"Yes, what mockery!" repeated Miss Lady. "What mockery that you should say these things to me! What had I up there? What was I? I was a servant, a dependent. Besides all that, things came up which would have driven any decent girl away. I could do nothing else but go. Oh, you don"t know all. You can"t be just, for you don"t know."
"But your mother?"
"You mean Mrs. Ellison? She was not my mother, Mr. Eddring. I thought you knew that. That is one reason why I am here."
"She was not your mother? Then that was true?"
"She never was. She disappeared out of my life, and I know little about her now, excepting that she was the only mother I ever knew.
There has been deception of some sort. There were so many sad and troublesome things that I could no longer endure my life as it was. I went away. I came here, I found a home."
"But Colonel Blount?"
"Sir, he was my friend. I can only say that in justice it was better for me to go. He is a n.o.ble man. If ever I pained him I am sorry. But as to friends--" she dangled the little domino on her finger, "this has been my only friend. It has kept me from seeing even myself.
Without it I should have died." There were no tears in her eyes as she spoke. Eddring felt that he had now to do with a woman grown, sad, not light and unstable. There crowded to his tongue a thousand things.
"_That!_" said he. "You, Louise Loisson--you have indeed been masquerading. Tell me, how did you get that name?"
"It was an accident purely," said Miss Lady. "I found it in a book, years ago. It was unusual, and I took it for that reason. I wanted to get as far away from any possibility of detection by my friends as I possibly could. See," she smiled bitterly, "I am Louise Loisson now, the common dancer! I make my living in that way. But for that, and for the kindness of Madame Delcha.s.se here, I might have starved. I am no longer any one you ever knew. Behind this mask sometimes I forget."
Eddring looked at her with strange earnestness. "You don"t know how true is every word you speak," said he. "There is absolute fatality under all this. On my honor, I believe you _are_ Louise Loisson, born over again! But look how fate brings you and me together: I did not know where Miss Lady Ellison had gone; I did not know who Louise Loisson might be; by chance, by the merest chance, I wished to learn-- for other reasons only. Now, see! Why, it is fate, Miss Lady! I have found you both. Miss Lady, my dear girl, see! I have found everything else in the world at the same time." The pent-up yearning of his soul was in his voice, his eyes. The girl caught swift warning.
"I shall go in," said she; but he stopped her. She tore loose the hand which he would have taken. "Go!" said she, "and never must you come through that gate again. You were unasked, and never will be asked. You, to talk of friends! Why, you were the very last of any I ever knew whom I should have cared to see again."
"What--what is that?" He stumbled under this sudden blow.
"Oh, I have enough of men," said the girl, bitterly, "enough of humanity. But I will tell you this much, a friend of mine must first of all be an honest man. You talk to me of masquerading; take off: your own mask, and let me set my foot upon it, as I have set foot upon all my past! Sincerity, truth--I wonder if there is such a thing left in all of G.o.d"s world. I did not ask you here, I do not welcome you here. Good-by. You must go."
He stood dumb, simply gazing at her, not understanding; and his absolute horror she took to be his mere confusion. Yet her eyes were more sad than angry as she went on.
"You"ve prospered, Mr. Eddring, I know," said she. "What a difference for you and me! A girl must walk so carefully, but a man may do as he pleases. You talk about fate, and that sort of thing, but no man with a life like yours can come into my life, mere dancer though I be.
Before you go I want to say to you that I know the story of your discharge from the railroad. I know how you profited by your knowledge of the company"s affairs--know other things not public regarding you. Since I do know these things, for you to dare to come to me in this way seems to me the worst of effrontery."
Still Eddring stood uncomprehending, stunned. "I--I do that?" he whispered, half to himself. "Did you think--could you believe--"
"I could believe nothing else."
"Who told you these things?" blazed he at length, as at last his heart once more sent the blood back through his veins.
"If you wish to know, I will tell you. It was Henry Decherd. I imagine he could furnish proof enough." She spoke defiantly, if perhaps wearily.
"Henry Decherd!" exclaimed Eddring. "Henry Decherd! Miss Lady, is it possible that you can stand alive under the sun of heaven and say these things to me? Is he here? Tell me, what right--"
But now the anger of Miss Lady herself was blazing, and all the cruelty of her s.e.x was in her tone as she answered. "I need not tell you," said she, "but I will. Mr. Decherd is the only friend of my former life who cared enough for me to follow and find me. And so he has the right--"
"For what? Tell me, is there any truth in this newspaper paragraph-- "There is talk about the marriage of the mysterious Louise Loisson"?
Don"t tell me that he--that Decherd--" He gazed steadily into her eyes, but saw there that which made him forget all his purposes, forced him to remember nothing in the world but his sudden personal misery. And so for an instant he stood and suffered--until the sheer bigness of his soul began to rea.s.sert itself. All his love for her came back, and he forgot even his deadly hurt in the great wave of pity and tenderness which swept over him.
"Miss Lady," said he simply, after a time, "for myself it doesn"t make so much difference, after all, I am one of the unlucky. But for you, as you say, it is at least your due that you should have honest men for your friends, and an honest man for your husband. I wanted you to trust me. I loved you. I wanted you to believe in me. I wanted you to _marry_ me, Miss Lady--I _will_ say it--and I wanted to tell you that long ago, before you left us. That is over now. You are unjust and cruel beyond all toleration--beyond all belief. You could by no possibility ever love me. But listen. You shall never marry Henry Decherd."
CHAPTER VI
THE DANCER
Ah, but it was a sweet and wonderful thing to see La Belle Louise dance; a strange and wonderful thing. She was so light, so strong, so full of grace, so like a bird in all her motions. She swam through the air as though her feet scarce touched the floor, her loose silken skirts resembling wings. Now on one side of the lighted stage, now back again, nodding, beckoning, courtesying to something which she saw--this spectacle must have moved any one of us to applause, as it did these thousands who came to witness it. The stage has no traditions of any dance like this of La Belle Louise. It is now danced no more, this dance which a maid or a lily or a tall white stork might understand, each after its own fashion.
Scores of times had La Belle Louise given this dance, each time with but trifling variations, each time to thunders of applause, with an art so free of effort that it was above all art. But what had now, for the first time, come to La Belle Louise? Did her bosom labor in the physical exertion of these measured steps? Was the quality of lightness and freedom lacking? Was the self-absorption, the abandonment, the impersonal, bird-like quality less to-night than before? And was the subtile, cruelly just sense of the public right in its hesitation, in its half-applause? Had there been actual change in the dancing of La Belle Louise?
The dancer looked from side to side, as though in search of some face or figure; as though in fear, in distress. Was she actually panting when she left the stage--she, La Belle Louise, the ethereal, the spirituelle, the very imponderable dream of the dance itself? This might have been; for presently she cast herself into the arms of Madame Delcha.s.se in a state bordering upon actual panic.
"Auntie!" she cried, "I can not dance! I am done with it! I shall never dance again. I can not! I can not!" She trembled as though in actual fear or suffering as she spoke.
"Now, now, my cherished!" said the old French lady, gathering her to her ample bosom, "what is it that has come to you? You have illness?
Come, we"ll go at "ome."
The dancer was slow in laying aside her silken skirts and putting on her street attire. Madame waited some time before thrusting her head through the half-open door, "See! my dearie," she cried, "I have the surprise for you. Monsieur shall ride home with you. He has ordered for to-night the second carriage, which I shall myself take--since you are so soon to ride with monsieur all the time, is it not?"
The head of madame disappeared. The girl, when at last ready to depart, sat with her gaze fixed on the door; yet she started when presently there came a knock. Henry Decherd entered.
"Louise!" he cried, "Louise!" and would have caught her in his arms.
She repulsed him and stood back, pale and trembling.
"Oh, I say," protested Decherd, "one would think I had no right."
"You have no right to touch me," she replied. "You shall not. Go on away with auntie in the other carriage. I will follow you home."
"Come, now," said Decherd, approaching; "this sort of thing won"t do.
I don"t understand what you mean."
"No, you don"t understand a girl," she said.
"At least I understand how a girl ought to treat the man she is to marry."
"Marry!" said Miss Lady, whispering to herself. "Marry!" There was silence between them for a time, but she turned to him at length.
"I shall never dance again," said she. "Neither to-morrow, nor at any other time, shall I set foot upon the stage again."
"You will not need to do so, when once we are married," said he. "I shall be willing--but tell me, what"s the matter to-night? You are only tired. You will wake up again."
"Wake up!" cried she, "that is the very word. I feel as though I had suddenly awakened, this very night." She pressed her hands to her reddening cheeks. "Can"t you see?" she cried. "To-night for the first time I felt them! I felt their eyes. I _felt_ them, out there in front, as though there were many; as though there were more than one.
I felt that they were women-that they were _men!_"
"Well, they have been there all the time," said Decherd. "It"s odd you should just realize that."
"I never did before," said she. "It kills me. Why, can"t you see? I have been selling myself--my body, my face, my eyes, _myself,_ a little at a time, a little to each of them. I"ve been selling myself.