III
The words, “Give her a Stradivarius,” had hardly been spoken aloud by young Mackintosh when he was surprised by a knocking upon the board partition dividing his attic room from the one adjoining it. After a pause, during which he listened, the knocking was renewed.
Colin, remembering that his neighbor was an infirm and melancholy looking old fellow, whom he sometimes met wearily climbing the stairs with a loaf of bread and a brown paper bag of comestibles hugged to his breast, fancied himself called upon for help. He had but just removed his coat and, putting it on, hastily ran out into the entry, and tapped at the door of the next room.
A feeble voice called to him to come in. The interior resembled Colin’s own in lack of comfort. A gas-jet was burning, which revealed, lying dressed upon the bed close to the partition wall, the man he had often seen—gentle-faced, though hollow-eyed, and evidently racked by some chronic malady.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Colin’s neighbor, “but I must have been dreaming. I awoke suddenly, believing I heard some one distinctly say, ‘Give her a Stradivarius!’ And so I knocked on the wall, the way I used to call my nephew when he lived with me.”
“I did say those words,” answered Colin, blushing. “I was thinking aloud.”
“I beg pardon again, sir,” said the man, sitting up on the bed with an eager expression. “This is a coincidence I think you will agree is remarkable. I had fallen asleep thinking of a Stradivarius. I was dreaming of it. In fact, I rarely think of anything else, in these days. For to have owned something that in my present poverty would have been a little fortune, and to have had it stolen from me by my—Good God! I can’t speak of him. It’s too base for words. Mr. Mackintosh, I’m ashamed of myself. You see, I know your name. Mine is Rupert Thorndyke.”
“That seems somehow familiar,” said Colin, racking his brain to recall where he had heard the two names combined.
“No doubt, like most of us working folks, you read about the doings of the fine people who constitute high society in this town. Well, among them you have often seen that name. The otherRupert Thorndyke is as young and pushing and successful as I am old and timid and collapsed. He is away up among the tiptops, Mr. Mackintosh—dines and wines with the millionaires, and gives parties at his own rooms. I eat bread and ham out of a paper bag upon yonder table, and am thankful when I can afford a bottle of beer or Rhine wine to wash it down. But he’s of my own blood. My brother’s son, and my only living relative—named for me, to my sorrow. When his father was in business with me in musical instruments at—Broadway I was the senior partner, and we prospered for many years. Then my brother got into speculations, and I had to make good the money he lost. Rupert, who was a clever dog, had been sent by me to the University. Well, my brother died of a broken heart; and Rupert came to live with me for a while. Got me to send him to Europe once or twice, which I could ill afford to do. He was such a handsome fellow, had such a winning way with him, one could refuse him nothing. Then some of his former classmates at college voted him into a fashionable club. I paid the entrance fee and dues, keeping my homely self out of sight of his grand companions. Mr. Mackintosh, you will wonder at my want of self-control. But you’re a gentleman, and havegot a heart, too—I can see it. I’ve often wanted to make your acquaintance.”
“Go on, if it relieves you, Mr. Thorndyke,” said the young man, dropping upon a chair beside the bed.
“Then you will honor me by drinking a glass of claret,” said the other, arising with some difficulty from his recumbent position. “I am rather stiff with rheumatic pains, as you see. I lay down here before dinner to rest a while, and must have slept till now. Pray share my good luck. My employer—for I am serving where I once ruled, Mr. Mackintosh—gave me a bottle of Pontet Canet in honor of his birthday.”
“I have just supped, thank you,” said Colin, unwilling to hurt him by refusal. “But I’ll have a glass of wine with you with pleasure.”
The old man, shuffling about, produced glasses and a bottle, together with a Bologna sausage and some biscuits. As he sat munching and sipping opposite Colin at table, his dull eyes brightened with the feast.
“Good stuff, this,” he went on. “I’ll warrant the great Mr. Rupert Thorndyke has no more relish for his supper with the rich and exclusive Mrs. Beaumoris after the theater to-night! My employer gives me his morning paper when he has done with it, Mr. Mackintosh,and I bring it home, and under this gas-jet read the fashionable intelligence. I always know what’s going on in society. Look at this old ledger; I have cut out and pasted in it all that is said about my namesake—where he goes, and what he does. Rupert is a musical virtuoso—hand in glove with all the artists, who sing and play at his rooms for nothing. The fine ladies attend, too, and admire the beautiful upholstery and decorations that I paid for when I was flush. Rupert has a collection of musical instruments, ‘small but unrivaled,’ so the papers say. Mr. Mackintosh, I’d give a year of my life to look over that collection and make sure of my—my—lost Stradivarius.”
“Do you mean to say—” began Colin, indignantly.
“When I failed in business I had saved that violin to be sold only in case of dire emergency. Rupert, better than another, knew its value. He always coveted it, but though I had squeezed myself dry to supply him, I would not give this up. For a long time, I should tell you, I kept on terms with my nephew. I never obtruded myself, but I saw him from time to time, taking a fool’s pride in the grand gentleman I had created.”
His head drooped forward. He seemed lostin reverie. Colin, who had begun this adventure with indifference, felt his suspicions awaken and grow keen with the man’s story.
“A pride I am afraid your nephew did not appreciate, Mr. Thorndyke,” said the young man finally, to arouse him.
“Eh! Oh! of course not,” exclaimed the instrument-maker, coming out of his trance. “I was thinking of what a handsome fellow Rupert is. His eyes are so blue, his smile so open, his manner so winning, no one under God’s heaven would take him to be a—oh!ishe that? Has my brother’s boy fallen so low? He might have turned on the hand that fed and reared him; he might have shaken me off because I am poor and commonplace and rusty; but I can’t believe—yet what must I believe? Listen, Mr. Mackintosh, to the proofs. After my failure, as I said, I had put away my precious Stradivarius in its case, in a trunk in the one room I kept—better than this, but still, one room only. I had to go over to Philadelphia, once, to see a man from whom I hoped to collect a few hundreds owing me. I came back rejoiced because I had got nearly the whole sum. The maid at the boarding-house said nobody had called or asked for me in my absence. I went straight to the trunk, and opened it to put away my cash. I foundthe violin-case empty—the treasure gone! Just as I was about to give the alarm to the house, I saw on the floor under the edge of the trunk, this—”
He took from his pocket an unset scarabeus, jade-green in hue, that might have been worn in a man’s ring or pin.
“It was his. I had often seen him wear it in a scarf. He had showed it to me on his first return from Cairo. How could I alarm the boarding-house, or set the police upon the track of Rupert? Rupert a th— Oh, no! I won’t say the word! Not till it’s proved will I call him so. I found traces of wax on my latch-key of the house door, that I had been in the habit of throwing, with my other keys, on the dressing-table every night. Rupert had recently sent a man there with a note enclosing me a present of twenty-five dollars. While I wrote the answer the man must have taken the impression of my keys. Mr. Mackintosh, I had mistrusted that gift of money, though I kept it to pay my way to Philadelphia, and my board. Although I had given Rupert all, it was the first he had given me. I returned it to him the day after my discovery of the loss, with two lines, “Take your money, and give me back my Stradivarius.” He answered in such a brutal tone it makes mesick to think of it, disclaiming all knowledge of my Stradivarius. I burnt his letter, but these words are sunk into my heart, ‘From this time forth I refuse to see or to speak to one who has done me this foul wrong.’ That was two years ago, Mr. Mackintosh—two years ago. I have not prospered since; I am living on a pittance of pay because the times are hard, and my employer has nothing like the businessweused to have. Are you cold, sir? If so, I can light the gas-stove. I keep it forverycold weather generally. My nephew, as I said, has gone to a play to-night, to see Sara Bernhardt, with a party invited by Mrs. Beaumoris. His friends are very exclusive, and he is a great favorite—or perhaps it was last night he went to the theater; I am losing my memory, you see.”
“How does he continue to cut such a dash without fortune?” asked Colin, anxious to satisfy himself without exciting the poor old fellow’s suspicion.
“Nobody knows exactly. He was always lucky in speculation, and very daring. I gave him money to start with—all I could spare—and he went on and on. Yes, he must have a good purse to live as he does. I don’t envy Rupert; but oh! if I had the courage to go to-night and try to get into his rooms—to say I am his uncleand could wait till he came in—and then search there, and find out—”
“Perhaps he has sold the Stradivarius,” said Colin.
“Oh, don’t say that, Mr. Mackintosh. I hope against hope that he’s keeping it as the gem of his collection—that I may one day look at it again. I’d know it in a hundred. There is a tiny vein of color in the wood, that looks like a hand with an outstretched finger, on the right side, near the bridge of the instrument. Enough for any one—for you, for instance, who know nothing of violins, to identify it by. But I’d know my beauty, as far as I could see her!”
As he filled a cracked glass with grape-juice for the third time and tossed it off, Colin saw that unusual treat had affected his poor old brain.
“In vino veritas, Mr. Mackintosh,” he resumed, smiling wistfully. “I’ve told you my story as it hasn’t passed my lips since I got my death wound. You go into society, don’t you? I judge from this,” touching the sleeve of Colin’s evening coat.
“To a very limited degree,” said Mackintosh, feeling much abashed.
“Because, I thought if you do, it might come in your way to help me.” But in the act ofmaking this suggestion the instrument-maker forgot what he had begun to say. He wandered, grew drowsy; and Colin, soon aiding him to bed, left him there sound asleep.
The pathos of this incident dwelt with Mackintosh for days. He longed to tell Kathleen, whose interest, he knew, would be keenly aroused in view of the object of the old artisan’s mania. But in one way or another Colin failed to see any of the Blair family. He continued to meet Thorndyke on the stairs, and to exchange greetings with him. There was, however, no repetition of the first attempt at confidence. Thorndyke, as if aware that he had betrayed too much, looked shy of further converse with his stalwart and friendly young neighbor. Colin had almost begun to think the whole story a dream.
At last, when the need to look upon Kathleen’s bright face became overpowering, Colin turned, late one afternoon, through a softly falling veil of snow in the direction of the Blairs’ house. As he shook off the feathered flakes upon their door mat, he pleased himself by believing he would be asked to walk at once into the cosy intimacy of the family room, where at that hour Kathleen and her mother were wont to meet for tea.
Kathleen would be wearing her gown of brownserge, with the slashes of crimson, that so well became her glowing brunette beauty—looking like the genius of home! Mrs. Blair would put away her galley slips and blue pencil, and come over to the tea-table beside the coal fire. Both of these gentle creatures would turn upon him the gaze of friendliest interest.
Colin’s gateway of hope, in the shape of Mr. Blair’s front door, moved inward. Behind it stood an elderly woman, endeavoring to dry her parboiled hands upon a checked apron before receiving the visitor’s card between thumb and finger.
“Yes, sir, gone out; both Miss Kathleen and the madam,” she said, with bursting pride. “It was in a cab that I fetched meself from the stable. Some kind of a grand music party, where our young lady was goin’ to play, sir; and they’d not be out of it till after six. No. 6—Fifth Avenue, sir, they told the coachman. Perhaps you’d be knowin’ the house, Mr. Mackintosh?”
Colin, blessing his stupidity in forgetting that this was Kathleen’s important twenty-fifth, retraced his steps. Down fell his air-castle of a quiet hour with her. Vanished his fond imagining of some token from her of sweet half-hidden regret that they had been so long apart. Withcruel clearness of sight he beheld the true ambition of her life. By the time he should have taken a slow step higher in his profession, Kathleen would have soared into an empyrean, whither he could not follow. Henceforward a fret and fever for public approbation would possess her young being; she would be forever unfitted to plod through life at a poor man’s side—and, spite of his great love, Colin had no mind to be the appendage of a successful public favorite.
Doggedly, obstinately, the young fellow tramped far uptown, welcoming the sting of wind and snow in his face. Near the confines of the Park he found himself, his bare hands in the pockets of his overcoat, his face reddened with cold, his jaw set, his eyes heavy, brought to a halt before the house indicated to him by the Blair’s voluble maid.
There could be no doubt that a festivity was in progress behind the brick and marble front here presented to the avenue. Over a carpet running out to the curbstone, guests were passing to and from their carriages, beneath the shelter of an awning lighted by pendent lanterns. Spite of the snow, the aperture on either side the tunnel of striped canvas was blocked, not only by footmen comfortably humped in mountainsof black fur, but by the lookers-on, who seem to be never tired of this common phase of a city’s pleasuring.
Colin, on the outer edge of one flank of the vagrant army, stood for a while, governed by some impulse he could not have explained. Among his comrades were one or two women and children, miserably clad, content to stand gaping at the show. Colin, to all appearance one of their class, excited no surprise, except that a tawdry girl wearing an old feather boa coquettishly around her throat asked him with some vexation not to go crowding other folks out of the places they had got before he came.
A lady effecting her exit from the house, was met by a young man who had just jumped out of a hansom, whom she greeted in accents maternally affectionate.
“So late, Mr. Thorndyke?” she said, in staccato reproach. “It’s almost over now, and Levitsky will play no more. But Anatolia is just about to sing her last. Nothing would tempt me to leave, but that Nita, poor girl, is at home with a bad throat.”
“It’s a success, then?” said (ignoring Nita) the young man, at whom Colin Mackintosh gazed eagerly, seeking to be convinced of his identity with the thief of the Stradivarius.
He was handsome, golden-haired, open-faced, smiling. What a brave nephew for the old neighbor on the attic landing! But Colin did not know his Christian name, and that—
“Ha, Rupert,” said a man, coming out. “Why are you behind time? There’s a new girl playing on the violin that I know will please your fastidious fancy.”
The lady’s trim little brougham now stopping the way, the two young men aided her footman to introduce her goodly bulk within its open door. At this achievement, the group around the awning uttered an “A—a—h!” of satisfaction, and the carriage drove away.
“Any new violinist that is worth the asking you may count upon at my party on Wednesday night,” said Thorndyke, carelessly. “And as I know the young person in question fairly well, I have little doubt of getting her to do what I wish. If you areépris, Clarkson, drop in and I’ll give you a chance at her.”
“All right, old chap, good-by.”
As the two men separated, Colin clenched his fists.
None too soon for Kathleen’s eager ambition had arrived the day of her appearance before an audience that would make or mar her hope ofestablishing herself as a performer, at semi-private concerts.
Punctual to the hour appointed by her patroness, the rusty cab, that in the eyes of the Blairs’ maid servant had conferred style upon their dwelling by pulling up in front of it, had deposited at the Beaumoris portal the young violinist and her mother.
In a wide hall, beneath orange trees ranged against tapestries of great age and fabulous value, they were received by two automata in claret and silver livery, whose mission on gala days it was to forever point out to guests the way toward distant cloak-rooms. The fiddle-case, no less than the hesitating manner of their entry, betraying our ladies to these potentates, they were hurried with scant courtesy upstairs, and bidden to wait in the morning-room until the pleasure of the mistress concerning them should be ascertained.
Kathleen saw the flush on her mother’s cheek at the moment when Molly caught the gleam in her child’s eye.
“Don’t mind, darling.”
“It’s a mistake, of course, dearest,” were spoken simultaneously. Thereupon the two grasped hands for a little reassuring squeeze, and looked around them comforted.
Neither had seen anything comparable to this boudoir, its fantastic furnishings gathered from every quarter of the globe, its floor strewn with skins and rugs soft as velvet, its litter of costly curios, and cushions heaped upon gilded couches. Kathleen, getting up to pace the room with a free, impatient step, paused oftenest before the clusters of long-stemmed roses that hung their royal heads over the rim of tall crystal vases, and the gems of pictures upon the satin background of the walls. Then standing amazed by the writing-table, with its fittings and toys of beaten silver, she whispered, merrily:
“What a contrast to our war-worn old writing things at home. Upon this blotter one could only write invitations to a Vere de Vere.”
She was interrupted by a Frenchwoman, whose entry, with the glib assurance that Madame would see them shortly, conveyed more of comradeship than of respect.
There was a long wait. Kathleen, wearied of her splendid prison, employed her time by falling upon a novel, of whose contents she possessed herself after the rapid fashion of the reader accustomed to absorb new books.
Mrs. Blair took up no volume. In silence she sat thinking of the days when she and Lottie Earl, now the owner of this stately domicile, hadbeen schoolmates and bosom friends. To shut her eyes to the Beaumoris luxury was to conjure up Lottie’s early home in Clinton Place, whither Molly had often repaired by invitation to spend Saturdays. The sad-colored walls hung with dreary landscapes in oil, upon which no eye was ever seen to cast a fleeting glance; the carpet and curtains flowered garishly, the basement dining-room, the little girls exchanging vows of friendship!
A more tender memory was that of the day when Lottie’s mother had died. Was it not Molly for whom they had sent to soothe and console the terrified child? Molly’s faithful breast upon which Lottie that night had sobbed herself to sleep?
The door again opened. This time it was Mrs. Beaumoris in person, attired for the reception of her guests—Mrs. Beaumoris, perplexed, annoyed, an open letter in her hand. It was an easier matter for this lady to recognize fresh, bright-eyed Molly Christian, who, under the impulse of fond retrospect, now sprang up to greet her, than for Molly to identify her old playmate in this faded woman, with the pale hair elaborately crimped, the cold, restless blue eyes—the prim, unsmiling mouth!
Mrs. Blair’s affectionate words died upon herlips. She faltered, blushed, and drew back with a pang at the plain indication that her surprise was as unwelcome as it was ill-timed.
“You—you—are Miss Blair’s mother?” said Mrs. Beaumoris, in tones she could not make other than thin and chill. “Why was I not told of this before?”
“Because—because,” began Molly, and emotion overpowered her, cutting short her speech.
“My mother thought it could naturally make no difference whose child you had hired to play before your guests,” said Kathleen, sweeping grandly into the breach. “But we are quite ready to go away now, if the arrangement does not please you.”
“Of course not,” exclaimed their hostess, recovering herself. “You will excuse me if I am a little upset, when I tell you that not fifteen minutes ago I received this letter from Madame Claudia’s manager, saying the tiresome creature has a cold and can’t sing this afternoon. All I could do was to send off my maid in a cab, offering Claudia’s terms to Anatolia, who’ll come, I’m pretty sure, if for nothing but a chance to supplant Claudia. Anatolia can’t stand being last year’s favorite, and really she sang adorably in Faust last week, when Claudia was ill, don’t you think so—or did you not chance to hearher? If she comes, she’ll be here for the end of the first half of the programme. Your daughter will play just before her—and will no doubt have encores. Levitsky says everything that is nice of you, Miss—er—you have no professional name, I believe?”
“My name is Kathleen Blair,” said the girl, carrying her head high. Into her heart, for the first time in her life, entered the wandering demon of revenge. She longed to be in a position to return impertinence!
Kathleen’s second number upon the programme of Mrs. Beaumoris’s concert left no doubt of her success. Levitsky himself had conducted her before the audience. Madame Anatolia had coquettishly (in view of the audience) presented the girl with her corsage bouquet of violets. As Kathleen retired again into the little room serving as a harbor for the performers, the musical Miss Beaumoris (who kept outsiders from intruding there), looking very sour, asked Miss Blair to allow Mr. Rupert Thorndyke to compliment her upon her achievement.
Kathleen possessed just enough of the spice of Mother Eve to see that this courtesy on the part of Miss Beaumoris had been wrung from her by the newcomer. Madame Anatolia, whom Mr. Thorndyke saluted with an air of cordial intimacy,leaned over and whispered in the young girl’s ear:
“Take care how you enjoy the dangerous delight of his company inthishouse. They consider him their own particular property.”
Molly Blair, standing guard over her beautiful and successful child, could not understand the reckless toss of Kathleen’s head, the defiance of her curled lip.
“That lends zest!” Kathleen answered to Anatolia, who smiled. The prima donna, knowing the world as she did, had no objection to enjoy a small comedy behind the scenes. Nor was she disappointed. Rupert Thorndyke, with an air of entire unconsciousness, refrained from again turning toward the musical Miss Beaumoris. With his handsome head bent over the newly risen star, he exerted all his powers of fascination. He was no longer the cool, indifferent person who had dropped in at the Blair’s little supper. Kathleen, excited, inclined to accept him at his face value as a favored frequenter of the Beaumoris’s house, and finding herself not a little under the spell of his charm of manner and sympathy of taste, enjoyed retaining him. Until the time Mrs. and Miss Blair left the Beaumoris’s house he was in close attendance at their side. And when they parted he had obtained Mrs.Blair’s rather dazzled permission to call upon them the next day.
Thorndyke, meaning to put these ladies in their carriage, was recalled on the portal by the imperious Miss Beaumoris, who had, she said, to consult him about a protégé of hers she desired to launch at his musicale on Wednesday.
“Until to-morrow, then,” said Rupert Thorndyke, regretfully turning back.
“Mother, he is absolutely beautiful!” said Kathleen, with a girl’s ecstasy, as they went down to stand on the sodden carpet waiting for their cab to come up. “I think he must be some prince in disguise, or something! Such a noble air, such aristocratic features! And better than all, mummy dearest, he has confided to me that he gives music parties at his rooms, and we’re asked to the next one, on Wednesday.”
“I suppose it is all right,” said Molly. “Or, of course, the Beaumorises would not be having him.”
“They can’t always get him, as you saw,” said Kathleen, laughing. “I hope it was not wicked to be as glad as I was when I saw their two cross faces while he talked so long to me. But never mind the man, mother. There is a joy still greater in store for me. He says if I’ll play for him on Wednesday, I may handle his Stradivarius!”
The cab that had brought Miss Blair to the scene of her triumphs was not forthcoming. The hoarse calls for it up and down the line were unavailing.
“It’s but a step to the street-car, mother, if we run for it,” cried Kathleen, gayly, peering into the half-darkness at the open side of the awning.
“I will take you home, if you don’t mind,” said a voice out of the crowd, and Colin edged his way toward them!
Colin was cold and out of humor. But he had lingered on, and this was his reward.
“How delightful to see you!” exclaimed his lady-love, heartily, and was indorsed by her mamma. “So strange you should be passing just at this minute! It will be ever so much nicer having you, of course. Now let us run, and jam ourselves into the next car.”
Mrs. Blair being seated with the violin-case on her lap, the two young people stood side by side in the crowded aisle of a Madison Avenue car going downtown. Colin heard from his eager comrade the full account of her exhilarating afternoon. It made him sad, even while his generous heart rejoiced in her rejoicing, to see that she was already embarked with sails filled and pennons flying upon the broad sea thatwould separate them. And he wondered she said nothing about the person whose name excited his keenest curiosity.
Perhaps Kathleen felt guilty of having hailed rather too gladly Mr. Rupert Thorndyke’s distinguished homage. But even Madame Anatolia had told her that his verdict was of importance in the musical world.
“We all bow to him,” had said the good-natured donna; “and he is badly spoiled, of course. Don’t let your feelings get involved, like that poor, ugly Miss Beaumoris. Thorndyke is a mystery—and, I’m afraid,volage!”
Kathleen had laughed! She had no fear for herself.
“And you are to keep on with this kind of thing?” now said Colin, discontentedly.
“Of course!” exclaimed she. “Two ladies have already booked my humble services; although one of themdidsay, in excuse for herself, that anything Mrs. Beaumoris started is sure to run on for a while.”
“I shall never hear you perform,” he went on. “So I’ll try to forget it. If I had my way, I’d carry you off to a cloud-castle and keep you shut in from all these insolent people.”
“But you can’t, Master Colin, so be satisfied,”said she, coloring a little at the fervor he could not exclude from his tones. “And as to hearing me, you shall have an opportunity without delay. Let us see if you are so eager to accept it.”
“I will go wherever you bid me,” he replied, more and more under the charm of her close vicinity.
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
“How one’s eloquence is jolted out of one by this!” she said, as they swung around the curve into the tunnel. “Well, here is your chance. Next week we are invited to a very exclusive musicale. Levitsky’s to be there, and Anatolia—and I’m to play (think of it, Colin!) on a Stradivarius! Wait, don’t interrupt me. We were asked to bring my father, or brother, as our escort, and neither papa, nor Morry can get off, I know. Papa has a club meeting, and Morry’s slaving, day and night, to finish ——’s illustrations. So, if you’ll take us to the party, we’ll be only too much obliged.”
“I will, of course. But tell me—it is a matter of the deepest interest—who is to furnish your Stradivarius?”
“It belongs to the gentleman who is to give the party, and Madame Anatolia says his roomsand collection of musical instruments are ‘things to be seen.’ He is one of the favorites of fortune, and is coming to call on us in form to-morrow—and his name is—Rupert Thorndyke!”
“I thought so,” said Colin, turning pale with excitement, and perhaps a little jealousy.
“What, you, too, know about the wonderful Mr. Thorndyke? Oh! but, of course, I remember, you met him at supper at our house when he brought me those white orchids, and you gave mamma some lilies. Don’t you think his face is like one of the angels in the photograph over papa’s chair in the library? Now, don’t laugh—it is, exactly. Mr. Thorndyke isn’t in the least my idea of a man of fashion. He is almost artless—and his eyes aresoblue. Colin, what in the world is the matter with you?”
“I do know something of your Mr. Rupert Thorndyke,” said the young man, his face darkening. “But I shan’t tell you yet. It is borne in upon me that a better occasion will come. And if you really accept my escort, I shall accompany you with pleasure to this gentleman’s party. A poor outsider, more or less, cannot spoil his harmonious entertainment.”
Kathleen, wondering at all this, reached home, the ladies bidding Colin good-by upontheir doorstep. That evening, when Malvolio dropped in to see Terence Blair, the news of Kathleen’s advance up the ladder of fame was communicated to him.
“Sure and Kathleen’s the boldest little girl,” commented Granny. “It’s my belief she’d have no fear to be called on to play before the President himself.”
“I know little about Rupert Thorndyke,” said Terence; “but there’s no doubt he will have only the best talent in his sling. But you, Malvolio, who know everything—”
“Excepting the reason for Catullus Clarke,” interpolated the art critic.
“—should be able to define for us the place of our new patron in the arts.”
Malvolio shrugged, tossing his snaky locks to one side of his high, white forehead.
“Rupert Thorndyke’s secret will never be fathomed until they dissect him,” he said; “and then in the core of his heart will be found the one word ‘Self.’ He is a monumental egoist, in the guise of a seraph. He is brilliant and treacherous, unstable as water, holding no convictions long enough to make anything he says or does of lasting value. I am certain that he is half-educated, half-baked in all respects. I believe most of his ‘experiences’ of life to beclever adaptations from things other people have done, or told, or printed. But he is vastly good company, and I’d be deuced glad if he were coming to dine with me to-morrow. As to his status, he is apparently well off—has one foot in Bohemia, the other in society—and comes from nobody knows where. Lastly, we are informed that he might marry the oldest Miss Beaumoris, and does not aspire to do so!”
The blushes dyed Kathleen’s cheeks at the confirmation of Colin’s warning.
“Then you think, Mr. Malvolio, our girl had better not be seen at his party?” said Mrs. Blair, anxiously.
“Mydearmadame! On the contrary. I should like amazingly to be seen there myself. It is sure to be a rare treat to eye and ear. The women will be of the highest world only. The men judiciously combined. But I have always had an idea that Thorndyke will some day come a cropper. I feel like that fellow that followed the menagerie around in order to be there the day the lion-tamer should get eaten by the lions. The day the accident occurred was the one he was kept away. I have a conviction I shan’t see Thorndyke’s discomfiture—but I could wish that, to round out my theory of him, the fates might accord to me this privilege.”
Kathleen, who would not have admitted to her mother even, the thrill of excitement she had been in since receiving the first fruits of Thorndyke’s homage, went to bed that night, feeling chastened in her pride. With her last waking thoughts of the irresistible Thorndyke, blended the image of loyal Colin, whom, after consultation with their maid-servant, she now knew to have been waiting outside Mrs. Beaumoris’s awning for her in the falling snow.
Molly Blair, too, following a long talk with her husband, that freed her fond heart of its weight of pride in and anxiety for Kathleen, went to sleep happy. With so many loving souls around her, Terence had said, Kathleen would be well guarded, and such a fine nature as their girl’s was not to be spoiled in an hour or a year by flattery. And Molly’s last thoughts that night were of pity for poor Lottie Beaumoris. The afternoon of sitting out the concert, listening to the chatter of Lottie’s friends, had thrown broad light upon a career the newspapers had made to seem so dazzling. Lottie, weighed down with petty cares, a target for petty malice, was in her fine home not so well off as Molly in her little threadbare house, full to the eaves with ardent workers, living for each other andfor the best that was in them. Kathleen’s début had taught her mother this!
Carefully assuming his recently acquired evening clothes, and taking heed, we may be sure, of the hints dropped by Kathleen on the occasion of his former appearance in this conventional attire, Mr. Colin Mackintosh stood prepared for what to him was to be a great occasion.
Before setting out to the Blairs’ house he went to his neighbor’s door and knocked. He knew that he should find Mr. Thorndyke sitting doubled up over his newspaper, under the gas-jet; but to-night the old man’s face looked more pinched and wan than usual, his breath came shorter, the newspaper lay unread across his knees.
“I’m afraid you’re ill,” said Colin, kindly.
Hardly a day had passed since their first talk that he had not extended to the friendless old fellow some word or look of sympathy; and Thorndyke, although Colin did not know it, had conceived for him in turn an almost paternal tenderness. In the utter loneliness of his life the instrument-maker yearned for something to link him with the world of everyday affection. Colin’s active step upon the stairs had come to be music to his ear—Colin’s greeting a solace eagerly awaited.
“Not ill, my dear boy; only a little down to-night. I begin to feel the climb up these long flights. And so you are going off into some gay scene, where people will be chatting and laughing? I don’t envy you, for it’s getting on to ten o’clock, and after that hour I can hardly keep awake in these days. There’s a long paragraph—nearly half a column—in the paper about an affair that is to occur in my nephew’s rooms to-night. I think I could tell you everybody that’s expected there. There’s a young violinist—a Miss Blair—who has made a hit recently—and some famous professionals. Mr. Mackintosh, I ought to tell you, too, that since I let out that secret that’s corroding me I have felt much ashamed. There was only this excuse for it—a very little drink affects me, and I had already had a glass of beer on my way home. The claret finished me. It did not confuse my brain, but just loosed my tongue. What I told you was true, but it should have gone with me to my grave.”
“You need never fear my making use of it unfairly,” said Colin, pityingly. The meek submission of the man was sadder than his outburst of wrath had been.
“I know I can trust you. I wish it were in my power to do something for you, Mr. Mackintosh.If I die soon, you will have given me the last gleams of pleasure in a disappointed life. I wish I could help you in return.”
“You can to-night,” said Colin; “if you do not mind lending me, for a purpose of my own, the fine scarabeus you showed me. It shall be returned to you without fail to-morrow.”
“Willingly, dear boy, willingly,” said the old man, fumbling in his waistcoat pocket and bringing out the sacred beetle wrapped in a bit of tissue paper. “When I die I should like you to have this to keep, and any other little thing I have. There are a few good books, and—”
“My dear friend, you depress me,” said Colin, taking the scarabeus, and shaking hands with the lender.
“Do I? It never occurs to me to think of my death assad,” said Thorndyke, simply.
“Suppose,” said Colin, abruptly, “you had to wish for the thing that would please you most—what would it be?”
“A sight of my Stradivarius!” exclaimed the instrument-maker, his dull eye kindling with fond hope. “Mr. Mackintosh, something in your face—it can’t be you have heard—no, I’m a madman to dream of it—but it almost looked for a minute as if you have good news.”
“I may be wrong, and I may be disappointed,”said Mackintosh, with an air of quiet conviction, nevertheless. “But I have an idea I’m on the track of your lost treasure. If I succeed in tracing it, I shall be more than glad. If I fail, you will be no worse off than before. Good night. Sleep well, and awake in better heart for the morrow. But before I go,—upon second thoughts,—I wish you would give me a written order for your Stradivarius.”
After Colin left his room old Thorndyke abandoned himself to almost childish glee. Next, for a while, he paced the floor, then, sinking fatigued into his chair, meditated long.
It was twelve o’clock when he started up again, and taking the pencil with which he had scrawled and signed the order Colin desired, wrote some lines upon a paper torn from a memorandum book. Putting these upon the table, old Rupert Thorndyke went peacefully to bed.
At the same moment Rupert Thorndyke the younger was presiding over the entertainment at his rooms, for which fine ladies had been for some time struggling to get cards of invitation. The host’s vogue, grace, and tact had been at no time more conspicuous. The affair, pronounced the best of its kind, was about to pass into the chronicle of jaded pleasure-seekers as an eminent success. The turn of Kathleen, who had played onceupon her own violin, had now come around again upon the programme. Mr. Malvolio—who, after all,wasthere—had just sauntered up to whisper in her ear:
“They say he is going to let you try his Stradivarius. The rest of the women are green with jealousy at this mark of favor. No one has touched it heretofore.”
“If Mrs. Blair will allow her daughter to come with me into the little room where I keep my treasure—” Thorndyke was saying to her mother, who, with Colin behind her, stood guard over her young violinist.
“Certainly. Go with her, Colin, please, and see that her head is not quite turned by these honors,” said the unconscious Molly.
Colin needed no further impetus. In spite of a cloud passing over the face of their handsome host, the stalwart fellow placed himself at Kathleen’s side and accompanied them.
A room of small dimensions, but with solid doors, bolted as well as locked. On the walls, in glass cases with a background of crimson velvet, a small but exquisite assemblage of what might be called the bric-à-brac of musical instruments. Violins were there, but Colin’s eye sought in vain for one bearing the mark of a tiny hand with an outstretched finger.
“What a delightful nook!” cried Kathleen. “How I wish there were time to look over its wonders leisurely.”
“Some day—any day that you so ordain,” said the virtuoso. “I and mine are at your command always.”
Colin, seeing Thorndyke’s face transfigured with delight in the girl’s youth and beauty, raged inwardly. He recalled the value he had heard him put upon all women, Kathleen in particular. Strong as a lion to defend her, it was hard for the young fellow to now contain himself until he had wrought out his plan to avenge the sins of this Rupert Thorndyke against the one he had left in a shabby tenement.
He had no idea how he meant to bring about the conviction of this man’s wrong-doing, or to seek for the restoration of the other’s stolen property. But whatever he did, Colin meant that it should be short, sharp, and decisive!
At last chance favored him. His heart beat hard as he followed Kathleen and Thorndyke from object to object of the priceless array.
“I fear we should not keep all those people waiting for us longer—” said the host finally.
“And I am palpitating with impatience to see your chief treasure,” cried Kathleen.
“I have made a little shrine for it,” went onThorndyke, stooping to unlock a cupboard in the wall. A second inner door of polished mahogany yielded to a key carried on the owner’s person. Within an air-tight receptacle lay a violin-case, covered with rare leather fantastically wrought in gold.
“Take and open it,” said Thorndyke, conveying this to a nest in Kathleen’s soft bare arms. “You are the first woman that I have entrusted with my beauty.”
“My beauty!” Old Thorndyke’s very phrase! Colin, the blood rushing to his brain with excitement and indignation, looked on eagerly as the instrument was taken from its case. There, in the exact spot indicated by its rightful owner, was a tiny shadow in the wood resembling a hand with an outstretched finger!
“The desire of my life is accomplished,” said Kathleen, lifting the violin to her shoulder and letting the bow glide over the strings.
The sound that answered was like the wail of a reproach.
“It has been waiting all this time for you!” said Thorndyke, with tender emphasis, regardless of their hearer. He, like Kathleen, seemed to be under a sort of spell.
“Since when, may I ask?” interrupted Colin, quietly.
Thorndyke turned and looked at him in cold distaste.
“Since the creation of the instrument, no doubt. Certainly since it came to me by inheritance.”
“By inheritance?” said the younger man, with deliberate doubt in his intonation. “I think, Mr. Thorndyke, that your uncle, who bears the same name as yourself, would give a different version of the way you acquired this costly possession.”
Thorndyke started violently.
“Do you mean to insult me?” he said in almost a whisper, guilt written in his face.
Kathleen, spell-bound by Colin’s stern looks, held the violin breathlessly.
“I mean, Mr. Thorndyke, to make absolutely no fuss in this very unpleasant matter. But I mean also to make it perfectly plain to you that I know all about this Stradivarius with the mark of a hand pointing. I am informed when and how it was taken out of your uncle Thorndyke’s trunk in his boarding-house. And if you will give it up to him quietly, I shall not say another word to any one concerning it.”
“An ingenious method to possess yourself of a valuable piece of property,” sneered Thorndyke, now livid with fear and rage.
“I have this to offer in exchange,” said Colin, controlling himself perfectly, as he took out the scarabeus and held it, together with the old man’s written order for the violin, for the inspection of the thief.
“My dear Colin,” exclaimed Kathleen, greatly distressed and mortified at the scene. “You must take me back to my mother. I insist—”
“Just as soon as Mr. Thorndyke gives a definite answer to my proposition,” said Colin, fearlessly.
Thorndyke breathed hard. His eyes flashed with a vengeful luster. He tried to speak, and could not. Then, looking furtively about the room, and seeming to grow smaller in the action, he took the Stradivarius from Kathleen, put it in an old and shabby case, and replacing the empty ornamental cover in the secret chamber, shut and locked this receptacle with elaboration. With a supreme effort, he recovered his usual manner.
“You will give this to my uncle, with my compliments,” he said lightly, putting the precious violin in Colin’s hands and reclaiming the scarabeus. “And you might say from me, that although I know the old boy is as mad as a March hare, I don’t like to thwart his dear old fancy. I was about indeed, to inform him,through my lawyer, that a sum of money coming out of an old investment of his and my father’s, has been divided, and his share placed to his credit in the —— bank. A thousand a year only, but enough to keep him in comfort in the lunatic asylum, where I feel sure he will bring up.”
Kathleen, although he had avoided and ignored her in the matter, had not waited for this ending. With crimson cheeks and in great agitation, she had slipped out to rejoin her mother. A few moments later heard their host, standing before his guests, offer a graceful explanation that the condition of his Stradivarius would prevent Miss Blair from to-night awakening its hidden melodies.
Colin, clasping the recovered treasure like the anchor of hope, was in the lobby awaiting the ladies when they presently hurried out. On the drive home he told them in simple but eloquent language the full history of his old neighbor and the stolen violin.
When he had finished, Molly was crying quietly. Kathleen’s eyes flashed upon him such approval as he had never seen in them before.
“I couldloveyou for what you’ve done for that poor old man, Colin,” she cried, with Irish impulse, and stopped, blushing. “But I don’tunderstand why Thorndyke made such a poor fight.”
“It was ‘coward conscience,’” said Colin. “For if I read him right, he would cut off his right hand to avoid exposure or fiasco before such people as were there to-night.”
“I could love you,” rang joyously in Colin’s ears as he ran up his own steps, carrying the violin. When he reached Thorndyke’s room, late as it was, he could not resist trying to get speech with his friend. His light tap bringing no answer, he opened the door and went in. The light over the transom showed him the old man lying in his bed. Leaving the Stradivarius upon the table, Colin stole away.
The next day the people of the house found the old instrument-maker sitting in his chair, a happy smile upon his face, the violin clasped in his arms. He had been dead some hours, and on his table lay a penciled will, bequeathing all that he died possessed of, “without reserve,” to his “beloved young friend, John Walter Mackintosh.”
Thus, in due time, and to the enormous surprise of everybody concerned, Kathleen came into possession, not only of her coveted Stradivarius,but of a husband, with an income small but growing and sufficient to enable him to withdraw his wife from public appearance as a paid performer. Upon the authority of Mr. Rupert Thorndyke, who lives and flourishes like the green bay-tree, this is said to be a serious loss to the world of music, but Kathleen does not mind.
Malvolio still thinks the fall of Rupert Thorndyke is to come!
WANTED: A CHAPERON