The duchess ran Dan, made plans, set the pace, and they were very much
in evidence during the season. The young American, good-natured and
generous, the duchess beautiful and knowing, were the observed of
London, and those of her friends who would have tolerated Dan on account
of his money, ended by sincerely liking him. The wedding-day had not
been fixed as yet, and Dan was not so violently carried away that he
could not wait to be married. Meanwhile Gordon Galorey thanked God for
the delay and hoped for a miracle to break the spell over his friend's
son before it should be too late. In early May the question came up
regarding the musicale. The duchess made her list and arranged the
Sunday afternoon and her performers to suit her taste, and the week
before lounged in her boudoir when Dan and Galorey appeared for a late
morning call.
"There, Dan," she said, holding out a bit of paper, "look at the list
and the program, will you?"
"Sounds and reads all right," commented Dan, handing it on to Galorey.
Besides being an artistic event, she intended that the concert should
serve to present Dan to her special set. She now lit a cigarette and
gave one to each of her friends, lighting the Englishman's herself.
"The best names in London," Lord Galorey said. "You see, Dan, we shall
trot you out in a royal way. I hope you fully appreciate how swagger
this is to be."
Glancing at the list Blair remarked:
"But I don't see Miss Lane's name?"
"Why should you?" the duchess answered sharply.
"Why, we planned all along that she was to sing," he returned.
She gave a long puff to her cigarette.
"We did _rather_ speak of it. But we shall do very well as we are. The
program is full up and it's perfectly ripping as it stands."
"Yes, there's only just one thing the matter with it," the boy smiled
good-naturedly, "and it's easy enough to run her in. I guess Miss Lane
could be run in most anywhere on any program and not clear the house."
Lord Galorey, who knew nothing about the subject under discussion, said
tactfully: "Why, of course, Letty Lane is perfectly charming, but you
couldn't get her, my dear chap."
"I think we will let the thing stand as it is," said the duchess, going
back to her desk and stirring her paper about. "It's really too late
now, you know, Dan."
Unruffled, but with a determination which Lord Galorey and the lady were
far from guessing, Blair resumed tranquilly:
"Oh, I guess she'll come in all right, late as it is. We'll send word to
her and fix it up."
The duchess turned to him, annoyed: "Oh, don't be a beastly bore,
dear--you are not really serious."
Dan still smiled at her sweetly. "You bet your life I am, though, Lily."
She rang a bell at the side of her desk, and when the footman came in
gave him the sheet of paper. "See that this is taken at once to the
stationer's."
"Better wait, Lily"--her fiancé extended his hand--"until the program is
filled out the way it is going to stand." And Blair fixed his handsome
eyes on his future wife. "Why, we got this shindig up," he noted
irreverently, "just so Miss Lane could sing at it."
"Nonsense," she cried, angry and powerless, "you ridiculous creature!
Fancy me getting up a musicale for Letty Lane! Do tell Dan to stop
bothering and fussing, Gordon. He's too ridiculous!"
And Lord Galorey said: "What is the row anyway?"
"Why, I want Miss Lane to sing here on Sunday," Dan explained....
"And I don't want her," finished the Duchess of Breakwater, who was
evidently unwilling to force a scene before Lord Galorey. She handed the
list to her servant, but Dan intercepted it.
"Don't send out that list, Lily, as it is."
He gave it back to her, and his tone was so cool, his expression so
decided and quiet, that she was disarmed, and dismissed the servant,
telling him to return when she should ring again. Coloring with anger,
she tapped the envelope against her brilliantly polished nails.
If she had been married to Blair she would have burst into a violent
rage; if he had been poorer than he was she would have put him in his
place. Lord Galorey understood the contraction of her brows and lips as
Dan reminded: "You promised me that you would have her, you know, Lily."
"Give in, Lily," Galorey advised, rising from the chair where he was
lounging. "Give in gracefully."
And she turned on Galorey the anger which she dared not show the other
man. But Dan interrupted her, explaining simply:
"I knew the girl when she was a kid: she is from my old home, and I want
Lily to ask her here to sing for us, and then to see if we can't do
something to get her out of the state she is in."
Galorey repeated vaguely, "State?"
"Why, she's all run down, tired out; she's got no real friends in
London."
The other man flicked the ash from his cigarette and looked at Blair's
boy through his monocle.
"And you thought that Lily might befriend her, old chap?"
"Yes," nodded Dan, "just give her a lift, you know."
Galorey nodded back, smiling gently. "I see, I see--a moral, spiritual
lift? I see--I see." He glanced at the woman with his strange smile.
She put her cigarette down and seated herself, clasping her hands around
her knees and looked at her fiancé.
"It's none of my business what Letty Lane's reputation is. I don't care,
but you must understand one thing, Dan, I'm not a reformer, or a
charitable institution, and if she comes here it is purely
professional."
He took the subject as settled, and asked for a copy of the program and
put it in his pocket. "I'll get the names of her songs from her and take
the thing myself to Harrison's. And I'd better hustle, I guess; there's
no time to lose between now and Sunday." And he went out triumphant.
Galorey remained, smoking, and the duchess continued her notes in
silence, cooling down at her desk. Her companion knew her too well to
speak to her until she had herself in hand, and when finally she took up
her pen and turned about, she appeared conscious for the first of his
presence.
"Here still!" she exclaimed.
"I thought I might do for a safety valve, Lily. You could let some of
your anger out on me."
The duchess left her desk and came over to him.
"I expect you despise me thoroughly, don't you, Gordon?"
They had not been alone together since her engagement to Blair, for she
had taken pains to avoid every opportunity for a tête-à-tête.
"Despise you?" he repeated gently. "It's awfully hard, isn't it, for a
chap like me to despise anybody? We're none of us used to the best
quality of behavior, you know, my dear girl."
"Don't talk rot, Gordon," she murmured.
"You didn't ask my advice," he continued, "but I don't hesitate to tell
you that I have done everything I could to save the boy."
She accepted this philosophically. "Oh, I knew you would; I quite
expected it, but--" and in the look she threw at him there was more
liking than resentment--"I knew you, too; you _couldn't_ go very far, my
dear fellow."
"I think Dan Blair is excellent stuff," Gordon said.
"He is the greenest, youngest, most ridiculous infant," she exclaimed
with irritation, and he laughed.
"His money is old enough to walk, however, isn't it, Lily?" She made an
angry gesture.
"I expected you'd say something loathsome."
Her companion met her eyes directly. She left her chair and came and sat
down beside him on the small sofa. As he did not move, or look at her,
but regarded his cigarette with interest, she leaned close to him and
whispered: "Gordon, try to be nice and decent. Try to forget yourself.
Don't you see what a wonderful chance it is for me, and that, as far as
you and I are concerned, it can't go on?"
The face of the man by her side grew somber. The charm this woman had
for him had never lessened since the day when he told her he loved her,
long before his marriage, and they were both too poor.
"We have always been too poor, and Edith is jealous of me every day and
hour of her life. Can't you be generous?"
He rose and stood over her, looking down at her beautiful form and her
somewhat softened face, but his eyes were hard and his face very pale.
"You had better go, Gordon," she said slowly; "you had better go...."
Then, as he obeyed her and went like a flash as far as the door, she
followed him and whispered softly: "If you're really only jealous, I can
forgive you."
He managed to get out: "His father was my friend; he sent the boy to me
and I've been a bad guardian." He made a gesture of despair. "Put
yourself in my place. Let Dan Blair go, Lily; let him go."
Her eyelids flickered a little, and she said sharply: "You're out of
your senses, Gordon--and what if I love him?"
With a low exclamation he caught her hand at the wrist so hard that she
cried out, and he said between his teeth: "You _don't_ love him! Take
those words back!"
"Of course I do. Let me free!"
"No," he said passionately, holding her fast. "Not until you take that
back."
His face, his tone, his force, dominated her; the remembrance of their
past, a possible future, made her waver under his eyes, and the woman
smiled at him as Blair had never seen her smile.
"Very well, then, goose," she capitulated almost tenderly; "I don't love
that boy, of course. I'm marrying him for his money. Now, will you let
me go?"
But he held her still more firmly and kissed her several times before he
finally set her free, and went out of the house miserable--bound to her
by the strongest chains--bound in his conscience and by honor to his
trust to Dan's father, and yet handicapped by another sense of honor
which decrees that man must keep silence to the end.