XI
HER NIGHT
"Thessalie Dunois! This is charming of you!" said Barres, crossing thestudio swiftly and taking her hand in both of his.
"I'm so glad to see you, Garry--" she looked past him across thestudio at Dulcie, and her voice died out for a moment. "Who is thatgirl?" she enquired under her breath.
"I'll present you----"
"Wait. _Who_ is she?"
"Dulcie Soane----"
"_Soane?_"
"Yes. I'll tell you about her later----"
"In a moment, Garry." Thessalie looked across the room at the girl fora second or two longer, then turned a troubled, preoccupied gaze onBarres. "Have you a letter from me? I posted it last night."
"Not yet."
The doorbell rang. He could hear more guests entering the corridorbeyond. A faint smile--the forced smile of courage--alteredThessalie's features now, until it became a fixed and pretty mask.
"Contrive to give me a moment alone with you this evening," shewhispered. "My need is great, Garry."
"Whenever you say! Now?"
"No. I want to talk to that young girl first."
They walked over to where Dulcie stood by the piano, silent andself-possessed.
"Thessa," he said, "this is Miss Soane, who graduated from high schoolto-day, and in whose honour I am giving this little party." And toDulcie he said: "Miss Dunois and I were friends when I lived inFrance. Please tell her about your picture, which you and I aredoing." He turned as he finished speaking, and went forward to welcomeEsme Trenor and Damaris Souval, who happened to arrive together.
"Oh, the cunning little girl over there!" exclaimed the tall andlovely Damaris, greeting Barres with cordial, outstretched hands."Where did you find such an engaging little thing?"
"You don't recognise her?" he asked, amused.
"I? No. Should I?"
"She's Dulcie Soane, the girl at the desk down-stairs!" said Barres,delighted. "This is her party. She has just graduated from highschool, and she----"
"Belongs to Barres," interrupted Esme Trenor in his drawling voice."Unusual, isn't she, Damaris?--logical anatomy, ornamental, vaguedevelopment; nice lines, not obvious--like yours, Damaris," he addedimpudently. Then waving his lank hand with its over-polished nails: "Ilike the indefinite accented with one ripping value. Look at thathair!--lac and burnt orange rubbed in, smeared, then wiped off withthe thumb! You follow the intention, Barres?"
"You talk too much, Esme," interrupted Damaris tartly. "Who is thatlovely being talking to the little Soane girl, Garry?"
"A friend of my Paris days--Thessalie Dunois----" Again he checkedhimself to turn and greet Corot Mandel, subtle creator and director ofexotic spectacles--another tall and rather heavily built man, with amop of black and shiny hair, a monocle, and sanguine features slightlyoriental.
With Corot Mandel had come Elsena Helmund--an attractive woman ofthoroughbred origin and formal environment, and apparently fed up withboth. For she frankly preferred "grades" to "registered stock," andshe prowled through every art and theatrical purlieu from the Mews toWestchester, in eternal and unquiet search for an antidote to thesex-ennui which she erroneously believed to be an intellectualnecessity for self-expression.
"Who is that winning child with red hair?" she enquired, noddinginformal recognition to the other guests, whom she already knew."Don't tell me," she added, elevating a quizzing glass and staring atDulcie, "that this engaging infant has a history already! It isn'tpossible, with that April smile in her child eyes!"
"You bet she hasn't a history, Elsena," said Barres, frowning;"and I'll see that she doesn't begin one as long as she's in myneighbourhood."
Corot Mandel, who had been heavily inspecting Dulcie through hismonocle, now stood twirling it by its frayed and greasy cord:
"I could do something for her--unless she's particularly yours,Barres?" he suggested. "I've seldom seen a better type in New York."
"You idiot. Don't you recognise her? She's Dulcie Soane! You couldhave picked her yourself if you'd had any flaire."
"Oh, hell," murmured Mandel, disgusted. "And I thought I possessedflaire. Your private property, I suppose?" he added sourly.
"Absolutely. Keep off!"
"Watch me," murmured Corot Mandel, with a wry face, as they movedforward to join the others and be presented to the little guest of theevening.
Westmore came in at the same moment--a short, blond, vigorous youngman, who knew everybody except Thessalie, and proceeded to smash theice in characteristic fashion:
"Dulcie! You beautiful child! How are you, duckey?"--catching her byboth hands,--"a little salute for Nunky? Yes?"--kissing her heartilyon both cheeks. "I've a gift for you in my overcoat pocket. We'llsneak out and get it after dinner!" He gave her hands a heartysqueeze, turned to the others: "I ought to have been Miss Soane'sgodfather. So I appointed myself as such. Where are the cocktails,Garry?"
Road-to-ruin cocktails were served--frosted orange juice for Dulcie.Everybody drank her health. Then Aristocrates gracefully condescendedto announce dinner. And Barres took out Dulcie, her arm resting lightas a snowflake on his sleeve.
There were flowers everywhere in the dining-room; table, buffet,curtains, lustres were gay with early blossoms, exhaling the hauntingscent of spring.
"Do you like it, Dulcie?" he whispered.
She merely turned and looked at him, quite unable to speak, and helaughed at her brilliant eyes and flushed cheeks, and, dropping hisright hand, squeezed hers.
"It's your party, Sweetness--all yours! You must have a good timeevery minute!" And he turned, still smiling, to Thessalie Dunois onhis left:
"It's quite wonderful, Thessa, to have you here--to be actually seatedbeside you at my own table. I shall not let you slip away from meagain, you enchanting ghost!--and leave me with a dislocated heart."
"Garry, that sounds almost sentimental. We're not, you know."
"How do I know? You never gave me a chance to be sentimental."
She laughed mirthlessly:
"Never gave you a chance? And our brief but headlong career together,monsieur? What was it but a continuous cataract of chances?"
"But we were laughing our silly heads off every minute! I had noopportunity."
That seemed to amuse her and awaken the ever-latent humour in her.
"Opportunity," she observed demurely, "should be created and taken,not shyly awaited with eyes rolled upward and a sucked thumb."
They both laughed outright. Her colour rose; the old humorouschallenge was in her eyes again; the subtle mask was already slippingfrom her features, revealing them in all their charming recklessness.
"You know my creed," she said; "to go forward--laugh--and accept whatDestiny sends you--still laughing!" Her smile altered again, became,for a moment, strange and vague. "God knows that is what I am doingto-night," she murmured, lifting her slim glass, in which the gush ofsunny bubbles caught the candlelight. "To Destiny--whatever it may be!Drink with me, Garry!"
Around them the chatter and vivacity increased, as Damaris ended aduel of wit with Westmore and prepared for battle with Corot Mandel.Everybody seemed to be irresponsibly loquacious except Dulcie, who satbetween Barres and Esme Trenor, a silent, smiling, reserved littlelistener. For Barres was still conversationally involved withThessalie, and Esme Trenor, languid and detached, being entirelyignored by Damaris, whom he had taken out, awaited his own propermodicum of worship from his silent little neighbour on his left--whichtribute he took for granted was his sacred due, and which, hitherto,he had invariably received from woman.
But nobody seemed to be inclined to worship; Damaris scarcely deignedto notice him, his impudence, perhaps, still rankling. Thessalie,laughingly engaged with Barres, remained oblivious to the fashionableportrait painter. As for Elsena Helmund, that youthful matron wasbusily pretending to comprehend Corot Mandel's covert orientalisms,and secretly wondering whether they were, perhaps, as improper asWestmore kept whispering to her they were, urging her to pick up herskirts and
run.
Esme Trenor permitted a few weary but slightly disturbed glances torest on Dulcie from time to time, but made no effort to entertainher.
And she, on her part, evinced no symptoms of worshipping him. And allthe while he was thinking to himself:
"Can this be the janitor's daughter? Is she the same rather soiled,impersonal child whom I scarcely ever noticed--the thin, immature,negligible little drudge with a head full of bobbed red hair?"
His lack of vision, of finer discernment, deeply annoyed him. Her lackof inclination to worship him, now that she had the God-sentopportunity, irritated him.
"The silly little bounder," he thought, "how can she sit beside mewithout timidly venturing to entertain me?"
He stole another profoundly annoyed glance at Dulcie. The child wascertainly beautiful--a slim, lovely, sensitive thing of qualities sodelicate that the painter of pretty women became even more surprisedand chagrined that it had taken Barres to discover this desirable girlin the silent, shabby child of Larry Soane.
Presently he lurched part way toward her in his chair, and looked ather with bored but patronising encouragement.
"Talk to me," he said languidly.
Dulcie turned and looked at him out of uninterested grey eyes.
"What?" she said.
"Talk to me," he repeated pettishly.
"Talk to yourself," retorted Dulcie, and turned again to listen to thegay nonsense which Damaris and Westmore were exchanging amid peals ofgeneral laughter.
But Esme Trenor was thunderstruck. A deep and painful colour stainedhis pallid features. Never before had mortal woman so flouted him. Itwas unthinkable. It really wouldn't do. There must be some explanationfor this young girl's monstrous attitude toward offered opportunity.
"I say," he insisted, still very red, "are you bashful, by anychance?"
Dulcie slowly turned toward him again:
"Sometimes I am bashful; not now."
"Oh. Then wouldn't you like to talk to me?"
"I don't think so."
"Fancy! And why not, Dulcie?"
"Because I haven't anything to say to you."
"Dear child, that is the incentive to all conversation--lack ofanything to say. You should practise the art of saying nothingpolitely."
"_You_ should have practised it enough to say good morning to meduring these last five years," said Dulcie gravely.
"Oh, I say! You're rather severe, you know! You were just a littlething running about underfoot!--I'm sorry you feel angry----"
"I do not. But how can I have anything to talk to you about, Mr.Trenor, when you have never even noticed me all these years, althoughoften I have handed you your keys and your letters."
"It was quite stupid of me. I'm sorry. But a man, you see, doesn'tnotice children----"
"Some men do."
"You mean Mr. Barres! That _is_ unkind. Why rub it in, Dulcie? I'mrather an interesting fellow, after all."
"Are you?" she asked absently.
Her honest indifference to him was perfectly apparent to Esme Trenor.This would never do. She must be subdued, made sane, disciplined!
"Do you know," he drawled, leaning lankly nearer, dropping both armson the cloth, and fixing his heavy-lidded eyes intensely on her,"--doyou know--do you guess, perhaps, why I never spoke to you in all theseyears?"
"You did not trouble yourself to speak to me, I imagine."
"You are wrong. I was _afraid_!" And he stared at her pallidly.
"Afraid?" she repeated, puzzled.
He leaned nearer, confidential, sad:
"Shall I tell you a precious secret, Dulcie? I am a coward. I am aslave of fear. I am afraid of beauty! Isn't that a very strange thingto say? Can you understand the subtlety of that indefinablepsychology? Fear is an emotion. Fear of the beautiful is still asubtler emotion. Fear, itself, is beautiful beyond words. Beauty isFear. Fear is Beauty. Do you follow me, Dulcie?"
"No," said the girl, bewildered.
Esme sighed:
"Some day you will follow me. It is my destiny to be followed,pursued, haunted by loveliness impotently seeking to express itself tome, while I, fearing it, dare only to express my fear with brush andpencil!... _When_ shall I paint you?" he added with sad benevolence.
"What?"
"When shall I try to interpret upon canvas my subtle fear of you?"And, as the girl remained mute: "When," he explained languidly, "shallI appoint an hour for you to sit to me?"
"I am Mr. Barres's model," she said, flushing.
"I shall have to arrange it with him, then," he nodded, wearily.
"I don't think you can."
"Fancy! Why not?"
"Because I do not wish to sit to anybody except Mr. Barres," she saidcandidly, "and what you paint does not interest me at all."
"Are you familiar with my work?" he asked incredulously.
She shook her head, shrugged, and turned to Barres, who had at lastrelinquished Thessalie to Westmore.
"Well, Sweetness," he said gaily, "do you get on with Esme Trenor?"
"He talked," she said in a voice perfectly audible to Esme.
Barres glanced toward Esme, secretly convulsed, but that young apostleof Fear had swung one thin leg over the other and was now presentingone shoulder and the back of his head to them both, apparently indelightful conversation with Elsena Helmund, who was fed up on him andhis fears.
"You must always talk to your neighbours at dinner," insisted Barres,still immensely amused. "Esme is a very popular man with fashionablewomen, Dulcie,--a painter in much demand and much adored.... Why doyou smile?"
Dulcie smiled again, deliciously.
"Anyway," continued Barres, "you must now give the signal for us torise by standing up. I'm so proud of you, Dulcie, darling!" he addedimpulsively; "--and everybody is mad about you!"
"You made me--" she laughed mischievously, "--out of a rag and a boneand a hank of hair!"
"You made yourself out of nothing, child! And everybody thinks youdelightful."
"Do _you_?"
"You dear girl!--of course I do. Does it make such a difference toyou, Dulcie--my affection for you?"
"Is it--_affection_?"
"It certainly is. Didn't you know it?"
"I didn't--know--what it was."
"Of course it is affection. Who could be with you as I have been andnot grow tremendously fond of you?"
"Nobody ever did except you. Mr. Westmore was always nice. But--butyou are so kind--I can't express--I--c-can't----" Her emotion checkedher.
"Don't try, dear!" he said hastily. "We're going in to have a jollydance now. You and I begin it together. Don't you let any other fellowtake you away!"
She looked up, laughed blissfully, gazing at him with brilliant eyes alittle dimmed.
"They'll all be at your heels," he said, beginning to comprehend thebeauty he had let loose on the world, "--every man-jack of them, markmy prophecy! But ours is the first dance, Dulcie. Promise?"
"I do. And I promise you the next--please----"
"Well, I'm host," he said doubtfully, and a trifle taken aback. "We'llhave some other dances together, anyway. But I couldn't monopoliseyou, Sweetness."
The girl looked at him silently, then her grey, intelligent eyesrested directly on Thessalie Dunois.
"Will you dance with her?" she asked gravely.
"Yes, of course. And with the others, too. Tell me, Dulcie, did youfind Miss Dunois agreeable?"
"I--don't--know."
"Why, you ought to like her. She's very attractive."
"She is quite beautiful," said the girl, watching Thessalie across hisshoulder.
"Yes, she really is. What did you and she talk about?"
"Father," replied Dulcie, determined to have no further commerce withThessalie Dunois which involved a secrecy excluding Barres. "She askedme if he were not my father. Then she asked me a great many stupidquestions about him. And about Miss Kurtz, who takes the desk whenfather is out. Also, she asked me about the mail and whether thepostman deli
vered letters at the desk or in the box outside, and aboutthe tenants' mail boxes, and who distributed the letters through them.She seemed interested," added the girl indifferently, "but I thoughtit a silly subject for conversation."
Barres, much perplexed, sat gazing at Dulcie in silence for a moment,then recollecting his duty, he smiled and whispered:
"Stand up, now, Dulcie. You are running this show."
The girl flushed and rose, and the others stood up. Barres took her tothe studio door, then returned to the table with the group of men.
"Well," he exclaimed happily, "what do you fellows think of Soane'slittle girl now? Isn't she the sweetest thing you ever heard of?"
"A peach!" said Westmore, in his quick, hearty voice. "What's theidea, Garry? Is it to be her career, this posing business? And whereis it going to land her? In the Winter Garden?"
"Where is it going to land _you_?" added Esme impudently.
"Why, I don't know, myself," replied Barres, with a troubled smile."The little thing always appealed to me--her loneliness and neglect,and--and something about the child--I can't define it----"
"Possibilities?" suggested Mandel viciously. "Take it from me, you'resome picker, Garry."
"Perhaps. Anyway, I've given her the run of my place for the last twoyears and more. And she has been growing up all the while, and Ididn't notice it. And suddenly, this spring, I discovered her for thefirst time.... And--well, look at her to-night!"
"She's your private model, isn't she?" persisted Mandel.
"Entirely," replied Barres drily.
"Selfish dog!" remarked Westmore, with his lively, wholesome laugh. "Ionce asked her to sit for me--more out of good nature than anythingelse. And a jolly fine little model she ought to make you, Garry.She's beginning to acquire a figure."
"She's quite wonderful that way, too," nodded Barres.
"Undraped?" inquired Esme.
"A miracle," nodded Barres absently. "Paint is becoming inadequate. Ishall model her this summer. I tell you I have never seen anything tocompare to her. Never!"
"What else will you do with her?" drawled Esme. "You'll go stale onher some day, of course. Am I next?"
"_No_!... I don't know what she'll do. It begins to look like aresponsibility, doesn't it? She's such a fine little girl," explainedBarres warmly. "I've grown quite fond of her--interested in her. Doyou know she has an excellent mind? And nice, fastidious instincts?She _thinks_ straight. That souse of a father of hers ought to bejailed for the way he neglects her."
"Are you thinking of adopting her?" asked Trenor, with the faintest ofsneers, which escaped Barres.
"Adopt a _girl_? Oh, Lord, no! I can't do anything like that. Yet--Ihate to think of her future, too ... unless somebody looks out forher. But it isn't possible for _me_ to do anything for her except togive her a good job with a decent man----"
"Meaning yourself," commented Mandel, acidly.
"Well, I _am_ decent," retorted Barres warmly, amid general laughter."You fellows know what chances she might take with some men," headded, laughing at his own warm retort.
Esme and Corot Mandel nodded piously, each perfectly aware of whatchance any attractive girl would run with his predatory neighbour.
"To shift the subject of discourse--that girl, Thessalie Dunois,"began Westmore, in his energetic way, "is about the cleverest andprettiest woman I've seen in New York outside the theatre district."
"I met her in France," said Barres, carelessly. "She really iswonderfully clever."
"I shall let her talk to me," drawled Esme, flicking at his cigarette."It will be a liberal education for her."
Mandel's slow, oriental eyes blinked contempt; he caressed his waxedmoustache with nicotine-stained fingers:
"I am going to direct an out-of-door spectacle--a sort of play--notnamed yet--up your way, Barres--at Northbrook. It's for theBelgians.... If Miss Dunois--unless," he added sardonically, "you haveher reserved, also----"
"Nonsense! You cast Thessalie Dunois and she'll make your show foryou, Mandel!" exclaimed Barres. "I know and I'm telling you. Don'tmake any mistake: there's a girl who can make good!"
"Oh. Is she a professional?"
It was on the tip of Barres's tongue to say "Rather!" But he checkedhimself, not knowing Thessalie's wishes concerning details of herincognito.
"Talk to her about it," he said, rising.
The others laid aside cigars and followed him into the studio, wherealready the gramophone was going and Aristocrates and Selinda wererolling up the rugs.
* * * * *
Barres and Dulcie danced until the music, twice revived, expired inhusky dissonance, and a new disc was substituted by Westmore.
"By heaven!" he said, "I'll dance this with my godchild or I'll murderyou, Garry. Back up, there!--you soulless monopolist!" And Dulcie,half laughing, half vexed, was swept away in Westmore's vigorous arms,with a last, long, appealing look at Barres.
The latter danced in turn with his feminine guests, as in dutybound--in pleasure bound, as far as concerned Thessalie.
"And to think, to _think_," he repeated, "that you and I, who oncetrod the moonlit way, June-mad, moon-mad, should be dancing heretogether once more!"
"Alas," she said, "though this is June again, moon and madness arelacking. So is the enchanted river and your canoe. And so is that gayheart of mine--that funny, careless little heart which was once mycomrade, sending me into a happy gale of laughter every time itcounselled me to folly."
"What is the matter, Thessa?"
"Garry, there is so much the matter that I don't know how to tellyou.... And yet, I have nobody else to tell.... Is that maid of yoursGerman?"
"No, Finnish."
"You can't be certain," she murmured. "Your guests are all American,are they not?"
"Yes."
"And the little Soane girl? Are her sympathies with Germany?"
"Why, certainly not! What gave you that idea, Thessa?"
The music ran down; Westmore, the indefatigable, still keepingpossession of Dulcie, went over to wind up the gramophone.
"Isn't there some place where I could be alone with you for a fewminutes?" whispered Thessalie.
"There's a balcony under the middle window. It overlooks the court."
She nodded and laid her hand on his arm, and they walked to the longwindow, opened it, and stepped out.
Moonlight fell into the courtyard, silvering everything. Down there onthe grass the Prophet sat, motionless as a black sphynx in the lustreof the moon.
Thessalie looked down into the shadowy court, then turned and glancedup at the tiled roof just above them, where a chimney rose insilhouette against the pale radiance of the sky.
Behind the chimney, flat on their stomachs, lay two men who had beenwatching, through an upper ventilating pane of glass, the scene inthe brilliantly lighted studio below them.
The men were Soane and his crony, the one-eyed pedlar. But neitherThessalie nor Barres could see them up there behind the chimney.
Yet the girl, as though some unquiet instinct warned her, glanced upat the eaves above her head once more, and Barres looked up, too.
"What do you see up there?" he inquired.
"Nothing.... There could be nobody up there to listen, could there?"
He laughed:
"Who would want to climb up on the roof to spy on you or me----"
"Don't speak so loud, Garry----"
"What on earth is the trouble?"
"The same trouble that drove me out of France," she said in a lowvoice. "Don't ask me what it was. All I can tell you is this: I amfollowed everywhere I go. I cannot make a living. Whenever I secure anengagement and return at the appointed time to fill it, somethinghappens."
"What happens?" he asked bluntly.
"They repudiate the agreement," she said in a quiet voice. "They giveno reasons; they simply tell me that they don't want me. Do youremember that evening when I left the Palace of Mirrors?"
"Indeed, I do----"
/>
"That was only one example. I left with an excellent contract, signed.The next day, when I returned, the management took my contract out ofmy hands and tore it up."
"What! Why, that's outrageous----"
"Hush! That is only one instance. Everywhere it is the same. I amaccepted after a try-out; then, without apparent reason, I am toldnot to return."
"You mean there is some conspiracy----" he began incredulously, butshe interrupted him with a white hand over his, nervously committinghim to silence:
"Listen, Garry! Men have followed me here from Europe. I am constantlywatched in New York. I cannot shake off this surveillance for verylong at a time. Sooner or later I become conscious again of curiouseyes regarding me; of features that all at once become unpleasantlyfamiliar in the throng. After several encounters in street or car orrestaurant, I recognise these. Often and often instinct alone warns methat I am followed; sometimes I am so certain of it that I take painsto prove it."
"Do you prove it?"
"Usually."
"Well, what the devil----"
"Hush! I seem to be getting into deeper trouble than that, Garry. Ihave changed my residence so many, many times!--but every timepeople get into my room when I am away and ransack my effects.... Andnow I never enter my room unless the landlady is with me, or thejanitor--especially after dark."
"Good Lord!----"
"Listen! I am not really frightened. It isn't fear, Garry. That wordisn't in my creed, you know. But it bewilders me."
"In the name of common sense," he demanded, "what reason has anybodyto annoy you----"
Her hand tightened on his:
"If I only knew who these people are--whether they are agents of theCount d'Eblis or of the--the French Government! But I can't determine.They steal letters directed to me; they steal letters which I writeand mail with my own hands. I wrote to you yesterday, because I--Ifelt I couldn't stand this persecution--any--longer----"
Her voice became unsteady; she waited, gripping his hand, untilself-control returned. When she was mistress of herself again, sheforced a smile and her tense hand relaxed.
"You know," she said, "it is most annoying to have my littlelove-letter to you intercepted."
But his features remained very serious:
"When did you mail that letter to me?"
"Yesterday evening."
"From where?"
"From a hotel."
He considered.
"I ought to have had it this morning, Thessa. But the mails, lately,have been very irregular. There have been other delays. This isprobably an example."
"At latest," she said, "you should have my letter this evening."
"Y-yes. But the evening is young yet."
After a moment she drew a light sigh of relief, or perhaps ofapprehension, he was not quite sure which.
"But about this other matter--men following and annoying you," hebegan.
"Not now, Garry. I can't talk about it now. Wait until we are sureabout my letter----"
"But, Thessa----"
"Please! If you don't receive it before I leave, I shall come to youagain and ask your aid and advice----"
"Will you come _here_?"
"Yes. Now take me in.... Because I am not quite certain about yourmaid--and perhaps one other person----"
His expression of astonishment checked her for a moment, then the oldirresistible laughter rang out sweetly in the moonlight.
"Oh, Garry! It is funny, isn't it!--to be dogged and hunted day andnight by a pack of shadows? If I only knew who casts them!"
She took his arm gaily, with that little, courageous lifting of thehead:
"Allons! We shall dance again and defy the devil! And you may sendyour servant down to see whether my letter has arrived--not that maidwith slanting eyes!--I have no confidence in her--but your marvellousmajor-domo, Garry----"
Her smile was bright and untroubled as she stepped back into thestudio, leaning on his arm.
"You dear boy," she whispered, with the irresponsible undertone oflaughter ringing in her voice, "thank you for bothering with my woes.I'll be rid of them soon, I hope, and then--perhaps--I'll lead youanother dance along the moonlit way!"
* * * * *
On the roof, close to the chimney, the one-eyed man and Soane peereddown into the studio through the smeared ventilator.
In the studio Dulcie's first party was drawing to an early but jollyend.
She had danced a dozen times with Barres, and her heart was full ofsheerest happiness--the unreasoning bliss which asks no questions, isendowed with neither reason nor vision--the matchless delight whichfills the candid, unquestioning heart of Youth.
Nothing had marred her party for her, not even the importunity of EsmeTrenor, which she had calmly disregarded as of no interest to her.
True, for a few moments, while Barres and Thessalie were on thebalcony outside, Dulcie had become a trifle subdued. But the wistfulglances she kept casting toward the long window were free from meanertaint; neither jealousy nor envy had ever found lodging in the girl'smind or heart. There was no room to let them in now.
Also, she was kept busy enough, one man after another claiming her fora dance. And she adored it--even with Trenor, who danced extremelywell when he took the trouble. And he was taking it now with Dulcie;taking a different tone with her, too. For if it _were_ true, as somesaid, that Esme Trenor was three-quarters charlatan, he was no fool.And Dulcie began to find him entertaining to the point of a smile ortwo, as her spontaneous tribute to Esme's efforts.
That languid apostle said afterward to Mandel, where they werelounging over the piano:
"Little devil! She's got a mind of her own, and she knows it. I've hadto make efforts, Corot!--efforts, if you please, to attract her mereattention. I'm exhausted!--never before had to make any efforts--neverin my life!"
Mandel's heavy-lidded eyes of a big bird rested on Dulcie, where shewas seated. Her gaze was lifted to Barres, who bent over her injesting conversation.
Mandel, watching her, said to Esme:
"I'm always ready to _train_--that sort of girl; always on the lookoutfor them. One discovers a specimen once or twice in a decade.... Twoor three in a lifetime: that's all."
"Train them?" repeated Esme, with an indolent smile. "Break them, youmean, don't you?"
"Yes. The breaking, however, is usually mutual. However, that girlcould go far under my direction."
"Yes, she could go as far as hell."
"I mean artistically," remarked Mandel, undisturbed.
"As what, for example?"
"As anything. After all, I _have_ flaire, even if it failed me thistime. But _now_ I see. It's there, in her--what I'm always searchingfor."
"What may that be, dear friend?"
"What Westmore calls 'the goods.'"
"And just what are they in her case?" inquired Esme, persistent as astinging gnat around a pachyderm.
"I don't know--a voice, maybe; maybe the dramatic instinct--genius asa dancer--who knows? All that is necessary is to discover it--whateverit may be--and then direct it."
"Too late, O philanthropic Pasha!" remarked Esme with a slight sneer."I'd be very glad to paint her, too, and become good friends withher--so would many an honest man, now that she's been discovered--butour friend Barres, yonder, isn't likely to encourage either you or me.So"--he shrugged, but his languid gaze remained on Dulcie--"so you andI had better kiss all hope good-bye and toddle home."
* * * * *
Westmore and Thessalie still danced together; Mrs. Helmund and Damariswere trying new steps in new dances, much interested, indulging inmuch merriment. Barres watched them casually, as he conversed withDulcie, who, deep in an armchair, never took her eyes from his smilingface.
"Now, Sweetness," he was saying, "it's early yet, I know, but yourparty ought to end, because you are coming to sit for me in themorning, and you and I ought to get plenty of sleep. If we don't, Ishall have an unsteady hand,
and you a pair of sleepy eyes. Come on,ducky!" He glanced across at the clock:
"It's very early yet, I know," he repeated, "but you and I have hadrather a long day of it. And it's been a very happy one, hasn't it,Dulcie?"
As she smiled, the youthful soul of her itself seemed to be gazing upat him out of her enraptured eyes.
"Fine!" he said, with deepest satisfaction. "Now, you'll put your handon my arm and we'll go around and say good-night to everybody, andthen I'll take you down stairs."
So she rose and placed her hand lightly on his arm, and togetherthey made her adieux to everybody, and everybody was cordiallydemonstrative in thanking her for her party.
So he took her down stairs to her apartment, off the hall, noticingthat neither Soane nor Miss Kurtz was on duty at the desk, as theypassed, and that a pile of undistributed mail lay on the desk.
"That's rotten," he said curtly. "Will you have to change yourclothes, sort this mail, and sit here until the last mail isdelivered?"
"I don't mind," she said.
"But I wanted you to go to sleep. Where is Miss Kurtz?"
"It is her evening off."
"Then your father ought to be here," he said, irritated, lookingaround the big, empty hallway.
But Dulcie only smiled and held out her slim hand:
"I couldn't sleep, anyway. I had really much rather sit here for awhile and dream it all over again. Good-night.... Thank you--I can'tsay what I feel--but m-my heart is very faithful to you, Mr.Barres--will always be--while I am alive ... because you are my firstfriend."
He stooped impulsively and touched her hair with his lips:
"You dear child," he said, "I _am_ your friend."
Halfway up the western staircase he called back:
"Ring me up, Dulcie, when the last mail comes!"
"I will," she nodded, almost blindly.
Out of her lovely, abashed eyes she watched him mount the stairs, hercheeks a riot of surging colour. It was some few minutes after he wasgone that she recollected herself, turned, and, slowly traversing theeast corridor, entered her bedroom.
Standing there in darkness, vaguely silvered by reflected moonlight,she heard through her door ajar the guests of the evening descendingthe western staircase; heard their gay adieux exchanged, distinguishedEsme's impudent drawl, Westmore's lively accents, Mandel's voice, theeasy laughter of Damaris, the smooth, affected tones of Mrs. Helmund.
But Dulcie listened in vain for the voice which had haunted her earssince she had left the studio--the lovely voice of Thessalie Dunois.
If this radiant young creature also had departed with the otherguests, she had gone away in silence.... _Had_ she departed? Or wasshe still lingering upstairs in the studio for a little chat with themost wonderful man in the world?... A very, very beautiful girl....And the most wonderful man in the world. Why should they not lingerfor a little chat together after the others had departed?
Dulcie sighed lightly, pensively, as one whose happiness lies in thehappiness of others. To be a witness seemed enough for her.
For a little while longer she remained standing there in the silverydusk, quite motionless, thinking of Barres.
The Prophet lay asleep, curled up on her bed; her alarm clock tickednoisily in the darkness, as though to mimic the loud, fast rhythm ofher heart.
At last, and as in a dream, she groped for a match, lighted the gasjet, and began to disrobe. Slowly, dreamily, she put from her slenderbody the magic garments of light--_his_ gift to her.
But under these magic garments, clothing her newborn soul, remainedthe radiant rainbow robe of that new dawn into which this man had ledher spirit. Did it matter, then, what dingy, outworn clothing coveredher, outside?
* * * * *
Clad once more in her shabby, familiar clothes, and bedroom slippers,Dulcie opened the door of her dim room, and crept out into thewhitewashed hall, moving as in a trance. And at her heels stalked theProphet, softly, like a lithe shape that glides through dreams.
Awaiting the last mail, seated behind the desk on the worn leatherchair, she dropped her linked fingers into her lap, and gazed straightinto an invisible world peopled with enchanting phantoms. And, littleby little, they began to crowd her vision, throng all about her,laughing, rosy wraiths floating, drifting, whirling in an endlessdance. Everywhere they were invading the big, silent hall, where thecandle's grotesque shadows wavered across whitewashed wall andceiling. Drowsily, now, she watched them play and sway around her. Herhead drooped; she opened her eyes.
The Prophet sat there, staring back at her out of depthless orbs ofjade, in which all the wisdom and mysteries of the centuries seemedcondensed and concentrated into a pair of living sparks.