Part 13

“Yes, sir, gone out; both Miss Kathleen and the madam,” she said, with bursting pride. “It was in a cab that I fetched meself from the stable. Some kind of a grand music party, where our young lady was goin’ to play, sir; and they’d not be out of it till after six. No. 6--Fifth Avenue, sir, they told the coachman. Perhaps you’d be knowin’ the house, Mr. Mackintosh?”

Colin, blessing his stupidity in forgetting that this was Kathleen’s important twenty-fifth, retraced his steps. Down fell his air-castle of a quiet hour with her. Vanished his fond imagining of some token from her of sweet half-hidden regret that they had been so long apart. With cruel clearness of sight he beheld the true ambition of her life. By the time he should have taken a slow step higher in his profession, Kathleen would have soared into an empyrean, whither he could not follow. Henceforward a fret and fever for public approbation would possess her young being; she would be forever unfitted to plod through life at a poor man’s side--and, spite of his great love, Colin had no mind to be the appendage of a successful public favorite.

Doggedly, obstinately, the young fellow tramped far uptown, welcoming the sting of wind and snow in his face. Near the confines of the Park he found himself, his bare hands in the pockets of his overcoat, his face reddened with cold, his jaw set, his eyes heavy, brought to a halt before the house indicated to him by the Blair’s voluble maid.

There could be no doubt that a festivity was in progress behind the brick and marble front here presented to the avenue. Over a carpet running out to the curbstone, guests were passing to and from their carriages, beneath the shelter of an awning lighted by pendent lanterns. Spite of the snow, the aperture on either side the tunnel of striped canvas was blocked, not only by footmen comfortably humped in mountains of black fur, but by the lookers-on, who seem to be never tired of this common phase of a city’s pleasuring.

Colin, on the outer edge of one flank of the vagrant army, stood for a while, governed by some impulse he could not have explained. Among his comrades were one or two women and children, miserably clad, content to stand gaping at the show. Colin, to all appearance one of their class, excited no surprise, except that a tawdry girl wearing an old feather boa coquettishly around her throat asked him with some vexation not to go crowding other folks out of the places they had got before he came.

A lady effecting her exit from the house, was met by a young man who had just jumped out of a hansom, whom she greeted in accents maternally affectionate.

“So late, Mr. Thorndyke?” she said, in staccato reproach. “It’s almost over now, and Levitsky will play no more. But Anatolia is just about to sing her last. Nothing would tempt me to leave, but that Nita, poor girl, is at home with a bad throat.”

“It’s a success, then?” said (ignoring Nita) the young man, at whom Colin Mackintosh gazed eagerly, seeking to be convinced of his identity with the thief of the Stradivarius.

He was handsome, golden-haired, open-faced, smiling. What a brave nephew for the old neighbor on the attic landing! But Colin did not know his Christian name, and that--

“Ha, Rupert,” said a man, coming out. “Why are you behind time? There’s a new girl playing on the violin that I know will please your fastidious fancy.”

The lady’s trim little brougham now stopping the way, the two young men aided her footman to introduce her goodly bulk within its open door. At this achievement, the group around the awning uttered an “A--a--h!” of satisfaction, and the carriage drove away.

“Any new violinist that is worth the asking you may count upon at my party on Wednesday night,” said Thorndyke, carelessly. “And as I know the young person in question fairly well, I have little doubt of getting her to do what I wish. If you are _épris_, Clarkson, drop in and I’ll give you a chance at her.”

“All right, old chap, good-by.”

As the two men separated, Colin clenched his fists.

* * * * *

None too soon for Kathleen’s eager ambition had arrived the day of her appearance before an audience that would make or mar her hope of establishing herself as a performer, at semi-private concerts.

Punctual to the hour appointed by her patroness, the rusty cab, that in the eyes of the Blairs’ maid servant had conferred style upon their dwelling by pulling up in front of it, had deposited at the Beaumoris portal the young violinist and her mother.

In a wide hall, beneath orange trees ranged against tapestries of great age and fabulous value, they were received by two automata in claret and silver livery, whose mission on gala days it was to forever point out to guests the way toward distant cloak-rooms. The fiddle-case, no less than the hesitating manner of their entry, betraying our ladies to these potentates, they were hurried with scant courtesy upstairs, and bidden to wait in the morning-room until the pleasure of the mistress concerning them should be ascertained.

Kathleen saw the flush on her mother’s cheek at the moment when Molly caught the gleam in her child’s eye.

“Don’t mind, darling.”

“It’s a mistake, of course, dearest,” were spoken simultaneously. Thereupon the two grasped hands for a little reassuring squeeze, and looked around them comforted.

Neither had seen anything comparable to this boudoir, its fantastic furnishings gathered from every quarter of the globe, its floor strewn with skins and rugs soft as velvet, its litter of costly curios, and cushions heaped upon gilded couches. Kathleen, getting up to pace the room with a free, impatient step, paused oftenest before the clusters of long-stemmed roses that hung their royal heads over the rim of tall crystal vases, and the gems of pictures upon the satin background of the walls. Then standing amazed by the writing-table, with its fittings and toys of beaten silver, she whispered, merrily:

“What a contrast to our war-worn old writing things at home. Upon this blotter one could only write invitations to a Vere de Vere.”

She was interrupted by a Frenchwoman, whose entry, with the glib assurance that Madame would see them shortly, conveyed more of comradeship than of respect.

There was a long wait. Kathleen, wearied of her splendid prison, employed her time by falling upon a novel, of whose contents she possessed herself after the rapid fashion of the reader accustomed to absorb new books.

Mrs. Blair took up no volume. In silence she sat thinking of the days when she and Lottie Earl, now the owner of this stately domicile, had been schoolmates and bosom friends. To shut her eyes to the Beaumoris luxury was to conjure up Lottie’s early home in Clinton Place, whither Molly had often repaired by invitation to spend Saturdays. The sad-colored walls hung with dreary landscapes in oil, upon which no eye was ever seen to cast a fleeting glance; the carpet and curtains flowered garishly, the basement dining-room, the little girls exchanging vows of friendship!

A more tender memory was that of the day when Lottie’s mother had died. Was it not Molly for whom they had sent to soothe and console the terrified child? Molly’s faithful breast upon which Lottie that night had sobbed herself to sleep?

The door again opened. This time it was Mrs. Beaumoris in person, attired for the reception of her guests--Mrs. Beaumoris, perplexed, annoyed, an open letter in her hand. It was an easier matter for this lady to recognize fresh, bright-eyed Molly Christian, who, under the impulse of fond retrospect, now sprang up to greet her, than for Molly to identify her old playmate in this faded woman, with the pale hair elaborately crimped, the cold, restless blue eyes--the prim, unsmiling mouth!

Mrs. Blair’s affectionate words died upon her lips. She faltered, blushed, and drew back with a pang at the plain indication that her surprise was as unwelcome as it was ill-timed.

“You--you--are Miss Blair’s mother?” said Mrs. Beaumoris, in tones she could not make other than thin and chill. “Why was I not told of this before?”

“Because--because,” began Molly, and emotion overpowered her, cutting short her speech.

“My mother thought it could naturally make no difference whose child you had hired to play before your guests,” said Kathleen, sweeping grandly into the breach. “But we are quite ready to go away now, if the arrangement does not please you.”

“Of course not,” exclaimed their hostess, recovering herself. “You will excuse me if I am a little upset, when I tell you that not fifteen minutes ago I received this letter from Madame Claudia’s manager, saying the tiresome creature has a cold and can’t sing this afternoon. All I could do was to send off my maid in a cab, offering Claudia’s terms to Anatolia, who’ll come, I’m pretty sure, if for nothing but a chance to supplant Claudia. Anatolia can’t stand being last year’s favorite, and really she sang adorably in Faust last week, when Claudia was ill, don’t you think so--or did you not chance to hear her? If she comes, she’ll be here for the end of the first half of the programme. Your daughter will play just before her--and will no doubt have encores. Levitsky says everything that is nice of you, Miss--er--you have no professional name, I believe?”

“My name is Kathleen Blair,” said the girl, carrying her head high. Into her heart, for the first time in her life, entered the wandering demon of revenge. She longed to be in a position to return impertinence!

Kathleen’s second number upon the programme of Mrs. Beaumoris’s concert left no doubt of her success. Levitsky himself had conducted her before the audience. Madame Anatolia had coquettishly (in view of the audience) presented the girl with her corsage bouquet of violets. As Kathleen retired again into the little room serving as a harbor for the performers, the musical Miss Beaumoris (who kept outsiders from intruding there), looking very sour, asked Miss Blair to allow Mr. Rupert Thorndyke to compliment her upon her achievement.

Kathleen possessed just enough of the spice of Mother Eve to see that this courtesy on the part of Miss Beaumoris had been wrung from her by the newcomer. Madame Anatolia, whom Mr. Thorndyke saluted with an air of cordial intimacy, leaned over and whispered in the young girl’s ear:

“Take care how you enjoy the dangerous delight of his company in _this_ house. They consider him their own particular property.”

Molly Blair, standing guard over her beautiful and successful child, could not understand the reckless toss of Kathleen’s head, the defiance of her curled lip.

“That lends zest!” Kathleen answered to Anatolia, who smiled. The prima donna, knowing the world as she did, had no objection to enjoy a small comedy behind the scenes. Nor was she disappointed. Rupert Thorndyke, with an air of entire unconsciousness, refrained from again turning toward the musical Miss Beaumoris. With his handsome head bent over the newly risen star, he exerted all his powers of fascination. He was no longer the cool, indifferent person who had dropped in at the Blair’s little supper. Kathleen, excited, inclined to accept him at his face value as a favored frequenter of the Beaumoris’s house, and finding herself not a little under the spell of his charm of manner and sympathy of taste, enjoyed retaining him. Until the time Mrs. and Miss Blair left the Beaumoris’s house he was in close attendance at their side. And when they parted he had obtained Mrs. Blair’s rather dazzled permission to call upon them the next day.

Thorndyke, meaning to put these ladies in their carriage, was recalled on the portal by the imperious Miss Beaumoris, who had, she said, to consult him about a protégé of hers she desired to launch at his musicale on Wednesday.

“Until to-morrow, then,” said Rupert Thorndyke, regretfully turning back.

“Mother, he is absolutely beautiful!” said Kathleen, with a girl’s ecstasy, as they went down to stand on the sodden carpet waiting for their cab to come up. “I think he must be some prince in disguise, or something! Such a noble air, such aristocratic features! And better than all, mummy dearest, he has confided to me that he gives music parties at his rooms, and we’re asked to the next one, on Wednesday.”

“I suppose it is all right,” said Molly. “Or, of course, the Beaumorises would not be having him.”

“They can’t always get him, as you saw,” said Kathleen, laughing. “I hope it was not wicked to be as glad as I was when I saw their two cross faces while he talked so long to me. But never mind the man, mother. There is a joy still greater in store for me. He says if I’ll play for him on Wednesday, I may handle his Stradivarius!”

The cab that had brought Miss Blair to the scene of her triumphs was not forthcoming. The hoarse calls for it up and down the line were unavailing.

“It’s but a step to the street-car, mother, if we run for it,” cried Kathleen, gayly, peering into the half-darkness at the open side of the awning.

“I will take you home, if you don’t mind,” said a voice out of the crowd, and Colin edged his way toward them!

Colin was cold and out of humor. But he had lingered on, and this was his reward.

“How delightful to see you!” exclaimed his lady-love, heartily, and was indorsed by her mamma. “So strange you should be passing just at this minute! It will be ever so much nicer having you, of course. Now let us run, and jam ourselves into the next car.”

Mrs. Blair being seated with the violin-case on her lap, the two young people stood side by side in the crowded aisle of a Madison Avenue car going downtown. Colin heard from his eager comrade the full account of her exhilarating afternoon. It made him sad, even while his generous heart rejoiced in her rejoicing, to see that she was already embarked with sails filled and pennons flying upon the broad sea that would separate them. And he wondered she said nothing about the person whose name excited his keenest curiosity.

Perhaps Kathleen felt guilty of having hailed rather too gladly Mr. Rupert Thorndyke’s distinguished homage. But even Madame Anatolia had told her that his verdict was of importance in the musical world.

“We all bow to him,” had said the good-natured donna; “and he is badly spoiled, of course. Don’t let your feelings get involved, like that poor, ugly Miss Beaumoris. Thorndyke is a mystery--and, I’m afraid, _volage_!”

Kathleen had laughed! She had no fear for herself.

* * * * *

“And you are to keep on with this kind of thing?” now said Colin, discontentedly.

“Of course!” exclaimed she. “Two ladies have already booked my humble services; although one of them _did_ say, in excuse for herself, that anything Mrs. Beaumoris started is sure to run on for a while.”

“I shall never hear you perform,” he went on. “So I’ll try to forget it. If I had my way, I’d carry you off to a cloud-castle and keep you shut in from all these insolent people.”

“But you can’t, Master Colin, so be satisfied,” said she, coloring a little at the fervor he could not exclude from his tones. “And as to hearing me, you shall have an opportunity without delay. Let us see if you are so eager to accept it.”

“I will go wherever you bid me,” he replied, more and more under the charm of her close vicinity.

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

“How one’s eloquence is jolted out of one by this!” she said, as they swung around the curve into the tunnel. “Well, here is your chance. Next week we are invited to a very exclusive musicale. Levitsky’s to be there, and Anatolia--and I’m to play (think of it, Colin!) on a Stradivarius! Wait, don’t interrupt me. We were asked to bring my father, or brother, as our escort, and neither papa, nor Morry can get off, I know. Papa has a club meeting, and Morry’s slaving, day and night, to finish ----’s illustrations. So, if you’ll take us to the party, we’ll be only too much obliged.”

“I will, of course. But tell me--it is a matter of the deepest interest--who is to furnish your Stradivarius?”

“It belongs to the gentleman who is to give the party, and Madame Anatolia says his rooms and collection of musical instruments are ‘things to be seen.’ He is one of the favorites of fortune, and is coming to call on us in form to-morrow--and his name is--Rupert Thorndyke!”

“I thought so,” said Colin, turning pale with excitement, and perhaps a little jealousy.

“What, you, too, know about the wonderful Mr. Thorndyke? Oh! but, of course, I remember, you met him at supper at our house when he brought me those white orchids, and you gave mamma some lilies. Don’t you think his face is like one of the angels in the photograph over papa’s chair in the library? Now, don’t laugh--it is, exactly. Mr. Thorndyke isn’t in the least my idea of a man of fashion. He is almost artless--and his eyes are _so_ blue. Colin, what in the world is the matter with you?”

“I do know something of your Mr. Rupert Thorndyke,” said the young man, his face darkening. “But I shan’t tell you yet. It is borne in upon me that a better occasion will come. And if you really accept my escort, I shall accompany you with pleasure to this gentleman’s party. A poor outsider, more or less, cannot spoil his harmonious entertainment.”

* * * * *

Kathleen, wondering at all this, reached home, the ladies bidding Colin good-by upon their doorstep. That evening, when Malvolio dropped in to see Terence Blair, the news of Kathleen’s advance up the ladder of fame was communicated to him.

“Sure and Kathleen’s the boldest little girl,” commented Granny. “It’s my belief she’d have no fear to be called on to play before the President himself.”

“I know little about Rupert Thorndyke,” said Terence; “but there’s no doubt he will have only the best talent in his sling. But you, Malvolio, who know everything--”

“Excepting the reason for Catullus Clarke,” interpolated the art critic.

“--should be able to define for us the place of our new patron in the arts.”

Malvolio shrugged, tossing his snaky locks to one side of his high, white forehead.

“Rupert Thorndyke’s secret will never be fathomed until they dissect him,” he said; “and then in the core of his heart will be found the one word ‘Self.’ He is a monumental egoist, in the guise of a seraph. He is brilliant and treacherous, unstable as water, holding no convictions long enough to make anything he says or does of lasting value. I am certain that he is half-educated, half-baked in all respects. I believe most of his ‘experiences’ of life to be clever adaptations from things other people have done, or told, or printed. But he is vastly good company, and I’d be deuced glad if he were coming to dine with me to-morrow. As to his status, he is apparently well off--has one foot in Bohemia, the other in society--and comes from nobody knows where. Lastly, we are informed that he might marry the oldest Miss Beaumoris, and does not aspire to do so!”

The blushes dyed Kathleen’s cheeks at the confirmation of Colin’s warning.

“Then you think, Mr. Malvolio, our girl had better not be seen at his party?” said Mrs. Blair, anxiously.

“My _dear_ madame! On the contrary. I should like amazingly to be seen there myself. It is sure to be a rare treat to eye and ear. The women will be of the highest world only. The men judiciously combined. But I have always had an idea that Thorndyke will some day come a cropper. I feel like that fellow that followed the menagerie around in order to be there the day the lion-tamer should get eaten by the lions. The day the accident occurred was the one he was kept away. I have a conviction I shan’t see Thorndyke’s discomfiture--but I could wish that, to round out my theory of him, the fates might accord to me this privilege.”

Kathleen, who would not have admitted to her mother even, the thrill of excitement she had been in since receiving the first fruits of Thorndyke’s homage, went to bed that night, feeling chastened in her pride. With her last waking thoughts of the irresistible Thorndyke, blended the image of loyal Colin, whom, after consultation with their maid-servant, she now knew to have been waiting outside Mrs. Beaumoris’s awning for her in the falling snow.

Molly Blair, too, following a long talk with her husband, that freed her fond heart of its weight of pride in and anxiety for Kathleen, went to sleep happy. With so many loving souls around her, Terence had said, Kathleen would be well guarded, and such a fine nature as their girl’s was not to be spoiled in an hour or a year by flattery. And Molly’s last thoughts that night were of pity for poor Lottie Beaumoris. The afternoon of sitting out the concert, listening to the chatter of Lottie’s friends, had thrown broad light upon a career the newspapers had made to seem so dazzling. Lottie, weighed down with petty cares, a target for petty malice, was in her fine home not so well off as Molly in her little threadbare house, full to the eaves with ardent workers, living for each other and for the best that was in them. Kathleen’s début had taught her mother this!

* * * * *

Carefully assuming his recently acquired evening clothes, and taking heed, we may be sure, of the hints dropped by Kathleen on the occasion of his former appearance in this conventional attire, Mr. Colin Mackintosh stood prepared for what to him was to be a great occasion.

Before setting out to the Blairs’ house he went to his neighbor’s door and knocked. He knew that he should find Mr. Thorndyke sitting doubled up over his newspaper, under the gas-jet; but to-night the old man’s face looked more pinched and wan than usual, his breath came shorter, the newspaper lay unread across his knees.

“I’m afraid you’re ill,” said Colin, kindly.

Hardly a day had passed since their first talk that he had not extended to the friendless old fellow some word or look of sympathy; and Thorndyke, although Colin did not know it, had conceived for him in turn an almost paternal tenderness. In the utter loneliness of his life the instrument-maker yearned for something to link him with the world of everyday affection. Colin’s active step upon the stairs had come to be music to his ear--Colin’s greeting a solace eagerly awaited.

“Not ill, my dear boy; only a little down to-night. I begin to feel the climb up these long flights. And so you are going off into some gay scene, where people will be chatting and laughing? I don’t envy you, for it’s getting on to ten o’clock, and after that hour I can hardly keep awake in these days. There’s a long paragraph--nearly half a column--in the paper about an affair that is to occur in my nephew’s rooms to-night. I think I could tell you everybody that’s expected there. There’s a young violinist--a Miss Blair--who has made a hit recently--and some famous professionals. Mr. Mackintosh, I ought to tell you, too, that since I let out that secret that’s corroding me I have felt much ashamed. There was only this excuse for it--a very little drink affects me, and I had already had a glass of beer on my way home. The claret finished me. It did not confuse my brain, but just loosed my tongue. What I told you was true, but it should have gone with me to my grave.”

“You need never fear my making use of it unfairly,” said Colin, pityingly. The meek submission of the man was sadder than his outburst of wrath had been.

“I know I can trust you. I wish it were in my power to do something for you, Mr. Mackintosh. If I die soon, you will have given me the last gleams of pleasure in a disappointed life. I wish I could help you in return.”

“You can to-night,” said Colin; “if you do not mind lending me, for a purpose of my own, the fine scarabeus you showed me. It shall be returned to you without fail to-morrow.”