FINETTA LEARNS THE TRUTH.
"Now tell me everything," repeated Finetta, and she drew an amber
satin cushion from the sofa, and seated herself at his feet, her hands
clasped round her knees, her dark eyes turned up to him.
Now here was the way ready made for him; but what man ever answered
such an appeal at once and fully? Yorke took the cigarette from his
lips and looked down at her with a troubled surprise.
"What do you mean?" he said. "How do you know there is anything to
tell?"
She laughed, almost contemptuously.
"How do you know when it's going to rain? By the clouds, don't you?
Do you think I'm blind, Yorke? I'm not clever like some of your swell
friends, but I'm not a fool. I've got eyes like other women, and
perhaps they're sharper than some, and I can see something is the
matter. I saw it the moment I rode up to you in the park to-day, and
I've been watching you all the evening."
"You'd make a decent detective, Fin," he said, trying to speak
banteringly.
"I dare say," she assented. "Most women would, especially if they knew
the man they were after as well as I know you."
"Yes, we are old friends, Fin," he said.
"That's it," she said. "And that's why I ask you what's the matter,
what's happened? Some men would push me off or give me the lie, but you
aren't like that sort."
"Thanks," and he laughed.
"No, you always go straight, and that's one of the reasons why--I like
you, don't you see?"
"I see," he said. "And so you thought I looked this morning as if I'd
got something on my mind?"
She nodded.
"Yes, when I came up you were leaning against the rail, looking at
nothing, as if you were dreaming; and while you were speaking to Lady
Eleanor----."
He moved slightly.
"You don't like me to speak of her?" she said, with a woman's
quickness. "All right, I sha'n't hurt her by mentioning her name."
"Don't be foolish, Fin," he said, coloring at the truth of her insight;
he did not like to hear her mention Lady Eleanor's name.
"Oh, I'm not foolish. I was saying that you looked at her ladyship
just as you looked at me, as if you didn't see either of us, as if you
were looking right away beyond us, and it's been the same to-night.
You haven't heard half that was going on, but have just been mooning
and dreaming, and so I ask you what it is? Wait a minute. If you're
going to tell me that it's money matters, you needn't, for I shouldn't
believe you. If the bailiffs were in the house you wouldn't let it
trouble you, you know."
He laughed.
"I am afraid I shouldn't," he admitted.
"Very well," she said, "then it isn't that--though you are hard up, and
pretty deep in debt, eh, Yorke?"
"Of course," he said. "Always have been, and shall be; everybody knows
that."
"And so you're used to it, and don't mind it," she went on. "It isn't
that then. What is it?"
He was silent, struggling hard for courage to tell her.
"You don't like making a clean breast of it," she said, slowly. "And
you think it's like my cheek to ask you. But I'm an old friend, am I
not? I'm only Finetta, the girl that dances at the Diadem, but I've
got a feeling that I'm a better friend to you than many of your swell
ones. I dare say they think I'm a bad lot, and that I've done you no
end of harm. Perhaps I have. I've let you come here when you liked,
and take me about riding and driving, when you ought to have been with
them; but I don't know, after all, that I've hurt you much. I dare say
I could if I liked. You'd have given me things like Charlie Farquhar,
if I'd let you; but I didn't. I was a fool, perhaps, sometimes I think
I am. But--but, you see, I liked you. I didn't care for the others,
they were nothing to me and it wouldn't have mattered if they'd spent
their last shilling in rings and flowers and things. But with you it
was different. I don't know quite why," and her eyes sank thoughtfully.
"Perhaps it was because you always treated me like a lady, and didn't
bother me to run off with you or--or marry you."
Her voice softened, and a dash of color came into her olive cheeks.
"You'd have made a poor bargain if I had and you consented, Fin," he
said, gravely.
"I dare say," she assented. "Anyhow, you didn't and don't mean to.
Don't deny it. I know how you've always thought of me. I've been just
Finetta, of the Diadem, and it's been pleasant and amusing to take me
about and come and have supper, and--and that's all."
She raised her eyes to his face with a smile, a brave smile that did
not hide her aching heart from him.
"And we've been such very good friends," she went on after a pause,
"that I speak out straight and plain when I see that something is the
matter, and I ask you what it is, and if you take my advice, you'll
tell me. Who knows, I might be able to help you, if you want any help.
Don't laugh. What's that story about the lion and the mouse? I'm only a
mouse I know, and you are no end of a lion, but you may find yourself
in a net some day, don't you know."
Her tone was slangy, but there was an earnestness in it, and in her
dark eyes, which touched Yorke.
He was silent for a moment or two, then he said in a voice inaudible to
Polly, who stolidly stitched and stitched in the inner room:
"You are right, Fin. Something has happened----."
"I knew it," she said, quietly.
He screwed his courage up.
"The fact is, Fin, I am--going to be married," he said, almost in a
whisper.
She did not start, did not move a muscle for a moment, then she got up.
"Wait a minute, I want a cigarette."
She crossed the room to an inlaid cabinet, and took out a silver
box--of course a present--and got a cigarette from it, and her hand
shook so that for a moment she could not hold the match straight.
But when she glided back to her place at his feet her hand was steady,
and seeing that his face was rather pale, she showed no sign of
emotion, either of surprise, or anger, or resentment.
"Going to be married?" she said, leaning back. "To Lady Eleanor, I
suppose?"
"No," said Yorke, emphatically. "Why should you think that?"
He was relieved, greatly relieved by the quiet way in which she had
taken the announcement, and, man like, was completely deceived.
"Oh, I don't know. Everybody said you were going to marry her. She has
plenty of money and is a swell. So, it's not her?" she said, slowly,
her eyes downcast.
"No, it is not," he responded. "And there's no reason why people should
say----." He stopped, conscience-smitten.
"Oh, they say it because you and she are so much together, and you've
made love to her; but that means nothing with you, does it?" she said,
shooting a glance up at him.
Yorke colored.
"If a man's to marry every girl he flirts with----," he said,
half-angrily.
"All right, I don't mind. You've flirted with me and I haven't asked
you to marry me. And so it's not her ladyship." A faint smile curved
her lips, which looked drawn and constrained. "What other swell is it?
I know 'em all--by sight."
"She is not a 'swell' at all," he said. "And you do not know her. I
only saw her the other day down in the country."
"Where you have been this last week?" she said, in a low voice,
perfectly steady and under control.
"Yes, I saw her, met her, by chance, quite by chance."
"And--and you fell in love with her right off?" she said.
"Yes," he said, looking straight before him and speaking as if in a
dream. "I loved her at first sight."
"She must be very good-looking."
He smiled, absently. "Good-looking" was so poor a phrase by which to
describe his Leslie.
"Yes, she is good-looking, as you call it, Fin," he said.
"What is she like? Is she tall and fair--I suppose so, that's the style
that fetches most men."
"N-o," he said. "She is not fair--not what one would call fair."
"Dark?" and she flashed her brilliant eyes up at him, and then at a
mirror opposite her.
"N-o, not dark, I think; I can't tell. Her hair is dark."
"As mine?" she asked.
He looked down at her as if he had forgotten the color of her hair, and
she felt the look like a dagger stab.
"Yes, but she has blue or gray eyes."
She nodded.
"I knew," she said, shortly, as if it cost her something to speak. "I
know the sort of girl. I've seen 'em. Dark hair and bluish-gray eyes.
Yes! And you fell in love with her at first sight. And--why don't you
go on? I want to know all about her," and she laughed.
In his abstraction he did not detect the tone of agony, of jealousy, in
the laugh, and only thought how well Finetta was behaving, and what a
brick she was.
"There's not much more to tell," he said. "I--I told her that I loved
her, and--and----." He paused, recalling the tender, the precious
confession of his darling. "Well, we're to be married, Fin, as soon as
we can. I'm as poor as a church mouse, and we sha'n't have much to live
upon; but I dare say we shall get on somehow or other. Anyhow, I've
made up my mind, and----." He stopped.
"No one, not the devil himself, could stop you," she finished, not
passionately, but in a slow, steady voice. "And so you've come to me
and told me like--like a man, Yorke."
"We are old friends, Fin," he said, "and I felt you ought to know."
"I see," she said. "It will make a difference to us, won't it? Good-by
to our acquaintance now. No more dinners at Richmond, or suppers at the
little house in St. John's Wood. It wouldn't do for a man who is going
to be married to be friends with Finetta, eh? Oh, I understand, and I'm
much obliged to you----."
"Fin----."
"Wait. I'm speaking the truth. I am much obliged to you. Some men would
have kept it to themselves; would have cut me straight away without a
word, and left me to find out the reason by reading the accounts of the
wedding in the newspapers. But you aren't that sort, are you, Yorke--or
I suppose I ought to say Lord Auchester now?"
He colored and bit his lip.
"Hit away, Fin," he said. "I deserve it."
"No," she said. "I won't hit you, though I dare say Lady Eleanor
and the heaps of other ladies you've made love to will, and pretty
hard. But I am not a lady, you see, and that makes a difference. And
this--this young lady? You say she's not a swell?"
He laughed.
"Not what you call a swell, Fin," he said. "She is the daughter of an
artist, and not a first-rate one at that."
"An artist?" The full lips writhed into an expression of amazement and
contempt which he did not see. "An artist, one of those fellows who
paint pictures."
"And awfully bad ones," said Yorke, with a rueful laugh.
"And they're poor?"
"They are certainly not rich," he said.
"And you'll be poor, too, you and she, when--when you're married?"
He laughed rather ruefully again.
"I know the sort of thing," she said, with all the scorn of one who has
passed from squalid poverty to luxury and wealth. "You'll have to live
in a small house with one or two servants, you won't be able to afford
a valet or a horse----."
"Excepting a clothes-horse."
"Well, you'll want that, as I dare say she--your wife--will have to do
the washing, and you'll have to dine like a workman, in the middle of
the day, and drink cheap ale, and wear shabby clothes. I should like
to see you in seedy clothes, Yorke; you'd look funny," and she laughed
bitterly. "And she'd wear cheap things, turned dresses, and that sort
of thing, and she'd get dowdy and ill-tempered, and you'd ask yourself
what on earth you ever saw in her that you should go and ruin yourself
by marrying her. Oh, I know!" and she leaned back and puffed at her
cigarette with a contempt that was almost imperial.
Yorke colored.
"A good deal of what you say is true, but not all, Fin," he said,
almost gently. It would be base ingratitude to be angry with her after
the admirable way in which she had received the news. "For one thing,
Leslie would never be dowdy. You'd understand that if you knew her, had
seen her. I suppose she wears cheap clothes, now. If so, all I can say
is that she looks as well, as refined and lady-like, as--as anybody I
know."
"As Lady Eleanor?" she put in, with a flash of her dark eyes.
"Well, yes," he assented; "and for another thing, she wouldn't get
ill-tempered; it isn't possible."
"Oh, isn't it?" with another curl of the lip.
"No," he said, quietly, earnestly; "I'll go bail for that much. And
I'll stake my life I shall never ask myself why I married her! But
you're right about a great deal of it, Fin; and we shall have to put
up with it. After all, you know, you can't have everything you want in
this world. Did you ever notice that the rich people, the people with
hatfuls of money, generally look the most wretched? I have. They want
something they haven't got, you may depend upon it; something they
value ever so much higher than their coin. Well, we shall want money,
but we shall have a good many other things----."
She laughed, a dry, harsh laugh.
"Don't mind me," she said; "I can't help smiling. It's as good as a
play to hear you talking like the leading juvenile in a sentimental
piece. Love, love, love! That's what you're thinking of. Well, perhaps
you're right. God knows! I dare say you're right."
She was silent a moment, then she said:
"And when's the wedding to be?"
"Soon," he said, dreamily; "as soon as possible. It's a secret. I mean
our engagement."
She looked up sharply.
"Oh, it isn't in the papers or known yet?"
He shook his head.
"No, no. We've reasons for keeping it quiet for a little while."
"But you came and told me," she said, broodingly. "Well, it was
straight and kind of you, as I said, and--and I'm much obliged."
He put out his hand to her in acknowledgment. She looked at it for a
moment as if she doubted whether she would take it; then she put her
own into it, and hers burned like a red-hot coal.
She took it away instantly, and rose and walked slowly up to the table,
poured out a couple of glasses of champagne, and brought him one and
raised the other to her lips.
"Here's luck to you--both!" she said, with a laugh. "May you be happy
ever afterward, as they say in the story books," and she looked over
the rim of the glass at him, with her dark eyes flashing under the
thick brows.
"Thanks, Fin," he said. "You are a good sort, and----." He rose.
"But you don't want to know any more of me," she broke in. "I
understand. Oh, don't apologize. I'm cute enough to see why you've told
me, why you've come to me first of all. There's to be an end to our
friendship----." Her voice broke for a moment, then she hurried on with
forced gayety and indifference. "And you're quite right. A man who's
going to settle down, doesn't want such acquaintances as me. Well,
good-by."
She held out her hand.
Yorke, feeling as a man must feel under such circumstances, when he
cannot contradict and would like to do so, hung his head for a moment,
then he took her hand, and holding it, said:
"I'm not much loss, Fin. As I told her, I'm a bad lot, and dear at any
price, and--there, good-by!"
Then he did a foolish thing. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed
it.
She quivered, almost as if he had struck her; her eyes closed, and she
leaned heavily against the edge of the table.
Yorke, feeling unutterably miserable, dropped her hand and left the
room. He gave the page who helped him on with his coat a sovereign, and
got outside.
"Poor Fin!" he muttered, standing on the pavement and staring about
him. "Poor Fin!"
And so he got off with the old love number two.
Finetta stood where he had left her for a second, then sprang forward
with her magnificent arms stretched out.
"Yorke, Yorke!" broke from her white lips. But the door had closed, and
he did not hear her.
She stood erect for a moment, then staggered and fell face downward
upon the sofa.
Polly ran to her--locking the door on her way--and raised her head. She
had fainted.
Polly poured some wine through the clenched teeth and bathed the set
face, and presently Finetta came to; but it was to pass from a swoon
into an awful torrent of weeping.
"He's gone! He's gone! Forever!" she moaned. "I shall never see him
again! Why did I let him go like that? Why didn't I ask him on my knees
to let us be friends still? I should have seen him now and again, and
that would have been something; to speak to him, hear him laugh and
talk, and call me 'Fin;' but it's all over now. He'll never come back!
Oh, I wish I were dead, dead, dead!"
"Hush, hush," implored Polly, trying to soothe her. "He's better gone.
There was no good in his staying."
"No, no! I know that! He never cared for me. I only amused him, and
directly he left me he forgot me. They're all alike. No, he was
different. Look how he came and told me--like a man! Oh, Yorke, Yorke!
Oh, he little guesses how I----." Her lips shook, and she hid her face
even from her sister.
"Where's your pride, Fin?" whispered Polly, almost as Lady Denby had
said to Lady Eleanor.
"My pride!" retorted Finetta. "Ah, you can talk like that, you who
don't know what I feel! I haven't any. I'd have followed him round the
world like a dog, grateful for a kind word--or a blow! I'd have worked
for him like a slave. Poor! He needn't have been poor if he'd married
me. He should have had every penny, and I'd have been content to go in
rags so long as he had the best of everything; and I'd have made him
happy, or die in the trying."
"You'd most likely have died," remarked Polly, with a woman's insight.
"I dare say. Well, I could have died. But it's all over."
She hid her face in her hands and shook like a leaf for a full minute,
then suddenly her mood changed, and she started up--in a fury.
The tears dried up in her burning eyes, her face became white, her
lips rigid; and as she stood with clenched hands and heaving bosom
she looked like an outraged goddess, a tigress robbed of her cub, a
woman despised and deserted--and that is a more terrible thing than the
outraged goddess or the bereaved tigress, by the way.
"He's a fool!" she panted. "A fool! To leave me for such as her! Says
she's pretty!" She strode to the glass and stood erect before it. "Is
she better looking than I am? I don't believe it. And what else is she?
Nothing. She's poor--she isn't a swell even. And he's left me and that
other, that Lady Eleanor, for her! Yes; I could have borne it better if
it had been Lady Eleanor; if it had been one of her sort it would be
more natural; but a mere nobody, the daughter of an artist!"
In her ignorance poor Finetta regarded the painters of pictures and
gate posts as equals.
"A common painter! Why, he'd better have married me!" and she drew
a long breath. "I'm as good as she is, and she'll be a lady. I'd make as
good a lady as she would."
"You never saw her," ventured Polly, timidly.
The tigress swung round upon her, dashing the wine glasses to the
ground in the movement.
"Saw her! I don't want to see her, to know what she's like! I can
guess. A dowdy, simpering, doll-faced chit of a girl that caught his
fancy! And she'll be his wife, while I----." She raised her clenched
hands above her head, and laughed a wild, discordant laugh. "It makes
me mad!"
She fell to pacing the room. Her hair had become unfastened, and fell
in a black torrent over the creamy satin. Her lithe figure, erect and
quivering, looked six feet high. A magnificent spectacle for a painter
or sculptor, but not for the man or woman who had offended her.
"I'm flung aside as not fit for him to know, and she'll be his wife. I
wish she were here now; I'd kill her! Oh, if I could only do something
to separate them! If I could only come between them!"
She flung herself on the sofa, and hid her face on the cushion.
Polly went up to her.
"You're wearing yourself out, Fin," she said. "You'll suffer for this
to-morrow. Better come to bed. Besides, what's the use of it? You
can't bring him back, or stop his marrying the other girl."
Finetta raised her head, and looked at her as if she did not see her.
"Can't I?" she muttered between her closed teeth. "Can't I? I don't
know! Such things have been done. Sometimes there's a way." She put her
hand to her brow, and drew a labored sigh. "I can't think; my head's
like lead and on fire, and my heart's aching. When did he say the
wedding was to be?"
"Soon," said Polly. "What's the use----."
Finetta held up her hand to silence her.
"Go to bed," she said, hoarsely.
"You come too----."
"Go to bed; get out of my sight. I want to be alone, to think. To
think! There must be some way to stop it, and--and I'll find it out. Go
away----," with a flash of her somber eyes--"Go away and leave me. I'm
best alone."
Polly, awed and frightened, crept to the door; but as she paused
a moment and looked back she heard the hoarse, broken voice still
muttering:
"There must be some way!"