The next night Dan, magnetically drawn down the Strand to the Gaiety,
arrived just before the close of the last act, slipped in, and sat far
back watching Letty Lane close her part. After hearing her sing as she
had the afternoon before in the worldly group, it was curious to see her
before the public in her flashing dress and to realize how much she was
a thing of the people. To-night she was a completely personal element to
Dan. He could never think of her again as he had hitherto. The sharp
drive through the town that afternoon in her motor had made a change in
his feelings. He had been hurt for her, with anger at the Duchess of
Breakwater's rudeness, and from the first he had always known that there
was in him a hot championship for the actress. To-night, whenever the
man who sang with her, put his arms around her, danced with her, held
her, it was an offense to Dan Blair; it had angered him before, but
to-night it did more. One by one everything faded out of his foreground
but the brilliant little figure with her golden hair, her lovely face,
her beautiful graceful body, and in her last gesture on the stage before
the curtain went down, she seemed to Blair to call him and distinctly to
make an appeal to him:
"You might rest your weary feet
If you came to Mandalay."
Well, there was nothing weary about the young, live, vigorous American,
as, standing there in his dark edge of the theater, his hands in his
pockets, his bright face fixed toward the stage, he watched the slow
falling of the curtain on the musical drama. Dan realized how full of
vigor he was; he felt strong and capable, indeed a feeling of power
often came to him delightfully, but it had never been needful for him to
exert his forces, he had never had need to show his mettle. Now he felt
at those words:
"You might rest your weary feet"
how, with all his heart, he longed that the dancer should rest those
lovely tired little feet of hers, far away from any call of the public,
far away on some lovely shore which the hymn tune called the coral
strand. As he gazed at her mobile, sensitive face, whose eyes had seen
the world, and whose lips--Dan's thoughts changed here with a great pang,
and the close of all his meditations was: "Gosh, she ought to rest!"
The boy walked briskly back of the scenes toward the little door, behind
which, as he tapped, he hoped with all his heart to hear her voice bid
him come in. But there were other voices in the room. He rattled the
door-knob and Letty Lane herself called to him without opening the door:
"Will you go, please, Mr. Blair? I can't see any one to-night."
He had nothing to do but to go--to grind his heel as he turned--to swear
deeply against Poniotowsky. His late ecstasy was turned to gall. The
theater seemed horrible to him: the chattering of the chorus girls,
their giggles, their laughter as he passed the little groups, all seemed
weird and infernal, and everything became an object of irritation.
As he went blindly out of the theater he struck his arm against a piece
of stage fittings and the blow was sharp and stinging, but he was glad
of the hurt.
Without, in the street, Dan took his place with the other men and
waited, a bitter taste in his mouth and anger in his breast, waited
until Letty Lane fluttered down, followed by Poniotowsky, and the two
drove away.
The young man could have gone after, running behind the motor, but there
was a taxicab at hand; he jumped in it, ordering the man to follow the
car to the Savoy. There the boy had the pleasure of seeing Miss Lane
enter the hotel, Poniotowsky with her--had the anguish of seeing them
both go up in the lift to her apartments.
When Dan came to himself he heard the chimes of St. Martin's ring out
eleven. He then remembered for the first time that he had promised to
dine alone at home with the Duchess of Breakwater.
"Gosh, Lily will be wild!"
In spite of the lateness of the hour he hurried to Park Lane. The
familiar face of the manservant who let him in blurred before the young
man's eyes. Her grace was out at the theater? Blair would wait then, and
he went into the small drawing-room, quiet, empty, reposeful, with a
fire across the andirons, for the evening was damp and cool. Still dazed
by his jealous, passionate emotions, he glanced about the room, chose a
long leather sofa, and stretching out his length, fell asleep. There in
the shadow he slept profoundly, waking suddenly to find that he was not
alone. Across the room the Duchess of Breakwater stood by the table; she
was in evening dress, her cloak and gloves on the chair at her side. She
laughed softly and the man to whom she laughed, on whom she smiled, was
Lord Galorey.
Blair raised himself up on the sofa without making any noise, and he saw
Galorey take the woman in his arms. The sight didn't make the fiancée
angry. He realized instantly that he _wanted to believe that it was
true_, and as there was nothing theatrical in the young Westerner, he
sprang up, slang so much a part of his nature that the first words that
came to his lips was a phrase in vogue.
"Look who's here!" he cried, and came blithely forward, his head clear,
his lips smiling.
The duchess gave a little scream and Dan lounged up to the two people
and held his hand frankly out to the lady.
"That's all right, Lily! Go right on, Gordon, please. Only I had to let
you know when I waked up! Only fair. I guess I must have been asleep
quite a while."
The Duchess of Breakwater shrugged. "I don't know what you dreamed," she
said acidly, "if you were asleep."
"Well, it was a very pretty dream," the boy returned, "and showed what a
stupid ass I've been to think I couldn't have dreamed it when I was
awake."
"I think you are crazy," the duchess exclaimed.
But Blair repeated: "That's all right. I mean to say as far as I am
concerned--"
And Galorey, in order to stand by his lady, murmured:
"My dear chap, you _have_ been dreaming."
But Blair met the Englishman's gray eyes with his blue ones. "I did have
a bottle of champagne, Gordon, that's a fact, but it couldn't make me
see what I did see."
"Dan," the Duchess of Breakwater broke in, "let Gordon take you home,
like a dear. You're really ragging on in a ridiculous way."
Blair looked at her steadily, and as he did so he repeated:
"That's all right, Lily. Gordon cares a lot, and the truth of the matter
is that I _do not_."
She grew very pale.
"I would have stuck to my word, of course," he went on, "but we'd have
been infernally unhappy and ended up in the divorce courts. Now, this
little scene here of yours lets me out, and I don't lay it up against
either of you."
"Gordon!" she appealed to her lover, "why, in Heaven's name, don't you
speak!"
The Englishman realized that while he was glad at heart, he regretted
that he had been the means of her losing the chance of her life.
"What do you want me to say, Lily?" he exclaimed with a desperate
gesture. "I can't tell him I don't love you. I have loved you, God help
me, for ten years."
She could have killed him for it.
"I can tell you, Dan, if you want me to," Galorey went on, "that I don't
believe she cares a penny for any one on the face of the earth, for you
or me."
Old Dan Blair's son showed his business training. His one idea was to
"get out," and as he didn't care who the Duchess of Breakwater loved or
didn't love, he wanted to break away as fast as he could. He sat down at
the table under the light of the lamp and drew out his wallet with its
compact, thick little check book, the millionaire's pass to most of the
things that he wants.
"You've taught me a lot," he said to the Duchess of Breakwater, "and my
father sent me over here for that. I have been awfully fond of you, too.
I thought I was fonder than I am, I guess. At any rate I want to stand
by one of my promises. That old place of yours--Stainer Court--now that's
got to be fixed up."
He made a few computations on paper, lifted the pad to her with the
figures on it, round, generous and full.
"At home," he said, "in Blairtown, we have what we call 'engagement'
parties, when each fellow brings a present to the girl, but this is what
we might call a 'broken engagement party.' Now, I can't," the boy went
on, "give this money to you very well; it won't look right. We will have
to fix that up some way or other. You will have to say you got an
unexpected inheritance from some uncle in Australia." He smiled at
Galorey: "We will fix it up together."
His candor, his simplicity, were so charming, he stood before the two so
young, so clear, so clean, that a sudden tenderness for him, and a sense
of what she had lost, what she never had had, made her exclaim:
"Dan, I really don't care a pin for the money--I don't"--but the hand she
held out was seized by the other man and held fast. Galorey said:
"Very well, let it go at that. You don't care for the money, but you
will take it just the same. Now, don't, for God's sake, tell him that
you care for him."
He made her meet his eyes this time: stronger than she, Galorey forced
her to be sincere. She set Dan free and he turned and left them standing
there facing each other. He softly crossed the room, and looking back,
he saw them, tall, distinguished, both of them under the
lamplight--enemies, and yet the closest friends bound by the strongest
tie in the world.
As Dan went out through the curtains of the room and they fell behind
him, the Duchess of Breakwater sank down in the chair by the side of the
table; she buried her face. Gordon Galorey bent over her and again took
her in his arms, and she suffered it.