John went back to town, telling himself that all had gone as well as he
had expected. He had done his duty. He had told Stephen his news, and
they had parted friends. Yet all the time he was conscious of an
undercurrent of disconcerting thoughts.
Louise met him at the station, and he fancied that her expression, too,
although she welcomed him gaily enough, was a little anxious.
"Well?" she asked, as she took his arm and led him to where her
motor-car was waiting. "What did that terrible brother of yours say?"
John made a little grimace.
"It might have been worse," he declared. "Stephen wasn't pleased, of
course. He hates women like poison, and he always will. That is because
he doesn't know very much about them, and because he will insist upon
dwelling upon certain unhappy incidents of our family history."
"I shall never forget the morning he came to call on me," Louise sighed.
"He threatened all sorts of terrible things if I did not give you up."
"Why didn't you tell me about it?" John asked.
"I thought it might worry you," she replied, "and it couldn't do any
good. He believed he was doing his duty. John, you are sure about
yourself, aren't you?"
"Come and have tea with me in my rooms, and I'll tell you," he laughed.
"Just what I'd planned to do," she assented, with a sigh of content.
"It's too late to go home and get back to the theater comfortably."
"The theater!" John murmured, a few minutes later, when they were seated
in his comfortable little sitting room and he had ordered tea. "Do you
know that I grudge those three or four hours of your day?"
"I believe I do, too," she admitted; "and yet a little while ago it was
my only pleasure in life. Don't sit over there, please! You are much too
far away. Closer still! Let me feel your arms. You are strong and brave,
aren't you, John? You would not let any one take me away from you?"
He was a little startled by the earnestness of her words. She seemed
pale and fragile, her eyes larger and deeper than usual, and her mouth
tremulous. She was like a child with the shadow of some fear hanging
over her. He laughed and held her tightly to him.
"There is nothing that could take you away--you know that quite well!
There is nobody in the world whom you need fear for a single moment. If
you have troubles, I am here to share them. If you have enemies, you can
leave me to dispose of them."
"I think," she murmured, "that I am in an emotional frame of mind
to-day. I am not often like this, you know. I woke this morning feeling
so happy; and then, all of a sudden, I couldn't somehow believe in
it--in myself. I felt it slip away. You won't let it slip away, John?"
"Never a chance!" he promised confidently. "Look at me. Do I seem like a
person to be easily got rid of? What you need is a holiday, and you need
it badly. We haven't made any plans yet, have we? I wonder whether we
could break your contract at the theater!"
"We must talk to Graillot," she said. "There is a little Frenchwoman
over here now. I once saw her act in Paris, and I am sure she could play
_Therese_ wonderfully. But don't let's talk seriously any longer. Just
let us sit here and talk nonsense!"
"Have you told any of your friends yet, Louise--the prince, for
instance?"
He had asked this question on his way across the room to ring the bell.
There was no reply, and when he turned around, a moment or two later, he
was almost frightened. Louise was sitting quite still, but the color
seemed to have been drained from her cheeks. Her eyes were filled with
some expression which he did not wholly understand. He only knew that
they were calling him to her side, and he promptly obeyed the summons.
Her head fell upon his shoulder, her arms were locked about his neck.
"John," she sobbed, "I do not know what is the matter with me. I am
hysterical. Don't ask me any questions. Don't talk to me. Hold me like
you are doing now, and listen. I love you, John--do you understand?--I
love you!"
Her lips sought his and clung to them. A queer little wave of passion
seemed to have seized her. Half crying, half laughing, she pressed her
face against his. "I do not want to act to-night. I do not want to play,
even to the most wonderful audience in the world. I do not want to shake
hands with many hundreds of people at that hateful reception. I think I
want nothing else in the world but you!"
She lay, for a moment, passive in his arms. He smoothed her hair and
kissed her tenderly. Then he led her back to her place upon the couch.
Her emotional mood, while it flattered him in a sense, did nothing to
quiet the little demons of unrest that pulled, every now and then, at
his heart-strings.
"What is this reception?" he asked.
She made a little grimace.
"It is a formal welcome from the English stage to the French company
that has come over to play at the new French theater," she told him.
"Sir Edward and I are to receive them. You will come, will you not?"
"I haven't an invitation," he told her.
"Invitation? I invite you. I am the hostess of the evening."
"Then I am not likely to refuse, am I?" he asked, smiling. "Shall I come
to the theater?"
"Come straight to the reception at the Whitehall Rooms," she begged.
"Sir Edward is calling for me, and Graillot will go down with us. Later,
if you care to, you can drive me home."
"Don't you think," he suggested, "that it would be rather a good
opportunity to announce our engagement?"
"Not to-night!" she pleaded. "You know, I cannot seem to believe it
myself except when I am with you and we are alone. It seems too
wonderful after all these years. Do you know, John, that I am nearly
thirty?"
He laughed.
"How pathetic! All the more reason, I should say, why we should let
people know about it as soon as possible."
"There is no particular hurry," she said, a little nervously. "Let me
get used to it myself. I don't think you will have to wait long.
Everything I have been used to doing and thinking seems to be crumbling
up around me. Last night I even hated my work, or at least part of it."
His eyes lit up with genuine pleasure.
"I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you say that," he declared. "I
don't hate your work--I've got over that. I don't think I am narrow
about it. I admire Graillot, and his play is wonderful. But I think, and
I always shall think, that the denouement in that third act is
damnable!"
She nodded understandingly.
"I am beginning to realize how you must feel," she confessed. "We won't
talk about it any more now. Drive me to the theater, will you? I want to
be there early to-night, just to get everything ready for changing
afterward."
The telephone-bell rang as they were leaving the room. John put the
receiver to his ear and a moment later held it away.
"It is Sophy," he announced. "Shall I tell them to send her up?"
"Sophy, indeed!" Louise exclaimed. "I thought she was in the country, on
tour, and was not expected back until to-morrow."
"I thought she went away for a week," John said, "but there she is,
waiting down-stairs."
Louise hesitated for a moment. Then she came over to John with a
tremulous little smile at the corners of her lips.
"Dear," she said, "I am in a strange frame of mind to-day. I don't want
even to see Sophy. Tell them to send her up here. She can wait for you
while you take me out the other way."
"May I tell her?" John asked, as he rang for the lift. "She has been
such a good little pal!"
Once more Louise seemed to hesitate. A vague look of trouble clouded her
face.
"Perhaps you had better, dear," she agreed spiritlessly. "Only tell her
not to breathe it to another soul. It is to be our secret for a little
time--not long--just a day or two longer."
The gates of the lift swung open, and John raised her fingers to his
lips.
"It is for you to say, dear," he promised.
When he came back to his room, Sophy was curled up on the couch with a
cigarette between her lips. She looked at him severely.
"I am losing faith in you," she declared. "There are signs of a hurried
departure from this room. There is a distinct perfume of roses about the
place. You have always told me that I am the only visitor of my sex you
allow here. I am fiercely jealous! Tell me what this tea-tray and the
empty cups mean?"
"It means Louise," he answered, smiling. "She has just this moment gone
away."
Sophy sighed with an air of mock relief.
"Louise I suppose I must tolerate," she said. "Fancy her coming here to
tea with you, though!"
"I have been up to Cumberland for a day," he told her, "and Louise came
to meet me at the station."
"How is your angel brother?" she asked. "Did he ask after me?"
"He did mention you," John confessed. "I don't remember any direct
message, though. You want a cocktail, of course, don't you?"
"Dying for it," she admitted. "I have had such a dull week! We've been
playing in wretched little places, and last night the show went bust.
The manager presented us with our fares home this morning. We were only
down in Surrey, so here I am."
"Well, I'm glad to see you back again," John told her, after he had
ordered the cocktails. "Louise has been quite lost without you, too."
"I didn't want to go away," she sighed, "but I do get so tired of not
working! Although my part wasn't worth anything, I hated it being cut
out. It makes one feel so aimless. One has too much time to think."
He laughed at her, pleasantly but derisively.
"Time to think!" he repeated. "Why, I have never seen you serious for
five minutes in your life, except when you've been adding up Louise's
housekeeping-books!"
She threw her cigarette into the grate, swung round toward him, and
looked steadily into his face.
"Haven't you?" she said. "I can be. I often am. It isn't my correct
pose, though. People don't like me serious. If they take me out or
entertain me, they think they are being cheated if I am not continually
gay. You see what it is to have a reputation for being amusing! Louise
keeps me by her side to talk nonsense to her, to keep her from being
depressed. Men take me out because I am bright, because I save them the
trouble of talking, and they don't feel quite so stupid with me as with
another woman. My young man at Bath wants to marry me for the same
reason. He thinks it would be so pleasant to have me always at hand to
chatter nonsense. That is why you like me, too. You have been pitched
into a strange world. You are not really in touch with it. You like to
be with some one who will talk nonsense and take you a little way out of
it. I am just a little fool, you see, a harmless little creature in cap
and bells whom every one amuses himself with."
John stared at her for a moment, only half understanding.
"Why, little girl," he exclaimed, "I believe you're in earnest!"
"I am in deadly earnest," she assured him, her voice breaking a little.
"Don't take any notice of me. I have had a wretched week, and it's a
rotten world, anyway."
There was a knock at the door, and the waiter entered with the
cocktails.
"Come," John said, as he took one from the tray, "I will tell you some
news that will give you something to think about. I hope that you will
be glad--I feel sure that you will. I want you to be the first to drink
our healths--Louise's and mine!"
The glass slipped through her fingers and fell upon the carpet. She
never uttered even an exclamation. John was upon his knees, picking up
the broken glass.
"My fault," he insisted. "I am so sorry, Sophy. I am afraid some of the
stuff has gone on your frock. Looks as if you'll have to take me out
shopping. I'll ring for another cocktail."
He rose to his feet and stepped toward the bell. Then it suddenly
occurred to him that as yet she had not spoken. He turned quickly
around.
"Sophy," he exclaimed, "what is the matter? Aren't you going to
congratulate me?"
She was sitting bolt upright upon the couch, her fingers buried in the
cushions, her eyes closed. He moved quickly across toward her.
"I say, Sophy, what's wrong?" he asked hastily. "Aren't you well?"
She waved him away.
"Don't touch me," she begged. "I went without my lunch--nearly missed
the train, as it was. I was feeling a little queer when I came, and
dropping that glass gave me a shock. Let me drink yours, may I?"
He handed it to her, and she drained its contents. Then she smiled up at
him weakly.
"What a shame!" she said. "Just as you were telling me your wonderful
news! I can scarcely believe it--you and Louise!"
John sat down beside her.
"Louise does not want it talked about for a day or two," he observed.
"We have not made any plans yet."
"Is Louise going to remain upon the stage?"
"Probably, if she wishes it," he replied; "but I want to travel first
for a year or so, before we settle definitely upon anything. I did not
think that you would be so much surprised, Sophy."
"Perhaps I am not really," she admitted. "One thinks of a thing as being
possible, for a long time, and when it actually comes--well, it takes
you off your feet just the same. You know," she added slowly, "there are
no two people in this world so far apart in their ways as you and
Louise."
"That is true from one point of view," he confessed. "From another, I
think that there are no two people so close together. Of course, it
seems wonderful to me, and I suppose it does to you, Sophy, that she
should care for a man of my type. She is so brilliant and so talented,
such a woman of this latter-day world, the world of which I am about as
ignorant as a man can be. Perhaps, after all, that is the real
explanation of it. Each of us represents things new to the other."
"Did you say that no one has been told yet--no one at all?"
"No one except Stephen," John assented. "That is why I went up to
Cumberland, to tell him."
"You have not told the prince?" Sophy asked, dropping her voice a
little. "Louise has not told him?"
"Not that I know of. Why do you ask?" John inquired, looking into
Sophy's face.
"I don't know," she answered. "It just occurred to me. He and Louise
have known each other for such a long time, and I wondered what he might
have to say about it."
John laid his hands upon the poisonous thoughts that had stolen once
more into his blood, and told himself that he had strangled them. He
swept them away and glanced at his watch.
"Let's have some dinner before I change, down in the grill-room--in a
quarter of an hour's time, say. I don't want to be at the theater before
the second act."
Sophy hesitated. There was a hard feeling in her throat, a burning at
the back of her eyes. She was passionately anxious to be alone, yet she
could not bring herself to refuse. She could not deny herself, or tear
herself at once away from the close companionship which seemed, somehow
or other, to have crept up between herself and John, and to have become
the one thing that counted in life.
"I'd love to," she said, "but remember I've been traveling. Look at me!
I must either go home, or you must let me go into your room--"
"Make yourself at home," John invited. "I have three letters to write,
and some telephone messages to answer."
Sophy lit another cigarette and strolled jauntily through his suite of
rooms. When she was quite sure that she was alone, however, she closed
the door behind her, dropped her cigarette, and staggered to the window.
She stood there, gazing down into an alleyway six stories below, where
the people passing back and forth looked like dwarf creatures.
One little movement forward! No one could have been meant to bear pain
like this. She set her teeth.
"It would be so soon over!"
Then she suddenly found that she could see nothing; the people below
were blurred images. A rush of relief had come to her. She sank into the
nearest chair and sobbed.