"I will send you a copy," Mr. Earles said, rubbing his hands together,
"by post. Now, will you do me the honour of lunching with me, Miss
Pellissier?"
Anna hesitated.
"Perhaps," he queried, "you wish to avoid being seen about with any
one--er--connected with the profession, under present circumstances.
If so, do not hesitate to tell me. Be frank, I beg you, Miss
Pellissier. I am already too much flattered that you should have given
me your confidence."
"You are very good, Mr. Earles," Anna said. "I think, perhaps if you
will excuse me, that we will defer the luncheon."
"Just as you wish," Mr. Earles declared good-humouredly, "but I shall
not let you go without drinking a glass of wine to our success."
He plunged into one of his drawers, and brought up a small gold-foiled
bottle. The cork came out with a loud pop, and Anna could not help
wondering how it must sound to the patient little crowd outside. She
drank her glass of wine, however, and clanked glasses good-naturedly
with Mr. Earles.
"You must leave me your address if you please," he said, as she rose
to go.
She wrote it down. He looked at it with uplifted eyebrows, but made no
remark.
"I shall probably want you to come down to the 'Unusual' to-morrow
morning," he said. "Bring any new songs you may have."
Anna nodded, and Mr. Earles attended her obsequiously to the door. She
descended the stairs, and found herself at last in the street--alone.
It was a brief solitude, however. A young man, who had been spending
the last hour walking up and down on the opposite side of the way,
came quickly over to her. She looked up, and recognized Mr. Brendon.
_Chapter XIII_
"HE WILL NOT FORGET!"
The external changes in Brendon following on his alteration of fortune
were sufficiently noticeable. From head to foot he was attired in the
fashionable garb of the young man of the moment. Not only that, but he
carried himself erect--the slight slouch which had bent his shoulders
had altogether disappeared. He came to her at once, and turning,
walked by her side.
"Now I should like to know," she said, looking at him with a quiet
smile, "what you are doing here? It is not a particularly inspiring
neighbourhood for walking about by yourself."
"I plead guilty, Miss Pellissier," he answered at once. "I saw you go
into that place, and I have been waiting for you ever since."
"I am not sure whether I feel inclined to scold or thank you," she
declared. "I think as I feel in a good humour it must be the latter."
He faced her doggedly.
"Miss Pellissier," he said, "I am going to take a liberty."
"You alarm me," she murmured, smiling.
"Don't think that I have been playing the spy upon you," he continued.
"Neither Sydney nor I would think of such a thing. But we can't help
noticing. You have been going out every morning, and coming home
late--tired out--too tired to come down to dinner. Forgive me, but you
have been looking, have you not, for some employment?"
"Quite true!" she answered. "I have found out at last what a useless
person I am--from a utilitarian point of view. It has been very
humiliating."
"And that, I suppose," he said, waving his stick towards Mr. Earles'
office, "was your last resource."
"It certainly was," she admitted. "I changed my last shilling
yesterday."
He was silent for a moment or two. His lips were tight drawn. His eyes
flashed as he turned towards her.
"Do you think that it is kind of you, Miss Pellissier," he said,
almost roughly, "to ignore your friends so? In your heart you know
quite well that you could pay Sydney or me no greater compliment than
to give us just a little of your confidence. We know London, and you
are a stranger here. Surely our advice would have been worth having,
at any rate. You might have spared yourself many useless journeys and
disappointments, and us a good deal of anxiety. Instead, you are
willing to go to a place like that where you ought not to be allowed
to think of showing yourself."
"Why not?" she asked quietly.
"The very question shows your ignorance," he declared. "You know
nothing about the stage. You haven't an idea what the sort of
employment you could get there would be like, the sort of people you
would be mixed up with. It is positively hateful to think of it."
She laid her fingers for a moment upon his arm.
"Mr. Brendon," she said, "if I could ask for advice, or borrow money
from any one, I would from you--there! But I cannot. I never could. I
suppose I ought to have been a man. You see, I have had to look after
myself so long that I have developed a terrible bump of independence."
"Such independence," he answered quickly, "is a vice. You see to what
it has brought you. You are going to accept a post as chorus girl, or
super, or something of that sort."
"You do not flatter me," she laughed.
"I am too much in earnest," he answered, "to be able to take this
matter lightly."
"I am rebuked," she declared. "I suppose my levity is incorrigible.
But seriously, things are not so bad as you think."
He groaned.
"They never seem so at first!" he said.
"You do not quite understand," she said gently. "I will tell you the
truth. It is true that I have accepted an engagement from Mr. Earles,
but it is a good one. I am not going to be a chorus girl, or even a
super. I have never told you so, or Sydney, but I can sing--rather
well. When my father died, and we were left alone in Jersey, I was
quite a long time deciding whether I would go in for singing
professionally or try painting. I made a wrong choice, it seems--but
my voice remains."
"You are really going on the stage, then?" he said slowly.
"In a sense--yes."
Brendon went very pale.
"Miss Pellissier," he said, "don't!"
"Why not?" she asked, smiling. "I must live, you know."
"I haven't told any one the amount," he went on. "It sounds too
ridiculous. But I have two hundred thousand pounds. Will you marry
me?"
Anna looked at him in blank amazement. Then she burst into a peal of
laughter.
"My dear boy," she exclaimed. "How ridiculous! Fancy you with all that
money! For heaven's sake, though, do not go about playing the Don
Quixote like this. It doesn't matter with me, but there are at least a
dozen young women in Mr. Earles' waiting-room who would march you
straight off to a registrar's office."
"You have not answered my question," he reminded her.
"Nor am I going to," she answered, smiling. "I am going to ignore it.
It was really very nice of you, but to-morrow you will laugh at it as
I do now."
"Is it necessary," he said, "for me to tell you----"
"Stop, please," she said firmly.
Brendon was silent.
"Do not force me to take you seriously," she continued. "I like to
think of your offer. It was impulsive and natural. Now let us forget
it."
"I understand," he said, doggedly.
"And you must please not look at me as though I were an executioner,"
she declared lightly. "I will tell you something if you like. One of
the reasons why I left Paris and came to London was because there was
a man there who wanted me to marry him. I really cared for him a
little, but I am absolutely determined not to marry for some time at
any rate. I do not want to get only a second-hand flavour of life. One
can learn and understand only by personal experience, by actual
contact with the realities of life. I did not want anything made
smooth and easy for me. That is why I would not marry this man whom I
did and whom I do care for a little. Later on--well then the time may
come. Then perhaps I shall send for him if he has not forgotten."
"I do not know who he is," Brendon said quietly, "but he will not
forget."
Anna shrugged her shoulders lightly.
"Who can tell?" she said. "Your sex is a terrible fraud. It is
generally deficient in the qualities it prides itself upon most. Men
do not understand constancy as women do."
Brendon was not inclined to be led away from the point.
"We will take it then," he said, "that you have refused or ignored
one request I have made you this morning. I have yet another. Let me
lend you some money. Between comrades it is the most usual thing in
the world, and I do not see how your sex intervenes. Let me keep you
from that man's clutches. Then we can look out together for such
employment--as would be more suitable for you. I know London better
than you, and I have had to earn my own living. You cannot refuse me
this."
He looked at her anxiously, and she met his glance with a dazzling
smile of gratitude.
"Indeed," she said, "I would not. But it is no longer necessary. I
cannot tell you much about it, but my bad times are over for the
present. I will tell you what you shall give me, if you like."
"Well?"
"Lunch! I am hungry--tragically hungry."
He called for a hansom.
"After all," he said, "I am not sure that you are not a very material
person."
"I am convinced of it," she answered. "Let us go to that little place
at the back of the Palace. I'm not half smart enough for the West
End."
"Wherever you like!" he answered, a little absently.
They alighted at the restaurant, and stood for a moment in the passage
looking into the crowded room. Suddenly a half stifled exclamation
broke from Anna's lips. Brendon felt his arm seized. In a moment they
were in the street outside. Anna jumped into a waiting hansom.
"Tell him to drive--anywhere," she exclaimed.
Brendon told him the name of a distant restaurant and sprang in by her
side. She was looking anxiously at the entrance to the restaurant. The
commissionaire stood there, tall and imperturbable. There was no one
else in the doorway. She leaned back in the corner of the cab with a
little sigh of relief. A smile flickered upon her lips as she glanced
towards Brendon, who was very serious indeed. Her sense of humour
could not wholly resist his abnormal gravity.
"I am so sorry to have startled you," she said, "but I was startled
myself. I saw someone in there whom I have always hoped that I should
never meet again. I hope--I am sure that he did not see me."
"He certainly did not follow you out," Brendon answered.
"His back was towards me," Anna said. "I saw his face in a mirror. I
wonder----"
"London is a huge place," Brendon said. "Even if he lives here you may
go all your life and never come face to face with him again."
_Chapter XIV_
"THIS IS MY WIFE"
Anna, notwithstanding her momentary fright in the middle of the day,
was in high spirits. She felt that for a time at any rate her
depressing struggle against continual failure was at an end. She had
paid her bill, and she had enough left in her purse to pay many such.
Beyond that everything was nebulous. She knew that in her new role she
was as likely as not to be a rank failure. But the relief from the
strain of her immediate necessities was immense. She had been in the
drawing-room for a few minutes before the gong had sounded, and had
chattered gaily to every one. Now, in her old place, she was doing her
best thoroughly to enjoy a most indifferent dinner.
"Your brother has gone?" she asked Sydney, between the courses.
He nodded.
"Yes. David left this afternoon. I do not think that he has quite got
over his surprise at finding you established here."
She laughed.
"After all, why should he be surprised?" she remarked. "Of course, one
lives differently in Paris, but then--Paris is Paris. I think that a
boarding-house is the very best place for a woman who wants to develop
her sense of humour. Only I wish that it did not remind one so much of
a second-hand clothes shop."
Sydney looked at her doubtfully.
"Now I suppose Brendon understands exactly what you mean," he
remarked. "He looks as though he did, at any rate. I don't! Please
enlighten me."
She laughed gaily--and she had a way when she laughed of throwing back
her head and showing her beautiful white teeth, so that mirth from her
was a thing very much to be desired.
"Look round the table," she said. "Aren't we all just odds and ends of
humanity--the left-overs, you know. There is something inconglomerate
about us. We are amiable to one another, but we don't mix. We can't."
"You and I and Brendon get on all right, don't we?" Sydney objected.
"But that's quite different," replied Anna. "You are neither of you in
the least like the ordinary boarding-house young man. You don't wear a
dinner coat with a flower in your button-hole, or last night's shirt,
or very glossy boots, nor do you haunt the drawing-room in the
evening, or play at being musical. Besides----"
She stopped short. She herself, and one other there, recognized the
interposition of something akin to tragedy. A thickly-set, sandy young
man, with an unwholesome complexion and grease-smooth hair, had
entered the room. He wore a black tail coat buttoned tightly over his
chest, and a large diamond pin sparkled in a white satin tie which had
seen better days. He bowed awkwardly to Mrs. White, who held out her
hand and beamed a welcome upon him.
"Now isn't this nice!" that lady exclaimed. "I'm sure we're all
delighted to see you again, Mr. Hill. I do like to see old friends
back here. If there's any one here whom you have not met I will make
you acquainted with them after dinner. Will you take your old place by
Miss Ellicot."
Miss Ellicot swept aside her skirts from the vacant chair and welcomed
the newcomer with one of her most engaging smiles.
"We were afraid that you had deserted us for good, Mr. Hill," she said
graciously. "I suppose Paris is very, very distracting. You must come
and tell me all about it, although I am not sure whether we shall
forgive you for not having written to any of us."
Mr. Hill was exchanging greetings with his hostess, and salutations
around the table.
"Thank you, ma'am. Glad to get back, I'm sure," he said briskly.
"Looks like old times here, I see. Sorry I'm a bit late the first
evening. Got detained in the City, and----"
Then he met the fixed, breathless gaze of those wonderful eyes from
the other side of the table, and he, too, broke off in the middle of
his sentence. He breathed heavily, as though he had been running. His
large, coarse lips drew wider apart. Slowly a mirthless and very
unpleasant smile dawned upon his face.
"Great Scott!" he exclaimed huskily. "Why--it's--it's you!"
Amazement seemed to dry up the torrents of his speech. The girl
regarded him with the face of a Sphinx. Only in her eyes there seemed
to be some apprehension of the fact that the young man's clothes and
manners were alike undesirable things.
"Are you speaking to me?" she asked calmly. "I am afraid that you are
making a mistake. I am quite sure that I do not know you."
A dull flush burned upon his cheeks. He took his seat at the table,
but leaned forward to address her. A note of belligerency had crept
into his tone.
"Don't know me, eh? I like that. You are--or rather you were----" he
corrected himself with an unpleasant little laugh, "Miss Pellissier,
eh?"
A little sensation followed upon his words. Miss Ellicot pursed her
lips and sat a little more upright. The lady whose husband had been
Mayor of Hartlepool looked at Anna and sniffed. Mrs. White became
conscious of a distinct sense of uneasiness, and showed it in her
face. She was obliged, as she explained continually to every one who
cared to listen, to be so very particular. On the other hand the two
young men who sat on either side of Anna were already throwing
murderous glances at the newcomer.
"My name," Anna replied calmly, "is certainly Pellissier, but I repeat
that I do not know you. I never have known you."
He unfolded his serviette with fingers which shook all the time. His
eyes never left her face. An ugly flush stained his cheeks.
"I've plenty of pals," he said, "who, when they've been doing Paris on
the Q.T., like to forget all about it--even their names. But you----"
Something seemed to catch his breath. He never finished his sentence.
There was a moment's breathless and disappointed silence. If only he
had known it, sympathy was almost entirely with him. Anna was no
favourite at No. 13 Montague Street.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You appear," she said, without any sign of anger in her tone, and
with unruffled composure, "to be a very impertinent person. Do you
mind talking to some one else."
Mrs. White leaned forward in her chair with an anxious smile designed
to throw oil upon the troubled waters.
"Come," she said. "We mustn't have any unpleasantness, and Mr. Hill's
first night back amongst us, too. No doubt there's some little
mistake. We all get deceived sometimes. Mr. Hill, I hope you won't
find everything cold. You're a little late, you must remember, and we
are punctual people here."
"I shall do very well, thank you, ma'am," he answered shortly.
Sydney and Brendon vied with one another in their efforts to engage
Anna in conversation, and Miss Ellicot, during the momentary lull,
deemed it a favourable opportunity to recommence siege operations. The
young man was mollified by her sympathy, and flattered by the obvious
attempts of several of the other guests to draw him into conversation.
Yet every now and then, during the progress of the meal, his attention
apparently wandered, and leaning forward he glanced covertly at Anna
with a curious mixture of expressions on his face.
Anna rose a few minutes before the general company. At the same time
Sydney and Brendon also vacated their places. To reach the door they
had to pass the end of the table, and behind the chair where Mr. Hill
was seated. He rose deliberately to his feet and confronted them.
"I should like to speak to you for a few minutes," he said to Anna,
dropping his voice a little. "It is no good playing a game. We had
better have it over."
She eyed him scornfully. In any place her beauty would have been an
uncommon thing. Here, where every element of her surroundings was
tawdry and commonplace, and before this young man of vulgar origin and
appearance, it was striking.
"I do not know you," she said coldly. "I have nothing to say to you."
He stood before the door. Brendon made a quick movement forward. She
laid her hand upon his arm.
"Please don't," she said. "It really is not necessary. Be so good as
to let me pass, sir," she added, looking her obstructor steadily in
the face.
He hesitated.
"This is all rot!" he declared angrily. "You can't think that I'm fool
enough to be put off like this."
She glanced at Brendon, who stood by her side, tall and threatening.
Her eyebrows were lifted in expostulation. A faint, delightfully
humorous smile parted her lips.
"After all," she said, "if this person will not be reasonable, I am
afraid----"
It was enough. A hand of iron fell upon the scowling young man's
shoulder.
"Be so good as to stand away from that door at once, sir," Brendon
ordered.
Hill lost a little of his truculency. He knew very well that his
muscles were flabby, and his nerve by no means what it should be. He
was no match for Brendon. He yielded his place and struck instead with
his tongue. He turned to Mrs. White.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, to seem the cause of any disturbance, but this," he
pointed to Anna, "is my wife."
The sensation produced was gratifying enough. The man's statement was
explicit, and spoken with confidence. Every one looked at Anna. For a
moment she too had started and faltered in her exit from the room. Her
fingers clutched the side of the door as though to steady herself. She
caught her breath, and her eyes were lit with a sudden terror. She
recovered herself, however, with amazing facility. Scarcely any one
noticed the full measure of her consternation. From the threshold she
looked her accuser steadily and coldly in the face.
"What you have said is a ridiculous falsehood," she declared
scornfully. "I do not even know who you are."
She swept out of the room. Hill would have followed her, but Mrs.
White and Miss Ellicot laid each a hand upon his arm, one on either
side. The echoes of his hard, unpleasant laugh reached Anna on her way
upstairs.
* * * * *
It was a queer little bed-sitting-room almost in the roof, with a
partition right across it. As usual Brendon lit the candles, and
Sydney dragged out the spirit-lamp and set it going. Anna opened a
cupboard and produced cups and saucers and a tin of coffee.
"Only four spoonsful left," she declared briskly, "and your turn to
buy the next pound, Sydney."
"Right!" he answered. "I'll bring it to-morrow. Fresh ground, no
chicory, and all the rest of it. But--Miss Pellissier!"
"Well?"
"Are you quite sure that you want us this evening? Wouldn't you rather
be alone? Just say the word, and we'll clear out like a shot."
She laughed softly.
"You are afraid," she said, "that the young man who thinks that he is
my husband has upset me."
"Madman!"
"Blithering ass!"
The girl looked into the two indignant faces and held out both her
hands.
"You're very nice, both of you," she said gently. "But I'm afraid you
are going to be in a hopeless minority here as regards me."
They eyed her incredulously.
"You can't imagine," Sydney exclaimed, "that the people downstairs
will be such drivelling asses as to believe piffle like that."
Anna measured out the coffee. Her eyes were lit with a gleam of
humour. After all, it was really rather funny.
"Well, I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "I always notice that
people find it very easy to believe what they want to believe, and you
see I'm not in the least popular. Miss Ellicot, for instance,
considers me a most improper person."
"Miss Ellicot! That old cat!" Sydney exclaimed indignantly.
"Miss Ellicot!" Brendon echoed. "As if it could possibly matter what
such a person thinks of you."
Anna laughed outright.
"You are positively eloquent to-night--both of you," she declared.
"But, you see, appearances are very much against me. He knew my name,
and also that I had been living in Paris, and a man doesn't risk
claiming a girl for his wife, as a rule, for nothing. He was painfully
in earnest, too. I think you will find that his story will be
believed, whatever I say; and in any case, if he is going to stay on
here, I shall have to go away."
"Don't say that," Sydney begged. "We will see that he never annoys
you."
Anna shook her head.
"He is evidently a friend of Mrs. White's," she said, "and if he is
going to persist in this delusion, we cannot both remain here. I'd
rather not go," she added. "This is much the cheapest place I know of
where things are moderately clean, and I should hate rooms all by
myself. Dear me, what a nuisance it is to have a pseudo husband shot
down upon one from the skies."
"And such a beast of a one," Sydney remarked vigorously.
Brendon looked across the room at her thoughtfully.
"I wonder," he said, "is there anything we could do to help you to get
rid of him?"
"Can you think of anything?" Anna answered. "I can't! He appears to be
a most immovable person."
Brendon hesitated for a moment. He was a little embarrassed.
"There ought to be some means of getting at him," he said. "The fellow
seems to know your name, Miss Pellissier, and that you have lived in
Paris. Might we ask you if you have ever seen him, if you knew him at
all before this evening?"
She stood up suddenly, and turning her back to them, looked steadily
out of the window. Below was an uninspiring street, a thoroughfare of
boarding-houses and apartments. The steps, even the pavements, were
invaded by little knots of loungers driven outside by the unusual heat
of the evening, most of them in evening dress, or what passed for
evening dress in Montague Street. The sound of their strident voices
floated upwards, the high nasal note of the predominant Americans, the
shrill laughter of girls quick to appreciate the wit of such of their
male companions as thought it worth while to be amusing. A young man
was playing the banjo. In the distance a barrel-organ was grinding out
a _pot pourri_ of popular airs. Anna raised her eyes. Above the
housetops it was different. She drew a long breath. After all, why
need one look down. Always the other things remained.
"I think," she said, "that I would rather not have anything to say
about that man."
"It isn't necessary," they both declared breathlessly.
Brendon dismissed the subject with a wave of the hand. He glanced at
his watch.
"Let us walk round to Covent Garden," he suggested. "I daresay the
gallery will be full, but there is always the chance, and I know you
two are keen on Melba."
The girl shook her head.
"Not to-night," she said. "I have to go out."
They hesitated. As a rule their comings and goings were discussed with
perfect confidence, but on this occasion they both felt that there was
intent in her silence as to her destination. Nevertheless Sydney,
clumsily, but earnestly, had something to say about it.
"I am afraid--I really think that one of us ought to go with you," he
said. "That beast of a fellow is certain to be hanging about."
She shook her head.
"It is a secret mission," she declared. "There are policemen--and
buses."
"You shall not need either," Brendon said grimly. "We will see that he
doesn't follow you."
She thanked him with a look and rose to her feet.
"Go down and rescue the rags of my reputation," she said, smiling. "I
expect it is pretty well in shreds by now. To-morrow morning I shall
have made up my mind what to do."
_Chapter XV_