The house of the Duchess of Breakwater in Park Lane was white, with
green blinds and green balconies; beautiful, distinguished and old,
mellow with traditions, and the tide of fashion poured its stream into
the music-room to listen to the Sunday concert. Without, the day was
bland and beautiful, mild spring in the deep sweet air, and already the
bloom lay over the park and along the turf. Piccadilly was ablaze with
flowers, and in the windows and in the flower-women's baskets they were
so sweet as to make the heart ache and to make the senses thrill. Keen
to the spring beauty, the last guest to go into the drawing-room of the
Duchess of Breakwater was the young American man in whom the magic of
the season had stirred the blood. He seemed the youngest and the
brightest guest to cross the sill of the great house whose debts he was
going to pay, and whose future he was going to secure with American
money.
Close after him a motor car rolled up to the curb, and under the awning
Letty Lane passed quickly, as though thistledown, blown into the
distinguished house. The actress was taken possession of by several
people and shown up-stairs.
Dan spoke to his hostess, who wore, over her azure dress, a necklace
given her by Dan. She said he was "too late for words," and why hadn't
he come before. After greeting him she set him free, and he went eagerly
to find his place next an elderly woman whom he liked immensely, Lady
Caiwarn. She had given him twenty pounds for some of his poor. Lady
Caiwarn had a calm, kind face, and Dan sat down beside her, well out of
the crush, and they talked amiably throughout the violin solo.
"Think of it," she said, "Letty Lane of the Gaiety is going to sing. I'd
sit through a great deal for that. Let that man with the fiddle do his
worst."
Blair laughed appreciatively. He thought Lady Caiwarn would be a good
friend for Miss Lane, better than the duchess herself. "I wish Lily
could hear you talk about her violinist," he said, delighted; "she
thinks he's the whole show." And tentatively, his ingenuous eyes fixed
on his friend, he asked: "I wonder how you would like to meet Miss Lane.
She's perfectly ripping, and she's from my State."
"_Meet her!_" Lady Caiwarn exclaimed, but before she could finish,
through the room ran the little anticipatory rustle that comes before
the great, and which, when they have gone, breaks into applause. The
great actress had appeared to give her number. Dan and Lady Caiwarn,
behind the palms in a little corner of their own, watched her.
A clever understanding of the world into which she was to come this day,
had made the girl dress like a charm. She stood quietly by the piano,
her hands folded. Among the high ladies of the English world in their
splendid frocks, their jewels and feathers, she was a simple figure, her
dress snow white, high to her throat, unadorned by any gay color,
according to the fashion of the time. It was such a dress as Romney
might have painted, and under her arms and from across her breast there
fell a soft coral-colored silken scarf. The costume was daring in its
simplicity. She might have been Emma, Lady Hamilton, because perfectly
beautiful, perfectly talented, she could risk severe simplicity, having
in herself the fire and the art and the seduction. Her hair was a golden
crown and her eyes like stars. She was excited, and the scarlet had run
along her cheeks like wine spilled over ivory.
She looked around the room, failed to see Blair, but saw the Duchess of
Breakwater in her velvet and her jewels. Letty Lane began to sing. Dan
and she had chosen _Mandalay_ and she began with it. Her dress only was
simple. All the complexity of her talent, whatever she knew of seduction
and charm, she put in the rendering of her song. Even the conventional
audience, most of which knew her well, were enchanted over again, and
they went wild about her. She had never been so charming. The men
clapped her until she began in self-defense another favorite of the
moment, and ended in a perfect huzzah of applause.
She refused to sing again until, in the distance, she saw Dan standing
by the column near his seat. Then indicating to the pianist what she
wanted, she sang _The Earl of Moray_, such a rendering of the old ballad
as had not been heard in London, and coming, as it did, from the lips of
a popular singer whose character and whose verve were not supposed to be
sympathetic to a piece of music of this kind, the effect was startling.
Letty Lane's face grew pale with the touching old tragedy, the scarlet
faded from her cheeks, her eyes grew dark and moist, she might indeed
herself have been the lady looking from the castle wall while they
carried the body of her dead lover under those beautiful eyes.
Dan felt his heart grow cold. If she had awakened him when he was a
little boy, she thrilled him now; he could have wept. Lady Caiwarn did
wipe tears away. When the last note of the accompaniment had ended,
Dan's friend at his side said: "How utterly ravishing! What a beautiful,
lovely creature; how charming and how frail!"
He scarcely answered. He was making his way to Letty Lane, and he wrung
her hand, murmuring, "Oh, you're great; you're great!" And the pleasure
on his face repaid her over and over again. "Come, I want you to meet
the Duchess of Breakwater, and some other friends of mine."
As he let her little cold hand fall and turned about, the room as by
magic had cleared. The prime minister had arrived late and was in the
other room. The refreshments were also being served. There was no one to
meet Letty Lane, except for several young men who came up eagerly and
asked to be presented, Gordon Galorey among them.
"Where's Lily?" Dan asked him; "I want her to meet Miss Lane."
"In the conservatory with the prime minister," and Galorey looked
meaningly at Dan, as much as to say, "Now don't be an utter fool."
But Letty Lane herself saved the situation. She shook hands with the
utmost cordiality and sweetness with the men who had been presented to
her, and asked Dan to take her to her motor. He waited for her at the
door and she came down wrapped around as usual in her filmy scarf.
"Are you better?" he asked eagerly. "You look awfully stunning, and I
don't think I can ever thank you enough."
She assured him that she was "all right," and that she had a "lovely new
rôle to learn and that it was coming on next month." He helped her in
and she seemed to fill the motor like a basket of fresh white flowers.
Again he repeated, as he held the door open:
"I can't thank you enough: you were a great success."
She smiled wickedly, and couldn't resist:
"Especially with the women."
Dan's face flushed; he was already deeply hurt for her, and her words
showed him that the insult had gone home.
"Where are you going now?"
"Right to the Savoy."
Without another word, hatless as he was, he got into the motor and
closed the door.
"I'm going to take you home," he informed her quietly, "and there's no
use in looking at me like that either! When I'm set on a thing I get
it!"
They rolled away in the bland sunset, passed the park, down Piccadilly,
where the flowers in the streets were so sweet that they made the heart
ache, and the air through the window was so sweet that it made the
senses swim!