ANONYMOUS
"Oh, Mums, I'm so happy!" purred Marise, as she sank into a chair,
physically spent, spiritually elated.
It was in her dressing-room at the theatre--the marvellous dressing-room
which Belloc had engaged Herte to re-decorate as a tribute and a
surprise to the star. The stage curtain had rung down on the last act,
after eighteen recalls and a little laughing, hysterical speech from
Dolores. Sheridan and Belloc had both kissed her; and everyone had
cried, and her mother had torn her from clinging arms, to shut the
dressing-room door upon a dozen faces.
Sudden peace followed clamour. There was not a sound. The air was sweet
with the breath of a thousand flowers. Celine moved softly about, with
stolid face. Mrs. Sorel beamed.
"Well, yes, dear; I do think you may be happy now," she vouchsafed.
Marise caught the "second meaning"--the little more than met the
ear--hiding in her mother's words. Mums hadn't been easy about
Severance. She'd thought he had "something on his mind." She had even
been afraid that, although he was following the girl he loved from
London to New York, he didn't mean marriage. She had feared, and almost
expected, that he might break to Marise the news of his engagement to
another woman--a very different woman from the pretty actress. But that
time of Mum's depression had been on shipboard. Severance had "broken"
no news. He had been more devoted than ever before. He had curtailed his
official business in Washington, and rushed back to New York for the
first night of "The Song," so now Mrs. Sorel began to hope that for once
her "instinct" had been a deceiving Voice.
"Yes, happy about everything," she added, so that Marise might
understand without the maid sharing her enlightenment.
"I am, just that!" agreed Marise, stealing time to breathe before Celine
should take off Dolores' "bedroom-scene" dress.
She looked round the room. It had been decorated by the Russian-French
artist, Herte (who had never seen her), to suit Sargent's portrait which
Belloc had lent him to study. In the girl's opinion it did not suit her
at all, unless she were in reality a tigress camouflaged to represent a
sheaf of lilies. But evidently that was what Herte thought she was, and
his conception of her temperament made the girl feel subtle and
mysterious. She adored feeling like that, and she adored Herte's tawny
orange splashes on violent blues, and his sombre blacks and dazzling
whites and lemon yellows, which somehow did not fade her sunlight
fairness. People knew about this room, for descriptions and photographs
of it had appeared in all the papers since she and Mums landed;
consequently everyone had sent flowers to match Herte's famous
colourings.
There were silver azaleas, black tulips, queer scarlet roses, Japanese
tiger lilies, weird magenta orchids, and purple pinks. Severance had
sent blue lilies--the blue that Marise loved, and called "the colour of
her soul." The lilies had been the best of the huge collection, until
the Exciting Thing came--the thing accompanied by no letter, no card.
Towards this object the eyes of Marise travelled. She had been
"intrigued" by it the whole evening, whenever she had time to think, and
puzzle over its charm and mystery.
"It" was a table; a small, round tea-table of rich red mahogany with a
well in its centre for flowers, and small holes in a line circling its
edge for the same purpose. These receptacles were filled and hidden with
the largest, purplest, and most fragrant violets Marise had ever seen,
and their amethyst tones, massed against the dark, rose-brown wood,
produced an exquisite effect. Marise believed herself an up-to-date
young woman, and her Persian dressing-room in London had rivalled Lily
Brayton's Chinese room during the run of "Chu Chin Chow." But she had
never heard of such a design as this in tables. It must be the newest of
the new, and invented by a great artist, she thought. In fear of seeming
ignorant, she had asked no questions of anyone, hoping to glean
information by luck: and vanity, as usual with her, had its own reward.
"By George, who sent you Herte's latest?" Belloc had exclaimed, when he
bounced into her room before the first act to see if his star were
"going strong."
Marise had to admit that she didn't know. But she put on an air of
awareness as to Herte. This was the sort of thing her mother taught her:
to seem innocent, but never ignorant--especially of anything "smart."
Mrs. Sorel had suggested that Herte himself might have contributed the
lovely specimen of his work, to complete the decoration of the room.
Belloc, however, had vetoed this idea. If there were no accompanying
poem, or at least a card, Herte wasn't guilty. He was not a young man
who bothered to blush unseen. So that hypothesis was "off"; and Marise
could think of no one among her acquaintances likely to spend so much
cash without getting credit.
Belloc was giving a supper for her after the theatre, and Herte was
there; a dark, haggardly beautiful young man who looked as if he had
detached himself from one of his own wall decorations. Belloc had placed
him next the star, not knowing whether Marise were really engaged to
Lord Severance or not; and the first question the girl asked was about
the table.
"Ah, you have my beloved violet-table!" he said, looking at her in the
way he had with beautiful young women: stripping her with his eyes and
dressing her all over again in a gown of his own creation. "I am
glad--glad."
"You didn't know?"
He shook his head until a black lock fell over his pale forehead. "I did
not. It was finished by the glorified cabinet-maker I employ: it
appeared in the window of my place. You must see my place, now your
rehearsals are over! You will want beauty to rest your mind--and you
will want Me to design your dresses! An hour later the table was snapped
up--gone from me forever."
"Ah, but who snapped it?"
Herte looked blank. "Your admiring friend, who knew it belonged, by
right of beauty, to you."
"Thanks! But I want you to tell me his--or her--name."
"Are you not acquainted with so much of him?"
"I'm not. And I'm dying to be, because the gentleman is anonymous--a
great unknown!"
"I am sure he is great, as a judge of art and ladies. But that is all I
am sure of, beautiful Dolores."
"Monsieur Herte, you are hiding his secret!"
"I could hide no secret from you. I will tell you all I know. A boy
messenger bought the table. A millionaire's boy messenger, perhaps! My
manager informed me what had happened. We guessed at once there was a
mystery."
"Couldn't you find out?" Marise persisted.
Herte shrugged his sloping shoulders. "Beyond a boy messenger no man can
go. He keeps the gate with a flaming sword. But you will find out some
day. Meanwhile, be content. You have the latest creation of my brain--of
my heart. At present it is the one thing of its kind in existence."
Mrs. Sorel asked Severance if he had sent the table, which, she
explained, Marise had found in her dressing-room on arriving there. It
had been brought to the theatre by two boy messengers, full of flowers
(not the boys, but the table), and no word had been left whence it came.
Severance, bitterly jealous of the secret gift (which had, so to speak,
taken all the blue paint off his Persian lilies), would gladly have
claimed credit had he dared. But the real giver might announce himself
at any moment, and be able to prove his _bona fides_: so Severance made
a virtue of necessity. Belloc's supper-party was a "frost" for him,
though he sat by the second prettiest girl. He hated Herte and the
others, especially a millionaire member of New York's "Four Hundred,"
who was financially interested in Belloc's schemes--and in his leading
ladies.
Severance would have given anything--short of his title and estates, and
such money as came with them--to snatch the girl from all the men, who
would go on admiring and making love to her when he was far away. He did
not know how he could bear to turn his back and leave her to these
Americans, who had so much money and so much "cheek." He felt as if he
were throwing her to the lions--this exquisite morsel which he coveted
for himself, but was unlikely to get on the terms he could offer.
Almost, he wished that he had told her the truth in London, and said
good-bye to her then. Almost, but not quite; for he simply had not been
able to let her go like that. He had to be with her: he had to see the
sort of men she would gather round her on the other side of the world.
Well, he had come; and he had seen; and he had made things harder for
himself instead of easier. He did not know what he should do next. An
arrangement, a compromise, must be thought of. When he spoke, he must
have something to propose--some alternative or other. But what under
heaven, or in hell, it could be, he had no clear inspiration yet.
Marise ordered the violet-table to be taken from the theatre to the
Plaza Hotel, where she and her mother had a suite. She thought it would
give her more pleasure there, where much of her time was passed, and the
wonderful violets had not lost their freshness: they were so firm and
vital that they looked as if they would never fade. But on the second
night of "The Song," when Marise arrived in her dressing-room, another
anonymous gift awaited her.
It was smaller than the table, but not less original; a black bowl, half
full of water bright and pale green as aquamarines, on the surface of
which floated three pink pond-lilies. The bowl stood on the star's
dressing-table, and, switching on the electric lights, a gleam as of
drowned emeralds sparkled under the lilies. Marise cried out in delight,
and ran to look for a card. This time he would reveal himself! (She knew
it was "he," and that it was the same man who had sent the table.) But
no. There was neither card nor note. Messenger boys had brought the
bowl. They had driven up in a taxi. If only Marise had dreamed of
receiving a second gift from the same source, she would have watched--or
even employed a detective. She was so excited and curious that she
feared for her acting that night.
With the bowl and the lilies had come a large jar of crystals for
tinting the water: green, glittering lumps, like precious stones from
Aladdin's Cave, and that was precisely the label on the jar of jewels:
"Aladdin's Cave." Marise was childishly thrilled. When Belloc peeped in,
she showed her treasures, and learned that "Aladdin's Cave" was the name
chosen by a queer artist, new, but famous already for his
exhibition-shop in a cellar of that Bohemian haunt known as Greenwich
Village.
Next morning the girl went there in a taxi: and when she had bought
exotic enamels, and transparent vases filled with synthetic sapphires,
she told "Aladdin" about the bowl. Like Herte, he shook his head. He was
but another man who "could not go beyond a District messenger boy."
The stage door-keeper was now warned to find out what he could, if
another anonymous gift appeared. Also, Celine was sent early to the
theatre. Marise could not, however, quite bring herself to engage a
detective. She was tempted to do so, and urged by her mother, who had
visions of a mysterious millionaire ready to take the place of Severance
if the Englishman failed after all. But the girl felt that to set
sleuth-hounds on its track would kill romance. It would, she told Mums,
be like deliberately rubbing the bloom off hothouse grapes before you
ate them. And as it turned out, she was glad she had listened to
sentiment; for on the third night her only offerings were chocolates and
flowers ticketed conspicuously with their givers' names.
This was like a too abrupt ending to a fairy tale. But, after all, it
was only the end of a chapter. On the fourth night a long
blue-and-silver box lay across two chairs in the dressing-room. It
looked like a box from a smart dressmaker, though no dressmaker's name
was visible. "Has Mademoiselle ordered anything?" Celine inquired, as
she untied the ribbon-fastenings.
No, Mademoiselle had ordered nothing that day--at least nothing for the
theatre. She gave a little gasp as the Frenchwoman removed the box cover
and a layer of silver-stencilled blue tissue paper. Underneath filmed a
pale blue cloud which Marise snatched up and pronounced to be a "boudoir
gown." It was made from a material which fashion names mousseline de
soie one year and something else another. It was the blue of bluebells,
banded with swansdown and embroidered with silver thistles. Altogether,
it might have been created expressly for Miss Sorel by an admiring
genius.
"From Herte!" exclaimed Mums.
But Marise knew better, and would pit her own "instinct" against her
mother's any day. "No, from Him," she pronounced. "If this goes on much
longer without my finding out who He is, I shall simply perish."
And it did go on: not night after night, but stopping, and beginning
again just as she thought the giver's invention exhausted or his pockets
empty. It went on for ten days, until Marise had received, in addition
to the three first gifts, an ancient Italian mirror in a carved silver
frame; an exquisite wax doll, modelled and dressed to represent herself
as "Dolores" in the third act of "The Spring Song," and an old Sevres
box filled with crystallised violets--evidently _his_ favoured flower.
"He must be rich, or else he's poor, and so in love that he's absolutely
beggaring himself for you," said Mrs. Sorel.
Marise volunteered no opinion. But secretly she preferred the second
hypothesis. She was used to rich men; but no girl is ever really used to
Romance. The mystery thrilled and delighted her, and bored Severance to
distraction. He realised that, if he said to the girl what he had to say
while this spell was upon her, she might let him go with hardly a pang,
instead of clinging to him at almost any price. So he did not say it. He
waited, and sent several cables to his mother's half-brother,
Constantine Ionides, one of the richest bankers in Europe. In the first
of these telegrams he stated that he had influenza, and might not be
allowed to travel for several weeks, but, as soon as he could, he would
return to London. This, because he had come to a certain understanding
with his half-uncle before undertaking the American "mission," and
because Mr. Ionides unluckily knew that the unimportant mission was now
wound up.
At the end of ten days the girl decided upon a desperate step, for she
felt that "Dolores" as well as Marise Sorel was beginning to suffer from
curiosity deferred. She forgot to take a cue on the night of the doll;
and at home, after she had been in bed an hour, she suddenly sat up and
switched on the light. On a table within reach of her hand were paper
and envelopes, and a gold fountain-pen given her by Severance. Quickly
she wrote out a paragraph which she had composed in the sleepless hours;
and without a word to Mums (sure to disapprove) she gave it very early
next morning to Celine with instructions.
That evening, in some of the New York papers, and the following day in
all those which had "personal" columns, her paragraph appeared. "Dolores
thanks the anonymous friend who has sent her six charming gifts in ten
days, and begs that he or she will make an appointment to call at her
hotel as soon as possible, in order that Dolores may express her
pleasure and gratitude by word of mouth."
When Marise read this appeal in print her heart beat in her throat, and
she was dreadfully afraid that her mother or Severance might happen to
glance down that column. But she was even more afraid that the person to
whom it was addressed might not.