"Don't let us be too serious all at once," she begged quickly. "If you have one fault, my dear big friend from the country," she went on, with a swiftly assumed gaiety, "it is that you are too serious for your years. Sophy and I between us must try to cure you of that! You see, we have arrived."
He handed her out, followed her across the pavement,and found himself plunged into what seemed to him to be an absolute vortex of human beings, all dressed in very much the same fashion, all laughing and talking together very much in the same note, all criticising every fresh group of arrivals with very much the same eyes and manner. The palm-court was crowded with little parties seated at the various round tables, partaking languidly of the most indolent meal of the day. Even the broad passageway was full of men and women, standing about talking or looking for tables. One could scarcely hear the music of the orchestra for the babel of voices.
The Prince of Seyre beckoned to them from the steps. He seemed to have been awaiting their arrival there—a cold, immaculate, and, considering his lack of height, a curiously distinguished-looking figure.
"I have a table inside," he told them as they approached. "It is better for conversation. The rest of the place is like a beer-garden. I am not sure if they will dance here to-day, but if they do, they will come also into the restaurant."
"Wise man!" Louise declared. "I, too, hate the babel outside."
They were ushered to a round table directly before the entrance, and a couple of attentive waiters stood behind their chairs.
"We are faced," said the prince, as he took up the menu, "with our daily problem. What can I order for you?"
"A cup of chocolate," Louise replied.
"And Miss Sophy?"
"Tea, please."
John, too, preferred tea; the prince ordered absinth.
"A polyglot meal, isn't it, Mr. Strangewey?" saidLouise, as the order was executed; "not in the least; what that wonderful old butler of yours would understand by tea. We become depraved in our appetites, as well as in our sensations. We are always seeking for something new. Sophy, put your hat on straight if you want to make a good impression on Mr. Strangewey. I am hoping that you two will be great friends."
Sophy turned toward John with a little grimace.
"Louise is so tactless!" she said. "I am sure any idea you might have had of liking me will have gone already. Has it, Mr. Strangewey?"
"On the contrary," he replied, a little stiffly, but without hesitation, "I was thinking that Miss Maurel could scarcely have set me a more pleasant task."
The girl looked reproachfully across at her friend.
"You told me he came from the wilds and was quite unsophisticated!" she exclaimed.
"The truth," John assured them, looking with dismay at his little china cup, "comes very easily to us. We are brought up on it in Cumberland."
"Positively nourished on it," Louise agreed. "My dear Sophy, what he says is quite true. Up there a man would tell you that he didn't like the cut of your new blouse or the droop of your hat. It's a wonderful atmosphere, and very austere. You ought to meet Mr. Strangewey's brother, if you want to know the truth about yourself. Do go on looking about you, Mr. Strangewey; and when you have finished, tell us just what you are thinking."
"Well, just at that moment," he replied, "I was thinking that I ought not to have come here in these clothes."
The girl by his side laughed reassuringly.
"As a matter of fact, you couldn't have done anythingmore successful," she declared. "The one thing up here that every one would like to do if he dared is to be different from his fellows; but very few have the necessary courage. Besides, at heart we are all so frightfully, hatefully imitative. The last great success was the prince, when he wore a black stock with a dinner-coat; but, alas, next evening there were forty or fifty of them! If you come here to tea to-morrow afternoon, I dare say you will find dozens of men wearing gray tweed clothes, colored shirts, and brown boots. I am sure they are most becoming!"
"Don't chatter too much, child," Louise said benignly. "I want to hear some more of Mr. Strangewey's impressions. This is—well, if not quite a fashionable crowd, yet very nearly so. What do you think of it—the women, for instance?"
"Well, to me," John confessed candidly, "they all look like dolls or manikins. Their dresses and their hats overshadow their faces. They seem all the time to be wanting to show, not themselves, but what they have on."
They all laughed. Even the prince's lips were parted by the flicker of a smile. Sophy leaned across the table with a sigh.
"Louise," she pleaded, "you will lend him to me sometimes, won't you? You won't keep him altogether to yourself? There are such a lot of places I want to take him to!"
"I was never greedy," Louise remarked, with an air of self-satisfaction. "If you succeed in making a favorable impression upon him, I promise you your share."
"Tell us some more of your impressions, Mr. Strangewey," Sophy begged.
"You want to laugh at me," John protested good-humoredly.
"On the contrary," the prince assured him, as he fitted a cigarette into a long, amber tube, "they want to laugh with you. You ought to realize your value as a companion in these days. You are the only person who can see the truth. Eyes and tastes blurred with custom perceive so little. You are quite right when you say that these women are like manikins; that their bodies and faces are lost; but one does not notice it until it is pointed out."
"We will revert," Louise decided, "to a more primitive life. You and I will inaugurate a missionary enterprise, Mr. Strangewey. We will judge the world afresh. We will reclothe and rehabilitate it."
The prince flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette.
"Morally as well as sartorially?" he asked.
There was a moment's rather queer silence. The music rose above the hubbub of voices and died away again. Louise rose to her feet.
"Quite an intelligent person, really," she said, moving her head in the direction of the prince. "His little attacks of cynicism come only with indigestion or after absinth. Now, if you like, you shall escort me home, Mr. Strangewey. I want to show him exactly where I live," she explained, addressing the others, "so that he will have no excuse for not coming to pay his respects to me to-morrow afternoon."
The prince, with a skilful maneuver, made his way to her side as they left the restaurant.
"To-morrow afternoon, I think you said?" he repeated quietly. "You will be in town then?"
"Yes, I think so."
"You have changed your mind, then, about—"
"M. Graillot will not listen to my leaving London," she interrupted rapidly. "He declares that it is too near the production of the play. My own part may be perfect, but he needs me for the sake of the others. He puts it like a Frenchman, of course."
They had reached the outer door, which was being held open for them by a bowing commissionnaire. John and Sophy were waiting upon the pavement. The prince drew a little back.
"I understand!" he murmured.
The first few minutes that John spent in Louise's little house were full of acute and vivid interest. From the moment of his first meeting with Louise upon the moonlit Cumberland road, during the whole of that next wonderful morning until their parting, and afterward, through all the long, dreaming days and nights that had intervened, she had remained a mystery to him. It was amazing how little he really knew of her. During his journey to town, he had sat with folded arms in the corner of his compartment, wondering whether in her own environment he would find her easier to understand.
He asked himself that question again now, as he found himself in her drawing-room, in a room entirely redolent of her personality. Their meeting at the theater had told him nothing. She had gratified his sentiment by the pleasure she had shown at his unexpected appearance, but his understanding remained unsatisfied.
The room that he was so eagerly studying confirmed his cloudy impressions of its owner. There was, for a woman's apartment, a curious absence of ornamentation and knickknacks. The walls were black and white, an idea fantastic in its way, yet carried out with extreme lightness in the ceiling and frieze. The carpet was white; the furniture, of which there was very little, of the French period before the rococo type, graceful in its outline, rather heavy in build, and covered withold-rose colored chintz. There were water-colors upon the wall, an etching or two from a Parisian studio, and some small black-and-white fantasies, puzzling to John, who had never even heard the term Futurist, yet in their way satisfactory.
There was a small-sized grand piano, which seemed to have found its way almost apologetically into a remote corner; a delightful open fireplace with rough, white tiles, and an old-fashioned brass box, in which was piled a little heap of sweet-smelling wood blocks. A table, drawn up to the side of one of the easy chairs, was covered with books and magazines, some Italian, a few English, the greater part French; and upon a smaller one, close at hand, stood a white bowl full of pink roses. Their odor was somehow reminiscent of Louise, curiously sweet and wholesome—an odor which suddenly took him back to the morning when she had come to him from under the canopy of apple-blossom.
He drew a little sigh of contentment as he rose to his feet and walked to the window. The room charmed him. It was wonderful that he should find it like this. His heart began to beat with pleasure even before the opening of the door announced her presence. She came in with Sophy, who at once seated herself by his side.
"We have been making plans," Louise declared, "for disposing of you for the rest of the day."
John smiled happily.
"You're not sending me away, then? You're not acting this evening?"
"Not until three weeks next Monday," she replied. "Then, if you are good, and the production is not postponed, you may seat yourself in a box and make all the noise you like after the fall of the curtain. These arereal holidays for me, except for the nuisance of rehearsals. You couldn't have come at a better time."
Sophy glanced at the clock.
"Well," she said, "I must show my respect to that most ancient of adages by taking my departure. I feel—"
"You will do nothing of the sort, child," Louise interrupted. "I want to interest you in the evolution of Mr. Strangewey."
"I don't feel that I am necessary," Sophy sighed. "Perhaps I might take him off your hands some evening when you are busy."
"On this first evening, at any rate," Louise insisted, "we are going to be a truly harmonious party of three."
"Of course, if you really mean it," Sophy remarked, resuming her seat, "and if I sha'n't make an enemy for life of Mr. Strangewey, I should love to come, too. Let's decide what to do with him, Louise."
For a moment the eyes of the two others met. Louise looked swiftly away, and John's heart gave a little leap. Was it possible that the same thought had been in her mind—to spend the evening quietly in that little room? Had she feared it?
"We must remember," Louise said calmly, "that a heavy responsibility rests upon us. It is his first night in London. What aspect of it shall we attempt to show him? Shall we make ourselves resplendent, put on our best manners and our most gorgeous gowns, and show him the world of starch and form and fashion from the prince's box at the opera? Or shall we transform ourselves into Bohemians, drink Chianti at our beloved Antonio's, eat Italian food in Soho, smoke long cigarettes, and take him to the Palace? Don't say a word, Sophy. It is not for us to choose."
"I am afraid that isn't any choice," John declared, his face falling. "I haven't any clothes except what you see me in."
"Hooray!" Sophy exclaimed. "Off with your smart gown, Louise! We'll be splendidly Bohemian. You shall put on your black frock and a black hat, and powder your nose, and we'll all go to Guido's first and drink vermuth. I can't look the part, but I can act it!"
"But tell me," Louise asked him, "did you lose your luggage?"
"I brought none," he answered.
They both looked at him—Sophy politely curious, Louise more deeply interested. He answered the inquiry in her eyes.
"You'll say, perhaps," he observed, "that living that quiet, half-buried life up in Cumberland one should have no moods. I have them sometimes. I was in Market Ketton, on my way to the hotel for lunch, when I heard the whistle of the London Express coming in. I just had time to drive to the station, leave the horse and dog-cart with a man I knew, and jump into the train. I had no ticket or luggage."
They both stared at him.
"You mean," Louise demanded, "that after waiting all these months you started away upon impulse like that—without even letting your brother know or bringing any luggage?"
"That's exactly what I did," John agreed, smiling. "I had a sovereign in my pocket when I had bought my ticket; and by the time I had paid for my dinner on the train, and tipped the men—well, I hadn't a great deal left to go shopping with. I stayed at the St. Pancras Hotel, and telephoned to my solicitor before I got upthis morning to have him send me some money. The joke of it was," he went on, joining in the girls' laughter, "that Mr. Appleton has been worrying me for months to come up and talk over reinvestments, and take control of the money my uncle left me; and when I came at last, I arrived like a pauper. He went out himself and bought my shirt."
"And a very nice shirt, too," Sophy declared, glancing at the pattern. "Do tell us what else happened!"
"Well, not much more," John replied. "Mr. Appleton stuffed me full of money and made me take a little suite of rooms at what he called a more fashionable hotel. He stayed to lunch with me, and I have promised to see him on business to-morrow morning."
The two girls sat up and wiped their eyes.
"Oh, this is a wonderful adventure you have embarked upon!" Louise exclaimed. "You have come quite in the right spirit. Now I am going to change my clothes and powder my face, and we will go to Guido's for a little vermuth, dine at Antonio's, and sit side by side at the Palace. We shall have to take Sophy with us, but if you show her too much attention I shall send her home. It is your first night here, Mr. Strangewey, so I warn you that Sophy is the most irresponsible and capricious of all my friends. She has more admirers than she knows what to do with, and she disposes of them in the simplest way in the world—by getting new ones."
Sophy made a grimace.
"Mr. Strangewey," she begged earnestly, "you won't believe a word she says, will you? All my life I have been looking for a single and steadfast attachment. Of course, if Louise wants to monopolize you, I shallfall into the background, as I usually do; but if you think that I am going to accept hints and let you go out to dinner alone, you are very much mistaken. To-night, at any rate, I insist upon coming!"
Louise shook her head.
"We shall have to put up with her," she told John with a little grimace.
The door of the room was suddenly opened. The parlor maid stood at one side.
"The Prince of Seyre, madam," she announced.
Louise nodded. She was evidently expecting the visit. She turned to John.
"Will you come back and call for us here—say at seven o'clock? Mind, you are not to bother about your clothes, but to come just as you are. I can't tell you," she added under her breath, "how much I am looking forward to our evening!"
Sophy sprang to her feet.
"Won't you drop me, please, Mr. Strangewey?" she asked. "Then, if you will be so kind, you can pick me up again on your way here. You'll have to pass where I live, if you are at the Milan. I must go home and do my little best to compete."
Louise's frown was so slight that even John failed to notice it. Upon the threshold they encountered the prince, who detained John for a moment.
"I was hoping that I might meet you here, Mr. Strangewey," he said. "If you are in town for long, it will give me great pleasure if I can be of any service to you. You are staying at a hotel?"
"I am staying at the Milan," John replied.
"I will do myself the pleasure of calling upon you," the prince continued. "In the meantime, if you need any service that a Londoner can offer you, be sure to letme know. You will easily find my house in Grosvenor Square."
"It is very kind of you indeed," John said gratefully.
Sophy made a wry face as the prince entered the drawing-room.
"Didn't some old Roman once write something about being afraid of Greeks who brought gifts?" she asked, as they descended the stairs together.
"Quite right," John assented.
"Well, be careful!" she advised him. "That's all."
John handed Sophy into the taxi and took his place beside her.
"Where shall I put you down?" he asked.
"It's such a terribly low neighborhood! However, it's quite close to the Milan—No. 10 Southampton Street."
John gave the address to the man, and they started off. They were blocked in a stream of traffic almost as soon as they reached Hyde Park Corner. John leaned forward all the time, immensely interested in the stream of passers-by.
"Your interest in your fellow creatures," she murmured demurely, "is wonderful, but couldn't you concentrate it just a little?"
He turned quickly around. She was smiling at him most alluringly. Unconsciously he found himself smiling back again. A wonderful light-heartedness seemed to have come to him during the last few hours.
"I suppose I am a perfect idiot," he admitted. "I cannot help it. I am used to seeing, at the most, three or four people together at a time. I can't understand these crowds. Where are they all going? Fancyevery one of them having a home, every one of them struggling in some form or another toward happiness!"
"Do you know," she pronounced severely, "for a young man of your age you are much too serious? Please commence your psychological studies to-morrow. To-night we are going to have a really frivolous evening, you and I—and Louise. If you want to be a great success during the next few hours, what you have to do is to imagine that there are only two people in the world beside yourself—Louise and I."
"I think I shall find that very easy," he promised, smiling.
"I am quite sure you could be nice if you wanted to," she continued. "How much are you in love with Louise?"
"How much am I what?"
"In love with Louise," she repeated. "All the men are. It is a perfect cult with them. And here am I, her humble companion and friend, absolutely neglected!"
"I don't believe you are neglected at all," he replied. "You are too much too—"
He turned his head to look at her. She was so close to him that their hats collided. He was profuse in his apologies.
"Too what?" she whispered.
"Too attractive," he ventured.
"It's nice to hear you say so," she sighed. "Well, I have to get out here. This is where I live, up on the fourth floor."
"How does one get there?" he inquired.
She looked at him quickly. There was a little catch in her breath.
"What do you mean?" she murmured.
"Didn't you say that I was to come and fetch you, and then we could go on to Miss Maurel's together?"
"Of course," she assented slowly. "How stupid of me! Some day I'll show you, but I know you would lose the way now. If you like, I'll come for you—to the Milan."
"If you would really prefer it?"
"I am quite sure that I should," she decided. "There are about seven turns up to my room, and I shall have to personally conduct you there three or four times before you'll ever be able to find your way. I will come as soon as I am ready, and then you can give me a cocktail before we set out."
She disappeared with a little wave of the hand, and John drove on to his destination. His rooms at the Milan were immensely comfortable and in their way quite homelike. John made some small changes to his toilet and was still in his shirt-sleeves, with hair-brushes in his hands, when there came a ring at the bell. He answered it at once and found Sophy standing outside. He gave a little start.
"I say, I'm awfully sorry!"
"What for, you silly person?" she laughed. "Which way is the sitting room, please? Oh, I see! Now, please ring for the waiter and order me a vermuth cocktail, and one for yourself, of course; and I want some cigarettes. How clever of you to get rooms looking out upon the Embankment! I wish they would light the lamps. I think the illuminated arcs along the Embankment and past the Houses of Parliament is the most wonderful thing in London. Don't please, look so terrified because you haven't got your coat on! Remember that I have five brothers."
"I had no idea you would be here so soon," he explained, "or I would have been downstairs, waiting for you."
"Don't be stupid!" she replied. "Please remember that when you are with me, at any rate, you are in Bohemia and not Belgravia. I don't expect such attentions. I rather like coming up to your rooms like this, and I always love the Milan. I really believe that I am your first lady visitor here."
"You most assuredly are!" he told her.
She turned away from the window and suddenly threw up her arms.
"Oh, I love this place!" she exclaimed. "I love the sort of evening that we are going to have! I feel happy to-night. And do you know?—I quite like you, Mr. Strangewey!"
She clasped the back of her chair and from behind it looked across at him. She was petite and slender, with a very dainty figure. She wore a black tailor-made costume, a simple, round-black hat with a long quill set at a provoking angle, white-silk stockings, and black, patent shoes. She was unlike any girl John had ever known. Her hair was almost golden, her eyes a distinct blue, yet some trick of the mouth saved her face from any suggestion of insipidity. She was looking straight into his eyes, and her lips were curled most invitingly.
"I wish I knew more about certain things," he said.
She came round from behind the chair and stood a little nearer to him.
"What things?"
"You know," he said, "I am afraid there is no doubt about it that I am most horribly in love with another woman. I have come to London because of her. Itseems to me that everything in life depends upon how she treats me. And yet—"
"And yet what?" she asked, looking up at him a little wistfully.
"I feel that I want to kiss you," he confessed.
"Well, if you don't get it done before the waiter brings in those cocktails, I shall scream!"
He took her lightly in his arms for a moment and kissed her. Then she threw herself down in the easy chair and began to laugh softly.
"Oh, why didn't you come before?" she exclaimed. "Fancy Louise never telling me about you!"
The waiter entered a few minutes later. He drew up a small round table between them, placed the two wineglasses upon it, and departed expeditiously. John took one of the glasses over to Sophy. She accepted it and gave him her fingers to kiss.
"Dear man," she sighed, "I am getting much too fond of you! Go and sit in your corner, drink your cocktail, and remember Louise. I love your rooms, and I hope you'll ask me to lunch some time."
"I'll have a luncheon party to-morrow, if you like—that is, if Louise will come."
She looked up at him quickly.
"Isn't Louise going to Paris?" she asked.
He set down the glass which he had been in the act of raising to his lips.
"Paris? I didn't hear her say anything about it."
"Perhaps it is my mistake, then," Sophy went on hastily. "I only fancied that I heard her say so."
There was a moment's silence. John had opened his lips to ask a question, but quickly closed them again. It was a question, he suddenly decided, which he had better ask of Louise herself.
"If she does go, I shall be very sorry," he said; "but I do not wish, of course, to upset her plans. We must talk to her about it to-night. I suppose we ought to go now."
Sophy walked with him to the door and waited while he took his hat and gloves from the hat-stand. Suddenly she laid her hand upon his arm.
"If Louise goes to Paris," she whispered disconsolately, "I suppose there will be no luncheon-party?"
For a single moment he hesitated. She was very alluring, and the challenge in her eyes was unmistakable.
"I think," he said quietly, "that if Miss Maurel goes to Paris, I shall return to Cumberland to-morrow."
He opened the door, and Sophy passed out before him. She had dropped her veil.
They drove down the Strand toward Knightsbridge. For a time there was a significant silence. Then Sophy raised her veil once more and looked toward John.
"Mr. Strangewey," she began, "you won't mind if I give you just a little word of advice? You are such a big, strong person, but you are rather a child, you know, in some things."
"This place does make me feel ignorant," he admitted.
"Don't idealize any one here," she begged. "Don't concentrate all your hopes upon one object. Love is wonderful and life is wonderful, but there is only one life, and there are many loves before one reaches the end. People do such silly things sometimes," she wound up, "just because of a little disappointment. There are many disappointments to be met with here."
He took her hand in his.
"Little girl," he said, "you are very good to me, andI think you understand. Are you going to let me feel that I have found a friend on my first evening in London?"
"If you want me," she answered simply. "I like you, and I want you to be happy here; and because I want you to be happy, I want you to come down from the clouds and remember that you have left your hills behind and that we walk on the pavements here."
"Thank you," he whispered, "and thank you for what you have not said. If I am to find sorrow here instead of joy," he added, a little grimly, "it is better for me to stumble into the knowledge of it by myself."
"Your hills have taught you just that much of life, then?" Sophy murmured.
The Prince of Seyre handed his hat and stick to the parlor maid and seated himself upon the divan.
"I should be very sorry," he said politely, as the maid left the room, "if my coming has hastened the departure of your visitors."
"Not in the least," Louise assured him. "They were leaving when you were announced. Sophy and I are taking Mr. Strangewey to a Bohemian restaurant and a music-hall afterward."
"Fortunate Mr. Strangewey!" the prince sighed. "But, forgive me, why not a more dignified form of entertainment for his first evening?"
"The poor man has no clothes," Louise explained. "He came to London quite unexpectedly."
"No clothes?" the prince repeated. "It is a long journey to take in such a fashion. A matter of urgent business, perhaps?"
Louise shrugged her shoulders. She had risen to her feet and was busy rearranging some roses in the bowl by her side.
"Mr. Strangewey has just come into a large fortune, as you know," she said. "Probably there are many things to be attended to."
The prince made no further comment. He drew a tortoise-shell-and-gold cigarette-case from his pocket.
"It is permitted that one smokes?" he inquired.
"It is always permitted to you," was the gracious reply.
"One of my privileges," he remarked, as he blew out the match; "in fact, almost my only privilege."
She glanced up, but her eyes fell before his.
"Is that quite fair?"
"I should be grieved to do anything or to say anything to you that was not entirely fair."
She crushed one of the roses to pieces suddenly in her hands and shook the petals from her long, nervous fingers.
"To-day," she said, "this afternoon—now—you have come to me with something in your mind, something you wish to say, something you are not sure how to say. That is, you see, what Henri Graillot calls my intuition. Even you, who keep all your feelings under a mask, can conceal very little from me."
"My present feelings," the prince declared, "I do not wish to conceal. I would like you to know them. But as words are sometimes clumsy, I would like, if it were possible, to let you see into my heart, or, in these days, shall I not say my consciousness? I should feel, then, that without fear of misunderstanding you would know certain things which I would like you to know."
She came over and seated herself by his side on the divan. She even laid her hand upon his arm.
"Eugène," she expostulated, "we are too old friends to talk always in veiled phrases. There is something you have to say to me. I am listening."
"You know what it is," he told her.
"You are displeased because I have changed my mind about that little journey of ours?"
"I am bitterly disappointed," he admitted.
She looked at him curiously and then down at her rose-stained fingers.
"That does not sound quite like you," she said. "And yet I ought to know that sometimes you do feel things, even though you show it so little. I am sorry, Eugène."
"Why are you sorry?"
"Because I feel that I cannot take that journey."
"You mean that you cannot now, or that you cannot at any time?"
"I do not know," she answered. "You ask me more than I can tell you. Sometimes life seems so stable, a thing one can make a little chart of and hang up on the wall, and put one's finger here and there—'To-day I will do this, to-morrow I will feel that'—and the next morning comes and the chart is in the fire. I wish I understood myself a little better, Eugène!"
"Self-understanding is the rarest of all gifts," the prince remarked. "It is left for those who love us to understand us."
"And you?"
"I believe that I understand you better, far better, than you understand yourself," he declared. "That is why I also believe that I am necessary to you. I can prevent your making mistakes."
"Then prevent me," she begged. "Something has happened, and the chart is in the fire to-day."
"You have only," he said, "to give your maid her orders, to give me this little hand, and I will draw out a fresh one which shall direct to the place in life which is best for you. It is not too late."
She rose from beside him and walked toward the fireplace, as if to touch the bell. He watched her with steady eyes but expressionless face. There was something curious about her walk. The spring had gone from her feet, her shoulders were a little hunched. Itwas the walk of a woman who goes toward the things she fears.
"Stop!" he bade her.
She turned and faced him, quickly, almost eagerly. There was a look in her face of the prisoner who finds respite.
"Leave the bell alone," he directed. "My own plans are changed. I do not wish to leave London this week."
Her face was suddenly brilliant, her eyes shone. Something electric seemed to quiver through her frame. She almost danced back to her place by his side.
"How foolish!" she murmured. "Why didn't you say so at once?"
"Because," he replied, "they have only been changed during the last few seconds. I wanted to discover something which I have discovered."
"To discover something?"
"That my time has not yet come."
She turned away from him. She was oppressed with a sense almost of fear, a feeling that he was able to read the very thoughts forming in her brain; to understand, as no one else in the world could understand, the things that lived in her heart.
"I must not keep you," he remarked, glancing at the clock. "It was very late for me to call, and you will be wanting to join your friends."
"They are coming here for me," she explained. "There is really no hurry at all. We are not changing anything. It is to be quite a simple evening. Sometimes I wish that you cared about things of that sort, Eugène."
He blew through his lips a little cloud of smoke from the cigarette which he had just lit.
"I do not fancy," he replied, "that I should be much of a success as a fourth in your little expedition."
"But it is silly of you not to visit Bohemia occasionally," she declared, ignoring the meaning that lay beneath his words. "It is refreshing to rub shoulders with people who feel, and who show freely what they feel; to eat their food, drink their wine, even join in their pleasures."
The prince shook his head.
"I am not of the people," he said, "and I have no sympathy with them. I detest thebourgeoisieof every country in the world—my own more particularly."
"If you only knew how strangely that sounds!" she murmured.
"Does it?" he answered. "You should read my family history, read of the men and women of my race who were butchered at the hands of that drunken, lustful mob whom lying historians have glorified. I am one of those who do not forget injuries. My estates are administered more severely than any others in France. No penny of my money has ever been spent in charity. I neither forget nor forgive."
She laughed a little nervously.
"What an unsympathetic person you can be, Eugène!"
"And for that very reason," he replied, "I can be sympathetic. Because I hate some people, I have the power of loving others. Because it pleases me to deal severely with my enemies, it gives me joy to deal generously with my friends. That is my conception of life. May I wish you a pleasant evening?"
"You are going now?" she asked, a little surprised.
He smiled faintly as he raised her fingers to his lips.She had made a little movement toward him, but he took no advantage of it.
"I am going now."
"When shall I see you again?" she inquired, as she came back from ringing the bell.
"A telephone-message from your maid, a line written with your own fingers," he said, "will bring me to you within a few minutes. If I hear nothing, I may come uninvited, but it will be when the fancy takes me. Once more, Louise, a pleasant evening!"
He passed out of the door, which the parlor maid was holding open for him. Crossing to the window, Louise watched him leave the house and enter his waiting automobile. He gave no sign of haste or disappointment. He lit another cigarette deliberately upon the pavement and gave his orders to the chauffeur with some care.
As the car drove off without his having once glanced up at the window, she shivered a little. There was a silence which, it seemed to her, could be more minatory even than accusation.
The little room was gaudily decorated and redolent with the lingering odors of many dinners. Yet Louise, who had dined on the preceding evening at the Ritz and been bored, whose taste in food and environment was almost hypercritical, was perfectly happy. She found the cuisine and the Chianti excellent.
"We are outstaying every one else," she declared; "and I don't even mind their awful legacy of tobacco-smoke. Do you see that the waiter has brought you the bill, Mr. Strangewey? Prepare for a shock. It is fortunate that you are a millionaire!"
John laughed as he paid the bill and ludicrously overtipped the waiter.
"London must be a paradise to the poor man!" he exclaimed. "I have never dined better."
"Don't overdo it," Sophy begged.
"I can only judge by results," John insisted. "I have dined, and I am happy; therefore, the dinner must have been good."
"You are so convincing!" Sophy murmured. "There is such a finality about your statements that I would not venture to dispute them. But remember that your future entertainment is in the hands of two women, one of whom is a deserving but struggling young artist without the means of gratifying her expensive tastes. There are heaps of places we are going to take you to which even Louise pretends she cannot afford. It is so fortunate, Mr. Strangewey, that you are rich!"
"I believe you would be just as nice to me if I weren't," John ventured.
"I am so susceptible!" Sophy sighed, looking into her empty coffee-cup; "much more susceptible than Louise."
"I won't have Mr. Strangewey spoiled," Louise put in. "And don't build too much upon his being content with us as entertainers-in-chief. Remember the halfpenny papers. In a few days he will be interviewed—'Millionaire Farmer Come to London to Spend His Fortune.' He will become famous. He will buy a green morocco engagement-book, and perhaps employ a secretary. We shall probably have to ask ourselves to luncheon three weeks ahead."
"I feel these things coming," John declared.
"My children," said Louise, rising, "we must remember that we are going to the Palace. It is quite time we started."
They made their way down two flights of narrow stairs into the street. The commissionnaire raised his whistle to his lips, but Louise stopped him.
"We will walk," she suggested. "This way, Mr. Strangewey!"
They passed down the long, narrow street, with its dingy foreign cafés and shops scarcely one of which seemed to be English. The people who thronged the pavements were of a new race to John, swarthy, a little furtive, a class of foreigner seldom seen except in alien lands. Men and women in all stages of dishabille were leaning out of the windows or standing on the doorsteps. The girls whom they met occasionally—young women of all ages, walking arm in arm, with shawls on their heads in place of hats—laughed openly in John's face.
"Conquests everywhere he goes!" Louise sighed. "We shall never keep him, Sophy!"
"We have him for this evening, at any rate," Sophy replied contentedly; "and he hasn't spent all his fortune yet. I am not at all sure that I shall not hint at supper when we come out of the Palace."
"No hint will be necessary," John promised. "I feel the gnawings of hunger already."
"A millionaire's first night in London!" Sophy exclaimed. "I think I shall write it up for theDaily Mail."
"A pity he fell into bad hands so quickly," Louise laughed. "Here we are! Stalls, please, Mr. Millionaire. I wouldn't be seen to-night in the seats of the mighty."
John risked a reproof, however, and was fortunate enough to find a disengaged box.
"The tone of the evening," Louise grumbled, as she settled herself down comfortably, "is lost. This is the most expensive box in the place."
"You could restore it by eating an orange," Sophy suggested.
"Or even chocolates," John ventured, sweeping most of the contents of an attendant's tray onto the ledge of the box.
"After this," Sophy declared, falling upon them, "supper will be a farce."
"Make you thirsty," John reminded her.
They devoted their attention to the show, Louise and Sophy at first with only a moderate amount of interest, John with the real enthusiasm of one to whom everything is new. His laughter was so hearty, his appreciation so sincere, that his companions found it infectious, and began to applaud everything.
"What children we are!" Louise exclaimed. "Fancy shrieking with laughter at a ventriloquist whom I have seen at every music-hall I have been to during the last five or six years!"
"He was wonderfully clever, all the same," John insisted.
"The bioscope," Louise decided firmly, "I refuse to have anything to do with. You have had all the entertainment you are going to have this evening, Mr. Countryman."
"Now for supper, then," he proposed.
Sophy sighed as she collected the half-empty chocolate-boxes.
"What a pity I've eaten so many! They'd have saved me a luncheon to-morrow."
"Greedy child," Louise laughed, "sighing for want of an appetite! I think we'll insist upon a taxi this time. I don't like overcrowded streets. Where shall we take him to, Sophy? You know the supper places better than I do."
"Luigi's," Sophy declared firmly. "The only place in London."
They drove toward the Strand. John looked around him with interest as they entered the restaurant.
"I've been here before," he said, as they passed through the doors.
"Explain yourself at once," Louise insisted.
"It was eight years ago, when I was at Oxford," he told them. "We were here on the boat-race night. I remember," he added reminiscently, "that some of us were turned out. Then we went on to—"
"Stop!" Louise interrupted sternly. "I am horrified! The one thing I did not suspect you of, Mr. Strangewey, was a past."
"Well, it isn't a very lurid one," he assured them. "That was very nearly the only evening about town I have ever been guilty of."
Luigi, who had come forward to welcome Sophy, escorted them to one of the best tables.
"You must be very nice to this gentleman, Luigi," she said. "He is a very great friend of mine, just arrived in London. He has come up on purpose to see me, and we shall probably decide to make this our favorite restaurant."
"I shall be vairy happy," Luigi declared, with a bow.
"I am beginning to regret, Mr. Strangewey, that I ever introduced you to Sophy," Louise remarked, as she sank back into her chair. "You won't believe that all my friends are as frivolous as this, will you?"
"They aren't," Sophy proclaimed confidently. "I am the one person who succeeds in keeping Louise with her feet upon the earth. She has never had supper here before. Dry biscuits, hot milk, and a volume of poems are her relaxation after the theater. She takes herself too seriously."
"I wonder if I do!" Louise murmured, as she helped herself to caviar.
She was suddenly pensive. Her eyes seemed to be looking out of the restaurant. Sophy was exchanging amenities with a little party of friends at the next table.
"One must sometimes be serious," John remarked, "or life would have no poise at all."
"I have a friend who scolds me," she confided. "Sometimes he almost loses patience with me. He declares that my attitude toward life is too analytical. When happiness comes my way, I shrink back. I keep my emotions in the background, while my brain works, dissecting, wondering, speculating. Perhaps what hesays is true. I believe that if one gets into the habit of analyzing too much, one loses all elasticity of emotion, the capacity to recognize and embrace the great things when they come."
"I think you have been right," John declared earnestly. "If the great things come as they should come, they are overwhelming, they will carry you off your feet. You will forget to speculate and to analyze. Therefore, I think you have been wise and right to wait. You have run no risk of having to put up with the lesser things."
She leaned toward him across the rose-shaded table. For those few seconds they seemed to have been brought into a wonderfully intimate communion of thought. A wave of her hair almost touched his forehead. His hand boldly rested upon her fingers.
"You talk," she whispered, "as if we were back upon your hilltops once more!"
He turned his head toward the little orchestra, which was playing a low and tremulous waltz tune.
"I want to believe," he said, "that you can listen to the music here and yet live upon the hilltops."
"You believe that it is possible?"
"I do indeed," he assured her. "Although my heart was almost sick with loneliness, I do not think that I should be here if I did not believe it. I have not come for anything else, for any lesser things, but to find—"
For once his courage failed him. For once, too, he failed to understand her expression. She had drawn back a little, her lips were quivering. Sophy broke suddenly in upon that moment of suspended speech.
"I knew how it would be!" she exclaimed. "I leave you both alone for less than a minute, and there you sit, as grave as two owls. I ask you, now, is this the placeto wander off into the clouds? When two people sit looking at each other as you were doing a minute ago, here in Luigi's, at midnight, with champagne in their glasses, and a supper, ordered regardless of expense, on the table before them, they are either without the least sense of the fitness of things, or else—"
"Or else what?" Louise asked.
"Or else they are head over heels in love with each other!" Sophy concluded.
"Perhaps the child is right," Louise assented tolerantly, taking a peach from the basket by her side. "Evidently it is our duty to abandon ourselves to the frivolity of the moment. What shall we do to bring ourselves into accord with it? Everybody seems to be behaving most disgracefully. Do you think it would contribute to the gaiety of the evening if I were to join in the chorus of 'You Made Me Love You,' and Mr. Strangewey were to imitate the young gentleman at the next table and throw a roll, say, at that portly old gentleman with the highly polished shirt-front?"
"There is no need to go to extremes," Sophy protested. "Besides, we should get into trouble. The portly old gentleman happens to be one of the directors."
"Then we will just talk nonsense," Louise suggested.
"I am not very good at it," John sighed; "and there is so much I want to say that isn't nonsense."
"You ought to be thankful all your life that you have met me and that I am disposed to take an interest in you," Sophy remarked, as she moved her chair a little nearer to John's. "I am quite sure that in a very short time you would have become—well, almost a prig. Providence has selected me to work out your salvation."
"Providence has been very kind, then," John told her.
"I hope you mean it," she returned. "You ought to, if you only understood the importance of light-heartedness."
The lights were lowered a few minutes later, and John paid the bill.
"We've enjoyed our supper," Louise whispered, as they passed down the room. "The whole evening has been delightful!"
"May I drive you home alone?" he asked bluntly.
"I am afraid we can't desert Sophy," she replied, avoiding his eyes. "She nearly always goes home with me. You see, although she seems quite a frivolous little person, she is really very useful to me—keeps my accounts, and all that sort of thing."
"And does her best," Sophy joined in, "to protect you against your ruinously extravagant habits!"
Louise laughed. They were standing in the little hall, and the commissionnaire was blowing his whistle for a taxi.
"I won't be scolded to-night," she declared. "Come, you shall both of you drive home with me, and then Mr. Strangewey can drop you at your rooms on his way back."
Sophy made a little grimace and glanced up at John anxiously. He was looking very big and very grim.
"Shall you mind that?" she asked.
A slight plaintiveness in her tone dispelled his first disappointment. After all, it was Louise's decision.
"I will try to bear it cheerfully," he promised, smiling, as he handed them into the cab.
As they drove from Luigi's to Knightsbridge, Louise leaned back in her corner. Although her eyes were only half closed, there was an air of aloofness about her, an obvious lack of desire for conversation, which the others found themselves instinctively respecting. Even Sophy's light-hearted chatter seemed to have deserted her, somewhat to John's relief.
He sat back in his place, his eyes fixed upon Louise. He was so anxious to understand her in all her moods and vagaries. He was forced to admit to himself that she had deliberately chosen not to take any portion of that drive home alone with him. And yet, as he looked back through the evening, he told himself that he was satisfied. He declined to feel even a shadow of discouragement.
After a time he withdrew his eyes from her face and looked out upon the human panorama through which they were passing.
They were in the very vortex of London's midnight traffic. The night was warm for the time of year, and about Leicester Square and beyond the pavements were crowded with pedestrians, the women lightly and gaily clad, flitting, notwithstanding some sinister note about their movements, like butterflies or bright-hued moths along the pavements and across the streets. The procession of taxicabs and automobiles, each with its humanfreight of men and women in evening dress on their way home after an evening's pleasure, seemed endless.
Presently Sophy began to talk, and Louise, too, roused herself.
"I am only just beginning to realize," the latter said, "that you are actually in London."
"When I leave you," he replied, "I, too, shall find it hard to believe that we have actually met again and talked. There seems to be so much that I have to say," he added, looking at her closely, "and I have said nothing."
"There is plenty of time," she told him, and once more the signs of that slight nervousness were apparent in her manner. "There are weeks and months ahead of us."
"When shall I see you again?" he asked.
"Whenever you like. There are no rehearsals for a day or two. Ring me up on the telephone—you will find my number in the book—or come and lunch with me to-morrow, if you like."
"Thank you," he answered; "that is just what I should like. At what time?"
"Half past one. I will not ask either of you to come in now. You can come down to-morrow morning and get the books, Sophy. I think I am tired—tired," she added, with a curious little note of self-pity in her tone. "I am very glad to have seen you again, Mr. Strangewey," she said, lifting her eyes to his. "Good night!"
He helped her out, rang the bell, and watched her vanish through the swiftly opened door. Then he stepped back into the taxicab. Sophy retreated into the corner to make room for him.
"You are going to take me home, are you not?" she asked.
"Of course," he replied, his eyes still fixed with a shade of regret upon the closed door of Louise's little house. "No. 10 Southampton Street," he told the driver.
They turned round and spun once more into the network of moving vehicles and streaming pedestrians. John was silent, and his companion, for a little while, humored him. Soon, however, she touched him on the arm.
"This is still your first night in London," she reminded him, "and there is to-morrow. You are going to lunch with her to-morrow. Won't you talk to me, please?"
He shut the door upon a crowd of disturbing thoughts and fantastic imaginings, and smiled back at her. Her fingers remained upon his arm. A queer gravity had come into her dainty little face.
"Are you really in love with Louise?" she inquired, with something of his own directness.
He answered her with perfect seriousness.
"I believe so," he admitted, "but I should not like to say that I am absolutely certain. I have come here to find out."
Sophy suddenly rocked with laughter.
"You are the dearest, queerest madman I have ever met!" she exclaimed, holding tightly to his arm. "You sit there with a face as long as a fiddle, wondering whether you are in love with a girl or not! Well, I am not going to ask you anything more. Tell me, are you tired?"
"Not a bit," he declared. "I never had such a ripping evening in my life."
She held his arm a little tighter. She was the old Sophy again, full of life and gaiety.
"Let's go to the Aldwych," she suggested, "and see the dancing. We can just have something to drink. We needn't have any more supper."
"Rather!" he assented readily. "But where is it, and what is it?"
"Just a supper club," she told him. "Tell the man No. 19 Kean Street. What fun! I haven't been there for weeks."
"What about my clothes?" he asked.
"You'll be all right," she assured him. "You're quite a nice-looking person, and the manager is a friend of mine."
The cab stopped a few minutes later outside what seemed to be a private house except for the presence of a commissionnaire upon the pavement. The door was opened at once, and John was relieved of his hat and stick by a cloak-room attendant. Sophy wrote his name in a book, and they were ushered by the manager, who had come forward to greet them, into a long room, brilliantly lit, and filled, except in the center, with supper-tables.
They selected one near the wall and close to the open space in which, at the present moment, a man and a woman were dancing. The floor was of hardwood, and there was a little raised platform for the orchestra. John looked around him wonderingly. The popping of champagne corks was almost incessant. A slightly voluptuous atmosphere of cigarette-smoke, mingled with the perfumes shaken from the clothes and hair of the women, several more of whom were now dancing, hung about the place. A girl in fancy dress was passing a great basket of flowers from table to table.
Sophy sat with her head resting upon her hands andher face very close to her companion's, keeping time with her feet to the music.
"Isn't this rather nice?" she whispered. "Do you like being here with me, Mr. John Strangewey?"
"Of course I do," he answered heartily. "Is this a restaurant?"
She shook her head.
"No, it's a club. We can sit here all night, if you like."
"Can I join?" he asked.
She laughed as she bent for a form and made him fill it in.
"Tell me," he begged, as he looked around him, "who are these girls? They look so pretty and well dressed, and yet so amazingly young to be out at this time of night."
"Mostly actresses," she replied, "and musical-comedy girls. I was in musical comedy myself before Louise rescued me."
"Did you like it?"
"I liked it all right," she admitted, "but I left it because I wasn't doing any good. I can dance pretty well, but I have no voice, so there didn't seem to be any chance of my getting out of the chorus; and one can't even pretend to live on the salary they pay you, unless one has a part."
"But these girls who are here to-night?"
"They are with their friends, of course," she told him. "I suppose, if it hadn't been for Louise, I should have been here, too—with a friend."
"I should like to see you dance," he remarked, in a hurry to change the conversation.
"I'll dance to you some day in your rooms, if you like," she promised. "Or would you like me to dancehere? There is a man opposite who wants me to. Would you rather I didn't? I want to do just which would please you most."
"Dance, by all means," he insisted. "I should like to watch you."
She nodded, and a minute or two later she had joined the small crowd in the center of the room, clasped in the arms of a very immaculate young man who had risen and bowed to her from a table opposite. John leaned back in his place and watched her admiringly. Her feet scarcely touched the ground. She never once glanced at or spoke to her partner, but every time she passed the corner where John was sitting, she looked at him and smiled.
He, for his part, watched her no longer with pleasant interest, but with almost fascinated eyes. The spirit of the place was creeping into his blood. His long years of seclusion seemed like a spell of time lying curiously far away, a crude period, mislived in an atmosphere which, notwithstanding its austere sweetness, took no account of the human cry. He refilled his glass with champagne and deliberately drank its contents. It was splendid to feel so young and strong, to feel the wine in his veins, his pulse and his heart moving to this new measure!
His eyes grew brighter, and he smiled back at Sophy. She suddenly released her hold upon her partner and stretched out her arms to him. Her body swayed backward a little. She waved her hands with a gesture infinitely graceful, subtly alluring. Her lips were parted with a smile almost of triumph as she once more rested her hand upon her partner's shoulder.
"Who is your escort this evening?" the latter asked her, speaking almost for the first time.
"You would not know him," she replied. "He is a Mr. John Strangewey, and he comes from Cumberland."
"Just happens that I do know him," the young man remarked. "Thought I'd seen his face somewhere. Used to be up at the varsity with him. We once played rackets together. Hasn't he come into a pile just lately?"
"An uncle in Australia left him a fortune."
"I'll speak to him presently," the young man decided. "Always make a point of being civil to anybody with lots of oof!"
"I expect he'll be glad to meet you again," Sophy remarked. "He doesn't know a soul in town."
The dance was finished. They returned together to where John was sitting, and the young man held out a weary hand.
"Amerton, you know, of Magdalen," he said. "You're Strangewey, aren't you?"
"Lord Amerton, of course!" John exclaimed. "I thought your face was familiar. Why, we played in the rackets doubles together!"
"And won 'em, thanks to you," Amerton replied. "Are you up for long?"
"I am not quite sure," John told him. "I only arrived last night."
"Look me up some time, if you've nothing better to do," the young man suggested. "Where are you hanging out?"
"The Milan."
"I am at the Albany. So-long! Must get back to my little lady."
He bowed to Sophy and departed. She sank a little breathlessly into her chair and laid her hand on John'sarm. Her cheeks were flushed, her bosom was rising and falling quickly.
"I am out of breath," she said, her head thrown back, perilously near to John's shoulder. "Lord Amerton dances so well. Give me some champagne!"
"And you—you dance divinely," he told her, as he filled her glass.
"If we were alone," she whispered, "I should want you to kiss me!"
The stem of the wine-glass in John's fingers snapped suddenly, and the wine trickled down to the floor. A passing waiter hurried up with a napkin, and a fresh glass was brought. The affair was scarcely noticed, but John remained disturbed and a little pale.
"Have you cut your hand?" Sophy asked anxiously.
"Not at all," he assured her. "How hot it is here! Do you mind if we go?"
"Go?" she exclaimed disconsolately. "I thought you were enjoying yourself so much!"
"So I am," he answered, "but I don't quite understand—"
He paused.
"Understand what?" she demanded.
"Myself, if you must know."
She set down the glass which she had been in the act of raising to her lips.
"How queer you are!" she murmured. "Listen. You haven't got a wife or anything up in Cumberland, have you?"
"You know I haven't," he answered.
"You're not engaged to be married, you have no ties, you came up here perfectly free, you haven't even said anything yet—to Louise?"
"Of course not."
"Well, then—" she began.
Her words were so softly spoken that they seemed to melt away. She leaned forward to look in his face.
"Sophy," he begged, with sudden and almost passionate earnestness, "be kind to me, please! I am just a simple, stupid countryman, who feels as if he had lost his way. I have lived a solitary sort of life—an unnatural one, you would say—and I've been brought up with some old-fashioned ideas. I know they are old-fashioned, but I can't throw them overboard all at once. I have kept away from this sort of thing. I didn't think it would ever attract me—I suppose because I didn't believe it could be made so attractive. I have suddenly found out—that it does!"
"What are you going to do?" she whispered.
"There is only one thing for me to do," he answered. "Until I know what I have come to London to learn, I shall fight against it."
"You mean about Louise?"
"I mean about Louise," he said gravely.
Sophy came still closer to him. Her voice was as soft as the lightest, finest note of music, trembling a little with that one thread of passion. She seemed so dainty, so quiet and sweet, that for a moment he found himself able to imagine that it was all a dream; that hers was just one of those fairy, disquieting voices that floated about on the summer breeze and rippled along the valleys and hillsides of his Cumberland home. Then, swift as the fancy itself, came the warm touch of her hand upon his, the lure of her voice once more, with its trembling cadence.
"Why are you so foolish?" she murmured. "Louise is very wonderful in her place, but she is not whatyou want in life. Has it never occurred to you that you may be too late?"
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
"I believe what the world believes, what some day I think she will admit to herself—that she cares for the Prince of Seyre."
"Has she ever told you so?"
"Louise never speaks of these things to any living soul. I am only telling you what I think. I am trying to save you pain—trying for my own sake as well as yours."
He paid his bill and stooped to help her with her cloak. Her heart sank, her lips quivered a little. It seemed to her that he had passed to a great distance.
"Very soon," John said, "I shall ask Louise to tell me the truth. I think that I shall ask her, if I can, to-morrow!"