"Were you frightened?" Rosa continued softly.
Then another silence.
"Yes," said Alresca at length, "I was frightened."
"What was it?"
"I say I cannot tell you. I do not know."
"You are keeping something from me, Alresca," she exclaimed pa.s.sionately.
I was on the point of interfering in order to bring the colloquy to an end, but I hesitated. They appeared to have forgotten that I was there.
"How so?" said Alresca in a curious whisper. "I have nothing to keep from you, my dear child."
"Yes," she said, "you are keeping something from me. This afternoon you told Sir Cyril that you were expecting a misfortune. Well, the misfortune has occurred to you. How did you guess that it was coming?
Then, to-night, as they were carrying you away on that stretcher, do you remember what you said?"
"What did I say?"
"You remember, don"t you?" Rosa faltered.
"I remember," he admitted. "But that was nonsense. I didn"t know what I was saying. My poor Rosa, I was delirious. And that is just why I wished to see you--in order to explain to you that that was nonsense.
You must forget what I said. Remember only that I love you."
("So Emmeline was right," I reflected.)
Abruptly Rosa stood up.
"You must not love me, Alresca," she said in a shaking voice. "You ask me to forget something; I will try. You, too, must forget something--your love."
"But last night," he cried, in accents of an almost intolerable pathos--"last night, when I hinted--you did not--did not speak like this, Rosetta."
I rose. I had surely no alternative but to separate them. If I allowed the interview to be prolonged the consequences to my patient might be extremely serious. Yet again I hesitated. It was the sound of Rosa"s sobbing that arrested me.
Once more she dropped to her knees.
"Alresca!" she moaned.
He seized her hand and kissed it.
And then I came forward, summoning all my courage to a.s.sert the doctor"s authority. And in the same instant Alresca"s features, which had been the image of intense joy, wholly changed their expression, and were transformed into the embodiment of fear. With a look of frightful terror he pointed with one white hand to the blank wall opposite. He tried to sit up, but the splint prevented him. Then his head fell back.
"It is there!" he moaned. "Fatal! My Rosa--"
The words died in his mouth, and he swooned.
As for Rosetta Rosa, I led her from the room.
CHAPTER IV
ROSA"S SUMMONS
Everyone knows the Gold Rooms at the Grand Babylon on the Embankment.
They are immense, splendid, and gorgeous; they possess more gold leaf to the square inch than any music-hall in London. They were designed to throw the best possible light on humanity in the ma.s.s, to illuminate effectively not only the shoulders of women, but also the sombreness of men"s attire. Not a tint on their walls that has not been profoundly studied and mixed and laid with a view to the great aim. Wherefore, when the electric cl.u.s.ters glow in the ceiling, and the "after-dinner" band (that unique corporation of British citizens disguised as wild Hungarians) breathes and pants out its after-dinner melodies from the raised platform in the main salon, people regard this coup d"oeil with awe, and feel glad that they are in the dazzling picture, and even the failures who are there imagine that they have succeeded. Wherefore, also, the Gold Rooms of the Grand Babylon are expensive, and only philanthropic societies, plutocrats, and the t.i.tans of the theatrical world may persuade themselves that they can afford to engage them.
It was very late when I arrived at my cousin Sullivan"s much advertised reception. I had wished not to go at all, simply because I was inexperienced and nervous; but both he and his wife were so good-natured and so obviously anxious to be friendly, that I felt bound to appear, if only for a short time. As I stood in the first room, looking vaguely about me at the lively throng of resplendent actresses who chattered and smiled so industriously and with such abundance of gesture to the male acquaintances who surrounded them, I said to myself that I was singularly out of place there.
I didn"t know a soul, and the stream of arrivals having ceased, neither Sullivan nor Emmeline was immediately visible. The moving picture was at once attractive and repellent to me. It became instantly apparent that the majority of the men and women there had but a single interest in life, that of centring attention upon themselves; and their various methods of reaching this desirable end were curious and wonderful in the extreme. For all practical purposes, they were still on the boards which they had left but an hour or two before. It seemed as if they regarded the very orchestra in the light of a specially contrived accompaniment to their several actions and movements. As they glanced carelessly at me, I felt that they held me as a foreigner, as one outside that incredible little world of theirs which they call "the profession." And so I felt crushed, with a faint resemblance to a worm. You see, I was young.
I walked through towards the main salon, and in the doorway between the two rooms I met a girl of striking appearance, who was followed by two others. I knew her face well, having seen it often in photograph shops; it was the face of Marie Deschamps, the popular divette of the Diana Theatre, the leading lady of Sullivan"s long-lived musical comedy, "My Queen." I needed no second glance to convince me that Miss Deschamps was a very important personage indeed, and, further, that a large proportion of her salary of seventy-five pounds a week was expended in the suits and trappings of triumph. If her dress did not prove that she was on the topmost bough of the tree, then nothing could. Though that night is still recent history, times have changed.
Divettes could do more with three hundred a month then than they can with eight hundred now.
As we pa.s.sed she examined me with a curiosity whose charm was its frankness. Of course, she put me out of countenance, particularly when she put her hand on my sleeve. Divettes have the right to do these things.
"I know who you are," she said, laughing and showing her teeth. "You are dear old Sully"s cousin; he pointed you out to me the other night when you were at the Diana. Now, don"t say you aren"t, or I shall look such a fool; and for goodness" sake don"t say you don"t know me--because everyone knows me, and if they don"t they ought to."
I was swept away by the exuberance of her attack, and, blushing violently, I took the small hand which she offered, and a.s.sured her that I was in fact Sullivan Smith"s cousin, and her sincere admirer.
"That"s all right," she said, raising her superb shoulders after a special manner of her own. "Now you shall take me to Sullivan, and he shall introduce us. Any friend of dear old Sully"s is a friend of mine. How do you like my new song?"
"What new song?" I inquired incautiously.
"Why, "Who milked the cow?" of course."
I endeavored to give her to understand that it had made an indelible impression on me; and with such like converse we went in search of Sullivan, while everyone turned to observe the unknown shy young man who was escorting Marie Deschamps.
"Here he is," my companion said at length, as we neared the orchestra, "listening to the band. He should have a band, the little dear!
Sullivan, introduce me to your cousin."
"Charmed--delighted." And Sullivan beamed with pleasure. "Ah, my young friend," he went on to me, "you know your way about fairly well. But there! medical students--they"re all alike. Well, what do you think of the show?"
"Hasn"t he done it awfully well, Mr. Foster?" said Miss Deschamps.
I said that I should rather think he had.
"Look here," said Sullivan, becoming grave and dropping his voice, "there are four hundred invitations, and it"ll cost me seven hundred and fifty pounds. But it pays. You know that, don"t you, Marie? Look at the advertis.e.m.e.nt! And I"ve got a lot of newspaper chaps here.
It"ll be in every paper to-morrow. I reckon I"ve done this thing on the right lines. It"s only a reception, of course, but let me tell you I"ve seen after the refreshments--not snacks--refreshments, mind you!
And there"s a smoke-room for the boys, and the wife"s got a spiritualism-room, and there"s the show in this room. Some jolly good people here, too--not all chorus girls and walking gents. Are they, Marie?"
"You bet not," the lady replied.
"Rosetta Rosa"s coming, and she won"t go quite everywhere--not quite!
By the way, it"s about time she did come." He looked at his watch.