Part 14

"There's only one answer to that," John insisted cheerfully. "I am going to lend you fifty pounds while you make your mind up about the young man."

She made a face at him.

"I couldn't borrow money from a strange gentleman," she protested.

"Rubbish!" he exclaimed. "If you begin calling me a stranger--but there, never mind! We'll see about that after dinner. Now what is the other cause for depression?"

"I am not very happy about you and Louise," she observed.

"Why not?"

She hesitated. While she seemed to be pondering over her words, John studied her almost critically. Unquestionably she was very pretty; her fair hair was most becomingly arranged, her petite features and delicate mouth were charming. Her complexion and coloring were exquisite, her neck and throat very white against the plain black satin of her gown.

"In a way," she confessed at last, "it's the play that's bothering me."

"The play?" he repeated.

"You won't like it," she sighed. "The reason the production has been delayed so long is Graillot's insistence upon calling a spade a spade. Even with all Louise and Miles Faraday have managed to get him to leave out, there is one scene which is certainly a little startling for English playgoers."

"And Louise is in it?" he asked.

"Louise is the principal figure in it."

John's face darkened a little.

"I have noticed lately," he remarked gloomily, "that she rather avoids talking about the play. I wish she'd chuck it altogether!"

Sophy shook her head.

"Louise won't do that," she said. "I sometimes think that her work is more to her than anything else in life. I suppose you two will find a way out of it, somehow."

"There is only one way, and Louise will have to make up her mind to it," John declared steadfastly. "However, my time hasn't come just yet. Until it comes, I must make the best of things. Tell me more about your own love-affairs, Sophy."

"It isn't a love-affair at all!" she exclaimed, almost indignantly.

"Why, I am sorry. Your prospective alliance, then, shall I call it?"

"Oh, it isn't interesting," she said. "It's just a young man in Bath. He is a lawyer and moderately well off. He has wanted me to marry him for years. He was a friend of my brother's. Lately he has been bothering a little more than usual--in fact, I suppose I have received what might be called an ultimatum. He came up yesterday, and I went out with him last night. He has gone back to Bath this morning, and I have promised to let him know in a month. I think that is why I went out to Waterloo Bridge in a mackintosh and got wet."

"Do you like him?" John asked practically.

"I like him, I suppose," Sophy sighed. "That's the worst of it. If I didn't like him, there might be some chance. I can't realize myself ever doing more than liking him in a mild sort of way; and if he expected more, as of course he would, then I should probably hate him. He tried to kiss me on the way to the station and I nearly scratched him. That isn't like me, you know. I rather like being kissed sometimes."

John buried himself in the wine-list.

"Well," he admitted, "it doesn't sound very hopeful. I'm no sort of judge in these matters, but I have heard lots of people say that one gets on all right after marriage without caring very much before. You don't seem to have a very comfortable life now, do you?"

"Comfortable? No, but I am free," Sophy replied quickly. "I can come in and go out when I please, choose my own friends, give my kisses to whom I please. Marriage--the sort of marriage mine would be--is slavery, and nothing else. What I am afraid of," she went on, "is that when I was down in that highly respectable old city, sitting all day in a respectable little villa, with two servants to order about and housekeeping-books to keep, I should feel the old pull come over me, and some day I should chuck it all and come back here to play around under the lights. It's rather fine to be here, you know--to be in the atmosphere, even if the lime-light misses one."

John sighed, and regarded her thoughtfully.

"You're a queer little girl, Sophy," he said. "I don't know how to advise you."

"Of course you don't," she answered. "No one could. As for you, I suppose you will marry Louise. What will happen to you after that, I don't know. Perhaps I sha'n't care so much about London then. You've made it very nice for me, you know."

"You've made it bearable even for me," he told her. "I often think how lonely I should have been without you to talk to. Louise sometimes is delightfully companionable, and kind enough to turn one's head. Other days I scarcely understand her; everything we say to one another seems wrong. I come away and leave her simply because I feel that there is a wall between us that I can't get over."

"There isn't really," Sophy sighed. "Louise is a dear. Considering everything, I think she is wonderful. But you are utterly different. She is very complex, very emotional, and she has her own standards of life. You, on the other hand, are very simple, very faithful and honest, and you accept the standards which have been made for you--very, very rigidly, John."

"I wonder!" he murmured, as he looked into his wine-glass. "Sometimes I think I am a fool. Sometimes I think I'd do better to let go the strings and just live as others do. Sometimes ideas come into one's head that upset principles and everything. I don't know!"

Sophy leaned across the table toward him.

"Be a little more human, John," she begged. "You must feel kind things sometimes. Couldn't you say them? I am depressed and gloomy. Be like other men, for once, and flirt with me a little! Try to say things, even if you don't mean them--just for once, for a few short hours!"

He held her hand for a moment. The fingers seemed to respond to his touch with a little thrill.

"You silly child!" he exclaimed. "If I were to begin to say all the kind things I feel about you--"

"Begin, then--begin!" she interrupted. "What do you think of me, really? Am I pretty? Do you like to have me here at the table with you, or is your mind too full of Louise? Do you notice that I've a pretty frock on, and my hair is nicely arranged? I have taken so much trouble to-night. What are you looking at?"

John's whole expression had suddenly changed. His eyes were fixed upon the door, his face was stern as a granite block. Sophy turned quickly around. The _maitre d'hotel_, with another satellite in his rear, was welcoming with much ceremony two lately arrived guests. Sophy clutched at the table-cloth. The newcomers were Louise and the Prince of Seyre.

"I don't understand this!" John muttered, his lips twitching.

Sophy Gerard said nothing. Her cheeks were pink with excitement.

Suddenly Louise saw John and Sophy. She stood quite still for a moment; then she came toward them, slowly and a little languidly. The prince was still studying through his eye-glass the various tables which the head waiter was offering for his consideration.

"What an astonishing meeting!" Louise remarked, as she laid her hand for a moment on Sophy's shoulder. "What is going on behind my back?"

John rose very slowly to his feet. He seemed taller than ever, and Louise's smile remained unanswered.

"The rain broke up my week-end party," he explained, "and I met Sophy in the Strand. In any case, I intended returning to-night. I understood that you would not be here until to-morrow about eleven o'clock."

"Those were my plans," Louise replied; "but, as you see, other things have intervened. Our little house party, too, was broken up by this abominable weather, and we all motored up to town. The Faradays have gone home. The prince heard from Miles that I was at home, and telephoned me to dine. _Me voici!_"

John was struggling with a crowd of hateful thoughts. Louise was wearing a wonderful gown; her hair was beautifully arranged; she had the air of a woman whose toilet was complete and perfect down to the slightest detail. The prince's slow drawl reached them distinctly.

"It was my servant's fault, I suppose," he said. "I told him to ring up last night and order the table for two in that corner. However, we will take the vacant one near your desk."

He looked around and, as if for the first time, missed Louise. He came toward them at once.

"The prince seems to have ordered his table last night," John remarked, his tone, even to himself, sounding queer and strained.

Louise made no reply. The prince was already shaking hands with Sophy.

"I thought you were spending the week-end with my cousin, Strangewey," he remarked, turning to John.

"We did spend part of it together," John replied. "The weather drove us back this afternoon."

"I congratulate you both on your good taste," said the prince. "There is nothing more abominable than a riverside retreat out of season. We are taking the table on the left, Louise."

He led her away, and they passed down the room. John slowly resumed his seat.

"Sophy," he demanded hoarsely, "tell me the truth. Is there anything between the prince and Louise?"

Sophy nervously crumbled up the toast by her side.

"The prince admires Louise, and has done so for many years," she answered. "No one knows anything else. Louise never speaks of him to me. I cannot tell you."

"But you must know," he persisted, with a little break in his voice. "Forgive me, Sophy, if I make an ass of myself. First Lady Hilda, and then Graillot, and then--well, I thought Louise might have rung up to see whether I was at home, if she came back sooner than she expected; and the prince took the table last night!"

She leaned over and patted him on the hand.

"Don't worry," she begged. "If Louise has to choose some day between him and you, I don't think she'll hesitate very long. And please remember that you were commencing to flirt with me. I insist upon it! I won't be put off. Don't look so stern, please. You look very statuesque and perfect, but I don't want to dine with a piece of sculpture. Remember that I am really looking very pretty, and that I am finding you too attractive for my peace of mind. There's your text!"

He poured a glass of wine and drank it off.

"I'll do my best," he agreed. "If it sounds like rubbish, you can still believe that I appreciate everything you've told me. You are pretty, and I am lucky to have you here. Now I'll try to make you believe that I think so."

She leaned over so that her head almost touched his.

"Go on, please!" she murmured. "Even if it hurts afterward, it will be heavenly to listen to!"

XXIV

The next night Sophy acted as showman. Her part was over at the end of the first act, and a few minutes later she slipped into a seat by John's side behind the curtain.

"What do you think of it so far?" she asked, a little anxiously.

"It seems quite good," John replied cheerfully. "Some very clever lines, and all that sort of thing; but I can't quite see what it's all leading to."

Sophy peered around the house from behind the curtain.

"There isn't standing-room anywhere," she declared. "I don't suppose there ever was a play in London that was more talked about; and then putting it off for more than three months--why, there have been all sorts of rumors about. Do you want to know who the people in the audience are?"

"Not particularly," John answered. "I shouldn't know them, if you told me. There are just a few familiar faces. I see the prince in the box opposite."

"Did you telephone to Louise to-day?" Sophy asked.

John shook his head.

"No. I thought it better to leave her alone until after to-night."

"You are going to the supper, of course?"

"I have been asked," John replied, a little doubtfully. "I don't quite know whether I want to. Is it being given by the prince or by the management?"

"The management," Sophy assured him. "Do come and take me! It's going to be rather fun."

The curtain went up upon the second act. John, from the shadows of the box, listened attentively. The subject was not a particularly new one, but the writing was brilliant. There was the old _Marquis de Guy_, a roue, a degenerate, but still overbearing and full of personality, from whose lips came some of Graillot's most brilliant sayings; Louise, his wife; and Faraday, a friend of the old marquis, and obviously the intended lover of his wife.

"I don't see anything so terrible in this," John remarked, as the curtain went down once more and thunders of applause greeted some wonderful lines of Graillot's.

"It's wonderful!" Sophy declared. "Try and bear the thread of it all in your mind. For two acts you have been asked to focus your attention upon the increasing brutality of the marquis. Remember that, won't you?"

"Not likely to forget it," John replied. "How well they all act!"

There was a quarter of an hour's interval before the curtain rose again. Rumors concerning the last act had been floating about for weeks, and the house was almost tense with excitement as the curtain went up. The scene was the country _chateau_ of the _Marquis de Guy_, who brought a noisy crowd of companions from Paris without any warning. His wife showed signs of dismay at his coming. He had brought with him women whom she declined to receive.

The great scene between her husband and herself took place in the square hall of the _chateau_, on the first floor. The marquis is on the way to the room of one of his guests. Louise reaffirms her intention of leaving the house. Her husband laughs at her. Her position is helpless.

"What can you do?" he mocks.

She shrugs her shoulders and passes into her room. The marquis sinks upon a settee, and presently is joined by one of the ladies who have traveled with him from Paris. He talks to her of the pictures upon the wall. She is impatient to meet the _Marquis de Guy_.

The marquis knocks at his wife's door. Her voice is heard clearly, after a moment's pause.

"In a few minutes!" she replies.

The marquis resumes his flirtation. His companion becomes impatient--the marquis has pledged his word that she should be received by his wife. An ancient enmity against the _Marquis de Guy_ prompts her to insist.

The marquis shrugs his shoulders and knocks more loudly than ever at his wife's door. She comes out--followed by Faraday.

"You asked me what I could do," she says, pointing to her lover. "You see now!"

There was a moment's breathless silence through the house. The scene in itself was a little beyond anything that the audience had expected. Sophy, who had been leaning over the edge of the box, turned around in no little anxiety. She heard the door slam. John had disappeared!

He left the theater with only his hat in his hand, turning up his coat by instinct as he passed through the driving rain. All his senses seemed tingling with some nameless horror. The brilliance of the language, the subtlety of the situation, seemed like some evil trail drawn across that one horrible climax. It was Louise who had come from that room and pointed to Faraday! Louise who confessed herself a--

He broke out into language as he walked. The desire of Samson burned in his heart--to stride back into the theater, to smash the scenery, to throw the puppets from the stage, one by one, to end forever this ghastly, unspeakable play. And all the time the applause rang in his ears. He had read with one swift glance the tense interest--almost lascivious, it seemed to him--on the faces of that great audience. The scene had tickled their fancies. It was to pander to such base feelings that Louise was upon the stage!

He reached his rooms--he scarcely knew how--and walked up-stairs. There he threw off some of his dripping garments, opened the window wide, and stood there.

He looked out over the Thames, and there was a red fire before his eyes. Stephen was right, he told himself. There was nothing but evil to be found here, nothing but bitter disappointment, nothing but the pain which deepens into anguish. Better to remain like Stephen, unloving and unloved, to draw nearer to the mountains, to find joy in the crops and the rain and the sunshine, to listen stonily to the cry of human beings as if to some voice from an unknown world.

He leaned a little further from the window, and gazed into the court at a dizzy depth below. He had cut himself adrift from the peace which might have been his. He would never know again the joys of his earlier life. It was for this that he had fought so many battles, clung so tightly to one ideal--for Louise, who could show herself to any one who cared to pay his shilling or his half-guinea, glorying in her dishonor; worse than glorying in it--finding some subtle humor in the little gesture with which she had pointed, unashamed, to her lover.

John bent a little lower from the window. A sudden dizziness seemed to have come over him. Then he was forced to turn around. His door had been quickly opened and shut. It was Sophy who was crossing toward him, the rain streaming from her ruined opera-cloak.

"John!" she cried. "Oh, John!"

She led him back to his chair and knelt by his side. She held his hands tightly.

"You mustn't feel like this," she sobbed; "you mustn't, John, really! You don't understand. It's all a play. Louise wouldn't really do anything like that!"

He shivered. Nevertheless, he clutched her hands and drew her closer to him.

"Do, please, listen to me," she begged. "It's all over. Louise is herself again--Louise Maurel. The _Marquis de Guy_ never lived except upon these boards. It is simply a wonderful creation. Any one of the great actresses would play that part and glory in it--the very greatest, John. Oh, it's so hard to make you understand! Louise is waiting for you. They are all waiting at the supper-party. You are expected. You must go and tell her that you think it was wonderful!"

He rose slowly to his feet.

"Wonderful!" he muttered. "Wonderful! But, child, it is damnable!"

"Don't be foolish," she answered. "Go and put on another dress coat, tie your tie again, and brush your hair. I have come to take you to the supper."

He caught at her hands roughly.

"Supposing I won't go?" he whispered hoarsely. "Supposing--I keep you here instead, Sophy?"

She swayed for a moment. Something flashed into her face and passed away. She was paler than ever.

"Dear John," she begged, "pull yourself together! Remember that Louise is waiting for you. It's Louise you want--not me. Nothing that she has done to-night should make her any the less worthy of you and your love."

He strode away into the farther room. He reappeared in a moment or two, his hair smoothly brushed, his tie newly arranged.

"I'll come, little girl," he promised. "I don't know what I'll say to her, but I'll come. There can't be any harm in that!"

"Of course not," she answered cheerfully. "You're the most terrible goose, John," she added, as they walked down the corridor. "Do, please, lose your tragical air. The whole world is at Louise's feet to-night. You mustn't let her know how absurdly you have been feeling. To-morrow you will find that every paper in London will be acclaiming her genius."

John squared his shoulders.

"All the same," he declared grimly, "if I could burn the theater and the play, and lock up Graillot for a month, to-night, I'd do it!"

XXV

The days and weeks drifted into months, and John remained in London. His circle of friends and his interests had widened. It was only his relations with Louise which remained still unchanged. Always charming to him, giving him much of her time, favoring him, beyond a doubt, more than any of her admirers, there was yet about her something elusive, something which seemed intended to keep him so far as possible at arm's length.

There was nothing tangible of which he could complain, and this probationary period was of his own suggestion. He bore it grimly, holding his place, whenever it was possible, by her side with dogged persistence. Then one evening there was a knock at his door, and Stephen Strangewey walked in.

After all, this meeting, of which John had often thought, and which sometimes he had dreaded a little, turned out to be a very ordinary affair. Stephen, although he seemed a little taller and gaunter than ever, though he seemed to bring into the perhaps overwarmed atmosphere of John's little sitting room something of the cold austerity of his own domain, had evidently come in no unfriendly spirit. He took both his brother's hands in his and gripped them warmly.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you, Stephen!" John declared.

"It has been an effort to me to come," Stephen admitted. "But I had it in my mind, John, that we parted bad friends. I have come to see how things are with you."

"Well enough," John answered evasively. "Sit down."

Stephen held his brother away from him, gripping his shoulders with both hands. He looked steadily into his face.

"Well enough you may be, John," he said, "but your looks tell a different story. There's a look in your eyes already that they all get here, sooner or later."

"Nonsense!" John protested cheerfully. "No one pretends that the life here is quite as healthy as ours, physically, but that isn't everything. I am a little tired to-day, perhaps. One spends one's time differently up here, you know, and there's a little more call upon the brain, a little less upon the muscles."

"Give me an example," Stephen suggested. "What were you doing last night, for instance?"

John rang the bell for some tea, took his brother's hat and stick from his hand, and installed him in an easy chair.

"I went to a political meeting down in the East End," he replied. "One of the things I am trying to take a little more interest in up here is politics."

"No harm in that, anyway," Stephen admitted. "That all?"

"The meeting was over about eleven," John continued. "After that I came up here, changed my clothes, and went to a dance."

"At that time of night?"

John laughed.

"Why, nothing of that sort ever begins until eleven o'clock," he explained. "I stayed there for about an hour or so, and afterward I went round to a club I belong to, with the Prince of Seyre and some other men. They played bridge, and I watched."

"So that's one of your evenings, is it?" Stephen remarked. "No great harm in such doings--nor much good, that I can see. With the Prince of Seyre, eh?"

"I see him occasionally."

"He is one of your friends now?"

"I suppose so," John admitted, frowning. "Sometimes I think he is, sometimes I am not so sure. At any rate, he has been very kind to me."

"He is by way of being a friend of the young woman herself, isn't he?" Stephen asked bluntly.

"He has been a friend of Miss Maurel since she first went on the stage," John replied. "It is no doubt for her sake that he has been so kind to me."

"And how's the courting getting on?" Stephen demanded, his steely eyes suddenly intent.

"None too well," John confessed.

"Are you still in earnest about it?"

"Absolutely! More than ever!"

Stephen produced his pipe from his pocket, and slowly filled it.

"She is keeping you dangling at her heels, and giving you no sort of answer?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it quite like that," John declared, good-humoredly. "I asked her to marry me as soon as I came up, and we both agreed to wait for a time. You see, her life has been so extraordinarily different from mine. I have only half understood the things which to her are like the air she breathes. She is a great artist, and I scarcely ever leave her without feeling appallingly ignorant. Our life down in Cumberland, Stephen, is well enough in its way, but it leaves us outside many of the great things of life."

"That may be true enough, boy," Stephen admitted, blowing out dense volumes of smoke from his pipe; "but are you sure that it's toward those great things that she is pointing you?"