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.