A Pasteboard Crown Part 29

I _know_! Wasn't a friend of my husband's given an opal, and while he was carrying it round in his clothes, making up his silly mind how to set it, didn't his mother-in-law, a great, bouncing, big, hearty woman, up and die?"

Sybil nearly strangled over a combination of coffee and laugh. "Oh, Mrs.

Stivers," she exclaimed, "if you make that story public there will certainly be a boom in the sale of small opals--if one can believe the statements of the comic papers, at least."

"All right, Miss. You may laugh, but I'll watch my home closer than ever for fire or burglars. I'd as soon move into a new house on Friday, and I'd a sight rather break a looking-gla.s.s than wear that thing for an hour!" and she retired pretty thoroughly vexed.

Sybil touched the great, shimmering quiver of color with her lips, whispering: "Poor heart, that suffers for me!" And then, with the fresh odor of the lilacs about her, she opened the envelope which contained a note from Dorothy, enclosing a portion of a letter written by Mrs.

Lawton within the hour of her arrival at the White house.

Dorrie wrote briefly, sending proudest congratulations to "the successful, admired, newly triumphant actress, who was yet her own dear Sybbie--sweet sister, all unchanged, in truth and love," and a tender a.s.surance of her own well-being, of her hopeful, trustful waiting, knowing that whether she received death or life the gift would come from G.o.d, who never made mistakes. So she waited calmly. "It seems rather mean," she added, "to enclose a portion of mamma's 'note'--of six pages--but, Syb, I can't help it, I simply _can't_! I wouldn't let papa or Leslie know it for the world, but you will understand and not think it disrespectful. Do write, Sybbie, to your Dorothy!"

"Yes," the fragment of Mrs. Lawton's letter read, "I'm afraid I overdid it a bit. Shopping, you know, is very fatiguing, even to one who like myself never loiters or hesitates. Anyway, if my looking-gla.s.s did not so flatly contradict me, I should call myself quite an old woman to-day.

But let me get on to what I wish to say. I hate anyone who meanders--never meander, Dorothy. Though you are a married woman you should not be averse to a little advice now and then from one who watched over your infancy--and a very quiet, well-sleeping babe you were, too, quite different from Sybil, who was-- Well, as I was saying, meeting Mr. Thrall--a man tres comme il faut--as I have always said, I mentioned your hopes--he being a married man these years past, and most friendly in his inquiries. He, in offering congratulations, expressed the opinion that a gift of twins would be desirable, as it was easier to select names for two than for one, and family friction would be lessened in consequence. I confess I was startled, and 'er, well, not far from being vexed, and I plainly told him I hoped you would be guilty of no such vulgarity. You should have seen his eyes--very remarkable eyes, you must have noticed their amazing blueness--quite like the paler sapphires. Yes, he looked perfectly amazed. 'Vulgar?' he repeated.

'Could a Merivale-Merivale be guilty of vulgarity? You must surely know the Merivale-Merivales, Mrs. Lawton?' Imagine my haste to tell him that Mrs. Merivale-Merivale was the only child and heiress of my friend old Tom Bligh, who used to say she was so democratic that she would never be content till she had every Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry in society about her.

And people said she married d.i.c.k Merivale-Merivale so that she could help out her father's saying. And Mr. Thrall said: 'Dear me! and did you not know that she has twin boys, and that she calls them Tom and Harry?

Quite clever, for society, is it not? Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry, right in her own family, too!' My dear, I was never more taken aback! And then he went on to tell me of Lady Somebody-Somebody, of some sort of 'hurst,'

in some shire in England, who has twin daughters, and drives about with them, and has them always mentioned as 'Lady So-and-So's lovely twins'

in the society journals. I declare, I was quite startled; but fashions do change so, and I'm sure its no fault of mine that I have fallen so far behind the times--and been so out of everything. But I have hastened to write this all out for your comfort, in case you have any anxiety on that score. I don't suppose you have, but I frankly admit that I should myself have looked upon the simultaneous arrival of yourself and Sybil as verging upon an impropriety. But different times--different manners, and there is no questioning the fact that twins, if not de rigueur, are at least genuinely fashionable now."

Peal after peal of laughter from Sybil brought Stivers to the door, pale and with distinctly frightened eyes. "In the name of heaven, what's the matter with you? Stop it! _stop it!_ You're _fey_--that's what you are!

Ill will come of it--now mind!"

"_Fey?_" repeated Sybil, gurgling still with laughter. "What is _fey_, Mrs. Stivers? Why, you look quite frightened!"

"You laugh in a room all by yourself! You're _fey_, and that means you're sort of possessed. It's an evil spirit of mischievous fun that takes hold of you just before a stroke of bad luck comes upon you. Lord knows you've naught more to do now than to get up and smash a looking-gla.s.s!"

"Don't be worried!" said Sybil, seeing the woman's distress! "I was not _fey_, because I had cause for laughter. It was this letter that amused me."

"But you laughed in a room by yourself," gloomily insisted Stivers, who would not be comforted, and removed the tray rather sullenly.

And Sybil laughed again and yet again, for she could not know that there was hurry and confusion at the old White house; that at the little Riverdale station, crouching at the foot of the hill beside the swift-running river, the quick tic-tic-tacking, and dot-dot-dot dashing were spelling out words of sorrow for her. But, later, as she rose from the piano and went to the window to look out, a messenger boy on the steps reached far over and stole a flower from her balcony before he rang the bell; and she laughed again, because he so nearly landed on his head in his effort to reach the blossom.

She always remembered, with a sick misery, that she was laughing when she opened the telegram that said: "_Your mother has died in her sleep.

Discovered an hour ago. Dorothy must not know. Come. Father._"

She never remembered how she was made ready for the street. She seemed to recover her consciousness only as she found herself going into the theatre by the back way, and she wondered vaguely why she had not gone in the front. With the telegram crushed in her ungloved hand she had flown instantly to Stewart--in the first place, from the blind instinct that sends the stricken into the arms of the loved one for shelter, for comfort; and now, in the second place, she sought him for business reasons, so that he might have all the time possible in which to arrange matters theatrical during her necessary absence.

She made her hurried way to Thrall's private office--that little red-walled room, where she had first met him, and where her own picture as Juliet now reigned supreme.

An old cloth had been spread over the open desk, and on it lay a litter of oily rags, bits of wire, polishing powder, loose cartridges, several revolvers, a tiny pistol used by stage heroines, and Sybil's beautiful dagger.

Jim Roberts, pallid, puffy-eyed, and trembling visibly, sat there at work, and Thrall, seeing the great trickling drops of perspiration which the slightest effort brought out upon his pasty skin, said: "Jim, either you must give that job up for to-day or you must take a nip to steady your nerves. You can't break short off after being on the rampage as you were yesterday."

But Jim lifted miserable eyes, and said, doggedly: "No! She--the Princess--might come in, and notice--" (He had not forgotten that remark about his fondness for cloves.)

"She's not at all likely to come in to-day, and if she did, she would only feel sorry for your recklessness." He turned, and, taking a handsome travelling-flask from a shelf, shook it, and smilingly announced: "Half full yet." He poured a pretty stiff drink into a gla.s.s, brought it to Jim, and, pointing to water standing on top of the desk, said: "There you are, old man--racer--chaser--everything to your hand, and, for heaven's sake, wipe your dripping face!"

Jim swallowed his liquor and resumed his work, asking, querulously: "Where is that chamois skin? I've hunted that infernal thing till my head is all a-buzz."

"Go to the box-office and get a new one," said Thrall. "There's a bundle of them in the drawer. Barney will give you one."

"No! no!" irritably replied Jim. "I want the one I've been using! I hate a new chamois; besides, how the devil could the thing disappear! I used it on that 'bulldog' of yours a while ago. You're a nice man to own a fine revolver like that, and let it get spotted and ate into with rust.

You ought to carry a bargain-counter ninety-nine-and-a-half-cent sort of shooting-iron."

Thrall laughed good-temperedly, and, picking up the revolver, said: "Well, you have cleaned and polished and oiled the old thing up in great shape." He stood looking down at the weapon, whose white ivory handle and heavily nickled barrel and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs took nothing from its threatening look. Short, thick, heavy, the three-inch double barrel and the wide ugly muzzle were so suggestive that Thrall exclaimed: "By Jove! it's well named, for the bulldog is just what it reminds one of."

"Yes," answered Jim, still searching for the mislaid chamois; "that's a dog whose bark is not worse than his bite. Be a little careful, will you! That's a mighty easy trigger, and something less than ten-horse power will c.o.c.k the thing full. Oh, d.a.m.n! d.a.m.n! where is that chamois?"

How cruel is the despotism of trifling circ.u.mstance! It is humiliating to think that a life's career--nay, even more than that--hung upon the finding or the losing of a dirty bit of leather!

Thrall "broke" the revolver to look at the cartridges, somehow expecting to see new ones, and remarked: "Oh, you've returned the old cartridges, I see?"

"Yes," replied Jim, fretfully; "but what of it? I haven't get any new 32s on hand, but the old ones will bore holes in a man that will serve every purpose. I wish I had an old silk handkerchief to polish this inlaid work with." And just then they heard the rustling of skirts, the tap of heels, and Sybil was in the room.

Jim Roberts looked up, and, at sight of her white face and frightened eyes, his own expression changed so swiftly that Thrall was startled.

The latter turned, and, in the instant of recognition, the thought flashed through him that, as Sybil had come without appointment, Barney, unwarned, might send anyone here that asked for him; and he said, surprisedly, even a little sharply: "Good heaven, child, what are you doing here?" and the girl moaned:

"Oh, Stewart! Stewart! the message! the awful message!" and crept to him and hid her face on his arm.

Roberts, weak and trembling, and with glaring eyes, made his way out, muttering something about "going to the office." Outside he held his head hard between his hands and leaned against the wall for support.

"It's come," he said, "at last! Oh, d.a.m.n him! It's so awfully sudden, too, but that's him all over--his love flaming sky-high one moment and black out the next!"

He groaned, and rolled his head miserably about. He had understood Sybil's words to be: "Your message--your awful message!" and that was enough to arouse the suspicions of the poor half-crazed creature. "'What are you doing here?' Curse him! I can remember how hard it was for you to get her here in the first place! It was coax and plead and promise then! Now, it's 'what are you doing here!' She is not like little Bess.

She will be more likely to kill _him_ than herself!"

He started, and stood upright. "That must not be!" he said. "That would utterly ruin her young life! No, my beautiful! so pale--so frightened!

Oh, I--" He broke off, and went shambling over to the box-office and asked for the chamois.

"In the drawer, there," said Barney, briefly.

"Hand one out," said Jim; "my hands are all oily and grimy from cleaning that a.r.s.enal in there. I can't touch anything without leaving a mark."

Barney handed out the article, and Jim deliberately returned to the private office. As he entered he drew the heavy portiere over the closed door and pa.s.sed to the desk in the corner and sat down.

Stewart had been much shocked at the blow that had fallen so suddenly upon Sybil, and had shown her such tender sympathy and love that at last the tears had rushed to her hot eyes, and now, within the circle of his arm, her head against his shoulder, she stood and sobbed piteously.

Neither of them noticed Jim, and then suddenly, for the first time, she put into words something of her longing for his open protection and love. "Oh," she cried, "must I go there alone? Must I face this terrible thing without you?"

Jim heard, and his face was dreadful. A pale fire shone in his watery eyes, his nostrils dilated and quivered rapidly, his upper lip drew tremblingly upward at one corner, he had all the look of a helpless cur about to pa.s.s into a convulsion.

Sybil had but spoken Thrall's own thought. He, too, was thinking how hard it was that he could not take a husband's place by the side of this stricken creature of his love, and he groaned but made no answer. And then, poor child, the thought came to her of some other woman acting with him. A jealous pain was in her voice as she cried: "And you will put another woman in my place, Stewart? Oh, Stewart, how can I bear it all?"

There came from the corner a strange sort of snarl. Jim Roberts was on his feet, a dull red had spread over his face, his very eyeb.a.l.l.s were suffused. Thrall turned his head, saw, and, with all his strength, flung Sybil from him, and simultaneously with Jim's "No, d.a.m.n you, you'll put no other woman in her place!" the "bulldog" barked, and the bullet crashed into the breast where her head had rested.

For an instant there was utter silence; a smoke, an evil odor, and three white faces--that was all! Thrall, who had clapped his hand over the wound, stood tall and erect a moment, then he began to settle together, as it were, and slowly he sank backward upon the couch behind him, his head against the wall, his right hand partly supporting him. He was perfectly ghastly, but entirely conscious, and calm and self-controlled to an astounding degree. He tried to draw a long breath, and then a new horror was in the room--the horror of that agonized breathing. He spoke, painfully, word by word, and his thought was all for the woman he loved, who lay against the wall opposite, her arms outstretched on either side just as she had staggered there when Stewart flung her to safety.

"Jim--the--private--door--get--Princess--away--quick!

Save--her--from--scandal!"

And Jim, falling back instantly into the old subserviency and obedience, sprang to the curtained door, that in opening outward took with it the pedestal and statuette of the little "Love," which were securely fastened to it, so that when the door was closed again the room looked utterly undisturbed. Pushing the door open he flew to Sybil, who had never moved, and, catching her about the waist, dragged her toward it.