The Hillman Part 12

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," John replied. "Is this, may I ask, the play that you are soon going to produce?"

"Three weeks from next Monday, I hope," Faraday told him. "Don't attempt to judge by anything you hear this afternoon. We are just deciding upon some cuts. See you later. You may smoke, if you like."

Twenty-four hours away from his silent hills, John looked out with puzzled eyes from his dusty seat among ropes and pulleys and leaning fragments of scenery. What he saw and heard seemed to him, for the most part, a meaningless tangle of gestures and phrases. The men and women in fashionable clothes, moving about before that gloomy s.p.a.ce of empty auditorium, looked more like marionettes than creatures of flesh and blood, drawn this way and that at the bidding of the stout, masterly Frenchman, who was continually muttering exclamations and banging the ma.n.u.script upon his hand.

He kept his eyes fixed upon Louise. He told himself that he was in her presence at last. As the moments pa.s.sed, it became more and more difficult for him to realize the actuality of the scene upon which he was looking. It seemed like a dream-picture, with unreal men and women moving about aimlessly, saying strange words.

Then there came a moment which brought a tingle into his blood, which plunged his senses into hot confusion. He rose to his feet. Faraday was sitting down, and Louise was resting both her hands upon his shoulders.

"Is there nothing I can be to you, then, Edmund?" she asked, her voice vibrating with a pa.s.sion which he found it hard to believe was not real.

Faraday turned slowly in his chair. He held out his arms.

"One thing," he murmured.

John had moved half a step forward when he felt the prince's eyes fixed upon him, and was conscious of a sudden sense of ignorance, almost of uncouthness. It was a play which they were rehearsing, of course! It was a d.a.m.nable thing to see Louise taken into that cold and obviously unreal embrace, but it was only a play. It was part of her work.

John resumed his seat and folded his arms. With the embrace had fallen an imaginary curtain, and the rehearsal was over. They were all crowded together, talking, in the center of the stage. The prince, who had stepped across the footlights, made his way to where John was sitting.

"So you have deserted c.u.mberland for a time?" he courteously inquired.

"I came up last night," John replied.

"You are making a long stay?"

John hesitated. He felt that no one knew less of his movements than he himself. His eyes had wandered to where Louise and Graillot were talking.

"I can scarcely tell yet. I have made no plans."

"London, at this season of the year," the prince observed, "is scarcely at its best."

John smiled.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I am not critical. It is eight years since I was here last, on my way down from Oxford."

"You have been abroad, perhaps?" the prince inquired.

"I have not been out of c.u.mberland during the whole of that time," John confessed.

The prince, after a moment's incredulous stare, laughed softly to himself.

"You are a very wonderful person, Mr. Strangewey," he declared. "I have heard of your good fortune. If I can be of any service to you during your stay in town," he added politely, "please command me."

"You are very kind," John replied gratefully.

Louise broke away from the little group and came across toward them.

"Free at last!" she exclaimed. "Now let us go out and have some tea."

They made their way down the little pa.s.sage and out into the sudden blaze of the sunlit streets. Two cars were drawn up outside the stage door.

"The Carlton or Rumpelmayer's?" asked the prince, who had overtaken them upon the pavement.

"The Carlton, I think," Louise decided. "We can get a quiet table there inside the restaurant. You bring Sophy, will you, Eugene? I am going to take possession of Mr. Strangewey."

The prince, with a little bow, pointed to the door of his limousine, which a footman was holding open. Louise led John to a smaller car which was waiting in the rear.

"The Carlton," she told the man, as he arranged the rugs. "And now," she added, turning to John, "why have you come to London? How long are you going to stay? What are you going to do? And--most important of all--in what spirit have you come?"

John breathed a little sigh of contentment. They were moving slowly down a back street to take their place in the tide of traffic which flooded the main thoroughfares.

"That sounds so like you," he said. "I came up last night, suddenly. I have no idea how long I am going to stay; I have no idea what I am going to do. As for the spirit in which I have come--well, I should call it an inquiring one."

"A very good start," Louise murmured approvingly, "but still a little vague!"

"Then I will do away with all vagueness. I came to see you," John confessed bluntly.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed, looking at him with a little smile. "How downright you are!"

"Country methods," he reminded her.

"Don't overdo it," she begged.

"The truth--" he began.

"Has to be handled very carefully," she said, interrupting him. "The truth is either beautiful or crude, and the people who meddle with such a wonderful thing need a great deal of tact. You have come to see me, you say. Very well, then, I will be just as frank. I have been hoping that you would come!"

"You can't imagine how good it is to hear you say that," he declared.

"Mind," she went on, "I have been hoping it for more reasons than one.

You have come to realize, I hope, that it is your duty to try to see a little more of life than you possibly can leading a patriarchal existence among your flocks and herds."

"That may be so," John a.s.sented. "I have often thought of our conversation. I don't know, even now, whether you were right or wrong. I only know that since you went away I have felt something of the unrest with which you threatened me. I want to settle the matter one way or the other. I want to try, for a little time, what it is like to live in the crowded places, to be near you, to see, if I may, more of you and your way of living."

They were silent for several moments.

"I thought you would come," Louise said at last; "and I am glad, but even in these first few minutes I want to say something to you. If you wish to succeed in your object, and really understand the people you meet here and the life they lead, don't be like your brother--too quick to judge. Do not hug your prejudices too tightly. You will come across many problems, many situations which will seem strange to you. Do not make up your mind about anything in a hurry."

"I will remember that," he promised. "You must remember, though, that I don't expect ever to become a convert. I believe I am a countryman, bred and born. Still, there are some things that I want to understand, if I can, and, more than anything else--I want to see you!"

She faced his direct speech this time with more deliberation.

"Tell me exactly why."

"If I could tell you that," he replied simply, "I should be able to answer for myself the riddle which has kept me awake at night for weeks and months, which has puzzled me more than anything else in life has ever done."

"You really have thought of me, then?"

"Didn't you always know that I should?"