As the big, pot-bellied steamship was being slowly pushed into her berth,
Brainard, standing at the end of the pier, fancied that he could
recognize two little figures on the upper deck. These feminine figures,
rather eccentrically dressed, were evidently the knot of a laughing,
joking circle of American men, all exhilarated by their approaching
return to their beloved city. When the great black hull threw its shadow
over the dock, one of the little figures waved both arms.
“That’s Louisiana, sure enough!” Brainard exclaimed, much relieved to
know that the impulsive young woman had not abandoned her home-coming at
the last moment from some fresh whim.
Ever since he had received her little note on the previous Monday, he had
been astonished at himself. The prospect of seeing Louisiana again had
often come into his mind with an agreeable sensation, hopping in without
reason, as if sure of a welcome. This morning he had displayed a greater
nervousness at breakfast than he had shown over the possible loss of the
Melody mine, and had reached the dock an hour too early.
All this anxiety he explained to himself on the score of his desire to
help on his secretary’s play. From the beginning Miss Dudley had shown
such an inability to understand her part, and to cope with the character
of Gertrude, that the young playwright was in despair. And yet
Brainard’s interest in the maiden effort of his young secretary had not
led him to confide the news of Louisiana’s unexpected return. He had
been gratified indeed to learn that the young man did not suspect it.
Brainard wormed his way into the crowd at the foot of the gangway and
waited impatiently while the thin stream of passengers filed down to the
dock. The two actresses came together. Louisiana reached out a thin
little arm to grasp Brainard’s hand with a ringing “Howdy!” before she
gained the dock.
The European trip had made little surface change in the young woman. She
was hugging to her a variety of flowers, several parcels, and a toy dog—a
substitute for that shambling pup with which she used to appear at the
People’s Theater.
“Thanks!” she bubbled, as Brainard relieved her of these impedimenta. “A
lot of trucky rubbish I couldn’t jam into my trunk nohow, though I got a
tub of a German steward to do the dead-weight act on the lid. You see, I
started from London on the run for the steamer—didn’t have time to pack.”
She glanced furtively at Brainard, then down the long pier.
“This town looks good to me, even after Vienna and Paris. Yes, I’d like
some real breakfast, thank you! You must have camped out here all night
to turn up at such an hour. And how’s everything? How’s the—”
Her voluble stream suddenly ceased, and her gray eyes rested full on
Brainard’s face, as if even in her heedless mood she hesitated to ask
certain painful questions. Louisiana was very pretty and quite smartly
dressed, as Brainard noticed, with a sense of satisfaction in the size of
the letter of credit that he had replenished generously from time to time
during the last year. Yes, in spite of her careless chatter, any one
could see that Miss Delacourt was something of a person now.
Her companion joined them.
“You know Miss Pyce, of course,” Louisiana said. “Spell it with a _y_,
please! We ran bump into each other in Piccadill last week. Cissie had
engaged a deck stateroom all to herself, little swell, and that’s how I
could get back on this boat.”
“But why did you come in such a hurry?” Brainard asked, when Miss Pyce
was diverted to the inspection of her trunks. “I thought you were to
stay over until the fall.”
Louisiana looked softly up out of her gray eyes. “But you see Cissie
told me all about it!”
“Told you what?”
“That your mine had gone dry, or something, and the theater had to close,
and you were in a hole generally.”
“But that wouldn’t have made any difference about you—at least at
present. I told Farson not to write you of our troubles.”
“He didn’t. If it hadn’t been for Cissie, I shouldn’t have known a
thing, though she said it was all in the papers. But I never read the
papers over there.”
“I wish Cissie had kept her mouth shut!”
“She couldn’t, you know, if she had something nasty about the People’s to
tell. But ain’t you the least bit glad to see me, after all my hustle to
get here as quick as I could?”
“You know I am awfully glad!”
“Naturally I couldn’t stay over there, batting around, and you folks in
trouble—just couldn’t have swallowed a mouthful of food!”
Brainard held out his hand.
“Thank you! That’s the nicest thing I have heard for many a day.”
“Perhaps I could do something to help?”
“What?” Brainard asked jokingly. “Discover the real heir to the
property?”
Miss Delacourt looked puzzled by this reference to his predicament.
Evidently Miss Pyce’s information had been only of the most general
character. The details of the threatened suit had not been considered of
sufficient importance by the news agencies to cable to Europe.
“I can do something,” the girl said, drawing herself up haughtily. “I’m
no stage-struck kid now. I’m going to act.”
“There _is_ something you can do for me—for us,” Brainard hastened to
say, remembering his chief excuse for meeting her at the dock. “I want
you to come up to my house for breakfast right away, and hear what it is.
Bring Miss Pyce, too, if she will come.”
“Oh, she’ll come! Cissie carries around a trunkful of floppy airs, but
she’s a right good sort. I’m going to stay with her until I strike a
job. She’s half promised to get me something in _The Star of the Seven
Seas_—kitchen wench, I fancy. Cissie isn’t giving much away.”
“There’s something better than that ready for you. We want you to do the
Gertrude in Ned’s play.”
“Is the People’s still open?” she cried in astonishment. “Cissie said it
had gone dead broke, and was shut for good.”
“This is our last effort; and we want to go down waving the flag. It’s
Farson’s play—”
“Yes, I know—he tried to put me in, but I bet he didn’t succeed.”
“It’s a good play, though! And Ned has slaved for the theater these last
two years. We must do our best for him. Has he written you about the
play?”
“Oh, yes; I should say he had—lots.”
The calm, impersonal way in which she admitted her correspondence with
the young secretary pleased Brainard unreasonably.
“He’ll be there for luncheon; so speak to your friend, and let’s be off.”
Miss Pyce condescended to accept the invitation to breakfast from the
proprietor of the People’s Theater, as she had nothing better to do with
her time. Her own manager had wounded her vanity by not appearing at the
dock with an automobile. So the three were soon tucked into Brainard’s
motor and crossing the ferry. Miss Pyce inquired after the fate of the
People’s company in a tone of lofty kindness, until Louisiana kicked her
about the ankles, causing her to relapse into a sulky gloom.
“The salubrious air of Broadway will do you good, I hope, Cissie,”
Louisiana remarked severely. “I’ve stood your nonsense for six days
because I had to. Now come to, please! Just because you’ve got a fool
play, and a fool manager to waste his money on you, you needn’t try the
Duse-Bernhardt-Ellen Terry pose on old friends!”
Miss Pyce promptly descended several steps and began to converse about
the New York weather, which she said was trying to English nerves.
When they arrived at Brainard’s house, they found that Farson had not yet
come in from rehearsal. The two women were shown into the little den
behind the library, while Brainard glanced over his mail.
Five minutes had scarcely elapsed when a shriek came from the inner room,
and the door was thrown violently open. Louisiana stood on the
threshold, clasping against her breast a little picture framed in a thin
gold molding.
“Where did you get _this_?” she demanded breathlessly.
Brainard looked at her admiringly. As she stood there against the dark
shadows of the inner room, the sun from the window falling in a great
gold bar across her auburn hair and violet-colored traveling dress—thin,
erect, full of the passionate eagerness of youth—he saw Farson’s
character created.
“Bravo, Gertrude!” he cried.
“Tell me, where did you find _this_?” she insisted impatiently.
“What have you got there?” he asked, taking the picture from her hands.
Her face followed his with curiosity and expectation, her eyes searching
him.
“Where did you get it?” she repeated.
“This water color? I picked it up in Arizona—out there where my mine is
located. It’s a long story—_my_ story. I’ll tell it to you some of
these days.”
“Now! Tell it to me now!” she insisted, with something more than
childish impetuosity.
But just then Cissie Pyce, patting the marvelous folds of her hair, came
from the inner room.
“Not now,” Brainard replied, looking meaningly at Miss Pyce.
Taking the water color from Louisiana’s reluctant hands, he replaced it
above the desk in his private study, where it had always hung since he
had moved into this house.
Farson came in presently, and in the flurry of his surprise and greetings
the subject of the water color was apparently forgotten. Now and again,
however, during their lively breakfast, Brainard found Louisiana’s gray
eyes resting on him with a peculiar intentness. She did not seem so much
excited over the prospect of playing Gertrude in _Her Great Adventure_ as
he had expected.
After the meal Cissie tore herself away reluctantly, and the three others
went over the new play, the author explaining some of his ideas, and
seeking to get the young actress interested in her part. Louisiana
listened, but evidently her thoughts were far away. Farson was visibly
disappointed.
“I think Miss Delacourt must be tired after her journey and the early
landing,” Brainard interposed in kindly fashion.
“Of course—pardon me!” the young dramatist said, throwing down his
manuscript. “Let me set you down at your hotel on the way to the
theater.”
“No, you are already late for the rehearsal. I will take Miss Delacourt
home when the motor comes back. I have something to say to her.”
Farson left with reluctance, after making an engagement for the morrow
with the young actress.
“And I’ll know my lines by that time,” she promised him.
No sooner had the door closed upon the secretary than she leaped to her
feet.
“Now for the story! And may I see the picture again?”
Brainard fetched the little water color and placed it in her hands.
“As I told you,” he said, “it’s by way of being the story of my own
life—at least, of the only part that counts as life!”
“Yes?” she said expectantly.
Looking over her shoulders, he pointed to a spot in the distant mountain
background of the sketch.
“In there is the site of the great Melody mine—”
“Melody—what? Why, what do you mean?” the girl stammered in renewed
excitement.
“The Melody mine—that’s the name of the mine about which there is the
litigation, you know. That’s where all the money for the theater came
from. It’s the famous pot of gold—my Aladdin’s lamp—only it’s likely to
change owners.”
“But why did you call it Melody?” Louisiana demanded, with glistening
eyes.
“That’s all in the story, too,” laughed Brainard.
“Then tell it to me—_all_!”
She dropped the picture into her lap, and, holding her little hands
tightly clasped, fastened her eyes on Brainard’s face, as if what he had
to say was of momentous interest to her. But that, he reflected,
somewhat flattered, was just Louisiana’s way.
“Here goes, then, Miss Delacourt, for the story of my life, which
explains that water-color sketch being in my possession!”
And Brainard retold the tale of _his_ great adventure since he played the
part of good Samaritan to the dying stranger. It took some time to tell
the story, and he did not hurry. The motor came back and waited below,
while he went into all the details of the story with which we are
familiar.
At certain places Louisiana opened her lips, as if she could not control
an exclamation; but when Brainard paused, she merely motioned him
impatiently to continue. As he told of his dropping from the train at
the lonely water tank, and of the strange little girl who had guided him
to Gunnison’s shack, Louisiana’s mobile lips parted in a curious smile.
She was not so much interested in his Mexican adventures, nor in the
European chapters, but when he described his first visit to the deserted
house on the hill above Monument, the girl’s face sobered to a wistful
expression, and she caught her breath as if she might sob.
“And there I missed her by a few weeks!” Brainard said.
Louisiana laughed aloud, as if it were all a joke.
“It sounds,” Brainard remarked, having rapidly concluded the account of
his experiences as a miner, “like a dime-novel yarn, but it happens to be
all true. And throughout my adventures, all through these six years,
I’ve clung to the idea of just being the trustee for this unknown
lady—this Miss Melody Krutzmacht, or whatever her real name may be. I
think that is what has saved me from becoming a plain gambler, and the
whole business no better than the melodrama Farson and I saw, _The Stolen
Bonds_, where we met my old friend Hollinger. I’ve got Melody to thank
for saving my moral character, as well as doing a lot else for me. But I
haven’t much hope now of finding the lady, to thank her for anything!”
“She ought to have something to thank _you_ for, I should say!” Miss
Delacourt exclaimed warmly.
“I’m afraid not. I really feel in my bones that those crooks will beat
me out of the property, unless a miracle comes along. I’ve been a poor
sort of steward while I had charge of the money. I put every cent I
squeezed out of the bankers into developing the mine, and saved myself by
a fluke with the sulfur wells. Then all the money they brought in I’ve
sunk in this theater game, without much to show for it, as you know.”
“Didn’t you keep a few dollars for yourself?” Louisiana inquired with
childish directness.
“Oh, there are a few thousands lying around—enough, young lady, to have
kept you going in Europe another year, and to put on this play of
Farson’s. That wipes the slate clean, and I must pawn these duds to
stake myself!”
“Maybe this play will make money,” the actress suggested thoughtfully.
“That will be the miracle, then!” Brainard exclaimed whimsically. “It
will be a greater miracle than the one that made me into a millionaire.”
“Don’t you believe in Mr. Farson’s play?”
“Of course! But I don’t believe in our luck, nor in the people’s taste
in drama, as I once did.”
The girl sat staring at the little picture, clutching its frame with her
hands. After a time she looked up into Brainard’s face with a winning
expression about her small mouth.
“Will you give me this?”
Brainard hesitated.
“I would give you pretty much anything else I have,” he replied. “But,
you see, that sketch is all I have of Melody—supposing it was hers! You
understand?”
“You have a good deal of feeling for this Melody?”
“Yes,” Brainard admitted, slightly reddening, and added more lightly,
“She’s been my benefactress, you see.”
The girl raised her gray eyes and looked steadfastly at him. Her face
was older, Brainard suddenly perceived, than he had remembered it. Yes,
the trip abroad had done much for the wild young girl.
“I want _this_!” she insisted.
“Then you shall have it!” Brainard exclaimed impulsively, and added with
another blush, “It’s about all that I can give you!”
“I know it—and that’s why I want it so much!”
After that there was a conscious silence between them, until Miss
Delacourt rose to leave. She walked slowly to the door, as if loath to
go; then she turned and reached out both hands to Brainard. He took
them, and they stood facing each other mutely.
For the first time in all these years his loyalty to his unknown mistress
completely vanished. The ideal of Melody had faded from his mind.