THE REAL ALFRED BURTON
Edith slipped out of her evening cloak and came into the foyer of the
Opera House, a spotless vision of white. For a moment she looked at her
cavalier in something like amazement. It did not need the red
handkerchief, a corner of which was creeping out from behind his
waistcoat, to convince her that some extraordinary change had taken
place in Burton. He was looking pale and confused, and his quiet
naturalness of manner had altogether disappeared. He came towards her
awkwardly, swinging a pair of white kid gloves in his hand.
"Bit late, aren't you?" he remarked.
"I am afraid I am a few minutes late," she admitted. "Until the last
moment father said he was coming. We shall have to go in very quietly."
"Come along, then," he said. "I don't know the way. I suppose one of
these fellows will tell us."
His inquiry, loud-voiced and not entirely coherent, received at first
scant attention from the usher to whom he addressed himself. They were
directed to their places at last, however. The house was in darkness,
and with the music Edith forgot, for a time, the slight shock which she
had received. The opera was Samson et Dalila, and a very famous tenor
was making his reappearance after a long absence. Edith gave herself up
to complete enjoyment of the music. Then suddenly she was startled by a
yawn at her side. Burton was sitting back, his hands in his pockets,
his mouth wide-open.
"Mr. Burton!" she exclaimed softly. He had the grace to sit up.
"Long-winded sort of stuff, this," he pronounced, in an audible whisper.
She felt a cold shiver of apprehension. As she saw him lounging there
beside her, her thoughts seemed to go back to the day when she had
looked with scornful disdain at that miserable picnic-party of trippers,
who drank beer out of stone jugs, and formed a blot upon the landscape.
Once more she saw the man who stood a little apart, in his loud clothes
and common cloth cap, saw him looking into the garden. She began to
tremble. What had she done--so nearly done! In spite of herself, the
music drew her away again. She even found herself turning towards him
once for sympathy.
"Isn't it exquisite?" she murmured.
He laughed shortly.
"Give me The Chocolate Soldier," he declared. "Worth a dozen of this!"
Suddenly she realized what had happened. Her anger and resentment faded
away. For the first time she wholly and entirely believed his story.
For the first time she felt that this miracle had come to pass. She was
no longer ashamed of him. She no longer harbored any small feelings of
resentment at his ill-bred attitude. A profound sympathy swept up from
her heart--sympathy for him, sympathy, too, for herself. When they
passed out together she was as sweet to him as possible, though he put
on a black bowler hat some time before it was necessary, and though his
red handkerchief became very much in evidence.
"You will drive me down to Chelsea, won't you?" she begged.
"Righto!" he replied. "I'll get one of these chaps to fetch a taxi."
He succeeded in obtaining one, gleeful because he had outwitted some
prior applicant to whom the cab properly belonged.
"Couldn't stop somewhere and have a little supper, could we?" he asked.
"I am afraid not," she answered. "It wouldn't be quite the thing."
He tried to take her hand. After a moment's hesitation she permitted
it.
"Mr. Burton," she said softly, "do answer me one question. Did you
part with all your beans?"
His hand went up to his forehead for a moment.
"Yes," he replied, "both of them. I only had two, and it didn't seem
worth while keeping one. Got my pockets full of money, too, and they
are going to make me a director of Menatogen."
"Do you feel any different?" she asked him.
He looked at her in a puzzled way and, striking a match, lit a cigarette
without her permission.
"Odd you should ask that," he remarked. "I do feel sort of queer
to-night--as though I'd been ill, or something of the sort. There are
so many things I can only half remember--at least I remember the things
themselves, but the part I took in them seems so odd. Kind of feeling
as though I'd been masquerading in another chap's clothes," he added,
with an uneasy little laugh. "I don't half like it."
"Tell me," she persisted, "did you really find the music tiresome?"
He nodded.
"Rather," he confessed. "The Chocolate Soldier is my idea of music. I
like something with a tune in it. There's been no one to beat Gilbert
and Sullivan. I don't know who wrote this Samson and Delilah, but he
was a dismal sort of beggar, wasn't he? I like something cheerful.
Don't you want to come and have some supper, Edith? I know a place
where they play all the popular music."
"No, thank you," she told him gravely.
"You seem so cold and sort of stand-offish to-night," he complained,
coming a little closer to her. "Some of those nights down at your
place--can't remember 'em very well but I am jolly sure you were
different. What's happened? Mayn't I hold your fingers, even?"
His arm would have been around her waist, but she evaded it firmly.
"Don't you know what has happened?" she demanded, earnestly. "Don't you
really know?"
"Can't say that I do," he admitted. "I've got a sort of feeling as
though I'd been all tied-up like, lately. Haven't been able to enjoy
myself properly, and gone mooning about after shadows. To-night I feel
just as though I were coming into my own again a bit. I say," he added,
admiringly, "you do look stunning! Come and have some supper--no one
will know--and let me drive you home afterwards. Do!"
She shook her head.
"I don't think you must talk to me quite like this," she said kindly.
"You have a wife, you know, and I am engaged to be married."
He laughed, quite easily.
"Never seen Ellen, have you?" he remarked. "She's a fine woman, you
know, although she isn't quite your style. She'd think you sort of pale
and colorless, I expect--no kind of go or dash about you."
"Is that what you think?" Edith asked him, smiling.
"You aren't exactly the style I've always admired," he confessed, "but
there's something about you," he added, in a puzzled manner,--"I don't
know what it is but I remember it from a year ago--something that seemed
to catch hold of me. I expect I must be a sentimental sort of Johnny
underneath. However, I do admire you, Edith, immensely. I only wish--"
Again she evaded him.
"Please do not forget Mr. Bomford," she begged.
"That silly old ass!" Burton exclaimed. "Looks as though he'd swallowed
a poker! You're never going to marry him!"
"I think that I shall," she replied. "At any rate, at present I am
engaged to him. Therefore, if you please, you must keep just a little
further away. I don't like to mention it, but I think--haven't you been
smoking rather too much?"
He laughed, without a trace of sensitiveness. "I have been having
rather a day of it," he admitted. "But I say, Edith, if you won't come
to supper, I think you might let a fellow--"
She drew back into her corner.
"Mr. Burton," she said, "you must please not come near me."
"But I want a kiss," he protested. "You'd have given me one the other
night. You'd have given me as many as I'd liked. You almost clung to
me--that night under the cedar tree."
Her eyes for a moment were half closed.
"It was a different world then," she whispered softly. "It was a
different Mr. Burton. You see, since then a curtain has come down. We
are starting a fresh act and I don't think I know you quite so well as I
did."
"Sounds like tommyrot," he grumbled.
The taxicab came to a standstill. The man got down and opened the door.
Burton half sulkily stepped out on to the pavement.
"Well, here you are," he announced. "Can't say that I think much of you
this evening."
She held out her hand. They were standing on the pavement now, in the
light of a gas-lamp, and with the chauffeur close at hand. She was not
in the least afraid but there was a lump in her throat. He looked so
very common, so far away from those little memories with which she must
grapple!
"Mr. Burton," she said, "good-night! I want to thank you for this
evening and I want to ask you to promise that if ever you are sorry
because I persuaded you to sell those little beans, you will forgive me.
It was a very wonderful thing, you know, and I didn't understand.
Perhaps I was wrong."
"Don't you worry," he answered, cheerfully. "That's all right, anyway.
It's jolly well the best thing I ever did in my life. Got my pockets
full of money already, and I mean to have a thundering good time with
it. No fear of my ever blaming you. Good-night, Miss Edith! My
regards to the governor and tell him I am all on for Menatogen."
He gave his hat a little twist and stepped back into the taxi.
"I will give my father your message," she told him, as the door opened
to receive her.
"Righto!" Burton replied. "Leicester Square, cabby!"