At the Meurice, Miss Lane gave strict orders to admit only Mr. Blair to
her apartments. She described him. No sooner had she drunk her cup of
tea, which Higgins gave her, than she began to expect Dan.
He didn't come.
Her dinner, without much appetite, she ate alone in her salon; saw a
doctor and made him prescribe something for the cough that racked her
chest; looked out to the warm, bright gardens of the Tuileries fading
into the pallid loveliness of sunset, indifferent to everything in the
world--except Dan Blair. She believed she would soon be indifferent to
him, too; then everything would be done with. Now she wondered had he
really gone--had he done what he threatened? Why didn't he come? At
twelve o'clock that night, as she lay among the cushions of her sofa,
dozing, the door of her parlor was pushed in. She sprang up with a cry
of delight; but when Poniotowsky came up to her she exclaimed:
"Oh, you!" And the languor and boredom with which she said his name made
the prince laugh shortly.
"Yes, I. Who did you think it was?" Cynically and rather cruelly he
looked down at Letty Lane and admired the picture she made: small,
exquisite, her blond head against the dark velvet of the lounge, her
gray eyes intensified by the fatigue under them.
"Just got in from Carlsbad; came directly here. How-de-do? You look, you
know--" he scrutinized her through his single eye-glass--"most frightfully
seedy."
"Oh, I'm all right." She left the sofa, for she wanted to prevent his
nearer approach. "Have you had any supper? I'll call Higgins."
"No, no, sit down, please, will you? I want to know why you sent to
Carlsbad for me? Have you come to your senses?"
He was as mad about the beautiful creature as a man of his temperament
could be. Exhausted by excess and bored with life, she charmed and
amused him, and in order to have her with him always, to be master of
her caprices, he was willing to make any sacrifice.
"Have you sent off that imbecile boy?" And at her look he stopped and
shrugged. "You need a rest, my child," he murmured practically, "you're
neurasthenic and very ill. I've wired to have the yacht at
Cherbourg--It'll reach there by noon to-morrow."
She was standing listlessly by the table. A mass of letters sent by
special messenger from London after her, telegrams and cards lay there
in a pile. Looking down at the lot, she murmured: "All right, I don't
care."
He concealed his triumph, but before the look had faded from his face
she saw it and exclaimed sharply:
"Don't be crazy about it, you know. You'll have to pay high for me; you
know what I mean."
He answered gallantly: "My dear child, I've told you that you would be
the most charming princess in Hungary."
Once more she accepted indifferently: "All right, all right, I don't
care tuppence--not tuppence"--and she snapped her fingers; "but I like to
see you pay, Frederigo. Take me to Maxim's."
He demurred, saying she was far too ill, but she turned from him to call
Higgins, determined to go if she had to go alone, and said to him
violently: "Don't think I'll make your life easy for you, Frederigo.
I'll make it wretched; as wretched--" and she held out her fragile arms,
and the sleeves fell back, leaving them bare--"as wretched as I am
myself."
But she was lovely, and he said harshly: "Get yourself dressed. I'll go
change and meet you at the lift."
* * * * *
She made him take a table in the corner, where she sat in the shadow on
the sofa, overlooking the brilliant room. Maxim's was no new scene to
either of them, no novelty. Poniotowsky scarcely glanced at the crowd,
preferring to feast his eyes on his companion, whose indifference to him
made his abstraction easy. She was his property. He would give her his
title; she had demanded it from the first. The Hungarian was a little
overdressed, with his jeweled buttons, his large _boutonnière_, his
faultless clothes, his single eye-glass through which he stared at Letty
Lane, whose delicate beauty was in fine play: her cheeks faintly pink,
her starry eyes humid with a dew whose luster is of the most precious
quality. Her unshed tears had nothing to do with Poniotowsky--they were
for the boy. Her heart sickened, thinking where he might be; and more
than that, it cried out for him. She wanted him.
Oh, she would have been far better for Dan than anything he could find
in this mad city, than anything to which in his despair he would go for
consolation. She had kept her word, however, to that old man, Mr.
Ruggles; she had got out of the business with a fatal result, as far as
the boy was concerned. She thought Dan would drift here probably as most
Americans on their wild nights do for a part of the time, and she had
come to see.
She wore a dress of coral pink, tightly fitting, high to her little
chin, and seemed herself like a coral strand from neck to toe, clad in
the color she affected, and which had become celebrated as the Letty
Lane pink. Her feathered hat hid her face, and she was completely
shielded as she bent down drawing pictures with her bare finger on the
cloth. After a little while she said to Poniotowsky without glancing at
him:
"If you stare any longer like that, Frederigo, you'll break your
eye-glass. You know how I hate it."
Used as he was to her sharpness, he nevertheless flushed and sat back
and looked across the room, where, to their right, protected from them
as they were from him by the great door, a young man sat alone. Whether
or not he had come to Maxim's intending to join a congenial party,
should he find one, or to choose for a companion some one of the women
who, at the entrance of the tall blond boy, stirred and invited him with
their raised lorgnons and their smiles, will not be known. Dan Blair was
alone, pale as the pictures Letty Lane had drawn on the cloth, and he,
too, feasted his eyes on the Gaiety girl.
"By Jove!" said the Hungarian under his breath, and she eagerly asked:
"What? Whom? Whom do you see?"
Turning his back sharply he evaded her question and she did not pursue
the idea, and as a physical weakness overwhelmed her, when Poniotowsky
after a second said, "Come, _chérie_, for heaven's sake, let's go"--she
mechanically rose and passed out.
Several young men supping together came over eagerly to speak to her and
claim acquaintance with the Gaiety girl, and walked along out to the
motor. There Letty Lane discovered she had dropped her handkerchief, and
sent the prince back for it.
As though he had been waiting for the reappearance of Poniotowsky, Dan
Blair stood close to the little table which Letty Lane had left, her
handkerchief in his hand. As Poniotowsky came up Dan thrust the small
trifle of sheer linen into his waistcoat pocket.
"I will trouble you for Miss Lane's handkerchief," said Poniotowsky, his
eyes cold.
"You may," said Dan as quietly, his blue eyes like sparks from a star,
"trouble me for hell!" And lifting from the table Poniotowsky's own
half-emptied glass of champagne, the boy flung the contents full in the
Hungarian's face.
The wine dashed against Poniotowsky's lips and in his eyes. Blair
laughed out loud, his hands in his pockets. The insult was low and
noiseless; the little glass shattered as it fell so softly that with the
music its gentle crash was unheard.
Poniotowsky wiped his face tranquilly and bowed.
"You shall hear from me after I have taken Miss Lane home."
"Tell her," said the boy, "where you left the handkerchief, that's all."