“My Dear Girl,—“I am so sorry if we made asses of ourselves to-night. Thefact is I was so glad to see you again that it never occurred to me that a little discretion might be advisable. I’m afraid I’m a terribly clumsy fellow.“I hope that you are going to allow me to see something of you during your stay in London, for the sake of old times. Could you come to tea at my rooms one afternoon, or would you dine with me somewhere, and do a theatre? We could have a private room, of course, if you do not wish to be seen about London, and a box at the theatre. I often think of those delightful evenings in Paris. May we not repeat them once, at any rate, in London?“Ever yours,“Nigel Ennison.“P.S. My address is 94, Pall Mall.”
“My Dear Girl,—
“I am so sorry if we made asses of ourselves to-night. Thefact is I was so glad to see you again that it never occurred to me that a little discretion might be advisable. I’m afraid I’m a terribly clumsy fellow.
“I hope that you are going to allow me to see something of you during your stay in London, for the sake of old times. Could you come to tea at my rooms one afternoon, or would you dine with me somewhere, and do a theatre? We could have a private room, of course, if you do not wish to be seen about London, and a box at the theatre. I often think of those delightful evenings in Paris. May we not repeat them once, at any rate, in London?
“Ever yours,
“Nigel Ennison.
“P.S. My address is 94, Pall Mall.”
Anna read, and her cheeks grew slowly scarlet. She crushed the letter in her hand.
“I wonder,” she murmured to herself, “if this is the beginning.”
Anna, notwithstanding her quiet clothes, a figure marvellously out of accord with her surroundings, sat before a small marble-topped table at a crowded A.B.C., and munched a roll and butter with hearty appetite.
“If only I could afford another!” she thought regretfully. “I wonder why I am always hungry nowadays. It is so ridiculous.”
She lingered over her tea, and glancing around, a sudden reflection on the change in her surroundings from the scene of her last night’s supper brought a faint, humorous smile to her lips.
“In two days,” she reflected, “Mrs. White will present her bill. I have one shilling and sevenpence halfpenny left. I have two days in which to earn nearly thirty shillings—that is with no dinners, and get a situation. I fancy that this is a little more than playing at Bohemianism.”
“So far,” she continued, eyeing hungrily the last morsel of roll which lay upon her plate, “my only chance of occupation has lain with a photographer who engaged me on the spot and insulted me in half an hour. What beasts men are! I cannot typewrite, my three stories are still wandering round, two milliners have refused me as a lay figure because business was so bad. I am no use for a clerk, because I do not understand shorthand. After all, I fancy that I shall have to apply for a situation as a nursery governess who understands French. Faugh!”
She took up the last morsel of roll, and held it delicately between her long slim fingers. Then her white teeth gleamed, and her excuse for remaining any longer before that little marble table was gone. She rose, paid her bill, and turned westwards.
She walked with long swinging steps, scorning the thought of buses or the tube. If ever she felt fatigue in these long tramps which had already taken her half over London, she never admitted it. Asking her way once or twice, she passed along Fleet Street into the Strand, and crossed Trafalgar Square, into Piccadilly. Here she walked more slowly, looking constantly at the notices in the shop windows. One she entered and met with a sharprebuff, which she appeared to receive unmoved. But when she reached the pavement outside her teeth were clenched, and she carried herself unconsciously an inch or so higher. It was just then that she came face to face with Nigel Ennison.
He was walking listlessly along, well-dressed,debonnair, good-looking. Directly he saw Anna he accosted her. His manner was deferential, even eager. Anna, who was disposed to be sharply critical, could find no fault with it.
“How fortunate I am, Miss Pellissier! All day I have been hoping that I might run across you. You got my note?”
“I certainly received a note,” Anna admitted.
“You were going to answer it?”
“Certainly not!” she said deliberately.
He looked at her with an expression of comical despair.
“What have I done, Miss Pellissier?” he pleaded. “We were good friends in Paris, weren’t we? You made me all sorts of promises, we planned no end of nice things, and then—without a word to any one you disappeared. Now we meet again, and you will scarcely look at me. You seem altogether altered, too. Upon my word—you are Miss Pellissier, aren’t you?”
“I certainly am,” she admitted.
He looked at her for a moment in a puzzled sort of way.
“Of course!” he said. “You have changed somehow—and you certainly are less friendly.”
She laughed. After all, his was a pleasant face, and a pleasant voice, and very likely Annabel had behaved badly.
“Perhaps,” she said, “it is the London climate. It depresses one, you know.”
He nodded.
“You look more like your old self when you smile,” he remarked. “But, forgive me, you are tired. Won’t you come and have some tea with me? There is a new place in Bond Street,” he hastened to say, “where everything is very well done, and they give us music, if that is any attraction to you.”
She hesitated and looked for a moment straight into his eyes. He certainly bore inspection. He was tall and straight, and his expression was good.
“I will come—with pleasure,” she said, “if you will promise to treat me as a new acquaintance—not to refer to—Paris—at all.”
“I promise,” he answered heartily. “Allow me.”
He took his place by her side, and they talked lightly of London, the shops and people. They found a cosy little table in the tea-rooms, and everything was delicious. Anna, with her marvellouscapacity for enjoyment, ate cakes and laughed, and forgot that she had had tea an hour or so ago at an A.B.C., or that she had a care in the world.
“By-the-bye,” he said, presently, “your sister was married to old Ferringhall the other day, wasn’t she? I saw the notice in the papers.”
Anna never flinched. But after the first shock came a warm glow of relief. After all, it was what she had been praying for—and Annabel could not have known her address.
“My sister and I,” she said slowly, “have seen very little of each other lately. I fancy that Sir John does not approve of me.”
Ennison shrugged his shoulders.
“Sort of man who can see no further than his nose,” he remarked contemptuously. “Fearful old fogey! I can’t imagine any sister of yours putting up with him for a moment. I thought perhaps you were staying with them, as you did not seem particularly anxious to recognize your old friends.”
Anna shook her head.
“No, I am alone,” she answered.
“Then we must try and make London endurable for you,” he remarked cheerfully. “What night will you dine and go to the theatre with me?—and how about Hurlingham on Saturday?”
Anna shook her head.
“Thank you,” she said coolly. “Those things are not for me just at present.”
He was obviously puzzled. Anna sighed as she reflected that her sister had simply revelled in her indiscretions.
“Come,” he said, “you can’t be meaning to bury yourself. There must be something we can do. What do you say to Brighton——”
Anna looked at him quietly—and he never finished his sentence.
“May I ask whether you are staying with friends in town?” he inquired deferentially. “Perhaps your engagements are made for you.”
“I am staying,” she answered coolly, “at a small boarding-house near Russell Square.”
He dropped his eye-glass with a clatter.
“At a boarding-house?” he gasped.
She nodded.
“Yes. I am an independent sort of person,” she continued, “and I am engaged in an attempt to earn my own living. You don’t happen to know of any one, I suppose, who wants a nurserygoverness, or a clerk—without shorthand—or a tryer-on, or a copyist, or——”
“For Heaven’s sake stop, Miss Pellissier,” he interrupted. “What a hideous repertoire! If you are in earnest about wanting to earn money, why on earth don’t you accept an engagement here?”
“An engagement?” she queried.
“On the stage? Yes. You would not have the slightest difficulty.”
She laughed softly to herself.
“Do you know,” she confessed, “I never thought of that?”
He looked at her as though doubting even now whether she could possibly be in earnest.
“I cannot conceive,” he said, “how any other occupation could ever have occurred to you. You do not need me to remind you of your success at Paris. The papers are continually wondering what has become of ‘Alcide.’ Your name alone would fill any music hall in London.”
Again that curious smile which puzzled him so much parted her lips for a moment.
“Dear me,” she said, “I fancy you exaggerate my fame. I can’t imagine Londoners—particularly interested in me.”
He shrugged his shoulders. Even now he was not at all sure that she was not playing with him. There were so many things about her which he could not understand. She began to draw on her gloves thoughtfully.
“I am very much obliged for the tea,” she said. “This is a charming place, and I have enjoyed the rest.”
“It was a delightful piece of good fortune that I should have met you,” he answered. “I hope that whatever your plans may be, you will give me the opportunity of seeing something of you now and then.”
“I am afraid,” she said, preceding him down the narrow stairs, “that I am going to be too busy to have much time for gadding about. However, I daresay that we shall come across one another before long.”
“That is provokingly indefinite,” he answered, a little ruefully. “Won’t you give me your address?”
She shook her head.
“It is such a very respectable boarding-house,” she said. “I feel quite sure that Mrs. White would not approve of callers.”
“I have a clue, at any rate,” he remarked, smiling. “I must try the Directory.”
“I wish you good luck,” she answered. “There are a good many Whites in London.”
“May I put you in a hansom?” he asked, lifting his stick.
“For Heaven’s sake, no,” she answered quickly. “Do you want to ruin me? I shall walk back.”
“I may come a little way, then?” he begged.
“If you think it worth while,” she answered doubtfully.
Apparently he thought it very much worth while. Restraining with an effort his intense curiosity, he talked of general subjects only, trying his best to entertain her. He succeeded so well that they were almost in Montague Street before Anna stopped short.
“Heavens!” she exclaimed. “I have brought you very nearly to my door. Go back at once, please.”
He held out his hand obediently.
“I’ll go,” he said, “but I warn you that I shall find you out.”
For a moment she was grave.
“Well,” she said. “I may be leaving where I am in a few days, so very likely you will be no better off.”
He looked at her intently.
“Miss Pellissier,” he said, “I don’t understand this change in you. Every word you utter puzzles me. I have an idea that you are in some sort of trouble. Won’t you let me—can’t I be of any assistance?”
He was obviously in earnest. His tone was kind and sympathetic.
“You are very good,” she said. “Indeed I shall not forget your offer. But just now there is nothing which you or anybody can do. Good-bye.”
He was dismissed, and he understood it. Anna crossed the street, and letting herself in at No. 13 with a latchkey went humming lightly up to her room. She was in excellent spirits, and it was not until she had taken off her hat, and was considering the question of dinner or no dinner, that she remembered that another day had passed, and she was not a whit nearer being able to pay her to-morrow’s bill.
Nigel Ennison walked towards his club the most puzzled man in London. There could not, he decided, possibly be two girls so much alike. Besides, she had admitted her identity. And yet—he thought of the supper party where he had met Annabel Pellissier, the stories about her, his own few minutes’ whispered love-making! He was a self-contained young man, but his cheeks grew hot at the thought of the things which it had seemed quite natural to say to her then, but which he knew very well would have been instantly resented by the girl whom he had just left. He went over her features one by one in his mind. They were the same. He could not doubt it. There was the same airy grace of movement, the same deep brown hair and alabaster skin. He found himself thinking up all the psychology which he had ever read. Was this the result of some strange experiment? It was the person of Annabel Pellissier—the soul of a very different order of being.
He spent the remainder of the afternoon looking for a friend whom he found at last in the billiard room of one of the smaller clubs to which he belonged. After the usual laconic greetings, he drew him on one side.
“Fred,” he said, “do you remember taking me to dinner at the ‘Ambassador’s,’ one evening last September, to meet a girl who was singing there? Hamilton and Drummond and his lot were with us.”
“Of course,” his friend answered. “La belle‘Alcide,’ wasn’t it? Annabel Pellissier was her real name. Jolly nice girl, too.”
Ennison nodded.
“I thought I saw her in town to-day,” he said. “Do you happen to know whether she is supposed to be here?”
“Very likely indeed,” Captain Fred Meddoes answered, lighting a cigarette. “I heard that she had chucked her show at the French places and gone in for a reform all round. Sister’s got married to that bounder Ferringhall.”
Ennison took an easy chair.
“What a little brick!” he murmured. “She must have character. It’s no half reform either. What do you know about her, Fred? I am interested.”
Meddoes turned round from the table on which he was practising shots and shrugged his shoulders.
“Not much,” he answered, “and yet about all there is to be known, I fancy. There were two sisters, you know. Old Jersey and Hampshire family, the Pellissiers, and a capital stock, too, I believe.”
“Any one could see that the girls were ladies,” Ennison murmured.
“No doubt about that,” Meddoes continued. “The father was in the army, and got a half-pay job at St. Heliers. Died short, I suppose, and the girls had to shift for themselves. One went in for painting, kept straight and married old Ferringhall a week or so ago—the Lord help her. The other kicked over the traces a bit, made rather a hit with her singing at some of those French places, and went the pace in a mild, ladylike sort of way. Cheveney was looking after her, I think, then. If she’s over, he probably knows all about it.”
Ennison looked steadily at the cigarette which he was tapping on his forefinger.
“So Cheveney was her friend, you think, eh?” he remarked.
“No doubt about that, I fancy,” Meddoes answered lightly. “He ran some Austrian fellow off. She was quite the rage, in a small way, you know. Strange, demure-looking young woman, with wonderful complexion and eyes, and a style about her, too. Care for a hundred up?”
Ennison shook his head.
“Can’t stop, thanks,” he answered. “See you to-night, I suppose?”
He sauntered off.
“I’m damned if I’ll believe it,” he muttered to himself savagely.
But for the next few days he avoided Cheveney like the plague.
The same night he met Meddoes and Drummond together, the latter over from Paris on a week’s leave from the Embassy.
“Odd thing,” Meddoes remarked, “we were just talking about the Pellissier girl. Drummond was telling me about the way old Ferringhall rounded upon them all at the club.”
“Sounds interesting,” Ennison remarked. “May I hear?”
“It really isn’t much to tell,” Drummond answered. “You know what a fearful old prig Ferringhall is, always goes about as though the whole world were watching him? We tried to show him around Paris, but he wouldn’t have any of it. Talked about his years, his position and his constituents, and always sneaked off back to his hotel just when the fun was going to begin. Well one night, some of us saw him, or thought we saw him, at a café dining with ‘Alcide,’—as a matter of fact, it seems that it was her sister. He came into the club next day, and of course we went for him thick. Jove, he didn’t take to it kindly, I can tell you. Stood on his dignity and shut us up in great style. It seems that he was a sort of family friend of the Pellissiers, and it was the artist sister whom he was with. The joke of it is that he’s married to her now, and cuts me dead.”
“I suppose,” Ennison said, “the likeness between the sisters must be rather exceptional?”
“I never saw the goody-goody one close to, so I can’t say,” Drummond answered. “Certainly I was a little way off at the café, and she had a hat and veil on, but I could have sworn that it was ‘Alcide.’”
“Is ‘Alcide’ still in Paris?” Ennison asked.
“Don’t think so,” Drummond answered. “I heard the other day that she’d been taken in by some cad of a fellow who was cutting a great dash in Paris, personating Meysey Hill, the great railway man. Anyhow, she’s disappeared for some reason or other. Perhaps Ferringhall has pensioned her off. He’s the sort of johnny who wouldn’t care about having a sister-in-law on the loose.”
“Ennison here thought he saw her in London,” Meddoes remarked.
Drummond nodded.
“Very likely. The two sisters were very fond of one another, I believe. Perhaps Sir John is going to take the other one under his wing. Who’s for a rubber of whist?”
Ennison made so many mistakes that he was glad to cut out early in the evening. He walked across the Park and called upon his sister.
“Is Lady Lescelles in?” he asked the butler.
“Her ladyship dined at home,” the man answered. “I have just ordered a carriage for her. I believe that her ladyship is going to Carey House, and on to the Marquis of Waterford’s ball,” he added, hastily consulting a diary on the hall table.
A tall elegantly dressed woman, followed by a maid, came down the broad staircase.
“Is that you, Nigel?” she asked. “I hope you are going to Carey House.”
He shook his head, and threw open the door of a great dimly-lit apartment on the ground floor.
“Come in here a moment, will you, Blanche,” he said. “I want to speak to you.”
She assented, smiling. He was her only brother, and she his favourite sister. He closed the door.
“I want to ask you a question,” he said. “A serious question.”
She stopped buttoning her glove, and looked at him.
“Well?”
“You and all the rest of them are always lamenting that I do not marry. Supposing I made up my mind to marry some one of good enough family, but who was in a somewhat doubtful position, concerning whose antecedents, in fact there was a certain amount of scandal. Would you stand by me—and her?”
“My dear Nigel!” she exclaimed. “Are you serious?”
“You know very well that I should never joke on such a subject. Mind, I am anticipating events. Nothing is settled upon. It may be, it probably will all come to, nothing. But I want to know whether in such an event you would stand by me?”
She held out her hand.
“You can count upon me, Nigel,” she said. “But for you Dad would never have let me marry Lescelles. He was only a younger son, and you know what trouble we had. I am with you through thick and thin, Nigel.”
He kissed her, and handed her into the carriage. Then he went back to his rooms and lit a cigar.
“There are two things to be done,” he said softly to himself. “The first is to discover what she is here for, and where she is staying. The second is to somehow meet Lady Ferringhall. These fellows must be right,” he added thoughtfully, “and yet—there’s a mystery somewhere.”
On Saturday mornings there was deposited on the plate of each guest at breakfast time, a long folded paper with Mrs. White’s compliments. Anna thrust hers into her pocket unopened, and for the first time left the house without a smile upon her face. She was practically destitute of jewellery. The few pence left in her purse would only provide a very scanty lunch. Another day of non-success would mean many disagreeable things.
And even she was forced to admit to herself that this last resource of hers was a slender reed on which to lean. She mounted the stairs of the theatrical agent’s office with very much less than her usual buoyancy, nor did she find much encouragement in the general appearance of the room into which she was shown. There was already a score or more of people there, some standing up and talking together, others seated in chairs ranged along the wall. Beyond was another door, on which was painted in black letters:
Mr. Earles,Strictly Private
Every one stared at Anna. Anna stared back at every one with undaunted composure. A young man with shiny frock coat and very high collar, advanced towards her languidly.
“Want to see Mr. Earles?” he inquired.
“I do,” Anna answered. “Here is my card. Will you take it in to him?”
The young man smiled in a superior manner.
“Have to take your turn,” he remarked laconically. “There’s twenty before you, and Mr. Earles is going out at twelve sharp—important engagement. Better come another morning.”
“Thank you,” Anna answered. “I will take my chance.”
She removed some posters from a chair, and seated herself coolly. The young man looked at her.
“Unless you have an appointment, which you haven’t,” he said, “you’ll only waste your time here.”
“I can spare it,” Anna answered suavely.
The young man entered into a lively little war of words witha yellow-haired young person near the door. Anna picked up an ancient magazine, and began to turn over the pages in a leisurely way. The conversation which her entrance had interrupted began to buzz again all around her. A quarter of an hour passed. Then the inner door opened abruptly. A tall, clean-shaven man came out and walked rapidly through the room, exchanging greetings right and left, but evidently anxious to avoid being detained. Mr. Earles himself stood upon the threshold of his sanctum, the prototype of the smart natty Jew, with black hair, waxed moustache, and a wired flower in his button-hole. A florid-looking young woman rose up and accosted him eagerly.
“I’m next, Mr. Earles,” she exclaimed. “Been sitting on the doorstep almost for two hours.”
“In a minute, in a minute,” he answered, his eyes fixed upon Anna. “Reuben, come here.”
The young man obeyed the summons. His employer retreated into the further apartment, leaving the door ajar.
“What’s that young lady’s name—girl in dark brown, stranger here?” Mr. Earles asked sharply.
The youth produced a crumpled-up card from his waistcoat pocket. A sense of impending disaster was upon him. Mr. Earles glanced at it, and his eyes flashed with anger.
“You blithering idiot!” he exclaimed.
Mr. Earles strode into the waiting-room. His face was wreathed in smiles, his be-ringed hand was cordially outstretched.
“My dear Miss Pellissier,” he said impressively, “this is an unexpected pleasure. Come in! Come in, do. I must apologize for my young puppy of a clerk. If I had known that you were here you should not have been kept waiting for a second.”
It took a good deal to surprise Anna, but it was all she could do to follow Mr. Earles with composure into the inner room. There was a little murmur of consternation from the waiting crowd, and the florid young woman showed signs of temper, to which Mr. Earles was absolutely indifferent. He installed Anna in a comfortable easy chair, and placed his own between her and the door.
“Come,” he said, “this is capital, capital. It was only a few months ago that I told you you must come to London, and you only laughed at me. Yet here you are, and at precisely the right moment, too. By-the-bye,” he added, in a suddenlyaltered tone, “I hope, I trust—that you have not entered into any arrangements with any one here?”
“I—oh no!” Anna said, a little faintly. “I have made no arrangements as yet—none at all.”
Mr. Earles recovered his spirits.
“Excellent!” he exclaimed. “Your arrival is really most opportune. The halls are on the lookout for something new. By-the-bye, do you recognize that?”
Anna looked and gasped. An enormous poster almost covered one side of the wall—theposter. The figure of the girl upon it in plain black dress, standing with her hands behind her, was an undeniable and astonishing likeness of herself. It was her figure, her style of dress, her manner of arranging the hair. Mr. Earles regarded it approvingly.
“A wonderful piece of work,” he declared. “A most wonderful likeness, too. I hope in a few days, Miss Pellissier, that these posters will be livening up our London hoardings.”
Anna leaned back in the chair and laughed softly. Even this man had accepted her for “Alcide” without a moment’s question. Then all the embarrassments of the matter flashed in upon her. She was suddenly grave.
“I suppose, Mr. Earles,” she said, “that if I were to tell you that although that poster was designed from a rough study of me, and although my name is Pellissier, that nevertheless, I am not ‘Alcide’ would you believe me?”
“You can try it on, if you like,” Mr. Earles remarked genially. “My only answer would be to ask you to look at that mirror and then at the poster. The poster is of ‘Alcide.’ It’s a duplicate of the French one.”
Anna got up and looked at the mirror and then at the poster. The likeness was ridiculous.
“Well?” she said, sitting down again. “I want an engagement.”
“Capital!” Mr. Earles declared. “Any choice as to which of the Halls? You can pick and choose, you know. I recommend the ‘Unusual.’”
“I have no choice,” Anna declared.
“I can get you,” Mr. Earles said, slowly, keeping his eyes fixed upon her, “forty at the ‘Unusual,’ two turns, encores voluntary, six for matinées. We should not bar any engagements at private houses, but in other respects the arrangement must be exclusive.”
“Forty what?” Anna asked bewildered.
“Guineas, of course,” Mr. Earles answered, glibly. “Forty guineas a week. I mentioned sixty, I believe, when I was in Paris, but there are expenses, and just now business is bad.”
Anna was speechless, but she had presence of mind enough to sit still until she had recovered herself. Mr. Earles watched her anxiously. She appeared to be considering.
“Of course,” he ventured, “I could try for more at the ‘Alhambra.’ Very likely they would give——”
“I should be satisfied with the sum you mention,” Anna said quietly, “but there are difficulties.”
“Don’t use such a word, my dear young lady,” Mr. Earles said persuasively. “Difficulties indeed. We’ll make short work of them.”
“I hope that you may,” Anna answered enigmatically. “In the first place, I have no objection to the posters, as they have no name on them, but I do not wish to appear at all upon the stage as ‘Alcide.’ If you engage me it must be upon my own merits. You are taking it for granted that I am ‘Alcide.’ As a matter of fact, I am not.”
“Excuse me,” Mr. Earles said, “but this is rubbish.”
“Call it what you like,” Anna answered. “I can sing the songs ‘Alcide’ sang, and in the same style. But I will not be engaged as ‘Alcide’ or advertised under that name.”
Mr. Earles scratched his chin for a moment thoughtfully. Then a light seemed to break in upon him. He slapped his knee.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “Of course, I remember now. It was your sister who married Sir John Ferringhall the other day, wasn’t it?”
Anna nodded.
“It was,” she admitted.
“You needn’t say a word more,” Mr. Earles declared. “I see the difficulty. The old fool’s been working on you through your sister to keep off the stage. He’s a prig to the finger-tips, is Sir John—doesn’t know what an artist is. It’s awkward, but we’ll get round it somehow. Now I’ll tell you what I propose. Let me run you for six months. I’ll give you, say, thirty-five guineas a week clear of expenses, and half of anything you earn above the two turns a night. What do you say?”
“I agree,” Anna said coldly, “if you will make it three months.”
“Better say six,” Mr. Earles protested, seating himself before the desk, and dipping his pen in the ink.
“Four,” Anna decided firmly. “I shall not agree to six.”
“It scarcely gives me a chance,” Mr. Earles said, with a resigned sigh, “but I shall rely upon you to stick to me so long as I do the right thing by you. You can’t do without an agent, and there’s no one can run you better than I can.”
“You must also put in the agreement,” Anna said, “that I do not represent myself to be ‘Alcide,’ and that I am not advertised to the public by that name.”
Mr. Earles threw down his pen with a little exclamation.
“Come this way,” he said.
He opened the door of still another room, in one corner of which was a grand piano. He seated himself before it.
“Go to the far corner,” he said, “and sing the last verse ofLes Petites.”
He struck a note, and Anna responded. Playing with one hand he turned on his stool to glance at her. Instinctively she had fallen into the posture of the poster, her hands behind her, her head bent slightly forward, her chin uplifted, her eyes bright with the drollery of the song. Mr. Earles closed the piano with a little bang.
“You are a funny, a very funny young lady,” he said, “but we waste time here. You do not need my compliments. We will get on with the agreement and you shall have in it whatever rubbish you like.”
Anna laughed, and went back to her easy chair. She knew that her voice was superior to Annabel’s, and she had no further qualms. Whilst she was wondering how to frame her request for an advance, Mr. Earles drew out his cheque book.
“You will not object,” he said, glancing towards her, “to accepting a deposit. It is customary even where an agreement is drawn.”
“I shall have no objection at all,” Anna assured him.
He handed her a cheque for thirty-one pounds, ten shillings, and read the agreement through to her. Anna took up the pen, and signed, after a moment’s hesitation,
A. Pellissier.
“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 presentcircumstances. 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.
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.”
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 rôle 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 hereyes 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 apot pourriof 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.”