Eight o'clock had just struck when Conrad arrived at the slum where he was to spend the evening. The exterior of the hall had no sanguine air. Four opaque gas globes glimmered over a narrow entrance, and, in the obscurity, a written appeal affixed by wafers was barely legible. He made it out to be:
"Help the PoorKiss-and-Tell Girls.Stranded in the Town through No Fault of their Own.Show your Sympathy by Patronising us."
Behind a portière a disreputable-looking man, wearing a queer overcoat, sat at a small table with tickets. He asked, "Sixpence, or a shilling?" and Conrad said, "A shilling," and the man said, "Front row."
There was a piano on a shallow platform. In lieu of footlights, some pots of ferns had been disposed at wide intervals. There was no curtain, but a screen, behind which giggles were audible, turned a corner of the hall into the most limited of artists' rooms. Those artists who were not making their toilettes, sat quietly among the audience. Perhaps two hundred chairs were ranged across the hall, and about fifty of them were occupied. One of them was occupied by Rosalind.
"Good evening," she said.
"Good evening," said Conrad. "May I sit down?"
"These are the shilling ones," said she. "Oh, of course, if youhave! I'm afraid we're leading you into awful extravagance? ... It isn't very full?"
"No, I'm sorry. I wish I could have sent some people. Have you got another concert to-morrow?"
"They're talking about it—they've got the hall very cheap."
"I might take some tickets, and see what I can do with them. I suppose that would be a good plan, wouldn't it?"
"Perhaps," said Rosalind, doubtfully.
"Why 'perhaps?' I thought it was to help you all?"
"Yes," she answered. "Oh, it's meant to."
"There's a reservation in your manner," he said, "that— What's the use of our being such old friends if you don't confide in me?"
"Ah, I didn't think of that," she laughed. "Well, did you see the man with a coat?"
"I saw him with aversion."
"I thought it would please you! That's the manager, Mr. Quisby."
"Your manager, do you mean?"
"I'm telling you—the manager of the Company that came to grief. The girls are supposed to have got this up for themselves; but you may have noticed that you paid your shilling to Mr. Quisby."
"A—ah!" said Conrad. "There seems a weak spot in the business arrangements. Well, what do you propose?"
A youth in a very shabby tweed suit came on to the platform. He sat down at the piano, and rattled the introduction to the well-known music hall song entitledMy Little Baby Boy. On bounced the golden-haired brunette. She wore a skirt to the knees, and had made up her face as if for the glare of a theatre. Her appearance lowered the concert to the level of a penny gaff. Several women of the shop-keeping class, hitherto sympathetic, murmured "Oh!" and tightened their mouths.
"Isn't the costume a mistake?" whispered Conrad.
"Do you think so? How would you have dressed her?"
"Well," said Conrad, "a long frock."
"Mm. What sort of frock?"
"Well, I should have made her look quiet, and very—er——"
"Respectable. I know! ... Go on."
"I should have said, 'Be pale, and pathetic!'
"That's right, I wanted them to; but they've all got themselves up wrong, except my friend Miss Lascelles. Sh!"
The vocalist's blackened eyelids drooped to the paper that she held;—
"'Some folks want power and riches, and really will notbe denied,And when they've accomplished their object, they arevery far from satisfied;A fig for your wealth and your power, for riches I carenot a jot;Contented am I—yes! and happy—I'm quite satisfiedwith my lot.'"
"Inappropriate," said Rosalind under her breath, "isn't it?"
The vocalist looked up again, for now she knew the words;—
"'I'm not tired of England, I've no wish to roam,There's a little six-roomed house that's my home, sweet home;My house is my castle—who is my pride and joy?Why! his Royal Highness the King of the Castle, my little baby boy.'"
When she had shrilled the chorus times without number she withdrew, and Conrad said,
"Can't we go and sit further back where we can talk? Look at all those chairs over there."
"If you like. What do you think of her?"
"She can't sing."
"Oh, that's a detail. But she doesn'tworkthe song."
"How do you mean?"
"Didn't you feel what she ought to do? Well, of course you wouldn't! 'His Royal Highness the King' line ought to bring the house down. Wouldn'tImake it 'go!'"
"Show me," he begged. "There's nobody looking."
So in the corner that they had found, she hummed the bars, and showed him.
"Oh, aren't you clever!" he exclaimed. "What a pretty voice you have! Perhaps you're—er—fond of babies?"
"If you mean 'have I got any children?' no, I haven't. That was an actress, not a mother. I've no ring on—did you think I was married?"
"Well, you looked so very devoted, I wondered for a moment."
"Areyou?"
"Suddenly," said Conrad, gazing at her.
"'Suddenly'—what?"
"Devoted."
"I meant 'married,'" she explained.
"I?" he said. "Good heavens!"
"Don't be so astonished!—such a thing has happened to men."
"Yes, but I'm not a marrying man."
"I think most men say they aren't marrying men till they say, 'Will you marry me?' It's a pity they change their mind so often."
"I have pitied them myself."
"Them?" she said. "The girls, you mean! A man begins to be in love much sooner than a woman, but he finishes much sooner too."
"Well, that's why marriage was invented," said Conrad. "The man brings the fervour, and the woman brings the faithfulness. You can't combine better qualities."
"Yes, and what about his fervour afterwards? He wants to go and be in love all over again. Haven't I seen? In this profession, travelling about, a girl often meets a good fellow; I don't say he's often rich—the ones who mean well are generally hard up. Perhaps he's a clerk, or something, in the town. He's taken with her from the 'front,' and gets to know her. Then he waits for her at the stage door every evening, and sees her home, and makes her talk 'shop'—he always makes her talk 'shop,' that's the fascination to him. After she goes away, he writes to her, and by-and-by perhaps they marry. They do sometimes. Of course she's to leave the stage; he generally asks for that—the kind of man I'm talking about. Well, what's the result?"
"She's sorry she gave it up."
"No, she isn't. There are exceptions—don't I know it! but in most cases she's only too thankful to give it up. There's no glamour about it for the girl—shehas lived all that out; the 'little six-roomed house and home sweet home' is the only ambition she has left. It's the man who finds the marriage dull. He was in love with being in love with an actress. He liked waiting for that smile over the footlights—about the middle of the first verse of her solo; it flattered him to know he was the one man in all the audience who was going to talk to her directly. When they're married she's just an ordinary girl—like Miss Smith, and Miss Brown, and the other girls he knew. The fairy has lost her wings. She's a very good little wife perhaps, but just a drab little mortal. He says, 'How romantic it used to be when she was a fairy!'—and goes fairy-catching outside another stage-door."
"Poor little mortal!"
"Men want romances. When you find them out, the most unlikely men are romantic; but when you find them out, nine hundred and ninety women in a thousand are domesticated."
"Areyou?"
"There are the other ten," laughed Rosalind.... "And I'm not talking of society women—of course I don't know anything about them; I'm talking of every-day women, and us. Look at my friend! I suppose you'd take her for a bohemian through and through? She has had to earn her living in the Profession since she was sixteen, and she's slangy, and she'd shock your sort of woman out of her wits. Marriage is the last thing she thinks of now. But let a man she liked come along! She'd marry him on two pounds a week, and go through fire and water for him, and thank heaven for the joy of hanging up the washing in her own back yard."
Miss Lascelles, with a hint of coon steps, was singing—
"'What is the use of loving a girlWhen you know she don't want yerto?'"
"I shouldn't have thought it," said Conrad. "She doesn't suggest domesticity in back yards."
"Does she suggest a boarding-school for young ladies?"
His eyebrows asked a question.
"There was a time when Tattie was among little girls who walked two and two in Kensington."
"Really? Do you know that hurts, rather? I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry," sighed Rosalind. "But her heart's sweet," she added; "it's only the bloom that has gone." She smiled. "Clap your hands! She's my pal—you've got to applaud her."
"She's very good," he said, applauding. "I thought she was going to do a flower song? But I like that one. Isn't it pretty? I like the way it goes."
"Yes, rag-time—all against the beat.Don'thum it out of tune!" she said plaintively. "She's going to do the flower song next. By-the-bye, I may have to introduce you to some of the girls. What shall I call you?"
"Myname," Conrad answered deferentially, "is 'Warrener.'"
She bent her head;
"Thank you," said Lady Darlington.
When the concert was over he walked with her as far as Mrs. Cheney's. Tattie of course was with them. At the foot of the steps Tattie shook hands with him and went indoors, and he remained a minute saying 'good night' to Rosalind. The other girl might well have heard all they said, but the minute had charm to him because the other girl had left them. It implied something. And underneath, to both these shuttlecocks of temperament, there was another charm, not defined yet—to be savoured in the first moments of solitude—the charm of recapturing a mood of years ago. At a doorstep, late: "You look tired?" "Oh, it's nothing." A pause. "I shall see you to-morrow?" "Yes, come in to tea." A whiff of the fragrance of his youth, a touch of the sentimentality of her girlhood, idealised Corporation Road as they parted in the fog.
"I wish it were to-morrow! ... Good night."
"Do you? ... Good night."
The old tune was not classical, but it was pretty.
"I want something substantial," said Conrad gravely, shaking his head. "For the follow, say a Chateaubriand."
Two days had passed, and in his mind a new and disquieting thought had risen—the thought that Rosalind couldn't pay for enough to eat.
Truly she was paying for a great deal to eat, conjuring steaks and puddings on to the tables of a dozen lodgings, and inventing strange stories to account for her having half-sovereigns to lend. But Conrad could not know that. He only knew that the necessities of theKiss-and-TellCompany were more urgent than he had understood; and he felt very sorry for all the girls, but his heart bled for Lady Bountiful.
"A Chateaubriand," he repeated firmly. It was nourishing. "And pommes soufflées.... No? Well, I'll leave the potatoes to you. With a chestnut purée, eh? And let us have nice sweets. Don't give me the table d'hôte sweets—special. What about peaches? ... Well, send for the best fruit you can get—you've plenty of time. Where's the wine-list? A quarter to two. That table in the corner—for three persons."
There is one place in Blithepoint where the chef can cook, though he shirks pommes soufflées. You go downstairs to it—unless you choose the hotel entrance—and it was in the restaurant downstairs that Conrad ordered the luncheon on Monday. He meant to say things at luncheon. But when Rosalind and Tattie arrived, there was a bomb-shell with the hors d'oeuvres.
"Mr. Quisby has bolted!" they cried, taking their seats.
"Bolted?" he echoed. "How do you know?"
"Queenie Vavasour and Miss Jinman have been to his rooms this morning. They went to tell him they must have some money. He has gone, he went last night—with our concert sixpences."
"I say!" exclaimed Conrad. He was by this time almost a member of the Company. "What are we all going to do?"
"It's a nice fix," continued Rosalind, reproachfully. "I told you this would happen, I never thought he'd be able to take us on anywhere else—never for a moment. Didn't I warn you?"
"You did," said Conrad. "Oh! I admit it. Will you have a sardine, or——? Miss Lascelles, let me give you some of the pretty ones with the red and yellow."
"I told you all along," repeated Rosalind, "that girls could do nothing for themselves in a matter like that; that it needed a man to take it up. Now, didn't I say so?"
"You said so several times. But you didn't suggest what I should do. I couldn't menace him with a revolver."
"Men are so lazy!" she smiled.
"You may smile," said Conrad reprovingly, "but it's very serious for us. We are all out of an engagement."
"Yes," she agreed. "And goodness only knows when you'll get one again!"
"That's sheer spite—you're jealous of my talent. Miss Lascelles, tell her I can't be out of an engagement long."
"With all his experience?" cried Tattie. "His notices as 'Buttercup' were immense!"
"Poor Miss Jinman!" sighed Rosalind; "I'm sorry for that old woman." She nodded at Conrad. "You should see her this morning!"
"I want to see her," he declared, "or rather, I want one of you to see her for me. You know we've all got to stick together in this thing, and——"
"And 'be loyal to the show!'" said Tattie.
"No, but joking aside, I want you girls to help me straighten things out. I was going to talk to you about it anyhow. Now tell me—what do they all want?"
"I suppose they all want a 'shop,'" Tattie answered.
"I can't give them a 'shop'—I'm not in the business—but I might send them home with a few of the Best in their pockets. How would that do?"
They lifted their heads, and looked at him; and the waiter put the soup on the table.
"Did you mean it?" murmured Rosalind when the waiter had turned his back.
"Well, of course. Now this looks very good; let's enjoy our lunch! We seem to be getting on a bit, so we needn't worry. Don't you think you ought to take your jacket off—you'll be cold when you go out?"
"No, I've loosened it," she said. "But—er—do you know I'd rather you didn't do that? I—I think they could all manage without."
"Now, why interfere?" said Conrad peevishly. "This is my department. You have bungled hopelessly yourself. By your own showing you distrusted the man—and you let him escape, instead of patrolling his doorstep like a bright young woman. Then whenIbring intelligence to bear on the matter, and we're all happy, you must cut in and throw cold water on the scheme. Take your soup and be good."
"Isn't it nice?" said Tattie.
"Now that's a sensible remark. I turn toyou—we won't be interfered with. Suppose you help me, Miss Lascelles? Will you be Santa Claus in Corporation Road for me?"
"Oh," she faltered. "You had better go yourself."
"I?" gasped Conrad; "I wouldn't do it for a million—they'd thank me, some people have got no tact."
"They'd cry over you," she said, with tears in her own voice. "You don't know what it is you're doing. They aren't used to men who— You're a trump!"
"Oh, pickles," he said. "Where's that waiter? I say, we're all being awfully solemn; I thought this was going to be a jolly party? Miss Daintree——"
"Mr. Warrener?"
"Please talk."
"I'm going to talk later on," she said. "I'm going to talk like a mother to you."
"Won't you talk like yourself in the meanwhile? I don't want anything better."
Then she talked like herself; and the plates were changed, and the hour was pleasurable. It was a very uncommon hour, because her friend was so nice. The pretty girl's friend is nearly always an infliction, and makes mischief afterwards because she hasn't been sufficiently admired. It was such a pleasurable hour that Conrad knew a pang of regret in reflecting that there would be few more like it—Rosalind, no doubt, would flee from Blithepoint as soon as the other women. Would he meet her again? Of course she would drift into another Company; meet another man in another town. Damn!
"I'm going to miss that girl," he mused, "and know she's flirting with somebody else while I'm remembering her!"
"'The world,'" he exclaimed, indulging his weakness for quotation, "'is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel!'" And neither Rosalind nor Tattie found it needful to inquire to which category he was assigning himself; there may be sentimental seconds even over a chateaubriand. He added, "Let me fill up that glass for you—you've nothing there but froth."
It was more than half-past three when the waiter abased himself in letting them out, and as they turned along the Parade, Tattie recollected that she had "promised to be with Miss Vavasour at four." They all stopped for a minute, and Conrad tried to look as if he didn't want her to go. However she went, and he and Rosalind sauntered on without her.
"What shall we do?" he said. "Shall we go and hear the band?"
"There isn't one in the afternoon this time of year."
"Not in the band-stand, but I think there is on the pier. The band-stand is retained chiefly as a rendezvous, I believe. When he says 'Where will you meet me this evening?' she always says 'Opposite the band-stand.'"
Rosalind replied, "How do you know?"
"I gather it. Pensive figures watch the clock, and look up and down. They all turn hopefully when they hear you, and scowl at you as you come in sight. I passed once in the evening; I felt myself such a general disappointment that I always walk on the other side now."
The man at the turnstiles told them that the orchestra was playing in the theatre; and as they drew close they heard it, but for some little time they could find no way inside. No charge was made for admission to the theatre in the afternoon, and only the entrance to the balcony was open. They saw nobody to guide them. There were no other footsteps on the pier; there was no sound but the plaintive music that they couldn't reach. They wandered round and round the terrace, trying locked doors.
The tide was out, and the sheen of the smooth wet sand was violet under a paling sky. Little white waves were hurrying, and in the faded distance the star of the lightship gleamed and hid.
Through the window of an unexpected office they spied the girl who sold the stall tickets in the evening. "Oh, yes!" she said, and ran out to show them where to go.
Only two or three figures inhabited the roomy balcony. Below, the body of the house was soulless, shrouded in white wrappers. Faint daylight touched the auditorium wanly, but gas jets yellowed the faces of the orchestra. In the narrow line of glare amid the emptiness, they played.
Rosalind and Conrad sat down in the last row, and spoke in low voices. He knew that the impression of the scene was going to linger with him after she had gone.
In a few minutes she whispered, "Let's go on the terrace again," and they crept to the door.
"We couldn't talk in there," she said.... "Look here! what you were saying to Tattie: I want you to tell me straight, I don't know anything about you—can you afford to do all that?"
"Oh yes," he said; "that's all right."
"But really? Tell me the truth. How well off are you?"
"Oh, well! ... I'm very well off."
"Because if you're going to miss the money, there's another way out, that's why. I shouldn't forgive myself if I put you in a hole; I bar that sort of thing. Lunch and flowers are all very well, but the other's rather steep."
"I sha'n't miss the money."
"Honour bright?"
"Honour bright!"
"Oh well, then! It's awfully good of you, I sha'n't forget it," she said. "'Warrener' is really your name, isn't it?"
"I thought you understood that at the time."
"Yes," she said, "I did. I only wondered for a moment—I'm sorry."
"Oh, it's nothing," he answered.... "You know what I want you to tell me?"
"What?"
"About yourself. What can I do for you?"
"Oh, you needn't count me or Tattie. We don't want anything."
"That's all bosh. But you don't come in with the rest—I want to do more than that for you. Treat me as a pal. You're on the rocks, and I'm not; I've been there, and I know what it means. Let me give you a hundred to set you right."
"You want to give me a hundred pounds?" She threw back her astonished face at him—she was all white throat and eyes. "D' ye like me so much?"
"Damnably!" said Conrad.
The music had stopped, and now the bandsmen came hurrying past them. They stood looking shoreward, in a pause. On the dusk of the Parade the chain of electric globes quivered into light.
"It's rather rough on you," she murmured. "Isn't it? I've always drawn the line. It's no good."
"I didn't think it was. I shouldn't have told you if you hadn't asked me. I know; if a man cared about you, you'd expect him to want to marry you."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Oh, why not? Only I'm one of the men who aren't designed for husbands. I could make a beautiful lover—while it lasted; a very staunch friend—to a man, or a woman—all my life; but everybody has his limitations. Women are just the same. There are women who are made to be daughters—they're perfect as daughters; but they should never marry. There are women who're meant for mothers.Theyshould never marry—I mean they make very poor wives. Not many of us are first-class all round. Still that's nothing to do with it. I haven't asked you for anything, and I'm not going to. If you had been—different, well, for my own sake, I should have been very glad! I never played 'Faust,' though, everybody's morality begins somewhere—it's just my luck that I've got fond of a girl whoisn't'different.' But there it is! We needn't talk about it. Put that aside, and let me help you as if I were your brother. I don't feel like your brother, but you can trust me just as much. I quite understand. I'm not vain enough to suppose you like me, but I quite understand that it would be 'no use' if you did."
She looked beyond him pensively, and pensively she hummed:—
"'What is the use of loving a girlIf the girl don't love you?What is the use of loving a girlWhen you know she don't want yerto?'"
"Don't do that," said Conrad. "I'm trying to talk to you like a chum. If you sing that song, I shall kiss you."
"Well, what do you want me to say?" she asked, strolling on.
"I don't want you to say anything. You'll get the money for the others in the morning, and I'll send you the hundred during the day."
"You're not to!" she exclaimed. "I don't need it, I swear I don't. You're not to send Tattie or me a shilling. If you do, I'll send it back."
"Why?"
"Because I don't need it, that's why."
"No it isn't. It's because you don't believe what I've said. My dear girl, I don't suppose I shall ever see you again after you leave here. When do you go?"
"We go to-morrow."
"You and Tattie? I mean 'Miss Lascelles'?"
"Oh, 'Tattie' doesn't hurt. Yes, she's going to stay—we're going to be together for a little while."
"Where? Don't you want me to ask?"
"London," she said.
"Have you got any people there?"
"No.... The only relation that counts is in the country now. Now mind! You're not to send anything for us two, or you'll offend me. Whatever you send will go to the others, all of it."
"Have it your own way," he said quietly.
They walked once round the terrace without speaking.
"Are you angry?" she asked.
"You've hurt rather. You've pitched it back at me. I don't mean the beastly money, but the intention. I think you might have trusted me. On my honour, I'd have taken no advantage of it!"
After another pause, she said:
"I'm a fool to tell you, but I can't help it.... I'm not on the stage any more, I'm not hard up; I'm—married."
"Married?"
"I've been married five years."
"Good Lord!" he said. "Well— Not on the stage? What are you doing here then?"
"I wasn't acting; I only came down to be in it all again. I—" her smile was wistful, "I was 'trying back'; I wanted to feel as I used to feel—I was dull."
He nodded comprehension; "Oh yes! I've done a lot of 'trying back' myself.... Do you care for him?"
She gave the faintest shrug.
"I wish you weren't going away," he sighed. "I shall often see you again?"
"We're the only people left on the pier," said Rosalind. "Don't you think we're having more than our twopenn'orth?"
"I shall go to town on Wednesday," he told her, as they turned homeward.
"Shall you?"
"You haven't answered what I asked you."
"I don't know," she said. "Besides you'll soon forget that you wanted to."
"If I don't forget?"
"Well— You may write to me."
"Where?"
"I'll post you a line before I leave," she promised. "We shall leave as early as we can—as soon as we've done your business for you; I sha'n't see you before I go. By-the-bye, I don't know if you're staying at the hotel where we lunched?—there'll be letters for you from the Company to-morrow, too."
"No, I'm at the Grand," he said. "My Christian name is 'Conrad.'"
It seemed a very short distance to Corporation Road. It seemed untrue that it was only four days since he had stood at the door with her for the first time. They went up the steps, and she did not turn the knob.
"Are you coming in?" she murmured. "I daresay Tattie is back."
"Do you know I think I'd rather say 'au revoir' to you alone."
"Au revoir," she said. Her hand was formal. He was rather chilled.
"You mean to post me that line?" he questioned.
She nodded. And then in the darkness of the doorway, she laughed, and began to hum the song that he had warned her not to sing.
He found the evening very long. He was restless. The memory of her kiss was exquisite, but it did not make for repose. It seemed to him intolerably stupid that he was boring himself in the billiard-room of the Grand when Corporation Road was so near. Still she had taken leave of him—if he went he might be unwelcome to her, she might be disappointing to him.
Early next afternoon he received the line she had promised. It arrived with letters from the Company. They were such deeply grateful letters that they hurt him a little when he read them, but he guessed which was hers, and he opened that one first. Mixed with the pleasure with which he opened it there was the curiosity, even the—he would have refused to acknowledge it—even the slight touch of apprehension with which a man who likes a woman better than he knows her always opens her first letter.
He smiled—he heard her speaking.
"If you ever write, the address is 'Miss Tattie Lascelles, c/o Madame Hermiance, 42 bis Great Titchfield Street, W.' You understand? You aren't to put my name on the outside envelope at all. Blithepoint is blessing you.—R.D."
If he ever wrote, did she say? By his halidom he was going to write immediately! His impulse was to beg her to dine with him, but probably she would find it easier to meet him during the day. Luncheon then. But where? The choice of a restaurant bothered him—she might be afraid of acquaintances seeing her. He bethought himself of the Café Anonyme in Soho, and entreated her to lunch with him on Thursday at two o'clock. As a postscript he scribbled, "You won't say you can't, will you? If I don't hear from you, I shall be waiting for you at the door." To enable her to reply, though he prayed that no reply would come, he added that he should stay at the Carlton.
He was glad to leave Blithepoint; when the woman one liked there has gone, a place is always distressing. In the train it was agreeable to reflect that she had read his note by this time. Again he imagined her as she read it—looking down, looking up, putting it in her pocket. The little Café Anonyme had been a good idea. They would do their best for him there, and their soles à la Marguery were unequalled in London. The private rooms, too, were not unhomely, they hit the happy medium—there was no riot of red velvet and gilding, nor were there rag roses hanging askew in dusty glass epergnes. It would have been unappreciative—it would have been an insult—to ask Rosalind to be made love to in a vulgar room.
He wandered about the Carlton after dinner until the last post was delivered, and was relieved to find there was nothing for him. He was sure that if she hadn't meant to go, she would have declined at once. She wouldn't raise his hopes only to dash them to the parquetry as the clock was preparing to strike; she wouldn't be thoughtless, unfeeling. Oh no, she wasn't like that!
And there was no letter on Thursday either, and he sallied to Soho with delight.
The exterior of the Café Anonyme when he reached it looked to him a shade less ingenuous than it had been, but upstairs all was well. The view of the grim houses opposite was screened by lace, firelight flashed on the Dutch hearth cheerfully, and the little white table, set for tête-à-tête, invited confidences. He forced his attention upon the menu, and lounged back into the street. It was a fine day for London. The sky was funereal, and the pavements were muddy, but there was no rain falling. He loitered before the restaurant happily, and glanced at his watch. At five minutes to two, expectation began to swell.
At two o'clock he couldn't hold back a smile—at any instant now her face might irradiate the blank. He wondered which way she would come, and if she would drive, or walk. He could see for some distance, both to right and left, and his only regret was that he couldn't see both ways at once. He kept turning his head, fearful that he might miss a second's joy.
There was a leaping moment in which a figure suggested her as it hove in sight. The girl proved offensively plain, and he was furious with her as she passed. Somehow he did not rebound from the mistake—it was the first fall in the temperature; the girl had killed his elation. He watched now eagerly, but he repressed no smile.
She was late. Oh, of course she would come, but the fish would be spoilt. Rather stupid of her! There was nothing more irritating than to have a careful luncheon ruined because a woman took twenty minutes to tie her veil. A melancholy church clock boomed the quarter. He began to feel that he was looking a fool, traversing these twelve paving-stones. He was annoyed with her—he should be at no pains to conceal it!
Constantly hansoms rattled into view, with disappointing people in them. There appeared to him discouragement in the gaze of the portier now, and a pair of loafers outside the public-house at the corner were taking interest in him.... He supposed shewouldcome? Into the tension of his mood there entered the first sick qualm of doubt.
And the church clock boomed again. Hope was breathing its last in him. Annoyance had melted into despair—he longed for her too intensely to be reproachful if she came. He would rejoice over her, he would unbutton her gloves, he would say how pretty her frock was, and that the chef was delighted to have been given more time!
Five-and-twenty minutes to three! ... Well, he had better see what he had to pay; it was no use hoping any longer. Well, just five minutes!—the last stake. If she weren't here then, she wouldn't come at all; she wouldn't expect him to wait at the door all day.... "At the door!"—his heart stopped—the words bore suddenly a new significance. In Blithepoint "at the door" might have meant at the door of her lodgings. Could it be possible she had misunderstood—had she thought he would be on the doorstep in Great Titchfield Street? No! how could she? she had told him she was married. But the address was Tattie's—yes, she might have thought so! Good heavens! hadshebeen waiting there forhim? Perspiration broke out on him. What was he to do? Look at the time!—she had given him up long ago, she had gone away! ... Oh, how could she have thought it? he had named the restaurant! ... Still it was very odd she hadn't come. He must find her, he must explain! But—but—but she was a married woman, he couldn't go and peal the bell and ask for her. Wait a moment, what had she said? Was she to stay with Tattie, or was Tattie to stay with her? ... Anyhow Tattiewasthere. Yes, hecouldgo—he could go there and ask for Tattie! His head was spinning. What the devil had become of all the cabs?
Two minutes later the portier had blown his whistle, and Soho was behind.
The pace was reckless, but to Conrad's fevered stare even the omnibuses seemed to mock his hansom. Alternately he threw bribes and objurgations through the trap. Where was Great Titchfield Street hidden? Were they making a tour of the West End slums? The cab jerked to a stoppage at last, and he leapt out, and hesitated. Nothing but shops confronted him. Had he forgotten the number—wasn't it "42 bis?" The next moment he saw the name, painted over a window—"Madame Hermiance, French Laundress."
It was very warm inside. Three girls, and a moist loosely clothed woman, whose opulent bosom was partially concealed, stood at work behind a long table. It fluttered with aerial frills and scraps of pink tissue paper; one of the girls was folding things up, and making them look pretty. He said, "Bonjour, madame," and the woman said, "Good afternoon, sare."
"Miss Lascelles, is she staying here? Is she in?"
"Oh no, sare, she is gone."
"Gone?" ejaculated Conrad.
"She did lodge 'ere," added the laundress; "I let 'er a room upstairs; but she go away—she get an engagement. You mean an actress, isn't it?"
"Yes, yes," he said, "I know all about the engagement, but she came back. She came back the day before yesterday, didn't she?"
"Mais non, monsieur." She shook her head. "She is not come back."
"Damn," he faltered. "Er—but there was a letter sent here for her—it must have been delivered yesterday morning. What has become of the letter?"
"Ah, letters?" She banged an iron about a shirt with double cuffs; perturbed as he was, he shuddered to see the havoc she was wreaking.
"Mees Lascelles 'as writ me a post carte—she ask if 'er letters come, I send 'em on. I zink she gives up zethéâtre, I zink she takes a situation wiz a lady of title. Julie!" she called; "zat letter zat come yesterday for Mees Lascelles, it go to ze post, hein?"
"J'-n'-sais-pas!" called Julie. She sent a button flying off a waistcoat without turning a hair.
"Ameliarran?"
"Yes'm?"
"Ze letter for Mees Lascelles, where ees it?"
"There yer are!" replied "Ameliar Ann." She was sewing a red cotton hieroglyphic into a customer's "tying bow"—near one of the ends. Her nod indicated a shelf piled with packages, and Conrad perceived his letter lying neglected among the washing.
"Ah," said Madame Hermiance. "Alors, I post it to-night myself."
"But this is no trifling matter," exclaimed Conrad, trembling with rage. "Miss Lascelles may lose a very large salary through this. That's a business letter—from an impresario. It should have been forwarded without delay."
"Tiens!" said Madame Hermiance calmly. "Julie! pack up ze collars."
He tramped across the shop, and the three girls' heads turned to the left. This much was certain: Rosalind had said that she and Tattie would be together. Sheer babble, that about the situation! If the note reached Tattie at once, there was hope yet. He strode back, and the three girls' heads turned to the right.
"Madame!"
"Monsieur?"
"I must apologise for occupying your time, but——"
"Ça ne fait rien," said the laundress. "Julie! pack up ze shirts."
"But I want you to do me a kindness—I want you to be good enough to send the letter to Miss Lascelles now, by a messenger. I suppose it won't take very long?"
"Mais, monsieur, I 'ave nobody to send."
"Well, but my dear lady," he said—and talked to her persuasively of paying for the service and the hansom that was outside.
"Alors!" said Madame Hermiance.
Expectancy bubbled in him anew. He would scrawl a line explaining what he had suffered, beseeching Rosalind to meet him still! Would Madame have the kindness to provide him with an envelope?
It was provided.
And a sheet of note-paper? he was abased by the trouble he was causing her.
Alas! her note-paper was not in the shop, but she could offer him a price-list—it was very long, and the back was blank.
This was no moment to finick; the case was urgent. He put his foot on a laundry basket, and the price-list on his knee; and at the back of "Blouses," "Bodices" and "White petticoats from 6d," he pencilled his appeal.
When "Ameliarran" had cast off her apron, he promised her a sovereign to buy feathers. She was given the post-card bearing the address, and he let her depart without a question. It was evident now that Rosalind had withheld her address very deliberately; to ascertain where she lived wouldn't be playing the game! But would the appeal find her at home? She might be shopping, visiting, taking an aimless, fatal walk! Hope tottered in him again. The girls who remained eyed him sympathetically; he was conscious that they placed no credence in his narrative of the impresario, and he withdrew to wait where he would be less interesting.
The street was not picturesque; for the scene of a lover's impatience it might be called "preposterous." The narrow pavements were so busy that he was forced to choose the narrow road; and the road was made narrower by stalls of vegetables and tin pots. "Ameliarran," he had heard, might accomplish her mission in half an hour. He escaped from the marketing, and lit a cigar in a grey thoroughfare of comparative seclusion.
"Would she be at home?" When he turned back he braced himself to meet the crisis. He had consulted his watch frequently, but he had not returned before "Ameliarran" might be expected. Nevertheless he was too soon. He withdrew again, and fumed once more among the cabbages and pans.
The next time he was not too soon. He found her in the shop, and she had a note for him. From Rosalind, or Tattie? Rosalind! he knew the writing. Let the girls gape! he wasn't going outside to read it among the vegetables. He opened it with elaborate listlessness. She had not protracted his pain while she framed graceful messages. Her response consisted of eight words; but they sufficed:
"Wait at the laundry. Throwing on my hat."
He doubled the girl's sovereign, and drove no bargain with her mistress. But the laundry cooped him now. He closed the door, and loitered gratefully on the step. Yes, indeed, he would wait; in the sweetness of relief he was scarcely impatient. A little drizzle was in the air, but he did not heed it. The day, and the morrow, and a hundred days broke into smiles before him. And while he lingered there—on the laundress's step, in the squalid street, under the rain—Conrad suddenly awoke to the exhilaration that sparkled in him, was startled by its freshness. He realised that fizzing in his pulses and his mind was the zest, the buoyancy that he had mourned as dead. It was here, alive! He reviewed with gusto his emotions of the afternoon, the hope, the suspense, the desperation—the quiver of rejoicing. It had been good! he had lived and felt this afternoon; he would not have abated those emotions by a jot! The immoral truth was clear to him, he had made his great discovery—that a man is young as often as he falls in love. That Rosalind had beauty, was an irrelevance. Again, to her lover a womaniswhat she makeshim feel. Whether she is fair or ill-favoured, whether she is worthy or worthless, whether she is formed like Venus, or clasps him in arms as thin as penholders, to him she is supreme, and while he adores her he is Young.
The rain was pattering more smartly, and he waited under his umbrella. Exultation was in his heart, her promise was in his pocket, ten years of his age had been shed behind the door. And at this point it may be discreet of us to take leave of Conrad—as Rosalind's cab comes jingling round the corner.
THE END
********
BY LEONARD MERRICK
THE POSITION OF PEGGYCONRAD IN QUEST OF HIS YOUTHTHE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN: STORIESWHISPERS ABOUT WOMEN: STORIESLYNCH'S DAUGHTERTHE MAN WHO WAS GOODTHIS STAGE OF FOOLSCYNTHIAONE MAN'S VIEWTHE ACTOR MANAGERTHE WORLDLINGSWHEN LOVE FLIES OUT O' THE WINDOWTHE QUAINT COMPANIONS
Several of Mr. Merrick's books are atpresent unpublished in America. MitchellKennerley will publish new volumes fromtime to time.