Chapter 23

A PLAGUE OF REPORTERS.

Saturday evening, Jan. 18.

Since Monday I have left the house but once. The Judge has given me a microscope so that I may study at home instead of going to Barnard; and to please him I make a pretence of cutting sections from the plants in Aunt's conservatory; but oh, it's so dull, so dull! Or would be but for my happy thoughts. It isn't interest in apical cell or primary meristem that makes me fret to return to Prof. Darmstetter!

It's all on account of reporters that I am shut up like a state secret or a crown jewel. From daylight until dark, men with pencils and notebooks, cardboard-bearing artists and people with hand cameras have watched the house; and it's so tiresome.

The siege had already begun when Mrs. Baker came to my room the morning after the Opera, but I knew nothing about it. I couldn't understand why she scolded with such vehemence upon finding me writing in this little book instead of lying in bed; why she exclaimed so nervously over my escape and the horrors of jumping from windows, or sliding down ropes, or of being hurried along in fire panics until I was crushed to death.

"Why, you talk as if there had _been_ a fire," I cried, kissing her.

Millions of fires have flamed and roared and sunk and died again; but never before has there been a Me!

The dear fussy little woman said that John had been telephoning inquiries. I could see that she wished to keep me in my room, and finally, at some laboured excuse for withholding the morning papers, I understood that she and John were hiding something; she is so transparent!

"You must be calm, Nelly, dear; you mustn't excite yourself," she chirped anxiously.

"Unless I see the papers, I shall have a fever, a high fever," I threatened; "I must--oh, I must see every word about last evening!"

At last the _Record_ and the _Messenger_ came upstairs already opened to the critiques of the new opera. Mrs. Baker wished to read aloud, but I almost snatched the papers from her; my eyes couldn't go fast enough down the columns. But in neither sheet did I find more than a reference to a "senseless alarm" that marred the rendition of "Christofero."

My cheeks flamed with annoyance. It was the reporters who were senseless; they had seen men adoring the wonder of this century, and had not flashed news of it--of me--to all the world!

Aunt couldn't understand. She thought to comfort me by saying that my share in the disturbance would never be suspected; she unblushingly averred that no one had seen me; she begged me to rest, to forget my fright, not to be distressed by the newspapers.

Distressed? Not I! Events had been too startling for me to heed the stupidity that whined over missing a few bars of a silly overture when _I_ was in sight. Indeed I had been frightened; yet why should not the world demand to look upon me? I thought only of hurrying to Prof. Darmstetter that he might share my triumph. But Aunt wouldn't hear of my leaving the house; scarcely of my coming down stairs. Fluttering into my room she would bring me some fruit, a novel; then she would trot away again with an air of preoccupation.

I was getting out of patience at all this mystery, when, during one of her brief absences, Ethel tapped at my door, and a minute later Kitty Reid dashed at me, while in the doorway appeared Cadge, scratching with one hand in a black bag.

"Oh, Helen, Helen," cried Kitty, laughing and half crying, "_have_ you seen Cadge's exclusive?"

"Cadge! You were there? Cadge!"

"Sure," said that strange creature, her keen eyes glancing about my room; "you don't deserve half I've done for you--not letting me know beforehand--."

"Or me!" Kitty broke in. "Oh, I've have given a--a tube of chrome yellow to see you!"

"--but we've made the Row look like nineteen cents in a country where they don't use money. See you've got the fossils." Cadge nodded towards the papers I had been reading. "But the _Star's_ worth the whole--now where the mischief--"

"Cadge! Show me!"

From the black bag she drew several sheets of paper, upon each of which was pasted a cutting from a newspaper, with pencilled notes in the margin; a handkerchief, a bunch of keys, six pointed pencils, a pen-knife, a purse, rather lean, a photograph of two kittens.

"There," she said, relieved at sight of these, "knew I couldn't have lost 'em. Brooklyn woman left 'em $5,000 in her will. They'll stand me in a good little old half column. Now--where--ah, here you are!"

She unfolded a _Star_ clipping and proudly spread it upon my knee.

"There, Princess! That's the real thing!"

I caught my breath at the staring headlines.

BEAUTY OF A WOMAN THREATENS A PANIC AT THE OPERA HOUSE.

PRESENCE OF MISS HELEN WINSHIP CREATES SENSATION THAT MIGHT HAVE RESULTED IN A PERILOUS STAMPEDE.

_Alarm of Fire During the Third Scene of "Christofero Colombo"_

GREAT AUDIENCE AT THE METROPOLITAN ENDANGERED BY FRENZY OVER REMARKABLY LOVELY GIRL.

"Hot stuff, ain't it?" said Cadge, beaming with satisfaction. "I never like that Opera assignment--dresses and society, second fiddle to the music man--but I wouldn't have missed last night! Minute I saw you in the Van Dam box I knew there'd be the biggest circus I ever--why--why, Helen--"

The horror of it--the pitiful vulgarity! My father, the University folks--all the world would know that I had been made notorious by a--that I--oh, the tingling joy, the rapture--that I was the loveliest of women!

"Cadge! Oh, Cadge!"

I threw myself into her arms.

"Why, Helen, what's this? Can't stand for the headlines? Built in the office and I know they're rather--"

"They're _quite_" interrupted Kitty. "Of course the Princess wouldn't expect a first page scare. But cheer up, child; there's worse to come."

The girls were soothing me and fussing over me when Aunt Frank opened the door. At her surprised look I brushed away my tears of joy. I understood everything now--her uneasiness, the long telephonic conferences, my confinement to the house.

"Aunt," I managed to say, "here is Kitty come to condole with me and congratulate me; and this is my friend, Miss Bryant of the _Star_. You remember? She was here at the tea."

"A reporter!"

"Oh, I had to know! Don't worry. Cadge, dear, did nobody but you see me?"

"The fossils never have anything they can't clip," said Cadge in the tone of absorption that her work always commands. "I'm surprised myself at the _Echo_, though it did notice that a 'Miss Winslow' fainted in the Van Dam box. But haven't you had reporters here--regiments? Expected to find you ordering Gatlings for the siege."

"We're bombarded!" said Aunt. "With--er--"

"Rapid fire questions," suggested Ethel.

"--but the servants have their orders. Of course," Aunt added uneasily, "we're glad to see any friend of Nelly's."

"Oh, by the way, I'm interviewing you," Cadge announced; _Star_ wants to follow up its beat. You haven't talked?"

"Why, no; but--do I have to be interviewed?"

Just at first the idea was a shock, I must confess.

"Do you _have_ to be interviewed? Wish all interviewees were as meek. Why, of course, Helen, you'll want to make a statement. I 'phoned the _Star_ photographer to meet me here, but he's failed to connect. However, Kitty can sketch--"

"Oh, Miss Bryant!" wailed Aunt. "An interview! How frightful! Can't you let her off?"

"Why, I don't exactly see how--though I might--" Cadge deliberated, studying Aunt's face rather than mine, "--might wait and see the red extras. I know how she feels, Mrs. Baker--they're always that way, at first--and I'm anxious to spare her, but--I can't let the _Star_ be beaten. If I were you--"

She turned to me, hesitated a moment, then burst out impulsively:--

"If I were you, I wouldn't say a word! Not--one--blessed--word! I'd pique curiosity. There! That _is_ treason! Why, I'd give my eye teeth, 'most, for a nice signed statement. But I'll wait--that is, if you really, honest-Injun, prefer."

"You're very kind," said Aunt Frank, with a sigh of bewildered relief. "We'd give anything, of course--_anything_!--to avoid--"

"Mind," Cadge admonished me as she rose to go. "I'm running big risks, letting you off; the office relied on me. If you do talk to anybody else, or even see anybody, you'll let me know, quick? And if you don't want to give up, look out for a little fat girl with blue eyes and a baby stare; she'll be here sure, crying for pictures; generally gets 'em, first time, too. Snuffles and dabs her eyes and says: 'If I go back without any photograph, I'll lose my j-o-o-o-b! Wa-a-a-h! Wa-a-a-h! until you do anything to get rid of her. Ought to be on the stage; tears in her voice. I wouldn't do stunts like that, if I never--you will look out, won't you?"

Aunt is so funny, not to have guessed who wrote the _Star_ article. But she never saw it. Her precautions had all been taken at John's officious suggestion over the telephone. Busybody! An interview is nothing so terrible. The world has a right to know about me; and I don't suppose Aunt had an idea how grievously Cadge was disappointed.

No sooner had Cadge left us than Mr. Bellmer, pink and stammering in my presence, and after him the General, called to inquire for me.

It was wonderful to see the change in the strong, self-confident girl's manner. She beamed at my appearance, and her every word was caressing and deferential. The night before had had a magical effect. I was no longer "Diane," the ingenue whom she patronized as well as admired. I was a powerful woman, a great lady.

"Did our Princess enjoy waking this morning to find herself famous?" she asked, echoing Milly's word for me; and then, to Mrs. Baker's horror, she, too, had a tale to tell about reporters; they had been besetting her for information about her companion of the Opera.

"But I never see people of that sort, you know," she said, with an accent that piqued me, though I couldn't help feeling glad that Cadge had gone.

She showered me with messages from Mrs. Marmaduke Van Dam and from Peggy and Mrs. Henry. She had a dozen plans for my entertainment, but Mrs. Baker opposed a flurried negative:--

"We'll run no more risks like last night's; Nelly must stay at home--till folks get used to her."

"Then I can never go anywhere; never!" I cried in despair, yet laughing. It's impossible sometimes not to laugh at Aunt. But Mrs. Van Dam gave me a look that promised many things.

"You won't be left in hiding after such a début; you'll electrify society!" she said; and when she had gone, I wore away the day wondering what she meant, until I could send for the afternoon papers.

I laughed until I cried when they came, and cried until I laughed. The red extras reviewed the occurrence at the Opera from Alpha to Omega, publishing "statements" from ushers who had shown us to our box; from people in the audience and from the cab man who drove us home. And they supplemented their accounts with pen and ink sketches of "Miss Helen Winship at the Opera," evolved from the fallible inner consciousness of "hurry-up artists."

When Uncle came home, he found me reading an interview with him which contained the momentous information that he would say nothing.

"We shall not again forget," he said with a deep sigh of relief, "that

--the face that launched a thousand ships And burned the topless towers of Ilion

--was Helen's. But the Metropolitan still stands. An argument not used on heart-hardened Pharaoh was a plague of press representatives."

I'm afraid he'd had a trying day.

The worst of my day was still to come.

After dinner, when I happened to be alone a minute in the library, Mr. Hynes came in. Oddly enough I'd been thinking about him. I had determined that the next time he called I would for once be self-possessed; I would act as if I had not seen how oddly he conducts himself--now gazing at me as if he would travel round the earth to feast his eyes upon my beauty and now actually shunning Milly's cousin. I was quite resolved to begin afresh and treat him just as cordially as I would any other man:

But the moment he appeared away flew all my wits.

"I think Milly'll be here in a minute," I stammered, and then I stopped, tongue-tied and blushing.

He came towards me, saying abruptly: "May I tell you what I thought when I saw you above us--" I didn't need to ask when or where. "--I thought: The Queen has come to her coronation."

One's own stupid self is so perverse! Of course I meant to thank him for his silent help the night before, but I asked with a rush of nervous confusion:--

"You--were you there?"

I could have suffered torture sooner than own that I had seen him.

"Were you there, Ned?" repeated Milly, blundering into the room. "Why, we didn't see you."

Of all vexatious interruptions! Behind her came John and most of the family.

"The servant of The Presence would fain know if The Presence is well," John said, coming quickly to my side and peering down at me with a dark, worn look upon his face, as if he hadn't slept, and a catch in his voice that irritated me, in spite of his playful words. I knew well enough that his anxiety had been on my account, but it was so unnecessary!

"The child bears up wonderfully," cried my Aunt, before I could answer; "but to-morrow'll tell the story; to-morrow she'll feel the strain."

Then they all broke out talking at once. John drew a big chair for me to the fire, and there was such an ado, adjusting lights and fending me with screens.

"You _are_ well?" John asked, obstinately planting himself between me and the others.

"Perfectly. How absurd you are!"

It was so ridiculous that I should be coddled after the triumph of my life, as if something awful had happened to me.

I had felt annoyed all day, so far as anything can now annoy me, by John's too solicitous guardianship, and it vexed me anew when he began to pile up cautions against this and against that--to warn me against going out alone upon the street, and to urge care even in my intercourse with Cadge. He is quicker than my Aunt; he divined the source of the _Star_ article, and he almost forbade me to cleave to such an indiscreet friend.

"Oh, last night won't happen again," I said carelessly; "and you don't know Cadge; she's as good as the wheat."

I wasn't listening to him. I was twisting his ring impatiently on my finger and watching in the play of the fire a vision of the great Opera House, the lights, the jewels, the perfumes, the white, wondering faces.

"Can't you see, Nelly," replied John, with irritation, "that this Bryant woman's article practically accuses you of risking lives to gratify a whim of vanity?"

"Why, John Burke, how can you say such a thing?" exclaimed Aunt Frank, overhearing his words and as usual answering only the last half dozen. "Risking lives! Poor Nelly!"

"I didn't say it," John patiently explained; "but other people--"

"Nobody else will talk about Nelly's vanity. Why, she hasn't a particle. As for the papers, I won't have one in the house--"

"Except the _Evening Post_?" suggested Aunt Marcia.

"Which Cadge says isn't a newspaper," I contributed.

"--so we needn't care what they say."

I was ready to laugh at John's discomfiture, but the possible truth of his words struck me, and I cried out:

"People won't really believe I did it on purpose, whatever the papers say--that I went there just to be looked at! Oh, that would be horrible! Horrible!"

"Of course not," John said with curt inconsistency to bring me comfort; but I had a reply more sincere--a fleeting glance only, but it said: "The Queen can do no wrong."

"Oh, I hope you are right; I hope no one thought that," I said confusedly in answer to the glance. And then I bent over the Caesar that Boy laid upon my lap, while Uncle asked:--

"Well, my son, is there mutiny again in the camp of our Great and Good Friend, Divitiacus the Aeduan?"

A few minutes later John said good-night with a ludicrous expression of pained, absent-minded patience. I didn't go to the door with him; I scarcely looked up from Boy's ablative absolutes.

Oh I treated him shabbily. And yet--why did he use every effort that day to keep me ignorant of my own rightful affairs, only to come at me himself with a club, gibbering of newspapers?

Why, John's absurd! He would have liked to find me--not ill, of course, but overcome by the Opera experience, dependent on him, ready to be shielded, hidden, petted, comforted. He can not see me as I am--a strong, splendid woman, ready to accept the responsibilities of my beauty.