The Girl From His Town Part 21

And he returned slowly: "She's eaten and drunk with kings, and if the king hadn't gone so early you can bet he would have set the fashion differently. Let's drop the question. She sent you back your check, and I guess you're quits."

With a sharp note in her voice she said: "I hope it won't be in the papers that you drove bareheaded back to the hotel with her. Don't forget that we are dining with the Galoreys, and it's past seven."

After Dan had left her, the d.u.c.h.ess glanced over the dismantled room which the servants were already restoring to order. She was not at case and not at peace, but there was something else besides her tiff with Dan that absorbed her, and that was Galorey. She couldn't quite shake him off. He was beginning to be imperious in his demands on her; and, in spite of her cupidity and her debts, in spite of the precarious position in which she found herself with Dan, she could not break with Galorey yet. She went up-stairs humming under her breath the ballad Letty Lane had sung in the music-room:

"And long will his lady look from the castle wall."

CHAPTER XIX-DAN AWAKES

The next night Dan, magnetically drawn down the Strand to the Gaiety, arrived just before the close of the last act, slipped in, and sat far back watching Letty Lane close her part. After hearing her sing as she had the afternoon before in the worldly group, it was curious to see her before the public in her flashing dress and to realize how much she was a thing of the people. To-night she was a completely personal element to Dan. He could never think of her again as he had hitherto. The sharp drive through the town that afternoon in her motor had made a change in his feelings. He had been hurt for her, with anger at the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater's rudeness, and from the first he had always known that there was in him a hot championship for the actress. To-night, whenever the man who sang with her, put his arms around her, danced with her, held her, it was an offense to Dan Blair; it had angered him before, but to-night it did more. One by one everything faded out of his foreground but the brilliant little figure with her golden hair, her lovely face, her beautiful graceful body, and in her last gesture on the stage before the curtain went down, she seemed to Blair to call him and distinctly to make an appeal to him:

"You might rest your weary feet If you came to Mandalay."

Well, there was nothing weary about the young, live, vigorous American, as, standing there in his dark edge of the theater, his hands in his pockets, his bright face fixed toward the stage, he watched the slow falling of the curtain on the musical drama. Dan realized how full of vigor he was; he felt strong and capable, indeed a feeling of power often came to him delightfully, but it had never been needful for him to exert his forces, he had never had need to show his mettle. Now he felt at those words:

"You might rest your weary feet"

how, with all his heart, he longed that the dancer should rest those lovely tired little feet of hers, far away from any call of the public, far away on some lovely sh.o.r.e which the hymn tune called the coral strand. As he gazed at her mobile, sensitive face, whose eyes had seen the world, and whose lips-Dan's thoughts changed here with a great pang, and the close of all his meditations was: "Gosh, she ought to rest!"

The boy walked briskly back of the scenes toward the little door, behind which, as he tapped, he hoped with all his heart to hear her voice bid him come in. But there were other voices in the room. He rattled the door-k.n.o.b and Letty Lane herself called to him without opening the door:

"Will you go, please, Mr. Blair? I can't see any one to-night."

He had nothing to do but to go-to grind his heel as he turned-to swear deeply against Poniotowsky. His late ecstasy was turned to gall. The theater seemed horrible to him: the chattering of the chorus girls, their giggles, their laughter as he pa.s.sed the little groups, all seemed weird and infernal, and everything became an object of irritation.

As he went blindly out of the theater he struck his arm against a piece of stage fittings and the blow was sharp and stinging, but he was glad of the hurt.

Without, in the street, Dan took his place with the other men and waited, a bitter taste in his mouth and anger in his breast, waited until Letty Lane fluttered down, followed by Poniotowsky, and the two drove away.

The young man could have gone after, running behind the motor, but there was a taxicab at hand; he jumped in it, ordering the man to follow the car to the Savoy. There the boy had the pleasure of seeing Miss Lane enter the hotel, Poniotowsky with her-had the anguish of seeing them both go up in the lift to her apartments.

When Dan came to himself he heard the chimes of St. Martin's ring out eleven. He then remembered for the first time that he had promised to dine alone at home with the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater.

"Gosh, Lily will be wild!"

In spite of the lateness of the hour he hurried to Park Lane. The familiar face of the manservant who let him in blurred before the young man's eyes. Her grace was out at the theater? Blair would wait then, and he went into the small drawing-room, quiet, empty, reposeful, with a fire across the andirons, for the evening was damp and cool. Still dazed by his jealous, pa.s.sionate emotions, he glanced about the room, chose a long leather sofa, and stretching out his length, fell asleep. There in the shadow he slept profoundly, waking suddenly to find that he was not alone. Across the room the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater stood by the table; she was in evening dress, her cloak and gloves on the chair at her side. She laughed softly and the man to whom she laughed, on whom she smiled, was Lord Galorey.

Blair raised himself up on the sofa without making any noise, and he saw Galorey take the woman in his arms. The sight didn't make the fiancee angry. He realized instantly that he _wanted to believe that it was true_, and as there was nothing theatrical in the young Westerner, he sprang up, slang so much a part of his nature that the first words that came to his lips was a phrase in vogue.

"Look who's here!" he cried, and came blithely forward, his head clear, his lips smiling.

The d.u.c.h.ess gave a little scream and Dan lounged up to the two people and held his hand frankly out to the lady.

"That's all right, Lily! Go right on, Gordon, please. Only I had to let you know when I waked up! Only fair. I guess I must have been asleep quite a while."

The d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater shrugged. "I don't know what you dreamed," she said acidly, "if you were asleep."

"Well, it was a very pretty dream," the boy returned, "and showed what a stupid a.s.s I've been to think I couldn't have dreamed it when I was awake."

"I think you are crazy," the d.u.c.h.ess exclaimed.

But Blair repeated: "That's all right. I mean to say as far as I am concerned-"

And Galorey, in order to stand by his lady, murmured:

"My dear chap, you _have_ been dreaming."

But Blair met the Englishman's gray eyes with his blue ones. "I did have a bottle of champagne, Gordon, that's a fact, but it couldn't make me see what I did see."

"Dan," the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater broke in, "let Gordon take you home, like a dear. You're really ragging on in a ridiculous way."

Blair looked at her steadily, and as he did so he repeated:

"That's all right, Lily. Gordon cares a lot, and the truth of the matter is that I _do not_."

She grew very pale.

"I would have stuck to my word, of course," he went on, "but we'd have been infernally unhappy and ended up in the divorce courts. Now, this little scene here of yours lets me out, and I don't lay it up against either of you."

"Gordon!" she appealed to her lover, "why, in Heaven's name, don't you speak!"

The Englishman realized that while he was glad at heart, he regretted that he had been the means of her losing the chance of her life.

"What do you want me to say, Lily?" he exclaimed with a desperate gesture. "I can't tell him I don't love you. I have loved you, G.o.d help me, for ten years."

She could have killed him for it.

"I can tell you, Dan, if you want me to," Galorey went on, "that I don't believe she cares a penny for any one on the face of the earth, for you or me."

Old Dan Blair's son showed his business training. His one idea was to "get out," and as he didn't care who the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater loved or didn't love, he wanted to break away as fast as he could. He sat down at the table under the light of the lamp and drew out his wallet with its compact, thick little check book, the millionaire's pa.s.s to most of the things that he wants.

"You've taught me a lot," he said to the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater, "and my father sent me over here for that. I have been awfully fond of you, too.

I thought I was fonder than I am, I guess. At any rate I want to stand by one of my promises. That old place of yours-Stainer Court-now that's got to be fixed up."

He made a few computations on paper, lifted the pad to her with the figures on it, round, generous and full.

"At home," he said, "in Blairtown, we have what we call 'engagement'

parties, when each fellow brings a present to the girl, but this is what we might call a 'broken engagement party.' Now, I can't," the boy went on, "give this money to you very well; it won't look right. We will have to fix that up some way or other. You will have to say you got an unexpected inheritance from some uncle in Australia." He smiled at Galorey: "We will fix it up together."

His candor, his simplicity, were so charming, he stood before the two so young, so clear, so clean, that a sudden tenderness for him, and a sense of what she had lost, what she never had had, made her exclaim:

"Dan, I really don't care a pin for the money-I don't"-but the hand she held out was seized by the other man and held fast. Galorey said:

"Very well, let it go at that. You don't care for the money, but you will take it just the same. Now, don't, for G.o.d's sake, tell him that you care for him."