"Who is talking platitudes?" he demanded. "I write plays, and that is my
monopoly. Ah, it is the prince, I see! And our young friend who
interrupted us at rehearsal yesterday."
"And whom I am anxious to have you meet again," Louise intervened. "You
remember his name, perhaps--Mr. John Strangewey."
Graillot held out his left hand to the prince and his right to John.
"Mr. Strangewey," he said, "I congratulate you! Any person who has the
good fortune to interest Miss Maurel is to be congratulated. Yet must I
look at you and feel myself puzzled. You are not an artist--no? You do
not paint or write?"
John shook his head.
"Mr. Strangewey's claim to distinction is that he is just an ordinary
man," Louise observed. "Such a relief, you know, after all you clever
people! And that reminds me, Miles," she added, turning to the actor, "I
asked you here, too, especially to meet Mr. Strangewey again. Mr.
Faraday is one of the most dangerous guides in London a young man could
have. He knows everybody and everything unknowable and yet worth
knowing. I present him to you as a hero. He is going to make love to me
three hours a night for very many nights, we hope."
John shook hands with everybody and sipped the contents of the glass
which had been handed to him. Then a butler opened the door and
announced luncheon. Louise offered her hand to the prince, who stepped
back.
"It shall be the privilege of the stranger within our gates," he
decided.
Louise turned to John with a little smile.
"Let me show you, then, the way to my dining room. I ought to apologize
for not asking some women to meet you. I tried two on the telephone, but
they were engaged."
"I will restore the balance," the prince promised, turning from the
contemplation of one of the prints hanging in the hall. "I am giving a
supper party to-night for Mr. Strangewey, and I will promise him a
preponderance of your charming sex."
"Am I invited?" Louise inquired.
The prince shook his head.
"Alas, no!"
They passed into a small dining room, and here again John noticed that
an absolute simplicity was paramount. The carpet was of some dark,
almost indistinguishable color. The walls were white, hung with three or
four French etchings in black reed frames. At one end a curved window
looked out upon a vista of green trees and shrubs, and the recess was
completely filled in with what appeared to be almost a grotto of
flowers. The round table, covered with an exquisitely fine cloth, was
very simply laid. There was a little glass of the finest quality, and a
very little silver. For flowers there was only one bowl, a brilliant
patch of some scarlet exotic, in the center.
"A supper party to which I am not invited," said Louise, as she took her
place at the table and motioned John to a seat by her side, "fills me
with curiosity. Who are to be your guests, prince?"
"Calavera and her sprites," the prince announced.
Louise paused for a moment in the act of helping herself to _hors
d'oeuvres_. She glanced toward the prince. He was busy studying the menu
through his eyeglass.
"By her sprites you mean--"
"The young ladies of her wonderful ballet," the prince replied. "I am
also dipping into musical comedy for a few of my guests. Calavera,
however, is to be the _piece de resistance_."
The prince dropped his eye-glass and glanced toward his hostess. For a
moment their eyes met. Louise's lips were faintly curled. It was almost
as if a challenge had passed between them.
"Mr. Strangewey," she said, turning to John, "let me warn you. You are
to meet to-night a woman for whom kings are reported to sigh in vain, at
whose feet the _jeunesse doree_ of the world pours out its riches. Is
it kind of the prince, I wonder, to try and seal your fate so soon?"
John laughed easily. He met the challenge in her eyes and answered it.
"If you are talking of the great Calavera," he said, "she will be far
too wonderful a lady to take any notice of a yokel like myself. And
besides--"
"Besides?" the prince intervened.
"I have only seen her photographs and read of her," John remarked, "but
I don't think she would attract me very much."
They all laughed. Graillot leaned across the table.
"My young friend," he exclaimed, "pray to your presiding genius, the
presiding genius that won for you the friendship of our hostess, that
Calavera never hears that speech, or within a week you will be at her
chariot-wheels! I have seen many women and loved many, but there are
none like Calavera. In her way she is the greatest artist that ever
breathed. As for her beauty, wait till you see her! She has a body which
makes me close my eyes and dream of Greece; eyes such as one seldom sees
save in a few parts of southern Spain; and as for her smile--well, if I
go on I shall begin to tell stories of her victims and neglect my
lunch."
The conversation drifted away to reminiscences of other great dancers.
Louise, under its cover, devoted her attention to her guest,
"First of all," she asked, "tell me how you like my little friend?"
"I think she is charming," John answered without hesitation. "We went to
a supper club last night and stayed there till about half past three."
"A supper club?"
John nodded.
"I have forgotten the name of the place, but they made me a member. It
was great fun. We had some more champagne, and Sophy danced. I found a
young man there whom I used to know."
"Really," said Louise, "I am not sure that I approve of this! A supper
club with Sophy until half past three in the morning!"
He looked at her quickly.
"You don't mind?"
"My dear man, why should I mind?" she returned. "What concern is it of
mine if you and Sophy care to amuse each other? It is exactly what I
hoped for."
"That's all right, then," John declared, with a sigh of relief. "Do you
know," he went on, lowering his voice, "that I am just a little
disappointed about today?"
"Disappointed? After I have taken the trouble to give a luncheon party
for you?"
"I should have thought it a greater compliment, and liked it better, if
you had asked me to lunch with you alone," he said.
She shook her head.
"It would have been a wasted opportunity. You have come up to London
with a purpose. You have an experiment to make, an experiment in living.
All these men can help you."
"The greater part of my experiment," he pointed out, "needs the help of
only one person, and that person is you."
She moved a little uneasily in her chair. It might have been his fancy,
but he imagined that she glanced under her eyelids toward the Prince of
Seyre. The prince, however, had turned almost ostentatiously away from
her. He was leaning across the table, talking to Faraday.
"You have not lost your gift of plain speech," she observed.
"I hope I never shall," he declared. "It seems to me to be the simplest
and the best plan, after all, to say what you feel and to ask for what
you want."
"So delightful in Cumberland and Utopia," she sighed; "so impracticable
here!"
"Then since we can't find Utopia, come back to Cumberland," he
suggested.
A reminiscent smile played for a moment about her lips.
"I wonder," she murmured, "whether I shall ever again see that dear,
wonderful old house of yours, and the mist on the hills, and the stars
shining here and there through it, and the moon coming up in the
distance!"
"All these things you will see again," he assured her confidently. "It
is because I want you to see them again that I am here."
"Just now, at this minute, I feel a longing for them," she whispered,
looking across the table, out of the window, to the softly waving trees.
At the close of the luncheon, a servant handed around coffee and
liqueurs. The prince turned to Louise.
"You must not keep our young friend too late," he said. "He has
appointments with his tailor and other myrmidons who have undertaken to
adorn his person."
"Alas," replied Louise, rising, "I, too, have to go early to my
dressmaker's. Do the honors for me, prince, will you?--and I will make
my adieus now."
They all rose. She nodded to Graillot and Faraday. The prince moved to
stand by the door. For a moment she and John were detached from the
others.
"I want to see you alone," he said under his breath. "When can I?"
She hesitated.
"I am so busy!" she murmured. "Next week there are rehearsals nearly
every minute of the day."
"To-morrow," John said insistently. "You have no rehearsals then. I must
see you. I must talk to you without this crowd."
It was his moment. Her half-formed resolutions fell away before the
compelling ring in his voice and the earnest pleading in his eyes.
"I will be in," she promised, "to-morrow at six o'clock."