A Comedy of Masks Part 7

When they reached home there was barely time to dress for dinner, and Charles had no opportunity for a _tete-a-tete_ discussion of the situation with his mother that evening. And as he breakfasted early next day and dined at the club, he had ample time in which to determine that, for the present, he would avoid anything in the shape of a family conference, and would content himself with keeping his eye on the _mauvais sujet_.

CHAPTER VIII

As soon as Lightmark and Rainham were left alone in the twilight of the studio, the former flung himself into a chair with a sigh of relief, and devoted himself to rolling and lighting a cigarette.

Rainham picked up his hat, consulted his watch, with a preoccupation of mind which prevented him from noticing what the time was, and, refusing the proffered tobacco-pouch and the suggested whisky-and-soda, seemed about to go. Then he stopped, with his back turned towards his host and a pretence of examining a sketch.

"I'm sorry I made such an a.s.s of myself about that study--that girl, you know," he said presently. "The fact is, I saw her the other day, and the coincidence was rather startling."

Lightmark blew a light cloud of smoke from his lips before he spoke.

"Oh, it doesn't matter in the least, old man. You didn't implicate me, as it happened, though I'm afraid you got yourself into rather hot water. A poor devil of a painter must have models, and it's recognised, but men of business----! It's quite another thing.

There's no possible connection between girls and dry docks." Then he added lightly, "Where are you going to dine to-night? Let's go to one of our Leicester Square haunts, or shall we get into a hansom and drive to Richmond? I've sold old Quain a picture, and I feel extravagantly inclined. What do you say? Under which _chef_? Speak, or let's toss up."

Rainham appeared to consider for a moment; then he sat down again.

"About that girl," he said; "I suppose you _do_ remember something about her? She must have been very pretty when you painted her, though she's nothing wonderful now, poor thing! I don't want to pump you, d.i.c.k, but she seems to have been pretty badly treated, and I want to see if I can't help her."

"Help her!" with a shrug. "For goodness' sake tell me: is it Don Quixote or Don Lothario that you are playing?"

"I should have thought you need hardly have asked," answered the other a little sadly. "I found the wretched creature waiting, with an equally wretched baby, both apparently not far from starvation, outside the dock the other night; and--well, I thought she might be waiting for you."

Lightmark threw the stump of his cigarette into a corner viciously, with a dangerous glance at the other.

"Why the devil should she have been waiting for me? Did she say she was waiting for me? How should a model know that I had been painting there? But I don't want to quarrel with you, and, after all you've done for me, I suppose you've a certain right to put yourself _in loco parentis_, and all that sort of thing. Tell me all you have found out about the girl--all she has told you, that is to say, and then I'll see what I can do."

This masterly suggestion seemed to Rainham both plausible and practical, and he proceeded to unfold the whole story of his first meeting with Kitty. When he reached the part of his narrative which brought out the girl's explanation that she was seeking to speak with a Mr. Crichton, Lightmark looked at him again covertly, with the same threatening light in his glance. Then, apparently rea.s.sured, he resigned himself again to listen, with a cigarette unlighted between his fingers.

"You say Oswyn heard the whole story?" he asked, when Rainham had finished. "Did the girl seem to know him? Or did _he_ seem to have heard of this Crichton before?"

"No," said Rainham reflectively; "the girl didn't know Oswyn, though, on the other hand, he seemed certain that he had seen her face somewhere--probably in that study of yours, by the way; and he appeared to think that I ought to have heard of Crichton--Cyril Crichton. He told me that the man wrote clever, scurrilous articles on art and the drama for the _Outcry_. But I don't read English papers much. You see, our difficulty is that Cyril Crichton is obviously a nom de plume, and no one--not even the people at the _Outcry_ office--know, or will say, who the man is; Kitty has tried. I suppose the editor knows all right, but he is discreet."

"Ah!" cried Lightmark. "Now I remember something about her. Have you got your hat? Let's get into a hansom and go and dine--I'm positively starving. I'll stand you a dinner at the Cavour--standing you a dinner will be such a new sensation; and new sensations are the only things worth living for. I will tell you about Kitty in the cab. What a beneficent old beggar you are!"

As they drove rapidly eastward along the High Street of Old Kensington, where the pale orange of the lamplight was just beginning to tell in the dusk, Lightmark explained how, some two years ago or more, he had been talking to a stranger in a railway carriage, and lamenting the difficulty of finding really pretty girls who would act as models; how the stranger had told him that he knew of such a one--a dressmaker's apprentice, or something of that sort, who found the work and hours too hard; and how, finally, Kitty had called at his studio--the old one in Bloomsbury--and had sat to him, perhaps half a dozen times, before vanishing from his knowledge. This account had been freely interspersed with exclamations on the beauty of the evening light in the Park, and the subtle charm of the hour after sunset, more exquisite in the clear atmosphere of Paris, but still sufficiently lovely even in London, and acknowledged by both of them to be one of the few compensations accorded to the dwellers in the much-abused Metropolis.

"I'm sorry," said Rainham penitently; "I had a stupid sort of idea that you were mixed up in the business somehow. I thought so even before I saw the sketch, because I couldn't understand whom else she could have been looking for at the dock. It's very mysterious."

"I shouldn't bother about the girl if I were you," replied the other light-heartedly. "Even if I had been mixed up with her, as you gracefully express it, _you_ wouldn't have anything to do with it. I believe you think I've been playing the devil with her now, you old moralist! Hear me swear, by yon pale---- Dash it! there isn't a moon--well, by the cresset on the top of the Empire, that the young person in question has been my model for a brief s.p.a.ce, and nothing more. Only my model in the strictest sense of the word. No, I'll pay the cab for once in a way."

When they had dined, sitting at their favourite table, which, from its position at the end, commanded a view of the bright exotic room, with its cosmopolitan contents, their wants cared for by the head-waiter, who adored Lightmark for his knowledge of his mother-tongue, recognising and being recognised by the forgotten of their acquaintance, who were also dining there, Lightmark proposed an adjournment to the little theatre in Dean Street hard by, where "Niniche" was being played for the last time by a clever company from across the Channel.

"We must go to the theatre," he said, "unless you prefer a hall; I confess I'm sick of them. I haven't satisfied my ideas of extravagance nearly yet. We will go and sit in the stalls at the Royalty and see Jane May and the others; it will remind us of old days."

"But, my dear fellow," expostulated the other, "it's so late, and we're in morning dress. Let's go to-morrow night instead."

"Ah no! to-morrow I sha'n't be in the right mood. Never put off till to-morrow, you know. Our not being in evening dress won't matter a bit, they'll only think we're critics; and 'Niniche' doesn't begin till nine."

On their speedy arrival at the modest portals of the little theatre, Lightmark instructed his companion, with an air of mystery, to wait, and presently emerged, smiling, from a triumphant encounter with the gentleman presiding at the box-office.

"They had no stalls left," he whispered; "but they're going to put us in two chairs at the side."

The house, with the exception of the more popular places, was crowded; and the boisterous absurdity of the farce was at its height. Rainham at first felt quite disconcerted by the proximity of the ludicrous figure in bathing dress who was leaning over the footlights, and declaiming his woes with a directness of appeal to the audience which alone would have marked the nationality of the robust actor, who was creating so much mirth out of the extremely hackneyed situation. He had got into the wrong bathing-machine (Lightmark seemed to find it intensely amusing) and the trousers of the rightful occupant only came down to his knees. Rainham at first was disconcerted, and then he began to feel bored. He fell into a semi-comatose state of contemplation, from which he was only aroused by the cadence on his ear of one of the most charming voices he had ever heard. So he characterized it, to Lightmark's amus.e.m.e.nt, when they were discussing their cigarettes and the _jeune premiere_ in the interval between the acts.

"Oh for an epithet to describe her!" said Lightmark, catching his friend's enthusiasm. "She isn't exactly pretty--yes, she _is_ pretty, but she isn't beautiful! She's got any amount of what dramatic critics call _chic_. Don't shudder--I hate the word quite as much as you do, but it was inevitable. The only thing I feel sure about is that she's _espiegle_, and altogether delightful. And how funny that man is, or would be, if the authors had only given him a better chance! The fun of the piece is like those trousers--it only comes down to his knees."

"What I admire most is her voice," said the other inconsequently.

"How is it that French actresses have such beautiful voices? Freedom from fogs can't be the only cause. And it's got all that delicious plaintiveness----"

"Yes," interposed Lightmark, "it's the voice of a true Parisian _femme de siecle, fin de siecle_. There's the bell, let's go and hear some more of it."

After the second act Lightmark, in whom the influence of the evening was beginning to manifest itself in the shape of a geniality which was absent in a great degree from his more serious hours, and which had undoubtedly won him more friends than the other slightly pugnacious phase of his temperament, decided that Niniche was really very like Miss Sylvester, only less beautiful, and a.s.serted that he was confident that she was younger than the newspapers made out.

Later, before the two friends parted on the steps of the modest club, which included both in its list of town members, Lightmark a.s.sumed an air of mystery, sighed once or twice, and looked at his friend with an expression in which forgiveness, reproach, and the lateness of the hour were strangely commingled.

"Old boy," he said, bending his eyebrows with an effort towards gravity, "I'm really rather cut up about that business--you thinking I was playing the gay deceiver, and all that sort of thing, you know. It was unworthy of you, Philip--it was, really. Dash it! I've been in love for ever so long. All the summer, seriously; I'm going to get married--settle down, range myself. Cut all you rips of bachelors.... But perhaps she won't see it. Oh, Lord!... d.a.m.n it all. Why don't you congratulate me, eh?"

Rainham was growing more and more serious, and it was with a real heartache and a curious apprehension of a moral blow that he answered, as gaily as he could:

"You're going a little too fast, d.i.c.k. If you haven't asked the girl, it's rather too early for congratulations, however irresistible your attractions may be. Who--who is it, d.i.c.k?"

"Oh, come, you know well enough. Eve--I wonder if she'll let me call her Eve? Eve! Isn't it a pretty name?"

"I wish you hadn't told me this, d.i.c.k," said the other, with more of the familiar weariness in his voice. "Are you sure you mean it? I don't believe you've thought it out. Why, what do you suppose Mrs.

Sylvester will say, and Charles Sylvester?"

"You think they won't have anything to do with a poor devil of an artist, I suppose? Right you are, sir; but when the poor devil has a rich and gouty uncle, who is disposed to be friendly.... See? I think that alters the complexion of the case. You know, the Sylvesters are awfully well connected, and so on, but they haven't got much money. Mrs. Sylvester has a life annuity, and Charles--whom I always want to call 'Chawles,' because he's so pompous--has got his professional income. And Eve has got a little, enough to dress her, I should think. 'Payable quarterly on her attaining the age of twenty-one years, or marrying under that age, whichever shall first happen.' I've looked it all up at Somerset House. Last will and testament of Sylvester Charles Sylvester, Esq. I know they're rather ambitious, and wouldn't look at me if it wasn't for the Colonel. But the Colonel is a solid fact, and I've no doubt they think he's richer than he is. And I am making money, though you mightn't think it."

"I don't believe Mrs. Sylvester has thought about it at all," said Rainham doubtfully. "Eve is so young, and young artists are never looked on as marrying men. Take my advice and think about it."

"_You_ call her Eve, do you? Ah, well, I won't be jealous of you, old boy. You shall come to the wedding and be best man; or no, the Colonel will be best man, I suppose? I can imagine him returning thanks for the bridesmaids in the most dazzling white waistcoat that was ever starched. Good-night; see you again soon."

"I don't know how it is," thought Rainham, as he walked up Old Compton Street, on his way to the attic near the British Museum which he rented when he was in England, for use on occasions of this kind. "It's very stupid of me, but I can't bear the idea of Eve marrying. A species of jealousy, I suppose; not ordinary jealousy, of course. And yet why not? I have never thought of her as anything but a child ... why shouldn't Lightmark marry her? Eve's young, and good-looking, and sure to get on; and I'm a selfish old wreck. Yes, he shall marry her, and I will buy his pictures." Still, he shook his head even as he formulated this generous solution of the question, and could not induce himself to regard the position with equanimity, though he sat up till broad daylight wrestling with it.

"I wonder if I am in love," he said, with a bitter laugh, as he shook the ashes out of his last pipe.

CHAPTER IX

The upper end of the Park is never so fashionably frequented as its southern regions, and Rainham, whose want of purpose had led him past gay carpet-beds and under branching trees nearly to the Marble Arch, was hardly surprised to recognise among the heterogeneous array of promenaders, tramps, and nursemaids, whom the heat of the slanting sun had prompted to occupy the benches dotted at intervals along the Row, a face whose weary pallor caused him a pang of self-reproach--Kitty!

For the last few days, since his encounter with her portrait at Lightmark's studio, he had scarcely given her troubles a thought.

When the girl saw him, after a startled look and movement, she seemed to shrink still further into the folds of her rusty black cloak, and, to avoid meeting Rainham's eyes, bent her head over the child who was seated at her side. He found something irresistibly charming and pathetically generous in the girl's spontaneous denial of any claim to his notice, although, except that he had promised to let her know anything he might learn of the whereabouts of the father of her child, he would have found it hard to establish in the mind of an outside critic that any such claim in fact existed.

"Well, my poor child," he said softly, as he dropped into one of the vacant seats on the same bench, "how goes it with you and the little one?"