Tavernake felt that he had indeed wandered into an alien world as he
took his place the following evening among the little crowd of people
who were waiting outside the stage-door of the Atlas Theatre. These were
surroundings to which he was totally unaccustomed. Two very handsome
motor-cars were drawn up against the curb, and behind them a string of
electric broughams and taxicabs, proving conclusively that the young
ladies of the Atlas Theatre were popular in other than purely theatrical
circles.
The handful of young men by whom Tavernake was surrounded were of a
genus unknown to him. They were all dressed exactly alike, they all
seemed to breathe the same atmosphere, to exhibit the same indifference
towards the other loungers. One or two more privileged passed in
through the stage-door and disappeared. Tavernake contented himself with
standing on the edge of the curbstone, his hands thrust into the pockets
of his dark overcoat, his bowler hat, which was not quite the correct
shape, slightly on the back of his head; his serious, stolid face
illuminated by the gleam from a neighboring gas lamp.
Presently, people began to emerge from the door. First of all, the
musicians and a little stream of stage hands.
Then a girl's hat appeared in the doorway, and the first of the Atlas
young ladies came out, to be claimed at once by her escort. Very soon
afterwards, Beatrice arrived. She recognized Tavernake at once and
crossed over to him.
“Well?” she asked.
“You looked very nice,” he said, slowly, as he led the way down
the street. “Of course, I knew about your singing, but everything
else--seemed such a surprise.”
“For instance?”
“Why, I mean your dancing,” he went on, “and somehow or other you looked
different on the stage.”
She shook her head.
“'Different' won't do for me,” she persisted. “I must have something
more specific.”
“Well, then, you looked much prettier than I thought you were,”
Tavernake declared, solemnly. “You looked exceedingly nice.”
“You really thought so?” she asked, a little doubtfully.
“I really thought so. I thought you looked much nicer than any of the
others.”
She squeezed his arm affectionately.
“Dear Leonard,” she said, “it's so nice to have you think so. Do you
know, Mr. Grier actually asked me out to supper.”
“What impertinence!” Tavernake muttered.
Beatrice threw her head back and laughed.
“My dear brother,” she protested, “it was a tremendous compliment. You
must remember that it was entirely through him, too, that I got the
engagement. Four pounds a week I am going to have. Just think of it!”
“Four pounds a week is all very well,” Tavernake admitted. “It seems a
great deal of money to earn like that. But I don't think you ought to go
out to supper with any one whom you know so slightly.”
“Dear prig! You know, you are a shocking prig, Leonard.”
“Am I?” he answered, without offence, and with the air of one seriously
considering the subject.
“Of course you are. How could you help it, living the sort of life
you've led all your days? Never mind, I like you for it. I don't know
whether I want to go out to supper with anybody--I really haven't
decided yet--but if I did, it would certainly be better for me to go
with Mr. Grier, because he can do me no end of good at the theatre, if
he likes.”
Tavernake was silent for several moments. He was conscious of feeling
something which he did not altogether understand. He only knew that
it involved a strong and unreasonable dislike to Mr. Grier. Then he
remembered that he was her brother, that he had the right to speak with
authority.
“I hope that you will not go out to supper with any one,” he said.
She began to laugh but checked herself.
“Well,” she remarked, “that sounds very terrible. Shall we take a 'bus?
To tell you the truth, I am dying of hunger. We rehearsed for two hours
before the performance, and I ate nothing but a sandwich--I was so
excited.”
Tavernake hesitated a moment--he certainly was not himself this evening!
“Would you like to have some supper at a restaurant,” he asked, “before
we go home?”
“I should love it,” she declared, taking his arm as they passed through
a stream of people. “To tell you the truth, I was so hoping that you
would propose it.”
“I think,” Tavernake said, deliberately, “that there is a place a little
way along here.”
They pushed their way down the Strand and entered a restaurant which
Tavernake knew only by name. A small table was found for them and
Beatrice looked about with delight.
“Isn't this jolly!” she exclaimed, taking off her gloves. “Why, there
are five or six of the girls from the theatre here already. There are
two, see, at the corner table, and the fair-haired girl--she is just
behind me in the chorus.”
Tavernake glanced around. The young women whom she pointed out were
all escorted by men who were scrupulously attired in evening dress. She
seemed to read his thoughts as she laughed at him.
“You stupid boy,” she said. “You don't suppose that I want to be like
them, do you? There are lots of things it's delightful to look on at,
and that's all. Isn't this fish good? I love this place.”
Tavernake looked around him with an interest which he took no pains
to conceal. Certainly the little groups of people by whom they were
surrounded on every side had the air of finding some zest in life which
up to the present, at any rate, had escaped him. They came streaming in,
finding friends everywhere, laughing and talking, insisting upon tables
in impossible places, calling out greetings to acquaintances across the
room, chaffing the maitre d'hotel who was hastening from table to table.
The gathering babel of voices was mingled every now and then with the
popping of corks, and behind it all were the soft strains of a very
seductive little band, perched up in the balcony. Tavernake felt the
color mounting into his cheeks. It was true: there was something here
which was new to him!
“Beatrice,” he asked her suddenly, “have you ever drunk champagne?”
She laughed at him.
“Often, my dear brother,” she answered. “Why?”
“I never have,” he confessed. “We are going to have some now.”
She would have checked him but he had summoned a waiter imperiously and
given his order.
“My dear Leonard,” she protested, “this is shocking extravagance.”
“Is it?” he replied. “I don't care. Tell me about the theatre. Were they
kind to you there? Will you be able to keep your place?”
“The girls were all much nicer than I expected,” she told him, “and the
musical director said that my voice was much too good for the chorus.
Oh, I do hope that they will keep me!”
“They would be idiots if they didn't,” he declared, vigorously. “You
sing better and you dance more gracefully and to me you seemed much
prettier than any one else there.”
She laughed into his eyes.
“My dear brother,” she exclaimed, “your education is progressing indeed!
It is positively the first evening I have ever heard you attempt to make
pretty speeches, and you are quite an adept already.”
“I don't know about that,” he protested. “I suppose it never occurred
to me before that you were good-looking,” he added, examining her
critically, “or I dare say I should have told you so. You see, one
doesn't notice these things in an ordinary way. Lots of other people
must have told you so, though.”
“I was never spoilt with compliments,” she said. “You see, I had a
beautiful sister.”
The words seemed to have escaped her unconsciously. Almost as they
passed her lips, her expression changed. She shivered, as though
reminded of something unpleasant. Tavernake, however, noticed nothing.
For the greater part of the day he had been sedulously fighting against
a new and unaccustomed state of mind. He had found his thoughts slipping
away, time after time, until he had had to set his teeth and use all
his will power to keep his attention concentrated upon his work. And now
once more they had escaped, again he felt the strange stir in his blood.
The slight flush on his cheek grew suddenly deeper. He looked past the
girl opposite to him, out of the restaurant, across the street, into
that little sitting-room in the Milan Court. It was Elizabeth who was
there in front of him. Again he heard her voice, saw the turn of her
head, the slow, delightful curve of the lips, the eyes that looked into
his and spoke to him the first strange whispers of a new language. His
heart gave a quick throb. He was for the moment transformed, a prisoner
no longer, a different person, indeed, from the stolid, well-behaved
young man who found himself for the first time in his life in these
unaccustomed surroundings. Then Beatrice leaned towards him, her voice
brought him back to the present--not, alas, the voice which at that
moment he would have given so much to have heard.
“To-night,” she murmured, “I feel as though we were at the beginning of
new things. We must drink a toast.”
Tavernake filled her glass and his own.
“Luck to you in your new profession!” he said.
“And here is one after your own heart, you most curious of men!” she
exclaimed, a few seconds later. “To the undiscovered in life!”
He drained his glass and set it down empty.
“The undiscovered,” he muttered, looking around. “It is a very good
toast, Beatrice. There are many things of which one might remain
ignorant all one's life if one relied wholly upon one's own
perceptions.”
“I believe,” she agreed, “that if I had not appeared you were in great
danger of becoming narrow.”
“I am sure of it,” he answered, “but you see you came.”
She was thoughtful for a moment.
“This reminds me just a little of that first dreary feast of ours,” she
said. “You knew what it was like then to feed a genuinely starving girl.
And I was miserable, Leonard. It didn't seem to me that there was any
other end save one.”
“You've got over all that nonsense?” he asked anxiously.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she answered. “You see, I've started life again and
one gets stronger. But there are times even now,” she added, “when I am
afraid.”
The mirth had suddenly died from her face. She looked older, tired,
and careworn. The shadows were back under her eyes; she glanced around
almost timorously. He filled her glass.
“That is foolishness,” he said. “Nothing nor anybody can harm you now.”
Some note in his voice attracted her attention. Strong and square, with
hard, forceful face, he sat wholly at his ease among these unfamiliar
surroundings, a very tower of refuge, she felt, to the weak. His
face was not strikingly intellectual--she was not sure now about his
mouth--but one seemed to feel that dogged nature, the tireless pains by
which he would pursue any aim dear to him. The shadows passed away from
her mind. What was dead was gone! It was not reasonable that she should
be haunted all her days by the ghosts of other people's sins. The
atmosphere of the place, the atmosphere of the last few hours, found its
way again into her blood. After all, she was young, the music was sweet,
her pulses were throbbing to the tune of this new life. She drank her
wine and laughed, her head beating time to the music.
“We have been sad long enough,” she declared. “You and I, my dear
serious brother, will embark in earnest now upon the paths of frivolity.
Tell me, how did things go to-day?”
It flashed into his mind that he had great news, but that it was not for
her. About that matter there was still doubt in his mind, but he could
not speak of it.
“I have had an offer,” he said guardedly. “I cannot say much about it at
present, for nothing is certain, but I am sure that I shall be able to
raise the money somehow.”
His tone was calm and confident. There was no self-assurance or bluster
about it, and yet it was convincing. She looked at him curiously.
“You are a very positive person, Leonard,” she remarked. “You must have
great faith in yourself, I think.”
He considered the question for a moment.
“Perhaps I have,” he admitted. “I do not think that there is any other
way to succeed.”
The atmosphere of the place was becoming now almost languorous. The band
had ceased to play; little parties of men and women were standing about,
bidding one another goodnight. The lamps had been lowered, and in the
gloom the voices and laughter seemed to have become lower and more
insinuating; the lights in the eyes of the women, as they passed down
the room on their way out, softer and more irresistible.
“I suppose we must go,” she said reluctantly.
Tavernake paid his bill and they turned into the street. She took his
arm and they turned westward. Even out here, the atmosphere of the
restaurant appeared to have found its way. The soberness of life, its
harder and more practical side, was for the moment obscured. It was
not the daytime crowd, this, whose footsteps pressed the pavements. The
careworn faces of the money-seekers had vanished. The men and women to
whom life was something of a struggle had sought their homes--resting,
perhaps, before they took up their labors again. Every moment taxicabs
and motor-cars whirled by, flashing upon the night a momentary
impression of men in evening dress, of women in soft garments with
jewels in their hair. The spirit of pleasure seemed to have crept into
the atmosphere. Even the poorer people whom they passed in the street,
were laughing or singing.
Tavernake stopped short.
“To-night,” he declared, “is not the night for omnibuses. We are going
to have a taxicab. I know that you are tired.”
“I should love it,” she admitted.
They hailed one and drove off. Beatrice leaned back among the cushions
and closed her eyes, her ungloved hand rested almost caressingly upon
his. He leaned forward. There were new things in the world--he was sure
of it now, sure though they were coming to him through the mists, coming
to him so vaguely that even while he obeyed he did not understand.
Her full, soft lips were slightly parted; her heavily-fringed eyelids
closed; her deep brown hair, which had escaped bounds a little, drooping
over her ear. His fingers suddenly clasped hers tightly.
“Beatrice!” he whispered.
She sat up with a start, her eyes questioning his, the breath coming
quickly through her parted lips.
“Once you asked me to kiss you, Beatrice,” he said. “To-night--I am
going to.”
She made no attempt to repulse him. He took her in his arms and
kissed her. Even in that moment he knew that he had made a mistake.
Nevertheless, he kissed her again and again, crushing her lips against
his.
“Please let me go, Leonard,” she begged at last.
He obeyed at once. He understood quite well that some strange thing had
happened. It seemed to him during those next few minutes that everything
which had passed that night was a dream, that this vivid picture of a
life more intense, making larger demands upon the senses than anything
he had yet experienced, was a mirage, a thing which would live only
in his memory, a life in which he could never take any part. He had
blundered; he had come into a new world and he had blundered. A sense of
guilt was upon him. He had a sudden wild desire to cry out that it was
Elizabeth whom he had kissed. Beatrice was sitting upright in her place,
her head turned a little away from him. He felt that she was expecting
him to speak--that there were inevitable words which he should say. His
silence was a confession. He would have lied but the seal was upon his
lips. So the moment passed, and Tavernake had taken another step forward
towards his destiny! ...
As he helped her out of the cab, her fingers tightened for a moment upon
his hand. She patted it gently as she passed out before him into the
house, leaving the door open. When he had paid the cabman and followed,
she had disappeared. He looked into the sitting-room; it was empty.
Overhead, he could hear her footsteps as she ascended to her room.