"But you can't do it without the ballet?"
"You certainly couldn't have a Harlequinade without Harlequin and
Columbine," agreed Anna Denman dryly. "I'm going to be Columbine, John."
"You?" He was astonished--disturbed, Mr. Satterthwaite thought.
She nodded composedly. "You need not be afraid, John. I shall not
disgrace you. You forget--it was my profession once."
Mr. Satterthwaite thought, _What an extraordinary thing a voice is. The
things it says--and the things it leaves unsaid and means! I wish I
knew--_
"Well," said John Denman grudgingly. "That solves one half of the
problem. What about the other? Where will you find Harlequin?"
"I _have_ found him--there!"
She gestured toward the open doorway where Mr. Quin had just appeared.
He smiled back at her.
"Good Lord, Quin," said John Denman. "Do you know anything of this
game? I should never have imagined it."
"Mr. Quin is vouched for by an expert," said his wife. "Mr.
Satterthwaite will answer for him."
She smiled at Mr. Satterthwaite, and the little man found himself
murmuring, "Oh! yes, I--I answer for Mr. Quin."
Denman turned his attention elsewhere. "You know there's to be a fancy
dress dance business afterward. Great nuisance. We'll have to rig you
up, Satterthwaite."
Mr. Satterthwaite shook his head very decidedly. "My years will excuse
me." A brilliant idea struck him. "A table napkin under the arm. There
I am, an elderly waiter who has seen better days."
He laughed.
"An interesting profession," said Mr. Quin. "One sees so much."
"I've got to put on some fool Pierrot thing," said Denman gloomily.
"It's cool anyway, that's one thing. What about you?" He looked at
Oranoff.
"I have a Harlequin costume," said the Russian. His eyes wandered for a
minute to his hostess's face.
Mr. Satterthwaite wondered if he was mistaken in fancying that there
was just a moment of constraint.
"There might have been three of us," said Denman, with a laugh. "I've
got an old Harlequin costume my wife made me when we were first married
for some show or other." He paused, looking down on his broad shirt
front. "I don't suppose I could get into it now."
"No," said his wife, "you couldn't get into it now." And again her
voice said something more than mere words.
She glanced up at the clock. "If Molly doesn't turn up soon, we won't
wait for her."
But at that moment the girl was announced. She was already wearing her
Pierrette dress of white and green, and very charming she looked in it,
so Mr. Satterthwaite reflected.
She was full of excitement and enthusiasm over the forthcoming
performance. "I'm getting awfully nervous, though," she announced, as
they drank coffee after dinner. "I know my voice will wobble, and I
shall forget the words."
"Your voice is very charming," said Anna. "I should not worry about it
if I were you."
"Oh! but I do. The other I don't mind about--the dancing, I mean.
That's sure to go all right. I mean, you can't go very far wrong with
your feet, can you?"
She appealed to Anna, but the older woman did not respond. Instead she
said, "Sing something now to Mr. Satterthwaite. You will find that he
will reassure you."
Molly went over to the piano. Her voice rang out, fresh and tuneful in
an old Irish ballad:
"_Sheila, dark Sheila, what is it that you're seeing?
What is it that you're seeing, that you're seeing in the fire?
'I see a lad that loves me--and I see a lad that leaves me,
and a third lad, a Shadow Lad--and he's the lad that grieves
me.'_"
The song went on. At the end, Mr. Satterthwaite nodded vigorous
approval.
"Mrs. Denman is right. Your voice is charming. Not, perhaps, very
fully trained, but delightfully natural, and with that unstudied
quality of youth in it."
"That's right," agreed John Denman. "You go ahead, Molly, and don't be
downed by stage fright. We'd better be getting over to the Roscheimers'
now."
The party separated to don cloaks. It was a glorious night and they
proposed to walk over, the house being only a few hundred yards down
the road.
Mr. Satterthwaite found himself by his friend.
"It's an odd thing," he said, "but that song made me think of you. A
_third lad--a Shadow Lad_--there's mystery there, and wherever there's
mystery I--well, think of you."
"Am I so mysterious?" smiled Mr. Quin.
Mr. Satterthwaite nodded vigorously. "Yes, indeed. Do you know, until
tonight, I had no idea that you were a professional dancer."
"Really?" said Mr. Quin.
"Listen," said Mr. Satterthwaite. He hummed the love motif from the
_Walküre_. "That is what has been ringing in my head all through dinner
as I looked at those two."
"Which two?"
"Prince Oranoff and Mrs. Denman. Don't you see the difference in her
tonight? It's as though--as though a shutter had suddenly been opened
and you see the glow within."
"Yes," said Mr. Quin. "Perhaps so."
"The same old drama," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "I am right, am I
not? Those two belong together. They are of the same world, think
the same thoughts, dream the same dreams. One sees how it has come
about. Ten years ago Denman must have been very good-looking, young,
dashing, a figure of romance. And he saved her life. All quite
natural. But now--what is he, after all? A good fellow--prosperous,
successful--but--well, mediocre. Good honest English stuff--very
much like that Hepplewhite furniture upstairs. As English--and as
ordinary--as that pretty English girl with her fresh, untrained voice.
Oh! you may smile, Mr. Quin, but you cannot deny what I am saying."
"I deny nothing. In what you see you are always right. And yet--"
"Yet what?"
Mr. Quin leaned forward. His dark, melancholy eyes searched those of
Mr. Satterthwaite. "Have you learned so little of life?" he breathed.
He left Mr. Satterthwaite vaguely disquieted, such a prey to meditation
that he found the others had started without him, owing to his delay in
selecting a scarf for his neck. He went out by the garden, and through
the same door as in the afternoon. The lane was bathed in moonlight,
and even as he stood in the doorway, he saw a couple enlaced in each
other's arms.