"What, midnight!" she cried, starting up. "I must go."
"No, no;" he took her hand.
"Yes, yes; don"t you know, at the stroke of midnight I change back to a governess."
"Well, the magic didn"t work, for that clock"s very slow. Sit down, please."
"You have spoken the omen. I remain Nelly O"Neill and drop Eileen for ever. _Vogue la galere._"
"Absit omen!" He shuddered.
"Why not? What do you offer me? The love of one man. But my public loves me as one man--with a much more voluminous love--I love it in return. Why should I change?"
"Shall we say merely because the public changes? I am constant."
"Yes, you are very wonderful.... And if it"s to-morrow already, my fate will be settled to-day. Drink to my destiny."
"I drink to our destiny," he said, raising his gla.s.s.
"No. Only to mine. It will be decided this afternoon."
"You will give me your answer this afternoon?" he cried joyfully.
"I don"t say that. It"s my answer I shall know this afternoon. Yours you shall have to-morrow afternoon. You don"t mind giving me one day"s option of your hand?"
"One day"s! When you have had--"
She interrupted impatiently. "Let bygones be bygones. You shall have a letter by Monday afternoon. But, oh, Heavens! how could we marry? You believe in nothing!"
"There"s the Registrar."
She pouted: "Dry legality. No flowers, no organ, no feeling sweet and virginal in a long veil. Oh, dear! Besides, there"s mother--"
"I don"t object to the church ceremony."
"I"m glad. The law may end marriage. Marriage shouldn"t begin with law.
It ought to look beautiful at the start, at least, though one may know it"s a shaky scraw."
"A shaky what?"
"Oh, it"s an Irish term for a bit of black bog that looks like lovely green meadow. You step out so gaily on the glittering gra.s.s, and then squish! squash! down you go to choke in the ooze."
"Don"t be so pessimistic. It would be much more sensible to think of marriage as solid meadow-land after your present scramble over a shaky what-d"ye-call it."
"True for you! I give you the stage as the shakiest of all scraws. But where _is_ solid footing to be found? The world itself is only a vast bog that sucks in the generations."
"I am sorry I asked you to be serious," he said glumly. "You"re such a quick-change artiste."
"I must quickly a.s.sume the governess or I"ll lose my character," she said, rising resolutely.
He put her cloak tenderly round her.
"You know I"ll take you without a character," he said lightly.
"If I had no character I might be tempted to take you," she retorted dispiritingly. "Thank you so much for my first supper."
XX
Eileen slept little. The dramatic possibilities of the interview with Colonel Doherty were too agitating and too numerous. This time the marionette-play needed writing. Who should receive him when he called?
Eileen O"Keeffe or Nelly O"Neill?
Either possibility offered exquisite comedy.
Eileen--as plain as possible--with a high, black dress, drooped lids, stiffly brushed hair, even eyegla.s.ses perhaps, with a deportment redolent of bread-and-b.u.t.ter and five-finger exercises, could perhaps disenchant him sufficiently to make him moderate his matrimonial ardour, even to hurry off apologetically to his serio-comic Circe round the corner. What a triumph of acting if she could drive him to her rival! Then as he went through the door--to loosen her hair, throw off her gla.s.ses and whistle him back to Nelly O"Neill!
The part was tempting; it bristled with opportunities. But it was also too trying. He might begin by taking lover"s liberties, and the strain of repulsing him would be too great. Besides, she wasn"t clear how to play the opening of the scene. But then there was another star part open to her.
Nelly O"Neill"s _role_ was much easier: it played itself. She had only to go on with the episode. And the way the episode went on would also serve to determine finally her att.i.tude when the moment came to throw off the mask and turn to governess. The only difficult moment would be the first--to obfuscate him immediately with the notion that he had mixed up the two addresses. Even if she failed and he realised his ghastlier blunder, it would only precipitate the dramatic duel which she must face sooner or later. All these high-strung possibilities deadened the horrible pain she knew her soul held for her, as soldiers carry wounds to be felt when the charge is over. She fell asleep near morning, her battle planned, and slept late, a sleep full of strange dreams, in one of which her drunken father counted her, and couldn"t decide how many she was.
"It"s two I am, father asth.o.r.e, only two, Eileen and Nelly," she kept crying. But he counted on.
Towards four in the afternoon she posted herself at the window. It was absolutely necessary to the comedy that she should open the door to him herself. At last a cab containing him halted at the door. She flew down, just supplanting the butler.
"How good of you, Colonel!" she cried. "But where is the Major?"
It was exquisitely calculated. She had pulled the string and the marionette moved with precision. A daze, a flash, a stammer--all the embarra.s.sment of a man who believes that in a day-dream he has given a second address first.
"Miss--Miss O"Neill," he stuttered, mechanically removing his hat.
"Nelly to my friends," she smiled fascinatingly. "Come in!" Christopher Sly was not more bewildered when he opened his eyes on the glories of his Court.
"What--what is this address?" he blurted, as she prisoned him by closing the door.
"Why?... Oh, I know. Ha! ha! ha! You"ve come to the Crescent instead of the Terrace."
"That confounded cabman! I"m sure I told him the Terrace."
"Don"t swear. He"s more accustomed to the Crescent. So many pros coming home late, and all that!"
He hesitated at the foot of the stairs. "I really think I ought to call there first...."
Now all the coquette in Nelly O"Neill rose to detain him, subtly tangled with the actress. She pouted adorably. "Oh, now you"re here, can"t you put her second for once?"
"I didn"t say it was a _her_."
"A she," corrected the governess, instinctively. Nelly hastened to add, "No man leaves a woman for a man."