Part 16

Her woman's courage began to assert itself. She raised her eyes to his.

"Exactly what do you mean?" she asked calmly. "In what way is any man to be saved from me? If your brother should care for me, and I, by any chance, should happen to care for him, in what respect would that be a state from which he would require salvation?"

"You make my task more difficult," he observed deliberately. "Does it amuse you to practise your profession before one so ignorant and so unappreciative as myself? If my brother should ever marry, it is my firm intention that he shall marry an honest woman."

Louise sat quite still for a moment. A flash of lightning had glittered before her eyes, and in her ears was the crash of thunder. Her face was suddenly strained. She saw nothing but the stern, forbidding expression of the man who looked down at her.

"You dare to say this to me, here in my own house?"

"Dare? Why not? Don't people tell you the truth here in London, then?"

She rose a little unsteadily to her feet, motioning him toward the door, and moving toward the bell. Suddenly she sank back into her former place, breathless and helpless.

"Why do you waste your breath?" he asked calmly. "We are alone here, and I--we know the truth!"

She sat quite still, shivering a little.

"Do we? Tell me, then, because I am curious--tell me why you are so sure of what you say?"

"The world has it," he replied, "that you are the mistress of the Prince of Seyre. I came to London to satisfy myself as to the truth of that report. Do you believe that any man living, among that audience last night, could watch the play and know that you passed, night after night, into your bed-chamber to meet your lover with that look upon your face--you are a clever actress, madam--and believe that you were a woman who was living an honest life?"

"That seems impossible to you?" she demanded.

"Utterly impossible!"

"And to John?"

"I am speaking for myself and not for my brother," Stephen replied. "Men like him, who are assailed by a certain madness, are best left alone with it. That is why I came to you to bargain, if I could. Is there anything that you lack--anything which your own success and your lover, or lovers, have failed to provide for you?"

It was useless to try to rise; she was powerless in all her limbs. Side by side with the anger and horror that his words aroused was a sense of something almost grotesque, something which seemed to force an unnatural laugh from her lips.

"So you want to buy me off?"

"I should be glad to believe that it was within my power to do so. I have not John's great fortune, but I have money, the accumulated savings of a lifetime, for which I have no better purpose. There is one more thing, too, to be said."

"Another charge?"

"Not that," he told her; "only it is better for you to understand that if you turn me from your house this morning, I shall still feel the necessity of saving my brother from you."

"Saving him from me?" she exclaimed, rising suddenly and throwing out her arms. "Do you know what you are talking about? Do you know that if I consented to think of your brother as my husband, there is not a man in London who would not envy him? Look at me! I am beautiful, am I not? I am a great artist. I am Louise Maurel, and I have made myself famous by my own work and my own genius. What has your brother done in life to render him worthy of the sacrifice I should make if I chose to give him my hand? You had better go back to Cumberland, Mr. Strangewey. You do not see life as we see it up here!"

"And what about John?" he asked, without moving. "You tempted him away. Was it from wantonness, or do you love him?"

"Love him?" she laughed. "I hate you both! You are boors--you are ignorant people. I hate the moment I ever saw either of you. Take John back with you. Take him out of my life. There is no place there for him!"

Stephen picked up his hat from the sofa where it lay. Louise remained perfectly still, her breath coming quickly, her eyes lit with passion.

"Madam," he said, "I am sorry to have distressed you, but the truth sometimes hurts the most callous of us. You have heard the truth from me. I will take John back to Cumberland with me, if he will come. If he will not--"

"Take him with you!" she broke in fiercely. "He will do as I bid him--do you hear? If I lift my little finger, he will stay. It will be I who decide, I--"

"But you will not lift your little finger," he interrupted grimly.

"Why shouldn't I, just to punish you?" she demanded. "There are scores of men who fancy themselves in love with me. If I choose, I can keep them all their lives hanging to the hem of my skirt, praying for a word, a touch. I can make them furious one day and penitent the next--wretched always, perhaps, but I can keep them there. Why should I not treat your brother in the same way?"

He seemed suddenly to dilate. She was overcome with a sense of some latent power in the man, some commanding influence.

"Because," he declared, "I am the guardian of my brother's happiness. Whoever trifles with it shall in the future reckon with me!"

His eyes were fixed upon her soft, white throat. His long, lean fingers seemed suddenly to be drawing near to her. She watched him, fascinated. She was trying to scream. Even after he had turned away and left her, after she had heard his measured tramp descending the stairs, her fingers flew to her throat. She held herself tightly, standing there with beating heart and throbbing pulses. It was not until the front door had closed that she had the strength to move, to throw herself face downward upon the couch.

XXVIII

Louise ate a very small luncheon, but--an unusual thing for her--she drank two glasses of wine. Just as she had finished, Sophy came in, with ink-stained fingers and a serious expression.

"You silly child!" Louise exclaimed. "No one told me you were here. Have you had any lunch?"

"Long ago," Sophy replied. "I have been finishing your accounts."

Louise made a little grimace.

"Tell me the worst," she begged.

"You are overdrawn at your bank, your bills are heavier than ever this month, and there are five or six special accounts--one for some electric fittings, another for the hire of a motor-car--which ought to be paid."

"People are always wanting money!" Louise declared pettishly.

"People always will want money," Sophy retorted, "so long as you earn three thousand a year and spend four or five thousand!"

Louise selected a cigarette and lit it.

"Instead of scolding me, child," she yawned, "suppose you suggest something?"

"What is there to suggest?" Sophy replied. "Your bank has written you to put your overdraft straight at once--it comes to about two hundred and seventy pounds. There are bills, for which the people are asking for payment, and which come to about as much again. You've nothing but your hundred pounds a week, and you're spending half of that, as it is."

Louise flicked the ash from her cigarette.

"And even you, my child, don't know the worst," she remarked. "There's Fenillon, my dressmaker. She doesn't send me a bill at all, but I owe her nearly six hundred pounds. I have to wear a shockingly unbecoming gown in the second act, as it is, just because she's getting disagreeable."

"Well, I've tried to set things straight," Sophy declared. "You'll have either to marry or to borrow some money. You can't go on much longer!"

Louise was looking up at the ceiling. She sighed.

"It would be nice," she said, "to have some one to pay one's bills and look after one, and see that one wasn't too extravagant."

"Well, you need some one badly," Sophy asserted. "I suppose you mean to make up your mind to it some day."

"I wonder!" Louise murmured. "Did you know that that terrible man from the hills--John Strangewey's brother--has been here this morning? He frightened me almost to death."

"What did he want?" Sophy asked curiously.

"He was a trifle vague," Louise remarked. "I gathered that if I don't send John back to Cumberland, he's going to strangle me."

Sophy leaned across the table.

"Are you going to send him back?" she asked.

"I am in an uncertain frame of mind," Louise confessed. "I really can't decide about anything."

Sophy poured herself out some coffee.

"I think," she said, "that you'll have to decide about John before long."

"About John, indeed!" Louise exclaimed lightly. "Who gave you the right to call him by his Christian name?"

Sophy colored.

"I suppose I have just dropped into it," she remarked. "Tell me what you have decided to do, Louise?"

"Why should I do anything at all?"

"You know very well," Sophy insisted, "that you have encouraged John Strangewey shamefully. You have persuaded him to live up here, to make new friends, and to start an entirely new mode of life, just in the hope that some day you will marry him."

"Have I?" Louise asked. "Then I suppose I must keep my word--some day!"

Sophy drew her chair a little nearer to her friend's. She passed her arm around Louise's waist; their heads almost touched.

"Dear Louise," she whispered, "please tell me!"

Louise was silent. Her hesitation became momentous. Her eyes seemed to be looking through the walls. Sophy watched her breathlessly.

"You ought to make up your mind," she went on. "You see, it isn't as if there was no one else. There is the prince."

Sophy felt the fingers that she was clasping grow a little colder.

"Yes," Louise repeated, "there is the prince. Sophy, I feel that I am drifting into an impossible position. Every day is bringing me nearer to it."

"I want to tell you this, Louise," Sophy said firmly. "John is getting to know a great many people, and you know how men talk at the clubs. Aren't you sometimes afraid that he will hear things and misunderstand?"

"I am expecting it every day," Louise admitted.

"Then why don't you end it?"

"Which way?"

There was a silence between the two women. The muffled street noises from outside became the background to a stillness which grew every moment more oppressive. Louise returned to her former attitude. She looked steadfastly before her, her face supported by her hands.

Sophy grew paler and paler as the minutes passed. There was something strange and almost beautiful in Louise's face, something which had come to her lately, and which shone from her eyes only at rare intervals.

"You care for him, I believe!" Sophy cried at last. "You care for him!"

Louise did not move.

"Why not?" she whispered.

"You, Louise!" Sophy gasped. "You, the great artist! Why, think of the men who have tried to make you care--poets, musicians--so many of them, so many famous men! It can't be true. John Strangewey is so far apart. He doesn't belong to your world."

Louise leaned over and stroked her little friend's hair.

"Child," she said, "that's all very true. I have had it ringing in my brain for longer than you would believe. But now tell me something. No, look at me--don't be ashamed. Are you in love with John yourself?"

Sophy never hesitated.

"From the very first moment I saw him," she confessed. "Don't let that bother you, dear. He would never look at me except as a little pal. I never expected anything from him--anything serious, of course--never dared to hope for it. I have thrown myself at his head in the most shameless manner. It is all no good. I never met any one like him before. Louise, do you know that he is good--really good?"

"I believe he is," Louise murmured. "That is what makes it so wonderful."

"It's all incomprehensible," Sophy declared wearily.

There was a ring at the front door. Louise, from her place, could see the long, gray bonnet of John's car. Almost before she could speak, he was announced.

"It's an atrocious time to come, I know--" he began apologetically.

"You're in time for some coffee, anyhow," Sophy told him cheerfully. "And I know Louise is glad to see you, because if you hadn't come I was going to make her go through some accounts."

"You know I am always glad to see you," Louise murmured, pointing to a chair. "Sophy and I have been having a most interesting discussion, but we have come to a _cul-de-sac_."

"I really came," John explained, "to ask if you cared to come and see a collection of pictures. There's an Italian--a Futurist, of course--just unpacked his little lot and set them up over a curiosity-shop in Clifford Street. He is sending out cards for next week, but I could take you to-day--that is, if you would care about it. We can go somewhere for some tea afterward."

Louise made a little grimace.

"What bad luck!" she exclaimed.

She stopped short. She felt that by her hesitation she had, in a sense, committed herself.

"I have promised to go and have tea with the prince at Seyre House," she said. "It is an engagement we made last week."

John set down his empty coffee-cup with a clatter. An inexplicable but dominating fury seemed to have suddenly assailed him. He took out a cigarette and tried to light it. Sophy, after watching him for a moment in astonishment, slipped out of the room. Louise came over to his side.

"Are you really so much disappointed?" she asked. "I am so sorry. If I had known that you were coming for me, I would have kept myself free."

"It isn't that exactly," John answered. "It's something I can't altogether explain. If you don't mind, I think I will be going. There is something I must put right."

He left without another word. She watched him step into his new motor-car and drive away a little recklessly, considering the crowded state of the streets. He drew up, a few minutes later, outside the club in Pall Mall, where, as it chanced, he had lunched that day with the Prince of Seyre.

He found the prince still sitting in the smoking room, reading a review, over the top of which he glanced up as John approached, and nodded nonchalantly.

"Back again?" he murmured.

"I came back to have a word with you, prince."

The prince laid down the review, keeping his finger in the place.

"Delighted!"

"Not long ago," John went on, "in this room, some one--I think it was Major Charters--asked you what you were doing this afternoon. You replied that you were engaged. There were several others present, and they began to chaff you. Perhaps I joined in--I don't remember. I think that it was Major Charters who asked you, to use his own words, whether your appointment was with a lady. You replied in the affirmative. There was a little volley of chaff. You listened without contradiction to many references concerning the nature of your afternoon's amusement."

The prince nodded slightly. His face remained quite expressionless.

"As a matter of fact," John concluded, "I have discovered by the purest accident that Miss Maurel is to be your guest this afternoon at Seyre House."

The prince inclined his head gently. He remained monosyllabic.

"Well?"

John frowned heavily.

"Can't you see," he went on bluntly, "that if any one of those men who were present, and heard what was said about your guest, found out afterward that it was Miss Maurel who came to see you--well, I need not go on, need I? I am sure you understand. The things which were hinted at could not possibly apply to her. Would you mind sending a note to Miss Maurel and asking her to have tea with you some other afternoon?"

"And why the deuce should I do that?" the prince asked, a trifle paler, but entirely self-possessed.

"To oblige me," John replied.

The prince wiped his eye-glass carefully upon his handkerchief.

"Mr. Strangewey, you are a very amiable young man," he said equably, "to whom I have tried to show some kindness for Miss Maurel's sake. I really do not see, however--pardon my putting it plainly--what business this is of yours."

"It is my business," John declared, "because I have asked Miss Maurel to be my wife, and because I am hoping that some day, before very long, she will consent."

The prince sat quite still in his chair, his eyes fixed upon a certain spot in the carpet. He had not even the appearance of being engaged in thought. He seemed only steeped in a sort of passivity. Finally, with a sigh, he rose to his feet.

"My young friend," he decided, "your statement alters the situation. I did not credit you with matrimonial intentions. I must see what can be done!"

His lips had relaxed ever so slightly--so slightly that they showed only a glimpse of his teeth in one straight, hard line. He looked at John mildly, and his words seemed destitute of all offense; yet John felt that the lightnings were playing around them.

"I shall write a note to Miss Maurel," the prince promised, as he made his way toward the writing-table, "and ask her to visit me upon some other afternoon."

XXIX

Back again to his rooms, and, later on, once more to Louise's little house in Kensington; a few minutes' masterful pleading, and then success. Louise wrapped herself up and descended to the street by his side.

For an hour or more John drove steadily westward, scarcely speaking more than a chance word. It was twilight when he brought the car to a standstill. Louise raised her veil and looked up.

"Well?" she asked inquiringly.

He pushed back the throttle on his steering-wheel and stopped the engine. Then he turned toward her.

"I have something to say to you," he said. "I have brought you here that I may say it in my own way and in my own atmosphere."

She responded instantly to his mood, although she did not yet grasp the full significance of the situation. She leaned forward in the car, and her eyes were lighted with interest. Into their faces a slight, drizzling rain was carried at intervals by a gusty, north wind. The sky was murky gray, except for one black mass of cloud that seemed bending almost over their heads.

Down at their feet--they had made a circuit and were facing London again--began the long lines of feeble lights which lit the great avenues stretching onward to the city, the lights of suburban thoroughfares, of local railways, and here and there a more brilliant illumination of some picture palace or place of amusement. Farther away still, the vast glow from the heart of the city was beginning to flare against the murky sky--here red and threatening, as if from some great conflagration; in other places yellow, with a sicklier light of fog-strangled brilliance.

"This is like you!" Louise murmured. "You had to bring me out to a hilltop, on the dreariest hour of a wet March afternoon, to tell me--what?"

"First of all," John began, "I will answer a question which you have asked me three times since we started out this afternoon. You wanted to know how I found out that you were not going to tea with the prince. Well, here is the truth. I asked the prince to change the day of your visit to him."

Her fine, silky eyebrows came a little closer together.

"You asked him that?" she repeated.

John nodded.

"And he consented?"

"I will explain," John continued. "It was a most unfortunate circumstance, but in the club, after lunch, the subject of spending the afternoon came up. The prince spoke of an engagement. He was tied at home, he said, from four to six. Some of the men began to chaff him, and suggested that he was entertaining some lady friend, his latest favorite--well, I dare say you can imagine the rest," John broke off. "The prince, thoughtlessly, I am sure, and probably to get rid of them, pleaded guilty. Then I came down to see you, and from what you said I discovered that it was you who were to be his visitor."

Her fingers played nervously for a moment with the edge of the rug. She drew it higher up.

"Well, when I left your house the first time this afternoon, I went straight back to the prince. I pointed out to him that after what had been said, as it might become known that you were his guest of to-day, it would be better for him to postpone your visit. He agreed to do so."

"Was that all that passed between you?"

"Not quite," John replied. "He asked me what concern it was of mine, and I told him exactly what my concern was. I told him I hoped that some day you would be my wife."

She sat quite still, looking down upon the flaring lights. She was filled with a restless desire to escape, to start the motor herself and rush through the wet air into London and safety. And side by side with that desire she knew that there was nothing in the world she wanted so much as to stay just where she was, and to hear just the words she was going to hear.

"So much for that!" John proceeded. "And now, please listen. I have brought you out here because under these conditions I feel more master of myself and my thoughts, and of the things I want to say to you. Something takes me by the throat in your little drawing-room, with its shaded lights, its perfume of flowers, and its atmosphere of perfection. You sit enthroned there like the queen of a world I know nothing of, and all the time letters and flowers and flattering invitations are showered upon you from the greatest men in London. The atmosphere there stifles me, Louise. Out here you are a woman and I a man, and those other things fall away. I have tried my best to come a little way into sympathy with your life. I want you now to make up your mind to come down a little way into mine!"

She shook her head.

"We are still too far apart," she murmured. "Can't you understand that yourself?"

"I have been a pupil for many months," he answered, turning toward her, with one arm at the back of her cushions and the fingers of the other hand suddenly seeking hers. "Can't you understand, if you do care a little, if you have just a little flame of love in your heart for me, that many of these other things which keep us apart are like the lime-light which flashes out to give artificial light in an honest darkness? Don't you believe, at the bottom of your heart, that you can be happier if you will climb with me to the place where we first met, even where the clouds lean over my own hills? You thought me very narrow then. Perhaps I am. But I think you are beginning to understand, dear, that that life is only a type. We can wander about where you will. My hills are only the emblems of the things that are dear to me. There are many countries I want to visit. I don't want to cramp your life. You can't really be afraid of that, because it is the most widening thing in the world that I have to give you--my love, the love of my heart and my soul!"

She felt the sudden snapping of every nerve in her body, the passing away of all sense of will or resistance. She was conscious only of the little movement toward him, the involuntary yielding of herself. She lay back in his arms, and the kisses which closed her eyes and lips seemed to be working some strange miracle.

She was in some great empty space, breathing wonderful things. She was on the hilltops, and from the heights she looked down at herself as she had been--a poor little white-faced puppet, strutting about an overheated stage, in a fetid atmosphere of adulation, with a brain artificially stimulated, and a heart growing cold with selfishness. She pitied herself as she had been. Then she opened her eyes with a start of joy.

"How wonderful it all is!" she murmured. "You brought me here to tell me this?"

"And to hear something!" he insisted.

"I have tried not to, John," she confessed, amazed at the tremble of her sweet, low voice. Her words seemed like the confession of a weeping child. "I cannot help it. I do love you! I have tried not to so hard, but now--now I shall not try any more!"

They drove quietly down the long hill and through the dripping streets. Not another word passed between them till they drew up outside her door. She felt a new timidity as he handed her out, an immense gratitude for his firm tone and intuitive tact.

"No, I won't come in, thanks," he declared. "You have so little time to rest and get ready for the theater."

"You will be there to-night?" she asked.

He laughed as if there were humor in the suggestion of his absence.

"Of course!"