, where the men +in their black clothes and the women in their shining dresses waited +before going into the dining-room. The lights fell on white arms and +necks, on jewels and on fine proud heads. Dan Blair had been in San +Francisco and in New York, on short journeys, however, which his father, +the year before, had directed him to take, but he had never seen a +“show” like this. + +He came slowly down the broad stairway of the Osdene Park House, the +last guest. In the corner, where, behind her, a piece of fourteenth +century tapestry cut a green and pink square against the rich black oak +paneling, the Duchess of Breakwater sat waiting. She wore a dress of +golden tulle which was simply a sheath to her slender body, and from her +neck hung a long rope of diamonds caught at the end by a small black +fan; there was a wreath of diamonds like shining water drops linked +together in her hair. She was the grandest lady at Osdene, and renowned +in more than one sense of the word. As Dan saw her smile at him and +rise, he thought: + +“She is none too sorry that I made _that_ record, but I hope to heaven +she won’t say anything to me about it.” + +And the duchess did not speak of it. Telling him that he was to take her +in to dinner, she laid first her fan on his arm and then her hand. And +Dan, one of those fortunate creatures who are born men of the world when +they get into it, gave her his arm with much grace, and as he leaned +down toward her he thought to himself: + +“Well, it’s lucky for me I have my head on tight; a few more of those +goo-goo eyes of hers and it would be as well for me to light out for the +woods.” + + * * * * * + +Dan liked best at Osdene Park his chin-chins with Gordon Galorey. The +young man was unflatteringly frank in his choice of companions. When the +duchess looked about for him to ride with her, walk with her, to find +the secluded corners, to talk, to play with him, she was likely to +discover Dan gone off with Lord Galorey, and to come upon them later, +sitting enveloped in smoke, a stand of drinks by their side. + +To Galorey, who had no heir or child, the boy’s presence proved to be +the happiest thing that had come to him for a long time. He talked a +great deal to Dan about the old man. Galorey was poor and the fact of a +fortune of ten million pounds possessed by this one boy was continually +before his mind like an obsession. It was like looking down into a gold +mine. Galorey tried often to broach the subject of money, but Dan kept +off. At length Galorey asked boldly: + +“What are you going to do with it?” On this occasion they were walking +over from the lower park back to the house, a couple of terriers at +their heels. + +“Do with what?” Blair asked innocently. He was looking at the trees. He +was comparing their grayish green trunks and their foliage with the +California redwoods. A little taken aback, Lord Galorey laughed. + +“Why, with that colossal fortune of yours.” + +And Blair answered unhesitatingly: “Oh—spend it on some girl sooner or +later.” + +Galorey fairly staggered. Then he took it humorously. + +“My dear chap, I never saw a sweeter, bigger man than your father. If he +had been my father, I dare say I might have pulled off a different yard +of hemp, but I must confess that I think he has left you too much +money.” + +“Well, there are a lot of fellows who are ready to look after it for +me,” Blair answered coolly. Before his companion could redden, he +continued: “You see, dad took care of me for twenty-one years all right, +and whenever I am up a stump, why all I have to do is to remember the +things he did.” + +For the first time since his arrival at Osdene Dan’s tone was serious. +Interested as he was in the older man, Dan’s inclination was to evade +the discussion of serious subjects. With Blair’s slang, his conversation +was almost incomprehensible. + +“Dad didn’t gas much,” the boy said, “but I could draw a map of some of +the things he did say. He used to say he made his money out of the +earth.” + +The two were walking side by side across the rich velvet of the +immemorial English turf. The extreme softness of the autumn day, its +shifting lights, its mellow envelope, the beauty of the park—the age, +the stability, the harmony, served to touch the young fellow’s spirits. +At any rate there was a ring in him, an equilibrium that surprised +Galorey. + +“‘Most things,’ dad said to me, ‘go back to the earth.’” He struck the +English turf with his stick. “Dad said a fellow had better buy those +things that stay above the ground.” Dan smiled frankly at his companion. +“Curious thing to say, wasn’t it?” he reflected. “I remembered it, and I +got to wondering after I saw him buried, ‘_what are_ the things that +stay above the ground?’ The old man never gave me another talk like +that.” + +After a few seconds Galorey put in: + +“But, my dear chap, you did give me a shock up there just now when you +said you were going to spend ‘all your money on some girl.’” + +The millionaire took a chestnut from his pocket. He held it high above +his head and the little dog that had been yelping at his heels fixed his +eyes on it. Blair poised it, then threw it as far as he could. It sped +through the air and the terrier ran like mad across the park. + +“I like girls awfully, Gordon, and when I find the right one, why, then +I’m going to feel what a bully thing it is to be rich.” + +Lord Galorey groaned aloud. + +“My dear chap!” he exclaimed. + +The spell of the day, the fragrant beauty of the time and place and hour +were clearly upon Dan Blair. Lord Galorey was sympathetic to him. The +terrier came tearing back with the chestnut held between his thick jaws. +Dan bent down to take the nut from the dog and wrestled with him gently. + +“Swell little grip he’s got. Nice old pup! Let it go now!” And he threw +the nut far again, and as the terrier ran once more Blair thrust his +hands down in his pockets and began softly to whistle the tune of +_Mandalay_. + +He said slowly, going back to his subject: “It must be great to feel +that a fellow can give her jewels like the Duchess of Breakwater’s, +ropes of ’em”—he nodded toward the house—“and a fine old place like this +now, and motors and yachts and all kinds of stuff.” + +His eyes rested on the suave lines of the Elizabethan house, with its +softened gables and its banked terraces. Possibly his vivid imagination +pictured “some nice girl” there waiting, as they should come up, to meet +him. + +“I have always thought it would be bully to find a poor girl—pretty as a +peach, of course—one who had never had much, and just cover her with +things. Hey, there!” he cried to the terrier, who had come running back, +“bring it to me.” + +They had come up to the terrace by this, and Dan’s confidence, fresh as +a gush of water from a rock, had ceased. His face was placid. He didn’t +realize what he had said. + +From out of one of the long windows, dressed in a sable coat, her small +head tied up in a motor scarf, the Duchess of Breakwater appeared. She +greeted them severely, and Lord Galorey hear her say under her breath to +Dan: + +“You promised to be back to drive with me before dinner, Dan. Did you +forget?” + +And as Galorey left the boy to make his peace, the first smile of +amusement broke over his face. He felt that the duchess had between her +and her capture of Dan Blair’s heart the elusive picture of some “nice +girl”—not much perhaps, but it might be very hard to tear away the +picture of the ideal that was ever before the blue eyes of this man who +had a fortune to spend on her! + + + + +CHAPTER II—THE DUCHESS APPROVES + + +His attentions to the Duchess of Breakwater had not been so conspicuous +or so absorbing as to prevent the eager mothers—who, true to her word, +Lady Galorey had invited down—from laying siege to Dan Blair. Lady +Galorey asked him: + +“Don’t you want to marry any one of these beauties, Dan?” And Blair, +with his beautiful smile and what Lily called his inspired candor, +answered: + +“Not on your life, Lady Galorey!” + +And she agreed, “I think myself you are too young.” + +“No,” Dan refuted, “you are wrong there. I shall marry as fast as I +can.” + +His hostess was surprised. + +“Why, I thought you wanted your fling first.” + +And Dan, from his chair, in which, with a book, he had been sitting when +Lady Galorey found him, answered cheerfully: + +“Oh, I don’t like being alone. I want to go about with some one. I +should like a fling all right, but I want to fling with somebody as I +go.” + +The lady of the house was not a philosopher nor an analyst. She had +certain affairs of her own and was engrossed in them and lived in them. +As far as Lady Galorey was concerned the rest of the world might go and +hang itself as long as it didn’t do it at her gate-post. But Blair +couldn’t leave any one indifferent to him very long, not unless one +could be indifferent to a blaze of sunlight; one must either draw the +blinds down or bask in its brightness. + +She laughed. “You’re perfectly delicious! You mean to say you want to be +married at once and let your _wife_ fling around with you?” + +“Just that.” + +“How sweet of you, Dan! And you won’t marry one of these girls here?” + +“Don’t fill the bill, Lady Galorey.” + +“Oh, you have a sweetheart at home, then?” + +“All off!” he assured her blithely, and rose, tall and straight and +slender. + +The Duchess of Breakwater had come in, indeed she never failed to when +there was any question of finding Blair. + +Dan stood straightly before the two women of an old race, and the +American didn’t suggest any line of noble ancestors whatsoever. His +features were rather agglomerate; his muscles were possibly not the +perfect elastic specimens that were those muscles whose strain and sinew +had been made from the same stock for generations. He was, nevertheless, +very good to look on. Any woman would have thought so, and he bent his +blond head as he looked at the Duchess of Breakwater with something like +benevolence, something of his father’s kindness in his clear blue eyes. +Neither of the noble ladies vaguely understood him. His hostess thought +him “a good sort,” not half bad, a splendid catch, and the other woman, +only a few years his senior, was in love with him. The duchess had +married at eighteen, tired of her bargain at twenty, and found herself a +widow at twenty-five. She held a telegram in her hand. + +“We’ve got the box for _Mandalay_ to-night at the Gaiety, and let’s +motor in.” + +Only Lady Galorey hesitated, disappointed. + +“Too bad—I had specially arranged for Lady Grandcourt to drive over with +Eileen. I thought it would be a ripping chance for her to see Dan.” + +When at length the duchess had succeeded in getting Dan to herself +toward the end of the day in the red room, after tea, she said: + +“So you won’t marry a London beauty?” + +And rather coldly Dan had answered: + +“Why, you talk, all of you, as if I had only to ask any girl of them, +and she would jump down my throat.” + +“Don’t try it,” the duchess answered, “unless you want to have your +mouth full!” + +Dan did not reply for a second, but he looked at her more seriously, +conscious of her grace and her good looks. She was certainly better to +look at than the simple girls with their big hands, small wits, long +faces, and, as the boy expressed it, “utter lack of get-up.” The duchess +shone out to advantage. + +“Why don’t you talk to me?” she asked softly. “You know you would rather +talk to me than the others.” + +“Yes,” he said frankly; “they make me nervous.” + +“And I don’t?” + +“No,” he said. “I learn a lot every time we are together.” + +“Learn?” she repeated, not particularly flattered by this. “What sort of +things?” + +“Oh, about the whole business,” he returned vaguely. “You know what I +mean.” + +“Then,” she said with a slight laugh, “you mean to say you talk with me +for _educational purposes_? What a beastly bore!” + +Dan did not contradict her. She was by no means Eve to him, nor was he +the raw recruit his simplicity might give one to think. He had had his +temptations and his way out of them was an easy one; for he was very +slow to stir, and back of all was his ideal. The reality and power of +this ideal Dan knew best at moments like these. But the Duchess of +Breakwater was the most lovely woman—the most dangerous woman that had +come his way. He liked her—Dan was well on the way to love. + +The two were alone in the big dark room. At their side the small table, +from which they had taken their tea together, stood with its empty cups +and its silver. Without, the day was cold and windy, and the sunset +threw along the panes a red reflection. The light fell on the Duchess of +Breakwater, something like a veil—a crimson veil slipped over her face +and breast. She leaned toward Dan, and between them there was no more +barrier than the western light. He felt his pulses beat and a tide +rising within him. She was a delicious emanation, fragrant and near, and +as he might have gathered a cluster of flowers, so in the next second he +would have taken her in his arms, but from the other room just then Lady +Galorey, at the piano, played a snatch from _Mandalay_, striking at once +into the tune. The sound came suddenly, told them quickly some one was +near, and the Duchess of Breakwater involuntarily moved back, and so +knocked the small tray, jostled it, and it fell clattering to the floor. + + + + +CHAPTER III—THE BLAIRTOWN SOLOIST + + +Blairtown had a population of some eight thousand. There was a +Presbyterian church to which Dan and his father went regularly, sitting +in the bare pew when the winter’s storms beat and rattled on the panes, +or in the summer sunshine, when the flies thronged the window casings, +when the smell of the pews and the panama fans and the hymn-books came +strong to them through the heat. + +One day there was a missionary sermon, and for the first time in its +history a girl sang a solo in the First Presbyterian Church. Dan Blair +heard it, looked up, and it made a mark in his life. A girl in a white +dress trimmed with blue gentians, white cotton gloves, and golden hair, +was the soloist. He knew her, that is, he had a nodding acquaintance +with her. It was the girl at the drug store who sold soda-water, and he +had asked her some hundreds of times for a “vanilla or a chocolate,” but +it wasn’t this vulgar memory that made the little boy listen. It was the +girl’s voice. Standing back of the yellow-painted rail, above the +minister’s pulpit, above the flies, the red pews and the panama fans, +she sang, and she sang into Dan Blair’s soul. To speak more truly, she +_made him a soul_ in that moment. She awakened the boy; his collar felt +tight, his cheeks grew hot. He felt his new boots, too, hard and heavy. +She made him want to cry. These were the physical sensations—the +material part of the awakening. The rest went on deeply inside of Dan. +She broke his heart; then she healed it. She made him want to cry like a +girl; then she wiped his tears. + +The little boy settled back and grew more comfortable and listened, and +what she sang was, + + “From Greenland’s icy mountains, + From India’s coral stra—ands.” + +Before the hymn reached its end he was a calm boy again, and the hymn +took up its pictures and became like an illustrated book of travels, and +he wanted to see those pea-green peaks of Greenland, to float upon the +icebergs to them, and see the dawn break on the polar seas as the +explorers do.... He should find the North Pole some day! Then he wanted +to go to an African jungle, where the tiger, “tiger shining bright,” +should flash his stripes before his eyes! Dan would gather wreaths of +coral from the stra—ands and give them to the girl with the yellow hair! +When he and his father came out together from the church, Dan chose the +street that passed the soda-fountain drug store and peeped in. It was +dark and cool, and behind the counter the drug clerk mixed the summer +drinks: and the drug clerk mixed them from that time ever afterward—for +the girl with the yellow hair never showed up in Blairtown again. She +went away! + + + + +CHAPTER IV—IN THE CORAL ROOM + + +“Mandalay” had run at the Gaiety the season before and again opened the +autumn season. Light and charming, thoroughly musical, it had toured +successfully through Europe, but London was its home, and its great +popularity was chiefly owing to the girl who had starred in it—Letty +Lane. Her face was on every post-card, hand-bill, cosmetic box, and even +popular drinks were named for her. + +The night of the Osdene box party was the reopening of _Mandalay_, and +the curtain went up after the overture to an outburst of applause. Dan +Blair had never “crossed the pond” before this memorable visit, when he +had gone straight out to Osdene Park. London theaters and London itself, +indeed, were unexplored by him. He had seen what there was to be seen of +the opera bouffe in his own country, but the brilliant, perfect +performance of a company at the London Gaiety he had yet to enjoy. + +The opening scene of _Mandalay_ is oriental; the burst of music and the +tinkling of the silvery temple bells and the effect of an extremely blue +sea, made Dan “sit up,” as he put it. The theatrical picture was so +perfect that he lifted his head, pushed his chair back to enjoy. He was +thus close to the duchess. With invigorating young enthusiasm the boy +drew in his breath and waited to be amused and to hear. The tunes he +already knew before the orchestra began to charm his ear. + +On landing at Plymouth Dan had been keen to feel that he was really +stepping into the world, and at Osdene Park he had been daily, hourly +“seeing life.” The youngest of the household, his youth nevertheless was +not taken into consideration by any of them. No one had treated him like +a junior. He had gone neck to neck with their pace as far as he liked, +furnished them fresh amusement, and been their diversion. In all his +rare unspoiled youth, Blair had been suddenly dropped down in an effete +set that had whirled about him, and one by one out of the inner circle +had called him to join them; and one by one with all of them Dan had +whirled. + +Lord Galorey had talked to him frankly, as plainly as if Dan had been +his own father, and found much of the old man’s common sense in his fine +blond head. Lady Galorey had come to him in a moment of great anxiety, +and no one but her young guest knew how badly she needed help. He had +further made it known to the lady that he was not in the marriage +market; that she could not have him for any of her girls. And as for the +Duchess of Breakwater, well—he had whirled with her until his head swam. +He had grown years older at the Park in the few weeks of his visit, but +now for the first time, as the music of _Mandalay_ struck upon his ears, +like a ripple of distant seas, he felt like the boy who had left +Blairtown to come abroad. He had spent the most part of the day in +London with a man who had come over to see him from America. Dan +attended to his business affairs, and the people who knew said that he +had a keen head. Mr. Joshua Ruggles, his father’s best friend, whom Dan +this afternoon had left to go to his room at the Carlton, had put his +arm with affection through the boy’s: + +“Don’t look as though it were any too healthy down to the place you’re +visiting at, Dan. Plumbing all right?” + +And the boy, flushing slightly, had said: “Don’t you fret, Josh, I’ll +look after my health all right.” + +“There’s nothing like the mountain air,” returned the Westerner. “These +old fogs stick in my nostrils; feel as though I could smell London clean +down to my feet!” + + * * * * * + +From the corner of the box Dan looked hard at the stage, at the fresh +brilliant costumes and the lovely chorus girls. + +“Gosh,” he thought to himself, “they are the prettiest ever! Dove-gray, +eyes of Irish blue, mouths like roses!” + +Leaning forward a little toward the duchess he whispered: “There isn’t +one who isn’t a winner. I never struck such a box of dry goods!” + +The duchess smiled on Dan with good humor. His naïve pleasure was +delightful. It was like taking a child to a pantomime. She was wearing +his flowers and displaying a jewel that he had found and bought for her, +and which she had not hesitated to accept. She watched his eager face +and his pleasure unaffected and keen. She could not believe that this +young man was master of ten million pounds. + +When Letty Lane appeared Blair heard a light rustle like rain through +the auditorium, a murmur, and the house rose. There was a well-bred +calling from the stalls, a call from the pit, and a generous +applause—“Letty Lane—Letty Lane!” and as though she were royalty, there +was a fluttering of handkerchiefs like flags. The young fellow with the +others stood in the back of the box, his hands in his pockets, looking +at the stage. There wasn’t a girl in the chorus as pretty as this prima +donna! Letty Lane came on in _Mandalay_ in the first act in the dress of +a fashionable princess. She was modish and worldly. For the only time in +the play she was modern and conventional, and whatever breeding she +might have been able to claim, from whatever class she was born, as she +stood there in her beautiful gown she was grace itself, and charm. She +was distinctly a star, and showed her appreciation of her audience’s +admiration. + +At the end of the tenor solo the Princess Oltary runs into the pavilion +and there changes her dress and appears once more to dance before the +rajah and to prove herself the dancer he has known and loved in a café +in Paris. Letty Lane’s dress in this dance was the classic ballet +dancer’s, white as the leaves of a lily. She seemed to swim and float; +actually to be breathed and exhaled from out her filmy gown; and the +only ray of color in her costume was her own golden hair, surmounted by +a small coral-colored cap, embroidered in pearls. The actress bowed to +the right and left, ran to the right, ran to the left; glanced toward +the Duchess of Breakwater’s box; acknowledged the burst of applause; +began to dance and finished her _pas seul_, and with folded hands sang +her song. Her beautiful voice came out clear as crystal water from a +crystal rock, and her words were cradled like doves, like boats on the +boundless seas.... + + “From India’s coral strand....” + +But there was no hymn tune to this song of Letty Lane’s in _Mandalay_! +To the boy in the box, however, the words, the tune, the droning of the +flies on the window-pane, the strong odor of the hymn-books and panama +fans, came back, and the clear sunlight of Montana seemed to steal into +the Gaiety as Letty Lane sang. + +The Duchess of Breakwater clapped with frank enthusiasm, and said: “She +is a perfect wonder, isn’t she? Oh, she is _too_ bewitching!” + +And she turned for sympathy to her friend, who stood behind her, his +face illumined. He was amazed; his blue eyes ablaze, his head bent +forward, he was staring, staring at the Gaiety curtain, gone down on the +first act. + +He laughed softly, and the duchess heard him say: + +“_Good!_ Well, I should say she was! She’s a girl from our town!” + +When the duchess tried to share her enthusiasm with Dan he had +disappeared. He left the box and with no difficulty made his way as far +as the first wing. + +“Can you get me an entrance?” he asked a man he had met once at Osdene +and who was evidently an habitué. + +“I dare say. Rippin’ show, isn’t it?” + +[Image] + +Dan put his hand on ducal shoulders and followed the nobleman through +the labyrinth of flies. + +“Which of ’em do you want to see, old man?” + +Dan, without replying, went forward to a small cluster of lights in one +of the wings. He went forward intuitively, and his companion caught his +arm: “Oh, I say, for _God’s_ sake, don’t go on like this!” + +But without response Dan continued his direction. A call page stood +before the door, and Dan, on a card over the entrance, read “Miss Lane.” +The smell of calcium and paint and perfume and the auxiliaries hung +heavy on the air. The other man saw Dan knock, knock again and then go +in. + +Unannounced Dan Blair opened the door of the dressing-room of the +actress. Miss Lane’s dressing-rooms were worth displaying to her +intimate friends. They were done with great taste in coral tint. She +might have been said to be in a coral cave under the sea, as far as +young Blair was concerned. As he came in he felt his ears deaden, and +the smoke of cigarettes grew so thick that he looked as through a veil. +The dancer was standing in the center of the room, one hand on her hip, +and in the other hand a cigarette. Her short skirt stood out around her +like a bell, and over the bell fell a rain of pinkish coral strands. She +wore a thin silk slip, from which her neck and arms came shining out, +and her woman knelt at her feet strapping on a little coral shoe. + +Blair shut the door behind him, and began to realize how rude, how +impertinent his entrance would be considered. But he came boldly forward +and would have introduced himself as “Dan Blair from Blairtown,” but +Miss Lane, who stared at the entrance through the smoke, burst into a +laugh so bright, so delightful, that he was carried high up on the coral +strands to the very beach. She crossed her white arms over her breast +and leaned forward, as a saleswoman might lean forward over a counter, +and with her beautifully trained voice, all sweetly she asked him: + +“Hello, little boy, what will _you_ take?” + +Blair giggled, quick to catch her meaning, and answered: “Oh, chocolate, +I guess!” + +And Letty Lane laughed, put out her white hand, the one without the +cigarette, and said: “Haven’t got that brand on board—so sorry! Will a +cocktail do? All sorts in bottles. Higgins, fix Mr. Blair a Martini.” + +As the dresser rose from her stooping position, the rest of Letty Lane’s +dressing-room unfolded out of the mist and smoke. On a sofa covered with +lace pillows Blair saw a man sitting, smoking as well. He was tall and +had a dark mustache. It was Prince Poniotowsky, whom Dan had already met +at the Galorey shoot. + +“Prince Poniotowsky,” Miss Lane presented him, “Mr. Blair, of Blairtown, +Montana. Say, Frederick, give me my cap, will you? It is over by your +side. I’ve got to hustle.” + +The man, without moving, picked up a small red cap with a single plume, +from the sofa at his side. In another second Letty Lane had placed it on +her head of yellow hair, real yellow hair and not a doubt of it, like +sunshine—not the color one gets from inside bottles. Her arms, her hands +flashed with rings, priceless flashes, and the little spears pricked Dan +like sharp needles. + +“It’s the nicest ever!” she was saying. “How on earth did you get in +here, though? Have you bought the Gaiety Theater? I’m the most exclusive +girl on the stage. Who let you in?” + +Her accent was English, and even that put her from him. As he looked at +her he couldn’t understand how he had ever recognized her. If he had +waited for another act he wouldn’t have believed the likeness real. The +girl he remembered had both softened and hardened; the round features +were gone, but all the angles were gone as well. Her eyes were as gray +as the seas; she was painted and her lids were darkened. Seen close, she +was not so divine as on the stage, but there was still a more thrilling +charm about the fact that she was real. + +“To think of any one from Montana being here to-night! Staying very +long, Mr. Blair?” Between each sentence she directed Higgins, who was +getting her into her bodice. “And how do you like _Mandalay_? Isn’t it +great?” + +She addressed herself to Dan, but she smiled on both the men with +extreme brilliance. + +“You bet your life,” he responded. “I should think it was great.” + +Poniotowsky rose indolently. He had not looked toward the new-comer, but +had, on the other hand, followed every detail of Miss Lane’s dressing. + +“Better take your scarf, Letty. Hand it to Miss Lane,” he directed +Higgins. “It is so damned drafty in these beastly wings.” + +He drew his watch out, gathered up his long coat, flung it over his arm +and picked up his opera hat which lay folded on Letty Lane’s +dressing-table. + +The call page for the third time summoned “Miss La—ne, Miss La—ane,” and +she took the scarf Higgins handed her and ran it through her hands, +still beaming on Dan. + +“Come in to see me at the Savoy on any day at two-thirty except on +matinée days.” + +“Put on your scarf.” Poniotowsky, taking it from her hands, laid it +across her white shoulders, and she passed out between the two men, +light as a bird, smiling, nodding, followed by the prince and the boy +from Montana. The crowds began to fill the lately empty wings—dancers, +chorus girls with their rustling gowns. Letty Lane said to Dan: + +“Guess you’ll like my solo in this act all right—it’s the best thing in +_Mandalay_. Now go along, and clap me hard.” + +It gave him a new pleasure, for she had spoken to him in real American +fashion with the swift mimicry that showed her talent. Dan went slowly +back to his party. As he took his seat by the duchess she said to him: + +“You went out to see Letty Lane. Do you know her?” + +“Know her!” And as Dan answered, the sound of his own voice was queer to +him, and his face flushed hotly. “Lord, yes. She used to be in the drug +store in Blairtown. Sold soda-water to me when we were both kids. +Whoever would have thought that she had that in her!” He nodded toward +the stage, for Letty Lane had come on. “She sang in our church, too, but +not for long.” + +“Who was with her in her dressing-room?” the duchess asked. Blair didn’t +answer. He was looking at Letty Lane. She had come to dance for the +rajah and in her arms she held four white doves; each dove had a coral +thread around its throat. It was a number that made her famous, _The +Dove Song_. Set free, the birds flew about her, circling her blond head, +surmounted by the small coral-colored cap. The doves settled on her +shoulders, pecked at her lips. + +“Was it Poniotowsky?” the duchess repeated. + +And Dan told her a meaningless lie. “I didn’t meet any one there.” And +with satisfaction the duchess said: + +“Then she has thrown him over, too. He was the latest and the richest. +She is horribly extravagant. No man is rich enough for her, they say. +Poniotowsky isn’t a gold mine.” + +The doves had flown away to the wings and been gathered up by the Indian +servants. The actress on the stage began her Indian cradle song. She +came, distinctly turning toward the box party. She had never sung like +this in London before. There was a freshness in her voice, a quality in +her gesture, a pathos and a sweetness that delighted her audience. They +fairly clamored for her, waved and called and recalled. Dan stood +motionless, his eyes fastened on her, his heart rocked by the song. He +didn’t want any one to speak to him. He wished that none of them would +breathe, and nearly as absorbed as was he, no one did speak. + + + + +CHAPTER V—AT THE CARLTON + + +There are certain natures to whom each appearance of evil, each form of +delinquency is a fresh surprise. They are born simple, in the sweet +sense of the word, and they go down to old age never of the world, +although in a sense worldly. If Dan Blair’s eyes were somewhat opened at +twenty-two, he had yet the bloom on his soul. He was no fool, but his +ideals stood up each on its pedestal and ready to appear one by one to +him as the scenes of his life shifted and the different curtains rose. +He had been trained in finance from his boyhood and he was a born +financier. Money was his natural element; he could go far in it. But +_woman_! He was one of those manly creatures—a knight—to whom each woman +is a sacred thing: a dove, a crystal-clear soul, made to cherish and to +protect, made to be spoiled. And in Dan were all the qualities that go +to make up the unselfish, tender, foolish, and often unhappy American +husband. These were some of the other things he had inherited from his +father. Blair, senior, had married his first love, and whereas his boy +had been trained to know money and its value, how to keep it and spend +it, to save it and to make it, he had been taught nothing at all about +woman. He had never been taught to distrust women, never been warned +against them; he had been taught nothing but his father’s memory of his +mother, and the result was that he worshiped the sex and wondered at the +mystery. + +With Gordon Galorey and the others he had ridden, shot better than they, +and had played, but with Lady Galorey and the Duchess of Breakwater he +was nothing but a child. As far as his hostess was concerned, on several +occasions she had put to him certain states of affairs, well, +touchingly. Dan had been moved by the stories of sore need among the +tenants, had been impressed by the necessity of reforms and rebuildings +and on each occasion had given his hostess a check. She had asked him to +say nothing about it to Gordon, and he had kept his silence. Dan liked +Lady Galorey extremely: she was jolly, witty and friendly. She treated +him as a member of the family and made no demands on him, save the ones +mentioned. + +In the time that he had come to know the Duchess of Breakwater she, on +her part, had filled him full of other confidences. Into his young ears +she poured the story of her disappointment, her disjointed life, from +her worldly girlhood to her disillusion in marriage. She was beautiful +when she talked and more lovely when she wept. Dan thought himself in +love with the Duchess of Breakwater. His conversations with her had +brought him to this conclusion. They had motored from Osdene Park +together, and he had been extremely taken with the pleasure of it, and +with the fact of their real companionship. Two or three times the words +had been on his lips, which were fated not to be spoken then, however, +and Dan reached the Gaiety still unfettered, his duchess by his side. +And then the orchestra had begun to play _Mandalay_, the curtain had +gone up and Letty Lane had come out on the boards. But her apparition +did not strike off his chains immediately, nor did he renounce his plan +to tell the duchess the very next day that he loved her. + +When with sparkling eyes Lady Galorey raved about _Mandalay_, Dan +listened with eagerness. Everybody seemed to know all about Letty Lane, +but he alone knew from what town she had come! + +They went for supper at the Carlton after the theater. + +“Letty,” Lady Galorey said, “tells it herself how the impresario heard +her sing in some country church—picked her up then and there and brought +her over here, and they say she married him.” + +Dan Blair could have told them how she had sung in that little church +that day. Dan was eating his caviare sandwich. “Her name _then_ was +Sally Towney,” he murmured. How little he had guessed that she was +singing herself right out of that church and into the London Gaiety +Theater! Anyway, she had made him “sit up!” It was a far cry from +Montana to the London Gaiety. And so she married the greasy Jew who had +discovered her! + +Dan glanced over at the Duchess of Breakwater. She was looking well, +exquisitely high bred, and she impressed him. She leaned slightly over +to him, laughing. He had hardly dared to meet her eyes that day, fearing +that she might read his secret. She had told him that in her own right +she was a countess—the Countess of Stainer. Titles didn’t cut any ice +with him. At any rate, she would be able to “buy back the old farm”—that +is the way Dan put it. She had told him of the beautiful old Stainer +Court, mortgaged and hung up with debts, as deep in ruins as the ivy was +thick on the walls. + +As Dan looked over at the duchess he saw the other people staring and +looking about at a table near. It was spread a little to their left for +four people, a great bouquet of orchids in the center. + +“There,” Galorey said, “there’s Letty Lane.” And the singer came in, +followed by three men, the first of them the Prince Poniotowsky, +indolent, bored, haughty, his eye-glass dangling. Miss Lane was dressed +in black, a superb costume of faultless cut, and it enfolded her like a +shadow; as a shadow might enfold a specter, for the dancer was as pale +as the dead. She had neither painted nor rouged, she had evidently +employed no coquetry to disguise her fag; rather she seemed to be on the +verge of a serious illness, and presented a striking contrast to the +brilliant creature, who had shone before their eyes not an hour before. +Her dress was a challenge to the more gay and delicate affairs the other +women in the restaurant wore. The gown came severely up to her chin. Its +high collar closed around with a pearl necklace; from her ears fell +pearls, long, creamy and priceless. She wore a great feathered hat, +which, drooping, almost hid her small, pale face and her golden hair. +She drew off her gloves as she came in and her white, jeweled hands +flashed. She looked infinitely tired and extremely bored. As soon as she +took her seat at the table intended for her party, Poniotowsky poured +her out a glass of champagne, which she drank off as though it were +water. + +“Gad,” Lord Galorey said, “she _is_ a stunner! What a figure, and what a +head, and what daring to dress like that!” + +“She knows how to make herself conspicuous,” said the Duchess of +Breakwater. + +“She looks extremely ill,” said Lady Galorey. “The pace she goes will do +her up in a year or two.” + +Dan Blair had his back to her, and when they rose to leave he was the +last to pass out. Letty Lane saw him, and a light broke over her pallid +face. She nodded and smiled and shook her hand in a pretty little +salute. If her face was pale, her lips were red, and her smile was like +sunlight; and at her recognition a wave of friendly fellowship swept +over the young man—a sort of loyal kinship to her which he hadn’t felt +for any other woman there, and which he could not have explained. In +warm approval of the actress’ distinction, he said softly to himself: +“_That’s_ all right—she makes the rest of them look like thirty cents.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI—GALOREY SEEKS ADVICE + + +Blair did not go back at once to Osdene Park. He stopped over in London +for a few days to see Joshua Ruggles, and so remarked for the first time +the difference between the speech of the old and the new world. Mr. +Ruggles spoke broadly, with complete disregard of the frills and +adornments of the King’s English. He spoke United States of the pure, +broad, western brand, and it rang out, it vibrated and swelled and +rolled, and as Ruggles didn’t care who heard him, nothing of what he had +to say was lost. + +Old Mr. Blair had left behind him a comrade, and as far as advice could +go the old man knew that his Dan would not be bankrupt. + +“Advice,” Dan Blair senior once said to his boy, “is the kind of thing +we want some fellow to give us when we ain’t going to do the thing we +ought to do, or are a little ashamed of something we have done. It’s an +awful good way to get cured of asking advice just to do what the fellow +tells you to at once.” + +During Ruggles’ stay in London the young fellow looked to it that +Ruggles saw the sights, and the two did the principal features of the +big town, to the rich enjoyment of the Westerner. Dan took his friend +every night to the play, and on the fourth evening Ruggles said: “Let’s +go to the circus or a vaudeville, Dan. I have learned _this_ show by +heart!” They had been every night to see _Mandalay_. + +“Oh, you go on where you like, Josh,” the boy answered. “I’m going to +see how she looks from the pit.” + +Ruggles was not a Blairtown man. He had come from farther west, and had +never heard anything of Sarah Towney or Letty Lane. He applauded the +actress vigorously at the Gaiety at first, and after the third night +slept through most of the performance. When he waked up he tried to +discover what attraction Letty Lane had for Dan. For the young man never +left Ruggles’ side, never went behind the scenes, though he seemed +absorbed, as a man usually is absorbed for one reason only. + +In response to a telegram from Osdene Park, Dan motored out there one +afternoon, and during his absence Ruggles was surprised at his hotel by +a call. + +“My dear Mr. Ruggles,” Lord Galorey said, for he it was the page boy +fetched up, “why don’t you come out to see us? All friends of old Mr. +Blair’s are welcome at Osdene.” + +Ruggles thanked Galorey and said he was not a visiting man, that he only +had a short time in London, and was going to Ireland to look up “his +family tree.” + +“There are one hundred acres of trees in Osdene,” laughed Galorey; “you +can climb them all.” And Ruggles replied: + +“I guess I wouldn’t find any O’Shaughnessy Ruggles at the top of any of +’em, my lord. The boy has gone out to see you all to-day.” + +Galorey nodded. “That is just why I toddled in to see you!” + +Ruggles’ caller had been shown to the sitting-room, where he and Dan +hobnobbed and smoked during the Westerner’s visit. There was a pile of +papers on the table, in one corner a typewriter covered by a black +cloth. Galorey took a chair and, refusing a cigarette, lit his pipe. + +“I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting you in the West when I was out +there with Blair. I knew Dan’s father rather well.” + +Ruggles responded: “I knew him rather well too, for thirty years. If,” +he went on, “Blair hadn’t known you pretty well he wouldn’t have sent +the boy out to you as he has done. He was keen on every trail. I might +say that he had been over every one of ’em like a hound before he set +the boy loose.” + +Galorey answered, “Quite so,” gravely. “I know it. I knew it when Dan +turned up at Osdene—” Holding his pipe bowl in the palm of his slender +hand, he smoked meditatively. He hadn’t thought about things, as he had +been doing lately, for many years. His sense of honor was the strongest +thing in Gordon Galorey, the only thing in him, perhaps, that had been +left unsmirched by the touch of the world. He was unquestionably a +gentleman. + +“Blair, however,” he said, “wasn’t as keen on this scent as you’d +expect. His intuition was wrong.” + +Ruggles raised his eyebrows slightly. + +“I mean to say,” Lord Galorey went on, “that he knew me in the West when +I had cut loose for a few blessed months from just these things into +which he has sent his boy—from what, if I had a son, God knows I’d throw +him as far as I could.” + +“Blair wanted Dan to see the world.” + +“Of course, that is right enough. We all have to see it, I fancy, but +this boy isn’t ready to look at it.” + +“He is twenty-two,” Ruggles returned. “When I was his age I was +supporting four people.” + +Galorey went on: “Osdene Park at present isn’t the window for Blair’s +boy to see life through, and that is what I have come up to London to +talk to you about, Mr. Ruggles. I should like to have you take him +away.” + +“What’s Dan been up to down there?” + +“Nothing as yet, but he is in the pocket of a woman—he is in a nest of +women.” + +Ruggles’ broad face had not altered its expression of quiet expectation. + +“There’s a lot of ’em down there?” he asked. + +“There are two,” Galorey said briefly, “and one of them is my wife.” + +Ruggles turned his cigarette between his great fingers. He was a slow +thinker. He had none of old Blair’s keenness, but he had other +qualities. Galorey saw that he had not been quite understood, and he +waited and then said: + +“Lady Galorey is like the rest of modern wives, and I am like a lot of +modern husbands. We each go our own way. My way is a worthless one, God +knows I don’t stand up for it, but it is not my wife’s way in any sense +of the word.” + +“Does she want Dan to go along on her road?” Ruggles asked. “And how +far?” + +“We are financially strapped just now,” said Galorey calmly, “and she +has got money from the boy.” He didn’t remove his pipe from his mouth; +still holding it between his teeth he put his hand in his pocket, took +out his wallet, drew forth four checks and laid them down before +Ruggles. “It is quite a sum,” Galorey noted, “sufficient to do a lot to +Osdene Park in the way of needed repairs.” Ruggles had never seen a +smile such as curved his companion’s lips. “But Osdene Park will have to +be repaired by money from some other source.” + +Ruggles wondered how the husband had got hold of the checks, but he +didn’t ask and he did not look at the papers. + +“When Dan came to the Park,” said Galorey, “I stopped bridge playing, +but this more than takes its place!” + +Ruggles’ big hand went slowly toward the checks; he touched them with +his fingers and said: “Is Dan in love with your wife?” + +And Lord Galorey laughed and said: “Lord no, my dear man, not even that! +It is pure good nature on his part—mere prodigality. Edith appealed to +him, that’s all.” + +Relief crossed Ruggles’ face. He understood in a flash the worldly +woman’s appeal to the rich young man and believed the story the husband +told him. + +“Have you spoken to the boy?” + +“My dear chap, I have spoken to him about nothing. I preferred to come +to you.” + +“You said,” Ruggles continued, “there were two ladies down to your +place.” + +Galorey had refilled his pipe and held it as before in the palm of his +hand. + +“I can look after the affairs of my wife, and this shan’t happen again, +I promise you—not at Osdene, but I’m afraid I can not do much in the +other case. The Duchess of Breakwater has been at Osdene for nearly +three weeks, and Dan is in love with her.” + +Ruggles put the four checks one on top of the other. + +“Is the lady a widow?” + +“Unfortunately, yes.” + +“So that’s the nest Dan has got into at Osdene,” the Westerner said. And +Galorey answered: “That is the nest.” + +“And he has gone out there to-day—got a wire this morning.” + +“The duchess has been in an awful funk,” said Galorey, “because Dan’s +been stopping in London so long. She sent him a message, and as soon as +Dan wired back that he was coming to the Park, I decided to come here +and see you.” + +Ruggles ruminated: “Has the duchess complications financially?” + +“Ra-ther!” the other answered. + +And Ruggles turned his broad, honest face full on Galorey: “Do you think +she could be bought off?” + +Galorey took his pipe out of his mouth. + +“It depends on how far Dan has gone on with her. To be frank with you, +Mr. Ruggles, it is a case of emotion on the part of the woman. She is +really in love with Dan. Gad!” exclaimed the nobleman. “I have been on +the point of turning the whole brood out of doors these last days. It +was like imprisoning a mountain breeze in a charnel house—a woman with +her scars and her experience and that boy—I don’t know where you’ve kept +him, or how you kept him as he is, but he is as clear as water. I have +talked to him and I know.” + +Nothing in Ruggles’ expression had changed until now. His eyes glowed. + +“Dan’s all right,” he said softly. “Don’t you worry! He’s all right. I +guess his father knew what he was doing, and I’ll bet the whole thing +was just what he sent him over here for! Old Dan Blair wasn’t worth a +copper when the boy was born, and yet he had ideas about everything and +he seemed to know more in that old gray head of his than a whole library +of books. Dan’s all right.” + +“My dear man,” said the nobleman, “that is just where you Americans are +wrong. You comfort yourself with your eternal ‘Dan’s all right,’ and you +won’t see the truth. You won’t breathe the word ‘scandal’ and yet you +are thick enough in them, God knows. You won’t admit them, but they are +there. Now be honest and look at the truth, will you? You are a man of +common sense. Dan Blair is _not_ all right. He is in an infernally +dangerous position. The Duchess of Breakwater will marry him. It is what +she has wanted to do for years, but she has not found a man rich enough, +and she will marry this boy offhand.” + +“Well,” said the Westerner slowly, “if he loves her and if he marries +her—” + +“Marries her!” exclaimed the nobleman. “There you are again! Do you +think marriage makes it any better? Why, if she went off to the +Continent with him for six weeks and then set him free, that would be +preferable to marrying her. My dear man,” he said, leaning over the +table where Ruggles sat, “if I had a boy I would rather have him marry +Letty Lane of the Gaiety. Now you know what I mean.” + +Ruggles’ face, which had hardened, relaxed. + +“I have seen that lady,” he exclaimed with satisfaction; “I have seen +_her_ several times.” + +Galorey sank back into his chair and neither man spoke for a few +seconds. Turning it all over in his slow mind, Ruggles remembered Dan’s +absorption in the last few days. “So there are three women in the nest,” +he concluded thoughtfully, and Gordon Galorey repeated: + +“No, not three. What do you mean?” + +“Your wife”—Ruggles held up one finger and Galorey interrupted him to +murmur: + +“I’ll take care of Edith.” + +“The Duchess of Breakwater you think won’t talk of money?” + +“No, don’t count on it. She is aiming at ten million pounds.” + +Ruggles was holding up the second finger. + +“Well, I guess Dan has gone out to take care of _her_ to-day.” + +Dan and Ruggles had seen _Mandalay_ from a box, from the pit and from +the stalls. On the table lay a book of the opera. While talking with +Galorey, Ruggles had unconsciously arranged the checks on top of the +libretto of _Mandalay_. + +“_I’ll_ take care of Miss Lane,” Ruggles said at length. + +His lordship echoed, “Miss Lane?” and looked up in surprise. “What Miss +Lane, for God’s sake?” + +“Miss Letty Lane at the Gaiety,” Ruggles answered. + +“Why, she isn’t in the question, my dear man.” + +“You put her there just now yourself.” + +“Bosh!” Galorey exclaimed impatiently, “I spoke of her as being the +limit, the last thing on the line.” + +“No,” corrected the other, “you put the Duchess of Breakwater as the +limit.” + +Galorey smiled frankly. “You are right, my dear chap,” he accepted, “and +I stand by it.” + +A page boy knocked at the door and came in holding out on a salver a +card for Mr. Ruggles, and at the interruption Galorey rose and invited +Ruggles to go out with him that night to Osdene. “Lady Galorey will be +delighted.” + +But Ruggles shook his head. “The boy is coming back here to-night,” and +Galorey laughed. + +“Don’t you believe it! You don’t know how deep in he is. You don’t know +the Duchess of Breakwater. Once he is with her—” + +At the same time that the page boy handed Mr. Ruggles the card of the +caller, he gave him as well a small envelope, which contained box +tickets for the Gaiety. Ruggles examined it. + +“I have got some writing to do,” he told Galorey, “and I’m going to see +a show to-night, and I think I’ll just stay here and watch my hole.” + +As soon as Galorey had left the Carlton, Mr. Ruggles despatched his +letters and his visitor, made a very careful toilet, and after waiting +until past eight o’clock for Dan to return to dinner, dined alone on +roast beef and a tart, and with perfect digestion, if somewhat +thoughtful mind, left the hotel and walked down the dim street to the +brilliant Strand, and on foot to the Gaiety. + + + + +CHAPTER VII—AT THE STAGE ENTRANCE + + +Ruggles, from his stall, for the fourth time saw the curtain go up on +_Mandalay_ and heard the temple bells ring. One of the stage boxes was +not occupied until after the first act and then the son of his friend +came in alone and sat far back out of sight of any eyes but the keenest, +and those eyes were Ruggles’. Letty Lane, delicious, fantastic, +languishing, sang to Dan; that was evident to Ruggles. He was a large +man and filled his stall comfortably. He sat through the performance +peacefully, his hands in his pockets, his big face thoughtful, his shirt +front ruffled. To look at him, one must have wondered why he had come to +_Mandalay_. He scarcely lost any of the threads of his own reflections, +though when Miss Lane, in response to a call from the house, sang her +cradle song three times, he seemed moved. The tones of her pure voice, +the cradling in her arms of an imaginary child, her apparent dovelike +purity, her grace and sweetness, and her cooing, gentle tone, to judge +by the softening of the Westerner’s face, touched very much the big +fellow who listened like a child. At the end he drew his handkerchief +slowly across his eyes, but the tears, or rather moisture, that rose +there was not all due to Miss Lane’s song, for Ruggles was extremely +warm. + +He could see that in his box the boy sat transfixed and absorbed. Dan +went out in the second entr’acte and was absent when the curtain went +down. Ruggles, as well, left before the performance was over, to make +his way outside the theater to the stage exit, where there was already +gathered a little group, looked after by a couple of policemen. Close to +the curb a gleaming motor waited, the footman at its door. Ruggles +buttoned his coat up to his chin and took his place close to the door, +over which the electric light showed the words “Stage Entrance.” A poor +woman elbowed him, her shabby hat adorned by a scraggly plume, a gray +shawl wrapped round her shoulders. A girl or two, who might have been +flower sellers in Piccadilly in the daytime, a couple of toughs, a +handful of other vagrants smelling of gin, a decent man in working +clothes, a child in his arms, formed the human hedge Letty Lane was to +pass between—a singular group of people to spend an hour hanging about +the streets at the exit of a theater well toward midnight. So the naïve +Ruggles thought, and better understood the appearance of the young +fellows in evening clothes who hovered on the extreme edge of the little +crowd. Dan, however, was not of these. + +“Look sharp, Cissy,” the workingman spoke to his child, holding her well +up. “When she comes hout she’ll pass close to yer, and you sing hout, +‘God bless yer.’” + +“Yes, Dad, I will,” shrilled the child. + +The woman in the gray shawl drew it close about her. “Aw she’s a true +lidy, all right, ain’t she? I expect you’ve had some kindness off her as +well?” + +The man nodded over the child’s shoulder. “Used to be a scene shifter, +and Miss Lane found out about my little girl last year—not this lass, +not Cissy, Cissy’s sister—and she sent ’er to a place where it costs the +eyes out of yer head. She’s gettin’ well fast, and we, none of us, has +seen her or spoken to Miss Lane. She doesn’t know our names.” + +And the woman answered: “She does a lot like that. She’s got a heart +bigger’n her little body.” + +And a big boy in the front row said back to the others: “Well, she makes +a mint of money.” + +And the woman who had spoken before said: “She gives it nearly all to +the poor.” + +Ruggles was evidently on the poor side of the waiting crowd; the handful +of riffraff around him with its stench of dirt and gin. A better looking +set collected opposite and there was the gleam of white shirt fronts. + +“Now, there she comes,” the father saw her first. “Sing out, Cissy.” + +The door opened and a figure quickly floated from it, like a white rose +blown out into the foggy darkness. It floated down the few steps to the +street between the double row of spectators. A white cloak entirely +covered the actress. Her head was hidden by a white scarf, and she +almost ran the short gantlet to her motor, between the cries of “God +bless you!”—“Three cheers for Letty Lane”—“God bless you, lady!” She +didn’t speak or heed, however, or turn her head, but held her scarf +against her face, and the man who slowly lounged behind her to the car, +and put her in and got in after her, was not the man Joshua Ruggles had +waited there to see. He hung about until the footman had sprung up and +the car moved softly away, the stage entrance door shut, then he +followed along with the crowd, with the few faithful ones who had waited +an hour in the cold mist to cry out their applause, not to a singer in +_Mandalay_ but to a woman’s heart. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII—DAN’S SIMPLICITY + + +The Duchess of Breakwater was not sure how close Dan Blair’s thoughts +were to marriage, but the boy from Montana was the easiest prey that had +come across the beautiful and unscrupulous woman’s range. He had told +her that he stayed on up in London to see a man from home, and when +after four days he still lingered in town, she found his absence +unbearable, and sent him a wire so worded that if he had a spark of +interest in her he must immediately return to the Park. She had never +been more lovely than when Dan found her waiting for him. + +She had ordered tea in her sitting-room. She told him that he looked +frightfully seedy, asked him what he had been doing and why he had +stopped so long away, and Blair told her that old Ruggles, his father’s +friend, had run over to see him with a lot of papers for Dan to read and +sign and closed with a smile, telling her that he guessed she “didn’t +know much about business.” + +“I only know the horrid things of business—debts, and loans, and bills, +and fussing.” + +“Those things are not business,” Dan answered wisely; “they are just +common or garden carelessness.” + +She asked him why he had not brought Ruggles out to Osdene, and he told +her he couldn’t have done a stroke of work with the old boy down here at +the Park. + +Stirring his tea, he appreciated the duchess. The agreeable picture she +made impressed him mightily. + +“Do you know,” he asked suddenly, “what you make me think of?” + +And she responded softly: “No, dear.” + +“A box of candy. This room with its stuffed walls, and you in it are +good enough—” + +“To eat?” she laughed aloud. “Oh, you perfectly killing creature, what +an idea!” + +And as he met her eyes with his clear ones, with a simplicity she could +never hope to reach, he put his tea-cup down; and as he did so the +duchess observed his strong hands, their vigor, well-kept and muscular, +but not the dandified hands of the man who goes often to the manicure. + +“If it hadn’t been for one thing,” the boy went on, “I would have +thought of nothing else but you, every minute I’ve been away.” + +“Mr. Ruggles?” suggested the duchess. + +“No, the Gaiety girl, Letty Lane. You know I told you in the box that +she was from my town.” + +The young man, who had flown back to Osdene Park in answer to a +telegram, began to take his companion into his confidence. + +“I knew that girl,” Dan said, “when she wasn’t more than fourteen. She +sold me soda-water over the drug store counter. I always thought she was +bully, bright as a button and pretty as a peach. Once, I remember, I +took six chocolate sodas in one day just to go in and see her. I had an +awful time. I most died of that jag, and yet,” he said meditatively, “I +don’t think I ever spoke three words to her, just said ‘sarsaparilla’ or +‘chocolate’ or whatever it might happen to be. Ever since that day, ever +since that jag,” he said with feeling, “I couldn’t _see_ a stick of +chocolate and keep my head up! Well,” went on the boy, “Sarah Towney +sang in our church for a missionary meeting, and I was there. I can +remember the song she sang.” He spoke with unconscious ardor. He didn’t +refer to the hymn, however, but went on with his narrative. “She +disappeared from Blairtown. I never had a peep at her again until the +other night. Gosh!” he said fervently, “when I saw her there on the +stage, why, I felt as though cold water was running up and down my +spine.” + +The duchess, as a rule, was amused by his slang. It seemed vulgar to her +now. + +“Heavens,” she drawled, “you are really too dreadful!” + +He didn’t seem to hear her. + +“She’s turned out a perfect wonder, hasn’t she? A world-beater! Why, +everybody tells me there isn’t another like her in her specialty. Of +course I have heard of Letty Lane, but I haven’t been out to things +since I went in mourning, and I’ve never run up against her.” + +“Really,” drawled the duchess again, “now that you have ‘run up against +her’ what are you going to do with her? Marry her?” + +His honest stare was the greatest relief she had ever experienced. He +repeated bluntly: “Marry her? Why the dickens should I?” + +“You seem absorbed in her.” + +He agreed with her. “I am. I think she’s great, don’t you?” + +“Hardly.” + +But the cold voice of the duchess did not chill him. “Simply great,” he +continued, “and I’m sorry for her down to the ground. That is what is +the matter. Didn’t you notice her when she came into the Carlton that +night?” + +“What of it, silly? I thought she looked as thin as a shad in that black +dress, and the way Poniotowsky goes about with her proves what an ass he +is.” + +“Well, I hate him,” Blair simply stated; “I would wring his neck for +twenty cents. But she’s very ill; that is what is the matter with her.” + +“They all look like that off the stage,” the duchess assured +indifferently. “They are nothing but footlight beauties: they look +ghastly off the boards. I dare say that Letty Lane _is_ ill, though; the +pace she goes would kill anybody. Have some more tea?” + +He held out his cup and agreed with her. + +“She works too hard—this playing almost every night, singing and dancing +twice at the matinées, I should think she would be dead.” + +“Oh, I don’t mean her professional engagements,” murmured the duchess. + +A revolt such as had stung him when they criticized her at the Carlton +rose in him now. + +“It is hard to believe,” he said, “when you hear her sing that dove song +and that cradle song.” + +But his companion’s laugh stopped his championship short. + +“You dear boy, don’t be a silly, Dan. She doesn’t need your pity or your +good opinion. She is perfectly satisfied. She has got a fortune in +Poniotowsky, and she really is ‘a perfect terror,’ you know.” + +Affected slightly by her cold dismissal of his subject, he paused for a +moment. But his own point of view was too strong to be shaken by this +woman’s light words. + +“I suppose if she wasn’t from my town—” At his words the vision of Letty +Lane with the coral strands on her dress, came before his eyes, and he +said honestly: “But I do take an interest in her just the same, and +she’s going to pieces, that’s clear. Something ought to be done.” + +The Duchess of Breakwater was very much annoyed. + +“Are you going to talk about her all the time?” she asked with sharp +sweetness. “You are not very flattering, Dan.” + +And he returned peacefully, “Why, I thought you might be able to help +her in some way or another.” + +“_Me!_” She laughed aloud. “Me help Letty Lane? Really—” + +“Why, you might get her to sing out here,” he suggested. “That would +sort of get hold of her; women know how to do those things.” + +His preposterous simplicity overwhelmed her. She stirred her tea, and +said, controlling herself, “Why, what on earth would you have me to say +to Letty Lane?” + +“Oh, just be nice to her,” he suggested. “Tell her to take care of +herself and to brace up. Get some nice woman to—” + +The duchess helped him. “To reform her?” + +“Do her good,” the boy said gently. + +“You’re too silly for words. If you were not such a hopeless child I +would be furious with you. Why, my dear boy, she would laugh in your +face and in mine.” + +As the duchess left the tea-table she repeated: “Is this what you came +up from London to talk to me about?” + +And at the touch of her dress as she passed him—at the look she gave him +from her eyes, Dan flushed and said honestly: “Why, I told you that she +was the only thing that kept me from thinking about you all the time.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX—DISAPPOINTMENT + + +Dan Blair had not been back of the scenes at the Gaiety since his first +call on the singer. Indeed, though he had told the duchess he pitied +Miss Lane, he had not been able to approach her very closely, even in +his own thoughts. When she first appeared on his horizon his mind was +full of the Duchess of Breakwater, and the singer had only hovered round +his more profound feelings for another woman. But Letty Lane was an +atmosphere in Dan’s mind which he was not yet able to understand. There +was so little left that was connected with his old home, certainly +nothing in the British Isles, excepting Ruggles, and to the young man +everything from America had its value. Decidedly the nice girl of whom +he had spoken to Gordon Galorey, the print-frocked, sun-bonneted type, +the ideal girl that Dan would like to marry and to spoil, had not +crossed his path. The Duchess of Breakwater did not suggest her, nor did +any of the London beauties. Dan’s first ideal was beginning to fade. + +He left Osdene Park on protest and returned the same night to London, +and all the way back to town tried to register in his mind, unused to +analysis, his experience with the Duchess of Breakwater on this last +visit. + +He had experienced his first disappointment in the sex, and this +disappointment had been of an unusual kind. It was not that he had been +turned down or given the mitten, but he had seen one woman turn another +down. A woman had been mean, so he put it, and the fact that the Duchess +of Breakwater had refused to lend a moral hand to the singer at the +Gaiety hurt Dan’s feelings. Then, as soon as his enthusiasm had calmed, +he saw what a stupid ass he had been. A duchess couldn’t mix up with a +comic opera singer, of course. Still, he mused, “she might have been a +little nicer about it.” + +The education his father had given him about women, the slender +information he had about them, was put to the test now; the girl he had +dreamed of, “the nice girl,” well, she would have had a tenderer way +with her in a case such as this! Back of Dan’s hurt feelings, there was +a great deal on the Duchess of Breakwater’s side. She had not done for +herself yet. She hadn’t fetched him nearly up to the altar for nothing, +and back of his disapproval, there was a long list of admirations and +looks, memories of many tête-à-têtes and of more fervent kisses which +scored a good deal in the favor of Dan’s first woman. The Duchess of +Breakwater had gone boldly on with Dan’s unfinished education, and he +really thought he loved her, and that he was in honor bound to see the +thing through. + + * * * * * + +That evening, once more in the box he had taken all to himself, he +listened to _Mandalay_, carried away with the charm of the music and +carried away by the singer. He was in the box nearest the stage and +seemed close to her, and he imagined that under her paint he could see +her pallor and how thin she was. Nothing, however, in her acting or in +her voice revealed the least fatigue. Blair had obtained a card of +entrance to the theater, which permitted him to circulate freely behind +the scenes, and although as yet the run of his visits had not been +clear, this night he had a purpose. Dan stood not far from the corridor +that led to Letty Lane’s room, and saw her after her act hurriedly cross +the stage, a big white shawl wrapping her slender form closely. She was +as thin as a candle. Her woman Higgins followed closely after her, and +as they passed Dan, Letty Lane called to him gaily: + +“Hello, you! What are you hanging around here for?” + +And Dan returned: “Don’t stand here in the draft. It is beastly cold.” + +“Yes, Miss,” her woman urged, “don’t stand here.” + +But the actress waited nevertheless and said to Dan: “Who’s the girl?” + +“What girl?” + +“Why, the girl you come here every night to see and are too shy to speak +to. Everybody is crazy to know.” + +Letty Lane looked like a little girl herself in the crocheted garment +her small hands held across her breast. Dan put his arm on her shoulder +without realizing the familiarity of his gesture: + +“Get out of this draft—get out of it quick, I say,” and pushed her +toward her room. + +“Gracious, but you are strong.” She felt the muscular touch, and his +hand flat against her shoulder was warm through the wool. + +“I wish _you_ were strong. You work too darned hard.” + +Her head was covered with the coral cap and feather. Dan saw her billowy +skirt, her silken hose, her little coral shoes. She fluttered at the +door which Higgins opened. + +“Why haven’t you been to see me?” she asked him. “You are not very +polite.” + +“I am coming in now.” + +“Not a bit of it. I’m too busy, and it is a short entr’acte. Go and see +the girl you came here to see.” + +Dan thought that the reason she forbade him to come in was because +Prince Poniotowsky waited for her in her dressing-room. It was his first +jealous moment, and the feeling fell on him with a swoop, and its fangs +fastened in him with a stinging pain. He stammered: + +“I didn’t come to see any girl here but you. I came to see you.” + +“Come to-morrow at two, at the Savoy.” + +But before Dan realized his own precipitation, he had seized the +door-handle as Letty Lane went within and was about to close her room +against him, and said quickly: + +“I’m coming right in now.” + +“Why, I never heard of such a thing,” she answered sharply, angrily; +“you must be crazy! Take away your hand!” And hers, as well as his, +seized the handle of the door. Her small ice-cold hand brought him to +his senses. + +“I beg your pardon,” he murmured confusedly. “Do go in and get warm if +you can.” + +But instead of obeying, now that the rude young man withdrew his +importuning, Miss Lane’s hands fell from the knob, and close to his eyes +she swayed before him, and Dan caught her in his arms—went into her +room, carrying her. He had been wrong about Prince Poniotowsky; save for +Higgins, the room was empty. The woman, though she exclaimed, showed no +great surprise and seemed prepared for such a fainting spell. Dan laid +the actress on the sofa and then the dresser said to him: + +“Please go, sir; I can quite manage. She has these turns often. I’ll +give her brandy. She will be quite right.” + +But Dan hesitated, looking at the bit of humanity that he had laid with +great gentleness on the divan covered with pillows. Letty Lane lay +there, small as a little child, inanimate as death. It was hard to think +the quiet little form could contain such life, fire and motion, or that +this senseless little creature held London with her voice and grace. +Higgins knelt down by Letty Lane’s side, quiet, capable, going about the +business of resuscitating her lady much as she laced the singer’s bodice +and shoes. “If you would be so good as to open the door, sir, and send +me a call page. They’ll have to linger out this entr’acte or put on some +feature.” + +“But,” exclaimed Blair, “she can’t go back to-night?” + +“Lord, yes,” Higgins returned. “Here, Miss Lane; drink this.” + +At the door where he paused, Dan saw the girl lifted up, saw her lean on +Higgins’ shoulder, and assured then that she was not lifeless in good +truth, he went out to do as Higgins had asked him. In a quarter of an +hour the curtain rose and within half an hour Dan, from his box, saw the +actress dance to the rajah her charming polka to the strains of the +Hungarian Band. + + + + +CHAPTER X—THE BOY FROM MY TOWN + + +He went the next day to see Letty Lane at the Savoy and learned that she +was too ill to receive him. Mrs. Higgins in the sitting-room told him +so. + +Dan liked the big cordial face of the Scotch-woman who acted as +companion, dresser and maid for the star. Mrs. Higgins had an affable +face, one that welcomes, and she made it plain that she was not an enemy +to this young caller. + +The visitor, in his blue serge clothes, was less startling than most of +the men that came to see her mistress. + +“She works too hard, doesn’t she?” + +“She does everything too hard, sir.” + +“She ought to rest.” + +“I doubt if she does, even in her grave,” returned Higgins. “She is too +full of motion. She is like the little girl in the fairy book that +danced in her grave.” + +Dan didn’t like this comparison. + +“Can’t you make her hold up a little?” + +Higgins smiled and shook her head. + +Letty Lane’s sitting-room was as full of roses as a flower garden. There +were quantities of theatrical photographs in silver and leather frames +on the tables and the piano. Signed portraits from crowned heads; +pictures of well-known worldly men and women whom the dancer had +charmed. But a full-length picture of Letty Lane herself in one of the +dresses of _Mandalay_ lay on the table near Dan, and he picked it up. +She smiled at him enchantingly from the cardboard, across which was +written in her big, dashing hand: “For the Boy from _my_ Town. Letty +Lane.” + +Dan glanced up at Mrs. Higgins. + +“Why, that looks as though this were for me.” + +The dressing woman nodded. “Miss Lane thought she would be able to see +you to-day.” + +The picture in his hand, Dan gazed at it rapturously. + +“I’m from Blairtown, Montana, where she came from.” + +“So she told me, sir.” + +He laid the picture back on the table, and Higgins understood that he +wanted Miss Lane to give it to him herself. She led him affably to the +door and affably smiled upon him. She had a frill in her hand, a thimble +on her finger, and a lot of needles in her bodice. She looked motherly +and useful. Blair liked to think of her with Letty Lane. He put his hand +in his pocket, but she saw his gesture and reproved him quietly: “No, +no, sir, please, I never do. I am just as much obliged,” and her face +remained so affable that Blair was not embarrassed by her refusal. His +parting words were: + +“Now, you make her take care of herself.” + +And to please him, as she opened the door, she pleasantly assured him +that she would do her very best. + +Dan went out of the Savoy feeling that he had left something of himself +behind him in the motley room of an actress with its perfumed atmosphere +of roses and violets. The photograph which he had laid down on the table +seemed to look out at him again, and he repeated delightedly, “That one +was for me, all right! I’m the ‘boy from her town’ and no mistake.” And +he thought of her as she had lain, lifelessly and pale on the +dressing-room sofa, under the touch of hired hands, and how, no doubt, +she had been lying in her room when he called to-day, with shades drawn, +resting before the long hard evening, when London would be amused by +her, delighted by her, charmed by her voice, by her body and her grace. +He had wandered up as far as Piccadilly, went into a florist’s and stood +before the flowers. Her sitting-room had been full of roses, but Dan +chose something else that had caught his eye from the window,—a huge +country basket of primroses, smelling of the earth and the spring. He +sent them with his card and wrote on it, “To the Girl from My Town,” and +sent the gift with a pleasure as young and as fresh as was his own +heart. + +He got no note of acknowledgment from his flowers. Miss Lane was +evidently better and played every night; no mention was made of her +indisposition in the papers. But Dan couldn’t go to the Gaiety or bear +to see her make the effort which he knew must tire her beyond words to +conceive. + +After a few days he called at the Savoy to get news of her. He got as +far as the lift when going up in it he saw Prince Poniotowsky. The sight +affected Miss Lane’s townsman so forcibly that instead of going up to +the dancer’s apartment Dan took himself off, and anger, displeasure and +something like disgust were the only sentiments he carried away from the +Savoy. He sent her no flowers, and gave himself up unreservedly to +Joshua Ruggles and to a couple of men who came in to see him by +appointment. And when toward four o’clock he found himself alone with +Ruggles, Dan threw himself down in a big chair and looked intensely +bored. + +[Image] + +“Well, I guess we don’t need to see any more of these fellows for a +week, Dan,” Ruggles yawned with relief. “I’m blamed if it isn’t as hard +to take care of money as to get it. I was a poor man once, and so was +your father. Those were the days we had fun.” + +Ruggles took out a big cigar, struck a match sharply, and when he had +lit his Henry Clay he fixed his gaze on the flying London fog, whose +black curtain drew itself across their window. + +“There’s a lot of excitement,” Ruggles said, “in not knowing what you’re +going to get; may turn out to be anything when you’re young and on the +trail. That’s the way your father and me felt. And when we started out +on the spot that’s Blairtown on the map to-day, your father had forty +dollars a week to engineer a busted mine and to pull the company into +shape.” + +Dan knew the story of his father’s rise by heart, but he listened. + +“He took on with the mine a lot of discontented half-hearted +rapscallions—a whole bunch, who had failed all along the line. He didn’t +chuck ’em out. ‘There’s no life in old wood, Josh,’ he said to me, ‘but +sometimes there’s fire in it, and I’m going to light up,’ and he did. He +won over the whole lot of them in eighteen months, and within two years +he had that darned mine paying dividends. Meanwhile something came his +way and he took it.” + +From his chair Dan asked: “You mean the Bentley claim?” + +“Measles,” his friend said comically, with a grin. “Your father was sick +to death with them. When he was sitting up for the first time, peeling +in his room, there was a fellow, an Englishman, a total stranger, come +in to see him. ‘Better clear out of here,’ your father says to him. ‘I’m +shedding the damnedest disease for a grown man that ever was caught.’ +‘I’m not afraid of it,’ the Englishman said, ‘I’m shedding worse.’ When +your father asked him what that was, he said the idea that he could make +any money in the West. He told your father that he was going back to +England and give up his western schemes, and that he had a claim to +sell, and he told Blair where it lay. ‘Who has seen it?’ your father +asked. ‘Any of my men?’ And the Englishman told your father that nobody +had wanted to buy it and that was why he had come to him. He said he +thought his only chance to sell was to hold up some blind man on his +dying bed and that he had heard that Blair was too sick to stir out of +his room and to prospect. Your father liked the fellow’s cheek and when +he found out that he had the maps with him, your father bought the whole +blooming sweep at the man’s price, which was a mere song. + +“Your father never went near his purchase for a year or more, and when +he had turned the mine he was managing over to the original company, +with me as manager in his place, at a salary of twenty thousand dollars +a year, he said to me one day, ‘Ruggles, you’ll be sorry to know that +the fun is all over, I’ve struck oil.’ But the oil was copper. The whole +blooming business that he’d bought of that Englishman was rich with ore. +Well, that’s the story of Blairtown,” Ruggles said. “You were born there +and your mother died there.” + +Dan said: “Galorey told me what dad did later for the man that sold him +the mine, and it was just like everything else he did, for dad was all +right, just as good as they come.” + +Ruggles agreed. He left his reminiscences abruptly. “Your dad and me had +the fun in our time; now you are going to get the other kind; you’re +going to make the dust fly that he dug up.” + +And the rich young man said musingly: “I’ll bet it isn’t half as good at +my end.” + +And Ruggles agreed: “Not by a jugful.” And followed: “What’s on +to-night? _Mandalay?_” + +Dan’s fury at Prince Poniotowsky came back. “I guess you thought I was a +little loose in the lid, didn’t you, Josh, going so often to the same +play?” + +“You wouldn’t have been the first rich man that had the same disease,” +Ruggles answered. + +“There is nothing the matter with _Mandalay_, but I’m not gone on any +actress living, Josh; you are in the wrong pew.” + +Dan altered his indolent pose and sat forward. “But I _am_ thinking of +getting married,” he said. + +“I hope it’s to the right girl, Dan.” + +And with young assurance Blair answered: “It will be if I marry her. I +know what I want all right.” + +“I hope she knows what she wants, Dan.” + +“How do you mean?” + +“You or your money. You have the darnedest handicap, my boy.” + +Blair flushed. “I’ll get to hate the whole thing,” he said ferociously. +“It meets me everywhere—bonds—stocks—figures—dividends +—coupons—deeds—it’s too much!” he said suddenly, with resentment. “It is +too much for me. Why, sometimes I feel a hundred years old, and like a +hunk of gold.” + +Ruggles, in answer to this, said: “Why, that reminds me of what a man +remarked about your father once. It was the same English chap your +father bought the claim of. Speaking of Blair, he said to me: ‘You know +there’s all kinds of metal bars, and when you cut into them some is +bullion and some’s coated with aluminum, and there’s others that when +you cut down, cut a clean yellow all along the line.’ If, as you say, +you feel like a hunk of metal, it ain’t bad if it is that kind.” + +“It’s got to stop coming in between me and the woman I marry, all right, +though.” Dan did not pursue his subject further, for his feelings about +the duchess were too unreal to give him the sincere heartiness with +which he would have liked to answer Ruggles. + +He went over to the window, and, with his hands in his pockets, stood +looking out at the fog. Ruggles, at the table, opened the cover of the +book of _Mandalay_ and took out the four checks made out to Lady Galorey +and which he had forgotten. He hurriedly thrust them into his pocket. + +“Come away, Dannie,” he said cheerfully, “let’s do something wild. I +feel up to most anything with this miserable fog down on me. If it had +any nerve it would take some form or shape, so a man could choke it +back.” + +Ruggles blew his nose violently. + +“There’s nothing to do,” said Dan in a bored tone. + +“Why don’t you see who your telegram is from?” Ruggles asked him. It +proved to be a suggestion from Gordon Galorey that Dan should meet him +at five o’clock at the club. + +“What will you do, Rug?” + +“Sleep,” said the Westerner serenely; “I’m nearly as happy in London as +I am in Philadelphia. It’s four o’clock now and I can’t sleep more than +four hours anyway. Let’s have a real wild time, Dannie.” + +Dan looked at him doubtfully, but Ruggles’ eyes were keen. + +“What kind of a time do you mean?” + +“Let’s ask the Gaiety girl for dinner—for supper after the theater.” + +“Letty Lane? She wouldn’t go.” + +“Why not?” + +“She is awfully delicate; it is all she can do to keep her contracts.” + +He knows that, Ruggles thought. “Let’s ask her and see.” He went over to +the table and drew out the paper. “Come on and write and ask her to go +out with us to supper.” + +“See here, Rug, what’s this for?” + +“What’s strange in it? She is from our state, and if you don’t hustle +and ask her I am going to ask her all alone.” + +Dan was puzzled as he sat down to the table, reflecting that it was +perfectly possible that old Ruggles had fallen a prey to the charms of +an actress. She wouldn’t come, of course. He wrote a formal invitation +without thinking very much of what he said or how, folded and addressed +his note. + +“What did you say?” Ruggles asked eagerly. + +“Why, that two boys from home wanted to give her a supper.” + +“Well,” said Ruggles, “if the answer comes while you are at the club +I’ll open it and give the orders. Think she’ll come?” + +“I do not,” responded Dan rather brutally. “She’s got others to take her +out to supper, you bet your life.” + +“Well, there’s none of them as rich as you are, I reckon, Dan.” + +And the boy turned on him violently. + +“See here, Josh, if you speak to me again of my money, when there’s a +woman in the question—” + +He did not finish his threat, but snatched up his coat and hat and +gloves and went out of the door, slamming it after him. + +Mr. Ruggles’ profound and happy snore was cut short by the page boy, who +fetched in a note, with the Savoy stamping on the back. Ruggles opened +it not without emotion. + +“Dear boy,” it ran, “I haven’t yet thanked you for the primroses; they +were perfectly sweet. There is not one of them in any of my rooms, and +I’ll tell you why to-night. I am crazy to accept for supper”—here she +had evidently struck out her intended refusal, and closed with, “I’m +coming, but don’t come after me at the Gaiety, please. I’ll meet you at +the Carlton after the theater. Who’s the other boy? L. L.” + +The “other boy” read the note with much difficulty, for it was badly +written. “He’ll have to stop sending her flowers and going every night +to the theater unless he wants a row with the duchess,” he said dryly. +And with a certain interest in his rôle, Ruggles rang for the head +waiter, and with the man’s help ordered his first midnight supper for an +actress. + + + + +CHAPTER XI—RUGGLES GIVES A DINNER + + +The bright tide of worldly London flows after and around midnight into +the various restaurants and supper rooms, and as well through the +corridors and halls of the Carlton. At one of the small tables bearing a +great expensive bunch of orchids and soft ferns, Josh Ruggles, in a new +evening dress, sat waiting for his party. Dan had dined with Lord +Galorey, and the two men had gone out together afterward, and Ruggles +had not seen the boy to give him Letty Lane’s note. + +“Got it with you?” Blair asked when he came in, and Ruggles responded +that he didn’t carry love letters around in his dress clothes. + +They could tell by the interest in the room when the actress was coming, +and both men rose as Letty Lane floated in at flood tide with a crowd of +last arrivals. + +She had not dressed this evening with the intention that her dark +simplicity of attire should be conspicuous. The cloak which Dan took +from her shed the perfume of orris and revealed the woman in a blaze of +sparkling _paillettes_. She seemed made out of sparkle, and her blond +head, from which a bright ornament shook, was the most brilliant thing +about her, though her dress from hem to throat glistened with discs of +gold like moonshine on a starry sea. The actress’ look of surprise when +she saw Ruggles indicated that she had not expected a boy of his age. + +“The other boy?” she asked. “Well, this is the nicest supper party ever! +And you are awfully good to invite me.” + +Ruggles patted his shirt front and adjusted his cravat. + +“My idea,” he told her, “all the blame on me, Miss Lane. Charge it up to +me! Dan here had cold feet from the first. He said you wouldn’t come.” + +She laughed deliciously. + +“He did? Hasn’t got much faith, has he?” + +Miss Lane drew her long gloves off, touched the orchids with her little +hands, on which the ever present rings flashed, and went on talking to +Ruggles, to whom she seemed to want to address her conversation. + +“I’m simply crazy over these flowers.” + +The older man showed his pleasure. “My choice again! Walked up myself +and chose the bunch, blame me again; ditto dinner; mine from start to +finish—hope you’ll like it. I would have added some Montana peas and +some chocolate soda-water, only I thought you might not understand the +joke.” + +Miss Lane beamed on him. Although he was unconscious of it, she was not +fully at ease: he was not the kind of man she had expected to see. +Accustomed to young fellows like the boy and their mad devotion, +accustomed to men with whom she could be herself, the big, bluff, +middle-aged gentleman with his painfully correct tie, his rumpled +iron-gray hair, and his deference to her, though an unusual diversion, +was a little embarrassing. + +“Oh, I know your dinner is ripping, Mr. Ruggles. I’m on a diet of milk +and eggs myself, and I expect your order didn’t take in those.” But at +his fallen countenance she hurried to say: “Oh, I wouldn’t have told you +that if I hadn’t been intending to break through.” + +And with childlike anticipation she clapped her hands and said: “We’re +going to have ‘lots of fun.’ Just think, they don’t know what that means +here in London. They say ‘heaps of sport, you know.’” She imitated the +accent maliciously. “It’s just we Americans who know what ‘lots of fun’ +is, isn’t it?” + +Near her Dan Blair’s young eyes were drinking in the spectacle of +delicate beauty beautifully gowned, of soft skin, glorious hair, and he +gazed like a child at a pantomime. Under his breath he exclaimed now, +with effusion, “You bet your life we are going to have lots of fun!” And +turning to him, Miss Lane said: + +“Six chocolate sodas running?” + +“Oh, don’t,” he begged, “not that kind of jag.” + +She shook with laughter. + +“Are you from Blairtown, Mr. Ruggles? I don’t think I ever saw you +there.” + +And the Westerner returned: “Well, from what Dan tells me, you’re not +much of a fixture yourself, Miss Lane. You were just about born and then +kidnapped.” + +Her gay expression faded. And she repeated his word, “Kidnapped? That’s +a good word for it, Mr. Ruggles.” + +She picked up between her fingers a strand of the green fern, and looked +at its delicate tracery as it lay on the palm of her hand. + +“I sang one day after a missionary sermon in the Presbyterian Church.” +She interrupted herself with a short laugh. “But I guess you’re not +thinking of writing my biography, are you?” + +And it was Dan’s voice that urged her. “Say, do go on. I was there that +day with my father, and you sang simply out of sight.” + +“Yes,” she accepted, “out of sight of Blairtown and everybody I ever +knew. I went away the next day.” She lifted her glass of champagne to +her lips. “Here’s one thing I oughtn’t to do,” she said, “but I’m going +to just the same. I’m going to do everything I want this evening. +Remember, I let you drink six glasses of chocolate soda once.” She +drained her glass and her friends drank with her. “I like this soup +awfully. What is it?”—just touching it with her spoon. + +“Why,” Ruggles hastened to tell her, “it ain’t a _party_ soup, it’s +Scotch broth. But somehow it sounded good on the bill of fare. I fixed +the rest of the dinner up for you and Dan, but I let myself go on the +soup, it’s my favorite.” + +She did not eat it, however, although she said it was splendid and that +she was crazy about it. + +“Did you come East then?” Dan returned to what she had been saying. + +“Yes, that week; went to Paris and all over the place.” + +She instantly fell into a sort of melancholy. It was easy to be seen +that she did not want to talk about her past and yet that it fascinated +her. + +“Just think of it!” he exclaimed. “I never heard a word about you until +I heard you sing the other night.” + +The actress laughed and told him that he had made up for lost time, and +that he was a regular “sitter” now at the Gaiety. + +Ruggles said, “He took me every night to see you dance until I balked, +Miss Lane.” + +“Still, it’s a perfectly great show, Mr. Ruggles, don’t you think so? I +like it better than any part I ever had. I am interested about it for +the sake of the man who wrote it, too. It’s his first opera; he’s an +invalid and has a wife and five kids to look after.” + +And Ruggles replied, “Oh, gracious! I feel better than ever, having gone +ten times, although I wasn’t _very_ sore about it before! Ain’t you +going to eat anything?” + +She only picked at her food, drinking what they poured in her glass, and +every time she spoke to Dan a look of charming kindness crossed her +face, an expression of good fellowship which Ruggles noted with +interest. + +“I wish you could have seen this same author to-day at the rehearsal of +the play,” Letty Lane went on. “He’s too ill to walk and they had to +carry him in a chair. We all went round to his apartments after the +theater. He lives in three rooms with his whole family and he’s had so +many debts and so much trouble and such a poor contract that he hasn’t +made much out of _Mandalay_, but I guess he will out of this new piece. +He hugged and kissed me until I thought he would break my neck.” + +London had gone mad over Letty Lane, whose traits and contour were the +admiration of the world at large and well-known even to the news-boys, +and whose likeness was nearly as familiar as that of the Madonnas of +old. Her face was oval and perfectly formed, with the reddest of +mouths—the most delicious and softest of mouths—the line of her brows +clear and straight, and her gray eyes large and as innocent and +appealing as a child’s; under their long lashes they opened up like +flowers. It was said that no man could withstand their appeal; that she +had but to look to make a man her slave; and as more than once she +turned to Dan, smiling and gracious, Ruggles watched her, mutely +thinking of what he had heard this day, for after her letter came +accepting their invitation he had taken pains to find out the things he +wanted to know. It had not been difficult. As her face and form were +public, on every post-card and in every photographer’s shop, so the +actress’ reputation was the property of the public. + +As Ruggles repeated these things to himself, he watched her beside the +son of his old friend. They were talking—rather she was—and behind the +orchids and the ferns her voice was sweet and enthralling. Ruggles tried +to appreciate his bill of fare while the two appreciated each other. It +was strange to Dan to have her so near and so approachable. His sights +of her off the stage had been so slight and fleeting. On the boards she +had seemed to be an unreal creation made for the public alone. Her +dress, cut fearlessly low, displayed her lovely young bosom—soft, +bloomy, white as a shell—and her head and ears were as delicate as the +petals of a white rose. Low in the nape of her neck, her golden hair lay +lightly, and from its soft masses fragrance came to him. + +Ruggles could hear her say: “Roach came to the house and told my people +that I had a fortune in my voice. I was living with my uncle and my +step-aunt and working in the store. And that same day your father sent +down a check for five hundred dollars. He said it was ‘for the little +girl with the sweet voice,’ and it gives me a lot of pleasure to think +that I began my lessons on _that money_.” + +The son of old Dan Blair said earnestly: “I’m darned glad you did—I’m +darned glad you did!” + +Letty Lane nodded. “So am I. But,” with some sharpness, “I don’t see why +you speak that way. I’ve earned my way. I made a fortune for Roach all +right.” + +“You mean the man you married?” + +“Married—goodness gracious, what made you think that?” She threw back +her pretty head and laughed—a laugh with the least possible merriment in +it. “Oh, Heavens, marry old Job Roach! So they say _that_, do they? I +never heard that. I hear a lot, but I never heard that fairy tale.” She +put her hands to her checks, which had grown crimson. “That’s not true!” + +Dan swore at himself for his tactless stupidity. + +Ruggles had heard both sides. She was adored by the poor, and, as far as +rumor knew, she spent thousands on the London paupers, and the +Westerner, who had never been given to reveling in scandals and to whom +there was something wicked in speaking ill of a woman, no matter whom +she might be, listened with embarrassment to tales he had been told in +answer to his other questions; and turned with relief to the stories of +Letty Lane’s charity, and to the stories of her popularity and her +success. They were more agreeable, but they couldn’t make him forget the +rest, and now as he looked at her face across the bouquet of orchids and +ferns, it was with a sinking of heart, a great pity for her, and still a +decided enmity. He disapproved of her down to the ground. He didn’t let +himself think how he felt, but it was for the boy. Ruggles was not a man +of the world in any sense; he was simple and Puritan in his judgments, +and his gentle nature and his big heart kept him from pharisaical and +strenuous measures. He had been led in what he was doing to-night by a +diplomacy and a common sense that few men east of the Mississippi would +have thought out under the circumstances. + +“Tell Mr. Ruggles,” he heard Dan say to her, “tell him—tell him!” + +And she answered: + +“I was telling Mr. Blair that, as he is so frightfully rich, I want him +to give me some money.” + +Ruggles gasped, but answered quietly: + +“Well, he’s a great giver, Miss Lane.” + +“I guess he is if he’s like his father!” she returned. “I am trying to +get a lot, though, out of him, and when you asked me to dine to-night I +said to myself, ‘I’ll accept, for it will be a good time to ask Mr. +Blair to help me out in what I want to do.’” + +At Ruggles’ face she smiled sweetly and said graciously: + +“Oh, don’t think I wouldn’t have come anyway. But I’m awfully tired +these days, and going out to supper is just one thing too much to do! I +want Mr. Blair,” she said, turning to Ruggles as if she knew a word from +him would make the thing go through, “to help me build a rest home down +on the English coast, for girls who get discouraged in their art. When I +think of the _luck_ I have had and how these things have been from the +beginning, and how money has just poured in, why,” she said ardently, +“it just makes my heart ache to think of the girls who try and fail, who +go on for a little while and have to give up. You can’t tell,”—she +nodded to Ruggles, as though she were herself a matron of forty,—“you +can not tell what their temptations are or what comes up to make them go +to pieces.” + +Ruggles listened with interest. + +“I haven’t thought it all out yet, but so many come to me tired out and +discouraged, and I think a nice home taken care of by a good creature +like my Higgins, let us say, would be a perfect blessing to them. They +could go there and rest and study and just think, and perhaps,” she said +slowly, as though while she spoke she saw a vision of a tired self, for +whom there had been no rest home and no place of retreat, “perhaps a lot +of them would pull through in a different way. Now to-day”—she broke her +meditative tone short—“I got a letter from a hospital where a poor thing +that used to sing with me in New York was dying with consumption—all +gone to pieces and discouraged, and there is where your primroses went +to—” she nodded to Dan. “Higgins took them. You don’t mind?” And Blair, +with a warmth in his voice, touched by her pity more than by her +charity, said: + +“Why, they grew for you, Miss Lane; I don’t care what you do with them.” + +Letty Lane sank her head on her hands, her elbows leaned on the table. +She seemed suddenly to have lost interest even in her topic. She looked +around the room indifferently. The orchestra was softly playing _The +Dove Song_ from _Mandalay_, and very softly under her breath the star +hummed it, her eyes vaguely fixed on some unknown scene. To Dan and to +Ruggles she had grown strange. The music, her brilliancy, her sudden +indifference, put her out of their commonplace reach. Ruggles to himself +thought with relief: + +“She doesn’t care one rap for the boy anyway, thank God. She’s got other +fish to land.” + +And Dan Blair thought: “It’s my infernal money again.” But he was +generous at heart and glad to be of service to her, and was perfectly +willing to be “touched” for her poor. Then two or three men came up and +joined them. She greeted them indolently, bestowing a word or a look on +this one or on that; all fire and light seemed to have gone out of her, +and Dan said: + +“You are tired. I guess I had better take you home.” + +She did not appear to hear him. Indeed she was not looking at him, and +Dan saw Prince Poniotowsky making his way toward their table across the +room. + +Letty Lane rose. Dan put her cloak about her shoulders, and glancing +toward Ruggles and toward the boy as indifferently as she had considered +the new-comers, who formed a small group around the brilliant figure of +the actress, she nodded good night to both Ruggles and Blair and went up +to the Hungarian as though he were her husband, who had come to take her +home. However, at the door she sufficiently shook off her mood to smile +slightly at Dan: + +“I have had ‘lots of fun,’ and the Scotch broth was great! Thank you +both so much.” + +Until they were up in their sitting-room her hosts did not exchange a +word. Then Ruggles took a book up from the table and sat down with his +cigar. “I am going to read a little, Dan. Slept all day; feel as +wide-awake as an owl.” + +Dan showed no desire to be communicative, however, to Ruggles’ +disappointment, but he exclaimed abruptly: + +“I’ll be darned, Ruggles, if I can guess what you asked her for!” + +“Well, it did turn out to be a pretty expensive party for you, Dannie, +didn’t it?” Ruggles returned humorously. “I’ll let you off from any more +supper parties.” + +And Dan fumed as he turned his back. “_Expensive!_ There you are again, +Ruggles, with your infernal intrusion of money into everything I do.” + +When the older man found himself alone, he read a little and then put +his book down to muse. And his meditations were on the tide of life and +the beds it runs over; the living whirlpool as Ruggles himself had seen +it coursing through London under fog and mist. It seemed now to surge up +in the dark to his very windows, and the flow mysteriously passed under +his windows in these silent hours when no one can see the muddy, muddy +bottom over which the waters go. Out of the sound, as it flowed on, the +cries rose, he thought, kindly to his ears: “God bless her—God bless +Letty Lane!” And with this sound he closed his meditations, thinking of +a more peaceful stream, the brighter, sweeter waters of the boy’s +nature, translucent and clear. The vision was happier, and with it +Ruggles rose and yawned, and shut his book. + + + + +CHAPTER XII—THE GREEN KNIGHT + + +The Duchess of Breakwater had made Dan promise at Osdene the day he went +back to London that he would take her over to her own place, Stainer +Court, and with her see the beauty, ruins and traditions of the place. + +When Dan got up well on in the morning, Ruggles had gone to the bank. +Dan’s thoughts turned from everything to Letty Lane. With irritation he +put her out of his mind. There had come up between himself and the girl +he had known slightly in his own town years ago a wall of partition. +Every time he saw her Poniotowsky was there, condescending, arrogant, +rude and proud. The prince the night before had given the tips of his +fingers to Dan, nodded to Ruggles as if the Westerner had been his +tailor, and had appropriated Letty Lane, and she had gone away under his +shadow. The simplicity of Dan’s life, his decent bringing up, his +immaculate youth, for such it was, his aloofness from the world, made +him naïve, but he was not dull. He waited—not like a skeptic who would +fit every one into his pigeonholes—on the contrary, he waited to find +every one as perfect as he knew they must be, and every time he tried to +think of Letty Lane, Poniotowsky troubled him horribly and seemed to +rise before him, and sardonically look at him through his eye-glass, +making the boy’s belief in good things ridiculous. + +He wrote a note to Ruggles, saying that he would be back late and not to +wait for him, and set out in his own car for Blankshire, where the +duchess was to meet him at Stainer Court at noon. On his way out he +decided that he had been a fool to discuss Letty Lane with the Duchess +of Breakwater, and that it had been none of his business to put her duty +before her, and that he had judged her quickly and unfairly. He fell in +love with the lovely English country over which his motor took him, and +it made him more affectionate toward the English woman. He sat back in +his car, looking over the fine shooting land, the misty golden forests, +as through the misty country his motor took its way. The breath of +England was on his cheeks, he breathed in its odors fresh and sweet, the +windless air was cool and fragrant. His cheeks grew red, his eyes shone +like stars, and he was content with his youth and his lot. When they +stopped at Castelene, the property belonging to Stainer Court, he felt +something of proprietorship stir in him, and at Stainer Arms ordered a +drink, bought petroleum, and then pushed up the avenue under the +leafless giant trees, whose roots were older than his father’s name or +than any state of the Union. And he felt admiration and something like +emotion as he saw the first towers of Stainer Court finally appear. + +The duchess waited for him in the room known as the “Green Knight’s +Room,” because of a figure in tapestry on the walls. The legend in wool +had been woven in Spain, somewhere about the time when Isabella was +kind, and when in turn a continent loomed up for the world in general +out of the mist. The subject of the Green Knight’s tapestry was simple +and convincing. On a sheer-cut village of low ferns, where daisies stood +up like trees, a slender lady poised, her dark sandaled feet on the +pin-like turf. Her figure was all swathed round with a spotless dress of +woolly white, softened by age into a golden misty tone, and a pair of +friendly and confidential rabbits sat close to her golden slippers. The +lady’s face was candid and mild; her eyes were soft, and around her head +was wound a fillet of woven threads, mellow in tone, a red, no doubt, +originally, but softened to a coral pink by time. This lady in all her +grace and virginal sweetness was only half of the woven story. To her +right stood a youth in forest green, his sword drawn, and his intention +evidently to kill a creature which, near to the gentle rabbits, out of +the daisied grass lifted its cruel snakelike head. For nearly five +hundred years the serpent’s venom had been poised, and if the serpent +should start the Green Knight would strike, too, at the same magic +moment. + +Close to the tapestry a fire had been laid in the broad fireplace, and +the duchess had ordered the luncheon table for Dan and herself spread +with the cold things England knows how to combine into a delectable +feast. The room was full of mediæval furnishings, but the Green Knight +was the best of all. The Duchess of Breakwater took him for granted. She +had known him all her life, and she had only been struck by his +expensive beauty when the offer came to her from the National Museum to +buy him, and she wondered how long she could afford to stick to her +price. + +When Dan came in he found her in a short tweed skirt, a mannish blouse, +looking boyish and wholly charming, and she mixed him a cocktail under +the Green Knight’s very nose and offered it with the wisdom of the +serpent itself, and the duchess didn’t in the least suggest the +white-robed, milk-white lady. + +The friends drank their cocktails in good spirits, and Dan presented the +lady with the flowers he had brought her, and he felt a strong sentiment +stir at the sight of her in this old room, alone and waiting for him. +The servants left them, the duchess put her hands on the boy’s broad +shoulders. Nearly as tall as he, she was a good example of the +best-looking English woman, straight and strong, and her eyes were +level, and Dan met them with his own. + +“I am so glad you came,” she murmured. “I’ve been ragging myself every +minute since you went away from Osdene.” + +“You have? What for?” + +“Because I was such a perfect prig. I’ll do anything you like for Miss +Lane. I mean to say, I’ll arrange for a musicale and ask her to sing.” + +The color rushed into Dan’s face. How bully of her! What a brick this +showed her to be! He said: “You are as sweet as a peach!” + +The duchess’ hands were still on his shoulders. She could feel his rapid +breath. + +“I don’t make you think of a box of candy now?” she murmured, and the +boy covered her hand with his own. + +“I don’t know what you make me think of—it is bully, whatever it is!” + +If the Spanish tapestry could only have reversed its idea, and if the +immaculate lady, or even one of the rabbits, could have drawn a sword to +protect the Green Knight, it would have been passing well. But the woven +work, when it first had been embroidered, was done for ever; it was +irrevocable in its mistaken idea, that it is only the _woman_ who needs +protection! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII—THE FACE OF LETTY LANE + + +As Dan went through the halls of the Carlton on his way to his rooms +that same evening, the porter gave him two notes, which Dan went down +into the smoking-room to read. He tore open the note bearing the Hotel +Savoy on the envelope, and read: + + “Dear Boy: Will you come around to-night and see me about five + o’clock? Don’t let anything keep you.” (Letty Lane had the habit of + scratching out phrases to insert others, and there was something + scratched out.) “I want to talk to you about something very + important. Come sure. L. L.” + +Dan looked at the clock; it was after nine, and she would be at the +Gaiety going on with her performance. + +The other note, which he opened more slowly, was from Ruggles, and it +began in just the same way as the dancer’s had begun: + + “Dear Boy: I have been suddenly called back to the United States. As + I didn’t know how to get at you, I couldn’t. I had a cable that + takes me right back. I get the _Lusitania_ at Liverpool and you can + send me a Marconi. Better make the first boat you can and come over. + + “Joshua Ruggles.” + +Ruggles left no word of advice, and unconscious of this master stroke on +the part of the old man, whose heart yearned for him as for his own son, +Dan folded the note up and thought no more about Ruggles. + +When an hour later he came out of the Carlton he was prepared for the +life of the evening. He stopped at the telephone desk and sent a +telegram to Ruggles on the _Lusitania_: + + “Can’t come yet a while; am engaged to be married to the Duchess of + Breakwater.” + +He wrote this out in full and the man at the Marconi “sat up” and smiled +as he wrote. With Letty Lane’s badly written note in his pocket, and +wondering very much at her summons of him, Dan drove to the Gaiety, and +at the end of the third act went back of the scenes. There were several +people in her dressing-room. Higgins was lacing her into a white bodice +and Miss Lane, before her glass, was putting the rouge on her lips. + +“Hello, you,” she nodded to Dan. + +“I am awfully sorry not to have shown up at five. Just got your note. +Just got in at the hotel; been out of town all day.” + +Dan saw that none of the people in the room was familiar to him, and +that they were out of place in the pretty brocaded nest. One of them was +a Jew, a small man with a glass eye, whose fixed stare rested on Miss +Lane. He had kept on his overcoat, and his derby hat hung on the back of +his head. + +“Give Mr. Cohen the box, Higgins,” Miss Lane directed, and bending +forward, brought her small face close to the glass, and her hands +trembled as she handled the rouge stick. + +Mr. Cohen in one hand held a string of pearls that fell through his fat +fingers, as if eager to escape from them. Higgins obediently placed a +small box in his hand. + +“Take it and get out of here,” she ordered Cohen. “Miss Lane has only +got five minutes.” + +Cohen turned the stub of his cigar in his mouth unpleasantly without +taking the trouble to remove it. “I’ll take the box,” he said rapidly, +“and when I get good and ready I’ll get out of here, but not before.” + +“Now see here,” Blair began, but Miss Lane, who had finished her task, +motioned him to be quiet. + +“Please go out, Mr. Blair,” she said. “Please go out. Mr. Cohen is here +on business and I really can’t see anybody just now.” + +Behind the Jew Higgins looked up at Dan and he understood—but he didn’t +heed her warning; nothing would have induced him to leave Letty Lane +like this. + +“I’m not going, though, Miss Lane,” he said frankly. “I’ve got an +appointment with you and I’m going to stay.” + +As he did so the other people in the room took form for him: a blind +beggar with a stick in his hand, and by his side a small child wrapped +in a shawl. With relief Dan saw that Poniotowsky was absent from the +party. + +Cohen opened the box, took its contents out and held up the jewels. +“This,” he said, indicating a string of pearls, “is all right, Miss +Lane, and the ear-drops. The rest is no good. I’ll take or leave them, +as you like.” + +She was plainly annoyed and excited, and, as Higgins tried to lace her, +moved from her dressing-table to the sofa in a state of agitation. + +“Take them or leave them, as _you_ like,” she said, “but give me the +money and go.” + +The Jew took from his wallet a roll of banknotes and counted them. + +“Six,” he began, but she waved him back. + +“Don’t tell me how much it is. I don’t want to know.” + +“Let the other lady count it,” the Jew said. “I don’t do business that +way.” + +Dan, who had laid down his overcoat and hat on a chair, came quietly +forward, his hands in his pockets, and standing in front of the Jew, he +said again: + +“Now you look here—” + +Letty Lane threw the money down on the dressing-table. “Please,” she +cried to Dan, “let me have the pleasure of sending this man out of my +room. You can go, Cohen, and go in a hurry, too.” + +The Jew stuffed the pearls in his pocket and went by Dan hurriedly, as +though he feared the young man intended to help him. But Dan stopped +him: + +“Before this deal goes through I want you to tell me why you are—” + +Miss Lane broke in: “My gracious Heavens! Can’t I even sell my jewels +without being bossed? What business is it of yours, Mr. Blair? Let this +man go, and go all of you—all of you. Higgins, send them out.” + +The blind man and the child stirred, too, at this outburst. The little +girl wore a miserable hat, a wreck of a hat, in which shook a feather +like a broken mast. The rest of her garments seemed made of the +elements—of dirt and mud—mere flags of distress, and the odor of the +poor filled the room: over the perfume and scent and smell of stage +properties, this miserable smell held its own. + +“Come, Daddy,” whispered the child timidly, “come along.” + +“Oh, no, not you, not you,” Letty Lane said. + +Job Cohen crawled out with ten thousand pounds’ worth of pearls in his +pockets, and as soon as the door had closed the actress took up the roll +of notes. + +“Come here,” she said to the child. “Now you can take your father to the +home I told you of. It is nice and comfortable—they will treat his eyes +there.” + +“Miss Lane—Miss Lane!” called the page boy. + +“Never mind that,” said the actress, “it is a long wait this act. I +don’t go on yet.” + +Higgins went to the door and opened it and stood a moment, then +disappeared into the side scenes. + +Letty Lane ruffled the pile of banknotes and without looking drew out +two or three bills, putting them into the child’s hands. “Don’t you lose +them; stuff them down; this will keep you and your father for a couple +of years. Take care of it. You are quite rich now. Don’t get robbed.” + +The child tremblingly folded the notes and hid them among her rags. The +tears of happiness were straggling over her face. She said finally, +finding no place to stow away her riches, “I expect I’d best put them in +daddy’s pocket.” + +And Dan came to her aid; taking the notes from her, he folded and put +them inside the clothes of the old beggar. + +“Miss Lane,” said Higgins, who had come in, “it is time you went on.” + +“I’ll see your friends out of the theater,” Blair offered. And as he did +so, for the first time she looked at him, and he saw the fever in her +brilliant eyes. + +“Thanks awfully,” she accepted. “It is perfectly crazy to give them so +much money at once. Will you look after it like a good boy and see +something or other about them?” + +He thought of her, however, and caught up a great soft shawl from the +chair, wrapped it around her tenderly, and she flitted out, Higgins +after her, leaving the rest of the money scattered on her +dressing-table. + +“Come along,” said Blair kindly to the two who stood awaiting his orders +with the docility of the poor, the obedience of those who have no right +to plan or suggest until told to move on. “Come, I’ll see you home.” And +he didn’t leave them until he had taken them in a cab to their +destination—until he had persuaded the girl to let him have the money, +look after it for her, come to see her the next day and tell her what to +do. + +Then he went back to the theater and stood up in the rear, for the house +was crowded, to hear Letty sing. It was souvenir night; there were +post-cards and little coral caps with feathers as _bonbonnières_. They +called her out before the curtain a dozen times, and each time Dan +wanted to cry “Mercy” for her. He felt as though this little act had +established a friendship between them; and his hands clenched as he +thought of Poniotowsky, and he tried to recall that he was an engaged +man. He had an idea that Letty Lane was looking for him through the +performance. She finished in a storm of applause, and flowers were +strewn upon her, and Dan found himself, in spite of his resolution, +going back into the wings. + +This time two or three cards were sent in. One by one he saw the +visitors refused, and Dan, without any formality, himself knocked at +Letty Lane’s small door, which Higgins opened, looked back over her +shoulder to give his name to her mistress, and said to Dan confidently, +“Wait, sir; just wait a bit.” Her lips were affable. And in a few +moments, to Dan’s astonished delight, the actress herself appeared, a +big scarf over her head and her body enveloped in her snowy cloak, and +he understood with a leap of his heart that she had singled him out to +take her home. + +She went before him through the wings to the stage entrance, which he +opened for her, and she passed out before him into the fog and the mist. +For the first time Blair followed her through the crowd, which was a big +one on this night. On the one side waited the poor, who wished her many +blessings, and on the other side her admirers, whose thoughts were quite +different. Something of this flashed through Dan’s mind,—and in that +moment he touched the serious part of life for the first time. + +In Letty Lane’s motor, the small electric light lit over their heads and +the flower vase empty, he sat beside the fragrant human creature whom +London adored, and knew his place would have been envied by many a man. + +“I took your friends to their place all right,” he told her, “and I’m +going to see them myself to-morrow. I advised the girl not to get +married for her money. Say, this is awfully nice of you to let me take +you home!” + +She seemed small in her corner. “You were great to-night,” Dan went on, +“simply great! Wasn’t the crowd crazy about you, though! How does it +feel to stand there and hear them clap like a thunderstorm and call your +name?” + +She replied with effort. “It _was_ a nice audience, wasn’t it? Oh, I +don’t know how it feels. It is rather stimulating. How’s the other boy?” +she asked abruptly, and when Dan had said that Ruggles had left him +alone in London, she turned and laughed a little. + +Dan asked her why she had sent for him to-day. “I’m mighty sorry I was +out of town,” he said warmly. “Just to think you should have wanted me +to do something for you and I didn’t turn up. You know I would be glad +to do anything. What was it? Won’t you tell me what it was?” + +“The Jew did it for me.” + +And Dan exclaimed: “It made me simply sick to see that animal in your +room. I would have kicked him out if I hadn’t thought that it would make +an unpleasant scene for you. We have passed the Savoy.” He looked out of +the window, and Letty Lane replied: + +“I told the driver to go to the Carlton first.” + +She was taking _him_ home then! + +“Well, you’ve got to come in and have some supper with me in that case,” +he cried eagerly, and she told him that she had taken him home because +she knew that Mr. Ruggles would approve. + +“Not much you won’t,” he said, and put his hand on the speaking tube, +but she stopped him. + +“Don’t give any orders in my motor, Mr. Blair. You sit still where you +are.” + +“Do you think that I am such a simple youth that I—” + +Letty Lane with a gesture of supreme ennui said to him impatiently: + +“Oh, I just think I am pretty nearly tired to death; don’t bother me. I +want my own way.” + +Her voice and her gesture, her beauty and her indifference, her sort of +vague lack of interest in him and in everything, put the boy, full of +life as he was, out of ease, but he ventured, after a second: + +“Won’t you please tell me what you wanted me to do this afternoon?” + +“Why, I was hard up, that’s all. I have used all my salary for two +months and I couldn’t pay my bill at the Savoy.” + +“Lord!” he said fervently, “why didn’t you—” + +“I did. Like a fool I sent for you the first thing, but I was awfully +glad when five o’clock came you didn’t turn up. Please don’t bother or +speak of it again.” + +And burning with curiosity as to what part Poniotowsky played in her +life, Dan sat quiet, not venturing to put to her any more questions. She +seemed so tired and so overcome by her own thoughts. When they had +turned down toward the hotel, however, he decided that he must in honor +tell her his news. + +“Got some news to tell you,” he exclaimed abruptly. “Want you to +congratulate me. I’m engaged to be married to the Duchess of Breakwater. +She happens to be a great admirer of your voice.” + +The actress turned sharply to him and in the dark he could see her +little, white face. The covering over her head fell back and she +exclaimed: + +“Heavens!” and impulsively put her hands out over his. “Do you really +mean what you say?” + +“Yes.” He nodded surprisedly. “What do you look like that for?” + +Letty Lane arranged her scarf and then drew back from him and laughed. + +“Oh, dear, dear, dear,” she exclaimed, “and I ... and I have been....” + +She looked up at him swiftly as though she fancied she might detect some +new quality in him which she had not observed before, but she saw only +his clear, kind eyes, his charming smile and his beautiful, young +ignorance, and said softly to him: + +“No use to cry, little boy, if it’s true! But that woman isn’t half good +enough for you—not half, and I guess you think it funny enough to hear +_me_ say so! What does the other boy from Montana say?” + +“Don’t know,” Dan answered indifferently. “Marconied him; didn’t tell +him about it before he left. You see he doesn’t understand +England—doesn’t like it.” + +A little dazed by the way each of the two women took the mention of the +other, he asked timidly: + +“You don’t like the Duchess of Breakwater, then?” + +And she laughed again. + +“Goodness gracious, I don’t know her; actresses don’t sit around with +duchesses.” Then abruptly, her beautiful eyes, under their curled dark +lashes, full on him, she asked: + +“Do _you_ like her?” + +“You bet!” he said ardently. “Of course I do. I am crazy about her.” Yet +he realized, as he replied, that he didn’t have any inclination to begin +to talk about his fiancée. + +They had reached the Carlton and the door of Letty Lane’s motor was held +open. + +“Better get out,” he urged, “and have something to eat.” + +And she, leaning a little way toward him, laughed. + +“Crazy! Your engagement would be broken off to-morrow.” And she further +said: “If I really thought it would, why I’d come like a shot.” + +As she leaned forward, her cloak slipping from her neck, revealing her +throat above the dark collar of the simple dress she wore, he looked in +her dove-gray eyes, and murmured: + +“Oh, say, do come along and risk it. I’m game, all right.” + +She hesitated, then bade him good night languidly, slipping back into +her old attitude of indifference. + +“I am going home to rest. Good night. I don’t think the duchess would +let you go, no matter what you did!” + +Dan, standing there at her motor door, this beautiful, well-known woman +bantering him, leaning toward him, was conscious of her alone, all snowy +and small and divine in her enveloping scarf, lost in the corner of her +big car. + +“I hate to have you go back alone to the Savoy. I really do. Please let +me—” + +But she shook her head. “Tell the man the Savoy,” and as Dan, carrying +out her instructions, closed the door, he said: “I don’t like that empty +vase in there. Would you be very good and put some flowers in it if they +came?” + +She wouldn’t promise, and he went on: + +“Will you put only my flowers in that vase always hereafter?” + +Then, “Why, of course not, goose,” she said shortly. “Will you please +let me close the door and go home?” + +Dan walked into the Carlton when her bright motor had slipped away, his +evening coat long and black flying its wings behind him, his hat on the +back of his blond head, light of foot and step, a gay young figure among +the late lingering crowd. + +He went to his apartments and missed Ruggles in the lonely quiet of the +sitting-room, but as the night before Ruggles had done, Dan in his +bedroom window stood looking out at the mist and fog through which +before his eyes the things he had lately seen passed and repassed, +specter-like, winglike, across the gloom. Finally, in spite of the fact +that he was an engaged man with the responsibilities of marriage before +him, he could think of but one thing to take with him when he finally +turned to sleep. The face of the woman he was engaged to marry eluded +him, but the face under the white hood of Letty Lane was in his dreams, +and in his troubled visions he saw her shining, dovelike eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV—FROM INDIA’S CORAL STRANDS + + +Mrs. Higgins, in Miss Lane’s apartment at the Savoy, was adjusting the +photographs and arranging the flowers when she was surprised by a +caller, who came up without the formality of sending his name. + +“Do you think,” Blair asked her, “that Miss Lane would see me half a +minute? I called yesterday, and the day before, as soon as I saw that +there was a substitute singing in _Mandalay_. Tell her I’m as full of +news as a charity report, please, and I rather guess that will fetch +her.” + +Something fetched her, for in a few minutes she came languidly in, and +by the way she smiled at her visitor it might be thought Dan Blair’s +name alone had brought her in. The actress had been ill for a fortnight +with what the press notices said was influenza. She wore a teagown, long +and white as foam, her hair rolled in a soft knot, and her face was pale +as death. Frail and small as she was, she was more ethereal than when in +perfect health. + +“Don’t stand a minute.” And by the hand she gave him Dan led her over to +the lounge where the pillows were piled and a fur-lined silk cover +thrown across the sofa. + +“Don’t give me that heavy rug, there’s that little white shawl.” She +pointed to it, and Dan, as he gave it to her, recognized the shawl in +which she wrapped herself when she crossed the icy wings. + +“It’s in those infernal side scenes you get colds.” + +He sat down by her. She began to cough violently and he asked, troubled, +“Who’s taking care of you, anyway?” + +“Higgins and a couple of doctors.” + +“That’s all?” + +“Yes. Why, who should be?” + +Dan didn’t follow up his jealous suspicion, but asked in a tone almost +paternal and softly confidential: + +“How are your finances getting on?” + +Her lips curved in a friendly smile. But she made a dismissing gesture +with her frail little hand. + +“Oh, I’m all right; Higgins told me you had some news about my poor +people.” + +The fact that she did not take up the financial subject made him +unpleasantly sure that her wants had been supplied. + +“Got a whole bunch of news,” Dan replied cheerfully. “I went to see the +old man and the girl in their diggings. Gosh, you couldn’t believe such +things were true.” + +She drew her fine brows together. “I guess there are a good many things +that would surprise you. But you don’t need to tell me about hard times. +That’s the way I am. I’ll do anything, give anything, so long as I don’t +have to hear hard stories.” She turned to him confidentially. “Perhaps +it’s acting in false scenes on the stage; perhaps it’s because I’m lazy +and selfish, but I can’t bear to hear about tales of woe.” + +What she said somewhat disturbed his idea of her big-hearted charity. + +“I don’t believe you’re lazy or selfish,” he said sincerely, “but I’ve +got an idea that not many people really know you.” + +This amused her. Looking at him quizzically, she laughed. “I expect you +think you do.” + +Dan answered: “Well, I guess the people that see you when you are a kid, +who come from your own part of the country, have a sort of friendship.” +And the girl on the sofa from the depths of her shawl put out a thin +little hand to him and said in a voice as lovely in tone as when she +sang in _Mandalay_: + +“Well, I guess that’s right! I guess that’s about true.” + +After the tenth of a second, in which she thought best to take her +little cold hand away from those big warm ones, she asked: + +“Now please do tell me about the poor people.” + +In this way giving him to understand how really true his better idea of +her had been. + +“Why, the old duffer is as happy as a house afire,” said the boy. “Not +to boast, I’ve done the whole thing up as well as I knew how. I’ve got +him into that health resort you spoke of, and the girl seems to have got +a regular education vice! She wants to study something, so she’s going +to school.” + +“Go on talking,” the actress invited languidly. “I love to hear you talk +Montana! Don’t change your twang for this beastly English drawl, +whatever you do.” + +“You have, though, Miss Lane. I don’t hear a thing of Blairtown in the +way you speak.” + +And the girl said passionately: “I wish to God I spoke it right through! +I wish I had never changed my speech or anything in me that was like +home.” + +And the boy leaning forward as eagerly exclaimed: “Oh, do you mean that? +Think how crazy London is about you! Why, if you ever go back to +Montana, they will carry you from the cars in a triumphal chair through +the town.” + +She waited until she could control the emotion in her voice. + +“Go on telling me about the little girl.” + +“She was so trusting as to give the money up to me and I guess it will +draw interest for her all right.” + +“Thank you,” smiled the actress, “you are terribly sweet. The child got +Higgins to let her into my dressing-room one day after a matinée. I +haven’t time to see anybody except then.” + +Here Higgins made her appearance in the room, with an egg-nog for her +lady, which, after much coaxing, Dan succeeded in getting the actress to +drink. Higgins also had taken away the flowers, and Letty Lane said to +Dan: + +“I send them to the hospital; they make me sick.” And Dan timidly asked: + +“Mine, too?” + +This brought a flush across the ivory pallor of her cheek. “No, no, +Higgins keeps them In the next room.” And with an abrupt change of +subject she asked: “Is the Duchess of Breakwater very charitable?” And +Blair quickly replied: + +“Anyhow she wants you to sing for her at a musicale in Park Lane when +you’re fit.” + +Miss Lane gave a soft little giggle. “Is _that_ what you call being +charitable?” + +Dan blushed crimson and exclaimed: “Well, hardly!” + +“Did you come here to ask me that?” + +“I came to tell you about ‘our mutual poor.’ You’ll let me call them +that, won’t you, because I happened to be in your dressing-room when +they struck their vein?” + +Miss Lane had drawn herself up in the corner of the sofa, and sat with +her hands clasped around her knees, all swathed around and draped by the +knitted shawl, her golden head like a radiant flower, appearing from a +bank of snow. Her fragility, her sweetness, her smallness, appealed +strongly to the big young fellow, whose heart was warm toward the world, +whose ideals were high, and who had the chivalrous longing inherent in +all good men to succor, to protect, and above all to adore. No feeling +in Dan Blair had been as strong as this, to take her in his arms, to +lift her up and carry her away from London and the people who applauded +her, from the people that criticized her, and from Poniotowsky. + +He was engaged to the Duchess of Breakwater. And as far as his being +able to do anything for Letty Lane, he could only offer her this +politeness from the woman he was going to marry. + +“I never sing out of the theater.” Her profile was to him and she looked +steadily across the room. “It’s a perfect fight to get the manager to +consent.” + +Blair interrupted and said: “Oh, I’ll see him; I’ll make it all right.” + +“Please don’t,” she said briskly, “it’s purely a business affair. How +much will she pay?” + +Dan was rather shocked. “Anything you like.” + +And her bad humor faded at his tone, and she smiled at him. “Well, I’ll +tell Roach that. I guess it’ll make my singing a sure thing.” + +She changed her position and drew a long sigh as though she were very +tired, leaned her blond head with its soft disorder back on the pillow, +put both her folded hands under her cheek and turned her face toward +Dan. The most delicate coral-like color began to mount her cheeks, and +her gray eyes regained their light. + +“Will two thousand dollars be too much to ask?” she said gently. + +If she had said two million to the young fellow who had not yet begun to +spend his fortune, which as far as he was concerned was nothing but a +name, it would not have been too much to him; not too much to have given +to this small white creature with her lovely flushed face, and her +glorious hair. + +“Whatever is your price, Miss Lane, goes.” + +“I’ll sing three songs: one from _Mandalay_, an English ballad and +something or other, I don’t know what now, and I expect you don’t +realize how cheaply you are getting them.” She laughed, and began to hum +a familiar air. + +“I wish you would sing just one song for me.” + +“For another thousand?” she asked, lifting her eyebrows. “What song is +it?” + +And as Dan hesitated, as if unwilling to give form to words that were so +full of spell to him, she said deliciously: “Why, can you see a London +drawing-room listening to me sing a Presbyterian hymn tune?” Without +lifting her head from the pillow she began in a charming undertone, her +gray eyes fixed on his: + + “From Greenland’s icy mountains, + From India’s coral strands, + Where Afric’s sunny fountains + Roll down their golden sands.” + +Blair, near her, turned pale. There rose in him the same feeling that +she had stirred years ago in the little church, and at the same time +others. He had lost his father since then, and he thought of him now, +but that big, sad emotion was not the one that swayed him. + +“Please stop,” he pleaded; “don’t go on. Say, there’s something in that +hymn that hurts.” + +Letty Lane, unconscious of how subtly she was playing, laughed, and +suddenly remembered that Dan had sat before her that day by the side of +old Mr. Blair. She asked abruptly: + +“Why does the Duchess of Breakwater want me to sing?” + +“Because she’s crazy about your voice.” + +“Is she awfully rich?” + +“Um ... I don’t know.” + +Letty Lane flashed a look at him. “Oh,” she said coolly, “I guess she +won’t pay the price then.” + +Dan said: “Yes, she will; yes, she will, all right.” + +“Now,” Letty Lane went on, “if it were a charity affair, I could sing +for nothing, and I don’t doubt the duchess, if she is as benevolent as +you say she is, could get me up some kind of a charity show.” + +Dan, who had started to rise, now leaned toward her and said: “Don’t you +worry about it a bit. If you’ll come and sing we will make it right +about the price and the charity; everything shall go your way.” + +She was seized upon by a violent fit of coughing, and Dan leaned toward +her and put his arm around her as a brother might have done, holding her +tenderly until the paroxysm was past. + +“Gosh!” he exclaimed fervently, “it’s heartbreaking to hear you cough +like that and to think of your working as you do. Can’t you stop and +take a good rest? Can’t you go somewhere?” + +“To Greenland’s icy mountains?” she responded, smiling. “I hate the +cold.” + +“No, no; to some golden sands or other,” he murmured under his breath. +“And let me take you there.” + +But she pushed him back, laughing now. “No golden sands for me. I’m +afraid I’ve got to sing in _Mandalay_ to-night.” + +He looked at her in dismay. + +She interrupted his protest: “I’ve promised on my word of honor, and the +box-office has sold the seats with that understanding.” + +By her sofa, leaning over her, in a choked voice he murmured: + +“You _shan’t_ sing! You shan’t go out to-night!” + +“Don’t be a goose, boy,” she said. “You’ve no right to order me like +that. Stand back, please.” As he did so she whisked herself off the sofa +with a sudden ardor and much grace. “Now,” she told him severely, “since +you’ve begun to take that tone with me, I’m going to tell you that you +mustn’t come here day after day as you have been doing. I guess you know +it, don’t you?” + +He stood his ground, but his bright face clouded. They had been so near +each other and were now so removed. + +“I don’t care a damn what people say,” he replied. + +She interrupted him. She could be wonderfully dignified, small as she +was, wrapped as she was in the woolen shawl. “Well,” she drawled with a +sudden indolence and indifference in her voice, “I expect you’ll be +surprised to hear that _I_ do care. Sounds awfully funny, doesn’t it? +But as you have been coming to the theater now night after night till +everybody’s talking about it—” + +“You don’t want my friendship,” he stammered. + +And Letty Lane controlled her desire to laugh at his boyish subterfuge. +“No, I don’t think I do.” + +Her tone struck him deeply: hurt him terribly. He threw his head up +defiantly. + +“All right, I’m turned down then,” he said simply. “I didn’t think you’d +act like this to a boy you’d known all your life!” + +“Don’t be silly, you know as well as I do that it won’t do.” + +He did know it and that he had already done enough to make it reasonable +for the duchess, if she wanted to, to break their engagement. Slowly +preparing to take his leave, he said wistfully: “Can’t I help you in any +way? Let me do something with you for your poor. It’s a comfort to have +them between us, and you can count on me.” + +She said she knew it. “But don’t come any more to the wings; get a habit +of _not_ coming.” + +On the threshold of her door he asked her to let him know when she would +sing in Park Lane, and in touching her hand he repeated that she must +count on him. With more tenderness in his blue eyes than he was himself +aware, he murmured devotedly: + +“Take care of yourself, won’t you, please?” + +As Blair passed from the sitting-room into the hall and toward the lift, +Mrs. Higgins came out hurriedly from one of the rooms and joined him. + +“How did you find her, Mr. Blair?” + +“Awfully seedy, Mrs. Higgins; she needs a lot of care.” + +“She won’t take it though,” returned the woman. “Just seems to let +herself go, not to mind a bit, especially these last weeks. I’m glad you +came in; I’ve been hoping you would, sir.” + +“I’m not any good though, she won’t listen to a word I say.” + +It seemed to surprise the dressing woman. + +“I’m sorry to hear it, sir; I thought she would. She talks about you +often.” + +He colored like a school-boy. “Gosh, it’s a shame to have her kill +herself for nothing.” Reluctant to talk longer with Mrs. Higgins, he +added in spite of himself: “She seems so lonely.” + +“It’s two weeks now since that human devil went away,” Mrs. Higgins said +unexpectedly, looking quietly into the blue eyes of the visitor. + +“She hasn’t opened one of his letters or his telegrams. She has sold +every pin and brooch he ever gave her, scattered the money far and wide. +You saw how she went on with Cohen, and her pearls.” + +Dan heard her as through a dream. Her words gave form and existence to a +dreadful thing he had been trying to deny. + +“Is she hard up now, Mrs. Higgins?” he asked softly. And glancing at him +to see just how far she might go, the woman said: + +“An actress who spends and lives as Miss Lane does is always hard up.” + +“Could you use money without her knowing about it?” + +“Lord,” exclaimed the woman, “it wouldn’t be hard, sir! She only knows +that there is such a thing as money when the bills come and she hasn’t +got a penny. Or when the poor come! She’s got a heart of gold, sir, for +everybody that is in need.” + +He took out of his wallet a wad of notes and put them in Higgins’ hands. +“Just pay up some bills on the sly, and don’t you tell her on your life. +I don’t want her to be worried.” Explaining with sensitive +understanding: “It’s all right, Mrs. Higgins; I’m from her town, you +know.” And the woman who admired him and understood him, and whose life +had made her keen to read things as they were, said earnestly: + +“I quite understand how it is, sir. It is just as though it came +straight from ’ome. She overdraws her salary months ahead.” + +“Have you been with Miss Lane long?” + +“Ever since she toured in Europe, and nobody could serve her without +being very fond of her indeed.” + +Dan put out his big warm hand eagerly. “You’re a corker, Mrs. Higgins.” + +“I could walk around the world for her, sir.” + +“Go ahead and do it then,” he smiled, “and I’ll pay for all the boot +leather you wear out!” + +As he went down-stairs, already too late to keep an engagement made with +his fiancée, he stopped in the writing-room to scribble off a note of +excuse to the duchess. At the opposite table Dan saw Prince Poniotowsky, +writing, as well. The Hungarian did not see Blair, and when he had +finished his note he called a page boy and Dan could hear him send his +letter up to Miss Lane’s suite. The young Westerner thought with +confident exaltation, “Well, he’ll get left all right, and I’m darned if +I don’t sit here and see him turned down!” + +Dan sat on until the page returned and gave Poniotowsky a verbal +message. + +“Will you please come up-stairs, sir?” + +And Blair saw the Hungarian rise, adjust his eye-glass, and walk toward +the lift. + + + + +CHAPTER XV—GALOREY GIVES ADVICE + + +Lord Galorey had long been used to seeing things go the way they would +and should not, and his greatest effort had been attained on the day he +gave his languid body the trouble to go in and see Ruggles. + +“My God,” he muttered as he watched Dan and the duchess on the terrace +together—they were nevertheless undeniably a handsome pair—“to think +that this is the way I am returning old Blair’s hospitality!” And he was +ashamed to recall his western experiences, when in a shack in the +mountains he had watched the big stars come out in the heavens and sat +late with old Dan Blair, delighted with the simple philosophies and the +man’s high ideals. + +“What the devil does it all mean?” he wondered. “She has simply seduced +him, that’s all.” + +He got Dan finally to himself and without any preparation began, pushing +Dan back into a big leather chair, and standing up like a judge over +him: + +“Now, you really must listen to me, my dear chap. I shan’t rest in my +grave unless I get a word with you. Your father sent you here to me and +I’m damned if I know what for. I’ve been wondering every day about it +for two months. He didn’t know what this set was like or how rotten it +is.” + +“What set?” The boy looked appallingly young as Gordon stared down at +him. There wasn’t a line or wrinkle on his smooth brow or on his lips +and forehead finely cut and well molded—but there were the very seals of +what his father would have been glad to see. The boy had the same clear +look and unspoiled frankness that had charmed Galorey at the first. He +had been a lazy coward to delay so long. + +“Why, the rottenness of this set right here in my house.” And as the +host began to see that he should have to approach a woman’s name in +speaking, he stopped short, his mouth wide open, and Dan thought he had +been drinking. + +“You are talking of marrying Lily,” Gordon got out. + +“I am _going_ to marry her.” + +“You mustn’t.” + +Blair got up out of his chair. It didn’t need this attack of Galorey’s +to bring to his mind hints that had been dropped that Galorey was in +love with the Duchess of Breakwater. It illuminated what Galorey was +saying fast and incoherently. + +“I mean to say, my dear chap, that you mustn’t marry the Duchess of +Breakwater. Look at most of these European marriages. They all go to +smash. She is older than you are and she has lived her life. You are +much too young.” + +“Hold up, Galorey; you mustn’t go on, you know. You know I am engaged; +that’s all there is about it. Now, let’s go and have a game of pool.” + +Galorey had not worked himself up to this pitch to break off now at a +fatal point. + +“I’m responsible for this, and by gad, Dan, I’m going to put you on your +guard.” + +“You are responsible for nothing, Galorey, and I warn you to drop it.” + +“You would listen to your father if he were here, wouldn’t you?” + +“I don’t know,” said the boy slowly. Then followed up with an honest, +“Yes, I would.” + +Gordon caught eagerly, “Well, he sent you to me. Your friend Ruggles has +gone off and washed his hands of you, but I can’t.” + +Lord Galorey walked across the room briskly and came back to Dan. “First +of all, you are not in love with Lily—not a bit of it. You couldn’t +be—and what’s more she is not in love with you.” + +Blair laughed coolly. “You certainly have got things down to a fine +point, Gordon. I’ll be hanged if I understand your game.” + +Galorey went bravely on: “Therefore, if neither of you are in love, you +understand that there is nothing between you but your money.” + +The Englishman got his point out brutally, relieved that the impersonal +thing money opened a way for him. He didn’t want to be the bounder and +the cad that the mention of the woman would have made him. + +The boy drew in an angry breath. “Gosh,” he said, “that cursed money +will make me crazy yet! You are not very flattering to me, Gordon, I +swear, and Lily wouldn’t thank you for the motives you impute to her.” + +“Oh, rot!” returned Gordon more tranquilly. “She hasn’t got a human +sentiment in her. She’s a rock with a woman’s face.” + +Dan turned his back on his host and walked off into the billiard-room. +Galorey promptly followed him, took down a cue and chalked it, and said: + +“Well, come now; let’s put it to the test.” Blair began stacking the +balls. + +“How do you mean?” + +“Well, when you have had time to get your first news over from Ruggles, +tell her you have gone to smash and that you are a pauper.” + +“I don’t play tricks like that,” said the Westerner quietly. + +“No,” responded Galorey bitterly, “you let others play tricks on you.” + +The young man threw his cue smartly down, his youth looked +contemptuously at the worldly man, and he turned pale, but he said in a +low voice: + +“Now, you’ve got to let up on this, Gordon; I thought at first you had +been drinking. I won’t listen. Let’s get on another subject, or I’ll +clear out.” + +Galorey, however, cool and pitiful of the tangle in the boy’s affairs, +wouldn’t let himself be angry. “You are my old chum’s boy, Dan,” he went +on, “and I’m not going to stand by and see you spoil your life in +silence. You are of age. You can go to the devil if you like, but you +can’t go there under my roof, without a word from me.” + +“Then I’ll get out from under your roof, to-night.” + +“Right! I don’t blame you there, but, before you go, tell Lily you have +lost your money, and see what she is made of. My dear chap”—he changed +his tone to one of affection—“don’t be an ape; listen to me, for your +father’s sake; remember your whole life’s happiness is in this game. +Isn’t it worth looking after?” + +“Not at the risk of hurting a woman’s feelings,” said the boy. + +“How can it hurt her, my dear man, to tell her you are poor?” + +“It’s a lie. I’m not up to lying to her; I don’t care to. And you mean +to think that if I told her I was busted she would throw me over?” + +“Like a shot, my green young friend—like a shot.” + +“You haven’t a very good opinion of women,” Blair threw out with as near +a sneer as his fine young face could express. + +“No, not very,” agreed the pool player, who had continued his shots with +more or less sangfroid. When Galorey had run off his string of balls he +said, looking up from the table: “But I’ve got a very good opinion of +that ‘nice girl’ you told me of when you first came, and I wish to +Heaven she had kept you in the States.” + +This caught the boy’s attention as nothing else had. “There never was +any such girl,” he said slowly; “there never has been anywhere; I rather +guess they don’t grow. You have made me a cad in listening to you, +Gordon, but as to playing any of those comedy tricks you suggest, they +are not in my line. If she is marrying me for my money, why, she’ll get +it.” + +“You’re a coward,” said Galorey, “like the rest of American husbands—all +ideal and no common sense. You want to make a mess of your life. You +haven’t the grit to get out of a bad job.” + +He spurred himself on and his weak face grew strong as he felt he was +compelling the boy’s attention. “If you only had half the character your +father had, you wouldn’t make a mistake like this; you wouldn’t run +blind into such a deal as this.” + +Blair was impressed by his host. Galorey was so deadly in earnest and so +honest, and, as Dan’s face grew set and hardened, his companion prayed +for wisdom. “If I can only win through this without touching Lily hard,” +he thought, and as he waited, Blair said: + +“You haven’t hesitated to call me names, Gordon. You’re not my build or +my age, and I can’t thrash you.” + +And his host said cheerfully: “Oh, yes, you can; come on and try,” and, +metaphorically speaking, Dan struck his first blow: + +“They say—people have said to me—that you once cared for Lily yourself.” + +The Englishman’s heavy eyelids did not flicker. “It’s quite true.” + +Taken back by this frank response, Blair stammered: “Well, I guess that +explains everything. It’s not surprising that you should feel as you do. +If you are jealous, I can forgive it a little bit, but it is low down to +call a woman a fortune hunter.” + +Now Gordon Galorey’s face changed and grew slightly white. “Don’t make +me angry, my dear chap,” he said in a low tone; “I have said what I +wanted to say. Now, go to the devil if you like and as soon as you +like.” + +And the boy said hotly, stammering in his excitement: + +“Not yet—not yet—not before I tell you what I think.” + +Gordon, with wonderful control of his own anger, met the boy’s eyes, and +said with great patience: + +“No, don’t, Dan; don’t go on. There are many things in this affair that +we can’t touch upon. Let it drop. The right woman would make a ripping +man of you, but you oughtn’t to marry for ten years.” + +Dan took the hand which Galorey put out to him, and the Englishman said +warmly: “My dear chap, I hope it will all come out right, from my +heart.” + +Dan, who had regained his balance, said to his friend: + +“I’ve been very angry at what you said, but you’re the chap my father +sent me to. There must be something back of this, and I’m going to find +out what it is, and I’m going to take my own way to find out. I wouldn’t +give a rap for anything that came to me through a trick or a lie, and I +wouldn’t know how to go to her with a cock-and-bull story. I shall act +as I feel and go ahead being just as I am, and perhaps she won’t want me +after all, even if I have got the rocks!” + +And Galorey said heartily: “I wish there was a chance of it.” + +When, later, Gordon thought of Dan it was with a glow. “What a chip of +the old block he is,” he said; “what a good bit of character, even at +twenty-two years.” He was divided between feeling that he had made a +mess of things between Dan and himself, and feeling sure that some of +his advice had gone home. After a moment’s silence, Dan Blair’s son +said: “I’m going up to London to-morrow.” + +“For long?” + +“Don’t know.” + +Then returning with boyish simplicity to their subject, which Galorey +thought had been dropped, Dan said: + +“There may be something true in what you say, Gordon. Perhaps she does +want my money. I’m not a titled man and I’ll never be known for anything +except my income. At any rate I was rich when I asked her to marry me, +and I’m going to fix up that old place of hers, and I’m glad I’ve got +the coin to do it.” + +When, later, for they had been interrupted in their conversation by the +entrance of the lady herself, Gordon, as Ruggles had done, mentally +thought of the flowing tide of life, and how it flowed over what he +himself had called “rotten ground.” Perhaps old Blair was right, he +mused, after all. What does it matter if the source is pure at the head +water? It’s awfully hard to force it at the start, at least. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI—THE MUSICALE PROGRAM + + +The duchess ran Dan, made plans, set the pace, and they were very much +in evidence during the season. The young American, good-natured and +generous, the duchess beautiful and knowing, were the observed of +London, and those of her friends who would have tolerated Dan on account +of his money, ended by sincerely liking him. The wedding-day had not +been fixed as yet, and Dan was not so violently carried away that he +could not wait to be married. Meanwhile Gordon Galorey thanked God for +the delay and hoped for a miracle to break the spell over his friend’s +son before it should be too late. In early May the question came up +regarding the musicale. The duchess made her list and arranged the +Sunday afternoon and her performers to suit her taste, and the week +before lounged in her boudoir when Dan and Galorey appeared for a late +morning call. + +“There, Dan,” she said, holding out a bit of paper, “look at the list +and the program, will you?” + +“Sounds and reads all right,” commented Dan, handing it on to Galorey. + +Besides being an artistic event, she intended that the concert should +serve to present Dan to her special set. She now lit a cigarette and +gave one to each of her friends, lighting the Englishman’s herself. + +“The best names in London,” Lord Galorey said. “You see, Dan, we shall +trot you out in a royal way. I hope you fully appreciate how swagger +this is to be.” + +Glancing at the list Blair remarked: + +“But I don’t see Miss Lane’s name?” + +“Why should you?” the duchess answered sharply. + +“Why, we planned all along that she was to sing,” he returned. + +She gave a long puff to her cigarette. + +“We did _rather_ speak of it. But we shall do very well as we are. The +program is full up and it’s perfectly ripping as it stands.” + +“Yes, there’s only just one thing the matter with it,” the boy smiled +good-naturedly, “and it’s easy enough to run her in. I guess Miss Lane +could be run in most anywhere on any program and not clear the house.” + +Lord Galorey, who knew nothing about the subject under discussion, said +tactfully: “Why, of course, Letty Lane is perfectly charming, but you +couldn’t get her, my dear chap.” + +“I think we will let the thing stand as it is,” said the duchess, going +back to her desk and stirring her paper about. “It’s really too late +now, you know, Dan.” + +Unruffled, but with a determination which Lord Galorey and the lady were +far from guessing, Blair resumed tranquilly: + +“Oh, I guess she’ll come in all right, late as it is. We’ll send word to +her and fix it up.” + +The duchess turned to him, annoyed: “Oh, don’t be a beastly bore, +dear—you are not really serious.” + +Dan still smiled at her sweetly. “You bet your life I am, though, Lily.” + +She rang a bell at the side of her desk, and when the footman came in +gave him the sheet of paper. “See that this is taken at once to the +stationer’s.” + +“Better wait, Lily”—her fiancé extended his hand—“until the program is +filled out the way it is going to stand.” And Blair fixed his handsome +eyes on his future wife. “Why, we got this shindig up,” he noted +irreverently, “just so Miss Lane could sing at it.” + +“Nonsense,” she cried, angry and powerless, “you ridiculous creature! +Fancy me getting up a musicale for Letty Lane! Do tell Dan to stop +bothering and fussing, Gordon. He’s too ridiculous!” + +And Lord Galorey said: “What is the row anyway?” + +“Why, I want Miss Lane to sing here on Sunday,” Dan explained.... + +“And I don’t want her,” finished the Duchess of Breakwater, who was +evidently unwilling to force a scene before Lord Galorey. She handed the +list to her servant, but Dan intercepted it. + +“Don’t send out that list, Lily, as it is.” + +He gave it back to her, and his tone was so cool, his expression so +decided and quiet, that she was disarmed, and dismissed the servant, +telling him to return when she should ring again. Coloring with anger, +she tapped the envelope against her brilliantly polished nails. + +If she had been married to Blair she would have burst into a violent +rage; if he had been poorer than he was she would have put him in his +place. Lord Galorey understood the contraction of her brows and lips as +Dan reminded: “You promised me that you would have her, you know, Lily.” + +“Give in, Lily,” Galorey advised, rising from the chair where he was +lounging. “Give in gracefully.” + +And she turned on Galorey the anger which she dared not show the other +man. But Dan interrupted her, explaining simply: + +“I knew the girl when she was a kid: she is from my old home, and I want +Lily to ask her here to sing for us, and then to see if we can’t do +something to get her out of the state she is in.” + +Galorey repeated vaguely, “State?” + +“Why, she’s all run down, tired out; she’s got no real friends in +London.” + +The other man flicked the ash from his cigarette and looked at Blair’s +boy through his monocle. + +“And you thought that Lily might befriend her, old chap?” + +“Yes,” nodded Dan, “just give her a lift, you know.” + +Galorey nodded back, smiling gently. “I see, I see—a moral, spiritual +lift? I see—I see.” He glanced at the woman with his strange smile. + +She put her cigarette down and seated herself, clasping her hands around +her knees and looked at her fiancé. + +“It’s none of my business what Letty Lane’s reputation is. I don’t care, +but you must understand one thing, Dan, I’m not a reformer, or a +charitable institution, and if she comes here it is purely +professional.” + +He took the subject as settled, and asked for a copy of the program and +put it in his pocket. “I’ll get the names of her songs from her and take +the thing myself to Harrison’s. And I’d better hustle, I guess; there’s +no time to lose between now and Sunday.” And he went out triumphant. + +Galorey remained, smoking, and the duchess continued her notes in +silence, cooling down at her desk. Her companion knew her too well to +speak to her until she had herself in hand, and when finally she took up +her pen and turned about, she appeared conscious for the first of his +presence. + +“Here still!” she exclaimed. + +“I thought I might do for a safety valve, Lily. You could let some of +your anger out on me.” + +The duchess left her desk and came over to him. + +“I expect you despise me thoroughly, don’t you, Gordon?” + +They had not been alone together since her engagement to Blair, for she +had taken pains to avoid every opportunity for a tête-à-tête. + +“Despise you?” he repeated gently. “It’s awfully hard, isn’t it, for a +chap like me to despise anybody? We’re none of us used to the best +quality of behavior, you know, my dear girl.” + +“Don’t talk rot, Gordon,” she murmured. + +“You didn’t ask my advice,” he continued, “but I don’t hesitate to tell +you that I have done everything I could to save the boy.” + +She accepted this philosophically. “Oh, I knew you would; I quite +expected it, but—” and in the look she threw at him there was more +liking than resentment—“I knew you, too; you _couldn’t_ go very far, my +dear fellow.” + +“I think Dan Blair is excellent stuff,” Gordon said. + +“He is the greenest, youngest, most ridiculous infant,” she exclaimed +with irritation, and he laughed. + +“His money is old enough to walk, however, isn’t it, Lily?” She made an +angry gesture. + +“I expected you’d say something loathsome.” + +Her companion met her eyes directly. She left her chair and came and sat +down beside him on the small sofa. As he did not move, or look at her, +but regarded his cigarette with interest, she leaned close to him and +whispered: “Gordon, try to be nice and decent. Try to forget yourself. +Don’t you see what a wonderful chance it is for me, and that, as far as +you and I are concerned, it can’t go on?” + +The face of the man by her side grew somber. The charm this woman had +for him had never lessened since the day when he told her he loved her, +long before his marriage, and they were both too poor. + +“We have always been too poor, and Edith is jealous of me every day and +hour of her life. Can’t you be generous?” + +He rose and stood over her, looking down at her beautiful form and her +somewhat softened face, but his eyes were hard and his face very pale. + +“You had better go, Gordon,” she said slowly; “you had better go....” + +Then, as he obeyed her and went like a flash as far as the door, she +followed him and whispered softly: “If you’re really only jealous, I can +forgive you.” + +He managed to get out: “His father was my friend; he sent the boy to me +and I’ve been a bad guardian.” He made a gesture of despair. “Put +yourself in my place. Let Dan Blair go, Lily; let him go.” + +Her eyelids flickered a little, and she said sharply: “You’re out of +your senses, Gordon—and what if I love him?” + +With a low exclamation he caught her hand at the wrist so hard that she +cried out, and he said between his teeth: “You _don’t_ love him! Take +those words back!” + +“Of course I do. Let me free!” + +“No,” he said passionately, holding her fast. “Not until you take that +back.” + +His face, his tone, his force, dominated her; the remembrance of their +past, a possible future, made her waver under his eyes, and the woman +smiled at him as Blair had never seen her smile. + +“Very well, then, goose,” she capitulated almost tenderly; “I don’t love +that boy, of course. I’m marrying him for his money. Now, will you let +me go?” + +But he held her still more firmly and kissed her several times before he +finally set her free, and went out of the house miserable—bound to her +by the strongest chains—bound in his conscience and by honor to his +trust to Dan’s father, and yet handicapped by another sense of honor +which decrees that man must keep silence to the end. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII—LETTY LANE SINGS + + +The house of the Duchess of Breakwater in Park Lane was white, with +green blinds and green balconies; beautiful, distinguished and old, +mellow with traditions, and the tide of fashion poured its stream into +the music-room to listen to the Sunday concert. Without, the day was +bland and beautiful, mild spring in the deep sweet air, and already the +bloom lay over the park and along the turf. Piccadilly was ablaze with +flowers, and in the windows and in the flower-women’s baskets they were +so sweet as to make the heart ache and to make the senses thrill. Keen +to the spring beauty, the last guest to go into the drawing-room of the +Duchess of Breakwater was the young American man in whom the magic of +the season had stirred the blood. He seemed the youngest and the +brightest guest to cross the sill of the great house whose debts he was +going to pay, and whose future he was going to secure with American +money. + +Close after him a motor car rolled up to the curb, and under the awning +Letty Lane passed quickly, as though thistledown, blown into the +distinguished house. The actress was taken possession of by several +people and shown up-stairs. + +Dan spoke to his hostess, who wore, over her azure dress, a necklace +given her by Dan. She said he was “too late for words,” and why hadn’t +he come before. After greeting him she set him free, and he went eagerly +to find his place next an elderly woman whom he liked immensely, Lady +Caiwarn. She had given him twenty pounds for some of his poor. Lady +Caiwarn had a calm, kind face, and Dan sat down beside her, well out of +the crush, and they talked amiably throughout the violin solo. + +“Think of it,” she said, “Letty Lane of the Gaiety is going to sing. I’d +sit through a great deal for that. Let that man with the fiddle do his +worst.” + +Blair laughed appreciatively. He thought Lady Caiwarn would be a good +friend for Miss Lane, better than the duchess herself. “I wish Lily +could hear you talk about her violinist,” he said, delighted; “she +thinks he’s the whole show.” And tentatively, his ingenuous eyes fixed +on his friend, he asked: “I wonder how you would like to meet Miss Lane. +She’s perfectly ripping, and she’s from my State.” + +“_Meet her!_” Lady Caiwarn exclaimed, but before she could finish, +through the room ran the little anticipatory rustle that comes before +the great, and which, when they have gone, breaks into applause. The +great actress had appeared to give her number. Dan and Lady Caiwarn, +behind the palms in a little corner of their own, watched her. + +A clever understanding of the world into which she was to come this day, +had made the girl dress like a charm. She stood quietly by the piano, +her hands folded. Among the high ladies of the English world in their +splendid frocks, their jewels and feathers, she was a simple figure, her +dress snow white, high to her throat, unadorned by any gay color, +according to the fashion of the time. It was such a dress as Romney +might have painted, and under her arms and from across her breast there +fell a soft coral-colored silken scarf. The costume was daring in its +simplicity. She might have been Emma, Lady Hamilton, because perfectly +beautiful, perfectly talented, she could risk severe simplicity, having +in herself the fire and the art and the seduction. Her hair was a golden +crown and her eyes like stars. She was excited, and the scarlet had run +along her cheeks like wine spilled over ivory. + +She looked around the room, failed to see Blair, but saw the Duchess of +Breakwater in her velvet and her jewels. Letty Lane began to sing. Dan +and she had chosen _Mandalay_ and she began with it. Her dress only was +simple. All the complexity of her talent, whatever she knew of seduction +and charm, she put in the rendering of her song. Even the conventional +audience, most of which knew her well, were enchanted over again, and +they went wild about her. She had never been so charming. The men +clapped her until she began in self-defense another favorite of the +moment, and ended in a perfect huzzah of applause. + +She refused to sing again until, in the distance, she saw Dan standing +by the column near his seat. Then indicating to the pianist what she +wanted, she sang _The Earl of Moray_, such a rendering of the old ballad +as had not been heard in London, and coming, as it did, from the lips of +a popular singer whose character and whose verve were not supposed to be +sympathetic to a piece of music of this kind, the effect was startling. +Letty Lane’s face grew pale with the touching old tragedy, the scarlet +faded from her cheeks, her eyes grew dark and moist, she might indeed +herself have been the lady looking from the castle wall while they +carried the body of her dead lover under those beautiful eyes. + +Dan felt his heart grow cold. If she had awakened him when he was a +little boy, she thrilled him now; he could have wept. Lady Caiwarn did +wipe tears away. When the last note of the accompaniment had ended, +Dan’s friend at his side said: “How utterly ravishing! What a beautiful, +lovely creature; how charming and how frail!” + +He scarcely answered. He was making his way to Letty Lane, and he wrung +her hand, murmuring, “Oh, you’re great; you’re great!” And the pleasure +on his face repaid her over and over again. “Come, I want you to meet +the Duchess of Breakwater, and some other friends of mine.” + +As he let her little cold hand fall and turned about, the room as by +magic had cleared. The prime minister had arrived late and was in the +other room. The refreshments were also being served. There was no one to +meet Letty Lane, except for several young men who came up eagerly and +asked to be presented, Gordon Galorey among them. + +“Where’s Lily?” Dan asked him; “I want her to meet Miss Lane.” + +“In the conservatory with the prime minister,” and Galorey looked +meaningly at Dan, as much as to say, “Now don’t be an utter fool.” + +But Letty Lane herself saved the situation. She shook hands with the +utmost cordiality and sweetness with the men who had been presented to +her, and asked Dan to take her to her motor. He waited for her at the +door and she came down wrapped around as usual in her filmy scarf. + +“Are you better?” he asked eagerly. “You look awfully stunning, and I +don’t think I can ever thank you enough.” + +She assured him that she was “all right,” and that she had a “lovely new +rôle to learn and that it was coming on next month.” He helped her in +and she seemed to fill the motor like a basket of fresh white flowers. +Again he repeated, as he held the door open: + +“I can’t thank you enough: you were a great success.” + +She smiled wickedly, and couldn’t resist: + +“Especially with the women.” + +Dan’s face flushed; he was already deeply hurt for her, and her words +showed him that the insult had gone home. + +“Where are you going now?” + +“Right to the Savoy.” + +Without another word, hatless as he was, he got into the motor and +closed the door. + +“I’m going to take you home,” he informed her quietly, “and there’s no +use in looking at me like that either! When I’m set on a thing I get +it!” + +They rolled away in the bland sunset, passed the park, down Piccadilly, +where the flowers in the streets were so sweet that they made the heart +ache, and the air through the window was so sweet that it made the +senses swim! + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII—A WOMAN’S WAY + + +When the duchess thought of looking for Blair later in the afternoon he +was not to be found. Galorey told her finally he had gone off in the +motor with Letty Lane, bareheaded. The duchess was bidding good-by to +the last guest; she motioned Galorey to wait and he did so, and they +found themselves alone in the room where the flowers, still fresh, +offered their silent company; the druggets strewn with leaves of smilax, +the open piano with its scattered music, the dark rosewood that had +served for a rest for Letty Lane’s white hand. Galorey and the duchess +turned their backs on the music-room, and went into a small conservatory +looking out over the park. + +“He’s nothing but a cowboy,” the lady exclaimed. “He must be quite mad, +going off bareheaded through London with an actress.” + +“He’s spoiled,” Lord Galorey said peacefully. + +She carried a bunch of orchids Dan had given her, and regarded them +absently. “I’ve made him angry, and he’s taking this way of exhibiting +his spleen.” + +Galorey said cheerfully: “Oh, Dan’s got lots of spirit.” + +Looking up from the contemplation of her flowers to her friend, the +duchess murmured with a charming smile: “I don’t hit it off very well +with Americans, Gordon.” + +His color rising, Galorey returned: “I think you’ll have to let Dan go, +Lily!” + +For a second she thought so herself; and they both started when the +voice of the young man himself was heard in the next room. + +“Good-by, I’ll let you make your peace, Lily,” and Gordon passed Dan in +the drawing-room in leaving, and thought the boy’s face was a study. + +The duchess held out her hand to Dan as he came across the room. + +“Come here,” she called agreeably. “Every one has gone, thank heaven! +I’ve been waiting for you for an age. Let’s talk it all over.” + +“Just what I’ve come back to do.” + +There had been royalty at the musicale, and the hostess spoke of her +guests and their approval, mentioning one by one the names of the great. +It might have impressed the ear of a man more snob than was the Montana +copper king’s son. “I did so want you to meet the Bishop of London,” she +said. “But nobody could find you. You look most awfully well, Dan,” and +with the orchids she held, she touched his hand. + +He was so direct, so incapable of anything but the honest truth, that +Dan didn’t know deceit when he saw it, and his lady spoke so naturally +that he thought for a moment her rudeness had been unintentional. +Perhaps she hadn’t really meant—Everybody in her set was rude, great and +rude, but she could be deliciously gracious, and was so now. + +“Don’t you think it went off well?” + +Dan said that it had been ripping and no mistake. + +“I like Lady Caiwarn; she’s bully, and I liked the king. He spoke to me +as if he had known me for a year.” + +She began to be a little more at her ease. + +“I didn’t care much for the fiddling, but Letty Lane made up for all the +rest,” said Dan. “Wasn’t she great?” + +“Ra-ther!” The duchess’ tone was so warm that he asked frankly: “Well, +why didn’t you speak to her, Lily?” And the directness caught her +unprepared. The insult to the actress by which she had planned to teach +him a lesson failed to give her the bravado she found she needed to meet +Dan’s question. Her part of the transaction, deliberate, unkind, seemed +worse and more serious through his headlong act, when he had driven off, +braving her, in the motor of an actress. She didn’t dare to be jealous. + +“Wasn’t it too dreadful?” she murmured. “Do you think she noticed it too +awfully? I was just about to go up and speak to her when the prime +minister—” + +Dan interrupted the duchess. He blushed for her. + +“Never mind, Lily.” His tone had in it something of benevolence. “If you +really didn’t mean to be mean—” + +She was enchanted by her easy victory. “It was abominable.” + +“Yes,” he accepted, “it was just that! I was mortified. You wouldn’t +treat a beggar so. But she’s got too much sense to care.” + +Eager to do the duchess justice, even though he was little by little +being emancipated, he was all the more determined to be fair to her. + +“It was too sweet of her not to mind. I dare say her check helped to +soothe her feelings,” the woman said. + +“You don’t know her,” he replied quietly. “She wouldn’t touch a cent.” + +The duchess exclaimed in horror: “Then she _did_ mind.” + +And he returned slowly: “She’s eaten and drunk with kings, and if the +king hadn’t gone so early you can bet he would have set the fashion +differently. Let’s drop the question. She sent you back your check, and +I guess you’re quits.” + +With a sharp note in her voice she said: “I hope it won’t be in the +papers that you drove bareheaded back to the hotel with her. Don’t +forget that we are dining with the Galoreys, and it’s past seven.” + +After Dan had left her, the duchess glanced over the dismantled room +which the servants were already restoring to order. She was not at case +and not at peace, but there was something else besides her tiff with Dan +that absorbed her, and that was Galorey. She couldn’t quite shake him +off. He was beginning to be imperious in his demands on her; and, in +spite of her cupidity and her debts, in spite of the precarious position +in which she found herself with Dan, she could not break with Galorey +yet. She went up-stairs humming under her breath the ballad Letty Lane +had sung in the music-room: + + “And long will his lady look from the castle wall.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIX—DAN AWAKES + + +The next night Dan, magnetically drawn down the Strand to the Gaiety, +arrived just before the close of the last act, slipped in, and sat far +back watching Letty Lane close her part. After hearing her sing as she +had the afternoon before in the worldly group, it was curious to see her +before the public in her flashing dress and to realize how much she was +a thing of the people. To-night she was a completely personal element to +Dan. He could never think of her again as he had hitherto. The sharp +drive through the town that afternoon in her motor had made a change in +his feelings. He had been hurt for her, with anger at the Duchess of +Breakwater’s rudeness, and from the first he had always known that there +was in him a hot championship for the actress. To-night, whenever the +man who sang with her, put his arms around her, danced with her, held +her, it was an offense to Dan Blair; it had angered him before, but +to-night it did more. One by one everything faded out of his foreground +but the brilliant little figure with her golden hair, her lovely face, +her beautiful graceful body, and in her last gesture on the stage before +the curtain went down, she seemed to Blair to call him and distinctly to +make an appeal to him: + + “You might rest your weary feet + If you came to Mandalay.” + +Well, there was nothing weary about the young, live, vigorous American, +as, standing there in his dark edge of the theater, his hands in his +pockets, his bright face fixed toward the stage, he watched the slow +falling of the curtain on the musical drama. Dan realized how full of +vigor he was; he felt strong and capable, indeed a feeling of power +often came to him delightfully, but it had never been needful for him to +exert his forces, he had never had need to show his mettle. Now he felt +at those words: + + “You might rest your weary feet” + +how, with all his heart, he longed that the dancer should rest those +lovely tired little feet of hers, far away from any call of the public, +far away on some lovely shore which the hymn tune called the coral +strand. As he gazed at her mobile, sensitive face, whose eyes had seen +the world, and whose lips—Dan’s thoughts changed here with a great pang, +and the close of all his meditations was: “Gosh, she ought to rest!” + +The boy walked briskly back of the scenes toward the little door, behind +which, as he tapped, he hoped with all his heart to hear her voice bid +him come in. But there were other voices in the room. He rattled the +door-knob and Letty Lane herself called to him without opening the door: + +“Will you go, please, Mr. Blair? I can’t see any one to-night.” + +He had nothing to do but to go—to grind his heel as he turned—to swear +deeply against Poniotowsky. His late ecstasy was turned to gall. The +theater seemed horrible to him: the chattering of the chorus girls, +their giggles, their laughter as he passed the little groups, all seemed +weird and infernal, and everything became an object of irritation. + +As he went blindly out of the theater he struck his arm against a piece +of stage fittings and the blow was sharp and stinging, but he was glad +of the hurt. + +Without, in the street, Dan took his place with the other men and +waited, a bitter taste in his mouth and anger in his breast, waited +until Letty Lane fluttered down, followed by Poniotowsky, and the two +drove away. + +The young man could have gone after, running behind the motor, but there +was a taxicab at hand; he jumped in it, ordering the man to follow the +car to the Savoy. There the boy had the pleasure of seeing Miss Lane +enter the hotel, Poniotowsky with her—had the anguish of seeing them +both go up in the lift to her apartments. + +When Dan came to himself he heard the chimes of St. Martin’s ring out +eleven. He then remembered for the first time that he had promised to +dine alone at home with the Duchess of Breakwater. + +“Gosh, Lily will be wild!” + +In spite of the lateness of the hour he hurried to Park Lane. The +familiar face of the manservant who let him in blurred before the young +man’s eyes. Her grace was out at the theater? Blair would wait then, and +he went into the small drawing-room, quiet, empty, reposeful, with a +fire across the andirons, for the evening was damp and cool. Still dazed +by his jealous, passionate emotions, he glanced about the room, chose a +long leather sofa, and stretching out his length, fell asleep. There in +the shadow he slept profoundly, waking suddenly to find that he was not +alone. Across the room the Duchess of Breakwater stood by the table; she +was in evening dress, her cloak and gloves on the chair at her side. She +laughed softly and the man to whom she laughed, on whom she smiled, was +Lord Galorey. + +Blair raised himself up on the sofa without making any noise, and he saw +Galorey take the woman in his arms. The sight didn’t make the fiancée +angry. He realized instantly that he _wanted to believe that it was +true_, and as there was nothing theatrical in the young Westerner, he +sprang up, slang so much a part of his nature that the first words that +came to his lips was a phrase in vogue. + +“Look who’s here!” he cried, and came blithely forward, his head clear, +his lips smiling. + +The duchess gave a little scream and Dan lounged up to the two people +and held his hand frankly out to the lady. + +“That’s all right, Lily! Go right on, Gordon, please. Only I had to let +you know when I waked up! Only fair. I guess I must have been asleep +quite a while.” + +The Duchess of Breakwater shrugged. “I don’t know what you dreamed,” she +said acidly, “if you were asleep.” + +“Well, it was a very pretty dream,” the boy returned, “and showed what a +stupid ass I’ve been to think I couldn’t have dreamed it when I was +awake.” + +“I think you are crazy,” the duchess exclaimed. + +But Blair repeated: “That’s all right. I mean to say as far as I am +concerned—” + +And Galorey, in order to stand by his lady, murmured: + +“My dear chap, you _have_ been dreaming.” + +But Blair met the Englishman’s gray eyes with his blue ones. “I did have +a bottle of champagne, Gordon, that’s a fact, but it couldn’t make me +see what I did see.” + +“Dan,” the Duchess of Breakwater broke in, “let Gordon take you home, +like a dear. You’re really ragging on in a ridiculous way.” + +Blair looked at her steadily, and as he did so he repeated: + +“That’s all right, Lily. Gordon cares a lot, and the truth of the matter +is that I _do not_.” + +She grew very pale. + +“I would have stuck to my word, of course,” he went on, “but we’d have +been infernally unhappy and ended up in the divorce courts. Now, this +little scene here of yours lets me out, and I don’t lay it up against +either of you.” + +“Gordon!” she appealed to her lover, “why, in Heaven’s name, don’t you +speak!” + +The Englishman realized that while he was glad at heart, he regretted +that he had been the means of her losing the chance of her life. + +“What do you want me to say, Lily?” he exclaimed with a desperate +gesture. “I can’t tell him I don’t love you. I have loved you, God help +me, for ten years.” + +She could have killed him for it. + +“I can tell you, Dan, if you want me to,” Galorey went on, “that I don’t +believe she cares a penny for any one on the face of the earth, for you +or me.” + +Old Dan Blair’s son showed his business training. His one idea was to +“get out,” and as he didn’t care who the Duchess of Breakwater loved or +didn’t love, he wanted to break away as fast as he could. He sat down at +the table under the light of the lamp and drew out his wallet with its +compact, thick little check book, the millionaire’s pass to most of the +things that he wants. + +“You’ve taught me a lot,” he said to the Duchess of Breakwater, “and my +father sent me over here for that. I have been awfully fond of you, too. +I thought I was fonder than I am, I guess. At any rate I want to stand +by one of my promises. That old place of yours—Stainer Court—now that’s +got to be fixed up.” + +He made a few computations on paper, lifted the pad to her with the +figures on it, round, generous and full. + +“At home,” he said, “in Blairtown, we have what we call ‘engagement’ +parties, when each fellow brings a present to the girl, but this is what +we might call a ‘broken engagement party.’ Now, I can’t,” the boy went +on, “give this money to you very well; it won’t look right. We will have +to fix that up some way or other. You will have to say you got an +unexpected inheritance from some uncle in Australia.” He smiled at +Galorey: “We will fix it up together.” + +His candor, his simplicity, were so charming, he stood before the two so +young, so clear, so clean, that a sudden tenderness for him, and a sense +of what she had lost, what she never had had, made her exclaim: + +“Dan, I really don’t care a pin for the money—I don’t”—but the hand she +held out was seized by the other man and held fast. Galorey said: + +“Very well, let it go at that. You don’t care for the money, but you +will take it just the same. Now, don’t, for God’s sake, tell him that +you care for him.” + +He made her meet his eyes this time: stronger than she, Galorey forced +her to be sincere. She set Dan free and he turned and left them standing +there facing each other. He softly crossed the room, and looking back, +he saw them, tall, distinguished, both of them under the +lamplight—enemies, and yet the closest friends bound by the strongest +tie in the world. + +As Dan went out through the curtains of the room and they fell behind +him, the Duchess of Breakwater sank down in the chair by the side of the +table; she buried her face. Gordon Galorey bent over her and again took +her in his arms, and she suffered it. + + + + +CHAPTER XX—A HAND CLASP + + +It was one o’clock. Blair called a hansom and told the driver to take +him to the Carlton, and leaning back in the vehicle he breathed a long +sigh. He looked like his father, but he didn’t know it. He felt old. He +was a man and a tired one and a free one, and the sense of this liberty +began to refresh him like a breeze over parched sand. He thought over +what he had left for a second, stopped longest in pitying Galorey, then +went into the Carlton restaurant to order some supper, for he began to +feel the need of food. He had not time to drink his wine and partake of +the cold pheasant before he saw that opposite him the two people who had +taken their table were Letty Lane and Poniotowsky. The woman’s slender +back was turned to Blair, and his heart gave a leap of pain at the sight +of the man with her, and the cruel suffering began again. + +Dan gave up the idea of eating: drank a whole bottle of champagne, then +pushed it away from him violently. “Hold up,” he told himself, “you’re +getting dangerous; this drinking won’t do.” So he sat drumming on the +table looking into the air. When those two got up to go, however, he +would go with them; that was sure. He could never see them go out +together again; no—no—no! As his brain grew a bit clearer he saw that +they were having a heated discussion between them, and as the room +emptied finally, save for themselves, Dan, though he could not hear what +Poniotowsky said, understood that he was urging something which the girl +did not wish to grant. When they left he rose as well, and at the door +of the restaurant the actress and her companion paused, and Dan saw her +face, deadly pale. There were tears in her eyes. + +“For God’s sake!” he heard her murmur, and she impatiently drew her +cloak around her shoulders. Poniotowsky put out his hand to help her, +but she drew back from him, exclaiming violently: “Oh, no—no!” Before he +was aware what he was doing, Dan was holding his hand out to Miss Lane. + +How she turned to him! God of dreams! How she took in one cold hand his +hand; just the grasp a man needs to lead him to offer the service of his +life. Her hand was icy—it thrilled him to his marrow. + +“Oh—you—” she breathed. “Hello!” + +No words could have been more commonplace, less in the category of +dramatic or poetic welcome, but they were music to the boy, and when the +actress looked at him with a ghost of a smile on her trembling lips, Dan +was sure there was some kind of blessing in the greeting. + +“I am going to see you home,” he said with determination, and she caught +at it: + +“Yes, yes, do! Will you?” + +The third member of the party had not spoken. A servant fetched him a +light to which he bent, touching his cigar. Then he lifted his head—a +handsome one—with its cold and indifferent eyes, to Letty Lane. + +“Good night, Miss Lane.” A deep color crept under his dark skin. + +“Come,” said the actress eagerly, “come along; my motor is out there and +I am crazy tired. That is all there is about it. Come along.” + +Snatched from a marriage contract, still bitter from his jealous anger, +this—to be alone with her—by the side of this white, fragrant, wonderful +creature—to have been turned to by her, to be alone with her, the +Duchess of Breakwater out of his horizon, Poniotowsky gone—Oh, it was +sweet to him! They had rolled out from the Carlton down toward the +Square and he put his arm around her waist, his voice shook: + +“You are dead tired! And when I saw that brute with you to-night I could +have shot him.” + +“Take your arm away, please.” + +“Why?” + +“Take it away. I don’t like it. Let my hand go. What’s the matter with +you? I thought I could trust you.” + +He said humbly: “You can—certainly you can.” + +“I am tired—tired—tired!” + +Under his breath he said: “Put your head on my shoulder, Letty, +darling.” + +And she turned on him nearly as violently as she had on Poniotowsky, and +burst into tears, crouching almost in the corner of the motor, away from +him, both her hands upon her breast. + +“Oh, can’t you see how you bother me? Can’t you see I want to rest and +be all alone? You are like them all—like them all. Can’t I rest +anywhere?” + +The very words she used were those he had thought of when he saw her +dance at the theater, and his heart broke within him. + +“You can,” he stammered, “rest right here. God knows I want you to rest +more than anything. I won’t touch you or breathe again or do anything +you don’t want me to.” + +She covered her face with her hands and sat so without speaking to him. +The light in her motor shone over her like a kindly star, as, wrapped in +her filmy things she lay, a white rose blown into a sheltered nook. +After a little she wiped her eyes and said more naturally: + +“You look perfectly dreadfully, boy! What have you been doing with +yourself?” + +They had reached the Savoy. It seemed to Dan they were always just +driving up to where some one opened a door, out of which she was to fly +away from him. He got out before her and helped her from the car. + +“Well, I’ve got a piece of news to tell you. I have broken my engagement +with the duchess.” + +This brought her back far enough into life to make her exclaim: “Oh, I +_am_ glad! That’s perfectly fine! I don’t know when I’ve heard anything +that pleased me so much. Come and see me to-morrow and tell me all about +it.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI—RUGGLES RETURNS + + +Dan did not fall asleep until morning, and then he dreamed of Blairtown +and the church and a summer evening and something like the drone of the +flies on the window-pane soothed him, and came into his waking thoughts, +for at noon he was violently shaken by the shoulder and a man’s voice +called him as he opened his eyes and looked into Ruggles’ face. + +“Gee Whittaker!” Ruggles exclaimed. “You _are_ one of the seven +sleepers! I’ve been here something like seventeen minutes, whistling and +making all kinds of barnyard noises.” + +As Dan welcomed him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Ruggles told him +that he had come over “the pond” just for the wedding. + +“There isn’t going to be any wedding, Josh! Got out of all that last +night.” + +Ruggles had the breakfast card in his hand, which the waiter had brought +in, and Dan, taking it from his friend, ordered a big breakfast. + +“I’m as hungry as the dickens, Rug, and I guess you are, too.” + +“What was the matter with the duchess?” Ruggles asked. “Were you too +young for her, or not rich enough?” + +Significantly the boy answered: “One too many, Josh,” and Ruggles winced +at the response. + +“Here are the fellows with my trunks and things,” he announced as the +porters came in with his luggage. “Just drop them there, boys; they’re +going to fix some kind of a room later.” + +Blair’s long silk-lined coat lay on a chair where he had flung it, his +hat beside it, and Ruggles went over to the corner and lifted up a +fragrant glove. It was one of Letty Lane’s gloves which Dan had found in +the motor and taken possession of. The young man had gone to his +dressing-room and begun running his bath, and Ruggles, laying the glove +on the table, said to himself: + +“I knew he would get rid of the duchess, all right.” + +But when Dan came back into the room later in his dressing-gown for +breakfast, Ruggles said: + +“You’ll have to send her back her glove, Dannie.” + +At the sight of it beside the breakfast tray, Dan blushed scarlet. He +picked up the fragrant object. + +“That’s all right; I’ll take care of it.” + +“Is _Mandalay_ running the same as ever?” Ruggles asked over his bacon +and eggs. + +“Same as ever.” + +Ruggles saw he had not returned in vain, and that he was destined to +take up his part of the business just as he had laid it out for himself +to Lord Galorey. “It’s up to me now: I’ll have to take care of the +actress, and I’m darned if I haven’t got a job. If Dan colors up like +that at the sight of her glove, I wonder what he does when he holds her +hand!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXII—WHAT WILL YOU TAKE? + + +When Dan, on the minute of two, went to the Savoy, Higgins, as was her +custom, did not meet him. Miss Lane met him herself. She was reading a +letter by the table, and when Dan was announced she put it back in its +envelope. Blair had seen her only in soft clinging evening dresses, in +white visionary clothes, or in her dazzling part costume, where the play +dress of the dancer displayed her beauty and her charms. To-day she wore +a tailor-made gown, and in her dark cloth dress, in her small hat, she +seemed a new woman—some one he hadn’t known and did not know, and he +experienced the thrill a man always feels when the woman he loves +appears in an unaccustomed dress and suggests a new mystery. + +“Oh, I say! You’re not going out, are you?” + +In the lapel of her close little coat was a flower he had given her. He +wanted to lean forward and kiss it as it rested there. She assured him: + +“I have just come in; had an early lunch and took a long walk—think of +it! I haven’t taken a walk alone since I can remember!” + +Her walk had given her only the ghost of a flush, which rose over her +delicate skin, fading away like a furling flag. Her frailness, her +slenderness, the air of good-breeding her dress gave her, added to Dan’s +deepening emotions. She seemed infinitely dear, and a thing to be +protected and fostered. + +“Can’t you sit down for a minute? I’ve come to make you a real call.” + +“Of course,” she laughed. “But, first, I must answer this letter.” + +His jealousy rose and he caught hold of her hand that held the envelope. +“Look here, you are not to write it if it is to that damned scoundrel. I +took you away from him last night and you are never to see him again.” + +For the first time the two really looked at each other. Her lips parted +as though she would reprove him, and the boy murmured: + +“That’s all right. I mean what I say—never to see him again! Will you +promise me? Promise me—I can’t bear it! I won’t have it!” + +A film of emotion crossed his clear young eyes and her slender hands +were held fast in his clasp. His face was beautiful in its tenderness +and in a righteous anger as he bent it on her. Instead of reproving him +as she had done before, instead of snatching away her hands, she swayed, +and at the sight of her weakness his eyes cleared, and the film lifted +like a curtain. She was not fainting, but, as her face turned toward +his, he saw it transformed, and Dan caught her in her dark dress, the +flowers in her bodice, to his heart. He held her as if he had snatched +her from a wreck and in a safe embrace lifted her high to the shore of a +coral strand. He kissed her, first timidly, wonderingly, with the +sacrament of first love on his lips. Then he kissed her as his heart +bade him, and when he set her free she was crying, but the tears on his +face were not all her tears. + +“Little boy, how crazy, how perfectly crazy! Oh, Dan—Dan!” + +She clung to him, looking up at him just as his boy-dreams had told him +a girl _would_ look some day. Her face was suffused and softened, her +lips—her coral-red, fine, lovely lips were trembling, and her eyes were +as gray, as profound as those seas his imagination had longed to +explore. Made poet for the first time in his life, as his arms were +around her, he whispered: “You are all my dreams come true. If any man +comes near you I’ll kill him just as sure as fate. I’ll kill him!” + +“Hush, hush! I told you you were crazy. We’re both perfectly mad. I have +tried my best not to come to this with you. What would your father say? +Let me go, let me go; I’ll call Higgins.” + +The boy laughed aloud, the laugh of happy youth. He held her so close +that she might as well have tried to loose herself from an iron image of +the Spanish Inquisition as from his young arms. This slender, delicious, +willowy thing he held was Letty Lane, the adored star London went mad +over: the triumph of it! It flashed through him as his pulses beat and +his heart was high with the conquest, but it was to the woman only that +he whispered: + +“I’ve said a lot of stuff and I am likely to say a lot more, but I want +you to say something to me. _Don’t you love me?_” + +The word on his lips to him was as strange, as wonderful, as though it +had been made for him. + +“I guess I must love you, Dan. I guess I must have for a long time.” + +“God, I’m so glad! How long?” + +“Why, ever since you used to come to the soda-fountain and ask for +chocolate. You don’t know how sweet you were when you were a little +boy.” + +She put her slender hand against his hot cheek. “And you are nothing but +a little boy now! I think I must be crazy!” + +As he protested, as she listened intently to what his emotion taught him +to say to her, she whispered close to his ear: + +“What will _you_ take, little boy?” + +And he answered: “I’ll take you—you!” + +At a slight sound in the next room Letty Lane started as though the +interruption really brought her to her senses, put her hand to her +disheveled hair, and before she could prevent it, Dan had called Mrs +Higgins to “come in,” and the woman, in response, came into the +sitting-room. The boy went up to her and took her hands eagerly, and +said: + +“It’s all right, all right, Mrs. Higgins. Just think of it! She belongs +to me!” + +“Oh, don’t be a perfect lunatic, Dan,” the actress exclaimed, half +laughing, half crying, “and don’t listen to him, Higgins. He’s just +crazy.” + +But the old woman’s eyes went bright at the boy’s face and tone. “I +never was so glad of anything in my life.” + +“As of what?” asked her mistress sharply, and the tone was so cold and +so suddenly altered that Dan felt a chill of despair. + +“Why, at what Mr. Blair says, Miss.” + +“Then,” said her mistress, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself. He’s +only twenty-two, he doesn’t know anything about life. You must be crazy. +He’s as mad as a March hare and he ought to be in school.” + +Then, to their consternation, she burst into a passion of weeping; threw +herself on Higgins’ breast and begged her to send Dan away—to send +everybody away—and to let her die in peace. + +In utter despair the boy obeyed the dresser’s motion to go, and his +transport was changed into anxiety and dread. He hung about down-stairs +in the Savoy for the rest of the afternoon, finally sending up to +Higgins for news in sheer desperation, and the page fetched Blair a note +in Letty Lane’s own hand. His eyes blurred so as he opened the sheet, he +could hardly read the scrawl which said: + + “It was perfectly sweet of you to wait down there. I’m all + right—just tired out! Better get on a boat and go to Greenland’s Icy + Mountains and cool off. But if you don’t, come in to-morrow and have + lunch with me. + + Letty.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII—IN THE SUNSET GLOW + + +He lived through a week of bliss and of torture. One minute she promised +to marry him, give up the stage, go around the world on a yacht, whose +luxuries, Dan planned, should rival any boat ever built, or they would +motor across Asia and see, one by one, the various coral strands and the +golden sands of the East. He could not find terms to express how he +would spend upon her this fortune of his, which, for the first time, +began to have value in his eyes. Money had been lavished on her, still +she seemed dazzled. Then she would push it all away from her in +disgust—tell him she was sick of everything—that she didn’t want any new +jewels or any new clothes, and that she never wanted to see the stage +again or any place again; that there was nowhere she wanted to go, +nothing she wanted to see—that he must get some fresh girl to whom he +could show life, not one whom he must try to make forget it. Then, +again, she would say that she loved the stage and her art—wouldn’t give +it up for any one in the world—that it was fatal to marry an +actress—that it was mad for him to think of marrying her, anyway—that +she didn’t want to marry any one and be tied down—that she wanted to be +her own mistress and free. + +He found her a creature of a thousand whims and caprices, quick to cry, +quick to laugh, divine in everything she did. He never knew what she +would want him to do next, or how her mood would change, and after one +of their happiest hours, when she had been like a girl with him, she +would burst into tears, beg him to leave the room, telling him that she +was tired—tired—tired, and wanted to go to sleep and never to wake up +again. Between them was the figure of Poniotowsky, though neither spoke +of him. She appeared to have forgotten him. Dan would rather have cut +out his tongue than to speak his name, and yet he was there in the mind +of each. During the fortnight Dan spent thousands of pounds on her, +bought her jewels which she alternately raved over or but half looked +at. He had made his arrangements with Galorey peacefully, coolly and +between the two men it had been understood that the world should think +the engagement broken by the duchess, and Dan’s attention to Letty Lane, +already the subject of much comment, already conspicuous, was enough to +justify any woman in taking offense. + +One day, the pearl of warm May days, when England even in springtime +touches summer, Blair was so happy as to persuade his sweetheart to go +with him for a little row on the river. The young fellow waited for her +in the boat he had secured, and she, motoring out with Higgins, had +appeared, running down to the edge of the water like a girl, gay as a +child let out from school, in a simple frock, in a marvelously fetching +hat, white gloves, white parasol, white shoes, and as Dan helped her +into the boat, pushed it out, pushed away with her on the crest of the +sun-flecked waters, spring was in his heart, and he found the moment +almost too great to bear. + +The actress had been a girl with him all day, giving herself to his +moods, doing what he liked without demur, talking of their mutual past, +telling him one amusing story after another, proving herself an ideal +companion, fresh, varied, reposeful; and no one to have seen Letty Lane +with the boy on that afternoon would have dreamed that she ever had +known another love. They had moored their boat down near Maidenhead, and +he had helped her up the bank to the little inn, where tea had been made +for them, and served to him by her own beautiful white hands. He had +called for strawberries, and, like a shepherd in a pastoral, had fed +them to her, and as they lingered the sunset came creeping steadily in +through the windows where they sat. + +As they neither called for their account nor to have the tea things +taken away, after a while the woman stealthily opened the door and, +unknown, looked at one of the prettiest pictures ever within her walls. +Letty Lane sat on the window-seat, her golden head, her white form +against the glow, and the boy by her side had his arms around her, and +her head was on his breast. They were both young. They might have been +white birds blown in there, nesting in the humble inn, and the woman of +the house, who had not heard the waters of the Thames flow softly for +nothing, judged them gently and sighed with pleasure as she shut the +door. + +Here at Maidenhead Dan had left his boat and the motor took them back. +Nothing spoiled his bliss that day, and he said her name a thousand +times that night in his dreams. Jealousies—and, when he would let +himself think, they were not one, they were many—faded away. The duties +that a life with her would involve did not disturb him. For many a long +year, come what might, be what would, he would recall the glowing of +that sunset reflected under the inn windows, the singing of the thrushes +and the flash of the white dress and the fine little white shoes which +he had held in the palm of his ardent hand, which he had kissed, as he +told her with all his heart that she should rest her tired feet for +ever. + +There grew in him that day a reverence for her, determined as he was to +bring into her life by his wealth and devotion everything of good. His +loving plans for her forming in his brain somewhat chaotic and very much +fevered, brought him nearer than he had ever been before to the picture +of his mother. His father it wasn’t easy for Dan to think of in +connection with the actress. He didn’t dare to dwell on the subject, but +he had never known his mother, and that pale ideal he could create as he +would. In thinking of her he saw only tenderness for Letty Lane—only +love; and in his room the night after the row on the river, the night +after the long idyl in the sunset-room of the inn, something like a +prayer came to his young lips, and, when its short form was finished, a +smile brought it to an end as he remembered the line in Letty Lane’s own +opera: + + “She will teach you how to pray in an Eastern form of prayer.” + +The ring he had given the Duchess of Breakwater had been her own choice, +a ruby. He had asked her, through Galorey, to keep it and to wear it +later, when she could think of him kindly, in an ornament of some kind +or another. The duchess had not refused. The ring he bought for Letty +Lane, although there was no engagement announced between them, was the +largest, purest diamond he could _with decency_ ask her to put on her +hand! It sparkled like a great drop of clear water from some fountain on +a magic continent. In another shop strands of pink coral set through +with diamonds caught his fancy and he bought her yards of them, ropes of +them, smiling to think how his boyhood’s dreams were come true. + +He never saw Ruggles except at meals, hardly spoke to the poor man at +all, and the boy’s absorbed face, his state of mind, made the older man +feel like death. He repeated to himself that he was too late—too late, +and usually wound up his reflections by ejaculating: + +“Gosh almighty, I’m glad I haven’t got a son!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV—RUGGLES’ OFFER + + +He felt as he waited for her in that flower-filled room, for she had +recovered from her distaste for flowers, as he glanced at the +photographs of women like herself in costumes more or less frank, more +or less vulgar, he felt as though he wanted to knock down the walls and +let in a big view of the West—of Montana—of the hills. With such a +setting he thought he could better talk with the lady whom he had come +to see. + +Ruggles held an unlighted cigar between his fingers and goose-flesh rose +all over him. His glasses bothered him. He couldn’t get them bright +enough, though he polished them half a dozen times on his silk +handkerchief. His clothes felt too large. He seemed to have shrunken. He +moistened his lips, cleared his throat, tried to remember what kind of +fellow he had been at Dan’s age. At Dan’s age he was selling a suspender +patent on the road, supporting his mother and his sisters—hard work and +few temptations; he was too tired and too poor. + +Miss Lane kept him waiting ten minutes, and they were hours to her +guest. He was afraid every minute that Dan would come in. The thoughts +he had gathered together, the plan of action, disarranged itself in his +mind every time he thought of the actress. He couldn’t forget his vision +of her on the stage or at the Carlton, where she had sat opposite them +and bewitched them both. When she came into the sitting-room at length, +he started so violently that he knocked over a vase of flowers, the +water trickling all over the table down on to the floor. + +She had dazzled him before the footlights, charmed him at dinner, and it +was singular to think that he knew how this dignified, quiet creature +looked in ballet clothes and in a dinner dress, whose frankness had made +him catch his breath. It was a third woman who stood before Ruggles now. +He had to take her into consideration. She had expected him, saw him by +appointment. She was a woman of mind and intelligence. She had not +climbed to her starry position without having acquired a knowledge of +men, and it was the secret of her success. She showed it in the dress in +which she received her visitor. She wore a short walking skirt of heavy +serge, a simple shirtwaist belted around, a sailor hat on her beautiful +little head. She was unjeweled and unpainted, very pale and very sweet. +If it had not been for the marks of fatigue under her eyes, she would +not have looked more than eighteen. On her left hand a single diamond, +clear as water, caught the refracted light. + +“How-de-do? Glad you are back again.” + +She gave him a big chair and sat down before him smiling. Leaning her +elbows on her knees, she sank her face upon her hands and looked at him, +not coquettishly in the least, but as a child might have looked. From +her small feet to her golden head she was utterly charming. + +[Image] + +Ruggles made himself think of Dan. Miss Lane spoke slowly, nodding +toward him, in her languid voice: “It’s no use, Mr. Ruggles, no use.” + +Holding her face between her hands, her eyes gray as winter’s seas and +as profound, she looked at him intently; then, in a flash, she changed +her position and instantly transformed her character. He saw that she +was a woman, not an eighteen-year-old girl, but a woman, clever, poised, +witty, understanding, and that she might have been twenty years older +than the boy. + +“I’m sorry you spoke so quick,” he said. + +“I knew,” she interrupted, “just what you wanted to say from the start. +I couldn’t help it, could I? I knew you would want to come and see me +about it. It isn’t any use. I know just what you are going to say.” + +“No, ma’am,” he returned, “I don’t believe you do—bright as you are.” + +Ruggles gazed thoughtfully at the cold end of his unlighted cigar. It +was a comfort to him to hold it and to look at it, although not for +anything in the world would he have asked to light it. + +“Dan’s father and me were chums. We went through pretty much together, +and I know how he felt on most points. He was a man of few words, but I +know he counted on me to stand By the boy.” + +Ruggles was so chivalrous that his rôle at present cost him keen +discomfort. + +“A lady like you,” he said gently, “knows a great deal more about how +things are done than either Dan or me. We ain’t tenderfeet in the West, +not by a long shot, but we see so few of a certain kind of picture shows +that when they do come round they’re likely to make us lose our minds! +You know, yourself, a circus in a town fifty miles from a railroad +drives the people crazy. Now, Dan’s a little like the boy with his eyes +on the hole in the tent. He would commit murder to get inside and see +that show.” He nodded and smiled to her as though he expected her to +follow his crude simile. “Now, I have seen _you_ a lot of times.” And +she couldn’t help reminding him, “Not of your own accord, Mr. Ruggles.” + +“Well, I don’t know,” he slowly admitted; “I always felt I had my +money’s worth, and the night you ate with us at the Carlton I understood +pretty well how the boy with his eyes at the tent hole would feel.” But +he tapped his broad chest with the hand that held the cigar between the +first and second fingers. “I know just what kind of a heart you’ve got, +for I waited at the stage door and I know you don’t get all your +applause inside the Gaiety Theater.” + +“Goodness,” she murmured, “they make an awful fuss about nothing.” + +“Now,” he continued, leaning forward a trifle toward her languid, half +interested figure, “I just want you to think of him as a little boy. +He’s only twenty-two. He knows nothing of the world. The money you give +to the poor doesn’t come so hard perhaps as this will. It’s a big +sacrifice, but I want you to let the boy go.” + +She smiled slightly, found her handkerchief, which was tucked up the +cuff of her blouse, pressed the little bit of linen to her lips as +though to steady them, then she asked abruptly: + +“What has he said to you?” + +“Lord!” Ruggles groaned. “_Said_ to me! My dear young lady, he is much +too rude to speak. Dan sort of breathes and snorts around like a +lunatic. He was dangling around that duchess when I was here before, but +she didn’t scare me any.” + +And Letty Lane, now smiling at him, relieved by his break from a more +intense tone, asked: + +“Now, you are scared?” + +“Well,” Ruggles drawled, “I was pretty sure that woman didn’t _care_ +anything for the boy. Are you her kind?” + +It was the best stroke he had made. She almost sprang up from her chair. + +“Heavens,” she exclaimed, “I guess I’m not!” Her face flushed. + +“I had rather see a son of mine dead than married to a woman like that,” +he said. + +“Why, Mr. Ruggles,” she exclaimed passionately, addressing him with +interest for the first time, “what do you know about me? What? What? You +have seen me dance and heard me sing.” + +And he interrupted her. + +“Ten times, and you are a bully dancer and a bully singer, but you do +other things than dance and sing. There is not a man living that would +want to have his mother dress that way.” + +She controlled a smile. “Never mind that. People’s opinions are very +different about that sort of thing. You have seen me at dinner with your +boy, as you call him, and you can’t say that I did anything but ask him +to help the poor. I haven’t led Dan on. I have tried to show him just +what you are making me go through now.” + +If she acted well and danced well, it was hard for her to talk. She was +evidently under strong emotion and it needed her control not to burst +into tears and lose her chance. + +“Of course, I know the things you have heard. Of course, I know what is +said about me”—and she stopped. + +Ruggles didn’t press her any further; he didn’t ask her if the things +were true. Looking at her as he did, watching her as he did, there was +in him a feeling so new, so troubling that he found himself more anxious +to protect her than to bring her to justice. + +“There are worse, far worse women than I am, Mr. Ruggles. I will never +do Dan any harm.” + +Here her visitor leaned forward and put one of his big hands lightly +over one of hers, patted it a moment, and said: + +“I want you to do a great deal better than that.” + +She had picked up a photograph off the table, a pretty picture of +herself in _Mandalay_, and turned it nervously between her fingers as +she said with irritation: + +“I haven’t been in the theatrical world not to guess at this ‘Worried +Father’ act, Mr. Ruggles. I told you I knew just what you were going to +say.” + +“Wrong!” he repeated. “The business is old enough perhaps, lots of good +jobs are old, but _this_ is a little different.” + +He took the turning picture and laid it on the table, and quietly +possessed himself of the small cold hands. Blair’s solitaire shone up to +him. Ruggles looked into Letty Lane’s eyes. “He is only twenty-two; it +ain’t fair, it ain’t fair. He could count the times he has been on a +lark, I guess. He hasn’t even been to an eastern college. He is no fool, +but he’s darned simple.” + +She smiled faintly. The man’s face, near her own, was very simple +indeed. + +“You have seen so much,” he urged, “so many fellows. You have been such +a queen, I dare say you could get any man you wanted.” He repeated. +“Most any one.” + +“I have never seen any one like Dan.” + +“Just so: He ain’t your kind. That is what I am trying to tell you.” + +She withdrew her hand from his violently. + +“There you are wrong. He _is_ my kind. He is what I like, and he is what +I want to be like.” + +A wave of red dyed her face, and, in a tone more passionate than she had +ever used to her lover, she said to Ruggles: + +“I love him—I love him!” Her words sent something like a sword through +the older man’s heart. He said gently: “Don’t say it. He don’t know what +love means yet.” + +He wanted to tell her that the girl Dan married should be the kind of +woman his mother was, but Ruggles couldn’t bring himself to say the +words. Now, as he sat near her, he was growing so complex that his brain +was turning round. He heard her murmur: + +“I told you I knew your act, Mr. Ruggles. It isn’t any use.” + +This brought him back to his position and once more he leaned toward her +and, in a different tone from the one he had intended to use, murmured: + +“You don’t know. You haven’t any idea. I do ask you to let Dan go, +that’s a fact. I have got something else to propose in its place. It +ain’t quite the same, but it is clear—marry me!” + +She gave a little exclamation. A slight smile rippled over her face like +the sunset across a pale pool at dawn. + +“Laugh,” he said humbly; “don’t keep in. I know I am old-fashioned as +the deuce, and me and Dan is quite a contrast, but I mean just what I +say, my dear.” + +She controlled her amusement, if it was that. It almost made her cry +with mirth, and she couldn’t help it. Between laughing breaths she said +to him: + +“Oh, is it all for Dan’s sake, Mr. Ruggles? Is it?” And then, biting her +lips and looking at him out of her wonderful eyes, she said: “I know it +is—I know it is—I beg your pardon.” + +“I asked a girl once when I was poor—too poor. Now this is the second +time in my life. I mean just what I say. I’ll make you a kind husband. I +am fifty-five, hale as a nut. I dare say you have had many better +offers.” + +“Oh, dear,” she breathed; “oh, dear, please—please stop!” + +“But I don’t expect you to marry me for anything but my money.” + +Ruggles put his cigar down on the edge of the table. He looked at his +chair meditatively, he took out his silk handkerchief, polished up his +glasses, readjusted them, put them on and then looked at her. + +“Now,” he said, “I am going to trust you with something, and I know you +will keep my secret for me. This shows you a little bit of what I think +about you. Dan Blair hasn’t got a red cent. He has nothing but what I +give him. There’s a false title to all that land on the Bentley claim. +The whole thing came up when I was home and the original company, of +which I own three-quarters of the stock, holds the clear titles to the +Blairtown mines. It all belongs now to me, if I choose to present my +documents. Dan knows nothing about this—not a word.” + +The actress had never come up to such a dramatic point in any of her +plays. With her hands folded in her lap she looked at him steadily, and +he could not understand the expression that crossed her face. He heard +her exclamation: “Oh, gracious!” + +“I’ve brought the papers back with me,” said the Westerner, “and it is +between you and me how we act. If Dan marries you I will be bound to do +what old Blair would have done—cut him off—let him feel his feet on the +ground, and the result of his own folly.” + +He had taken his glasses off while he made this assertion. Now he put +them on again. + +“If you give him up I’ll divide with the boy and be rich enough still to +hand over to my wife all she wants to spend.” + +She turned her face away from him and leaned her head once more upon her +hands. He heard her softly murmuring under her breath, with an absent +look on her face, accompanied by a still more incomprehensible smile. + +“That’s how it stands,” he concluded. + +She seemed to have forgotten him entirely, and he caught his breath when +she turned about abruptly and said: + +“My goodness, how Dan will hate being poor! He will have to sell all his +stickpins and his motor cars and all the things he has given me. It will +be quite a little to start on, but he will hate it, he is so very +smart.” + +“Why, you don’t mean to say—” Ruggles gasped. + +And with a charming smile as she rose to put their conversation at an +end, she said: + +“Why, you don’t mean to say that you thought I _wouldn’t stand by him_?” +She seemed, as she put her hands upon her hips with something of a +defiant look at the older man, as though she just then stood by her +pauperized lover. + +“I thought you cared some for the boy,” Ruggles said. + +“Well, I am showing it.” + +“You want to ruin him to show it, do you?” + +As though he thought the subject dismissed he walked heavily toward the +door. + +“You know how it stands. I have nothing more to say.” He knew that he +had signally failed, and as a sudden resentment rose in him he +exclaimed, almost brutally: + +“I am darned glad the old man is dead; I am glad his mother’s dead, and +I am glad I have got no son.” + +The next moment she was at his side, and he felt that she clung to his +arm. Her sensitive, beautiful face, all drawn with emotion, was raised +to his. + +“Oh, you’ll kill me—you’ll kill me! Just look how very ill I am; you are +making me crazy. I just worship him.” + +“Give him up, then,” said Ruggles steadily. + +She faltered: “I can’t—I can’t—it won’t be for long”—with a terrible +pathos in her voice. “You don’t know how different I can be: you don’t +know what a new life we were going to lead.” + +Stammering, and with intense meaning, Ruggles, looking down at her, +said: “My dear child—my dear child!” + +In his few words something perhaps made her see in a flash her past and +what the question really was. She dropped Ruggles’ arm. She stood for a +moment with her arms folded across her breast, her head bent down, and +the man at the door waited, feeling that Dan’s whole life was in the +balance of the moment. When she spoke again her voice was hard and +entirely devoid of the lovely appealing quality which brought her so +much admiration from the public. + +“If I give him up,” she said slowly, “what will you do?” + +“Why,” he answered, “I’ll divide with Dan and let things stand just as +they are.” + +She thought again a moment and then as if she did not want him to +witness—to detect the struggle she was going through, she turned away +and walked over toward the window and dismissed him from there. “Please +go, will you? I want very much to be alone and to think.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXV—LETTY LANE RUNS AWAY + + +He had not got up-stairs to his rooms at the Carlton before a note was +handed him from the actress, bidding him to return at once to the Savoy, +and Ruggles, his heart hammering like a trip-hammer, rushed up to his +rooms, made an evening toilet, for it was then half-past seven, threw +his cravats and collars all around the place, cursed like a miner as he +got into his clothes, and red almost to apoplexy, nervous and full of +emotion, he returned to the rooms he had left not three hours before. + +The three hours had been busy ones at the actress’ apartment. Letty +Lane’s sitting-room was full of trunks, dressing-bags and traveling +paraphernalia. She came forward out of what seemed a world of confusion, +dressed as though for a journey, even her veil and her gloves denoting +her departure. She spoke hurriedly and almost without politeness. + +“I have sent for you to come and see me here. Not a soul in London knows +I am going away. There will be a dreadful row at the theater, but that’s +none of your affairs. Now, I want you to tell me before I go just what +you are going to do for Dan.” + +“Who are you going with?” Ruggles asked shortly, and she flashed at him: + +“Well, really, I don’t think that is any of your business. When you +drive a woman as you have driven me, she will go far.” + +He interrupted her vehemently, not daring to take her hand. “I couldn’t +do more. I have asked you to marry me. I couldn’t do more. I stand by +what I have said. Will you?” he stammered. + +She knew men. She looked at him keenly. Her veil was lifted above her +eyes and its shadow framed her small pale face on which there were marks +of utter disenchantment, of great ennui. She said languidly: “What I +want to know is, what you are going to do for Dan?” + +“I told you I would share with him.” + +“Then he will be nearly as rich?” + +“He’ll have more than is good for him.” + +That satisfied her. Then she pursued: “I want you to stand by him. He +will need you.” + +Ruggles lifted the hand he held and kissed it reverently. “I’ll do +anything you say—anything you say.” + +Down-stairs in the Savoy, as Dan had done countless times, Ruggles +waited until he saw her motor car carry her and her small luggage and +Higgins away. + +In their sitting-room in the Carlton a half-hour later the door was +thrown open and Dan Blair came in like a madman. Without preamble he +seized Ruggles by the arm. + +“Look here,” he cried, “what have you been doing? Tell me now, and tell +me the truth, or, by God, I don’t know what I’ll do. You went to the +Savoy. You went there twice. Anyhow, where is she?” + +Dan, slender as he was beside Ruggles’ great frame, shook the elder man +as though he had been a terrier. “Speak to me. Where has she gone?” + +He stared in the Westerner’s face, his eyes bloodshot. “Why in thunder +don’t you say something?” + +And Ruggles prayed for some power to unloose his thickening tongue. + +“You say she’s gone?” he questioned. + +“I say,” said the boy, “that you’ve been meddling in my affairs with the +woman I love. I don’t know what you have said to her, but it’s only your +age that keeps me from striking you. Don’t you know,” he cried, “that +you are spoiling my life? Don’t you know that?” A torrent of feeling +coming to his lips, his eyes suffused, the tears rolled down his face. +He walked away into his own room, remained there a few moments, and when +he came out again he carried in his hand his valise, which he put down +with a bang on the table. More calmly, but still in great anger, he said +to his father’s friend: + +“Now, can you tell me what you’ve done or not?” + +“Dan,” said Ruggles with difficulty, “if you will sit down a moment we +can—” + +The boy laughed in his face. “Sit down!” he cried. “Why, I think you +must have lost your reason. I have chartered a motor car out there and +the damned thing has burst a tire and they are fixing it up for me. It +will be ready in about two minutes and then I am going to follow +wherever she has gone. She crossed to Paris, but I can get there before +she can even with this damned accident. But, before I go, I want you to +tell me what you said.” + +“Why,” said Ruggles quietly, “I told her you were poor, and she turned +you down.” + +His words were faint. + +“God!” said the boy under his breath. “That’s the way you think about +truth. Lie to a woman to save my precious soul! But I expect,” he said; +“you think she is so immoral and so bad that she will hurt me. Well,” he +said, with great emphasis, “she has never done anything in her life that +comes up to what you’ve done. Never! And nothing has ever hurt me so.” + +His lips trembled. “I have lost my respect for you, for my father’s +friend, and as far as she is concerned, I don’t care what she marries me +for. She has got to marry me, and if she doesn’t”—he had no idea, in his +passion, what he was saying or how—“why, I think I’ll kill you first and +then blow my own brains out!” And with these mad words he grabbed up his +valise and bolted from the room, and Ruggles could hear his running feet +tearing down the corridor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI—WHITE AND CORAL + + +Spring in Paris, which comes in a fashion so divine that even the most +calloused and indifferent are impressed by its beauty, awakened no +answering response in the heart of the young man who, from his hotel +window, looked out on the desecrated gardens of the Tuileries—on the +distant spires of the churches whose names he did not know—on the square +block of old palaces. He had missed the boat across the Channel taken by +Letty Lane, and the delay had made him lose what little trace of her he +had. In the early hours of the morning he had flung himself in at the +St. James, taken the indifferent room they could give him in the crowded +season, and excited as he was he slept and did not waken until noon. +Blair thought it would be a matter of a few hours only to find the +whereabouts of the celebrated actress, but it was not such an easy job. +He had not guessed that she might be traveling incognito, and at none of +the hotels could he hear news of her, nor did he pass her in the +crowded, noisy, rustling, crying streets, though he searched motors for +her with eager eyes, and haunted restaurants and cafés, and went +everywhere that he thought she might be likely to be. + +At the end of the third day, unsuccessful and in despair, having hardly +slept and scarcely eaten, the unhappy young lover found himself taking a +slight luncheon in the little restaurant known as the Perouse down on +the Quais. His head on his hand, for the present moment the joy of life +gone from him, he looked out through the windows at the Seine, at the +bridge and the lines of flowering trees. He was the only occupant of the +upper room where, of late, he had ordered his luncheon. + +The tide of life rolled slowly in this quieter part of the city, and as +Blair sat there under the window there passed a piper playing a shrill, +sweet tune. It was so different from any of the loud metropolitan +clamors, with which his ears were full, that he got up, walked to the +window and leaned out. It was a pastoral that met his eyes. A man +piping, followed by little pattering goats; the primitive, unlooked-for +picture caught his tired attention, and, just then, opposite the Quais, +two women passed—flower sellers, their baskets bright with crocuses and +giroflés. The bright picture touched him and something of the springlike +beauty that the day wore and that dwelt in the May light, soothed him as +nothing had for many hours. + +He paid his bill, took courage, picked up his hat and gloves and stick +and walked out briskly, crossing the bridge to the Rue de Rivoli, +determined that night should not fall until he found the woman he +sought. Nor did it, though the afternoon wore on and Dan, pursuing his +old trails, wandered from worldly meeting place to worldly meeting +place. Finally, toward six o’clock, he saw the lengthening shadows steal +into the woods of the Bois de Boulogne, and in one of the smaller +alleys, where the green-trunked trees of the forests were full of purple +shadows and yellow sun discs, flickering down, he picked up a small iron +chair and sat himself down, with a long sigh, to rest. + +While he sat there watching the end of the _allée_ as it gave out into +the broader road, a beautiful red motor rolled up to the conjunction of +the two ways and Letty Lane, in a summer frock, got out alone. She had a +flowing white veil around her head and a flowing white scarf around her +shoulders. As the day on the Thames, she was all in white—like a dove. +But this time her costume was made vivid and picturesque by the coral +parasol she carried, a pair of coral-colored kid shoes, around her neck +and falling on their long chain, she wore his coral beads. He saw that +he observed her before she did him. All this Dan saw before he dashed +into the road, came up to her with something like a cry on his lips, +bareheaded, for his hat and his stick and his gloves were by his chair +in the woods. + +Letty Lane’s hands went to her heart and her face took on a deadly +pallor. She did not seem glad to see him. Out of his passionate +description of the hours that he had been through, of how he had looked +for her, of what he thought and wanted and felt, the actress made what +she could, listening to him as they both stood there under the shadows +of the green trees. Scanning her face for some sign that she loved him, +for it was all he cared for, Dan saw no such indication there. He +finished with: + +“You know what Ruggles told you was a lie. Of course, I’ve got money +enough to give you everything you want. He’s a lunatic and ought to be +shut up.” + +“It may have been a lie, all right,” she said with forced indifference; +“I’ve had time to think it over. You are too young. You don’t know what +you want.” She stopped his protestations: “Well, then, _I_ am too old +and I don’t want to be tied down.” + +When he pressed her to tell him whether or not she had ceased to care +for him, she shook her head slowly, marking on the ground fine tracery +with the end of her coral parasol. He had been obliged to take her back +to the red motor, but before they were in earshot of her servants, he +said: + +“Now, you know just what you have done to me, you and Ruggles between +you. For my father’s sake and the things I believed in I’ve kept pretty +straight as things go.” He nodded at her with boyish egotism, throwing +all the blame on her. “I want you to understand that from now, right +now, I’m going to the dogs just as fast as I can get there, and it won’t +be a very gratifying result to anybody that ever cared.” + +She saw the determination on his fine young face, worn by his sleepless +nights, already matured and changed, and she believed him. + +“Paris,” he nodded toward the gate of the woods which opened upon Paris, +“is the place to begin in—right here. A man,” he went on, and his lips +trembled, “can only feel like this once in his life. You know all the +talk there is about young love and first love. Well, that’s what I’ve +got for you, and I’m going to turn it now—right now—into just what older +people warn men from, and do their best to prevent. I have seen enough +of Paris,” he went on, “these days I have been looking for you, to know +where to go and what to do, and I am setting off for it now.” + +She touched his arm. + +“No,” she murmured. “No, boy, you are not going to do any such thing!” + +This much from her was enough for him. He caught her hand and cried: +“Then you marry me. What do we care for anybody else in the world?” + +“Go back and get your hat and stick and gloves,” she commanded, keeping +down the tears. + +“No, no, you come with me, Letty; I’m not going to let you run to your +motor and escape me again.” + +“Go; I’ll wait here,” she promised. “I give you my word.” + +As he snatched up the inanimate objects from the leaf-strewn ground +where he had thrown them in despair, he thought how things can change in +a quarter of an hour. For he had hope now, as he hurried back, as he +walked with her to her car, as he saw the little coral shoes stir in the +leaves when she passed under the trees. The little coral shoes trod on +his heart, but now it was light under her feet! + +Jubilant to have overcome the fate which had tried to keep her hidden +from him in Paris, he could hardly believe his eyes that she was before +them again, and, as the motor rolled into the Avenue des Acacias, he +asked her the question uppermost in his mind: + +“Are you alone in Paris, Letty?” + +“Don’t you count?” + +“No—no—honestly, _you know what I mean_.” + +“You haven’t any right to ask me that.” + +“I have—I have. You gave me a right. You’re engaged to me, aren’t you? +Gosh, you haven’t _forgotten_, have you?” + +“Don’t make me conspicuous in the Bois, Dan,” she said; “I only let you +come with me because you were so terribly desperate, so ridiculous.” + +“Are you alone?” he persisted. “I have got to know.” + +“Higgins is with me.” + +“Oh, God,” he cried wildly, “how can you joke with me? Don’t you +understand you’re breaking my heart?” + +But she did not dare to be kind to him, knowing it would unnerve her for +the part she had promised to play. + +He sat gripping his hands tightly together, his lips white. “When I +leave you now,” he said brokenly, “I am going to find that devil of a +Hungarian and do him up. Then I am going to tackle Ruggles.” + +“Why, what’s poor Mr. Ruggles got to do with it?” + +Dan cried scornfully: “For God’s sake, don’t keep this up! You know the +rot he told you? I made him confess. He has had this mania all along +about money being a handicap; he was bent on trying this game with some +girl to see how it worked.” He continued more passionately. “I don’t +care a rap what you marry me for, Letty, or what you have done or been. +I think you’re perfect and I’ll make you the happiest woman in the +world.” + +She said: “Hush, hush! Listen, dear; listen, little boy. I am awfully +sorry, but it won’t do. I never thought it would. You’ll get over it all +right, though you don’t, you can’t believe me now. I can’t be poor, you +know; I really couldn’t be poor.” + +He interrupted roughly: “Who says you’ll be? What are you talking about? +Why, I’ll cover you with jewels, sweetheart, if I have to rip the earth +open to get them out.” + +She understood that Dan believed Ruggles’ story to have been a +cock-and-bull one. + +“You talk as though you could buy me, Dan. Wait, listen.” She put him +back from her. “Now, if you won’t be quiet, I’m going to stop my car.” + +He repeated: “Tell me, are you alone in Paris? Tell me. For three days I +have wandered and searched for you everywhere; I have hardly eaten a +thing, I don’t believe I have slept a wink.” And he told her of his +weary search. + +She listened to him, part of the time her white-gloved hand giving +itself up to the boy; part of the time both hands folded together and +away from him, her arms crossed on her breast, her small shoes of coral +kid tapping the floor of the car. Thus they rolled leisurely along the +road by the Bois. Through the green-trunked trees the sunlight fell +divinely. On the lake the swans swam, pluming their feathers; there were +children there in their ribbons and furbelows. The whole world went by +gay and careless, while for Dan the problem of his existence, his +possibility for happiness or pain was comprised within the little room +of the motor car. + +“Are you alone in Paris, Letty?” + +And she said: “Oh, what a bore you are! You’re the most obstinate +creature. Well, I am alone, but that has nothing to do with you.” + +A glorious light broke over his face; his relief was tremendous. + +“Oh, thank God!” he breathed. + +“Poniotowsky”—and she said his name with difficulty—“is coming to-night +from Carlsbad.” + +The boy threw back his bright head and laughed wildly. + +“Curse him! The very name makes me want to commit a crime. He will go +over my body to you. You hear me, Letty. I mean what I say.” + +People had already remarked them as they passed. The actress was too +well-known to pass unobserved, but she was indifferent to their +curiosity or to the existence of any one but this excited boy. + +Blair, who had not opened a paper since he came to Paris, did not know +that Letty Lane’s flight from London had created a scandal in the +theatrical world, that her manager was suing her, and that to be seen +with her driving in the Bois was a conspicuous thing indeed. She thought +of it, however. + +“I am going to tell the man to drive you to the gate on the other side +of the park where it’s quieter, we won’t be stared at, and then I want +you to leave me and let me go to the Meurice alone. You must, Dan, you +must let me go to the hotel alone.” + +He laughed again in the same strained fashion and forced her hand to +remain in his. + +“Look here. You don’t suppose I am going to let you go like this, now +that I have seen you again. You don’t suppose I am going to give you up +to that infamous scoundrel? You have got to marry me.” + +Bringing all her strength of character to bear, she exclaimed: “I expect +you think you are the only person who has asked me to marry him, Dan. I +am going to _marry_ Prince Poniotowsky. He is perfectly crazy about me.” + +Until that moment she had not made him think that she was indifferent to +him, and the idea that such a thing was possible, was too much for his +overstrained heart to bear. Dan cried her name in a voice whose appeal +was like a hurt creature’s, and as the hurt creature in its suffering +sometimes springs upon its torturer, he flung his arms around her as she +sat in the motor, held her and kissed her, then set her free, and as the +motor flew along, tore open the door to spring out or to throw himself +out, but clinging to him she prevented his mad act. She stopped the car +along the edge of the quiet, wooded _allée_. Blair saw that he had +terrified her. She covered her beating heart with her hands and gasped +at him that he was “crazy, crazy,” and perhaps a little late his dignity +and self-possession returned. + +“I am mad,” he acknowledged more calmly, “and I am sorry that I +frightened you. But you drive me mad.” + +Without further word he got out and left her agitated, leaning toward +him, and Blair, less pale and thoroughly the man, lifted his hat to her +and, with unusual grace, bowed good night and good-by. Then, rushing as +he had come, he walked off down through the _allée_, his gray figure in +his gray clothes disappearing through the vista of meeting trees. + +For a moment she stared after him, her eyes fastened on the tall slender +beautiful young man. Blair’s fire and ardor, his fresh youthfulness, his +protection and his chivalry, his ardent devotion, touched her +profoundly. Tears fell, and one splashed on her white glove. Was he +really going to ruin his life? The old ballad, _The Earl of Moray_, ran +through her head: + + “And long may his lady look from the castle wall.” + +Dan had neither title nor, according to Ruggles, had he any money, and +she could marry the prince; but Dan, as he walked so fast away, misery +snapping at his heels as he went, stamping through the woods, seemed +glorious to Letty Lane and the only one she wanted in the world. What if +anything should happen to him really? What if he should really start out +to do the town according to the fashion of his Anglo-Saxon brothers, but +more desperately still? She took a card from the case in the corner of +the car, scribbled a few words, told the man to drive around the curve +and meet the outlet of the path by which Dan had gone. When she saw him +within reaching distance she sent the chauffeur across the woods to give +Mr. Blair her scribbled word and consoled herself with the belief that +Dan wouldn’t “go to the dogs or throw himself in the river until he had +seen her again.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII—AT MAXIM’S + + +At the Meurice, Miss Lane gave strict orders to admit only Mr. Blair to +her apartments. She described him. No sooner had she drunk her cup of +tea, which Higgins gave her, than she began to expect Dan. + +He didn’t come. + +Her dinner, without much appetite, she ate alone in her salon; saw a +doctor and made him prescribe something for the cough that racked her +chest; looked out to the warm, bright gardens of the Tuileries fading +into the pallid loveliness of sunset, indifferent to everything in the +world—except Dan Blair. She believed she would soon be indifferent to +him, too; then everything would be done with. Now she wondered had he +really gone—had he done what he threatened? Why didn’t he come? At +twelve o’clock that night, as she lay among the cushions of her sofa, +dozing, the door of her parlor was pushed in. She sprang up with a cry +of delight; but when Poniotowsky came up to her she exclaimed: + +“Oh, you!” And the languor and boredom with which she said his name made +the prince laugh shortly. + +“Yes, I. Who did you think it was?” Cynically and rather cruelly he +looked down at Letty Lane and admired the picture she made: small, +exquisite, her blond head against the dark velvet of the lounge, her +gray eyes intensified by the fatigue under them. + +“Just got in from Carlsbad; came directly here. How-de-do? You look, you +know—” he scrutinized her through his single eye-glass—“most frightfully +seedy.” + +“Oh, I’m all right.” She left the sofa, for she wanted to prevent his +nearer approach. “Have you had any supper? I’ll call Higgins.” + +“No, no, sit down, please, will you? I want to know why you sent to +Carlsbad for me? Have you come to your senses?” + +He was as mad about the beautiful creature as a man of his temperament +could be. Exhausted by excess and bored with life, she charmed and +amused him, and in order to have her with him always, to be master of +her caprices, he was willing to make any sacrifice. + +“Have you sent off that imbecile boy?” And at her look he stopped and +shrugged. “You need a rest, my child,” he murmured practically, “you’re +neurasthenic and very ill. I’ve wired to have the yacht at +Cherbourg—It’ll reach there by noon to-morrow.” + +She was standing listlessly by the table. A mass of letters sent by +special messenger from London after her, telegrams and cards lay there +in a pile. Looking down at the lot, she murmured: “All right, I don’t +care.” + +He concealed his triumph, but before the look had faded from his face +she saw it and exclaimed sharply: + +“Don’t be crazy about it, you know. You’ll have to pay high for me; you +know what I mean.” + +He answered gallantly: “My dear child, I’ve told you that you would be +the most charming princess in Hungary.” + +Once more she accepted indifferently: “All right, all right, I don’t +care tuppence—not tuppence”—and she snapped her fingers; “but I like to +see you pay, Frederigo. Take me to Maxim’s.” + +He demurred, saying she was far too ill, but she turned from him to call +Higgins, determined to go if she had to go alone, and said to him +violently: “Don’t think I’ll make your life easy for you, Frederigo. +I’ll make it wretched; as wretched—” and she held out her fragile arms, +and the sleeves fell back, leaving them bare—“as wretched as I am +myself.” + +But she was lovely, and he said harshly: “Get yourself dressed. I’ll go +change and meet you at the lift.” + + * * * * * + +She made him take a table in the corner, where she sat in the shadow on +the sofa, overlooking the brilliant room. Maxim’s was no new scene to +either of them, no novelty. Poniotowsky scarcely glanced at the crowd, +preferring to feast his eyes on his companion, whose indifference to him +made his abstraction easy. She was his property. He would give her his +title; she had demanded it from the first. The Hungarian was a little +overdressed, with his jeweled buttons, his large _boutonnière_, his +faultless clothes, his single eye-glass through which he stared at Letty +Lane, whose delicate beauty was in fine play: her cheeks faintly pink, +her starry eyes humid with a dew whose luster is of the most precious +quality. Her unshed tears had nothing to do with Poniotowsky—they were +for the boy. Her heart sickened, thinking where he might be; and more +than that, it cried out for him. She wanted him. + +Oh, she would have been far better for Dan than anything he could find +in this mad city, than anything to which in his despair he would go for +consolation. She had kept her word, however, to that old man, Mr. +Ruggles; she had got out of the business with a fatal result, as far as +the boy was concerned. She thought Dan would drift here probably as most +Americans on their wild nights do for a part of the time, and she had +come to see. + +She wore a dress of coral pink, tightly fitting, high to her little +chin, and seemed herself like a coral strand from neck to toe, clad in +the color she affected, and which had become celebrated as the Letty +Lane pink. Her feathered hat hid her face, and she was completely +shielded as she bent down drawing pictures with her bare finger on the +cloth. After a little while she said to Poniotowsky without glancing at +him: + +“If you stare any longer like that, Frederigo, you’ll break your +eye-glass. You know how I hate it.” + +Used as he was to her sharpness, he nevertheless flushed and sat back +and looked across the room, where, to their right, protected from them +as they were from him by the great door, a young man sat alone. Whether +or not he had come to Maxim’s intending to join a congenial party, +should he find one, or to choose for a companion some one of the women +who, at the entrance of the tall blond boy, stirred and invited him with +their raised lorgnons and their smiles, will not be known. Dan Blair was +alone, pale as the pictures Letty Lane had drawn on the cloth, and he, +too, feasted his eyes on the Gaiety girl. + +“By Jove!” said the Hungarian under his breath, and she eagerly asked: +“What? Whom? Whom do you see?” + +Turning his back sharply he evaded her question and she did not pursue +the idea, and as a physical weakness overwhelmed her, when Poniotowsky +after a second said, “Come, _chérie_, for heaven’s sake, let’s go”—she +mechanically rose and passed out. + +Several young men supping together came over eagerly to speak to her and +claim acquaintance with the Gaiety girl, and walked along out to the +motor. There Letty Lane discovered she had dropped her handkerchief, and +sent the prince back for it. + +As though he had been waiting for the reappearance of Poniotowsky, Dan +Blair stood close to the little table which Letty Lane had left, her +handkerchief in his hand. As Poniotowsky came up Dan thrust the small +trifle of sheer linen into his waistcoat pocket. + +“I will trouble you for Miss Lane’s handkerchief,” said Poniotowsky, his +eyes cold. + +“You may,” said Dan as quietly, his blue eyes like sparks from a star, +“trouble me for hell!” And lifting from the table Poniotowsky’s own +half-emptied glass of champagne, the boy flung the contents full in the +Hungarian’s face. + +The wine dashed against Poniotowsky’s lips and in his eyes. Blair +laughed out loud, his hands in his pockets. The insult was low and +noiseless; the little glass shattered as it fell so softly that with the +music its gentle crash was unheard. + +Poniotowsky wiped his face tranquilly and bowed. + +“You shall hear from me after I have taken Miss Lane home.” + +“Tell her,” said the boy, “where you left the handkerchief, that’s all.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII—SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS + + +Dan was in his room at the hotel. He woke and then slept again. Nothing +seemed strange to him—nothing seemed real. It was three o’clock in the +morning, the rumble of Paris was dull; it did not disturb him, for he +seemed without the body and to have grown giantlike, and to fill the +room. He had a sense of suffocation and the need to break through the +windows and to escape into ether. + +The entrance of Poniotowsky’s two friends was a part with the unreal +naturalness. One was a Roumanian, the other a Frenchman—both spoke +fluent English. Dan, his eyes fixed on the foreign faces, only half saw +them; they blurred, their voices were small and far away. Finally he +said: + +“All right, all right, I can shoot well enough; this kind of thing isn’t +our custom, you know—I’d as soon kill him one way as another, as a +matter of fact. No, I don’t know a darned soul here.” There was a confab +incomprehensible to Dan. “It’s all one to me, gentlemen,” he said. “I’d +rather not drag in my friends, anyhow. Fix it up to suit yourselves.” + +He wanted them to go—to be alone—to stretch his arms, to rid himself of +the burden of sense, and be free. And after they had left, he remained +in his window till dawn. It came soon, midsummer dawn, a singularly +tender morning in his heart. His mind worked with great rapidity. He had +made his will in the States. He wished he could have left everything to +Letty Lane, but if, as Ruggles said, he was a pauper? Perhaps it wasn’t +a lie after all. Dan had written and telegraphed Ruggles asking for the +solemn truth, and also telling him where he was and asking the older man +to come over. If Ruggles proved he was poor, why, some of his burden was +gone. His money had been a burden, he knew it now. He might have no use +for money the next day. What good could it do him in a fix like this? He +was to meet Poniotowsky at five o’clock in a place whose name he +couldn’t recall. He had seen it advertised, though; people went there +for lunch. + +They were to shoot at twenty-five paces—he might be a Rockefeller or a +beggar for all the good his money could do him in a pinch like this. + +His father wouldn’t approve, the old man wouldn’t approve, but he had +sent him here to learn the ways of the old world. A flickering smile +crossed his beautiful, set face. His lessons hadn’t done him much good; +he would like to have seen good old Gordon Galorey again; he loved +him—he had no use for Ruggles, no use—it had been all his fault. His +mind reached out to his father, and the old man’s words came dinning +back: “Buy the things that stay above ground, my boy.” What were those +things? He had thought they were passion—he had thought they were love, +and he had put all on one woman. She couldn’t stand by him, now that he +was poor. + +The spasm in his heart was so sharp that he made a low sound in his +throat and leaned against the casing of the window. He must see her, +touch her once more. + +The fellows Poniotowsky’s seconds had chosen to be Dan’s representatives +came in to “fix him up.” They were in frock-coats and carried their silk +hats and their gloves. He could have laughed at them. Then they made him +think of undertakers, and his blood grew cold. He handled the revolvers +with care and interest. + +“I’m not going to let him murder me, you know,” he told his seconds. + +They helped him dress, at least one of them did, while the other took +Dan’s place by the window and looked to the boy like a figure of death. + +The hour was getting on; he heard his own motor drive up, and they went +down, through the deserted hotel. The men who had consented to act for +Dan regarded their principal curiously. He wasn’t pale, there was a +brightness on his face. + +“_Partons_,” said one of them, and told Blair’s chauffeur where to go +and how to run. “_Partons._” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX—THE PICTURE OF IT ALL + + +As far as his knowing anything of the customs of it all, it was like +leading a lamb to slaughter. + +Villebon, lovely, vernal, at a later hour the spot for gay breakfasts +and gentle rendezvous, had been designated for the meeting between Dan +and Poniotowsky. There in his motor he gave up his effort to set his +thoughts clear. Nothing settled down. Even the ground they flew over, +the trees with their chestnut plumes, blurred, were indistinct, +nebulous, as if seen through a diving-bell under the sea. Fear—he didn’t +know the word. He wasn’t afraid—it wasn’t that; yet he had a certainty +that it was all up with him. He was young—very young—and he hadn’t done +much with the job. His father would have been ashamed of him. Then all +his thoughts went to Her. The two men in the motor floated off and she +sat there as she had sat yesterday in her marvelously pretty clothes—her +little coral shoes. + +He had held those bright, little feet in his hand on the Thames day: +they had just filled his great hands. Mechanically he spread out his +firm, broad palms on the soft shoes. Letty Lane—Letty Lane—a shiver +passed through his body; the sense of her, the touch of her, the kisses +he had taken, the way she had blown up against him like a cloud—a cloud +that, as he held her, became the substance of Paradise. This brought him +back to physical life, brutally. He was too young to die. + +Those little, red shoes would dance on his grave. Was she asleep now? +How would she know? What would she know? + +Then Letty Lane, too, spirited away, and the boy’s thoughts turned to +the man he was to meet. “The affairs are purely formal,” he had heard +some one say, “an exchange of balls, without serious results.” + +One of his companions offered Blair a cigar. He refused, the idea +sickened him. Here the gentlemen exchanged glances, and one murmured, +“Is he afraid?” + +The other shrugged. + +“Not astonishing—he’s a child.” + +At this Dan glanced up and smiled—what Lily, Duchess of Breakwater, had +called his divine young smile. The two secretly were ashamed—he was +charming. + +As they got out of the motor Dan said: + +“I want to ask a question of Prince Poniotowsky—if it is allowed. I’ll +write it on my card.” + +After a conference between Prince Poniotowsky’s seconds and Dan’s, the +slip was handed the prince. + + “If you get out all right, will you marry Miss Lane? I shall be glad + to know.” + +The Hungarian, who read it under the tree, half smiled. The naïveté of +it, the touching youth of it, the crude lack of form—was perfect enough +to touch his sense of humor. On the back of Dan’s card Poniotowsky +scrawled: + +“Yes.” + +It was a haughty inclination, a salute of honor before the fight. + +The meeting place was within sight of the little rustic pavilion of Les +Trois Agneaux, celebrated for its _pré salé_ and _beignets_: the +advertisements had confronted Dan everywhere during his wanderings those +miserable days. Under a group of chestnut trees in bright feathery +flower Prince Poniotowsky and his seconds waited, their frock-coats +buttoned up and their gloves and silk hats in their hands. As Blair and +his companions came up the others stood uncovered, grim and formal, +according to the code. + +On the highroad a short distance away ranged the motors which had +fetched the gentlemen from Paris, and the car in which the physician had +come—an ugly and sinister gathering in the peace and beauty of the +serene summer morning. + +Finches and thrashes sang in the bushes, over the grass the dew still +hung in crystals, and a peasant walking at his horses’ heads on the slow +tramp back from the Paris market, was held up and kept stolidly waiting +at a few hundred yards away. + +Twenty-five paces. They were measured off by the four seconds, and at +their signal Dan Blair and the prince took their positions, the +revolvers raised perpendicularly in their right hands. + +Still more indistinctly the boy saw the sharp-cut picture of it all ... +the diving-bell was sinking deeper—deeper—into the sea. + +“If I aim,” he said to himself, “I shall kill sure—sure.” + +Blair heard the command: “Fire!” and supposed that after that he fired. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX—SODAWATER FOUNTAIN GIRL + + +His next sensation was that a warm stream flowed about his heart. + +“My life’s blood,” he could dimly think, “my heart’s blood.” Redder than +coral, more precious, more costly than any gift his millions could have +bought her. “I’ve spent it for the girl I love.” The stream pervaded +him, caressed him, folded his limbs about, became an enchanted sea on +which he floated, and its color changed from crimson to coral pale, and +then to white, and became a cold, cold polar sea—and he lay on it like a +frozen man, whose exploration had been in vain, and above him +Greenland’s icy mountains rose like emerald, on every side. + +That is it—“Greenland’s icy mountains.” How she sang it—down—down. Her +voice fell on him like magic balm. He was a little boy in church, +sitting small and shy in the pew. The tune was deep and low and heavenly +sweet. What a pretty mouth the soda-fountain girl had—like coral; and +her eyes like gray seas. The flies buzzed, they droned so loudly that he +couldn’t hear her. Ah, that was terrible—_he couldn’t hear her_. + +No—no, it wouldn’t do. He must hear the hymn out before he died. +Buzz—buzz—drone—drone. Way down he almost heard the soft note. It was +ecstasy. Sky—high up—too faint. Ah, Sodawater Fountain +Girl—sing—sing—with all your heart so that it may reach his ears and +charm him to those strands toward which he floats. + + * * * * * + +The expression of anguish on the young fellow’s face was so +heartbreaking that the doctor, his ear at Dan’s lips, tried to learn +what thing his poor, fading mind longed for. + +From the bed’s foot, where he stood, Dan’s chauffeur came to his +gentleman’s side, and nodded: + +“Right, sir, right, sir—I’ll fetch Miss Lane—I’ll ’ave ’er ’ere, +sir—keep up, Mr. Blair.” + + * * * * * + +He was going barefoot, a boy still following the plow through the +mountain fields. Miles and miles stretched away before him of dark, +loamy land. He saw the plow tear up the waving furrows, tossing the +earth in sprinkling lines. He heard the shrill note of the phœbe bird, +and looking heavenward saw it darting into the pale sky. + +“What a dandy shot!” he thought. “What a bully shot!” + +Prince Poniotowsky had made a good shot.... + +Ah, there was the smell of the hayfields—no—violets that sweetly laid +their petals on his lips and face. He was back again in church, lying +prone before an altar. If she would only sing, he would rise again—that +he knew—and her coral shoes would not dance over his grave. + +He opened his eyes wide and looked into Letty Lane’s. She bent over him, +crying. + +“Sing,” he whispered. + +She didn’t understand. + +“Sodawater Fountain Girl—if you only knew how ... the flies buzzed, and +how the droning was a living pain....” + +She said to Ruggles: “He wants something so heartbreakingly—what can we +do?” She saw his hands stir rhythmically on the counterpane—he didn’t +look to her more than ten years old.... What a cruel thing—he was a boy +just of age—a boy— + +Ruggles remembered the nights he had spent before the footlights of the +Gaiety, and that the pale woman trembling there weeping was a great +singer. + +“I guess he wants to hear you sing.” + +She kneeled down by him; she trembled so she couldn’t stand. + +The others, the doctor and Ruggles, the waiters and porters gathered in +the hall, heard. No one of them understood the Gaiety girl’s English +words. + + “From Greenland’s icy mountains, + From India’s coral strands ...” + +They were merciful and let him listen in peace. Through the blur in his +brain, over the beat of his young ardent heart, above the short breaths +the notes reached his failing senses, and lifted him—lifted him. There +wasn’t a very long distance between his boyhood and his twenty-two years +to go, and he was not so weak but that he could travel so far. + +He sat there by his father again—and heard. The flies buzzed, and he +didn’t mind them. The smell of the fields came in through the windows +and the Sodawater Fountain Girl sang—and sang; and as she sang her face +grew holy to his eyes—radiant with a beauty he had not dreamed a woman’s +face could wear. Above the choir rail she stood and sang peerlessly, and +the church began to fade and fade, and still she stood there in a shaft +of light, and her face was like an angel’s, and she held her arms out to +him as the waters rose to his lips. She bent and lifted him—lifted him +high upon the strands.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI—IN REALITY + + +Dan awoke from his dream, and sat suddenly up in bed in his shirt +sleeves, and stared at the people in his room,—a hotel boy and two +strangers, not unlike the men in his dream. He brushed his hand across +his eyes. + +“Sit down, will you? Do you speak English?” + +They were foreigners, but they did speak English, no doubt far more +perfectly than did Dan Blair. + +“Look here,” the boy said, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me—I +must have had a ripping jag on last night—let me put my head in a basin +of water, will you?” + +He dived into the dressing-room, and came out in another second, his +blond head wet, wiping his face and hair furiously with a towel. He +hadn’t beamed as he did now on these two strange men—for weeks. + +“Well,” he asked slowly, “I expect you’ve come to ask me to fight with +Prince Poniotowsky—yes? It’s against our principles, you know, in the +States—we don’t do that way. Personally, I’d throw anything at him I +could lay my hands on, but I don’t care to have him let daylight through +me, and I don’t care to kill your friend. See? I’m an American—yes, I +know, I know,” he nodded sagely, “but we don’t have your kind of fights +out our way. It means business when we go out to shoot.” + +He threw the towel down on the table, soaking wet as it was, put his +hands in the pockets of his evening clothes, which he still wore, for he +had not undressed, threw his young, blond head back and frankly told his +visitors: + +“I’m not up on swords. I’ve seen them in pictures and read about them, +but I’ll be darned if I’ve ever had one in my hand.” + +His expression changed at the quiet response of Poniotowsky’s seconds. + +“_Gee._ Whew!” he exclaimed, “he does, does he? Twenty +paces—revolvers—why, he’s a bird—a bird!” + +A slight flush rose along Dan’s cheeks. “I never liked him, and you +don’t want to hear what I think of him. But I’ll be darned if he isn’t a +bird.” + +His eyes caught sight of a blue envelope on the table. He tore the +telegram open. It was Ruggles’ answer to his question: + + “Quite true. Tell you about it. Arrive your hotel around noon.” + +The despatch informed him that he was really a pauper and also that he +had a second for his duel with Poniotowsky. His guests stood formally +before the young barbarian. + +“Look here,” he continued amiably, “I can’t meet your Dago friend like +this, it’s not fair. He hasn’t seen me shoot; it isn’t for me to say it, +but I can’t miss. Hold,” he interrupted, “he has, too. He was at the +Galoreys’ at that first shoot. Ah—well, I refuse, tell him so, will you? +Tell him I’m an American and a cowboy and that for me a duel at twenty +paces with a pistol would mean murder. I like his pluck—it’s all +right—tell him anything you like. He ought to have chosen swords. He +would have had me there.” + +They retired as formally as they had entered, and took his answer to +their client, and after a bath and careful toilet Dan went out, leaving +a line for Ruggles, to say that he would be at the hotel to meet him at +noon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII—THE PRINCE ACCEPTS + + +The Hungarian, in the Continental, was drinking his coffee in his room +when his friends found him. He listened to what they had to say coolly. +His eye-glass gave him an air of full dress even at this early hour. +Poniotowsky had not fallen into a deep sleep and had a dream as Dan +Blair had—indeed he had only reached his rooms the night before when a +letter had been brought him from Miss Lane. He was used to her caprices, +which were countless, and he never left her with any certainty that he +should see her again, or with any idea of what her next move would be. +The letter read: + + “It’s no use. I just can’t. I’ve always told you so, and I mean it. + I’m tired out—I want to go away and never see any one again. I want + to die. I shall be dead next year, and I don’t care. Please leave me + alone and don’t come to see me, and for heaven’s sake don’t bore me + with notes.” + +When Poniotowsky received this note he had shrugged, and decided that if +he lived after his duel with the young savage he would go to see the +actress, taking a jewel or a gift—he would get her a Pomeranian dog, and +all would be well. He listened coolly to what his friends had to say. + +“_C’est un enfant_,” one of them remarked sneeringly. + +“In my mind, he is a coward,” said the other. + +“On the contrary,” answered Poniotowsky coolly, “he shoots to +perfection. You will be surprised to hear that I admire his refusal. I +accept his decision, as his skill is unquestioned with arms. I choose to +look upon this reply as an apology. I would like to have you inform Mr. +Blair of this fact. He’s young enough to be my son, and he is a +barbarian. The incident is closed.” + +He put Letty Lane’s note in his pocket, and leisurely prepared to go out +on the Rue de Castiglione to buy her a Pomeranian dog. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII—THE THINGS ABOVE GROUND + + +Higgins let him in, and across the room Blair saw the figure of the +actress against the light of the long window. Her back was to him as he +came up, and though she knew who it was, she was far from dreaming how +different a man it was that came in to see her this morning from the one +she had known. + +“Won’t you turn around and bid me good-by?” he asked her. “I’m going +away.” + +She gave him a languid hand without looking at him. + +“Has Higgins gone?” + +“Yes. Won’t you turn round and say how-de-do, and good-by? Gosh,” he +cried as she turned, “how pale you are, darling.” And he took her in his +arms. + +The vision he had had of her in her coral-colored dress at Maxim’s gave +place to the more radiant one which had shone on him in his curious +dream. + +“Are you very ill?” he murmured. “Speak to me—tell me—are you going to +die?” + +“Don’t be a goose, boy.” + +“I’ve had a wire from Ruggles,” Dan said; “he tells me it’s true. I have +nothing but my own feet to stand on, and I’m as poor as Job’s turkey.” +Looking at her impressively, he added, “I only mind because it will be +hard on you.” + +“Hard on me?” + +“Yes, you’ll have to start poor. Mother did with father, out there in +Montana. It will be rough at first, but others have done it and been +happy, and we’ve got each other.” The eyes fixed on her were as blue as +the summer skies. “Money’s a darned poor thing to buy happiness with, +Letty. It didn’t buy me a thing fit to keep, that’s the truth. I’ve +never been so gay since I was born as I am to-day. Why, I feel,” he +said, and would have stretched out his arms, only he held her with them, +“like a king. Later I’ll have money again, all right—don’t fret—and then +I’ll know its worth. I’ll bet you weren’t all unhappy there in Blairtown +before you turned the heads of all those Johnnies.” He put one hand +against her cheek and lifted her drooping head. “Lean on me, +sweetheart,” he said with great tenderness. “It will be all right.” + +A coral color stole along her cheek: it rose like a sweet tide under his +hand. She looked at him, fascinated. + +“It’s not a real tragedy,” he went on. “I’ve got my letter of credit, +and old Ruggles will let me hang on to that, and you’ll find the motor +cars and jewels will look like thirty cents when we stand in the door of +our little shack and look out at the Value Mine.” He lifted her hand to +his lips, held it there, and the spark ignited in her; his youth and +confidence, his force and passion, woke a woman in Letty Lane that had +never lived before that hour. + +He murmured: “I’ll be there with you, darling—night and day—night and +day!” He brought his bright face close to hers. + +She found breath to say, “What has happened to you, Dan—what?” + +“I don’t know,” he gravely replied. “I guess I came up pretty close +against it last night; things got into their right places, and then and +there I knew you were the girl for me, and I the man for you, rich or +poor.” + +He kissed her and she passively received his caresses, so passively, so +without making him any sign, that his magnificent assurance began to be +shaken—his arms fell from her. + +“It’s quite true,” he murmured, “I am poor.” + +She led him to the lounge and made him sit down by her. He waited for +her to speak, but she remained silent, her eyes fixed on her frail +hands, ringless—tears forced themselves under her eyelids, but she kept +them back. + +“I guess,” she said in a veiled tone, “you’ve no idea all I’ve been +through, Dan, since I stood there in the church choir.” + +American though he was, and down on foreign customs—he wouldn’t fight a +duel—he got down on his knees and put his arms around her from there. + +“I know what you are, all right, Letty. You are an angel.” + +She gave way and burst into tears and hid her face on his shoulder, and +sobbed. + +“I believe you do—I believe you do. You’ve saved my soul and my life. +I’ll go with you—I’ll go—I’ll go!” + + * * * * * + +Later she told him how she would learn to cook and sew, and that +together they would stand in the door of their shack at sunset, or that +she would stand and watch for him to come home; and, the actress in her +strong, she sprang up for a minute and stood shielding her eyes with her +slender hand to show him how. And he gazed, charmed at her, and drew her +back to him again. + +“You’ve made dad’s words come true.” Dan wouldn’t tell her what they +were—he said she wouldn’t understand. “I nearly had to die to learn them +myself,” he said. + +She leaned toward him, a slight shadow crossed her face as if memories +laid a darkling wing for a moment there. Such shadows must have passed, +for she kissed him of her own accord on the lips and without a sigh. + +Side by side they sat for a long time. Higgins softly opened a door, saw +them, and stepped back, unheard. + +Ruggles came in, and his steps in the soft carpet made no sound; and he +looked at the pair long and tenderly before he spoke. They sat there +before him like children, holding hands. + +Letty Lane’s hat lay on the floor. Her hair was a halo around her pale, +charming face; she had caught youth from the boy, she was laughing like +a girl—they were making plans. And as the subject was Love, and there +was no money in the question, and as there was sacrifice on the part of +each, it is safe to think that old Dan Blair’s son was planning to +purchase those things that stay above ground and persist in the hearts +of us all. + + THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl From His Town, by Marie Van Vorst + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 36961-0.txt or 36961-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/9/6/36961/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Girl From His Town + +Author: Marie Van Vorst + +Illustrator: F. Graham Cootes + +Release Date: August 3, 2011 [EBook #36961] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Image] + + + + + THE + GIRL FROM HIS TOWN + + _By_ + MARIE VAN VORST + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + F. GRAHAM COOTES + + INDIANAPOLIS + THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + COPYRIGHT 1910 + The Bobbs-Merrill Company + + PRESS OF + BRAUNWORTH & CO. + BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS + BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I Dan Blair 1 + II The Duchess Approves 21 + III The Blairtown Soloist 28 + IV In The Coral Room 31 + V At The Carlton 47 + VI Galorey Seeks Advice 55 + VII At The Stage Entrance 70 + VIII Dan's Simplicity 76 + IX Disappointment 85 + X The Boy From My Town 94 + XI Ruggles Gives a Dinner 109 + XII The Green Knight 128 + XIII The Face of Letty Lane 135 + XIV From India's Coral Strands 155 + XV Galorey Gives Advice 174 + XVI The Musicale Program 187 + XVII Letty Lane Sings 199 + XVIII A Woman's Way 207 + XIX Dan Awakes 214 + XX A Hand Clasp 225 + XXI Ruggles Returns 231 + XXII What Will You Take? 234 + XXIII In the Sunset Glow 242 + XXIV Ruggles' Offer 250 + XXV Letty Lane Runs Away 268 + XXVI White and Coral 274 + XXVII At Maxim's 290 + XXVIII Such Stuff as Dreams 299 + XXIX The Picture of It All 304 + XXX Sodawater Fountain Girl 309 + XXXI In Reality 315 + XXXII The Prince Accepts 319 + XXXIII The Things Above Ground 322 + + + + +THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN + + + + +CHAPTER I--DAN BLAIR + + +The fact that much he said, because of his unconscionable slang, was +incomprehensible did not take from the charm of his conversation as far +as the Duchess of Breakwater was concerned. The brightness of his +expression, his quick, clear look upon them, his beautiful young smile, +his not too frequent laugh, his "new gayness," as the duchess called his +high spirits, his supernal youth, his _difference_, credited him with +what nine-tenths of the human race lack--charm. + +His tone was not too crudely western; neither did he suggest the ultra +East with which they were familiar. American women went down well enough +with them, but American men were unpopular, and when the visitor +arrived, Lady Galorey did not even announce him to the party gathered +for "the first shoot." + +The others were in the armory when the ninth gun, a young chap, six feet +of him, blond as the wheat, cleanly set up and very good to look at, +came in with Lily, Duchess of Breakwater. Lady Galorey, his hostess, +greeted them. + +"Oh, here you are, are you? Lord Mersey, Sir John Fairthrope." She +mumbled the rest of the names of her companions as though she did not +want them understood, then waved toward the young chap, calling him Mr. +Dan Blair, and he, as she hesitated, added: + +"From Blairtown, Montana." + +"And give him a gun, will you, Gordon?" Lady Galorey spoke to her +husband. + +"I discovered Mr. Blair, Edie," the duchess announced, "and he didn't +even know there was a shoot on for to-day. Fancy!" + +"I guess," Dan Blair said pleasantly, "I'll just take a gun out of this +bunch," and he chose one at random from several indicated to him by the +gamekeeper. "I get my best luck when I go it blind. Right! Thanks. +That's so, Lady Galorey, I didn't know there was to be any shooting +until the duchess let it out." + +To himself he thought with good-natured amusement, "Afraid I'll spoil +their game record, maybe!" and went out along with them, following the +insular noblemen like a ray of sun, smiling on the pretty woman who had +discovered him in the grounds where he had been poking about by himself. + +"Where, in Heaven's name, did you 'corral'--word of his own--the dear boy, +Edith? How did he get to Osdene Park, or in fact anywhere, just as he +is, fresh as from Eden?" + +"Thought I'd let him take you by surprise, dearest. Where'd you find +Dan?" + +"Down by the garden house feeding the rabbits, on his knees like a +little boy, his hands full of lettuces. I'd just come a cropper myself +on the mare. She fell, I'm sorry to say, Edie, and hacked her knees +quite a lot. One of those disguised ditches, you know. I was coming +along leading her when I ran on your friend." + +The young duchess was slender as a willow, very brunette, with a +beautiful, discontented face. + +"I'm going to show Dan Blair off," Lady Galorey responded, "going to +give the dbutantes a chance." + +Placidly nodding, the duchess lit a cigarette and began to quote from +Dan Blair's conversation: "I fancy he won't let them 'worry him'; he's +too 'busy!'" + +"You mean that you're going to keep him occupied?" + +The duchess didn't notice this. + +"_Is_ he such a catch?" + +Neither of the women had walked out with the guns. The duchess had a bad +foot, and Lady Galorey never went anywhere she could help with her +husband. She now drew her chair up to the table in the morning-room, to +which they had both gone after the departure of the guns, and regarded +with satisfaction a quantity of stationery and the red leather desk +appointments. + +"Sit down and smoke if you like, Lily; I'm going to fill out some +lists." + +"No, thanks, I'm going up to my rooms and get Parkins to 'massey' this +beastly foot of mine. I must have fallen on it. But tell me first, is +Mr. Blair a catch?" + +Lady Galorey had opened an address book and looked up from it to reply: + +"Something like ten million pounds." + +"Heavens! Disgusting!" + +"The richest young man 'west of some river or other.' At any rate he +told me last night that it was 'clean money.' I dare say the river is +responsible for its cleanliness, but that fact seemed to give him +satisfaction." + +The duchess was leaning on the table at Lady Galorey's side. + +"Dan's father took Gordon all over the West that time he went to the +States for a big hunt in the Rockies. He got to know Mr. Blair awfully +well and liked him. The old gentleman bought a little property about +that time that turned out to be a gold mine." + +With persistency the duchess said: + +"How d'you know it is 'clean money,' Edith? Not that it makes a rap of +difference," she laughed prettily, "but how do you know that he is rich +to this horrible extent?" + +Lady Galorey put down her address book impatiently: "Does he look like +an impostor?" + +The other returned: "Even the archangel fell, my dear Edith!" + +"Well," returned her friend, "this one is too young to have fallen far," +and she shut up her list in desperation. + +The duchess sat down on the edge of the lounge and raised her expressive +eyes to Lady Galorey, who once more looked at her sarcastically, and +went on: + +"Gordon liked the old gentleman: he was extraordinarily generous--quite a +type. They called the town after him--Blairtown: that is where the son +'hails from.' He was a little lad when Gordon was out and Mr. Blair +promised that Dan should come over here and see us one day, and this," +she tapped the table with her pen, "seems to be the day, for he came +down upon us in this breezy way without even sending a wire, 'just +turned up' last night. Gordon's mad about him. His father has been dead +a year, and he is just twenty-two." + +"Good heavens!" murmured the duchess. Lady Galorey opened her address +book again. + +"Gordon's got him terribly on his mind, my dear; he has forbidden any +gambling or any bridge as long as the boy is with us...." + +Her companion rose and thrust her hands into the pocket of her tweed +coat. She laughed softly, then went over to the long window where +without, across the pane, the early winter mists were flying, chased by +a furtive sun. + +"Gordon said that the boy's father treated him like a king, and that +while the boy is here he is going to look out for him." + +Over her shoulder the other threw out coldly: + +"You speak as though he were in a den of thieves. I didn't know Gordon's +honor was so fine. As for me, _I_ don't gamble, you know." + +Lady Galorey had decided that Lily's insistent remaining gave her a +chance to fill her fountain pen. She was, therefore, carefully squirting +in the ink, and she flushed at her friend's last words. + +Lady Galorey herself was the best bridge player in London, and cards +were her passion. She did not remind the lady in the window that there +were other games besides bridge, but kept both her tongue and her +temper. + +After a little silence in which the women followed each her own +thoughts, the duchess murmured: + +"I'll toddle up-stairs, Edie--let you write. Where did you say we were +going to meet the guns for food?" + +"At the gate by the White Pastures. There'll be a cart and a motor +going, whichever you like, around two." + +"Right," her grace nodded; "I'll be on time, dearest." + +And Lady Galorey with a relieved sigh heard the door close behind the +duchess. Wiping her fountain pen delicately with a bit of chamois, she +murmured: "Well, Dan Blair _is_ out of Eden, poor dear, if he met her by +the gate." + +A fortune of a round ten million pounds was a small part of what this +young man had come into by direct inheritance from the Copper King of +Blairtown, Montana. For once the money figure had not been exaggerated, +but Lady Galorey did not know about the rest of Dan's inheritance. + + * * * * * + +The young man whistling in his rooms in the bachelor quarters of Osdene +Park House, dressed for dinner without the aid of a valet. When Lord +Galorey had asked him "where his manservant was," Dan had grinned. +"Gosh, I wouldn't have one of those Johnnies hanging around me--never did +have! I can put on _my_ stockings all right! There was a chap on the +boat I came over in who let his man put on his stockings. Can you beat +that?" Blair had laughed again. "I think if anybody tickled my feet that +way I would be likely to kick him in the eye." + +Dressing in his room he whistled under his breath a song from a newly +popular comic opera; and he intoned with his clear young voice a line of +the words: + +"_Should-you-go-to-Mandalay._" + +Out through his high window, if he had looked, he would have seen the +misty sweep of the park under the faint moonrise and fine shadows that +the leaves made in the veiled light, but he did not look out. He was +dressing for dinner without a valet and giving a great deal of care to +his toilet; for the first time he was to dine in the house of a nobleman +and in the presence of a duchess; not that it meant a great deal to +him--he thought it was "funny." + +In Dan Blair's twenty-two years of utterly happy days his one grief had +been the death of his father. As soon as the old man had died Dan had +gone off into the Rockies with his guides and not "shown up" for months. +When he came back to Blairtown, as he expressed it, "he packed his grip +and beat it while his shoes were good," for the one place he could +remember his father had suggested for him to go. + +Blairtown was very much impressed when the heir came in from the Rockies +with "a big kill," and the orphan's case did not seem especially +disturbed. But no one in the town knew how the boy's heart ached for the +old man. When Dan was six years old his father had literally picked him +up by the nape of his neck and thrown him into the water like a pup and +watched him swim. At eight he sent the boy off with a gun to rough-camp. +Then he took Dan down in the mines with the men. His education had been +won in Blairtown, at a school called public, but which in reality was +nothing more than a pioneer district school. + +On Sundays Dan dressed up and went with his father to church twice a day +and in the week-days his father took him to the prayer-meetings, and at +sixteen Dan went to college in California. He had just completed his +course when old Blair died. Then he inherited fifty million dollars. + +On the day of the shoot at Osdene, Dan dropped sixty birds. He tried +very hard not to be too pleased. "Gosh," he thought to himself, "those +birds fell as though they were trained all right, and the other sports +were mad, I could see it." He then fell to whistling softly the air he +had heard Lady Galorey play the night before from the new success at the +Gaiety, and finished it as his toilet completed itself. He took up a +gardenia from his dressing-table, and fastened it in his coat, stopping +on the stairs on the way down to look over into the hall, where the men +in their black clothes and the women in their shining dresses waited +before going into the dining-room. The lights fell on white arms and +necks, on jewels and on fine proud heads. Dan Blair had been in San +Francisco and in New York, on short journeys, however, which his father, +the year before, had directed him to take, but he had never seen a +"show" like this. + +He came slowly down the broad stairway of the Osdene Park House, the +last guest. In the corner, where, behind her, a piece of fourteenth +century tapestry cut a green and pink square against the rich black oak +paneling, the Duchess of Breakwater sat waiting. She wore a dress of +golden tulle which was simply a sheath to her slender body, and from her +neck hung a long rope of diamonds caught at the end by a small black +fan; there was a wreath of diamonds like shining water drops linked +together in her hair. She was the grandest lady at Osdene, and renowned +in more than one sense of the word. As Dan saw her smile at him and +rise, he thought: + +"She is none too sorry that I made _that_ record, but I hope to heaven +she won't say anything to me about it." + +And the duchess did not speak of it. Telling him that he was to take her +in to dinner, she laid first her fan on his arm and then her hand. And +Dan, one of those fortunate creatures who are born men of the world when +they get into it, gave her his arm with much grace, and as he leaned +down toward her he thought to himself: + +"Well, it's lucky for me I have my head on tight; a few more of those +goo-goo eyes of hers and it would be as well for me to light out for the +woods." + + * * * * * + +Dan liked best at Osdene Park his chin-chins with Gordon Galorey. The +young man was unflatteringly frank in his choice of companions. When the +duchess looked about for him to ride with her, walk with her, to find +the secluded corners, to talk, to play with him, she was likely to +discover Dan gone off with Lord Galorey, and to come upon them later, +sitting enveloped in smoke, a stand of drinks by their side. + +To Galorey, who had no heir or child, the boy's presence proved to be +the happiest thing that had come to him for a long time. He talked a +great deal to Dan about the old man. Galorey was poor and the fact of a +fortune of ten million pounds possessed by this one boy was continually +before his mind like an obsession. It was like looking down into a gold +mine. Galorey tried often to broach the subject of money, but Dan kept +off. At length Galorey asked boldly: + +"What are you going to do with it?" On this occasion they were walking +over from the lower park back to the house, a couple of terriers at +their heels. + +"Do with what?" Blair asked innocently. He was looking at the trees. He +was comparing their grayish green trunks and their foliage with the +California redwoods. A little taken aback, Lord Galorey laughed. + +"Why, with that colossal fortune of yours." + +And Blair answered unhesitatingly: "Oh--spend it on some girl sooner or +later." + +Galorey fairly staggered. Then he took it humorously. + +"My dear chap, I never saw a sweeter, bigger man than your father. If he +had been my father, I dare say I might have pulled off a different yard +of hemp, but I must confess that I think he has left you too much +money." + +"Well, there are a lot of fellows who are ready to look after it for +me," Blair answered coolly. Before his companion could redden, he +continued: "You see, dad took care of me for twenty-one years all right, +and whenever I am up a stump, why all I have to do is to remember the +things he did." + +For the first time since his arrival at Osdene Dan's tone was serious. +Interested as he was in the older man, Dan's inclination was to evade +the discussion of serious subjects. With Blair's slang, his conversation +was almost incomprehensible. + +"Dad didn't gas much," the boy said, "but I could draw a map of some of +the things he did say. He used to say he made his money out of the +earth." + +The two were walking side by side across the rich velvet of the +immemorial English turf. The extreme softness of the autumn day, its +shifting lights, its mellow envelope, the beauty of the park--the age, +the stability, the harmony, served to touch the young fellow's spirits. +At any rate there was a ring in him, an equilibrium that surprised +Galorey. + +"'Most things,' dad said to me, 'go back to the earth.'" He struck the +English turf with his stick. "Dad said a fellow had better buy those +things that stay above the ground." Dan smiled frankly at his companion. +"Curious thing to say, wasn't it?" he reflected. "I remembered it, and I +got to wondering after I saw him buried, '_what are_ the things that +stay above the ground?' The old man never gave me another talk like +that." + +After a few seconds Galorey put in: + +"But, my dear chap, you did give me a shock up there just now when you +said you were going to spend 'all your money on some girl.'" + +The millionaire took a chestnut from his pocket. He held it high above +his head and the little dog that had been yelping at his heels fixed his +eyes on it. Blair poised it, then threw it as far as he could. It sped +through the air and the terrier ran like mad across the park. + +"I like girls awfully, Gordon, and when I find the right one, why, then +I'm going to feel what a bully thing it is to be rich." + +Lord Galorey groaned aloud. + +"My dear chap!" he exclaimed. + +The spell of the day, the fragrant beauty of the time and place and hour +were clearly upon Dan Blair. Lord Galorey was sympathetic to him. The +terrier came tearing back with the chestnut held between his thick jaws. +Dan bent down to take the nut from the dog and wrestled with him gently. + +"Swell little grip he's got. Nice old pup! Let it go now!" And he threw +the nut far again, and as the terrier ran once more Blair thrust his +hands down in his pockets and began softly to whistle the tune of +_Mandalay_. + +He said slowly, going back to his subject: "It must be great to feel +that a fellow can give her jewels like the Duchess of Breakwater's, +ropes of 'em"--he nodded toward the house--"and a fine old place like this +now, and motors and yachts and all kinds of stuff." + +His eyes rested on the suave lines of the Elizabethan house, with its +softened gables and its banked terraces. Possibly his vivid imagination +pictured "some nice girl" there waiting, as they should come up, to meet +him. + +"I have always thought it would be bully to find a poor girl--pretty as a +peach, of course--one who had never had much, and just cover her with +things. Hey, there!" he cried to the terrier, who had come running back, +"bring it to me." + +They had come up to the terrace by this, and Dan's confidence, fresh as +a gush of water from a rock, had ceased. His face was placid. He didn't +realize what he had said. + +From out of one of the long windows, dressed in a sable coat, her small +head tied up in a motor scarf, the Duchess of Breakwater appeared. She +greeted them severely, and Lord Galorey hear her say under her breath to +Dan: + +"You promised to be back to drive with me before dinner, Dan. Did you +forget?" + +And as Galorey left the boy to make his peace, the first smile of +amusement broke over his face. He felt that the duchess had between her +and her capture of Dan Blair's heart the elusive picture of some "nice +girl"--not much perhaps, but it might be very hard to tear away the +picture of the ideal that was ever before the blue eyes of this man who +had a fortune to spend on her! + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE DUCHESS APPROVES + + +His attentions to the Duchess of Breakwater had not been so conspicuous +or so absorbing as to prevent the eager mothers--who, true to her word, +Lady Galorey had invited down--from laying siege to Dan Blair. Lady +Galorey asked him: + +"Don't you want to marry any one of these beauties, Dan?" And Blair, +with his beautiful smile and what Lily called his inspired candor, +answered: + +"Not on your life, Lady Galorey!" + +And she agreed, "I think myself you are too young." + +"No," Dan refuted, "you are wrong there. I shall marry as fast as I +can." + +His hostess was surprised. + +"Why, I thought you wanted your fling first." + +And Dan, from his chair, in which, with a book, he had been sitting when +Lady Galorey found him, answered cheerfully: + +"Oh, I don't like being alone. I want to go about with some one. I +should like a fling all right, but I want to fling with somebody as I +go." + +The lady of the house was not a philosopher nor an analyst. She had +certain affairs of her own and was engrossed in them and lived in them. +As far as Lady Galorey was concerned the rest of the world might go and +hang itself as long as it didn't do it at her gate-post. But Blair +couldn't leave any one indifferent to him very long, not unless one +could be indifferent to a blaze of sunlight; one must either draw the +blinds down or bask in its brightness. + +She laughed. "You're perfectly delicious! You mean to say you want to be +married at once and let your _wife_ fling around with you?" + +"Just that." + +"How sweet of you, Dan! And you won't marry one of these girls here?" + +"Don't fill the bill, Lady Galorey." + +"Oh, you have a sweetheart at home, then?" + +"All off!" he assured her blithely, and rose, tall and straight and +slender. + +The Duchess of Breakwater had come in, indeed she never failed to when +there was any question of finding Blair. + +Dan stood straightly before the two women of an old race, and the +American didn't suggest any line of noble ancestors whatsoever. His +features were rather agglomerate; his muscles were possibly not the +perfect elastic specimens that were those muscles whose strain and sinew +had been made from the same stock for generations. He was, nevertheless, +very good to look on. Any woman would have thought so, and he bent his +blond head as he looked at the Duchess of Breakwater with something like +benevolence, something of his father's kindness in his clear blue eyes. +Neither of the noble ladies vaguely understood him. His hostess thought +him "a good sort," not half bad, a splendid catch, and the other woman, +only a few years his senior, was in love with him. The duchess had +married at eighteen, tired of her bargain at twenty, and found herself a +widow at twenty-five. She held a telegram in her hand. + +"We've got the box for _Mandalay_ to-night at the Gaiety, and let's +motor in." + +Only Lady Galorey hesitated, disappointed. + +"Too bad--I had specially arranged for Lady Grandcourt to drive over with +Eileen. I thought it would be a ripping chance for her to see Dan." + +When at length the duchess had succeeded in getting Dan to herself +toward the end of the day in the red room, after tea, she said: + +"So you won't marry a London beauty?" + +And rather coldly Dan had answered: + +"Why, you talk, all of you, as if I had only to ask any girl of them, +and she would jump down my throat." + +"Don't try it," the duchess answered, "unless you want to have your +mouth full!" + +Dan did not reply for a second, but he looked at her more seriously, +conscious of her grace and her good looks. She was certainly better to +look at than the simple girls with their big hands, small wits, long +faces, and, as the boy expressed it, "utter lack of get-up." The duchess +shone out to advantage. + +"Why don't you talk to me?" she asked softly. "You know you would rather +talk to me than the others." + +"Yes," he said frankly; "they make me nervous." + +"And I don't?" + +"No," he said. "I learn a lot every time we are together." + +"Learn?" she repeated, not particularly flattered by this. "What sort of +things?" + +"Oh, about the whole business," he returned vaguely. "You know what I +mean." + +"Then," she said with a slight laugh, "you mean to say you talk with me +for _educational purposes_? What a beastly bore!" + +Dan did not contradict her. She was by no means Eve to him, nor was he +the raw recruit his simplicity might give one to think. He had had his +temptations and his way out of them was an easy one; for he was very +slow to stir, and back of all was his ideal. The reality and power of +this ideal Dan knew best at moments like these. But the Duchess of +Breakwater was the most lovely woman--the most dangerous woman that had +come his way. He liked her--Dan was well on the way to love. + +The two were alone in the big dark room. At their side the small table, +from which they had taken their tea together, stood with its empty cups +and its silver. Without, the day was cold and windy, and the sunset +threw along the panes a red reflection. The light fell on the Duchess of +Breakwater, something like a veil--a crimson veil slipped over her face +and breast. She leaned toward Dan, and between them there was no more +barrier than the western light. He felt his pulses beat and a tide +rising within him. She was a delicious emanation, fragrant and near, and +as he might have gathered a cluster of flowers, so in the next second he +would have taken her in his arms, but from the other room just then Lady +Galorey, at the piano, played a snatch from _Mandalay_, striking at once +into the tune. The sound came suddenly, told them quickly some one was +near, and the Duchess of Breakwater involuntarily moved back, and so +knocked the small tray, jostled it, and it fell clattering to the floor. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE BLAIRTOWN SOLOIST + + +Blairtown had a population of some eight thousand. There was a +Presbyterian church to which Dan and his father went regularly, sitting +in the bare pew when the winter's storms beat and rattled on the panes, +or in the summer sunshine, when the flies thronged the window casings, +when the smell of the pews and the panama fans and the hymn-books came +strong to them through the heat. + +One day there was a missionary sermon, and for the first time in its +history a girl sang a solo in the First Presbyterian Church. Dan Blair +heard it, looked up, and it made a mark in his life. A girl in a white +dress trimmed with blue gentians, white cotton gloves, and golden hair, +was the soloist. He knew her, that is, he had a nodding acquaintance +with her. It was the girl at the drug store who sold soda-water, and he +had asked her some hundreds of times for a "vanilla or a chocolate," but +it wasn't this vulgar memory that made the little boy listen. It was the +girl's voice. Standing back of the yellow-painted rail, above the +minister's pulpit, above the flies, the red pews and the panama fans, +she sang, and she sang into Dan Blair's soul. To speak more truly, she +_made him a soul_ in that moment. She awakened the boy; his collar felt +tight, his cheeks grew hot. He felt his new boots, too, hard and heavy. +She made him want to cry. These were the physical sensations--the +material part of the awakening. The rest went on deeply inside of Dan. +She broke his heart; then she healed it. She made him want to cry like a +girl; then she wiped his tears. + +The little boy settled back and grew more comfortable and listened, and +what she sang was, + + "From Greenland's icy mountains, + From India's coral stra--ands." + +Before the hymn reached its end he was a calm boy again, and the hymn +took up its pictures and became like an illustrated book of travels, and +he wanted to see those pea-green peaks of Greenland, to float upon the +icebergs to them, and see the dawn break on the polar seas as the +explorers do.... He should find the North Pole some day! Then he wanted +to go to an African jungle, where the tiger, "tiger shining bright," +should flash his stripes before his eyes! Dan would gather wreaths of +coral from the stra--ands and give them to the girl with the yellow hair! +When he and his father came out together from the church, Dan chose the +street that passed the soda-fountain drug store and peeped in. It was +dark and cool, and behind the counter the drug clerk mixed the summer +drinks: and the drug clerk mixed them from that time ever afterward--for +the girl with the yellow hair never showed up in Blairtown again. She +went away! + + + + +CHAPTER IV--IN THE CORAL ROOM + + +"Mandalay" had run at the Gaiety the season before and again opened the +autumn season. Light and charming, thoroughly musical, it had toured +successfully through Europe, but London was its home, and its great +popularity was chiefly owing to the girl who had starred in it--Letty +Lane. Her face was on every post-card, hand-bill, cosmetic box, and even +popular drinks were named for her. + +The night of the Osdene box party was the reopening of _Mandalay_, and +the curtain went up after the overture to an outburst of applause. Dan +Blair had never "crossed the pond" before this memorable visit, when he +had gone straight out to Osdene Park. London theaters and London itself, +indeed, were unexplored by him. He had seen what there was to be seen of +the opera bouffe in his own country, but the brilliant, perfect +performance of a company at the London Gaiety he had yet to enjoy. + +The opening scene of _Mandalay_ is oriental; the burst of music and the +tinkling of the silvery temple bells and the effect of an extremely blue +sea, made Dan "sit up," as he put it. The theatrical picture was so +perfect that he lifted his head, pushed his chair back to enjoy. He was +thus close to the duchess. With invigorating young enthusiasm the boy +drew in his breath and waited to be amused and to hear. The tunes he +already knew before the orchestra began to charm his ear. + +On landing at Plymouth Dan had been keen to feel that he was really +stepping into the world, and at Osdene Park he had been daily, hourly +"seeing life." The youngest of the household, his youth nevertheless was +not taken into consideration by any of them. No one had treated him like +a junior. He had gone neck to neck with their pace as far as he liked, +furnished them fresh amusement, and been their diversion. In all his +rare unspoiled youth, Blair had been suddenly dropped down in an effete +set that had whirled about him, and one by one out of the inner circle +had called him to join them; and one by one with all of them Dan had +whirled. + +Lord Galorey had talked to him frankly, as plainly as if Dan had been +his own father, and found much of the old man's common sense in his fine +blond head. Lady Galorey had come to him in a moment of great anxiety, +and no one but her young guest knew how badly she needed help. He had +further made it known to the lady that he was not in the marriage +market; that she could not have him for any of her girls. And as for the +Duchess of Breakwater, well--he had whirled with her until his head swam. +He had grown years older at the Park in the few weeks of his visit, but +now for the first time, as the music of _Mandalay_ struck upon his ears, +like a ripple of distant seas, he felt like the boy who had left +Blairtown to come abroad. He had spent the most part of the day in +London with a man who had come over to see him from America. Dan +attended to his business affairs, and the people who knew said that he +had a keen head. Mr. Joshua Ruggles, his father's best friend, whom Dan +this afternoon had left to go to his room at the Carlton, had put his +arm with affection through the boy's: + +"Don't look as though it were any too healthy down to the place you're +visiting at, Dan. Plumbing all right?" + +And the boy, flushing slightly, had said: "Don't you fret, Josh, I'll +look after my health all right." + +"There's nothing like the mountain air," returned the Westerner. "These +old fogs stick in my nostrils; feel as though I could smell London clean +down to my feet!" + + * * * * * + +From the corner of the box Dan looked hard at the stage, at the fresh +brilliant costumes and the lovely chorus girls. + +"Gosh," he thought to himself, "they are the prettiest ever! Dove-gray, +eyes of Irish blue, mouths like roses!" + +Leaning forward a little toward the duchess he whispered: "There isn't +one who isn't a winner. I never struck such a box of dry goods!" + +The duchess smiled on Dan with good humor. His nave pleasure was +delightful. It was like taking a child to a pantomime. She was wearing +his flowers and displaying a jewel that he had found and bought for her, +and which she had not hesitated to accept. She watched his eager face +and his pleasure unaffected and keen. She could not believe that this +young man was master of ten million pounds. + +When Letty Lane appeared Blair heard a light rustle like rain through +the auditorium, a murmur, and the house rose. There was a well-bred +calling from the stalls, a call from the pit, and a generous +applause--"Letty Lane--Letty Lane!" and as though she were royalty, there +was a fluttering of handkerchiefs like flags. The young fellow with the +others stood in the back of the box, his hands in his pockets, looking +at the stage. There wasn't a girl in the chorus as pretty as this prima +donna! Letty Lane came on in _Mandalay_ in the first act in the dress of +a fashionable princess. She was modish and worldly. For the only time in +the play she was modern and conventional, and whatever breeding she +might have been able to claim, from whatever class she was born, as she +stood there in her beautiful gown she was grace itself, and charm. She +was distinctly a star, and showed her appreciation of her audience's +admiration. + +At the end of the tenor solo the Princess Oltary runs into the pavilion +and there changes her dress and appears once more to dance before the +rajah and to prove herself the dancer he has known and loved in a caf +in Paris. Letty Lane's dress in this dance was the classic ballet +dancer's, white as the leaves of a lily. She seemed to swim and float; +actually to be breathed and exhaled from out her filmy gown; and the +only ray of color in her costume was her own golden hair, surmounted by +a small coral-colored cap, embroidered in pearls. The actress bowed to +the right and left, ran to the right, ran to the left; glanced toward +the Duchess of Breakwater's box; acknowledged the burst of applause; +began to dance and finished her _pas seul_, and with folded hands sang +her song. Her beautiful voice came out clear as crystal water from a +crystal rock, and her words were cradled like doves, like boats on the +boundless seas.... + + "From India's coral strand...." + +But there was no hymn tune to this song of Letty Lane's in _Mandalay_! +To the boy in the box, however, the words, the tune, the droning of the +flies on the window-pane, the strong odor of the hymn-books and panama +fans, came back, and the clear sunlight of Montana seemed to steal into +the Gaiety as Letty Lane sang. + +The Duchess of Breakwater clapped with frank enthusiasm, and said: "She +is a perfect wonder, isn't she? Oh, she is _too_ bewitching!" + +And she turned for sympathy to her friend, who stood behind her, his +face illumined. He was amazed; his blue eyes ablaze, his head bent +forward, he was staring, staring at the Gaiety curtain, gone down on the +first act. + +He laughed softly, and the duchess heard him say: + +"_Good!_ Well, I should say she was! She's a girl from our town!" + +When the duchess tried to share her enthusiasm with Dan he had +disappeared. He left the box and with no difficulty made his way as far +as the first wing. + +"Can you get me an entrance?" he asked a man he had met once at Osdene +and who was evidently an habitu. + +"I dare say. Rippin' show, isn't it?" + +[Image] + +Dan put his hand on ducal shoulders and followed the nobleman through +the labyrinth of flies. + +"Which of 'em do you want to see, old man?" + +Dan, without replying, went forward to a small cluster of lights in one +of the wings. He went forward intuitively, and his companion caught his +arm: "Oh, I say, for _God's_ sake, don't go on like this!" + +But without response Dan continued his direction. A call page stood +before the door, and Dan, on a card over the entrance, read "Miss Lane." +The smell of calcium and paint and perfume and the auxiliaries hung +heavy on the air. The other man saw Dan knock, knock again and then go +in. + +Unannounced Dan Blair opened the door of the dressing-room of the +actress. Miss Lane's dressing-rooms were worth displaying to her +intimate friends. They were done with great taste in coral tint. She +might have been said to be in a coral cave under the sea, as far as +young Blair was concerned. As he came in he felt his ears deaden, and +the smoke of cigarettes grew so thick that he looked as through a veil. +The dancer was standing in the center of the room, one hand on her hip, +and in the other hand a cigarette. Her short skirt stood out around her +like a bell, and over the bell fell a rain of pinkish coral strands. She +wore a thin silk slip, from which her neck and arms came shining out, +and her woman knelt at her feet strapping on a little coral shoe. + +Blair shut the door behind him, and began to realize how rude, how +impertinent his entrance would be considered. But he came boldly forward +and would have introduced himself as "Dan Blair from Blairtown," but +Miss Lane, who stared at the entrance through the smoke, burst into a +laugh so bright, so delightful, that he was carried high up on the coral +strands to the very beach. She crossed her white arms over her breast +and leaned forward, as a saleswoman might lean forward over a counter, +and with her beautifully trained voice, all sweetly she asked him: + +"Hello, little boy, what will _you_ take?" + +Blair giggled, quick to catch her meaning, and answered: "Oh, chocolate, +I guess!" + +And Letty Lane laughed, put out her white hand, the one without the +cigarette, and said: "Haven't got that brand on board--so sorry! Will a +cocktail do? All sorts in bottles. Higgins, fix Mr. Blair a Martini." + +As the dresser rose from her stooping position, the rest of Letty Lane's +dressing-room unfolded out of the mist and smoke. On a sofa covered with +lace pillows Blair saw a man sitting, smoking as well. He was tall and +had a dark mustache. It was Prince Poniotowsky, whom Dan had already met +at the Galorey shoot. + +"Prince Poniotowsky," Miss Lane presented him, "Mr. Blair, of Blairtown, +Montana. Say, Frederick, give me my cap, will you? It is over by your +side. I've got to hustle." + +The man, without moving, picked up a small red cap with a single plume, +from the sofa at his side. In another second Letty Lane had placed it on +her head of yellow hair, real yellow hair and not a doubt of it, like +sunshine--not the color one gets from inside bottles. Her arms, her hands +flashed with rings, priceless flashes, and the little spears pricked Dan +like sharp needles. + +"It's the nicest ever!" she was saying. "How on earth did you get in +here, though? Have you bought the Gaiety Theater? I'm the most exclusive +girl on the stage. Who let you in?" + +Her accent was English, and even that put her from him. As he looked at +her he couldn't understand how he had ever recognized her. If he had +waited for another act he wouldn't have believed the likeness real. The +girl he remembered had both softened and hardened; the round features +were gone, but all the angles were gone as well. Her eyes were as gray +as the seas; she was painted and her lids were darkened. Seen close, she +was not so divine as on the stage, but there was still a more thrilling +charm about the fact that she was real. + +"To think of any one from Montana being here to-night! Staying very +long, Mr. Blair?" Between each sentence she directed Higgins, who was +getting her into her bodice. "And how do you like _Mandalay_? Isn't it +great?" + +She addressed herself to Dan, but she smiled on both the men with +extreme brilliance. + +"You bet your life," he responded. "I should think it was great." + +Poniotowsky rose indolently. He had not looked toward the new-comer, but +had, on the other hand, followed every detail of Miss Lane's dressing. + +"Better take your scarf, Letty. Hand it to Miss Lane," he directed +Higgins. "It is so damned drafty in these beastly wings." + +He drew his watch out, gathered up his long coat, flung it over his arm +and picked up his opera hat which lay folded on Letty Lane's +dressing-table. + +The call page for the third time summoned "Miss La--ne, Miss La--ane," and +she took the scarf Higgins handed her and ran it through her hands, +still beaming on Dan. + +"Come in to see me at the Savoy on any day at two-thirty except on +matine days." + +"Put on your scarf." Poniotowsky, taking it from her hands, laid it +across her white shoulders, and she passed out between the two men, +light as a bird, smiling, nodding, followed by the prince and the boy +from Montana. The crowds began to fill the lately empty wings--dancers, +chorus girls with their rustling gowns. Letty Lane said to Dan: + +"Guess you'll like my solo in this act all right--it's the best thing in +_Mandalay_. Now go along, and clap me hard." + +It gave him a new pleasure, for she had spoken to him in real American +fashion with the swift mimicry that showed her talent. Dan went slowly +back to his party. As he took his seat by the duchess she said to him: + +"You went out to see Letty Lane. Do you know her?" + +"Know her!" And as Dan answered, the sound of his own voice was queer to +him, and his face flushed hotly. "Lord, yes. She used to be in the drug +store in Blairtown. Sold soda-water to me when we were both kids. +Whoever would have thought that she had that in her!" He nodded toward +the stage, for Letty Lane had come on. "She sang in our church, too, but +not for long." + +"Who was with her in her dressing-room?" the duchess asked. Blair didn't +answer. He was looking at Letty Lane. She had come to dance for the +rajah and in her arms she held four white doves; each dove had a coral +thread around its throat. It was a number that made her famous, _The +Dove Song_. Set free, the birds flew about her, circling her blond head, +surmounted by the small coral-colored cap. The doves settled on her +shoulders, pecked at her lips. + +"Was it Poniotowsky?" the duchess repeated. + +And Dan told her a meaningless lie. "I didn't meet any one there." And +with satisfaction the duchess said: + +"Then she has thrown him over, too. He was the latest and the richest. +She is horribly extravagant. No man is rich enough for her, they say. +Poniotowsky isn't a gold mine." + +The doves had flown away to the wings and been gathered up by the Indian +servants. The actress on the stage began her Indian cradle song. She +came, distinctly turning toward the box party. She had never sung like +this in London before. There was a freshness in her voice, a quality in +her gesture, a pathos and a sweetness that delighted her audience. They +fairly clamored for her, waved and called and recalled. Dan stood +motionless, his eyes fastened on her, his heart rocked by the song. He +didn't want any one to speak to him. He wished that none of them would +breathe, and nearly as absorbed as was he, no one did speak. + + + + +CHAPTER V--AT THE CARLTON + + +There are certain natures to whom each appearance of evil, each form of +delinquency is a fresh surprise. They are born simple, in the sweet +sense of the word, and they go down to old age never of the world, +although in a sense worldly. If Dan Blair's eyes were somewhat opened at +twenty-two, he had yet the bloom on his soul. He was no fool, but his +ideals stood up each on its pedestal and ready to appear one by one to +him as the scenes of his life shifted and the different curtains rose. +He had been trained in finance from his boyhood and he was a born +financier. Money was his natural element; he could go far in it. But +_woman_! He was one of those manly creatures--a knight--to whom each woman +is a sacred thing: a dove, a crystal-clear soul, made to cherish and to +protect, made to be spoiled. And in Dan were all the qualities that go +to make up the unselfish, tender, foolish, and often unhappy American +husband. These were some of the other things he had inherited from his +father. Blair, senior, had married his first love, and whereas his boy +had been trained to know money and its value, how to keep it and spend +it, to save it and to make it, he had been taught nothing at all about +woman. He had never been taught to distrust women, never been warned +against them; he had been taught nothing but his father's memory of his +mother, and the result was that he worshiped the sex and wondered at the +mystery. + +With Gordon Galorey and the others he had ridden, shot better than they, +and had played, but with Lady Galorey and the Duchess of Breakwater he +was nothing but a child. As far as his hostess was concerned, on several +occasions she had put to him certain states of affairs, well, +touchingly. Dan had been moved by the stories of sore need among the +tenants, had been impressed by the necessity of reforms and rebuildings +and on each occasion had given his hostess a check. She had asked him to +say nothing about it to Gordon, and he had kept his silence. Dan liked +Lady Galorey extremely: she was jolly, witty and friendly. She treated +him as a member of the family and made no demands on him, save the ones +mentioned. + +In the time that he had come to know the Duchess of Breakwater she, on +her part, had filled him full of other confidences. Into his young ears +she poured the story of her disappointment, her disjointed life, from +her worldly girlhood to her disillusion in marriage. She was beautiful +when she talked and more lovely when she wept. Dan thought himself in +love with the Duchess of Breakwater. His conversations with her had +brought him to this conclusion. They had motored from Osdene Park +together, and he had been extremely taken with the pleasure of it, and +with the fact of their real companionship. Two or three times the words +had been on his lips, which were fated not to be spoken then, however, +and Dan reached the Gaiety still unfettered, his duchess by his side. +And then the orchestra had begun to play _Mandalay_, the curtain had +gone up and Letty Lane had come out on the boards. But her apparition +did not strike off his chains immediately, nor did he renounce his plan +to tell the duchess the very next day that he loved her. + +When with sparkling eyes Lady Galorey raved about _Mandalay_, Dan +listened with eagerness. Everybody seemed to know all about Letty Lane, +but he alone knew from what town she had come! + +They went for supper at the Carlton after the theater. + +"Letty," Lady Galorey said, "tells it herself how the impresario heard +her sing in some country church--picked her up then and there and brought +her over here, and they say she married him." + +Dan Blair could have told them how she had sung in that little church +that day. Dan was eating his caviare sandwich. "Her name _then_ was +Sally Towney," he murmured. How little he had guessed that she was +singing herself right out of that church and into the London Gaiety +Theater! Anyway, she had made him "sit up!" It was a far cry from +Montana to the London Gaiety. And so she married the greasy Jew who had +discovered her! + +Dan glanced over at the Duchess of Breakwater. She was looking well, +exquisitely high bred, and she impressed him. She leaned slightly over +to him, laughing. He had hardly dared to meet her eyes that day, fearing +that she might read his secret. She had told him that in her own right +she was a countess--the Countess of Stainer. Titles didn't cut any ice +with him. At any rate, she would be able to "buy back the old farm"--that +is the way Dan put it. She had told him of the beautiful old Stainer +Court, mortgaged and hung up with debts, as deep in ruins as the ivy was +thick on the walls. + +As Dan looked over at the duchess he saw the other people staring and +looking about at a table near. It was spread a little to their left for +four people, a great bouquet of orchids in the center. + +"There," Galorey said, "there's Letty Lane." And the singer came in, +followed by three men, the first of them the Prince Poniotowsky, +indolent, bored, haughty, his eye-glass dangling. Miss Lane was dressed +in black, a superb costume of faultless cut, and it enfolded her like a +shadow; as a shadow might enfold a specter, for the dancer was as pale +as the dead. She had neither painted nor rouged, she had evidently +employed no coquetry to disguise her fag; rather she seemed to be on the +verge of a serious illness, and presented a striking contrast to the +brilliant creature, who had shone before their eyes not an hour before. +Her dress was a challenge to the more gay and delicate affairs the other +women in the restaurant wore. The gown came severely up to her chin. Its +high collar closed around with a pearl necklace; from her ears fell +pearls, long, creamy and priceless. She wore a great feathered hat, +which, drooping, almost hid her small, pale face and her golden hair. +She drew off her gloves as she came in and her white, jeweled hands +flashed. She looked infinitely tired and extremely bored. As soon as she +took her seat at the table intended for her party, Poniotowsky poured +her out a glass of champagne, which she drank off as though it were +water. + +"Gad," Lord Galorey said, "she _is_ a stunner! What a figure, and what a +head, and what daring to dress like that!" + +"She knows how to make herself conspicuous," said the Duchess of +Breakwater. + +"She looks extremely ill," said Lady Galorey. "The pace she goes will do +her up in a year or two." + +Dan Blair had his back to her, and when they rose to leave he was the +last to pass out. Letty Lane saw him, and a light broke over her pallid +face. She nodded and smiled and shook her hand in a pretty little +salute. If her face was pale, her lips were red, and her smile was like +sunlight; and at her recognition a wave of friendly fellowship swept +over the young man--a sort of loyal kinship to her which he hadn't felt +for any other woman there, and which he could not have explained. In +warm approval of the actress' distinction, he said softly to himself: +"_That's_ all right--she makes the rest of them look like thirty cents." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--GALOREY SEEKS ADVICE + + +Blair did not go back at once to Osdene Park. He stopped over in London +for a few days to see Joshua Ruggles, and so remarked for the first time +the difference between the speech of the old and the new world. Mr. +Ruggles spoke broadly, with complete disregard of the frills and +adornments of the King's English. He spoke United States of the pure, +broad, western brand, and it rang out, it vibrated and swelled and +rolled, and as Ruggles didn't care who heard him, nothing of what he had +to say was lost. + +Old Mr. Blair had left behind him a comrade, and as far as advice could +go the old man knew that his Dan would not be bankrupt. + +"Advice," Dan Blair senior once said to his boy, "is the kind of thing +we want some fellow to give us when we ain't going to do the thing we +ought to do, or are a little ashamed of something we have done. It's an +awful good way to get cured of asking advice just to do what the fellow +tells you to at once." + +During Ruggles' stay in London the young fellow looked to it that +Ruggles saw the sights, and the two did the principal features of the +big town, to the rich enjoyment of the Westerner. Dan took his friend +every night to the play, and on the fourth evening Ruggles said: "Let's +go to the circus or a vaudeville, Dan. I have learned _this_ show by +heart!" They had been every night to see _Mandalay_. + +"Oh, you go on where you like, Josh," the boy answered. "I'm going to +see how she looks from the pit." + +Ruggles was not a Blairtown man. He had come from farther west, and had +never heard anything of Sarah Towney or Letty Lane. He applauded the +actress vigorously at the Gaiety at first, and after the third night +slept through most of the performance. When he waked up he tried to +discover what attraction Letty Lane had for Dan. For the young man never +left Ruggles' side, never went behind the scenes, though he seemed +absorbed, as a man usually is absorbed for one reason only. + +In response to a telegram from Osdene Park, Dan motored out there one +afternoon, and during his absence Ruggles was surprised at his hotel by +a call. + +"My dear Mr. Ruggles," Lord Galorey said, for he it was the page boy +fetched up, "why don't you come out to see us? All friends of old Mr. +Blair's are welcome at Osdene." + +Ruggles thanked Galorey and said he was not a visiting man, that he only +had a short time in London, and was going to Ireland to look up "his +family tree." + +"There are one hundred acres of trees in Osdene," laughed Galorey; "you +can climb them all." And Ruggles replied: + +"I guess I wouldn't find any O'Shaughnessy Ruggles at the top of any of +'em, my lord. The boy has gone out to see you all to-day." + +Galorey nodded. "That is just why I toddled in to see you!" + +Ruggles' caller had been shown to the sitting-room, where he and Dan +hobnobbed and smoked during the Westerner's visit. There was a pile of +papers on the table, in one corner a typewriter covered by a black +cloth. Galorey took a chair and, refusing a cigarette, lit his pipe. + +"I didn't have the pleasure of meeting you in the West when I was out +there with Blair. I knew Dan's father rather well." + +Ruggles responded: "I knew him rather well too, for thirty years. If," +he went on, "Blair hadn't known you pretty well he wouldn't have sent +the boy out to you as he has done. He was keen on every trail. I might +say that he had been over every one of 'em like a hound before he set +the boy loose." + +Galorey answered, "Quite so," gravely. "I know it. I knew it when Dan +turned up at Osdene--" Holding his pipe bowl in the palm of his slender +hand, he smoked meditatively. He hadn't thought about things, as he had +been doing lately, for many years. His sense of honor was the strongest +thing in Gordon Galorey, the only thing in him, perhaps, that had been +left unsmirched by the touch of the world. He was unquestionably a +gentleman. + +"Blair, however," he said, "wasn't as keen on this scent as you'd +expect. His intuition was wrong." + +Ruggles raised his eyebrows slightly. + +"I mean to say," Lord Galorey went on, "that he knew me in the West when +I had cut loose for a few blessed months from just these things into +which he has sent his boy--from what, if I had a son, God knows I'd throw +him as far as I could." + +"Blair wanted Dan to see the world." + +"Of course, that is right enough. We all have to see it, I fancy, but +this boy isn't ready to look at it." + +"He is twenty-two," Ruggles returned. "When I was his age I was +supporting four people." + +Galorey went on: "Osdene Park at present isn't the window for Blair's +boy to see life through, and that is what I have come up to London to +talk to you about, Mr. Ruggles. I should like to have you take him +away." + +"What's Dan been up to down there?" + +"Nothing as yet, but he is in the pocket of a woman--he is in a nest of +women." + +Ruggles' broad face had not altered its expression of quiet expectation. + +"There's a lot of 'em down there?" he asked. + +"There are two," Galorey said briefly, "and one of them is my wife." + +Ruggles turned his cigarette between his great fingers. He was a slow +thinker. He had none of old Blair's keenness, but he had other +qualities. Galorey saw that he had not been quite understood, and he +waited and then said: + +"Lady Galorey is like the rest of modern wives, and I am like a lot of +modern husbands. We each go our own way. My way is a worthless one, God +knows I don't stand up for it, but it is not my wife's way in any sense +of the word." + +"Does she want Dan to go along on her road?" Ruggles asked. "And how +far?" + +"We are financially strapped just now," said Galorey calmly, "and she +has got money from the boy." He didn't remove his pipe from his mouth; +still holding it between his teeth he put his hand in his pocket, took +out his wallet, drew forth four checks and laid them down before +Ruggles. "It is quite a sum," Galorey noted, "sufficient to do a lot to +Osdene Park in the way of needed repairs." Ruggles had never seen a +smile such as curved his companion's lips. "But Osdene Park will have to +be repaired by money from some other source." + +Ruggles wondered how the husband had got hold of the checks, but he +didn't ask and he did not look at the papers. + +"When Dan came to the Park," said Galorey, "I stopped bridge playing, +but this more than takes its place!" + +Ruggles' big hand went slowly toward the checks; he touched them with +his fingers and said: "Is Dan in love with your wife?" + +And Lord Galorey laughed and said: "Lord no, my dear man, not even that! +It is pure good nature on his part--mere prodigality. Edith appealed to +him, that's all." + +Relief crossed Ruggles' face. He understood in a flash the worldly +woman's appeal to the rich young man and believed the story the husband +told him. + +"Have you spoken to the boy?" + +"My dear chap, I have spoken to him about nothing. I preferred to come +to you." + +"You said," Ruggles continued, "there were two ladies down to your +place." + +Galorey had refilled his pipe and held it as before in the palm of his +hand. + +"I can look after the affairs of my wife, and this shan't happen again, +I promise you--not at Osdene, but I'm afraid I can not do much in the +other case. The Duchess of Breakwater has been at Osdene for nearly +three weeks, and Dan is in love with her." + +Ruggles put the four checks one on top of the other. + +"Is the lady a widow?" + +"Unfortunately, yes." + +"So that's the nest Dan has got into at Osdene," the Westerner said. And +Galorey answered: "That is the nest." + +"And he has gone out there to-day--got a wire this morning." + +"The duchess has been in an awful funk," said Galorey, "because Dan's +been stopping in London so long. She sent him a message, and as soon as +Dan wired back that he was coming to the Park, I decided to come here +and see you." + +Ruggles ruminated: "Has the duchess complications financially?" + +"Ra-ther!" the other answered. + +And Ruggles turned his broad, honest face full on Galorey: "Do you think +she could be bought off?" + +Galorey took his pipe out of his mouth. + +"It depends on how far Dan has gone on with her. To be frank with you, +Mr. Ruggles, it is a case of emotion on the part of the woman. She is +really in love with Dan. Gad!" exclaimed the nobleman. "I have been on +the point of turning the whole brood out of doors these last days. It +was like imprisoning a mountain breeze in a charnel house--a woman with +her scars and her experience and that boy--I don't know where you've kept +him, or how you kept him as he is, but he is as clear as water. I have +talked to him and I know." + +Nothing in Ruggles' expression had changed until now. His eyes glowed. + +"Dan's all right," he said softly. "Don't you worry! He's all right. I +guess his father knew what he was doing, and I'll bet the whole thing +was just what he sent him over here for! Old Dan Blair wasn't worth a +copper when the boy was born, and yet he had ideas about everything and +he seemed to know more in that old gray head of his than a whole library +of books. Dan's all right." + +"My dear man," said the nobleman, "that is just where you Americans are +wrong. You comfort yourself with your eternal 'Dan's all right,' and you +won't see the truth. You won't breathe the word 'scandal' and yet you +are thick enough in them, God knows. You won't admit them, but they are +there. Now be honest and look at the truth, will you? You are a man of +common sense. Dan Blair is _not_ all right. He is in an infernally +dangerous position. The Duchess of Breakwater will marry him. It is what +she has wanted to do for years, but she has not found a man rich enough, +and she will marry this boy offhand." + +"Well," said the Westerner slowly, "if he loves her and if he marries +her--" + +"Marries her!" exclaimed the nobleman. "There you are again! Do you +think marriage makes it any better? Why, if she went off to the +Continent with him for six weeks and then set him free, that would be +preferable to marrying her. My dear man," he said, leaning over the +table where Ruggles sat, "if I had a boy I would rather have him marry +Letty Lane of the Gaiety. Now you know what I mean." + +Ruggles' face, which had hardened, relaxed. + +"I have seen that lady," he exclaimed with satisfaction; "I have seen +_her_ several times." + +Galorey sank back into his chair and neither man spoke for a few +seconds. Turning it all over in his slow mind, Ruggles remembered Dan's +absorption in the last few days. "So there are three women in the nest," +he concluded thoughtfully, and Gordon Galorey repeated: + +"No, not three. What do you mean?" + +"Your wife"--Ruggles held up one finger and Galorey interrupted him to +murmur: + +"I'll take care of Edith." + +"The Duchess of Breakwater you think won't talk of money?" + +"No, don't count on it. She is aiming at ten million pounds." + +Ruggles was holding up the second finger. + +"Well, I guess Dan has gone out to take care of _her_ to-day." + +Dan and Ruggles had seen _Mandalay_ from a box, from the pit and from +the stalls. On the table lay a book of the opera. While talking with +Galorey, Ruggles had unconsciously arranged the checks on top of the +libretto of _Mandalay_. + +"_I'll_ take care of Miss Lane," Ruggles said at length. + +His lordship echoed, "Miss Lane?" and looked up in surprise. "What Miss +Lane, for God's sake?" + +"Miss Letty Lane at the Gaiety," Ruggles answered. + +"Why, she isn't in the question, my dear man." + +"You put her there just now yourself." + +"Bosh!" Galorey exclaimed impatiently, "I spoke of her as being the +limit, the last thing on the line." + +"No," corrected the other, "you put the Duchess of Breakwater as the +limit." + +Galorey smiled frankly. "You are right, my dear chap," he accepted, "and +I stand by it." + +A page boy knocked at the door and came in holding out on a salver a +card for Mr. Ruggles, and at the interruption Galorey rose and invited +Ruggles to go out with him that night to Osdene. "Lady Galorey will be +delighted." + +But Ruggles shook his head. "The boy is coming back here to-night," and +Galorey laughed. + +"Don't you believe it! You don't know how deep in he is. You don't know +the Duchess of Breakwater. Once he is with her--" + +At the same time that the page boy handed Mr. Ruggles the card of the +caller, he gave him as well a small envelope, which contained box +tickets for the Gaiety. Ruggles examined it. + +"I have got some writing to do," he told Galorey, "and I'm going to see +a show to-night, and I think I'll just stay here and watch my hole." + +As soon as Galorey had left the Carlton, Mr. Ruggles despatched his +letters and his visitor, made a very careful toilet, and after waiting +until past eight o'clock for Dan to return to dinner, dined alone on +roast beef and a tart, and with perfect digestion, if somewhat +thoughtful mind, left the hotel and walked down the dim street to the +brilliant Strand, and on foot to the Gaiety. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--AT THE STAGE ENTRANCE + + +Ruggles, from his stall, for the fourth time saw the curtain go up on +_Mandalay_ and heard the temple bells ring. One of the stage boxes was +not occupied until after the first act and then the son of his friend +came in alone and sat far back out of sight of any eyes but the keenest, +and those eyes were Ruggles'. Letty Lane, delicious, fantastic, +languishing, sang to Dan; that was evident to Ruggles. He was a large +man and filled his stall comfortably. He sat through the performance +peacefully, his hands in his pockets, his big face thoughtful, his shirt +front ruffled. To look at him, one must have wondered why he had come to +_Mandalay_. He scarcely lost any of the threads of his own reflections, +though when Miss Lane, in response to a call from the house, sang her +cradle song three times, he seemed moved. The tones of her pure voice, +the cradling in her arms of an imaginary child, her apparent dovelike +purity, her grace and sweetness, and her cooing, gentle tone, to judge +by the softening of the Westerner's face, touched very much the big +fellow who listened like a child. At the end he drew his handkerchief +slowly across his eyes, but the tears, or rather moisture, that rose +there was not all due to Miss Lane's song, for Ruggles was extremely +warm. + +He could see that in his box the boy sat transfixed and absorbed. Dan +went out in the second entr'acte and was absent when the curtain went +down. Ruggles, as well, left before the performance was over, to make +his way outside the theater to the stage exit, where there was already +gathered a little group, looked after by a couple of policemen. Close to +the curb a gleaming motor waited, the footman at its door. Ruggles +buttoned his coat up to his chin and took his place close to the door, +over which the electric light showed the words "Stage Entrance." A poor +woman elbowed him, her shabby hat adorned by a scraggly plume, a gray +shawl wrapped round her shoulders. A girl or two, who might have been +flower sellers in Piccadilly in the daytime, a couple of toughs, a +handful of other vagrants smelling of gin, a decent man in working +clothes, a child in his arms, formed the human hedge Letty Lane was to +pass between--a singular group of people to spend an hour hanging about +the streets at the exit of a theater well toward midnight. So the nave +Ruggles thought, and better understood the appearance of the young +fellows in evening clothes who hovered on the extreme edge of the little +crowd. Dan, however, was not of these. + +"Look sharp, Cissy," the workingman spoke to his child, holding her well +up. "When she comes hout she'll pass close to yer, and you sing hout, +'God bless yer.'" + +"Yes, Dad, I will," shrilled the child. + +The woman in the gray shawl drew it close about her. "Aw she's a true +lidy, all right, ain't she? I expect you've had some kindness off her as +well?" + +The man nodded over the child's shoulder. "Used to be a scene shifter, +and Miss Lane found out about my little girl last year--not this lass, +not Cissy, Cissy's sister--and she sent 'er to a place where it costs the +eyes out of yer head. She's gettin' well fast, and we, none of us, has +seen her or spoken to Miss Lane. She doesn't know our names." + +And the woman answered: "She does a lot like that. She's got a heart +bigger'n her little body." + +And a big boy in the front row said back to the others: "Well, she makes +a mint of money." + +And the woman who had spoken before said: "She gives it nearly all to +the poor." + +Ruggles was evidently on the poor side of the waiting crowd; the handful +of riffraff around him with its stench of dirt and gin. A better looking +set collected opposite and there was the gleam of white shirt fronts. + +"Now, there she comes," the father saw her first. "Sing out, Cissy." + +The door opened and a figure quickly floated from it, like a white rose +blown out into the foggy darkness. It floated down the few steps to the +street between the double row of spectators. A white cloak entirely +covered the actress. Her head was hidden by a white scarf, and she +almost ran the short gantlet to her motor, between the cries of "God +bless you!"--"Three cheers for Letty Lane"--"God bless you, lady!" She +didn't speak or heed, however, or turn her head, but held her scarf +against her face, and the man who slowly lounged behind her to the car, +and put her in and got in after her, was not the man Joshua Ruggles had +waited there to see. He hung about until the footman had sprung up and +the car moved softly away, the stage entrance door shut, then he +followed along with the crowd, with the few faithful ones who had waited +an hour in the cold mist to cry out their applause, not to a singer in +_Mandalay_ but to a woman's heart. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--DAN'S SIMPLICITY + + +The Duchess of Breakwater was not sure how close Dan Blair's thoughts +were to marriage, but the boy from Montana was the easiest prey that had +come across the beautiful and unscrupulous woman's range. He had told +her that he stayed on up in London to see a man from home, and when +after four days he still lingered in town, she found his absence +unbearable, and sent him a wire so worded that if he had a spark of +interest in her he must immediately return to the Park. She had never +been more lovely than when Dan found her waiting for him. + +She had ordered tea in her sitting-room. She told him that he looked +frightfully seedy, asked him what he had been doing and why he had +stopped so long away, and Blair told her that old Ruggles, his father's +friend, had run over to see him with a lot of papers for Dan to read and +sign and closed with a smile, telling her that he guessed she "didn't +know much about business." + +"I only know the horrid things of business--debts, and loans, and bills, +and fussing." + +"Those things are not business," Dan answered wisely; "they are just +common or garden carelessness." + +She asked him why he had not brought Ruggles out to Osdene, and he told +her he couldn't have done a stroke of work with the old boy down here at +the Park. + +Stirring his tea, he appreciated the duchess. The agreeable picture she +made impressed him mightily. + +"Do you know," he asked suddenly, "what you make me think of?" + +And she responded softly: "No, dear." + +"A box of candy. This room with its stuffed walls, and you in it are +good enough--" + +"To eat?" she laughed aloud. "Oh, you perfectly killing creature, what +an idea!" + +And as he met her eyes with his clear ones, with a simplicity she could +never hope to reach, he put his tea-cup down; and as he did so the +duchess observed his strong hands, their vigor, well-kept and muscular, +but not the dandified hands of the man who goes often to the manicure. + +"If it hadn't been for one thing," the boy went on, "I would have +thought of nothing else but you, every minute I've been away." + +"Mr. Ruggles?" suggested the duchess. + +"No, the Gaiety girl, Letty Lane. You know I told you in the box that +she was from my town." + +The young man, who had flown back to Osdene Park in answer to a +telegram, began to take his companion into his confidence. + +"I knew that girl," Dan said, "when she wasn't more than fourteen. She +sold me soda-water over the drug store counter. I always thought she was +bully, bright as a button and pretty as a peach. Once, I remember, I +took six chocolate sodas in one day just to go in and see her. I had an +awful time. I most died of that jag, and yet," he said meditatively, "I +don't think I ever spoke three words to her, just said 'sarsaparilla' or +'chocolate' or whatever it might happen to be. Ever since that day, ever +since that jag," he said with feeling, "I couldn't _see_ a stick of +chocolate and keep my head up! Well," went on the boy, "Sarah Towney +sang in our church for a missionary meeting, and I was there. I can +remember the song she sang." He spoke with unconscious ardor. He didn't +refer to the hymn, however, but went on with his narrative. "She +disappeared from Blairtown. I never had a peep at her again until the +other night. Gosh!" he said fervently, "when I saw her there on the +stage, why, I felt as though cold water was running up and down my +spine." + +The duchess, as a rule, was amused by his slang. It seemed vulgar to her +now. + +"Heavens," she drawled, "you are really too dreadful!" + +He didn't seem to hear her. + +"She's turned out a perfect wonder, hasn't she? A world-beater! Why, +everybody tells me there isn't another like her in her specialty. Of +course I have heard of Letty Lane, but I haven't been out to things +since I went in mourning, and I've never run up against her." + +"Really," drawled the duchess again, "now that you have 'run up against +her' what are you going to do with her? Marry her?" + +His honest stare was the greatest relief she had ever experienced. He +repeated bluntly: "Marry her? Why the dickens should I?" + +"You seem absorbed in her." + +He agreed with her. "I am. I think she's great, don't you?" + +"Hardly." + +But the cold voice of the duchess did not chill him. "Simply great," he +continued, "and I'm sorry for her down to the ground. That is what is +the matter. Didn't you notice her when she came into the Carlton that +night?" + +"What of it, silly? I thought she looked as thin as a shad in that black +dress, and the way Poniotowsky goes about with her proves what an ass he +is." + +"Well, I hate him," Blair simply stated; "I would wring his neck for +twenty cents. But she's very ill; that is what is the matter with her." + +"They all look like that off the stage," the duchess assured +indifferently. "They are nothing but footlight beauties: they look +ghastly off the boards. I dare say that Letty Lane _is_ ill, though; the +pace she goes would kill anybody. Have some more tea?" + +He held out his cup and agreed with her. + +"She works too hard--this playing almost every night, singing and dancing +twice at the matines, I should think she would be dead." + +"Oh, I don't mean her professional engagements," murmured the duchess. + +A revolt such as had stung him when they criticized her at the Carlton +rose in him now. + +"It is hard to believe," he said, "when you hear her sing that dove song +and that cradle song." + +But his companion's laugh stopped his championship short. + +"You dear boy, don't be a silly, Dan. She doesn't need your pity or your +good opinion. She is perfectly satisfied. She has got a fortune in +Poniotowsky, and she really is 'a perfect terror,' you know." + +Affected slightly by her cold dismissal of his subject, he paused for a +moment. But his own point of view was too strong to be shaken by this +woman's light words. + +"I suppose if she wasn't from my town--" At his words the vision of Letty +Lane with the coral strands on her dress, came before his eyes, and he +said honestly: "But I do take an interest in her just the same, and +she's going to pieces, that's clear. Something ought to be done." + +The Duchess of Breakwater was very much annoyed. + +"Are you going to talk about her all the time?" she asked with sharp +sweetness. "You are not very flattering, Dan." + +And he returned peacefully, "Why, I thought you might be able to help +her in some way or another." + +"_Me!_" She laughed aloud. "Me help Letty Lane? Really--" + +"Why, you might get her to sing out here," he suggested. "That would +sort of get hold of her; women know how to do those things." + +His preposterous simplicity overwhelmed her. She stirred her tea, and +said, controlling herself, "Why, what on earth would you have me to say +to Letty Lane?" + +"Oh, just be nice to her," he suggested. "Tell her to take care of +herself and to brace up. Get some nice woman to--" + +The duchess helped him. "To reform her?" + +"Do her good," the boy said gently. + +"You're too silly for words. If you were not such a hopeless child I +would be furious with you. Why, my dear boy, she would laugh in your +face and in mine." + +As the duchess left the tea-table she repeated: "Is this what you came +up from London to talk to me about?" + +And at the touch of her dress as she passed him--at the look she gave him +from her eyes, Dan flushed and said honestly: "Why, I told you that she +was the only thing that kept me from thinking about you all the time." + + + + +CHAPTER IX--DISAPPOINTMENT + + +Dan Blair had not been back of the scenes at the Gaiety since his first +call on the singer. Indeed, though he had told the duchess he pitied +Miss Lane, he had not been able to approach her very closely, even in +his own thoughts. When she first appeared on his horizon his mind was +full of the Duchess of Breakwater, and the singer had only hovered round +his more profound feelings for another woman. But Letty Lane was an +atmosphere in Dan's mind which he was not yet able to understand. There +was so little left that was connected with his old home, certainly +nothing in the British Isles, excepting Ruggles, and to the young man +everything from America had its value. Decidedly the nice girl of whom +he had spoken to Gordon Galorey, the print-frocked, sun-bonneted type, +the ideal girl that Dan would like to marry and to spoil, had not +crossed his path. The Duchess of Breakwater did not suggest her, nor did +any of the London beauties. Dan's first ideal was beginning to fade. + +He left Osdene Park on protest and returned the same night to London, +and all the way back to town tried to register in his mind, unused to +analysis, his experience with the Duchess of Breakwater on this last +visit. + +He had experienced his first disappointment in the sex, and this +disappointment had been of an unusual kind. It was not that he had been +turned down or given the mitten, but he had seen one woman turn another +down. A woman had been mean, so he put it, and the fact that the Duchess +of Breakwater had refused to lend a moral hand to the singer at the +Gaiety hurt Dan's feelings. Then, as soon as his enthusiasm had calmed, +he saw what a stupid ass he had been. A duchess couldn't mix up with a +comic opera singer, of course. Still, he mused, "she might have been a +little nicer about it." + +The education his father had given him about women, the slender +information he had about them, was put to the test now; the girl he had +dreamed of, "the nice girl," well, she would have had a tenderer way +with her in a case such as this! Back of Dan's hurt feelings, there was +a great deal on the Duchess of Breakwater's side. She had not done for +herself yet. She hadn't fetched him nearly up to the altar for nothing, +and back of his disapproval, there was a long list of admirations and +looks, memories of many tte--ttes and of more fervent kisses which +scored a good deal in the favor of Dan's first woman. The Duchess of +Breakwater had gone boldly on with Dan's unfinished education, and he +really thought he loved her, and that he was in honor bound to see the +thing through. + + * * * * * + +That evening, once more in the box he had taken all to himself, he +listened to _Mandalay_, carried away with the charm of the music and +carried away by the singer. He was in the box nearest the stage and +seemed close to her, and he imagined that under her paint he could see +her pallor and how thin she was. Nothing, however, in her acting or in +her voice revealed the least fatigue. Blair had obtained a card of +entrance to the theater, which permitted him to circulate freely behind +the scenes, and although as yet the run of his visits had not been +clear, this night he had a purpose. Dan stood not far from the corridor +that led to Letty Lane's room, and saw her after her act hurriedly cross +the stage, a big white shawl wrapping her slender form closely. She was +as thin as a candle. Her woman Higgins followed closely after her, and +as they passed Dan, Letty Lane called to him gaily: + +"Hello, you! What are you hanging around here for?" + +And Dan returned: "Don't stand here in the draft. It is beastly cold." + +"Yes, Miss," her woman urged, "don't stand here." + +But the actress waited nevertheless and said to Dan: "Who's the girl?" + +"What girl?" + +"Why, the girl you come here every night to see and are too shy to speak +to. Everybody is crazy to know." + +Letty Lane looked like a little girl herself in the crocheted garment +her small hands held across her breast. Dan put his arm on her shoulder +without realizing the familiarity of his gesture: + +"Get out of this draft--get out of it quick, I say," and pushed her +toward her room. + +"Gracious, but you are strong." She felt the muscular touch, and his +hand flat against her shoulder was warm through the wool. + +"I wish _you_ were strong. You work too darned hard." + +Her head was covered with the coral cap and feather. Dan saw her billowy +skirt, her silken hose, her little coral shoes. She fluttered at the +door which Higgins opened. + +"Why haven't you been to see me?" she asked him. "You are not very +polite." + +"I am coming in now." + +"Not a bit of it. I'm too busy, and it is a short entr'acte. Go and see +the girl you came here to see." + +Dan thought that the reason she forbade him to come in was because +Prince Poniotowsky waited for her in her dressing-room. It was his first +jealous moment, and the feeling fell on him with a swoop, and its fangs +fastened in him with a stinging pain. He stammered: + +"I didn't come to see any girl here but you. I came to see you." + +"Come to-morrow at two, at the Savoy." + +But before Dan realized his own precipitation, he had seized the +door-handle as Letty Lane went within and was about to close her room +against him, and said quickly: + +"I'm coming right in now." + +"Why, I never heard of such a thing," she answered sharply, angrily; +"you must be crazy! Take away your hand!" And hers, as well as his, +seized the handle of the door. Her small ice-cold hand brought him to +his senses. + +"I beg your pardon," he murmured confusedly. "Do go in and get warm if +you can." + +But instead of obeying, now that the rude young man withdrew his +importuning, Miss Lane's hands fell from the knob, and close to his eyes +she swayed before him, and Dan caught her in his arms--went into her +room, carrying her. He had been wrong about Prince Poniotowsky; save for +Higgins, the room was empty. The woman, though she exclaimed, showed no +great surprise and seemed prepared for such a fainting spell. Dan laid +the actress on the sofa and then the dresser said to him: + +"Please go, sir; I can quite manage. She has these turns often. I'll +give her brandy. She will be quite right." + +But Dan hesitated, looking at the bit of humanity that he had laid with +great gentleness on the divan covered with pillows. Letty Lane lay +there, small as a little child, inanimate as death. It was hard to think +the quiet little form could contain such life, fire and motion, or that +this senseless little creature held London with her voice and grace. +Higgins knelt down by Letty Lane's side, quiet, capable, going about the +business of resuscitating her lady much as she laced the singer's bodice +and shoes. "If you would be so good as to open the door, sir, and send +me a call page. They'll have to linger out this entr'acte or put on some +feature." + +"But," exclaimed Blair, "she can't go back to-night?" + +"Lord, yes," Higgins returned. "Here, Miss Lane; drink this." + +At the door where he paused, Dan saw the girl lifted up, saw her lean on +Higgins' shoulder, and assured then that she was not lifeless in good +truth, he went out to do as Higgins had asked him. In a quarter of an +hour the curtain rose and within half an hour Dan, from his box, saw the +actress dance to the rajah her charming polka to the strains of the +Hungarian Band. + + + + +CHAPTER X--THE BOY FROM MY TOWN + + +He went the next day to see Letty Lane at the Savoy and learned that she +was too ill to receive him. Mrs. Higgins in the sitting-room told him +so. + +Dan liked the big cordial face of the Scotch-woman who acted as +companion, dresser and maid for the star. Mrs. Higgins had an affable +face, one that welcomes, and she made it plain that she was not an enemy +to this young caller. + +The visitor, in his blue serge clothes, was less startling than most of +the men that came to see her mistress. + +"She works too hard, doesn't she?" + +"She does everything too hard, sir." + +"She ought to rest." + +"I doubt if she does, even in her grave," returned Higgins. "She is too +full of motion. She is like the little girl in the fairy book that +danced in her grave." + +Dan didn't like this comparison. + +"Can't you make her hold up a little?" + +Higgins smiled and shook her head. + +Letty Lane's sitting-room was as full of roses as a flower garden. There +were quantities of theatrical photographs in silver and leather frames +on the tables and the piano. Signed portraits from crowned heads; +pictures of well-known worldly men and women whom the dancer had +charmed. But a full-length picture of Letty Lane herself in one of the +dresses of _Mandalay_ lay on the table near Dan, and he picked it up. +She smiled at him enchantingly from the cardboard, across which was +written in her big, dashing hand: "For the Boy from _my_ Town. Letty +Lane." + +Dan glanced up at Mrs. Higgins. + +"Why, that looks as though this were for me." + +The dressing woman nodded. "Miss Lane thought she would be able to see +you to-day." + +The picture in his hand, Dan gazed at it rapturously. + +"I'm from Blairtown, Montana, where she came from." + +"So she told me, sir." + +He laid the picture back on the table, and Higgins understood that he +wanted Miss Lane to give it to him herself. She led him affably to the +door and affably smiled upon him. She had a frill in her hand, a thimble +on her finger, and a lot of needles in her bodice. She looked motherly +and useful. Blair liked to think of her with Letty Lane. He put his hand +in his pocket, but she saw his gesture and reproved him quietly: "No, +no, sir, please, I never do. I am just as much obliged," and her face +remained so affable that Blair was not embarrassed by her refusal. His +parting words were: + +"Now, you make her take care of herself." + +And to please him, as she opened the door, she pleasantly assured him +that she would do her very best. + +Dan went out of the Savoy feeling that he had left something of himself +behind him in the motley room of an actress with its perfumed atmosphere +of roses and violets. The photograph which he had laid down on the table +seemed to look out at him again, and he repeated delightedly, "That one +was for me, all right! I'm the 'boy from her town' and no mistake." And +he thought of her as she had lain, lifelessly and pale on the +dressing-room sofa, under the touch of hired hands, and how, no doubt, +she had been lying in her room when he called to-day, with shades drawn, +resting before the long hard evening, when London would be amused by +her, delighted by her, charmed by her voice, by her body and her grace. +He had wandered up as far as Piccadilly, went into a florist's and stood +before the flowers. Her sitting-room had been full of roses, but Dan +chose something else that had caught his eye from the window,--a huge +country basket of primroses, smelling of the earth and the spring. He +sent them with his card and wrote on it, "To the Girl from My Town," and +sent the gift with a pleasure as young and as fresh as was his own +heart. + +He got no note of acknowledgment from his flowers. Miss Lane was +evidently better and played every night; no mention was made of her +indisposition in the papers. But Dan couldn't go to the Gaiety or bear +to see her make the effort which he knew must tire her beyond words to +conceive. + +After a few days he called at the Savoy to get news of her. He got as +far as the lift when going up in it he saw Prince Poniotowsky. The sight +affected Miss Lane's townsman so forcibly that instead of going up to +the dancer's apartment Dan took himself off, and anger, displeasure and +something like disgust were the only sentiments he carried away from the +Savoy. He sent her no flowers, and gave himself up unreservedly to +Joshua Ruggles and to a couple of men who came in to see him by +appointment. And when toward four o'clock he found himself alone with +Ruggles, Dan threw himself down in a big chair and looked intensely +bored. + +[Image] + +"Well, I guess we don't need to see any more of these fellows for a +week, Dan," Ruggles yawned with relief. "I'm blamed if it isn't as hard +to take care of money as to get it. I was a poor man once, and so was +your father. Those were the days we had fun." + +Ruggles took out a big cigar, struck a match sharply, and when he had +lit his Henry Clay he fixed his gaze on the flying London fog, whose +black curtain drew itself across their window. + +"There's a lot of excitement," Ruggles said, "in not knowing what you're +going to get; may turn out to be anything when you're young and on the +trail. That's the way your father and me felt. And when we started out +on the spot that's Blairtown on the map to-day, your father had forty +dollars a week to engineer a busted mine and to pull the company into +shape." + +Dan knew the story of his father's rise by heart, but he listened. + +"He took on with the mine a lot of discontented half-hearted +rapscallions--a whole bunch, who had failed all along the line. He didn't +chuck 'em out. 'There's no life in old wood, Josh,' he said to me, 'but +sometimes there's fire in it, and I'm going to light up,' and he did. He +won over the whole lot of them in eighteen months, and within two years +he had that darned mine paying dividends. Meanwhile something came his +way and he took it." + +From his chair Dan asked: "You mean the Bentley claim?" + +"Measles," his friend said comically, with a grin. "Your father was sick +to death with them. When he was sitting up for the first time, peeling +in his room, there was a fellow, an Englishman, a total stranger, come +in to see him. 'Better clear out of here,' your father says to him. 'I'm +shedding the damnedest disease for a grown man that ever was caught.' +'I'm not afraid of it,' the Englishman said, 'I'm shedding worse.' When +your father asked him what that was, he said the idea that he could make +any money in the West. He told your father that he was going back to +England and give up his western schemes, and that he had a claim to +sell, and he told Blair where it lay. 'Who has seen it?' your father +asked. 'Any of my men?' And the Englishman told your father that nobody +had wanted to buy it and that was why he had come to him. He said he +thought his only chance to sell was to hold up some blind man on his +dying bed and that he had heard that Blair was too sick to stir out of +his room and to prospect. Your father liked the fellow's cheek and when +he found out that he had the maps with him, your father bought the whole +blooming sweep at the man's price, which was a mere song. + +"Your father never went near his purchase for a year or more, and when +he had turned the mine he was managing over to the original company, +with me as manager in his place, at a salary of twenty thousand dollars +a year, he said to me one day, 'Ruggles, you'll be sorry to know that +the fun is all over, I've struck oil.' But the oil was copper. The whole +blooming business that he'd bought of that Englishman was rich with ore. +Well, that's the story of Blairtown," Ruggles said. "You were born there +and your mother died there." + +Dan said: "Galorey told me what dad did later for the man that sold him +the mine, and it was just like everything else he did, for dad was all +right, just as good as they come." + +Ruggles agreed. He left his reminiscences abruptly. "Your dad and me had +the fun in our time; now you are going to get the other kind; you're +going to make the dust fly that he dug up." + +And the rich young man said musingly: "I'll bet it isn't half as good at +my end." + +And Ruggles agreed: "Not by a jugful." And followed: "What's on +to-night? _Mandalay?_" + +Dan's fury at Prince Poniotowsky came back. "I guess you thought I was a +little loose in the lid, didn't you, Josh, going so often to the same +play?" + +"You wouldn't have been the first rich man that had the same disease," +Ruggles answered. + +"There is nothing the matter with _Mandalay_, but I'm not gone on any +actress living, Josh; you are in the wrong pew." + +Dan altered his indolent pose and sat forward. "But I _am_ thinking of +getting married," he said. + +"I hope it's to the right girl, Dan." + +And with young assurance Blair answered: "It will be if I marry her. I +know what I want all right." + +"I hope she knows what she wants, Dan." + +"How do you mean?" + +"You or your money. You have the darnedest handicap, my boy." + +Blair flushed. "I'll get to hate the whole thing," he said ferociously. +"It meets me everywhere--bonds--stocks--figures--dividends +--coupons--deeds--it's too much!" he said suddenly, with resentment. "It is +too much for me. Why, sometimes I feel a hundred years old, and like a +hunk of gold." + +Ruggles, in answer to this, said: "Why, that reminds me of what a man +remarked about your father once. It was the same English chap your +father bought the claim of. Speaking of Blair, he said to me: 'You know +there's all kinds of metal bars, and when you cut into them some is +bullion and some's coated with aluminum, and there's others that when +you cut down, cut a clean yellow all along the line.' If, as you say, +you feel like a hunk of metal, it ain't bad if it is that kind." + +"It's got to stop coming in between me and the woman I marry, all right, +though." Dan did not pursue his subject further, for his feelings about +the duchess were too unreal to give him the sincere heartiness with +which he would have liked to answer Ruggles. + +He went over to the window, and, with his hands in his pockets, stood +looking out at the fog. Ruggles, at the table, opened the cover of the +book of _Mandalay_ and took out the four checks made out to Lady Galorey +and which he had forgotten. He hurriedly thrust them into his pocket. + +"Come away, Dannie," he said cheerfully, "let's do something wild. I +feel up to most anything with this miserable fog down on me. If it had +any nerve it would take some form or shape, so a man could choke it +back." + +Ruggles blew his nose violently. + +"There's nothing to do," said Dan in a bored tone. + +"Why don't you see who your telegram is from?" Ruggles asked him. It +proved to be a suggestion from Gordon Galorey that Dan should meet him +at five o'clock at the club. + +"What will you do, Rug?" + +"Sleep," said the Westerner serenely; "I'm nearly as happy in London as +I am in Philadelphia. It's four o'clock now and I can't sleep more than +four hours anyway. Let's have a real wild time, Dannie." + +Dan looked at him doubtfully, but Ruggles' eyes were keen. + +"What kind of a time do you mean?" + +"Let's ask the Gaiety girl for dinner--for supper after the theater." + +"Letty Lane? She wouldn't go." + +"Why not?" + +"She is awfully delicate; it is all she can do to keep her contracts." + +He knows that, Ruggles thought. "Let's ask her and see." He went over to +the table and drew out the paper. "Come on and write and ask her to go +out with us to supper." + +"See here, Rug, what's this for?" + +"What's strange in it? She is from our state, and if you don't hustle +and ask her I am going to ask her all alone." + +Dan was puzzled as he sat down to the table, reflecting that it was +perfectly possible that old Ruggles had fallen a prey to the charms of +an actress. She wouldn't come, of course. He wrote a formal invitation +without thinking very much of what he said or how, folded and addressed +his note. + +"What did you say?" Ruggles asked eagerly. + +"Why, that two boys from home wanted to give her a supper." + +"Well," said Ruggles, "if the answer comes while you are at the club +I'll open it and give the orders. Think she'll come?" + +"I do not," responded Dan rather brutally. "She's got others to take her +out to supper, you bet your life." + +"Well, there's none of them as rich as you are, I reckon, Dan." + +And the boy turned on him violently. + +"See here, Josh, if you speak to me again of my money, when there's a +woman in the question--" + +He did not finish his threat, but snatched up his coat and hat and +gloves and went out of the door, slamming it after him. + +Mr. Ruggles' profound and happy snore was cut short by the page boy, who +fetched in a note, with the Savoy stamping on the back. Ruggles opened +it not without emotion. + +"Dear boy," it ran, "I haven't yet thanked you for the primroses; they +were perfectly sweet. There is not one of them in any of my rooms, and +I'll tell you why to-night. I am crazy to accept for supper"--here she +had evidently struck out her intended refusal, and closed with, "I'm +coming, but don't come after me at the Gaiety, please. I'll meet you at +the Carlton after the theater. Who's the other boy? L. L." + +The "other boy" read the note with much difficulty, for it was badly +written. "He'll have to stop sending her flowers and going every night +to the theater unless he wants a row with the duchess," he said dryly. +And with a certain interest in his rle, Ruggles rang for the head +waiter, and with the man's help ordered his first midnight supper for an +actress. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--RUGGLES GIVES A DINNER + + +The bright tide of worldly London flows after and around midnight into +the various restaurants and supper rooms, and as well through the +corridors and halls of the Carlton. At one of the small tables bearing a +great expensive bunch of orchids and soft ferns, Josh Ruggles, in a new +evening dress, sat waiting for his party. Dan had dined with Lord +Galorey, and the two men had gone out together afterward, and Ruggles +had not seen the boy to give him Letty Lane's note. + +"Got it with you?" Blair asked when he came in, and Ruggles responded +that he didn't carry love letters around in his dress clothes. + +They could tell by the interest in the room when the actress was coming, +and both men rose as Letty Lane floated in at flood tide with a crowd of +last arrivals. + +She had not dressed this evening with the intention that her dark +simplicity of attire should be conspicuous. The cloak which Dan took +from her shed the perfume of orris and revealed the woman in a blaze of +sparkling _paillettes_. She seemed made out of sparkle, and her blond +head, from which a bright ornament shook, was the most brilliant thing +about her, though her dress from hem to throat glistened with discs of +gold like moonshine on a starry sea. The actress' look of surprise when +she saw Ruggles indicated that she had not expected a boy of his age. + +"The other boy?" she asked. "Well, this is the nicest supper party ever! +And you are awfully good to invite me." + +Ruggles patted his shirt front and adjusted his cravat. + +"My idea," he told her, "all the blame on me, Miss Lane. Charge it up to +me! Dan here had cold feet from the first. He said you wouldn't come." + +She laughed deliciously. + +"He did? Hasn't got much faith, has he?" + +Miss Lane drew her long gloves off, touched the orchids with her little +hands, on which the ever present rings flashed, and went on talking to +Ruggles, to whom she seemed to want to address her conversation. + +"I'm simply crazy over these flowers." + +The older man showed his pleasure. "My choice again! Walked up myself +and chose the bunch, blame me again; ditto dinner; mine from start to +finish--hope you'll like it. I would have added some Montana peas and +some chocolate soda-water, only I thought you might not understand the +joke." + +Miss Lane beamed on him. Although he was unconscious of it, she was not +fully at ease: he was not the kind of man she had expected to see. +Accustomed to young fellows like the boy and their mad devotion, +accustomed to men with whom she could be herself, the big, bluff, +middle-aged gentleman with his painfully correct tie, his rumpled +iron-gray hair, and his deference to her, though an unusual diversion, +was a little embarrassing. + +"Oh, I know your dinner is ripping, Mr. Ruggles. I'm on a diet of milk +and eggs myself, and I expect your order didn't take in those." But at +his fallen countenance she hurried to say: "Oh, I wouldn't have told you +that if I hadn't been intending to break through." + +And with childlike anticipation she clapped her hands and said: "We're +going to have 'lots of fun.' Just think, they don't know what that means +here in London. They say 'heaps of sport, you know.'" She imitated the +accent maliciously. "It's just we Americans who know what 'lots of fun' +is, isn't it?" + +Near her Dan Blair's young eyes were drinking in the spectacle of +delicate beauty beautifully gowned, of soft skin, glorious hair, and he +gazed like a child at a pantomime. Under his breath he exclaimed now, +with effusion, "You bet your life we are going to have lots of fun!" And +turning to him, Miss Lane said: + +"Six chocolate sodas running?" + +"Oh, don't," he begged, "not that kind of jag." + +She shook with laughter. + +"Are you from Blairtown, Mr. Ruggles? I don't think I ever saw you +there." + +And the Westerner returned: "Well, from what Dan tells me, you're not +much of a fixture yourself, Miss Lane. You were just about born and then +kidnapped." + +Her gay expression faded. And she repeated his word, "Kidnapped? That's +a good word for it, Mr. Ruggles." + +She picked up between her fingers a strand of the green fern, and looked +at its delicate tracery as it lay on the palm of her hand. + +"I sang one day after a missionary sermon in the Presbyterian Church." +She interrupted herself with a short laugh. "But I guess you're not +thinking of writing my biography, are you?" + +And it was Dan's voice that urged her. "Say, do go on. I was there that +day with my father, and you sang simply out of sight." + +"Yes," she accepted, "out of sight of Blairtown and everybody I ever +knew. I went away the next day." She lifted her glass of champagne to +her lips. "Here's one thing I oughtn't to do," she said, "but I'm going +to just the same. I'm going to do everything I want this evening. +Remember, I let you drink six glasses of chocolate soda once." She +drained her glass and her friends drank with her. "I like this soup +awfully. What is it?"--just touching it with her spoon. + +"Why," Ruggles hastened to tell her, "it ain't a _party_ soup, it's +Scotch broth. But somehow it sounded good on the bill of fare. I fixed +the rest of the dinner up for you and Dan, but I let myself go on the +soup, it's my favorite." + +She did not eat it, however, although she said it was splendid and that +she was crazy about it. + +"Did you come East then?" Dan returned to what she had been saying. + +"Yes, that week; went to Paris and all over the place." + +She instantly fell into a sort of melancholy. It was easy to be seen +that she did not want to talk about her past and yet that it fascinated +her. + +"Just think of it!" he exclaimed. "I never heard a word about you until +I heard you sing the other night." + +The actress laughed and told him that he had made up for lost time, and +that he was a regular "sitter" now at the Gaiety. + +Ruggles said, "He took me every night to see you dance until I balked, +Miss Lane." + +"Still, it's a perfectly great show, Mr. Ruggles, don't you think so? I +like it better than any part I ever had. I am interested about it for +the sake of the man who wrote it, too. It's his first opera; he's an +invalid and has a wife and five kids to look after." + +And Ruggles replied, "Oh, gracious! I feel better than ever, having gone +ten times, although I wasn't _very_ sore about it before! Ain't you +going to eat anything?" + +She only picked at her food, drinking what they poured in her glass, and +every time she spoke to Dan a look of charming kindness crossed her +face, an expression of good fellowship which Ruggles noted with +interest. + +"I wish you could have seen this same author to-day at the rehearsal of +the play," Letty Lane went on. "He's too ill to walk and they had to +carry him in a chair. We all went round to his apartments after the +theater. He lives in three rooms with his whole family and he's had so +many debts and so much trouble and such a poor contract that he hasn't +made much out of _Mandalay_, but I guess he will out of this new piece. +He hugged and kissed me until I thought he would break my neck." + +London had gone mad over Letty Lane, whose traits and contour were the +admiration of the world at large and well-known even to the news-boys, +and whose likeness was nearly as familiar as that of the Madonnas of +old. Her face was oval and perfectly formed, with the reddest of +mouths--the most delicious and softest of mouths--the line of her brows +clear and straight, and her gray eyes large and as innocent and +appealing as a child's; under their long lashes they opened up like +flowers. It was said that no man could withstand their appeal; that she +had but to look to make a man her slave; and as more than once she +turned to Dan, smiling and gracious, Ruggles watched her, mutely +thinking of what he had heard this day, for after her letter came +accepting their invitation he had taken pains to find out the things he +wanted to know. It had not been difficult. As her face and form were +public, on every post-card and in every photographer's shop, so the +actress' reputation was the property of the public. + +As Ruggles repeated these things to himself, he watched her beside the +son of his old friend. They were talking--rather she was--and behind the +orchids and the ferns her voice was sweet and enthralling. Ruggles tried +to appreciate his bill of fare while the two appreciated each other. It +was strange to Dan to have her so near and so approachable. His sights +of her off the stage had been so slight and fleeting. On the boards she +had seemed to be an unreal creation made for the public alone. Her +dress, cut fearlessly low, displayed her lovely young bosom--soft, +bloomy, white as a shell--and her head and ears were as delicate as the +petals of a white rose. Low in the nape of her neck, her golden hair lay +lightly, and from its soft masses fragrance came to him. + +Ruggles could hear her say: "Roach came to the house and told my people +that I had a fortune in my voice. I was living with my uncle and my +step-aunt and working in the store. And that same day your father sent +down a check for five hundred dollars. He said it was 'for the little +girl with the sweet voice,' and it gives me a lot of pleasure to think +that I began my lessons on _that money_." + +The son of old Dan Blair said earnestly: "I'm darned glad you did--I'm +darned glad you did!" + +Letty Lane nodded. "So am I. But," with some sharpness, "I don't see why +you speak that way. I've earned my way. I made a fortune for Roach all +right." + +"You mean the man you married?" + +"Married--goodness gracious, what made you think that?" She threw back +her pretty head and laughed--a laugh with the least possible merriment in +it. "Oh, Heavens, marry old Job Roach! So they say _that_, do they? I +never heard that. I hear a lot, but I never heard that fairy tale." She +put her hands to her checks, which had grown crimson. "That's not true!" + +Dan swore at himself for his tactless stupidity. + +Ruggles had heard both sides. She was adored by the poor, and, as far as +rumor knew, she spent thousands on the London paupers, and the +Westerner, who had never been given to reveling in scandals and to whom +there was something wicked in speaking ill of a woman, no matter whom +she might be, listened with embarrassment to tales he had been told in +answer to his other questions; and turned with relief to the stories of +Letty Lane's charity, and to the stories of her popularity and her +success. They were more agreeable, but they couldn't make him forget the +rest, and now as he looked at her face across the bouquet of orchids and +ferns, it was with a sinking of heart, a great pity for her, and still a +decided enmity. He disapproved of her down to the ground. He didn't let +himself think how he felt, but it was for the boy. Ruggles was not a man +of the world in any sense; he was simple and Puritan in his judgments, +and his gentle nature and his big heart kept him from pharisaical and +strenuous measures. He had been led in what he was doing to-night by a +diplomacy and a common sense that few men east of the Mississippi would +have thought out under the circumstances. + +"Tell Mr. Ruggles," he heard Dan say to her, "tell him--tell him!" + +And she answered: + +"I was telling Mr. Blair that, as he is so frightfully rich, I want him +to give me some money." + +Ruggles gasped, but answered quietly: + +"Well, he's a great giver, Miss Lane." + +"I guess he is if he's like his father!" she returned. "I am trying to +get a lot, though, out of him, and when you asked me to dine to-night I +said to myself, 'I'll accept, for it will be a good time to ask Mr. +Blair to help me out in what I want to do.'" + +At Ruggles' face she smiled sweetly and said graciously: + +"Oh, don't think I wouldn't have come anyway. But I'm awfully tired +these days, and going out to supper is just one thing too much to do! I +want Mr. Blair," she said, turning to Ruggles as if she knew a word from +him would make the thing go through, "to help me build a rest home down +on the English coast, for girls who get discouraged in their art. When I +think of the _luck_ I have had and how these things have been from the +beginning, and how money has just poured in, why," she said ardently, +"it just makes my heart ache to think of the girls who try and fail, who +go on for a little while and have to give up. You can't tell,"--she +nodded to Ruggles, as though she were herself a matron of forty,--"you +can not tell what their temptations are or what comes up to make them go +to pieces." + +Ruggles listened with interest. + +"I haven't thought it all out yet, but so many come to me tired out and +discouraged, and I think a nice home taken care of by a good creature +like my Higgins, let us say, would be a perfect blessing to them. They +could go there and rest and study and just think, and perhaps," she said +slowly, as though while she spoke she saw a vision of a tired self, for +whom there had been no rest home and no place of retreat, "perhaps a lot +of them would pull through in a different way. Now to-day"--she broke her +meditative tone short--"I got a letter from a hospital where a poor thing +that used to sing with me in New York was dying with consumption--all +gone to pieces and discouraged, and there is where your primroses went +to--" she nodded to Dan. "Higgins took them. You don't mind?" And Blair, +with a warmth in his voice, touched by her pity more than by her +charity, said: + +"Why, they grew for you, Miss Lane; I don't care what you do with them." + +Letty Lane sank her head on her hands, her elbows leaned on the table. +She seemed suddenly to have lost interest even in her topic. She looked +around the room indifferently. The orchestra was softly playing _The +Dove Song_ from _Mandalay_, and very softly under her breath the star +hummed it, her eyes vaguely fixed on some unknown scene. To Dan and to +Ruggles she had grown strange. The music, her brilliancy, her sudden +indifference, put her out of their commonplace reach. Ruggles to himself +thought with relief: + +"She doesn't care one rap for the boy anyway, thank God. She's got other +fish to land." + +And Dan Blair thought: "It's my infernal money again." But he was +generous at heart and glad to be of service to her, and was perfectly +willing to be "touched" for her poor. Then two or three men came up and +joined them. She greeted them indolently, bestowing a word or a look on +this one or on that; all fire and light seemed to have gone out of her, +and Dan said: + +"You are tired. I guess I had better take you home." + +She did not appear to hear him. Indeed she was not looking at him, and +Dan saw Prince Poniotowsky making his way toward their table across the +room. + +Letty Lane rose. Dan put her cloak about her shoulders, and glancing +toward Ruggles and toward the boy as indifferently as she had considered +the new-comers, who formed a small group around the brilliant figure of +the actress, she nodded good night to both Ruggles and Blair and went up +to the Hungarian as though he were her husband, who had come to take her +home. However, at the door she sufficiently shook off her mood to smile +slightly at Dan: + +"I have had 'lots of fun,' and the Scotch broth was great! Thank you +both so much." + +Until they were up in their sitting-room her hosts did not exchange a +word. Then Ruggles took a book up from the table and sat down with his +cigar. "I am going to read a little, Dan. Slept all day; feel as +wide-awake as an owl." + +Dan showed no desire to be communicative, however, to Ruggles' +disappointment, but he exclaimed abruptly: + +"I'll be darned, Ruggles, if I can guess what you asked her for!" + +"Well, it did turn out to be a pretty expensive party for you, Dannie, +didn't it?" Ruggles returned humorously. "I'll let you off from any more +supper parties." + +And Dan fumed as he turned his back. "_Expensive!_ There you are again, +Ruggles, with your infernal intrusion of money into everything I do." + +When the older man found himself alone, he read a little and then put +his book down to muse. And his meditations were on the tide of life and +the beds it runs over; the living whirlpool as Ruggles himself had seen +it coursing through London under fog and mist. It seemed now to surge up +in the dark to his very windows, and the flow mysteriously passed under +his windows in these silent hours when no one can see the muddy, muddy +bottom over which the waters go. Out of the sound, as it flowed on, the +cries rose, he thought, kindly to his ears: "God bless her--God bless +Letty Lane!" And with this sound he closed his meditations, thinking of +a more peaceful stream, the brighter, sweeter waters of the boy's +nature, translucent and clear. The vision was happier, and with it +Ruggles rose and yawned, and shut his book. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE GREEN KNIGHT + + +The Duchess of Breakwater had made Dan promise at Osdene the day he went +back to London that he would take her over to her own place, Stainer +Court, and with her see the beauty, ruins and traditions of the place. + +When Dan got up well on in the morning, Ruggles had gone to the bank. +Dan's thoughts turned from everything to Letty Lane. With irritation he +put her out of his mind. There had come up between himself and the girl +he had known slightly in his own town years ago a wall of partition. +Every time he saw her Poniotowsky was there, condescending, arrogant, +rude and proud. The prince the night before had given the tips of his +fingers to Dan, nodded to Ruggles as if the Westerner had been his +tailor, and had appropriated Letty Lane, and she had gone away under his +shadow. The simplicity of Dan's life, his decent bringing up, his +immaculate youth, for such it was, his aloofness from the world, made +him nave, but he was not dull. He waited--not like a skeptic who would +fit every one into his pigeonholes--on the contrary, he waited to find +every one as perfect as he knew they must be, and every time he tried to +think of Letty Lane, Poniotowsky troubled him horribly and seemed to +rise before him, and sardonically look at him through his eye-glass, +making the boy's belief in good things ridiculous. + +He wrote a note to Ruggles, saying that he would be back late and not to +wait for him, and set out in his own car for Blankshire, where the +duchess was to meet him at Stainer Court at noon. On his way out he +decided that he had been a fool to discuss Letty Lane with the Duchess +of Breakwater, and that it had been none of his business to put her duty +before her, and that he had judged her quickly and unfairly. He fell in +love with the lovely English country over which his motor took him, and +it made him more affectionate toward the English woman. He sat back in +his car, looking over the fine shooting land, the misty golden forests, +as through the misty country his motor took its way. The breath of +England was on his cheeks, he breathed in its odors fresh and sweet, the +windless air was cool and fragrant. His cheeks grew red, his eyes shone +like stars, and he was content with his youth and his lot. When they +stopped at Castelene, the property belonging to Stainer Court, he felt +something of proprietorship stir in him, and at Stainer Arms ordered a +drink, bought petroleum, and then pushed up the avenue under the +leafless giant trees, whose roots were older than his father's name or +than any state of the Union. And he felt admiration and something like +emotion as he saw the first towers of Stainer Court finally appear. + +The duchess waited for him in the room known as the "Green Knight's +Room," because of a figure in tapestry on the walls. The legend in wool +had been woven in Spain, somewhere about the time when Isabella was +kind, and when in turn a continent loomed up for the world in general +out of the mist. The subject of the Green Knight's tapestry was simple +and convincing. On a sheer-cut village of low ferns, where daisies stood +up like trees, a slender lady poised, her dark sandaled feet on the +pin-like turf. Her figure was all swathed round with a spotless dress of +woolly white, softened by age into a golden misty tone, and a pair of +friendly and confidential rabbits sat close to her golden slippers. The +lady's face was candid and mild; her eyes were soft, and around her head +was wound a fillet of woven threads, mellow in tone, a red, no doubt, +originally, but softened to a coral pink by time. This lady in all her +grace and virginal sweetness was only half of the woven story. To her +right stood a youth in forest green, his sword drawn, and his intention +evidently to kill a creature which, near to the gentle rabbits, out of +the daisied grass lifted its cruel snakelike head. For nearly five +hundred years the serpent's venom had been poised, and if the serpent +should start the Green Knight would strike, too, at the same magic +moment. + +Close to the tapestry a fire had been laid in the broad fireplace, and +the duchess had ordered the luncheon table for Dan and herself spread +with the cold things England knows how to combine into a delectable +feast. The room was full of medival furnishings, but the Green Knight +was the best of all. The Duchess of Breakwater took him for granted. She +had known him all her life, and she had only been struck by his +expensive beauty when the offer came to her from the National Museum to +buy him, and she wondered how long she could afford to stick to her +price. + +When Dan came in he found her in a short tweed skirt, a mannish blouse, +looking boyish and wholly charming, and she mixed him a cocktail under +the Green Knight's very nose and offered it with the wisdom of the +serpent itself, and the duchess didn't in the least suggest the +white-robed, milk-white lady. + +The friends drank their cocktails in good spirits, and Dan presented the +lady with the flowers he had brought her, and he felt a strong sentiment +stir at the sight of her in this old room, alone and waiting for him. +The servants left them, the duchess put her hands on the boy's broad +shoulders. Nearly as tall as he, she was a good example of the +best-looking English woman, straight and strong, and her eyes were +level, and Dan met them with his own. + +"I am so glad you came," she murmured. "I've been ragging myself every +minute since you went away from Osdene." + +"You have? What for?" + +"Because I was such a perfect prig. I'll do anything you like for Miss +Lane. I mean to say, I'll arrange for a musicale and ask her to sing." + +The color rushed into Dan's face. How bully of her! What a brick this +showed her to be! He said: "You are as sweet as a peach!" + +The duchess' hands were still on his shoulders. She could feel his rapid +breath. + +"I don't make you think of a box of candy now?" she murmured, and the +boy covered her hand with his own. + +"I don't know what you make me think of--it is bully, whatever it is!" + +If the Spanish tapestry could only have reversed its idea, and if the +immaculate lady, or even one of the rabbits, could have drawn a sword to +protect the Green Knight, it would have been passing well. But the woven +work, when it first had been embroidered, was done for ever; it was +irrevocable in its mistaken idea, that it is only the _woman_ who needs +protection! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--THE FACE OF LETTY LANE + + +As Dan went through the halls of the Carlton on his way to his rooms +that same evening, the porter gave him two notes, which Dan went down +into the smoking-room to read. He tore open the note bearing the Hotel +Savoy on the envelope, and read: + + "Dear Boy: Will you come around to-night and see me about five + o'clock? Don't let anything keep you." (Letty Lane had the habit of + scratching out phrases to insert others, and there was something + scratched out.) "I want to talk to you about something very + important. Come sure. L. L." + +Dan looked at the clock; it was after nine, and she would be at the +Gaiety going on with her performance. + +The other note, which he opened more slowly, was from Ruggles, and it +began in just the same way as the dancer's had begun: + + "Dear Boy: I have been suddenly called back to the United States. As + I didn't know how to get at you, I couldn't. I had a cable that + takes me right back. I get the _Lusitania_ at Liverpool and you can + send me a Marconi. Better make the first boat you can and come over. + + "Joshua Ruggles." + +Ruggles left no word of advice, and unconscious of this master stroke on +the part of the old man, whose heart yearned for him as for his own son, +Dan folded the note up and thought no more about Ruggles. + +When an hour later he came out of the Carlton he was prepared for the +life of the evening. He stopped at the telephone desk and sent a +telegram to Ruggles on the _Lusitania_: + + "Can't come yet a while; am engaged to be married to the Duchess of + Breakwater." + +He wrote this out in full and the man at the Marconi "sat up" and smiled +as he wrote. With Letty Lane's badly written note in his pocket, and +wondering very much at her summons of him, Dan drove to the Gaiety, and +at the end of the third act went back of the scenes. There were several +people in her dressing-room. Higgins was lacing her into a white bodice +and Miss Lane, before her glass, was putting the rouge on her lips. + +"Hello, you," she nodded to Dan. + +"I am awfully sorry not to have shown up at five. Just got your note. +Just got in at the hotel; been out of town all day." + +Dan saw that none of the people in the room was familiar to him, and +that they were out of place in the pretty brocaded nest. One of them was +a Jew, a small man with a glass eye, whose fixed stare rested on Miss +Lane. He had kept on his overcoat, and his derby hat hung on the back of +his head. + +"Give Mr. Cohen the box, Higgins," Miss Lane directed, and bending +forward, brought her small face close to the glass, and her hands +trembled as she handled the rouge stick. + +Mr. Cohen in one hand held a string of pearls that fell through his fat +fingers, as if eager to escape from them. Higgins obediently placed a +small box in his hand. + +"Take it and get out of here," she ordered Cohen. "Miss Lane has only +got five minutes." + +Cohen turned the stub of his cigar in his mouth unpleasantly without +taking the trouble to remove it. "I'll take the box," he said rapidly, +"and when I get good and ready I'll get out of here, but not before." + +"Now see here," Blair began, but Miss Lane, who had finished her task, +motioned him to be quiet. + +"Please go out, Mr. Blair," she said. "Please go out. Mr. Cohen is here +on business and I really can't see anybody just now." + +Behind the Jew Higgins looked up at Dan and he understood--but he didn't +heed her warning; nothing would have induced him to leave Letty Lane +like this. + +"I'm not going, though, Miss Lane," he said frankly. "I've got an +appointment with you and I'm going to stay." + +As he did so the other people in the room took form for him: a blind +beggar with a stick in his hand, and by his side a small child wrapped +in a shawl. With relief Dan saw that Poniotowsky was absent from the +party. + +Cohen opened the box, took its contents out and held up the jewels. +"This," he said, indicating a string of pearls, "is all right, Miss +Lane, and the ear-drops. The rest is no good. I'll take or leave them, +as you like." + +She was plainly annoyed and excited, and, as Higgins tried to lace her, +moved from her dressing-table to the sofa in a state of agitation. + +"Take them or leave them, as _you_ like," she said, "but give me the +money and go." + +The Jew took from his wallet a roll of banknotes and counted them. + +"Six," he began, but she waved him back. + +"Don't tell me how much it is. I don't want to know." + +"Let the other lady count it," the Jew said. "I don't do business that +way." + +Dan, who had laid down his overcoat and hat on a chair, came quietly +forward, his hands in his pockets, and standing in front of the Jew, he +said again: + +"Now you look here--" + +Letty Lane threw the money down on the dressing-table. "Please," she +cried to Dan, "let me have the pleasure of sending this man out of my +room. You can go, Cohen, and go in a hurry, too." + +The Jew stuffed the pearls in his pocket and went by Dan hurriedly, as +though he feared the young man intended to help him. But Dan stopped +him: + +"Before this deal goes through I want you to tell me why you are--" + +Miss Lane broke in: "My gracious Heavens! Can't I even sell my jewels +without being bossed? What business is it of yours, Mr. Blair? Let this +man go, and go all of you--all of you. Higgins, send them out." + +The blind man and the child stirred, too, at this outburst. The little +girl wore a miserable hat, a wreck of a hat, in which shook a feather +like a broken mast. The rest of her garments seemed made of the +elements--of dirt and mud--mere flags of distress, and the odor of the +poor filled the room: over the perfume and scent and smell of stage +properties, this miserable smell held its own. + +"Come, Daddy," whispered the child timidly, "come along." + +"Oh, no, not you, not you," Letty Lane said. + +Job Cohen crawled out with ten thousand pounds' worth of pearls in his +pockets, and as soon as the door had closed the actress took up the roll +of notes. + +"Come here," she said to the child. "Now you can take your father to the +home I told you of. It is nice and comfortable--they will treat his eyes +there." + +"Miss Lane--Miss Lane!" called the page boy. + +"Never mind that," said the actress, "it is a long wait this act. I +don't go on yet." + +Higgins went to the door and opened it and stood a moment, then +disappeared into the side scenes. + +Letty Lane ruffled the pile of banknotes and without looking drew out +two or three bills, putting them into the child's hands. "Don't you lose +them; stuff them down; this will keep you and your father for a couple +of years. Take care of it. You are quite rich now. Don't get robbed." + +The child tremblingly folded the notes and hid them among her rags. The +tears of happiness were straggling over her face. She said finally, +finding no place to stow away her riches, "I expect I'd best put them in +daddy's pocket." + +And Dan came to her aid; taking the notes from her, he folded and put +them inside the clothes of the old beggar. + +"Miss Lane," said Higgins, who had come in, "it is time you went on." + +"I'll see your friends out of the theater," Blair offered. And as he did +so, for the first time she looked at him, and he saw the fever in her +brilliant eyes. + +"Thanks awfully," she accepted. "It is perfectly crazy to give them so +much money at once. Will you look after it like a good boy and see +something or other about them?" + +He thought of her, however, and caught up a great soft shawl from the +chair, wrapped it around her tenderly, and she flitted out, Higgins +after her, leaving the rest of the money scattered on her +dressing-table. + +"Come along," said Blair kindly to the two who stood awaiting his orders +with the docility of the poor, the obedience of those who have no right +to plan or suggest until told to move on. "Come, I'll see you home." And +he didn't leave them until he had taken them in a cab to their +destination--until he had persuaded the girl to let him have the money, +look after it for her, come to see her the next day and tell her what to +do. + +Then he went back to the theater and stood up in the rear, for the house +was crowded, to hear Letty sing. It was souvenir night; there were +post-cards and little coral caps with feathers as _bonbonnires_. They +called her out before the curtain a dozen times, and each time Dan +wanted to cry "Mercy" for her. He felt as though this little act had +established a friendship between them; and his hands clenched as he +thought of Poniotowsky, and he tried to recall that he was an engaged +man. He had an idea that Letty Lane was looking for him through the +performance. She finished in a storm of applause, and flowers were +strewn upon her, and Dan found himself, in spite of his resolution, +going back into the wings. + +This time two or three cards were sent in. One by one he saw the +visitors refused, and Dan, without any formality, himself knocked at +Letty Lane's small door, which Higgins opened, looked back over her +shoulder to give his name to her mistress, and said to Dan confidently, +"Wait, sir; just wait a bit." Her lips were affable. And in a few +moments, to Dan's astonished delight, the actress herself appeared, a +big scarf over her head and her body enveloped in her snowy cloak, and +he understood with a leap of his heart that she had singled him out to +take her home. + +She went before him through the wings to the stage entrance, which he +opened for her, and she passed out before him into the fog and the mist. +For the first time Blair followed her through the crowd, which was a big +one on this night. On the one side waited the poor, who wished her many +blessings, and on the other side her admirers, whose thoughts were quite +different. Something of this flashed through Dan's mind,--and in that +moment he touched the serious part of life for the first time. + +In Letty Lane's motor, the small electric light lit over their heads and +the flower vase empty, he sat beside the fragrant human creature whom +London adored, and knew his place would have been envied by many a man. + +"I took your friends to their place all right," he told her, "and I'm +going to see them myself to-morrow. I advised the girl not to get +married for her money. Say, this is awfully nice of you to let me take +you home!" + +She seemed small in her corner. "You were great to-night," Dan went on, +"simply great! Wasn't the crowd crazy about you, though! How does it +feel to stand there and hear them clap like a thunderstorm and call your +name?" + +She replied with effort. "It _was_ a nice audience, wasn't it? Oh, I +don't know how it feels. It is rather stimulating. How's the other boy?" +she asked abruptly, and when Dan had said that Ruggles had left him +alone in London, she turned and laughed a little. + +Dan asked her why she had sent for him to-day. "I'm mighty sorry I was +out of town," he said warmly. "Just to think you should have wanted me +to do something for you and I didn't turn up. You know I would be glad +to do anything. What was it? Won't you tell me what it was?" + +"The Jew did it for me." + +And Dan exclaimed: "It made me simply sick to see that animal in your +room. I would have kicked him out if I hadn't thought that it would make +an unpleasant scene for you. We have passed the Savoy." He looked out of +the window, and Letty Lane replied: + +"I told the driver to go to the Carlton first." + +She was taking _him_ home then! + +"Well, you've got to come in and have some supper with me in that case," +he cried eagerly, and she told him that she had taken him home because +she knew that Mr. Ruggles would approve. + +"Not much you won't," he said, and put his hand on the speaking tube, +but she stopped him. + +"Don't give any orders in my motor, Mr. Blair. You sit still where you +are." + +"Do you think that I am such a simple youth that I--" + +Letty Lane with a gesture of supreme ennui said to him impatiently: + +"Oh, I just think I am pretty nearly tired to death; don't bother me. I +want my own way." + +Her voice and her gesture, her beauty and her indifference, her sort of +vague lack of interest in him and in everything, put the boy, full of +life as he was, out of ease, but he ventured, after a second: + +"Won't you please tell me what you wanted me to do this afternoon?" + +"Why, I was hard up, that's all. I have used all my salary for two +months and I couldn't pay my bill at the Savoy." + +"Lord!" he said fervently, "why didn't you--" + +"I did. Like a fool I sent for you the first thing, but I was awfully +glad when five o'clock came you didn't turn up. Please don't bother or +speak of it again." + +And burning with curiosity as to what part Poniotowsky played in her +life, Dan sat quiet, not venturing to put to her any more questions. She +seemed so tired and so overcome by her own thoughts. When they had +turned down toward the hotel, however, he decided that he must in honor +tell her his news. + +"Got some news to tell you," he exclaimed abruptly. "Want you to +congratulate me. I'm engaged to be married to the Duchess of Breakwater. +She happens to be a great admirer of your voice." + +The actress turned sharply to him and in the dark he could see her +little, white face. The covering over her head fell back and she +exclaimed: + +"Heavens!" and impulsively put her hands out over his. "Do you really +mean what you say?" + +"Yes." He nodded surprisedly. "What do you look like that for?" + +Letty Lane arranged her scarf and then drew back from him and laughed. + +"Oh, dear, dear, dear," she exclaimed, "and I ... and I have been...." + +She looked up at him swiftly as though she fancied she might detect some +new quality in him which she had not observed before, but she saw only +his clear, kind eyes, his charming smile and his beautiful, young +ignorance, and said softly to him: + +"No use to cry, little boy, if it's true! But that woman isn't half good +enough for you--not half, and I guess you think it funny enough to hear +_me_ say so! What does the other boy from Montana say?" + +"Don't know," Dan answered indifferently. "Marconied him; didn't tell +him about it before he left. You see he doesn't understand +England--doesn't like it." + +A little dazed by the way each of the two women took the mention of the +other, he asked timidly: + +"You don't like the Duchess of Breakwater, then?" + +And she laughed again. + +"Goodness gracious, I don't know her; actresses don't sit around with +duchesses." Then abruptly, her beautiful eyes, under their curled dark +lashes, full on him, she asked: + +"Do _you_ like her?" + +"You bet!" he said ardently. "Of course I do. I am crazy about her." Yet +he realized, as he replied, that he didn't have any inclination to begin +to talk about his fiance. + +They had reached the Carlton and the door of Letty Lane's motor was held +open. + +"Better get out," he urged, "and have something to eat." + +And she, leaning a little way toward him, laughed. + +"Crazy! Your engagement would be broken off to-morrow." And she further +said: "If I really thought it would, why I'd come like a shot." + +As she leaned forward, her cloak slipping from her neck, revealing her +throat above the dark collar of the simple dress she wore, he looked in +her dove-gray eyes, and murmured: + +"Oh, say, do come along and risk it. I'm game, all right." + +She hesitated, then bade him good night languidly, slipping back into +her old attitude of indifference. + +"I am going home to rest. Good night. I don't think the duchess would +let you go, no matter what you did!" + +Dan, standing there at her motor door, this beautiful, well-known woman +bantering him, leaning toward him, was conscious of her alone, all snowy +and small and divine in her enveloping scarf, lost in the corner of her +big car. + +"I hate to have you go back alone to the Savoy. I really do. Please let +me--" + +But she shook her head. "Tell the man the Savoy," and as Dan, carrying +out her instructions, closed the door, he said: "I don't like that empty +vase in there. Would you be very good and put some flowers in it if they +came?" + +She wouldn't promise, and he went on: + +"Will you put only my flowers in that vase always hereafter?" + +Then, "Why, of course not, goose," she said shortly. "Will you please +let me close the door and go home?" + +Dan walked into the Carlton when her bright motor had slipped away, his +evening coat long and black flying its wings behind him, his hat on the +back of his blond head, light of foot and step, a gay young figure among +the late lingering crowd. + +He went to his apartments and missed Ruggles in the lonely quiet of the +sitting-room, but as the night before Ruggles had done, Dan in his +bedroom window stood looking out at the mist and fog through which +before his eyes the things he had lately seen passed and repassed, +specter-like, winglike, across the gloom. Finally, in spite of the fact +that he was an engaged man with the responsibilities of marriage before +him, he could think of but one thing to take with him when he finally +turned to sleep. The face of the woman he was engaged to marry eluded +him, but the face under the white hood of Letty Lane was in his dreams, +and in his troubled visions he saw her shining, dovelike eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--FROM INDIA'S CORAL STRANDS + + +Mrs. Higgins, in Miss Lane's apartment at the Savoy, was adjusting the +photographs and arranging the flowers when she was surprised by a +caller, who came up without the formality of sending his name. + +"Do you think," Blair asked her, "that Miss Lane would see me half a +minute? I called yesterday, and the day before, as soon as I saw that +there was a substitute singing in _Mandalay_. Tell her I'm as full of +news as a charity report, please, and I rather guess that will fetch +her." + +Something fetched her, for in a few minutes she came languidly in, and +by the way she smiled at her visitor it might be thought Dan Blair's +name alone had brought her in. The actress had been ill for a fortnight +with what the press notices said was influenza. She wore a teagown, long +and white as foam, her hair rolled in a soft knot, and her face was pale +as death. Frail and small as she was, she was more ethereal than when in +perfect health. + +"Don't stand a minute." And by the hand she gave him Dan led her over to +the lounge where the pillows were piled and a fur-lined silk cover +thrown across the sofa. + +"Don't give me that heavy rug, there's that little white shawl." She +pointed to it, and Dan, as he gave it to her, recognized the shawl in +which she wrapped herself when she crossed the icy wings. + +"It's in those infernal side scenes you get colds." + +He sat down by her. She began to cough violently and he asked, troubled, +"Who's taking care of you, anyway?" + +"Higgins and a couple of doctors." + +"That's all?" + +"Yes. Why, who should be?" + +Dan didn't follow up his jealous suspicion, but asked in a tone almost +paternal and softly confidential: + +"How are your finances getting on?" + +Her lips curved in a friendly smile. But she made a dismissing gesture +with her frail little hand. + +"Oh, I'm all right; Higgins told me you had some news about my poor +people." + +The fact that she did not take up the financial subject made him +unpleasantly sure that her wants had been supplied. + +"Got a whole bunch of news," Dan replied cheerfully. "I went to see the +old man and the girl in their diggings. Gosh, you couldn't believe such +things were true." + +She drew her fine brows together. "I guess there are a good many things +that would surprise you. But you don't need to tell me about hard times. +That's the way I am. I'll do anything, give anything, so long as I don't +have to hear hard stories." She turned to him confidentially. "Perhaps +it's acting in false scenes on the stage; perhaps it's because I'm lazy +and selfish, but I can't bear to hear about tales of woe." + +What she said somewhat disturbed his idea of her big-hearted charity. + +"I don't believe you're lazy or selfish," he said sincerely, "but I've +got an idea that not many people really know you." + +This amused her. Looking at him quizzically, she laughed. "I expect you +think you do." + +Dan answered: "Well, I guess the people that see you when you are a kid, +who come from your own part of the country, have a sort of friendship." +And the girl on the sofa from the depths of her shawl put out a thin +little hand to him and said in a voice as lovely in tone as when she +sang in _Mandalay_: + +"Well, I guess that's right! I guess that's about true." + +After the tenth of a second, in which she thought best to take her +little cold hand away from those big warm ones, she asked: + +"Now please do tell me about the poor people." + +In this way giving him to understand how really true his better idea of +her had been. + +"Why, the old duffer is as happy as a house afire," said the boy. "Not +to boast, I've done the whole thing up as well as I knew how. I've got +him into that health resort you spoke of, and the girl seems to have got +a regular education vice! She wants to study something, so she's going +to school." + +"Go on talking," the actress invited languidly. "I love to hear you talk +Montana! Don't change your twang for this beastly English drawl, +whatever you do." + +"You have, though, Miss Lane. I don't hear a thing of Blairtown in the +way you speak." + +And the girl said passionately: "I wish to God I spoke it right through! +I wish I had never changed my speech or anything in me that was like +home." + +And the boy leaning forward as eagerly exclaimed: "Oh, do you mean that? +Think how crazy London is about you! Why, if you ever go back to +Montana, they will carry you from the cars in a triumphal chair through +the town." + +She waited until she could control the emotion in her voice. + +"Go on telling me about the little girl." + +"She was so trusting as to give the money up to me and I guess it will +draw interest for her all right." + +"Thank you," smiled the actress, "you are terribly sweet. The child got +Higgins to let her into my dressing-room one day after a matine. I +haven't time to see anybody except then." + +Here Higgins made her appearance in the room, with an egg-nog for her +lady, which, after much coaxing, Dan succeeded in getting the actress to +drink. Higgins also had taken away the flowers, and Letty Lane said to +Dan: + +"I send them to the hospital; they make me sick." And Dan timidly asked: + +"Mine, too?" + +This brought a flush across the ivory pallor of her cheek. "No, no, +Higgins keeps them In the next room." And with an abrupt change of +subject she asked: "Is the Duchess of Breakwater very charitable?" And +Blair quickly replied: + +"Anyhow she wants you to sing for her at a musicale in Park Lane when +you're fit." + +Miss Lane gave a soft little giggle. "Is _that_ what you call being +charitable?" + +Dan blushed crimson and exclaimed: "Well, hardly!" + +"Did you come here to ask me that?" + +"I came to tell you about 'our mutual poor.' You'll let me call them +that, won't you, because I happened to be in your dressing-room when +they struck their vein?" + +Miss Lane had drawn herself up in the corner of the sofa, and sat with +her hands clasped around her knees, all swathed around and draped by the +knitted shawl, her golden head like a radiant flower, appearing from a +bank of snow. Her fragility, her sweetness, her smallness, appealed +strongly to the big young fellow, whose heart was warm toward the world, +whose ideals were high, and who had the chivalrous longing inherent in +all good men to succor, to protect, and above all to adore. No feeling +in Dan Blair had been as strong as this, to take her in his arms, to +lift her up and carry her away from London and the people who applauded +her, from the people that criticized her, and from Poniotowsky. + +He was engaged to the Duchess of Breakwater. And as far as his being +able to do anything for Letty Lane, he could only offer her this +politeness from the woman he was going to marry. + +"I never sing out of the theater." Her profile was to him and she looked +steadily across the room. "It's a perfect fight to get the manager to +consent." + +Blair interrupted and said: "Oh, I'll see him; I'll make it all right." + +"Please don't," she said briskly, "it's purely a business affair. How +much will she pay?" + +Dan was rather shocked. "Anything you like." + +And her bad humor faded at his tone, and she smiled at him. "Well, I'll +tell Roach that. I guess it'll make my singing a sure thing." + +She changed her position and drew a long sigh as though she were very +tired, leaned her blond head with its soft disorder back on the pillow, +put both her folded hands under her cheek and turned her face toward +Dan. The most delicate coral-like color began to mount her cheeks, and +her gray eyes regained their light. + +"Will two thousand dollars be too much to ask?" she said gently. + +If she had said two million to the young fellow who had not yet begun to +spend his fortune, which as far as he was concerned was nothing but a +name, it would not have been too much to him; not too much to have given +to this small white creature with her lovely flushed face, and her +glorious hair. + +"Whatever is your price, Miss Lane, goes." + +"I'll sing three songs: one from _Mandalay_, an English ballad and +something or other, I don't know what now, and I expect you don't +realize how cheaply you are getting them." She laughed, and began to hum +a familiar air. + +"I wish you would sing just one song for me." + +"For another thousand?" she asked, lifting her eyebrows. "What song is +it?" + +And as Dan hesitated, as if unwilling to give form to words that were so +full of spell to him, she said deliciously: "Why, can you see a London +drawing-room listening to me sing a Presbyterian hymn tune?" Without +lifting her head from the pillow she began in a charming undertone, her +gray eyes fixed on his: + + "From Greenland's icy mountains, + From India's coral strands, + Where Afric's sunny fountains + Roll down their golden sands." + +Blair, near her, turned pale. There rose in him the same feeling that +she had stirred years ago in the little church, and at the same time +others. He had lost his father since then, and he thought of him now, +but that big, sad emotion was not the one that swayed him. + +"Please stop," he pleaded; "don't go on. Say, there's something in that +hymn that hurts." + +Letty Lane, unconscious of how subtly she was playing, laughed, and +suddenly remembered that Dan had sat before her that day by the side of +old Mr. Blair. She asked abruptly: + +"Why does the Duchess of Breakwater want me to sing?" + +"Because she's crazy about your voice." + +"Is she awfully rich?" + +"Um ... I don't know." + +Letty Lane flashed a look at him. "Oh," she said coolly, "I guess she +won't pay the price then." + +Dan said: "Yes, she will; yes, she will, all right." + +"Now," Letty Lane went on, "if it were a charity affair, I could sing +for nothing, and I don't doubt the duchess, if she is as benevolent as +you say she is, could get me up some kind of a charity show." + +Dan, who had started to rise, now leaned toward her and said: "Don't you +worry about it a bit. If you'll come and sing we will make it right +about the price and the charity; everything shall go your way." + +She was seized upon by a violent fit of coughing, and Dan leaned toward +her and put his arm around her as a brother might have done, holding her +tenderly until the paroxysm was past. + +"Gosh!" he exclaimed fervently, "it's heartbreaking to hear you cough +like that and to think of your working as you do. Can't you stop and +take a good rest? Can't you go somewhere?" + +"To Greenland's icy mountains?" she responded, smiling. "I hate the +cold." + +"No, no; to some golden sands or other," he murmured under his breath. +"And let me take you there." + +But she pushed him back, laughing now. "No golden sands for me. I'm +afraid I've got to sing in _Mandalay_ to-night." + +He looked at her in dismay. + +She interrupted his protest: "I've promised on my word of honor, and the +box-office has sold the seats with that understanding." + +By her sofa, leaning over her, in a choked voice he murmured: + +"You _shan't_ sing! You shan't go out to-night!" + +"Don't be a goose, boy," she said. "You've no right to order me like +that. Stand back, please." As he did so she whisked herself off the sofa +with a sudden ardor and much grace. "Now," she told him severely, "since +you've begun to take that tone with me, I'm going to tell you that you +mustn't come here day after day as you have been doing. I guess you know +it, don't you?" + +He stood his ground, but his bright face clouded. They had been so near +each other and were now so removed. + +"I don't care a damn what people say," he replied. + +She interrupted him. She could be wonderfully dignified, small as she +was, wrapped as she was in the woolen shawl. "Well," she drawled with a +sudden indolence and indifference in her voice, "I expect you'll be +surprised to hear that _I_ do care. Sounds awfully funny, doesn't it? +But as you have been coming to the theater now night after night till +everybody's talking about it--" + +"You don't want my friendship," he stammered. + +And Letty Lane controlled her desire to laugh at his boyish subterfuge. +"No, I don't think I do." + +Her tone struck him deeply: hurt him terribly. He threw his head up +defiantly. + +"All right, I'm turned down then," he said simply. "I didn't think you'd +act like this to a boy you'd known all your life!" + +"Don't be silly, you know as well as I do that it won't do." + +He did know it and that he had already done enough to make it reasonable +for the duchess, if she wanted to, to break their engagement. Slowly +preparing to take his leave, he said wistfully: "Can't I help you in any +way? Let me do something with you for your poor. It's a comfort to have +them between us, and you can count on me." + +She said she knew it. "But don't come any more to the wings; get a habit +of _not_ coming." + +On the threshold of her door he asked her to let him know when she would +sing in Park Lane, and in touching her hand he repeated that she must +count on him. With more tenderness in his blue eyes than he was himself +aware, he murmured devotedly: + +"Take care of yourself, won't you, please?" + +As Blair passed from the sitting-room into the hall and toward the lift, +Mrs. Higgins came out hurriedly from one of the rooms and joined him. + +"How did you find her, Mr. Blair?" + +"Awfully seedy, Mrs. Higgins; she needs a lot of care." + +"She won't take it though," returned the woman. "Just seems to let +herself go, not to mind a bit, especially these last weeks. I'm glad you +came in; I've been hoping you would, sir." + +"I'm not any good though, she won't listen to a word I say." + +It seemed to surprise the dressing woman. + +"I'm sorry to hear it, sir; I thought she would. She talks about you +often." + +He colored like a school-boy. "Gosh, it's a shame to have her kill +herself for nothing." Reluctant to talk longer with Mrs. Higgins, he +added in spite of himself: "She seems so lonely." + +"It's two weeks now since that human devil went away," Mrs. Higgins said +unexpectedly, looking quietly into the blue eyes of the visitor. + +"She hasn't opened one of his letters or his telegrams. She has sold +every pin and brooch he ever gave her, scattered the money far and wide. +You saw how she went on with Cohen, and her pearls." + +Dan heard her as through a dream. Her words gave form and existence to a +dreadful thing he had been trying to deny. + +"Is she hard up now, Mrs. Higgins?" he asked softly. And glancing at him +to see just how far she might go, the woman said: + +"An actress who spends and lives as Miss Lane does is always hard up." + +"Could you use money without her knowing about it?" + +"Lord," exclaimed the woman, "it wouldn't be hard, sir! She only knows +that there is such a thing as money when the bills come and she hasn't +got a penny. Or when the poor come! She's got a heart of gold, sir, for +everybody that is in need." + +He took out of his wallet a wad of notes and put them in Higgins' hands. +"Just pay up some bills on the sly, and don't you tell her on your life. +I don't want her to be worried." Explaining with sensitive +understanding: "It's all right, Mrs. Higgins; I'm from her town, you +know." And the woman who admired him and understood him, and whose life +had made her keen to read things as they were, said earnestly: + +"I quite understand how it is, sir. It is just as though it came +straight from 'ome. She overdraws her salary months ahead." + +"Have you been with Miss Lane long?" + +"Ever since she toured in Europe, and nobody could serve her without +being very fond of her indeed." + +Dan put out his big warm hand eagerly. "You're a corker, Mrs. Higgins." + +"I could walk around the world for her, sir." + +"Go ahead and do it then," he smiled, "and I'll pay for all the boot +leather you wear out!" + +As he went down-stairs, already too late to keep an engagement made with +his fiance, he stopped in the writing-room to scribble off a note of +excuse to the duchess. At the opposite table Dan saw Prince Poniotowsky, +writing, as well. The Hungarian did not see Blair, and when he had +finished his note he called a page boy and Dan could hear him send his +letter up to Miss Lane's suite. The young Westerner thought with +confident exaltation, "Well, he'll get left all right, and I'm darned if +I don't sit here and see him turned down!" + +Dan sat on until the page returned and gave Poniotowsky a verbal +message. + +"Will you please come up-stairs, sir?" + +And Blair saw the Hungarian rise, adjust his eye-glass, and walk toward +the lift. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--GALOREY GIVES ADVICE + + +Lord Galorey had long been used to seeing things go the way they would +and should not, and his greatest effort had been attained on the day he +gave his languid body the trouble to go in and see Ruggles. + +"My God," he muttered as he watched Dan and the duchess on the terrace +together--they were nevertheless undeniably a handsome pair--"to think +that this is the way I am returning old Blair's hospitality!" And he was +ashamed to recall his western experiences, when in a shack in the +mountains he had watched the big stars come out in the heavens and sat +late with old Dan Blair, delighted with the simple philosophies and the +man's high ideals. + +"What the devil does it all mean?" he wondered. "She has simply seduced +him, that's all." + +He got Dan finally to himself and without any preparation began, pushing +Dan back into a big leather chair, and standing up like a judge over +him: + +"Now, you really must listen to me, my dear chap. I shan't rest in my +grave unless I get a word with you. Your father sent you here to me and +I'm damned if I know what for. I've been wondering every day about it +for two months. He didn't know what this set was like or how rotten it +is." + +"What set?" The boy looked appallingly young as Gordon stared down at +him. There wasn't a line or wrinkle on his smooth brow or on his lips +and forehead finely cut and well molded--but there were the very seals of +what his father would have been glad to see. The boy had the same clear +look and unspoiled frankness that had charmed Galorey at the first. He +had been a lazy coward to delay so long. + +"Why, the rottenness of this set right here in my house." And as the +host began to see that he should have to approach a woman's name in +speaking, he stopped short, his mouth wide open, and Dan thought he had +been drinking. + +"You are talking of marrying Lily," Gordon got out. + +"I am _going_ to marry her." + +"You mustn't." + +Blair got up out of his chair. It didn't need this attack of Galorey's +to bring to his mind hints that had been dropped that Galorey was in +love with the Duchess of Breakwater. It illuminated what Galorey was +saying fast and incoherently. + +"I mean to say, my dear chap, that you mustn't marry the Duchess of +Breakwater. Look at most of these European marriages. They all go to +smash. She is older than you are and she has lived her life. You are +much too young." + +"Hold up, Galorey; you mustn't go on, you know. You know I am engaged; +that's all there is about it. Now, let's go and have a game of pool." + +Galorey had not worked himself up to this pitch to break off now at a +fatal point. + +"I'm responsible for this, and by gad, Dan, I'm going to put you on your +guard." + +"You are responsible for nothing, Galorey, and I warn you to drop it." + +"You would listen to your father if he were here, wouldn't you?" + +"I don't know," said the boy slowly. Then followed up with an honest, +"Yes, I would." + +Gordon caught eagerly, "Well, he sent you to me. Your friend Ruggles has +gone off and washed his hands of you, but I can't." + +Lord Galorey walked across the room briskly and came back to Dan. "First +of all, you are not in love with Lily--not a bit of it. You couldn't +be--and what's more she is not in love with you." + +Blair laughed coolly. "You certainly have got things down to a fine +point, Gordon. I'll be hanged if I understand your game." + +Galorey went bravely on: "Therefore, if neither of you are in love, you +understand that there is nothing between you but your money." + +The Englishman got his point out brutally, relieved that the impersonal +thing money opened a way for him. He didn't want to be the bounder and +the cad that the mention of the woman would have made him. + +The boy drew in an angry breath. "Gosh," he said, "that cursed money +will make me crazy yet! You are not very flattering to me, Gordon, I +swear, and Lily wouldn't thank you for the motives you impute to her." + +"Oh, rot!" returned Gordon more tranquilly. "She hasn't got a human +sentiment in her. She's a rock with a woman's face." + +Dan turned his back on his host and walked off into the billiard-room. +Galorey promptly followed him, took down a cue and chalked it, and said: + +"Well, come now; let's put it to the test." Blair began stacking the +balls. + +"How do you mean?" + +"Well, when you have had time to get your first news over from Ruggles, +tell her you have gone to smash and that you are a pauper." + +"I don't play tricks like that," said the Westerner quietly. + +"No," responded Galorey bitterly, "you let others play tricks on you." + +The young man threw his cue smartly down, his youth looked +contemptuously at the worldly man, and he turned pale, but he said in a +low voice: + +"Now, you've got to let up on this, Gordon; I thought at first you had +been drinking. I won't listen. Let's get on another subject, or I'll +clear out." + +Galorey, however, cool and pitiful of the tangle in the boy's affairs, +wouldn't let himself be angry. "You are my old chum's boy, Dan," he went +on, "and I'm not going to stand by and see you spoil your life in +silence. You are of age. You can go to the devil if you like, but you +can't go there under my roof, without a word from me." + +"Then I'll get out from under your roof, to-night." + +"Right! I don't blame you there, but, before you go, tell Lily you have +lost your money, and see what she is made of. My dear chap"--he changed +his tone to one of affection--"don't be an ape; listen to me, for your +father's sake; remember your whole life's happiness is in this game. +Isn't it worth looking after?" + +"Not at the risk of hurting a woman's feelings," said the boy. + +"How can it hurt her, my dear man, to tell her you are poor?" + +"It's a lie. I'm not up to lying to her; I don't care to. And you mean +to think that if I told her I was busted she would throw me over?" + +"Like a shot, my green young friend--like a shot." + +"You haven't a very good opinion of women," Blair threw out with as near +a sneer as his fine young face could express. + +"No, not very," agreed the pool player, who had continued his shots with +more or less sangfroid. When Galorey had run off his string of balls he +said, looking up from the table: "But I've got a very good opinion of +that 'nice girl' you told me of when you first came, and I wish to +Heaven she had kept you in the States." + +This caught the boy's attention as nothing else had. "There never was +any such girl," he said slowly; "there never has been anywhere; I rather +guess they don't grow. You have made me a cad in listening to you, +Gordon, but as to playing any of those comedy tricks you suggest, they +are not in my line. If she is marrying me for my money, why, she'll get +it." + +"You're a coward," said Galorey, "like the rest of American husbands--all +ideal and no common sense. You want to make a mess of your life. You +haven't the grit to get out of a bad job." + +He spurred himself on and his weak face grew strong as he felt he was +compelling the boy's attention. "If you only had half the character your +father had, you wouldn't make a mistake like this; you wouldn't run +blind into such a deal as this." + +Blair was impressed by his host. Galorey was so deadly in earnest and so +honest, and, as Dan's face grew set and hardened, his companion prayed +for wisdom. "If I can only win through this without touching Lily hard," +he thought, and as he waited, Blair said: + +"You haven't hesitated to call me names, Gordon. You're not my build or +my age, and I can't thrash you." + +And his host said cheerfully: "Oh, yes, you can; come on and try," and, +metaphorically speaking, Dan struck his first blow: + +"They say--people have said to me--that you once cared for Lily yourself." + +The Englishman's heavy eyelids did not flicker. "It's quite true." + +Taken back by this frank response, Blair stammered: "Well, I guess that +explains everything. It's not surprising that you should feel as you do. +If you are jealous, I can forgive it a little bit, but it is low down to +call a woman a fortune hunter." + +Now Gordon Galorey's face changed and grew slightly white. "Don't make +me angry, my dear chap," he said in a low tone; "I have said what I +wanted to say. Now, go to the devil if you like and as soon as you +like." + +And the boy said hotly, stammering in his excitement: + +"Not yet--not yet--not before I tell you what I think." + +Gordon, with wonderful control of his own anger, met the boy's eyes, and +said with great patience: + +"No, don't, Dan; don't go on. There are many things in this affair that +we can't touch upon. Let it drop. The right woman would make a ripping +man of you, but you oughtn't to marry for ten years." + +Dan took the hand which Galorey put out to him, and the Englishman said +warmly: "My dear chap, I hope it will all come out right, from my +heart." + +Dan, who had regained his balance, said to his friend: + +"I've been very angry at what you said, but you're the chap my father +sent me to. There must be something back of this, and I'm going to find +out what it is, and I'm going to take my own way to find out. I wouldn't +give a rap for anything that came to me through a trick or a lie, and I +wouldn't know how to go to her with a cock-and-bull story. I shall act +as I feel and go ahead being just as I am, and perhaps she won't want me +after all, even if I have got the rocks!" + +And Galorey said heartily: "I wish there was a chance of it." + +When, later, Gordon thought of Dan it was with a glow. "What a chip of +the old block he is," he said; "what a good bit of character, even at +twenty-two years." He was divided between feeling that he had made a +mess of things between Dan and himself, and feeling sure that some of +his advice had gone home. After a moment's silence, Dan Blair's son +said: "I'm going up to London to-morrow." + +"For long?" + +"Don't know." + +Then returning with boyish simplicity to their subject, which Galorey +thought had been dropped, Dan said: + +"There may be something true in what you say, Gordon. Perhaps she does +want my money. I'm not a titled man and I'll never be known for anything +except my income. At any rate I was rich when I asked her to marry me, +and I'm going to fix up that old place of hers, and I'm glad I've got +the coin to do it." + +When, later, for they had been interrupted in their conversation by the +entrance of the lady herself, Gordon, as Ruggles had done, mentally +thought of the flowing tide of life, and how it flowed over what he +himself had called "rotten ground." Perhaps old Blair was right, he +mused, after all. What does it matter if the source is pure at the head +water? It's awfully hard to force it at the start, at least. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--THE MUSICALE PROGRAM + + +The duchess ran Dan, made plans, set the pace, and they were very much +in evidence during the season. The young American, good-natured and +generous, the duchess beautiful and knowing, were the observed of +London, and those of her friends who would have tolerated Dan on account +of his money, ended by sincerely liking him. The wedding-day had not +been fixed as yet, and Dan was not so violently carried away that he +could not wait to be married. Meanwhile Gordon Galorey thanked God for +the delay and hoped for a miracle to break the spell over his friend's +son before it should be too late. In early May the question came up +regarding the musicale. The duchess made her list and arranged the +Sunday afternoon and her performers to suit her taste, and the week +before lounged in her boudoir when Dan and Galorey appeared for a late +morning call. + +"There, Dan," she said, holding out a bit of paper, "look at the list +and the program, will you?" + +"Sounds and reads all right," commented Dan, handing it on to Galorey. + +Besides being an artistic event, she intended that the concert should +serve to present Dan to her special set. She now lit a cigarette and +gave one to each of her friends, lighting the Englishman's herself. + +"The best names in London," Lord Galorey said. "You see, Dan, we shall +trot you out in a royal way. I hope you fully appreciate how swagger +this is to be." + +Glancing at the list Blair remarked: + +"But I don't see Miss Lane's name?" + +"Why should you?" the duchess answered sharply. + +"Why, we planned all along that she was to sing," he returned. + +She gave a long puff to her cigarette. + +"We did _rather_ speak of it. But we shall do very well as we are. The +program is full up and it's perfectly ripping as it stands." + +"Yes, there's only just one thing the matter with it," the boy smiled +good-naturedly, "and it's easy enough to run her in. I guess Miss Lane +could be run in most anywhere on any program and not clear the house." + +Lord Galorey, who knew nothing about the subject under discussion, said +tactfully: "Why, of course, Letty Lane is perfectly charming, but you +couldn't get her, my dear chap." + +"I think we will let the thing stand as it is," said the duchess, going +back to her desk and stirring her paper about. "It's really too late +now, you know, Dan." + +Unruffled, but with a determination which Lord Galorey and the lady were +far from guessing, Blair resumed tranquilly: + +"Oh, I guess she'll come in all right, late as it is. We'll send word to +her and fix it up." + +The duchess turned to him, annoyed: "Oh, don't be a beastly bore, +dear--you are not really serious." + +Dan still smiled at her sweetly. "You bet your life I am, though, Lily." + +She rang a bell at the side of her desk, and when the footman came in +gave him the sheet of paper. "See that this is taken at once to the +stationer's." + +"Better wait, Lily"--her fianc extended his hand--"until the program is +filled out the way it is going to stand." And Blair fixed his handsome +eyes on his future wife. "Why, we got this shindig up," he noted +irreverently, "just so Miss Lane could sing at it." + +"Nonsense," she cried, angry and powerless, "you ridiculous creature! +Fancy me getting up a musicale for Letty Lane! Do tell Dan to stop +bothering and fussing, Gordon. He's too ridiculous!" + +And Lord Galorey said: "What is the row anyway?" + +"Why, I want Miss Lane to sing here on Sunday," Dan explained.... + +"And I don't want her," finished the Duchess of Breakwater, who was +evidently unwilling to force a scene before Lord Galorey. She handed the +list to her servant, but Dan intercepted it. + +"Don't send out that list, Lily, as it is." + +He gave it back to her, and his tone was so cool, his expression so +decided and quiet, that she was disarmed, and dismissed the servant, +telling him to return when she should ring again. Coloring with anger, +she tapped the envelope against her brilliantly polished nails. + +If she had been married to Blair she would have burst into a violent +rage; if he had been poorer than he was she would have put him in his +place. Lord Galorey understood the contraction of her brows and lips as +Dan reminded: "You promised me that you would have her, you know, Lily." + +"Give in, Lily," Galorey advised, rising from the chair where he was +lounging. "Give in gracefully." + +And she turned on Galorey the anger which she dared not show the other +man. But Dan interrupted her, explaining simply: + +"I knew the girl when she was a kid: she is from my old home, and I want +Lily to ask her here to sing for us, and then to see if we can't do +something to get her out of the state she is in." + +Galorey repeated vaguely, "State?" + +"Why, she's all run down, tired out; she's got no real friends in +London." + +The other man flicked the ash from his cigarette and looked at Blair's +boy through his monocle. + +"And you thought that Lily might befriend her, old chap?" + +"Yes," nodded Dan, "just give her a lift, you know." + +Galorey nodded back, smiling gently. "I see, I see--a moral, spiritual +lift? I see--I see." He glanced at the woman with his strange smile. + +She put her cigarette down and seated herself, clasping her hands around +her knees and looked at her fianc. + +"It's none of my business what Letty Lane's reputation is. I don't care, +but you must understand one thing, Dan, I'm not a reformer, or a +charitable institution, and if she comes here it is purely +professional." + +He took the subject as settled, and asked for a copy of the program and +put it in his pocket. "I'll get the names of her songs from her and take +the thing myself to Harrison's. And I'd better hustle, I guess; there's +no time to lose between now and Sunday." And he went out triumphant. + +Galorey remained, smoking, and the duchess continued her notes in +silence, cooling down at her desk. Her companion knew her too well to +speak to her until she had herself in hand, and when finally she took up +her pen and turned about, she appeared conscious for the first of his +presence. + +"Here still!" she exclaimed. + +"I thought I might do for a safety valve, Lily. You could let some of +your anger out on me." + +The duchess left her desk and came over to him. + +"I expect you despise me thoroughly, don't you, Gordon?" + +They had not been alone together since her engagement to Blair, for she +had taken pains to avoid every opportunity for a tte--tte. + +"Despise you?" he repeated gently. "It's awfully hard, isn't it, for a +chap like me to despise anybody? We're none of us used to the best +quality of behavior, you know, my dear girl." + +"Don't talk rot, Gordon," she murmured. + +"You didn't ask my advice," he continued, "but I don't hesitate to tell +you that I have done everything I could to save the boy." + +She accepted this philosophically. "Oh, I knew you would; I quite +expected it, but--" and in the look she threw at him there was more +liking than resentment--"I knew you, too; you _couldn't_ go very far, my +dear fellow." + +"I think Dan Blair is excellent stuff," Gordon said. + +"He is the greenest, youngest, most ridiculous infant," she exclaimed +with irritation, and he laughed. + +"His money is old enough to walk, however, isn't it, Lily?" She made an +angry gesture. + +"I expected you'd say something loathsome." + +Her companion met her eyes directly. She left her chair and came and sat +down beside him on the small sofa. As he did not move, or look at her, +but regarded his cigarette with interest, she leaned close to him and +whispered: "Gordon, try to be nice and decent. Try to forget yourself. +Don't you see what a wonderful chance it is for me, and that, as far as +you and I are concerned, it can't go on?" + +The face of the man by her side grew somber. The charm this woman had +for him had never lessened since the day when he told her he loved her, +long before his marriage, and they were both too poor. + +"We have always been too poor, and Edith is jealous of me every day and +hour of her life. Can't you be generous?" + +He rose and stood over her, looking down at her beautiful form and her +somewhat softened face, but his eyes were hard and his face very pale. + +"You had better go, Gordon," she said slowly; "you had better go...." + +Then, as he obeyed her and went like a flash as far as the door, she +followed him and whispered softly: "If you're really only jealous, I can +forgive you." + +He managed to get out: "His father was my friend; he sent the boy to me +and I've been a bad guardian." He made a gesture of despair. "Put +yourself in my place. Let Dan Blair go, Lily; let him go." + +Her eyelids flickered a little, and she said sharply: "You're out of +your senses, Gordon--and what if I love him?" + +With a low exclamation he caught her hand at the wrist so hard that she +cried out, and he said between his teeth: "You _don't_ love him! Take +those words back!" + +"Of course I do. Let me free!" + +"No," he said passionately, holding her fast. "Not until you take that +back." + +His face, his tone, his force, dominated her; the remembrance of their +past, a possible future, made her waver under his eyes, and the woman +smiled at him as Blair had never seen her smile. + +"Very well, then, goose," she capitulated almost tenderly; "I don't love +that boy, of course. I'm marrying him for his money. Now, will you let +me go?" + +But he held her still more firmly and kissed her several times before he +finally set her free, and went out of the house miserable--bound to her +by the strongest chains--bound in his conscience and by honor to his +trust to Dan's father, and yet handicapped by another sense of honor +which decrees that man must keep silence to the end. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--LETTY LANE SINGS + + +The house of the Duchess of Breakwater in Park Lane was white, with +green blinds and green balconies; beautiful, distinguished and old, +mellow with traditions, and the tide of fashion poured its stream into +the music-room to listen to the Sunday concert. Without, the day was +bland and beautiful, mild spring in the deep sweet air, and already the +bloom lay over the park and along the turf. Piccadilly was ablaze with +flowers, and in the windows and in the flower-women's baskets they were +so sweet as to make the heart ache and to make the senses thrill. Keen +to the spring beauty, the last guest to go into the drawing-room of the +Duchess of Breakwater was the young American man in whom the magic of +the season had stirred the blood. He seemed the youngest and the +brightest guest to cross the sill of the great house whose debts he was +going to pay, and whose future he was going to secure with American +money. + +Close after him a motor car rolled up to the curb, and under the awning +Letty Lane passed quickly, as though thistledown, blown into the +distinguished house. The actress was taken possession of by several +people and shown up-stairs. + +Dan spoke to his hostess, who wore, over her azure dress, a necklace +given her by Dan. She said he was "too late for words," and why hadn't +he come before. After greeting him she set him free, and he went eagerly +to find his place next an elderly woman whom he liked immensely, Lady +Caiwarn. She had given him twenty pounds for some of his poor. Lady +Caiwarn had a calm, kind face, and Dan sat down beside her, well out of +the crush, and they talked amiably throughout the violin solo. + +"Think of it," she said, "Letty Lane of the Gaiety is going to sing. I'd +sit through a great deal for that. Let that man with the fiddle do his +worst." + +Blair laughed appreciatively. He thought Lady Caiwarn would be a good +friend for Miss Lane, better than the duchess herself. "I wish Lily +could hear you talk about her violinist," he said, delighted; "she +thinks he's the whole show." And tentatively, his ingenuous eyes fixed +on his friend, he asked: "I wonder how you would like to meet Miss Lane. +She's perfectly ripping, and she's from my State." + +"_Meet her!_" Lady Caiwarn exclaimed, but before she could finish, +through the room ran the little anticipatory rustle that comes before +the great, and which, when they have gone, breaks into applause. The +great actress had appeared to give her number. Dan and Lady Caiwarn, +behind the palms in a little corner of their own, watched her. + +A clever understanding of the world into which she was to come this day, +had made the girl dress like a charm. She stood quietly by the piano, +her hands folded. Among the high ladies of the English world in their +splendid frocks, their jewels and feathers, she was a simple figure, her +dress snow white, high to her throat, unadorned by any gay color, +according to the fashion of the time. It was such a dress as Romney +might have painted, and under her arms and from across her breast there +fell a soft coral-colored silken scarf. The costume was daring in its +simplicity. She might have been Emma, Lady Hamilton, because perfectly +beautiful, perfectly talented, she could risk severe simplicity, having +in herself the fire and the art and the seduction. Her hair was a golden +crown and her eyes like stars. She was excited, and the scarlet had run +along her cheeks like wine spilled over ivory. + +She looked around the room, failed to see Blair, but saw the Duchess of +Breakwater in her velvet and her jewels. Letty Lane began to sing. Dan +and she had chosen _Mandalay_ and she began with it. Her dress only was +simple. All the complexity of her talent, whatever she knew of seduction +and charm, she put in the rendering of her song. Even the conventional +audience, most of which knew her well, were enchanted over again, and +they went wild about her. She had never been so charming. The men +clapped her until she began in self-defense another favorite of the +moment, and ended in a perfect huzzah of applause. + +She refused to sing again until, in the distance, she saw Dan standing +by the column near his seat. Then indicating to the pianist what she +wanted, she sang _The Earl of Moray_, such a rendering of the old ballad +as had not been heard in London, and coming, as it did, from the lips of +a popular singer whose character and whose verve were not supposed to be +sympathetic to a piece of music of this kind, the effect was startling. +Letty Lane's face grew pale with the touching old tragedy, the scarlet +faded from her cheeks, her eyes grew dark and moist, she might indeed +herself have been the lady looking from the castle wall while they +carried the body of her dead lover under those beautiful eyes. + +Dan felt his heart grow cold. If she had awakened him when he was a +little boy, she thrilled him now; he could have wept. Lady Caiwarn did +wipe tears away. When the last note of the accompaniment had ended, +Dan's friend at his side said: "How utterly ravishing! What a beautiful, +lovely creature; how charming and how frail!" + +He scarcely answered. He was making his way to Letty Lane, and he wrung +her hand, murmuring, "Oh, you're great; you're great!" And the pleasure +on his face repaid her over and over again. "Come, I want you to meet +the Duchess of Breakwater, and some other friends of mine." + +As he let her little cold hand fall and turned about, the room as by +magic had cleared. The prime minister had arrived late and was in the +other room. The refreshments were also being served. There was no one to +meet Letty Lane, except for several young men who came up eagerly and +asked to be presented, Gordon Galorey among them. + +"Where's Lily?" Dan asked him; "I want her to meet Miss Lane." + +"In the conservatory with the prime minister," and Galorey looked +meaningly at Dan, as much as to say, "Now don't be an utter fool." + +But Letty Lane herself saved the situation. She shook hands with the +utmost cordiality and sweetness with the men who had been presented to +her, and asked Dan to take her to her motor. He waited for her at the +door and she came down wrapped around as usual in her filmy scarf. + +"Are you better?" he asked eagerly. "You look awfully stunning, and I +don't think I can ever thank you enough." + +She assured him that she was "all right," and that she had a "lovely new +rle to learn and that it was coming on next month." He helped her in +and she seemed to fill the motor like a basket of fresh white flowers. +Again he repeated, as he held the door open: + +"I can't thank you enough: you were a great success." + +She smiled wickedly, and couldn't resist: + +"Especially with the women." + +Dan's face flushed; he was already deeply hurt for her, and her words +showed him that the insult had gone home. + +"Where are you going now?" + +"Right to the Savoy." + +Without another word, hatless as he was, he got into the motor and +closed the door. + +"I'm going to take you home," he informed her quietly, "and there's no +use in looking at me like that either! When I'm set on a thing I get +it!" + +They rolled away in the bland sunset, passed the park, down Piccadilly, +where the flowers in the streets were so sweet that they made the heart +ache, and the air through the window was so sweet that it made the +senses swim! + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--A WOMAN'S WAY + + +When the duchess thought of looking for Blair later in the afternoon he +was not to be found. Galorey told her finally he had gone off in the +motor with Letty Lane, bareheaded. The duchess was bidding good-by to +the last guest; she motioned Galorey to wait and he did so, and they +found themselves alone in the room where the flowers, still fresh, +offered their silent company; the druggets strewn with leaves of smilax, +the open piano with its scattered music, the dark rosewood that had +served for a rest for Letty Lane's white hand. Galorey and the duchess +turned their backs on the music-room, and went into a small conservatory +looking out over the park. + +"He's nothing but a cowboy," the lady exclaimed. "He must be quite mad, +going off bareheaded through London with an actress." + +"He's spoiled," Lord Galorey said peacefully. + +She carried a bunch of orchids Dan had given her, and regarded them +absently. "I've made him angry, and he's taking this way of exhibiting +his spleen." + +Galorey said cheerfully: "Oh, Dan's got lots of spirit." + +Looking up from the contemplation of her flowers to her friend, the +duchess murmured with a charming smile: "I don't hit it off very well +with Americans, Gordon." + +His color rising, Galorey returned: "I think you'll have to let Dan go, +Lily!" + +For a second she thought so herself; and they both started when the +voice of the young man himself was heard in the next room. + +"Good-by, I'll let you make your peace, Lily," and Gordon passed Dan in +the drawing-room in leaving, and thought the boy's face was a study. + +The duchess held out her hand to Dan as he came across the room. + +"Come here," she called agreeably. "Every one has gone, thank heaven! +I've been waiting for you for an age. Let's talk it all over." + +"Just what I've come back to do." + +There had been royalty at the musicale, and the hostess spoke of her +guests and their approval, mentioning one by one the names of the great. +It might have impressed the ear of a man more snob than was the Montana +copper king's son. "I did so want you to meet the Bishop of London," she +said. "But nobody could find you. You look most awfully well, Dan," and +with the orchids she held, she touched his hand. + +He was so direct, so incapable of anything but the honest truth, that +Dan didn't know deceit when he saw it, and his lady spoke so naturally +that he thought for a moment her rudeness had been unintentional. +Perhaps she hadn't really meant--Everybody in her set was rude, great and +rude, but she could be deliciously gracious, and was so now. + +"Don't you think it went off well?" + +Dan said that it had been ripping and no mistake. + +"I like Lady Caiwarn; she's bully, and I liked the king. He spoke to me +as if he had known me for a year." + +She began to be a little more at her ease. + +"I didn't care much for the fiddling, but Letty Lane made up for all the +rest," said Dan. "Wasn't she great?" + +"Ra-ther!" The duchess' tone was so warm that he asked frankly: "Well, +why didn't you speak to her, Lily?" And the directness caught her +unprepared. The insult to the actress by which she had planned to teach +him a lesson failed to give her the bravado she found she needed to meet +Dan's question. Her part of the transaction, deliberate, unkind, seemed +worse and more serious through his headlong act, when he had driven off, +braving her, in the motor of an actress. She didn't dare to be jealous. + +"Wasn't it too dreadful?" she murmured. "Do you think she noticed it too +awfully? I was just about to go up and speak to her when the prime +minister--" + +Dan interrupted the duchess. He blushed for her. + +"Never mind, Lily." His tone had in it something of benevolence. "If you +really didn't mean to be mean--" + +She was enchanted by her easy victory. "It was abominable." + +"Yes," he accepted, "it was just that! I was mortified. You wouldn't +treat a beggar so. But she's got too much sense to care." + +Eager to do the duchess justice, even though he was little by little +being emancipated, he was all the more determined to be fair to her. + +"It was too sweet of her not to mind. I dare say her check helped to +soothe her feelings," the woman said. + +"You don't know her," he replied quietly. "She wouldn't touch a cent." + +The duchess exclaimed in horror: "Then she _did_ mind." + +And he returned slowly: "She's eaten and drunk with kings, and if the +king hadn't gone so early you can bet he would have set the fashion +differently. Let's drop the question. She sent you back your check, and +I guess you're quits." + +With a sharp note in her voice she said: "I hope it won't be in the +papers that you drove bareheaded back to the hotel with her. Don't +forget that we are dining with the Galoreys, and it's past seven." + +After Dan had left her, the duchess glanced over the dismantled room +which the servants were already restoring to order. She was not at case +and not at peace, but there was something else besides her tiff with Dan +that absorbed her, and that was Galorey. She couldn't quite shake him +off. He was beginning to be imperious in his demands on her; and, in +spite of her cupidity and her debts, in spite of the precarious position +in which she found herself with Dan, she could not break with Galorey +yet. She went up-stairs humming under her breath the ballad Letty Lane +had sung in the music-room: + + "And long will his lady look from the castle wall." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--DAN AWAKES + + +The next night Dan, magnetically drawn down the Strand to the Gaiety, +arrived just before the close of the last act, slipped in, and sat far +back watching Letty Lane close her part. After hearing her sing as she +had the afternoon before in the worldly group, it was curious to see her +before the public in her flashing dress and to realize how much she was +a thing of the people. To-night she was a completely personal element to +Dan. He could never think of her again as he had hitherto. The sharp +drive through the town that afternoon in her motor had made a change in +his feelings. He had been hurt for her, with anger at the Duchess of +Breakwater's rudeness, and from the first he had always known that there +was in him a hot championship for the actress. To-night, whenever the +man who sang with her, put his arms around her, danced with her, held +her, it was an offense to Dan Blair; it had angered him before, but +to-night it did more. One by one everything faded out of his foreground +but the brilliant little figure with her golden hair, her lovely face, +her beautiful graceful body, and in her last gesture on the stage before +the curtain went down, she seemed to Blair to call him and distinctly to +make an appeal to him: + + "You might rest your weary feet + If you came to Mandalay." + +Well, there was nothing weary about the young, live, vigorous American, +as, standing there in his dark edge of the theater, his hands in his +pockets, his bright face fixed toward the stage, he watched the slow +falling of the curtain on the musical drama. Dan realized how full of +vigor he was; he felt strong and capable, indeed a feeling of power +often came to him delightfully, but it had never been needful for him to +exert his forces, he had never had need to show his mettle. Now he felt +at those words: + + "You might rest your weary feet" + +how, with all his heart, he longed that the dancer should rest those +lovely tired little feet of hers, far away from any call of the public, +far away on some lovely shore which the hymn tune called the coral +strand. As he gazed at her mobile, sensitive face, whose eyes had seen +the world, and whose lips--Dan's thoughts changed here with a great pang, +and the close of all his meditations was: "Gosh, she ought to rest!" + +The boy walked briskly back of the scenes toward the little door, behind +which, as he tapped, he hoped with all his heart to hear her voice bid +him come in. But there were other voices in the room. He rattled the +door-knob and Letty Lane herself called to him without opening the door: + +"Will you go, please, Mr. Blair? I can't see any one to-night." + +He had nothing to do but to go--to grind his heel as he turned--to swear +deeply against Poniotowsky. His late ecstasy was turned to gall. The +theater seemed horrible to him: the chattering of the chorus girls, +their giggles, their laughter as he passed the little groups, all seemed +weird and infernal, and everything became an object of irritation. + +As he went blindly out of the theater he struck his arm against a piece +of stage fittings and the blow was sharp and stinging, but he was glad +of the hurt. + +Without, in the street, Dan took his place with the other men and +waited, a bitter taste in his mouth and anger in his breast, waited +until Letty Lane fluttered down, followed by Poniotowsky, and the two +drove away. + +The young man could have gone after, running behind the motor, but there +was a taxicab at hand; he jumped in it, ordering the man to follow the +car to the Savoy. There the boy had the pleasure of seeing Miss Lane +enter the hotel, Poniotowsky with her--had the anguish of seeing them +both go up in the lift to her apartments. + +When Dan came to himself he heard the chimes of St. Martin's ring out +eleven. He then remembered for the first time that he had promised to +dine alone at home with the Duchess of Breakwater. + +"Gosh, Lily will be wild!" + +In spite of the lateness of the hour he hurried to Park Lane. The +familiar face of the manservant who let him in blurred before the young +man's eyes. Her grace was out at the theater? Blair would wait then, and +he went into the small drawing-room, quiet, empty, reposeful, with a +fire across the andirons, for the evening was damp and cool. Still dazed +by his jealous, passionate emotions, he glanced about the room, chose a +long leather sofa, and stretching out his length, fell asleep. There in +the shadow he slept profoundly, waking suddenly to find that he was not +alone. Across the room the Duchess of Breakwater stood by the table; she +was in evening dress, her cloak and gloves on the chair at her side. She +laughed softly and the man to whom she laughed, on whom she smiled, was +Lord Galorey. + +Blair raised himself up on the sofa without making any noise, and he saw +Galorey take the woman in his arms. The sight didn't make the fiance +angry. He realized instantly that he _wanted to believe that it was +true_, and as there was nothing theatrical in the young Westerner, he +sprang up, slang so much a part of his nature that the first words that +came to his lips was a phrase in vogue. + +"Look who's here!" he cried, and came blithely forward, his head clear, +his lips smiling. + +The duchess gave a little scream and Dan lounged up to the two people +and held his hand frankly out to the lady. + +"That's all right, Lily! Go right on, Gordon, please. Only I had to let +you know when I waked up! Only fair. I guess I must have been asleep +quite a while." + +The Duchess of Breakwater shrugged. "I don't know what you dreamed," she +said acidly, "if you were asleep." + +"Well, it was a very pretty dream," the boy returned, "and showed what a +stupid ass I've been to think I couldn't have dreamed it when I was +awake." + +"I think you are crazy," the duchess exclaimed. + +But Blair repeated: "That's all right. I mean to say as far as I am +concerned--" + +And Galorey, in order to stand by his lady, murmured: + +"My dear chap, you _have_ been dreaming." + +But Blair met the Englishman's gray eyes with his blue ones. "I did have +a bottle of champagne, Gordon, that's a fact, but it couldn't make me +see what I did see." + +"Dan," the Duchess of Breakwater broke in, "let Gordon take you home, +like a dear. You're really ragging on in a ridiculous way." + +Blair looked at her steadily, and as he did so he repeated: + +"That's all right, Lily. Gordon cares a lot, and the truth of the matter +is that I _do not_." + +She grew very pale. + +"I would have stuck to my word, of course," he went on, "but we'd have +been infernally unhappy and ended up in the divorce courts. Now, this +little scene here of yours lets me out, and I don't lay it up against +either of you." + +"Gordon!" she appealed to her lover, "why, in Heaven's name, don't you +speak!" + +The Englishman realized that while he was glad at heart, he regretted +that he had been the means of her losing the chance of her life. + +"What do you want me to say, Lily?" he exclaimed with a desperate +gesture. "I can't tell him I don't love you. I have loved you, God help +me, for ten years." + +She could have killed him for it. + +"I can tell you, Dan, if you want me to," Galorey went on, "that I don't +believe she cares a penny for any one on the face of the earth, for you +or me." + +Old Dan Blair's son showed his business training. His one idea was to +"get out," and as he didn't care who the Duchess of Breakwater loved or +didn't love, he wanted to break away as fast as he could. He sat down at +the table under the light of the lamp and drew out his wallet with its +compact, thick little check book, the millionaire's pass to most of the +things that he wants. + +"You've taught me a lot," he said to the Duchess of Breakwater, "and my +father sent me over here for that. I have been awfully fond of you, too. +I thought I was fonder than I am, I guess. At any rate I want to stand +by one of my promises. That old place of yours--Stainer Court--now that's +got to be fixed up." + +He made a few computations on paper, lifted the pad to her with the +figures on it, round, generous and full. + +"At home," he said, "in Blairtown, we have what we call 'engagement' +parties, when each fellow brings a present to the girl, but this is what +we might call a 'broken engagement party.' Now, I can't," the boy went +on, "give this money to you very well; it won't look right. We will have +to fix that up some way or other. You will have to say you got an +unexpected inheritance from some uncle in Australia." He smiled at +Galorey: "We will fix it up together." + +His candor, his simplicity, were so charming, he stood before the two so +young, so clear, so clean, that a sudden tenderness for him, and a sense +of what she had lost, what she never had had, made her exclaim: + +"Dan, I really don't care a pin for the money--I don't"--but the hand she +held out was seized by the other man and held fast. Galorey said: + +"Very well, let it go at that. You don't care for the money, but you +will take it just the same. Now, don't, for God's sake, tell him that +you care for him." + +He made her meet his eyes this time: stronger than she, Galorey forced +her to be sincere. She set Dan free and he turned and left them standing +there facing each other. He softly crossed the room, and looking back, +he saw them, tall, distinguished, both of them under the +lamplight--enemies, and yet the closest friends bound by the strongest +tie in the world. + +As Dan went out through the curtains of the room and they fell behind +him, the Duchess of Breakwater sank down in the chair by the side of the +table; she buried her face. Gordon Galorey bent over her and again took +her in his arms, and she suffered it. + + + + +CHAPTER XX--A HAND CLASP + + +It was one o'clock. Blair called a hansom and told the driver to take +him to the Carlton, and leaning back in the vehicle he breathed a long +sigh. He looked like his father, but he didn't know it. He felt old. He +was a man and a tired one and a free one, and the sense of this liberty +began to refresh him like a breeze over parched sand. He thought over +what he had left for a second, stopped longest in pitying Galorey, then +went into the Carlton restaurant to order some supper, for he began to +feel the need of food. He had not time to drink his wine and partake of +the cold pheasant before he saw that opposite him the two people who had +taken their table were Letty Lane and Poniotowsky. The woman's slender +back was turned to Blair, and his heart gave a leap of pain at the sight +of the man with her, and the cruel suffering began again. + +Dan gave up the idea of eating: drank a whole bottle of champagne, then +pushed it away from him violently. "Hold up," he told himself, "you're +getting dangerous; this drinking won't do." So he sat drumming on the +table looking into the air. When those two got up to go, however, he +would go with them; that was sure. He could never see them go out +together again; no--no--no! As his brain grew a bit clearer he saw that +they were having a heated discussion between them, and as the room +emptied finally, save for themselves, Dan, though he could not hear what +Poniotowsky said, understood that he was urging something which the girl +did not wish to grant. When they left he rose as well, and at the door +of the restaurant the actress and her companion paused, and Dan saw her +face, deadly pale. There were tears in her eyes. + +"For God's sake!" he heard her murmur, and she impatiently drew her +cloak around her shoulders. Poniotowsky put out his hand to help her, +but she drew back from him, exclaiming violently: "Oh, no--no!" Before he +was aware what he was doing, Dan was holding his hand out to Miss Lane. + +How she turned to him! God of dreams! How she took in one cold hand his +hand; just the grasp a man needs to lead him to offer the service of his +life. Her hand was icy--it thrilled him to his marrow. + +"Oh--you--" she breathed. "Hello!" + +No words could have been more commonplace, less in the category of +dramatic or poetic welcome, but they were music to the boy, and when the +actress looked at him with a ghost of a smile on her trembling lips, Dan +was sure there was some kind of blessing in the greeting. + +"I am going to see you home," he said with determination, and she caught +at it: + +"Yes, yes, do! Will you?" + +The third member of the party had not spoken. A servant fetched him a +light to which he bent, touching his cigar. Then he lifted his head--a +handsome one--with its cold and indifferent eyes, to Letty Lane. + +"Good night, Miss Lane." A deep color crept under his dark skin. + +"Come," said the actress eagerly, "come along; my motor is out there and +I am crazy tired. That is all there is about it. Come along." + +Snatched from a marriage contract, still bitter from his jealous anger, +this--to be alone with her--by the side of this white, fragrant, wonderful +creature--to have been turned to by her, to be alone with her, the +Duchess of Breakwater out of his horizon, Poniotowsky gone--Oh, it was +sweet to him! They had rolled out from the Carlton down toward the +Square and he put his arm around her waist, his voice shook: + +"You are dead tired! And when I saw that brute with you to-night I could +have shot him." + +"Take your arm away, please." + +"Why?" + +"Take it away. I don't like it. Let my hand go. What's the matter with +you? I thought I could trust you." + +He said humbly: "You can--certainly you can." + +"I am tired--tired--tired!" + +Under his breath he said: "Put your head on my shoulder, Letty, +darling." + +And she turned on him nearly as violently as she had on Poniotowsky, and +burst into tears, crouching almost in the corner of the motor, away from +him, both her hands upon her breast. + +"Oh, can't you see how you bother me? Can't you see I want to rest and +be all alone? You are like them all--like them all. Can't I rest +anywhere?" + +The very words she used were those he had thought of when he saw her +dance at the theater, and his heart broke within him. + +"You can," he stammered, "rest right here. God knows I want you to rest +more than anything. I won't touch you or breathe again or do anything +you don't want me to." + +She covered her face with her hands and sat so without speaking to him. +The light in her motor shone over her like a kindly star, as, wrapped in +her filmy things she lay, a white rose blown into a sheltered nook. +After a little she wiped her eyes and said more naturally: + +"You look perfectly dreadfully, boy! What have you been doing with +yourself?" + +They had reached the Savoy. It seemed to Dan they were always just +driving up to where some one opened a door, out of which she was to fly +away from him. He got out before her and helped her from the car. + +"Well, I've got a piece of news to tell you. I have broken my engagement +with the duchess." + +This brought her back far enough into life to make her exclaim: "Oh, I +_am_ glad! That's perfectly fine! I don't know when I've heard anything +that pleased me so much. Come and see me to-morrow and tell me all about +it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI--RUGGLES RETURNS + + +Dan did not fall asleep until morning, and then he dreamed of Blairtown +and the church and a summer evening and something like the drone of the +flies on the window-pane soothed him, and came into his waking thoughts, +for at noon he was violently shaken by the shoulder and a man's voice +called him as he opened his eyes and looked into Ruggles' face. + +"Gee Whittaker!" Ruggles exclaimed. "You _are_ one of the seven +sleepers! I've been here something like seventeen minutes, whistling and +making all kinds of barnyard noises." + +As Dan welcomed him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Ruggles told him +that he had come over "the pond" just for the wedding. + +"There isn't going to be any wedding, Josh! Got out of all that last +night." + +Ruggles had the breakfast card in his hand, which the waiter had brought +in, and Dan, taking it from his friend, ordered a big breakfast. + +"I'm as hungry as the dickens, Rug, and I guess you are, too." + +"What was the matter with the duchess?" Ruggles asked. "Were you too +young for her, or not rich enough?" + +Significantly the boy answered: "One too many, Josh," and Ruggles winced +at the response. + +"Here are the fellows with my trunks and things," he announced as the +porters came in with his luggage. "Just drop them there, boys; they're +going to fix some kind of a room later." + +Blair's long silk-lined coat lay on a chair where he had flung it, his +hat beside it, and Ruggles went over to the corner and lifted up a +fragrant glove. It was one of Letty Lane's gloves which Dan had found in +the motor and taken possession of. The young man had gone to his +dressing-room and begun running his bath, and Ruggles, laying the glove +on the table, said to himself: + +"I knew he would get rid of the duchess, all right." + +But when Dan came back into the room later in his dressing-gown for +breakfast, Ruggles said: + +"You'll have to send her back her glove, Dannie." + +At the sight of it beside the breakfast tray, Dan blushed scarlet. He +picked up the fragrant object. + +"That's all right; I'll take care of it." + +"Is _Mandalay_ running the same as ever?" Ruggles asked over his bacon +and eggs. + +"Same as ever." + +Ruggles saw he had not returned in vain, and that he was destined to +take up his part of the business just as he had laid it out for himself +to Lord Galorey. "It's up to me now: I'll have to take care of the +actress, and I'm darned if I haven't got a job. If Dan colors up like +that at the sight of her glove, I wonder what he does when he holds her +hand!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--WHAT WILL YOU TAKE? + + +When Dan, on the minute of two, went to the Savoy, Higgins, as was her +custom, did not meet him. Miss Lane met him herself. She was reading a +letter by the table, and when Dan was announced she put it back in its +envelope. Blair had seen her only in soft clinging evening dresses, in +white visionary clothes, or in her dazzling part costume, where the play +dress of the dancer displayed her beauty and her charms. To-day she wore +a tailor-made gown, and in her dark cloth dress, in her small hat, she +seemed a new woman--some one he hadn't known and did not know, and he +experienced the thrill a man always feels when the woman he loves +appears in an unaccustomed dress and suggests a new mystery. + +"Oh, I say! You're not going out, are you?" + +In the lapel of her close little coat was a flower he had given her. He +wanted to lean forward and kiss it as it rested there. She assured him: + +"I have just come in; had an early lunch and took a long walk--think of +it! I haven't taken a walk alone since I can remember!" + +Her walk had given her only the ghost of a flush, which rose over her +delicate skin, fading away like a furling flag. Her frailness, her +slenderness, the air of good-breeding her dress gave her, added to Dan's +deepening emotions. She seemed infinitely dear, and a thing to be +protected and fostered. + +"Can't you sit down for a minute? I've come to make you a real call." + +"Of course," she laughed. "But, first, I must answer this letter." + +His jealousy rose and he caught hold of her hand that held the envelope. +"Look here, you are not to write it if it is to that damned scoundrel. I +took you away from him last night and you are never to see him again." + +For the first time the two really looked at each other. Her lips parted +as though she would reprove him, and the boy murmured: + +"That's all right. I mean what I say--never to see him again! Will you +promise me? Promise me--I can't bear it! I won't have it!" + +A film of emotion crossed his clear young eyes and her slender hands +were held fast in his clasp. His face was beautiful in its tenderness +and in a righteous anger as he bent it on her. Instead of reproving him +as she had done before, instead of snatching away her hands, she swayed, +and at the sight of her weakness his eyes cleared, and the film lifted +like a curtain. She was not fainting, but, as her face turned toward +his, he saw it transformed, and Dan caught her in her dark dress, the +flowers in her bodice, to his heart. He held her as if he had snatched +her from a wreck and in a safe embrace lifted her high to the shore of a +coral strand. He kissed her, first timidly, wonderingly, with the +sacrament of first love on his lips. Then he kissed her as his heart +bade him, and when he set her free she was crying, but the tears on his +face were not all her tears. + +"Little boy, how crazy, how perfectly crazy! Oh, Dan--Dan!" + +She clung to him, looking up at him just as his boy-dreams had told him +a girl _would_ look some day. Her face was suffused and softened, her +lips--her coral-red, fine, lovely lips were trembling, and her eyes were +as gray, as profound as those seas his imagination had longed to +explore. Made poet for the first time in his life, as his arms were +around her, he whispered: "You are all my dreams come true. If any man +comes near you I'll kill him just as sure as fate. I'll kill him!" + +"Hush, hush! I told you you were crazy. We're both perfectly mad. I have +tried my best not to come to this with you. What would your father say? +Let me go, let me go; I'll call Higgins." + +The boy laughed aloud, the laugh of happy youth. He held her so close +that she might as well have tried to loose herself from an iron image of +the Spanish Inquisition as from his young arms. This slender, delicious, +willowy thing he held was Letty Lane, the adored star London went mad +over: the triumph of it! It flashed through him as his pulses beat and +his heart was high with the conquest, but it was to the woman only that +he whispered: + +"I've said a lot of stuff and I am likely to say a lot more, but I want +you to say something to me. _Don't you love me?_" + +The word on his lips to him was as strange, as wonderful, as though it +had been made for him. + +"I guess I must love you, Dan. I guess I must have for a long time." + +"God, I'm so glad! How long?" + +"Why, ever since you used to come to the soda-fountain and ask for +chocolate. You don't know how sweet you were when you were a little +boy." + +She put her slender hand against his hot cheek. "And you are nothing but +a little boy now! I think I must be crazy!" + +As he protested, as she listened intently to what his emotion taught him +to say to her, she whispered close to his ear: + +"What will _you_ take, little boy?" + +And he answered: "I'll take you--you!" + +At a slight sound in the next room Letty Lane started as though the +interruption really brought her to her senses, put her hand to her +disheveled hair, and before she could prevent it, Dan had called Mrs +Higgins to "come in," and the woman, in response, came into the +sitting-room. The boy went up to her and took her hands eagerly, and +said: + +"It's all right, all right, Mrs. Higgins. Just think of it! She belongs +to me!" + +"Oh, don't be a perfect lunatic, Dan," the actress exclaimed, half +laughing, half crying, "and don't listen to him, Higgins. He's just +crazy." + +But the old woman's eyes went bright at the boy's face and tone. "I +never was so glad of anything in my life." + +"As of what?" asked her mistress sharply, and the tone was so cold and +so suddenly altered that Dan felt a chill of despair. + +"Why, at what Mr. Blair says, Miss." + +"Then," said her mistress, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself. He's +only twenty-two, he doesn't know anything about life. You must be crazy. +He's as mad as a March hare and he ought to be in school." + +Then, to their consternation, she burst into a passion of weeping; threw +herself on Higgins' breast and begged her to send Dan away--to send +everybody away--and to let her die in peace. + +In utter despair the boy obeyed the dresser's motion to go, and his +transport was changed into anxiety and dread. He hung about down-stairs +in the Savoy for the rest of the afternoon, finally sending up to +Higgins for news in sheer desperation, and the page fetched Blair a note +in Letty Lane's own hand. His eyes blurred so as he opened the sheet, he +could hardly read the scrawl which said: + + "It was perfectly sweet of you to wait down there. I'm all + right--just tired out! Better get on a boat and go to Greenland's Icy + Mountains and cool off. But if you don't, come in to-morrow and have + lunch with me. + + Letty." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--IN THE SUNSET GLOW + + +He lived through a week of bliss and of torture. One minute she promised +to marry him, give up the stage, go around the world on a yacht, whose +luxuries, Dan planned, should rival any boat ever built, or they would +motor across Asia and see, one by one, the various coral strands and the +golden sands of the East. He could not find terms to express how he +would spend upon her this fortune of his, which, for the first time, +began to have value in his eyes. Money had been lavished on her, still +she seemed dazzled. Then she would push it all away from her in +disgust--tell him she was sick of everything--that she didn't want any new +jewels or any new clothes, and that she never wanted to see the stage +again or any place again; that there was nowhere she wanted to go, +nothing she wanted to see--that he must get some fresh girl to whom he +could show life, not one whom he must try to make forget it. Then, +again, she would say that she loved the stage and her art--wouldn't give +it up for any one in the world--that it was fatal to marry an +actress--that it was mad for him to think of marrying her, anyway--that +she didn't want to marry any one and be tied down--that she wanted to be +her own mistress and free. + +He found her a creature of a thousand whims and caprices, quick to cry, +quick to laugh, divine in everything she did. He never knew what she +would want him to do next, or how her mood would change, and after one +of their happiest hours, when she had been like a girl with him, she +would burst into tears, beg him to leave the room, telling him that she +was tired--tired--tired, and wanted to go to sleep and never to wake up +again. Between them was the figure of Poniotowsky, though neither spoke +of him. She appeared to have forgotten him. Dan would rather have cut +out his tongue than to speak his name, and yet he was there in the mind +of each. During the fortnight Dan spent thousands of pounds on her, +bought her jewels which she alternately raved over or but half looked +at. He had made his arrangements with Galorey peacefully, coolly and +between the two men it had been understood that the world should think +the engagement broken by the duchess, and Dan's attention to Letty Lane, +already the subject of much comment, already conspicuous, was enough to +justify any woman in taking offense. + +One day, the pearl of warm May days, when England even in springtime +touches summer, Blair was so happy as to persuade his sweetheart to go +with him for a little row on the river. The young fellow waited for her +in the boat he had secured, and she, motoring out with Higgins, had +appeared, running down to the edge of the water like a girl, gay as a +child let out from school, in a simple frock, in a marvelously fetching +hat, white gloves, white parasol, white shoes, and as Dan helped her +into the boat, pushed it out, pushed away with her on the crest of the +sun-flecked waters, spring was in his heart, and he found the moment +almost too great to bear. + +The actress had been a girl with him all day, giving herself to his +moods, doing what he liked without demur, talking of their mutual past, +telling him one amusing story after another, proving herself an ideal +companion, fresh, varied, reposeful; and no one to have seen Letty Lane +with the boy on that afternoon would have dreamed that she ever had +known another love. They had moored their boat down near Maidenhead, and +he had helped her up the bank to the little inn, where tea had been made +for them, and served to him by her own beautiful white hands. He had +called for strawberries, and, like a shepherd in a pastoral, had fed +them to her, and as they lingered the sunset came creeping steadily in +through the windows where they sat. + +As they neither called for their account nor to have the tea things +taken away, after a while the woman stealthily opened the door and, +unknown, looked at one of the prettiest pictures ever within her walls. +Letty Lane sat on the window-seat, her golden head, her white form +against the glow, and the boy by her side had his arms around her, and +her head was on his breast. They were both young. They might have been +white birds blown in there, nesting in the humble inn, and the woman of +the house, who had not heard the waters of the Thames flow softly for +nothing, judged them gently and sighed with pleasure as she shut the +door. + +Here at Maidenhead Dan had left his boat and the motor took them back. +Nothing spoiled his bliss that day, and he said her name a thousand +times that night in his dreams. Jealousies--and, when he would let +himself think, they were not one, they were many--faded away. The duties +that a life with her would involve did not disturb him. For many a long +year, come what might, be what would, he would recall the glowing of +that sunset reflected under the inn windows, the singing of the thrushes +and the flash of the white dress and the fine little white shoes which +he had held in the palm of his ardent hand, which he had kissed, as he +told her with all his heart that she should rest her tired feet for +ever. + +There grew in him that day a reverence for her, determined as he was to +bring into her life by his wealth and devotion everything of good. His +loving plans for her forming in his brain somewhat chaotic and very much +fevered, brought him nearer than he had ever been before to the picture +of his mother. His father it wasn't easy for Dan to think of in +connection with the actress. He didn't dare to dwell on the subject, but +he had never known his mother, and that pale ideal he could create as he +would. In thinking of her he saw only tenderness for Letty Lane--only +love; and in his room the night after the row on the river, the night +after the long idyl in the sunset-room of the inn, something like a +prayer came to his young lips, and, when its short form was finished, a +smile brought it to an end as he remembered the line in Letty Lane's own +opera: + + "She will teach you how to pray in an Eastern form of prayer." + +The ring he had given the Duchess of Breakwater had been her own choice, +a ruby. He had asked her, through Galorey, to keep it and to wear it +later, when she could think of him kindly, in an ornament of some kind +or another. The duchess had not refused. The ring he bought for Letty +Lane, although there was no engagement announced between them, was the +largest, purest diamond he could _with decency_ ask her to put on her +hand! It sparkled like a great drop of clear water from some fountain on +a magic continent. In another shop strands of pink coral set through +with diamonds caught his fancy and he bought her yards of them, ropes of +them, smiling to think how his boyhood's dreams were come true. + +He never saw Ruggles except at meals, hardly spoke to the poor man at +all, and the boy's absorbed face, his state of mind, made the older man +feel like death. He repeated to himself that he was too late--too late, +and usually wound up his reflections by ejaculating: + +"Gosh almighty, I'm glad I haven't got a son!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--RUGGLES' OFFER + + +He felt as he waited for her in that flower-filled room, for she had +recovered from her distaste for flowers, as he glanced at the +photographs of women like herself in costumes more or less frank, more +or less vulgar, he felt as though he wanted to knock down the walls and +let in a big view of the West--of Montana--of the hills. With such a +setting he thought he could better talk with the lady whom he had come +to see. + +Ruggles held an unlighted cigar between his fingers and goose-flesh rose +all over him. His glasses bothered him. He couldn't get them bright +enough, though he polished them half a dozen times on his silk +handkerchief. His clothes felt too large. He seemed to have shrunken. He +moistened his lips, cleared his throat, tried to remember what kind of +fellow he had been at Dan's age. At Dan's age he was selling a suspender +patent on the road, supporting his mother and his sisters--hard work and +few temptations; he was too tired and too poor. + +Miss Lane kept him waiting ten minutes, and they were hours to her +guest. He was afraid every minute that Dan would come in. The thoughts +he had gathered together, the plan of action, disarranged itself in his +mind every time he thought of the actress. He couldn't forget his vision +of her on the stage or at the Carlton, where she had sat opposite them +and bewitched them both. When she came into the sitting-room at length, +he started so violently that he knocked over a vase of flowers, the +water trickling all over the table down on to the floor. + +She had dazzled him before the footlights, charmed him at dinner, and it +was singular to think that he knew how this dignified, quiet creature +looked in ballet clothes and in a dinner dress, whose frankness had made +him catch his breath. It was a third woman who stood before Ruggles now. +He had to take her into consideration. She had expected him, saw him by +appointment. She was a woman of mind and intelligence. She had not +climbed to her starry position without having acquired a knowledge of +men, and it was the secret of her success. She showed it in the dress in +which she received her visitor. She wore a short walking skirt of heavy +serge, a simple shirtwaist belted around, a sailor hat on her beautiful +little head. She was unjeweled and unpainted, very pale and very sweet. +If it had not been for the marks of fatigue under her eyes, she would +not have looked more than eighteen. On her left hand a single diamond, +clear as water, caught the refracted light. + +"How-de-do? Glad you are back again." + +She gave him a big chair and sat down before him smiling. Leaning her +elbows on her knees, she sank her face upon her hands and looked at him, +not coquettishly in the least, but as a child might have looked. From +her small feet to her golden head she was utterly charming. + +[Image] + +Ruggles made himself think of Dan. Miss Lane spoke slowly, nodding +toward him, in her languid voice: "It's no use, Mr. Ruggles, no use." + +Holding her face between her hands, her eyes gray as winter's seas and +as profound, she looked at him intently; then, in a flash, she changed +her position and instantly transformed her character. He saw that she +was a woman, not an eighteen-year-old girl, but a woman, clever, poised, +witty, understanding, and that she might have been twenty years older +than the boy. + +"I'm sorry you spoke so quick," he said. + +"I knew," she interrupted, "just what you wanted to say from the start. +I couldn't help it, could I? I knew you would want to come and see me +about it. It isn't any use. I know just what you are going to say." + +"No, ma'am," he returned, "I don't believe you do--bright as you are." + +Ruggles gazed thoughtfully at the cold end of his unlighted cigar. It +was a comfort to him to hold it and to look at it, although not for +anything in the world would he have asked to light it. + +"Dan's father and me were chums. We went through pretty much together, +and I know how he felt on most points. He was a man of few words, but I +know he counted on me to stand By the boy." + +Ruggles was so chivalrous that his rle at present cost him keen +discomfort. + +"A lady like you," he said gently, "knows a great deal more about how +things are done than either Dan or me. We ain't tenderfeet in the West, +not by a long shot, but we see so few of a certain kind of picture shows +that when they do come round they're likely to make us lose our minds! +You know, yourself, a circus in a town fifty miles from a railroad +drives the people crazy. Now, Dan's a little like the boy with his eyes +on the hole in the tent. He would commit murder to get inside and see +that show." He nodded and smiled to her as though he expected her to +follow his crude simile. "Now, I have seen _you_ a lot of times." And +she couldn't help reminding him, "Not of your own accord, Mr. Ruggles." + +"Well, I don't know," he slowly admitted; "I always felt I had my +money's worth, and the night you ate with us at the Carlton I understood +pretty well how the boy with his eyes at the tent hole would feel." But +he tapped his broad chest with the hand that held the cigar between the +first and second fingers. "I know just what kind of a heart you've got, +for I waited at the stage door and I know you don't get all your +applause inside the Gaiety Theater." + +"Goodness," she murmured, "they make an awful fuss about nothing." + +"Now," he continued, leaning forward a trifle toward her languid, half +interested figure, "I just want you to think of him as a little boy. +He's only twenty-two. He knows nothing of the world. The money you give +to the poor doesn't come so hard perhaps as this will. It's a big +sacrifice, but I want you to let the boy go." + +She smiled slightly, found her handkerchief, which was tucked up the +cuff of her blouse, pressed the little bit of linen to her lips as +though to steady them, then she asked abruptly: + +"What has he said to you?" + +"Lord!" Ruggles groaned. "_Said_ to me! My dear young lady, he is much +too rude to speak. Dan sort of breathes and snorts around like a +lunatic. He was dangling around that duchess when I was here before, but +she didn't scare me any." + +And Letty Lane, now smiling at him, relieved by his break from a more +intense tone, asked: + +"Now, you are scared?" + +"Well," Ruggles drawled, "I was pretty sure that woman didn't _care_ +anything for the boy. Are you her kind?" + +It was the best stroke he had made. She almost sprang up from her chair. + +"Heavens," she exclaimed, "I guess I'm not!" Her face flushed. + +"I had rather see a son of mine dead than married to a woman like that," +he said. + +"Why, Mr. Ruggles," she exclaimed passionately, addressing him with +interest for the first time, "what do you know about me? What? What? You +have seen me dance and heard me sing." + +And he interrupted her. + +"Ten times, and you are a bully dancer and a bully singer, but you do +other things than dance and sing. There is not a man living that would +want to have his mother dress that way." + +She controlled a smile. "Never mind that. People's opinions are very +different about that sort of thing. You have seen me at dinner with your +boy, as you call him, and you can't say that I did anything but ask him +to help the poor. I haven't led Dan on. I have tried to show him just +what you are making me go through now." + +If she acted well and danced well, it was hard for her to talk. She was +evidently under strong emotion and it needed her control not to burst +into tears and lose her chance. + +"Of course, I know the things you have heard. Of course, I know what is +said about me"--and she stopped. + +Ruggles didn't press her any further; he didn't ask her if the things +were true. Looking at her as he did, watching her as he did, there was +in him a feeling so new, so troubling that he found himself more anxious +to protect her than to bring her to justice. + +"There are worse, far worse women than I am, Mr. Ruggles. I will never +do Dan any harm." + +Here her visitor leaned forward and put one of his big hands lightly +over one of hers, patted it a moment, and said: + +"I want you to do a great deal better than that." + +She had picked up a photograph off the table, a pretty picture of +herself in _Mandalay_, and turned it nervously between her fingers as +she said with irritation: + +"I haven't been in the theatrical world not to guess at this 'Worried +Father' act, Mr. Ruggles. I told you I knew just what you were going to +say." + +"Wrong!" he repeated. "The business is old enough perhaps, lots of good +jobs are old, but _this_ is a little different." + +He took the turning picture and laid it on the table, and quietly +possessed himself of the small cold hands. Blair's solitaire shone up to +him. Ruggles looked into Letty Lane's eyes. "He is only twenty-two; it +ain't fair, it ain't fair. He could count the times he has been on a +lark, I guess. He hasn't even been to an eastern college. He is no fool, +but he's darned simple." + +She smiled faintly. The man's face, near her own, was very simple +indeed. + +"You have seen so much," he urged, "so many fellows. You have been such +a queen, I dare say you could get any man you wanted." He repeated. +"Most any one." + +"I have never seen any one like Dan." + +"Just so: He ain't your kind. That is what I am trying to tell you." + +She withdrew her hand from his violently. + +"There you are wrong. He _is_ my kind. He is what I like, and he is what +I want to be like." + +A wave of red dyed her face, and, in a tone more passionate than she had +ever used to her lover, she said to Ruggles: + +"I love him--I love him!" Her words sent something like a sword through +the older man's heart. He said gently: "Don't say it. He don't know what +love means yet." + +He wanted to tell her that the girl Dan married should be the kind of +woman his mother was, but Ruggles couldn't bring himself to say the +words. Now, as he sat near her, he was growing so complex that his brain +was turning round. He heard her murmur: + +"I told you I knew your act, Mr. Ruggles. It isn't any use." + +This brought him back to his position and once more he leaned toward her +and, in a different tone from the one he had intended to use, murmured: + +"You don't know. You haven't any idea. I do ask you to let Dan go, +that's a fact. I have got something else to propose in its place. It +ain't quite the same, but it is clear--marry me!" + +She gave a little exclamation. A slight smile rippled over her face like +the sunset across a pale pool at dawn. + +"Laugh," he said humbly; "don't keep in. I know I am old-fashioned as +the deuce, and me and Dan is quite a contrast, but I mean just what I +say, my dear." + +She controlled her amusement, if it was that. It almost made her cry +with mirth, and she couldn't help it. Between laughing breaths she said +to him: + +"Oh, is it all for Dan's sake, Mr. Ruggles? Is it?" And then, biting her +lips and looking at him out of her wonderful eyes, she said: "I know it +is--I know it is--I beg your pardon." + +"I asked a girl once when I was poor--too poor. Now this is the second +time in my life. I mean just what I say. I'll make you a kind husband. I +am fifty-five, hale as a nut. I dare say you have had many better +offers." + +"Oh, dear," she breathed; "oh, dear, please--please stop!" + +"But I don't expect you to marry me for anything but my money." + +Ruggles put his cigar down on the edge of the table. He looked at his +chair meditatively, he took out his silk handkerchief, polished up his +glasses, readjusted them, put them on and then looked at her. + +"Now," he said, "I am going to trust you with something, and I know you +will keep my secret for me. This shows you a little bit of what I think +about you. Dan Blair hasn't got a red cent. He has nothing but what I +give him. There's a false title to all that land on the Bentley claim. +The whole thing came up when I was home and the original company, of +which I own three-quarters of the stock, holds the clear titles to the +Blairtown mines. It all belongs now to me, if I choose to present my +documents. Dan knows nothing about this--not a word." + +The actress had never come up to such a dramatic point in any of her +plays. With her hands folded in her lap she looked at him steadily, and +he could not understand the expression that crossed her face. He heard +her exclamation: "Oh, gracious!" + +"I've brought the papers back with me," said the Westerner, "and it is +between you and me how we act. If Dan marries you I will be bound to do +what old Blair would have done--cut him off--let him feel his feet on the +ground, and the result of his own folly." + +He had taken his glasses off while he made this assertion. Now he put +them on again. + +"If you give him up I'll divide with the boy and be rich enough still to +hand over to my wife all she wants to spend." + +She turned her face away from him and leaned her head once more upon her +hands. He heard her softly murmuring under her breath, with an absent +look on her face, accompanied by a still more incomprehensible smile. + +"That's how it stands," he concluded. + +She seemed to have forgotten him entirely, and he caught his breath when +she turned about abruptly and said: + +"My goodness, how Dan will hate being poor! He will have to sell all his +stickpins and his motor cars and all the things he has given me. It will +be quite a little to start on, but he will hate it, he is so very +smart." + +"Why, you don't mean to say--" Ruggles gasped. + +And with a charming smile as she rose to put their conversation at an +end, she said: + +"Why, you don't mean to say that you thought I _wouldn't stand by him_?" +She seemed, as she put her hands upon her hips with something of a +defiant look at the older man, as though she just then stood by her +pauperized lover. + +"I thought you cared some for the boy," Ruggles said. + +"Well, I am showing it." + +"You want to ruin him to show it, do you?" + +As though he thought the subject dismissed he walked heavily toward the +door. + +"You know how it stands. I have nothing more to say." He knew that he +had signally failed, and as a sudden resentment rose in him he +exclaimed, almost brutally: + +"I am darned glad the old man is dead; I am glad his mother's dead, and +I am glad I have got no son." + +The next moment she was at his side, and he felt that she clung to his +arm. Her sensitive, beautiful face, all drawn with emotion, was raised +to his. + +"Oh, you'll kill me--you'll kill me! Just look how very ill I am; you are +making me crazy. I just worship him." + +"Give him up, then," said Ruggles steadily. + +She faltered: "I can't--I can't--it won't be for long"--with a terrible +pathos in her voice. "You don't know how different I can be: you don't +know what a new life we were going to lead." + +Stammering, and with intense meaning, Ruggles, looking down at her, +said: "My dear child--my dear child!" + +In his few words something perhaps made her see in a flash her past and +what the question really was. She dropped Ruggles' arm. She stood for a +moment with her arms folded across her breast, her head bent down, and +the man at the door waited, feeling that Dan's whole life was in the +balance of the moment. When she spoke again her voice was hard and +entirely devoid of the lovely appealing quality which brought her so +much admiration from the public. + +"If I give him up," she said slowly, "what will you do?" + +"Why," he answered, "I'll divide with Dan and let things stand just as +they are." + +She thought again a moment and then as if she did not want him to +witness--to detect the struggle she was going through, she turned away +and walked over toward the window and dismissed him from there. "Please +go, will you? I want very much to be alone and to think." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV--LETTY LANE RUNS AWAY + + +He had not got up-stairs to his rooms at the Carlton before a note was +handed him from the actress, bidding him to return at once to the Savoy, +and Ruggles, his heart hammering like a trip-hammer, rushed up to his +rooms, made an evening toilet, for it was then half-past seven, threw +his cravats and collars all around the place, cursed like a miner as he +got into his clothes, and red almost to apoplexy, nervous and full of +emotion, he returned to the rooms he had left not three hours before. + +The three hours had been busy ones at the actress' apartment. Letty +Lane's sitting-room was full of trunks, dressing-bags and traveling +paraphernalia. She came forward out of what seemed a world of confusion, +dressed as though for a journey, even her veil and her gloves denoting +her departure. She spoke hurriedly and almost without politeness. + +"I have sent for you to come and see me here. Not a soul in London knows +I am going away. There will be a dreadful row at the theater, but that's +none of your affairs. Now, I want you to tell me before I go just what +you are going to do for Dan." + +"Who are you going with?" Ruggles asked shortly, and she flashed at him: + +"Well, really, I don't think that is any of your business. When you +drive a woman as you have driven me, she will go far." + +He interrupted her vehemently, not daring to take her hand. "I couldn't +do more. I have asked you to marry me. I couldn't do more. I stand by +what I have said. Will you?" he stammered. + +She knew men. She looked at him keenly. Her veil was lifted above her +eyes and its shadow framed her small pale face on which there were marks +of utter disenchantment, of great ennui. She said languidly: "What I +want to know is, what you are going to do for Dan?" + +"I told you I would share with him." + +"Then he will be nearly as rich?" + +"He'll have more than is good for him." + +That satisfied her. Then she pursued: "I want you to stand by him. He +will need you." + +Ruggles lifted the hand he held and kissed it reverently. "I'll do +anything you say--anything you say." + +Down-stairs in the Savoy, as Dan had done countless times, Ruggles +waited until he saw her motor car carry her and her small luggage and +Higgins away. + +In their sitting-room in the Carlton a half-hour later the door was +thrown open and Dan Blair came in like a madman. Without preamble he +seized Ruggles by the arm. + +"Look here," he cried, "what have you been doing? Tell me now, and tell +me the truth, or, by God, I don't know what I'll do. You went to the +Savoy. You went there twice. Anyhow, where is she?" + +Dan, slender as he was beside Ruggles' great frame, shook the elder man +as though he had been a terrier. "Speak to me. Where has she gone?" + +He stared in the Westerner's face, his eyes bloodshot. "Why in thunder +don't you say something?" + +And Ruggles prayed for some power to unloose his thickening tongue. + +"You say she's gone?" he questioned. + +"I say," said the boy, "that you've been meddling in my affairs with the +woman I love. I don't know what you have said to her, but it's only your +age that keeps me from striking you. Don't you know," he cried, "that +you are spoiling my life? Don't you know that?" A torrent of feeling +coming to his lips, his eyes suffused, the tears rolled down his face. +He walked away into his own room, remained there a few moments, and when +he came out again he carried in his hand his valise, which he put down +with a bang on the table. More calmly, but still in great anger, he said +to his father's friend: + +"Now, can you tell me what you've done or not?" + +"Dan," said Ruggles with difficulty, "if you will sit down a moment we +can--" + +The boy laughed in his face. "Sit down!" he cried. "Why, I think you +must have lost your reason. I have chartered a motor car out there and +the damned thing has burst a tire and they are fixing it up for me. It +will be ready in about two minutes and then I am going to follow +wherever she has gone. She crossed to Paris, but I can get there before +she can even with this damned accident. But, before I go, I want you to +tell me what you said." + +"Why," said Ruggles quietly, "I told her you were poor, and she turned +you down." + +His words were faint. + +"God!" said the boy under his breath. "That's the way you think about +truth. Lie to a woman to save my precious soul! But I expect," he said; +"you think she is so immoral and so bad that she will hurt me. Well," he +said, with great emphasis, "she has never done anything in her life that +comes up to what you've done. Never! And nothing has ever hurt me so." + +His lips trembled. "I have lost my respect for you, for my father's +friend, and as far as she is concerned, I don't care what she marries me +for. She has got to marry me, and if she doesn't"--he had no idea, in his +passion, what he was saying or how--"why, I think I'll kill you first and +then blow my own brains out!" And with these mad words he grabbed up his +valise and bolted from the room, and Ruggles could hear his running feet +tearing down the corridor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI--WHITE AND CORAL + + +Spring in Paris, which comes in a fashion so divine that even the most +calloused and indifferent are impressed by its beauty, awakened no +answering response in the heart of the young man who, from his hotel +window, looked out on the desecrated gardens of the Tuileries--on the +distant spires of the churches whose names he did not know--on the square +block of old palaces. He had missed the boat across the Channel taken by +Letty Lane, and the delay had made him lose what little trace of her he +had. In the early hours of the morning he had flung himself in at the +St. James, taken the indifferent room they could give him in the crowded +season, and excited as he was he slept and did not waken until noon. +Blair thought it would be a matter of a few hours only to find the +whereabouts of the celebrated actress, but it was not such an easy job. +He had not guessed that she might be traveling incognito, and at none of +the hotels could he hear news of her, nor did he pass her in the +crowded, noisy, rustling, crying streets, though he searched motors for +her with eager eyes, and haunted restaurants and cafs, and went +everywhere that he thought she might be likely to be. + +At the end of the third day, unsuccessful and in despair, having hardly +slept and scarcely eaten, the unhappy young lover found himself taking a +slight luncheon in the little restaurant known as the Perouse down on +the Quais. His head on his hand, for the present moment the joy of life +gone from him, he looked out through the windows at the Seine, at the +bridge and the lines of flowering trees. He was the only occupant of the +upper room where, of late, he had ordered his luncheon. + +The tide of life rolled slowly in this quieter part of the city, and as +Blair sat there under the window there passed a piper playing a shrill, +sweet tune. It was so different from any of the loud metropolitan +clamors, with which his ears were full, that he got up, walked to the +window and leaned out. It was a pastoral that met his eyes. A man +piping, followed by little pattering goats; the primitive, unlooked-for +picture caught his tired attention, and, just then, opposite the Quais, +two women passed--flower sellers, their baskets bright with crocuses and +girofls. The bright picture touched him and something of the springlike +beauty that the day wore and that dwelt in the May light, soothed him as +nothing had for many hours. + +He paid his bill, took courage, picked up his hat and gloves and stick +and walked out briskly, crossing the bridge to the Rue de Rivoli, +determined that night should not fall until he found the woman he +sought. Nor did it, though the afternoon wore on and Dan, pursuing his +old trails, wandered from worldly meeting place to worldly meeting +place. Finally, toward six o'clock, he saw the lengthening shadows steal +into the woods of the Bois de Boulogne, and in one of the smaller +alleys, where the green-trunked trees of the forests were full of purple +shadows and yellow sun discs, flickering down, he picked up a small iron +chair and sat himself down, with a long sigh, to rest. + +While he sat there watching the end of the _alle_ as it gave out into +the broader road, a beautiful red motor rolled up to the conjunction of +the two ways and Letty Lane, in a summer frock, got out alone. She had a +flowing white veil around her head and a flowing white scarf around her +shoulders. As the day on the Thames, she was all in white--like a dove. +But this time her costume was made vivid and picturesque by the coral +parasol she carried, a pair of coral-colored kid shoes, around her neck +and falling on their long chain, she wore his coral beads. He saw that +he observed her before she did him. All this Dan saw before he dashed +into the road, came up to her with something like a cry on his lips, +bareheaded, for his hat and his stick and his gloves were by his chair +in the woods. + +Letty Lane's hands went to her heart and her face took on a deadly +pallor. She did not seem glad to see him. Out of his passionate +description of the hours that he had been through, of how he had looked +for her, of what he thought and wanted and felt, the actress made what +she could, listening to him as they both stood there under the shadows +of the green trees. Scanning her face for some sign that she loved him, +for it was all he cared for, Dan saw no such indication there. He +finished with: + +"You know what Ruggles told you was a lie. Of course, I've got money +enough to give you everything you want. He's a lunatic and ought to be +shut up." + +"It may have been a lie, all right," she said with forced indifference; +"I've had time to think it over. You are too young. You don't know what +you want." She stopped his protestations: "Well, then, _I_ am too old +and I don't want to be tied down." + +When he pressed her to tell him whether or not she had ceased to care +for him, she shook her head slowly, marking on the ground fine tracery +with the end of her coral parasol. He had been obliged to take her back +to the red motor, but before they were in earshot of her servants, he +said: + +"Now, you know just what you have done to me, you and Ruggles between +you. For my father's sake and the things I believed in I've kept pretty +straight as things go." He nodded at her with boyish egotism, throwing +all the blame on her. "I want you to understand that from now, right +now, I'm going to the dogs just as fast as I can get there, and it won't +be a very gratifying result to anybody that ever cared." + +She saw the determination on his fine young face, worn by his sleepless +nights, already matured and changed, and she believed him. + +"Paris," he nodded toward the gate of the woods which opened upon Paris, +"is the place to begin in--right here. A man," he went on, and his lips +trembled, "can only feel like this once in his life. You know all the +talk there is about young love and first love. Well, that's what I've +got for you, and I'm going to turn it now--right now--into just what older +people warn men from, and do their best to prevent. I have seen enough +of Paris," he went on, "these days I have been looking for you, to know +where to go and what to do, and I am setting off for it now." + +She touched his arm. + +"No," she murmured. "No, boy, you are not going to do any such thing!" + +This much from her was enough for him. He caught her hand and cried: +"Then you marry me. What do we care for anybody else in the world?" + +"Go back and get your hat and stick and gloves," she commanded, keeping +down the tears. + +"No, no, you come with me, Letty; I'm not going to let you run to your +motor and escape me again." + +"Go; I'll wait here," she promised. "I give you my word." + +As he snatched up the inanimate objects from the leaf-strewn ground +where he had thrown them in despair, he thought how things can change in +a quarter of an hour. For he had hope now, as he hurried back, as he +walked with her to her car, as he saw the little coral shoes stir in the +leaves when she passed under the trees. The little coral shoes trod on +his heart, but now it was light under her feet! + +Jubilant to have overcome the fate which had tried to keep her hidden +from him in Paris, he could hardly believe his eyes that she was before +them again, and, as the motor rolled into the Avenue des Acacias, he +asked her the question uppermost in his mind: + +"Are you alone in Paris, Letty?" + +"Don't you count?" + +"No--no--honestly, _you know what I mean_." + +"You haven't any right to ask me that." + +"I have--I have. You gave me a right. You're engaged to me, aren't you? +Gosh, you haven't _forgotten_, have you?" + +"Don't make me conspicuous in the Bois, Dan," she said; "I only let you +come with me because you were so terribly desperate, so ridiculous." + +"Are you alone?" he persisted. "I have got to know." + +"Higgins is with me." + +"Oh, God," he cried wildly, "how can you joke with me? Don't you +understand you're breaking my heart?" + +But she did not dare to be kind to him, knowing it would unnerve her for +the part she had promised to play. + +He sat gripping his hands tightly together, his lips white. "When I +leave you now," he said brokenly, "I am going to find that devil of a +Hungarian and do him up. Then I am going to tackle Ruggles." + +"Why, what's poor Mr. Ruggles got to do with it?" + +Dan cried scornfully: "For God's sake, don't keep this up! You know the +rot he told you? I made him confess. He has had this mania all along +about money being a handicap; he was bent on trying this game with some +girl to see how it worked." He continued more passionately. "I don't +care a rap what you marry me for, Letty, or what you have done or been. +I think you're perfect and I'll make you the happiest woman in the +world." + +She said: "Hush, hush! Listen, dear; listen, little boy. I am awfully +sorry, but it won't do. I never thought it would. You'll get over it all +right, though you don't, you can't believe me now. I can't be poor, you +know; I really couldn't be poor." + +He interrupted roughly: "Who says you'll be? What are you talking about? +Why, I'll cover you with jewels, sweetheart, if I have to rip the earth +open to get them out." + +She understood that Dan believed Ruggles' story to have been a +cock-and-bull one. + +"You talk as though you could buy me, Dan. Wait, listen." She put him +back from her. "Now, if you won't be quiet, I'm going to stop my car." + +He repeated: "Tell me, are you alone in Paris? Tell me. For three days I +have wandered and searched for you everywhere; I have hardly eaten a +thing, I don't believe I have slept a wink." And he told her of his +weary search. + +She listened to him, part of the time her white-gloved hand giving +itself up to the boy; part of the time both hands folded together and +away from him, her arms crossed on her breast, her small shoes of coral +kid tapping the floor of the car. Thus they rolled leisurely along the +road by the Bois. Through the green-trunked trees the sunlight fell +divinely. On the lake the swans swam, pluming their feathers; there were +children there in their ribbons and furbelows. The whole world went by +gay and careless, while for Dan the problem of his existence, his +possibility for happiness or pain was comprised within the little room +of the motor car. + +"Are you alone in Paris, Letty?" + +And she said: "Oh, what a bore you are! You're the most obstinate +creature. Well, I am alone, but that has nothing to do with you." + +A glorious light broke over his face; his relief was tremendous. + +"Oh, thank God!" he breathed. + +"Poniotowsky"--and she said his name with difficulty--"is coming to-night +from Carlsbad." + +The boy threw back his bright head and laughed wildly. + +"Curse him! The very name makes me want to commit a crime. He will go +over my body to you. You hear me, Letty. I mean what I say." + +People had already remarked them as they passed. The actress was too +well-known to pass unobserved, but she was indifferent to their +curiosity or to the existence of any one but this excited boy. + +Blair, who had not opened a paper since he came to Paris, did not know +that Letty Lane's flight from London had created a scandal in the +theatrical world, that her manager was suing her, and that to be seen +with her driving in the Bois was a conspicuous thing indeed. She thought +of it, however. + +"I am going to tell the man to drive you to the gate on the other side +of the park where it's quieter, we won't be stared at, and then I want +you to leave me and let me go to the Meurice alone. You must, Dan, you +must let me go to the hotel alone." + +He laughed again in the same strained fashion and forced her hand to +remain in his. + +"Look here. You don't suppose I am going to let you go like this, now +that I have seen you again. You don't suppose I am going to give you up +to that infamous scoundrel? You have got to marry me." + +Bringing all her strength of character to bear, she exclaimed: "I expect +you think you are the only person who has asked me to marry him, Dan. I +am going to _marry_ Prince Poniotowsky. He is perfectly crazy about me." + +Until that moment she had not made him think that she was indifferent to +him, and the idea that such a thing was possible, was too much for his +overstrained heart to bear. Dan cried her name in a voice whose appeal +was like a hurt creature's, and as the hurt creature in its suffering +sometimes springs upon its torturer, he flung his arms around her as she +sat in the motor, held her and kissed her, then set her free, and as the +motor flew along, tore open the door to spring out or to throw himself +out, but clinging to him she prevented his mad act. She stopped the car +along the edge of the quiet, wooded _alle_. Blair saw that he had +terrified her. She covered her beating heart with her hands and gasped +at him that he was "crazy, crazy," and perhaps a little late his dignity +and self-possession returned. + +"I am mad," he acknowledged more calmly, "and I am sorry that I +frightened you. But you drive me mad." + +Without further word he got out and left her agitated, leaning toward +him, and Blair, less pale and thoroughly the man, lifted his hat to her +and, with unusual grace, bowed good night and good-by. Then, rushing as +he had come, he walked off down through the _alle_, his gray figure in +his gray clothes disappearing through the vista of meeting trees. + +For a moment she stared after him, her eyes fastened on the tall slender +beautiful young man. Blair's fire and ardor, his fresh youthfulness, his +protection and his chivalry, his ardent devotion, touched her +profoundly. Tears fell, and one splashed on her white glove. Was he +really going to ruin his life? The old ballad, _The Earl of Moray_, ran +through her head: + + "And long may his lady look from the castle wall." + +Dan had neither title nor, according to Ruggles, had he any money, and +she could marry the prince; but Dan, as he walked so fast away, misery +snapping at his heels as he went, stamping through the woods, seemed +glorious to Letty Lane and the only one she wanted in the world. What if +anything should happen to him really? What if he should really start out +to do the town according to the fashion of his Anglo-Saxon brothers, but +more desperately still? She took a card from the case in the corner of +the car, scribbled a few words, told the man to drive around the curve +and meet the outlet of the path by which Dan had gone. When she saw him +within reaching distance she sent the chauffeur across the woods to give +Mr. Blair her scribbled word and consoled herself with the belief that +Dan wouldn't "go to the dogs or throw himself in the river until he had +seen her again." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII--AT MAXIM'S + + +At the Meurice, Miss Lane gave strict orders to admit only Mr. Blair to +her apartments. She described him. No sooner had she drunk her cup of +tea, which Higgins gave her, than she began to expect Dan. + +He didn't come. + +Her dinner, without much appetite, she ate alone in her salon; saw a +doctor and made him prescribe something for the cough that racked her +chest; looked out to the warm, bright gardens of the Tuileries fading +into the pallid loveliness of sunset, indifferent to everything in the +world--except Dan Blair. She believed she would soon be indifferent to +him, too; then everything would be done with. Now she wondered had he +really gone--had he done what he threatened? Why didn't he come? At +twelve o'clock that night, as she lay among the cushions of her sofa, +dozing, the door of her parlor was pushed in. She sprang up with a cry +of delight; but when Poniotowsky came up to her she exclaimed: + +"Oh, you!" And the languor and boredom with which she said his name made +the prince laugh shortly. + +"Yes, I. Who did you think it was?" Cynically and rather cruelly he +looked down at Letty Lane and admired the picture she made: small, +exquisite, her blond head against the dark velvet of the lounge, her +gray eyes intensified by the fatigue under them. + +"Just got in from Carlsbad; came directly here. How-de-do? You look, you +know--" he scrutinized her through his single eye-glass--"most frightfully +seedy." + +"Oh, I'm all right." She left the sofa, for she wanted to prevent his +nearer approach. "Have you had any supper? I'll call Higgins." + +"No, no, sit down, please, will you? I want to know why you sent to +Carlsbad for me? Have you come to your senses?" + +He was as mad about the beautiful creature as a man of his temperament +could be. Exhausted by excess and bored with life, she charmed and +amused him, and in order to have her with him always, to be master of +her caprices, he was willing to make any sacrifice. + +"Have you sent off that imbecile boy?" And at her look he stopped and +shrugged. "You need a rest, my child," he murmured practically, "you're +neurasthenic and very ill. I've wired to have the yacht at +Cherbourg--It'll reach there by noon to-morrow." + +She was standing listlessly by the table. A mass of letters sent by +special messenger from London after her, telegrams and cards lay there +in a pile. Looking down at the lot, she murmured: "All right, I don't +care." + +He concealed his triumph, but before the look had faded from his face +she saw it and exclaimed sharply: + +"Don't be crazy about it, you know. You'll have to pay high for me; you +know what I mean." + +He answered gallantly: "My dear child, I've told you that you would be +the most charming princess in Hungary." + +Once more she accepted indifferently: "All right, all right, I don't +care tuppence--not tuppence"--and she snapped her fingers; "but I like to +see you pay, Frederigo. Take me to Maxim's." + +He demurred, saying she was far too ill, but she turned from him to call +Higgins, determined to go if she had to go alone, and said to him +violently: "Don't think I'll make your life easy for you, Frederigo. +I'll make it wretched; as wretched--" and she held out her fragile arms, +and the sleeves fell back, leaving them bare--"as wretched as I am +myself." + +But she was lovely, and he said harshly: "Get yourself dressed. I'll go +change and meet you at the lift." + + * * * * * + +She made him take a table in the corner, where she sat in the shadow on +the sofa, overlooking the brilliant room. Maxim's was no new scene to +either of them, no novelty. Poniotowsky scarcely glanced at the crowd, +preferring to feast his eyes on his companion, whose indifference to him +made his abstraction easy. She was his property. He would give her his +title; she had demanded it from the first. The Hungarian was a little +overdressed, with his jeweled buttons, his large _boutonnire_, his +faultless clothes, his single eye-glass through which he stared at Letty +Lane, whose delicate beauty was in fine play: her cheeks faintly pink, +her starry eyes humid with a dew whose luster is of the most precious +quality. Her unshed tears had nothing to do with Poniotowsky--they were +for the boy. Her heart sickened, thinking where he might be; and more +than that, it cried out for him. She wanted him. + +Oh, she would have been far better for Dan than anything he could find +in this mad city, than anything to which in his despair he would go for +consolation. She had kept her word, however, to that old man, Mr. +Ruggles; she had got out of the business with a fatal result, as far as +the boy was concerned. She thought Dan would drift here probably as most +Americans on their wild nights do for a part of the time, and she had +come to see. + +She wore a dress of coral pink, tightly fitting, high to her little +chin, and seemed herself like a coral strand from neck to toe, clad in +the color she affected, and which had become celebrated as the Letty +Lane pink. Her feathered hat hid her face, and she was completely +shielded as she bent down drawing pictures with her bare finger on the +cloth. After a little while she said to Poniotowsky without glancing at +him: + +"If you stare any longer like that, Frederigo, you'll break your +eye-glass. You know how I hate it." + +Used as he was to her sharpness, he nevertheless flushed and sat back +and looked across the room, where, to their right, protected from them +as they were from him by the great door, a young man sat alone. Whether +or not he had come to Maxim's intending to join a congenial party, +should he find one, or to choose for a companion some one of the women +who, at the entrance of the tall blond boy, stirred and invited him with +their raised lorgnons and their smiles, will not be known. Dan Blair was +alone, pale as the pictures Letty Lane had drawn on the cloth, and he, +too, feasted his eyes on the Gaiety girl. + +"By Jove!" said the Hungarian under his breath, and she eagerly asked: +"What? Whom? Whom do you see?" + +Turning his back sharply he evaded her question and she did not pursue +the idea, and as a physical weakness overwhelmed her, when Poniotowsky +after a second said, "Come, _chrie_, for heaven's sake, let's go"--she +mechanically rose and passed out. + +Several young men supping together came over eagerly to speak to her and +claim acquaintance with the Gaiety girl, and walked along out to the +motor. There Letty Lane discovered she had dropped her handkerchief, and +sent the prince back for it. + +As though he had been waiting for the reappearance of Poniotowsky, Dan +Blair stood close to the little table which Letty Lane had left, her +handkerchief in his hand. As Poniotowsky came up Dan thrust the small +trifle of sheer linen into his waistcoat pocket. + +"I will trouble you for Miss Lane's handkerchief," said Poniotowsky, his +eyes cold. + +"You may," said Dan as quietly, his blue eyes like sparks from a star, +"trouble me for hell!" And lifting from the table Poniotowsky's own +half-emptied glass of champagne, the boy flung the contents full in the +Hungarian's face. + +The wine dashed against Poniotowsky's lips and in his eyes. Blair +laughed out loud, his hands in his pockets. The insult was low and +noiseless; the little glass shattered as it fell so softly that with the +music its gentle crash was unheard. + +Poniotowsky wiped his face tranquilly and bowed. + +"You shall hear from me after I have taken Miss Lane home." + +"Tell her," said the boy, "where you left the handkerchief, that's all." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII--SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS + + +Dan was in his room at the hotel. He woke and then slept again. Nothing +seemed strange to him--nothing seemed real. It was three o'clock in the +morning, the rumble of Paris was dull; it did not disturb him, for he +seemed without the body and to have grown giantlike, and to fill the +room. He had a sense of suffocation and the need to break through the +windows and to escape into ether. + +The entrance of Poniotowsky's two friends was a part with the unreal +naturalness. One was a Roumanian, the other a Frenchman--both spoke +fluent English. Dan, his eyes fixed on the foreign faces, only half saw +them; they blurred, their voices were small and far away. Finally he +said: + +"All right, all right, I can shoot well enough; this kind of thing isn't +our custom, you know--I'd as soon kill him one way as another, as a +matter of fact. No, I don't know a darned soul here." There was a confab +incomprehensible to Dan. "It's all one to me, gentlemen," he said. "I'd +rather not drag in my friends, anyhow. Fix it up to suit yourselves." + +He wanted them to go--to be alone--to stretch his arms, to rid himself of +the burden of sense, and be free. And after they had left, he remained +in his window till dawn. It came soon, midsummer dawn, a singularly +tender morning in his heart. His mind worked with great rapidity. He had +made his will in the States. He wished he could have left everything to +Letty Lane, but if, as Ruggles said, he was a pauper? Perhaps it wasn't +a lie after all. Dan had written and telegraphed Ruggles asking for the +solemn truth, and also telling him where he was and asking the older man +to come over. If Ruggles proved he was poor, why, some of his burden was +gone. His money had been a burden, he knew it now. He might have no use +for money the next day. What good could it do him in a fix like this? He +was to meet Poniotowsky at five o'clock in a place whose name he +couldn't recall. He had seen it advertised, though; people went there +for lunch. + +They were to shoot at twenty-five paces--he might be a Rockefeller or a +beggar for all the good his money could do him in a pinch like this. + +His father wouldn't approve, the old man wouldn't approve, but he had +sent him here to learn the ways of the old world. A flickering smile +crossed his beautiful, set face. His lessons hadn't done him much good; +he would like to have seen good old Gordon Galorey again; he loved +him--he had no use for Ruggles, no use--it had been all his fault. His +mind reached out to his father, and the old man's words came dinning +back: "Buy the things that stay above ground, my boy." What were those +things? He had thought they were passion--he had thought they were love, +and he had put all on one woman. She couldn't stand by him, now that he +was poor. + +The spasm in his heart was so sharp that he made a low sound in his +throat and leaned against the casing of the window. He must see her, +touch her once more. + +The fellows Poniotowsky's seconds had chosen to be Dan's representatives +came in to "fix him up." They were in frock-coats and carried their silk +hats and their gloves. He could have laughed at them. Then they made him +think of undertakers, and his blood grew cold. He handled the revolvers +with care and interest. + +"I'm not going to let him murder me, you know," he told his seconds. + +They helped him dress, at least one of them did, while the other took +Dan's place by the window and looked to the boy like a figure of death. + +The hour was getting on; he heard his own motor drive up, and they went +down, through the deserted hotel. The men who had consented to act for +Dan regarded their principal curiously. He wasn't pale, there was a +brightness on his face. + +"_Partons_," said one of them, and told Blair's chauffeur where to go +and how to run. "_Partons._" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX--THE PICTURE OF IT ALL + + +As far as his knowing anything of the customs of it all, it was like +leading a lamb to slaughter. + +Villebon, lovely, vernal, at a later hour the spot for gay breakfasts +and gentle rendezvous, had been designated for the meeting between Dan +and Poniotowsky. There in his motor he gave up his effort to set his +thoughts clear. Nothing settled down. Even the ground they flew over, +the trees with their chestnut plumes, blurred, were indistinct, +nebulous, as if seen through a diving-bell under the sea. Fear--he didn't +know the word. He wasn't afraid--it wasn't that; yet he had a certainty +that it was all up with him. He was young--very young--and he hadn't done +much with the job. His father would have been ashamed of him. Then all +his thoughts went to Her. The two men in the motor floated off and she +sat there as she had sat yesterday in her marvelously pretty clothes--her +little coral shoes. + +He had held those bright, little feet in his hand on the Thames day: +they had just filled his great hands. Mechanically he spread out his +firm, broad palms on the soft shoes. Letty Lane--Letty Lane--a shiver +passed through his body; the sense of her, the touch of her, the kisses +he had taken, the way she had blown up against him like a cloud--a cloud +that, as he held her, became the substance of Paradise. This brought him +back to physical life, brutally. He was too young to die. + +Those little, red shoes would dance on his grave. Was she asleep now? +How would she know? What would she know? + +Then Letty Lane, too, spirited away, and the boy's thoughts turned to +the man he was to meet. "The affairs are purely formal," he had heard +some one say, "an exchange of balls, without serious results." + +One of his companions offered Blair a cigar. He refused, the idea +sickened him. Here the gentlemen exchanged glances, and one murmured, +"Is he afraid?" + +The other shrugged. + +"Not astonishing--he's a child." + +At this Dan glanced up and smiled--what Lily, Duchess of Breakwater, had +called his divine young smile. The two secretly were ashamed--he was +charming. + +As they got out of the motor Dan said: + +"I want to ask a question of Prince Poniotowsky--if it is allowed. I'll +write it on my card." + +After a conference between Prince Poniotowsky's seconds and Dan's, the +slip was handed the prince. + + "If you get out all right, will you marry Miss Lane? I shall be glad + to know." + +The Hungarian, who read it under the tree, half smiled. The navet of +it, the touching youth of it, the crude lack of form--was perfect enough +to touch his sense of humor. On the back of Dan's card Poniotowsky +scrawled: + +"Yes." + +It was a haughty inclination, a salute of honor before the fight. + +The meeting place was within sight of the little rustic pavilion of Les +Trois Agneaux, celebrated for its _pr sal_ and _beignets_: the +advertisements had confronted Dan everywhere during his wanderings those +miserable days. Under a group of chestnut trees in bright feathery +flower Prince Poniotowsky and his seconds waited, their frock-coats +buttoned up and their gloves and silk hats in their hands. As Blair and +his companions came up the others stood uncovered, grim and formal, +according to the code. + +On the highroad a short distance away ranged the motors which had +fetched the gentlemen from Paris, and the car in which the physician had +come--an ugly and sinister gathering in the peace and beauty of the +serene summer morning. + +Finches and thrashes sang in the bushes, over the grass the dew still +hung in crystals, and a peasant walking at his horses' heads on the slow +tramp back from the Paris market, was held up and kept stolidly waiting +at a few hundred yards away. + +Twenty-five paces. They were measured off by the four seconds, and at +their signal Dan Blair and the prince took their positions, the +revolvers raised perpendicularly in their right hands. + +Still more indistinctly the boy saw the sharp-cut picture of it all ... +the diving-bell was sinking deeper--deeper--into the sea. + +"If I aim," he said to himself, "I shall kill sure--sure." + +Blair heard the command: "Fire!" and supposed that after that he fired. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX--SODAWATER FOUNTAIN GIRL + + +His next sensation was that a warm stream flowed about his heart. + +"My life's blood," he could dimly think, "my heart's blood." Redder than +coral, more precious, more costly than any gift his millions could have +bought her. "I've spent it for the girl I love." The stream pervaded +him, caressed him, folded his limbs about, became an enchanted sea on +which he floated, and its color changed from crimson to coral pale, and +then to white, and became a cold, cold polar sea--and he lay on it like a +frozen man, whose exploration had been in vain, and above him +Greenland's icy mountains rose like emerald, on every side. + +That is it--"Greenland's icy mountains." How she sang it--down--down. Her +voice fell on him like magic balm. He was a little boy in church, +sitting small and shy in the pew. The tune was deep and low and heavenly +sweet. What a pretty mouth the soda-fountain girl had--like coral; and +her eyes like gray seas. The flies buzzed, they droned so loudly that he +couldn't hear her. Ah, that was terrible--_he couldn't hear her_. + +No--no, it wouldn't do. He must hear the hymn out before he died. +Buzz--buzz--drone--drone. Way down he almost heard the soft note. It was +ecstasy. Sky--high up--too faint. Ah, Sodawater Fountain +Girl--sing--sing--with all your heart so that it may reach his ears and +charm him to those strands toward which he floats. + + * * * * * + +The expression of anguish on the young fellow's face was so +heartbreaking that the doctor, his ear at Dan's lips, tried to learn +what thing his poor, fading mind longed for. + +From the bed's foot, where he stood, Dan's chauffeur came to his +gentleman's side, and nodded: + +"Right, sir, right, sir--I'll fetch Miss Lane--I'll 'ave 'er 'ere, +sir--keep up, Mr. Blair." + + * * * * * + +He was going barefoot, a boy still following the plow through the +mountain fields. Miles and miles stretched away before him of dark, +loamy land. He saw the plow tear up the waving furrows, tossing the +earth in sprinkling lines. He heard the shrill note of the phoebe bird, +and looking heavenward saw it darting into the pale sky. + +"What a dandy shot!" he thought. "What a bully shot!" + +Prince Poniotowsky had made a good shot.... + +Ah, there was the smell of the hayfields--no--violets that sweetly laid +their petals on his lips and face. He was back again in church, lying +prone before an altar. If she would only sing, he would rise again--that +he knew--and her coral shoes would not dance over his grave. + +He opened his eyes wide and looked into Letty Lane's. She bent over him, +crying. + +"Sing," he whispered. + +She didn't understand. + +"Sodawater Fountain Girl--if you only knew how ... the flies buzzed, and +how the droning was a living pain...." + +She said to Ruggles: "He wants something so heartbreakingly--what can we +do?" She saw his hands stir rhythmically on the counterpane--he didn't +look to her more than ten years old.... What a cruel thing--he was a boy +just of age--a boy-- + +Ruggles remembered the nights he had spent before the footlights of the +Gaiety, and that the pale woman trembling there weeping was a great +singer. + +"I guess he wants to hear you sing." + +She kneeled down by him; she trembled so she couldn't stand. + +The others, the doctor and Ruggles, the waiters and porters gathered in +the hall, heard. No one of them understood the Gaiety girl's English +words. + + "From Greenland's icy mountains, + From India's coral strands ..." + +They were merciful and let him listen in peace. Through the blur in his +brain, over the beat of his young ardent heart, above the short breaths +the notes reached his failing senses, and lifted him--lifted him. There +wasn't a very long distance between his boyhood and his twenty-two years +to go, and he was not so weak but that he could travel so far. + +He sat there by his father again--and heard. The flies buzzed, and he +didn't mind them. The smell of the fields came in through the windows +and the Sodawater Fountain Girl sang--and sang; and as she sang her face +grew holy to his eyes--radiant with a beauty he had not dreamed a woman's +face could wear. Above the choir rail she stood and sang peerlessly, and +the church began to fade and fade, and still she stood there in a shaft +of light, and her face was like an angel's, and she held her arms out to +him as the waters rose to his lips. She bent and lifted him--lifted him +high upon the strands.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI--IN REALITY + + +Dan awoke from his dream, and sat suddenly up in bed in his shirt +sleeves, and stared at the people in his room,--a hotel boy and two +strangers, not unlike the men in his dream. He brushed his hand across +his eyes. + +"Sit down, will you? Do you speak English?" + +They were foreigners, but they did speak English, no doubt far more +perfectly than did Dan Blair. + +"Look here," the boy said, "I don't know what's the matter with me--I +must have had a ripping jag on last night--let me put my head in a basin +of water, will you?" + +He dived into the dressing-room, and came out in another second, his +blond head wet, wiping his face and hair furiously with a towel. He +hadn't beamed as he did now on these two strange men--for weeks. + +"Well," he asked slowly, "I expect you've come to ask me to fight with +Prince Poniotowsky--yes? It's against our principles, you know, in the +States--we don't do that way. Personally, I'd throw anything at him I +could lay my hands on, but I don't care to have him let daylight through +me, and I don't care to kill your friend. See? I'm an American--yes, I +know, I know," he nodded sagely, "but we don't have your kind of fights +out our way. It means business when we go out to shoot." + +He threw the towel down on the table, soaking wet as it was, put his +hands in the pockets of his evening clothes, which he still wore, for he +had not undressed, threw his young, blond head back and frankly told his +visitors: + +"I'm not up on swords. I've seen them in pictures and read about them, +but I'll be darned if I've ever had one in my hand." + +His expression changed at the quiet response of Poniotowsky's seconds. + +"_Gee._ Whew!" he exclaimed, "he does, does he? Twenty +paces--revolvers--why, he's a bird--a bird!" + +A slight flush rose along Dan's cheeks. "I never liked him, and you +don't want to hear what I think of him. But I'll be darned if he isn't a +bird." + +His eyes caught sight of a blue envelope on the table. He tore the +telegram open. It was Ruggles' answer to his question: + + "Quite true. Tell you about it. Arrive your hotel around noon." + +The despatch informed him that he was really a pauper and also that he +had a second for his duel with Poniotowsky. His guests stood formally +before the young barbarian. + +"Look here," he continued amiably, "I can't meet your Dago friend like +this, it's not fair. He hasn't seen me shoot; it isn't for me to say it, +but I can't miss. Hold," he interrupted, "he has, too. He was at the +Galoreys' at that first shoot. Ah--well, I refuse, tell him so, will you? +Tell him I'm an American and a cowboy and that for me a duel at twenty +paces with a pistol would mean murder. I like his pluck--it's all +right--tell him anything you like. He ought to have chosen swords. He +would have had me there." + +They retired as formally as they had entered, and took his answer to +their client, and after a bath and careful toilet Dan went out, leaving +a line for Ruggles, to say that he would be at the hotel to meet him at +noon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII--THE PRINCE ACCEPTS + + +The Hungarian, in the Continental, was drinking his coffee in his room +when his friends found him. He listened to what they had to say coolly. +His eye-glass gave him an air of full dress even at this early hour. +Poniotowsky had not fallen into a deep sleep and had a dream as Dan +Blair had--indeed he had only reached his rooms the night before when a +letter had been brought him from Miss Lane. He was used to her caprices, +which were countless, and he never left her with any certainty that he +should see her again, or with any idea of what her next move would be. +The letter read: + + "It's no use. I just can't. I've always told you so, and I mean it. + I'm tired out--I want to go away and never see any one again. I want + to die. I shall be dead next year, and I don't care. Please leave me + alone and don't come to see me, and for heaven's sake don't bore me + with notes." + +When Poniotowsky received this note he had shrugged, and decided that if +he lived after his duel with the young savage he would go to see the +actress, taking a jewel or a gift--he would get her a Pomeranian dog, and +all would be well. He listened coolly to what his friends had to say. + +"_C'est un enfant_," one of them remarked sneeringly. + +"In my mind, he is a coward," said the other. + +"On the contrary," answered Poniotowsky coolly, "he shoots to +perfection. You will be surprised to hear that I admire his refusal. I +accept his decision, as his skill is unquestioned with arms. I choose to +look upon this reply as an apology. I would like to have you inform Mr. +Blair of this fact. He's young enough to be my son, and he is a +barbarian. The incident is closed." + +He put Letty Lane's note in his pocket, and leisurely prepared to go out +on the Rue de Castiglione to buy her a Pomeranian dog. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII--THE THINGS ABOVE GROUND + + +Higgins let him in, and across the room Blair saw the figure of the +actress against the light of the long window. Her back was to him as he +came up, and though she knew who it was, she was far from dreaming how +different a man it was that came in to see her this morning from the one +she had known. + +"Won't you turn around and bid me good-by?" he asked her. "I'm going +away." + +She gave him a languid hand without looking at him. + +"Has Higgins gone?" + +"Yes. Won't you turn round and say how-de-do, and good-by? Gosh," he +cried as she turned, "how pale you are, darling." And he took her in his +arms. + +The vision he had had of her in her coral-colored dress at Maxim's gave +place to the more radiant one which had shone on him in his curious +dream. + +"Are you very ill?" he murmured. "Speak to me--tell me--are you going to +die?" + +"Don't be a goose, boy." + +"I've had a wire from Ruggles," Dan said; "he tells me it's true. I have +nothing but my own feet to stand on, and I'm as poor as Job's turkey." +Looking at her impressively, he added, "I only mind because it will be +hard on you." + +"Hard on me?" + +"Yes, you'll have to start poor. Mother did with father, out there in +Montana. It will be rough at first, but others have done it and been +happy, and we've got each other." The eyes fixed on her were as blue as +the summer skies. "Money's a darned poor thing to buy happiness with, +Letty. It didn't buy me a thing fit to keep, that's the truth. I've +never been so gay since I was born as I am to-day. Why, I feel," he +said, and would have stretched out his arms, only he held her with them, +"like a king. Later I'll have money again, all right--don't fret--and then +I'll know its worth. I'll bet you weren't all unhappy there in Blairtown +before you turned the heads of all those Johnnies." He put one hand +against her cheek and lifted her drooping head. "Lean on me, +sweetheart," he said with great tenderness. "It will be all right." + +A coral color stole along her cheek: it rose like a sweet tide under his +hand. She looked at him, fascinated. + +"It's not a real tragedy," he went on. "I've got my letter of credit, +and old Ruggles will let me hang on to that, and you'll find the motor +cars and jewels will look like thirty cents when we stand in the door of +our little shack and look out at the Value Mine." He lifted her hand to +his lips, held it there, and the spark ignited in her; his youth and +confidence, his force and passion, woke a woman in Letty Lane that had +never lived before that hour. + +He murmured: "I'll be there with you, darling--night and day--night and +day!" He brought his bright face close to hers. + +She found breath to say, "What has happened to you, Dan--what?" + +"I don't know," he gravely replied. "I guess I came up pretty close +against it last night; things got into their right places, and then and +there I knew you were the girl for me, and I the man for you, rich or +poor." + +He kissed her and she passively received his caresses, so passively, so +without making him any sign, that his magnificent assurance began to be +shaken--his arms fell from her. + +"It's quite true," he murmured, "I am poor." + +She led him to the lounge and made him sit down by her. He waited for +her to speak, but she remained silent, her eyes fixed on her frail +hands, ringless--tears forced themselves under her eyelids, but she kept +them back. + +"I guess," she said in a veiled tone, "you've no idea all I've been +through, Dan, since I stood there in the church choir." + +American though he was, and down on foreign customs--he wouldn't fight a +duel--he got down on his knees and put his arms around her from there. + +"I know what you are, all right, Letty. You are an angel." + +She gave way and burst into tears and hid her face on his shoulder, and +sobbed. + +"I believe you do--I believe you do. You've saved my soul and my life. +I'll go with you--I'll go--I'll go!" + + * * * * * + +Later she told him how she would learn to cook and sew, and that +together they would stand in the door of their shack at sunset, or that +she would stand and watch for him to come home; and, the actress in her +strong, she sprang up for a minute and stood shielding her eyes with her +slender hand to show him how. And he gazed, charmed at her, and drew her +back to him again. + +"You've made dad's words come true." Dan wouldn't tell her what they +were--he said she wouldn't understand. "I nearly had to die to learn them +myself," he said. + +She leaned toward him, a slight shadow crossed her face as if memories +laid a darkling wing for a moment there. Such shadows must have passed, +for she kissed him of her own accord on the lips and without a sigh. + +Side by side they sat for a long time. Higgins softly opened a door, saw +them, and stepped back, unheard. + +Ruggles came in, and his steps in the soft carpet made no sound; and he +looked at the pair long and tenderly before he spoke. They sat there +before him like children, holding hands. + +Letty Lane's hat lay on the floor. Her hair was a halo around her pale, +charming face; she had caught youth from the boy, she was laughing like +a girl--they were making plans. And as the subject was Love, and there +was no money in the question, and as there was sacrifice on the part of +each, it is safe to think that old Dan Blair's son was planning to +purchase those things that stay above ground and persist in the hearts +of us all. + + THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl From His Town, by Marie Van Vorst + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 36961-8.txt or 36961-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/9/6/36961/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/36961-8.zip b/36961-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f42e6d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/36961-8.zip diff --git a/36961-h.zip b/36961-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..26a7a90 --- /dev/null +++ b/36961-h.zip diff --git a/36961-h/36961-h.htm b/36961-h/36961-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1aa9da4 --- /dev/null +++ b/36961-h/36961-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10351 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" > +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> + <meta content="The Girl From His Town" name="DC.Title"/> + <meta content="Marie Van Vorst" name="DC.Creator"/> + <meta content="en" name="DC.Language"/> + <meta content="1910" name="DC.Created"/> + <meta name="generator" content="ppgen (1.17) generated Aug 03, 2011 02:03 AM" /> + <title>The Girl From His Town</title> + <style type="text/css"> + body {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%;} + p {margin-top:1ex; margin-bottom:0; text-align:justify;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size:x-small; text-align:right; text-indent:0; + position:absolute; right:2%; padding:1px 3px; font-style:normal; + font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration:none; + background-color:inherit; border:1px solid #eee;} + .pncolor {color:silver;} + h1 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal; + font-size:1.4em; margin-top:4em; margin-bottom:2em;} + h2 {text-align:left; font-weight:normal; + font-size:1.2em; margin-top:4em; margin-bottom:2em;} + h3 {text-align:center; font-weight:bold; + font-size:0.9em; margin-top:1.5em; margin-bottom:1em;} + hr.pb {margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none; border-top:thin dashed silver; clear:both;} + .sc {font-variant: small-caps;} + .center {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; text-align:center;} + .larger {font-size:larger;} + .smaller {font-size:smaller;} + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + table.c {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + .caption {font-size: 80%;} + .sc {font-variant:small-caps} + div.center>:first-child {margin: .5em auto 0 auto;text-align:center;} + div.center p {margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;} + hr.tb {border:none; border-bottom: 1px solid black; margin: 20px auto; width:35%} + </style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Girl From His Town, by Marie Van Vorst + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Girl From His Town + +Author: Marie Van Vorst + +Illustrator: F. Graham Cootes + +Release Date: August 3, 2011 [EBook #36961] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i001' id='i001'></a> +<img src='images/illus-cvr.jpg' alt='' title=''/><br /> +</div> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i002' id='i002'></a> +<img src='images/illus-001.jpg' alt='' title=''/><br /> +</div> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div class='center'> +<p><span style='font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;'>THE</span></p> +<p><span style='font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;'>GIRL FROM HIS TOWN</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><em>By</em></p> +<p><span style='font-size:1.2em;'>MARIE VAN VORST</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY</p> +<p>F. GRAHAM COOTES</p> +<p> </p> +<p>INDIANAPOLIS</p> +<p>THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY</p> +<p>PUBLISHERS</p> +</div> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div class='center'> +<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>COPYRIGHT 1910</span></p> +<p><span class='sc'>The Bobbs-Merrill Company</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>PRESS OF</span></p> +<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>BRAUNWORTH & CO.</span></p> +<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS</span></p> +<p><span style='font-size:smaller;'>BROOKLYN, N. Y.</span></p> +</div> +<p> + <br /> + <br /> + <br /> +</p> +<div class='center'> +<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>CONTENTS</span></p> +</div> +<table class='c' summary='table of contents'> +<tr><td style='font-size:smaller'>CHAPTER</td><td></td><td style='font-size:smaller'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>I</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Dan Blair</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chI'>1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>II</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Duchess Approves</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chII'>21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>III</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Blairtown Soloist</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIII'>28</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>IV</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>In The Coral Room</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIV'>31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>V</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>At The Carlton</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chV'>47</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VI</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Galorey Seeks Advice</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVI'>55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>At The Stage Entrance</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVII'>70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VIII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Dan’s Simplicity</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVIII'>76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>IX</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Disappointment</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIX'>85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>X</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Boy From My Town</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chX'>94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XI</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Ruggles Gives a Dinner</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXI'>109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Green Knight</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXII'>128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Face of Letty Lane</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIII'>135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIV</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>From India’s Coral Strands</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIV'>155</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XV</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Galorey Gives Advice</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXV'>174</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVI</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Musicale Program</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVI'>187</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Letty Lane Sings</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVII'>199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVIII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>A Woman’s Way</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVIII'>207</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIX</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Dan Awakes</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIX'>214</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XX</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>A Hand Clasp</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXX'>225</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXI</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Ruggles Returns</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXI'>231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>What Will You Take?</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXII'>234</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXIII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>In the Sunset Glow</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXIII'>242</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXIV</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Ruggles’ Offer</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXIV'>250</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXV</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Letty Lane Runs Away</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXV'>268</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXVI</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>White and Coral</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXVI'>274</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXVII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>At Maxim’s</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXVII'>290</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXVIII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Such Stuff as Dreams</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXVIII'>299</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXIX</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Picture of It All</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXIX'>304</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXX</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Sodawater Fountain Girl</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXX'>309</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXXI</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>In Reality</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXXI'>315</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXXII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Prince Accepts</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXXII'>319</a></td></tr> +<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXXIII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Things Above Ground</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXXIII'>322</a></td></tr> +</table> +<h1>THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN</h1> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_1'></a>1</span><a name='chI' id='chI'></a>CHAPTER I—DAN BLAIR</h2> +<p> +The fact that much he said, because of his +unconscionable slang, was incomprehensible +did not take from the charm of his conversation +as far as the Duchess of Breakwater was concerned. +The brightness of his expression, his +quick, clear look upon them, his beautiful young +smile, his not too frequent laugh, his “new gayness,” +as the duchess called his high spirits, his +supernal youth, his <em>difference</em>, credited him with +what nine-tenths of the human race lack—charm. +</p> +<p> +His tone was not too crudely western; neither +did he suggest the ultra East with which they +were familiar. American women went down well +enough with them, but American men were unpopular, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_2'></a>2</span> +and when the visitor arrived, Lady Galorey +did not even announce him to the party +gathered for “the first shoot.” +</p> +<p> +The others were in the armory when the ninth +gun, a young chap, six feet of him, blond as the +wheat, cleanly set up and very good to look at, +came in with Lily, Duchess of Breakwater. +Lady Galorey, his hostess, greeted them. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, here you are, are you? Lord Mersey, +Sir John Fairthrope.” She mumbled the rest +of the names of her companions as though she +did not want them understood, then waved toward +the young chap, calling him Mr. Dan +Blair, and he, as she hesitated, added: +</p> +<p> +“From Blairtown, Montana.” +</p> +<p> +“And give him a gun, will you, Gordon?” +Lady Galorey spoke to her husband. +</p> +<p> +“I discovered Mr. Blair, Edie,” the duchess +announced, “and he didn’t even know there was +a shoot on for to-day. Fancy!” +</p> +<p> +“I guess,” Dan Blair said pleasantly, “I’ll +just take a gun out of this bunch,” and he chose +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3'></a>3</span> +one at random from several indicated to him by +the gamekeeper. “I get my best luck when I go +it blind. Right! Thanks. That’s so, Lady +Galorey, I didn’t know there was to be any shooting +until the duchess let it out.” +</p> +<p> +To himself he thought with good-natured +amusement, “Afraid I’ll spoil their game record, +maybe!” and went out along with them, following +the insular noblemen like a ray of sun, smiling +on the pretty woman who had discovered him +in the grounds where he had been poking about +by himself. +</p> +<p> +“Where, in Heaven’s name, did you ‘corral’—word +of his own—the dear boy, Edith? How +did he get to Osdene Park, or in fact anywhere, +just as he is, fresh as from Eden?” +</p> +<p> +“Thought I’d let him take you by surprise, +dearest. Where’d you find Dan?” +</p> +<p> +“Down by the garden house feeding the rabbits, +on his knees like a little boy, his hands full +of lettuces. I’d just come a cropper myself on +the mare. She fell, I’m sorry to say, Edie, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4'></a>4</span> +hacked her knees quite a lot. One of those disguised +ditches, you know. I was coming along +leading her when I ran on your friend.” +</p> +<p> +The young duchess was slender as a willow, +very brunette, with a beautiful, discontented +face. +</p> +<p> +“I’m going to show Dan Blair off,” Lady Galorey +responded, “going to give the débutantes a +chance.” +</p> +<p> +Placidly nodding, the duchess lit a cigarette +and began to quote from Dan Blair’s conversation: +“I fancy he won’t let them ‘worry him’; +he’s too ‘busy!’” +</p> +<p> +“You mean that you’re going to keep him occupied?” +</p> +<p> +The duchess didn’t notice this. +</p> +<p> +“<em>Is</em> he such a catch?” +</p> +<p> +Neither of the women had walked out with the +guns. The duchess had a bad foot, and Lady +Galorey never went anywhere she could help +with her husband. She now drew her chair up +to the table in the morning-room, to which they +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5'></a>5</span> +had both gone after the departure of the guns, +and regarded with satisfaction a quantity of +stationery and the red leather desk appointments. +</p> +<p> +“Sit down and smoke if you like, Lily; I’m +going to fill out some lists.” +</p> +<p> +“No, thanks, I’m going up to my rooms and +get Parkins to ‘massey’ this beastly foot of +mine. I must have fallen on it. But tell me +first, is Mr. Blair a catch?” +</p> +<p> +Lady Galorey had opened an address book +and looked up from it to reply: +</p> +<p> +“Something like ten million pounds.” +</p> +<p> +“Heavens! Disgusting!” +</p> +<p> +“The richest young man ‘west of some river +or other.’ At any rate he told me last night that +it was ‘clean money.’ I dare say the river is responsible +for its cleanliness, but that fact seemed +to give him satisfaction.” +</p> +<p> +The duchess was leaning on the table at Lady +Galorey’s side. +</p> +<p> +“Dan’s father took Gordon all over the West +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_6'></a>6</span> +that time he went to the States for a big hunt in +the Rockies. He got to know Mr. Blair awfully +well and liked him. The old gentleman bought +a little property about that time that turned out +to be a gold mine.” +</p> +<p> +With persistency the duchess said: +</p> +<p> +“How d’you know it is ‘clean money,’ Edith? +Not that it makes a rap of difference,” she +laughed prettily, “but how do you know that he +is rich to this horrible extent?” +</p> +<p> +Lady Galorey put down her address book impatiently: +“Does he look like an impostor?” +</p> +<p> +The other returned: “Even the archangel fell, +my dear Edith!” +</p> +<p> +“Well,” returned her friend, “this one is too +young to have fallen far,” and she shut up her +list in desperation. +</p> +<p> +The duchess sat down on the edge of the +lounge and raised her expressive eyes to Lady +Galorey, who once more looked at her sarcastically, +and went on: +</p> +<p> +“Gordon liked the old gentleman: he was extraordinarily +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7'></a>7</span> +generous—quite a type. They +called the town after him—Blairtown: that is +where the son ‘hails from.’ He was a little lad +when Gordon was out and Mr. Blair promised +that Dan should come over here and see us one +day, and this,” she tapped the table with her +pen, “seems to be the day, for he came down +upon us in this breezy way without even sending +a wire, ‘just turned up’ last night. Gordon’s +mad about him. His father has been dead a +year, and he is just twenty-two.” +</p> +<p> +“Good heavens!” murmured the duchess. +Lady Galorey opened her address book again. +</p> +<p> +“Gordon’s got him terribly on his mind, my +dear; he has forbidden any gambling or any +bridge as long as the boy is with us....” +</p> +<p> +Her companion rose and thrust her hands into +the pocket of her tweed coat. She laughed softly, +then went over to the long window where +without, across the pane, the early winter mists +were flying, chased by a furtive sun. +</p> +<p> +“Gordon said that the boy’s father treated +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8'></a>8</span> +him like a king, and that while the boy is here he +is going to look out for him.” +</p> +<p> +Over her shoulder the other threw out coldly: +</p> +<p> +“You speak as though he were in a den of +thieves. I didn’t know Gordon’s honor was so +fine. As for me, <em>I</em> don’t gamble, you know.” +</p> +<p> +Lady Galorey had decided that Lily’s insistent +remaining gave her a chance to fill her fountain +pen. She was, therefore, carefully squirting in +the ink, and she flushed at her friend’s last +words. +</p> +<p> +Lady Galorey herself was the best bridge +player in London, and cards were her passion. +She did not remind the lady in the window that +there were other games besides bridge, but kept +both her tongue and her temper. +</p> +<p> +After a little silence in which the women followed +each her own thoughts, the duchess murmured: +</p> +<p> +“I’ll toddle up-stairs, Edie—let you write. +Where did you say we were going to meet the +guns for food?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9'></a>9</span> +</p> +<p> +“At the gate by the White Pastures. There’ll +be a cart and a motor going, whichever you like, +around two.” +</p> +<p> +“Right,” her grace nodded; “I’ll be on time, +dearest.” +</p> +<p> +And Lady Galorey with a relieved sigh heard +the door close behind the duchess. Wiping her +fountain pen delicately with a bit of chamois, she +murmured: “Well, Dan Blair <em>is</em> out of Eden, +poor dear, if he met her by the gate.” +</p> +<p> +A fortune of a round ten million pounds was a +small part of what this young man had come +into by direct inheritance from the Copper King +of Blairtown, Montana. For once the money +figure had not been exaggerated, but Lady Galorey +did not know about the rest of Dan’s inheritance. +</p> +<hr class='tb' /> +<p> +The young man whistling in his rooms in the +bachelor quarters of Osdene Park House, dressed +for dinner without the aid of a valet. When +Lord Galorey had asked him “where his manservant was,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10'></a>10</span> +Dan had grinned. “Gosh, I +wouldn’t have one of those Johnnies hanging +around me—never did have! I can put on <em>my</em> +stockings all right! There was a chap on the +boat I came over in who let his man put on his +stockings. Can you beat that?” Blair had +laughed again. “I think if anybody tickled my +feet that way I would be likely to kick him in +the eye.” +</p> +<p> +Dressing in his room he whistled under his +breath a song from a newly popular comic +opera; and he intoned with his clear young voice +a line of the words: +</p> +<p> +“<em>Should-you-go-to-Mandalay.</em>” +</p> +<p> +Out through his high window, if he had +looked, he would have seen the misty sweep of +the park under the faint moonrise and fine +shadows that the leaves made in the veiled light, +but he did not look out. He was dressing for +dinner without a valet and giving a great deal +of care to his toilet; for the first time he was to +dine in the house of a nobleman and in the presence +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11'></a>11</span> +of a duchess; not that it meant a great +deal to him—he thought it was “funny.” +</p> +<p> +In Dan Blair’s twenty-two years of utterly +happy days his one grief had been the death of +his father. As soon as the old man had died +Dan had gone off into the Rockies with his +guides and not “shown up” for months. When +he came back to Blairtown, as he expressed it, +“he packed his grip and beat it while his shoes +were good,” for the one place he could remember +his father had suggested for him to go. +</p> +<p> +Blairtown was very much impressed when the +heir came in from the Rockies with “a big kill,” +and the orphan’s case did not seem especially disturbed. +But no one in the town knew how the +boy’s heart ached for the old man. When Dan +was six years old his father had literally picked +him up by the nape of his neck and thrown him +into the water like a pup and watched him swim. +At eight he sent the boy off with a gun to rough-camp. +Then he took Dan down in the mines +with the men. His education had been won in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12'></a>12</span> +Blairtown, at a school called public, but which +in reality was nothing more than a pioneer district +school. +</p> +<p> +On Sundays Dan dressed up and went with +his father to church twice a day and in the +week-days his father took him to the prayer-meetings, +and at sixteen Dan went to college in +California. He had just completed his course +when old Blair died. Then he inherited fifty million +dollars. +</p> +<p> +On the day of the shoot at Osdene, Dan +dropped sixty birds. He tried very hard not to +be too pleased. “Gosh,” he thought to himself, +“those birds fell as though they were +trained all right, and the other sports were +mad, I could see it.” He then fell to whistling +softly the air he had heard Lady Galorey play +the night before from the new success at the +Gaiety, and finished it as his toilet completed itself. +He took up a gardenia from his dressing-table, +and fastened it in his coat, stopping on +the stairs on the way down to look over into the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13'></a>13</span> +hall, where the men in their black clothes and the +women in their shining dresses waited before +going into the dining-room. The lights fell on +white arms and necks, on jewels and on fine +proud heads. Dan Blair had been in San Francisco +and in New York, on short journeys, however, +which his father, the year before, had directed +him to take, but he had never seen a +“show” like this. +</p> +<p> +He came slowly down the broad stairway of +the Osdene Park House, the last guest. In the +corner, where, behind her, a piece of fourteenth +century tapestry cut a green and pink square +against the rich black oak paneling, the Duchess +of Breakwater sat waiting. She wore +a dress of golden tulle which was simply a +sheath to her slender body, and from her neck +hung a long rope of diamonds caught at the +end by a small black fan; there was a wreath +of diamonds like shining water drops linked together +in her hair. She was the grandest lady +at Osdene, and renowned in more than one sense +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14'></a>14</span> +of the word. As Dan saw her smile at him and +rise, he thought: +</p> +<p> +“She is none too sorry that I made <em>that</em> record, +but I hope to heaven she won’t say anything +to me about it.” +</p> +<p> +And the duchess did not speak of it. Telling +him that he was to take her in to dinner, she +laid first her fan on his arm and then her hand. +And Dan, one of those fortunate creatures who +are born men of the world when they get into it, +gave her his arm with much grace, and as he +leaned down toward her he thought to himself: +</p> +<p> +“Well, it’s lucky for me I have my head on +tight; a few more of those goo-goo eyes of hers +and it would be as well for me to light out for +the woods.” +</p> +<hr class='tb' /> +<p> +Dan liked best at Osdene Park his chin-chins +with Gordon Galorey. The young man was unflatteringly +frank in his choice of companions. +When the duchess looked about for him to ride +with her, walk with her, to find the secluded +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15'></a>15</span> +corners, to talk, to play with him, she was likely +to discover Dan gone off with Lord Galorey, and +to come upon them later, sitting enveloped in +smoke, a stand of drinks by their side. +</p> +<p> +To Galorey, who had no heir or child, the +boy’s presence proved to be the happiest thing +that had come to him for a long time. He talked +a great deal to Dan about the old man. Galorey +was poor and the fact of a fortune of ten +million pounds possessed by this one boy +was continually before his mind like an obsession. +It was like looking down into a gold mine. +Galorey tried often to broach the subject of +money, but Dan kept off. At length Galorey +asked boldly: +</p> +<p> +“What are you going to do with it?” On this +occasion they were walking over from the lower +park back to the house, a couple of terriers at +their heels. +</p> +<p> +“Do with what?” Blair asked innocently. He +was looking at the trees. He was comparing +their grayish green trunks and their foliage with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16'></a>16</span> +the California redwoods. A little taken aback, +Lord Galorey laughed. +</p> +<p> +“Why, with that colossal fortune of yours.” +</p> +<p> +And Blair answered unhesitatingly: “Oh—spend +it on some girl sooner or later.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey fairly staggered. Then he took it +humorously. +</p> +<p> +“My dear chap, I never saw a sweeter, bigger +man than your father. If he had been my +father, I dare say I might have pulled off a different +yard of hemp, but I must confess that +I think he has left you too much money.” +</p> +<p> +“Well, there are a lot of fellows who are ready +to look after it for me,” Blair answered coolly. +Before his companion could redden, he continued: +“You see, dad took care of me for twenty-one +years all right, and whenever I am up a +stump, why all I have to do is to remember the +things he did.” +</p> +<p> +For the first time since his arrival at Osdene +Dan’s tone was serious. Interested as he was in +the older man, Dan’s inclination was to evade +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17'></a>17</span> +the discussion of serious subjects. With Blair’s +slang, his conversation was almost incomprehensible. +</p> +<p> +“Dad didn’t gas much,” the boy said, “but I +could draw a map of some of the things he did +say. He used to say he made his money out of +the earth.” +</p> +<p> +The two were walking side by side across the +rich velvet of the immemorial English turf. The +extreme softness of the autumn day, its shifting +lights, its mellow envelope, the beauty of the +park—the age, the stability, the harmony, +served to touch the young fellow’s spirits. At +any rate there was a ring in him, an equilibrium +that surprised Galorey. +</p> +<p> +“‘Most things,’ dad said to me, ‘go back +to the earth.’” He struck the English turf +with his stick. “Dad said a fellow had better +buy those things that stay above the ground.” +Dan smiled frankly at his companion. “Curious +thing to say, wasn’t it?” he reflected. “I remembered +it, and I got to wondering after I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18'></a>18</span> +saw him buried, ‘<em>what are</em> the things that stay +above the ground?’ The old man never gave me +another talk like that.” +</p> +<p> +After a few seconds Galorey put in: +</p> +<p> +“But, my dear chap, you did give me a shock +up there just now when you said you were going +to spend ‘all your money on some girl.’” +</p> +<p> +The millionaire took a chestnut from his +pocket. He held it high above his head and the +little dog that had been yelping at his heels +fixed his eyes on it. Blair poised it, then threw +it as far as he could. It sped through the air +and the terrier ran like mad across the park. +</p> +<p> +“I like girls awfully, Gordon, and when I +find the right one, why, then I’m going to feel +what a bully thing it is to be rich.” +</p> +<p> +Lord Galorey groaned aloud. +</p> +<p> +“My dear chap!” he exclaimed. +</p> +<p> +The spell of the day, the fragrant beauty of +the time and place and hour were clearly upon +Dan Blair. Lord Galorey was sympathetic to +him. The terrier came tearing back with the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19'></a>19</span> +chestnut held between his thick jaws. Dan bent +down to take the nut from the dog and wrestled +with him gently. +</p> +<p> +“Swell little grip he’s got. Nice old pup! +Let it go now!” And he threw the nut far +again, and as the terrier ran once more Blair +thrust his hands down in his pockets and began +softly to whistle the tune of <em>Mandalay</em>. +</p> +<p> +He said slowly, going back to his subject: +“It must be great to feel that a fellow can give +her jewels like the Duchess of Breakwater’s, +ropes of ’em”—he nodded toward the house—“and +a fine old place like this now, and motors +and yachts and all kinds of stuff.” +</p> +<p> +His eyes rested on the suave lines of the Elizabethan +house, with its softened gables and its +banked terraces. Possibly his vivid imagination +pictured “some nice girl” there waiting, as they +should come up, to meet him. +</p> +<p> +“I have always thought it would be bully to +find a poor girl—pretty as a peach, of course—one +who had never had much, and just +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20'></a>20</span> +cover her with things. Hey, there!” he cried +to the terrier, who had come running back, +“bring it to me.” +</p> +<p> +They had come up to the terrace by this, and +Dan’s confidence, fresh as a gush of water from +a rock, had ceased. His face was placid. He +didn’t realize what he had said. +</p> +<p> +From out of one of the long windows, dressed +in a sable coat, her small head tied up in a motor +scarf, the Duchess of Breakwater appeared. +She greeted them severely, and Lord Galorey +hear her say under her breath to Dan: +</p> +<p> +“You promised to be back to drive with me +before dinner, Dan. Did you forget?” +</p> +<p> +And as Galorey left the boy to make his +peace, the first smile of amusement broke over +his face. He felt that the duchess had between +her and her capture of Dan Blair’s heart the elusive +picture of some “nice girl”—not much perhaps, +but it might be very hard to tear away the +picture of the ideal that was ever before the blue +eyes of this man who had a fortune to spend on +her! +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21'></a>21</span><a name='chII' id='chII'></a>CHAPTER II—THE DUCHESS APPROVES</h2> +<p> +His attentions to the Duchess of Breakwater +had not been so conspicuous or so +absorbing as to prevent the eager mothers—who, +true to her word, Lady Galorey had invited +down—from laying siege to Dan Blair. Lady +Galorey asked him: +</p> +<p> +“Don’t you want to marry any one of these +beauties, Dan?” And Blair, with his beautiful +smile and what Lily called his inspired candor, +answered: +</p> +<p> +“Not on your life, Lady Galorey!” +</p> +<p> +And she agreed, “I think myself you are too +young.” +</p> +<p> +“No,” Dan refuted, “you are wrong there. I +shall marry as fast as I can.” +</p> +<p> +His hostess was surprised. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22'></a>22</span> +</p> +<p> +“Why, I thought you wanted your fling first.” +</p> +<p> +And Dan, from his chair, in which, with a +book, he had been sitting when Lady Galorey +found him, answered cheerfully: +</p> +<p> +“Oh, I don’t like being alone. I want to go +about with some one. I should like a fling all +right, but I want to fling with somebody as +I go.” +</p> +<p> +The lady of the house was not a philosopher +nor an analyst. She had certain affairs of her +own and was engrossed in them and lived in +them. As far as Lady Galorey was concerned +the rest of the world might go and hang itself +as long as it didn’t do it at her gate-post. But +Blair couldn’t leave any one indifferent to him +very long, not unless one could be indifferent to +a blaze of sunlight; one must either draw the +blinds down or bask in its brightness. +</p> +<p> +She laughed. “You’re perfectly delicious! +You mean to say you want to be married at once +and let your <em>wife</em> fling around with you?” +</p> +<p> +“Just that.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23'></a>23</span> +</p> +<p> +“How sweet of you, Dan! And you won’t +marry one of these girls here?” +</p> +<p> +“Don’t fill the bill, Lady Galorey.” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, you have a sweetheart at home, then?” +</p> +<p> +“All off!” he assured her blithely, and rose, +tall and straight and slender. +</p> +<p> +The Duchess of Breakwater had come in, indeed +she never failed to when there was any +question of finding Blair. +</p> +<p> +Dan stood straightly before the two women +of an old race, and the American didn’t suggest +any line of noble ancestors whatsoever. +His features were rather agglomerate; his +muscles were possibly not the perfect elastic +specimens that were those muscles whose strain +and sinew had been made from the same stock +for generations. He was, nevertheless, very +good to look on. Any woman would have +thought so, and he bent his blond head as he +looked at the Duchess of Breakwater with something +like benevolence, something of his father’s +kindness in his clear blue eyes. Neither of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24'></a>24</span> +noble ladies vaguely understood him. His hostess +thought him “a good sort,” not half bad, a +splendid catch, and the other woman, only a +few years his senior, was in love with him. The +duchess had married at eighteen, tired of her +bargain at twenty, and found herself a widow +at twenty-five. She held a telegram in her hand. +</p> +<p> +“We’ve got the box for <em>Mandalay</em> to-night at +the Gaiety, and let’s motor in.” +</p> +<p> +Only Lady Galorey hesitated, disappointed. +</p> +<p> +“Too bad—I had specially arranged for +Lady Grandcourt to drive over with Eileen. I +thought it would be a ripping chance for her +to see Dan.” +</p> +<p> +When at length the duchess had succeeded in +getting Dan to herself toward the end of the +day in the red room, after tea, she said: +</p> +<p> +“So you won’t marry a London beauty?” +</p> +<p> +And rather coldly Dan had answered: +</p> +<p> +“Why, you talk, all of you, as if I had only +to ask any girl of them, and she would jump +down my throat.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25'></a>25</span> +</p> +<p> +“Don’t try it,” the duchess answered, “unless +you want to have your mouth full!” +</p> +<p> +Dan did not reply for a second, but he looked +at her more seriously, conscious of her grace +and her good looks. She was certainly better to +look at than the simple girls with their big hands, +small wits, long faces, and, as the boy expressed +it, “utter lack of get-up.” The duchess shone +out to advantage. +</p> +<p> +“Why don’t you talk to me?” she asked +softly. “You know you would rather talk to +me than the others.” +</p> +<p> +“Yes,” he said frankly; “they make me nervous.” +</p> +<p> +“And I don’t?” +</p> +<p> +“No,” he said. “I learn a lot every time we +are together.” +</p> +<p> +“Learn?” she repeated, not particularly flattered +by this. “What sort of things?” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, about the whole business,” he returned +vaguely. “You know what I mean.” +</p> +<p> +“Then,” she said with a slight laugh, “you +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26'></a>26</span> +mean to say you talk with me for <em>educational +purposes</em>? What a beastly bore!” +</p> +<p> +Dan did not contradict her. She was by no +means Eve to him, nor was he the raw recruit +his simplicity might give one to think. He had +had his temptations and his way out of them +was an easy one; for he was very slow to stir, +and back of all was his ideal. The reality and +power of this ideal Dan knew best at moments +like these. But the Duchess of Breakwater was +the most lovely woman—the most dangerous +woman that had come his way. He liked her—Dan +was well on the way to love. +</p> +<p> +The two were alone in the big dark room. At +their side the small table, from which they had +taken their tea together, stood with its empty +cups and its silver. Without, the day was cold +and windy, and the sunset threw along the panes +a red reflection. The light fell on the Duchess of +Breakwater, something like a veil—a crimson +veil slipped over her face and breast. She leaned +toward Dan, and between them there was no +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27'></a>27</span> +more barrier than the western light. He felt +his pulses beat and a tide rising within him. +She was a delicious emanation, fragrant and +near, and as he might have gathered a cluster +of flowers, so in the next second he would have +taken her in his arms, but from the other room +just then Lady Galorey, at the piano, played a +snatch from <em>Mandalay</em>, striking at once into +the tune. The sound came suddenly, told them +quickly some one was near, and the Duchess of +Breakwater involuntarily moved back, and so +knocked the small tray, jostled it, and it fell clattering +to the floor. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28'></a>28</span><a name='chIII' id='chIII'></a>CHAPTER III—THE BLAIRTOWN SOLOIST</h2> +<p> +Blairtown had a population of some +eight thousand. There was a Presbyterian +church to which Dan and his father went +regularly, sitting in the bare pew when the winter’s +storms beat and rattled on the panes, or in +the summer sunshine, when the flies thronged +the window casings, when the smell of the pews +and the panama fans and the hymn-books came +strong to them through the heat. +</p> +<p> +One day there was a missionary sermon, and +for the first time in its history a girl sang a +solo in the First Presbyterian Church. Dan +Blair heard it, looked up, and it made a mark in +his life. A girl in a white dress trimmed with +blue gentians, white cotton gloves, and golden +hair, was the soloist. He knew her, that is, he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29'></a>29</span> +had a nodding acquaintance with her. It was +the girl at the drug store who sold soda-water, +and he had asked her some hundreds of times +for a “vanilla or a chocolate,” but it wasn’t this +vulgar memory that made the little boy listen. +It was the girl’s voice. Standing back of the +yellow-painted rail, above the minister’s pulpit, +above the flies, the red pews and the panama +fans, she sang, and she sang into Dan Blair’s +soul. To speak more truly, she <em>made him a soul</em> +in that moment. She awakened the boy; his collar +felt tight, his cheeks grew hot. He felt his +new boots, too, hard and heavy. She made him +want to cry. These were the physical sensations—the +material part of the awakening. The +rest went on deeply inside of Dan. She broke +his heart; then she healed it. She made him +want to cry like a girl; then she wiped his tears. +</p> +<p> +The little boy settled back and grew more +comfortable and listened, and what she sang was, +</p> +<p> + “From Greenland’s icy mountains,<br /> + From India’s coral stra—ands.”<br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30'></a>30</span></div> +<p> +Before the hymn reached its end he was a +calm boy again, and the hymn took up its pictures +and became like an illustrated book of +travels, and he wanted to see those pea-green +peaks of Greenland, to float upon the icebergs +to them, and see the dawn break on the polar +seas as the explorers do.... He should find +the North Pole some day! Then he wanted to +go to an African jungle, where the tiger, “tiger +shining bright,” should flash his stripes before +his eyes! Dan would gather wreaths of coral +from the stra—ands and give them to the girl +with the yellow hair! When he and his father +came out together from the church, Dan +chose the street that passed the soda-fountain +drug store and peeped in. It was dark and cool, +and behind the counter the drug clerk mixed the +summer drinks: and the drug clerk mixed them +from that time ever afterward—for the girl with +the yellow hair never showed up in Blairtown +again. She went away! +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31'></a>31</span><a name='chIV' id='chIV'></a>CHAPTER IV—IN THE CORAL ROOM</h2> +<p> +“Mandalay” had run at the Gaiety the +season before and again opened the autumn +season. Light and charming, thoroughly +musical, it had toured successfully through +Europe, but London was its home, and its great +popularity was chiefly owing to the girl who +had starred in it—Letty Lane. Her face was +on every post-card, hand-bill, cosmetic box, and +even popular drinks were named for her. +</p> +<p> +The night of the Osdene box party was the +reopening of <em>Mandalay</em>, and the curtain went +up after the overture to an outburst of applause. +Dan Blair had never “crossed the pond” +before this memorable visit, when he had gone +straight out to Osdene Park. London theaters +and London itself, indeed, were unexplored by +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32'></a>32</span> +him. He had seen what there was to be seen of +the opera bouffe in his own country, but the +brilliant, perfect performance of a company at +the London Gaiety he had yet to enjoy. +</p> +<p> +The opening scene of <em>Mandalay</em> is oriental; +the burst of music and the tinkling of the silvery +temple bells and the effect of an extremely +blue sea, made Dan “sit up,” as he put it. The +theatrical picture was so perfect that he lifted +his head, pushed his chair back to enjoy. He +was thus close to the duchess. With invigorating +young enthusiasm the boy drew in his breath +and waited to be amused and to hear. The tunes +he already knew before the orchestra began to +charm his ear. +</p> +<p> +On landing at Plymouth Dan had been keen +to feel that he was really stepping into the +world, and at Osdene Park he had been daily, +hourly “seeing life.” The youngest of the +household, his youth nevertheless was not taken +into consideration by any of them. No one had +treated him like a junior. He had gone neck +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33'></a>33</span> +to neck with their pace as far as he liked, furnished +them fresh amusement, and been their +diversion. In all his rare unspoiled youth, Blair +had been suddenly dropped down in an effete +set that had whirled about him, and one by +one out of the inner circle had called him to join +them; and one by one with all of them Dan had +whirled. +</p> +<p> +Lord Galorey had talked to him frankly, as +plainly as if Dan had been his own father, and +found much of the old man’s common sense in +his fine blond head. Lady Galorey had come +to him in a moment of great anxiety, and no one +but her young guest knew how badly she needed +help. He had further made it known to the +lady that he was not in the marriage market; +that she could not have him for any of her girls. +And as for the Duchess of Breakwater, well—he +had whirled with her until his head swam. +He had grown years older at the Park in the +few weeks of his visit, but now for the first time, +as the music of <em>Mandalay</em> struck upon his ears, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34'></a>34</span> +like a ripple of distant seas, he felt like the boy +who had left Blairtown to come abroad. He +had spent the most part of the day in London +with a man who had come over to see him from +America. Dan attended to his business affairs, +and the people who knew said that he had a keen +head. Mr. Joshua Ruggles, his father’s best +friend, whom Dan this afternoon had left to go +to his room at the Carlton, had put his arm with +affection through the boy’s: +</p> +<p> +“Don’t look as though it were any too healthy +down to the place you’re visiting at, Dan. +Plumbing all right?” +</p> +<p> +And the boy, flushing slightly, had said: +“Don’t you fret, Josh, I’ll look after my health +all right.” +</p> +<p> +“There’s nothing like the mountain air,” returned +the Westerner. “These old fogs stick in +my nostrils; feel as though I could smell London +clean down to my feet!” +</p> +<hr class='tb' /> +<p> +From the corner of the box Dan looked hard +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35'></a>35</span> +at the stage, at the fresh brilliant costumes and +the lovely chorus girls. +</p> +<p> +“Gosh,” he thought to himself, “they are the +prettiest ever! Dove-gray, eyes of Irish blue, +mouths like roses!” +</p> +<p> +Leaning forward a little toward the duchess +he whispered: “There isn’t one who isn’t a winner. +I never struck such a box of dry goods!” +</p> +<p> +The duchess smiled on Dan with good humor. +His naïve pleasure was delightful. It was like +taking a child to a pantomime. She was wearing +his flowers and displaying a jewel that he had +found and bought for her, and which she had +not hesitated to accept. She watched his eager +face and his pleasure unaffected and keen. She +could not believe that this young man was master +of ten million pounds. +</p> +<p> +When Letty Lane appeared Blair heard a +light rustle like rain through the auditorium, a +murmur, and the house rose. There was a well-bred +calling from the stalls, a call from the +pit, and a generous applause—“Letty +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36'></a>36</span> +Lane—Letty Lane!” and as though she were royalty, +there was a fluttering of handkerchiefs like +flags. The young fellow with the others stood +in the back of the box, his hands in his pockets, +looking at the stage. There wasn’t a girl in the +chorus as pretty as this prima donna! Letty +Lane came on in <em>Mandalay</em> in the first act in the +dress of a fashionable princess. She was modish +and worldly. For the only time in the play she +was modern and conventional, and whatever +breeding she might have been able to claim, +from whatever class she was born, as she stood +there in her beautiful gown she was grace itself, +and charm. She was distinctly a star, and +showed her appreciation of her audience’s admiration. +</p> +<p> +At the end of the tenor solo the Princess Oltary +runs into the pavilion and there changes +her dress and appears once more to dance before +the rajah and to prove herself the dancer he +has known and loved in a café in Paris. Letty +Lane’s dress in this dance was the classic ballet +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37'></a>37</span> +dancer’s, white as the leaves of a lily. She seemed +to swim and float; actually to be breathed and +exhaled from out her filmy gown; and the +only ray of color in her costume was her own +golden hair, surmounted by a small coral-colored +cap, embroidered in pearls. The actress bowed +to the right and left, ran to the right, ran to the +left; glanced toward the Duchess of Breakwater’s +box; acknowledged the burst of applause; +began to dance and finished her <em>pas seul</em>, +and with folded hands sang her song. Her +beautiful voice came out clear as crystal water +from a crystal rock, and her words were cradled +like doves, like boats on the boundless seas.... +</p> +<p> + “From India’s coral strand....”<br /> +</p> +<p> +But there was no hymn tune to this song of +Letty Lane’s in <em>Mandalay</em>! To the boy in the +box, however, the words, the tune, the droning +of the flies on the window-pane, the strong odor +of the hymn-books and panama fans, came back, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38'></a>38</span> +and the clear sunlight of Montana seemed to +steal into the Gaiety as Letty Lane sang. +</p> +<p> +The Duchess of Breakwater clapped with +frank enthusiasm, and said: “She is a perfect +wonder, isn’t she? Oh, she is <em>too</em> bewitching!” +</p> +<p> +And she turned for sympathy to her friend, +who stood behind her, his face illumined. He +was amazed; his blue eyes ablaze, his head bent +forward, he was staring, staring at the Gaiety +curtain, gone down on the first act. +</p> +<p> +He laughed softly, and the duchess heard him +say: +</p> +<p> +“<em>Good!</em> Well, I should say she was! She’s +a girl from our town!” +</p> +<p> +When the duchess tried to share her enthusiasm +with Dan he had disappeared. He left the +box and with no difficulty made his way as far +as the first wing. +</p> +<p> +“Can you get me an entrance?” he asked a +man he had met once at Osdene and who was +evidently an habitué. +</p> +<p> +“I dare say. Rippin’ show, isn’t it?” +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i003' id='i003'></a> +<img src='images/illus-002.jpg' alt='' title=''/><br /> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39'></a>39</span></div> +<p> +Dan put his hand on ducal shoulders and followed +the nobleman through the labyrinth of +flies. +</p> +<p> +“Which of ’em do you want to see, old man?” +</p> +<p> +Dan, without replying, went forward to a +small cluster of lights in one of the wings. He +went forward intuitively, and his companion +caught his arm: “Oh, I say, for <em>God’s</em> sake, +don’t go on like this!” +</p> +<p> +But without response Dan continued his direction. +A call page stood before the door, and +Dan, on a card over the entrance, read “Miss +Lane.” The smell of calcium and paint and +perfume and the auxiliaries hung heavy on +the air. The other man saw Dan knock, knock +again and then go in. +</p> +<p> +Unannounced Dan Blair opened the door of +the dressing-room of the actress. Miss Lane’s +dressing-rooms were worth displaying to her intimate +friends. They were done with great taste +in coral tint. She might have been said to be in +a coral cave under the sea, as far as young +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40'></a>40</span> +Blair was concerned. As he came in he felt his +ears deaden, and the smoke of cigarettes grew +so thick that he looked as through a veil. The +dancer was standing in the center of the room, +one hand on her hip, and in the other hand a +cigarette. Her short skirt stood out around her +like a bell, and over the bell fell a rain of pinkish +coral strands. She wore a thin silk slip, from +which her neck and arms came shining out, and +her woman knelt at her feet strapping on a little +coral shoe. +</p> +<p> +Blair shut the door behind him, and began to +realize how rude, how impertinent his entrance +would be considered. But he came boldly forward +and would have introduced himself as “Dan +Blair from Blairtown,” but Miss Lane, who +stared at the entrance through the smoke, burst +into a laugh so bright, so delightful, that he +was carried high up on the coral strands to the +very beach. She crossed her white arms over +her breast and leaned forward, as a saleswoman +might lean forward over a counter, and with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41'></a>41</span> +her beautifully trained voice, all sweetly she +asked him: +</p> +<p> +“Hello, little boy, what will <em>you</em> take?” +</p> +<p> +Blair giggled, quick to catch her meaning, +and answered: “Oh, chocolate, I guess!” +</p> +<p> +And Letty Lane laughed, put out her white +hand, the one without the cigarette, and said: +“Haven’t got that brand on board—so sorry! +Will a cocktail do? All sorts in bottles. Higgins, +fix Mr. Blair a Martini.” +</p> +<p> +As the dresser rose from her stooping position, +the rest of Letty Lane’s dressing-room unfolded +out of the mist and smoke. On a sofa +covered with lace pillows Blair saw a man sitting, +smoking as well. He was tall and had a dark +mustache. It was Prince Poniotowsky, whom +Dan had already met at the Galorey shoot. +</p> +<p> +“Prince Poniotowsky,” Miss Lane presented +him, “Mr. Blair, of Blairtown, Montana. Say, +Frederick, give me my cap, will you? It is over +by your side. I’ve got to hustle.” +</p> +<p> +The man, without moving, picked up a small +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42'></a>42</span> +red cap with a single plume, from the sofa at his +side. In another second Letty Lane had placed +it on her head of yellow hair, real yellow hair +and not a doubt of it, like sunshine—not the +color one gets from inside bottles. Her arms, +her hands flashed with rings, priceless flashes, +and the little spears pricked Dan like sharp +needles. +</p> +<p> +“It’s the nicest ever!” she was saying. “How +on earth did you get in here, though? Have +you bought the Gaiety Theater? I’m the most +exclusive girl on the stage. Who let you in?” +</p> +<p> +Her accent was English, and even that put +her from him. As he looked at her he couldn’t +understand how he had ever recognized her. If +he had waited for another act he wouldn’t have +believed the likeness real. The girl he remembered +had both softened and hardened; the round +features were gone, but all the angles were gone +as well. Her eyes were as gray as the seas; she +was painted and her lids were darkened. Seen +close, she was not so divine as on the stage, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43'></a>43</span> +but there was still a more thrilling charm about +the fact that she was real. +</p> +<p> +“To think of any one from Montana being +here to-night! Staying very long, Mr. Blair?” +Between each sentence she directed Higgins, who +was getting her into her bodice. “And how do +you like <em>Mandalay</em>? Isn’t it great?” +</p> +<p> +She addressed herself to Dan, but she smiled +on both the men with extreme brilliance. +</p> +<p> +“You bet your life,” he responded. “I should +think it was great.” +</p> +<p> +Poniotowsky rose indolently. He had not +looked toward the new-comer, but had, on the +other hand, followed every detail of Miss Lane’s +dressing. +</p> +<p> +“Better take your scarf, Letty. Hand it to +Miss Lane,” he directed Higgins. “It is so +damned drafty in these beastly wings.” +</p> +<p> +He drew his watch out, gathered up his long +coat, flung it over his arm and picked up his +opera hat which lay folded on Letty Lane’s +dressing-table. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44'></a>44</span> +</p> +<p> +The call page for the third time summoned +“Miss La—ne, Miss La—ane,” and she took the +scarf Higgins handed her and ran it through +her hands, still beaming on Dan. +</p> +<p> +“Come in to see me at the Savoy on any day +at two-thirty except on matinée days.” +</p> +<p> +“Put on your scarf.” Poniotowsky, taking +it from her hands, laid it across her white shoulders, +and she passed out between the two men, +light as a bird, smiling, nodding, followed by the +prince and the boy from Montana. The crowds +began to fill the lately empty wings—dancers, +chorus girls with their rustling gowns. Letty +Lane said to Dan: +</p> +<p> +“Guess you’ll like my solo in this act all +right—it’s the best thing in <em>Mandalay</em>. Now go +along, and clap me hard.” +</p> +<p> +It gave him a new pleasure, for she had +spoken to him in real American fashion with the +swift mimicry that showed her talent. Dan went +slowly back to his party. As he took his seat +by the duchess she said to him: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45'></a>45</span> +</p> +<p> +“You went out to see Letty Lane. Do you +know her?” +</p> +<p> +“Know her!” And as Dan answered, the +sound of his own voice was queer to him, and his +face flushed hotly. “Lord, yes. She used to be +in the drug store in Blairtown. Sold soda-water +to me when we were both kids. Whoever +would have thought that she had that in her!” +He nodded toward the stage, for Letty Lane had +come on. “She sang in our church, too, but not +for long.” +</p> +<p> +“Who was with her in her dressing-room?” +the duchess asked. Blair didn’t answer. He +was looking at Letty Lane. She had come to +dance for the rajah and in her arms she held +four white doves; each dove had a coral thread +around its throat. It was a number that made +her famous, <em>The Dove Song</em>. Set free, the +birds flew about her, circling her blond head, surmounted +by the small coral-colored cap. The +doves settled on her shoulders, pecked at her +lips. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46'></a>46</span> +</p> +<p> +“Was it Poniotowsky?” the duchess repeated. +</p> +<p> +And Dan told her a meaningless lie. “I didn’t +meet any one there.” And with satisfaction the +duchess said: +</p> +<p> +“Then she has thrown him over, too. He +was the latest and the richest. She is horribly +extravagant. No man is rich enough for her, +they say. Poniotowsky isn’t a gold mine.” +</p> +<p> +The doves had flown away to the wings and +been gathered up by the Indian servants. The +actress on the stage began her Indian cradle +song. She came, distinctly turning toward the +box party. She had never sung like this in +London before. There was a freshness in her +voice, a quality in her gesture, a pathos and a +sweetness that delighted her audience. They +fairly clamored for her, waved and called and +recalled. Dan stood motionless, his eyes fastened +on her, his heart rocked by the song. He didn’t +want any one to speak to him. He wished that +none of them would breathe, and nearly as absorbed +as was he, no one did speak. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47'></a>47</span><a name='chV' id='chV'></a>CHAPTER V—AT THE CARLTON</h2> +<p> +There are certain natures to whom each +appearance of evil, each form of delinquency +is a fresh surprise. They are born +simple, in the sweet sense of the word, and they +go down to old age never of the world, although +in a sense worldly. If Dan Blair’s eyes were +somewhat opened at twenty-two, he had yet the +bloom on his soul. He was no fool, but his +ideals stood up each on its pedestal and ready to +appear one by one to him as the scenes of his +life shifted and the different curtains rose. He +had been trained in finance from his boyhood +and he was a born financier. Money was his +natural element; he could go far in it. But +<em>woman</em>! He was one of those manly creatures—a +knight—to whom each woman is a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48'></a>48</span> +sacred thing: a dove, a crystal-clear soul, made +to cherish and to protect, made to be spoiled. +And in Dan were all the qualities that go to +make up the unselfish, tender, foolish, and often +unhappy American husband. These were some +of the other things he had inherited from his +father. Blair, senior, had married his first love, +and whereas his boy had been trained to know +money and its value, how to keep it and spend it, +to save it and to make it, he had been taught +nothing at all about woman. He had never been +taught to distrust women, never been warned +against them; he had been taught nothing but +his father’s memory of his mother, and the result +was that he worshiped the sex and wondered +at the mystery. +</p> +<p> +With Gordon Galorey and the others he +had ridden, shot better than they, and had +played, but with Lady Galorey and the Duchess +of Breakwater he was nothing but a child. +As far as his hostess was concerned, on several +occasions she had put to him certain states +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49'></a>49</span> +of affairs, well, touchingly. Dan had been +moved by the stories of sore need among the +tenants, had been impressed by the necessity of +reforms and rebuildings and on each occasion +had given his hostess a check. She had asked +him to say nothing about it to Gordon, and he +had kept his silence. Dan liked Lady Galorey +extremely: she was jolly, witty and friendly. +She treated him as a member of the family and +made no demands on him, save the ones mentioned. +</p> +<p> +In the time that he had come to know the +Duchess of Breakwater she, on her part, had +filled him full of other confidences. Into his +young ears she poured the story of her disappointment, +her disjointed life, from her worldly +girlhood to her disillusion in marriage. She +was beautiful when she talked and more lovely +when she wept. Dan thought himself in love +with the Duchess of Breakwater. His conversations +with her had brought him to this conclusion. +They had motored from Osdene Park together, and he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50'></a>50</span> +had been extremely taken with +the pleasure of it, and with the fact of their +real companionship. Two or three times the +words had been on his lips, which were fated not +to be spoken then, however, and Dan reached +the Gaiety still unfettered, his duchess by his +side. And then the orchestra had begun to play +<em>Mandalay</em>, the curtain had gone up and Letty +Lane had come out on the boards. But her +apparition did not strike off his chains immediately, +nor did he renounce his plan to tell the +duchess the very next day that he loved her. +</p> +<p> +When with sparkling eyes Lady Galorey +raved about <em>Mandalay</em>, Dan listened with eagerness. +Everybody seemed to know all about +Letty Lane, but he alone knew from what town +she had come! +</p> +<p> +They went for supper at the Carlton after +the theater. +</p> +<p> +“Letty,” Lady Galorey said, “tells it herself +how the impresario heard her sing in some +country church—picked her up then and there +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51'></a>51</span> +and brought her over here, and they say she +married him.” +</p> +<p> +Dan Blair could have told them how she had +sung in that little church that day. Dan was +eating his caviare sandwich. “Her name <em>then</em> +was Sally Towney,” he murmured. How little +he had guessed that she was singing herself +right out of that church and into the London +Gaiety Theater! Anyway, she had made him +“sit up!” It was a far cry from Montana to +the London Gaiety. And so she married the +greasy Jew who had discovered her! +</p> +<p> +Dan glanced over at the Duchess of Breakwater. +She was looking well, exquisitely high +bred, and she impressed him. She leaned slightly +over to him, laughing. He had hardly dared to +meet her eyes that day, fearing that she might +read his secret. She had told him that in her +own right she was a countess—the Countess of +Stainer. Titles didn’t cut any ice with him. At +any rate, she would be able to “buy back the +old farm”—that is the way Dan put it. She +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52'></a>52</span> +had told him of the beautiful old Stainer Court, +mortgaged and hung up with debts, as deep in +ruins as the ivy was thick on the walls. +</p> +<p> +As Dan looked over at the duchess he saw the +other people staring and looking about at a table +near. It was spread a little to their left for +four people, a great bouquet of orchids in the +center. +</p> +<p> +“There,” Galorey said, “there’s Letty Lane.” +And the singer came in, followed by three +men, the first of them the Prince Poniotowsky, +indolent, bored, haughty, his eye-glass dangling. +Miss Lane was dressed in black, a superb costume +of faultless cut, and it enfolded her like a +shadow; as a shadow might enfold a specter, +for the dancer was as pale as the dead. She +had neither painted nor rouged, she had evidently +employed no coquetry to disguise her +fag; rather she seemed to be on the verge of a +serious illness, and presented a striking contrast +to the brilliant creature, who had shone before +their eyes not an hour before. Her dress was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53'></a>53</span> +a challenge to the more gay and delicate affairs +the other women in the restaurant wore. The +gown came severely up to her chin. Its high +collar closed around with a pearl necklace; from +her ears fell pearls, long, creamy and priceless. +She wore a great feathered hat, which, drooping, +almost hid her small, pale face and her golden +hair. She drew off her gloves as she came in +and her white, jeweled hands flashed. She looked +infinitely tired and extremely bored. As soon +as she took her seat at the table intended for her +party, Poniotowsky poured her out a glass of +champagne, which she drank off as though it +were water. +</p> +<p> +“Gad,” Lord Galorey said, “she <em>is</em> a stunner! +What a figure, and what a head, and what daring +to dress like that!” +</p> +<p> +“She knows how to make herself conspicuous,” +said the Duchess of Breakwater. +</p> +<p> +“She looks extremely ill,” said Lady Galorey. +“The pace she goes will do her up in a year or +two.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54'></a>54</span> +</p> +<p> +Dan Blair had his back to her, and when they +rose to leave he was the last to pass out. Letty +Lane saw him, and a light broke over her pallid +face. She nodded and smiled and shook her hand +in a pretty little salute. If her face was pale, +her lips were red, and her smile was like sunlight; +and at her recognition a wave of friendly +fellowship swept over the young man—a sort +of loyal kinship to her which he hadn’t felt for +any other woman there, and which he could not +have explained. In warm approval of the +actress’ distinction, he said softly to himself: +“<em>That’s</em> all right—she makes the rest of them +look like thirty cents.” +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55'></a>55</span><a name='chVI' id='chVI'></a>CHAPTER VI—GALOREY SEEKS ADVICE</h2> +<p> +Blair did not go back at once to Osdene +Park. He stopped over in London for a +few days to see Joshua Ruggles, and so remarked +for the first time the difference between +the speech of the old and the new world. Mr. +Ruggles spoke broadly, with complete disregard +of the frills and adornments of the King’s English. +He spoke United States of the pure, broad, +western brand, and it rang out, it vibrated and +swelled and rolled, and as Ruggles didn’t care +who heard him, nothing of what he had to say +was lost. +</p> +<p> +Old Mr. Blair had left behind him a comrade, +and as far as advice could go the old man knew +that his Dan would not be bankrupt. +</p> +<p> +“Advice,” Dan Blair senior once said to his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56'></a>56</span> +boy, “is the kind of thing we want some fellow +to give us when we ain’t going to do the thing +we ought to do, or are a little ashamed of something +we have done. It’s an awful good way to +get cured of asking advice just to do what the +fellow tells you to at once.” +</p> +<p> +During Ruggles’ stay in London the young +fellow looked to it that Ruggles saw the sights, +and the two did the principal features of the big +town, to the rich enjoyment of the Westerner. +Dan took his friend every night to the play, and +on the fourth evening Ruggles said: “Let’s go +to the circus or a vaudeville, Dan. I have +learned <em>this</em> show by heart!” They had been +every night to see <em>Mandalay</em>. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, you go on where you like, Josh,” the +boy answered. “I’m going to see how she looks +from the pit.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles was not a Blairtown man. He had +come from farther west, and had never heard +anything of Sarah Towney or Letty Lane. He +applauded the actress vigorously at the Gaiety at +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57'></a>57</span> +first, and after the third night slept through +most of the performance. When he waked up +he tried to discover what attraction Letty Lane +had for Dan. For the young man never left +Ruggles’ side, never went behind the scenes, +though he seemed absorbed, as a man usually is +absorbed for one reason only. +</p> +<p> +In response to a telegram from Osdene Park, +Dan motored out there one afternoon, and during +his absence Ruggles was surprised at his +hotel by a call. +</p> +<p> +“My dear Mr. Ruggles,” Lord Galorey said, +for he it was the page boy fetched up, “why +don’t you come out to see us? All friends of old +Mr. Blair’s are welcome at Osdene.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles thanked Galorey and said he was not +a visiting man, that he only had a short time in +London, and was going to Ireland to look up +“his family tree.” +</p> +<p> +“There are one hundred acres of trees in +Osdene,” laughed Galorey; “you can climb them +all.” And Ruggles replied: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58'></a>58</span> +</p> +<p> +“I guess I wouldn’t find any O’Shaughnessy +Ruggles at the top of any of ’em, my lord. The +boy has gone out to see you all to-day.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey nodded. “That is just why I toddled +in to see you!” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles’ caller had been shown to the sitting-room, +where he and Dan hobnobbed and smoked +during the Westerner’s visit. There was a pile +of papers on the table, in one corner a typewriter +covered by a black cloth. Galorey took +a chair and, refusing a cigarette, lit his pipe. +</p> +<p> +“I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting you in +the West when I was out there with Blair. I +knew Dan’s father rather well.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles responded: “I knew him rather well +too, for thirty years. If,” he went on, “Blair +hadn’t known you pretty well he wouldn’t have +sent the boy out to you as he has done. He was +keen on every trail. I might say that he had +been over every one of ’em like a hound before +he set the boy loose.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey answered, “Quite so,” gravely. “I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59'></a>59</span> +know it. I knew it when Dan turned up at Osdene—” +Holding his pipe bowl in the palm of +his slender hand, he smoked meditatively. He +hadn’t thought about things, as he had been doing +lately, for many years. His sense of honor +was the strongest thing in Gordon Galorey, the +only thing in him, perhaps, that had been left +unsmirched by the touch of the world. He was +unquestionably a gentleman. +</p> +<p> +“Blair, however,” he said, “wasn’t as keen on +this scent as you’d expect. His intuition was +wrong.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles raised his eyebrows slightly. +</p> +<p> +“I mean to say,” Lord Galorey went on, “that +he knew me in the West when I had cut loose for +a few blessed months from just these things into +which he has sent his boy—from what, if I had +a son, God knows I’d throw him as far as I +could.” +</p> +<p> +“Blair wanted Dan to see the world.” +</p> +<p> +“Of course, that is right enough. We all +have to see it, I fancy, but this boy isn’t ready +to look at it.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60'></a>60</span> +</p> +<p> +“He is twenty-two,” Ruggles returned. +“When I was his age I was supporting four +people.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey went on: “Osdene Park at present +isn’t the window for Blair’s boy to see life +through, and that is what I have come up to +London to talk to you about, Mr. Ruggles. I +should like to have you take him away.” +</p> +<p> +“What’s Dan been up to down there?” +</p> +<p> +“Nothing as yet, but he is in the pocket of a +woman—he is in a nest of women.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles’ broad face had not altered its expression +of quiet expectation. +</p> +<p> +“There’s a lot of ’em down there?” he asked. +</p> +<p> +“There are two,” Galorey said briefly, “and +one of them is my wife.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles turned his cigarette between his +great fingers. He was a slow thinker. He had +none of old Blair’s keenness, but he had other +qualities. Galorey saw that he had not been +quite understood, and he waited and then said: +</p> +<p> +“Lady Galorey is like the rest of modern +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61'></a>61</span> +wives, and I am like a lot of modern husbands. +We each go our own way. My way is a worthless +one, God knows I don’t stand up for it, but +it is not my wife’s way in any sense of the word.” +</p> +<p> +“Does she want Dan to go along on her +road?” Ruggles asked. “And how far?” +</p> +<p> +“We are financially strapped just now,” said +Galorey calmly, “and she has got money from +the boy.” He didn’t remove his pipe from his +mouth; still holding it between his teeth he put +his hand in his pocket, took out his wallet, drew +forth four checks and laid them down before +Ruggles. “It is quite a sum,” Galorey noted, +“sufficient to do a lot to Osdene Park in the way +of needed repairs.” Ruggles had never seen a +smile such as curved his companion’s lips. “But +Osdene Park will have to be repaired by money +from some other source.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles wondered how the husband had got +hold of the checks, but he didn’t ask and he did +not look at the papers. +</p> +<p> +“When Dan came to the Park,” said Galorey, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62'></a>62</span> +“I stopped bridge playing, but this more than +takes its place!” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles’ big hand went slowly toward the +checks; he touched them with his fingers and +said: “Is Dan in love with your wife?” +</p> +<p> +And Lord Galorey laughed and said: “Lord +no, my dear man, not even that! It is pure good +nature on his part—mere prodigality. Edith +appealed to him, that’s all.” +</p> +<p> +Relief crossed Ruggles’ face. He understood +in a flash the worldly woman’s appeal to the rich +young man and believed the story the husband +told him. +</p> +<p> +“Have you spoken to the boy?” +</p> +<p> +“My dear chap, I have spoken to him about +nothing. I preferred to come to you.” +</p> +<p> +“You said,” Ruggles continued, “there were +two ladies down to your place.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey had refilled his pipe and held it as +before in the palm of his hand. +</p> +<p> +“I can look after the affairs of my wife, and +this shan’t happen again, I promise you—not at +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63'></a>63</span> +Osdene, but I’m afraid I can not do much in the +other case. The Duchess of Breakwater has +been at Osdene for nearly three weeks, and Dan +is in love with her.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles put the four checks one on top of the +other. +</p> +<p> +“Is the lady a widow?” +</p> +<p> +“Unfortunately, yes.” +</p> +<p> +“So that’s the nest Dan has got into at Osdene,” +the Westerner said. And Galorey answered: +“That is the nest.” +</p> +<p> +“And he has gone out there to-day—got a +wire this morning.” +</p> +<p> +“The duchess has been in an awful funk,” +said Galorey, “because Dan’s been stopping in +London so long. She sent him a message, and +as soon as Dan wired back that he was coming +to the Park, I decided to come here and see you.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles ruminated: “Has the duchess complications +financially?” +</p> +<p> +“Ra-ther!” the other answered. +</p> +<p> +And Ruggles turned his broad, honest face +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64'></a>64</span> +full on Galorey: “Do you think she could be +bought off?” +</p> +<p> +Galorey took his pipe out of his mouth. +</p> +<p> +“It depends on how far Dan has gone on with +her. To be frank with you, Mr. Ruggles, it is +a case of emotion on the part of the woman. +She is really in love with Dan. Gad!” exclaimed +the nobleman. “I have been on the point of turning +the whole brood out of doors these last days. +It was like imprisoning a mountain breeze in a +charnel house—a woman with her scars and her +experience and that boy—I don’t know where +you’ve kept him, or how you kept him as he is, +but he is as clear as water. I have talked to him +and I know.” +</p> +<p> +Nothing in Ruggles’ expression had changed +until now. His eyes glowed. +</p> +<p> +“Dan’s all right,” he said softly. “Don’t +you worry! He’s all right. I guess his father +knew what he was doing, and I’ll bet the whole +thing was just what he sent him over here for! +Old Dan Blair wasn’t worth a copper when the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65'></a>65</span> +boy was born, and yet he had ideas about everything +and he seemed to know more in that old +gray head of his than a whole library of books. +Dan’s all right.” +</p> +<p> +“My dear man,” said the nobleman, “that is +just where you Americans are wrong. You comfort +yourself with your eternal ‘Dan’s all right,’ +and you won’t see the truth. You won’t breathe +the word ‘scandal’ and yet you are thick enough +in them, God knows. You won’t admit them, +but they are there. Now be honest and look at +the truth, will you? You are a man of common +sense. Dan Blair is <em>not</em> all right. He is in an +infernally dangerous position. The Duchess of +Breakwater will marry him. It is what she has +wanted to do for years, but she has not found +a man rich enough, and she will marry this boy +offhand.” +</p> +<p> +“Well,” said the Westerner slowly, “if he +loves her and if he marries her—” +</p> +<p> +“Marries her!” exclaimed the nobleman. +“There you are again! Do you think marriage +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66'></a>66</span> +makes it any better? Why, if she went off to the +Continent with him for six weeks and then set +him free, that would be preferable to marrying +her. My dear man,” he said, leaning over the +table where Ruggles sat, “if I had a boy I would +rather have him marry Letty Lane of the Gaiety. +Now you know what I mean.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles’ face, which had hardened, relaxed. +</p> +<p> +“I have seen that lady,” he exclaimed with +satisfaction; “I have seen <em>her</em> several times.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey sank back into his chair and neither +man spoke for a few seconds. Turning it all +over in his slow mind, Ruggles remembered +Dan’s absorption in the last few days. “So there +are three women in the nest,” he concluded +thoughtfully, and Gordon Galorey repeated: +</p> +<p> +“No, not three. What do you mean?” +</p> +<p> +“Your wife”—Ruggles held up one finger +and Galorey interrupted him to murmur: +</p> +<p> +“I’ll take care of Edith.” +</p> +<p> +“The Duchess of Breakwater you think won’t +talk of money?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67'></a>67</span> +</p> +<p> +“No, don’t count on it. She is aiming at ten +million pounds.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles was holding up the second finger. +</p> +<p> +“Well, I guess Dan has gone out to take care +of <em>her</em> to-day.” +</p> +<p> +Dan and Ruggles had seen <em>Mandalay</em> from a +box, from the pit and from the stalls. On the +table lay a book of the opera. While talking +with Galorey, Ruggles had unconsciously arranged +the checks on top of the libretto of <em>Mandalay</em>. +</p> +<p> +“<em>I’ll</em> take care of Miss Lane,” Ruggles said +at length. +</p> +<p> +His lordship echoed, “Miss Lane?” and looked +up in surprise. “What Miss Lane, for God’s +sake?” +</p> +<p> +“Miss Letty Lane at the Gaiety,” Ruggles +answered. +</p> +<p> +“Why, she isn’t in the question, my dear +man.” +</p> +<p> +“You put her there just now yourself.” +</p> +<p> +“Bosh!” Galorey exclaimed impatiently, “I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68'></a>68</span> +spoke of her as being the limit, the last thing on +the line.” +</p> +<p> +“No,” corrected the other, “you put the +Duchess of Breakwater as the limit.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey smiled frankly. “You are right, my +dear chap,” he accepted, “and I stand by it.” +</p> +<p> +A page boy knocked at the door and came in +holding out on a salver a card for Mr. Ruggles, +and at the interruption Galorey rose and invited +Ruggles to go out with him that night to +Osdene. “Lady Galorey will be delighted.” +</p> +<p> +But Ruggles shook his head. “The boy is +coming back here to-night,” and Galorey +laughed. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t you believe it! You don’t know how +deep in he is. You don’t know the Duchess of +Breakwater. Once he is with her—” +</p> +<p> +At the same time that the page boy handed +Mr. Ruggles the card of the caller, he gave him +as well a small envelope, which contained box +tickets for the Gaiety. Ruggles examined it. +</p> +<p> +“I have got some writing to do,” he told Galorey, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69'></a>69</span> +“and I’m going to see a show to-night, +and I think I’ll just stay here and watch my +hole.” +</p> +<p> +As soon as Galorey had left the Carlton, Mr. +Ruggles despatched his letters and his visitor, +made a very careful toilet, and after waiting +until past eight o’clock for Dan to return to +dinner, dined alone on roast beef and a tart, and +with perfect digestion, if somewhat thoughtful +mind, left the hotel and walked down the dim +street to the brilliant Strand, and on foot to the +Gaiety. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70'></a>70</span><a name='chVII' id='chVII'></a>CHAPTER VII—AT THE STAGE ENTRANCE</h2> +<p> +Ruggles, from his stall, for the fourth +time saw the curtain go up on <em>Mandalay</em> +and heard the temple bells ring. One of the +stage boxes was not occupied until after the first +act and then the son of his friend came in alone +and sat far back out of sight of any eyes but +the keenest, and those eyes were Ruggles’. Letty +Lane, delicious, fantastic, languishing, sang +to Dan; that was evident to Ruggles. He was +a large man and filled his stall comfortably. He +sat through the performance peacefully, his +hands in his pockets, his big face thoughtful, +his shirt front ruffled. To look at him, one must +have wondered why he had come to <em>Mandalay</em>. +He scarcely lost any of the threads of his own reflections, +though when Miss Lane, in response to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71'></a>71</span> +a call from the house, sang her cradle song three +times, he seemed moved. The tones of her pure +voice, the cradling in her arms of an imaginary +child, her apparent dovelike purity, her grace +and sweetness, and her cooing, gentle tone, to +judge by the softening of the Westerner’s face, +touched very much the big fellow who listened +like a child. At the end he drew his handkerchief +slowly across his eyes, but the tears, or +rather moisture, that rose there was not all due +to Miss Lane’s song, for Ruggles was extremely +warm. +</p> +<p> +He could see that in his box the boy sat transfixed +and absorbed. Dan went out in the second +entr’acte and was absent when the curtain went +down. Ruggles, as well, left before the performance +was over, to make his way outside the +theater to the stage exit, where there was already +gathered a little group, looked after by a couple +of policemen. Close to the curb a gleaming +motor waited, the footman at its door. Ruggles +buttoned his coat up to his chin and took his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72'></a>72</span> +place close to the door, over which the electric +light showed the words “Stage Entrance.” A +poor woman elbowed him, her shabby hat +adorned by a scraggly plume, a gray shawl +wrapped round her shoulders. A girl or two, +who might have been flower sellers in Piccadilly +in the daytime, a couple of toughs, a handful of +other vagrants smelling of gin, a decent man in +working clothes, a child in his arms, formed the +human hedge Letty Lane was to pass between—a +singular group of people to spend an hour +hanging about the streets at the exit of a theater +well toward midnight. So the naïve Ruggles +thought, and better understood the appearance +of the young fellows in evening clothes who +hovered on the extreme edge of the little crowd. +Dan, however, was not of these. +</p> +<p> +“Look sharp, Cissy,” the workingman spoke +to his child, holding her well up. “When she +comes hout she’ll pass close to yer, and you sing +hout, ‘God bless yer.’” +</p> +<p> +“Yes, Dad, I will,” shrilled the child. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73'></a>73</span> +</p> +<p> +The woman in the gray shawl drew it close +about her. “Aw she’s a true lidy, all right, +ain’t she? I expect you’ve had some kindness +off her as well?” +</p> +<p> +The man nodded over the child’s shoulder. +“Used to be a scene shifter, and Miss Lane +found out about my little girl last year—not this +lass, not Cissy, Cissy’s sister—and she sent ’er to +a place where it costs the eyes out of yer head. +She’s gettin’ well fast, and we, none of us, has +seen her or spoken to Miss Lane. She doesn’t +know our names.” +</p> +<p> +And the woman answered: “She does a lot like +that. She’s got a heart bigger’n her little +body.” +</p> +<p> +And a big boy in the front row said back to +the others: “Well, she makes a mint of money.” +</p> +<p> +And the woman who had spoken before said: +“She gives it nearly all to the poor.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles was evidently on the poor side of the +waiting crowd; the handful of riffraff around +him with its stench of dirt and gin. A better +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74'></a>74</span> +looking set collected opposite and there was the +gleam of white shirt fronts. +</p> +<p> +“Now, there she comes,” the father saw her +first. “Sing out, Cissy.” +</p> +<p> +The door opened and a figure quickly floated +from it, like a white rose blown out into the +foggy darkness. It floated down the few steps +to the street between the double row of spectators. +A white cloak entirely covered the +actress. Her head was hidden by a white scarf, +and she almost ran the short gantlet to her +motor, between the cries of “God bless you!”—“Three +cheers for Letty Lane”—“God +bless you, lady!” She didn’t speak or heed, +however, or turn her head, but held her +scarf against her face, and the man who slowly +lounged behind her to the car, and put her in +and got in after her, was not the man Joshua +Ruggles had waited there to see. He hung about +until the footman had sprung up and the car +moved softly away, the stage entrance door shut, +then he followed along with the crowd, with the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75'></a>75</span> +few faithful ones who had waited an hour in the +cold mist to cry out their applause, not to a +singer in <em>Mandalay</em> but to a woman’s heart. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76'></a>76</span><a name='chVIII' id='chVIII'></a>CHAPTER VIII—DAN’S SIMPLICITY</h2> +<p> +The Duchess of Breakwater was not sure +how close Dan Blair’s thoughts were to +marriage, but the boy from Montana was the +easiest prey that had come across the beautiful +and unscrupulous woman’s range. He had told +her that he stayed on up in London to see a man +from home, and when after four days he still lingered +in town, she found his absence unbearable, +and sent him a wire so worded that if he had a +spark of interest in her he must immediately return +to the Park. She had never been more lovely +than when Dan found her waiting for him. +</p> +<p> +She had ordered tea in her sitting-room. She +told him that he looked frightfully seedy, asked +him what he had been doing and why he had +stopped so long away, and Blair told her that +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77'></a>77</span> +old Ruggles, his father’s friend, had run over +to see him with a lot of papers for Dan to read +and sign and closed with a smile, telling her that +he guessed she “didn’t know much about business.” +</p> +<p> +“I only know the horrid things of business—debts, +and loans, and bills, and fussing.” +</p> +<p> +“Those things are not business,” Dan answered +wisely; “they are just common or garden +carelessness.” +</p> +<p> +She asked him why he had not brought Ruggles +out to Osdene, and he told her he couldn’t +have done a stroke of work with the old boy +down here at the Park. +</p> +<p> +Stirring his tea, he appreciated the duchess. +The agreeable picture she made impressed him +mightily. +</p> +<p> +“Do you know,” he asked suddenly, “what +you make me think of?” +</p> +<p> +And she responded softly: “No, dear.” +</p> +<p> +“A box of candy. This room with its stuffed +walls, and you in it are good enough—” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78'></a>78</span> +</p> +<p> +“To eat?” she laughed aloud. “Oh, you perfectly +killing creature, what an idea!” +</p> +<p> +And as he met her eyes with his clear ones, +with a simplicity she could never hope to reach, +he put his tea-cup down; and as he did so the +duchess observed his strong hands, their vigor, +well-kept and muscular, but not the dandified +hands of the man who goes often to the manicure. +</p> +<p> +“If it hadn’t been for one thing,” the boy +went on, “I would have thought of nothing else +but you, every minute I’ve been away.” +</p> +<p> +“Mr. Ruggles?” suggested the duchess. +</p> +<p> +“No, the Gaiety girl, Letty Lane. You know +I told you in the box that she was from my +town.” +</p> +<p> +The young man, who had flown back to Osdene +Park in answer to a telegram, began to +take his companion into his confidence. +</p> +<p> +“I knew that girl,” Dan said, “when she +wasn’t more than fourteen. She sold me soda-water +over the drug store counter. I always +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79'></a>79</span> +thought she was bully, bright as a button and +pretty as a peach. Once, I remember, I took six +chocolate sodas in one day just to go in and see +her. I had an awful time. I most died of that +jag, and yet,” he said meditatively, “I don’t +think I ever spoke three words to her, just said +‘sarsaparilla’ or ‘chocolate’ or whatever it might +happen to be. Ever since that day, ever since +that jag,” he said with feeling, “I couldn’t <em>see</em> a +stick of chocolate and keep my head up! Well,” +went on the boy, “Sarah Towney sang in our +church for a missionary meeting, and I was +there. I can remember the song she sang.” He +spoke with unconscious ardor. He didn’t refer +to the hymn, however, but went on with his narrative. +“She disappeared from Blairtown. I +never had a peep at her again until the other +night. Gosh!” he said fervently, “when I saw +her there on the stage, why, I felt as though +cold water was running up and down my spine.” +</p> +<p> +The duchess, as a rule, was amused by his +slang. It seemed vulgar to her now. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80'></a>80</span> +</p> +<p> +“Heavens,” she drawled, “you are really too +dreadful!” +</p> +<p> +He didn’t seem to hear her. +</p> +<p> +“She’s turned out a perfect wonder, hasn’t +she? A world-beater! Why, everybody tells me +there isn’t another like her in her specialty. Of +course I have heard of Letty Lane, but I haven’t +been out to things since I went in mourning, and +I’ve never run up against her.” +</p> +<p> +“Really,” drawled the duchess again, “now +that you have ‘run up against her’ what are you +going to do with her? Marry her?” +</p> +<p> +His honest stare was the greatest relief she +had ever experienced. He repeated bluntly: +“Marry her? Why the dickens should I?” +</p> +<p> +“You seem absorbed in her.” +</p> +<p> +He agreed with her. “I am. I think she’s +great, don’t you?” +</p> +<p> +“Hardly.” +</p> +<p> +But the cold voice of the duchess did not chill +him. “Simply great,” he continued, “and I’m +sorry for her down to the ground. That is what +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81'></a>81</span> +is the matter. Didn’t you notice her when she +came into the Carlton that night?” +</p> +<p> +“What of it, silly? I thought she looked as +thin as a shad in that black dress, and the way +Poniotowsky goes about with her proves what +an ass he is.” +</p> +<p> +“Well, I hate him,” Blair simply stated; “I +would wring his neck for twenty cents. But +she’s very ill; that is what is the matter with +her.” +</p> +<p> +“They all look like that off the stage,” the +duchess assured indifferently. “They are nothing +but footlight beauties: they look ghastly off +the boards. I dare say that Letty Lane <em>is</em> ill, +though; the pace she goes would kill anybody. +Have some more tea?” +</p> +<p> +He held out his cup and agreed with her. +</p> +<p> +“She works too hard—this playing almost +every night, singing and dancing twice at the +matinées, I should think she would be dead.” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, I don’t mean her professional engagements,” +murmured the duchess. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82'></a>82</span> +</p> +<p> +A revolt such as had stung him when they +criticized her at the Carlton rose in him now. +</p> +<p> +“It is hard to believe,” he said, “when you hear +her sing that dove song and that cradle song.” +</p> +<p> +But his companion’s laugh stopped his championship +short. +</p> +<p> +“You dear boy, don’t be a silly, Dan. She +doesn’t need your pity or your good opinion. +She is perfectly satisfied. She has got a fortune +in Poniotowsky, and she really is ‘a perfect +terror,’ you know.” +</p> +<p> +Affected slightly by her cold dismissal of his +subject, he paused for a moment. But his own +point of view was too strong to be shaken by +this woman’s light words. +</p> +<p> +“I suppose if she wasn’t from my town—” +At his words the vision of Letty Lane with +the coral strands on her dress, came before his +eyes, and he said honestly: “But I do take an +interest in her just the same, and she’s going to +pieces, that’s clear. Something ought to be +done.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83'></a>83</span> +</p> +<p> +The Duchess of Breakwater was very much +annoyed. +</p> +<p> +“Are you going to talk about her all the +time?” she asked with sharp sweetness. “You +are not very flattering, Dan.” +</p> +<p> +And he returned peacefully, “Why, I thought +you might be able to help her in some way or +another.” +</p> +<p> +“<em>Me!</em>” She laughed aloud. “Me help Letty +Lane? Really—” +</p> +<p> +“Why, you might get her to sing out here,” +he suggested. “That would sort of get hold of +her; women know how to do those things.” +</p> +<p> +His preposterous simplicity overwhelmed her. +She stirred her tea, and said, controlling herself, +“Why, what on earth would you have me to +say to Letty Lane?” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, just be nice to her,” he suggested. “Tell +her to take care of herself and to brace up. Get +some nice woman to—” +</p> +<p> +The duchess helped him. “To reform her?” +</p> +<p> +“Do her good,” the boy said gently. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84'></a>84</span> +</p> +<p> +“You’re too silly for words. If you were not +such a hopeless child I would be furious with +you. Why, my dear boy, she would laugh in +your face and in mine.” +</p> +<p> +As the duchess left the tea-table she repeated: +“Is this what you came up from London to talk +to me about?” +</p> +<p> +And at the touch of her dress as she passed +him—at the look she gave him from her eyes, +Dan flushed and said honestly: “Why, I told +you that she was the only thing that kept me +from thinking about you all the time.” +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85'></a>85</span><a name='chIX' id='chIX'></a>CHAPTER IX—DISAPPOINTMENT</h2> +<p> +Dan Blair had not been back of the +scenes at the Gaiety since his first call +on the singer. Indeed, though he had told +the duchess he pitied Miss Lane, he had not +been able to approach her very closely, even +in his own thoughts. When she first appeared +on his horizon his mind was full of the +Duchess of Breakwater, and the singer had +only hovered round his more profound feelings +for another woman. But Letty Lane was an atmosphere +in Dan’s mind which he was not yet +able to understand. There was so little left +that was connected with his old home, certainly +nothing in the British Isles, excepting Ruggles, +and to the young man everything from America +had its value. Decidedly the nice girl of whom +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86'></a>86</span> +he had spoken to Gordon Galorey, the print-frocked, +sun-bonneted type, the ideal girl that +Dan would like to marry and to spoil, had not +crossed his path. The Duchess of Breakwater did +not suggest her, nor did any of the London beauties. +Dan’s first ideal was beginning to fade. +</p> +<p> +He left Osdene Park on protest and returned +the same night to London, and all the way back +to town tried to register in his mind, unused to +analysis, his experience with the Duchess of +Breakwater on this last visit. +</p> +<p> +He had experienced his first disappointment +in the sex, and this disappointment had been of +an unusual kind. It was not that he had been +turned down or given the mitten, but he had seen +one woman turn another down. A woman had +been mean, so he put it, and the fact that the +Duchess of Breakwater had refused to lend a +moral hand to the singer at the Gaiety hurt +Dan’s feelings. Then, as soon as his enthusiasm +had calmed, he saw what a stupid ass he had +been. A duchess couldn’t mix up with a comic +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87'></a>87</span> +opera singer, of course. Still, he mused, “she +might have been a little nicer about it.” +</p> +<p> +The education his father had given him about +women, the slender information he had about +them, was put to the test now; the girl he had +dreamed of, “the nice girl,” well, she would have +had a tenderer way with her in a case such as +this! Back of Dan’s hurt feelings, there was a +great deal on the Duchess of Breakwater’s side. +She had not done for herself yet. She hadn’t +fetched him nearly up to the altar for nothing, +and back of his disapproval, there was a long +list of admirations and looks, memories of many +tête-à-têtes and of more fervent kisses which +scored a good deal in the favor of Dan’s first +woman. The Duchess of Breakwater had gone +boldly on with Dan’s unfinished education, and +he really thought he loved her, and that he was +in honor bound to see the thing through. +</p> +<hr class='tb' /> +<p> +That evening, once more in the box he had +taken all to himself, he listened to <em>Mandalay</em>, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88'></a>88</span> +carried away with the charm of the music and +carried away by the singer. He was in the box +nearest the stage and seemed close to her, and +he imagined that under her paint he could see +her pallor and how thin she was. Nothing, however, +in her acting or in her voice revealed the +least fatigue. Blair had obtained a card of entrance +to the theater, which permitted him to +circulate freely behind the scenes, and although +as yet the run of his visits had not been clear, +this night he had a purpose. Dan stood not far +from the corridor that led to Letty Lane’s room, +and saw her after her act hurriedly cross the +stage, a big white shawl wrapping her slender +form closely. She was as thin as a candle. Her +woman Higgins followed closely after her, and +as they passed Dan, Letty Lane called to him +gaily: +</p> +<p> +“Hello, you! What are you hanging around +here for?” +</p> +<p> +And Dan returned: “Don’t stand here in the +draft. It is beastly cold.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89'></a>89</span> +</p> +<p> +“Yes, Miss,” her woman urged, “don’t stand +here.” +</p> +<p> +But the actress waited nevertheless and said +to Dan: “Who’s the girl?” +</p> +<p> +“What girl?” +</p> +<p> +“Why, the girl you come here every night to +see and are too shy to speak to. Everybody is +crazy to know.” +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane looked like a little girl herself in +the crocheted garment her small hands held +across her breast. Dan put his arm on her +shoulder without realizing the familiarity of his +gesture: +</p> +<p> +“Get out of this draft—get out of it quick, +I say,” and pushed her toward her room. +</p> +<p> +“Gracious, but you are strong.” She felt +the muscular touch, and his hand flat against +her shoulder was warm through the wool. +</p> +<p> +“I wish <em>you</em> were strong. You work too +darned hard.” +</p> +<p> +Her head was covered with the coral cap and +feather. Dan saw her billowy skirt, her silken +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90'></a>90</span> +hose, her little coral shoes. She fluttered at the +door which Higgins opened. +</p> +<p> +“Why haven’t you been to see me?” she asked +him. “You are not very polite.” +</p> +<p> +“I am coming in now.” +</p> +<p> +“Not a bit of it. I’m too busy, and it is a +short entr’acte. Go and see the girl you came +here to see.” +</p> +<p> +Dan thought that the reason she forbade him +to come in was because Prince Poniotowsky +waited for her in her dressing-room. It was his +first jealous moment, and the feeling fell on +him with a swoop, and its fangs fastened in him +with a stinging pain. He stammered: +</p> +<p> +“I didn’t come to see any girl here but you. I +came to see you.” +</p> +<p> +“Come to-morrow at two, at the Savoy.” +</p> +<p> +But before Dan realized his own precipitation, +he had seized the door-handle as Letty Lane went +within and was about to close her room against +him, and said quickly: +</p> +<p> +“I’m coming right in now.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91'></a>91</span> +</p> +<p> +“Why, I never heard of such a thing,” she answered +sharply, angrily; “you must be crazy! +Take away your hand!” And hers, as well as his, +seized the handle of the door. Her small ice-cold +hand brought him to his senses. +</p> +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” he murmured confusedly. +“Do go in and get warm if you can.” +</p> +<p> +But instead of obeying, now that the rude +young man withdrew his importuning, Miss +Lane’s hands fell from the knob, and close to his +eyes she swayed before him, and Dan caught her +in his arms—went into her room, carrying her. +He had been wrong about Prince Poniotowsky; +save for Higgins, the room was empty. The +woman, though she exclaimed, showed no great +surprise and seemed prepared for such a fainting +spell. Dan laid the actress on the sofa and +then the dresser said to him: +</p> +<p> +“Please go, sir; I can quite manage. She has +these turns often. I’ll give her brandy. She +will be quite right.” +</p> +<p> +But Dan hesitated, looking at the bit of humanity that +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92'></a>92</span> +he had laid with great gentleness on +the divan covered with pillows. Letty Lane lay +there, small as a little child, inanimate as death. +It was hard to think the quiet little form could +contain such life, fire and motion, or that this +senseless little creature held London with her +voice and grace. Higgins knelt down by Letty +Lane’s side, quiet, capable, going about the business +of resuscitating her lady much as she laced +the singer’s bodice and shoes. “If you would be +so good as to open the door, sir, and send me a +call page. They’ll have to linger out this +entr’acte or put on some feature.” +</p> +<p> +“But,” exclaimed Blair, “she can’t go back +to-night?” +</p> +<p> +“Lord, yes,” Higgins returned. “Here, Miss +Lane; drink this.” +</p> +<p> +At the door where he paused, Dan saw the +girl lifted up, saw her lean on Higgins’ shoulder, +and assured then that she was not lifeless in +good truth, he went out to do as Higgins had +asked him. In a quarter of an hour the curtain +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93'></a>93</span> +rose and within half an hour Dan, from his box, +saw the actress dance to the rajah her charming +polka to the strains of the Hungarian Band. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94'></a>94</span><a name='chX' id='chX'></a>CHAPTER X—THE BOY FROM MY TOWN</h2> +<p> +He went the next day to see Letty Lane at +the Savoy and learned that she was too +ill to receive him. Mrs. Higgins in the sitting-room +told him so. +</p> +<p> +Dan liked the big cordial face of the Scotch-woman +who acted as companion, dresser and +maid for the star. Mrs. Higgins had an affable +face, one that welcomes, and she made it plain +that she was not an enemy to this young caller. +</p> +<p> +The visitor, in his blue serge clothes, was less +startling than most of the men that came to see +her mistress. +</p> +<p> +“She works too hard, doesn’t she?” +</p> +<p> +“She does everything too hard, sir.” +</p> +<p> +“She ought to rest.” +</p> +<p> +“I doubt if she does, even in her grave,” returned +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95'></a>95</span> +Higgins. “She is too full of motion. +She is like the little girl in the fairy book that +danced in her grave.” +</p> +<p> +Dan didn’t like this comparison. +</p> +<p> +“Can’t you make her hold up a little?” +</p> +<p> +Higgins smiled and shook her head. +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane’s sitting-room was as full of roses +as a flower garden. There were quantities of +theatrical photographs in silver and leather +frames on the tables and the piano. Signed portraits +from crowned heads; pictures of well-known +worldly men and women whom the dancer +had charmed. But a full-length picture of +Letty Lane herself in one of the dresses of <em>Mandalay</em> +lay on the table near Dan, and he picked +it up. She smiled at him enchantingly from the +cardboard, across which was written in her big, +dashing hand: “For the Boy from <em>my</em> Town. +Letty Lane.” +</p> +<p> +Dan glanced up at Mrs. Higgins. +</p> +<p> +“Why, that looks as though this were for +me.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96'></a>96</span> +</p> +<p> +The dressing woman nodded. “Miss Lane +thought she would be able to see you to-day.” +</p> +<p> +The picture in his hand, Dan gazed at it rapturously. +</p> +<p> +“I’m from Blairtown, Montana, where she +came from.” +</p> +<p> +“So she told me, sir.” +</p> +<p> +He laid the picture back on the table, and +Higgins understood that he wanted Miss Lane +to give it to him herself. She led him affably to +the door and affably smiled upon him. She had +a frill in her hand, a thimble on her finger, and +a lot of needles in her bodice. She looked motherly +and useful. Blair liked to think of her +with Letty Lane. He put his hand in his pocket, +but she saw his gesture and reproved him quietly: +“No, no, sir, please, I never do. I am just +as much obliged,” and her face remained so affable +that Blair was not embarrassed by her refusal. +His parting words were: +</p> +<p> +“Now, you make her take care of herself.” +</p> +<p> +And to please him, as she opened the door, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97'></a>97</span> +she pleasantly assured him that she would do her +very best. +</p> +<p> +Dan went out of the Savoy feeling that he had +left something of himself behind him in the motley +room of an actress with its perfumed atmosphere +of roses and violets. The photograph +which he had laid down on the table seemed to +look out at him again, and he repeated delightedly, +“That one was for me, all right! I’m the +‘boy from her town’ and no mistake.” And he +thought of her as she had lain, lifelessly and +pale on the dressing-room sofa, under the touch +of hired hands, and how, no doubt, she had +been lying in her room when he called to-day, +with shades drawn, resting before the long hard +evening, when London would be amused by her, +delighted by her, charmed by her voice, by her +body and her grace. He had wandered up as far +as Piccadilly, went into a florist’s and stood before +the flowers. Her sitting-room had been full +of roses, but Dan chose something else that had +caught his eye from the window,—a huge country basket +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98'></a>98</span> +of primroses, smelling of the earth +and the spring. He sent them with his card and +wrote on it, “To the Girl from My Town,” and +sent the gift with a pleasure as young and as +fresh as was his own heart. +</p> +<p> +He got no note of acknowledgment from his +flowers. Miss Lane was evidently better and +played every night; no mention was made of her +indisposition in the papers. But Dan couldn’t +go to the Gaiety or bear to see her make the effort +which he knew must tire her beyond words +to conceive. +</p> +<p> +After a few days he called at the Savoy to +get news of her. He got as far as the lift when +going up in it he saw Prince Poniotowsky. The +sight affected Miss Lane’s townsman so forcibly +that instead of going up to the dancer’s apartment +Dan took himself off, and anger, displeasure +and something like disgust were the only +sentiments he carried away from the Savoy. He +sent her no flowers, and gave himself up unreservedly +to Joshua Ruggles and to a couple of +men who came in to see him by appointment. +And when toward four o’clock he found himself +alone with Ruggles, Dan threw himself down in +a big chair and looked intensely bored. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i004' id='i004'></a> +<img src='images/illus-003.jpg' alt='' title=''/><br /> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99'></a>99</span></div> +<p> +“Well, I guess we don’t need to see any more +of these fellows for a week, Dan,” Ruggles +yawned with relief. “I’m blamed if it isn’t as +hard to take care of money as to get it. I was +a poor man once, and so was your father. Those +were the days we had fun.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles took out a big cigar, struck a match +sharply, and when he had lit his Henry Clay he +fixed his gaze on the flying London fog, whose +black curtain drew itself across their window. +</p> +<p> +“There’s a lot of excitement,” Ruggles said, +“in not knowing what you’re going to get; may +turn out to be anything when you’re young and +on the trail. That’s the way your father and +me felt. And when we started out on the spot +that’s Blairtown on the map to-day, your father +had forty dollars a week to engineer a busted +mine and to pull the company into shape.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100'></a>100</span> +</p> +<p> +Dan knew the story of his father’s rise by +heart, but he listened. +</p> +<p> +“He took on with the mine a lot of discontented +half-hearted rapscallions—a whole bunch, +who had failed all along the line. He didn’t +chuck ’em out. ‘There’s no life in old wood, +Josh,’ he said to me, ‘but sometimes there’s fire in +it, and I’m going to light up,’ and he did. He +won over the whole lot of them in eighteen +months, and within two years he had that darned +mine paying dividends. Meanwhile something +came his way and he took it.” +</p> +<p> +From his chair Dan asked: “You mean the +Bentley claim?” +</p> +<p> +“Measles,” his friend said comically, with a +grin. “Your father was sick to death with them. +When he was sitting up for the first time, peeling +in his room, there was a fellow, an Englishman, +a total stranger, come in to see him. ‘Better +clear out of here,’ your father says to him. +‘I’m shedding the damnedest disease for a grown +man that ever was caught.’ ‘I’m not afraid of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101'></a>101</span> +it,’ the Englishman said, ‘I’m shedding worse.’ +When your father asked him what that was, he +said the idea that he could make any money in +the West. He told your father that he was going +back to England and give up his western schemes, +and that he had a claim to sell, and he told Blair +where it lay. ‘Who has seen it?’ your father +asked. ‘Any of my men?’ And the Englishman +told your father that nobody had wanted to buy +it and that was why he had come to him. He said +he thought his only chance to sell was to hold up +some blind man on his dying bed and that he had +heard that Blair was too sick to stir out of his +room and to prospect. Your father liked the +fellow’s cheek and when he found out that he had +the maps with him, your father bought the whole +blooming sweep at the man’s price, which was a +mere song. +</p> +<p> +“Your father never went near his purchase +for a year or more, and when he had turned the +mine he was managing over to the original company, +with me as manager in his place, at a salary of twenty +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102'></a>102</span> +thousand dollars a year, he said to +me one day, ‘Ruggles, you’ll be sorry to know +that the fun is all over, I’ve struck oil.’ But the +oil was copper. The whole blooming business +that he’d bought of that Englishman was rich +with ore. Well, that’s the story of Blairtown,” +Ruggles said. “You were born there and your +mother died there.” +</p> +<p> +Dan said: “Galorey told me what dad did +later for the man that sold him the mine, and it +was just like everything else he did, for dad was +all right, just as good as they come.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles agreed. He left his reminiscences +abruptly. “Your dad and me had the fun in our +time; now you are going to get the other kind; +you’re going to make the dust fly that he dug +up.” +</p> +<p> +And the rich young man said musingly: “I’ll +bet it isn’t half as good at my end.” +</p> +<p> +And Ruggles agreed: “Not by a jugful.” +And followed: “What’s on to-night? <em>Mandalay?</em>” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103'></a>103</span> +</p> +<p> +Dan’s fury at Prince Poniotowsky came back. +“I guess you thought I was a little loose in the +lid, didn’t you, Josh, going so often to the same +play?” +</p> +<p> +“You wouldn’t have been the first rich man +that had the same disease,” Ruggles answered. +</p> +<p> +“There is nothing the matter with <em>Mandalay</em>, +but I’m not gone on any actress living, Josh; +you are in the wrong pew.” +</p> +<p> +Dan altered his indolent pose and sat forward. +“But I <em>am</em> thinking of getting married,” he said. +</p> +<p> +“I hope it’s to the right girl, Dan.” +</p> +<p> +And with young assurance Blair answered: +“It will be if I marry her. I know what I want +all right.” +</p> +<p> +“I hope she knows what she wants, Dan.” +</p> +<p> +“How do you mean?” +</p> +<p> +“You or your money. You have the darnedest +handicap, my boy.” +</p> +<p> +Blair flushed. “I’ll get to hate the whole +thing,” he said ferociously. “It meets me everywhere—bonds—stocks—figures—dividends +—coupons—deeds—it’s too much!” he said suddenly, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104'></a>104</span> +with resentment. “It is too much for me. +Why, sometimes I feel a hundred years old, and +like a hunk of gold.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles, in answer to this, said: “Why, that +reminds me of what a man remarked about your +father once. It was the same English chap your +father bought the claim of. Speaking of Blair, +he said to me: ‘You know there’s all kinds of +metal bars, and when you cut into them some is +bullion and some’s coated with aluminum, and +there’s others that when you cut down, cut a +clean yellow all along the line.’ If, as you say, +you feel like a hunk of metal, it ain’t bad if it is +that kind.” +</p> +<p> +“It’s got to stop coming in between me and +the woman I marry, all right, though.” Dan +did not pursue his subject further, for his feelings +about the duchess were too unreal to give +him the sincere heartiness with which he would +have liked to answer Ruggles. +</p> +<p> +He went over to the window, and, with his +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105'></a>105</span> +hands in his pockets, stood looking out at the +fog. Ruggles, at the table, opened the cover of +the book of <em>Mandalay</em> and took out the four +checks made out to Lady Galorey and which he +had forgotten. He hurriedly thrust them into +his pocket. +</p> +<p> +“Come away, Dannie,” he said cheerfully, +“let’s do something wild. I feel up to most anything +with this miserable fog down on me. If it +had any nerve it would take some form or shape, +so a man could choke it back.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles blew his nose violently. +</p> +<p> +“There’s nothing to do,” said Dan in a bored +tone. +</p> +<p> +“Why don’t you see who your telegram is +from?” Ruggles asked him. It proved to be a +suggestion from Gordon Galorey that Dan +should meet him at five o’clock at the club. +</p> +<p> +“What will you do, Rug?” +</p> +<p> +“Sleep,” said the Westerner serenely; “I’m +nearly as happy in London as I am in Philadelphia. +It’s four o’clock now and I can’t sleep +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106'></a>106</span> +more than four hours anyway. Let’s have a real +wild time, Dannie.” +</p> +<p> +Dan looked at him doubtfully, but Ruggles’ +eyes were keen. +</p> +<p> +“What kind of a time do you mean?” +</p> +<p> +“Let’s ask the Gaiety girl for dinner—for +supper after the theater.” +</p> +<p> +“Letty Lane? She wouldn’t go.” +</p> +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> +<p> +“She is awfully delicate; it is all she can do to +keep her contracts.” +</p> +<p> +He knows that, Ruggles thought. “Let’s ask +her and see.” He went over to the table and +drew out the paper. “Come on and write and +ask her to go out with us to supper.” +</p> +<p> +“See here, Rug, what’s this for?” +</p> +<p> +“What’s strange in it? She is from our state, +and if you don’t hustle and ask her I am going +to ask her all alone.” +</p> +<p> +Dan was puzzled as he sat down to the table, +reflecting that it was perfectly possible that old +Ruggles had fallen a prey to the charms of an +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107'></a>107</span> +actress. She wouldn’t come, of course. He +wrote a formal invitation without thinking very +much of what he said or how, folded and addressed +his note. +</p> +<p> +“What did you say?” Ruggles asked eagerly. +</p> +<p> +“Why, that two boys from home wanted to +give her a supper.” +</p> +<p> +“Well,” said Ruggles, “if the answer comes +while you are at the club I’ll open it and give +the orders. Think she’ll come?” +</p> +<p> +“I do not,” responded Dan rather brutally. +“She’s got others to take her out to supper, you +bet your life.” +</p> +<p> +“Well, there’s none of them as rich as you are, +I reckon, Dan.” +</p> +<p> +And the boy turned on him violently. +</p> +<p> +“See here, Josh, if you speak to me again of +my money, when there’s a woman in the question—” +</p> +<p> +He did not finish his threat, but snatched up +his coat and hat and gloves and went out of the +door, slamming it after him. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108'></a>108</span> +</p> +<p> +Mr. Ruggles’ profound and happy snore was +cut short by the page boy, who fetched in a note, +with the Savoy stamping on the back. Ruggles +opened it not without emotion. +</p> +<p> +“Dear boy,” it ran, “I haven’t yet thanked +you for the primroses; they were perfectly +sweet. There is not one of them in any of my +rooms, and I’ll tell you why to-night. I am +crazy to accept for supper”—here she had evidently +struck out her intended refusal, and +closed with, “I’m coming, but don’t come after +me at the Gaiety, please. I’ll meet you at the +Carlton after the theater. Who’s the other +boy? L. L.” +</p> +<p> +The “other boy” read the note with much difficulty, +for it was badly written. “He’ll have +to stop sending her flowers and going every +night to the theater unless he wants a row with +the duchess,” he said dryly. And with a certain +interest in his rôle, Ruggles rang for the +head waiter, and with the man’s help ordered +his first midnight supper for an actress. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109'></a>109</span><a name='chXI' id='chXI'></a>CHAPTER XI—RUGGLES GIVES A DINNER</h2> +<p> +The bright tide of worldly London flows +after and around midnight into the various +restaurants and supper rooms, and as well +through the corridors and halls of the Carlton. +At one of the small tables bearing a great expensive +bunch of orchids and soft ferns, Josh +Ruggles, in a new evening dress, sat waiting for +his party. Dan had dined with Lord Galorey, +and the two men had gone out together afterward, +and Ruggles had not seen the boy to +give him Letty Lane’s note. +</p> +<p> +“Got it with you?” Blair asked when he came +in, and Ruggles responded that he didn’t carry +love letters around in his dress clothes. +</p> +<p> +They could tell by the interest in the room +when the actress was coming, and both men rose +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110'></a>110</span> +as Letty Lane floated in at flood tide with a +crowd of last arrivals. +</p> +<p> +She had not dressed this evening with the +intention that her dark simplicity of attire +should be conspicuous. The cloak which Dan +took from her shed the perfume of orris and +revealed the woman in a blaze of sparkling +<em>paillettes</em>. She seemed made out of sparkle, and +her blond head, from which a bright ornament +shook, was the most brilliant thing about her, +though her dress from hem to throat glistened +with discs of gold like moonshine on a starry +sea. The actress’ look of surprise when she saw +Ruggles indicated that she had not expected a +boy of his age. +</p> +<p> +“The other boy?” she asked. “Well, this is +the nicest supper party ever! And you are +awfully good to invite me.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles patted his shirt front and adjusted +his cravat. +</p> +<p> +“My idea,” he told her, “all the blame on me, +Miss Lane. Charge it up to me! Dan here had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111'></a>111</span> +cold feet from the first. He said you wouldn’t +come.” +</p> +<p> +She laughed deliciously. +</p> +<p> +“He did? Hasn’t got much faith, has he?” +</p> +<p> +Miss Lane drew her long gloves off, touched +the orchids with her little hands, on which the +ever present rings flashed, and went on talking +to Ruggles, to whom she seemed to want to address +her conversation. +</p> +<p> +“I’m simply crazy over these flowers.” +</p> +<p> +The older man showed his pleasure. “My +choice again! Walked up myself and chose the +bunch, blame me again; ditto dinner; mine from +start to finish—hope you’ll like it. I would +have added some Montana peas and some chocolate +soda-water, only I thought you might not +understand the joke.” +</p> +<p> +Miss Lane beamed on him. Although he +was unconscious of it, she was not fully at ease: +he was not the kind of man she had expected to +see. Accustomed to young fellows like the boy +and their mad devotion, accustomed to men with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112'></a>112</span> +whom she could be herself, the big, bluff, middle-aged +gentleman with his painfully correct tie, +his rumpled iron-gray hair, and his deference to +her, though an unusual diversion, was a little +embarrassing. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, I know your dinner is ripping, Mr. +Ruggles. I’m on a diet of milk and eggs myself, +and I expect your order didn’t take in +those.” But at his fallen countenance she hurried +to say: “Oh, I wouldn’t have told you +that if I hadn’t been intending to break +through.” +</p> +<p> +And with childlike anticipation she clapped +her hands and said: “We’re going to have ‘lots +of fun.’ Just think, they don’t know what that +means here in London. They say ‘heaps of +sport, you know.’” She imitated the accent +maliciously. “It’s just we Americans who know +what ‘lots of fun’ is, isn’t it?” +</p> +<p> +Near her Dan Blair’s young eyes were drinking +in the spectacle of delicate beauty beautifully +gowned, of soft skin, glorious hair, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113'></a>113</span> +he gazed like a child at a pantomime. Under +his breath he exclaimed now, with effusion, “You +bet your life we are going to have lots of fun!” +And turning to him, Miss Lane said: +</p> +<p> +“Six chocolate sodas running?” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, don’t,” he begged, “not that kind of +jag.” +</p> +<p> +She shook with laughter. +</p> +<p> +“Are you from Blairtown, Mr. Ruggles? I +don’t think I ever saw you there.” +</p> +<p> +And the Westerner returned: “Well, from +what Dan tells me, you’re not much of a fixture +yourself, Miss Lane. You were just about born +and then kidnapped.” +</p> +<p> +Her gay expression faded. And she repeated +his word, “Kidnapped? That’s a good word +for it, Mr. Ruggles.” +</p> +<p> +She picked up between her fingers a strand of +the green fern, and looked at its delicate tracery +as it lay on the palm of her hand. +</p> +<p> +“I sang one day after a missionary sermon in +the Presbyterian Church.” She interrupted herself with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114'></a>114</span> +a short laugh. “But I guess you’re +not thinking of writing my biography, are +you?” +</p> +<p> +And it was Dan’s voice that urged her. “Say, +do go on. I was there that day with my father, +and you sang simply out of sight.” +</p> +<p> +“Yes,” she accepted, “out of sight of Blairtown +and everybody I ever knew. I went away +the next day.” She lifted her glass of champagne +to her lips. “Here’s one thing I oughtn’t +to do,” she said, “but I’m going to just the +same. I’m going to do everything I want this +evening. Remember, I let you drink six glasses +of chocolate soda once.” She drained her glass +and her friends drank with her. “I like this +soup awfully. What is it?”—just touching it +with her spoon. +</p> +<p> +“Why,” Ruggles hastened to tell her, “it +ain’t a <em>party</em> soup, it’s Scotch broth. But somehow +it sounded good on the bill of fare. I fixed +the rest of the dinner up for you and Dan, but +I let myself go on the soup, it’s my favorite.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115'></a>115</span> +</p> +<p> +She did not eat it, however, although she said +it was splendid and that she was crazy about it. +</p> +<p> +“Did you come East then?” Dan returned to +what she had been saying. +</p> +<p> +“Yes, that week; went to Paris and all over +the place.” +</p> +<p> +She instantly fell into a sort of melancholy. +It was easy to be seen that she did not want to +talk about her past and yet that it fascinated +her. +</p> +<p> +“Just think of it!” he exclaimed. “I never +heard a word about you until I heard you sing +the other night.” +</p> +<p> +The actress laughed and told him that he had +made up for lost time, and that he was a regular +“sitter” now at the Gaiety. +</p> +<p> +Ruggles said, “He took me every night to +see you dance until I balked, Miss Lane.” +</p> +<p> +“Still, it’s a perfectly great show, Mr. Ruggles, +don’t you think so? I like it better than +any part I ever had. I am interested about it +for the sake of the man who wrote it, too. It’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116'></a>116</span> +his first opera; he’s an invalid and has a wife +and five kids to look after.” +</p> +<p> +And Ruggles replied, “Oh, gracious! I feel +better than ever, having gone ten times, although +I wasn’t <em>very</em> sore about it before! +Ain’t you going to eat anything?” +</p> +<p> +She only picked at her food, drinking what +they poured in her glass, and every time she +spoke to Dan a look of charming kindness +crossed her face, an expression of good fellowship +which Ruggles noted with interest. +</p> +<p> +“I wish you could have seen this same author +to-day at the rehearsal of the play,” Letty Lane +went on. “He’s too ill to walk and they had to +carry him in a chair. We all went round to his +apartments after the theater. He lives in three +rooms with his whole family and he’s had so +many debts and so much trouble and such a +poor contract that he hasn’t made much out of +<em>Mandalay</em>, but I guess he will out of this new +piece. He hugged and kissed me until I thought +he would break my neck.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117'></a>117</span> +</p> +<p> +London had gone mad over Letty Lane, whose +traits and contour were the admiration of the +world at large and well-known even to the news-boys, +and whose likeness was nearly as familiar +as that of the Madonnas of old. Her face was +oval and perfectly formed, with the reddest of +mouths—the most delicious and softest of +mouths—the line of her brows clear and straight, +and her gray eyes large and as innocent and +appealing as a child’s; under their long lashes +they opened up like flowers. It was said that +no man could withstand their appeal; that she +had but to look to make a man her slave; and as +more than once she turned to Dan, smiling and +gracious, Ruggles watched her, mutely thinking +of what he had heard this day, for after her letter +came accepting their invitation he had taken +pains to find out the things he wanted to know. +It had not been difficult. As her face and form +were public, on every post-card and in every +photographer’s shop, so the actress’ reputation +was the property of the public. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118'></a>118</span> +</p> +<p> +As Ruggles repeated these things to himself, +he watched her beside the son of his old friend. +They were talking—rather she was—and behind +the orchids and the ferns her voice was sweet +and enthralling. Ruggles tried to appreciate +his bill of fare while the two appreciated each +other. It was strange to Dan to have her so +near and so approachable. His sights of her +off the stage had been so slight and fleeting. +On the boards she had seemed to be an unreal +creation made for the public alone. Her dress, +cut fearlessly low, displayed her lovely young +bosom—soft, bloomy, white as a shell—and her +head and ears were as delicate as the petals of +a white rose. Low in the nape of her neck, her +golden hair lay lightly, and from its soft masses +fragrance came to him. +</p> +<p> +Ruggles could hear her say: “Roach came +to the house and told my people that I had a +fortune in my voice. I was living with my uncle +and my step-aunt and working in the store. +And that same day your father sent down a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119'></a>119</span> +check for five hundred dollars. He said it was +‘for the little girl with the sweet voice,’ and it +gives me a lot of pleasure to think that I began +my lessons on <em>that money</em>.” +</p> +<p> +The son of old Dan Blair said earnestly: +“I’m darned glad you did—I’m darned glad you +did!” +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane nodded. “So am I. But,” with +some sharpness, “I don’t see why you speak that +way. I’ve earned my way. I made a fortune +for Roach all right.” +</p> +<p> +“You mean the man you married?” +</p> +<p> +“Married—goodness gracious, what made you +think that?” She threw back her pretty head +and laughed—a laugh with the least possible +merriment in it. “Oh, Heavens, marry old Job +Roach! So they say <em>that</em>, do they? I never +heard that. I hear a lot, but I never heard that +fairy tale.” She put her hands to her checks, +which had grown crimson. “That’s not true!” +</p> +<p> +Dan swore at himself for his tactless stupidity. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120'></a>120</span> +</p> +<p> +Ruggles had heard both sides. She was +adored by the poor, and, as far as rumor knew, +she spent thousands on the London paupers, +and the Westerner, who had never been given +to reveling in scandals and to whom there was +something wicked in speaking ill of a woman, +no matter whom she might be, listened with +embarrassment to tales he had been told in answer +to his other questions; and turned with +relief to the stories of Letty Lane’s charity, and +to the stories of her popularity and her success. +They were more agreeable, but they couldn’t +make him forget the rest, and now as he looked +at her face across the bouquet of orchids and +ferns, it was with a sinking of heart, a great +pity for her, and still a decided enmity. He +disapproved of her down to the ground. He +didn’t let himself think how he felt, but it was +for the boy. Ruggles was not a man of the +world in any sense; he was simple and Puritan in +his judgments, and his gentle nature and his big +heart kept him from pharisaical and strenuous +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121'></a>121</span> +measures. He had been led in what he was doing +to-night by a diplomacy and a common sense +that few men east of the Mississippi would have +thought out under the circumstances. +</p> +<p> +“Tell Mr. Ruggles,” he heard Dan say to +her, “tell him—tell him!” +</p> +<p> +And she answered: +</p> +<p> +“I was telling Mr. Blair that, as he is so +frightfully rich, I want him to give me some +money.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles gasped, but answered quietly: +</p> +<p> +“Well, he’s a great giver, Miss Lane.” +</p> +<p> +“I guess he is if he’s like his father!” she returned. +“I am trying to get a lot, though, out +of him, and when you asked me to dine to-night +I said to myself, ‘I’ll accept, for it will be a good +time to ask Mr. Blair to help me out in what I +want to do.’” +</p> +<p> +At Ruggles’ face she smiled sweetly and said +graciously: +</p> +<p> +“Oh, don’t think I wouldn’t have come anyway. +But I’m awfully tired these days, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122'></a>122</span> +going out to supper is just one thing too much to +do! I want Mr. Blair,” she said, turning to +Ruggles as if she knew a word from him would +make the thing go through, “to help me build +a rest home down on the English coast, for +girls who get discouraged in their art. When +I think of the <em>luck</em> I have had and how these +things have been from the beginning, and how +money has just poured in, why,” she said ardently, +“it just makes my heart ache to think +of the girls who try and fail, who go on for a +little while and have to give up. You can’t +tell,”—she nodded to Ruggles, as though she +were herself a matron of forty,—“you can not +tell what their temptations are or what comes +up to make them go to pieces.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles listened with interest. +</p> +<p> +“I haven’t thought it all out yet, but so many +come to me tired out and discouraged, and I +think a nice home taken care of by a good creature +like my Higgins, let us say, would be a +perfect blessing to them. They could go there +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123'></a>123</span> +and rest and study and just think, and perhaps,” +she said slowly, as though while she +spoke she saw a vision of a tired self, for whom +there had been no rest home and no place of +retreat, “perhaps a lot of them would pull +through in a different way. Now to-day”—she +broke her meditative tone short—“I got a letter +from a hospital where a poor thing that used +to sing with me in New York was dying with +consumption—all gone to pieces and discouraged, +and there is where your primroses went +to—” she nodded to Dan. “Higgins took them. +You don’t mind?” And Blair, with a warmth +in his voice, touched by her pity more than by +her charity, said: +</p> +<p> +“Why, they grew for you, Miss Lane; I don’t +care what you do with them.” +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane sank her head on her hands, her +elbows leaned on the table. She seemed suddenly +to have lost interest even in her topic. +She looked around the room indifferently. The +orchestra was softly playing <em>The Dove Song</em> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124'></a>124</span> +from <em>Mandalay</em>, and very softly under her +breath the star hummed it, her eyes vaguely +fixed on some unknown scene. To Dan and to +Ruggles she had grown strange. The music, +her brilliancy, her sudden indifference, put her +out of their commonplace reach. Ruggles to +himself thought with relief: +</p> +<p> +“She doesn’t care one rap for the boy anyway, +thank God. She’s got other fish to land.” +</p> +<p> +And Dan Blair thought: “It’s my infernal +money again.” But he was generous at heart +and glad to be of service to her, and was perfectly +willing to be “touched” for her poor. +Then two or three men came up and joined them. +She greeted them indolently, bestowing a word +or a look on this one or on that; all fire and +light seemed to have gone out of her, and Dan +said: +</p> +<p> +“You are tired. I guess I had better take you +home.” +</p> +<p> +She did not appear to hear him. Indeed she +was not looking at him, and Dan saw Prince +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125'></a>125</span> +Poniotowsky making his way toward their table +across the room. +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane rose. Dan put her cloak about +her shoulders, and glancing toward Ruggles +and toward the boy as indifferently as she had +considered the new-comers, who formed a small +group around the brilliant figure of the actress, +she nodded good night to both Ruggles and +Blair and went up to the Hungarian as though +he were her husband, who had come to take her +home. However, at the door she sufficiently +shook off her mood to smile slightly at Dan: +</p> +<p> +“I have had ‘lots of fun,’ and the Scotch +broth was great! Thank you both so much.” +</p> +<p> +Until they were up in their sitting-room her +hosts did not exchange a word. Then Ruggles +took a book up from the table and sat down with +his cigar. “I am going to read a little, Dan. +Slept all day; feel as wide-awake as an owl.” +</p> +<p> +Dan showed no desire to be communicative, +however, to Ruggles’ disappointment, but he exclaimed +abruptly: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126'></a>126</span> +</p> +<p> +“I’ll be darned, Ruggles, if I can guess what +you asked her for!” +</p> +<p> +“Well, it did turn out to be a pretty expensive +party for you, Dannie, didn’t it?” Ruggles +returned humorously. “I’ll let you off from any +more supper parties.” +</p> +<p> +And Dan fumed as he turned his back. “<em>Expensive!</em> +There you are again, Ruggles, with +your infernal intrusion of money into everything +I do.” +</p> +<p> +When the older man found himself alone, he +read a little and then put his book down to +muse. And his meditations were on the tide of +life and the beds it runs over; the living whirlpool +as Ruggles himself had seen it coursing +through London under fog and mist. It seemed +now to surge up in the dark to his very windows, +and the flow mysteriously passed under +his windows in these silent hours when no one +can see the muddy, muddy bottom over which the +waters go. Out of the sound, as it flowed on, +the cries rose, he thought, kindly to his ears: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127'></a>127</span> +“God bless her—God bless Letty Lane!” And +with this sound he closed his meditations, thinking +of a more peaceful stream, the brighter, +sweeter waters of the boy’s nature, translucent +and clear. The vision was happier, and with it +Ruggles rose and yawned, and shut his book. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128'></a>128</span><a name='chXII' id='chXII'></a>CHAPTER XII—THE GREEN KNIGHT</h2> +<p> +The Duchess of Breakwater had made Dan +promise at Osdene the day he went back to +London that he would take her over to her own +place, Stainer Court, and with her see the +beauty, ruins and traditions of the place. +</p> +<p> +When Dan got up well on in the morning, +Ruggles had gone to the bank. Dan’s thoughts +turned from everything to Letty Lane. With +irritation he put her out of his mind. There +had come up between himself and the girl he +had known slightly in his own town years ago +a wall of partition. Every time he saw her +Poniotowsky was there, condescending, arrogant, +rude and proud. The prince the night +before had given the tips of his fingers to Dan, +nodded to Ruggles as if the Westerner had been +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129'></a>129</span> +his tailor, and had appropriated Letty Lane, and +she had gone away under his shadow. The simplicity +of Dan’s life, his decent bringing up, +his immaculate youth, for such it was, his aloofness +from the world, made him naïve, but he was +not dull. He waited—not like a skeptic who +would fit every one into his pigeonholes—on the +contrary, he waited to find every one as perfect +as he knew they must be, and every time he tried +to think of Letty Lane, Poniotowsky troubled +him horribly and seemed to rise before him, and +sardonically look at him through his eye-glass, +making the boy’s belief in good things ridiculous. +</p> +<p> +He wrote a note to Ruggles, saying that he +would be back late and not to wait for him, and +set out in his own car for Blankshire, where the +duchess was to meet him at Stainer Court at +noon. On his way out he decided that he had +been a fool to discuss Letty Lane with the +Duchess of Breakwater, and that it had been +none of his business to put her duty before her, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130'></a>130</span> +and that he had judged her quickly and unfairly. +He fell in love with the lovely English +country over which his motor took him, and it +made him more affectionate toward the English +woman. He sat back in his car, looking over +the fine shooting land, the misty golden forests, +as through the misty country his motor took its +way. The breath of England was on his cheeks, +he breathed in its odors fresh and sweet, the +windless air was cool and fragrant. His cheeks +grew red, his eyes shone like stars, and he was +content with his youth and his lot. When they +stopped at Castelene, the property belonging +to Stainer Court, he felt something of proprietorship +stir in him, and at Stainer Arms ordered +a drink, bought petroleum, and then +pushed up the avenue under the leafless giant +trees, whose roots were older than his father’s +name or than any state of the Union. And he +felt admiration and something like emotion as +he saw the first towers of Stainer Court finally +appear. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131'></a>131</span> +</p> +<p> +The duchess waited for him in the room known +as the “Green Knight’s Room,” because of a +figure in tapestry on the walls. The legend in +wool had been woven in Spain, somewhere about +the time when Isabella was kind, and when in +turn a continent loomed up for the world in general +out of the mist. The subject of the Green +Knight’s tapestry was simple and convincing. +On a sheer-cut village of low ferns, where daisies +stood up like trees, a slender lady poised, her +dark sandaled feet on the pin-like turf. Her +figure was all swathed round with a spotless +dress of woolly white, softened by age into a +golden misty tone, and a pair of friendly and +confidential rabbits sat close to her golden slippers. +The lady’s face was candid and mild; her +eyes were soft, and around her head was wound +a fillet of woven threads, mellow in tone, a red, +no doubt, originally, but softened to a coral +pink by time. This lady in all her grace and +virginal sweetness was only half of the woven +story. To her right stood a youth in forest +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132'></a>132</span> +green, his sword drawn, and his intention evidently +to kill a creature which, near to the gentle +rabbits, out of the daisied grass lifted its cruel +snakelike head. For nearly five hundred years +the serpent’s venom had been poised, and if the +serpent should start the Green Knight would +strike, too, at the same magic moment. +</p> +<p> +Close to the tapestry a fire had been laid in +the broad fireplace, and the duchess had ordered +the luncheon table for Dan and herself spread +with the cold things England knows how to combine +into a delectable feast. The room was full +of mediæval furnishings, but the Green Knight +was the best of all. The Duchess of Breakwater +took him for granted. She had known +him all her life, and she had only been struck +by his expensive beauty when the offer came to +her from the National Museum to buy him, and +she wondered how long she could afford to stick +to her price. +</p> +<p> +When Dan came in he found her in a short +tweed skirt, a mannish blouse, looking boyish +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133'></a>133</span> +and wholly charming, and she mixed him a cocktail +under the Green Knight’s very nose and +offered it with the wisdom of the serpent itself, +and the duchess didn’t in the least suggest the +white-robed, milk-white lady. +</p> +<p> +The friends drank their cocktails in good +spirits, and Dan presented the lady with the +flowers he had brought her, and he felt a strong +sentiment stir at the sight of her in this old +room, alone and waiting for him. The servants +left them, the duchess put her hands on the boy’s +broad shoulders. Nearly as tall as he, she was +a good example of the best-looking English +woman, straight and strong, and her eyes were +level, and Dan met them with his own. +</p> +<p> +“I am so glad you came,” she murmured. +“I’ve been ragging myself every minute since +you went away from Osdene.” +</p> +<p> +“You have? What for?” +</p> +<p> +“Because I was such a perfect prig. I’ll do +anything you like for Miss Lane. I mean to say, +I’ll arrange for a musicale and ask her to sing.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134'></a>134</span> +</p> +<p> +The color rushed into Dan’s face. How bully +of her! What a brick this showed her to be! +He said: “You are as sweet as a peach!” +</p> +<p> +The duchess’ hands were still on his shoulders. +She could feel his rapid breath. +</p> +<p> +“I don’t make you think of a box of candy +now?” she murmured, and the boy covered her +hand with his own. +</p> +<p> +“I don’t know what you make me think of—it +is bully, whatever it is!” +</p> +<p> +If the Spanish tapestry could only have reversed +its idea, and if the immaculate lady, or +even one of the rabbits, could have drawn a +sword to protect the Green Knight, it would +have been passing well. But the woven work, +when it first had been embroidered, was done for +ever; it was irrevocable in its mistaken idea, +that it is only the <em>woman</em> who needs protection! +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135'></a>135</span><a name='chXIII' id='chXIII'></a>CHAPTER XIII—THE FACE OF LETTY LANE</h2> +<p> +As Dan went through the halls of the Carlton +on his way to his rooms that same +evening, the porter gave him two notes, which +Dan went down into the smoking-room to read. +He tore open the note bearing the Hotel Savoy +on the envelope, and read: +</p> +<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'> +“<span class='sc'>Dear Boy</span>: Will you come around to-night +and see me about five o’clock? Don’t let anything +keep you.” (Letty Lane had the habit of +scratching out phrases to insert others, and +there was something scratched out.) “I want to +talk to you about something very important. +Come sure. L. L.” +</p> +<p> +Dan looked at the clock; it was after nine, +and she would be at the Gaiety going on with +her performance. +</p> +<p> +The other note, which he opened more slowly, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136'></a>136</span> +was from Ruggles, and it began in just the +same way as the dancer’s had begun: +</p> +<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'> +“<span class='sc'>Dear Boy</span>: I have been suddenly called back +to the United States. As I didn’t know how to +get at you, I couldn’t. I had a cable that takes +me right back. I get the <em>Lusitania</em> at Liverpool +and you can send me a Marconi. Better make the +first boat you can and come over. +</p> +<p style='text-align:right; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-right:2em;;'>“<span class='sc'>Joshua Ruggles.</span>”</p> +<p> +Ruggles left no word of advice, and unconscious +of this master stroke on the part of the +old man, whose heart yearned for him as for +his own son, Dan folded the note up and thought +no more about Ruggles. +</p> +<p> +When an hour later he came out of the Carlton +he was prepared for the life of the evening. +He stopped at the telephone desk and sent a +telegram to Ruggles on the <em>Lusitania</em>: +</p> +<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'> +“Can’t come yet a while; am engaged to be +married to the Duchess of Breakwater.” +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137'></a>137</span></div> +<p> +He wrote this out in full and the man at the +Marconi “sat up” and smiled as he wrote. With +Letty Lane’s badly written note in his pocket, +and wondering very much at her summons of +him, Dan drove to the Gaiety, and at the end of +the third act went back of the scenes. There +were several people in her dressing-room. Higgins +was lacing her into a white bodice and Miss +Lane, before her glass, was putting the rouge +on her lips. +</p> +<p> +“Hello, you,” she nodded to Dan. +</p> +<p> +“I am awfully sorry not to have shown up at +five. Just got your note. Just got in at the +hotel; been out of town all day.” +</p> +<p> +Dan saw that none of the people in the room +was familiar to him, and that they were out of +place in the pretty brocaded nest. One of them +was a Jew, a small man with a glass eye, whose +fixed stare rested on Miss Lane. He had kept +on his overcoat, and his derby hat hung on the +back of his head. +</p> +<p> +“Give Mr. Cohen the box, Higgins,” Miss +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138'></a>138</span> +Lane directed, and bending forward, brought +her small face close to the glass, and her hands +trembled as she handled the rouge stick. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Cohen in one hand held a string of pearls +that fell through his fat fingers, as if eager to +escape from them. Higgins obediently placed +a small box in his hand. +</p> +<p> +“Take it and get out of here,” she ordered +Cohen. “Miss Lane has only got five minutes.” +</p> +<p> +Cohen turned the stub of his cigar in his +mouth unpleasantly without taking the trouble +to remove it. “I’ll take the box,” he said rapidly, +“and when I get good and ready I’ll get +out of here, but not before.” +</p> +<p> +“Now see here,” Blair began, but Miss Lane, +who had finished her task, motioned him to be +quiet. +</p> +<p> +“Please go out, Mr. Blair,” she said. “Please +go out. Mr. Cohen is here on business and I +really can’t see anybody just now.” +</p> +<p> +Behind the Jew Higgins looked up at +Dan and he understood—but he didn’t heed her +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139'></a>139</span> +warning; nothing would have induced him to +leave Letty Lane like this. +</p> +<p> +“I’m not going, though, Miss Lane,” he said +frankly. “I’ve got an appointment with you +and I’m going to stay.” +</p> +<p> +As he did so the other people in the room +took form for him: a blind beggar with a stick +in his hand, and by his side a small child wrapped +in a shawl. With relief Dan saw that Poniotowsky +was absent from the party. +</p> +<p> +Cohen opened the box, took its contents out +and held up the jewels. “This,” he said, indicating +a string of pearls, “is all right, Miss +Lane, and the ear-drops. The rest is no good. +I’ll take or leave them, as you like.” +</p> +<p> +She was plainly annoyed and excited, and, as +Higgins tried to lace her, moved from her dressing-table +to the sofa in a state of agitation. +</p> +<p> +“Take them or leave them, as <em>you</em> like,” she +said, “but give me the money and go.” +</p> +<p> +The Jew took from his wallet a roll of banknotes +and counted them. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140'></a>140</span> +</p> +<p> +“Six,” he began, but she waved him back. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t tell me how much it is. I don’t want +to know.” +</p> +<p> +“Let the other lady count it,” the Jew said. +“I don’t do business that way.” +</p> +<p> +Dan, who had laid down his overcoat and hat +on a chair, came quietly forward, his hands +in his pockets, and standing in front of the +Jew, he said again: +</p> +<p> +“Now you look here—” +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane threw the money down on the +dressing-table. “Please,” she cried to Dan, “let +me have the pleasure of sending this man out of +my room. You can go, Cohen, and go in a +hurry, too.” +</p> +<p> +The Jew stuffed the pearls in his pocket and +went by Dan hurriedly, as though he feared the +young man intended to help him. But Dan +stopped him: +</p> +<p> +“Before this deal goes through I want you to +tell me why you are—” +</p> +<p> +Miss Lane broke in: “My gracious Heavens! +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141'></a>141</span> +Can’t I even sell my jewels without being +bossed? What business is it of yours, Mr. +Blair? Let this man go, and go all of you—all +of you. Higgins, send them out.” +</p> +<p> +The blind man and the child stirred, too, at +this outburst. The little girl wore a miserable +hat, a wreck of a hat, in which shook a feather +like a broken mast. The rest of her garments +seemed made of the elements—of dirt and mud—mere +flags of distress, and the odor of the poor +filled the room: over the perfume and scent and +smell of stage properties, this miserable smell +held its own. +</p> +<p> +“Come, Daddy,” whispered the child timidly, +“come along.” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, no, not you, not you,” Letty Lane said. +</p> +<p> +Job Cohen crawled out with ten thousand +pounds’ worth of pearls in his pockets, and as +soon as the door had closed the actress took up +the roll of notes. +</p> +<p> +“Come here,” she said to the child. “Now +you can take your father to the home I told you +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142'></a>142</span> +of. It is nice and comfortable—they will treat +his eyes there.” +</p> +<p> +“Miss Lane—Miss Lane!” called the page +boy. +</p> +<p> +“Never mind that,” said the actress, “it is a +long wait this act. I don’t go on yet.” +</p> +<p> +Higgins went to the door and opened it and +stood a moment, then disappeared into the side +scenes. +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane ruffled the pile of banknotes and +without looking drew out two or three bills, putting +them into the child’s hands. “Don’t you +lose them; stuff them down; this will keep you +and your father for a couple of years. Take +care of it. You are quite rich now. Don’t get +robbed.” +</p> +<p> +The child tremblingly folded the notes and +hid them among her rags. The tears of happiness +were straggling over her face. She said +finally, finding no place to stow away her riches, +“I expect I’d best put them in daddy’s pocket.” +</p> +<p> +And Dan came to her aid; taking the notes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143'></a>143</span> +from her, he folded and put them inside the +clothes of the old beggar. +</p> +<p> +“Miss Lane,” said Higgins, who had come in, +“it is time you went on.” +</p> +<p> +“I’ll see your friends out of the theater,” +Blair offered. And as he did so, for the first +time she looked at him, and he saw the fever in +her brilliant eyes. +</p> +<p> +“Thanks awfully,” she accepted. “It is perfectly +crazy to give them so much money at +once. Will you look after it like a good boy and +see something or other about them?” +</p> +<p> +He thought of her, however, and caught up +a great soft shawl from the chair, wrapped it +around her tenderly, and she flitted out, Higgins +after her, leaving the rest of the money +scattered on her dressing-table. +</p> +<p> +“Come along,” said Blair kindly to the two +who stood awaiting his orders with the docility +of the poor, the obedience of those who have no +right to plan or suggest until told to move on. +“Come, I’ll see you home.” And he didn’t leave +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144'></a>144</span> +them until he had taken them in a cab to their +destination—until he had persuaded the girl to +let him have the money, look after it for her, +come to see her the next day and tell her what +to do. +</p> +<p> +Then he went back to the theater and stood +up in the rear, for the house was crowded, to +hear Letty sing. It was souvenir night; there +were post-cards and little coral caps with feathers +as <em>bonbonnières</em>. They called her out before the +curtain a dozen times, and each time Dan wanted +to cry “Mercy” for her. He felt as though +this little act had established a friendship between +them; and his hands clenched as he +thought of Poniotowsky, and he tried to recall +that he was an engaged man. He had an idea +that Letty Lane was looking for him through +the performance. She finished in a storm of applause, +and flowers were strewn upon her, and +Dan found himself, in spite of his resolution, +going back into the wings. +</p> +<p> +This time two or three cards were sent in. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145'></a>145</span> +One by one he saw the visitors refused, and Dan, +without any formality, himself knocked at Letty +Lane’s small door, which Higgins opened, looked +back over her shoulder to give his name to her +mistress, and said to Dan confidently, “Wait, +sir; just wait a bit.” Her lips were affable. And +in a few moments, to Dan’s astonished delight, +the actress herself appeared, a big scarf over +her head and her body enveloped in her snowy +cloak, and he understood with a leap of his heart +that she had singled him out to take her home. +</p> +<p> +She went before him through the wings to the +stage entrance, which he opened for her, and she +passed out before him into the fog and the mist. +For the first time Blair followed her through the +crowd, which was a big one on this night. On +the one side waited the poor, who wished her +many blessings, and on the other side her admirers, +whose thoughts were quite different. +Something of this flashed through Dan’s mind,—and +in that moment he touched the serious part +of life for the first time. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146'></a>146</span> +</p> +<p> +In Letty Lane’s motor, the small electric light +lit over their heads and the flower vase empty, +he sat beside the fragrant human creature whom +London adored, and knew his place would have +been envied by many a man. +</p> +<p> +“I took your friends to their place all right,” +he told her, “and I’m going to see them myself +to-morrow. I advised the girl not to get married +for her money. Say, this is awfully nice +of you to let me take you home!” +</p> +<p> +She seemed small in her corner. “You were +great to-night,” Dan went on, “simply great! +Wasn’t the crowd crazy about you, though! +How does it feel to stand there and hear them +clap like a thunderstorm and call your name?” +</p> +<p> +She replied with effort. “It <em>was</em> a nice audience, +wasn’t it? Oh, I don’t know how it feels. +It is rather stimulating. How’s the other boy?” +she asked abruptly, and when Dan had said that +Ruggles had left him alone in London, she +turned and laughed a little. +</p> +<p> +Dan asked her why she had sent for him to-day. “I’m +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147'></a>147</span> +mighty sorry I was out of town,” he +said warmly. “Just to think you should have +wanted me to do something for you and I didn’t +turn up. You know I would be glad to do anything. +What was it? Won’t you tell me what +it was?” +</p> +<p> +“The Jew did it for me.” +</p> +<p> +And Dan exclaimed: “It made me simply sick +to see that animal in your room. I would have +kicked him out if I hadn’t thought that it would +make an unpleasant scene for you. We have +passed the Savoy.” He looked out of the window, +and Letty Lane replied: +</p> +<p> +“I told the driver to go to the Carlton first.” +</p> +<p> +She was taking <em>him</em> home then! +</p> +<p> +“Well, you’ve got to come in and have some +supper with me in that case,” he cried eagerly, +and she told him that she had taken him home +because she knew that Mr. Ruggles would approve. +</p> +<p> +“Not much you won’t,” he said, and put his +hand on the speaking tube, but she stopped him. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148'></a>148</span> +</p> +<p> +“Don’t give any orders in my motor, Mr. +Blair. You sit still where you are.” +</p> +<p> +“Do you think that I am such a simple youth +that I—” +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane with a gesture of supreme ennui +said to him impatiently: +</p> +<p> +“Oh, I just think I am pretty nearly tired to +death; don’t bother me. I want my own way.” +</p> +<p> +Her voice and her gesture, her beauty and her +indifference, her sort of vague lack of interest +in him and in everything, put the boy, full of +life as he was, out of ease, but he ventured, after +a second: +</p> +<p> +“Won’t you please tell me what you wanted +me to do this afternoon?” +</p> +<p> +“Why, I was hard up, that’s all. I have used +all my salary for two months and I couldn’t +pay my bill at the Savoy.” +</p> +<p> +“Lord!” he said fervently, “why didn’t +you—” +</p> +<p> +“I did. Like a fool I sent for you the first +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149'></a>149</span> +thing, but I was awfully glad when five o’clock +came you didn’t turn up. Please don’t bother or +speak of it again.” +</p> +<p> +And burning with curiosity as to what part +Poniotowsky played in her life, Dan sat quiet, +not venturing to put to her any more questions. +She seemed so tired and so overcome by her own +thoughts. When they had turned down toward +the hotel, however, he decided that he must in +honor tell her his news. +</p> +<p> +“Got some news to tell you,” he exclaimed +abruptly. “Want you to congratulate me. I’m +engaged to be married to the Duchess of Breakwater. +She happens to be a great admirer of +your voice.” +</p> +<p> +The actress turned sharply to him and in the +dark he could see her little, white face. The +covering over her head fell back and she exclaimed: +</p> +<p> +“Heavens!” and impulsively put her hands +out over his. “Do you really mean what you +say?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150'></a>150</span> +</p> +<p> +“Yes.” He nodded surprisedly. “What do +you look like that for?” +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane arranged her scarf and then drew +back from him and laughed. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, dear, dear, dear,” she exclaimed, “and I ... and I have been....” +</p> +<p> +She looked up at him swiftly as though she +fancied she might detect some new quality in him +which she had not observed before, but she saw +only his clear, kind eyes, his charming smile and +his beautiful, young ignorance, and said softly +to him: +</p> +<p> +“No use to cry, little boy, if it’s true! But +that woman isn’t half good enough for you—not +half, and I guess you think it funny enough to +hear <em>me</em> say so! What does the other boy from +Montana say?” +</p> +<p> +“Don’t know,” Dan answered indifferently. +“Marconied him; didn’t tell him about it before +he left. You see he doesn’t understand England—doesn’t +like it.” +</p> +<p> +A little dazed by the way each of the two +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151'></a>151</span> +women took the mention of the other, he asked +timidly: +</p> +<p> +“You don’t like the Duchess of Breakwater, +then?” +</p> +<p> +And she laughed again. +</p> +<p> +“Goodness gracious, I don’t know her; actresses +don’t sit around with duchesses.” Then +abruptly, her beautiful eyes, under their curled +dark lashes, full on him, she asked: +</p> +<p> +“Do <em>you</em> like her?” +</p> +<p> +“You bet!” he said ardently. “Of course I +do. I am crazy about her.” Yet he realized, as +he replied, that he didn’t have any inclination to +begin to talk about his fiancée. +</p> +<p> +They had reached the Carlton and the door of +Letty Lane’s motor was held open. +</p> +<p> +“Better get out,” he urged, “and have something +to eat.” +</p> +<p> +And she, leaning a little way toward him, +laughed. +</p> +<p> +“Crazy! Your engagement would be broken +off to-morrow.” And she further said: “If I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152'></a>152</span> +really thought it would, why I’d come like a +shot.” +</p> +<p> +As she leaned forward, her cloak slipping +from her neck, revealing her throat above the +dark collar of the simple dress she wore, he looked +in her dove-gray eyes, and murmured: +</p> +<p> +“Oh, say, do come along and risk it. I’m +game, all right.” +</p> +<p> +She hesitated, then bade him good night languidly, +slipping back into her old attitude of indifference. +</p> +<p> +“I am going home to rest. Good night. I +don’t think the duchess would let you go, no +matter what you did!” +</p> +<p> +Dan, standing there at her motor door, this +beautiful, well-known woman bantering him, +leaning toward him, was conscious of her alone, +all snowy and small and divine in her enveloping +scarf, lost in the corner of her big car. +</p> +<p> +“I hate to have you go back alone to the +Savoy. I really do. Please let me—” +</p> +<p> +But she shook her head. “Tell the man the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153'></a>153</span> +Savoy,” and as Dan, carrying out her instructions, +closed the door, he said: “I don’t like that +empty vase in there. Would you be very good +and put some flowers in it if they came?” +</p> +<p> +She wouldn’t promise, and he went on: +</p> +<p> +“Will you put only my flowers in that vase +always hereafter?” +</p> +<p> +Then, “Why, of course not, goose,” she said +shortly. “Will you please let me close the door +and go home?” +</p> +<p> +Dan walked into the Carlton when her bright +motor had slipped away, his evening coat long +and black flying its wings behind him, his hat on +the back of his blond head, light of foot and +step, a gay young figure among the late lingering +crowd. +</p> +<p> +He went to his apartments and missed Ruggles +in the lonely quiet of the sitting-room, but as the +night before Ruggles had done, Dan in his bedroom +window stood looking out at the mist and +fog through which before his eyes the things +he had lately seen passed and repassed, specter-like, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154'></a>154</span> +winglike, across the gloom. Finally, in +spite of the fact that he was an engaged man +with the responsibilities of marriage before him, +he could think of but one thing to take with +him when he finally turned to sleep. The face +of the woman he was engaged to marry eluded +him, but the face under the white hood of Letty +Lane was in his dreams, and in his troubled visions +he saw her shining, dovelike eyes. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155'></a>155</span><a name='chXIV' id='chXIV'></a>CHAPTER XIV—FROM INDIA’S CORAL STRANDS</h2> +<p> +Mrs. Higgins, in Miss Lane’s apartment +at the Savoy, was adjusting the +photographs and arranging the flowers when +she was surprised by a caller, who came up without +the formality of sending his name. +</p> +<p> +“Do you think,” Blair asked her, “that Miss +Lane would see me half a minute? I called yesterday, +and the day before, as soon as I saw that +there was a substitute singing in <em>Mandalay</em>. +Tell her I’m as full of news as a charity report, +please, and I rather guess that will fetch her.” +</p> +<p> +Something fetched her, for in a few minutes +she came languidly in, and by the way she +smiled at her visitor it might be thought Dan +Blair’s name alone had brought her in. The +actress had been ill for a fortnight with what +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156'></a>156</span> +the press notices said was influenza. She wore +a teagown, long and white as foam, her hair +rolled in a soft knot, and her face was pale as +death. Frail and small as she was, she was +more ethereal than when in perfect health. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t stand a minute.” And by the hand +she gave him Dan led her over to the lounge +where the pillows were piled and a fur-lined silk +cover thrown across the sofa. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t give me that heavy rug, there’s that +little white shawl.” She pointed to it, and Dan, +as he gave it to her, recognized the shawl in +which she wrapped herself when she crossed the +icy wings. +</p> +<p> +“It’s in those infernal side scenes you get +colds.” +</p> +<p> +He sat down by her. She began to cough violently +and he asked, troubled, “Who’s taking +care of you, anyway?” +</p> +<p> +“Higgins and a couple of doctors.” +</p> +<p> +“That’s all?” +</p> +<p> +“Yes. Why, who should be?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157'></a>157</span> +</p> +<p> +Dan didn’t follow up his jealous suspicion, +but asked in a tone almost paternal and softly +confidential: +</p> +<p> +“How are your finances getting on?” +</p> +<p> +Her lips curved in a friendly smile. But she +made a dismissing gesture with her frail little +hand. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, I’m all right; Higgins told me you had +some news about my poor people.” +</p> +<p> +The fact that she did not take up the financial +subject made him unpleasantly sure that her +wants had been supplied. +</p> +<p> +“Got a whole bunch of news,” Dan replied +cheerfully. “I went to see the old man and the +girl in their diggings. Gosh, you couldn’t believe +such things were true.” +</p> +<p> +She drew her fine brows together. “I guess +there are a good many things that would surprise +you. But you don’t need to tell me about +hard times. That’s the way I am. I’ll do anything, +give anything, so long as I don’t have to +hear hard stories.” She turned to him confidentially. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158'></a>158</span> +“Perhaps it’s acting in false scenes on +the stage; perhaps it’s because I’m lazy and selfish, +but I can’t bear to hear about tales of woe.” +</p> +<p> +What she said somewhat disturbed his idea of +her big-hearted charity. +</p> +<p> +“I don’t believe you’re lazy or selfish,” he said +sincerely, “but I’ve got an idea that not many +people really know you.” +</p> +<p> +This amused her. Looking at him quizzically, +she laughed. “I expect you think you do.” +</p> +<p> +Dan answered: “Well, I guess the people that +see you when you are a kid, who come from your +own part of the country, have a sort of friendship.” +And the girl on the sofa from the depths +of her shawl put out a thin little hand to him and +said in a voice as lovely in tone as when she sang +in <em>Mandalay</em>: +</p> +<p> +“Well, I guess that’s right! I guess that’s +about true.” +</p> +<p> +After the tenth of a second, in which she +thought best to take her little cold hand away +from those big warm ones, she asked: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159'></a>159</span> +</p> +<p> +“Now please do tell me about the poor people.” +</p> +<p> +In this way giving him to understand how +really true his better idea of her had been. +</p> +<p> +“Why, the old duffer is as happy as a house +afire,” said the boy. “Not to boast, I’ve done +the whole thing up as well as I knew how. I’ve +got him into that health resort you spoke of, and +the girl seems to have got a regular education +vice! She wants to study something, so she’s +going to school.” +</p> +<p> +“Go on talking,” the actress invited languidly. +“I love to hear you talk Montana! Don’t +change your twang for this beastly English +drawl, whatever you do.” +</p> +<p> +“You have, though, Miss Lane. I don’t hear +a thing of Blairtown in the way you speak.” +</p> +<p> +And the girl said passionately: “I wish to +God I spoke it right through! I wish I had +never changed my speech or anything in me that +was like home.” +</p> +<p> +And the boy leaning forward as eagerly exclaimed: “Oh, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160'></a>160</span> +do you mean that? Think how +crazy London is about you! Why, if you ever +go back to Montana, they will carry you from +the cars in a triumphal chair through the town.” +</p> +<p> +She waited until she could control the emotion +in her voice. +</p> +<p> +“Go on telling me about the little girl.” +</p> +<p> +“She was so trusting as to give the money up +to me and I guess it will draw interest for her +all right.” +</p> +<p> +“Thank you,” smiled the actress, “you are +terribly sweet. The child got Higgins to let her +into my dressing-room one day after a matinée. +I haven’t time to see anybody except then.” +</p> +<p> +Here Higgins made her appearance in the +room, with an egg-nog for her lady, which, after +much coaxing, Dan succeeded in getting the +actress to drink. Higgins also had taken away +the flowers, and Letty Lane said to Dan: +</p> +<p> +“I send them to the hospital; they make me +sick.” And Dan timidly asked: +</p> +<p> +“Mine, too?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161'></a>161</span> +</p> +<p> +This brought a flush across the ivory pallor +of her cheek. “No, no, Higgins keeps them In +the next room.” And with an abrupt change of +subject she asked: “Is the Duchess of Breakwater +very charitable?” And Blair quickly replied: +</p> +<p> +“Anyhow she wants you to sing for her at a +musicale in Park Lane when you’re fit.” +</p> +<p> +Miss Lane gave a soft little giggle. “Is <em>that</em> +what you call being charitable?” +</p> +<p> +Dan blushed crimson and exclaimed: “Well, +hardly!” +</p> +<p> +“Did you come here to ask me that?” +</p> +<p> +“I came to tell you about ‘our mutual poor.’ +You’ll let me call them that, won’t you, because +I happened to be in your dressing-room when +they struck their vein?” +</p> +<p> +Miss Lane had drawn herself up in the corner +of the sofa, and sat with her hands clasped +around her knees, all swathed around and draped +by the knitted shawl, her golden head like a +radiant flower, appearing from a bank of snow. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162'></a>162</span> +Her fragility, her sweetness, her smallness, appealed +strongly to the big young fellow, whose +heart was warm toward the world, whose ideals +were high, and who had the chivalrous longing +inherent in all good men to succor, to protect, +and above all to adore. No feeling in Dan Blair +had been as strong as this, to take her in his +arms, to lift her up and carry her away from +London and the people who applauded her, from +the people that criticized her, and from Poniotowsky. +</p> +<p> +He was engaged to the Duchess of Breakwater. +And as far as his being able to do anything +for Letty Lane, he could only offer her this +politeness from the woman he was going to +marry. +</p> +<p> +“I never sing out of the theater.” Her profile +was to him and she looked steadily across the +room. “It’s a perfect fight to get the manager +to consent.” +</p> +<p> +Blair interrupted and said: “Oh, I’ll see him; +I’ll make it all right.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163'></a>163</span> +</p> +<p> +“Please don’t,” she said briskly, “it’s purely a +business affair. How much will she pay?” +</p> +<p> +Dan was rather shocked. “Anything you +like.” +</p> +<p> +And her bad humor faded at his tone, and she +smiled at him. “Well, I’ll tell Roach that. I +guess it’ll make my singing a sure thing.” +</p> +<p> +She changed her position and drew a long +sigh as though she were very tired, leaned her +blond head with its soft disorder back on the +pillow, put both her folded hands under her +cheek and turned her face toward Dan. The +most delicate coral-like color began to mount +her cheeks, and her gray eyes regained their +light. +</p> +<p> +“Will two thousand dollars be too much to +ask?” she said gently. +</p> +<p> +If she had said two million to the young fellow +who had not yet begun to spend his fortune, +which as far as he was concerned was nothing +but a name, it would not have been too much to +him; not too much to have given to this small +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164'></a>164</span> +white creature with her lovely flushed face, and +her glorious hair. +</p> +<p> +“Whatever is your price, Miss Lane, goes.” +</p> +<p> +“I’ll sing three songs: one from <em>Mandalay</em>, an +English ballad and something or other, I don’t +know what now, and I expect you don’t realize +how cheaply you are getting them.” She +laughed, and began to hum a familiar air. +</p> +<p> +“I wish you would sing just one song for me.” +</p> +<p> +“For another thousand?” she asked, lifting +her eyebrows. “What song is it?” +</p> +<p> +And as Dan hesitated, as if unwilling to give +form to words that were so full of spell to him, +she said deliciously: “Why, can you see a London +drawing-room listening to me sing a Presbyterian +hymn tune?” Without lifting her head +from the pillow she began in a charming undertone, +her gray eyes fixed on his: +</p> +<p> + “From Greenland’s icy mountains,<br /> + From India’s coral strands,<br /> + Where Afric’s sunny fountains<br /> + Roll down their golden sands.”<br /> +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165'></a>165</span></div> +<p> +Blair, near her, turned pale. There rose in +him the same feeling that she had stirred years +ago in the little church, and at the same time +others. He had lost his father since then, and he +thought of him now, but that big, sad emotion +was not the one that swayed him. +</p> +<p> +“Please stop,” he pleaded; “don’t go on. Say, +there’s something in that hymn that hurts.” +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane, unconscious of how subtly she +was playing, laughed, and suddenly remembered +that Dan had sat before her that day by the +side of old Mr. Blair. She asked abruptly: +</p> +<p> +“Why does the Duchess of Breakwater want +me to sing?” +</p> +<p> +“Because she’s crazy about your voice.” +</p> +<p> +“Is she awfully rich?” +</p> +<p> +“Um ... I don’t know.” +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane flashed a look at him. “Oh,” she +said coolly, “I guess she won’t pay the price +then.” +</p> +<p> +Dan said: “Yes, she will; yes, she will, all +right.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166'></a>166</span> +</p> +<p> +“Now,” Letty Lane went on, “if it were a +charity affair, I could sing for nothing, and I +don’t doubt the duchess, if she is as benevolent +as you say she is, could get me up some kind of +a charity show.” +</p> +<p> +Dan, who had started to rise, now leaned toward +her and said: “Don’t you worry about it +a bit. If you’ll come and sing we will make it +right about the price and the charity; everything +shall go your way.” +</p> +<p> +She was seized upon by a violent fit of coughing, +and Dan leaned toward her and put his arm +around her as a brother might have done, holding +her tenderly until the paroxysm was past. +</p> +<p> +“Gosh!” he exclaimed fervently, “it’s heartbreaking +to hear you cough like that and to +think of your working as you do. Can’t you +stop and take a good rest? Can’t you go somewhere?” +</p> +<p> +“To Greenland’s icy mountains?” she responded, +smiling. “I hate the cold.” +</p> +<p> +“No, no; to some golden sands or other,” he +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167'></a>167</span> +murmured under his breath. “And let me take +you there.” +</p> +<p> +But she pushed him back, laughing now. “No +golden sands for me. I’m afraid I’ve got to +sing in <em>Mandalay</em> to-night.” +</p> +<p> +He looked at her in dismay. +</p> +<p> +She interrupted his protest: “I’ve promised +on my word of honor, and the box-office has sold +the seats with that understanding.” +</p> +<p> +By her sofa, leaning over her, in a choked +voice he murmured: +</p> +<p> +“You <em>shan’t</em> sing! You shan’t go out to-night!” +</p> +<p> +“Don’t be a goose, boy,” she said. “You’ve +no right to order me like that. Stand back, +please.” As he did so she whisked herself off +the sofa with a sudden ardor and much grace. +“Now,” she told him severely, “since you’ve begun +to take that tone with me, I’m going to tell +you that you mustn’t come here day after day +as you have been doing. I guess you know it, +don’t you?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168'></a>168</span> +</p> +<p> +He stood his ground, but his bright face +clouded. They had been so near each other and +were now so removed. +</p> +<p> +“I don’t care a damn what people say,” he replied. +</p> +<p> +She interrupted him. She could be wonderfully +dignified, small as she was, wrapped as she +was in the woolen shawl. “Well,” she drawled +with a sudden indolence and indifference in her +voice, “I expect you’ll be surprised to hear that +<em>I</em> do care. Sounds awfully funny, doesn’t it? +But as you have been coming to the theater now +night after night till everybody’s talking about +it—” +</p> +<p> +“You don’t want my friendship,” he stammered. +</p> +<p> +And Letty Lane controlled her desire to laugh +at his boyish subterfuge. “No, I don’t think I +do.” +</p> +<p> +Her tone struck him deeply: hurt him terribly. +He threw his head up defiantly. +</p> +<p> +“All right, I’m turned down then,” he said +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169'></a>169</span> +simply. “I didn’t think you’d act like this to a +boy you’d known all your life!” +</p> +<p> +“Don’t be silly, you know as well as I do that +it won’t do.” +</p> +<p> +He did know it and that he had already done +enough to make it reasonable for the duchess, if +she wanted to, to break their engagement. Slowly +preparing to take his leave, he said wistfully: +“Can’t I help you in any way? Let me do something +with you for your poor. It’s a comfort to +have them between us, and you can count on me.” +</p> +<p> +She said she knew it. “But don’t come any +more to the wings; get a habit of <em>not</em> coming.” +</p> +<p> +On the threshold of her door he asked her to +let him know when she would sing in Park Lane, +and in touching her hand he repeated that she +must count on him. With more tenderness in his +blue eyes than he was himself aware, he murmured +devotedly: +</p> +<p> +“Take care of yourself, won’t you, please?” +</p> +<p> +As Blair passed from the sitting-room into +the hall and toward the lift, Mrs. Higgins +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170'></a>170</span> +came out hurriedly from one of the rooms and +joined him. +</p> +<p> +“How did you find her, Mr. Blair?” +</p> +<p> +“Awfully seedy, Mrs. Higgins; she needs a +lot of care.” +</p> +<p> +“She won’t take it though,” returned the +woman. “Just seems to let herself go, not to +mind a bit, especially these last weeks. I’m glad +you came in; I’ve been hoping you would, sir.” +</p> +<p> +“I’m not any good though, she won’t listen +to a word I say.” +</p> +<p> +It seemed to surprise the dressing woman. +</p> +<p> +“I’m sorry to hear it, sir; I thought she would. +She talks about you often.” +</p> +<p> +He colored like a school-boy. “Gosh, it’s a +shame to have her kill herself for nothing.” Reluctant +to talk longer with Mrs. Higgins, he +added in spite of himself: “She seems so lonely.” +</p> +<p> +“It’s two weeks now since that human devil +went away,” Mrs. Higgins said unexpectedly, +looking quietly into the blue eyes of the visitor. +</p> +<p> +“She hasn’t opened one of his letters or his telegrams. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171'></a>171</span> +She has sold every pin and brooch he +ever gave her, scattered the money far and wide. +You saw how she went on with Cohen, and her +pearls.” +</p> +<p> +Dan heard her as through a dream. Her words +gave form and existence to a dreadful thing he +had been trying to deny. +</p> +<p> +“Is she hard up now, Mrs. Higgins?” he +asked softly. And glancing at him to see just +how far she might go, the woman said: +</p> +<p> +“An actress who spends and lives as Miss +Lane does is always hard up.” +</p> +<p> +“Could you use money without her knowing +about it?” +</p> +<p> +“Lord,” exclaimed the woman, “it wouldn’t be +hard, sir! She only knows that there is such a +thing as money when the bills come and she +hasn’t got a penny. Or when the poor come! +She’s got a heart of gold, sir, for everybody that +is in need.” +</p> +<p> +He took out of his wallet a wad of notes and +put them in Higgins’ hands. “Just pay up +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172'></a>172</span> +some bills on the sly, and don’t you tell her on +your life. I don’t want her to be worried.” Explaining +with sensitive understanding: “It’s all +right, Mrs. Higgins; I’m from her town, you +know.” And the woman who admired him and +understood him, and whose life had made her +keen to read things as they were, said earnestly: +</p> +<p> +“I quite understand how it is, sir. It is just +as though it came straight from ’ome. She overdraws +her salary months ahead.” +</p> +<p> +“Have you been with Miss Lane long?” +</p> +<p> +“Ever since she toured in Europe, and nobody +could serve her without being very fond of her +indeed.” +</p> +<p> +Dan put out his big warm hand eagerly. +“You’re a corker, Mrs. Higgins.” +</p> +<p> +“I could walk around the world for her, sir.” +</p> +<p> +“Go ahead and do it then,” he smiled, “and +I’ll pay for all the boot leather you wear out!” +</p> +<p> +As he went down-stairs, already too late to +keep an engagement made with his fiancée, he +stopped in the writing-room to scribble off a note +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173'></a>173</span> +of excuse to the duchess. At the opposite table +Dan saw Prince Poniotowsky, writing, as well. +The Hungarian did not see Blair, and when he +had finished his note he called a page boy and +Dan could hear him send his letter up to Miss +Lane’s suite. The young Westerner thought +with confident exaltation, “Well, he’ll get left +all right, and I’m darned if I don’t sit here and +see him turned down!” +</p> +<p> +Dan sat on until the page returned and gave +Poniotowsky a verbal message. +</p> +<p> +“Will you please come up-stairs, sir?” +</p> +<p> +And Blair saw the Hungarian rise, adjust his +eye-glass, and walk toward the lift. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174'></a>174</span><a name='chXV' id='chXV'></a>CHAPTER XV—GALOREY GIVES ADVICE</h2> +<p> +Lord Galorey had long been used to +seeing things go the way they would and +should not, and his greatest effort had been attained +on the day he gave his languid body the +trouble to go in and see Ruggles. +</p> +<p> +“My God,” he muttered as he watched Dan +and the duchess on the terrace together—they +were nevertheless undeniably a handsome pair—“to +think that this is the way I am returning +old Blair’s hospitality!” And he was ashamed +to recall his western experiences, when in a +shack in the mountains he had watched the big +stars come out in the heavens and sat late with +old Dan Blair, delighted with the simple philosophies +and the man’s high ideals. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175'></a>175</span> +</p> +<p> +“What the devil does it all mean?” he wondered. +“She has simply seduced him, that’s all.” +</p> +<p> +He got Dan finally to himself and without +any preparation began, pushing Dan back into +a big leather chair, and standing up like a judge +over him: +</p> +<p> +“Now, you really must listen to me, my dear +chap. I shan’t rest in my grave unless I get a +word with you. Your father sent you here to +me and I’m damned if I know what for. I’ve +been wondering every day about it for two +months. He didn’t know what this set was like +or how rotten it is.” +</p> +<p> +“What set?” The boy looked appallingly +young as Gordon stared down at him. There +wasn’t a line or wrinkle on his smooth brow or on +his lips and forehead finely cut and well molded—but +there were the very seals of what his father +would have been glad to see. The boy had +the same clear look and unspoiled frankness that +had charmed Galorey at the first. He had been +a lazy coward to delay so long. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176'></a>176</span> +</p> +<p> +“Why, the rottenness of this set right here in +my house.” And as the host began to see that +he should have to approach a woman’s name in +speaking, he stopped short, his mouth wide open, +and Dan thought he had been drinking. +</p> +<p> +“You are talking of marrying Lily,” Gordon +got out. +</p> +<p> +“I am <em>going</em> to marry her.” +</p> +<p> +“You mustn’t.” +</p> +<p> +Blair got up out of his chair. It didn’t need +this attack of Galorey’s to bring to his mind +hints that had been dropped that Galorey was in +love with the Duchess of Breakwater. It illuminated +what Galorey was saying fast and incoherently. +</p> +<p> +“I mean to say, my dear chap, that you +mustn’t marry the Duchess of Breakwater. +Look at most of these European marriages. +They all go to smash. She is older than you are +and she has lived her life. You are much too +young.” +</p> +<p> +“Hold up, Galorey; you mustn’t go on, you +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177'></a>177</span> +know. You know I am engaged; that’s all there +is about it. Now, let’s go and have a game of +pool.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey had not worked himself up to this +pitch to break off now at a fatal point. +</p> +<p> +“I’m responsible for this, and by gad, Dan, +I’m going to put you on your guard.” +</p> +<p> +“You are responsible for nothing, Galorey, +and I warn you to drop it.” +</p> +<p> +“You would listen to your father if he were +here, wouldn’t you?” +</p> +<p> +“I don’t know,” said the boy slowly. Then +followed up with an honest, “Yes, I would.” +</p> +<p> +Gordon caught eagerly, “Well, he sent you to +me. Your friend Ruggles has gone off and +washed his hands of you, but I can’t.” +</p> +<p> +Lord Galorey walked across the room briskly +and came back to Dan. “First of all, you are +not in love with Lily—not a bit of it. You +couldn’t be—and what’s more she is not in love +with you.” +</p> +<p> +Blair laughed coolly. “You certainly have +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178'></a>178</span> +got things down to a fine point, Gordon. I’ll be +hanged if I understand your game.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey went bravely on: “Therefore, if neither +of you are in love, you understand that +there is nothing between you but your money.” +</p> +<p> +The Englishman got his point out brutally, +relieved that the impersonal thing money opened +a way for him. He didn’t want to be the bounder +and the cad that the mention of the woman +would have made him. +</p> +<p> +The boy drew in an angry breath. “Gosh,” +he said, “that cursed money will make me crazy +yet! You are not very flattering to me, Gordon, +I swear, and Lily wouldn’t thank you for the +motives you impute to her.” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, rot!” returned Gordon more tranquilly. +“She hasn’t got a human sentiment in her. She’s +a rock with a woman’s face.” +</p> +<p> +Dan turned his back on his host and walked +off into the billiard-room. Galorey promptly followed +him, took down a cue and chalked it, and +said: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179'></a>179</span> +</p> +<p> +“Well, come now; let’s put it to the test.” +Blair began stacking the balls. +</p> +<p> +“How do you mean?” +</p> +<p> +“Well, when you have had time to get your +first news over from Ruggles, tell her you have +gone to smash and that you are a pauper.” +</p> +<p> +“I don’t play tricks like that,” said the Westerner +quietly. +</p> +<p> +“No,” responded Galorey bitterly, “you let +others play tricks on you.” +</p> +<p> +The young man threw his cue smartly down, +his youth looked contemptuously at the worldly +man, and he turned pale, but he said in a low +voice: +</p> +<p> +“Now, you’ve got to let up on this, Gordon; I +thought at first you had been drinking. I won’t +listen. Let’s get on another subject, or I’ll clear +out.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey, however, cool and pitiful of the tangle +in the boy’s affairs, wouldn’t let himself be +angry. “You are my old chum’s boy, Dan,” he +went on, “and I’m not going to stand by and see +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180'></a>180</span> +you spoil your life in silence. You are of age. +You can go to the devil if you like, but you +can’t go there under my roof, without a word +from me.” +</p> +<p> +“Then I’ll get out from under your roof, to-night.” +</p> +<p> +“Right! I don’t blame you there, but, before +you go, tell Lily you have lost your money, and +see what she is made of. My dear chap”—he +changed his tone to one of affection—“don’t be +an ape; listen to me, for your father’s sake; +remember your whole life’s happiness is in this +game. Isn’t it worth looking after?” +</p> +<p> +“Not at the risk of hurting a woman’s feelings,” +said the boy. +</p> +<p> +“How can it hurt her, my dear man, to tell +her you are poor?” +</p> +<p> +“It’s a lie. I’m not up to lying to her; I don’t +care to. And you mean to think that if I told +her I was busted she would throw me over?” +</p> +<p> +“Like a shot, my green young friend—like a +shot.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181'></a>181</span> +</p> +<p> +“You haven’t a very good opinion of women,” +Blair threw out with as near a sneer as his fine +young face could express. +</p> +<p> +“No, not very,” agreed the pool player, who +had continued his shots with more or less sangfroid. +When Galorey had run off his string of +balls he said, looking up from the table: “But +I’ve got a very good opinion of that ‘nice girl’ +you told me of when you first came, and I wish to +Heaven she had kept you in the States.” +</p> +<p> +This caught the boy’s attention as nothing +else had. “There never was any such girl,” he +said slowly; “there never has been anywhere; I +rather guess they don’t grow. You have made +me a cad in listening to you, Gordon, but as to +playing any of those comedy tricks you suggest, +they are not in my line. If she is marrying me +for my money, why, she’ll get it.” +</p> +<p> +“You’re a coward,” said Galorey, “like the +rest of American husbands—all ideal and no +common sense. You want to make a mess of your +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182'></a>182</span> +life. You haven’t the grit to get out of a bad +job.” +</p> +<p> +He spurred himself on and his weak face grew +strong as he felt he was compelling the boy’s attention. +“If you only had half the character +your father had, you wouldn’t make a mistake +like this; you wouldn’t run blind into such a deal +as this.” +</p> +<p> +Blair was impressed by his host. Galorey +was so deadly in earnest and so honest, and, as +Dan’s face grew set and hardened, his companion +prayed for wisdom. “If I can only win +through this without touching Lily hard,” he +thought, and as he waited, Blair said: +</p> +<p> +“You haven’t hesitated to call me names, Gordon. +You’re not my build or my age, and I +can’t thrash you.” +</p> +<p> +And his host said cheerfully: “Oh, yes, you +can; come on and try,” and, metaphorically +speaking, Dan struck his first blow: +</p> +<p> +“They say—people have said to me—that you +once cared for Lily yourself.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183'></a>183</span> +</p> +<p> +The Englishman’s heavy eyelids did not flicker. +“It’s quite true.” +</p> +<p> +Taken back by this frank response, Blair +stammered: “Well, I guess that explains everything. +It’s not surprising that you should feel +as you do. If you are jealous, I can forgive it +a little bit, but it is low down to call a woman a +fortune hunter.” +</p> +<p> +Now Gordon Galorey’s face changed and +grew slightly white. “Don’t make me angry, +my dear chap,” he said in a low tone; “I have +said what I wanted to say. Now, go to the devil +if you like and as soon as you like.” +</p> +<p> +And the boy said hotly, stammering in his excitement: +</p> +<p> +“Not yet—not yet—not before I tell you what +I think.” +</p> +<p> +Gordon, with wonderful control of his own +anger, met the boy’s eyes, and said with great +patience: +</p> +<p> +“No, don’t, Dan; don’t go on. There are +many things in this affair that we can’t touch +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184'></a>184</span> +upon. Let it drop. The right woman would +make a ripping man of you, but you oughtn’t to +marry for ten years.” +</p> +<p> +Dan took the hand which Galorey put out to +him, and the Englishman said warmly: “My +dear chap, I hope it will all come out right, from +my heart.” +</p> +<p> +Dan, who had regained his balance, said to his +friend: +</p> +<p> +“I’ve been very angry at what you said, but +you’re the chap my father sent me to. There +must be something back of this, and I’m going +to find out what it is, and I’m going to take my +own way to find out. I wouldn’t give a rap for +anything that came to me through a trick or a +lie, and I wouldn’t know how to go to her with +a cock-and-bull story. I shall act as I feel and +go ahead being just as I am, and perhaps she +won’t want me after all, even if I have got the +rocks!” +</p> +<p> +And Galorey said heartily: “I wish there was +a chance of it.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185'></a>185</span> +</p> +<p> +When, later, Gordon thought of Dan it was +with a glow. “What a chip of the old block he +is,” he said; “what a good bit of character, even +at twenty-two years.” He was divided between +feeling that he had made a mess of things between +Dan and himself, and feeling sure that +some of his advice had gone home. After a moment’s +silence, Dan Blair’s son said: “I’m going +up to London to-morrow.” +</p> +<p> +“For long?” +</p> +<p> +“Don’t know.” +</p> +<p> +Then returning with boyish simplicity to their +subject, which Galorey thought had been +dropped, Dan said: +</p> +<p> +“There may be something true in what you +say, Gordon. Perhaps she does want my money. +I’m not a titled man and I’ll never be known for +anything except my income. At any rate I was +rich when I asked her to marry me, and I’m going +to fix up that old place of hers, and I’m glad +I’ve got the coin to do it.” +</p> +<p> +When, later, for they had been interrupted in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186'></a>186</span> +their conversation by the entrance of the lady +herself, Gordon, as Ruggles had done, mentally +thought of the flowing tide of life, and how it +flowed over what he himself had called “rotten +ground.” Perhaps old Blair was right, he +mused, after all. What does it matter if the +source is pure at the head water? It’s awfully +hard to force it at the start, at least. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187'></a>187</span><a name='chXVI' id='chXVI'></a>CHAPTER XVI—THE MUSICALE PROGRAM</h2> +<p> +The duchess ran Dan, made plans, set the +pace, and they were very much in evidence +during the season. The young American, +good-natured and generous, the duchess +beautiful and knowing, were the observed of +London, and those of her friends who would +have tolerated Dan on account of his money, +ended by sincerely liking him. The wedding-day +had not been fixed as yet, and Dan was not +so violently carried away that he could not wait +to be married. Meanwhile Gordon Galorey +thanked God for the delay and hoped for a miracle +to break the spell over his friend’s son before +it should be too late. In early May the question +came up regarding the musicale. The duchess +made her list and arranged the Sunday afternoon and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188'></a>188</span> +her performers to suit her taste, and +the week before lounged in her boudoir when +Dan and Galorey appeared for a late morning +call. +</p> +<p> +“There, Dan,” she said, holding out a bit of +paper, “look at the list and the program, will +you?” +</p> +<p> +“Sounds and reads all right,” commented +Dan, handing it on to Galorey. +</p> +<p> +Besides being an artistic event, she intended +that the concert should serve to present Dan to +her special set. She now lit a cigarette and gave +one to each of her friends, lighting the Englishman’s +herself. +</p> +<p> +“The best names in London,” Lord Galorey +said. “You see, Dan, we shall trot you out in a +royal way. I hope you fully appreciate how +swagger this is to be.” +</p> +<p> +Glancing at the list Blair remarked: +</p> +<p> +“But I don’t see Miss Lane’s name?” +</p> +<p> +“Why should you?” the duchess answered +sharply. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189'></a>189</span> +</p> +<p> +“Why, we planned all along that she was to +sing,” he returned. +</p> +<p> +She gave a long puff to her cigarette. +</p> +<p> +“We did <em>rather</em> speak of it. But we shall do +very well as we are. The program is full up +and it’s perfectly ripping as it stands.” +</p> +<p> +“Yes, there’s only just one thing the matter +with it,” the boy smiled good-naturedly, “and it’s +easy enough to run her in. I guess Miss Lane +could be run in most anywhere on any program +and not clear the house.” +</p> +<p> +Lord Galorey, who knew nothing about the +subject under discussion, said tactfully: “Why, +of course, Letty Lane is perfectly charming, but +you couldn’t get her, my dear chap.” +</p> +<p> +“I think we will let the thing stand as it is,” +said the duchess, going back to her desk and +stirring her paper about. “It’s really too late +now, you know, Dan.” +</p> +<p> +Unruffled, but with a determination which +Lord Galorey and the lady were far from guessing, +Blair resumed tranquilly: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190'></a>190</span> +</p> +<p> +“Oh, I guess she’ll come in all right, late as it +is. We’ll send word to her and fix it up.” +</p> +<p> +The duchess turned to him, annoyed: “Oh, +don’t be a beastly bore, dear—you are not really +serious.” +</p> +<p> +Dan still smiled at her sweetly. “You bet +your life I am, though, Lily.” +</p> +<p> +She rang a bell at the side of her desk, and +when the footman came in gave him the sheet of +paper. “See that this is taken at once to the stationer’s.” +</p> +<p> +“Better wait, Lily”—her fiancé extended his +hand—“until the program is filled out the way +it is going to stand.” And Blair fixed his handsome +eyes on his future wife. “Why, we got +this shindig up,” he noted irreverently, “just so +Miss Lane could sing at it.” +</p> +<p> +“Nonsense,” she cried, angry and powerless, +“you ridiculous creature! Fancy me getting up +a musicale for Letty Lane! Do tell Dan to stop +bothering and fussing, Gordon. He’s too ridiculous!” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191'></a>191</span> +</p> +<p> +And Lord Galorey said: “What is the row +anyway?” +</p> +<p> +“Why, I want Miss Lane to sing here on +Sunday,” Dan explained.... +</p> +<p> +“And I don’t want her,” finished the Duchess +of Breakwater, who was evidently unwilling to +force a scene before Lord Galorey. She handed +the list to her servant, but Dan intercepted it. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t send out that list, Lily, as it is.” +</p> +<p> +He gave it back to her, and his tone was so +cool, his expression so decided and quiet, that she +was disarmed, and dismissed the servant, telling +him to return when she should ring again. +Coloring with anger, she tapped the envelope +against her brilliantly polished nails. +</p> +<p> +If she had been married to Blair she would +have burst into a violent rage; if he had been +poorer than he was she would have put him in +his place. Lord Galorey understood the contraction +of her brows and lips as Dan reminded: +“You promised me that you would have her, you +know, Lily.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192'></a>192</span> +</p> +<p> +“Give in, Lily,” Galorey advised, rising from +the chair where he was lounging. “Give in +gracefully.” +</p> +<p> +And she turned on Galorey the anger which +she dared not show the other man. But Dan interrupted +her, explaining simply: +</p> +<p> +“I knew the girl when she was a kid: she is +from my old home, and I want Lily to ask her +here to sing for us, and then to see if we can’t +do something to get her out of the state she +is in.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey repeated vaguely, “State?” +</p> +<p> +“Why, she’s all run down, tired out; she’s got +no real friends in London.” +</p> +<p> +The other man flicked the ash from his cigarette +and looked at Blair’s boy through his monocle. +</p> +<p> +“And you thought that Lily might befriend +her, old chap?” +</p> +<p> +“Yes,” nodded Dan, “just give her a lift, you +know.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey nodded back, smiling gently. “I see, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193'></a>193</span> +I see—a moral, spiritual lift? I see—I see.” He +glanced at the woman with his strange smile. +</p> +<p> +She put her cigarette down and seated herself, +clasping her hands around her knees and looked +at her fiancé. +</p> +<p> +“It’s none of my business what Letty Lane’s +reputation is. I don’t care, but you must understand +one thing, Dan, I’m not a reformer, or a +charitable institution, and if she comes here it is +purely professional.” +</p> +<p> +He took the subject as settled, and asked for +a copy of the program and put it in his pocket. +“I’ll get the names of her songs from her and +take the thing myself to Harrison’s. And I’d +better hustle, I guess; there’s no time to lose +between now and Sunday.” And he went out +triumphant. +</p> +<p> +Galorey remained, smoking, and the duchess +continued her notes in silence, cooling down at +her desk. Her companion knew her too well to +speak to her until she had herself in hand, and +when finally she took up her pen and turned +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194'></a>194</span> +about, she appeared conscious for the first of +his presence. +</p> +<p> +“Here still!” she exclaimed. +</p> +<p> +“I thought I might do for a safety valve, +Lily. You could let some of your anger out on +me.” +</p> +<p> +The duchess left her desk and came over to +him. +</p> +<p> +“I expect you despise me thoroughly, don’t +you, Gordon?” +</p> +<p> +They had not been alone together since her +engagement to Blair, for she had taken pains to +avoid every opportunity for a tête-à-tête. +</p> +<p> +“Despise you?” he repeated gently. “It’s +awfully hard, isn’t it, for a chap like me to despise +anybody? We’re none of us used to the best +quality of behavior, you know, my dear girl.” +</p> +<p> +“Don’t talk rot, Gordon,” she murmured. +</p> +<p> +“You didn’t ask my advice,” he continued, +“but I don’t hesitate to tell you that I have done +everything I could to save the boy.” +</p> +<p> +She accepted this philosophically. “Oh, I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195'></a>195</span> +knew you would; I quite expected it, but—” and +in the look she threw at him there was more liking +than resentment—“I knew you, too; you +<em>couldn’t</em> go very far, my dear fellow.” +</p> +<p> +“I think Dan Blair is excellent stuff,” Gordon +said. +</p> +<p> +“He is the greenest, youngest, most ridiculous +infant,” she exclaimed with irritation, and +he laughed. +</p> +<p> +“His money is old enough to walk, however, +isn’t it, Lily?” She made an angry gesture. +</p> +<p> +“I expected you’d say something loathsome.” +</p> +<p> +Her companion met her eyes directly. She +left her chair and came and sat down beside him +on the small sofa. As he did not move, or look +at her, but regarded his cigarette with interest, +she leaned close to him and whispered: “Gordon, +try to be nice and decent. Try to forget yourself. +Don’t you see what a wonderful chance it +is for me, and that, as far as you and I are concerned, +it can’t go on?” +</p> +<p> +The face of the man by her side grew somber. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196'></a>196</span> +The charm this woman had for him had never +lessened since the day when he told her he loved +her, long before his marriage, and they were +both too poor. +</p> +<p> +“We have always been too poor, and Edith is +jealous of me every day and hour of her life. +Can’t you be generous?” +</p> +<p> +He rose and stood over her, looking down at +her beautiful form and her somewhat softened +face, but his eyes were hard and his face very +pale. +</p> +<p> +“You had better go, Gordon,” she said slowly; +“you had better go....” +</p> +<p> +Then, as he obeyed her and went like a flash +as far as the door, she followed him and whispered +softly: “If you’re really only jealous, I +can forgive you.” +</p> +<p> +He managed to get out: “His father was my +friend; he sent the boy to me and I’ve been a bad +guardian.” He made a gesture of despair. “Put +yourself in my place. Let Dan Blair go, Lily; +let him go.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197'></a>197</span> +</p> +<p> +Her eyelids flickered a little, and she said +sharply: “You’re out of your senses, Gordon—and +what if I love him?” +</p> +<p> +With a low exclamation he caught her hand +at the wrist so hard that she cried out, and he +said between his teeth: “You <em>don’t</em> love him! +Take those words back!” +</p> +<p> +“Of course I do. Let me free!” +</p> +<p> +“No,” he said passionately, holding her fast. +“Not until you take that back.” +</p> +<p> +His face, his tone, his force, dominated her; +the remembrance of their past, a possible future, +made her waver under his eyes, and the woman +smiled at him as Blair had never seen her smile. +</p> +<p> +“Very well, then, goose,” she capitulated almost +tenderly; “I don’t love that boy, of course. +I’m marrying him for his money. Now, will you +let me go?” +</p> +<p> +But he held her still more firmly and kissed her +several times before he finally set her free, and +went out of the house miserable—bound to her +by the strongest chains—bound in his conscience +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198'></a>198</span> +and by honor to his trust to Dan’s father, and +yet handicapped by another sense of honor +which decrees that man must keep silence to the +end. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199'></a>199</span><a name='chXVII' id='chXVII'></a>CHAPTER XVII—LETTY LANE SINGS</h2> +<p> +The house of the Duchess of Breakwater +in Park Lane was white, with green blinds +and green balconies; beautiful, distinguished and +old, mellow with traditions, and the tide of fashion +poured its stream into the music-room to +listen to the Sunday concert. Without, the day +was bland and beautiful, mild spring in the deep +sweet air, and already the bloom lay over the +park and along the turf. Piccadilly was ablaze +with flowers, and in the windows and in the flower-women’s +baskets they were so sweet as to make +the heart ache and to make the senses thrill. +Keen to the spring beauty, the last guest to go +into the drawing-room of the Duchess of Breakwater +was the young American man in whom the +magic of the season had stirred the blood. He +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200'></a>200</span> +seemed the youngest and the brightest guest to +cross the sill of the great house whose debts he +was going to pay, and whose future he was going +to secure with American money. +</p> +<p> +Close after him a motor car rolled up to the +curb, and under the awning Letty Lane passed +quickly, as though thistledown, blown into the +distinguished house. The actress was taken possession +of by several people and shown up-stairs. +</p> +<p> +Dan spoke to his hostess, who wore, over her +azure dress, a necklace given her by Dan. She +said he was “too late for words,” and why hadn’t +he come before. After greeting him she set him +free, and he went eagerly to find his place next +an elderly woman whom he liked immensely, Lady +Caiwarn. She had given him twenty pounds for +some of his poor. Lady Caiwarn had a calm, +kind face, and Dan sat down beside her, well out +of the crush, and they talked amiably throughout +the violin solo. +</p> +<p> +“Think of it,” she said, “Letty Lane of the +Gaiety is going to sing. I’d sit through a great +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201'></a>201</span> +deal for that. Let that man with the fiddle do +his worst.” +</p> +<p> +Blair laughed appreciatively. He thought +Lady Caiwarn would be a good friend for Miss +Lane, better than the duchess herself. “I wish +Lily could hear you talk about her violinist,” he +said, delighted; “she thinks he’s the whole show.” +And tentatively, his ingenuous eyes fixed on +his friend, he asked: “I wonder how you would +like to meet Miss Lane. She’s perfectly ripping, +and she’s from my State.” +</p> +<p> +“<em>Meet her!</em>” Lady Caiwarn exclaimed, but before +she could finish, through the room ran the +little anticipatory rustle that comes before the +great, and which, when they have gone, breaks +into applause. The great actress had appeared +to give her number. Dan and Lady Caiwarn, +behind the palms in a little corner of their own, +watched her. +</p> +<p> +A clever understanding of the world into +which she was to come this day, had made the +girl dress like a charm. She stood quietly by +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202'></a>202</span> +the piano, her hands folded. Among the high +ladies of the English world in their splendid +frocks, their jewels and feathers, she was a simple +figure, her dress snow white, high to her +throat, unadorned by any gay color, according +to the fashion of the time. It was such a dress as +Romney might have painted, and under her +arms and from across her breast there fell a +soft coral-colored silken scarf. The costume +was daring in its simplicity. She might have +been Emma, Lady Hamilton, because perfectly +beautiful, perfectly talented, she could risk severe +simplicity, having in herself the fire and the +art and the seduction. Her hair was a golden +crown and her eyes like stars. She was excited, +and the scarlet had run along her cheeks like +wine spilled over ivory. +</p> +<p> +She looked around the room, failed to see +Blair, but saw the Duchess of Breakwater in her +velvet and her jewels. Letty Lane began to sing. +Dan and she had chosen <em>Mandalay</em> and she began +with it. Her dress only was simple. All +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203'></a>203</span> +the complexity of her talent, whatever she knew +of seduction and charm, she put in the rendering +of her song. Even the conventional audience, +most of which knew her well, were enchanted +over again, and they went wild about her. She +had never been so charming. The men clapped +her until she began in self-defense another favorite +of the moment, and ended in a perfect +huzzah of applause. +</p> +<p> +She refused to sing again until, in the distance, +she saw Dan standing by the column near +his seat. Then indicating to the pianist what +she wanted, she sang <em>The Earl of Moray</em>, such +a rendering of the old ballad as had not been +heard in London, and coming, as it did, from +the lips of a popular singer whose character +and whose verve were not supposed to be sympathetic +to a piece of music of this kind, the +effect was startling. Letty Lane’s face grew +pale with the touching old tragedy, the scarlet +faded from her cheeks, her eyes grew dark and +moist, she might indeed herself have been the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204'></a>204</span> +lady looking from the castle wall while they +carried the body of her dead lover under those +beautiful eyes. +</p> +<p> +Dan felt his heart grow cold. If she had +awakened him when he was a little boy, she +thrilled him now; he could have wept. Lady Caiwarn +did wipe tears away. When the last note +of the accompaniment had ended, Dan’s friend at +his side said: “How utterly ravishing! What +a beautiful, lovely creature; how charming and +how frail!” +</p> +<p> +He scarcely answered. He was making his +way to Letty Lane, and he wrung her hand, +murmuring, “Oh, you’re great; you’re great!” +And the pleasure on his face repaid her over +and over again. “Come, I want you to meet +the Duchess of Breakwater, and some other +friends of mine.” +</p> +<p> +As he let her little cold hand fall and turned +about, the room as by magic had cleared. The +prime minister had arrived late and was in the +other room. The refreshments were also being +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205'></a>205</span> +served. There was no one to meet Letty Lane, +except for several young men who came up +eagerly and asked to be presented, Gordon Galorey +among them. +</p> +<p> +“Where’s Lily?” Dan asked him; “I want her +to meet Miss Lane.” +</p> +<p> +“In the conservatory with the prime minister,” +and Galorey looked meaningly at Dan, as +much as to say, “Now don’t be an utter fool.” +</p> +<p> +But Letty Lane herself saved the situation. +She shook hands with the utmost cordiality and +sweetness with the men who had been presented +to her, and asked Dan to take her to her motor. +He waited for her at the door and she came +down wrapped around as usual in her filmy scarf. +</p> +<p> +“Are you better?” he asked eagerly. “You +look awfully stunning, and I don’t think I can +ever thank you enough.” +</p> +<p> +She assured him that she was “all right,” and +that she had a “lovely new rôle to learn and that +it was coming on next month.” He helped her +in and she seemed to fill the motor like a basket +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206'></a>206</span> +of fresh white flowers. Again he repeated, as +he held the door open: +</p> +<p> +“I can’t thank you enough: you were a great +success.” +</p> +<p> +She smiled wickedly, and couldn’t resist: +</p> +<p> +“Especially with the women.” +</p> +<p> +Dan’s face flushed; he was already deeply +hurt for her, and her words showed him that the +insult had gone home. +</p> +<p> +“Where are you going now?” +</p> +<p> +“Right to the Savoy.” +</p> +<p> +Without another word, hatless as he was, he +got into the motor and closed the door. +</p> +<p> +“I’m going to take you home,” he informed +her quietly, “and there’s no use in looking at +me like that either! When I’m set on a thing I +get it!” +</p> +<p> +They rolled away in the bland sunset, passed +the park, down Piccadilly, where the flowers in +the streets were so sweet that they made the +heart ache, and the air through the window was +so sweet that it made the senses swim! +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207'></a>207</span><a name='chXVIII' id='chXVIII'></a>CHAPTER XVIII—A WOMAN’S WAY</h2> +<p> +When the duchess thought of looking +for Blair later in the afternoon he was +not to be found. Galorey told her finally he had +gone off in the motor with Letty Lane, bareheaded. +The duchess was bidding good-by to +the last guest; she motioned Galorey to wait +and he did so, and they found themselves alone +in the room where the flowers, still fresh, offered +their silent company; the druggets strewn with +leaves of smilax, the open piano with its scattered +music, the dark rosewood that had served +for a rest for Letty Lane’s white hand. Galorey +and the duchess turned their backs on the +music-room, and went into a small conservatory +looking out over the park. +</p> +<p> +“He’s nothing but a cowboy,” the lady exclaimed. +“He must be quite mad, going off +bareheaded through London with an actress.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208'></a>208</span> +</p> +<p> +“He’s spoiled,” Lord Galorey said peacefully. +</p> +<p> +She carried a bunch of orchids Dan had given +her, and regarded them absently. “I’ve made +him angry, and he’s taking this way of exhibiting +his spleen.” +</p> +<p> +Galorey said cheerfully: “Oh, Dan’s got lots +of spirit.” +</p> +<p> +Looking up from the contemplation of her +flowers to her friend, the duchess murmured +with a charming smile: “I don’t hit it off very +well with Americans, Gordon.” +</p> +<p> +His color rising, Galorey returned: “I think +you’ll have to let Dan go, Lily!” +</p> +<p> +For a second she thought so herself; and they +both started when the voice of the young man +himself was heard in the next room. +</p> +<p> +“Good-by, I’ll let you make your peace, Lily,” +and Gordon passed Dan in the drawing-room in +leaving, and thought the boy’s face was a study. +</p> +<p> +The duchess held out her hand to Dan as he +came across the room. +</p> +<p> +“Come here,” she called agreeably. “Every +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209'></a>209</span> +one has gone, thank heaven! I’ve been waiting +for you for an age. Let’s talk it all over.” +</p> +<p> +“Just what I’ve come back to do.” +</p> +<p> +There had been royalty at the musicale, and +the hostess spoke of her guests and their approval, +mentioning one by one the names of the +great. It might have impressed the ear of a +man more snob than was the Montana copper +king’s son. “I did so want you to meet the +Bishop of London,” she said. “But nobody +could find you. You look most awfully well, +Dan,” and with the orchids she held, she touched +his hand. +</p> +<p> +He was so direct, so incapable of anything +but the honest truth, that Dan didn’t know deceit +when he saw it, and his lady spoke so naturally +that he thought for a moment her rudeness had +been unintentional. Perhaps she hadn’t really +meant—Everybody in her set was rude, great +and rude, but she could be deliciously gracious, +and was so now. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t you think it went off well?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210'></a>210</span> +</p> +<p> +Dan said that it had been ripping and no mistake. +</p> +<p> +“I like Lady Caiwarn; she’s bully, and I liked +the king. He spoke to me as if he had known +me for a year.” +</p> +<p> +She began to be a little more at her ease. +</p> +<p> +“I didn’t care much for the fiddling, but Letty +Lane made up for all the rest,” said Dan. +“Wasn’t she great?” +</p> +<p> +“Ra-ther!” The duchess’ tone was so warm +that he asked frankly: “Well, why didn’t you +speak to her, Lily?” And the directness caught +her unprepared. The insult to the actress by +which she had planned to teach him a lesson failed +to give her the bravado she found she needed to +meet Dan’s question. Her part of the transaction, +deliberate, unkind, seemed worse and +more serious through his headlong act, when he +had driven off, braving her, in the motor of an +actress. She didn’t dare to be jealous. +</p> +<p> +“Wasn’t it too dreadful?” she murmured. “Do +you think she noticed it too awfully? I was just +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211'></a>211</span> +about to go up and speak to her when the prime +minister—” +</p> +<p> +Dan interrupted the duchess. He blushed for +her. +</p> +<p> +“Never mind, Lily.” His tone had in it something +of benevolence. “If you really didn’t +mean to be mean—” +</p> +<p> +She was enchanted by her easy victory. “It +was abominable.” +</p> +<p> +“Yes,” he accepted, “it was just that! I was +mortified. You wouldn’t treat a beggar so. But +she’s got too much sense to care.” +</p> +<p> +Eager to do the duchess justice, even though +he was little by little being emancipated, he was +all the more determined to be fair to her. +</p> +<p> +“It was too sweet of her not to mind. I dare +say her check helped to soothe her feelings,” the +woman said. +</p> +<p> +“You don’t know her,” he replied quietly. +“She wouldn’t touch a cent.” +</p> +<p> +The duchess exclaimed in horror: “Then she +<em>did</em> mind.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212'></a>212</span> +</p> +<p> +And he returned slowly: “She’s eaten and +drunk with kings, and if the king hadn’t gone +so early you can bet he would have set the fashion +differently. Let’s drop the question. She +sent you back your check, and I guess you’re +quits.” +</p> +<p> +With a sharp note in her voice she said: “I +hope it won’t be in the papers that you drove +bareheaded back to the hotel with her. Don’t +forget that we are dining with the Galoreys, +and it’s past seven.” +</p> +<p> +After Dan had left her, the duchess glanced +over the dismantled room which the servants +were already restoring to order. She was not at +case and not at peace, but there was something +else besides her tiff with Dan that absorbed her, +and that was Galorey. She couldn’t quite shake +him off. He was beginning to be imperious in +his demands on her; and, in spite of her cupidity +and her debts, in spite of the precarious position +in which she found herself with Dan, she +could not break with Galorey yet. She went up-stairs +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213'></a>213</span> +humming under her breath the ballad +Letty Lane had sung in the music-room: +</p> +<p> + “And long will his lady look from the castle wall.”<br /> +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214'></a>214</span><a name='chXIX' id='chXIX'></a>CHAPTER XIX—DAN AWAKES</h2> +<p> +The next night Dan, magnetically drawn +down the Strand to the Gaiety, arrived +just before the close of the last act, slipped in, +and sat far back watching Letty Lane close her +part. After hearing her sing as she had the afternoon +before in the worldly group, it was curious +to see her before the public in her flashing dress +and to realize how much she was a thing of the +people. To-night she was a completely personal +element to Dan. He could never think of her +again as he had hitherto. The sharp drive +through the town that afternoon in her motor +had made a change in his feelings. He had been +hurt for her, with anger at the Duchess of +Breakwater’s rudeness, and from the first he had +always known that there was in him a hot championship +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215'></a>215</span> +for the actress. To-night, whenever +the man who sang with her, put his arms around +her, danced with her, held her, it was an offense +to Dan Blair; it had angered him before, +but to-night it did more. One by one everything +faded out of his foreground but the brilliant little +figure with her golden hair, her lovely face, +her beautiful graceful body, and in her last +gesture on the stage before the curtain went +down, she seemed to Blair to call him and distinctly +to make an appeal to him: +</p> +<p> + “You might rest your weary feet<br /> + If you came to Mandalay.”<br /> +</p> +<p> +Well, there was nothing weary about the +young, live, vigorous American, as, standing +there in his dark edge of the theater, his hands in +his pockets, his bright face fixed toward the +stage, he watched the slow falling of the curtain +on the musical drama. Dan realized how full of +vigor he was; he felt strong and capable, indeed +a feeling of power often came to him delightfully, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216'></a>216</span> +but it had never been needful for him to +exert his forces, he had never had need to show +his mettle. Now he felt at those words: +</p> +<p> + “You might rest your weary feet”<br /> +</p> +<p> +how, with all his heart, he longed that the +dancer should rest those lovely tired little feet +of hers, far away from any call of the public, +far away on some lovely shore which the hymn +tune called the coral strand. As he gazed at +her mobile, sensitive face, whose eyes had seen +the world, and whose lips—Dan’s thoughts +changed here with a great pang, and the close +of all his meditations was: “Gosh, she ought to +rest!” +</p> +<p> +The boy walked briskly back of the scenes toward +the little door, behind which, as he tapped, +he hoped with all his heart to hear her voice bid +him come in. But there were other voices in the +room. He rattled the door-knob and Letty Lane +herself called to him without opening the door: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217'></a>217</span> +</p> +<p> +“Will you go, please, Mr. Blair? I can’t see +any one to-night.” +</p> +<p> +He had nothing to do but to go—to grind his +heel as he turned—to swear deeply against Poniotowsky. +His late ecstasy was turned to gall. +The theater seemed horrible to him: the chattering +of the chorus girls, their giggles, their +laughter as he passed the little groups, all +seemed weird and infernal, and everything became +an object of irritation. +</p> +<p> +As he went blindly out of the theater he struck +his arm against a piece of stage fittings and the +blow was sharp and stinging, but he was glad of +the hurt. +</p> +<p> +Without, in the street, Dan took his place +with the other men and waited, a bitter taste +in his mouth and anger in his breast, waited +until Letty Lane fluttered down, followed by +Poniotowsky, and the two drove away. +</p> +<p> +The young man could have gone after, running +behind the motor, but there was a taxicab +at hand; he jumped in it, ordering the man to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218'></a>218</span> +follow the car to the Savoy. There the boy had +the pleasure of seeing Miss Lane enter the hotel, +Poniotowsky with her—had the anguish of seeing +them both go up in the lift to her apartments. +</p> +<p> +When Dan came to himself he heard the +chimes of St. Martin’s ring out eleven. He then +remembered for the first time that he had promised +to dine alone at home with the Duchess of +Breakwater. +</p> +<p> +“Gosh, Lily will be wild!” +</p> +<p> +In spite of the lateness of the hour he hurried +to Park Lane. The familiar face of the +manservant who let him in blurred before the +young man’s eyes. Her grace was out at the +theater? Blair would wait then, and he went +into the small drawing-room, quiet, empty, reposeful, +with a fire across the andirons, for the +evening was damp and cool. Still dazed by his +jealous, passionate emotions, he glanced about +the room, chose a long leather sofa, and stretching +out his length, fell asleep. There in the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219'></a>219</span> +shadow he slept profoundly, waking suddenly +to find that he was not alone. Across the room +the Duchess of Breakwater stood by the table; +she was in evening dress, her cloak and gloves +on the chair at her side. She laughed softly +and the man to whom she laughed, on whom she +smiled, was Lord Galorey. +</p> +<p> +Blair raised himself up on the sofa without +making any noise, and he saw Galorey take the +woman in his arms. The sight didn’t make the +fiancée angry. He realized instantly that he +<em>wanted to believe that it was true</em>, and as there +was nothing theatrical in the young Westerner, +he sprang up, slang so much a part of his nature +that the first words that came to his lips +was a phrase in vogue. +</p> +<p> +“Look who’s here!” he cried, and came blithely +forward, his head clear, his lips smiling. +</p> +<p> +The duchess gave a little scream and Dan +lounged up to the two people and held his hand +frankly out to the lady. +</p> +<p> +“That’s all right, Lily! Go right on, Gordon, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220'></a>220</span> +please. Only I had to let you know when I +waked up! Only fair. I guess I must have been +asleep quite a while.” +</p> +<p> +The Duchess of Breakwater shrugged. “I +don’t know what you dreamed,” she said acidly, +“if you were asleep.” +</p> +<p> +“Well, it was a very pretty dream,” the boy +returned, “and showed what a stupid ass I’ve +been to think I couldn’t have dreamed it when I +was awake.” +</p> +<p> +“I think you are crazy,” the duchess exclaimed. +</p> +<p> +But Blair repeated: “That’s all right. I +mean to say as far as I am concerned—” +</p> +<p> +And Galorey, in order to stand by his lady, +murmured: +</p> +<p> +“My dear chap, you <em>have</em> been dreaming.” +</p> +<p> +But Blair met the Englishman’s gray eyes +with his blue ones. “I did have a bottle of champagne, +Gordon, that’s a fact, but it couldn’t +make me see what I did see.” +</p> +<p> +“Dan,” the Duchess of Breakwater broke in, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221'></a>221</span> +“let Gordon take you home, like a dear. You’re +really ragging on in a ridiculous way.” +</p> +<p> +Blair looked at her steadily, and as he did so +he repeated: +</p> +<p> +“That’s all right, Lily. Gordon cares a lot, +and the truth of the matter is that I <em>do not</em>.” +</p> +<p> +She grew very pale. +</p> +<p> +“I would have stuck to my word, of course,” +he went on, “but we’d have been infernally unhappy +and ended up in the divorce courts. Now, +this little scene here of yours lets me out, and I +don’t lay it up against either of you.” +</p> +<p> +“Gordon!” she appealed to her lover, “why, in +Heaven’s name, don’t you speak!” +</p> +<p> +The Englishman realized that while he was +glad at heart, he regretted that he had been the +means of her losing the chance of her life. +</p> +<p> +“What do you want me to say, Lily?” he exclaimed +with a desperate gesture. “I can’t tell +him I don’t love you. I have loved you, God +help me, for ten years.” +</p> +<p> +She could have killed him for it. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222'></a>222</span> +</p> +<p> +“I can tell you, Dan, if you want me to,” Galorey +went on, “that I don’t believe she cares a +penny for any one on the face of the earth, for +you or me.” +</p> +<p> +Old Dan Blair’s son showed his business training. +His one idea was to “get out,” and as he +didn’t care who the Duchess of Breakwater loved +or didn’t love, he wanted to break away as fast +as he could. He sat down at the table under the +light of the lamp and drew out his wallet with +its compact, thick little check book, the millionaire’s +pass to most of the things that he wants. +</p> +<p> +“You’ve taught me a lot,” he said to the +Duchess of Breakwater, “and my father sent me +over here for that. I have been awfully fond of +you, too. I thought I was fonder than I am, I +guess. At any rate I want to stand by one of my +promises. That old place of yours—Stainer +Court—now that’s got to be fixed up.” +</p> +<p> +He made a few computations on paper, lifted +the pad to her with the figures on it, round, generous +and full. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223'></a>223</span> +</p> +<p> +“At home,” he said, “in Blairtown, we have +what we call ‘engagement’ parties, when each +fellow brings a present to the girl, but this is +what we might call a ‘broken engagement party.’ +Now, I can’t,” the boy went on, “give this +money to you very well; it won’t look right. We +will have to fix that up some way or other. You +will have to say you got an unexpected inheritance +from some uncle in Australia.” He smiled +at Galorey: “We will fix it up together.” +</p> +<p> +His candor, his simplicity, were so charming, +he stood before the two so young, so clear, so +clean, that a sudden tenderness for him, and a +sense of what she had lost, what she never had +had, made her exclaim: +</p> +<p> +“Dan, I really don’t care a pin for the money—I +don’t”—but the hand she held out was seized +by the other man and held fast. Galorey said: +</p> +<p> +“Very well, let it go at that. You don’t care +for the money, but you will take it just the same. +Now, don’t, for God’s sake, tell him that you +care for him.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224'></a>224</span> +</p> +<p> +He made her meet his eyes this time: stronger +than she, Galorey forced her to be sincere. She +set Dan free and he turned and left them standing +there facing each other. He softly crossed +the room, and looking back, he saw them, tall, +distinguished, both of them under the lamplight—enemies, +and yet the closest friends bound by +the strongest tie in the world. +</p> +<p> +As Dan went out through the curtains of the +room and they fell behind him, the Duchess of +Breakwater sank down in the chair by the side of +the table; she buried her face. Gordon Galorey +bent over her and again took her in his arms, +and she suffered it. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225'></a>225</span><a name='chXX' id='chXX'></a>CHAPTER XX—A HAND CLASP</h2> +<p> +It was one o’clock. Blair called a hansom +and told the driver to take him to the Carlton, +and leaning back in the vehicle he breathed +a long sigh. He looked like his father, but he +didn’t know it. He felt old. He was a man and a +tired one and a free one, and the sense of this +liberty began to refresh him like a breeze over +parched sand. He thought over what he had +left for a second, stopped longest in pitying +Galorey, then went into the Carlton restaurant +to order some supper, for he began to feel the +need of food. He had not time to drink his +wine and partake of the cold pheasant before he +saw that opposite him the two people who had +taken their table were Letty Lane and Poniotowsky. +The woman’s slender back was turned +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226'></a>226</span> +to Blair, and his heart gave a leap of pain at the +sight of the man with her, and the cruel suffering +began again. +</p> +<p> +Dan gave up the idea of eating: drank a +whole bottle of champagne, then pushed it away +from him violently. “Hold up,” he told himself, +“you’re getting dangerous; this drinking won’t +do.” So he sat drumming on the table looking +into the air. When those two got up to go, +however, he would go with them; that was sure. +He could never see them go out together again; +no—no—no! As his brain grew a bit clearer he +saw that they were having a heated discussion +between them, and as the room emptied finally, +save for themselves, Dan, though he could not +hear what Poniotowsky said, understood that he +was urging something which the girl did not +wish to grant. When they left he rose as well, +and at the door of the restaurant the actress and +her companion paused, and Dan saw her face, +deadly pale. There were tears in her eyes. +</p> +<p> +“For God’s sake!” he heard her murmur, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227'></a>227</span> +she impatiently drew her cloak around her shoulders. +Poniotowsky put out his hand to help her, +but she drew back from him, exclaiming violently: +“Oh, no—no!” Before he was aware what +he was doing, Dan was holding his hand out to +Miss Lane. +</p> +<p> +How she turned to him! God of dreams! How +she took in one cold hand his hand; just the +grasp a man needs to lead him to offer the service +of his life. Her hand was icy—it thrilled +him to his marrow. +</p> +<p> +“Oh—you—” she breathed. “Hello!” +</p> +<p> +No words could have been more commonplace, +less in the category of dramatic or poetic welcome, +but they were music to the boy, and when +the actress looked at him with a ghost of a smile +on her trembling lips, Dan was sure there was +some kind of blessing in the greeting. +</p> +<p> +“I am going to see you home,” he said with +determination, and she caught at it: +</p> +<p> +“Yes, yes, do! Will you?” +</p> +<p> +The third member of the party had not +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_228'></a>228</span> +spoken. A servant fetched him a light to which +he bent, touching his cigar. Then he lifted his +head—a handsome one—with its cold and indifferent +eyes, to Letty Lane. +</p> +<p> +“Good night, Miss Lane.” A deep color crept +under his dark skin. +</p> +<p> +“Come,” said the actress eagerly, “come +along; my motor is out there and I am crazy +tired. That is all there is about it. Come +along.” +</p> +<p> +Snatched from a marriage contract, still bitter +from his jealous anger, this—to be alone +with her—by the side of this white, fragrant, +wonderful creature—to have been turned to by +her, to be alone with her, the Duchess of Breakwater +out of his horizon, Poniotowsky gone—Oh, +it was sweet to him! They had rolled out +from the Carlton down toward the Square and he +put his arm around her waist, his voice shook: +</p> +<p> +“You are dead tired! And when I saw that +brute with you to-night I could have shot him.” +</p> +<p> +“Take your arm away, please.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229'></a>229</span> +</p> +<p> +“Why?” +</p> +<p> +“Take it away. I don’t like it. Let my hand +go. What’s the matter with you? I thought I +could trust you.” +</p> +<p> +He said humbly: “You can—certainly you +can.” +</p> +<p> +“I am tired—tired—tired!” +</p> +<p> +Under his breath he said: “Put your head on +my shoulder, Letty, darling.” +</p> +<p> +And she turned on him nearly as violently as +she had on Poniotowsky, and burst into tears, +crouching almost in the corner of the motor, +away from him, both her hands upon her breast. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, can’t you see how you bother me? Can’t +you see I want to rest and be all alone? You are +like them all—like them all. Can’t I rest anywhere?” +</p> +<p> +The very words she used were those he had +thought of when he saw her dance at the theater, +and his heart broke within him. +</p> +<p> +“You can,” he stammered, “rest right here. +God knows I want you to rest more than anything. I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230'></a>230</span> +won’t touch you or breathe again or +do anything you don’t want me to.” +</p> +<p> +She covered her face with her hands and sat +so without speaking to him. The light in her +motor shone over her like a kindly star, as, +wrapped in her filmy things she lay, a white +rose blown into a sheltered nook. After a little +she wiped her eyes and said more naturally: +</p> +<p> +“You look perfectly dreadfully, boy! What +have you been doing with yourself?” +</p> +<p> +They had reached the Savoy. It seemed to +Dan they were always just driving up to where +some one opened a door, out of which she was to +fly away from him. He got out before her and +helped her from the car. +</p> +<p> +“Well, I’ve got a piece of news to tell you. I +have broken my engagement with the duchess.” +</p> +<p> +This brought her back far enough into life to +make her exclaim: “Oh, I <em>am</em> glad! That’s +perfectly fine! I don’t know when I’ve heard +anything that pleased me so much. Come and +see me to-morrow and tell me all about it.” +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231'></a>231</span><a name='chXXI' id='chXXI'></a>CHAPTER XXI—RUGGLES RETURNS</h2> +<p> +Dan did not fall asleep until morning, and +then he dreamed of Blairtown and the +church and a summer evening and something +like the drone of the flies on the window-pane +soothed him, and came into his waking thoughts, +for at noon he was violently shaken by the shoulder +and a man’s voice called him as he opened his +eyes and looked into Ruggles’ face. +</p> +<p> +“Gee Whittaker!” Ruggles exclaimed. “You +<em>are</em> one of the seven sleepers! I’ve been here +something like seventeen minutes, whistling and +making all kinds of barnyard noises.” +</p> +<p> +As Dan welcomed him, rubbing the sleep from +his eyes, Ruggles told him that he had come over +“the pond” just for the wedding. +</p> +<p> +“There isn’t going to be any wedding, Josh! +Got out of all that last night.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles had the breakfast card in his hand, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232'></a>232</span> +which the waiter had brought in, and Dan, taking +it from his friend, ordered a big breakfast. +</p> +<p> +“I’m as hungry as the dickens, Rug, and I +guess you are, too.” +</p> +<p> +“What was the matter with the duchess?” +Ruggles asked. “Were you too young for her, +or not rich enough?” +</p> +<p> +Significantly the boy answered: “One too +many, Josh,” and Ruggles winced at the response. +</p> +<p> +“Here are the fellows with my trunks and +things,” he announced as the porters came in +with his luggage. “Just drop them there, boys; +they’re going to fix some kind of a room later.” +</p> +<p> +Blair’s long silk-lined coat lay on a chair where +he had flung it, his hat beside it, and Ruggles +went over to the corner and lifted up a fragrant +glove. It was one of Letty Lane’s gloves which +Dan had found in the motor and taken possession +of. The young man had gone to his dressing-room +and begun running his bath, and Ruggles, +laying the glove on the table, said to himself: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233'></a>233</span> +</p> +<p> +“I knew he would get rid of the duchess, all +right.” +</p> +<p> +But when Dan came back into the room later +in his dressing-gown for breakfast, Ruggles +said: +</p> +<p> +“You’ll have to send her back her glove, +Dannie.” +</p> +<p> +At the sight of it beside the breakfast tray, +Dan blushed scarlet. He picked up the fragrant +object. +</p> +<p> +“That’s all right; I’ll take care of it.” +</p> +<p> +“Is <em>Mandalay</em> running the same as ever?” +Ruggles asked over his bacon and eggs. +</p> +<p> +“Same as ever.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles saw he had not returned in vain, and +that he was destined to take up his part of the +business just as he had laid it out for himself +to Lord Galorey. “It’s up to me now: I’ll have +to take care of the actress, and I’m darned +if I haven’t got a job. If Dan colors up like +that at the sight of her glove, I wonder what he +does when he holds her hand!” +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234'></a>234</span><a name='chXXII' id='chXXII'></a>CHAPTER XXII—WHAT WILL YOU TAKE?</h2> +<p> +When Dan, on the minute of two, went +to the Savoy, Higgins, as was her custom, +did not meet him. Miss Lane met him +herself. She was reading a letter by the table, +and when Dan was announced she put it back +in its envelope. Blair had seen her only in +soft clinging evening dresses, in white visionary +clothes, or in her dazzling part costume, +where the play dress of the dancer displayed her +beauty and her charms. To-day she wore a +tailor-made gown, and in her dark cloth dress, +in her small hat, she seemed a new woman—some +one he hadn’t known and did not know, and he +experienced the thrill a man always feels when +the woman he loves appears in an unaccustomed +dress and suggests a new mystery. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, I say! You’re not going out, are you?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235'></a>235</span> +</p> +<p> +In the lapel of her close little coat was a flower +he had given her. He wanted to lean forward +and kiss it as it rested there. She assured him: +</p> +<p> +“I have just come in; had an early lunch and +took a long walk—think of it! I haven’t taken +a walk alone since I can remember!” +</p> +<p> +Her walk had given her only the ghost of a +flush, which rose over her delicate skin, fading +away like a furling flag. Her frailness, her +slenderness, the air of good-breeding her dress +gave her, added to Dan’s deepening emotions. +She seemed infinitely dear, and a thing to be +protected and fostered. +</p> +<p> +“Can’t you sit down for a minute? I’ve come +to make you a real call.” +</p> +<p> +“Of course,” she laughed. “But, first, I must +answer this letter.” +</p> +<p> +His jealousy rose and he caught hold of +her hand that held the envelope. “Look here, +you are not to write it if it is to that damned +scoundrel. I took you away from him last night +and you are never to see him again.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236'></a>236</span> +</p> +<p> +For the first time the two really looked at +each other. Her lips parted as though she would +reprove him, and the boy murmured: +</p> +<p> +“That’s all right. I mean what I say—never +to see him again! Will you promise me? Promise +me—I can’t bear it! I won’t have it!” +</p> +<p> +A film of emotion crossed his clear young eyes +and her slender hands were held fast in his clasp. +His face was beautiful in its tenderness and in a +righteous anger as he bent it on her. Instead +of reproving him as she had done before, instead +of snatching away her hands, she swayed, and +at the sight of her weakness his eyes cleared, and +the film lifted like a curtain. She was not fainting, +but, as her face turned toward his, he saw +it transformed, and Dan caught her in her dark +dress, the flowers in her bodice, to his heart. He +held her as if he had snatched her from a wreck +and in a safe embrace lifted her high to the +shore of a coral strand. He kissed her, first timidly, +wonderingly, with the sacrament of first +love on his lips. Then he kissed her as his heart +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237'></a>237</span> +bade him, and when he set her free she was crying, +but the tears on his face were not all her +tears. +</p> +<p> +“Little boy, how crazy, how perfectly crazy! +Oh, Dan—Dan!” +</p> +<p> +She clung to him, looking up at him just as +his boy-dreams had told him a girl <em>would</em> look +some day. Her face was suffused and softened, +her lips—her coral-red, fine, lovely lips were +trembling, and her eyes were as gray, as profound +as those seas his imagination had longed +to explore. Made poet for the first time in his +life, as his arms were around her, he whispered: +“You are all my dreams come true. If any man +comes near you I’ll kill him just as sure as fate. +I’ll kill him!” +</p> +<p> +“Hush, hush! I told you you were crazy. +We’re both perfectly mad. I have tried my best +not to come to this with you. What would your +father say? Let me go, let me go; I’ll call Higgins.” +</p> +<p> +The boy laughed aloud, the laugh of happy +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238'></a>238</span> +youth. He held her so close that she might as +well have tried to loose herself from an iron image +of the Spanish Inquisition as from his +young arms. This slender, delicious, willowy +thing he held was Letty Lane, the adored star +London went mad over: the triumph of it! It +flashed through him as his pulses beat and his +heart was high with the conquest, but it was to +the woman only that he whispered: +</p> +<p> +“I’ve said a lot of stuff and I am likely to say +a lot more, but I want you to say something to +me. <em>Don’t you love me?</em>” +</p> +<p> +The word on his lips to him was as strange, +as wonderful, as though it had been made for +him. +</p> +<p> +“I guess I must love you, Dan. I guess I +must have for a long time.” +</p> +<p> +“God, I’m so glad! How long?” +</p> +<p> +“Why, ever since you used to come to the soda-fountain +and ask for chocolate. You don’t know +how sweet you were when you were a little boy.” +</p> +<p> +She put her slender hand against his hot +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239'></a>239</span> +cheek. “And you are nothing but a little boy +now! I think I must be crazy!” +</p> +<p> +As he protested, as she listened intently to +what his emotion taught him to say to her, she +whispered close to his ear: +</p> +<p> +“What will <em>you</em> take, little boy?” +</p> +<p> +And he answered: “I’ll take you—you!” +</p> +<p> +At a slight sound in the next room Letty Lane +started as though the interruption really +brought her to her senses, put her hand to her +disheveled hair, and before she could prevent it, +Dan had called Mrs Higgins to “come in,” and +the woman, in response, came into the sitting-room. +The boy went up to her and took her +hands eagerly, and said: +</p> +<p> +“It’s all right, all right, Mrs. Higgins. Just +think of it! She belongs to me!” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, don’t be a perfect lunatic, Dan,” the +actress exclaimed, half laughing, half crying, +“and don’t listen to him, Higgins. He’s just +crazy.” +</p> +<p> +But the old woman’s eyes went bright at the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240'></a>240</span> +boy’s face and tone. “I never was so glad of +anything in my life.” +</p> +<p> +“As of what?” asked her mistress sharply, +and the tone was so cold and so suddenly altered +that Dan felt a chill of despair. +</p> +<p> +“Why, at what Mr. Blair says, Miss.” +</p> +<p> +“Then,” said her mistress, “you ought to be +ashamed of yourself. He’s only twenty-two, +he doesn’t know anything about life. You must +be crazy. He’s as mad as a March hare and he +ought to be in school.” +</p> +<p> +Then, to their consternation, she burst into a +passion of weeping; threw herself on Higgins’ +breast and begged her to send Dan away—to +send everybody away—and to let her die in +peace. +</p> +<p> +In utter despair the boy obeyed the dresser’s +motion to go, and his transport was changed +into anxiety and dread. He hung about down-stairs +in the Savoy for the rest of the afternoon, +finally sending up to Higgins for news in sheer +desperation, and the page fetched Blair a note +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241'></a>241</span> +in Letty Lane’s own hand. His eyes blurred so +as he opened the sheet, he could hardly read the +scrawl which said: +</p> +<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'> +“It was perfectly sweet of you to wait down +there. I’m all right—just tired out! Better +get on a boat and go to Greenland’s Icy Mountains +and cool off. But if you don’t, come in to-morrow +and have lunch with me. +</p> +<p style='text-align:right; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-right:2em;;'><span class='sc'>Letty.</span>”</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242'></a>242</span><a name='chXXIII' id='chXXIII'></a>CHAPTER XXIII—IN THE SUNSET GLOW</h2> +<p> +He lived through a week of bliss and of +torture. One minute she promised to +marry him, give up the stage, go around the +world on a yacht, whose luxuries, Dan planned, +should rival any boat ever built, or they would +motor across Asia and see, one by one, the various +coral strands and the golden sands of the +East. He could not find terms to express how +he would spend upon her this fortune of his, +which, for the first time, began to have value in +his eyes. Money had been lavished on her, +still she seemed dazzled. Then she would push +it all away from her in disgust—tell him she +was sick of everything—that she didn’t want +any new jewels or any new clothes, and that she +never wanted to see the stage again or any place +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243'></a>243</span> +again; that there was nowhere she wanted to go, +nothing she wanted to see—that he must get +some fresh girl to whom he could show life, not +one whom he must try to make forget it. Then, +again, she would say that she loved the stage and +her art—wouldn’t give it up for any one in the +world—that it was fatal to marry an actress—that +it was mad for him to think of marrying +her, anyway—that she didn’t want to marry any +one and be tied down—that she wanted to be her +own mistress and free. +</p> +<p> +He found her a creature of a thousand +whims and caprices, quick to cry, quick to laugh, +divine in everything she did. He never +knew what she would want him to do next, or +how her mood would change, and after one of +their happiest hours, when she had been like a +girl with him, she would burst into tears, beg +him to leave the room, telling him that she was +tired—tired—tired, and wanted to go to sleep +and never to wake up again. Between them was +the figure of Poniotowsky, though neither spoke +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244'></a>244</span> +of him. She appeared to have forgotten him. +Dan would rather have cut out his tongue than +to speak his name, and yet he was there in the +mind of each. During the fortnight Dan spent +thousands of pounds on her, bought her jewels +which she alternately raved over or but half +looked at. He had made his arrangements with +Galorey peacefully, coolly and between the two +men it had been understood that the world +should think the engagement broken by the duchess, +and Dan’s attention to Letty Lane, already +the subject of much comment, already conspicuous, +was enough to justify any woman in taking +offense. +</p> +<p> +One day, the pearl of warm May days, when +England even in springtime touches summer, +Blair was so happy as to persuade his sweetheart +to go with him for a little row on the river. +The young fellow waited for her in the boat he +had secured, and she, motoring out with Higgins, +had appeared, running down to the edge +of the water like a girl, gay as a child let out +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245'></a>245</span> +from school, in a simple frock, in a marvelously +fetching hat, white gloves, white parasol, white +shoes, and as Dan helped her into the boat, +pushed it out, pushed away with her on the crest +of the sun-flecked waters, spring was in his +heart, and he found the moment almost too great +to bear. +</p> +<p> +The actress had been a girl with him all +day, giving herself to his moods, doing what +he liked without demur, talking of their mutual +past, telling him one amusing story after another, +proving herself an ideal companion, +fresh, varied, reposeful; and no one to have seen +Letty Lane with the boy on that afternoon would +have dreamed that she ever had known another +love. They had moored their boat down near +Maidenhead, and he had helped her up the bank +to the little inn, where tea had been made for +them, and served to him by her own beautiful +white hands. He had called for strawberries, +and, like a shepherd in a pastoral, had fed them +to her, and as they lingered the sunset came +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246'></a>246</span> +creeping steadily in through the windows where +they sat. +</p> +<p> +As they neither called for their account nor +to have the tea things taken away, after a while +the woman stealthily opened the door and, unknown, +looked at one of the prettiest pictures +ever within her walls. Letty Lane sat on the +window-seat, her golden head, her white form +against the glow, and the boy by her side had +his arms around her, and her head was on his +breast. They were both young. They might +have been white birds blown in there, nesting in +the humble inn, and the woman of the house, +who had not heard the waters of the Thames +flow softly for nothing, judged them gently and +sighed with pleasure as she shut the door. +</p> +<p> +Here at Maidenhead Dan had left his boat +and the motor took them back. Nothing spoiled +his bliss that day, and he said her name a thousand +times that night in his dreams. Jealousies—and, +when he would let himself think, they were +not one, they were many—faded away. The +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247'></a>247</span> +duties that a life with her would involve did not +disturb him. For many a long year, come what +might, be what would, he would recall the glowing +of that sunset reflected under the inn windows, +the singing of the thrushes and the flash +of the white dress and the fine little white shoes +which he had held in the palm of his ardent +hand, which he had kissed, as he told her with all +his heart that she should rest her tired feet for +ever. +</p> +<p> +There grew in him that day a reverence for +her, determined as he was to bring into her life +by his wealth and devotion everything of good. +His loving plans for her forming in his brain +somewhat chaotic and very much fevered, +brought him nearer than he had ever been before +to the picture of his mother. His father +it wasn’t easy for Dan to think of in connection +with the actress. He didn’t dare to dwell on +the subject, but he had never known his mother, +and that pale ideal he could create as he would. +In thinking of her he saw only tenderness for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248'></a>248</span> +Letty Lane—only love; and in his room the +night after the row on the river, the night after +the long idyl in the sunset-room of the inn, +something like a prayer came to his young lips, +and, when its short form was finished, a smile +brought it to an end as he remembered the line +in Letty Lane’s own opera: +</p> +<p> + “She will teach you how to pray in an Eastern form of prayer.”<br /> +</p> +<p> +The ring he had given the Duchess of Breakwater +had been her own choice, a ruby. He had +asked her, through Galorey, to keep it and to +wear it later, when she could think of him kindly, +in an ornament of some kind or another. The +duchess had not refused. The ring he bought +for Letty Lane, although there was no engagement +announced between them, was the largest, +purest diamond he could <em>with decency</em> ask her +to put on her hand! It sparkled like a great +drop of clear water from some fountain on a +magic continent. In another shop strands of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249'></a>249</span> +pink coral set through with diamonds caught +his fancy and he bought her yards of them, +ropes of them, smiling to think how his boyhood’s +dreams were come true. +</p> +<p> +He never saw Ruggles except at meals, hardly +spoke to the poor man at all, and the boy’s +absorbed face, his state of mind, made the older +man feel like death. He repeated to himself +that he was too late—too late, and usually +wound up his reflections by ejaculating: +</p> +<p> +“Gosh almighty, I’m glad I haven’t got a +son!” +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250'></a>250</span><a name='chXXIV' id='chXXIV'></a>CHAPTER XXIV—RUGGLES’ OFFER</h2> +<p> +He felt as he waited for her in that +flower-filled room, for she had recovered +from her distaste for flowers, as he glanced at +the photographs of women like herself in costumes +more or less frank, more or less vulgar, he +felt as though he wanted to knock down the walls +and let in a big view of the West—of Montana—of +the hills. With such a setting he thought +he could better talk with the lady whom he had +come to see. +</p> +<p> +Ruggles held an unlighted cigar between his +fingers and goose-flesh rose all over him. His +glasses bothered him. He couldn’t get them +bright enough, though he polished them half a +dozen times on his silk handkerchief. His clothes +felt too large. He seemed to have shrunken. He +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251'></a>251</span> +moistened his lips, cleared his throat, tried to remember +what kind of fellow he had been at +Dan’s age. At Dan’s age he was selling a suspender +patent on the road, supporting his +mother and his sisters—hard work and few +temptations; he was too tired and too poor. +</p> +<p> +Miss Lane kept him waiting ten minutes, and +they were hours to her guest. He was afraid +every minute that Dan would come in. The +thoughts he had gathered together, the plan of +action, disarranged itself in his mind every time +he thought of the actress. He couldn’t forget +his vision of her on the stage or at the Carlton, +where she had sat opposite them and +bewitched them both. When she came into the +sitting-room at length, he started so violently +that he knocked over a vase of flowers, the water +trickling all over the table down on to the floor. +</p> +<p> +She had dazzled him before the footlights, +charmed him at dinner, and it was singular to +think that he knew how this dignified, quiet +creature looked in ballet clothes and in a dinner +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252'></a>252</span> +dress, whose frankness had made him catch his +breath. It was a third woman who stood before +Ruggles now. He had to take her into consideration. +She had expected him, saw him by appointment. +She was a woman of mind and intelligence. +She had not climbed to her starry position +without having acquired a knowledge of men, +and it was the secret of her success. She showed +it in the dress in which she received her visitor. +She wore a short walking skirt of heavy serge, +a simple shirtwaist belted around, a sailor hat +on her beautiful little head. She was unjeweled +and unpainted, very pale and very sweet. +If it had not been for the marks of fatigue under +her eyes, she would not have looked more +than eighteen. On her left hand a single diamond, +clear as water, caught the refracted light. +</p> +<p> +“How-de-do? Glad you are back again.” +</p> +<p> +She gave him a big chair and sat down before +him smiling. Leaning her elbows on her knees, +she sank her face upon her hands and looked at +him, not coquettishly in the least, but as a child +might have looked. From her small feet to her +golden head she was utterly charming. +</p> +<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='i005' id='i005'></a> +<img src='images/illus-004.jpg' alt='' title=''/><br /> +</div> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253'></a>253</span></div> +<p> +Ruggles made himself think of Dan. Miss +Lane spoke slowly, nodding toward him, in her +languid voice: “It’s no use, Mr. Ruggles, no +use.” +</p> +<p> +Holding her face between her hands, her eyes +gray as winter’s seas and as profound, she +looked at him intently; then, in a flash, she +changed her position and instantly transformed +her character. He saw that she was a woman, +not an eighteen-year-old girl, but a woman, clever, +poised, witty, understanding, and that she +might have been twenty years older than the boy. +</p> +<p> +“I’m sorry you spoke so quick,” he said. +</p> +<p> +“I knew,” she interrupted, “just what you +wanted to say from the start. I couldn’t help it, +could I? I knew you would want to come and +see me about it. It isn’t any use. I know just +what you are going to say.” +</p> +<p> +“No, ma’am,” he returned, “I don’t believe +you do—bright as you are.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254'></a>254</span> +</p> +<p> +Ruggles gazed thoughtfully at the cold end +of his unlighted cigar. It was a comfort to him +to hold it and to look at it, although not for +anything in the world would he have asked to +light it. +</p> +<p> +“Dan’s father and me were chums. We went +through pretty much together, and I know how +he felt on most points. He was a man of few +words, but I know he counted on me to stand By +the boy.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles was so chivalrous that his rôle at +present cost him keen discomfort. +</p> +<p> +“A lady like you,” he said gently, “knows a +great deal more about how things are done than +either Dan or me. We ain’t tenderfeet in the +West, not by a long shot, but we see so few of +a certain kind of picture shows that when they +do come round they’re likely to make us lose our +minds! You know, yourself, a circus in a town +fifty miles from a railroad drives the people +crazy. Now, Dan’s a little like the boy with his +eyes on the hole in the tent. He would commit +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255'></a>255</span> +murder to get inside and see that show.” He +nodded and smiled to her as though he expected +her to follow his crude simile. “Now, I have +seen <em>you</em> a lot of times.” And she couldn’t help +reminding him, “Not of your own accord, Mr. +Ruggles.” +</p> +<p> +“Well, I don’t know,” he slowly admitted; “I +always felt I had my money’s worth, and the +night you ate with us at the Carlton I understood +pretty well how the boy with his eyes at +the tent hole would feel.” But he tapped his +broad chest with the hand that held the cigar +between the first and second fingers. “I know +just what kind of a heart you’ve got, for I +waited at the stage door and I know you don’t +get all your applause inside the Gaiety Theater.” +</p> +<p> +“Goodness,” she murmured, “they make an +awful fuss about nothing.” +</p> +<p> +“Now,” he continued, leaning forward a trifle +toward her languid, half interested figure, “I +just want you to think of him as a little boy. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256'></a>256</span> +He’s only twenty-two. He knows nothing of the +world. The money you give to the poor doesn’t +come so hard perhaps as this will. It’s a big +sacrifice, but I want you to let the boy go.” +</p> +<p> +She smiled slightly, found her handkerchief, +which was tucked up the cuff of her blouse, +pressed the little bit of linen to her lips as +though to steady them, then she asked abruptly: +</p> +<p> +“What has he said to you?” +</p> +<p> +“Lord!” Ruggles groaned. “<em>Said</em> to me! My +dear young lady, he is much too rude to speak. +Dan sort of breathes and snorts around like a +lunatic. He was dangling around that duchess +when I was here before, but she didn’t scare me +any.” +</p> +<p> +And Letty Lane, now smiling at him, relieved +by his break from a more intense tone, asked: +</p> +<p> +“Now, you are scared?” +</p> +<p> +“Well,” Ruggles drawled, “I was pretty sure +that woman didn’t <em>care</em> anything for the boy. +Are you her kind?” +</p> +<p> +It was the best stroke he had made. She almost +sprang up from her chair. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257'></a>257</span> +</p> +<p> +“Heavens,” she exclaimed, “I guess I’m not!” +Her face flushed. +</p> +<p> +“I had rather see a son of mine dead than +married to a woman like that,” he said. +</p> +<p> +“Why, Mr. Ruggles,” she exclaimed passionately, +addressing him with interest for the first +time, “what do you know about me? What? +What? You have seen me dance and heard me +sing.” +</p> +<p> +And he interrupted her. +</p> +<p> +“Ten times, and you are a bully dancer and a +bully singer, but you do other things than dance +and sing. There is not a man living that would +want to have his mother dress that way.” +</p> +<p> +She controlled a smile. “Never mind that. +People’s opinions are very different about that +sort of thing. You have seen me at dinner with +your boy, as you call him, and you can’t say that +I did anything but ask him to help the poor. I +haven’t led Dan on. I have tried to show him +just what you are making me go through now.” +</p> +<p> +If she acted well and danced well, it was hard +for her to talk. She was evidently under strong +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258'></a>258</span> +emotion and it needed her control not to burst +into tears and lose her chance. +</p> +<p> +“Of course, I know the things you have heard. +Of course, I know what is said about me”—and +she stopped. +</p> +<p> +Ruggles didn’t press her any further; he +didn’t ask her if the things were true. Looking +at her as he did, watching her as he did, there +was in him a feeling so new, so troubling that he +found himself more anxious to protect her than +to bring her to justice. +</p> +<p> +“There are worse, far worse women than I am, +Mr. Ruggles. I will never do Dan any harm.” +</p> +<p> +Here her visitor leaned forward and put one +of his big hands lightly over one of hers, patted +it a moment, and said: +</p> +<p> +“I want you to do a great deal better than +that.” +</p> +<p> +She had picked up a photograph off the table, +a pretty picture of herself in <em>Mandalay</em>, and +turned it nervously between her fingers as she +said with irritation: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259'></a>259</span> +</p> +<p> +“I haven’t been in the theatrical world not to +guess at this ‘Worried Father’ act, Mr. Ruggles. +I told you I knew just what you were going +to say.” +</p> +<p> +“Wrong!” he repeated. “The business is old +enough perhaps, lots of good jobs are old, but +<em>this</em> is a little different.” +</p> +<p> +He took the turning picture and laid it on the +table, and quietly possessed himself of the small +cold hands. Blair’s solitaire shone up to him. +Ruggles looked into Letty Lane’s eyes. “He is +only twenty-two; it ain’t fair, it ain’t fair. He +could count the times he has been on a lark, I +guess. He hasn’t even been to an eastern college. +He is no fool, but he’s darned simple.” +</p> +<p> +She smiled faintly. The man’s face, near her +own, was very simple indeed. +</p> +<p> +“You have seen so much,” he urged, “so +many fellows. You have been such a queen, I +dare say you could get any man you wanted.” +He repeated. “Most any one.” +</p> +<p> +“I have never seen any one like Dan.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260'></a>260</span> +</p> +<p> +“Just so: He ain’t your kind. That is what I +am trying to tell you.” +</p> +<p> +She withdrew her hand from his violently. +</p> +<p> +“There you are wrong. He <em>is</em> my kind. He +is what I like, and he is what I want to be like.” +</p> +<p> +A wave of red dyed her face, and, in a tone +more passionate than she had ever used to her +lover, she said to Ruggles: +</p> +<p> +“I love him—I love him!” Her words sent +something like a sword through the older man’s +heart. He said gently: “Don’t say it. He +don’t know what love means yet.” +</p> +<p> +He wanted to tell her that the girl Dan married +should be the kind of woman his mother +was, but Ruggles couldn’t bring himself to say +the words. Now, as he sat near her, he was +growing so complex that his brain was turning +round. He heard her murmur: +</p> +<p> +“I told you I knew your act, Mr. Ruggles. It +isn’t any use.” +</p> +<p> +This brought him back to his position and +once more he leaned toward her and, in a different +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261'></a>261</span> +tone from the one he had intended to use, +murmured: +</p> +<p> +“You don’t know. You haven’t any idea. I +do ask you to let Dan go, that’s a fact. I have +got something else to propose in its place. It +ain’t quite the same, but it is clear—marry me!” +</p> +<p> +She gave a little exclamation. A slight smile +rippled over her face like the sunset across a +pale pool at dawn. +</p> +<p> +“Laugh,” he said humbly; “don’t keep in. I +know I am old-fashioned as the deuce, and me +and Dan is quite a contrast, but I mean just +what I say, my dear.” +</p> +<p> +She controlled her amusement, if it was that. +It almost made her cry with mirth, and she +couldn’t help it. Between laughing breaths she +said to him: +</p> +<p> +“Oh, is it all for Dan’s sake, Mr. Ruggles? +Is it?” And then, biting her lips and looking at +him out of her wonderful eyes, she said: “I +know it is—I know it is—I beg your pardon.” +</p> +<p> +“I asked a girl once when I was poor—too +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262'></a>262</span> +poor. Now this is the second time in my life. +I mean just what I say. I’ll make you a kind +husband. I am fifty-five, hale as a nut. I dare +say you have had many better offers.” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, dear,” she breathed; “oh, dear, please—please +stop!” +</p> +<p> +“But I don’t expect you to marry me for anything +but my money.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles put his cigar down on the edge of +the table. He looked at his chair meditatively, +he took out his silk handkerchief, polished up his +glasses, readjusted them, put them on and then +looked at her. +</p> +<p> +“Now,” he said, “I am going to trust you +with something, and I know you will keep my +secret for me. This shows you a little bit of +what I think about you. Dan Blair hasn’t got a +red cent. He has nothing but what I give him. +There’s a false title to all that land on the Bentley +claim. The whole thing came up when I was +home and the original company, of which I own +three-quarters of the stock, holds the clear titles +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263'></a>263</span> +to the Blairtown mines. It all belongs now to +me, if I choose to present my documents. Dan +knows nothing about this—not a word.” +</p> +<p> +The actress had never come up to such a dramatic +point in any of her plays. With her hands +folded in her lap she looked at him steadily, and +he could not understand the expression that +crossed her face. He heard her exclamation: +“Oh, gracious!” +</p> +<p> +“I’ve brought the papers back with me,” said +the Westerner, “and it is between you and me +how we act. If Dan marries you I will be bound +to do what old Blair would have done—cut him +off—let him feel his feet on the ground, and the +result of his own folly.” +</p> +<p> +He had taken his glasses off while he made +this assertion. Now he put them on again. +</p> +<p> +“If you give him up I’ll divide with the boy +and be rich enough still to hand over to my wife +all she wants to spend.” +</p> +<p> +She turned her face away from him and +leaned her head once more upon her hands. He +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264'></a>264</span> +heard her softly murmuring under her breath, +with an absent look on her face, accompanied by +a still more incomprehensible smile. +</p> +<p> +“That’s how it stands,” he concluded. +</p> +<p> +She seemed to have forgotten him entirely, +and he caught his breath when she turned about +abruptly and said: +</p> +<p> +“My goodness, how Dan will hate being poor! +He will have to sell all his stickpins and his motor +cars and all the things he has given me. It +will be quite a little to start on, but he will hate +it, he is so very smart.” +</p> +<p> +“Why, you don’t mean to say—” Ruggles +gasped. +</p> +<p> +And with a charming smile as she rose to put +their conversation at an end, she said: +</p> +<p> +“Why, you don’t mean to say that you +thought I <em>wouldn’t stand by him</em>?” She seemed, +as she put her hands upon her hips with something +of a defiant look at the older man, as +though she just then stood by her pauperized +lover. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265'></a>265</span> +</p> +<p> +“I thought you cared some for the boy,” Ruggles +said. +</p> +<p> +“Well, I am showing it.” +</p> +<p> +“You want to ruin him to show it, do you?” +</p> +<p> +As though he thought the subject dismissed +he walked heavily toward the door. +</p> +<p> +“You know how it stands. I have nothing +more to say.” He knew that he had signally +failed, and as a sudden resentment rose in him +he exclaimed, almost brutally: +</p> +<p> +“I am darned glad the old man is dead; I am +glad his mother’s dead, and I am glad I have got +no son.” +</p> +<p> +The next moment she was at his side, and he +felt that she clung to his arm. Her sensitive, +beautiful face, all drawn with emotion, was raised +to his. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, you’ll kill me—you’ll kill me! Just look +how very ill I am; you are making me crazy. I +just worship him.” +</p> +<p> +“Give him up, then,” said Ruggles steadily. +</p> +<p> +She faltered: “I can’t—I can’t—it won’t be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266'></a>266</span> +for long”—with a terrible pathos in her voice. +“You don’t know how different I can be: you +don’t know what a new life we were going to +lead.” +</p> +<p> +Stammering, and with intense meaning, Ruggles, +looking down at her, said: “My dear child—my +dear child!” +</p> +<p> +In his few words something perhaps made her +see in a flash her past and what the question +really was. She dropped Ruggles’ arm. She +stood for a moment with her arms folded across +her breast, her head bent down, and the man at +the door waited, feeling that Dan’s whole life +was in the balance of the moment. When she +spoke again her voice was hard and entirely devoid +of the lovely appealing quality which +brought her so much admiration from the public. +</p> +<p> +“If I give him up,” she said slowly, “what will +you do?” +</p> +<p> +“Why,” he answered, “I’ll divide with Dan +and let things stand just as they are.” +</p> +<p> +She thought again a moment and then as if +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267'></a>267</span> +she did not want him to witness—to detect the +struggle she was going through, she turned +away and walked over toward the window and +dismissed him from there. “Please go, will you? +I want very much to be alone and to think.” +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268'></a>268</span><a name='chXXV' id='chXXV'></a>CHAPTER XXV—LETTY LANE RUNS AWAY</h2> +<p> +He had not got up-stairs to his rooms at +the Carlton before a note was handed him +from the actress, bidding him to return at once +to the Savoy, and Ruggles, his heart hammering +like a trip-hammer, rushed up to his rooms, made +an evening toilet, for it was then half-past seven, +threw his cravats and collars all around the +place, cursed like a miner as he got into his +clothes, and red almost to apoplexy, nervous and +full of emotion, he returned to the rooms he had +left not three hours before. +</p> +<p> +The three hours had been busy ones at the +actress’ apartment. Letty Lane’s sitting-room +was full of trunks, dressing-bags and traveling +paraphernalia. She came forward out of what +seemed a world of confusion, dressed as though +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269'></a>269</span> +for a journey, even her veil and her gloves denoting +her departure. She spoke hurriedly and +almost without politeness. +</p> +<p> +“I have sent for you to come and see me here. +Not a soul in London knows I am going away. +There will be a dreadful row at the theater, but +that’s none of your affairs. Now, I want you to +tell me before I go just what you are going to +do for Dan.” +</p> +<p> +“Who are you going with?” Ruggles asked +shortly, and she flashed at him: +</p> +<p> +“Well, really, I don’t think that is any of +your business. When you drive a woman as you +have driven me, she will go far.” +</p> +<p> +He interrupted her vehemently, not daring to +take her hand. “I couldn’t do more. I have +asked you to marry me. I couldn’t do more. I +stand by what I have said. Will you?” he stammered. +</p> +<p> +She knew men. She looked at him keenly. +Her veil was lifted above her eyes and its shadow +framed her small pale face on which there +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270'></a>270</span> +were marks of utter disenchantment, of great +ennui. She said languidly: “What I want to +know is, what you are going to do for Dan?” +</p> +<p> +“I told you I would share with him.” +</p> +<p> +“Then he will be nearly as rich?” +</p> +<p> +“He’ll have more than is good for him.” +</p> +<p> +That satisfied her. Then she pursued: “I +want you to stand by him. He will need you.” +</p> +<p> +Ruggles lifted the hand he held and kissed it +reverently. “I’ll do anything you say—anything +you say.” +</p> +<p> +Down-stairs in the Savoy, as Dan had done +countless times, Ruggles waited until he saw her +motor car carry her and her small luggage and +Higgins away. +</p> +<p> +In their sitting-room in the Carlton a half-hour +later the door was thrown open and Dan +Blair came in like a madman. Without preamble +he seized Ruggles by the arm. +</p> +<p> +“Look here,” he cried, “what have you been +doing? Tell me now, and tell me the truth, or, +by God, I don’t know what I’ll do. You went to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271'></a>271</span> +the Savoy. You went there twice. Anyhow, +where is she?” +</p> +<p> +Dan, slender as he was beside Ruggles’ great +frame, shook the elder man as though he had +been a terrier. “Speak to me. Where has she +gone?” +</p> +<p> +He stared in the Westerner’s face, his eyes +bloodshot. “Why in thunder don’t you say +something?” +</p> +<p> +And Ruggles prayed for some power to unloose +his thickening tongue. +</p> +<p> +“You say she’s gone?” he questioned. +</p> +<p> +“I say,” said the boy, “that you’ve been meddling +in my affairs with the woman I love. I +don’t know what you have said to her, but it’s +only your age that keeps me from striking you. +Don’t you know,” he cried, “that you are spoiling +my life? Don’t you know that?” A torrent +of feeling coming to his lips, his eyes suffused, +the tears rolled down his face. He walked away +into his own room, remained there a few moments, +and when he came out again he carried in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272'></a>272</span> +his hand his valise, which he put down with a +bang on the table. More calmly, but still in +great anger, he said to his father’s friend: +</p> +<p> +“Now, can you tell me what you’ve done or +not?” +</p> +<p> +“Dan,” said Ruggles with difficulty, “if you +will sit down a moment we can—” +</p> +<p> +The boy laughed in his face. “Sit down!” he +cried. “Why, I think you must have lost your +reason. I have chartered a motor car out there +and the damned thing has burst a tire and they +are fixing it up for me. It will be ready in about +two minutes and then I am going to follow wherever +she has gone. She crossed to Paris, but I +can get there before she can even with this +damned accident. But, before I go, I want you +to tell me what you said.” +</p> +<p> +“Why,” said Ruggles quietly, “I told her you +were poor, and she turned you down.” +</p> +<p> +His words were faint. +</p> +<p> +“God!” said the boy under his breath. “That’s +the way you think about truth. Lie to a woman +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273'></a>273</span> +to save my precious soul! But I expect,” he said; +“you think she is so immoral and so bad that she +will hurt me. Well,” he said, with great emphasis, +“she has never done anything in her life that +comes up to what you’ve done. Never! And +nothing has ever hurt me so.” +</p> +<p> +His lips trembled. “I have lost my respect +for you, for my father’s friend, and as far as +she is concerned, I don’t care what she marries +me for. She has got to marry me, and if she +doesn’t”—he had no idea, in his passion, what +he was saying or how—“why, I think I’ll kill +you first and then blow my own brains out!” +And with these mad words he grabbed up his +valise and bolted from the room, and Ruggles +could hear his running feet tearing down the +corridor. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274'></a>274</span><a name='chXXVI' id='chXXVI'></a>CHAPTER XXVI—WHITE AND CORAL</h2> +<p> +Spring in Paris, which comes in a fashion +so divine that even the most calloused and +indifferent are impressed by its beauty, awakened +no answering response in the heart of the +young man who, from his hotel window, looked +out on the desecrated gardens of the Tuileries—on +the distant spires of the churches whose +names he did not know—on the square block of +old palaces. He had missed the boat across the +Channel taken by Letty Lane, and the delay had +made him lose what little trace of her he had. +In the early hours of the morning he had flung +himself in at the St. James, taken the indifferent +room they could give him in the crowded season, +and excited as he was he slept and did not waken +until noon. Blair thought it would be a matter +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275'></a>275</span> +of a few hours only to find the whereabouts of +the celebrated actress, but it was not such an +easy job. He had not guessed that she might +be traveling incognito, and at none of the hotels +could he hear news of her, nor did he pass her +in the crowded, noisy, rustling, crying streets, +though he searched motors for her with eager +eyes, and haunted restaurants and cafés, and +went everywhere that he thought she might be +likely to be. +</p> +<p> +At the end of the third day, unsuccessful +and in despair, having hardly slept and scarcely +eaten, the unhappy young lover found himself +taking a slight luncheon in the little restaurant +known as the Perouse down on the Quais. +His head on his hand, for the present moment +the joy of life gone from him, he looked +out through the windows at the Seine, at the +bridge and the lines of flowering trees. He was +the only occupant of the upper room where, of +late, he had ordered his luncheon. +</p> +<p> +The tide of life rolled slowly in this quieter +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_276'></a>276</span> +part of the city, and as Blair sat there under the +window there passed a piper playing a shrill, +sweet tune. It was so different from any of the +loud metropolitan clamors, with which his ears +were full, that he got up, walked to the window +and leaned out. It was a pastoral that met his +eyes. A man piping, followed by little pattering +goats; the primitive, unlooked-for picture caught +his tired attention, and, just then, opposite the +Quais, two women passed—flower sellers, their +baskets bright with crocuses and giroflés. The +bright picture touched him and something of the +springlike beauty that the day wore and that +dwelt in the May light, soothed him as nothing +had for many hours. +</p> +<p> +He paid his bill, took courage, picked up his +hat and gloves and stick and walked out briskly, +crossing the bridge to the Rue de Rivoli, determined +that night should not fall until he found +the woman he sought. Nor did it, though the +afternoon wore on and Dan, pursuing his old +trails, wandered from worldly meeting place to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_277'></a>277</span> +worldly meeting place. Finally, toward six +o’clock, he saw the lengthening shadows steal +into the woods of the Bois de Boulogne, and in +one of the smaller alleys, where the green-trunked +trees of the forests were full of purple +shadows and yellow sun discs, flickering down, +he picked up a small iron chair and sat himself +down, with a long sigh, to rest. +</p> +<p> +While he sat there watching the end of the +<em>allée</em> as it gave out into the broader road, a +beautiful red motor rolled up to the conjunction +of the two ways and Letty Lane, in a summer +frock, got out alone. She had a flowing white +veil around her head and a flowing white scarf +around her shoulders. As the day on the +Thames, she was all in white—like a dove. But +this time her costume was made vivid and picturesque +by the coral parasol she carried, a +pair of coral-colored kid shoes, around her neck +and falling on their long chain, she wore his coral +beads. He saw that he observed her before she +did him. All this Dan saw before he dashed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_278'></a>278</span> +into the road, came up to her with something +like a cry on his lips, bareheaded, for his hat +and his stick and his gloves were by his chair +in the woods. +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane’s hands went to her heart and her +face took on a deadly pallor. She did not seem +glad to see him. Out of his passionate description +of the hours that he had been through, of +how he had looked for her, of what he thought +and wanted and felt, the actress made what she +could, listening to him as they both stood there +under the shadows of the green trees. Scanning +her face for some sign that she loved him, for it +was all he cared for, Dan saw no such indication +there. He finished with: +</p> +<p> +“You know what Ruggles told you was a lie. +Of course, I’ve got money enough to give you +everything you want. He’s a lunatic and ought +to be shut up.” +</p> +<p> +“It may have been a lie, all right,” she said +with forced indifference; “I’ve had time to think +it over. You are too young. You don’t know +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_279'></a>279</span> +what you want.” She stopped his protestations: +“Well, then, <em>I</em> am too old and I don’t want to be +tied down.” +</p> +<p> +When he pressed her to tell him whether or +not she had ceased to care for him, she shook her +head slowly, marking on the ground fine tracery +with the end of her coral parasol. He had been +obliged to take her back to the red motor, but +before they were in earshot of her servants, he +said: +</p> +<p> +“Now, you know just what you have done to +me, you and Ruggles between you. For my father’s +sake and the things I believed in I’ve +kept pretty straight as things go.” He nodded +at her with boyish egotism, throwing all the +blame on her. “I want you to understand that +from now, right now, I’m going to the dogs just +as fast as I can get there, and it won’t be a very +gratifying result to anybody that ever cared.” +</p> +<p> +She saw the determination on his fine young +face, worn by his sleepless nights, already matured +and changed, and she believed him. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_280'></a>280</span> +</p> +<p> +“Paris,” he nodded toward the gate of the +woods which opened upon Paris, “is the place to +begin in—right here. A man,” he went on, and +his lips trembled, “can only feel like this once in +his life. You know all the talk there is about +young love and first love. Well, that’s what I’ve +got for you, and I’m going to turn it now—right +now—into just what older people warn +men from, and do their best to prevent. I have +seen enough of Paris,” he went on, “these days I +have been looking for you, to know where to go +and what to do, and I am setting off for it now.” +</p> +<p> +She touched his arm. +</p> +<p> +“No,” she murmured. “No, boy, you are not +going to do any such thing!” +</p> +<p> +This much from her was enough for him. He +caught her hand and cried: “Then you marry +me. What do we care for anybody else in the +world?” +</p> +<p> +“Go back and get your hat and stick and +gloves,” she commanded, keeping down the tears. +</p> +<p> +“No, no, you come with me, Letty; I’m not +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_281'></a>281</span> +going to let you run to your motor and escape +me again.” +</p> +<p> +“Go; I’ll wait here,” she promised. “I give +you my word.” +</p> +<p> +As he snatched up the inanimate objects from +the leaf-strewn ground where he had thrown +them in despair, he thought how things can +change in a quarter of an hour. For he had +hope now, as he hurried back, as he walked with +her to her car, as he saw the little coral shoes +stir in the leaves when she passed under the trees. +The little coral shoes trod on his heart, but now +it was light under her feet! +</p> +<p> +Jubilant to have overcome the fate which had +tried to keep her hidden from him in Paris, he +could hardly believe his eyes that she was before +them again, and, as the motor rolled into the +Avenue des Acacias, he asked her the question +uppermost in his mind: +</p> +<p> +“Are you alone in Paris, Letty?” +</p> +<p> +“Don’t you count?” +</p> +<p> +“No—no—honestly, <em>you know what I mean</em>.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_282'></a>282</span> +</p> +<p> +“You haven’t any right to ask me that.” +</p> +<p> +“I have—I have. You gave me a right. +You’re engaged to me, aren’t you? Gosh, you +haven’t <em>forgotten</em>, have you?” +</p> +<p> +“Don’t make me conspicuous in the Bois, +Dan,” she said; “I only let you come with me +because you were so terribly desperate, so ridiculous.” +</p> +<p> +“Are you alone?” he persisted. “I have got +to know.” +</p> +<p> +“Higgins is with me.” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, God,” he cried wildly, “how can you joke +with me? Don’t you understand you’re breaking +my heart?” +</p> +<p> +But she did not dare to be kind to him, knowing +it would unnerve her for the part she had +promised to play. +</p> +<p> +He sat gripping his hands tightly together, +his lips white. “When I leave you now,” he said +brokenly, “I am going to find that devil of a +Hungarian and do him up. Then I am going to +tackle Ruggles.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283'></a>283</span> +</p> +<p> +“Why, what’s poor Mr. Ruggles got to do +with it?” +</p> +<p> +Dan cried scornfully: “For God’s sake, don’t +keep this up! You know the rot he told you? +I made him confess. He has had this mania all +along about money being a handicap; he was +bent on trying this game with some girl to see +how it worked.” He continued more passionately. +“I don’t care a rap what you marry me for, +Letty, or what you have done or been. I think +you’re perfect and I’ll make you the happiest +woman in the world.” +</p> +<p> +She said: “Hush, hush! Listen, dear; listen, +little boy. I am awfully sorry, but it won’t do. +I never thought it would. You’ll get over it all +right, though you don’t, you can’t believe me +now. I can’t be poor, you know; I really couldn’t +be poor.” +</p> +<p> +He interrupted roughly: “Who says you’ll +be? What are you talking about? Why, I’ll +cover you with jewels, sweetheart, if I have to +rip the earth open to get them out.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_284'></a>284</span> +</p> +<p> +She understood that Dan believed Ruggles’ +story to have been a cock-and-bull one. +</p> +<p> +“You talk as though you could buy me, Dan. +Wait, listen.” She put him back from her. +“Now, if you won’t be quiet, I’m going to stop +my car.” +</p> +<p> +He repeated: “Tell me, are you alone in +Paris? Tell me. For three days I have wandered +and searched for you everywhere; I have +hardly eaten a thing, I don’t believe I have slept +a wink.” And he told her of his weary search. +</p> +<p> +She listened to him, part of the time her white-gloved +hand giving itself up to the boy; part of +the time both hands folded together and away +from him, her arms crossed on her breast, her +small shoes of coral kid tapping the floor of the +car. Thus they rolled leisurely along the road +by the Bois. Through the green-trunked trees +the sunlight fell divinely. On the lake the swans +swam, pluming their feathers; there were children +there in their ribbons and furbelows. The +whole world went by gay and careless, while for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285'></a>285</span> +Dan the problem of his existence, his possibility +for happiness or pain was comprised within the +little room of the motor car. +</p> +<p> +“Are you alone in Paris, Letty?” +</p> +<p> +And she said: “Oh, what a bore you are! +You’re the most obstinate creature. Well, I am +alone, but that has nothing to do with you.” +</p> +<p> +A glorious light broke over his face; his relief +was tremendous. +</p> +<p> +“Oh, thank God!” he breathed. +</p> +<p> +“Poniotowsky”—and she said his name with +difficulty—“is coming to-night from Carlsbad.” +</p> +<p> +The boy threw back his bright head and +laughed wildly. +</p> +<p> +“Curse him! The very name makes me want +to commit a crime. He will go over my body to +you. You hear me, Letty. I mean what I say.” +</p> +<p> +People had already remarked them as they +passed. The actress was too well-known to pass +unobserved, but she was indifferent to their curiosity +or to the existence of any one but this excited +boy. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_286'></a>286</span> +</p> +<p> +Blair, who had not opened a paper since he +came to Paris, did not know that Letty Lane’s +flight from London had created a scandal in the +theatrical world, that her manager was suing +her, and that to be seen with her driving in the +Bois was a conspicuous thing indeed. She +thought of it, however. +</p> +<p> +“I am going to tell the man to drive you to +the gate on the other side of the park where it’s +quieter, we won’t be stared at, and then I want +you to leave me and let me go to the Meurice +alone. You must, Dan, you must let me go to the +hotel alone.” +</p> +<p> +He laughed again in the same strained fashion +and forced her hand to remain in his. +</p> +<p> +“Look here. You don’t suppose I am going +to let you go like this, now that I have seen you +again. You don’t suppose I am going to give +you up to that infamous scoundrel? You have +got to marry me.” +</p> +<p> +Bringing all her strength of character to bear, +she exclaimed: “I expect you think you are the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287'></a>287</span> +only person who has asked me to marry him, +Dan. I am going to <em>marry</em> Prince Poniotowsky. +He is perfectly crazy about me.” +</p> +<p> +Until that moment she had not made him think +that she was indifferent to him, and the idea that +such a thing was possible, was too much for his +overstrained heart to bear. Dan cried her name +in a voice whose appeal was like a hurt creature’s, +and as the hurt creature in its suffering sometimes +springs upon its torturer, he flung his +arms around her as she sat in the motor, held her +and kissed her, then set her free, and as the +motor flew along, tore open the door to spring +out or to throw himself out, but clinging to him +she prevented his mad act. She stopped the +car along the edge of the quiet, wooded <em>allée</em>. +Blair saw that he had terrified her. She covered +her beating heart with her hands and gasped at +him that he was “crazy, crazy,” and perhaps a +little late his dignity and self-possession returned. +</p> +<p> +“I am mad,” he acknowledged more calmly, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_288'></a>288</span> +“and I am sorry that I frightened you. But +you drive me mad.” +</p> +<p> +Without further word he got out and left her +agitated, leaning toward him, and Blair, less +pale and thoroughly the man, lifted his hat to +her and, with unusual grace, bowed good night +and good-by. Then, rushing as he had come, he +walked off down through the <em>allée</em>, his gray figure +in his gray clothes disappearing through +the vista of meeting trees. +</p> +<p> +For a moment she stared after him, her eyes +fastened on the tall slender beautiful young man. +Blair’s fire and ardor, his fresh youthfulness, +his protection and his chivalry, his ardent devotion, +touched her profoundly. Tears fell, and +one splashed on her white glove. Was he really +going to ruin his life? The old ballad, <em>The Earl +of Moray</em>, ran through her head: +</p> +<p> + “And long may his lady look from the castle wall.”<br /> +</p> +<p> +Dan had neither title nor, according to Ruggles, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_289'></a>289</span> +had he any money, and she could marry the +prince; but Dan, as he walked so fast away, misery +snapping at his heels as he went, stamping +through the woods, seemed glorious to Letty +Lane and the only one she wanted in the world. +What if anything should happen to him really? +What if he should really start out to do the town +according to the fashion of his Anglo-Saxon +brothers, but more desperately still? She took +a card from the case in the corner of the car, +scribbled a few words, told the man to drive +around the curve and meet the outlet of the +path by which Dan had gone. When she saw +him within reaching distance she sent the chauffeur +across the woods to give Mr. Blair her +scribbled word and consoled herself with the belief +that Dan wouldn’t “go to the dogs or throw +himself in the river until he had seen her again.” +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290'></a>290</span><a name='chXXVII' id='chXXVII'></a>CHAPTER XXVII—AT MAXIM’S</h2> +<p> +At the Meurice, Miss Lane gave strict +orders to admit only Mr. Blair to her +apartments. She described him. No sooner had +she drunk her cup of tea, which Higgins gave +her, than she began to expect Dan. +</p> +<p> +He didn’t come. +</p> +<p> +Her dinner, without much appetite, she ate +alone in her salon; saw a doctor and made him +prescribe something for the cough that racked +her chest; looked out to the warm, bright gardens +of the Tuileries fading into the pallid loveliness +of sunset, indifferent to everything in the +world—except Dan Blair. She believed she +would soon be indifferent to him, too; then everything +would be done with. Now she wondered +had he really gone—had he done what he threatened? +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291'></a>291</span> +Why didn’t he come? At twelve o’clock +that night, as she lay among the cushions of +her sofa, dozing, the door of her parlor was +pushed in. She sprang up with a cry of delight; +but when Poniotowsky came up to her she exclaimed: +</p> +<p> +“Oh, you!” And the languor and boredom +with which she said his name made the prince +laugh shortly. +</p> +<p> +“Yes, I. Who did you think it was?” Cynically +and rather cruelly he looked down at Letty +Lane and admired the picture she made: small, +exquisite, her blond head against the dark velvet +of the lounge, her gray eyes intensified by the +fatigue under them. +</p> +<p> +“Just got in from Carlsbad; came directly +here. How-de-do? You look, you know—” he +scrutinized her through his single eye-glass—“most +frightfully seedy.” +</p> +<p> +“Oh, I’m all right.” She left the sofa, for she +wanted to prevent his nearer approach. “Have +you had any supper? I’ll call Higgins.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292'></a>292</span> +</p> +<p> +“No, no, sit down, please, will you? I want +to know why you sent to Carlsbad for me? Have +you come to your senses?” +</p> +<p> +He was as mad about the beautiful creature +as a man of his temperament could be. Exhausted +by excess and bored with life, she charmed +and amused him, and in order to have her with +him always, to be master of her caprices, he was +willing to make any sacrifice. +</p> +<p> +“Have you sent off that imbecile boy?” And +at her look he stopped and shrugged. “You +need a rest, my child,” he murmured practically, +“you’re neurasthenic and very ill. I’ve wired to +have the yacht at Cherbourg—It’ll reach there +by noon to-morrow.” +</p> +<p> +She was standing listlessly by the table. A +mass of letters sent by special messenger from +London after her, telegrams and cards lay there +in a pile. Looking down at the lot, she murmured: +“All right, I don’t care.” +</p> +<p> +He concealed his triumph, but before the look +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_293'></a>293</span> +had faded from his face she saw it and exclaimed +sharply: +</p> +<p> +“Don’t be crazy about it, you know. You’ll +have to pay high for me; you know what I +mean.” +</p> +<p> +He answered gallantly: “My dear child, I’ve +told you that you would be the most charming +princess in Hungary.” +</p> +<p> +Once more she accepted indifferently: “All +right, all right, I don’t care tuppence—not +tuppence”—and she snapped her fingers; “but I +like to see you pay, Frederigo. Take me to +Maxim’s.” +</p> +<p> +He demurred, saying she was far too ill, but +she turned from him to call Higgins, determined +to go if she had to go alone, and said to him +violently: “Don’t think I’ll make your life easy +for you, Frederigo. I’ll make it wretched; as +wretched—” and she held out her fragile arms, +and the sleeves fell back, leaving them bare—“as +wretched as I am myself.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_294'></a>294</span> +</p> +<p> +But she was lovely, and he said harshly: “Get +yourself dressed. I’ll go change and meet you at +the lift.” +</p> +<hr class='tb' /> +<p> +She made him take a table in the corner, where +she sat in the shadow on the sofa, overlooking +the brilliant room. Maxim’s was no new scene +to either of them, no novelty. Poniotowsky +scarcely glanced at the crowd, preferring to +feast his eyes on his companion, whose indifference +to him made his abstraction easy. She was +his property. He would give her his title; she +had demanded it from the first. The Hungarian +was a little overdressed, with his jeweled buttons, +his large <em>boutonnière</em>, his faultless clothes, his +single eye-glass through which he stared at Letty +Lane, whose delicate beauty was in fine play: +her cheeks faintly pink, her starry eyes humid +with a dew whose luster is of the most precious +quality. Her unshed tears had nothing to do +with Poniotowsky—they were for the boy. Her +heart sickened, thinking where he might be; and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295'></a>295</span> +more than that, it cried out for him. She wanted +him. +</p> +<p> +Oh, she would have been far better for Dan +than anything he could find in this mad city, +than anything to which in his despair he would +go for consolation. She had kept her word, +however, to that old man, Mr. Ruggles; she had +got out of the business with a fatal result, as +far as the boy was concerned. She thought Dan +would drift here probably as most Americans +on their wild nights do for a part of the time, +and she had come to see. +</p> +<p> +She wore a dress of coral pink, tightly fitting, +high to her little chin, and seemed herself like +a coral strand from neck to toe, clad in the +color she affected, and which had become celebrated +as the Letty Lane pink. Her feathered +hat hid her face, and she was completely shielded +as she bent down drawing pictures with her bare +finger on the cloth. After a little while she said +to Poniotowsky without glancing at him: +</p> +<p> +“If you stare any longer like that, Frederigo, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_296'></a>296</span> +you’ll break your eye-glass. You know how I +hate it.” +</p> +<p> +Used as he was to her sharpness, he nevertheless +flushed and sat back and looked across +the room, where, to their right, protected from +them as they were from him by the great door, +a young man sat alone. Whether or not he had +come to Maxim’s intending to join a congenial +party, should he find one, or to choose for a +companion some one of the women who, at the +entrance of the tall blond boy, stirred and invited +him with their raised lorgnons and their +smiles, will not be known. Dan Blair was alone, +pale as the pictures Letty Lane had drawn on +the cloth, and he, too, feasted his eyes on the +Gaiety girl. +</p> +<p> +“By Jove!” said the Hungarian under his +breath, and she eagerly asked: “What? Whom? +Whom do you see?” +</p> +<p> +Turning his back sharply he evaded her question +and she did not pursue the idea, and as a +physical weakness overwhelmed her, when Poniotowsky +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297'></a>297</span> +after a second said, “Come, <em>chérie</em>, for +heaven’s sake, let’s go”—she mechanically rose +and passed out. +</p> +<p> +Several young men supping together came +over eagerly to speak to her and claim acquaintance +with the Gaiety girl, and walked +along out to the motor. There Letty Lane discovered +she had dropped her handkerchief, and +sent the prince back for it. +</p> +<p> +As though he had been waiting for the reappearance +of Poniotowsky, Dan Blair stood +close to the little table which Letty Lane had +left, her handkerchief in his hand. As Poniotowsky +came up Dan thrust the small trifle of +sheer linen into his waistcoat pocket. +</p> +<p> +“I will trouble you for Miss Lane’s handkerchief,” +said Poniotowsky, his eyes cold. +</p> +<p> +“You may,” said Dan as quietly, his blue eyes +like sparks from a star, “trouble me for hell!” +And lifting from the table Poniotowsky’s own +half-emptied glass of champagne, the boy flung +the contents full in the Hungarian’s face. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298'></a>298</span> +</p> +<p> +The wine dashed against Poniotowsky’s lips +and in his eyes. Blair laughed out loud, his +hands in his pockets. The insult was low and +noiseless; the little glass shattered as it fell so +softly that with the music its gentle crash was +unheard. +</p> +<p> +Poniotowsky wiped his face tranquilly and +bowed. +</p> +<p> +“You shall hear from me after I have taken +Miss Lane home.” +</p> +<p> +“Tell her,” said the boy, “where you left the +handkerchief, that’s all.” +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_299'></a>299</span><a name='chXXVIII' id='chXXVIII'></a>CHAPTER XXVIII—SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS</h2> +<p> +Dan was in his room at the hotel. He woke +and then slept again. Nothing seemed +strange to him—nothing seemed real. It was +three o’clock in the morning, the rumble of Paris +was dull; it did not disturb him, for he seemed +without the body and to have grown giantlike, +and to fill the room. He had a sense of suffocation +and the need to break through the windows +and to escape into ether. +</p> +<p> +The entrance of Poniotowsky’s two friends +was a part with the unreal naturalness. One was +a Roumanian, the other a Frenchman—both +spoke fluent English. Dan, his eyes fixed on +the foreign faces, only half saw them; they +blurred, their voices were small and far away. +Finally he said: +</p> +<p> +“All right, all right, I can shoot well enough; +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300'></a>300</span> +this kind of thing isn’t our custom, you know—I’d +as soon kill him one way as another, as a +matter of fact. No, I don’t know a darned +soul here.” There was a confab incomprehensible +to Dan. “It’s all one to me, gentlemen,” +he said. “I’d rather not drag in my friends, +anyhow. Fix it up to suit yourselves.” +</p> +<p> +He wanted them to go—to be alone—to +stretch his arms, to rid himself of the burden of +sense, and be free. And after they had left, he +remained in his window till dawn. It came soon, +midsummer dawn, a singularly tender morning +in his heart. His mind worked with great rapidity. +He had made his will in the States. He +wished he could have left everything to Letty +Lane, but if, as Ruggles said, he was a pauper? +Perhaps it wasn’t a lie after all. Dan had written +and telegraphed Ruggles asking for the +solemn truth, and also telling him where he was +and asking the older man to come over. If +Ruggles proved he was poor, why, some of his +burden was gone. His money had been a burden, he knew +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_301'></a>301</span> +it now. He might have no use for +money the next day. What good could it do him +in a fix like this? He was to meet Poniotowsky +at five o’clock in a place whose name he couldn’t +recall. He had seen it advertised, though; people +went there for lunch. +</p> +<p> +They were to shoot at twenty-five paces—he +might be a Rockefeller or a beggar for all the +good his money could do him in a pinch like this. +</p> +<p> +His father wouldn’t approve, the old man +wouldn’t approve, but he had sent him here to +learn the ways of the old world. A flickering +smile crossed his beautiful, set face. His lessons +hadn’t done him much good; he would like to +have seen good old Gordon Galorey again; he +loved him—he had no use for Ruggles, no use—it +had been all his fault. His mind reached out +to his father, and the old man’s words came dinning +back: “Buy the things that stay above +ground, my boy.” What were those things? +He had thought they were passion—he had +thought they were love, and he had put all on +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_302'></a>302</span> +one woman. She couldn’t stand by him, now +that he was poor. +</p> +<p> +The spasm in his heart was so sharp that he +made a low sound in his throat and leaned +against the casing of the window. He must see +her, touch her once more. +</p> +<p> +The fellows Poniotowsky’s seconds had chosen +to be Dan’s representatives came in to “fix him +up.” They were in frock-coats and carried their +silk hats and their gloves. He could have laughed +at them. Then they made him think of undertakers, +and his blood grew cold. He handled +the revolvers with care and interest. +</p> +<p> +“I’m not going to let him murder me, you +know,” he told his seconds. +</p> +<p> +They helped him dress, at least one of them +did, while the other took Dan’s place by the +window and looked to the boy like a figure of +death. +</p> +<p> +The hour was getting on; he heard his own +motor drive up, and they went down, through +the deserted hotel. The men who had consented +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_303'></a>303</span> +to act for Dan regarded their principal curiously. +He wasn’t pale, there was a brightness +on his face. +</p> +<p> +“<em>Partons</em>,” said one of them, and told Blair’s +chauffeur where to go and how to run. “<em>Partons.</em>” +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_304'></a>304</span><a name='chXXIX' id='chXXIX'></a>CHAPTER XXIX—THE PICTURE OF IT ALL</h2> +<p> +As far as his knowing anything of the customs +of it all, it was like leading a lamb +to slaughter. +</p> +<p> +Villebon, lovely, vernal, at a later hour the +spot for gay breakfasts and gentle rendezvous, +had been designated for the meeting between +Dan and Poniotowsky. There in his motor he +gave up his effort to set his thoughts clear. +Nothing settled down. Even the ground they +flew over, the trees with their chestnut plumes, +blurred, were indistinct, nebulous, as if seen +through a diving-bell under the sea. Fear—he +didn’t know the word. He wasn’t afraid—it +wasn’t that; yet he had a certainty that it was +all up with him. He was young—very young—and +he hadn’t done much with the job. His +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305'></a>305</span> +father would have been ashamed of him. Then +all his thoughts went to Her. The two men in +the motor floated off and she sat there as she +had sat yesterday in her marvelously pretty +clothes—her little coral shoes. +</p> +<p> +He had held those bright, little feet in his +hand on the Thames day: they had just filled +his great hands. Mechanically he spread out +his firm, broad palms on the soft shoes. Letty +Lane—Letty Lane—a shiver passed through his +body; the sense of her, the touch of her, the +kisses he had taken, the way she had blown up +against him like a cloud—a cloud that, as he held +her, became the substance of Paradise. This +brought him back to physical life, brutally. He +was too young to die. +</p> +<p> +Those little, red shoes would dance on his +grave. Was she asleep now? How would she +know? What would she know? +</p> +<p> +Then Letty Lane, too, spirited away, and the +boy’s thoughts turned to the man he was to +meet. “The affairs are purely formal,” he had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_306'></a>306</span> +heard some one say, “an exchange of balls, +without serious results.” +</p> +<p> +One of his companions offered Blair a cigar. +He refused, the idea sickened him. Here the +gentlemen exchanged glances, and one murmured, +“Is he afraid?” +</p> +<p> +The other shrugged. +</p> +<p> +“Not astonishing—he’s a child.” +</p> +<p> +At this Dan glanced up and smiled—what +Lily, Duchess of Breakwater, had called his divine +young smile. The two secretly were ashamed—he +was charming. +</p> +<p> +As they got out of the motor Dan said: +</p> +<p> +“I want to ask a question of Prince Poniotowsky—if +it is allowed. I’ll write it on my +card.” +</p> +<p> +After a conference between Prince Poniotowsky’s +seconds and Dan’s, the slip was handed +the prince. +</p> +<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'> +“If you get out all right, will you marry Miss +Lane? I shall be glad to know.” +</p> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_307'></a>307</span></div> +<p> +The Hungarian, who read it under the tree, +half smiled. The naïveté of it, the touching +youth of it, the crude lack of form—was perfect +enough to touch his sense of humor. On +the back of Dan’s card Poniotowsky scrawled: +</p> +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> +<p> +It was a haughty inclination, a salute of +honor before the fight. +</p> +<p> +The meeting place was within sight of the +little rustic pavilion of Les Trois Agneaux, +celebrated for its <em>pré salé</em> and <em>beignets</em>: the advertisements +had confronted Dan everywhere +during his wanderings those miserable days. +Under a group of chestnut trees in bright feathery +flower Prince Poniotowsky and his seconds +waited, their frock-coats buttoned up and their +gloves and silk hats in their hands. As Blair +and his companions came up the others stood +uncovered, grim and formal, according to the +code. +</p> +<p> +On the highroad a short distance away ranged +the motors which had fetched the gentlemen +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308'></a>308</span> +from Paris, and the car in which the physician +had come—an ugly and sinister gathering in +the peace and beauty of the serene summer +morning. +</p> +<p> +Finches and thrashes sang in the bushes, over +the grass the dew still hung in crystals, and a +peasant walking at his horses’ heads on the slow +tramp back from the Paris market, was held up +and kept stolidly waiting at a few hundred +yards away. +</p> +<p> +Twenty-five paces. They were measured off +by the four seconds, and at their signal Dan +Blair and the prince took their positions, the +revolvers raised perpendicularly in their right +hands. +</p> +<p> +Still more indistinctly the boy saw the sharp-cut +picture of it all ... the diving-bell was +sinking deeper—deeper—into the sea. +</p> +<p> +“If I aim,” he said to himself, “I shall kill +sure—sure.” +</p> +<p> +Blair heard the command: “Fire!” and supposed +that after that he fired. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_309'></a>309</span><a name='chXXX' id='chXXX'></a>CHAPTER XXX—SODAWATER FOUNTAIN GIRL</h2> +<p> +His next sensation was that a warm stream +flowed about his heart. +</p> +<p> +“My life’s blood,” he could dimly think, +“my heart’s blood.” Redder than coral, more +precious, more costly than any gift his millions +could have bought her. “I’ve spent it for the +girl I love.” The stream pervaded him, caressed +him, folded his limbs about, became an enchanted +sea on which he floated, and its color +changed from crimson to coral pale, and then to +white, and became a cold, cold polar sea—and +he lay on it like a frozen man, whose exploration +had been in vain, and above him Greenland’s +icy mountains rose like emerald, on every +side. +</p> +<p> +That is it—“Greenland’s icy mountains.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_310'></a>310</span> +How she sang it—down—down. Her voice fell +on him like magic balm. He was a little boy +in church, sitting small and shy in the pew. +The tune was deep and low and heavenly sweet. +What a pretty mouth the soda-fountain girl had—like +coral; and her eyes like gray seas. The +flies buzzed, they droned so loudly that he +couldn’t hear her. Ah, that was terrible—<em>he +couldn’t hear her</em>. +</p> +<p> +No—no, it wouldn’t do. He must hear the +hymn out before he died. Buzz—buzz—drone—drone. +Way down he almost heard the soft +note. It was ecstasy. Sky—high up—too +faint. Ah, Sodawater Fountain Girl—sing—sing—with +all your heart so that it may reach +his ears and charm him to those strands toward +which he floats. +</p> +<hr class='tb' /> +<p> +The expression of anguish on the young fellow’s +face was so heartbreaking that the doctor, +his ear at Dan’s lips, tried to learn what thing +his poor, fading mind longed for. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_311'></a>311</span> +</p> +<p> +From the bed’s foot, where he stood, Dan’s +chauffeur came to his gentleman’s side, and +nodded: +</p> +<p> +“Right, sir, right, sir—I’ll fetch Miss Lane—I’ll +’ave ’er ’ere, sir—keep up, Mr. Blair.” +</p> +<hr class='tb' /> +<p> +He was going barefoot, a boy still following +the plow through the mountain fields. Miles +and miles stretched away before him of dark, +loamy land. He saw the plow tear up the waving +furrows, tossing the earth in sprinkling lines. +He heard the shrill note of the phœbe bird, and +looking heavenward saw it darting into the pale +sky. +</p> +<p> +“What a dandy shot!” he thought. “What a +bully shot!” +</p> +<p> +Prince Poniotowsky had made a good +shot.... +</p> +<p> +Ah, there was the smell of the hayfields—no—violets +that sweetly laid their petals on his +lips and face. He was back again in church, +lying prone before an altar. If she would only +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_312'></a>312</span> +sing, he would rise again—that he knew—and +her coral shoes would not dance over his grave. +</p> +<p> +He opened his eyes wide and looked into Letty +Lane’s. She bent over him, crying. +</p> +<p> +“Sing,” he whispered. +</p> +<p> +She didn’t understand. +</p> +<p> +“Sodawater Fountain Girl—if you only knew +how ... the flies buzzed, and how the droning +was a living pain....” +</p> +<p> +She said to Ruggles: “He wants something +so heartbreakingly—what can we do?” She saw +his hands stir rhythmically on the counterpane—he +didn’t look to her more than ten years old.... What +a cruel thing—he was a boy just +of age—a boy— +</p> +<p> +Ruggles remembered the nights he had spent +before the footlights of the Gaiety, and that the +pale woman trembling there weeping was a great +singer. +</p> +<p> +“I guess he wants to hear you sing.” +</p> +<p> +She kneeled down by him; she trembled so she +couldn’t stand. +</p> +<p> +The others, the doctor and Ruggles, the waiters +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_313'></a>313</span> +and porters gathered in the hall, heard. No +one of them understood the Gaiety girl’s English +words. +</p> +<p> + “From Greenland’s icy mountains,<br /> + From India’s coral strands ...”<br /> +</p> +<p> +They were merciful and let him listen in +peace. Through the blur in his brain, over the +beat of his young ardent heart, above the short +breaths the notes reached his failing senses, and +lifted him—lifted him. There wasn’t a very +long distance between his boyhood and his +twenty-two years to go, and he was not so +weak but that he could travel so far. +</p> +<p> +He sat there by his father again—and heard. +The flies buzzed, and he didn’t mind them. The +smell of the fields came in through the windows +and the Sodawater Fountain Girl sang—and +sang; and as she sang her face grew holy to his +eyes—radiant with a beauty he had not dreamed +a woman’s face could wear. Above the choir rail +she stood and sang peerlessly, and the church +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_314'></a>314</span> +began to fade and fade, and still she stood there +in a shaft of light, and her face was like an +angel’s, and she held her arms out to him as the +waters rose to his lips. She bent and lifted him—lifted +him high upon the strands.... +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_315'></a>315</span><a name='chXXXI' id='chXXXI'></a>CHAPTER XXXI—IN REALITY</h2> +<p> +Dan awoke from his dream, and sat suddenly +up in bed in his shirt sleeves, and +stared at the people in his room,—a hotel boy +and two strangers, not unlike the men in his +dream. He brushed his hand across his eyes. +</p> +<p> +“Sit down, will you? Do you speak English?” +</p> +<p> +They were foreigners, but they did speak +English, no doubt far more perfectly than did +Dan Blair. +</p> +<p> +“Look here,” the boy said, “I don’t know +what’s the matter with me—I must have had a +ripping jag on last night—let me put my head +in a basin of water, will you?” +</p> +<p> +He dived into the dressing-room, and came +out in another second, his blond head wet, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_316'></a>316</span> +wiping his face and hair furiously with a towel. +He hadn’t beamed as he did now on these two +strange men—for weeks. +</p> +<p> +“Well,” he asked slowly, “I expect you’ve +come to ask me to fight with Prince Poniotowsky—yes? +It’s against our principles, you +know, in the States—we don’t do that way. +Personally, I’d throw anything at him I could +lay my hands on, but I don’t care to have him +let daylight through me, and I don’t care to kill +your friend. See? I’m an American—yes, I +know, I know,” he nodded sagely, “but we don’t +have your kind of fights out our way. It means +business when we go out to shoot.” +</p> +<p> +He threw the towel down on the table, soaking +wet as it was, put his hands in the pockets +of his evening clothes, which he still wore, for +he had not undressed, threw his young, blond +head back and frankly told his visitors: +</p> +<p> +“I’m not up on swords. I’ve seen them in pictures +and read about them, but I’ll be darned if +I’ve ever had one in my hand.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_317'></a>317</span> +</p> +<p> +His expression changed at the quiet response +of Poniotowsky’s seconds. +</p> +<p> +“<em>Gee.</em> Whew!” he exclaimed, “he does, does +he? Twenty paces—revolvers—why, he’s a bird—a bird!” +</p> +<p> +A slight flush rose along Dan’s cheeks. “I +never liked him, and you don’t want to hear what +I think of him. But I’ll be darned if he isn’t a +bird.” +</p> +<p> +His eyes caught sight of a blue envelope on +the table. He tore the telegram open. It was +Ruggles’ answer to his question: +</p> +<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'> +“Quite true. Tell you about it. Arrive +your hotel around noon.” +</p> +<p> +The despatch informed him that he was really +a pauper and also that he had a second for his +duel with Poniotowsky. His guests stood formally +before the young barbarian. +</p> +<p> +“Look here,” he continued amiably, “I can’t +meet your Dago friend like this, it’s not fair. +He hasn’t seen me shoot; it isn’t for me to say +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_318'></a>318</span> +it, but I can’t miss. Hold,” he interrupted, +“he has, too. He was at the Galoreys’ at that +first shoot. Ah—well, I refuse, tell him so, will +you? Tell him I’m an American and a cowboy +and that for me a duel at twenty paces with a +pistol would mean murder. I like his pluck—it’s +all right—tell him anything you like. He +ought to have chosen swords. He would have +had me there.” +</p> +<p> +They retired as formally as they had entered, +and took his answer to their client, and +after a bath and careful toilet Dan went out, +leaving a line for Ruggles, to say that he would +be at the hotel to meet him at noon. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_319'></a>319</span><a name='chXXXII' id='chXXXII'></a>CHAPTER XXXII—THE PRINCE ACCEPTS</h2> +<p> +The Hungarian, in the Continental, was +drinking his coffee in his room when his +friends found him. He listened to what they +had to say coolly. His eye-glass gave him an air +of full dress even at this early hour. Poniotowsky +had not fallen into a deep sleep and had +a dream as Dan Blair had—indeed he had only +reached his rooms the night before when a letter +had been brought him from Miss Lane. He +was used to her caprices, which were countless, +and he never left her with any certainty that +he should see her again, or with any idea of +what her next move would be. The letter read: +</p> +<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'> +“It’s no use. I just can’t. I’ve always told +you so, and I mean it. I’m tired out—I want +to go away and never see any one again. I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_320'></a>320</span> +want to die. I shall be dead next year, and I +don’t care. Please leave me alone and don’t +come to see me, and for heaven’s sake don’t bore +me with notes.” +</p> +<p> +When Poniotowsky received this note he had +shrugged, and decided that if he lived after his +duel with the young savage he would go to see +the actress, taking a jewel or a gift—he would +get her a Pomeranian dog, and all would be +well. He listened coolly to what his friends had +to say. +</p> +<p> +“<em>C’est un enfant</em>,” one of them remarked +sneeringly. +</p> +<p> +“In my mind, he is a coward,” said the +other. +</p> +<p> +“On the contrary,” answered Poniotowsky +coolly, “he shoots to perfection. You will be +surprised to hear that I admire his refusal. I +accept his decision, as his skill is unquestioned +with arms. I choose to look upon this reply as +an apology. I would like to have you inform +Mr. Blair of this fact. He’s young enough to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_321'></a>321</span> +be my son, and he is a barbarian. The incident +is closed.” +</p> +<p> +He put Letty Lane’s note in his pocket, and +leisurely prepared to go out on the Rue de Castiglione +to buy her a Pomeranian dog. +</p> +<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_322'></a>322</span><a name='chXXXIII' id='chXXXIII'></a>CHAPTER XXXIII—THE THINGS ABOVE GROUND</h2> +<p> +Higgins let him in, and across the room +Blair saw the figure of the actress +against the light of the long window. Her +back was to him as he came up, and though she +knew who it was, she was far from dreaming +how different a man it was that came in to see +her this morning from the one she had known. +</p> +<p> +“Won’t you turn around and bid me good-by?” +he asked her. “I’m going away.” +</p> +<p> +She gave him a languid hand without looking +at him. +</p> +<p> +“Has Higgins gone?” +</p> +<p> +“Yes. Won’t you turn round and say how-de-do, +and good-by? Gosh,” he cried as she +turned, “how pale you are, darling.” And he +took her in his arms. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_323'></a>323</span> +</p> +<p> +The vision he had had of her in her coral-colored +dress at Maxim’s gave place to the more +radiant one which had shone on him in his curious +dream. +</p> +<p> +“Are you very ill?” he murmured. “Speak to +me—tell me—are you going to die?” +</p> +<p> +“Don’t be a goose, boy.” +</p> +<p> +“I’ve had a wire from Ruggles,” Dan said; +“he tells me it’s true. I have nothing but my +own feet to stand on, and I’m as poor as +Job’s turkey.” Looking at her impressively, he +added, “I only mind because it will be hard on +you.” +</p> +<p> +“Hard on me?” +</p> +<p> +“Yes, you’ll have to start poor. Mother did +with father, out there in Montana. It will be +rough at first, but others have done it and been +happy, and we’ve got each other.” The eyes +fixed on her were as blue as the summer skies. +“Money’s a darned poor thing to buy happiness +with, Letty. It didn’t buy me a thing fit to +keep, that’s the truth. I’ve never been so gay +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_324'></a>324</span> +since I was born as I am to-day. Why, I feel,” +he said, and would have stretched out his arms, +only he held her with them, “like a king. Later +I’ll have money again, all right—don’t fret—and +then I’ll know its worth. I’ll bet you +weren’t all unhappy there in Blairtown before +you turned the heads of all those Johnnies.” +He put one hand against her cheek and lifted +her drooping head. “Lean on me, sweetheart,” +he said with great tenderness. “It will be all +right.” +</p> +<p> +A coral color stole along her cheek: it rose +like a sweet tide under his hand. She looked at +him, fascinated. +</p> +<p> +“It’s not a real tragedy,” he went on. “I’ve +got my letter of credit, and old Ruggles will let +me hang on to that, and you’ll find the motor +cars and jewels will look like thirty cents when +we stand in the door of our little shack and +look out at the Value Mine.” He lifted her hand +to his lips, held it there, and the spark ignited +in her; his youth and confidence, his force and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_325'></a>325</span> +passion, woke a woman in Letty Lane that had +never lived before that hour. +</p> +<p> +He murmured: “I’ll be there with you, darling—night +and day—night and day!” He +brought his bright face close to hers. +</p> +<p> +She found breath to say, “What has happened +to you, Dan—what?” +</p> +<p> +“I don’t know,” he gravely replied. “I guess +I came up pretty close against it last night; +things got into their right places, and then and +there I knew you were the girl for me, and I the +man for you, rich or poor.” +</p> +<p> +He kissed her and she passively received his +caresses, so passively, so without making him +any sign, that his magnificent assurance began +to be shaken—his arms fell from her. +</p> +<p> +“It’s quite true,” he murmured, “I am poor.” +</p> +<p> +She led him to the lounge and made him sit +down by her. He waited for her to speak, but +she remained silent, her eyes fixed on her frail +hands, ringless—tears forced themselves under +her eyelids, but she kept them back. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_326'></a>326</span> +</p> +<p> +“I guess,” she said in a veiled tone, “you’ve +no idea all I’ve been through, Dan, since I stood +there in the church choir.” +</p> +<p> +American though he was, and down on foreign +customs—he wouldn’t fight a duel—he got +down on his knees and put his arms around her +from there. +</p> +<p> +“I know what you are, all right, Letty. You +are an angel.” +</p> +<p> +She gave way and burst into tears and hid +her face on his shoulder, and sobbed. +</p> +<p> +“I believe you do—I believe you do. You’ve +saved my soul and my life. I’ll go with you—I’ll +go—I’ll go!” +</p> +<hr class='tb' /> +<p> +Later she told him how she would learn to +cook and sew, and that together they would +stand in the door of their shack at sunset, or +that she would stand and watch for him to come +home; and, the actress in her strong, she sprang +up for a minute and stood shielding her eyes +with her slender hand to show him how. And +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_327'></a>327</span> +he gazed, charmed at her, and drew her back to +him again. +</p> +<p> +“You’ve made dad’s words come true.” Dan +wouldn’t tell her what they were—he said she +wouldn’t understand. “I nearly had to die to +learn them myself,” he said. +</p> +<p> +She leaned toward him, a slight shadow +crossed her face as if memories laid a darkling +wing for a moment there. Such shadows must +have passed, for she kissed him of her own accord +on the lips and without a sigh. +</p> +<p> +Side by side they sat for a long time. Higgins +softly opened a door, saw them, and stepped +back, unheard. +</p> +<p> +Ruggles came in, and his steps in the soft +carpet made no sound; and he looked at the pair +long and tenderly before he spoke. They sat +there before him like children, holding hands. +</p> +<p> +Letty Lane’s hat lay on the floor. Her hair +was a halo around her pale, charming face; she +had caught youth from the boy, she was laughing +like a girl—they were making plans. And +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_328'></a>328</span> +as the subject was Love, and there was no +money in the question, and as there was sacrifice +on the part of each, it is safe to think that +old Dan Blair’s son was planning to purchase +those things that stay above ground and persist +in the hearts of us all. +</p> +<div class='center'> +<p>THE END</p> +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl From His Town, by Marie Van Vorst + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 36961-h.htm or 36961-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/9/6/36961/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Girl From His Town + +Author: Marie Van Vorst + +Illustrator: F. Graham Cootes + +Release Date: August 3, 2011 [EBook #36961] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Image] + + + + + THE + GIRL FROM HIS TOWN + + _By_ + MARIE VAN VORST + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + F. GRAHAM COOTES + + INDIANAPOLIS + THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + COPYRIGHT 1910 + The Bobbs-Merrill Company + + PRESS OF + BRAUNWORTH & CO. + BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS + BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I Dan Blair 1 + II The Duchess Approves 21 + III The Blairtown Soloist 28 + IV In The Coral Room 31 + V At The Carlton 47 + VI Galorey Seeks Advice 55 + VII At The Stage Entrance 70 + VIII Dan's Simplicity 76 + IX Disappointment 85 + X The Boy From My Town 94 + XI Ruggles Gives a Dinner 109 + XII The Green Knight 128 + XIII The Face of Letty Lane 135 + XIV From India's Coral Strands 155 + XV Galorey Gives Advice 174 + XVI The Musicale Program 187 + XVII Letty Lane Sings 199 + XVIII A Woman's Way 207 + XIX Dan Awakes 214 + XX A Hand Clasp 225 + XXI Ruggles Returns 231 + XXII What Will You Take? 234 + XXIII In the Sunset Glow 242 + XXIV Ruggles' Offer 250 + XXV Letty Lane Runs Away 268 + XXVI White and Coral 274 + XXVII At Maxim's 290 + XXVIII Such Stuff as Dreams 299 + XXIX The Picture of It All 304 + XXX Sodawater Fountain Girl 309 + XXXI In Reality 315 + XXXII The Prince Accepts 319 + XXXIII The Things Above Ground 322 + + + + +THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN + + + + +CHAPTER I--DAN BLAIR + + +The fact that much he said, because of his unconscionable slang, was +incomprehensible did not take from the charm of his conversation as far +as the Duchess of Breakwater was concerned. The brightness of his +expression, his quick, clear look upon them, his beautiful young smile, +his not too frequent laugh, his "new gayness," as the duchess called his +high spirits, his supernal youth, his _difference_, credited him with +what nine-tenths of the human race lack--charm. + +His tone was not too crudely western; neither did he suggest the ultra +East with which they were familiar. American women went down well enough +with them, but American men were unpopular, and when the visitor +arrived, Lady Galorey did not even announce him to the party gathered +for "the first shoot." + +The others were in the armory when the ninth gun, a young chap, six feet +of him, blond as the wheat, cleanly set up and very good to look at, +came in with Lily, Duchess of Breakwater. Lady Galorey, his hostess, +greeted them. + +"Oh, here you are, are you? Lord Mersey, Sir John Fairthrope." She +mumbled the rest of the names of her companions as though she did not +want them understood, then waved toward the young chap, calling him Mr. +Dan Blair, and he, as she hesitated, added: + +"From Blairtown, Montana." + +"And give him a gun, will you, Gordon?" Lady Galorey spoke to her +husband. + +"I discovered Mr. Blair, Edie," the duchess announced, "and he didn't +even know there was a shoot on for to-day. Fancy!" + +"I guess," Dan Blair said pleasantly, "I'll just take a gun out of this +bunch," and he chose one at random from several indicated to him by the +gamekeeper. "I get my best luck when I go it blind. Right! Thanks. +That's so, Lady Galorey, I didn't know there was to be any shooting +until the duchess let it out." + +To himself he thought with good-natured amusement, "Afraid I'll spoil +their game record, maybe!" and went out along with them, following the +insular noblemen like a ray of sun, smiling on the pretty woman who had +discovered him in the grounds where he had been poking about by himself. + +"Where, in Heaven's name, did you 'corral'--word of his own--the dear boy, +Edith? How did he get to Osdene Park, or in fact anywhere, just as he +is, fresh as from Eden?" + +"Thought I'd let him take you by surprise, dearest. Where'd you find +Dan?" + +"Down by the garden house feeding the rabbits, on his knees like a +little boy, his hands full of lettuces. I'd just come a cropper myself +on the mare. She fell, I'm sorry to say, Edie, and hacked her knees +quite a lot. One of those disguised ditches, you know. I was coming +along leading her when I ran on your friend." + +The young duchess was slender as a willow, very brunette, with a +beautiful, discontented face. + +"I'm going to show Dan Blair off," Lady Galorey responded, "going to +give the debutantes a chance." + +Placidly nodding, the duchess lit a cigarette and began to quote from +Dan Blair's conversation: "I fancy he won't let them 'worry him'; he's +too 'busy!'" + +"You mean that you're going to keep him occupied?" + +The duchess didn't notice this. + +"_Is_ he such a catch?" + +Neither of the women had walked out with the guns. The duchess had a bad +foot, and Lady Galorey never went anywhere she could help with her +husband. She now drew her chair up to the table in the morning-room, to +which they had both gone after the departure of the guns, and regarded +with satisfaction a quantity of stationery and the red leather desk +appointments. + +"Sit down and smoke if you like, Lily; I'm going to fill out some +lists." + +"No, thanks, I'm going up to my rooms and get Parkins to 'massey' this +beastly foot of mine. I must have fallen on it. But tell me first, is +Mr. Blair a catch?" + +Lady Galorey had opened an address book and looked up from it to reply: + +"Something like ten million pounds." + +"Heavens! Disgusting!" + +"The richest young man 'west of some river or other.' At any rate he +told me last night that it was 'clean money.' I dare say the river is +responsible for its cleanliness, but that fact seemed to give him +satisfaction." + +The duchess was leaning on the table at Lady Galorey's side. + +"Dan's father took Gordon all over the West that time he went to the +States for a big hunt in the Rockies. He got to know Mr. Blair awfully +well and liked him. The old gentleman bought a little property about +that time that turned out to be a gold mine." + +With persistency the duchess said: + +"How d'you know it is 'clean money,' Edith? Not that it makes a rap of +difference," she laughed prettily, "but how do you know that he is rich +to this horrible extent?" + +Lady Galorey put down her address book impatiently: "Does he look like +an impostor?" + +The other returned: "Even the archangel fell, my dear Edith!" + +"Well," returned her friend, "this one is too young to have fallen far," +and she shut up her list in desperation. + +The duchess sat down on the edge of the lounge and raised her expressive +eyes to Lady Galorey, who once more looked at her sarcastically, and +went on: + +"Gordon liked the old gentleman: he was extraordinarily generous--quite a +type. They called the town after him--Blairtown: that is where the son +'hails from.' He was a little lad when Gordon was out and Mr. Blair +promised that Dan should come over here and see us one day, and this," +she tapped the table with her pen, "seems to be the day, for he came +down upon us in this breezy way without even sending a wire, 'just +turned up' last night. Gordon's mad about him. His father has been dead +a year, and he is just twenty-two." + +"Good heavens!" murmured the duchess. Lady Galorey opened her address +book again. + +"Gordon's got him terribly on his mind, my dear; he has forbidden any +gambling or any bridge as long as the boy is with us...." + +Her companion rose and thrust her hands into the pocket of her tweed +coat. She laughed softly, then went over to the long window where +without, across the pane, the early winter mists were flying, chased by +a furtive sun. + +"Gordon said that the boy's father treated him like a king, and that +while the boy is here he is going to look out for him." + +Over her shoulder the other threw out coldly: + +"You speak as though he were in a den of thieves. I didn't know Gordon's +honor was so fine. As for me, _I_ don't gamble, you know." + +Lady Galorey had decided that Lily's insistent remaining gave her a +chance to fill her fountain pen. She was, therefore, carefully squirting +in the ink, and she flushed at her friend's last words. + +Lady Galorey herself was the best bridge player in London, and cards +were her passion. She did not remind the lady in the window that there +were other games besides bridge, but kept both her tongue and her +temper. + +After a little silence in which the women followed each her own +thoughts, the duchess murmured: + +"I'll toddle up-stairs, Edie--let you write. Where did you say we were +going to meet the guns for food?" + +"At the gate by the White Pastures. There'll be a cart and a motor +going, whichever you like, around two." + +"Right," her grace nodded; "I'll be on time, dearest." + +And Lady Galorey with a relieved sigh heard the door close behind the +duchess. Wiping her fountain pen delicately with a bit of chamois, she +murmured: "Well, Dan Blair _is_ out of Eden, poor dear, if he met her by +the gate." + +A fortune of a round ten million pounds was a small part of what this +young man had come into by direct inheritance from the Copper King of +Blairtown, Montana. For once the money figure had not been exaggerated, +but Lady Galorey did not know about the rest of Dan's inheritance. + + * * * * * + +The young man whistling in his rooms in the bachelor quarters of Osdene +Park House, dressed for dinner without the aid of a valet. When Lord +Galorey had asked him "where his manservant was," Dan had grinned. +"Gosh, I wouldn't have one of those Johnnies hanging around me--never did +have! I can put on _my_ stockings all right! There was a chap on the +boat I came over in who let his man put on his stockings. Can you beat +that?" Blair had laughed again. "I think if anybody tickled my feet that +way I would be likely to kick him in the eye." + +Dressing in his room he whistled under his breath a song from a newly +popular comic opera; and he intoned with his clear young voice a line of +the words: + +"_Should-you-go-to-Mandalay._" + +Out through his high window, if he had looked, he would have seen the +misty sweep of the park under the faint moonrise and fine shadows that +the leaves made in the veiled light, but he did not look out. He was +dressing for dinner without a valet and giving a great deal of care to +his toilet; for the first time he was to dine in the house of a nobleman +and in the presence of a duchess; not that it meant a great deal to +him--he thought it was "funny." + +In Dan Blair's twenty-two years of utterly happy days his one grief had +been the death of his father. As soon as the old man had died Dan had +gone off into the Rockies with his guides and not "shown up" for months. +When he came back to Blairtown, as he expressed it, "he packed his grip +and beat it while his shoes were good," for the one place he could +remember his father had suggested for him to go. + +Blairtown was very much impressed when the heir came in from the Rockies +with "a big kill," and the orphan's case did not seem especially +disturbed. But no one in the town knew how the boy's heart ached for the +old man. When Dan was six years old his father had literally picked him +up by the nape of his neck and thrown him into the water like a pup and +watched him swim. At eight he sent the boy off with a gun to rough-camp. +Then he took Dan down in the mines with the men. His education had been +won in Blairtown, at a school called public, but which in reality was +nothing more than a pioneer district school. + +On Sundays Dan dressed up and went with his father to church twice a day +and in the week-days his father took him to the prayer-meetings, and at +sixteen Dan went to college in California. He had just completed his +course when old Blair died. Then he inherited fifty million dollars. + +On the day of the shoot at Osdene, Dan dropped sixty birds. He tried +very hard not to be too pleased. "Gosh," he thought to himself, "those +birds fell as though they were trained all right, and the other sports +were mad, I could see it." He then fell to whistling softly the air he +had heard Lady Galorey play the night before from the new success at the +Gaiety, and finished it as his toilet completed itself. He took up a +gardenia from his dressing-table, and fastened it in his coat, stopping +on the stairs on the way down to look over into the hall, where the men +in their black clothes and the women in their shining dresses waited +before going into the dining-room. The lights fell on white arms and +necks, on jewels and on fine proud heads. Dan Blair had been in San +Francisco and in New York, on short journeys, however, which his father, +the year before, had directed him to take, but he had never seen a +"show" like this. + +He came slowly down the broad stairway of the Osdene Park House, the +last guest. In the corner, where, behind her, a piece of fourteenth +century tapestry cut a green and pink square against the rich black oak +paneling, the Duchess of Breakwater sat waiting. She wore a dress of +golden tulle which was simply a sheath to her slender body, and from her +neck hung a long rope of diamonds caught at the end by a small black +fan; there was a wreath of diamonds like shining water drops linked +together in her hair. She was the grandest lady at Osdene, and renowned +in more than one sense of the word. As Dan saw her smile at him and +rise, he thought: + +"She is none too sorry that I made _that_ record, but I hope to heaven +she won't say anything to me about it." + +And the duchess did not speak of it. Telling him that he was to take her +in to dinner, she laid first her fan on his arm and then her hand. And +Dan, one of those fortunate creatures who are born men of the world when +they get into it, gave her his arm with much grace, and as he leaned +down toward her he thought to himself: + +"Well, it's lucky for me I have my head on tight; a few more of those +goo-goo eyes of hers and it would be as well for me to light out for the +woods." + + * * * * * + +Dan liked best at Osdene Park his chin-chins with Gordon Galorey. The +young man was unflatteringly frank in his choice of companions. When the +duchess looked about for him to ride with her, walk with her, to find +the secluded corners, to talk, to play with him, she was likely to +discover Dan gone off with Lord Galorey, and to come upon them later, +sitting enveloped in smoke, a stand of drinks by their side. + +To Galorey, who had no heir or child, the boy's presence proved to be +the happiest thing that had come to him for a long time. He talked a +great deal to Dan about the old man. Galorey was poor and the fact of a +fortune of ten million pounds possessed by this one boy was continually +before his mind like an obsession. It was like looking down into a gold +mine. Galorey tried often to broach the subject of money, but Dan kept +off. At length Galorey asked boldly: + +"What are you going to do with it?" On this occasion they were walking +over from the lower park back to the house, a couple of terriers at +their heels. + +"Do with what?" Blair asked innocently. He was looking at the trees. He +was comparing their grayish green trunks and their foliage with the +California redwoods. A little taken aback, Lord Galorey laughed. + +"Why, with that colossal fortune of yours." + +And Blair answered unhesitatingly: "Oh--spend it on some girl sooner or +later." + +Galorey fairly staggered. Then he took it humorously. + +"My dear chap, I never saw a sweeter, bigger man than your father. If he +had been my father, I dare say I might have pulled off a different yard +of hemp, but I must confess that I think he has left you too much +money." + +"Well, there are a lot of fellows who are ready to look after it for +me," Blair answered coolly. Before his companion could redden, he +continued: "You see, dad took care of me for twenty-one years all right, +and whenever I am up a stump, why all I have to do is to remember the +things he did." + +For the first time since his arrival at Osdene Dan's tone was serious. +Interested as he was in the older man, Dan's inclination was to evade +the discussion of serious subjects. With Blair's slang, his conversation +was almost incomprehensible. + +"Dad didn't gas much," the boy said, "but I could draw a map of some of +the things he did say. He used to say he made his money out of the +earth." + +The two were walking side by side across the rich velvet of the +immemorial English turf. The extreme softness of the autumn day, its +shifting lights, its mellow envelope, the beauty of the park--the age, +the stability, the harmony, served to touch the young fellow's spirits. +At any rate there was a ring in him, an equilibrium that surprised +Galorey. + +"'Most things,' dad said to me, 'go back to the earth.'" He struck the +English turf with his stick. "Dad said a fellow had better buy those +things that stay above the ground." Dan smiled frankly at his companion. +"Curious thing to say, wasn't it?" he reflected. "I remembered it, and I +got to wondering after I saw him buried, '_what are_ the things that +stay above the ground?' The old man never gave me another talk like +that." + +After a few seconds Galorey put in: + +"But, my dear chap, you did give me a shock up there just now when you +said you were going to spend 'all your money on some girl.'" + +The millionaire took a chestnut from his pocket. He held it high above +his head and the little dog that had been yelping at his heels fixed his +eyes on it. Blair poised it, then threw it as far as he could. It sped +through the air and the terrier ran like mad across the park. + +"I like girls awfully, Gordon, and when I find the right one, why, then +I'm going to feel what a bully thing it is to be rich." + +Lord Galorey groaned aloud. + +"My dear chap!" he exclaimed. + +The spell of the day, the fragrant beauty of the time and place and hour +were clearly upon Dan Blair. Lord Galorey was sympathetic to him. The +terrier came tearing back with the chestnut held between his thick jaws. +Dan bent down to take the nut from the dog and wrestled with him gently. + +"Swell little grip he's got. Nice old pup! Let it go now!" And he threw +the nut far again, and as the terrier ran once more Blair thrust his +hands down in his pockets and began softly to whistle the tune of +_Mandalay_. + +He said slowly, going back to his subject: "It must be great to feel +that a fellow can give her jewels like the Duchess of Breakwater's, +ropes of 'em"--he nodded toward the house--"and a fine old place like this +now, and motors and yachts and all kinds of stuff." + +His eyes rested on the suave lines of the Elizabethan house, with its +softened gables and its banked terraces. Possibly his vivid imagination +pictured "some nice girl" there waiting, as they should come up, to meet +him. + +"I have always thought it would be bully to find a poor girl--pretty as a +peach, of course--one who had never had much, and just cover her with +things. Hey, there!" he cried to the terrier, who had come running back, +"bring it to me." + +They had come up to the terrace by this, and Dan's confidence, fresh as +a gush of water from a rock, had ceased. His face was placid. He didn't +realize what he had said. + +From out of one of the long windows, dressed in a sable coat, her small +head tied up in a motor scarf, the Duchess of Breakwater appeared. She +greeted them severely, and Lord Galorey hear her say under her breath to +Dan: + +"You promised to be back to drive with me before dinner, Dan. Did you +forget?" + +And as Galorey left the boy to make his peace, the first smile of +amusement broke over his face. He felt that the duchess had between her +and her capture of Dan Blair's heart the elusive picture of some "nice +girl"--not much perhaps, but it might be very hard to tear away the +picture of the ideal that was ever before the blue eyes of this man who +had a fortune to spend on her! + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE DUCHESS APPROVES + + +His attentions to the Duchess of Breakwater had not been so conspicuous +or so absorbing as to prevent the eager mothers--who, true to her word, +Lady Galorey had invited down--from laying siege to Dan Blair. Lady +Galorey asked him: + +"Don't you want to marry any one of these beauties, Dan?" And Blair, +with his beautiful smile and what Lily called his inspired candor, +answered: + +"Not on your life, Lady Galorey!" + +And she agreed, "I think myself you are too young." + +"No," Dan refuted, "you are wrong there. I shall marry as fast as I +can." + +His hostess was surprised. + +"Why, I thought you wanted your fling first." + +And Dan, from his chair, in which, with a book, he had been sitting when +Lady Galorey found him, answered cheerfully: + +"Oh, I don't like being alone. I want to go about with some one. I +should like a fling all right, but I want to fling with somebody as I +go." + +The lady of the house was not a philosopher nor an analyst. She had +certain affairs of her own and was engrossed in them and lived in them. +As far as Lady Galorey was concerned the rest of the world might go and +hang itself as long as it didn't do it at her gate-post. But Blair +couldn't leave any one indifferent to him very long, not unless one +could be indifferent to a blaze of sunlight; one must either draw the +blinds down or bask in its brightness. + +She laughed. "You're perfectly delicious! You mean to say you want to be +married at once and let your _wife_ fling around with you?" + +"Just that." + +"How sweet of you, Dan! And you won't marry one of these girls here?" + +"Don't fill the bill, Lady Galorey." + +"Oh, you have a sweetheart at home, then?" + +"All off!" he assured her blithely, and rose, tall and straight and +slender. + +The Duchess of Breakwater had come in, indeed she never failed to when +there was any question of finding Blair. + +Dan stood straightly before the two women of an old race, and the +American didn't suggest any line of noble ancestors whatsoever. His +features were rather agglomerate; his muscles were possibly not the +perfect elastic specimens that were those muscles whose strain and sinew +had been made from the same stock for generations. He was, nevertheless, +very good to look on. Any woman would have thought so, and he bent his +blond head as he looked at the Duchess of Breakwater with something like +benevolence, something of his father's kindness in his clear blue eyes. +Neither of the noble ladies vaguely understood him. His hostess thought +him "a good sort," not half bad, a splendid catch, and the other woman, +only a few years his senior, was in love with him. The duchess had +married at eighteen, tired of her bargain at twenty, and found herself a +widow at twenty-five. She held a telegram in her hand. + +"We've got the box for _Mandalay_ to-night at the Gaiety, and let's +motor in." + +Only Lady Galorey hesitated, disappointed. + +"Too bad--I had specially arranged for Lady Grandcourt to drive over with +Eileen. I thought it would be a ripping chance for her to see Dan." + +When at length the duchess had succeeded in getting Dan to herself +toward the end of the day in the red room, after tea, she said: + +"So you won't marry a London beauty?" + +And rather coldly Dan had answered: + +"Why, you talk, all of you, as if I had only to ask any girl of them, +and she would jump down my throat." + +"Don't try it," the duchess answered, "unless you want to have your +mouth full!" + +Dan did not reply for a second, but he looked at her more seriously, +conscious of her grace and her good looks. She was certainly better to +look at than the simple girls with their big hands, small wits, long +faces, and, as the boy expressed it, "utter lack of get-up." The duchess +shone out to advantage. + +"Why don't you talk to me?" she asked softly. "You know you would rather +talk to me than the others." + +"Yes," he said frankly; "they make me nervous." + +"And I don't?" + +"No," he said. "I learn a lot every time we are together." + +"Learn?" she repeated, not particularly flattered by this. "What sort of +things?" + +"Oh, about the whole business," he returned vaguely. "You know what I +mean." + +"Then," she said with a slight laugh, "you mean to say you talk with me +for _educational purposes_? What a beastly bore!" + +Dan did not contradict her. She was by no means Eve to him, nor was he +the raw recruit his simplicity might give one to think. He had had his +temptations and his way out of them was an easy one; for he was very +slow to stir, and back of all was his ideal. The reality and power of +this ideal Dan knew best at moments like these. But the Duchess of +Breakwater was the most lovely woman--the most dangerous woman that had +come his way. He liked her--Dan was well on the way to love. + +The two were alone in the big dark room. At their side the small table, +from which they had taken their tea together, stood with its empty cups +and its silver. Without, the day was cold and windy, and the sunset +threw along the panes a red reflection. The light fell on the Duchess of +Breakwater, something like a veil--a crimson veil slipped over her face +and breast. She leaned toward Dan, and between them there was no more +barrier than the western light. He felt his pulses beat and a tide +rising within him. She was a delicious emanation, fragrant and near, and +as he might have gathered a cluster of flowers, so in the next second he +would have taken her in his arms, but from the other room just then Lady +Galorey, at the piano, played a snatch from _Mandalay_, striking at once +into the tune. The sound came suddenly, told them quickly some one was +near, and the Duchess of Breakwater involuntarily moved back, and so +knocked the small tray, jostled it, and it fell clattering to the floor. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE BLAIRTOWN SOLOIST + + +Blairtown had a population of some eight thousand. There was a +Presbyterian church to which Dan and his father went regularly, sitting +in the bare pew when the winter's storms beat and rattled on the panes, +or in the summer sunshine, when the flies thronged the window casings, +when the smell of the pews and the panama fans and the hymn-books came +strong to them through the heat. + +One day there was a missionary sermon, and for the first time in its +history a girl sang a solo in the First Presbyterian Church. Dan Blair +heard it, looked up, and it made a mark in his life. A girl in a white +dress trimmed with blue gentians, white cotton gloves, and golden hair, +was the soloist. He knew her, that is, he had a nodding acquaintance +with her. It was the girl at the drug store who sold soda-water, and he +had asked her some hundreds of times for a "vanilla or a chocolate," but +it wasn't this vulgar memory that made the little boy listen. It was the +girl's voice. Standing back of the yellow-painted rail, above the +minister's pulpit, above the flies, the red pews and the panama fans, +she sang, and she sang into Dan Blair's soul. To speak more truly, she +_made him a soul_ in that moment. She awakened the boy; his collar felt +tight, his cheeks grew hot. He felt his new boots, too, hard and heavy. +She made him want to cry. These were the physical sensations--the +material part of the awakening. The rest went on deeply inside of Dan. +She broke his heart; then she healed it. She made him want to cry like a +girl; then she wiped his tears. + +The little boy settled back and grew more comfortable and listened, and +what she sang was, + + "From Greenland's icy mountains, + From India's coral stra--ands." + +Before the hymn reached its end he was a calm boy again, and the hymn +took up its pictures and became like an illustrated book of travels, and +he wanted to see those pea-green peaks of Greenland, to float upon the +icebergs to them, and see the dawn break on the polar seas as the +explorers do.... He should find the North Pole some day! Then he wanted +to go to an African jungle, where the tiger, "tiger shining bright," +should flash his stripes before his eyes! Dan would gather wreaths of +coral from the stra--ands and give them to the girl with the yellow hair! +When he and his father came out together from the church, Dan chose the +street that passed the soda-fountain drug store and peeped in. It was +dark and cool, and behind the counter the drug clerk mixed the summer +drinks: and the drug clerk mixed them from that time ever afterward--for +the girl with the yellow hair never showed up in Blairtown again. She +went away! + + + + +CHAPTER IV--IN THE CORAL ROOM + + +"Mandalay" had run at the Gaiety the season before and again opened the +autumn season. Light and charming, thoroughly musical, it had toured +successfully through Europe, but London was its home, and its great +popularity was chiefly owing to the girl who had starred in it--Letty +Lane. Her face was on every post-card, hand-bill, cosmetic box, and even +popular drinks were named for her. + +The night of the Osdene box party was the reopening of _Mandalay_, and +the curtain went up after the overture to an outburst of applause. Dan +Blair had never "crossed the pond" before this memorable visit, when he +had gone straight out to Osdene Park. London theaters and London itself, +indeed, were unexplored by him. He had seen what there was to be seen of +the opera bouffe in his own country, but the brilliant, perfect +performance of a company at the London Gaiety he had yet to enjoy. + +The opening scene of _Mandalay_ is oriental; the burst of music and the +tinkling of the silvery temple bells and the effect of an extremely blue +sea, made Dan "sit up," as he put it. The theatrical picture was so +perfect that he lifted his head, pushed his chair back to enjoy. He was +thus close to the duchess. With invigorating young enthusiasm the boy +drew in his breath and waited to be amused and to hear. The tunes he +already knew before the orchestra began to charm his ear. + +On landing at Plymouth Dan had been keen to feel that he was really +stepping into the world, and at Osdene Park he had been daily, hourly +"seeing life." The youngest of the household, his youth nevertheless was +not taken into consideration by any of them. No one had treated him like +a junior. He had gone neck to neck with their pace as far as he liked, +furnished them fresh amusement, and been their diversion. In all his +rare unspoiled youth, Blair had been suddenly dropped down in an effete +set that had whirled about him, and one by one out of the inner circle +had called him to join them; and one by one with all of them Dan had +whirled. + +Lord Galorey had talked to him frankly, as plainly as if Dan had been +his own father, and found much of the old man's common sense in his fine +blond head. Lady Galorey had come to him in a moment of great anxiety, +and no one but her young guest knew how badly she needed help. He had +further made it known to the lady that he was not in the marriage +market; that she could not have him for any of her girls. And as for the +Duchess of Breakwater, well--he had whirled with her until his head swam. +He had grown years older at the Park in the few weeks of his visit, but +now for the first time, as the music of _Mandalay_ struck upon his ears, +like a ripple of distant seas, he felt like the boy who had left +Blairtown to come abroad. He had spent the most part of the day in +London with a man who had come over to see him from America. Dan +attended to his business affairs, and the people who knew said that he +had a keen head. Mr. Joshua Ruggles, his father's best friend, whom Dan +this afternoon had left to go to his room at the Carlton, had put his +arm with affection through the boy's: + +"Don't look as though it were any too healthy down to the place you're +visiting at, Dan. Plumbing all right?" + +And the boy, flushing slightly, had said: "Don't you fret, Josh, I'll +look after my health all right." + +"There's nothing like the mountain air," returned the Westerner. "These +old fogs stick in my nostrils; feel as though I could smell London clean +down to my feet!" + + * * * * * + +From the corner of the box Dan looked hard at the stage, at the fresh +brilliant costumes and the lovely chorus girls. + +"Gosh," he thought to himself, "they are the prettiest ever! Dove-gray, +eyes of Irish blue, mouths like roses!" + +Leaning forward a little toward the duchess he whispered: "There isn't +one who isn't a winner. I never struck such a box of dry goods!" + +The duchess smiled on Dan with good humor. His naive pleasure was +delightful. It was like taking a child to a pantomime. She was wearing +his flowers and displaying a jewel that he had found and bought for her, +and which she had not hesitated to accept. She watched his eager face +and his pleasure unaffected and keen. She could not believe that this +young man was master of ten million pounds. + +When Letty Lane appeared Blair heard a light rustle like rain through +the auditorium, a murmur, and the house rose. There was a well-bred +calling from the stalls, a call from the pit, and a generous +applause--"Letty Lane--Letty Lane!" and as though she were royalty, there +was a fluttering of handkerchiefs like flags. The young fellow with the +others stood in the back of the box, his hands in his pockets, looking +at the stage. There wasn't a girl in the chorus as pretty as this prima +donna! Letty Lane came on in _Mandalay_ in the first act in the dress of +a fashionable princess. She was modish and worldly. For the only time in +the play she was modern and conventional, and whatever breeding she +might have been able to claim, from whatever class she was born, as she +stood there in her beautiful gown she was grace itself, and charm. She +was distinctly a star, and showed her appreciation of her audience's +admiration. + +At the end of the tenor solo the Princess Oltary runs into the pavilion +and there changes her dress and appears once more to dance before the +rajah and to prove herself the dancer he has known and loved in a cafe +in Paris. Letty Lane's dress in this dance was the classic ballet +dancer's, white as the leaves of a lily. She seemed to swim and float; +actually to be breathed and exhaled from out her filmy gown; and the +only ray of color in her costume was her own golden hair, surmounted by +a small coral-colored cap, embroidered in pearls. The actress bowed to +the right and left, ran to the right, ran to the left; glanced toward +the Duchess of Breakwater's box; acknowledged the burst of applause; +began to dance and finished her _pas seul_, and with folded hands sang +her song. Her beautiful voice came out clear as crystal water from a +crystal rock, and her words were cradled like doves, like boats on the +boundless seas.... + + "From India's coral strand...." + +But there was no hymn tune to this song of Letty Lane's in _Mandalay_! +To the boy in the box, however, the words, the tune, the droning of the +flies on the window-pane, the strong odor of the hymn-books and panama +fans, came back, and the clear sunlight of Montana seemed to steal into +the Gaiety as Letty Lane sang. + +The Duchess of Breakwater clapped with frank enthusiasm, and said: "She +is a perfect wonder, isn't she? Oh, she is _too_ bewitching!" + +And she turned for sympathy to her friend, who stood behind her, his +face illumined. He was amazed; his blue eyes ablaze, his head bent +forward, he was staring, staring at the Gaiety curtain, gone down on the +first act. + +He laughed softly, and the duchess heard him say: + +"_Good!_ Well, I should say she was! She's a girl from our town!" + +When the duchess tried to share her enthusiasm with Dan he had +disappeared. He left the box and with no difficulty made his way as far +as the first wing. + +"Can you get me an entrance?" he asked a man he had met once at Osdene +and who was evidently an habitue. + +"I dare say. Rippin' show, isn't it?" + +[Image] + +Dan put his hand on ducal shoulders and followed the nobleman through +the labyrinth of flies. + +"Which of 'em do you want to see, old man?" + +Dan, without replying, went forward to a small cluster of lights in one +of the wings. He went forward intuitively, and his companion caught his +arm: "Oh, I say, for _God's_ sake, don't go on like this!" + +But without response Dan continued his direction. A call page stood +before the door, and Dan, on a card over the entrance, read "Miss Lane." +The smell of calcium and paint and perfume and the auxiliaries hung +heavy on the air. The other man saw Dan knock, knock again and then go +in. + +Unannounced Dan Blair opened the door of the dressing-room of the +actress. Miss Lane's dressing-rooms were worth displaying to her +intimate friends. They were done with great taste in coral tint. She +might have been said to be in a coral cave under the sea, as far as +young Blair was concerned. As he came in he felt his ears deaden, and +the smoke of cigarettes grew so thick that he looked as through a veil. +The dancer was standing in the center of the room, one hand on her hip, +and in the other hand a cigarette. Her short skirt stood out around her +like a bell, and over the bell fell a rain of pinkish coral strands. She +wore a thin silk slip, from which her neck and arms came shining out, +and her woman knelt at her feet strapping on a little coral shoe. + +Blair shut the door behind him, and began to realize how rude, how +impertinent his entrance would be considered. But he came boldly forward +and would have introduced himself as "Dan Blair from Blairtown," but +Miss Lane, who stared at the entrance through the smoke, burst into a +laugh so bright, so delightful, that he was carried high up on the coral +strands to the very beach. She crossed her white arms over her breast +and leaned forward, as a saleswoman might lean forward over a counter, +and with her beautifully trained voice, all sweetly she asked him: + +"Hello, little boy, what will _you_ take?" + +Blair giggled, quick to catch her meaning, and answered: "Oh, chocolate, +I guess!" + +And Letty Lane laughed, put out her white hand, the one without the +cigarette, and said: "Haven't got that brand on board--so sorry! Will a +cocktail do? All sorts in bottles. Higgins, fix Mr. Blair a Martini." + +As the dresser rose from her stooping position, the rest of Letty Lane's +dressing-room unfolded out of the mist and smoke. On a sofa covered with +lace pillows Blair saw a man sitting, smoking as well. He was tall and +had a dark mustache. It was Prince Poniotowsky, whom Dan had already met +at the Galorey shoot. + +"Prince Poniotowsky," Miss Lane presented him, "Mr. Blair, of Blairtown, +Montana. Say, Frederick, give me my cap, will you? It is over by your +side. I've got to hustle." + +The man, without moving, picked up a small red cap with a single plume, +from the sofa at his side. In another second Letty Lane had placed it on +her head of yellow hair, real yellow hair and not a doubt of it, like +sunshine--not the color one gets from inside bottles. Her arms, her hands +flashed with rings, priceless flashes, and the little spears pricked Dan +like sharp needles. + +"It's the nicest ever!" she was saying. "How on earth did you get in +here, though? Have you bought the Gaiety Theater? I'm the most exclusive +girl on the stage. Who let you in?" + +Her accent was English, and even that put her from him. As he looked at +her he couldn't understand how he had ever recognized her. If he had +waited for another act he wouldn't have believed the likeness real. The +girl he remembered had both softened and hardened; the round features +were gone, but all the angles were gone as well. Her eyes were as gray +as the seas; she was painted and her lids were darkened. Seen close, she +was not so divine as on the stage, but there was still a more thrilling +charm about the fact that she was real. + +"To think of any one from Montana being here to-night! Staying very +long, Mr. Blair?" Between each sentence she directed Higgins, who was +getting her into her bodice. "And how do you like _Mandalay_? Isn't it +great?" + +She addressed herself to Dan, but she smiled on both the men with +extreme brilliance. + +"You bet your life," he responded. "I should think it was great." + +Poniotowsky rose indolently. He had not looked toward the new-comer, but +had, on the other hand, followed every detail of Miss Lane's dressing. + +"Better take your scarf, Letty. Hand it to Miss Lane," he directed +Higgins. "It is so damned drafty in these beastly wings." + +He drew his watch out, gathered up his long coat, flung it over his arm +and picked up his opera hat which lay folded on Letty Lane's +dressing-table. + +The call page for the third time summoned "Miss La--ne, Miss La--ane," and +she took the scarf Higgins handed her and ran it through her hands, +still beaming on Dan. + +"Come in to see me at the Savoy on any day at two-thirty except on +matinee days." + +"Put on your scarf." Poniotowsky, taking it from her hands, laid it +across her white shoulders, and she passed out between the two men, +light as a bird, smiling, nodding, followed by the prince and the boy +from Montana. The crowds began to fill the lately empty wings--dancers, +chorus girls with their rustling gowns. Letty Lane said to Dan: + +"Guess you'll like my solo in this act all right--it's the best thing in +_Mandalay_. Now go along, and clap me hard." + +It gave him a new pleasure, for she had spoken to him in real American +fashion with the swift mimicry that showed her talent. Dan went slowly +back to his party. As he took his seat by the duchess she said to him: + +"You went out to see Letty Lane. Do you know her?" + +"Know her!" And as Dan answered, the sound of his own voice was queer to +him, and his face flushed hotly. "Lord, yes. She used to be in the drug +store in Blairtown. Sold soda-water to me when we were both kids. +Whoever would have thought that she had that in her!" He nodded toward +the stage, for Letty Lane had come on. "She sang in our church, too, but +not for long." + +"Who was with her in her dressing-room?" the duchess asked. Blair didn't +answer. He was looking at Letty Lane. She had come to dance for the +rajah and in her arms she held four white doves; each dove had a coral +thread around its throat. It was a number that made her famous, _The +Dove Song_. Set free, the birds flew about her, circling her blond head, +surmounted by the small coral-colored cap. The doves settled on her +shoulders, pecked at her lips. + +"Was it Poniotowsky?" the duchess repeated. + +And Dan told her a meaningless lie. "I didn't meet any one there." And +with satisfaction the duchess said: + +"Then she has thrown him over, too. He was the latest and the richest. +She is horribly extravagant. No man is rich enough for her, they say. +Poniotowsky isn't a gold mine." + +The doves had flown away to the wings and been gathered up by the Indian +servants. The actress on the stage began her Indian cradle song. She +came, distinctly turning toward the box party. She had never sung like +this in London before. There was a freshness in her voice, a quality in +her gesture, a pathos and a sweetness that delighted her audience. They +fairly clamored for her, waved and called and recalled. Dan stood +motionless, his eyes fastened on her, his heart rocked by the song. He +didn't want any one to speak to him. He wished that none of them would +breathe, and nearly as absorbed as was he, no one did speak. + + + + +CHAPTER V--AT THE CARLTON + + +There are certain natures to whom each appearance of evil, each form of +delinquency is a fresh surprise. They are born simple, in the sweet +sense of the word, and they go down to old age never of the world, +although in a sense worldly. If Dan Blair's eyes were somewhat opened at +twenty-two, he had yet the bloom on his soul. He was no fool, but his +ideals stood up each on its pedestal and ready to appear one by one to +him as the scenes of his life shifted and the different curtains rose. +He had been trained in finance from his boyhood and he was a born +financier. Money was his natural element; he could go far in it. But +_woman_! He was one of those manly creatures--a knight--to whom each woman +is a sacred thing: a dove, a crystal-clear soul, made to cherish and to +protect, made to be spoiled. And in Dan were all the qualities that go +to make up the unselfish, tender, foolish, and often unhappy American +husband. These were some of the other things he had inherited from his +father. Blair, senior, had married his first love, and whereas his boy +had been trained to know money and its value, how to keep it and spend +it, to save it and to make it, he had been taught nothing at all about +woman. He had never been taught to distrust women, never been warned +against them; he had been taught nothing but his father's memory of his +mother, and the result was that he worshiped the sex and wondered at the +mystery. + +With Gordon Galorey and the others he had ridden, shot better than they, +and had played, but with Lady Galorey and the Duchess of Breakwater he +was nothing but a child. As far as his hostess was concerned, on several +occasions she had put to him certain states of affairs, well, +touchingly. Dan had been moved by the stories of sore need among the +tenants, had been impressed by the necessity of reforms and rebuildings +and on each occasion had given his hostess a check. She had asked him to +say nothing about it to Gordon, and he had kept his silence. Dan liked +Lady Galorey extremely: she was jolly, witty and friendly. She treated +him as a member of the family and made no demands on him, save the ones +mentioned. + +In the time that he had come to know the Duchess of Breakwater she, on +her part, had filled him full of other confidences. Into his young ears +she poured the story of her disappointment, her disjointed life, from +her worldly girlhood to her disillusion in marriage. She was beautiful +when she talked and more lovely when she wept. Dan thought himself in +love with the Duchess of Breakwater. His conversations with her had +brought him to this conclusion. They had motored from Osdene Park +together, and he had been extremely taken with the pleasure of it, and +with the fact of their real companionship. Two or three times the words +had been on his lips, which were fated not to be spoken then, however, +and Dan reached the Gaiety still unfettered, his duchess by his side. +And then the orchestra had begun to play _Mandalay_, the curtain had +gone up and Letty Lane had come out on the boards. But her apparition +did not strike off his chains immediately, nor did he renounce his plan +to tell the duchess the very next day that he loved her. + +When with sparkling eyes Lady Galorey raved about _Mandalay_, Dan +listened with eagerness. Everybody seemed to know all about Letty Lane, +but he alone knew from what town she had come! + +They went for supper at the Carlton after the theater. + +"Letty," Lady Galorey said, "tells it herself how the impresario heard +her sing in some country church--picked her up then and there and brought +her over here, and they say she married him." + +Dan Blair could have told them how she had sung in that little church +that day. Dan was eating his caviare sandwich. "Her name _then_ was +Sally Towney," he murmured. How little he had guessed that she was +singing herself right out of that church and into the London Gaiety +Theater! Anyway, she had made him "sit up!" It was a far cry from +Montana to the London Gaiety. And so she married the greasy Jew who had +discovered her! + +Dan glanced over at the Duchess of Breakwater. She was looking well, +exquisitely high bred, and she impressed him. She leaned slightly over +to him, laughing. He had hardly dared to meet her eyes that day, fearing +that she might read his secret. She had told him that in her own right +she was a countess--the Countess of Stainer. Titles didn't cut any ice +with him. At any rate, she would be able to "buy back the old farm"--that +is the way Dan put it. She had told him of the beautiful old Stainer +Court, mortgaged and hung up with debts, as deep in ruins as the ivy was +thick on the walls. + +As Dan looked over at the duchess he saw the other people staring and +looking about at a table near. It was spread a little to their left for +four people, a great bouquet of orchids in the center. + +"There," Galorey said, "there's Letty Lane." And the singer came in, +followed by three men, the first of them the Prince Poniotowsky, +indolent, bored, haughty, his eye-glass dangling. Miss Lane was dressed +in black, a superb costume of faultless cut, and it enfolded her like a +shadow; as a shadow might enfold a specter, for the dancer was as pale +as the dead. She had neither painted nor rouged, she had evidently +employed no coquetry to disguise her fag; rather she seemed to be on the +verge of a serious illness, and presented a striking contrast to the +brilliant creature, who had shone before their eyes not an hour before. +Her dress was a challenge to the more gay and delicate affairs the other +women in the restaurant wore. The gown came severely up to her chin. Its +high collar closed around with a pearl necklace; from her ears fell +pearls, long, creamy and priceless. She wore a great feathered hat, +which, drooping, almost hid her small, pale face and her golden hair. +She drew off her gloves as she came in and her white, jeweled hands +flashed. She looked infinitely tired and extremely bored. As soon as she +took her seat at the table intended for her party, Poniotowsky poured +her out a glass of champagne, which she drank off as though it were +water. + +"Gad," Lord Galorey said, "she _is_ a stunner! What a figure, and what a +head, and what daring to dress like that!" + +"She knows how to make herself conspicuous," said the Duchess of +Breakwater. + +"She looks extremely ill," said Lady Galorey. "The pace she goes will do +her up in a year or two." + +Dan Blair had his back to her, and when they rose to leave he was the +last to pass out. Letty Lane saw him, and a light broke over her pallid +face. She nodded and smiled and shook her hand in a pretty little +salute. If her face was pale, her lips were red, and her smile was like +sunlight; and at her recognition a wave of friendly fellowship swept +over the young man--a sort of loyal kinship to her which he hadn't felt +for any other woman there, and which he could not have explained. In +warm approval of the actress' distinction, he said softly to himself: +"_That's_ all right--she makes the rest of them look like thirty cents." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--GALOREY SEEKS ADVICE + + +Blair did not go back at once to Osdene Park. He stopped over in London +for a few days to see Joshua Ruggles, and so remarked for the first time +the difference between the speech of the old and the new world. Mr. +Ruggles spoke broadly, with complete disregard of the frills and +adornments of the King's English. He spoke United States of the pure, +broad, western brand, and it rang out, it vibrated and swelled and +rolled, and as Ruggles didn't care who heard him, nothing of what he had +to say was lost. + +Old Mr. Blair had left behind him a comrade, and as far as advice could +go the old man knew that his Dan would not be bankrupt. + +"Advice," Dan Blair senior once said to his boy, "is the kind of thing +we want some fellow to give us when we ain't going to do the thing we +ought to do, or are a little ashamed of something we have done. It's an +awful good way to get cured of asking advice just to do what the fellow +tells you to at once." + +During Ruggles' stay in London the young fellow looked to it that +Ruggles saw the sights, and the two did the principal features of the +big town, to the rich enjoyment of the Westerner. Dan took his friend +every night to the play, and on the fourth evening Ruggles said: "Let's +go to the circus or a vaudeville, Dan. I have learned _this_ show by +heart!" They had been every night to see _Mandalay_. + +"Oh, you go on where you like, Josh," the boy answered. "I'm going to +see how she looks from the pit." + +Ruggles was not a Blairtown man. He had come from farther west, and had +never heard anything of Sarah Towney or Letty Lane. He applauded the +actress vigorously at the Gaiety at first, and after the third night +slept through most of the performance. When he waked up he tried to +discover what attraction Letty Lane had for Dan. For the young man never +left Ruggles' side, never went behind the scenes, though he seemed +absorbed, as a man usually is absorbed for one reason only. + +In response to a telegram from Osdene Park, Dan motored out there one +afternoon, and during his absence Ruggles was surprised at his hotel by +a call. + +"My dear Mr. Ruggles," Lord Galorey said, for he it was the page boy +fetched up, "why don't you come out to see us? All friends of old Mr. +Blair's are welcome at Osdene." + +Ruggles thanked Galorey and said he was not a visiting man, that he only +had a short time in London, and was going to Ireland to look up "his +family tree." + +"There are one hundred acres of trees in Osdene," laughed Galorey; "you +can climb them all." And Ruggles replied: + +"I guess I wouldn't find any O'Shaughnessy Ruggles at the top of any of +'em, my lord. The boy has gone out to see you all to-day." + +Galorey nodded. "That is just why I toddled in to see you!" + +Ruggles' caller had been shown to the sitting-room, where he and Dan +hobnobbed and smoked during the Westerner's visit. There was a pile of +papers on the table, in one corner a typewriter covered by a black +cloth. Galorey took a chair and, refusing a cigarette, lit his pipe. + +"I didn't have the pleasure of meeting you in the West when I was out +there with Blair. I knew Dan's father rather well." + +Ruggles responded: "I knew him rather well too, for thirty years. If," +he went on, "Blair hadn't known you pretty well he wouldn't have sent +the boy out to you as he has done. He was keen on every trail. I might +say that he had been over every one of 'em like a hound before he set +the boy loose." + +Galorey answered, "Quite so," gravely. "I know it. I knew it when Dan +turned up at Osdene--" Holding his pipe bowl in the palm of his slender +hand, he smoked meditatively. He hadn't thought about things, as he had +been doing lately, for many years. His sense of honor was the strongest +thing in Gordon Galorey, the only thing in him, perhaps, that had been +left unsmirched by the touch of the world. He was unquestionably a +gentleman. + +"Blair, however," he said, "wasn't as keen on this scent as you'd +expect. His intuition was wrong." + +Ruggles raised his eyebrows slightly. + +"I mean to say," Lord Galorey went on, "that he knew me in the West when +I had cut loose for a few blessed months from just these things into +which he has sent his boy--from what, if I had a son, God knows I'd throw +him as far as I could." + +"Blair wanted Dan to see the world." + +"Of course, that is right enough. We all have to see it, I fancy, but +this boy isn't ready to look at it." + +"He is twenty-two," Ruggles returned. "When I was his age I was +supporting four people." + +Galorey went on: "Osdene Park at present isn't the window for Blair's +boy to see life through, and that is what I have come up to London to +talk to you about, Mr. Ruggles. I should like to have you take him +away." + +"What's Dan been up to down there?" + +"Nothing as yet, but he is in the pocket of a woman--he is in a nest of +women." + +Ruggles' broad face had not altered its expression of quiet expectation. + +"There's a lot of 'em down there?" he asked. + +"There are two," Galorey said briefly, "and one of them is my wife." + +Ruggles turned his cigarette between his great fingers. He was a slow +thinker. He had none of old Blair's keenness, but he had other +qualities. Galorey saw that he had not been quite understood, and he +waited and then said: + +"Lady Galorey is like the rest of modern wives, and I am like a lot of +modern husbands. We each go our own way. My way is a worthless one, God +knows I don't stand up for it, but it is not my wife's way in any sense +of the word." + +"Does she want Dan to go along on her road?" Ruggles asked. "And how +far?" + +"We are financially strapped just now," said Galorey calmly, "and she +has got money from the boy." He didn't remove his pipe from his mouth; +still holding it between his teeth he put his hand in his pocket, took +out his wallet, drew forth four checks and laid them down before +Ruggles. "It is quite a sum," Galorey noted, "sufficient to do a lot to +Osdene Park in the way of needed repairs." Ruggles had never seen a +smile such as curved his companion's lips. "But Osdene Park will have to +be repaired by money from some other source." + +Ruggles wondered how the husband had got hold of the checks, but he +didn't ask and he did not look at the papers. + +"When Dan came to the Park," said Galorey, "I stopped bridge playing, +but this more than takes its place!" + +Ruggles' big hand went slowly toward the checks; he touched them with +his fingers and said: "Is Dan in love with your wife?" + +And Lord Galorey laughed and said: "Lord no, my dear man, not even that! +It is pure good nature on his part--mere prodigality. Edith appealed to +him, that's all." + +Relief crossed Ruggles' face. He understood in a flash the worldly +woman's appeal to the rich young man and believed the story the husband +told him. + +"Have you spoken to the boy?" + +"My dear chap, I have spoken to him about nothing. I preferred to come +to you." + +"You said," Ruggles continued, "there were two ladies down to your +place." + +Galorey had refilled his pipe and held it as before in the palm of his +hand. + +"I can look after the affairs of my wife, and this shan't happen again, +I promise you--not at Osdene, but I'm afraid I can not do much in the +other case. The Duchess of Breakwater has been at Osdene for nearly +three weeks, and Dan is in love with her." + +Ruggles put the four checks one on top of the other. + +"Is the lady a widow?" + +"Unfortunately, yes." + +"So that's the nest Dan has got into at Osdene," the Westerner said. And +Galorey answered: "That is the nest." + +"And he has gone out there to-day--got a wire this morning." + +"The duchess has been in an awful funk," said Galorey, "because Dan's +been stopping in London so long. She sent him a message, and as soon as +Dan wired back that he was coming to the Park, I decided to come here +and see you." + +Ruggles ruminated: "Has the duchess complications financially?" + +"Ra-ther!" the other answered. + +And Ruggles turned his broad, honest face full on Galorey: "Do you think +she could be bought off?" + +Galorey took his pipe out of his mouth. + +"It depends on how far Dan has gone on with her. To be frank with you, +Mr. Ruggles, it is a case of emotion on the part of the woman. She is +really in love with Dan. Gad!" exclaimed the nobleman. "I have been on +the point of turning the whole brood out of doors these last days. It +was like imprisoning a mountain breeze in a charnel house--a woman with +her scars and her experience and that boy--I don't know where you've kept +him, or how you kept him as he is, but he is as clear as water. I have +talked to him and I know." + +Nothing in Ruggles' expression had changed until now. His eyes glowed. + +"Dan's all right," he said softly. "Don't you worry! He's all right. I +guess his father knew what he was doing, and I'll bet the whole thing +was just what he sent him over here for! Old Dan Blair wasn't worth a +copper when the boy was born, and yet he had ideas about everything and +he seemed to know more in that old gray head of his than a whole library +of books. Dan's all right." + +"My dear man," said the nobleman, "that is just where you Americans are +wrong. You comfort yourself with your eternal 'Dan's all right,' and you +won't see the truth. You won't breathe the word 'scandal' and yet you +are thick enough in them, God knows. You won't admit them, but they are +there. Now be honest and look at the truth, will you? You are a man of +common sense. Dan Blair is _not_ all right. He is in an infernally +dangerous position. The Duchess of Breakwater will marry him. It is what +she has wanted to do for years, but she has not found a man rich enough, +and she will marry this boy offhand." + +"Well," said the Westerner slowly, "if he loves her and if he marries +her--" + +"Marries her!" exclaimed the nobleman. "There you are again! Do you +think marriage makes it any better? Why, if she went off to the +Continent with him for six weeks and then set him free, that would be +preferable to marrying her. My dear man," he said, leaning over the +table where Ruggles sat, "if I had a boy I would rather have him marry +Letty Lane of the Gaiety. Now you know what I mean." + +Ruggles' face, which had hardened, relaxed. + +"I have seen that lady," he exclaimed with satisfaction; "I have seen +_her_ several times." + +Galorey sank back into his chair and neither man spoke for a few +seconds. Turning it all over in his slow mind, Ruggles remembered Dan's +absorption in the last few days. "So there are three women in the nest," +he concluded thoughtfully, and Gordon Galorey repeated: + +"No, not three. What do you mean?" + +"Your wife"--Ruggles held up one finger and Galorey interrupted him to +murmur: + +"I'll take care of Edith." + +"The Duchess of Breakwater you think won't talk of money?" + +"No, don't count on it. She is aiming at ten million pounds." + +Ruggles was holding up the second finger. + +"Well, I guess Dan has gone out to take care of _her_ to-day." + +Dan and Ruggles had seen _Mandalay_ from a box, from the pit and from +the stalls. On the table lay a book of the opera. While talking with +Galorey, Ruggles had unconsciously arranged the checks on top of the +libretto of _Mandalay_. + +"_I'll_ take care of Miss Lane," Ruggles said at length. + +His lordship echoed, "Miss Lane?" and looked up in surprise. "What Miss +Lane, for God's sake?" + +"Miss Letty Lane at the Gaiety," Ruggles answered. + +"Why, she isn't in the question, my dear man." + +"You put her there just now yourself." + +"Bosh!" Galorey exclaimed impatiently, "I spoke of her as being the +limit, the last thing on the line." + +"No," corrected the other, "you put the Duchess of Breakwater as the +limit." + +Galorey smiled frankly. "You are right, my dear chap," he accepted, "and +I stand by it." + +A page boy knocked at the door and came in holding out on a salver a +card for Mr. Ruggles, and at the interruption Galorey rose and invited +Ruggles to go out with him that night to Osdene. "Lady Galorey will be +delighted." + +But Ruggles shook his head. "The boy is coming back here to-night," and +Galorey laughed. + +"Don't you believe it! You don't know how deep in he is. You don't know +the Duchess of Breakwater. Once he is with her--" + +At the same time that the page boy handed Mr. Ruggles the card of the +caller, he gave him as well a small envelope, which contained box +tickets for the Gaiety. Ruggles examined it. + +"I have got some writing to do," he told Galorey, "and I'm going to see +a show to-night, and I think I'll just stay here and watch my hole." + +As soon as Galorey had left the Carlton, Mr. Ruggles despatched his +letters and his visitor, made a very careful toilet, and after waiting +until past eight o'clock for Dan to return to dinner, dined alone on +roast beef and a tart, and with perfect digestion, if somewhat +thoughtful mind, left the hotel and walked down the dim street to the +brilliant Strand, and on foot to the Gaiety. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--AT THE STAGE ENTRANCE + + +Ruggles, from his stall, for the fourth time saw the curtain go up on +_Mandalay_ and heard the temple bells ring. One of the stage boxes was +not occupied until after the first act and then the son of his friend +came in alone and sat far back out of sight of any eyes but the keenest, +and those eyes were Ruggles'. Letty Lane, delicious, fantastic, +languishing, sang to Dan; that was evident to Ruggles. He was a large +man and filled his stall comfortably. He sat through the performance +peacefully, his hands in his pockets, his big face thoughtful, his shirt +front ruffled. To look at him, one must have wondered why he had come to +_Mandalay_. He scarcely lost any of the threads of his own reflections, +though when Miss Lane, in response to a call from the house, sang her +cradle song three times, he seemed moved. The tones of her pure voice, +the cradling in her arms of an imaginary child, her apparent dovelike +purity, her grace and sweetness, and her cooing, gentle tone, to judge +by the softening of the Westerner's face, touched very much the big +fellow who listened like a child. At the end he drew his handkerchief +slowly across his eyes, but the tears, or rather moisture, that rose +there was not all due to Miss Lane's song, for Ruggles was extremely +warm. + +He could see that in his box the boy sat transfixed and absorbed. Dan +went out in the second entr'acte and was absent when the curtain went +down. Ruggles, as well, left before the performance was over, to make +his way outside the theater to the stage exit, where there was already +gathered a little group, looked after by a couple of policemen. Close to +the curb a gleaming motor waited, the footman at its door. Ruggles +buttoned his coat up to his chin and took his place close to the door, +over which the electric light showed the words "Stage Entrance." A poor +woman elbowed him, her shabby hat adorned by a scraggly plume, a gray +shawl wrapped round her shoulders. A girl or two, who might have been +flower sellers in Piccadilly in the daytime, a couple of toughs, a +handful of other vagrants smelling of gin, a decent man in working +clothes, a child in his arms, formed the human hedge Letty Lane was to +pass between--a singular group of people to spend an hour hanging about +the streets at the exit of a theater well toward midnight. So the naive +Ruggles thought, and better understood the appearance of the young +fellows in evening clothes who hovered on the extreme edge of the little +crowd. Dan, however, was not of these. + +"Look sharp, Cissy," the workingman spoke to his child, holding her well +up. "When she comes hout she'll pass close to yer, and you sing hout, +'God bless yer.'" + +"Yes, Dad, I will," shrilled the child. + +The woman in the gray shawl drew it close about her. "Aw she's a true +lidy, all right, ain't she? I expect you've had some kindness off her as +well?" + +The man nodded over the child's shoulder. "Used to be a scene shifter, +and Miss Lane found out about my little girl last year--not this lass, +not Cissy, Cissy's sister--and she sent 'er to a place where it costs the +eyes out of yer head. She's gettin' well fast, and we, none of us, has +seen her or spoken to Miss Lane. She doesn't know our names." + +And the woman answered: "She does a lot like that. She's got a heart +bigger'n her little body." + +And a big boy in the front row said back to the others: "Well, she makes +a mint of money." + +And the woman who had spoken before said: "She gives it nearly all to +the poor." + +Ruggles was evidently on the poor side of the waiting crowd; the handful +of riffraff around him with its stench of dirt and gin. A better looking +set collected opposite and there was the gleam of white shirt fronts. + +"Now, there she comes," the father saw her first. "Sing out, Cissy." + +The door opened and a figure quickly floated from it, like a white rose +blown out into the foggy darkness. It floated down the few steps to the +street between the double row of spectators. A white cloak entirely +covered the actress. Her head was hidden by a white scarf, and she +almost ran the short gantlet to her motor, between the cries of "God +bless you!"--"Three cheers for Letty Lane"--"God bless you, lady!" She +didn't speak or heed, however, or turn her head, but held her scarf +against her face, and the man who slowly lounged behind her to the car, +and put her in and got in after her, was not the man Joshua Ruggles had +waited there to see. He hung about until the footman had sprung up and +the car moved softly away, the stage entrance door shut, then he +followed along with the crowd, with the few faithful ones who had waited +an hour in the cold mist to cry out their applause, not to a singer in +_Mandalay_ but to a woman's heart. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--DAN'S SIMPLICITY + + +The Duchess of Breakwater was not sure how close Dan Blair's thoughts +were to marriage, but the boy from Montana was the easiest prey that had +come across the beautiful and unscrupulous woman's range. He had told +her that he stayed on up in London to see a man from home, and when +after four days he still lingered in town, she found his absence +unbearable, and sent him a wire so worded that if he had a spark of +interest in her he must immediately return to the Park. She had never +been more lovely than when Dan found her waiting for him. + +She had ordered tea in her sitting-room. She told him that he looked +frightfully seedy, asked him what he had been doing and why he had +stopped so long away, and Blair told her that old Ruggles, his father's +friend, had run over to see him with a lot of papers for Dan to read and +sign and closed with a smile, telling her that he guessed she "didn't +know much about business." + +"I only know the horrid things of business--debts, and loans, and bills, +and fussing." + +"Those things are not business," Dan answered wisely; "they are just +common or garden carelessness." + +She asked him why he had not brought Ruggles out to Osdene, and he told +her he couldn't have done a stroke of work with the old boy down here at +the Park. + +Stirring his tea, he appreciated the duchess. The agreeable picture she +made impressed him mightily. + +"Do you know," he asked suddenly, "what you make me think of?" + +And she responded softly: "No, dear." + +"A box of candy. This room with its stuffed walls, and you in it are +good enough--" + +"To eat?" she laughed aloud. "Oh, you perfectly killing creature, what +an idea!" + +And as he met her eyes with his clear ones, with a simplicity she could +never hope to reach, he put his tea-cup down; and as he did so the +duchess observed his strong hands, their vigor, well-kept and muscular, +but not the dandified hands of the man who goes often to the manicure. + +"If it hadn't been for one thing," the boy went on, "I would have +thought of nothing else but you, every minute I've been away." + +"Mr. Ruggles?" suggested the duchess. + +"No, the Gaiety girl, Letty Lane. You know I told you in the box that +she was from my town." + +The young man, who had flown back to Osdene Park in answer to a +telegram, began to take his companion into his confidence. + +"I knew that girl," Dan said, "when she wasn't more than fourteen. She +sold me soda-water over the drug store counter. I always thought she was +bully, bright as a button and pretty as a peach. Once, I remember, I +took six chocolate sodas in one day just to go in and see her. I had an +awful time. I most died of that jag, and yet," he said meditatively, "I +don't think I ever spoke three words to her, just said 'sarsaparilla' or +'chocolate' or whatever it might happen to be. Ever since that day, ever +since that jag," he said with feeling, "I couldn't _see_ a stick of +chocolate and keep my head up! Well," went on the boy, "Sarah Towney +sang in our church for a missionary meeting, and I was there. I can +remember the song she sang." He spoke with unconscious ardor. He didn't +refer to the hymn, however, but went on with his narrative. "She +disappeared from Blairtown. I never had a peep at her again until the +other night. Gosh!" he said fervently, "when I saw her there on the +stage, why, I felt as though cold water was running up and down my +spine." + +The duchess, as a rule, was amused by his slang. It seemed vulgar to her +now. + +"Heavens," she drawled, "you are really too dreadful!" + +He didn't seem to hear her. + +"She's turned out a perfect wonder, hasn't she? A world-beater! Why, +everybody tells me there isn't another like her in her specialty. Of +course I have heard of Letty Lane, but I haven't been out to things +since I went in mourning, and I've never run up against her." + +"Really," drawled the duchess again, "now that you have 'run up against +her' what are you going to do with her? Marry her?" + +His honest stare was the greatest relief she had ever experienced. He +repeated bluntly: "Marry her? Why the dickens should I?" + +"You seem absorbed in her." + +He agreed with her. "I am. I think she's great, don't you?" + +"Hardly." + +But the cold voice of the duchess did not chill him. "Simply great," he +continued, "and I'm sorry for her down to the ground. That is what is +the matter. Didn't you notice her when she came into the Carlton that +night?" + +"What of it, silly? I thought she looked as thin as a shad in that black +dress, and the way Poniotowsky goes about with her proves what an ass he +is." + +"Well, I hate him," Blair simply stated; "I would wring his neck for +twenty cents. But she's very ill; that is what is the matter with her." + +"They all look like that off the stage," the duchess assured +indifferently. "They are nothing but footlight beauties: they look +ghastly off the boards. I dare say that Letty Lane _is_ ill, though; the +pace she goes would kill anybody. Have some more tea?" + +He held out his cup and agreed with her. + +"She works too hard--this playing almost every night, singing and dancing +twice at the matinees, I should think she would be dead." + +"Oh, I don't mean her professional engagements," murmured the duchess. + +A revolt such as had stung him when they criticized her at the Carlton +rose in him now. + +"It is hard to believe," he said, "when you hear her sing that dove song +and that cradle song." + +But his companion's laugh stopped his championship short. + +"You dear boy, don't be a silly, Dan. She doesn't need your pity or your +good opinion. She is perfectly satisfied. She has got a fortune in +Poniotowsky, and she really is 'a perfect terror,' you know." + +Affected slightly by her cold dismissal of his subject, he paused for a +moment. But his own point of view was too strong to be shaken by this +woman's light words. + +"I suppose if she wasn't from my town--" At his words the vision of Letty +Lane with the coral strands on her dress, came before his eyes, and he +said honestly: "But I do take an interest in her just the same, and +she's going to pieces, that's clear. Something ought to be done." + +The Duchess of Breakwater was very much annoyed. + +"Are you going to talk about her all the time?" she asked with sharp +sweetness. "You are not very flattering, Dan." + +And he returned peacefully, "Why, I thought you might be able to help +her in some way or another." + +"_Me!_" She laughed aloud. "Me help Letty Lane? Really--" + +"Why, you might get her to sing out here," he suggested. "That would +sort of get hold of her; women know how to do those things." + +His preposterous simplicity overwhelmed her. She stirred her tea, and +said, controlling herself, "Why, what on earth would you have me to say +to Letty Lane?" + +"Oh, just be nice to her," he suggested. "Tell her to take care of +herself and to brace up. Get some nice woman to--" + +The duchess helped him. "To reform her?" + +"Do her good," the boy said gently. + +"You're too silly for words. If you were not such a hopeless child I +would be furious with you. Why, my dear boy, she would laugh in your +face and in mine." + +As the duchess left the tea-table she repeated: "Is this what you came +up from London to talk to me about?" + +And at the touch of her dress as she passed him--at the look she gave him +from her eyes, Dan flushed and said honestly: "Why, I told you that she +was the only thing that kept me from thinking about you all the time." + + + + +CHAPTER IX--DISAPPOINTMENT + + +Dan Blair had not been back of the scenes at the Gaiety since his first +call on the singer. Indeed, though he had told the duchess he pitied +Miss Lane, he had not been able to approach her very closely, even in +his own thoughts. When she first appeared on his horizon his mind was +full of the Duchess of Breakwater, and the singer had only hovered round +his more profound feelings for another woman. But Letty Lane was an +atmosphere in Dan's mind which he was not yet able to understand. There +was so little left that was connected with his old home, certainly +nothing in the British Isles, excepting Ruggles, and to the young man +everything from America had its value. Decidedly the nice girl of whom +he had spoken to Gordon Galorey, the print-frocked, sun-bonneted type, +the ideal girl that Dan would like to marry and to spoil, had not +crossed his path. The Duchess of Breakwater did not suggest her, nor did +any of the London beauties. Dan's first ideal was beginning to fade. + +He left Osdene Park on protest and returned the same night to London, +and all the way back to town tried to register in his mind, unused to +analysis, his experience with the Duchess of Breakwater on this last +visit. + +He had experienced his first disappointment in the sex, and this +disappointment had been of an unusual kind. It was not that he had been +turned down or given the mitten, but he had seen one woman turn another +down. A woman had been mean, so he put it, and the fact that the Duchess +of Breakwater had refused to lend a moral hand to the singer at the +Gaiety hurt Dan's feelings. Then, as soon as his enthusiasm had calmed, +he saw what a stupid ass he had been. A duchess couldn't mix up with a +comic opera singer, of course. Still, he mused, "she might have been a +little nicer about it." + +The education his father had given him about women, the slender +information he had about them, was put to the test now; the girl he had +dreamed of, "the nice girl," well, she would have had a tenderer way +with her in a case such as this! Back of Dan's hurt feelings, there was +a great deal on the Duchess of Breakwater's side. She had not done for +herself yet. She hadn't fetched him nearly up to the altar for nothing, +and back of his disapproval, there was a long list of admirations and +looks, memories of many tete-a-tetes and of more fervent kisses which +scored a good deal in the favor of Dan's first woman. The Duchess of +Breakwater had gone boldly on with Dan's unfinished education, and he +really thought he loved her, and that he was in honor bound to see the +thing through. + + * * * * * + +That evening, once more in the box he had taken all to himself, he +listened to _Mandalay_, carried away with the charm of the music and +carried away by the singer. He was in the box nearest the stage and +seemed close to her, and he imagined that under her paint he could see +her pallor and how thin she was. Nothing, however, in her acting or in +her voice revealed the least fatigue. Blair had obtained a card of +entrance to the theater, which permitted him to circulate freely behind +the scenes, and although as yet the run of his visits had not been +clear, this night he had a purpose. Dan stood not far from the corridor +that led to Letty Lane's room, and saw her after her act hurriedly cross +the stage, a big white shawl wrapping her slender form closely. She was +as thin as a candle. Her woman Higgins followed closely after her, and +as they passed Dan, Letty Lane called to him gaily: + +"Hello, you! What are you hanging around here for?" + +And Dan returned: "Don't stand here in the draft. It is beastly cold." + +"Yes, Miss," her woman urged, "don't stand here." + +But the actress waited nevertheless and said to Dan: "Who's the girl?" + +"What girl?" + +"Why, the girl you come here every night to see and are too shy to speak +to. Everybody is crazy to know." + +Letty Lane looked like a little girl herself in the crocheted garment +her small hands held across her breast. Dan put his arm on her shoulder +without realizing the familiarity of his gesture: + +"Get out of this draft--get out of it quick, I say," and pushed her +toward her room. + +"Gracious, but you are strong." She felt the muscular touch, and his +hand flat against her shoulder was warm through the wool. + +"I wish _you_ were strong. You work too darned hard." + +Her head was covered with the coral cap and feather. Dan saw her billowy +skirt, her silken hose, her little coral shoes. She fluttered at the +door which Higgins opened. + +"Why haven't you been to see me?" she asked him. "You are not very +polite." + +"I am coming in now." + +"Not a bit of it. I'm too busy, and it is a short entr'acte. Go and see +the girl you came here to see." + +Dan thought that the reason she forbade him to come in was because +Prince Poniotowsky waited for her in her dressing-room. It was his first +jealous moment, and the feeling fell on him with a swoop, and its fangs +fastened in him with a stinging pain. He stammered: + +"I didn't come to see any girl here but you. I came to see you." + +"Come to-morrow at two, at the Savoy." + +But before Dan realized his own precipitation, he had seized the +door-handle as Letty Lane went within and was about to close her room +against him, and said quickly: + +"I'm coming right in now." + +"Why, I never heard of such a thing," she answered sharply, angrily; +"you must be crazy! Take away your hand!" And hers, as well as his, +seized the handle of the door. Her small ice-cold hand brought him to +his senses. + +"I beg your pardon," he murmured confusedly. "Do go in and get warm if +you can." + +But instead of obeying, now that the rude young man withdrew his +importuning, Miss Lane's hands fell from the knob, and close to his eyes +she swayed before him, and Dan caught her in his arms--went into her +room, carrying her. He had been wrong about Prince Poniotowsky; save for +Higgins, the room was empty. The woman, though she exclaimed, showed no +great surprise and seemed prepared for such a fainting spell. Dan laid +the actress on the sofa and then the dresser said to him: + +"Please go, sir; I can quite manage. She has these turns often. I'll +give her brandy. She will be quite right." + +But Dan hesitated, looking at the bit of humanity that he had laid with +great gentleness on the divan covered with pillows. Letty Lane lay +there, small as a little child, inanimate as death. It was hard to think +the quiet little form could contain such life, fire and motion, or that +this senseless little creature held London with her voice and grace. +Higgins knelt down by Letty Lane's side, quiet, capable, going about the +business of resuscitating her lady much as she laced the singer's bodice +and shoes. "If you would be so good as to open the door, sir, and send +me a call page. They'll have to linger out this entr'acte or put on some +feature." + +"But," exclaimed Blair, "she can't go back to-night?" + +"Lord, yes," Higgins returned. "Here, Miss Lane; drink this." + +At the door where he paused, Dan saw the girl lifted up, saw her lean on +Higgins' shoulder, and assured then that she was not lifeless in good +truth, he went out to do as Higgins had asked him. In a quarter of an +hour the curtain rose and within half an hour Dan, from his box, saw the +actress dance to the rajah her charming polka to the strains of the +Hungarian Band. + + + + +CHAPTER X--THE BOY FROM MY TOWN + + +He went the next day to see Letty Lane at the Savoy and learned that she +was too ill to receive him. Mrs. Higgins in the sitting-room told him +so. + +Dan liked the big cordial face of the Scotch-woman who acted as +companion, dresser and maid for the star. Mrs. Higgins had an affable +face, one that welcomes, and she made it plain that she was not an enemy +to this young caller. + +The visitor, in his blue serge clothes, was less startling than most of +the men that came to see her mistress. + +"She works too hard, doesn't she?" + +"She does everything too hard, sir." + +"She ought to rest." + +"I doubt if she does, even in her grave," returned Higgins. "She is too +full of motion. She is like the little girl in the fairy book that +danced in her grave." + +Dan didn't like this comparison. + +"Can't you make her hold up a little?" + +Higgins smiled and shook her head. + +Letty Lane's sitting-room was as full of roses as a flower garden. There +were quantities of theatrical photographs in silver and leather frames +on the tables and the piano. Signed portraits from crowned heads; +pictures of well-known worldly men and women whom the dancer had +charmed. But a full-length picture of Letty Lane herself in one of the +dresses of _Mandalay_ lay on the table near Dan, and he picked it up. +She smiled at him enchantingly from the cardboard, across which was +written in her big, dashing hand: "For the Boy from _my_ Town. Letty +Lane." + +Dan glanced up at Mrs. Higgins. + +"Why, that looks as though this were for me." + +The dressing woman nodded. "Miss Lane thought she would be able to see +you to-day." + +The picture in his hand, Dan gazed at it rapturously. + +"I'm from Blairtown, Montana, where she came from." + +"So she told me, sir." + +He laid the picture back on the table, and Higgins understood that he +wanted Miss Lane to give it to him herself. She led him affably to the +door and affably smiled upon him. She had a frill in her hand, a thimble +on her finger, and a lot of needles in her bodice. She looked motherly +and useful. Blair liked to think of her with Letty Lane. He put his hand +in his pocket, but she saw his gesture and reproved him quietly: "No, +no, sir, please, I never do. I am just as much obliged," and her face +remained so affable that Blair was not embarrassed by her refusal. His +parting words were: + +"Now, you make her take care of herself." + +And to please him, as she opened the door, she pleasantly assured him +that she would do her very best. + +Dan went out of the Savoy feeling that he had left something of himself +behind him in the motley room of an actress with its perfumed atmosphere +of roses and violets. The photograph which he had laid down on the table +seemed to look out at him again, and he repeated delightedly, "That one +was for me, all right! I'm the 'boy from her town' and no mistake." And +he thought of her as she had lain, lifelessly and pale on the +dressing-room sofa, under the touch of hired hands, and how, no doubt, +she had been lying in her room when he called to-day, with shades drawn, +resting before the long hard evening, when London would be amused by +her, delighted by her, charmed by her voice, by her body and her grace. +He had wandered up as far as Piccadilly, went into a florist's and stood +before the flowers. Her sitting-room had been full of roses, but Dan +chose something else that had caught his eye from the window,--a huge +country basket of primroses, smelling of the earth and the spring. He +sent them with his card and wrote on it, "To the Girl from My Town," and +sent the gift with a pleasure as young and as fresh as was his own +heart. + +He got no note of acknowledgment from his flowers. Miss Lane was +evidently better and played every night; no mention was made of her +indisposition in the papers. But Dan couldn't go to the Gaiety or bear +to see her make the effort which he knew must tire her beyond words to +conceive. + +After a few days he called at the Savoy to get news of her. He got as +far as the lift when going up in it he saw Prince Poniotowsky. The sight +affected Miss Lane's townsman so forcibly that instead of going up to +the dancer's apartment Dan took himself off, and anger, displeasure and +something like disgust were the only sentiments he carried away from the +Savoy. He sent her no flowers, and gave himself up unreservedly to +Joshua Ruggles and to a couple of men who came in to see him by +appointment. And when toward four o'clock he found himself alone with +Ruggles, Dan threw himself down in a big chair and looked intensely +bored. + +[Image] + +"Well, I guess we don't need to see any more of these fellows for a +week, Dan," Ruggles yawned with relief. "I'm blamed if it isn't as hard +to take care of money as to get it. I was a poor man once, and so was +your father. Those were the days we had fun." + +Ruggles took out a big cigar, struck a match sharply, and when he had +lit his Henry Clay he fixed his gaze on the flying London fog, whose +black curtain drew itself across their window. + +"There's a lot of excitement," Ruggles said, "in not knowing what you're +going to get; may turn out to be anything when you're young and on the +trail. That's the way your father and me felt. And when we started out +on the spot that's Blairtown on the map to-day, your father had forty +dollars a week to engineer a busted mine and to pull the company into +shape." + +Dan knew the story of his father's rise by heart, but he listened. + +"He took on with the mine a lot of discontented half-hearted +rapscallions--a whole bunch, who had failed all along the line. He didn't +chuck 'em out. 'There's no life in old wood, Josh,' he said to me, 'but +sometimes there's fire in it, and I'm going to light up,' and he did. He +won over the whole lot of them in eighteen months, and within two years +he had that darned mine paying dividends. Meanwhile something came his +way and he took it." + +From his chair Dan asked: "You mean the Bentley claim?" + +"Measles," his friend said comically, with a grin. "Your father was sick +to death with them. When he was sitting up for the first time, peeling +in his room, there was a fellow, an Englishman, a total stranger, come +in to see him. 'Better clear out of here,' your father says to him. 'I'm +shedding the damnedest disease for a grown man that ever was caught.' +'I'm not afraid of it,' the Englishman said, 'I'm shedding worse.' When +your father asked him what that was, he said the idea that he could make +any money in the West. He told your father that he was going back to +England and give up his western schemes, and that he had a claim to +sell, and he told Blair where it lay. 'Who has seen it?' your father +asked. 'Any of my men?' And the Englishman told your father that nobody +had wanted to buy it and that was why he had come to him. He said he +thought his only chance to sell was to hold up some blind man on his +dying bed and that he had heard that Blair was too sick to stir out of +his room and to prospect. Your father liked the fellow's cheek and when +he found out that he had the maps with him, your father bought the whole +blooming sweep at the man's price, which was a mere song. + +"Your father never went near his purchase for a year or more, and when +he had turned the mine he was managing over to the original company, +with me as manager in his place, at a salary of twenty thousand dollars +a year, he said to me one day, 'Ruggles, you'll be sorry to know that +the fun is all over, I've struck oil.' But the oil was copper. The whole +blooming business that he'd bought of that Englishman was rich with ore. +Well, that's the story of Blairtown," Ruggles said. "You were born there +and your mother died there." + +Dan said: "Galorey told me what dad did later for the man that sold him +the mine, and it was just like everything else he did, for dad was all +right, just as good as they come." + +Ruggles agreed. He left his reminiscences abruptly. "Your dad and me had +the fun in our time; now you are going to get the other kind; you're +going to make the dust fly that he dug up." + +And the rich young man said musingly: "I'll bet it isn't half as good at +my end." + +And Ruggles agreed: "Not by a jugful." And followed: "What's on +to-night? _Mandalay?_" + +Dan's fury at Prince Poniotowsky came back. "I guess you thought I was a +little loose in the lid, didn't you, Josh, going so often to the same +play?" + +"You wouldn't have been the first rich man that had the same disease," +Ruggles answered. + +"There is nothing the matter with _Mandalay_, but I'm not gone on any +actress living, Josh; you are in the wrong pew." + +Dan altered his indolent pose and sat forward. "But I _am_ thinking of +getting married," he said. + +"I hope it's to the right girl, Dan." + +And with young assurance Blair answered: "It will be if I marry her. I +know what I want all right." + +"I hope she knows what she wants, Dan." + +"How do you mean?" + +"You or your money. You have the darnedest handicap, my boy." + +Blair flushed. "I'll get to hate the whole thing," he said ferociously. +"It meets me everywhere--bonds--stocks--figures--dividends +--coupons--deeds--it's too much!" he said suddenly, with resentment. "It is +too much for me. Why, sometimes I feel a hundred years old, and like a +hunk of gold." + +Ruggles, in answer to this, said: "Why, that reminds me of what a man +remarked about your father once. It was the same English chap your +father bought the claim of. Speaking of Blair, he said to me: 'You know +there's all kinds of metal bars, and when you cut into them some is +bullion and some's coated with aluminum, and there's others that when +you cut down, cut a clean yellow all along the line.' If, as you say, +you feel like a hunk of metal, it ain't bad if it is that kind." + +"It's got to stop coming in between me and the woman I marry, all right, +though." Dan did not pursue his subject further, for his feelings about +the duchess were too unreal to give him the sincere heartiness with +which he would have liked to answer Ruggles. + +He went over to the window, and, with his hands in his pockets, stood +looking out at the fog. Ruggles, at the table, opened the cover of the +book of _Mandalay_ and took out the four checks made out to Lady Galorey +and which he had forgotten. He hurriedly thrust them into his pocket. + +"Come away, Dannie," he said cheerfully, "let's do something wild. I +feel up to most anything with this miserable fog down on me. If it had +any nerve it would take some form or shape, so a man could choke it +back." + +Ruggles blew his nose violently. + +"There's nothing to do," said Dan in a bored tone. + +"Why don't you see who your telegram is from?" Ruggles asked him. It +proved to be a suggestion from Gordon Galorey that Dan should meet him +at five o'clock at the club. + +"What will you do, Rug?" + +"Sleep," said the Westerner serenely; "I'm nearly as happy in London as +I am in Philadelphia. It's four o'clock now and I can't sleep more than +four hours anyway. Let's have a real wild time, Dannie." + +Dan looked at him doubtfully, but Ruggles' eyes were keen. + +"What kind of a time do you mean?" + +"Let's ask the Gaiety girl for dinner--for supper after the theater." + +"Letty Lane? She wouldn't go." + +"Why not?" + +"She is awfully delicate; it is all she can do to keep her contracts." + +He knows that, Ruggles thought. "Let's ask her and see." He went over to +the table and drew out the paper. "Come on and write and ask her to go +out with us to supper." + +"See here, Rug, what's this for?" + +"What's strange in it? She is from our state, and if you don't hustle +and ask her I am going to ask her all alone." + +Dan was puzzled as he sat down to the table, reflecting that it was +perfectly possible that old Ruggles had fallen a prey to the charms of +an actress. She wouldn't come, of course. He wrote a formal invitation +without thinking very much of what he said or how, folded and addressed +his note. + +"What did you say?" Ruggles asked eagerly. + +"Why, that two boys from home wanted to give her a supper." + +"Well," said Ruggles, "if the answer comes while you are at the club +I'll open it and give the orders. Think she'll come?" + +"I do not," responded Dan rather brutally. "She's got others to take her +out to supper, you bet your life." + +"Well, there's none of them as rich as you are, I reckon, Dan." + +And the boy turned on him violently. + +"See here, Josh, if you speak to me again of my money, when there's a +woman in the question--" + +He did not finish his threat, but snatched up his coat and hat and +gloves and went out of the door, slamming it after him. + +Mr. Ruggles' profound and happy snore was cut short by the page boy, who +fetched in a note, with the Savoy stamping on the back. Ruggles opened +it not without emotion. + +"Dear boy," it ran, "I haven't yet thanked you for the primroses; they +were perfectly sweet. There is not one of them in any of my rooms, and +I'll tell you why to-night. I am crazy to accept for supper"--here she +had evidently struck out her intended refusal, and closed with, "I'm +coming, but don't come after me at the Gaiety, please. I'll meet you at +the Carlton after the theater. Who's the other boy? L. L." + +The "other boy" read the note with much difficulty, for it was badly +written. "He'll have to stop sending her flowers and going every night +to the theater unless he wants a row with the duchess," he said dryly. +And with a certain interest in his role, Ruggles rang for the head +waiter, and with the man's help ordered his first midnight supper for an +actress. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--RUGGLES GIVES A DINNER + + +The bright tide of worldly London flows after and around midnight into +the various restaurants and supper rooms, and as well through the +corridors and halls of the Carlton. At one of the small tables bearing a +great expensive bunch of orchids and soft ferns, Josh Ruggles, in a new +evening dress, sat waiting for his party. Dan had dined with Lord +Galorey, and the two men had gone out together afterward, and Ruggles +had not seen the boy to give him Letty Lane's note. + +"Got it with you?" Blair asked when he came in, and Ruggles responded +that he didn't carry love letters around in his dress clothes. + +They could tell by the interest in the room when the actress was coming, +and both men rose as Letty Lane floated in at flood tide with a crowd of +last arrivals. + +She had not dressed this evening with the intention that her dark +simplicity of attire should be conspicuous. The cloak which Dan took +from her shed the perfume of orris and revealed the woman in a blaze of +sparkling _paillettes_. She seemed made out of sparkle, and her blond +head, from which a bright ornament shook, was the most brilliant thing +about her, though her dress from hem to throat glistened with discs of +gold like moonshine on a starry sea. The actress' look of surprise when +she saw Ruggles indicated that she had not expected a boy of his age. + +"The other boy?" she asked. "Well, this is the nicest supper party ever! +And you are awfully good to invite me." + +Ruggles patted his shirt front and adjusted his cravat. + +"My idea," he told her, "all the blame on me, Miss Lane. Charge it up to +me! Dan here had cold feet from the first. He said you wouldn't come." + +She laughed deliciously. + +"He did? Hasn't got much faith, has he?" + +Miss Lane drew her long gloves off, touched the orchids with her little +hands, on which the ever present rings flashed, and went on talking to +Ruggles, to whom she seemed to want to address her conversation. + +"I'm simply crazy over these flowers." + +The older man showed his pleasure. "My choice again! Walked up myself +and chose the bunch, blame me again; ditto dinner; mine from start to +finish--hope you'll like it. I would have added some Montana peas and +some chocolate soda-water, only I thought you might not understand the +joke." + +Miss Lane beamed on him. Although he was unconscious of it, she was not +fully at ease: he was not the kind of man she had expected to see. +Accustomed to young fellows like the boy and their mad devotion, +accustomed to men with whom she could be herself, the big, bluff, +middle-aged gentleman with his painfully correct tie, his rumpled +iron-gray hair, and his deference to her, though an unusual diversion, +was a little embarrassing. + +"Oh, I know your dinner is ripping, Mr. Ruggles. I'm on a diet of milk +and eggs myself, and I expect your order didn't take in those." But at +his fallen countenance she hurried to say: "Oh, I wouldn't have told you +that if I hadn't been intending to break through." + +And with childlike anticipation she clapped her hands and said: "We're +going to have 'lots of fun.' Just think, they don't know what that means +here in London. They say 'heaps of sport, you know.'" She imitated the +accent maliciously. "It's just we Americans who know what 'lots of fun' +is, isn't it?" + +Near her Dan Blair's young eyes were drinking in the spectacle of +delicate beauty beautifully gowned, of soft skin, glorious hair, and he +gazed like a child at a pantomime. Under his breath he exclaimed now, +with effusion, "You bet your life we are going to have lots of fun!" And +turning to him, Miss Lane said: + +"Six chocolate sodas running?" + +"Oh, don't," he begged, "not that kind of jag." + +She shook with laughter. + +"Are you from Blairtown, Mr. Ruggles? I don't think I ever saw you +there." + +And the Westerner returned: "Well, from what Dan tells me, you're not +much of a fixture yourself, Miss Lane. You were just about born and then +kidnapped." + +Her gay expression faded. And she repeated his word, "Kidnapped? That's +a good word for it, Mr. Ruggles." + +She picked up between her fingers a strand of the green fern, and looked +at its delicate tracery as it lay on the palm of her hand. + +"I sang one day after a missionary sermon in the Presbyterian Church." +She interrupted herself with a short laugh. "But I guess you're not +thinking of writing my biography, are you?" + +And it was Dan's voice that urged her. "Say, do go on. I was there that +day with my father, and you sang simply out of sight." + +"Yes," she accepted, "out of sight of Blairtown and everybody I ever +knew. I went away the next day." She lifted her glass of champagne to +her lips. "Here's one thing I oughtn't to do," she said, "but I'm going +to just the same. I'm going to do everything I want this evening. +Remember, I let you drink six glasses of chocolate soda once." She +drained her glass and her friends drank with her. "I like this soup +awfully. What is it?"--just touching it with her spoon. + +"Why," Ruggles hastened to tell her, "it ain't a _party_ soup, it's +Scotch broth. But somehow it sounded good on the bill of fare. I fixed +the rest of the dinner up for you and Dan, but I let myself go on the +soup, it's my favorite." + +She did not eat it, however, although she said it was splendid and that +she was crazy about it. + +"Did you come East then?" Dan returned to what she had been saying. + +"Yes, that week; went to Paris and all over the place." + +She instantly fell into a sort of melancholy. It was easy to be seen +that she did not want to talk about her past and yet that it fascinated +her. + +"Just think of it!" he exclaimed. "I never heard a word about you until +I heard you sing the other night." + +The actress laughed and told him that he had made up for lost time, and +that he was a regular "sitter" now at the Gaiety. + +Ruggles said, "He took me every night to see you dance until I balked, +Miss Lane." + +"Still, it's a perfectly great show, Mr. Ruggles, don't you think so? I +like it better than any part I ever had. I am interested about it for +the sake of the man who wrote it, too. It's his first opera; he's an +invalid and has a wife and five kids to look after." + +And Ruggles replied, "Oh, gracious! I feel better than ever, having gone +ten times, although I wasn't _very_ sore about it before! Ain't you +going to eat anything?" + +She only picked at her food, drinking what they poured in her glass, and +every time she spoke to Dan a look of charming kindness crossed her +face, an expression of good fellowship which Ruggles noted with +interest. + +"I wish you could have seen this same author to-day at the rehearsal of +the play," Letty Lane went on. "He's too ill to walk and they had to +carry him in a chair. We all went round to his apartments after the +theater. He lives in three rooms with his whole family and he's had so +many debts and so much trouble and such a poor contract that he hasn't +made much out of _Mandalay_, but I guess he will out of this new piece. +He hugged and kissed me until I thought he would break my neck." + +London had gone mad over Letty Lane, whose traits and contour were the +admiration of the world at large and well-known even to the news-boys, +and whose likeness was nearly as familiar as that of the Madonnas of +old. Her face was oval and perfectly formed, with the reddest of +mouths--the most delicious and softest of mouths--the line of her brows +clear and straight, and her gray eyes large and as innocent and +appealing as a child's; under their long lashes they opened up like +flowers. It was said that no man could withstand their appeal; that she +had but to look to make a man her slave; and as more than once she +turned to Dan, smiling and gracious, Ruggles watched her, mutely +thinking of what he had heard this day, for after her letter came +accepting their invitation he had taken pains to find out the things he +wanted to know. It had not been difficult. As her face and form were +public, on every post-card and in every photographer's shop, so the +actress' reputation was the property of the public. + +As Ruggles repeated these things to himself, he watched her beside the +son of his old friend. They were talking--rather she was--and behind the +orchids and the ferns her voice was sweet and enthralling. Ruggles tried +to appreciate his bill of fare while the two appreciated each other. It +was strange to Dan to have her so near and so approachable. His sights +of her off the stage had been so slight and fleeting. On the boards she +had seemed to be an unreal creation made for the public alone. Her +dress, cut fearlessly low, displayed her lovely young bosom--soft, +bloomy, white as a shell--and her head and ears were as delicate as the +petals of a white rose. Low in the nape of her neck, her golden hair lay +lightly, and from its soft masses fragrance came to him. + +Ruggles could hear her say: "Roach came to the house and told my people +that I had a fortune in my voice. I was living with my uncle and my +step-aunt and working in the store. And that same day your father sent +down a check for five hundred dollars. He said it was 'for the little +girl with the sweet voice,' and it gives me a lot of pleasure to think +that I began my lessons on _that money_." + +The son of old Dan Blair said earnestly: "I'm darned glad you did--I'm +darned glad you did!" + +Letty Lane nodded. "So am I. But," with some sharpness, "I don't see why +you speak that way. I've earned my way. I made a fortune for Roach all +right." + +"You mean the man you married?" + +"Married--goodness gracious, what made you think that?" She threw back +her pretty head and laughed--a laugh with the least possible merriment in +it. "Oh, Heavens, marry old Job Roach! So they say _that_, do they? I +never heard that. I hear a lot, but I never heard that fairy tale." She +put her hands to her checks, which had grown crimson. "That's not true!" + +Dan swore at himself for his tactless stupidity. + +Ruggles had heard both sides. She was adored by the poor, and, as far as +rumor knew, she spent thousands on the London paupers, and the +Westerner, who had never been given to reveling in scandals and to whom +there was something wicked in speaking ill of a woman, no matter whom +she might be, listened with embarrassment to tales he had been told in +answer to his other questions; and turned with relief to the stories of +Letty Lane's charity, and to the stories of her popularity and her +success. They were more agreeable, but they couldn't make him forget the +rest, and now as he looked at her face across the bouquet of orchids and +ferns, it was with a sinking of heart, a great pity for her, and still a +decided enmity. He disapproved of her down to the ground. He didn't let +himself think how he felt, but it was for the boy. Ruggles was not a man +of the world in any sense; he was simple and Puritan in his judgments, +and his gentle nature and his big heart kept him from pharisaical and +strenuous measures. He had been led in what he was doing to-night by a +diplomacy and a common sense that few men east of the Mississippi would +have thought out under the circumstances. + +"Tell Mr. Ruggles," he heard Dan say to her, "tell him--tell him!" + +And she answered: + +"I was telling Mr. Blair that, as he is so frightfully rich, I want him +to give me some money." + +Ruggles gasped, but answered quietly: + +"Well, he's a great giver, Miss Lane." + +"I guess he is if he's like his father!" she returned. "I am trying to +get a lot, though, out of him, and when you asked me to dine to-night I +said to myself, 'I'll accept, for it will be a good time to ask Mr. +Blair to help me out in what I want to do.'" + +At Ruggles' face she smiled sweetly and said graciously: + +"Oh, don't think I wouldn't have come anyway. But I'm awfully tired +these days, and going out to supper is just one thing too much to do! I +want Mr. Blair," she said, turning to Ruggles as if she knew a word from +him would make the thing go through, "to help me build a rest home down +on the English coast, for girls who get discouraged in their art. When I +think of the _luck_ I have had and how these things have been from the +beginning, and how money has just poured in, why," she said ardently, +"it just makes my heart ache to think of the girls who try and fail, who +go on for a little while and have to give up. You can't tell,"--she +nodded to Ruggles, as though she were herself a matron of forty,--"you +can not tell what their temptations are or what comes up to make them go +to pieces." + +Ruggles listened with interest. + +"I haven't thought it all out yet, but so many come to me tired out and +discouraged, and I think a nice home taken care of by a good creature +like my Higgins, let us say, would be a perfect blessing to them. They +could go there and rest and study and just think, and perhaps," she said +slowly, as though while she spoke she saw a vision of a tired self, for +whom there had been no rest home and no place of retreat, "perhaps a lot +of them would pull through in a different way. Now to-day"--she broke her +meditative tone short--"I got a letter from a hospital where a poor thing +that used to sing with me in New York was dying with consumption--all +gone to pieces and discouraged, and there is where your primroses went +to--" she nodded to Dan. "Higgins took them. You don't mind?" And Blair, +with a warmth in his voice, touched by her pity more than by her +charity, said: + +"Why, they grew for you, Miss Lane; I don't care what you do with them." + +Letty Lane sank her head on her hands, her elbows leaned on the table. +She seemed suddenly to have lost interest even in her topic. She looked +around the room indifferently. The orchestra was softly playing _The +Dove Song_ from _Mandalay_, and very softly under her breath the star +hummed it, her eyes vaguely fixed on some unknown scene. To Dan and to +Ruggles she had grown strange. The music, her brilliancy, her sudden +indifference, put her out of their commonplace reach. Ruggles to himself +thought with relief: + +"She doesn't care one rap for the boy anyway, thank God. She's got other +fish to land." + +And Dan Blair thought: "It's my infernal money again." But he was +generous at heart and glad to be of service to her, and was perfectly +willing to be "touched" for her poor. Then two or three men came up and +joined them. She greeted them indolently, bestowing a word or a look on +this one or on that; all fire and light seemed to have gone out of her, +and Dan said: + +"You are tired. I guess I had better take you home." + +She did not appear to hear him. Indeed she was not looking at him, and +Dan saw Prince Poniotowsky making his way toward their table across the +room. + +Letty Lane rose. Dan put her cloak about her shoulders, and glancing +toward Ruggles and toward the boy as indifferently as she had considered +the new-comers, who formed a small group around the brilliant figure of +the actress, she nodded good night to both Ruggles and Blair and went up +to the Hungarian as though he were her husband, who had come to take her +home. However, at the door she sufficiently shook off her mood to smile +slightly at Dan: + +"I have had 'lots of fun,' and the Scotch broth was great! Thank you +both so much." + +Until they were up in their sitting-room her hosts did not exchange a +word. Then Ruggles took a book up from the table and sat down with his +cigar. "I am going to read a little, Dan. Slept all day; feel as +wide-awake as an owl." + +Dan showed no desire to be communicative, however, to Ruggles' +disappointment, but he exclaimed abruptly: + +"I'll be darned, Ruggles, if I can guess what you asked her for!" + +"Well, it did turn out to be a pretty expensive party for you, Dannie, +didn't it?" Ruggles returned humorously. "I'll let you off from any more +supper parties." + +And Dan fumed as he turned his back. "_Expensive!_ There you are again, +Ruggles, with your infernal intrusion of money into everything I do." + +When the older man found himself alone, he read a little and then put +his book down to muse. And his meditations were on the tide of life and +the beds it runs over; the living whirlpool as Ruggles himself had seen +it coursing through London under fog and mist. It seemed now to surge up +in the dark to his very windows, and the flow mysteriously passed under +his windows in these silent hours when no one can see the muddy, muddy +bottom over which the waters go. Out of the sound, as it flowed on, the +cries rose, he thought, kindly to his ears: "God bless her--God bless +Letty Lane!" And with this sound he closed his meditations, thinking of +a more peaceful stream, the brighter, sweeter waters of the boy's +nature, translucent and clear. The vision was happier, and with it +Ruggles rose and yawned, and shut his book. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE GREEN KNIGHT + + +The Duchess of Breakwater had made Dan promise at Osdene the day he went +back to London that he would take her over to her own place, Stainer +Court, and with her see the beauty, ruins and traditions of the place. + +When Dan got up well on in the morning, Ruggles had gone to the bank. +Dan's thoughts turned from everything to Letty Lane. With irritation he +put her out of his mind. There had come up between himself and the girl +he had known slightly in his own town years ago a wall of partition. +Every time he saw her Poniotowsky was there, condescending, arrogant, +rude and proud. The prince the night before had given the tips of his +fingers to Dan, nodded to Ruggles as if the Westerner had been his +tailor, and had appropriated Letty Lane, and she had gone away under his +shadow. The simplicity of Dan's life, his decent bringing up, his +immaculate youth, for such it was, his aloofness from the world, made +him naive, but he was not dull. He waited--not like a skeptic who would +fit every one into his pigeonholes--on the contrary, he waited to find +every one as perfect as he knew they must be, and every time he tried to +think of Letty Lane, Poniotowsky troubled him horribly and seemed to +rise before him, and sardonically look at him through his eye-glass, +making the boy's belief in good things ridiculous. + +He wrote a note to Ruggles, saying that he would be back late and not to +wait for him, and set out in his own car for Blankshire, where the +duchess was to meet him at Stainer Court at noon. On his way out he +decided that he had been a fool to discuss Letty Lane with the Duchess +of Breakwater, and that it had been none of his business to put her duty +before her, and that he had judged her quickly and unfairly. He fell in +love with the lovely English country over which his motor took him, and +it made him more affectionate toward the English woman. He sat back in +his car, looking over the fine shooting land, the misty golden forests, +as through the misty country his motor took its way. The breath of +England was on his cheeks, he breathed in its odors fresh and sweet, the +windless air was cool and fragrant. His cheeks grew red, his eyes shone +like stars, and he was content with his youth and his lot. When they +stopped at Castelene, the property belonging to Stainer Court, he felt +something of proprietorship stir in him, and at Stainer Arms ordered a +drink, bought petroleum, and then pushed up the avenue under the +leafless giant trees, whose roots were older than his father's name or +than any state of the Union. And he felt admiration and something like +emotion as he saw the first towers of Stainer Court finally appear. + +The duchess waited for him in the room known as the "Green Knight's +Room," because of a figure in tapestry on the walls. The legend in wool +had been woven in Spain, somewhere about the time when Isabella was +kind, and when in turn a continent loomed up for the world in general +out of the mist. The subject of the Green Knight's tapestry was simple +and convincing. On a sheer-cut village of low ferns, where daisies stood +up like trees, a slender lady poised, her dark sandaled feet on the +pin-like turf. Her figure was all swathed round with a spotless dress of +woolly white, softened by age into a golden misty tone, and a pair of +friendly and confidential rabbits sat close to her golden slippers. The +lady's face was candid and mild; her eyes were soft, and around her head +was wound a fillet of woven threads, mellow in tone, a red, no doubt, +originally, but softened to a coral pink by time. This lady in all her +grace and virginal sweetness was only half of the woven story. To her +right stood a youth in forest green, his sword drawn, and his intention +evidently to kill a creature which, near to the gentle rabbits, out of +the daisied grass lifted its cruel snakelike head. For nearly five +hundred years the serpent's venom had been poised, and if the serpent +should start the Green Knight would strike, too, at the same magic +moment. + +Close to the tapestry a fire had been laid in the broad fireplace, and +the duchess had ordered the luncheon table for Dan and herself spread +with the cold things England knows how to combine into a delectable +feast. The room was full of mediaeval furnishings, but the Green Knight +was the best of all. The Duchess of Breakwater took him for granted. She +had known him all her life, and she had only been struck by his +expensive beauty when the offer came to her from the National Museum to +buy him, and she wondered how long she could afford to stick to her +price. + +When Dan came in he found her in a short tweed skirt, a mannish blouse, +looking boyish and wholly charming, and she mixed him a cocktail under +the Green Knight's very nose and offered it with the wisdom of the +serpent itself, and the duchess didn't in the least suggest the +white-robed, milk-white lady. + +The friends drank their cocktails in good spirits, and Dan presented the +lady with the flowers he had brought her, and he felt a strong sentiment +stir at the sight of her in this old room, alone and waiting for him. +The servants left them, the duchess put her hands on the boy's broad +shoulders. Nearly as tall as he, she was a good example of the +best-looking English woman, straight and strong, and her eyes were +level, and Dan met them with his own. + +"I am so glad you came," she murmured. "I've been ragging myself every +minute since you went away from Osdene." + +"You have? What for?" + +"Because I was such a perfect prig. I'll do anything you like for Miss +Lane. I mean to say, I'll arrange for a musicale and ask her to sing." + +The color rushed into Dan's face. How bully of her! What a brick this +showed her to be! He said: "You are as sweet as a peach!" + +The duchess' hands were still on his shoulders. She could feel his rapid +breath. + +"I don't make you think of a box of candy now?" she murmured, and the +boy covered her hand with his own. + +"I don't know what you make me think of--it is bully, whatever it is!" + +If the Spanish tapestry could only have reversed its idea, and if the +immaculate lady, or even one of the rabbits, could have drawn a sword to +protect the Green Knight, it would have been passing well. But the woven +work, when it first had been embroidered, was done for ever; it was +irrevocable in its mistaken idea, that it is only the _woman_ who needs +protection! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--THE FACE OF LETTY LANE + + +As Dan went through the halls of the Carlton on his way to his rooms +that same evening, the porter gave him two notes, which Dan went down +into the smoking-room to read. He tore open the note bearing the Hotel +Savoy on the envelope, and read: + + "Dear Boy: Will you come around to-night and see me about five + o'clock? Don't let anything keep you." (Letty Lane had the habit of + scratching out phrases to insert others, and there was something + scratched out.) "I want to talk to you about something very + important. Come sure. L. L." + +Dan looked at the clock; it was after nine, and she would be at the +Gaiety going on with her performance. + +The other note, which he opened more slowly, was from Ruggles, and it +began in just the same way as the dancer's had begun: + + "Dear Boy: I have been suddenly called back to the United States. As + I didn't know how to get at you, I couldn't. I had a cable that + takes me right back. I get the _Lusitania_ at Liverpool and you can + send me a Marconi. Better make the first boat you can and come over. + + "Joshua Ruggles." + +Ruggles left no word of advice, and unconscious of this master stroke on +the part of the old man, whose heart yearned for him as for his own son, +Dan folded the note up and thought no more about Ruggles. + +When an hour later he came out of the Carlton he was prepared for the +life of the evening. He stopped at the telephone desk and sent a +telegram to Ruggles on the _Lusitania_: + + "Can't come yet a while; am engaged to be married to the Duchess of + Breakwater." + +He wrote this out in full and the man at the Marconi "sat up" and smiled +as he wrote. With Letty Lane's badly written note in his pocket, and +wondering very much at her summons of him, Dan drove to the Gaiety, and +at the end of the third act went back of the scenes. There were several +people in her dressing-room. Higgins was lacing her into a white bodice +and Miss Lane, before her glass, was putting the rouge on her lips. + +"Hello, you," she nodded to Dan. + +"I am awfully sorry not to have shown up at five. Just got your note. +Just got in at the hotel; been out of town all day." + +Dan saw that none of the people in the room was familiar to him, and +that they were out of place in the pretty brocaded nest. One of them was +a Jew, a small man with a glass eye, whose fixed stare rested on Miss +Lane. He had kept on his overcoat, and his derby hat hung on the back of +his head. + +"Give Mr. Cohen the box, Higgins," Miss Lane directed, and bending +forward, brought her small face close to the glass, and her hands +trembled as she handled the rouge stick. + +Mr. Cohen in one hand held a string of pearls that fell through his fat +fingers, as if eager to escape from them. Higgins obediently placed a +small box in his hand. + +"Take it and get out of here," she ordered Cohen. "Miss Lane has only +got five minutes." + +Cohen turned the stub of his cigar in his mouth unpleasantly without +taking the trouble to remove it. "I'll take the box," he said rapidly, +"and when I get good and ready I'll get out of here, but not before." + +"Now see here," Blair began, but Miss Lane, who had finished her task, +motioned him to be quiet. + +"Please go out, Mr. Blair," she said. "Please go out. Mr. Cohen is here +on business and I really can't see anybody just now." + +Behind the Jew Higgins looked up at Dan and he understood--but he didn't +heed her warning; nothing would have induced him to leave Letty Lane +like this. + +"I'm not going, though, Miss Lane," he said frankly. "I've got an +appointment with you and I'm going to stay." + +As he did so the other people in the room took form for him: a blind +beggar with a stick in his hand, and by his side a small child wrapped +in a shawl. With relief Dan saw that Poniotowsky was absent from the +party. + +Cohen opened the box, took its contents out and held up the jewels. +"This," he said, indicating a string of pearls, "is all right, Miss +Lane, and the ear-drops. The rest is no good. I'll take or leave them, +as you like." + +She was plainly annoyed and excited, and, as Higgins tried to lace her, +moved from her dressing-table to the sofa in a state of agitation. + +"Take them or leave them, as _you_ like," she said, "but give me the +money and go." + +The Jew took from his wallet a roll of banknotes and counted them. + +"Six," he began, but she waved him back. + +"Don't tell me how much it is. I don't want to know." + +"Let the other lady count it," the Jew said. "I don't do business that +way." + +Dan, who had laid down his overcoat and hat on a chair, came quietly +forward, his hands in his pockets, and standing in front of the Jew, he +said again: + +"Now you look here--" + +Letty Lane threw the money down on the dressing-table. "Please," she +cried to Dan, "let me have the pleasure of sending this man out of my +room. You can go, Cohen, and go in a hurry, too." + +The Jew stuffed the pearls in his pocket and went by Dan hurriedly, as +though he feared the young man intended to help him. But Dan stopped +him: + +"Before this deal goes through I want you to tell me why you are--" + +Miss Lane broke in: "My gracious Heavens! Can't I even sell my jewels +without being bossed? What business is it of yours, Mr. Blair? Let this +man go, and go all of you--all of you. Higgins, send them out." + +The blind man and the child stirred, too, at this outburst. The little +girl wore a miserable hat, a wreck of a hat, in which shook a feather +like a broken mast. The rest of her garments seemed made of the +elements--of dirt and mud--mere flags of distress, and the odor of the +poor filled the room: over the perfume and scent and smell of stage +properties, this miserable smell held its own. + +"Come, Daddy," whispered the child timidly, "come along." + +"Oh, no, not you, not you," Letty Lane said. + +Job Cohen crawled out with ten thousand pounds' worth of pearls in his +pockets, and as soon as the door had closed the actress took up the roll +of notes. + +"Come here," she said to the child. "Now you can take your father to the +home I told you of. It is nice and comfortable--they will treat his eyes +there." + +"Miss Lane--Miss Lane!" called the page boy. + +"Never mind that," said the actress, "it is a long wait this act. I +don't go on yet." + +Higgins went to the door and opened it and stood a moment, then +disappeared into the side scenes. + +Letty Lane ruffled the pile of banknotes and without looking drew out +two or three bills, putting them into the child's hands. "Don't you lose +them; stuff them down; this will keep you and your father for a couple +of years. Take care of it. You are quite rich now. Don't get robbed." + +The child tremblingly folded the notes and hid them among her rags. The +tears of happiness were straggling over her face. She said finally, +finding no place to stow away her riches, "I expect I'd best put them in +daddy's pocket." + +And Dan came to her aid; taking the notes from her, he folded and put +them inside the clothes of the old beggar. + +"Miss Lane," said Higgins, who had come in, "it is time you went on." + +"I'll see your friends out of the theater," Blair offered. And as he did +so, for the first time she looked at him, and he saw the fever in her +brilliant eyes. + +"Thanks awfully," she accepted. "It is perfectly crazy to give them so +much money at once. Will you look after it like a good boy and see +something or other about them?" + +He thought of her, however, and caught up a great soft shawl from the +chair, wrapped it around her tenderly, and she flitted out, Higgins +after her, leaving the rest of the money scattered on her +dressing-table. + +"Come along," said Blair kindly to the two who stood awaiting his orders +with the docility of the poor, the obedience of those who have no right +to plan or suggest until told to move on. "Come, I'll see you home." And +he didn't leave them until he had taken them in a cab to their +destination--until he had persuaded the girl to let him have the money, +look after it for her, come to see her the next day and tell her what to +do. + +Then he went back to the theater and stood up in the rear, for the house +was crowded, to hear Letty sing. It was souvenir night; there were +post-cards and little coral caps with feathers as _bonbonnieres_. They +called her out before the curtain a dozen times, and each time Dan +wanted to cry "Mercy" for her. He felt as though this little act had +established a friendship between them; and his hands clenched as he +thought of Poniotowsky, and he tried to recall that he was an engaged +man. He had an idea that Letty Lane was looking for him through the +performance. She finished in a storm of applause, and flowers were +strewn upon her, and Dan found himself, in spite of his resolution, +going back into the wings. + +This time two or three cards were sent in. One by one he saw the +visitors refused, and Dan, without any formality, himself knocked at +Letty Lane's small door, which Higgins opened, looked back over her +shoulder to give his name to her mistress, and said to Dan confidently, +"Wait, sir; just wait a bit." Her lips were affable. And in a few +moments, to Dan's astonished delight, the actress herself appeared, a +big scarf over her head and her body enveloped in her snowy cloak, and +he understood with a leap of his heart that she had singled him out to +take her home. + +She went before him through the wings to the stage entrance, which he +opened for her, and she passed out before him into the fog and the mist. +For the first time Blair followed her through the crowd, which was a big +one on this night. On the one side waited the poor, who wished her many +blessings, and on the other side her admirers, whose thoughts were quite +different. Something of this flashed through Dan's mind,--and in that +moment he touched the serious part of life for the first time. + +In Letty Lane's motor, the small electric light lit over their heads and +the flower vase empty, he sat beside the fragrant human creature whom +London adored, and knew his place would have been envied by many a man. + +"I took your friends to their place all right," he told her, "and I'm +going to see them myself to-morrow. I advised the girl not to get +married for her money. Say, this is awfully nice of you to let me take +you home!" + +She seemed small in her corner. "You were great to-night," Dan went on, +"simply great! Wasn't the crowd crazy about you, though! How does it +feel to stand there and hear them clap like a thunderstorm and call your +name?" + +She replied with effort. "It _was_ a nice audience, wasn't it? Oh, I +don't know how it feels. It is rather stimulating. How's the other boy?" +she asked abruptly, and when Dan had said that Ruggles had left him +alone in London, she turned and laughed a little. + +Dan asked her why she had sent for him to-day. "I'm mighty sorry I was +out of town," he said warmly. "Just to think you should have wanted me +to do something for you and I didn't turn up. You know I would be glad +to do anything. What was it? Won't you tell me what it was?" + +"The Jew did it for me." + +And Dan exclaimed: "It made me simply sick to see that animal in your +room. I would have kicked him out if I hadn't thought that it would make +an unpleasant scene for you. We have passed the Savoy." He looked out of +the window, and Letty Lane replied: + +"I told the driver to go to the Carlton first." + +She was taking _him_ home then! + +"Well, you've got to come in and have some supper with me in that case," +he cried eagerly, and she told him that she had taken him home because +she knew that Mr. Ruggles would approve. + +"Not much you won't," he said, and put his hand on the speaking tube, +but she stopped him. + +"Don't give any orders in my motor, Mr. Blair. You sit still where you +are." + +"Do you think that I am such a simple youth that I--" + +Letty Lane with a gesture of supreme ennui said to him impatiently: + +"Oh, I just think I am pretty nearly tired to death; don't bother me. I +want my own way." + +Her voice and her gesture, her beauty and her indifference, her sort of +vague lack of interest in him and in everything, put the boy, full of +life as he was, out of ease, but he ventured, after a second: + +"Won't you please tell me what you wanted me to do this afternoon?" + +"Why, I was hard up, that's all. I have used all my salary for two +months and I couldn't pay my bill at the Savoy." + +"Lord!" he said fervently, "why didn't you--" + +"I did. Like a fool I sent for you the first thing, but I was awfully +glad when five o'clock came you didn't turn up. Please don't bother or +speak of it again." + +And burning with curiosity as to what part Poniotowsky played in her +life, Dan sat quiet, not venturing to put to her any more questions. She +seemed so tired and so overcome by her own thoughts. When they had +turned down toward the hotel, however, he decided that he must in honor +tell her his news. + +"Got some news to tell you," he exclaimed abruptly. "Want you to +congratulate me. I'm engaged to be married to the Duchess of Breakwater. +She happens to be a great admirer of your voice." + +The actress turned sharply to him and in the dark he could see her +little, white face. The covering over her head fell back and she +exclaimed: + +"Heavens!" and impulsively put her hands out over his. "Do you really +mean what you say?" + +"Yes." He nodded surprisedly. "What do you look like that for?" + +Letty Lane arranged her scarf and then drew back from him and laughed. + +"Oh, dear, dear, dear," she exclaimed, "and I ... and I have been...." + +She looked up at him swiftly as though she fancied she might detect some +new quality in him which she had not observed before, but she saw only +his clear, kind eyes, his charming smile and his beautiful, young +ignorance, and said softly to him: + +"No use to cry, little boy, if it's true! But that woman isn't half good +enough for you--not half, and I guess you think it funny enough to hear +_me_ say so! What does the other boy from Montana say?" + +"Don't know," Dan answered indifferently. "Marconied him; didn't tell +him about it before he left. You see he doesn't understand +England--doesn't like it." + +A little dazed by the way each of the two women took the mention of the +other, he asked timidly: + +"You don't like the Duchess of Breakwater, then?" + +And she laughed again. + +"Goodness gracious, I don't know her; actresses don't sit around with +duchesses." Then abruptly, her beautiful eyes, under their curled dark +lashes, full on him, she asked: + +"Do _you_ like her?" + +"You bet!" he said ardently. "Of course I do. I am crazy about her." Yet +he realized, as he replied, that he didn't have any inclination to begin +to talk about his fiancee. + +They had reached the Carlton and the door of Letty Lane's motor was held +open. + +"Better get out," he urged, "and have something to eat." + +And she, leaning a little way toward him, laughed. + +"Crazy! Your engagement would be broken off to-morrow." And she further +said: "If I really thought it would, why I'd come like a shot." + +As she leaned forward, her cloak slipping from her neck, revealing her +throat above the dark collar of the simple dress she wore, he looked in +her dove-gray eyes, and murmured: + +"Oh, say, do come along and risk it. I'm game, all right." + +She hesitated, then bade him good night languidly, slipping back into +her old attitude of indifference. + +"I am going home to rest. Good night. I don't think the duchess would +let you go, no matter what you did!" + +Dan, standing there at her motor door, this beautiful, well-known woman +bantering him, leaning toward him, was conscious of her alone, all snowy +and small and divine in her enveloping scarf, lost in the corner of her +big car. + +"I hate to have you go back alone to the Savoy. I really do. Please let +me--" + +But she shook her head. "Tell the man the Savoy," and as Dan, carrying +out her instructions, closed the door, he said: "I don't like that empty +vase in there. Would you be very good and put some flowers in it if they +came?" + +She wouldn't promise, and he went on: + +"Will you put only my flowers in that vase always hereafter?" + +Then, "Why, of course not, goose," she said shortly. "Will you please +let me close the door and go home?" + +Dan walked into the Carlton when her bright motor had slipped away, his +evening coat long and black flying its wings behind him, his hat on the +back of his blond head, light of foot and step, a gay young figure among +the late lingering crowd. + +He went to his apartments and missed Ruggles in the lonely quiet of the +sitting-room, but as the night before Ruggles had done, Dan in his +bedroom window stood looking out at the mist and fog through which +before his eyes the things he had lately seen passed and repassed, +specter-like, winglike, across the gloom. Finally, in spite of the fact +that he was an engaged man with the responsibilities of marriage before +him, he could think of but one thing to take with him when he finally +turned to sleep. The face of the woman he was engaged to marry eluded +him, but the face under the white hood of Letty Lane was in his dreams, +and in his troubled visions he saw her shining, dovelike eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--FROM INDIA'S CORAL STRANDS + + +Mrs. Higgins, in Miss Lane's apartment at the Savoy, was adjusting the +photographs and arranging the flowers when she was surprised by a +caller, who came up without the formality of sending his name. + +"Do you think," Blair asked her, "that Miss Lane would see me half a +minute? I called yesterday, and the day before, as soon as I saw that +there was a substitute singing in _Mandalay_. Tell her I'm as full of +news as a charity report, please, and I rather guess that will fetch +her." + +Something fetched her, for in a few minutes she came languidly in, and +by the way she smiled at her visitor it might be thought Dan Blair's +name alone had brought her in. The actress had been ill for a fortnight +with what the press notices said was influenza. She wore a teagown, long +and white as foam, her hair rolled in a soft knot, and her face was pale +as death. Frail and small as she was, she was more ethereal than when in +perfect health. + +"Don't stand a minute." And by the hand she gave him Dan led her over to +the lounge where the pillows were piled and a fur-lined silk cover +thrown across the sofa. + +"Don't give me that heavy rug, there's that little white shawl." She +pointed to it, and Dan, as he gave it to her, recognized the shawl in +which she wrapped herself when she crossed the icy wings. + +"It's in those infernal side scenes you get colds." + +He sat down by her. She began to cough violently and he asked, troubled, +"Who's taking care of you, anyway?" + +"Higgins and a couple of doctors." + +"That's all?" + +"Yes. Why, who should be?" + +Dan didn't follow up his jealous suspicion, but asked in a tone almost +paternal and softly confidential: + +"How are your finances getting on?" + +Her lips curved in a friendly smile. But she made a dismissing gesture +with her frail little hand. + +"Oh, I'm all right; Higgins told me you had some news about my poor +people." + +The fact that she did not take up the financial subject made him +unpleasantly sure that her wants had been supplied. + +"Got a whole bunch of news," Dan replied cheerfully. "I went to see the +old man and the girl in their diggings. Gosh, you couldn't believe such +things were true." + +She drew her fine brows together. "I guess there are a good many things +that would surprise you. But you don't need to tell me about hard times. +That's the way I am. I'll do anything, give anything, so long as I don't +have to hear hard stories." She turned to him confidentially. "Perhaps +it's acting in false scenes on the stage; perhaps it's because I'm lazy +and selfish, but I can't bear to hear about tales of woe." + +What she said somewhat disturbed his idea of her big-hearted charity. + +"I don't believe you're lazy or selfish," he said sincerely, "but I've +got an idea that not many people really know you." + +This amused her. Looking at him quizzically, she laughed. "I expect you +think you do." + +Dan answered: "Well, I guess the people that see you when you are a kid, +who come from your own part of the country, have a sort of friendship." +And the girl on the sofa from the depths of her shawl put out a thin +little hand to him and said in a voice as lovely in tone as when she +sang in _Mandalay_: + +"Well, I guess that's right! I guess that's about true." + +After the tenth of a second, in which she thought best to take her +little cold hand away from those big warm ones, she asked: + +"Now please do tell me about the poor people." + +In this way giving him to understand how really true his better idea of +her had been. + +"Why, the old duffer is as happy as a house afire," said the boy. "Not +to boast, I've done the whole thing up as well as I knew how. I've got +him into that health resort you spoke of, and the girl seems to have got +a regular education vice! She wants to study something, so she's going +to school." + +"Go on talking," the actress invited languidly. "I love to hear you talk +Montana! Don't change your twang for this beastly English drawl, +whatever you do." + +"You have, though, Miss Lane. I don't hear a thing of Blairtown in the +way you speak." + +And the girl said passionately: "I wish to God I spoke it right through! +I wish I had never changed my speech or anything in me that was like +home." + +And the boy leaning forward as eagerly exclaimed: "Oh, do you mean that? +Think how crazy London is about you! Why, if you ever go back to +Montana, they will carry you from the cars in a triumphal chair through +the town." + +She waited until she could control the emotion in her voice. + +"Go on telling me about the little girl." + +"She was so trusting as to give the money up to me and I guess it will +draw interest for her all right." + +"Thank you," smiled the actress, "you are terribly sweet. The child got +Higgins to let her into my dressing-room one day after a matinee. I +haven't time to see anybody except then." + +Here Higgins made her appearance in the room, with an egg-nog for her +lady, which, after much coaxing, Dan succeeded in getting the actress to +drink. Higgins also had taken away the flowers, and Letty Lane said to +Dan: + +"I send them to the hospital; they make me sick." And Dan timidly asked: + +"Mine, too?" + +This brought a flush across the ivory pallor of her cheek. "No, no, +Higgins keeps them In the next room." And with an abrupt change of +subject she asked: "Is the Duchess of Breakwater very charitable?" And +Blair quickly replied: + +"Anyhow she wants you to sing for her at a musicale in Park Lane when +you're fit." + +Miss Lane gave a soft little giggle. "Is _that_ what you call being +charitable?" + +Dan blushed crimson and exclaimed: "Well, hardly!" + +"Did you come here to ask me that?" + +"I came to tell you about 'our mutual poor.' You'll let me call them +that, won't you, because I happened to be in your dressing-room when +they struck their vein?" + +Miss Lane had drawn herself up in the corner of the sofa, and sat with +her hands clasped around her knees, all swathed around and draped by the +knitted shawl, her golden head like a radiant flower, appearing from a +bank of snow. Her fragility, her sweetness, her smallness, appealed +strongly to the big young fellow, whose heart was warm toward the world, +whose ideals were high, and who had the chivalrous longing inherent in +all good men to succor, to protect, and above all to adore. No feeling +in Dan Blair had been as strong as this, to take her in his arms, to +lift her up and carry her away from London and the people who applauded +her, from the people that criticized her, and from Poniotowsky. + +He was engaged to the Duchess of Breakwater. And as far as his being +able to do anything for Letty Lane, he could only offer her this +politeness from the woman he was going to marry. + +"I never sing out of the theater." Her profile was to him and she looked +steadily across the room. "It's a perfect fight to get the manager to +consent." + +Blair interrupted and said: "Oh, I'll see him; I'll make it all right." + +"Please don't," she said briskly, "it's purely a business affair. How +much will she pay?" + +Dan was rather shocked. "Anything you like." + +And her bad humor faded at his tone, and she smiled at him. "Well, I'll +tell Roach that. I guess it'll make my singing a sure thing." + +She changed her position and drew a long sigh as though she were very +tired, leaned her blond head with its soft disorder back on the pillow, +put both her folded hands under her cheek and turned her face toward +Dan. The most delicate coral-like color began to mount her cheeks, and +her gray eyes regained their light. + +"Will two thousand dollars be too much to ask?" she said gently. + +If she had said two million to the young fellow who had not yet begun to +spend his fortune, which as far as he was concerned was nothing but a +name, it would not have been too much to him; not too much to have given +to this small white creature with her lovely flushed face, and her +glorious hair. + +"Whatever is your price, Miss Lane, goes." + +"I'll sing three songs: one from _Mandalay_, an English ballad and +something or other, I don't know what now, and I expect you don't +realize how cheaply you are getting them." She laughed, and began to hum +a familiar air. + +"I wish you would sing just one song for me." + +"For another thousand?" she asked, lifting her eyebrows. "What song is +it?" + +And as Dan hesitated, as if unwilling to give form to words that were so +full of spell to him, she said deliciously: "Why, can you see a London +drawing-room listening to me sing a Presbyterian hymn tune?" Without +lifting her head from the pillow she began in a charming undertone, her +gray eyes fixed on his: + + "From Greenland's icy mountains, + From India's coral strands, + Where Afric's sunny fountains + Roll down their golden sands." + +Blair, near her, turned pale. There rose in him the same feeling that +she had stirred years ago in the little church, and at the same time +others. He had lost his father since then, and he thought of him now, +but that big, sad emotion was not the one that swayed him. + +"Please stop," he pleaded; "don't go on. Say, there's something in that +hymn that hurts." + +Letty Lane, unconscious of how subtly she was playing, laughed, and +suddenly remembered that Dan had sat before her that day by the side of +old Mr. Blair. She asked abruptly: + +"Why does the Duchess of Breakwater want me to sing?" + +"Because she's crazy about your voice." + +"Is she awfully rich?" + +"Um ... I don't know." + +Letty Lane flashed a look at him. "Oh," she said coolly, "I guess she +won't pay the price then." + +Dan said: "Yes, she will; yes, she will, all right." + +"Now," Letty Lane went on, "if it were a charity affair, I could sing +for nothing, and I don't doubt the duchess, if she is as benevolent as +you say she is, could get me up some kind of a charity show." + +Dan, who had started to rise, now leaned toward her and said: "Don't you +worry about it a bit. If you'll come and sing we will make it right +about the price and the charity; everything shall go your way." + +She was seized upon by a violent fit of coughing, and Dan leaned toward +her and put his arm around her as a brother might have done, holding her +tenderly until the paroxysm was past. + +"Gosh!" he exclaimed fervently, "it's heartbreaking to hear you cough +like that and to think of your working as you do. Can't you stop and +take a good rest? Can't you go somewhere?" + +"To Greenland's icy mountains?" she responded, smiling. "I hate the +cold." + +"No, no; to some golden sands or other," he murmured under his breath. +"And let me take you there." + +But she pushed him back, laughing now. "No golden sands for me. I'm +afraid I've got to sing in _Mandalay_ to-night." + +He looked at her in dismay. + +She interrupted his protest: "I've promised on my word of honor, and the +box-office has sold the seats with that understanding." + +By her sofa, leaning over her, in a choked voice he murmured: + +"You _shan't_ sing! You shan't go out to-night!" + +"Don't be a goose, boy," she said. "You've no right to order me like +that. Stand back, please." As he did so she whisked herself off the sofa +with a sudden ardor and much grace. "Now," she told him severely, "since +you've begun to take that tone with me, I'm going to tell you that you +mustn't come here day after day as you have been doing. I guess you know +it, don't you?" + +He stood his ground, but his bright face clouded. They had been so near +each other and were now so removed. + +"I don't care a damn what people say," he replied. + +She interrupted him. She could be wonderfully dignified, small as she +was, wrapped as she was in the woolen shawl. "Well," she drawled with a +sudden indolence and indifference in her voice, "I expect you'll be +surprised to hear that _I_ do care. Sounds awfully funny, doesn't it? +But as you have been coming to the theater now night after night till +everybody's talking about it--" + +"You don't want my friendship," he stammered. + +And Letty Lane controlled her desire to laugh at his boyish subterfuge. +"No, I don't think I do." + +Her tone struck him deeply: hurt him terribly. He threw his head up +defiantly. + +"All right, I'm turned down then," he said simply. "I didn't think you'd +act like this to a boy you'd known all your life!" + +"Don't be silly, you know as well as I do that it won't do." + +He did know it and that he had already done enough to make it reasonable +for the duchess, if she wanted to, to break their engagement. Slowly +preparing to take his leave, he said wistfully: "Can't I help you in any +way? Let me do something with you for your poor. It's a comfort to have +them between us, and you can count on me." + +She said she knew it. "But don't come any more to the wings; get a habit +of _not_ coming." + +On the threshold of her door he asked her to let him know when she would +sing in Park Lane, and in touching her hand he repeated that she must +count on him. With more tenderness in his blue eyes than he was himself +aware, he murmured devotedly: + +"Take care of yourself, won't you, please?" + +As Blair passed from the sitting-room into the hall and toward the lift, +Mrs. Higgins came out hurriedly from one of the rooms and joined him. + +"How did you find her, Mr. Blair?" + +"Awfully seedy, Mrs. Higgins; she needs a lot of care." + +"She won't take it though," returned the woman. "Just seems to let +herself go, not to mind a bit, especially these last weeks. I'm glad you +came in; I've been hoping you would, sir." + +"I'm not any good though, she won't listen to a word I say." + +It seemed to surprise the dressing woman. + +"I'm sorry to hear it, sir; I thought she would. She talks about you +often." + +He colored like a school-boy. "Gosh, it's a shame to have her kill +herself for nothing." Reluctant to talk longer with Mrs. Higgins, he +added in spite of himself: "She seems so lonely." + +"It's two weeks now since that human devil went away," Mrs. Higgins said +unexpectedly, looking quietly into the blue eyes of the visitor. + +"She hasn't opened one of his letters or his telegrams. She has sold +every pin and brooch he ever gave her, scattered the money far and wide. +You saw how she went on with Cohen, and her pearls." + +Dan heard her as through a dream. Her words gave form and existence to a +dreadful thing he had been trying to deny. + +"Is she hard up now, Mrs. Higgins?" he asked softly. And glancing at him +to see just how far she might go, the woman said: + +"An actress who spends and lives as Miss Lane does is always hard up." + +"Could you use money without her knowing about it?" + +"Lord," exclaimed the woman, "it wouldn't be hard, sir! She only knows +that there is such a thing as money when the bills come and she hasn't +got a penny. Or when the poor come! She's got a heart of gold, sir, for +everybody that is in need." + +He took out of his wallet a wad of notes and put them in Higgins' hands. +"Just pay up some bills on the sly, and don't you tell her on your life. +I don't want her to be worried." Explaining with sensitive +understanding: "It's all right, Mrs. Higgins; I'm from her town, you +know." And the woman who admired him and understood him, and whose life +had made her keen to read things as they were, said earnestly: + +"I quite understand how it is, sir. It is just as though it came +straight from 'ome. She overdraws her salary months ahead." + +"Have you been with Miss Lane long?" + +"Ever since she toured in Europe, and nobody could serve her without +being very fond of her indeed." + +Dan put out his big warm hand eagerly. "You're a corker, Mrs. Higgins." + +"I could walk around the world for her, sir." + +"Go ahead and do it then," he smiled, "and I'll pay for all the boot +leather you wear out!" + +As he went down-stairs, already too late to keep an engagement made with +his fiancee, he stopped in the writing-room to scribble off a note of +excuse to the duchess. At the opposite table Dan saw Prince Poniotowsky, +writing, as well. The Hungarian did not see Blair, and when he had +finished his note he called a page boy and Dan could hear him send his +letter up to Miss Lane's suite. The young Westerner thought with +confident exaltation, "Well, he'll get left all right, and I'm darned if +I don't sit here and see him turned down!" + +Dan sat on until the page returned and gave Poniotowsky a verbal +message. + +"Will you please come up-stairs, sir?" + +And Blair saw the Hungarian rise, adjust his eye-glass, and walk toward +the lift. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--GALOREY GIVES ADVICE + + +Lord Galorey had long been used to seeing things go the way they would +and should not, and his greatest effort had been attained on the day he +gave his languid body the trouble to go in and see Ruggles. + +"My God," he muttered as he watched Dan and the duchess on the terrace +together--they were nevertheless undeniably a handsome pair--"to think +that this is the way I am returning old Blair's hospitality!" And he was +ashamed to recall his western experiences, when in a shack in the +mountains he had watched the big stars come out in the heavens and sat +late with old Dan Blair, delighted with the simple philosophies and the +man's high ideals. + +"What the devil does it all mean?" he wondered. "She has simply seduced +him, that's all." + +He got Dan finally to himself and without any preparation began, pushing +Dan back into a big leather chair, and standing up like a judge over +him: + +"Now, you really must listen to me, my dear chap. I shan't rest in my +grave unless I get a word with you. Your father sent you here to me and +I'm damned if I know what for. I've been wondering every day about it +for two months. He didn't know what this set was like or how rotten it +is." + +"What set?" The boy looked appallingly young as Gordon stared down at +him. There wasn't a line or wrinkle on his smooth brow or on his lips +and forehead finely cut and well molded--but there were the very seals of +what his father would have been glad to see. The boy had the same clear +look and unspoiled frankness that had charmed Galorey at the first. He +had been a lazy coward to delay so long. + +"Why, the rottenness of this set right here in my house." And as the +host began to see that he should have to approach a woman's name in +speaking, he stopped short, his mouth wide open, and Dan thought he had +been drinking. + +"You are talking of marrying Lily," Gordon got out. + +"I am _going_ to marry her." + +"You mustn't." + +Blair got up out of his chair. It didn't need this attack of Galorey's +to bring to his mind hints that had been dropped that Galorey was in +love with the Duchess of Breakwater. It illuminated what Galorey was +saying fast and incoherently. + +"I mean to say, my dear chap, that you mustn't marry the Duchess of +Breakwater. Look at most of these European marriages. They all go to +smash. She is older than you are and she has lived her life. You are +much too young." + +"Hold up, Galorey; you mustn't go on, you know. You know I am engaged; +that's all there is about it. Now, let's go and have a game of pool." + +Galorey had not worked himself up to this pitch to break off now at a +fatal point. + +"I'm responsible for this, and by gad, Dan, I'm going to put you on your +guard." + +"You are responsible for nothing, Galorey, and I warn you to drop it." + +"You would listen to your father if he were here, wouldn't you?" + +"I don't know," said the boy slowly. Then followed up with an honest, +"Yes, I would." + +Gordon caught eagerly, "Well, he sent you to me. Your friend Ruggles has +gone off and washed his hands of you, but I can't." + +Lord Galorey walked across the room briskly and came back to Dan. "First +of all, you are not in love with Lily--not a bit of it. You couldn't +be--and what's more she is not in love with you." + +Blair laughed coolly. "You certainly have got things down to a fine +point, Gordon. I'll be hanged if I understand your game." + +Galorey went bravely on: "Therefore, if neither of you are in love, you +understand that there is nothing between you but your money." + +The Englishman got his point out brutally, relieved that the impersonal +thing money opened a way for him. He didn't want to be the bounder and +the cad that the mention of the woman would have made him. + +The boy drew in an angry breath. "Gosh," he said, "that cursed money +will make me crazy yet! You are not very flattering to me, Gordon, I +swear, and Lily wouldn't thank you for the motives you impute to her." + +"Oh, rot!" returned Gordon more tranquilly. "She hasn't got a human +sentiment in her. She's a rock with a woman's face." + +Dan turned his back on his host and walked off into the billiard-room. +Galorey promptly followed him, took down a cue and chalked it, and said: + +"Well, come now; let's put it to the test." Blair began stacking the +balls. + +"How do you mean?" + +"Well, when you have had time to get your first news over from Ruggles, +tell her you have gone to smash and that you are a pauper." + +"I don't play tricks like that," said the Westerner quietly. + +"No," responded Galorey bitterly, "you let others play tricks on you." + +The young man threw his cue smartly down, his youth looked +contemptuously at the worldly man, and he turned pale, but he said in a +low voice: + +"Now, you've got to let up on this, Gordon; I thought at first you had +been drinking. I won't listen. Let's get on another subject, or I'll +clear out." + +Galorey, however, cool and pitiful of the tangle in the boy's affairs, +wouldn't let himself be angry. "You are my old chum's boy, Dan," he went +on, "and I'm not going to stand by and see you spoil your life in +silence. You are of age. You can go to the devil if you like, but you +can't go there under my roof, without a word from me." + +"Then I'll get out from under your roof, to-night." + +"Right! I don't blame you there, but, before you go, tell Lily you have +lost your money, and see what she is made of. My dear chap"--he changed +his tone to one of affection--"don't be an ape; listen to me, for your +father's sake; remember your whole life's happiness is in this game. +Isn't it worth looking after?" + +"Not at the risk of hurting a woman's feelings," said the boy. + +"How can it hurt her, my dear man, to tell her you are poor?" + +"It's a lie. I'm not up to lying to her; I don't care to. And you mean +to think that if I told her I was busted she would throw me over?" + +"Like a shot, my green young friend--like a shot." + +"You haven't a very good opinion of women," Blair threw out with as near +a sneer as his fine young face could express. + +"No, not very," agreed the pool player, who had continued his shots with +more or less sangfroid. When Galorey had run off his string of balls he +said, looking up from the table: "But I've got a very good opinion of +that 'nice girl' you told me of when you first came, and I wish to +Heaven she had kept you in the States." + +This caught the boy's attention as nothing else had. "There never was +any such girl," he said slowly; "there never has been anywhere; I rather +guess they don't grow. You have made me a cad in listening to you, +Gordon, but as to playing any of those comedy tricks you suggest, they +are not in my line. If she is marrying me for my money, why, she'll get +it." + +"You're a coward," said Galorey, "like the rest of American husbands--all +ideal and no common sense. You want to make a mess of your life. You +haven't the grit to get out of a bad job." + +He spurred himself on and his weak face grew strong as he felt he was +compelling the boy's attention. "If you only had half the character your +father had, you wouldn't make a mistake like this; you wouldn't run +blind into such a deal as this." + +Blair was impressed by his host. Galorey was so deadly in earnest and so +honest, and, as Dan's face grew set and hardened, his companion prayed +for wisdom. "If I can only win through this without touching Lily hard," +he thought, and as he waited, Blair said: + +"You haven't hesitated to call me names, Gordon. You're not my build or +my age, and I can't thrash you." + +And his host said cheerfully: "Oh, yes, you can; come on and try," and, +metaphorically speaking, Dan struck his first blow: + +"They say--people have said to me--that you once cared for Lily yourself." + +The Englishman's heavy eyelids did not flicker. "It's quite true." + +Taken back by this frank response, Blair stammered: "Well, I guess that +explains everything. It's not surprising that you should feel as you do. +If you are jealous, I can forgive it a little bit, but it is low down to +call a woman a fortune hunter." + +Now Gordon Galorey's face changed and grew slightly white. "Don't make +me angry, my dear chap," he said in a low tone; "I have said what I +wanted to say. Now, go to the devil if you like and as soon as you +like." + +And the boy said hotly, stammering in his excitement: + +"Not yet--not yet--not before I tell you what I think." + +Gordon, with wonderful control of his own anger, met the boy's eyes, and +said with great patience: + +"No, don't, Dan; don't go on. There are many things in this affair that +we can't touch upon. Let it drop. The right woman would make a ripping +man of you, but you oughtn't to marry for ten years." + +Dan took the hand which Galorey put out to him, and the Englishman said +warmly: "My dear chap, I hope it will all come out right, from my +heart." + +Dan, who had regained his balance, said to his friend: + +"I've been very angry at what you said, but you're the chap my father +sent me to. There must be something back of this, and I'm going to find +out what it is, and I'm going to take my own way to find out. I wouldn't +give a rap for anything that came to me through a trick or a lie, and I +wouldn't know how to go to her with a cock-and-bull story. I shall act +as I feel and go ahead being just as I am, and perhaps she won't want me +after all, even if I have got the rocks!" + +And Galorey said heartily: "I wish there was a chance of it." + +When, later, Gordon thought of Dan it was with a glow. "What a chip of +the old block he is," he said; "what a good bit of character, even at +twenty-two years." He was divided between feeling that he had made a +mess of things between Dan and himself, and feeling sure that some of +his advice had gone home. After a moment's silence, Dan Blair's son +said: "I'm going up to London to-morrow." + +"For long?" + +"Don't know." + +Then returning with boyish simplicity to their subject, which Galorey +thought had been dropped, Dan said: + +"There may be something true in what you say, Gordon. Perhaps she does +want my money. I'm not a titled man and I'll never be known for anything +except my income. At any rate I was rich when I asked her to marry me, +and I'm going to fix up that old place of hers, and I'm glad I've got +the coin to do it." + +When, later, for they had been interrupted in their conversation by the +entrance of the lady herself, Gordon, as Ruggles had done, mentally +thought of the flowing tide of life, and how it flowed over what he +himself had called "rotten ground." Perhaps old Blair was right, he +mused, after all. What does it matter if the source is pure at the head +water? It's awfully hard to force it at the start, at least. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--THE MUSICALE PROGRAM + + +The duchess ran Dan, made plans, set the pace, and they were very much +in evidence during the season. The young American, good-natured and +generous, the duchess beautiful and knowing, were the observed of +London, and those of her friends who would have tolerated Dan on account +of his money, ended by sincerely liking him. The wedding-day had not +been fixed as yet, and Dan was not so violently carried away that he +could not wait to be married. Meanwhile Gordon Galorey thanked God for +the delay and hoped for a miracle to break the spell over his friend's +son before it should be too late. In early May the question came up +regarding the musicale. The duchess made her list and arranged the +Sunday afternoon and her performers to suit her taste, and the week +before lounged in her boudoir when Dan and Galorey appeared for a late +morning call. + +"There, Dan," she said, holding out a bit of paper, "look at the list +and the program, will you?" + +"Sounds and reads all right," commented Dan, handing it on to Galorey. + +Besides being an artistic event, she intended that the concert should +serve to present Dan to her special set. She now lit a cigarette and +gave one to each of her friends, lighting the Englishman's herself. + +"The best names in London," Lord Galorey said. "You see, Dan, we shall +trot you out in a royal way. I hope you fully appreciate how swagger +this is to be." + +Glancing at the list Blair remarked: + +"But I don't see Miss Lane's name?" + +"Why should you?" the duchess answered sharply. + +"Why, we planned all along that she was to sing," he returned. + +She gave a long puff to her cigarette. + +"We did _rather_ speak of it. But we shall do very well as we are. The +program is full up and it's perfectly ripping as it stands." + +"Yes, there's only just one thing the matter with it," the boy smiled +good-naturedly, "and it's easy enough to run her in. I guess Miss Lane +could be run in most anywhere on any program and not clear the house." + +Lord Galorey, who knew nothing about the subject under discussion, said +tactfully: "Why, of course, Letty Lane is perfectly charming, but you +couldn't get her, my dear chap." + +"I think we will let the thing stand as it is," said the duchess, going +back to her desk and stirring her paper about. "It's really too late +now, you know, Dan." + +Unruffled, but with a determination which Lord Galorey and the lady were +far from guessing, Blair resumed tranquilly: + +"Oh, I guess she'll come in all right, late as it is. We'll send word to +her and fix it up." + +The duchess turned to him, annoyed: "Oh, don't be a beastly bore, +dear--you are not really serious." + +Dan still smiled at her sweetly. "You bet your life I am, though, Lily." + +She rang a bell at the side of her desk, and when the footman came in +gave him the sheet of paper. "See that this is taken at once to the +stationer's." + +"Better wait, Lily"--her fiance extended his hand--"until the program is +filled out the way it is going to stand." And Blair fixed his handsome +eyes on his future wife. "Why, we got this shindig up," he noted +irreverently, "just so Miss Lane could sing at it." + +"Nonsense," she cried, angry and powerless, "you ridiculous creature! +Fancy me getting up a musicale for Letty Lane! Do tell Dan to stop +bothering and fussing, Gordon. He's too ridiculous!" + +And Lord Galorey said: "What is the row anyway?" + +"Why, I want Miss Lane to sing here on Sunday," Dan explained.... + +"And I don't want her," finished the Duchess of Breakwater, who was +evidently unwilling to force a scene before Lord Galorey. She handed the +list to her servant, but Dan intercepted it. + +"Don't send out that list, Lily, as it is." + +He gave it back to her, and his tone was so cool, his expression so +decided and quiet, that she was disarmed, and dismissed the servant, +telling him to return when she should ring again. Coloring with anger, +she tapped the envelope against her brilliantly polished nails. + +If she had been married to Blair she would have burst into a violent +rage; if he had been poorer than he was she would have put him in his +place. Lord Galorey understood the contraction of her brows and lips as +Dan reminded: "You promised me that you would have her, you know, Lily." + +"Give in, Lily," Galorey advised, rising from the chair where he was +lounging. "Give in gracefully." + +And she turned on Galorey the anger which she dared not show the other +man. But Dan interrupted her, explaining simply: + +"I knew the girl when she was a kid: she is from my old home, and I want +Lily to ask her here to sing for us, and then to see if we can't do +something to get her out of the state she is in." + +Galorey repeated vaguely, "State?" + +"Why, she's all run down, tired out; she's got no real friends in +London." + +The other man flicked the ash from his cigarette and looked at Blair's +boy through his monocle. + +"And you thought that Lily might befriend her, old chap?" + +"Yes," nodded Dan, "just give her a lift, you know." + +Galorey nodded back, smiling gently. "I see, I see--a moral, spiritual +lift? I see--I see." He glanced at the woman with his strange smile. + +She put her cigarette down and seated herself, clasping her hands around +her knees and looked at her fiance. + +"It's none of my business what Letty Lane's reputation is. I don't care, +but you must understand one thing, Dan, I'm not a reformer, or a +charitable institution, and if she comes here it is purely +professional." + +He took the subject as settled, and asked for a copy of the program and +put it in his pocket. "I'll get the names of her songs from her and take +the thing myself to Harrison's. And I'd better hustle, I guess; there's +no time to lose between now and Sunday." And he went out triumphant. + +Galorey remained, smoking, and the duchess continued her notes in +silence, cooling down at her desk. Her companion knew her too well to +speak to her until she had herself in hand, and when finally she took up +her pen and turned about, she appeared conscious for the first of his +presence. + +"Here still!" she exclaimed. + +"I thought I might do for a safety valve, Lily. You could let some of +your anger out on me." + +The duchess left her desk and came over to him. + +"I expect you despise me thoroughly, don't you, Gordon?" + +They had not been alone together since her engagement to Blair, for she +had taken pains to avoid every opportunity for a tete-a-tete. + +"Despise you?" he repeated gently. "It's awfully hard, isn't it, for a +chap like me to despise anybody? We're none of us used to the best +quality of behavior, you know, my dear girl." + +"Don't talk rot, Gordon," she murmured. + +"You didn't ask my advice," he continued, "but I don't hesitate to tell +you that I have done everything I could to save the boy." + +She accepted this philosophically. "Oh, I knew you would; I quite +expected it, but--" and in the look she threw at him there was more +liking than resentment--"I knew you, too; you _couldn't_ go very far, my +dear fellow." + +"I think Dan Blair is excellent stuff," Gordon said. + +"He is the greenest, youngest, most ridiculous infant," she exclaimed +with irritation, and he laughed. + +"His money is old enough to walk, however, isn't it, Lily?" She made an +angry gesture. + +"I expected you'd say something loathsome." + +Her companion met her eyes directly. She left her chair and came and sat +down beside him on the small sofa. As he did not move, or look at her, +but regarded his cigarette with interest, she leaned close to him and +whispered: "Gordon, try to be nice and decent. Try to forget yourself. +Don't you see what a wonderful chance it is for me, and that, as far as +you and I are concerned, it can't go on?" + +The face of the man by her side grew somber. The charm this woman had +for him had never lessened since the day when he told her he loved her, +long before his marriage, and they were both too poor. + +"We have always been too poor, and Edith is jealous of me every day and +hour of her life. Can't you be generous?" + +He rose and stood over her, looking down at her beautiful form and her +somewhat softened face, but his eyes were hard and his face very pale. + +"You had better go, Gordon," she said slowly; "you had better go...." + +Then, as he obeyed her and went like a flash as far as the door, she +followed him and whispered softly: "If you're really only jealous, I can +forgive you." + +He managed to get out: "His father was my friend; he sent the boy to me +and I've been a bad guardian." He made a gesture of despair. "Put +yourself in my place. Let Dan Blair go, Lily; let him go." + +Her eyelids flickered a little, and she said sharply: "You're out of +your senses, Gordon--and what if I love him?" + +With a low exclamation he caught her hand at the wrist so hard that she +cried out, and he said between his teeth: "You _don't_ love him! Take +those words back!" + +"Of course I do. Let me free!" + +"No," he said passionately, holding her fast. "Not until you take that +back." + +His face, his tone, his force, dominated her; the remembrance of their +past, a possible future, made her waver under his eyes, and the woman +smiled at him as Blair had never seen her smile. + +"Very well, then, goose," she capitulated almost tenderly; "I don't love +that boy, of course. I'm marrying him for his money. Now, will you let +me go?" + +But he held her still more firmly and kissed her several times before he +finally set her free, and went out of the house miserable--bound to her +by the strongest chains--bound in his conscience and by honor to his +trust to Dan's father, and yet handicapped by another sense of honor +which decrees that man must keep silence to the end. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--LETTY LANE SINGS + + +The house of the Duchess of Breakwater in Park Lane was white, with +green blinds and green balconies; beautiful, distinguished and old, +mellow with traditions, and the tide of fashion poured its stream into +the music-room to listen to the Sunday concert. Without, the day was +bland and beautiful, mild spring in the deep sweet air, and already the +bloom lay over the park and along the turf. Piccadilly was ablaze with +flowers, and in the windows and in the flower-women's baskets they were +so sweet as to make the heart ache and to make the senses thrill. Keen +to the spring beauty, the last guest to go into the drawing-room of the +Duchess of Breakwater was the young American man in whom the magic of +the season had stirred the blood. He seemed the youngest and the +brightest guest to cross the sill of the great house whose debts he was +going to pay, and whose future he was going to secure with American +money. + +Close after him a motor car rolled up to the curb, and under the awning +Letty Lane passed quickly, as though thistledown, blown into the +distinguished house. The actress was taken possession of by several +people and shown up-stairs. + +Dan spoke to his hostess, who wore, over her azure dress, a necklace +given her by Dan. She said he was "too late for words," and why hadn't +he come before. After greeting him she set him free, and he went eagerly +to find his place next an elderly woman whom he liked immensely, Lady +Caiwarn. She had given him twenty pounds for some of his poor. Lady +Caiwarn had a calm, kind face, and Dan sat down beside her, well out of +the crush, and they talked amiably throughout the violin solo. + +"Think of it," she said, "Letty Lane of the Gaiety is going to sing. I'd +sit through a great deal for that. Let that man with the fiddle do his +worst." + +Blair laughed appreciatively. He thought Lady Caiwarn would be a good +friend for Miss Lane, better than the duchess herself. "I wish Lily +could hear you talk about her violinist," he said, delighted; "she +thinks he's the whole show." And tentatively, his ingenuous eyes fixed +on his friend, he asked: "I wonder how you would like to meet Miss Lane. +She's perfectly ripping, and she's from my State." + +"_Meet her!_" Lady Caiwarn exclaimed, but before she could finish, +through the room ran the little anticipatory rustle that comes before +the great, and which, when they have gone, breaks into applause. The +great actress had appeared to give her number. Dan and Lady Caiwarn, +behind the palms in a little corner of their own, watched her. + +A clever understanding of the world into which she was to come this day, +had made the girl dress like a charm. She stood quietly by the piano, +her hands folded. Among the high ladies of the English world in their +splendid frocks, their jewels and feathers, she was a simple figure, her +dress snow white, high to her throat, unadorned by any gay color, +according to the fashion of the time. It was such a dress as Romney +might have painted, and under her arms and from across her breast there +fell a soft coral-colored silken scarf. The costume was daring in its +simplicity. She might have been Emma, Lady Hamilton, because perfectly +beautiful, perfectly talented, she could risk severe simplicity, having +in herself the fire and the art and the seduction. Her hair was a golden +crown and her eyes like stars. She was excited, and the scarlet had run +along her cheeks like wine spilled over ivory. + +She looked around the room, failed to see Blair, but saw the Duchess of +Breakwater in her velvet and her jewels. Letty Lane began to sing. Dan +and she had chosen _Mandalay_ and she began with it. Her dress only was +simple. All the complexity of her talent, whatever she knew of seduction +and charm, she put in the rendering of her song. Even the conventional +audience, most of which knew her well, were enchanted over again, and +they went wild about her. She had never been so charming. The men +clapped her until she began in self-defense another favorite of the +moment, and ended in a perfect huzzah of applause. + +She refused to sing again until, in the distance, she saw Dan standing +by the column near his seat. Then indicating to the pianist what she +wanted, she sang _The Earl of Moray_, such a rendering of the old ballad +as had not been heard in London, and coming, as it did, from the lips of +a popular singer whose character and whose verve were not supposed to be +sympathetic to a piece of music of this kind, the effect was startling. +Letty Lane's face grew pale with the touching old tragedy, the scarlet +faded from her cheeks, her eyes grew dark and moist, she might indeed +herself have been the lady looking from the castle wall while they +carried the body of her dead lover under those beautiful eyes. + +Dan felt his heart grow cold. If she had awakened him when he was a +little boy, she thrilled him now; he could have wept. Lady Caiwarn did +wipe tears away. When the last note of the accompaniment had ended, +Dan's friend at his side said: "How utterly ravishing! What a beautiful, +lovely creature; how charming and how frail!" + +He scarcely answered. He was making his way to Letty Lane, and he wrung +her hand, murmuring, "Oh, you're great; you're great!" And the pleasure +on his face repaid her over and over again. "Come, I want you to meet +the Duchess of Breakwater, and some other friends of mine." + +As he let her little cold hand fall and turned about, the room as by +magic had cleared. The prime minister had arrived late and was in the +other room. The refreshments were also being served. There was no one to +meet Letty Lane, except for several young men who came up eagerly and +asked to be presented, Gordon Galorey among them. + +"Where's Lily?" Dan asked him; "I want her to meet Miss Lane." + +"In the conservatory with the prime minister," and Galorey looked +meaningly at Dan, as much as to say, "Now don't be an utter fool." + +But Letty Lane herself saved the situation. She shook hands with the +utmost cordiality and sweetness with the men who had been presented to +her, and asked Dan to take her to her motor. He waited for her at the +door and she came down wrapped around as usual in her filmy scarf. + +"Are you better?" he asked eagerly. "You look awfully stunning, and I +don't think I can ever thank you enough." + +She assured him that she was "all right," and that she had a "lovely new +role to learn and that it was coming on next month." He helped her in +and she seemed to fill the motor like a basket of fresh white flowers. +Again he repeated, as he held the door open: + +"I can't thank you enough: you were a great success." + +She smiled wickedly, and couldn't resist: + +"Especially with the women." + +Dan's face flushed; he was already deeply hurt for her, and her words +showed him that the insult had gone home. + +"Where are you going now?" + +"Right to the Savoy." + +Without another word, hatless as he was, he got into the motor and +closed the door. + +"I'm going to take you home," he informed her quietly, "and there's no +use in looking at me like that either! When I'm set on a thing I get +it!" + +They rolled away in the bland sunset, passed the park, down Piccadilly, +where the flowers in the streets were so sweet that they made the heart +ache, and the air through the window was so sweet that it made the +senses swim! + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--A WOMAN'S WAY + + +When the duchess thought of looking for Blair later in the afternoon he +was not to be found. Galorey told her finally he had gone off in the +motor with Letty Lane, bareheaded. The duchess was bidding good-by to +the last guest; she motioned Galorey to wait and he did so, and they +found themselves alone in the room where the flowers, still fresh, +offered their silent company; the druggets strewn with leaves of smilax, +the open piano with its scattered music, the dark rosewood that had +served for a rest for Letty Lane's white hand. Galorey and the duchess +turned their backs on the music-room, and went into a small conservatory +looking out over the park. + +"He's nothing but a cowboy," the lady exclaimed. "He must be quite mad, +going off bareheaded through London with an actress." + +"He's spoiled," Lord Galorey said peacefully. + +She carried a bunch of orchids Dan had given her, and regarded them +absently. "I've made him angry, and he's taking this way of exhibiting +his spleen." + +Galorey said cheerfully: "Oh, Dan's got lots of spirit." + +Looking up from the contemplation of her flowers to her friend, the +duchess murmured with a charming smile: "I don't hit it off very well +with Americans, Gordon." + +His color rising, Galorey returned: "I think you'll have to let Dan go, +Lily!" + +For a second she thought so herself; and they both started when the +voice of the young man himself was heard in the next room. + +"Good-by, I'll let you make your peace, Lily," and Gordon passed Dan in +the drawing-room in leaving, and thought the boy's face was a study. + +The duchess held out her hand to Dan as he came across the room. + +"Come here," she called agreeably. "Every one has gone, thank heaven! +I've been waiting for you for an age. Let's talk it all over." + +"Just what I've come back to do." + +There had been royalty at the musicale, and the hostess spoke of her +guests and their approval, mentioning one by one the names of the great. +It might have impressed the ear of a man more snob than was the Montana +copper king's son. "I did so want you to meet the Bishop of London," she +said. "But nobody could find you. You look most awfully well, Dan," and +with the orchids she held, she touched his hand. + +He was so direct, so incapable of anything but the honest truth, that +Dan didn't know deceit when he saw it, and his lady spoke so naturally +that he thought for a moment her rudeness had been unintentional. +Perhaps she hadn't really meant--Everybody in her set was rude, great and +rude, but she could be deliciously gracious, and was so now. + +"Don't you think it went off well?" + +Dan said that it had been ripping and no mistake. + +"I like Lady Caiwarn; she's bully, and I liked the king. He spoke to me +as if he had known me for a year." + +She began to be a little more at her ease. + +"I didn't care much for the fiddling, but Letty Lane made up for all the +rest," said Dan. "Wasn't she great?" + +"Ra-ther!" The duchess' tone was so warm that he asked frankly: "Well, +why didn't you speak to her, Lily?" And the directness caught her +unprepared. The insult to the actress by which she had planned to teach +him a lesson failed to give her the bravado she found she needed to meet +Dan's question. Her part of the transaction, deliberate, unkind, seemed +worse and more serious through his headlong act, when he had driven off, +braving her, in the motor of an actress. She didn't dare to be jealous. + +"Wasn't it too dreadful?" she murmured. "Do you think she noticed it too +awfully? I was just about to go up and speak to her when the prime +minister--" + +Dan interrupted the duchess. He blushed for her. + +"Never mind, Lily." His tone had in it something of benevolence. "If you +really didn't mean to be mean--" + +She was enchanted by her easy victory. "It was abominable." + +"Yes," he accepted, "it was just that! I was mortified. You wouldn't +treat a beggar so. But she's got too much sense to care." + +Eager to do the duchess justice, even though he was little by little +being emancipated, he was all the more determined to be fair to her. + +"It was too sweet of her not to mind. I dare say her check helped to +soothe her feelings," the woman said. + +"You don't know her," he replied quietly. "She wouldn't touch a cent." + +The duchess exclaimed in horror: "Then she _did_ mind." + +And he returned slowly: "She's eaten and drunk with kings, and if the +king hadn't gone so early you can bet he would have set the fashion +differently. Let's drop the question. She sent you back your check, and +I guess you're quits." + +With a sharp note in her voice she said: "I hope it won't be in the +papers that you drove bareheaded back to the hotel with her. Don't +forget that we are dining with the Galoreys, and it's past seven." + +After Dan had left her, the duchess glanced over the dismantled room +which the servants were already restoring to order. She was not at case +and not at peace, but there was something else besides her tiff with Dan +that absorbed her, and that was Galorey. She couldn't quite shake him +off. He was beginning to be imperious in his demands on her; and, in +spite of her cupidity and her debts, in spite of the precarious position +in which she found herself with Dan, she could not break with Galorey +yet. She went up-stairs humming under her breath the ballad Letty Lane +had sung in the music-room: + + "And long will his lady look from the castle wall." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--DAN AWAKES + + +The next night Dan, magnetically drawn down the Strand to the Gaiety, +arrived just before the close of the last act, slipped in, and sat far +back watching Letty Lane close her part. After hearing her sing as she +had the afternoon before in the worldly group, it was curious to see her +before the public in her flashing dress and to realize how much she was +a thing of the people. To-night she was a completely personal element to +Dan. He could never think of her again as he had hitherto. The sharp +drive through the town that afternoon in her motor had made a change in +his feelings. He had been hurt for her, with anger at the Duchess of +Breakwater's rudeness, and from the first he had always known that there +was in him a hot championship for the actress. To-night, whenever the +man who sang with her, put his arms around her, danced with her, held +her, it was an offense to Dan Blair; it had angered him before, but +to-night it did more. One by one everything faded out of his foreground +but the brilliant little figure with her golden hair, her lovely face, +her beautiful graceful body, and in her last gesture on the stage before +the curtain went down, she seemed to Blair to call him and distinctly to +make an appeal to him: + + "You might rest your weary feet + If you came to Mandalay." + +Well, there was nothing weary about the young, live, vigorous American, +as, standing there in his dark edge of the theater, his hands in his +pockets, his bright face fixed toward the stage, he watched the slow +falling of the curtain on the musical drama. Dan realized how full of +vigor he was; he felt strong and capable, indeed a feeling of power +often came to him delightfully, but it had never been needful for him to +exert his forces, he had never had need to show his mettle. Now he felt +at those words: + + "You might rest your weary feet" + +how, with all his heart, he longed that the dancer should rest those +lovely tired little feet of hers, far away from any call of the public, +far away on some lovely shore which the hymn tune called the coral +strand. As he gazed at her mobile, sensitive face, whose eyes had seen +the world, and whose lips--Dan's thoughts changed here with a great pang, +and the close of all his meditations was: "Gosh, she ought to rest!" + +The boy walked briskly back of the scenes toward the little door, behind +which, as he tapped, he hoped with all his heart to hear her voice bid +him come in. But there were other voices in the room. He rattled the +door-knob and Letty Lane herself called to him without opening the door: + +"Will you go, please, Mr. Blair? I can't see any one to-night." + +He had nothing to do but to go--to grind his heel as he turned--to swear +deeply against Poniotowsky. His late ecstasy was turned to gall. The +theater seemed horrible to him: the chattering of the chorus girls, +their giggles, their laughter as he passed the little groups, all seemed +weird and infernal, and everything became an object of irritation. + +As he went blindly out of the theater he struck his arm against a piece +of stage fittings and the blow was sharp and stinging, but he was glad +of the hurt. + +Without, in the street, Dan took his place with the other men and +waited, a bitter taste in his mouth and anger in his breast, waited +until Letty Lane fluttered down, followed by Poniotowsky, and the two +drove away. + +The young man could have gone after, running behind the motor, but there +was a taxicab at hand; he jumped in it, ordering the man to follow the +car to the Savoy. There the boy had the pleasure of seeing Miss Lane +enter the hotel, Poniotowsky with her--had the anguish of seeing them +both go up in the lift to her apartments. + +When Dan came to himself he heard the chimes of St. Martin's ring out +eleven. He then remembered for the first time that he had promised to +dine alone at home with the Duchess of Breakwater. + +"Gosh, Lily will be wild!" + +In spite of the lateness of the hour he hurried to Park Lane. The +familiar face of the manservant who let him in blurred before the young +man's eyes. Her grace was out at the theater? Blair would wait then, and +he went into the small drawing-room, quiet, empty, reposeful, with a +fire across the andirons, for the evening was damp and cool. Still dazed +by his jealous, passionate emotions, he glanced about the room, chose a +long leather sofa, and stretching out his length, fell asleep. There in +the shadow he slept profoundly, waking suddenly to find that he was not +alone. Across the room the Duchess of Breakwater stood by the table; she +was in evening dress, her cloak and gloves on the chair at her side. She +laughed softly and the man to whom she laughed, on whom she smiled, was +Lord Galorey. + +Blair raised himself up on the sofa without making any noise, and he saw +Galorey take the woman in his arms. The sight didn't make the fiancee +angry. He realized instantly that he _wanted to believe that it was +true_, and as there was nothing theatrical in the young Westerner, he +sprang up, slang so much a part of his nature that the first words that +came to his lips was a phrase in vogue. + +"Look who's here!" he cried, and came blithely forward, his head clear, +his lips smiling. + +The duchess gave a little scream and Dan lounged up to the two people +and held his hand frankly out to the lady. + +"That's all right, Lily! Go right on, Gordon, please. Only I had to let +you know when I waked up! Only fair. I guess I must have been asleep +quite a while." + +The Duchess of Breakwater shrugged. "I don't know what you dreamed," she +said acidly, "if you were asleep." + +"Well, it was a very pretty dream," the boy returned, "and showed what a +stupid ass I've been to think I couldn't have dreamed it when I was +awake." + +"I think you are crazy," the duchess exclaimed. + +But Blair repeated: "That's all right. I mean to say as far as I am +concerned--" + +And Galorey, in order to stand by his lady, murmured: + +"My dear chap, you _have_ been dreaming." + +But Blair met the Englishman's gray eyes with his blue ones. "I did have +a bottle of champagne, Gordon, that's a fact, but it couldn't make me +see what I did see." + +"Dan," the Duchess of Breakwater broke in, "let Gordon take you home, +like a dear. You're really ragging on in a ridiculous way." + +Blair looked at her steadily, and as he did so he repeated: + +"That's all right, Lily. Gordon cares a lot, and the truth of the matter +is that I _do not_." + +She grew very pale. + +"I would have stuck to my word, of course," he went on, "but we'd have +been infernally unhappy and ended up in the divorce courts. Now, this +little scene here of yours lets me out, and I don't lay it up against +either of you." + +"Gordon!" she appealed to her lover, "why, in Heaven's name, don't you +speak!" + +The Englishman realized that while he was glad at heart, he regretted +that he had been the means of her losing the chance of her life. + +"What do you want me to say, Lily?" he exclaimed with a desperate +gesture. "I can't tell him I don't love you. I have loved you, God help +me, for ten years." + +She could have killed him for it. + +"I can tell you, Dan, if you want me to," Galorey went on, "that I don't +believe she cares a penny for any one on the face of the earth, for you +or me." + +Old Dan Blair's son showed his business training. His one idea was to +"get out," and as he didn't care who the Duchess of Breakwater loved or +didn't love, he wanted to break away as fast as he could. He sat down at +the table under the light of the lamp and drew out his wallet with its +compact, thick little check book, the millionaire's pass to most of the +things that he wants. + +"You've taught me a lot," he said to the Duchess of Breakwater, "and my +father sent me over here for that. I have been awfully fond of you, too. +I thought I was fonder than I am, I guess. At any rate I want to stand +by one of my promises. That old place of yours--Stainer Court--now that's +got to be fixed up." + +He made a few computations on paper, lifted the pad to her with the +figures on it, round, generous and full. + +"At home," he said, "in Blairtown, we have what we call 'engagement' +parties, when each fellow brings a present to the girl, but this is what +we might call a 'broken engagement party.' Now, I can't," the boy went +on, "give this money to you very well; it won't look right. We will have +to fix that up some way or other. You will have to say you got an +unexpected inheritance from some uncle in Australia." He smiled at +Galorey: "We will fix it up together." + +His candor, his simplicity, were so charming, he stood before the two so +young, so clear, so clean, that a sudden tenderness for him, and a sense +of what she had lost, what she never had had, made her exclaim: + +"Dan, I really don't care a pin for the money--I don't"--but the hand she +held out was seized by the other man and held fast. Galorey said: + +"Very well, let it go at that. You don't care for the money, but you +will take it just the same. Now, don't, for God's sake, tell him that +you care for him." + +He made her meet his eyes this time: stronger than she, Galorey forced +her to be sincere. She set Dan free and he turned and left them standing +there facing each other. He softly crossed the room, and looking back, +he saw them, tall, distinguished, both of them under the +lamplight--enemies, and yet the closest friends bound by the strongest +tie in the world. + +As Dan went out through the curtains of the room and they fell behind +him, the Duchess of Breakwater sank down in the chair by the side of the +table; she buried her face. Gordon Galorey bent over her and again took +her in his arms, and she suffered it. + + + + +CHAPTER XX--A HAND CLASP + + +It was one o'clock. Blair called a hansom and told the driver to take +him to the Carlton, and leaning back in the vehicle he breathed a long +sigh. He looked like his father, but he didn't know it. He felt old. He +was a man and a tired one and a free one, and the sense of this liberty +began to refresh him like a breeze over parched sand. He thought over +what he had left for a second, stopped longest in pitying Galorey, then +went into the Carlton restaurant to order some supper, for he began to +feel the need of food. He had not time to drink his wine and partake of +the cold pheasant before he saw that opposite him the two people who had +taken their table were Letty Lane and Poniotowsky. The woman's slender +back was turned to Blair, and his heart gave a leap of pain at the sight +of the man with her, and the cruel suffering began again. + +Dan gave up the idea of eating: drank a whole bottle of champagne, then +pushed it away from him violently. "Hold up," he told himself, "you're +getting dangerous; this drinking won't do." So he sat drumming on the +table looking into the air. When those two got up to go, however, he +would go with them; that was sure. He could never see them go out +together again; no--no--no! As his brain grew a bit clearer he saw that +they were having a heated discussion between them, and as the room +emptied finally, save for themselves, Dan, though he could not hear what +Poniotowsky said, understood that he was urging something which the girl +did not wish to grant. When they left he rose as well, and at the door +of the restaurant the actress and her companion paused, and Dan saw her +face, deadly pale. There were tears in her eyes. + +"For God's sake!" he heard her murmur, and she impatiently drew her +cloak around her shoulders. Poniotowsky put out his hand to help her, +but she drew back from him, exclaiming violently: "Oh, no--no!" Before he +was aware what he was doing, Dan was holding his hand out to Miss Lane. + +How she turned to him! God of dreams! How she took in one cold hand his +hand; just the grasp a man needs to lead him to offer the service of his +life. Her hand was icy--it thrilled him to his marrow. + +"Oh--you--" she breathed. "Hello!" + +No words could have been more commonplace, less in the category of +dramatic or poetic welcome, but they were music to the boy, and when the +actress looked at him with a ghost of a smile on her trembling lips, Dan +was sure there was some kind of blessing in the greeting. + +"I am going to see you home," he said with determination, and she caught +at it: + +"Yes, yes, do! Will you?" + +The third member of the party had not spoken. A servant fetched him a +light to which he bent, touching his cigar. Then he lifted his head--a +handsome one--with its cold and indifferent eyes, to Letty Lane. + +"Good night, Miss Lane." A deep color crept under his dark skin. + +"Come," said the actress eagerly, "come along; my motor is out there and +I am crazy tired. That is all there is about it. Come along." + +Snatched from a marriage contract, still bitter from his jealous anger, +this--to be alone with her--by the side of this white, fragrant, wonderful +creature--to have been turned to by her, to be alone with her, the +Duchess of Breakwater out of his horizon, Poniotowsky gone--Oh, it was +sweet to him! They had rolled out from the Carlton down toward the +Square and he put his arm around her waist, his voice shook: + +"You are dead tired! And when I saw that brute with you to-night I could +have shot him." + +"Take your arm away, please." + +"Why?" + +"Take it away. I don't like it. Let my hand go. What's the matter with +you? I thought I could trust you." + +He said humbly: "You can--certainly you can." + +"I am tired--tired--tired!" + +Under his breath he said: "Put your head on my shoulder, Letty, +darling." + +And she turned on him nearly as violently as she had on Poniotowsky, and +burst into tears, crouching almost in the corner of the motor, away from +him, both her hands upon her breast. + +"Oh, can't you see how you bother me? Can't you see I want to rest and +be all alone? You are like them all--like them all. Can't I rest +anywhere?" + +The very words she used were those he had thought of when he saw her +dance at the theater, and his heart broke within him. + +"You can," he stammered, "rest right here. God knows I want you to rest +more than anything. I won't touch you or breathe again or do anything +you don't want me to." + +She covered her face with her hands and sat so without speaking to him. +The light in her motor shone over her like a kindly star, as, wrapped in +her filmy things she lay, a white rose blown into a sheltered nook. +After a little she wiped her eyes and said more naturally: + +"You look perfectly dreadfully, boy! What have you been doing with +yourself?" + +They had reached the Savoy. It seemed to Dan they were always just +driving up to where some one opened a door, out of which she was to fly +away from him. He got out before her and helped her from the car. + +"Well, I've got a piece of news to tell you. I have broken my engagement +with the duchess." + +This brought her back far enough into life to make her exclaim: "Oh, I +_am_ glad! That's perfectly fine! I don't know when I've heard anything +that pleased me so much. Come and see me to-morrow and tell me all about +it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI--RUGGLES RETURNS + + +Dan did not fall asleep until morning, and then he dreamed of Blairtown +and the church and a summer evening and something like the drone of the +flies on the window-pane soothed him, and came into his waking thoughts, +for at noon he was violently shaken by the shoulder and a man's voice +called him as he opened his eyes and looked into Ruggles' face. + +"Gee Whittaker!" Ruggles exclaimed. "You _are_ one of the seven +sleepers! I've been here something like seventeen minutes, whistling and +making all kinds of barnyard noises." + +As Dan welcomed him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Ruggles told him +that he had come over "the pond" just for the wedding. + +"There isn't going to be any wedding, Josh! Got out of all that last +night." + +Ruggles had the breakfast card in his hand, which the waiter had brought +in, and Dan, taking it from his friend, ordered a big breakfast. + +"I'm as hungry as the dickens, Rug, and I guess you are, too." + +"What was the matter with the duchess?" Ruggles asked. "Were you too +young for her, or not rich enough?" + +Significantly the boy answered: "One too many, Josh," and Ruggles winced +at the response. + +"Here are the fellows with my trunks and things," he announced as the +porters came in with his luggage. "Just drop them there, boys; they're +going to fix some kind of a room later." + +Blair's long silk-lined coat lay on a chair where he had flung it, his +hat beside it, and Ruggles went over to the corner and lifted up a +fragrant glove. It was one of Letty Lane's gloves which Dan had found in +the motor and taken possession of. The young man had gone to his +dressing-room and begun running his bath, and Ruggles, laying the glove +on the table, said to himself: + +"I knew he would get rid of the duchess, all right." + +But when Dan came back into the room later in his dressing-gown for +breakfast, Ruggles said: + +"You'll have to send her back her glove, Dannie." + +At the sight of it beside the breakfast tray, Dan blushed scarlet. He +picked up the fragrant object. + +"That's all right; I'll take care of it." + +"Is _Mandalay_ running the same as ever?" Ruggles asked over his bacon +and eggs. + +"Same as ever." + +Ruggles saw he had not returned in vain, and that he was destined to +take up his part of the business just as he had laid it out for himself +to Lord Galorey. "It's up to me now: I'll have to take care of the +actress, and I'm darned if I haven't got a job. If Dan colors up like +that at the sight of her glove, I wonder what he does when he holds her +hand!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--WHAT WILL YOU TAKE? + + +When Dan, on the minute of two, went to the Savoy, Higgins, as was her +custom, did not meet him. Miss Lane met him herself. She was reading a +letter by the table, and when Dan was announced she put it back in its +envelope. Blair had seen her only in soft clinging evening dresses, in +white visionary clothes, or in her dazzling part costume, where the play +dress of the dancer displayed her beauty and her charms. To-day she wore +a tailor-made gown, and in her dark cloth dress, in her small hat, she +seemed a new woman--some one he hadn't known and did not know, and he +experienced the thrill a man always feels when the woman he loves +appears in an unaccustomed dress and suggests a new mystery. + +"Oh, I say! You're not going out, are you?" + +In the lapel of her close little coat was a flower he had given her. He +wanted to lean forward and kiss it as it rested there. She assured him: + +"I have just come in; had an early lunch and took a long walk--think of +it! I haven't taken a walk alone since I can remember!" + +Her walk had given her only the ghost of a flush, which rose over her +delicate skin, fading away like a furling flag. Her frailness, her +slenderness, the air of good-breeding her dress gave her, added to Dan's +deepening emotions. She seemed infinitely dear, and a thing to be +protected and fostered. + +"Can't you sit down for a minute? I've come to make you a real call." + +"Of course," she laughed. "But, first, I must answer this letter." + +His jealousy rose and he caught hold of her hand that held the envelope. +"Look here, you are not to write it if it is to that damned scoundrel. I +took you away from him last night and you are never to see him again." + +For the first time the two really looked at each other. Her lips parted +as though she would reprove him, and the boy murmured: + +"That's all right. I mean what I say--never to see him again! Will you +promise me? Promise me--I can't bear it! I won't have it!" + +A film of emotion crossed his clear young eyes and her slender hands +were held fast in his clasp. His face was beautiful in its tenderness +and in a righteous anger as he bent it on her. Instead of reproving him +as she had done before, instead of snatching away her hands, she swayed, +and at the sight of her weakness his eyes cleared, and the film lifted +like a curtain. She was not fainting, but, as her face turned toward +his, he saw it transformed, and Dan caught her in her dark dress, the +flowers in her bodice, to his heart. He held her as if he had snatched +her from a wreck and in a safe embrace lifted her high to the shore of a +coral strand. He kissed her, first timidly, wonderingly, with the +sacrament of first love on his lips. Then he kissed her as his heart +bade him, and when he set her free she was crying, but the tears on his +face were not all her tears. + +"Little boy, how crazy, how perfectly crazy! Oh, Dan--Dan!" + +She clung to him, looking up at him just as his boy-dreams had told him +a girl _would_ look some day. Her face was suffused and softened, her +lips--her coral-red, fine, lovely lips were trembling, and her eyes were +as gray, as profound as those seas his imagination had longed to +explore. Made poet for the first time in his life, as his arms were +around her, he whispered: "You are all my dreams come true. If any man +comes near you I'll kill him just as sure as fate. I'll kill him!" + +"Hush, hush! I told you you were crazy. We're both perfectly mad. I have +tried my best not to come to this with you. What would your father say? +Let me go, let me go; I'll call Higgins." + +The boy laughed aloud, the laugh of happy youth. He held her so close +that she might as well have tried to loose herself from an iron image of +the Spanish Inquisition as from his young arms. This slender, delicious, +willowy thing he held was Letty Lane, the adored star London went mad +over: the triumph of it! It flashed through him as his pulses beat and +his heart was high with the conquest, but it was to the woman only that +he whispered: + +"I've said a lot of stuff and I am likely to say a lot more, but I want +you to say something to me. _Don't you love me?_" + +The word on his lips to him was as strange, as wonderful, as though it +had been made for him. + +"I guess I must love you, Dan. I guess I must have for a long time." + +"God, I'm so glad! How long?" + +"Why, ever since you used to come to the soda-fountain and ask for +chocolate. You don't know how sweet you were when you were a little +boy." + +She put her slender hand against his hot cheek. "And you are nothing but +a little boy now! I think I must be crazy!" + +As he protested, as she listened intently to what his emotion taught him +to say to her, she whispered close to his ear: + +"What will _you_ take, little boy?" + +And he answered: "I'll take you--you!" + +At a slight sound in the next room Letty Lane started as though the +interruption really brought her to her senses, put her hand to her +disheveled hair, and before she could prevent it, Dan had called Mrs +Higgins to "come in," and the woman, in response, came into the +sitting-room. The boy went up to her and took her hands eagerly, and +said: + +"It's all right, all right, Mrs. Higgins. Just think of it! She belongs +to me!" + +"Oh, don't be a perfect lunatic, Dan," the actress exclaimed, half +laughing, half crying, "and don't listen to him, Higgins. He's just +crazy." + +But the old woman's eyes went bright at the boy's face and tone. "I +never was so glad of anything in my life." + +"As of what?" asked her mistress sharply, and the tone was so cold and +so suddenly altered that Dan felt a chill of despair. + +"Why, at what Mr. Blair says, Miss." + +"Then," said her mistress, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself. He's +only twenty-two, he doesn't know anything about life. You must be crazy. +He's as mad as a March hare and he ought to be in school." + +Then, to their consternation, she burst into a passion of weeping; threw +herself on Higgins' breast and begged her to send Dan away--to send +everybody away--and to let her die in peace. + +In utter despair the boy obeyed the dresser's motion to go, and his +transport was changed into anxiety and dread. He hung about down-stairs +in the Savoy for the rest of the afternoon, finally sending up to +Higgins for news in sheer desperation, and the page fetched Blair a note +in Letty Lane's own hand. His eyes blurred so as he opened the sheet, he +could hardly read the scrawl which said: + + "It was perfectly sweet of you to wait down there. I'm all + right--just tired out! Better get on a boat and go to Greenland's Icy + Mountains and cool off. But if you don't, come in to-morrow and have + lunch with me. + + Letty." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--IN THE SUNSET GLOW + + +He lived through a week of bliss and of torture. One minute she promised +to marry him, give up the stage, go around the world on a yacht, whose +luxuries, Dan planned, should rival any boat ever built, or they would +motor across Asia and see, one by one, the various coral strands and the +golden sands of the East. He could not find terms to express how he +would spend upon her this fortune of his, which, for the first time, +began to have value in his eyes. Money had been lavished on her, still +she seemed dazzled. Then she would push it all away from her in +disgust--tell him she was sick of everything--that she didn't want any new +jewels or any new clothes, and that she never wanted to see the stage +again or any place again; that there was nowhere she wanted to go, +nothing she wanted to see--that he must get some fresh girl to whom he +could show life, not one whom he must try to make forget it. Then, +again, she would say that she loved the stage and her art--wouldn't give +it up for any one in the world--that it was fatal to marry an +actress--that it was mad for him to think of marrying her, anyway--that +she didn't want to marry any one and be tied down--that she wanted to be +her own mistress and free. + +He found her a creature of a thousand whims and caprices, quick to cry, +quick to laugh, divine in everything she did. He never knew what she +would want him to do next, or how her mood would change, and after one +of their happiest hours, when she had been like a girl with him, she +would burst into tears, beg him to leave the room, telling him that she +was tired--tired--tired, and wanted to go to sleep and never to wake up +again. Between them was the figure of Poniotowsky, though neither spoke +of him. She appeared to have forgotten him. Dan would rather have cut +out his tongue than to speak his name, and yet he was there in the mind +of each. During the fortnight Dan spent thousands of pounds on her, +bought her jewels which she alternately raved over or but half looked +at. He had made his arrangements with Galorey peacefully, coolly and +between the two men it had been understood that the world should think +the engagement broken by the duchess, and Dan's attention to Letty Lane, +already the subject of much comment, already conspicuous, was enough to +justify any woman in taking offense. + +One day, the pearl of warm May days, when England even in springtime +touches summer, Blair was so happy as to persuade his sweetheart to go +with him for a little row on the river. The young fellow waited for her +in the boat he had secured, and she, motoring out with Higgins, had +appeared, running down to the edge of the water like a girl, gay as a +child let out from school, in a simple frock, in a marvelously fetching +hat, white gloves, white parasol, white shoes, and as Dan helped her +into the boat, pushed it out, pushed away with her on the crest of the +sun-flecked waters, spring was in his heart, and he found the moment +almost too great to bear. + +The actress had been a girl with him all day, giving herself to his +moods, doing what he liked without demur, talking of their mutual past, +telling him one amusing story after another, proving herself an ideal +companion, fresh, varied, reposeful; and no one to have seen Letty Lane +with the boy on that afternoon would have dreamed that she ever had +known another love. They had moored their boat down near Maidenhead, and +he had helped her up the bank to the little inn, where tea had been made +for them, and served to him by her own beautiful white hands. He had +called for strawberries, and, like a shepherd in a pastoral, had fed +them to her, and as they lingered the sunset came creeping steadily in +through the windows where they sat. + +As they neither called for their account nor to have the tea things +taken away, after a while the woman stealthily opened the door and, +unknown, looked at one of the prettiest pictures ever within her walls. +Letty Lane sat on the window-seat, her golden head, her white form +against the glow, and the boy by her side had his arms around her, and +her head was on his breast. They were both young. They might have been +white birds blown in there, nesting in the humble inn, and the woman of +the house, who had not heard the waters of the Thames flow softly for +nothing, judged them gently and sighed with pleasure as she shut the +door. + +Here at Maidenhead Dan had left his boat and the motor took them back. +Nothing spoiled his bliss that day, and he said her name a thousand +times that night in his dreams. Jealousies--and, when he would let +himself think, they were not one, they were many--faded away. The duties +that a life with her would involve did not disturb him. For many a long +year, come what might, be what would, he would recall the glowing of +that sunset reflected under the inn windows, the singing of the thrushes +and the flash of the white dress and the fine little white shoes which +he had held in the palm of his ardent hand, which he had kissed, as he +told her with all his heart that she should rest her tired feet for +ever. + +There grew in him that day a reverence for her, determined as he was to +bring into her life by his wealth and devotion everything of good. His +loving plans for her forming in his brain somewhat chaotic and very much +fevered, brought him nearer than he had ever been before to the picture +of his mother. His father it wasn't easy for Dan to think of in +connection with the actress. He didn't dare to dwell on the subject, but +he had never known his mother, and that pale ideal he could create as he +would. In thinking of her he saw only tenderness for Letty Lane--only +love; and in his room the night after the row on the river, the night +after the long idyl in the sunset-room of the inn, something like a +prayer came to his young lips, and, when its short form was finished, a +smile brought it to an end as he remembered the line in Letty Lane's own +opera: + + "She will teach you how to pray in an Eastern form of prayer." + +The ring he had given the Duchess of Breakwater had been her own choice, +a ruby. He had asked her, through Galorey, to keep it and to wear it +later, when she could think of him kindly, in an ornament of some kind +or another. The duchess had not refused. The ring he bought for Letty +Lane, although there was no engagement announced between them, was the +largest, purest diamond he could _with decency_ ask her to put on her +hand! It sparkled like a great drop of clear water from some fountain on +a magic continent. In another shop strands of pink coral set through +with diamonds caught his fancy and he bought her yards of them, ropes of +them, smiling to think how his boyhood's dreams were come true. + +He never saw Ruggles except at meals, hardly spoke to the poor man at +all, and the boy's absorbed face, his state of mind, made the older man +feel like death. He repeated to himself that he was too late--too late, +and usually wound up his reflections by ejaculating: + +"Gosh almighty, I'm glad I haven't got a son!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--RUGGLES' OFFER + + +He felt as he waited for her in that flower-filled room, for she had +recovered from her distaste for flowers, as he glanced at the +photographs of women like herself in costumes more or less frank, more +or less vulgar, he felt as though he wanted to knock down the walls and +let in a big view of the West--of Montana--of the hills. With such a +setting he thought he could better talk with the lady whom he had come +to see. + +Ruggles held an unlighted cigar between his fingers and goose-flesh rose +all over him. His glasses bothered him. He couldn't get them bright +enough, though he polished them half a dozen times on his silk +handkerchief. His clothes felt too large. He seemed to have shrunken. He +moistened his lips, cleared his throat, tried to remember what kind of +fellow he had been at Dan's age. At Dan's age he was selling a suspender +patent on the road, supporting his mother and his sisters--hard work and +few temptations; he was too tired and too poor. + +Miss Lane kept him waiting ten minutes, and they were hours to her +guest. He was afraid every minute that Dan would come in. The thoughts +he had gathered together, the plan of action, disarranged itself in his +mind every time he thought of the actress. He couldn't forget his vision +of her on the stage or at the Carlton, where she had sat opposite them +and bewitched them both. When she came into the sitting-room at length, +he started so violently that he knocked over a vase of flowers, the +water trickling all over the table down on to the floor. + +She had dazzled him before the footlights, charmed him at dinner, and it +was singular to think that he knew how this dignified, quiet creature +looked in ballet clothes and in a dinner dress, whose frankness had made +him catch his breath. It was a third woman who stood before Ruggles now. +He had to take her into consideration. She had expected him, saw him by +appointment. She was a woman of mind and intelligence. She had not +climbed to her starry position without having acquired a knowledge of +men, and it was the secret of her success. She showed it in the dress in +which she received her visitor. She wore a short walking skirt of heavy +serge, a simple shirtwaist belted around, a sailor hat on her beautiful +little head. She was unjeweled and unpainted, very pale and very sweet. +If it had not been for the marks of fatigue under her eyes, she would +not have looked more than eighteen. On her left hand a single diamond, +clear as water, caught the refracted light. + +"How-de-do? Glad you are back again." + +She gave him a big chair and sat down before him smiling. Leaning her +elbows on her knees, she sank her face upon her hands and looked at him, +not coquettishly in the least, but as a child might have looked. From +her small feet to her golden head she was utterly charming. + +[Image] + +Ruggles made himself think of Dan. Miss Lane spoke slowly, nodding +toward him, in her languid voice: "It's no use, Mr. Ruggles, no use." + +Holding her face between her hands, her eyes gray as winter's seas and +as profound, she looked at him intently; then, in a flash, she changed +her position and instantly transformed her character. He saw that she +was a woman, not an eighteen-year-old girl, but a woman, clever, poised, +witty, understanding, and that she might have been twenty years older +than the boy. + +"I'm sorry you spoke so quick," he said. + +"I knew," she interrupted, "just what you wanted to say from the start. +I couldn't help it, could I? I knew you would want to come and see me +about it. It isn't any use. I know just what you are going to say." + +"No, ma'am," he returned, "I don't believe you do--bright as you are." + +Ruggles gazed thoughtfully at the cold end of his unlighted cigar. It +was a comfort to him to hold it and to look at it, although not for +anything in the world would he have asked to light it. + +"Dan's father and me were chums. We went through pretty much together, +and I know how he felt on most points. He was a man of few words, but I +know he counted on me to stand By the boy." + +Ruggles was so chivalrous that his role at present cost him keen +discomfort. + +"A lady like you," he said gently, "knows a great deal more about how +things are done than either Dan or me. We ain't tenderfeet in the West, +not by a long shot, but we see so few of a certain kind of picture shows +that when they do come round they're likely to make us lose our minds! +You know, yourself, a circus in a town fifty miles from a railroad +drives the people crazy. Now, Dan's a little like the boy with his eyes +on the hole in the tent. He would commit murder to get inside and see +that show." He nodded and smiled to her as though he expected her to +follow his crude simile. "Now, I have seen _you_ a lot of times." And +she couldn't help reminding him, "Not of your own accord, Mr. Ruggles." + +"Well, I don't know," he slowly admitted; "I always felt I had my +money's worth, and the night you ate with us at the Carlton I understood +pretty well how the boy with his eyes at the tent hole would feel." But +he tapped his broad chest with the hand that held the cigar between the +first and second fingers. "I know just what kind of a heart you've got, +for I waited at the stage door and I know you don't get all your +applause inside the Gaiety Theater." + +"Goodness," she murmured, "they make an awful fuss about nothing." + +"Now," he continued, leaning forward a trifle toward her languid, half +interested figure, "I just want you to think of him as a little boy. +He's only twenty-two. He knows nothing of the world. The money you give +to the poor doesn't come so hard perhaps as this will. It's a big +sacrifice, but I want you to let the boy go." + +She smiled slightly, found her handkerchief, which was tucked up the +cuff of her blouse, pressed the little bit of linen to her lips as +though to steady them, then she asked abruptly: + +"What has he said to you?" + +"Lord!" Ruggles groaned. "_Said_ to me! My dear young lady, he is much +too rude to speak. Dan sort of breathes and snorts around like a +lunatic. He was dangling around that duchess when I was here before, but +she didn't scare me any." + +And Letty Lane, now smiling at him, relieved by his break from a more +intense tone, asked: + +"Now, you are scared?" + +"Well," Ruggles drawled, "I was pretty sure that woman didn't _care_ +anything for the boy. Are you her kind?" + +It was the best stroke he had made. She almost sprang up from her chair. + +"Heavens," she exclaimed, "I guess I'm not!" Her face flushed. + +"I had rather see a son of mine dead than married to a woman like that," +he said. + +"Why, Mr. Ruggles," she exclaimed passionately, addressing him with +interest for the first time, "what do you know about me? What? What? You +have seen me dance and heard me sing." + +And he interrupted her. + +"Ten times, and you are a bully dancer and a bully singer, but you do +other things than dance and sing. There is not a man living that would +want to have his mother dress that way." + +She controlled a smile. "Never mind that. People's opinions are very +different about that sort of thing. You have seen me at dinner with your +boy, as you call him, and you can't say that I did anything but ask him +to help the poor. I haven't led Dan on. I have tried to show him just +what you are making me go through now." + +If she acted well and danced well, it was hard for her to talk. She was +evidently under strong emotion and it needed her control not to burst +into tears and lose her chance. + +"Of course, I know the things you have heard. Of course, I know what is +said about me"--and she stopped. + +Ruggles didn't press her any further; he didn't ask her if the things +were true. Looking at her as he did, watching her as he did, there was +in him a feeling so new, so troubling that he found himself more anxious +to protect her than to bring her to justice. + +"There are worse, far worse women than I am, Mr. Ruggles. I will never +do Dan any harm." + +Here her visitor leaned forward and put one of his big hands lightly +over one of hers, patted it a moment, and said: + +"I want you to do a great deal better than that." + +She had picked up a photograph off the table, a pretty picture of +herself in _Mandalay_, and turned it nervously between her fingers as +she said with irritation: + +"I haven't been in the theatrical world not to guess at this 'Worried +Father' act, Mr. Ruggles. I told you I knew just what you were going to +say." + +"Wrong!" he repeated. "The business is old enough perhaps, lots of good +jobs are old, but _this_ is a little different." + +He took the turning picture and laid it on the table, and quietly +possessed himself of the small cold hands. Blair's solitaire shone up to +him. Ruggles looked into Letty Lane's eyes. "He is only twenty-two; it +ain't fair, it ain't fair. He could count the times he has been on a +lark, I guess. He hasn't even been to an eastern college. He is no fool, +but he's darned simple." + +She smiled faintly. The man's face, near her own, was very simple +indeed. + +"You have seen so much," he urged, "so many fellows. You have been such +a queen, I dare say you could get any man you wanted." He repeated. +"Most any one." + +"I have never seen any one like Dan." + +"Just so: He ain't your kind. That is what I am trying to tell you." + +She withdrew her hand from his violently. + +"There you are wrong. He _is_ my kind. He is what I like, and he is what +I want to be like." + +A wave of red dyed her face, and, in a tone more passionate than she had +ever used to her lover, she said to Ruggles: + +"I love him--I love him!" Her words sent something like a sword through +the older man's heart. He said gently: "Don't say it. He don't know what +love means yet." + +He wanted to tell her that the girl Dan married should be the kind of +woman his mother was, but Ruggles couldn't bring himself to say the +words. Now, as he sat near her, he was growing so complex that his brain +was turning round. He heard her murmur: + +"I told you I knew your act, Mr. Ruggles. It isn't any use." + +This brought him back to his position and once more he leaned toward her +and, in a different tone from the one he had intended to use, murmured: + +"You don't know. You haven't any idea. I do ask you to let Dan go, +that's a fact. I have got something else to propose in its place. It +ain't quite the same, but it is clear--marry me!" + +She gave a little exclamation. A slight smile rippled over her face like +the sunset across a pale pool at dawn. + +"Laugh," he said humbly; "don't keep in. I know I am old-fashioned as +the deuce, and me and Dan is quite a contrast, but I mean just what I +say, my dear." + +She controlled her amusement, if it was that. It almost made her cry +with mirth, and she couldn't help it. Between laughing breaths she said +to him: + +"Oh, is it all for Dan's sake, Mr. Ruggles? Is it?" And then, biting her +lips and looking at him out of her wonderful eyes, she said: "I know it +is--I know it is--I beg your pardon." + +"I asked a girl once when I was poor--too poor. Now this is the second +time in my life. I mean just what I say. I'll make you a kind husband. I +am fifty-five, hale as a nut. I dare say you have had many better +offers." + +"Oh, dear," she breathed; "oh, dear, please--please stop!" + +"But I don't expect you to marry me for anything but my money." + +Ruggles put his cigar down on the edge of the table. He looked at his +chair meditatively, he took out his silk handkerchief, polished up his +glasses, readjusted them, put them on and then looked at her. + +"Now," he said, "I am going to trust you with something, and I know you +will keep my secret for me. This shows you a little bit of what I think +about you. Dan Blair hasn't got a red cent. He has nothing but what I +give him. There's a false title to all that land on the Bentley claim. +The whole thing came up when I was home and the original company, of +which I own three-quarters of the stock, holds the clear titles to the +Blairtown mines. It all belongs now to me, if I choose to present my +documents. Dan knows nothing about this--not a word." + +The actress had never come up to such a dramatic point in any of her +plays. With her hands folded in her lap she looked at him steadily, and +he could not understand the expression that crossed her face. He heard +her exclamation: "Oh, gracious!" + +"I've brought the papers back with me," said the Westerner, "and it is +between you and me how we act. If Dan marries you I will be bound to do +what old Blair would have done--cut him off--let him feel his feet on the +ground, and the result of his own folly." + +He had taken his glasses off while he made this assertion. Now he put +them on again. + +"If you give him up I'll divide with the boy and be rich enough still to +hand over to my wife all she wants to spend." + +She turned her face away from him and leaned her head once more upon her +hands. He heard her softly murmuring under her breath, with an absent +look on her face, accompanied by a still more incomprehensible smile. + +"That's how it stands," he concluded. + +She seemed to have forgotten him entirely, and he caught his breath when +she turned about abruptly and said: + +"My goodness, how Dan will hate being poor! He will have to sell all his +stickpins and his motor cars and all the things he has given me. It will +be quite a little to start on, but he will hate it, he is so very +smart." + +"Why, you don't mean to say--" Ruggles gasped. + +And with a charming smile as she rose to put their conversation at an +end, she said: + +"Why, you don't mean to say that you thought I _wouldn't stand by him_?" +She seemed, as she put her hands upon her hips with something of a +defiant look at the older man, as though she just then stood by her +pauperized lover. + +"I thought you cared some for the boy," Ruggles said. + +"Well, I am showing it." + +"You want to ruin him to show it, do you?" + +As though he thought the subject dismissed he walked heavily toward the +door. + +"You know how it stands. I have nothing more to say." He knew that he +had signally failed, and as a sudden resentment rose in him he +exclaimed, almost brutally: + +"I am darned glad the old man is dead; I am glad his mother's dead, and +I am glad I have got no son." + +The next moment she was at his side, and he felt that she clung to his +arm. Her sensitive, beautiful face, all drawn with emotion, was raised +to his. + +"Oh, you'll kill me--you'll kill me! Just look how very ill I am; you are +making me crazy. I just worship him." + +"Give him up, then," said Ruggles steadily. + +She faltered: "I can't--I can't--it won't be for long"--with a terrible +pathos in her voice. "You don't know how different I can be: you don't +know what a new life we were going to lead." + +Stammering, and with intense meaning, Ruggles, looking down at her, +said: "My dear child--my dear child!" + +In his few words something perhaps made her see in a flash her past and +what the question really was. She dropped Ruggles' arm. She stood for a +moment with her arms folded across her breast, her head bent down, and +the man at the door waited, feeling that Dan's whole life was in the +balance of the moment. When she spoke again her voice was hard and +entirely devoid of the lovely appealing quality which brought her so +much admiration from the public. + +"If I give him up," she said slowly, "what will you do?" + +"Why," he answered, "I'll divide with Dan and let things stand just as +they are." + +She thought again a moment and then as if she did not want him to +witness--to detect the struggle she was going through, she turned away +and walked over toward the window and dismissed him from there. "Please +go, will you? I want very much to be alone and to think." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV--LETTY LANE RUNS AWAY + + +He had not got up-stairs to his rooms at the Carlton before a note was +handed him from the actress, bidding him to return at once to the Savoy, +and Ruggles, his heart hammering like a trip-hammer, rushed up to his +rooms, made an evening toilet, for it was then half-past seven, threw +his cravats and collars all around the place, cursed like a miner as he +got into his clothes, and red almost to apoplexy, nervous and full of +emotion, he returned to the rooms he had left not three hours before. + +The three hours had been busy ones at the actress' apartment. Letty +Lane's sitting-room was full of trunks, dressing-bags and traveling +paraphernalia. She came forward out of what seemed a world of confusion, +dressed as though for a journey, even her veil and her gloves denoting +her departure. She spoke hurriedly and almost without politeness. + +"I have sent for you to come and see me here. Not a soul in London knows +I am going away. There will be a dreadful row at the theater, but that's +none of your affairs. Now, I want you to tell me before I go just what +you are going to do for Dan." + +"Who are you going with?" Ruggles asked shortly, and she flashed at him: + +"Well, really, I don't think that is any of your business. When you +drive a woman as you have driven me, she will go far." + +He interrupted her vehemently, not daring to take her hand. "I couldn't +do more. I have asked you to marry me. I couldn't do more. I stand by +what I have said. Will you?" he stammered. + +She knew men. She looked at him keenly. Her veil was lifted above her +eyes and its shadow framed her small pale face on which there were marks +of utter disenchantment, of great ennui. She said languidly: "What I +want to know is, what you are going to do for Dan?" + +"I told you I would share with him." + +"Then he will be nearly as rich?" + +"He'll have more than is good for him." + +That satisfied her. Then she pursued: "I want you to stand by him. He +will need you." + +Ruggles lifted the hand he held and kissed it reverently. "I'll do +anything you say--anything you say." + +Down-stairs in the Savoy, as Dan had done countless times, Ruggles +waited until he saw her motor car carry her and her small luggage and +Higgins away. + +In their sitting-room in the Carlton a half-hour later the door was +thrown open and Dan Blair came in like a madman. Without preamble he +seized Ruggles by the arm. + +"Look here," he cried, "what have you been doing? Tell me now, and tell +me the truth, or, by God, I don't know what I'll do. You went to the +Savoy. You went there twice. Anyhow, where is she?" + +Dan, slender as he was beside Ruggles' great frame, shook the elder man +as though he had been a terrier. "Speak to me. Where has she gone?" + +He stared in the Westerner's face, his eyes bloodshot. "Why in thunder +don't you say something?" + +And Ruggles prayed for some power to unloose his thickening tongue. + +"You say she's gone?" he questioned. + +"I say," said the boy, "that you've been meddling in my affairs with the +woman I love. I don't know what you have said to her, but it's only your +age that keeps me from striking you. Don't you know," he cried, "that +you are spoiling my life? Don't you know that?" A torrent of feeling +coming to his lips, his eyes suffused, the tears rolled down his face. +He walked away into his own room, remained there a few moments, and when +he came out again he carried in his hand his valise, which he put down +with a bang on the table. More calmly, but still in great anger, he said +to his father's friend: + +"Now, can you tell me what you've done or not?" + +"Dan," said Ruggles with difficulty, "if you will sit down a moment we +can--" + +The boy laughed in his face. "Sit down!" he cried. "Why, I think you +must have lost your reason. I have chartered a motor car out there and +the damned thing has burst a tire and they are fixing it up for me. It +will be ready in about two minutes and then I am going to follow +wherever she has gone. She crossed to Paris, but I can get there before +she can even with this damned accident. But, before I go, I want you to +tell me what you said." + +"Why," said Ruggles quietly, "I told her you were poor, and she turned +you down." + +His words were faint. + +"God!" said the boy under his breath. "That's the way you think about +truth. Lie to a woman to save my precious soul! But I expect," he said; +"you think she is so immoral and so bad that she will hurt me. Well," he +said, with great emphasis, "she has never done anything in her life that +comes up to what you've done. Never! And nothing has ever hurt me so." + +His lips trembled. "I have lost my respect for you, for my father's +friend, and as far as she is concerned, I don't care what she marries me +for. She has got to marry me, and if she doesn't"--he had no idea, in his +passion, what he was saying or how--"why, I think I'll kill you first and +then blow my own brains out!" And with these mad words he grabbed up his +valise and bolted from the room, and Ruggles could hear his running feet +tearing down the corridor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI--WHITE AND CORAL + + +Spring in Paris, which comes in a fashion so divine that even the most +calloused and indifferent are impressed by its beauty, awakened no +answering response in the heart of the young man who, from his hotel +window, looked out on the desecrated gardens of the Tuileries--on the +distant spires of the churches whose names he did not know--on the square +block of old palaces. He had missed the boat across the Channel taken by +Letty Lane, and the delay had made him lose what little trace of her he +had. In the early hours of the morning he had flung himself in at the +St. James, taken the indifferent room they could give him in the crowded +season, and excited as he was he slept and did not waken until noon. +Blair thought it would be a matter of a few hours only to find the +whereabouts of the celebrated actress, but it was not such an easy job. +He had not guessed that she might be traveling incognito, and at none of +the hotels could he hear news of her, nor did he pass her in the +crowded, noisy, rustling, crying streets, though he searched motors for +her with eager eyes, and haunted restaurants and cafes, and went +everywhere that he thought she might be likely to be. + +At the end of the third day, unsuccessful and in despair, having hardly +slept and scarcely eaten, the unhappy young lover found himself taking a +slight luncheon in the little restaurant known as the Perouse down on +the Quais. His head on his hand, for the present moment the joy of life +gone from him, he looked out through the windows at the Seine, at the +bridge and the lines of flowering trees. He was the only occupant of the +upper room where, of late, he had ordered his luncheon. + +The tide of life rolled slowly in this quieter part of the city, and as +Blair sat there under the window there passed a piper playing a shrill, +sweet tune. It was so different from any of the loud metropolitan +clamors, with which his ears were full, that he got up, walked to the +window and leaned out. It was a pastoral that met his eyes. A man +piping, followed by little pattering goats; the primitive, unlooked-for +picture caught his tired attention, and, just then, opposite the Quais, +two women passed--flower sellers, their baskets bright with crocuses and +girofles. The bright picture touched him and something of the springlike +beauty that the day wore and that dwelt in the May light, soothed him as +nothing had for many hours. + +He paid his bill, took courage, picked up his hat and gloves and stick +and walked out briskly, crossing the bridge to the Rue de Rivoli, +determined that night should not fall until he found the woman he +sought. Nor did it, though the afternoon wore on and Dan, pursuing his +old trails, wandered from worldly meeting place to worldly meeting +place. Finally, toward six o'clock, he saw the lengthening shadows steal +into the woods of the Bois de Boulogne, and in one of the smaller +alleys, where the green-trunked trees of the forests were full of purple +shadows and yellow sun discs, flickering down, he picked up a small iron +chair and sat himself down, with a long sigh, to rest. + +While he sat there watching the end of the _allee_ as it gave out into +the broader road, a beautiful red motor rolled up to the conjunction of +the two ways and Letty Lane, in a summer frock, got out alone. She had a +flowing white veil around her head and a flowing white scarf around her +shoulders. As the day on the Thames, she was all in white--like a dove. +But this time her costume was made vivid and picturesque by the coral +parasol she carried, a pair of coral-colored kid shoes, around her neck +and falling on their long chain, she wore his coral beads. He saw that +he observed her before she did him. All this Dan saw before he dashed +into the road, came up to her with something like a cry on his lips, +bareheaded, for his hat and his stick and his gloves were by his chair +in the woods. + +Letty Lane's hands went to her heart and her face took on a deadly +pallor. She did not seem glad to see him. Out of his passionate +description of the hours that he had been through, of how he had looked +for her, of what he thought and wanted and felt, the actress made what +she could, listening to him as they both stood there under the shadows +of the green trees. Scanning her face for some sign that she loved him, +for it was all he cared for, Dan saw no such indication there. He +finished with: + +"You know what Ruggles told you was a lie. Of course, I've got money +enough to give you everything you want. He's a lunatic and ought to be +shut up." + +"It may have been a lie, all right," she said with forced indifference; +"I've had time to think it over. You are too young. You don't know what +you want." She stopped his protestations: "Well, then, _I_ am too old +and I don't want to be tied down." + +When he pressed her to tell him whether or not she had ceased to care +for him, she shook her head slowly, marking on the ground fine tracery +with the end of her coral parasol. He had been obliged to take her back +to the red motor, but before they were in earshot of her servants, he +said: + +"Now, you know just what you have done to me, you and Ruggles between +you. For my father's sake and the things I believed in I've kept pretty +straight as things go." He nodded at her with boyish egotism, throwing +all the blame on her. "I want you to understand that from now, right +now, I'm going to the dogs just as fast as I can get there, and it won't +be a very gratifying result to anybody that ever cared." + +She saw the determination on his fine young face, worn by his sleepless +nights, already matured and changed, and she believed him. + +"Paris," he nodded toward the gate of the woods which opened upon Paris, +"is the place to begin in--right here. A man," he went on, and his lips +trembled, "can only feel like this once in his life. You know all the +talk there is about young love and first love. Well, that's what I've +got for you, and I'm going to turn it now--right now--into just what older +people warn men from, and do their best to prevent. I have seen enough +of Paris," he went on, "these days I have been looking for you, to know +where to go and what to do, and I am setting off for it now." + +She touched his arm. + +"No," she murmured. "No, boy, you are not going to do any such thing!" + +This much from her was enough for him. He caught her hand and cried: +"Then you marry me. What do we care for anybody else in the world?" + +"Go back and get your hat and stick and gloves," she commanded, keeping +down the tears. + +"No, no, you come with me, Letty; I'm not going to let you run to your +motor and escape me again." + +"Go; I'll wait here," she promised. "I give you my word." + +As he snatched up the inanimate objects from the leaf-strewn ground +where he had thrown them in despair, he thought how things can change in +a quarter of an hour. For he had hope now, as he hurried back, as he +walked with her to her car, as he saw the little coral shoes stir in the +leaves when she passed under the trees. The little coral shoes trod on +his heart, but now it was light under her feet! + +Jubilant to have overcome the fate which had tried to keep her hidden +from him in Paris, he could hardly believe his eyes that she was before +them again, and, as the motor rolled into the Avenue des Acacias, he +asked her the question uppermost in his mind: + +"Are you alone in Paris, Letty?" + +"Don't you count?" + +"No--no--honestly, _you know what I mean_." + +"You haven't any right to ask me that." + +"I have--I have. You gave me a right. You're engaged to me, aren't you? +Gosh, you haven't _forgotten_, have you?" + +"Don't make me conspicuous in the Bois, Dan," she said; "I only let you +come with me because you were so terribly desperate, so ridiculous." + +"Are you alone?" he persisted. "I have got to know." + +"Higgins is with me." + +"Oh, God," he cried wildly, "how can you joke with me? Don't you +understand you're breaking my heart?" + +But she did not dare to be kind to him, knowing it would unnerve her for +the part she had promised to play. + +He sat gripping his hands tightly together, his lips white. "When I +leave you now," he said brokenly, "I am going to find that devil of a +Hungarian and do him up. Then I am going to tackle Ruggles." + +"Why, what's poor Mr. Ruggles got to do with it?" + +Dan cried scornfully: "For God's sake, don't keep this up! You know the +rot he told you? I made him confess. He has had this mania all along +about money being a handicap; he was bent on trying this game with some +girl to see how it worked." He continued more passionately. "I don't +care a rap what you marry me for, Letty, or what you have done or been. +I think you're perfect and I'll make you the happiest woman in the +world." + +She said: "Hush, hush! Listen, dear; listen, little boy. I am awfully +sorry, but it won't do. I never thought it would. You'll get over it all +right, though you don't, you can't believe me now. I can't be poor, you +know; I really couldn't be poor." + +He interrupted roughly: "Who says you'll be? What are you talking about? +Why, I'll cover you with jewels, sweetheart, if I have to rip the earth +open to get them out." + +She understood that Dan believed Ruggles' story to have been a +cock-and-bull one. + +"You talk as though you could buy me, Dan. Wait, listen." She put him +back from her. "Now, if you won't be quiet, I'm going to stop my car." + +He repeated: "Tell me, are you alone in Paris? Tell me. For three days I +have wandered and searched for you everywhere; I have hardly eaten a +thing, I don't believe I have slept a wink." And he told her of his +weary search. + +She listened to him, part of the time her white-gloved hand giving +itself up to the boy; part of the time both hands folded together and +away from him, her arms crossed on her breast, her small shoes of coral +kid tapping the floor of the car. Thus they rolled leisurely along the +road by the Bois. Through the green-trunked trees the sunlight fell +divinely. On the lake the swans swam, pluming their feathers; there were +children there in their ribbons and furbelows. The whole world went by +gay and careless, while for Dan the problem of his existence, his +possibility for happiness or pain was comprised within the little room +of the motor car. + +"Are you alone in Paris, Letty?" + +And she said: "Oh, what a bore you are! You're the most obstinate +creature. Well, I am alone, but that has nothing to do with you." + +A glorious light broke over his face; his relief was tremendous. + +"Oh, thank God!" he breathed. + +"Poniotowsky"--and she said his name with difficulty--"is coming to-night +from Carlsbad." + +The boy threw back his bright head and laughed wildly. + +"Curse him! The very name makes me want to commit a crime. He will go +over my body to you. You hear me, Letty. I mean what I say." + +People had already remarked them as they passed. The actress was too +well-known to pass unobserved, but she was indifferent to their +curiosity or to the existence of any one but this excited boy. + +Blair, who had not opened a paper since he came to Paris, did not know +that Letty Lane's flight from London had created a scandal in the +theatrical world, that her manager was suing her, and that to be seen +with her driving in the Bois was a conspicuous thing indeed. She thought +of it, however. + +"I am going to tell the man to drive you to the gate on the other side +of the park where it's quieter, we won't be stared at, and then I want +you to leave me and let me go to the Meurice alone. You must, Dan, you +must let me go to the hotel alone." + +He laughed again in the same strained fashion and forced her hand to +remain in his. + +"Look here. You don't suppose I am going to let you go like this, now +that I have seen you again. You don't suppose I am going to give you up +to that infamous scoundrel? You have got to marry me." + +Bringing all her strength of character to bear, she exclaimed: "I expect +you think you are the only person who has asked me to marry him, Dan. I +am going to _marry_ Prince Poniotowsky. He is perfectly crazy about me." + +Until that moment she had not made him think that she was indifferent to +him, and the idea that such a thing was possible, was too much for his +overstrained heart to bear. Dan cried her name in a voice whose appeal +was like a hurt creature's, and as the hurt creature in its suffering +sometimes springs upon its torturer, he flung his arms around her as she +sat in the motor, held her and kissed her, then set her free, and as the +motor flew along, tore open the door to spring out or to throw himself +out, but clinging to him she prevented his mad act. She stopped the car +along the edge of the quiet, wooded _allee_. Blair saw that he had +terrified her. She covered her beating heart with her hands and gasped +at him that he was "crazy, crazy," and perhaps a little late his dignity +and self-possession returned. + +"I am mad," he acknowledged more calmly, "and I am sorry that I +frightened you. But you drive me mad." + +Without further word he got out and left her agitated, leaning toward +him, and Blair, less pale and thoroughly the man, lifted his hat to her +and, with unusual grace, bowed good night and good-by. Then, rushing as +he had come, he walked off down through the _allee_, his gray figure in +his gray clothes disappearing through the vista of meeting trees. + +For a moment she stared after him, her eyes fastened on the tall slender +beautiful young man. Blair's fire and ardor, his fresh youthfulness, his +protection and his chivalry, his ardent devotion, touched her +profoundly. Tears fell, and one splashed on her white glove. Was he +really going to ruin his life? The old ballad, _The Earl of Moray_, ran +through her head: + + "And long may his lady look from the castle wall." + +Dan had neither title nor, according to Ruggles, had he any money, and +she could marry the prince; but Dan, as he walked so fast away, misery +snapping at his heels as he went, stamping through the woods, seemed +glorious to Letty Lane and the only one she wanted in the world. What if +anything should happen to him really? What if he should really start out +to do the town according to the fashion of his Anglo-Saxon brothers, but +more desperately still? She took a card from the case in the corner of +the car, scribbled a few words, told the man to drive around the curve +and meet the outlet of the path by which Dan had gone. When she saw him +within reaching distance she sent the chauffeur across the woods to give +Mr. Blair her scribbled word and consoled herself with the belief that +Dan wouldn't "go to the dogs or throw himself in the river until he had +seen her again." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII--AT MAXIM'S + + +At the Meurice, Miss Lane gave strict orders to admit only Mr. Blair to +her apartments. She described him. No sooner had she drunk her cup of +tea, which Higgins gave her, than she began to expect Dan. + +He didn't come. + +Her dinner, without much appetite, she ate alone in her salon; saw a +doctor and made him prescribe something for the cough that racked her +chest; looked out to the warm, bright gardens of the Tuileries fading +into the pallid loveliness of sunset, indifferent to everything in the +world--except Dan Blair. She believed she would soon be indifferent to +him, too; then everything would be done with. Now she wondered had he +really gone--had he done what he threatened? Why didn't he come? At +twelve o'clock that night, as she lay among the cushions of her sofa, +dozing, the door of her parlor was pushed in. She sprang up with a cry +of delight; but when Poniotowsky came up to her she exclaimed: + +"Oh, you!" And the languor and boredom with which she said his name made +the prince laugh shortly. + +"Yes, I. Who did you think it was?" Cynically and rather cruelly he +looked down at Letty Lane and admired the picture she made: small, +exquisite, her blond head against the dark velvet of the lounge, her +gray eyes intensified by the fatigue under them. + +"Just got in from Carlsbad; came directly here. How-de-do? You look, you +know--" he scrutinized her through his single eye-glass--"most frightfully +seedy." + +"Oh, I'm all right." She left the sofa, for she wanted to prevent his +nearer approach. "Have you had any supper? I'll call Higgins." + +"No, no, sit down, please, will you? I want to know why you sent to +Carlsbad for me? Have you come to your senses?" + +He was as mad about the beautiful creature as a man of his temperament +could be. Exhausted by excess and bored with life, she charmed and +amused him, and in order to have her with him always, to be master of +her caprices, he was willing to make any sacrifice. + +"Have you sent off that imbecile boy?" And at her look he stopped and +shrugged. "You need a rest, my child," he murmured practically, "you're +neurasthenic and very ill. I've wired to have the yacht at +Cherbourg--It'll reach there by noon to-morrow." + +She was standing listlessly by the table. A mass of letters sent by +special messenger from London after her, telegrams and cards lay there +in a pile. Looking down at the lot, she murmured: "All right, I don't +care." + +He concealed his triumph, but before the look had faded from his face +she saw it and exclaimed sharply: + +"Don't be crazy about it, you know. You'll have to pay high for me; you +know what I mean." + +He answered gallantly: "My dear child, I've told you that you would be +the most charming princess in Hungary." + +Once more she accepted indifferently: "All right, all right, I don't +care tuppence--not tuppence"--and she snapped her fingers; "but I like to +see you pay, Frederigo. Take me to Maxim's." + +He demurred, saying she was far too ill, but she turned from him to call +Higgins, determined to go if she had to go alone, and said to him +violently: "Don't think I'll make your life easy for you, Frederigo. +I'll make it wretched; as wretched--" and she held out her fragile arms, +and the sleeves fell back, leaving them bare--"as wretched as I am +myself." + +But she was lovely, and he said harshly: "Get yourself dressed. I'll go +change and meet you at the lift." + + * * * * * + +She made him take a table in the corner, where she sat in the shadow on +the sofa, overlooking the brilliant room. Maxim's was no new scene to +either of them, no novelty. Poniotowsky scarcely glanced at the crowd, +preferring to feast his eyes on his companion, whose indifference to him +made his abstraction easy. She was his property. He would give her his +title; she had demanded it from the first. The Hungarian was a little +overdressed, with his jeweled buttons, his large _boutonniere_, his +faultless clothes, his single eye-glass through which he stared at Letty +Lane, whose delicate beauty was in fine play: her cheeks faintly pink, +her starry eyes humid with a dew whose luster is of the most precious +quality. Her unshed tears had nothing to do with Poniotowsky--they were +for the boy. Her heart sickened, thinking where he might be; and more +than that, it cried out for him. She wanted him. + +Oh, she would have been far better for Dan than anything he could find +in this mad city, than anything to which in his despair he would go for +consolation. She had kept her word, however, to that old man, Mr. +Ruggles; she had got out of the business with a fatal result, as far as +the boy was concerned. She thought Dan would drift here probably as most +Americans on their wild nights do for a part of the time, and she had +come to see. + +She wore a dress of coral pink, tightly fitting, high to her little +chin, and seemed herself like a coral strand from neck to toe, clad in +the color she affected, and which had become celebrated as the Letty +Lane pink. Her feathered hat hid her face, and she was completely +shielded as she bent down drawing pictures with her bare finger on the +cloth. After a little while she said to Poniotowsky without glancing at +him: + +"If you stare any longer like that, Frederigo, you'll break your +eye-glass. You know how I hate it." + +Used as he was to her sharpness, he nevertheless flushed and sat back +and looked across the room, where, to their right, protected from them +as they were from him by the great door, a young man sat alone. Whether +or not he had come to Maxim's intending to join a congenial party, +should he find one, or to choose for a companion some one of the women +who, at the entrance of the tall blond boy, stirred and invited him with +their raised lorgnons and their smiles, will not be known. Dan Blair was +alone, pale as the pictures Letty Lane had drawn on the cloth, and he, +too, feasted his eyes on the Gaiety girl. + +"By Jove!" said the Hungarian under his breath, and she eagerly asked: +"What? Whom? Whom do you see?" + +Turning his back sharply he evaded her question and she did not pursue +the idea, and as a physical weakness overwhelmed her, when Poniotowsky +after a second said, "Come, _cherie_, for heaven's sake, let's go"--she +mechanically rose and passed out. + +Several young men supping together came over eagerly to speak to her and +claim acquaintance with the Gaiety girl, and walked along out to the +motor. There Letty Lane discovered she had dropped her handkerchief, and +sent the prince back for it. + +As though he had been waiting for the reappearance of Poniotowsky, Dan +Blair stood close to the little table which Letty Lane had left, her +handkerchief in his hand. As Poniotowsky came up Dan thrust the small +trifle of sheer linen into his waistcoat pocket. + +"I will trouble you for Miss Lane's handkerchief," said Poniotowsky, his +eyes cold. + +"You may," said Dan as quietly, his blue eyes like sparks from a star, +"trouble me for hell!" And lifting from the table Poniotowsky's own +half-emptied glass of champagne, the boy flung the contents full in the +Hungarian's face. + +The wine dashed against Poniotowsky's lips and in his eyes. Blair +laughed out loud, his hands in his pockets. The insult was low and +noiseless; the little glass shattered as it fell so softly that with the +music its gentle crash was unheard. + +Poniotowsky wiped his face tranquilly and bowed. + +"You shall hear from me after I have taken Miss Lane home." + +"Tell her," said the boy, "where you left the handkerchief, that's all." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII--SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS + + +Dan was in his room at the hotel. He woke and then slept again. Nothing +seemed strange to him--nothing seemed real. It was three o'clock in the +morning, the rumble of Paris was dull; it did not disturb him, for he +seemed without the body and to have grown giantlike, and to fill the +room. He had a sense of suffocation and the need to break through the +windows and to escape into ether. + +The entrance of Poniotowsky's two friends was a part with the unreal +naturalness. One was a Roumanian, the other a Frenchman--both spoke +fluent English. Dan, his eyes fixed on the foreign faces, only half saw +them; they blurred, their voices were small and far away. Finally he +said: + +"All right, all right, I can shoot well enough; this kind of thing isn't +our custom, you know--I'd as soon kill him one way as another, as a +matter of fact. No, I don't know a darned soul here." There was a confab +incomprehensible to Dan. "It's all one to me, gentlemen," he said. "I'd +rather not drag in my friends, anyhow. Fix it up to suit yourselves." + +He wanted them to go--to be alone--to stretch his arms, to rid himself of +the burden of sense, and be free. And after they had left, he remained +in his window till dawn. It came soon, midsummer dawn, a singularly +tender morning in his heart. His mind worked with great rapidity. He had +made his will in the States. He wished he could have left everything to +Letty Lane, but if, as Ruggles said, he was a pauper? Perhaps it wasn't +a lie after all. Dan had written and telegraphed Ruggles asking for the +solemn truth, and also telling him where he was and asking the older man +to come over. If Ruggles proved he was poor, why, some of his burden was +gone. His money had been a burden, he knew it now. He might have no use +for money the next day. What good could it do him in a fix like this? He +was to meet Poniotowsky at five o'clock in a place whose name he +couldn't recall. He had seen it advertised, though; people went there +for lunch. + +They were to shoot at twenty-five paces--he might be a Rockefeller or a +beggar for all the good his money could do him in a pinch like this. + +His father wouldn't approve, the old man wouldn't approve, but he had +sent him here to learn the ways of the old world. A flickering smile +crossed his beautiful, set face. His lessons hadn't done him much good; +he would like to have seen good old Gordon Galorey again; he loved +him--he had no use for Ruggles, no use--it had been all his fault. His +mind reached out to his father, and the old man's words came dinning +back: "Buy the things that stay above ground, my boy." What were those +things? He had thought they were passion--he had thought they were love, +and he had put all on one woman. She couldn't stand by him, now that he +was poor. + +The spasm in his heart was so sharp that he made a low sound in his +throat and leaned against the casing of the window. He must see her, +touch her once more. + +The fellows Poniotowsky's seconds had chosen to be Dan's representatives +came in to "fix him up." They were in frock-coats and carried their silk +hats and their gloves. He could have laughed at them. Then they made him +think of undertakers, and his blood grew cold. He handled the revolvers +with care and interest. + +"I'm not going to let him murder me, you know," he told his seconds. + +They helped him dress, at least one of them did, while the other took +Dan's place by the window and looked to the boy like a figure of death. + +The hour was getting on; he heard his own motor drive up, and they went +down, through the deserted hotel. The men who had consented to act for +Dan regarded their principal curiously. He wasn't pale, there was a +brightness on his face. + +"_Partons_," said one of them, and told Blair's chauffeur where to go +and how to run. "_Partons._" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX--THE PICTURE OF IT ALL + + +As far as his knowing anything of the customs of it all, it was like +leading a lamb to slaughter. + +Villebon, lovely, vernal, at a later hour the spot for gay breakfasts +and gentle rendezvous, had been designated for the meeting between Dan +and Poniotowsky. There in his motor he gave up his effort to set his +thoughts clear. Nothing settled down. Even the ground they flew over, +the trees with their chestnut plumes, blurred, were indistinct, +nebulous, as if seen through a diving-bell under the sea. Fear--he didn't +know the word. He wasn't afraid--it wasn't that; yet he had a certainty +that it was all up with him. He was young--very young--and he hadn't done +much with the job. His father would have been ashamed of him. Then all +his thoughts went to Her. The two men in the motor floated off and she +sat there as she had sat yesterday in her marvelously pretty clothes--her +little coral shoes. + +He had held those bright, little feet in his hand on the Thames day: +they had just filled his great hands. Mechanically he spread out his +firm, broad palms on the soft shoes. Letty Lane--Letty Lane--a shiver +passed through his body; the sense of her, the touch of her, the kisses +he had taken, the way she had blown up against him like a cloud--a cloud +that, as he held her, became the substance of Paradise. This brought him +back to physical life, brutally. He was too young to die. + +Those little, red shoes would dance on his grave. Was she asleep now? +How would she know? What would she know? + +Then Letty Lane, too, spirited away, and the boy's thoughts turned to +the man he was to meet. "The affairs are purely formal," he had heard +some one say, "an exchange of balls, without serious results." + +One of his companions offered Blair a cigar. He refused, the idea +sickened him. Here the gentlemen exchanged glances, and one murmured, +"Is he afraid?" + +The other shrugged. + +"Not astonishing--he's a child." + +At this Dan glanced up and smiled--what Lily, Duchess of Breakwater, had +called his divine young smile. The two secretly were ashamed--he was +charming. + +As they got out of the motor Dan said: + +"I want to ask a question of Prince Poniotowsky--if it is allowed. I'll +write it on my card." + +After a conference between Prince Poniotowsky's seconds and Dan's, the +slip was handed the prince. + + "If you get out all right, will you marry Miss Lane? I shall be glad + to know." + +The Hungarian, who read it under the tree, half smiled. The naivete of +it, the touching youth of it, the crude lack of form--was perfect enough +to touch his sense of humor. On the back of Dan's card Poniotowsky +scrawled: + +"Yes." + +It was a haughty inclination, a salute of honor before the fight. + +The meeting place was within sight of the little rustic pavilion of Les +Trois Agneaux, celebrated for its _pre sale_ and _beignets_: the +advertisements had confronted Dan everywhere during his wanderings those +miserable days. Under a group of chestnut trees in bright feathery +flower Prince Poniotowsky and his seconds waited, their frock-coats +buttoned up and their gloves and silk hats in their hands. As Blair and +his companions came up the others stood uncovered, grim and formal, +according to the code. + +On the highroad a short distance away ranged the motors which had +fetched the gentlemen from Paris, and the car in which the physician had +come--an ugly and sinister gathering in the peace and beauty of the +serene summer morning. + +Finches and thrashes sang in the bushes, over the grass the dew still +hung in crystals, and a peasant walking at his horses' heads on the slow +tramp back from the Paris market, was held up and kept stolidly waiting +at a few hundred yards away. + +Twenty-five paces. They were measured off by the four seconds, and at +their signal Dan Blair and the prince took their positions, the +revolvers raised perpendicularly in their right hands. + +Still more indistinctly the boy saw the sharp-cut picture of it all ... +the diving-bell was sinking deeper--deeper--into the sea. + +"If I aim," he said to himself, "I shall kill sure--sure." + +Blair heard the command: "Fire!" and supposed that after that he fired. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX--SODAWATER FOUNTAIN GIRL + + +His next sensation was that a warm stream flowed about his heart. + +"My life's blood," he could dimly think, "my heart's blood." Redder than +coral, more precious, more costly than any gift his millions could have +bought her. "I've spent it for the girl I love." The stream pervaded +him, caressed him, folded his limbs about, became an enchanted sea on +which he floated, and its color changed from crimson to coral pale, and +then to white, and became a cold, cold polar sea--and he lay on it like a +frozen man, whose exploration had been in vain, and above him +Greenland's icy mountains rose like emerald, on every side. + +That is it--"Greenland's icy mountains." How she sang it--down--down. Her +voice fell on him like magic balm. He was a little boy in church, +sitting small and shy in the pew. The tune was deep and low and heavenly +sweet. What a pretty mouth the soda-fountain girl had--like coral; and +her eyes like gray seas. The flies buzzed, they droned so loudly that he +couldn't hear her. Ah, that was terrible--_he couldn't hear her_. + +No--no, it wouldn't do. He must hear the hymn out before he died. +Buzz--buzz--drone--drone. Way down he almost heard the soft note. It was +ecstasy. Sky--high up--too faint. Ah, Sodawater Fountain +Girl--sing--sing--with all your heart so that it may reach his ears and +charm him to those strands toward which he floats. + + * * * * * + +The expression of anguish on the young fellow's face was so +heartbreaking that the doctor, his ear at Dan's lips, tried to learn +what thing his poor, fading mind longed for. + +From the bed's foot, where he stood, Dan's chauffeur came to his +gentleman's side, and nodded: + +"Right, sir, right, sir--I'll fetch Miss Lane--I'll 'ave 'er 'ere, +sir--keep up, Mr. Blair." + + * * * * * + +He was going barefoot, a boy still following the plow through the +mountain fields. Miles and miles stretched away before him of dark, +loamy land. He saw the plow tear up the waving furrows, tossing the +earth in sprinkling lines. He heard the shrill note of the phoebe bird, +and looking heavenward saw it darting into the pale sky. + +"What a dandy shot!" he thought. "What a bully shot!" + +Prince Poniotowsky had made a good shot.... + +Ah, there was the smell of the hayfields--no--violets that sweetly laid +their petals on his lips and face. He was back again in church, lying +prone before an altar. If she would only sing, he would rise again--that +he knew--and her coral shoes would not dance over his grave. + +He opened his eyes wide and looked into Letty Lane's. She bent over him, +crying. + +"Sing," he whispered. + +She didn't understand. + +"Sodawater Fountain Girl--if you only knew how ... the flies buzzed, and +how the droning was a living pain...." + +She said to Ruggles: "He wants something so heartbreakingly--what can we +do?" She saw his hands stir rhythmically on the counterpane--he didn't +look to her more than ten years old.... What a cruel thing--he was a boy +just of age--a boy-- + +Ruggles remembered the nights he had spent before the footlights of the +Gaiety, and that the pale woman trembling there weeping was a great +singer. + +"I guess he wants to hear you sing." + +She kneeled down by him; she trembled so she couldn't stand. + +The others, the doctor and Ruggles, the waiters and porters gathered in +the hall, heard. No one of them understood the Gaiety girl's English +words. + + "From Greenland's icy mountains, + From India's coral strands ..." + +They were merciful and let him listen in peace. Through the blur in his +brain, over the beat of his young ardent heart, above the short breaths +the notes reached his failing senses, and lifted him--lifted him. There +wasn't a very long distance between his boyhood and his twenty-two years +to go, and he was not so weak but that he could travel so far. + +He sat there by his father again--and heard. The flies buzzed, and he +didn't mind them. The smell of the fields came in through the windows +and the Sodawater Fountain Girl sang--and sang; and as she sang her face +grew holy to his eyes--radiant with a beauty he had not dreamed a woman's +face could wear. Above the choir rail she stood and sang peerlessly, and +the church began to fade and fade, and still she stood there in a shaft +of light, and her face was like an angel's, and she held her arms out to +him as the waters rose to his lips. She bent and lifted him--lifted him +high upon the strands.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI--IN REALITY + + +Dan awoke from his dream, and sat suddenly up in bed in his shirt +sleeves, and stared at the people in his room,--a hotel boy and two +strangers, not unlike the men in his dream. He brushed his hand across +his eyes. + +"Sit down, will you? Do you speak English?" + +They were foreigners, but they did speak English, no doubt far more +perfectly than did Dan Blair. + +"Look here," the boy said, "I don't know what's the matter with me--I +must have had a ripping jag on last night--let me put my head in a basin +of water, will you?" + +He dived into the dressing-room, and came out in another second, his +blond head wet, wiping his face and hair furiously with a towel. He +hadn't beamed as he did now on these two strange men--for weeks. + +"Well," he asked slowly, "I expect you've come to ask me to fight with +Prince Poniotowsky--yes? It's against our principles, you know, in the +States--we don't do that way. Personally, I'd throw anything at him I +could lay my hands on, but I don't care to have him let daylight through +me, and I don't care to kill your friend. See? I'm an American--yes, I +know, I know," he nodded sagely, "but we don't have your kind of fights +out our way. It means business when we go out to shoot." + +He threw the towel down on the table, soaking wet as it was, put his +hands in the pockets of his evening clothes, which he still wore, for he +had not undressed, threw his young, blond head back and frankly told his +visitors: + +"I'm not up on swords. I've seen them in pictures and read about them, +but I'll be darned if I've ever had one in my hand." + +His expression changed at the quiet response of Poniotowsky's seconds. + +"_Gee._ Whew!" he exclaimed, "he does, does he? Twenty +paces--revolvers--why, he's a bird--a bird!" + +A slight flush rose along Dan's cheeks. "I never liked him, and you +don't want to hear what I think of him. But I'll be darned if he isn't a +bird." + +His eyes caught sight of a blue envelope on the table. He tore the +telegram open. It was Ruggles' answer to his question: + + "Quite true. Tell you about it. Arrive your hotel around noon." + +The despatch informed him that he was really a pauper and also that he +had a second for his duel with Poniotowsky. His guests stood formally +before the young barbarian. + +"Look here," he continued amiably, "I can't meet your Dago friend like +this, it's not fair. He hasn't seen me shoot; it isn't for me to say it, +but I can't miss. Hold," he interrupted, "he has, too. He was at the +Galoreys' at that first shoot. Ah--well, I refuse, tell him so, will you? +Tell him I'm an American and a cowboy and that for me a duel at twenty +paces with a pistol would mean murder. I like his pluck--it's all +right--tell him anything you like. He ought to have chosen swords. He +would have had me there." + +They retired as formally as they had entered, and took his answer to +their client, and after a bath and careful toilet Dan went out, leaving +a line for Ruggles, to say that he would be at the hotel to meet him at +noon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII--THE PRINCE ACCEPTS + + +The Hungarian, in the Continental, was drinking his coffee in his room +when his friends found him. He listened to what they had to say coolly. +His eye-glass gave him an air of full dress even at this early hour. +Poniotowsky had not fallen into a deep sleep and had a dream as Dan +Blair had--indeed he had only reached his rooms the night before when a +letter had been brought him from Miss Lane. He was used to her caprices, +which were countless, and he never left her with any certainty that he +should see her again, or with any idea of what her next move would be. +The letter read: + + "It's no use. I just can't. I've always told you so, and I mean it. + I'm tired out--I want to go away and never see any one again. I want + to die. I shall be dead next year, and I don't care. Please leave me + alone and don't come to see me, and for heaven's sake don't bore me + with notes." + +When Poniotowsky received this note he had shrugged, and decided that if +he lived after his duel with the young savage he would go to see the +actress, taking a jewel or a gift--he would get her a Pomeranian dog, and +all would be well. He listened coolly to what his friends had to say. + +"_C'est un enfant_," one of them remarked sneeringly. + +"In my mind, he is a coward," said the other. + +"On the contrary," answered Poniotowsky coolly, "he shoots to +perfection. You will be surprised to hear that I admire his refusal. I +accept his decision, as his skill is unquestioned with arms. I choose to +look upon this reply as an apology. I would like to have you inform Mr. +Blair of this fact. He's young enough to be my son, and he is a +barbarian. The incident is closed." + +He put Letty Lane's note in his pocket, and leisurely prepared to go out +on the Rue de Castiglione to buy her a Pomeranian dog. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII--THE THINGS ABOVE GROUND + + +Higgins let him in, and across the room Blair saw the figure of the +actress against the light of the long window. Her back was to him as he +came up, and though she knew who it was, she was far from dreaming how +different a man it was that came in to see her this morning from the one +she had known. + +"Won't you turn around and bid me good-by?" he asked her. "I'm going +away." + +She gave him a languid hand without looking at him. + +"Has Higgins gone?" + +"Yes. Won't you turn round and say how-de-do, and good-by? Gosh," he +cried as she turned, "how pale you are, darling." And he took her in his +arms. + +The vision he had had of her in her coral-colored dress at Maxim's gave +place to the more radiant one which had shone on him in his curious +dream. + +"Are you very ill?" he murmured. "Speak to me--tell me--are you going to +die?" + +"Don't be a goose, boy." + +"I've had a wire from Ruggles," Dan said; "he tells me it's true. I have +nothing but my own feet to stand on, and I'm as poor as Job's turkey." +Looking at her impressively, he added, "I only mind because it will be +hard on you." + +"Hard on me?" + +"Yes, you'll have to start poor. Mother did with father, out there in +Montana. It will be rough at first, but others have done it and been +happy, and we've got each other." The eyes fixed on her were as blue as +the summer skies. "Money's a darned poor thing to buy happiness with, +Letty. It didn't buy me a thing fit to keep, that's the truth. I've +never been so gay since I was born as I am to-day. Why, I feel," he +said, and would have stretched out his arms, only he held her with them, +"like a king. Later I'll have money again, all right--don't fret--and then +I'll know its worth. I'll bet you weren't all unhappy there in Blairtown +before you turned the heads of all those Johnnies." He put one hand +against her cheek and lifted her drooping head. "Lean on me, +sweetheart," he said with great tenderness. "It will be all right." + +A coral color stole along her cheek: it rose like a sweet tide under his +hand. She looked at him, fascinated. + +"It's not a real tragedy," he went on. "I've got my letter of credit, +and old Ruggles will let me hang on to that, and you'll find the motor +cars and jewels will look like thirty cents when we stand in the door of +our little shack and look out at the Value Mine." He lifted her hand to +his lips, held it there, and the spark ignited in her; his youth and +confidence, his force and passion, woke a woman in Letty Lane that had +never lived before that hour. + +He murmured: "I'll be there with you, darling--night and day--night and +day!" He brought his bright face close to hers. + +She found breath to say, "What has happened to you, Dan--what?" + +"I don't know," he gravely replied. "I guess I came up pretty close +against it last night; things got into their right places, and then and +there I knew you were the girl for me, and I the man for you, rich or +poor." + +He kissed her and she passively received his caresses, so passively, so +without making him any sign, that his magnificent assurance began to be +shaken--his arms fell from her. + +"It's quite true," he murmured, "I am poor." + +She led him to the lounge and made him sit down by her. He waited for +her to speak, but she remained silent, her eyes fixed on her frail +hands, ringless--tears forced themselves under her eyelids, but she kept +them back. + +"I guess," she said in a veiled tone, "you've no idea all I've been +through, Dan, since I stood there in the church choir." + +American though he was, and down on foreign customs--he wouldn't fight a +duel--he got down on his knees and put his arms around her from there. + +"I know what you are, all right, Letty. You are an angel." + +She gave way and burst into tears and hid her face on his shoulder, and +sobbed. + +"I believe you do--I believe you do. You've saved my soul and my life. +I'll go with you--I'll go--I'll go!" + + * * * * * + +Later she told him how she would learn to cook and sew, and that +together they would stand in the door of their shack at sunset, or that +she would stand and watch for him to come home; and, the actress in her +strong, she sprang up for a minute and stood shielding her eyes with her +slender hand to show him how. And he gazed, charmed at her, and drew her +back to him again. + +"You've made dad's words come true." Dan wouldn't tell her what they +were--he said she wouldn't understand. "I nearly had to die to learn them +myself," he said. + +She leaned toward him, a slight shadow crossed her face as if memories +laid a darkling wing for a moment there. Such shadows must have passed, +for she kissed him of her own accord on the lips and without a sigh. + +Side by side they sat for a long time. Higgins softly opened a door, saw +them, and stepped back, unheard. + +Ruggles came in, and his steps in the soft carpet made no sound; and he +looked at the pair long and tenderly before he spoke. They sat there +before him like children, holding hands. + +Letty Lane's hat lay on the floor. Her hair was a halo around her pale, +charming face; she had caught youth from the boy, she was laughing like +a girl--they were making plans. And as the subject was Love, and there +was no money in the question, and as there was sacrifice on the part of +each, it is safe to think that old Dan Blair's son was planning to +purchase those things that stay above ground and persist in the hearts +of us all. + + THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl From His Town, by Marie Van Vorst + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL FROM HIS TOWN *** + +***** This file should be named 36961.txt or 36961.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/9/6/36961/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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