THE MAGICIAN
"Well, Dinah, my dear, are you ready?"
Rose de Vigne, very slim and graceful, with her beautiful hair mounted
high above her white forehead and falling in a shower of golden ringlets
behind after the style of a hundred years ago, stood on the threshold of
Dinah's room, awaiting permission to enter. Her dress was of palest green
satin brocade, a genuine Court dress of a century old. Her arms and neck
gleamed with a snowy whiteness. She looked as if she had just stepped out
of an ancient picture.
There came an impatient cry from within the room. "Oh, come in! Come in!
I'm not nearly ready,--never shall be, I think. Where is Yvonne? Couldn't
she spare me a single moment?"
The beautiful lady entered with a smile. She could afford to smile, being
complete to the last detail and quite sure of taking the ballroom by
storm. She found Dinah scurrying barefooted about the room with her hair
in a loose bunch on her neck, her attire of the scantiest description,
her expression one of wild desperation.
"I've lost my stockings. Where can they be? I know I had them this
morning. Can Yvonne have taken them by mistake? She put everything ready
for me,--or said she had."
The bed was littered with articles of clothing all flung together in
hopeless confusion. Rose came forward. "Surely Yvonne didn't leave your
things like this?" she said.
"No. I've been hunting through everything for the stockings. Where can
they be? I shall have to go without them, that's all."
"My dear child, they can't be far away. You had better get on with your
hair while I look for them. I am afraid you will not be able to count on
any help from Yvonne to-night. She has only just finished dressing me,
and has gone now to help Mother. You know what that means."
"Oh, goodness, yes!" said Dinah. "I wish I'd never gone in for this
stupid fancy dress at all. I shall never be done."
Rose smiled in her indulgent way. She was always kind to Dinah. "Well, I
can help you for a few minutes. I can't think how you come to be so late.
I thought you came in long ago."
"Yes, but Billy wanted some buttons sewn on, and that hindered me." Dinah
was dragging at her hair with impatient fingers. "What a swell you look,
Rose! I'm sure no one will dare to ask you for any but square dances."
"Do you think so, dear?" said Rose, looking at herself complacently in
the glass over Dinah's head.
Dinah made a sudden and hideous grimace. "Oh, drat my hair! I can't do
anything with it. I believe I shall cut it all off, put on just a
pinafore, and go as a piccaninny."
"That sounds a little vulgar," observed Rose. "There are your stockings
under the bed. You must have dropped them under. I should think the more
simply you do your hair the better if you are going to wear a coloured
kerchief over it. You have natural ringlets in front, and that is the
only part that will show."
"And they will hang down over my eyes," retorted Dinah, "unless I fasten
them back with a comb, which I haven't got. Oh, don't stay, Rose! I know
you are wanting to go, and you can't help me. I shall manage somehow."
"Are you quite sure?" said Rose turning again to survey herself.
"Quite--quite! I shall get on best alone. I'm in a bad temper too, and I
want to use language--horrid language," said Dinah, tugging viciously at
her dark hair.
Rose lowered her stately gaze and watched her for a moment. Then as
Dinah's green eyes suddenly flashed resentful enquiry upon her she
lightly touched the girl's flushed cheek, and turned away. "Poor little
Dinah!" she said.
The door closed upon her graceful figure in its old-world, sweeping robe
and Dinah whizzed round from the glass like a naughty fairy in a rage.
"Rose de Vigne, I hate you!" she said aloud, and stamped her unshod foot
upon the floor.
A period of uninterrupted misfortune followed this outburst. Everything
went wrong. The costume which the French maid had so deftly fitted upon
her that morning refused to be adjusted properly. The fastenings baffled
her, and finally a hook at the back took firm hold of the lawn of her
sleeve and maliciously refused to be disentangled therefrom.
Dinah struggled for freedom for some minutes till the lawn began to tear,
and then at last she became desperate. "Billy must do it," she said, and
almost in tears she threw open the door and ran down the passage.
Billy's room was round a corner, and this end of the corridor was dim. As
she turned it, she almost collided with a figure coming in the opposite
direction--a boyish-looking figure in evening dress which she instantly
took for Billy.
"Oh, there you are!" she exclaimed. "Do come along and help me like a
saint! I'm in such a fix."
There was an instant's pause before she discovered her mistake, and then
in the same moment a man's voice answered her.
"Of course I will help you with pleasure. What is wrong?"
Dinah started back, as if she would flee in dismay. But perhaps it was
the kindness of his response, or possibly only the extremity of her
need--something held her there. She stood her ground as it were in spite
of herself.
"Oh, it is you! I do beg your pardon. I thought it was Billy. I've got my
sleeve caught up at the back, and I want him to undo it."
"I'll undo it if you will allow me," said Scott.
"Oh, would you? How awfully kind! My arm is nearly broken with trying to
get free. You can't see here though," said Dinah. "There's a light by my
door."
"Let us go to it then!" said Scott. "I know what it is to have things go
wrong at a critical time."
He accompanied her back again with the utmost simplicity, stopped by the
light, and proceeded with considerable deftness to remedy the mischief.
"Oh, thank you!" said Dinah, with heart-felt gratitude as he freed her at
last. "Billy would have torn the stuff in all directions. I'm dressing
against time, you see, and I've no one to help me."
"Do you want any more help?" asked Scott, looking at her with a quizzical
light in his eyes.
She laughed, albeit she was still not far from tears. "Yes, I want
someone to pin a handkerchief on my head in the proper Italian fashion. I
don't look much like a _contadina_ yet, do I?"
He surveyed her more critically. "It's not a bad get-up. You look very
nice anyhow. If you like to bring me the handkerchief, I will see what I
can do. I know a little about it from the point of view of an amateur
artist. You want some earrings. Have you got any?"
Dinah shook her head. "Of course not."
"I believe my sister has," said Scott. "I'll go and see."
"Oh no, no! What will she think?" cried Dinah in distress.
He uttered his quiet laugh. "I will present you to her by-and-bye if I
may. I am sure she will be interested and pleased. You finish off as
quickly as you can! I shall be back directly."
He limped away again down the passage, moving more quickly than was his
wont, and Dinah hastened back into her room wondering if this informality
would be regarded by her chaperon as a great breach of etiquette.
"Rose thinks I'm vulgar," she murmured to herself. "I wonder if I really
am. But really--he is such a dear little man. How could I possibly help
it?"
The dear little man's return put an end to her speculations. He came back
in an incredibly short time, armed with a leather jewel-case which he
deposited on the threshold.
Dinah came light-footed to join him, all her grievances forgotten. Her
hair, notwithstanding its waywardness, clustered very prettily about her
face. There was a bewitching dimple near one corner of her mouth.
"You can come in if you like," she said. "I'm quite dressed--all except
the handkerchief."
"Thank you; but I won't come in," he answered. "We mustn't shock anybody.
If you could bring a chair out, I could manage quite well."
She fetched the chair. "If anyone comes down the passage, they'll wonder
what on earth we are doing," she remarked.
"They will take us for old friends," said Scott in a matter of-fact tone
as he opened the jewel-case.
She laughed delightedly. There was a peculiarly happy quality about her
laugh. Most people smiled quite involuntarily when they heard it, though
Billy compared it to the neigh of a cheery colt.
"Now," said Scott, looking at her quizzically, "are you going to sit in
the chair, or am I going to stand on it?"
"Oh, I'll sit," she said. "Here's the handkerchief! You will fasten it so
that it doesn't flop, won't you? May I hold that case? I won't touch
anything."
He put it open into her lap. "There is a chain of coral there. Perhaps
you can find it. I think it would look well with your costume."
Dinah pored over the jewels with sparkling eyes. "But are you sure--quite
sure--your sister doesn't mind?"
"Quite sure," said Scott, beginning to drape the handkerchief adroitly
over her bent head.
"How very sweet of her--of you both!" said Dinah. "I feel like Cinderella
being dressed for the ball. Oh, what lovely pearls! I never saw anything
so exquisite."
She had opened an inner case and was literally revelling in its contents.
"They were--her husband's wedding present to her," said Scott in his
rather monotonous voice.
"How lovely it must be to be married!" said Dinah, with a little sigh.
"Do you think so?" said Scott.
She turned in her chair to regard him. "Don't you?"
"I can't quite imagine it," he said.
"Oh, can't I!" said Dinah. "To have someone in love with you, wanting no
one but you, thinking there's no one else in the world like you. Have you
never dreamt that such a thing has happened? I have. And then waked up to
find everything very flat and uninteresting."
Scott was intent upon fastening an old gold brooch in the red kerchief
above her forehead. He did not meet the questioning of her bright eyes.
"No," he said. "I don't think I ever cajoled myself, either waking or
sleeping, into imagining that anybody would ever fall in love with me to
that extent."
Dinah laughed, her upturned face a-brim with merriment. "If any woman
ever wants to marry you, she'll have to do her own proposing, won't she?"
she said.
"I think she will," said Scott.
"I wish Rose de Vigne would fall in love with you then," declared Dinah.
"Men are always proposing to her, she leads them on till they make
perfect idiots of themselves. I think it's simply horrid of her to do it.
But she says she can't help being beautiful. Oh, how I wish--" Dinah
broke off.
"What do you wish?" said Scott.
She turned her face away to hide a blush. "You must think me very silly
and childish. So I am, but I'm not generally so. I think it's in the air
here. I was going to say, how I wished I could outshine her for just one
night! Isn't that piggy of me? But I am so tired of being always in the
shade. She called me 'Poor little Dinah!' only to-night. How would you
like to be called that?"
"Most people call me Stumpy," observed Scott, with his whimsical little
smile.
"How rude of them! How horrid of them!" said Dinah. "And do you actually
put up with it?"
He bent with her over the jewel-case, and picked out the coral chain. "I
don't care the toss of a halfpenny," he said.
She gave him a quick, searching glance. "Not really? Not in your secret
heart?"
"Not in the deepest depth of my unfathomable soul," he declared.
"Then you're a great man," said Dinah, with conviction.
Scott's laugh was one of genuine amusement. "Oh, does that follow? I've
never seen myself in that light before."
But Dinah was absolutely serious and remained so. There was even a touch
of reverence in her look. "You evidently don't know yourself in the
least," she said. "Anyhow, you've made me feel a downright toad."
"I don't know why," said Scott. "You don't look like one if that's any
comfort." He stooped to fasten the necklace. "Now for the earrings, and
you are complete."
"It is good of you," she said gratefully. "I am longing to go and look at
myself. But can you fasten them first? I'm sure I can't."
He complied with his almost feminine dexterity, and in a few moments a
sparkling and glorified Dinah rose and skipped into her room to see the
general effect of her transformation.
Scott lingered to close the jewel-case. Frankly, he had enjoyed himself
during the last ten minutes. Moreover he was sure she would be pleased
with the result of his labours. But he was hardly prepared for the cry of
delight that reached him as he turned to depart.
He paused as he heard it, and in a moment Dinah flashed out again like a
radiant butterfly and gave him both her hands.
"You--magician!" she cried. "How did you do it? How can I thank you? I've
never been so nearly pretty in my life!"
He bowed in courtly fashion over the little brown hands. "Then you have
never seen yourself with the eyes of others," he said. "I congratulate
you on doing so to-night."
She laughed her merry laugh. "Thank you! Thank you a hundred times! I've
only one thing left to wish for."
"What is that?" he said.
She told him with a touch of shyness. "That--Apollo--will dance with me!"
Scott laughed and let her go. "Oh, is that all? Then I will certainly see
that he does."
"Oh, but don't tell him!" pleaded Dinah.
"I never repeat confidences," declared Scott. "Good-bye, _Signorina_!"
And with another bow, he left her.