Three days later a note from Miss Cardiff in Kensington
Square to Miss Bell in Essex Court, Fleet Street, came
back unopened. A slanting line in very violet ink along
the top read "_Out of town for the pressent. M. Jordan._"
Janet examined the line carefully, but could extract
nothing further from it except that it had been written
with extreme care, by a person of limited education and
a taste for color. It occurred to her, in addition, that
the person's name was probably Mary.
Elfrida's actions had come to have a curious importance
to Janet; she realized how great an importance with the
access of irritated surprise which came to her with, this
unopened note. In the beginning she had found Elfrida's
passionate admiration so novel and so sweet that her
heart was half won before they came, together in completer
intimacy, and she gave her new original friend a meed of
affection which seemed to strengthen as it instinctively
felt itself unreturned--at least in kind. Elfrida
retracted none of her admiration, and she added to it,
when she ceded her sympathy, the freedom of a fortified
city; but Janet hungered for more. Inwardly she cried
out for the something warm and human that was lacking to
Elfrida's feeling for her, and sometimes she asked herself
with grieved cynicism how her friend found it worth while
to pretend to care so cleverly. More than once she had
written to Elfrida with the deliberate purpose of soothing
herself by provoking some tenderness in reply, and
invariably the key she had struck had been that of homage,
more or less whimsically unwilling. "_Don't_ write such
delicious things to me, _ma mie_," would come the answer.
"You make me curl up with envy. What shall I do if malice
and all uncharitableness follow? I admire you so
horribly--there!" Janet told herself sorely that she was
sick of Elfrida's admiration--it was not the stuff
friendships were made of. And a keener pang supervened
when she noticed that whatever savored most of an admiration
on her own part had obviously the highest value for her
friend. The thought of Kendal only heightened her feeling
about Elfrida. She would be so much the stronger, she
thought, to resist any--any strain--if she could be
quite certain how much Elfrida cared--cared about her
personally. Besides, the indictment that she, Janet, had
against her seemed to make the girl's affection absolutely
indispensable. And now Elfrida had apparently left London
without a word. She had dined in Kensington Square the
night before, and this was eleven o'clock in the morning.
It looked very much as if she had deliberately intended
to leave them in the dark as to her movements. People
didn't go out of town indefinitely "for the present," on
an hour's notice. The thought brought sudden tears to
Janet's eyes, which she winked back angrily. "I am getting
to be a perfect old maid!" she reflected. "Why shouldn't
Frida go to Kamschatka, if she wants to, without giving
us notice? It's only her eccentric way of doing things."
And she frowned upon, her sudden resolution to rush off
to Fleet Street in a cab and inquire of Mrs. Jordan. It
would be espionage. She would wait, quit calmly and
indefinitely, till Frida chose to write, and then she
would treat the escapade, whatever it was, with the
perfect understanding of good-fellowship. Or perhaps not
indefinitely--for two or three days--it was just possible
that Frida might have had bad news and started suddenly
for America by the early tram to Liverpool, in which case
she might easily not have had time to write. But in that
case would not Mrs. Jordan have written "Gone to America"?
Her heart stood still with another thought--could she
have gone with Kendal? Granting that she had made up her
mind to marry him, it would be just Elfrida's strange,
sensational way. Janet walked the floor in a restless
agony, mechanically tearing the note into little, strips.
She must know--she must find out. She would write and
ask him for something--for what? A book, a paper--the
_New Monthly_, and she must have some particular reason.
She sat down to write, and pressed her fingers upon her
throbbing eyes in the effort to summon a particular
reason. It was as far from her as ever when the maid
knocked and came in with a note from Kendal asking them
to go to see Miss Rehan in "As You Like It" that evening
--a note fragrant of tobacco, not an hour old.
"You needn't wait, Jessie," she said. "I'll send an answer
later;" and the maid had hardly left the room before
Janet was sobbing silently and helplessly with her head
on the table. As the day passed however, Elfrida's conduct
seemed less unforgivable, and by dinner-time she was able
to talk of it with simple wonder, which became more
tolerant still in the course of the evening, when she
discovered that Kendal was as ignorant and as astonished
as they themselves.
"She will write," Janet said hopefully; but a week passed
and Elfrida did not write. A settled disquietude began
to make itself felt between the Cardiffs. Accepting each
other's silence for the statement that Elfrida had sent
no word, they ceased to talk of her--as a topic her
departure had become painful to both of them. Janet's
anxiety finally conquered her scruples, and she betook
herself to Essex Court to inquire of Mrs. Jordan. That
lady was provokingly mysterious, and made the difficulty
of ascertaining that she knew nothing whatever about Miss
Bell's movements as great as possible. Janet saw an
acquaintance with some collateral circumstance in her
eyes, however, and was just turning away irritated by
her vain attempts to obtain it, when Mrs. Jordan, decided
that the pleasure of the revelation would be, after all,
greater than the pleasure of shielding the facts.
"Wether it 'as anything to do with Miss Bell or not, of
course I can't say," Mrs. Jordan remarked, with
conscientious hypocrisy, "but Mr. Ticke, _he_ left town
that same mornin'." She looked disappointed when Miss
Cardiff received this important detail indifferently.
"Oh, nothing whatever," Janet replied, with additional
annoyance that Elfrida should have subjected herself to
such an insinuation. Janet had a thoroughgoing dislike
to Golightly Ticke. On her way back in the omnibus she
reflected on the coincidence, however, and in the end
she did not mention it to her father.
The next day Lawrence Cardiff went to the _Age_ office
and had the good fortune to see Mr. Rattray, who was
flattered to answer questions regarding Miss Bell's
whereabouts, put by any one he knew to be a friend. Mr.
Rattray undertook to apologize for their not hearing of
the scheme, it had matured so suddenly. Miss Bell couldn't
really have had time to do more than pack and start; in
fact, there had been only three days in which to make
all the arrangements. And of course the facts were
confidential, but there was no reason why Miss Bell's
friends should not be in the secret. Then Mr. Rattray
imparted the facts, with a certain conscious gratification.
There had been difficulties, but the difficulties had
been surmounted, and he had heard from Miss Bell that
morning that everything was going perfectly, and she was
getting hold of magnificent copy. He was only sorry it
wouldn't be quite suitable for serial publication in the
_Age_; but, as Professor Cardiff was doubtless aware,
the British public were kittle cattle to shoe behind,
and he hardly thought the _Age_ could handle it.
"Oh yes," Mr. Cardiff replied absently. "Cheynemouth,
I think you said--for the next five days. Thanks.
Successful? I dare say. The idea is certainly a novel
one. Good-morning!" and he left the sub-editor of the
_Illustrated Age_ in a state of some uncertainty as to
the wisdom of having disclosed so much. Half an hour
later, when Kendal, who knew Rattray fairly well, called
and asked him for Miss Bell's present address, he got it
with some reluctance and fewer details.
Cardiff drove to his club, and wrote a note to Janet,
asking her to send his portmanteau to the 3.45 train at
Euston, as he intended to run down to Cheynemouth and
might stay over night He fastened up the envelope, then
after a moment's hesitation tore it open and added, "Miss
Bell is attempting a preposterous thing. I am going to
see if it cannot be prevented." He fancied Janet would
understand his not caring to go into particulars in the
meantime. It was because of his aversion to going into
particulars that he sent the note and lunched at the
club, instead of driving home as he had abundance of time
to do. Janet would have to be content with that; it would
be bad enough to have to explain Rattray's intolerable
"scheme" to her when it had been frustrated. After luncheon
he went into the smoking-room and read through three
leading articles with an occasional inkling of their
meaning. At the end of the third he became convinced of
the absurdity of trying to fix his attention upon anything,
and smoked his next Havana with his eyes upon the toe of
his boot, in profound meditation. An observant person
might have noticed that he passed his hand once or twice
lightly, mechanically, over the top of his head; but even
an observant person would hardly have connected the action
with Mr. Cardiff's latent idea that although his hair
might be tinged in a damaging way there was still a good
deal of it. Three o'clock found him standing at the club
window with his hands in his pockets, and the firm-set
lips of a man who has made up his mind, looking unseeingly
into the street. At a quarter past he was driving to the
station in a hansom, smiling at the rosette on the horse's
head, which happened to be a white one.
"There's Cardiff," said a man who saw him taking his
ticket. "More than ever the _joli garcon!_"
An hour and a half later one of the somewhat unprepossessing
set of domestics attached to the Mansion Hotel, Cheynemouth,
undertook to deliver Mr. Lawrence Cardiff's card to Miss
Bell. She didn't remember no such name among the young
ladies of the Peach Blossom Company, but she would
h'inquire. They was a ladies' drawin'-room upstairs, if
he would like to sit down. She conducted him to the
ladies' drawing-room, which boasted two pairs of torn
lace curtains, a set of dirty furniture with plush
trimmings, several lithographs of mellow Oriental scenes
somewhat undecidedly poised upon the wall, and a
marble-topped centre-table around which were disposed at
careful intervals three or four copies of last year's
illustrated papers. "You can w'yt'ere, sir," she said,
installing him as it were. "I'll let you know directly."
At the end of the corridor the girl met Elfrida herself,
who took the card with that quickening of her pulse, that
sudden commotion which had come to represent to her, in
connection with any critical personal situation, one of
the keenest possible sensations of pleasure. "You may tell
the gentleman," she said quietly, "that I will come in
a moment." Then she went back into her own room, closed
the door, and sat down on the side of the bed with a pale
face and eyes that comprehended, laughed, and were withal
a little frightened. That was what she must get rid of,
that feeling of fear, that scent of adverse criticism.
She would sit still 'till she was perfectly calm, perfectly
accustomed to the idea that Lawrence Cardiff had come to
remonstrate with her, and had come because--because what
she had been gradually becoming convinced of all these
months was true. He was so clever, so distinguished, he
had his eyes and his voice and his whole self so perfectly
under control, that she never could be quite, _quite_
sure--but now! And in spite of herself her heart beat
faster at the anticipation of what he might be waiting
to say to her not twenty steps away. She hid her face in
the pillow to laugh at the thought of how deliciously
the interference of an elderly lover would lend itself
to the piece of work, which she saw in fascinating
development under her hand, and she had an instantaneous
flash of regret that she couldn't use it--no, she couldn't
possibly. With fingers that trembled a little she twisted
her hair into a knot that became her better, and gave an
adjusting pat to the fluffy ends around her forehead.
"Nous en ferons une comedie adorable!" she nodded at the
girl in the glass; and then, with the face and manner of
a child detected in some mischief who yet expects to be
forgiven, she went into the drawing-room.
At the sight of her all that Cardiff was ready to say
vanished from the surface of his mind. The room was
already gray in the twilight. He drew her by both hands
to the nearest window, and looked at her mutely,
searchingly. It seemed to him that she, who was so quick
of apprehension, ought to know why he had come without
words, and her submission deepened his feeling of a
complete understanding between them.
"I've washed it all off!" said she naively, lifting her
face to his scrutiny. "It's not an improvement by daylight,
you know."
He smiled a little, but he did not release her hands.
"Elfrida, you must come home."
"Let us sit down," she said, drawing them away. He had
a trifle too much advantage, standing so close to her,
tall and firm in the dusk, knowing what he wanted, and
with that tenderness in his voice. Not that she had the
most far-away intention of yielding, but she did not want
their little farce to be spoiled by any complications
that might mar her pleasure in looking back upon it. "I
think," said she, "you will find that a comfortable
chair," and she showed him one which stood where all the
daylight that came through the torn curtains concentrated
itself. From her own seat she could draw her face into
the deepest shadow in the room. She made the arrangement
almost instinctively, and the lines of intensity the last
week had drawn upon Cardiffs face were her first reward.
"I have come to ask you to give up this thing," he said.
Elfrida leaned forward a little in her favorite attitude,
clasping her knee. Her eyes were widely serious. "You
ask me to give it up?" she repeated slowly. "But why do
you ask me?"
"Because I cannot associate it with you--to me it is
impossible that you should do it."
Elfrida lifted her eyebrows a little. "Do you know why
I am doing it?" she asked.
"I think so."
"It is not a mere escapade, you understand. And these
people do not pay me anything. That is quite just, because
I have never learned to act and I haven't much voice. I
can take no part, only just--appear."
"_Appear!_" Cardiff exclaimed. "Have you appeared!"
"Seven times," Elfrida said simply, but she felt that
she was blushing.
Cardiff's anger rose up hotly within him, and strove with
his love, and out of it there came a sickening sense of
impotency which assailed his very soul. All his life he
had had tangibilities to deal with. This was something
in the air, and already he felt the apprehension of being
baffled here, where he wrought for his heart and his
future.
"So that is a part of it," he said, with tightened lips.
"I did not know."
"Oh, I insisted upon that," Elfrida replied softly. "I
am quite one of them--one of the young ladies of the
Peach Blossom Company. I am learning all their sensations,
their little frailties, their vocabulary, their ways of
looking at things. I know how the novice feels when she
makes her first appearance in the chorus of a
spectacle--I've noted every vibration of her nerves. I'm
learning all the little jealousies and intrigues among
them, and all their histories and their ambitions. They
are more moral than you may think, but it is not the
moral one who is the most interesting. Her virtue is
generally a very threadbare, common sort of thing.
The--others--have more color in the fabric of their lives,
and you can't think how picturesque their passions are.
One of the chorus girls has two children. I feel a brute
sometimes at the way she--" Elfrida broke off, and looked
out of the window for an instant. "She brings their little
clothes into my bedroom to make--though there is no need,
they are in an asylum. She is divorced from their father,"
she went on coolly, "and he is married to the leading
lady. Candidly," she added, looking at him with a courageous
smile, "prejudice apart, is it not magnificent material?"
A storm of words trembled upon the verge of his lips,
but his diplomacy instinctively sealed them up. "You
can never use it," he said instead.
"Perfectly! I am not quite sure about the form--whether
I shall write as one of them, or as myself, telling the
story of my experience. But I never dreamed of having
such an opportunity. If I didn't mean to write a word I
should be glad of it--a look into another world, with
its own customs and language and ethics and pleasures
and pains. _Quelle chance!_
"And then," she went on, as if to herself, "to be of the
life, the strange, unreal, painted, lime-lighted life
that goes on behind the curtain! That is something--to
act one's part in it, to know that one's own secret role
is a thousand times more difficult than any in the
_repertoire_. Can't you understand?" she appealed. "You
are horribly unresponsive. We won't talk of it any longer."
she added, with a little offended air. "How is Janet?"
"We must talk of it, Elfrida," Cardiff answered. "Let
me tell you one thing," he added steadily. "Such a book
as you propose writing would be classed as the lowest
sensationalism. People would compare it with the literature
of the police court."
Elfrida sprang to her feet, with her head thrown back
and-her beautiful eyes alight. "_Touche!_" Cardiff thought
exultingly.
"You may go too far!" she exclaimed passionately. "There
are some things that may not be said!"
Cardiff went over to her quickly and took her hand.
"Forgive me," he said. "Forgive me--I am very much in
earnest."
She turned away from him. "You had no right to say it.
You know my work, and you know that the ideal of it is
everything in the world to me--my religion. How dared you
suggest a comparison between, it and--_cette ordure la!_"
Her voice broke, and Cardiff fancied she was on the brink
of tears. "Elfrida," he cried miserably, "let us have an
end of this! I have no right to intrude my opinions--if
you like, my prejudices--between you and what you are
doing. But I have come to beg you to give me the right."
He came a step closer and laid his free hand lightly on
her shoulder. "Elfrida," he said unhesitatingly, "I want
you to be my wife."
"And Janet's stepmother!" thought the girl swiftly. But
she hoped he would not mention Janet; it would burlesque
the situation.
"Your going away made me quite sure," he added simply.
"I can never do without you altogether again. Instead I
want to possess you altogether." He bent his fine face
to the level of hers, and took both her hands in his.
Elfrida thought that by that light he looked strangely
young.
She slipped her hands away, but did not move, He was
still very close to her--she could feel his breath upon
her hair.
"Oh no!" she said. "Marriage is so absurd!" and immediately
it occurred to her that she might have put this more
effectively. "Cela n'est pas bien dit!" she thought.
"Let us sit down together and talk about it," he answered
gently, and drew her toward the little sofa in the corner.
"But--I am afraid--there is nothing more to say. And in
a quarter of an hour I must go."
Cardiff smiled masterfully. "I could marry you, little
one, in a quarter of an hour," he said.
But at the end of that time Lawrence Cardiff found himself
very far indeed from the altar, and more enlightened
perhaps than he had ever been before about the radicalism
of certain modern sentiments concerning it. She would
change, he averred; might he be allowed to hope that she
would change, and to wait--months, years? She would never
change, Elfrida avowed, it was useless--quite useless--to
think of that. The principle had too deep a root in her
being--to tear it up would be to destroy her whole joy
in life, she said, leaving Cardiff to wonder vaguely what
she meant.
"I will wait," he said, as she rose to go; "but you will
come back with me now, and we will write a book--some
other book--together."
The girl laughed gaily. "All alone by myself I must do
it," she answered. "And I must do _this_ book. You will
approve it when it is done. I am not afraid."
He had her hands again. "Elfrida," he threatened, "if
you go on the stage to-night in the costume I see so
graphically advertised--an Austrian hussar, isn't it?--I
will attend. I will take a box," he added, wondering at
his own brutality. But by any means he must prevail.
Elfrida turned a shade paler. "You will not do that,"
she said gravely. "Good-by. Thank you for having come to
persuade me to give this up. And I wish I could do what
you would like. But it is quite, quite impossible." She
bent over him and touched his forehead lightly with her
lips. "Good-by," she said again, and was gone.
An hour later he was on his way back to town. As the
mail train whizzed by another, side-tracked to await its
passing, Mr. Cardiff might have seen Kendal, if there
had been time to look, puffing luxuriously in a smoking
compartment, and unfolding a copy of the _Illustrated Age_.