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_The_ LURE OF THE MASK
_By_ HAROLD MAC GRATH
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HARRISON FISHER
AND
KARL ANDERSON
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1908
PRESS OF
BRAUN WORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N.Y.
TO
MY FELLOW TRAVELER
AND
GENTLE CRITIC
CONTENTS
I THE VOICE IN THE FOG
II OBJECT, MATRIMONY
III MADAME ANGOT
IV BLINDFOLDED
V THE MASK
VI INTO THE FOG AGAIN
VII THE TOSS OF A COIN
VIII WHAT MERRIHEW FOUND
IX MRS. SANDFORD WINKS
X CARABINIERI
XI THE CITY IN THE SEA
XII A BOX OF CIGARS
XIII KITTY ASKS QUESTIONS
XIV GREY VEILS
XV MANY NAPOLEONS
XVI O'MALLY SUGGESTS
XVII GIOVANNI
XVIII THE ARIA FROM IL TROVATORE
XIX TWO GENTLEMEN FROM VERONA
XX KITTY DROPS A BANDBOX
XXI AN INVITATION TO A BALL
XXII TANGLES
XXIII THE DENOUEMENT
XXIV MEASURE FOR MEASURE
XXV FREE
XXVI THE LETTER
XXVII BELLAGGIO
THE LURE OF THE MASK
CHAPTER I
THE VOICE IN THE FOG
Out of the unromantic night, out of the somber blurring January fog,
came a voice lifted in song, a soprano, rich, full and round, young, yet
matured, sweet and mysterious as a night-bird's, haunting and elusive as
the murmur of the sea in a shell: a lilt from _La Fille de Madame
Angot_, a light opera long since forgotten in New York. Hillard,
genuinely astonished, lowered his pipe and listened. To sit dreaming by
an open window, even in this unlovely first month of the year, in that
grim unhandsome city which boasts of its riches and still accepts with
smug content its rows upon rows of ugly architecture, to sit dreaming,
then, of red-tiled roofs, of cloud-caressed hills, of terraced
vineyards, of cypresses in their dark aloofness, is not out of the
natural order of things; but that into this idle and pleasant dream
there should enter so divine a voice, living, feeling, pulsing, this was
not ordinary at all.
And Hillard was glad that the room was in darkness. He rose eagerly and
peered out. But he saw no one. Across the street the arc-lamp burned
dimly, like an opal in the matrix, while of architectural outlines not
one remained, the fog having kindly obliterated them.
The Voice rose and sank and soared again, drawing nearer and nearer. It
was joyous and unrestrained, and there was youth in it, the touch of
spring and the breath of flowers. The music was Lecocq's, that is to
say, French; but the tongue was of a country which Hillard knew to be
the garden of the world. Presently he observed a shadow emerge from the
yellow mist, to come within the circle of light, which, faint as it was,
limned in against the nothingness beyond the form of a woman. She walked
directly under his window.
As the invisible comes suddenly out of the future to assume distinct
proportions which either make or mar us, so did this unknown cantatrice
come out of the fog that night and enter into Hillard's life, to
readjust its ambitions, to divert its aimless course, to give impetus to
it, and a directness which hitherto it had not known.
"Ah!"
He leaned over the sill at a perilous angle, the bright coal of his pipe
spilling comet-wise to the area-way below. He was only subconscious of
having spoken; but this syllable was sufficient to spoil the
enchantment. The Voice ceased abruptly, with an odd break. The singer
looked up. Possibly her astonishment surpassed even that of her
audience. For a few minutes she had forgotten that she was in New York,
where romance may be found only in the book-shops; she had forgotten
that it was night, a damp and chill forlorn night; she had forgotten the
pain in her heart; there had been only a great and irresistible longing
to sing.
Though she raised her face, he could distinguish no feature, for the
light was behind. However, he was a man who made up his mind quickly.
Brunette or blond, beautiful or otherwise, it needed but a moment to
find out. Even as this decision was made he was in the upper hall,
taking the stairs two at a bound. He ran out into the night, bareheaded.
Up the street he saw a flying shadow. Plainly she had anticipated his
impulse and the curiosity behind it. Even as he gave chase the shadow
melted in the fog, as ice melts in running waters, as flame dissolves in
sunshine. She was gone. He cupped his ear with his hand; in vain, there
came no sound as of pattering feet; there was nothing but fog and
silence.
"Well, if this doesn't beat the Dutch!" he murmured.
He laughed disappointedly. It did not matter that he was three and
thirty; he still retained youth enough to feel chagrined at such a
trivial defeat. Here had been something like a genuine adventure, and it
had slipped like water through his clumsy fingers.
"Deuce take the fog! But for that I'd have caught her."
But reason promptly asked him what he should have done had he caught the
singer. Yes, supposing he had, what excuse would he have had to offer?
Denial on her part would have been simple, and righteous indignation at
being accosted on the street simpler still. He had not seen her face,
and doubtless she was aware of this fact. Thus, she would have had all
the weapons for defense and he not one for attack. But though reason
argued well, it did not dislodge his longing. He would have been
perfectly happy to have braved her indignation for a single glance at
her face. He walked back, lighting his pipe. Who could she be? What
peculiar whimsical freak had sent her singing past his window at one
o'clock of the morning? A grand opera singer, returning home from a late
supper? But he dismissed this opinion even as he advanced it. He knew
something about grand opera singers. They attend late suppers, it is
true, but they ride home in luxurious carriages and never risk their
golden voices in this careless if romantic fashion. And in New York
nobody took the trouble to serenade anybody else, unless paid in advance
and armed with a police permit. As for being a comic-opera star, he
refused to admit the possibility; and he relegated this well-satisfied
constellation to the darks of limbo. He had heard a Voice.
A vast, shadow loomed up in the middle of the street, presently to take
upon itself the solid outlines of a policeman who came lumbering over to
add or subtract his quota of interest in the affair. Hillard wisely
stopped and waited for him, pulling up the collar of his jacket, as he
began to note that there was a winter's tang to the fog.
"Hi, what's all this?" the policeman called out roughly.
"To what do you refer?" Hillard counter-questioned, puffing. He slipped
his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
"I heard a woman singin', that's what!" explained the guardian of the
law.
"So did I."
"Oh, you did, huh?"
"Certainly. It is patent that my ears are as good as yours."
"Huh! See her?"
"For a moment," Hillard admitted.
"Well, we can't have none o' this in the streets. It's disorderly."
"My friend," said Hillard, rather annoyed at the policeman's tone, "you
don't think for an instant that I was directing this operetta?"
"Think? Where's your hat?"
Hillard ran his hand over his head. The policeman had him here. "I did
not bring it out."
"Too warm and summery; huh? It don't look good. I've been watchin' these
parts fer a leddy. They call her Leddy Lightfinger; an' she has some O'
the gents done to a pulp when it comes to liftin' jools an' trinkets.
Somebody fergits to lock the front door, an' she finds it out. Why did
you come out without yer lid?"
"Just forgot it, that's all."
"Which way'd she go?"
"You'll need a map and a search-light. I started to run after her
myself. I heard a voice from my window; I saw a woman; I made for the
street; _niente_!"
"Huh?"
"_Niente_, nothing!"
"Oh! I see; Dago. Seems to me now that this woman was singin' I-taly-an,
too." They were nearing the light, and the policeman gazed intently at
the hatless young man. "Why, it's Mr. Hillard! I'm surprised. Well,
well! Some day I'll run in a bunch o' these chorus leddies, jes' fer a
lesson. They git lively at the restaurants over on Broadway, an' thin
they raise the dead with their singin', which, often as not, is anythin'
but singin'. An' here it is, after one."
"But this was not a chorus lady," replied Hillard, thoughtfully reaching
into his vest for a cigar.
"Sure, an' how do you know?" with renewed suspicions.
"The lady had a singing voice."
"Huh! They all think alike about that. But mebbe she wasn't bad at the
business. Annyhow...."
"It was rather out of time and place, eh?" helpfully.
"That's about the size of it. This Leddy Lightfinger is a case. She has
us all thinkin' on our nights off. Clever an' edjicated, an' jabbers in
half a dozen tongues. It's a thousan' to the man who jugs her. But she
don't sing; at least, they ain't any report to that effect. Perhaps your
leddy was jes' larkin' a bit. But it's got to be stopped."
Hillard passed over the cigar, and the policeman bit off the end,
nodding with approval at such foresight. The young man then proffered
the coal of his pipe and the policeman took his light therefrom,
realizing that after such a peace-offering there was nothing for him to
do but move on. Yet on dismal lonesome nights, like this one, it is a
godsend and a comfort to hear one's own voice against the darkness. So
he lingered.
"Didn't get a peep at her face?"
"Not a single feature. The light was behind her." Hillard tapped one toe
and then the other.
"An' how was she dressed?"
"In fog, for all I could see."
"On the level now, didn't you know who she was?" The policeman gave
Hillard a sly dig in the ribs with his club.
"On my word!"
"Some swell, mebbe."
"Undoubtedly a lady. That's why it looks odd, why it brought me into the
street. She sang in classic Italian. And what's more, for the privilege
of hearing that voice again, I should not mind sitting on this cold curb
till the milkman comes around in the morning."
"That wouldn't be fer long," laughed the policeman, taking out his watch
and holding it close to the end of his cigar. "Twenty minutes after one.
Well, I must be gittin' back to me beat. An' you'd better be goin' in;
it's cold. Good night."
"Good night," Hillard responded cheerfully.
"Say, what's I-taly-an fer good night?" still reluctant to go on.
"_Buona notte._"
"Bony notty; huh, sounds like Chinese fer rheumatism. Been to Italy?"
"I was born there," patiently.
"No! Why, you're no Dago!"
"Not so much as an eyelash. The stork happened to drop the basket there,
that's all."
"Ha! I see. Well, Ameriky is good enough fer me an' mine," complacently.
"I dare say!"
"An' if this stogy continues t' behave, we'll say no more about the
vanishin' leddy." And with this the policeman strolled off into the fog,
his suspicions in nowise removed. He knew many rich young bachelors like
Hillard. If it wasn't a chorus lady, it was a prima donna, which was not
far in these degenerate days from being the same thing.
Hillard regained his room and leaned with his back to the radiator. He
had an idea. It was rather green and salad, but as soon as his hands
were warm he determined to put this idea into immediate use. The Voice
had stirred him deeply, stirred him with the longing to hear it again,
to see the singer's face, to learn what extraordinary impulse had loosed
the song. Perhaps it was his unspoken loneliness striving to call out
against this self-imposed isolation; for he was secretly lonely, as all
bachelors must be who have passed the Rubicon of thirty. He made no
analysis of this new desire, or rather this old desire, newly awakened.
He embraced it gratefully. Such is the mystery and power of the human
voice: this one, passing casually under his window, had awakened him.
Never the winter came with its weary round of rain and fog and snow that
his heart and mind did not fly over the tideless southern sea to the
land of his birth if not of his blood. Sorrento, that jewel of the ruddy
clifts! There was fog outside his window, and yet how easy it was to
picture the turquoise bay of Naples shimmering in the morning light!
There was Naples itself, like a string of its own pink coral, lying
crescent-wise on the distant strand; there were the snowcaps fading on
the far horizon; the bronzed fishermen and their wives, a sheer two
hundred feet below him, pulling in their glistening nets; the amethyst
isles of Capri and Ischia eternally hanging midway between the blue of
the sky and the blue of the sea; and there, towering menacingly above
all this melting beauty, the dark, grim pipe of Vulcan. How easily,
indeed, he could see all these things!
With a quick gesture of both hands, Latin, always Latin, he crossed the
room to a small writing-desk, turned on the lights and sat down. He
smiled as he took up the pen to begin his composition. Not one chance in
a thousand. And after several attempts he realized that the letter he
had in mind was not the simplest to compose. There were a dozen futile
efforts before he produced anything like satisfaction. Then he filled
out a small check. A little later he stole down-stairs, round the corner
to the local branch of the post-office, and returned. It was only a
blind throw, such as dicers sometimes make in the dark. But chance loves
her true gamester, and to him she makes a faithful servant.
"I should be sorely tempted," he mused, picking up a novel and selecting
a comfortable angle in the Morris, "I should be sorely tempted to call
any other man a silly ass. Leddy Lightfinger--it would be a fine joke if
my singer turned out to be that irregular person."
He fell to reading, but it was not long before he yawned. He shied the
book into a corner, drew off his boots and cast them into the hall. A
moment after his valet appeared, gathered up the boots, tucked them
under his arm, and waited.
"I want nothing, Giovanni. I have only been around to the post-office."
"I heard the door open and close four times, signore."
"It was I each time. If this fog does not change into rain, I shall want
my riding-breeches to-morrow morning."
"It is always raining here," Giovanni remarked sadly.
"Not always; there are pleasant days in the spring and summer. It is
because this is not Italy. The Hollander wonders how any reasonable
being can dwell in a country where they do not drink gin. It's home,
Giovanni; rain pelts you from a different angle here. There is nothing
more; you may go. It is two o'clock, and you are dead for sleep."
But Giovanni only bowed; he did not stir.
"Well?" inquired his master.
"It is seven years now, signore."
"So it is; seven this coming April."
"I am now a citizen of this country; I obey its laws; I vote."
"Yes, Giovanni, you are an American citizen, and you should be proud of
it."
Giovanni smiled. "I may return to my good Italia without danger."
"That depends. If you do not run across any official who recognizes
you."
Giovanni spread his hands. "Official memory seldom lasts so long as
seven years. The signore has crossed four times in this period."
"I would gladly have taken you each time, as you know."
"Oh, yes! But in two or three years the police do not forget. In seven
it is different."
"Ah!" Hillard was beginning to understand the trend of this
conversation. "So, then, you wish to return?"
"Yes, signore. I have saved a little money," modestly.
"A little?" Hillard laughed. "For seven years you have received fifty
American dollars every month, and out of it you do not spend as many
copper centesimi. I am certain that you have twenty thousand lire tucked
away in your stocking; a fortune!"
"I buy the blacking for the signore's boots," gravely.
Hillard saw the twinkle in the black eyes. "I have never," he said
truthfully, "asked you to black my boots."
"Penance, signore, penance for my sins; and I am not without gratitude.
There was a time when I had rather cut off a hand than black a boot; but
all that is changed. We of the Sabine Hills are proud, as the signore
knows. We are Romans out there; we despise the cities; and we do not
hold out our palms for the traveler's pennies. I am a peasant, but
always remember the blood of the Caesars. Who can say? Besides, I have
held a sword for the church. I owe no allegiance to the puny House of
Savoy!" There was no twinkle in the black eyes now; there was a
ferocious gleam. It died away quickly, however; the squared shoulders
drooped, and there was a deprecating shrug. "Pardon, signore; this is
far away from the matter of boots. I grow boastful; I am an old man and
should know better. But does the signore return to Italy in the spring?"
"I don't know, Giovanni, I don't know. But what's on your mind?"
"Nothing new, signore," with eyes cast down to hide the returning
lights.
"You are a bloodthirsty ruffian!" said Hillard shortly. "Will time never
soften the murder in your heart?"
"I am as the good God made me. I have seen through blood, and time can
not change that. Besides, the Holy Father will do something for one who
fought for the cause."
"He will certainly not countenance bloodshed, Giovanni."
"He can absolve it. And as you say, I am rich, as riches go in the
Sabine Hills."
"I was in hopes you had forgotten."
"Forgotten? The signore will never understand; it is his father's blood.
She was so pretty and youthful, eye of my eye, heart of my heart! And
innocent! She sang like the nightingale. She was always happy. Up with
the dawn, to sleep with the stars. We were alone, she and I. The sheep
supported me and she sold her roses and dried lavender. It was all so
beautiful ... till he came. Ah, had he loved her! But a plaything, a
pastime! The signore never had a daughter. What is she now? A nameless
thing in the streets!" Giovanni raised his arms tragically; the hoots
clattered to the floor. "Seven years! It is a long time for one of my
blood to wait."
"Enough!" cried Hillard; but there was a hardness in his throat at the
sight of the old man's tears. Where was the proud and stately man, the
black-bearded shepherd in faded blue linen, in picturesque garters, with
his reed-like pipe, that he, Hillard, had known in his boyhood days?
Surely not here. Giovanni had known the great wrong, but Hillard could
not in conscience's name foster the spirit which demanded an eye for an
eye. So he said: "I can give you only my sympathy for your loss, but I
abhor the spirit of revenge which can not find satisfaction in anything
save murder."
Giovanni once more picked up the boots. "I shall leave the signore in
the spring."
"As you please," said Hillard gently.
Giovanni bowed gravely and made off with his boots. Hillard remained
staring thoughtfully at the many-colored squares in the rug under his
feet. It would be lonesome with Giovanni gone. The old man had evidently
made up his mind.... But the Woman with the Voice, would she see the
notice in the paper? And if she did, would she reply to it? What a
foundation for a romance!... Bah! He prepared for bed.
To those who reckon earthly treasures as the only thing worth having,
John Hillard was a fortunate young man. That he was without kith or kin
was considered by many as an additional piece of good fortune. Born in
Sorrento, in one of the charming villas which sweep down to the very
brow of the cliffs, educated in Rome up to his fifteenth year; taken at
that age from the dreamy, drifting land and thrust into the noisy,
bustling life which was his inheritance; fatherless and motherless at
twenty; a college youth who was for ever mixing his Italian with his
English and being laughed at; hating tumult and loving quiet;
warm-hearted and impulsive, yet meeting only habitual reserve from his
compatriots whichever way he turned; it is not to be wondered at that he
preferred the land of his birth to that of his blood.
All this might indicate an artistic temperament, the ability to do petty
things grandly; but Hillard had escaped this. He loved his Raphaels, his
Titians, his Veroneses, his Rubenses, without any desire to make
indifferent copies of them; he admired his Dante, his Petrarch, his
Goldoni, without the wish to imitate them. He was full of sentiment
without being sentimental, a poet who thought but never indited verses.
His father's blood was in his veins, that is to say, the salt of
restraint; thus, his fortune grew and multiplied. The strongest and
reddest corpuscle had been the gift of his mother. She had left him the
legacy of loving all beautiful things in moderation, the legacy of
gentleness, of charity, of strong loves and frank hatreds, of humor, of
living out in the open, of dreaming great things and accomplishing none
of them.
The old house in which he lived was not in the fashionable quarter of
the town; but that did not matter. Nor did it vary externally from any
of its unpretentious neighbors. Inside, however, there were treasures
priceless and unique. There was no woman in the household; he might
smoke in any room he pleased. A cook, a butler, and a valet were the
sum-total of his retinue. In appearance he resembled many another
clean-cut, clean-living American gentleman.
Giovanni sought his own room at the end of the hall, squatted on a low
stool and solemnly began the business of blacking his master's boots. He
was still as lean and tall as a Lombardy poplar, this handsome old
Roman. His hair was white; there was now no black beard on his face,
which was as brown and creased as Spanish levant; and some of the
fullness was gone from his chest and arms; but for all that he carried
his fifty-odd years lightly. He worked swiftly to-night, but his mind
was far away from his task.
There was a pitiful story, commonplace enough. A daughter, a
loose-living officer, a knife flung from a dark alley, and sudden flight
to the south. Hillard had found him wandering through the streets of
Naples, hiding from the _carabinieri_ as best he could. Hillard
contrived to smuggle him on the private yacht of a friend. He found a
peasant who was reconsidering the advisability of digging sewers and
laying railroad ties in the Eldorado of the West. A few pieces of
silver, and the passport changed hands. With this Giovanni blandly lied
his way into the United States. After due time he applied for
citizenship, and through Hillard's influence it was accorded him. He
solemnly voted when elections came round, and hoarded his wages, like
the thrifty man he was. Some day he would return to Rome, or Naples, or
Venice, or Florence, as the case might be; and then!
When the boots shone flawlessly, he carried them to Hillard's door and
softly tiptoed back. He put his face against the cold window. He, too,
had heard the Voice. How his heart hurt him with its wild hope! But only
for a moment. It was not the voice he hungered for. The words were
Italian, but he knew that the woman who sang them was not!