THE BOX AT THE OPERA
Duncan stared helplessly at the spot where the curtains had fallen
together behind the departing figure of Stephen Langdon; then he
turned his eyes toward Beatrice, to discover that she was convulsed
with laughter. But whether her demeanor and her quick surrender to
expressions of levity had been excited by the departure of the banker,
or by Duncan's attitude of dismay, the young man could not have told.
He laughed with her, for there was a distinctly ludicrous side to the
situation, following, as it did, so closely upon the announcement of
his engagement to Patricia.
By mutual consent, they withdrew to the rear of the box, and then
Beatrice, with a touch of teasing witchery in her voice and with
laughter still in her eyes, asked him:
"Don't you think that this is rather a compromising situation,
particularly in view of the fact that you have only just become
engaged to Patricia? Really, you know, it is dreadful; isn't it?"
"I hadn't thought of that," he replied, quite truthfully. "I was
thinking of what Langdon said, when he left us. It recalled
something--"
"About leaving us two 'youngsters' alone together?" she asked him,
with a pretense of frightened expression in her eyes.
"No, that wasn't the last thing he said."
"What was it? I didn't hear it."
"He said he was going to see Melvin. I suppose you know who Melvin is,
don't you?"
"Oh, yes, indeed. Mr. Melvin and I are great friends. I think he is
about the nicest old gentleman of my acquaintance; don't you? He is
what I should call the _arbiter elegantiarum_ of the Langdon court, if
one could imagine Old Steve as a Caesar, and Patricia as--" Beatrice
paused, and flushed hotly. She had not considered to what length her
words were reaching. She had almost cast a reflection upon her friend,
which would have been as unkind as it was unmerited. She added,
quickly: "But why, if I may ask, did the mention of Mr. Melvin's name
interest you?"
Duncan gazed at his companion rather stupidly, for a moment, for his
mind had suddenly become intent upon the complications of the day, and
he had forgotten for the time being, where he was, and with whom he
was talking. But Beatrice's smile and the mockery in her eyes brought
him back to the present.
"I remembered that I should have gone, myself, to see Melvin,
to-night," he told her, quietly. "It really was quite important. I
should have sought him, instead of coming here."
"Indeed?" Beatrice laughed, brightly. "Mr. Melvin seems to be in great
demand. Are you and Patricia to follow the French fashion of drawing
the marriage-contract? and is Mr. Melvin to act the part of a French
notary?" There was a touch of irony in her question, a little shaft of
sarcasm that brought a quick flush to Duncan's face. He was reminded
instantly of the tentative betrothal with Patricia, and his misgivings
concerning it. Beside him was seated the one person who might aid them
both; and with sudden resolution, acted upon as quickly as it was
formed, he reached out and took one of Miss Brunswick's hands, holding
it between both his own.
"Beatrice," he said, with quiet emphasis, "you have always been a good
fellow, if ever there was a girl born in the world who was one. I
wonder if you could be persuaded to give me the benefit of your
advice, and, possibly, your active assistance?"
She flushed a little under the praise and the intimately personal
request that came with it, but he did not notice this as he went on:
"I've somehow got things into the biggest kind of a muddle to-day, and
I have a notion to tell you all about it; I have the impulse to take
you into my confidence and to ask you to help me out. I know you can
do it. By Jove, Beatrice, I think you are the only person in the world
who can do it! Will you?"
She shrugged her shoulders ever so little, and the flush left her
cheeks, rendering them paler than was their wont. It suddenly came
home to her that he was asking a favor that might prove extremely
difficult to grant.
"I cannot say as to that until I hear what you wish me to do," she
replied.
"I want you to help me square myself," he said, quickly.
"To square yourself?" She raised her brows in assumed surprise. "With
whom?"
"Why, with Patricia, of course."
"Help you to square yourself with Patricia?" She laughed outright, but
without mirth. "I am afraid I don't at all understand you, Roderick. I
supposed you had already accomplished that much, for you told me--did
you not?--that Patricia has just accepted you?"
"Yes, and that's the devil of it!" was the unexpected astounding
reply. Beatrice moved farther away from him, and took her hand from
his grasp, in well-simulated horror of what he had said.
"Let us, at least, confine ourselves to the usages and language of
polite society;" she said, with mock severity. "We will leave the
devil out of it, if you please. Besides, you amaze me! Patricia has
just accepted you, and that is 'the devil of it.' Really, I can't
guess what you mean by such a paradoxical statement as that."
"Forgive me. I am so wrought up that I scarcely know what I am talking
about, or what I am doing. As I said before, I have managed to get
things into a terrible mess, and I believe that you, Beatrice, are the
only person alive who can unravel the tangle for me. Will you help me
out? Will you?"
"You must tell me what it is, before I commit myself. You are so very
aggravating, in words and manner, that I cannot even attempt to
understand you."
For just a few moments, he hesitated. There was within him the
feeling that he would outrage Patricia's ideas of the fitness of
things, if he should take Beatrice Brunswick into his confidence and
relate to her all that had occurred this afternoon and evening. But,
on the other hand, he saw in this beautiful girl a personification of
the straw at which a drowning man grasps. He knew that she was,
personally, closer to Patricia than any other friend had been, and
that she understood Patricia better than did anyone else, save Stephen
Langdon, perhaps. He knew, also, that he could trust her, and that he
could rely, implicitly, upon her loyalty. He knew that she would never
betray the secrets he would be obliged to tell concerning Stephen
Langdon's affairs. He had tried her often, and he had never found her
wanting. Therefore, he felt that the greatest secret of all,
concerning the financial extremity in which Stephen Langdon had become
involved, would be safe with Beatrice Brunswick. Manlike, he began
very stupidly and very strangely.
"By Jove, Beatrice!" he exclaimed. "I wish I might have fallen in love
with you, instead of with Patricia! You would never have seen things
in the light she does!"
Beatrice's eyes widened and deepened; then, they narrowed so that she
almost frowned. She bit her lips with vexation, and for an instant
was angry. At last, she laughed. She did not wish him to know how
deeply he had wounded her by that careless statement, so she uttered a
care-free ripple of laughter.
"I don't quite know whether I should take that as a compliment or
not," she replied. "It is more than likely that I would have conducted
myself very much worse than Patricia has done in this affair which you
have not as yet explained to me. Perhaps, it is a fortunate thing for
both of us that you did not fall in love with me, instead of her. I'm
sure I don't know what I should have done with you, in such a case.
But I will help you if I can; only, understand in the beginning that
if you tell me the story at all, you must tell me all of it. I don't
want any half-confidences, Roderick."
Duncan did tell her all of it then, leaving nothing to be added, when
he had finished; and she listened to the end of his tale in utter
silence, with her head half-turned away and her chin supported by the
palm of one of her jeweled hands. They did not move to the front of
the box again, nor give any heed to the rise of the curtain or to what
was taking place on the stage, during the ensuing act. Duncan talked
straight on, through it all; and Beatrice listened with close
attention. One might have supposed that the music and the singing did
not reach the ears of either of them, and one would not have been very
wrong in that surmise. The tragic fate of John, the Baptist; the
unholy, unnatural passion of a depraved soul for the dead lips of a
man who had spurned her while he lived; the exquisite music of
Strauss; the superb scenery and stage-setting; the rich and gorgeous
costumes--all remained unseen and unheard by these two, one intent
upon reestablishing himself in the esteem of Patricia Langdon, the
other disturbed by emotions she could not have named, which she would
have declined to recognize, even had they presented themselves frankly
to her. She had known, of course, of Duncan's love for her friend, but
until this hour there had always existed an unformed, unrecognized
doubt in the mind of Beatrice that it would ever be requited.
When he had finished, she was still silent, and for so long a time
that at last, with some impatience, he bent nearer to her, and
exclaimed:
"Well, Beatrice? What do you think of it all?"
She shuddered a little. There was still another interval before she
spoke, and then, with calm directness, she replied:
"I think you are both exceedingly brave to be willing to face the
situation that exists."
"Eh?" he asked her, not comprehending.
"Why, if you carry out this compact that you have made, if Patricia
Langdon becomes your wife according to the terms she has dictated to
Melvin--for I can guess, now, what they are--you will both be casting
yourselves straight down into hell. I speak metaphorically, of
course," she added, with a whimsical smile. "I have been told that
there isn't any hell, really. But I mean it, Roderick. If there isn't
a hell, you two seem to be bent upon the arrangement of a correct
imitation of one."
"How is that?" he demanded, frowning. "I don't know what you mean."
"Our friend has not been named 'Juno' for nothing. She is a strange
girl; but I love her, almost as much as you do," Beatrice continued,
as if she had not heard his question. "She possesses characteristics,
the depth of which I have never been able to sound, and I am her best
and closest friend. If you two live up to this agreement, in the
spirit in which it was made, and conclude it in the spirit in which
she has dictated her conditions to Melvin, I tremble for the
consequences that will ensue, for I can almost foresee them. Patricia
is not one who forgives easily, and she will resent a hurt to her
pride with all the force there is in her."
Beatrice rose to her feet, standing before him, and he, also, stood
up, facing her. She reached out both her hands toward him, and he took
them; and there were tears in her big blue eyes, when she added, with
a depth of feeling that he did not understand:
"Roderick Duncan, it would be better for you, and for Patricia as
well, if you never saw each other again. You might far better, and
with much greater hope of happiness, cast your future lot with some
other woman whom you have never thought of as a wife, than marry
Patricia Langdon upon such terms as you have outlined. Have you known
her so intimately all your life without understanding her at all? She
might have forgiven disloyalty, or unfaithfulness, or at least have
condoned such--but an offense against her pride? Never! You would be
undergoing much less risk if you should select an utterly unknown
woman from one of these boxes, and should take her out of this theatre
now, and marry her instead!"
Having delivered this remarkable statement, Beatrice burst into
laughter. Duncan, suddenly alive to her beauty and her nearness,
deeply impressed by what she had said, and fully alive to the truth of
her utterances, retained the grasp he had upon her hands, and drew her
toward him, quickly.
"Why not?" he demanded, hotly. "I'll do it if you say the word! But
not a strange woman. You, Beatrice--you!! I'll dare you!!! We'll go to
the 'Little Church Around the Corner.' I dare you! I dare you,
Beatrice! They always have a wedding ceremony on tap, there; if you've
got the sand, come on. It offers a solution of everything. Come on,
Bee--marry me!"
She raised her eyes to his, and he understood, instantly, how he had
wounded her; he saw that her laughter had not been real, and that she
was very near to tears. But the fact that she shrank away from his
impetuous words and manner, only spurred him on anew. He caught her
hands again.
"Let's do it, Beatrice," he said rapidly, bending forward with sudden
eagerness. "I hate all this mess and muddle of affairs. I hate it! Say
yes, Bee."
He stood with his back toward the curtains at the rear of the box; she
was facing them. He saw her eyes dilate suddenly, and he had the
sensation that she had discovered another person near them, or in the
act of entering the box; and then, with more astonishment than he
would have believed himself capable of feeling, he realized that
Beatrice Brunswick had thrown herself forward and that her white arms
were wound clingingly about his neck; at the same time, with evident
design, she turned him still more, so that he could not see the
curtains which screened the entrance to the box.
The last and final shock of that eventful day, came to him then, for
he did turn, in spite of Beatrice's restraining arms--he turned to
find that the curtains were drawn apart, and in the opening thus
created stood Patricia Langdon. Duncan knew that she had both seen and
heard.
He could not have moved, had he attempted to do so, although somewhere
deep down inside of him he felt that it was his duty to untwine those
clinging arms and somehow to account for the appalling situation.
Beyond where Patricia stood, he saw and recognized two other figures
that were moving steadily forward toward them, but he had the
subconscious assurance in his soul that neither Stephen Langdon nor
his lawyer, Melvin, had noticed the scene which Patricia had
discovered. He could not guess that it had been the consequence of
sudden inspiration on the part of Beatrice, who had thrown her arms
around his neck at the very instant when she had intended to
administer a rebuff.
He did not imagine that she had discovered the approach of Patricia
before she made this outward demonstration in acceptance of his mad
proposal. Duncan felt very guilty indeed, in that trying moment;
nevertheless, he was not one to attempt an ignominious escape from a
predicament in which he believed himself to be wholly at fault. But
Beatrice was not yet through with acting a part. She drew away from
Duncan quickly, with an exclamation of mingled disappointment,
pleasure and alarm. She cried out the single ejaculation, "Oh!" and
dropped backward upon the chair she had recently occupied. But there
was a gleam of mischief in her eyes, which belied the confusion
otherwise expressed upon her face.
"So sorry to have interrupted you at such a critical moment," said
Patricia coolly, at once master of herself and of the situation.
"Good-evening, Beatrice. I hope you have enjoyed the opera. I decided
to come at the last moment, and met my father at the door of the
theatre, as I was entering. He insisted on seeing Mr. Melvin to-night,
so we drove to his house together and brought him here. I thought I
would enjoy the last act."
One might have thought that Roderick Duncan did not exist. Patricia
did not so much as glance in his direction, but she moved forward to
the front of the box and took her accustomed seat, just as Stephen
Langdon and the lawyer, Melvin, entered it.
All this had passed so quickly that the interval it occupied could be
reckoned only by seconds. Beatrice Brunswick's face was flushed, and
her eyes were alight with mischief, or with something deeper, as she
greeted the two gentlemen. Duncan's countenance was like marble; he
realized that the mess was bigger now, by far, than it had been
before.
Langdon and his lawyer perceived nothing unusual in the attitude of
any person in the box; both were preoccupied with the discussion upon
which they had just been engaged. Patricia's eyes were already fixed
on the stage, and evidently her entire attention was devoted to it.
She appeared to have forgotten the propinquity of other persons.
There was a vacant chair beside her which Duncan should have taken,
and, doubtless, he would have done so, had not the lawyer stupidly
preempted it for his own use. The banker occupied the middle chair,
and the consequence was that Duncan was given no choice, but was
literally forced into the one next to Beatrice. Not that he would
have preferred it otherwise, at the moment. Not he. He was angered by
Patricia's conduct toward him; he resented the whole circumstance--and
possibly, too, he still felt something of the thrill induced by the
clinging arms of Beatrice Brunswick. He stared silently toward the
stage, seeing nothing upon it. He was endeavoring to arrange, in some
comprehensive form, the combination of circumstances and scenes which
it had been his misfortune to encounter, and in part enact, since noon
that day. But the more he tried, the more difficult became the task.
The whole thing was as exasperating as an attempt to put together,
within an alloted time, a puzzle-picture which has been cut into all
sorts of sizes and shapes. It was not a panorama of events, as he
recounted them in his own mind; it was a kaleidoscope, a jumble of
colors and figures, of angles and spaces--or to put it in his own
words, it was literally a mess.
He turned toward Beatrice, whose right hand was negligently waving a
fan. He reached out and claimed it, and she did not resent the act. He
drew it toward him, and she looked up and smiled into his eyes with an
expression he did not understand. She made no effort to withdraw her
hand, nor any attempt to resist his advances. He bent nearer.
"Will you do it?" he asked her, whispering. "Will you do it,
Beatrice?"
She made no reply, and he bent still nearer, seizing her hand in both
his own, now.
"Will you do it, dear?" he repeated, a third time. "I'm game, if you
are. It is a solution of the whole beastly muddle. Come on. I'll stump
you! That is what we used to say, when we were kids. By Jove, girl,
you're in as deep as I am, now; and, besides, you gave me your word
that you'd help me, didn't you? Turn your eyes toward me. Tell me
you'll do it. Say yes. Come on, Bee. I'll dare you. We can slip away
from here while their backs are turned. What do you say? Will you
marry me?"
"Yes," she replied, without moving or withdrawing her gaze from the
stage, and she repeated: "yes, if you wish it." He could not see her
face.
"Will you do it now?" Duncan demanded, half-startled by her ready
acquiescence.
"Yes."
"Good! I knew you were game!"
He left his chair quickly and secured her wraps and his own coat and
hat. Then, he stepped to the opening between the curtains and turned
expectantly toward her.
She had not moved; but now, as if she had seen his every act without
looking toward him, she turned her head slowly, observing him coolly,
and she gave a little nod of comprehension and assent. He returned the
nod, touched his fingers to his lips to enjoin silence, and passed
outside. In another moment, she had glided softly but swiftly from her
seat, and, unnoticed by the other occupants of the box, followed him,
dropping the curtains silently after her.
He put her opera-cloak about her shoulders, and swiftly donned his own
coat and hat, and so without as much as "by your leave," they left the
theatre together and waited in the foyer while the special officer in
gray called a taxicab for their use.
Duncan led her across the pavement to the cab, and assisted her
inside.
"Do you know where the Church of the Transfiguration is located?" he
asked the chauffeur.
"I do, sir," was the reply.
"Drive us there, and be quick about it," said Duncan, and he sprang
inside and banged the door shut after him.