The Girl From His Town Part 7

"If it hadn't been for one thing," the boy went on, "I would have thought of nothing else but you, every minute I've been away."

"Mr. Ruggles?" suggested the d.u.c.h.ess.

"No, the Gaiety girl, Letty Lane. You know I told you in the box that she was from my town."

The young man, who had flown back to Osdene Park in answer to a telegram, began to take his companion into his confidence.

"I knew that girl," Dan said, "when she wasn't more than fourteen. She sold me soda-water over the drug store counter. I always thought she was bully, bright as a b.u.t.ton and pretty as a peach. Once, I remember, I took six chocolate sodas in one day just to go in and see her. I had an awful time. I most died of that jag, and yet," he said meditatively, "I don't think I ever spoke three words to her, just said 'sarsaparilla' or 'chocolate' or whatever it might happen to be. Ever since that day, ever since that jag," he said with feeling, "I couldn't _see_ a stick of chocolate and keep my head up! Well," went on the boy, "Sarah Towney sang in our church for a missionary meeting, and I was there. I can remember the song she sang." He spoke with unconscious ardor. He didn't refer to the hymn, however, but went on with his narrative. "She disappeared from Blairtown. I never had a peep at her again until the other night. Gosh!" he said fervently, "when I saw her there on the stage, why, I felt as though cold water was running up and down my spine."

The d.u.c.h.ess, as a rule, was amused by his slang. It seemed vulgar to her now.

"Heavens," she drawled, "you are really too dreadful!"

He didn't seem to hear her.

"She's turned out a perfect wonder, hasn't she? A world-beater! Why, everybody tells me there isn't another like her in her specialty. Of course I have heard of Letty Lane, but I haven't been out to things since I went in mourning, and I've never run up against her."

"Really," drawled the d.u.c.h.ess again, "now that you have 'run up against her' what are you going to do with her? Marry her?"

His honest stare was the greatest relief she had ever experienced. He repeated bluntly: "Marry her? Why the d.i.c.kens should I?"

"You seem absorbed in her."

He agreed with her. "I am. I think she's great, don't you?"

"Hardly."

But the cold voice of the d.u.c.h.ess did not chill him. "Simply great," he continued, "and I'm sorry for her down to the ground. That is what is the matter. Didn't you notice her when she came into the Carlton that night?"

"What of it, silly? I thought she looked as thin as a shad in that black dress, and the way Poniotowsky goes about with her proves what an a.s.s he is."

"Well, I hate him," Blair simply stated; "I would wring his neck for twenty cents. But she's very ill; that is what is the matter with her."

"They all look like that off the stage," the d.u.c.h.ess a.s.sured indifferently. "They are nothing but footlight beauties: they look ghastly off the boards. I dare say that Letty Lane _is_ ill, though; the pace she goes would kill anybody. Have some more tea?"

He held out his cup and agreed with her.

"She works too hard-this playing almost every night, singing and dancing twice at the matinees, I should think she would be dead."

"Oh, I don't mean her professional engagements," murmured the d.u.c.h.ess.

A revolt such as had stung him when they criticized her at the Carlton rose in him now.

"It is hard to believe," he said, "when you hear her sing that dove song and that cradle song."

But his companion's laugh stopped his championship short.

"You dear boy, don't be a silly, Dan. She doesn't need your pity or your good opinion. She is perfectly satisfied. She has got a fortune in Poniotowsky, and she really is 'a perfect terror,' you know."

Affected slightly by her cold dismissal of his subject, he paused for a moment. But his own point of view was too strong to be shaken by this woman's light words.

"I suppose if she wasn't from my town-" At his words the vision of Letty Lane with the coral strands on her dress, came before his eyes, and he said honestly: "But I do take an interest in her just the same, and she's going to pieces, that's clear. Something ought to be done."

The d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater was very much annoyed.

"Are you going to talk about her all the time?" she asked with sharp sweetness. "You are not very flattering, Dan."

And he returned peacefully, "Why, I thought you might be able to help her in some way or another."

"_Me!_" She laughed aloud. "Me help Letty Lane? Really-"

"Why, you might get her to sing out here," he suggested. "That would sort of get hold of her; women know how to do those things."

His preposterous simplicity overwhelmed her. She stirred her tea, and said, controlling herself, "Why, what on earth would you have me to say to Letty Lane?"

"Oh, just be nice to her," he suggested. "Tell her to take care of herself and to brace up. Get some nice woman to-"

The d.u.c.h.ess helped him. "To reform her?"

"Do her good," the boy said gently.

"You're too silly for words. If you were not such a hopeless child I would be furious with you. Why, my dear boy, she would laugh in your face and in mine."

As the d.u.c.h.ess left the tea-table she repeated: "Is this what you came up from London to talk to me about?"

And at the touch of her dress as she pa.s.sed him-at the look she gave him from her eyes, Dan flushed and said honestly: "Why, I told you that she was the only thing that kept me from thinking about you all the time."

CHAPTER IX-DISAPPOINTMENT

Dan Blair had not been back of the scenes at the Gaiety since his first call on the singer. Indeed, though he had told the d.u.c.h.ess he pitied Miss Lane, he had not been able to approach her very closely, even in his own thoughts. When she first appeared on his horizon his mind was full of the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater, and the singer had only hovered round his more profound feelings for another woman. But Letty Lane was an atmosphere in Dan's mind which he was not yet able to understand. There was so little left that was connected with his old home, certainly nothing in the British Isles, excepting Ruggles, and to the young man everything from America had its value. Decidedly the nice girl of whom he had spoken to Gordon Galorey, the print-frocked, sun-bonneted type, the ideal girl that Dan would like to marry and to spoil, had not crossed his path. The d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater did not suggest her, nor did any of the London beauties. Dan's first ideal was beginning to fade.

He left Osdene Park on protest and returned the same night to London, and all the way back to town tried to register in his mind, unused to a.n.a.lysis, his experience with the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater on this last visit.

He had experienced his first disappointment in the s.e.x, and this disappointment had been of an unusual kind. It was not that he had been turned down or given the mitten, but he had seen one woman turn another down. A woman had been mean, so he put it, and the fact that the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater had refused to lend a moral hand to the singer at the Gaiety hurt Dan's feelings. Then, as soon as his enthusiasm had calmed, he saw what a stupid a.s.s he had been. A d.u.c.h.ess couldn't mix up with a comic opera singer, of course. Still, he mused, "she might have been a little nicer about it."

The education his father had given him about women, the slender information he had about them, was put to the test now; the girl he had dreamed of, "the nice girl," well, she would have had a tenderer way with her in a case such as this! Back of Dan's hurt feelings, there was a great deal on the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater's side. She had not done for herself yet. She hadn't fetched him nearly up to the altar for nothing, and back of his disapproval, there was a long list of admirations and looks, memories of many tete-a-tetes and of more fervent kisses which scored a good deal in the favor of Dan's first woman. The d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater had gone boldly on with Dan's unfinished education, and he really thought he loved her, and that he was in honor bound to see the thing through.

That evening, once more in the box he had taken all to himself, he listened to _Mandalay_, carried away with the charm of the music and carried away by the singer. He was in the box nearest the stage and seemed close to her, and he imagined that under her paint he could see her pallor and how thin she was. Nothing, however, in her acting or in her voice revealed the least fatigue. Blair had obtained a card of entrance to the theater, which permitted him to circulate freely behind the scenes, and although as yet the run of his visits had not been clear, this night he had a purpose. Dan stood not far from the corridor that led to Letty Lane's room, and saw her after her act hurriedly cross the stage, a big white shawl wrapping her slender form closely. She was as thin as a candle. Her woman Higgins followed closely after her, and as they pa.s.sed Dan, Letty Lane called to him gaily:

"h.e.l.lo, you! What are you hanging around here for?"

And Dan returned: "Don't stand here in the draft. It is beastly cold."