As she reached the opposite pavement Heriot exclaimed: "Miss Cheriton!
Are you going to cut me?"
"You?" she cried with surprise. "It was--it was the fog's fault; I
didn't see. What a stranger you are! it's a fortnight since you came
out to us. A 'fortnight,' you observe--I'm 'quite English, you know,'
now."
"You're in good spirits," he said. "What have you been doing?"
"I've been rising in my career," she answered gaily; "I have had tea
in a cakeshop with an actress. I have just shaken hands with her; she
has just given me a piece of advice. I am, in imagination, already a
personage."
"Who is she?" asked Heriot. "Where does she come from?... Let me see
you to Victoria; I suppose that's where you are going?"
He stopped a hansom, and scrutinised her sadly as they took their
seats. "Have you been out in this weather long?" he said. "You poor
child, how wet you must be! Well, you know an actress. Aren't you going
to tell me all about it?"
She was as voluble as he wished; he had become in the last few months
her confidant and consoler. Lavender Street, Wandsworth, or those
residents who commanded a view of No. 20, had learnt to know his
figure well. Awhile ago he had marvelled at the rôle he was filling;
latterly he had ceased to marvel. He realised the explanation--and as
he listened to her tale her words smote him. It hurt him to think of
the girl beside him cringing to a theatrical agent, forming a chance
acquaintance in the streets, and contemplating so ignoble a position as
the one of which she spoke. He looked at her yearningly.
"You are not pleased," she said.
"Is there a great deal to be pleased at? Is this sort of thing worthy
of you?"
"It is the first step. Oh, be nice about it, do! If you understood ...
can I be Juliet at once! If I'm to succeed----"
"I have sympathised with you," he said; "I've entered into your
feelings; I do understand. But you don't know what you're meditating.
Admitting it's inevitable--admitting, if you're to be an actress, that
you must begin, since you've no influence, where you're content to
begin--can you bear it? These women you'll be thrown amongst----"
"Some, at least," she said, "will be like myself, surely? I am not the
only girl who has to begin. And ... Whatever they are, it can't be
helped! Remember, I'm in earnest! I talked at first wildly; I see how
childish I was. What should I be if I faltered because the path isn't
strewn with roses? An actress must be satisfied to work."
"It isn't decreed that you need be an actress," answered Heriot. "After
all, there is no necessity to fight for your bread-and-butter. If you
were compelled----"
"There are more compelling forces than poverty. Can't you recognise
ambition?"
"Haven't I?" he said. "Have I been wood?"
"Ah," she smiled, "forgive me. I didn't mean that. But be nice still.
Am I to reject a career because I'm not starving? I'm starving with my
soul. I'm like a poor mute battling for voice. I want--I want to give
expression to what I feel within me." She beat her hands in her lap.
"I'm willing to struggle--eager to! You've always known it. Why do
you disappoint me now? I have to begin even lower than I understood,
that's all. And what is it? I shall be surrounded by artists then. By
degrees I shall rise. 'You are in the right way, but remember what I
say, Study, study, study! Study well, and God bless you!' Do you know
who said that?--Mrs. Siddons to Macready. It was at Newcastle, and it
was about her performance the same night that he wrote: 'The violence
of her emotion seemed beyond her power longer to endure, and the words,
faintly articulated, "Was he alive?" sent an electric thrill through
the audience.' Think what that means; three words! I can't do it, I've
tried--oh, how I've tried! For months after I read that book, I used to
say them dozens of times every day, with every intonation I could think
of. But there was no effect, no thrill even to myself. 'Study, study,
study! Keep your mind on your art, do not remit your study, and you are
certain to succeed!' I _will_ keep my mind on it, I'll obey her advice,
I _will_ succeed. Heaven couldn't be so cruel as to let me fail after
putting such longings into me."
Heriot sighed. The impulse to tell her that he loved her, to keep her
to himself, was mastering him. Never before had her hold on him been
displayed so vividly, nor had the temptation to throw prudence to the
winds been quite so strong.
"If you had a happier home," he said, "there would be other influences.
Don't think me impertinent, but it can't be very lively for you in that
house."
"It isn't a whirl of gaiety, and Aunt Lydia is not ideal. But--but I
was just the same in Duluth."
"Duluth!" he echoed; "it was dreary in Duluth, too."
"At all events I had my father there."
"What does he write?" asked Heriot. "Have you had a letter since I saw
you?"
"He gives no news. The news is to come from _me_."
"I think there's a little," he said; "I can tell it by your tone."
"It's cheerful to be with some one who _can_ tell things by one's tone.
Well, he thinks, if I can't make a beginning, that I may as well go
back."
"I see," he said. "I won't ask you if you mean to."
She laughed a shade defiantly. "Duluth has many charms--I've been
remembering them since his letter. There is my father, and there's
strawberry-shortcake. My father will be disappointed in me if I have
to go; the strawberry-shortcake--well, there's a tiny shop there where
they sell it hot. I've never seen it hot anywhere else--and they turn
on the cream with a tap, out of a thing that looks like a miniature
cistern."
"You're not going back," he said. "You're going on the stage as a
supernumerary instead?"
In the flare of the station lamps her eyes flashed at him; he could see
the passionate trembling of her mouth. The cab stopped, and they got
out, and threaded their way among the crowd to the barriers. There was
a train in ten minutes, Heriot learnt.
"Shall we go to the waiting-room?"
"No," said Miss Cheriton.
"Forgive me what I said just now. I am sorry."
"What does it matter?"
"It was brutal."
"Rather, perhaps. It was unexpected. You have failed me when I wanted
you most."
He took two first-class tickets--he wished to be alone with her, and he
knew that she travelled "second."
"I'm coming with you," he said.
"But you can't have dined? Our suppers are not extensive."
"Let us get in!" he answered.
They had the compartment to themselves when the door banged, and he
regarded her silently, with nerves that had escaped control.
"I have warned you," she said. "It will be something out of a tin for
certain, with vinegar over it."
"Mamie!"
There was rebuke in her expression.
"Mamie," he repeated, "I love you. Why I dislike your going on the
stage is because I want you myself. I was 'brutal' because I'm fond of
you. Will you marry me?"
She lay back against the darkness of the cushions, pale and startled.
"Are you serious?" she said. "You--want to marry me? do you mean it?"
"I mean it. I don't seem able to tell you how much I mean it. Can you
like me well enough to be my wife?"
"I do like you," she stammered; "but I hadn't an idea.... I never
thought you thought----Oh, I'm sorry!"
"Why? Why can't you say 'yes'?"
"To marry you?"
"I'll be very gentle to you," he said shakily. "I--for God's sake,
don't judge my love for you by the way I put it! I haven't had much
practice in love-making; it's a pity, perhaps. There's a word that
says it all--I 'worship' you. My darling, what have you to look
forward to? You've seen, you've tried, you know what an uphill life
it will be. It's not as if I begged you to waive your hopes while
you had encouragement to hope--you've made the attempt, and you know
the difficulties now. Come to me instead. You shall live where you
like--you can choose your own quarter. You can have everything you care
for--books, pictures, theatres too. Oh, my sweet, come to me, and I'll
fulfil every wish! Will you, Mamie?"
"I can't," she said tremulously, "it wouldn't be fair." Her eyes shone
at him, and she leant forward with parted lips. "I like you, I like you
very much, but I don't--I'm not---- I've never been in love with anyone."
"I'll be grateful for small mercies," said Heriot, with an unhappy
laugh.
"And I _could_ not do what you ask. If I fail, I fail; but I must
persevere. I can't accept failure voluntarily--I can't stretch out my
arms to it. I should despise myself if I gave in to-day. Even you----"
"You know better than that!" he said.
"Well, yes," she owned, "perhaps I'm wrong there; to you it would seem
a sensible step. But I believe in myself. All my life I've had the
thought, and I should be miserable, I should hate myself! I should be
like my father--I should be always thinking of the 'might have been.'
You'd be good to me, but you'd know you had been a fool. I'm not a bit
the sort of woman you should marry, and you'd repent it."
Heriot took her hand and held it tightly.
"I love you," he said. "Consider your own happiness only. I love you."
"I am quite selfish--I know it wouldn't content me; I'm not pretending
to any nobility. But I'm sorry; I may say that? I didn't dream you
liked me in this way. I'm not hard, I'm not a horror, and I can see--I
can see that I'm a lot to you."
"I'm glad of that," he said simply. "Yes, you're 'a lot to me,' Mamie.
If you know it, and you can't care for me enough, there's no more for
me to say. Don't worry yourself. It's not unusual for a man to be fond
of a woman who doesn't want to marry him."