Chapter 14

I thought, when we came to the end of the rose-tunnel, we should find ourselves in a big open space in the marquee, but when the tunnel stopped, we were in a narrow alley between tall green bushes, set so thickly and so close together that we couldn't see what was on the other side. Above us, instead of the canvas roof of the marquee (which must have been over all), a violet mist seemed to float, with a very faint, soft light filtering through it, like blue moonlight. I suppose it must have been ever and ever so many thicknesses of blue gauze, with shaded lights hanging above, but the effect was mysterious and alluring.

We had only gone on a little way when we arrived at a tiny house built apparently of red flowers; and there was a red light coming out of the one little window. "The Witch of the Woods Lives Here," said a card on the door.

We pushed, and inside was a room, with a young woman in white, crystal-gazing as hard as she could. She had also a velvet cushion on which you laid your hand, and she told your character and your fortune. Some people in historical dress were ready to come out just as we were going in, and one of them said, "It's Madame Cortelyn. Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox must have given her at least five hundred dollars or she wouldn't have come a step."

We had our hands done, and the Witch of the Woods told me that I had come from "across the water," but that I would marry a man on this side; and then she saw some one in the crystal who looked so exactly like Potter Parker, that I wished I had stopped outside her red house.

After this, we kept losing ourselves in different green-walled paths, and suddenly coming on booths where variety entertainments were going on; or funny cardboard pagodas, where celebrated Japanese artists did your portrait in five minutes on rice paper; or silk tents with conjuring shows. And there was a place where you fished in a small round pond with magnets and caught little metal frogs with jewels in their heads, which you picked out. Farther on was a miniature Eastern bazaar where girls in gauze danced, while you drank Turkish coffee and pushed spoonfuls of sherbet under the lace on your mask. And there was a kinematograph entertainment of a bull fight, which I wouldn't look at, and some martyrs being reluctantly eaten by lions; and Otero dancing.

All the masked people we met were enjoying themselves very much, and saying this was the best thing for years. And it really was fun, but at last I thought we must have seen it all, and I wanted to go out. Besides, I was tired of being with Potter, who would be sentimental, though I begged him not.

"How do you propose to escape?" he asked. "This is a Maze. The proper dodge in a Maze is to be lost, and I am lost. So are you. We're lost together."

"But I want to be found now," said I. "We've been lost long enough. There are lots of other things to do."

"And there's all night to do them in," said Potter. "I daresay we shall be lost for an hour or so yet. We've been wandering around from one path to another, and we've never seen the same thing twice, so perhaps there's a lot more to explore."

"You must know," I said. "It wasn't kept a secret from you, as it was from me. You must have been through this Maze heaps of times, and of course you know the way out."

"If I did, I've forgotten it," Potter coolly remarked. Then he changed his tone. "You make me forget everything, Betty--everything but yourself."

"You're not to call me Betty!" I said crossly, for I was tired of having conversations turned like that. And I thought that I would be having much more fun with someone else; for what is the good of wearing a mask, if you are only to talk with people you know?

"There's something else I'd a great deal sooner call you," he half whispered. "Come into this little dell where the fountain is, and the orange trees, and let me tell you."

"I don't want to know," I said.

"Yes, you do. Come along, anyhow, and I'll pick you an orange. Perhaps there'll be something nice inside it, like there was in the toad's head."

I wasn't to be bribed in that way, but he took hold of my hand, and pulled, so that I had to go with him unless I wished to resist and be silly. Several people were coming towards us round the twist of the path, and one tall man ahead of the others, dressed very plainly like a Puritan, was looking hard at us. Rather than make a scene, I went quietly with Potter; but as soon as he had whisked me into the little dell with the orange trees and the fountain, he pushed one of the trees, and it moved forward in a groove, so as to block up the entrance and hide the dell from anyone who walked along the path.

"That's not a bad trick, is it?" said he. "I had that arranged on purpose."

"On purpose for what?" I was silly enough to ask.

"To bring you here, and get you to myself. This is Betty's Bower; but nobody knows it except you and me."

With that, he pulled off his mask, and made as if he would help me to do the same with mine, but I stepped back, and almost tumbled over into the fountain. Perhaps I would, if he hadn't caught me round the waist; but instead of letting go when he had steadied me on my feet, he drew me closer to him. I gave a twist and a little angry cry, and just then, to my joy, someone from outside pushed the orange tree back in its groove so as to leave an opening again.

I darted out, and caught a glimpse of the tall Puritan man who was apparently engaged in pulling the tree forward so as to close the gap and shut Potter in.

It was so quick, that I hardly had time to understand whether it was being done for my sake or not, but I didn't stop to think; I simply ran. I met harlequins, and queens, kings and columbines hunting in couples (the green alleys were only broad enough for two), but I pushed by them and went flitting down path after path, though voices called after me, and people pretended to shiver with cold as Frost passed.

Then, suddenly, "I think this is a way out," said a voice I knew, speaking just behind me. It was the voice of my brown man. I could have recognised it among thousands. But when I looked, it was the tall figure of the grey Puritan who had helped me to get away from Potter Parker.

I didn't answer a word; not even to say "Thank you"; or "Is this really you, Mr. Brett?" I just went in the direction he said, and in another minute I was out under the Italian pergola, draped with roses and wistaria, that runs for a long way overlooking the sea. Then I glanced over my shoulder, and he was there, but hesitating as if he hadn't decided whether to come with me, or go back.

When I saw this, I did stop and mumble in a low voice, "It _is_ you, isn't it, Mr. Brett?"

"Yes," he answered. "I hope you forgive me?"

"Oh, I thank you," said I. "I--wanted to come away. But how did you know that--and how did you know me?"

"I couldn't help seeing that you were being pretty well forced to do something you didn't want to do," he replied, coming a few steps nearer; and there seemed to be nobody under the pergola except just us two. "I don't suppose I had any right to be angry at seeing that happen, but I was. So I did what I did on the spur of the moment. As for recognising you--I--well, you're rather tall, you know, and have a way of holding your head that--that isn't easily forgotten."

"I'm sorry I'm so badly disguised," I said, laughing. "But I'm glad _you_ knew me. I'm so glad, too, that I'm out here. I began to have--quite a stifled feeling. How lovely it is in this pergola, isn't it? Do you think we might walk for a few minutes--and get cool?"

"_May_ I walk with you?" he asked, in a humble sort of way, that gave me a funny little pain in my heart.

"Please do," I said quickly, and as cordially as I could--far more cordially than I would have spoken to any man in Mrs. Ess Kay's set. "It's nice to see you here to-night."

"You must be very much surprised."

I had said "Yes," before I stopped to think; and then I was sorry, because it showed that I was thinking he did not belong in such a scene as this. But it was too late to go back, so I went on, instead. "It's a good surprise."

"It's more than kind of you not quite to have forgotten a waif like me," he said.

"I shall never forget you," said I. "Why, of course, I couldn't." And I noticed that my voice sounded quite earnest, just as I felt; but I wasn't sure that I ought to let him know--even if he was poor and unlucky--that I did feel so sincerely about it. "There's Vivace, you know, for one reason."

"What about Vivace?"

"Oh, you needn't pretend; because I was sure you gave him to me, and I wanted so much to write to that Club and thank you, only I thought as you had put no name, perhaps I'd better not. I must tell you now, though; I can't think how you came to be so kind."

"It was one of the greatest pleasures I have ever had. _You_ were kind not to be offended with me. I didn't mean to take a liberty. I thought you would like the little chap."

"I love him dearly. Often I should have been dreadfully homesick if it hadn't been for him. He always seems to understand if I feel gloomy, and he does his dear little brindled best to cheer me up."

"Vivace is a lucky and happy dog."

"But don't you miss him?"

"No. For I like to think that you have him. You see, you were very kind to me, when I was in a hard position, and a good deal down on my luck. There was nothing I could do to show how I appreciated it--until I thought of Vivace. It was our little talk on the dock, about 'finding a lost dog,' that put the idea into my head."

"I guessed as much," said I, laughing. "It was that made me sure at once who it was I had to thank for Vivace. And--I was glad he had been yours. After what I'd seen you do on board ship, you know, I--I honoured you. And I feel proud to think that--we are friends."

"You think of me as your friend?" he asked, in a voice that showed he was glad, or excited, or something that wasn't quite calm.

"Indeed, I do think of you so," I assured him. "And you've proved your friendship for me three times. Once on the dock. Once, by giving up dear Vivace for me. And now again to-night, when you came to my rescue. I was--really bored in there, you know. And people seem to give themselves so much liberty in--in their jokes when they're masked."

"I have to thank the masks for being at Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's house to-night," said Jim Brett. "You must be wondering how they let me in, considering that, on account of the masks, everybody had to show their invitation cards at the gates. I had mine all right. But--there are such things as newspaper reporters, as you know to your sorrow. I don't say I _am_ here in that capacity; but I leave you to draw your own conclusions."

"What fun!" I exclaimed.

"It is fun now; I had no right to dare, but I did dare to hope that I might have a glimpse of you. I was sure that I should recognise you."

"If I'd dreamed of your being here, I should have recognised you," I said. "You're taller than any other man here, I think."

"Men grow tall in the West, where I come from."

"And strong."

"Yes, and strong, too--thank God."

"And brave."

"Men are brave all the world over."

"I should think there are none braver than you, Mr. Brett," I said.

"It's glorious for a man like me to hear such kind words from a girl like you, though I don't deserve them," he answered. "But I shall try to deserve them. All my life I shall be better for having heard them from your lips. You can hardly guess what it is to me. Perhaps the thing that comes nearest to it, would be if a prisoner for life in some dark pit heard a voice of sympathy speaking to him--actually to him--from a high white star."

"Oh, don't speak of yourself as a prisoner in the dark!" I cried.

"What else am I, when I stop to reflect how hopelessly I must be removed by circumstances from glorious heights--where stars shine."

"But there can be nothing in your circumstances, Mr. Brett," I insisted, eagerly, "which need remove you from _any_ heights. I wonder you--so brave and strong, and an American, too--can say that of yourself. Why, you can reach anything, do anything you really wish, if you just want it enough."

"Do you, an English girl, a daughter of the aristocracy, tell me that?" he asked.

"I do. As if that makes any difference--any real, _true_ difference, I mean, when it comes to the heart of things. Oh, I've been thinking of such matters a great deal lately. I suppose because I'm among Americans. It must be that which has put the subject so much in my head."

"Tell me what you have been thinking."

"Oh, I can hardly tell. But for one thing, I've begun to see that a man--a man like you, for instance, Mr. Brett--oughtn't to call himself unlucky because he's poor, and has perhaps not been able to have as many advantages as richer men. He ought simply to feel that he has it in him to make himself equal in every way with the highest."

"You mean, he can 'hustle,' as the saying is with us, and get rich, so as to stand on an equality with millionaires?"

"No, it wasn't money I was thinking about. I've met a good many millionaires since I've been here, but I've seen none whom you need look upon as your superior. What I mean is that you've only to be ambitious enough, and not _feel_ that you're handicapped by your start, to attain to what you want in life--yes, whatever it may be."

"You mean all this, Lady Betty?" he asked quickly. "You have as much faith as that in me?"

"Yes," I answered; and the stars and the sea seemed to sing with my thoughts. I felt uplifted, somehow. It was a wonderful sensation, which it would be impossible to describe. But I had an exciting impression that Jim Brett shared it. The music of the Hungarian band flowed out from the house, and beat in my blood. His voice sounded as if it beat in his, too.

"You can't dream what my ambitions are, or maybe you wouldn't say that."

"I'm sure they would only be noble ones."

"It's true; they are noble. Yet you might not approve. But they're part of my life. I couldn't give them up now, and live."

"I should like to hear about them," I said, almost more to myself than to him.

"Some day, if we meet again--and I mean we shall, since you have called me friend--perhaps you will let me tell you about them. I shall ask you to listen. But not now. I daren't now. The time hasn't come. Only promise me this, Lady Betty; that you won't forget me; that you'll think of me kindly, sometimes."

"I do think of you very often," I said, "and talk about you to Vivace. Poor little Vivace. _He_ doesn't forget. How he did whimper when I had to drag him away from you that day in the wistaria arbour at Central Park. _This_ isn't unlike that arbour, is it? There's wistaria here too. I believe I shall always think of that day when I see wistaria. It is odd we should meet again next time in a place so much the same--and just as unexpectedly."

"Just as unexpectedly," echoed Mr. Brett, in an odd, thoughtful tone. "It's wonderful that we should meet at all--considering everything." Then he laughed, rather bitterly, I thought. "Aren't you afraid of me, Lady Betty, after your experience of journalists--since I've half hinted to you I may be acting in that capacity to-night?"

"Afraid of you?" I repeated, laughing. "As if I could be. I would trust you in everything."

As I said that, a lot of people came out of the Maze in the marquee, by the exit Mr. Brett had found for me. They streamed into the dimly lighted pergola, in their fantastic costumes, laughing and talking, and the beautiful peace of the blue night--broken only by the throb of distant music--was gone completely.

I had thought of taking off my mask, but I was glad now that I'd kept it on.

They came towards us, all in great spirits, having a game of "Follow my Leader," and their leader, a Chinese Mandarin, was offering to guide them to the Cave of Aladdin. I was glad that the Flame Spirit wasn't in the gay procession. Evidently he had missed me, and gone some other way; or else he was too angry to wish to find me again.

The crowd stopped to speak to us, making jokes in disguised voices. Some of the things they said made me feel that it would be uncomfortable to linger behind with the Puritan, when they had passed on.

"Let's join them, shall we?" I asked. "They're going to Aladdin's Cave. Wouldn't you like to see it?"

"Yes," he said. And we followed the wild party, at a discreet distance.

We went into the house again, by a roundabout way, and it wasn't until we were in the big hall that we learned just how Aladdin's Cave was to be found. On a background of dark red flowers, made into a great shield and hung over a door, glittered and scintillated three words, in electric light, "To Aladdin's Cave." The letters had been lighted up only since I had been gone, for I suppose the idea was to make everyone go into the Maze first.

We had to pass through several rooms and corridors, all of which had been emptied of furniture and lined with canvas scenery cleverly painted to illustrate events in the story of Aladdin. Everything was shown up to the time that Aladdin went down into the Cave at the bidding of the magician disguised as his "uncle"; and then came the entrance of the cave itself, which was done in imitation rockwork. But I knew that it was the way down to the cellar. Either the stairs had been removed, or else covered up with a theatrical kind of embankment, that made a winding path, twisting back and forth under a roof of the imitation rock, and sloping always downward. At the bottom was a screen of spun glass, made to look like a falling cataract of bright water, and until you had passed out from behind it you saw nothing except a glow of rosy light filtering through the transparent glass. But when you did come out, unless you were a stick or a stone, you couldn't resist giving an "Oh!" of surprised admiration.

The whole cellar--at least all of it that was left visible--had been turned into a fairy cave of jewels. The walls and ceiling looked like rocks studded with blazing rubies and flashing diamonds. The rough pillars which supported the floor of the house above were great sparkling stalactites and stalagmites. The cemented floor was covered with sand that glittered like diamond dust, and there were fruit trees and rose bushes, rows of tall hollyhocks, and buds of tulips all apparently made of illuminated jewels, something like the transformation scene in a Pantomime they once took me to see--only a hundred times prettier.

At the far end of the Cave a bright red light kept coming and going, but I couldn't see by what it was made, because of the laughing crowd collected round it. We went nearer, and as others moved away we took their places, so that at last we saw what caused the light and made the great attraction for the people.

It was a giant lamp of a strange shape, standing up to the height of four or five feet from the floor, on a pedestal; and behind it stood the Genie, a fearful and wonderful apparition who said things, in a deep bass voice, which made everybody shout with laughter. "It's Fred Kane, the great Funny Man," said somebody.

The Genie's witticisms came whenever anyone rubbed the lamp, which each person was requested to do, as he or she approached. While it was being rubbed the magic lamp flared up, and gave out the bright red light we'd seen at a distance, and simultaneously the Genie took something from a huge sequin covered bag he had looped over one of his arms. If the person who rubbed the lamp was a man, he dipped into the left hand bag; if a woman, he dived into the right hand one. Each time a beautiful trinket came out, and was presented with a low bow and an excruciatingly funny speech, suitable to the character which the person had undertaken for the evening. His wit never failed.

Mr. Brett and I went up together. The Genie crossed arms and grabbed something for us out of both his bags at the same time. Then, by mistake, he gave me the thing from the left hand bag, and Mr. Brett the one from the right. We walked away to let others have their chance, looking at the presents we had got. It was funny, they both happened to be rings.

Mine was twisted bands of platinum and gold, forming a knot to hold a cabuchon sapphire. His was a thin setting for seven stones, set in a straight row; diamond, emerald, amethyst, ruby, emerald, sapphire, topaz.

"Yours is meant for a woman, and mine for a man," I said. "He got them out of the wrong bags. But they're both pretty, and so queer."

"Will you--shall we change?" he asked.

"Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that," I hurried to say. "I can give mine to my brother when I go home. And you--there must be some one----"

"I've no sister. And there's no one else," said Mr. Brett. "Do have it. You see, I couldn't get it on my little finger. And won't you keep the big one too? It isn't as if I were like Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's other guests----"

I couldn't bear to hear him say that, so I broke in and insisted that he should have the ring. "She would want you to have it of course, if she knew," I said. "And besides, I want you to, which is something."

"It's everything," he answered.

Then we changed rings, and I told him that I hoped his would bring him luck, glorious luck.

"Do you wish it may give me what I want most in the world?" he asked; and I said that I did.

"What do you wish mine may give me?" I went on.

"What do you want most? Great wealth?" he questioned me.

I shook my head.

"To have the world at your feet?"

"I shouldn't know what to do with it."

"To have the one you love best on earth love you?"

"I should have to stop and think which one it is."

"Then I wish that you may love the one who loves you best on earth and more than all the world."

Just as I was looking up, surprised at his tone more than his words, there came a burst of music, and part of the wall, with the platform on which the Genie and his Lamp had been standing, rolled away. The other big room of the cellar was revealed, with quantities of little tables all laid out for supper, and the walls covered with smilax and roses. In the middle of this new room was a huge illuminated ship of ice, in a green sea.

Everybody exclaimed and laughed in their surprise at such an unexpected transformation. Now was the time for unmasking, of course, and there were shrieks of surprise and amusement as people discovered who their companions really were. For a minute--I'm sure it couldn't have been more--I forgot Mr. Brett, to stare at the great glittering ice ship. When I turned to speak to him, he was gone. And whether he vanished on purpose, because he didn't want to unmask in a company of strange people, or whether he was separated from me by the sudden press of the crowd, I don't know. I suppose I shall never know. I only know that I lost him, and that I was immediately surrounded by other men, saying nice things about my costume, wanting me to have supper with them, and asking me for dances afterwards.

The rest of the night went by with a wild rush. We didn't stop dancing till four, we young people; and I believe the older ones played bridge. We had a second supper served upstairs towards dawn, and when the last people went away, it was broad and glorious daylight.

"Well, deah," said Sally, cosily, when everyone had gone, and she had come into my room to help me undress. "Had you a good time?"

"Splendid!" said I, sighing with joy. "I'm dancing still--in my head. My first ball!"

"Katherine doesn't call it a ball. But that's a detail. Had you any proposals?"

"Oh, Sally, how came you to think of such a thing? But isn't it _too_ extraordinary? I had three."

"Why extraordinary?"

"Because I hardly knew the men!"

"Americans make up their minds quickly about what they want."

"So Mr. P--So I've been told."