CHAPTER IV.

MARION DEFENDS HERSELF FROM INSULT.

“Now, Mr. Clayton Graham, I’ll spoil your white dove for you a trifle, I fancy,” muttered Carlotta under her breath, as she half closed her eyes and looked scornfully at Marion.

Aloud she merely said: “Some friends of mine, Ila. Don’t disturb yourself, dear; you will find them very agreeable.”

It was fully a minute before Marion could control her anger sufficiently to rise and confront her hostess with any degree of calmness, and even when she did, her cheeks glowed like carnations, and her wide, gray eyes had grown black as midnight.

She had come to this woman’s home on an errand of sympathy, and now, at midnight, as she was sitting in almost bed-room attire, she was suddenly forced to receive the company of two men whom it was plainly to be seen were both under the influence of liquor.

“Mademoiselle, this is outrageous!” were her first indignant words. “How could you allow them to come in here now. Have you no shame, no atom of decency about you?”

The base woman almost screamed with laughter, as the young girl spoke. She was fairly gloating over her discomfiture, and the two men joined heartily in her merriment.

“Don’t be frightened, birdie!” said one of the men familiarly, as they both stepped inside and closed the door behind them. “We won’t hurt such a pretty creature as you are. No, indeed, we’ve only dropped in to admire your beauty.”

“Yes, and to help eat Carlotta’s welsh rarebit,” said the other, going straight to the woman and kissing her. “So glad you invited us, old girl, make as big a one as you can, for we are both hungry and thirsty.”

“I’m hungry for a bite of those red lips,” said the other fellow, lurching over and putting his hand on Marion’s bare shoulder.

In an instant the young girl sprang back and put the width of the room between them.

“If you dare to touch me I will kill you,” she cried sharply, at the same time snatching a small ivory handled revolver from Carlotta’s dressing table.

“I believe you would,” said the man, staring at her admiringly. “By gad! but you are a beauty! How I would like to tame you!”

“What does ail you, Ila?” said Carlotta, walking toward Marion and speaking very coldly. “Put up that thing, dear, and come and sit down. These gentlemen are my friends—they will not harm you.”

“If you expected them here you had no right to invite me,” said the magnificent girl, hotly. “You have inveigled me here for some evil purpose, Carlotta!”

She did not move from her position nor lay down her weapon, and there was a flash in her eyes that warned the woman to be careful.

“I invited them here to meet you,” Carlotta said, very suavely. “They have admired your beauty and wanted to make your acquaintance, and I must say you are treating them in a very extraordinary manner.”

Marion looked at her coldly and held her head a trifle higher.

“I’m in the habit of choosing whom I shall meet,” she said, quietly, “and I do not care to extend my circle of acquaintances to this class of society.”

“Beware!” cried the now angry woman with a vicious hiss. “I said they were my friends. You had better not insult them!”

As the two women stood glaring at each other the men watched them curiously. Such an extraordinary spectacle had sobered them a little.

Marion, young, slight, girlish in her trailing white robe; the other voluptuous, sensual, even coarse, in her negligé of flaming scarlet. It was a spectacle of virtue confronted by vice—of innocence menaced by wanton evil.

When Marion spoke again her voice vibrated strangely and she was fingering the little revolver nervously.

“I hope and believe your friends are more honorable than you are, mademoiselle!” she said, distinctly, “for I doubt if either of them would dare insult a respectable girl, while you have deliberately laid a trap for me—for Heaven alone knows what diabolical motive.”

For just a moment Carlotta looked ashamed, but she promptly recovered, and her frame fairly quivered with anger.

“Put that weapon down and dress yourself,” she said, with a sneer crossing her face. “Your dress is in the bed-room. I shall be glad to have you leave me.”

Marion turned toward the bed-room door, still grasping the pistol.

When she reached the doorway she turned and faced them, throwing her head back with a motion of superb defiance.

“If either of you dare to cross this threshold, look out!” she said briefly, but with unmistakable decision.

As she was hurrying into her street dress she heard the three whispering together. The next second there was a scream from the woman and a perfect volley of curses.

Clayton Graham had suddenly opened the door of the apartment and stood glaring at the trio. With a cry for help Marion bounded out and ran to him.

“Oh, Mr. Graham! Save me!” she cried, half hysterically. “See, I have had to defend myself from those fiends with this pistol. Oh, what am I to think of this wicked woman?”

Clayton Graham looked bewildered for a moment, then a light dawned on his mind—he understood Carlotta’s motive. He had goaded this woman to fury when he spoke to her of Marion’s virtue; now she was doing her best to ruin the young girl’s fair name, and she would have succeeded admirably with one less noble and courageous than Marion.

“So this is your revenge,” he muttered, facing the woman. “You are trying to blacken her good name, you infamous creature!”

The woman answered nothing, she had been caught red-handed. No one knew her better than Clayton Graham—there was no use trying to deceive him in the matter.

“She was weeping in the dressing-room and I spoke to her,” went on Marion, quickly. “She said she was grieving over the loss of a friend and asked me to come home with her, so she would not be so lonely.”

“So she was afraid of being lonely—poor Carlotta,” said the manager with a sneer. “Well, it’s lucky for you, child, that I saw you getting into her carriage. I knew she was up to something, and I called the turn pretty correctly.”

“So that is why I am honored with your presence,” said Carlotta, sarcastically. “You came here to rescue your new sweetheart Ila from the natural vengeance of your old sweetheart Carlotta.”

Clayton Graham looked at her scornfully, but did not deign to reply. Then his glance swept the full length and breadth of her now thoroughly sobered companions.

“I knew you were blackguards and loafers before,” he said, coolly, “but I wouldn’t have believed that drunk or sober you wouldn’t respect an innocent girl. Carlotta must have you in good training, you infamous puppies!”

He offered his arm to Marion and led her out of the apartment.

“Thank goodness I was in time,” he said as they reached the curb, “still, I guess you would have looked out for yourself all right. I wouldn’t want you to come for me armed with even a toy revolver.”

He chuckled good-naturedly as he put Marion into a cab.

“Don’t fail to be on hand to-morrow night,” he said, earnestly. “Your song is the hit of the evening, and the public can’t spare you. Don’t mind about Carlotta. I’ll watch her in future. She’s a tigress all right, but I know her nature.”

Marion thanked him and was soon alighting at her own door. It was nearly two o’clock, and the block where she lived was almost in darkness; as she ran up the steps she felt a trifle nervous.

While she was searching for her latchkey she heard a step behind her. She turned around quickly and confronted a stranger, a small, swarthy man, his face badly scarred and hideous.

“What do you want?” asked Marion with a frightened gasp.

“You,” muttered the fellow instantly, as he laid a long yellow hand on the fair girl’s shoulder.

Marion gave a shriek that awoke the echoes.

In an instant the man turned and fled down the street; he was out of sight before any one responded.