"No," he said frankly. "As a matter of fact, I p.a.w.ned my watch a week ago."
"Then you are poor!" she cried impulsively. "Oh! I beg your pardon,--I did not mean----"
Lionel was never disconcerted by his lack of means, and the chuckle was perfectly honest as he replied, "Distinctly poor. I am glad to think I can still create an illusion of wealth in an artificial light, but really I am worth very little."
"You do not mind?" she said, her eyes dancing.
"I admit," he said, "that I should prefer to be well off. But, being poor, I see no use in making myself unhappy. I should prefer to pay half a guinea for a stall rather than a shilling for the gallery. Still, I contrive pretty tolerably to enjoy the play."
"You are a philosopher," she approved.
"A poor man can"t afford to be anything else."
After a pause she said, "It must be getting late. Will you please tell the man to drive to the Macready Theater?--the stage-door."
He opened the window, smiling to himself. "An actress!" he thought; "the young man"s dream of an adventure! This is absurdly conventional." After directing the chauffeur, he sat back, wondering what the end would be, content to wait on fortune. The lady, too, did not speak again until they had almost reached their destination. Then she took a purse from her satchel and said with friendly good-humor, "This is my frolic, and I wish to pay for it. Please!"
Lionel was too well-bred to interpose bourgeois objections. Besides, it was a case of necessity: his sixpence-ha"penny had been burning a hole in his pocket for the last ten minutes.
"Fair lady," he said lightly, "I would if I could, but I can not. Five shillings will be more than enough."
She gave him half a sovereign, and he wished he had been a street arab to whom she could have said, "And keep the change." This, however, was clearly impossible, nor did it appear to enter the lady"s head. After he had paid the man she received the balance with a careless gravity. He raised his hat.
"You are not going?" she asked in surprise.
"Unless I can be of further service."
"But that is why I have brought you here! You have not heard my reason yet, and you must--at least in justice to myself. This is only the beginning: you can be of the greatest service if you will. Come!"
Lionel followed her through the stage-door. Adventure beckoned, and he was not the man to disobey the seductive finger. True, the lady had a husband--a scurvy thought--but he had proved himself as strong as she.
And she was deucedly pretty.
They pa.s.sed the janitor, who touched his hat to the lady, and went along a pa.s.sage. Then up a flight of stairs and down another corridor, where sundry couples were lounging and chatting between their entrances. It was evidently a costume play, and the sight of doublets, rapiers and helmets was a pleasant thing after the drabness of the threshold.
Illusion again threw her veil over the crudities of life; romance sounded the horn of hope and hallooed Lionel to the pursuit.
The lady stopped suddenly before a door. This she opened and entered the room beyond. Lionel followed, closed the door, and looked about him. He was no stranger to the regions "behind," for in his younger days he had been the friend of many actors and actresses not a few. With the dressing-rooms of the men he was well acquainted,--those dingy color-washed chambers, lighted by flaring gas, divided by racks for dresses, equipped at times with but the washing-basin, stifling of atmosphere, with little room to turn about in. In his younger days, as has been observed, he had savored the delights of these unromantic barracks, and had thoroughly enjoyed the experience; now he was blase.
Of the women"s dressing-rooms he was ignorant, but in truth he was far from curious. He supposed they were something of a replica of what he had seen already,--four or five creatures herded in a bare loose-box, in the intervals of painting and dressing, engaged with talk of frills or scandal. The private dressing-rooms of those great creatures, the leading men and ladies, were still a sealed book. He had never known (oh, horrid thought!) a "lead," and he surveyed the present room with interest.
There was little to reward him, for it was a very ordinary room, quietly furnished with two or three easy chairs, a dressing-table covered with "making-up" apparatus, a number of photographs scattered about in various coigns of vantage, a wall-paper of a warm terra-cotta tint, a soft carpet to correspond. A bra.s.s curtain-rod divided the room in two, but the curtain was not drawn. "Will you sit down?" said the hostess; "I must leave you for a moment. Try that chair in the corner,--it is the best. And do smoke--the cigarettes are close to you on that little table."
With a swift movement she pulled the curtain along its rod and disappeared behind it. There followed a slight clicking as if she was switching on more light; then a soft rustling and the sound of her voice humming an air from _Carmen_. Lionel obediently lighted a cigarette and patiently awaited events.
In less than ten minutes she drew the curtain and stood before him again. But now she was a different creature. Her Bond Street costume had disappeared, the twentieth-century had gone. The piquant head was covered only with the dark ma.s.ses of hair that gleamed seductively. She was clad in a sort of peignoir, a loose flowing robe of Oriental texture, crimson of hue, with dull gold braiding and ta.s.sels. Her face was rouged and powdered, but in the brilliant electric glare it seemed neither out of keeping nor meretricious. As she stood, holding the drawn curtain with one hand, she looked as if she had stepped straight out of the pages of the _Arabian Nights_.
"Do you like it?" she asked carelessly, sure of the effect. Poor Lionel, on most occasions ready of tongue, who took a pride in never showing surprise, could only murmur "Admirable!" With this, however, she seemed content, and sat down in a convenient chair.
"Luckily, it is a straight make-up," she said, taking a cigarette and lighting it. "As a rule I use grease-paint, but to-night I was in a hurry and made-up dry. I want to talk. I am not on for a while, and my dress can be slipped on in five minutes. I mean to tell you as briefly as I can my history. It is your due."
Lionel made a n.o.ble gesture of dissent. "I am sure," he said chivalrously, "it is all it should have been--"
She interrupted with some acerbity. "That is not my reason. I have nothing either to excuse or condone. But as I have already put you to considerable trouble, and mean (if you are willing to help, me) to put you to still more, it is but fair that you should know all."
Lionel bowed as gracefully as he could.
"I will make it as short as I can," she continued. "There is much that is strange and improbable in it, but I beg you to keep silent and forbear to question me until the end. I was born in a little village on the southeast coast. I was a twin, the other child being a sister, the replica of myself. My mother died when I was only two years old. When I was seventeen I was kidnaped by a tribe of Rumanian gipsies who wished to be revenged on my father. He had prosecuted some of them for poaching on his land. I was smuggled to the coast, and then across to the continent.
"I do not mean to waste time in lingering over details immaterial to my purpose. Were I writing a book I could fill a volume with the strange incidents of my abduction and wanderings. But as time is short I will come to the point at once. We journeyed by slow stages across the continent, and of course I was jealously guarded the whole time. My English dress was burned, my skin stained a brownish hue. Whenever observation threatened I was immured in a small black hole, made at the end of one of the caravans by a false part.i.tion. The police failed to trace me, for the gipsies had been cunning enough to stay some weeks in England after my capture to throw my relatives off the scent, keeping a strict watch upon me. So with this inadequate resume you must realize that we have pa.s.sed through Germany, Austria, Rumania, Bulgaria and Rumelia. We crossed the Turkish frontier, and I still had no plan of escape. Oh, yes! I had tried--once! The threats they used on my detection were more than enough to prevent me trying a second time.
"At last we reached Constantinople, where we stayed a night in a huge caravansary. I was too well watched to be able to write a letter. The next evening I was sold to a Turkish officer of the sultan"s body-guard.
Blindfolded and gagged, I was put into a kind of sedan-chair under cover of darkness and carried to his palace. I was escorted to a fine suite of apartments, furnished in the eastern manner, but lit with electric light. By this time I was so inured to tribulation that I slept peacefully the whole night.
"The next morning the lord of the household arrived. He salaamed profoundly and plunged at once into the business of the day. "Fair lady," he began--and I was surprised at his excellent English and supreme courtesy--"believe me when I say that I regret your sufferings.
But as I am not the man to beat about the bush, I make bold to inform you, with all possible respect and determination, that you are destined to become my wife."
"I was not unprepared for this, but replied firmly that I would never marry any one against my will. I added that I was a British subject, and that as soon as my plight was known I should be rescued and vengeance exacted.
"He laughed pleasantly. "This is not England," he said, "and you will never be rescued. Let me put the matter plainly. I have bought you to satisfy a whim. I have long wished for an English wife, because I happen to admire English women more than any others. I have made efforts to contract an alliance by orthodox methods, but have not succeeded. Set your mind at rest, however; I intend no violence against your lovely person. If you refuse me, you will remain a prisoner in a gilded cage, but no harm shall come to you."
""But why----" I began. He waved his hand.
""Because I could wish that you might learn to love me. At present I can not expect it; for the future, who knows? I am a bachelor by choice--you need have no western fears of polygamy. I am rich, young and powerful.
And I hope that you will find out that, though of another civilization, I can fulfil your idea of a gentleman. For the present your jailer and lover bids you farewell."
"He left me in a state of stupefaction. For some days after this I saw nothing of him. I was treated with the utmost respect, as if I were mistress of the household, but I was a prisoner. I was allowed to walk in the s.p.a.cious high-walled garden; but devoted slaves were close at hand to prevent my communicating with the outer world.
"After a week had elapsed, Lukos--for that was my master"s name--began to pay regular visits to my chamber. He exerted himself to the utmost to interest and charm, but as yet he never mentioned love. He would talk of a thousand things--books, philosophy, the drama, even of fashion--and being most versatile and accomplished, I found him excellent company. I did not feel much resentment, for I had begun to learn the world and understand his point of view, but I was inflexibly opposed to a marriage by force. I was resolved to die a captive, if necessary, rather than yield.
"This went on for two years. You start? It is true. No breath of my imprisonment reached the emba.s.sy--much less my home. For a captive, my life was easy, and during the long months my hopes had died, though my determination was as English and stubborn as ever. Lukos was equally persistent in maintaining his original att.i.tude--gentle, persuasive, polite, though now he often urged his suit. I admit that in other circ.u.mstances I might have yielded, but pride kept me strong.
"But I must hurry on--"
As she said these words there was a knock, and a dresser entered.
"Twenty minutes, Miss Blair," she said, without a glance at Lionel.
"More than enough," said the strange lady, but she rose as she spoke.
"You will stay to hear the end, Mr. Mortimer? I am on for most of this act, but if you find it interesting, please stay and smoke. You must excuse me."
"By all means," said Lionel, rising. "Shall I--?"
He looked toward the door. "Oh, no!" she replied, and drew the curtain once more. Then she and the dresser disappeared behind it. A brief interval elapsed and she came forth dressed to play her part. She threw him a bright smile as he sprang to the door. "You must theorize till I come again," she said cheerfully, and he smiled back. The dresser followed her mistress, and he was left alone.
CHAPTER III
CONFIDENCES