The Last Woman Part 5

"In that case, Patricia, we shall carry out the compact as agreed upon, and I shall conform to whatever stipulations you have made," he said. "Good-night."

He turned and went swiftly from the room. He seized his coat and hat before James, the footman, could a.s.sist him, and he went out at the front door, with more bitterness and more anger in his soul than he remembered ever to have felt before against any man or woman. But just now the bitterness and the anger were directed chiefly against himself.

For a moment, he stood on the bottom step at the entrance to the mansion, undecided as to which way he should go or what he should do.

Then, he turned about and again rang the bell at Stephen Langdon's door; and the instant it was opened, he brushed savagely past the astonished James, and made his way to the library, unannounced. He pushed the door ajar noiselessly, without intending to do so, and halted on the threshold, amazed by what he saw there. He had not meant to intrude in that silent fas.h.i.+on upon the privacy and grief of the woman he loved, and as soon as he could master his emotions, he stepped quickly backward into the hall, re-closing the door as softly as he had opened it. Patricia had given way at last. She had thrown herself upon the couch, and with her face buried among the pillows, she was sobbing as if her heart would break. His first impulse, when he discovered her so, was to rush to her side, to take her in his arms, and to tell her over and over again of his love. But he knew instinctively that Patricia would bitterly resent such an effort on his part, that he would again offend her sense of pride if she should know that he had found her in tears.

Outside the door, when he had closed it, he hesitated for a time; finally he wrote rapidly on the back of one of his cards, as follows:

"There will be little time on Monday morning to inspect the papers you mentioned. I shall be glad if you will direct Mr. Melvin to submit them to me at my rooms, between five and six o'clock to-morrow afternoon.

R. D."

He gave this written message to James, instructing him not to deliver it until Miss Langdon summoned him to her, or she should leave the library. Then, he asked the footman:

"Do you happen to know where Mr. Langdon has gone, to-night, James?"

"To the opera, sir," replied the footman.

"Alone?"

"Quite so, sir, I believe."

Duncan walked the distance, which was considerable, from the Langdon mansion to the Opera House, where he went directly to Stephen Langdon's box, believing that he would find the banker to be it's solitary occupant, and there were reasons why he greatly desired a private conference with Patricia's father. He entered the box without announcement and came to a sudden pause when he discovered that the banker was not alone. Beside him, with her white arm resting upon the rail at the front of the box, was seated a young woman whom Duncan knew well; and she happened to be the one person in New York who came nearest to being on terms of intimacy with Patricia. For Miss Langdon was one who had never permitted herself to be intimate with anybody.

Others might be intimate with her, as Beatrice Brunswick had been, but that close and personal relation which so often exists between two young women, and which is so beautiful in its character, was something Patricia Langdon had never permitted herself to know. She was not even aware that this was so. The condition arose from no lack of sympathy for others, and from no want of affection for her friends; it was a characteristic reserve of manner and method, inherited from her father, which had been cultivated by and through her a.s.sociation with him, all her life long.

While Roderick Duncan halted for an instant, to consider whether, or not, he should proceed with his original design, and while he still stood there, holding the curtains apart and appearing much as if he were a stealthy observer of the scene before him, the young woman turned her head and discovered him. She smiled brightly and uttered an exclamation of pleasure as she started to her feet and approached him with out-stretched hand. One could have seen that the pleasure she manifested, was very real. It was at once evident that she liked Duncan.

"How good of you to come, and how fortunate!" she said, when he took her hand and raised it to his lips, just as the banker turned about in his chair, and with a grim smile also made Duncan welcome.

"h.e.l.lo," he said. "Glad you came! I have been wondering all the evening where you were. Had an idea you would show up somewhere. Sit down and keep still until this act is finished, for I don't want to lose it. After that, we'll chat a little. There are things I wish to discuss with you, Roderick."

Roderick Duncan was in a mood that was strange to him. It affected him to recklessness, though he could not have told why it was so, or in what form of recklessness he might indulge. The discovery he had made when he returned to the library and found Patricia in tears, was still having its effects upon him, for he did not understand the cause for those tears. He knew only that he had made her cry, that her abandonment of grief was due to his acts, and her father's. By a strange paradox, he pitied himself as deeply as he did the woman he loved. He felt that he had been forced into a second false position by so readily accepting the terms Patricia had insisted upon for their betrothal. She had told him plainly that if she ever became his wife at all, the fact could be accomplished only in the manner she dictated; that if he repudiated it, he would not even be received at her home. Impulsively, he had accepted her dictum, and now, at the end of his long and solitary walk to the opera-house, he realized that the change from frying-pan to fire was a simile true as to his present condition. Practically, the end so long sought had been attained. In effect, he and Patricia were betrothed--but such a betrothal! For the moment, he regretted his ready acquiescence to Patricia's terms. He believed that it would be better to lose her entirely than to take her under such conditions.

The meeting with Beatrice Brunswick and her sincere welcome warmed him, and he found a ready sympathy in her eyes and manner for his condition of mind. He wanted company and he wanted sympathy; chiefly, he had wished to discuss the present situation of affairs with old Steve; but now, since his arrival at the box, he decided that it would be a splendid opportunity to talk the matter over with Beatrice Brunswick. She had always shown him great consideration. He had regarded her as Patricia's dearest friend, and had ultimately placed her in that relations.h.i.+p to himself, for she was one of those rare young women whom men cla.s.s as "good fellows." And Beatrice was as good as she was beautiful. Her merry laugh and quick wit always acted upon Duncan like a tonic. Just now, he was especially glad to find her there, and he showed it.

Beatrice Brunswick was unmistakably red-headed. Referring to her hair in cold-blooded terms, no other hue could have described it. It was like that old-fas.h.i.+oned kind of red copper, after it has been hammered into sheets, in the manner in which it was treated before less arduous methods were invented. It was remarkable hair, too--there was such a wealth of it! It had always impressed Duncan with the idea that each individual hair was in business for itself, refusing utterly to stay where it was put. A young woman's crowning glory, always, this happened to be particularly true in the case of Miss Brunswick, for, although her features and her figure and her graceful motions left nothing to be desired, it was her wonderful hair, emphasized by the saucy poise of her head, that became her crowning glory, indeed.

Duncan took a seat near to her, so that she was between him and the banker; and presently Beatrice inclined her head toward him, and whispered:

"What's the matter, Roderick? You look like a banquet of the Skull and Bones, which my brother described to me once, when he was at Yale."

"I'll tell you about it later," was the response; and Duncan shut his jaws, and bent his attention grimly upon the stage.

"Why not now?" She asked.

"There isn't time; and besides--"

"Have you been quarreling with our Juno? Have you two been sc.r.a.pping?"

She whispered, smiling bewitchingly, and bending still nearer to him.

Miss Brunswick was sometimes given to the milder uses of slang.

Duncan nodded, without replying in words. He kept his eyes directly toward the stage. But Miss Brunswick was insistent.

"Is Patricia on her high horse to-night?" she asked, with a light laugh.

Duncan replied to her with another nod, and a wry smile.

"She wants to look out about that high horse of hers, Roderick, or sometime it will hit the top rail and give her a fall that she won't get over for a while. What our beautiful Juno needs most is what I used to get oftenest when I was about three years old. Perhaps you can guess what it was; if you can't, I won't tell you."

"I expect you were a regular little devil then, weren't you?" he asked, endeavoring to a.s.sume a cheerfulness he was far from experiencing at that moment.

"I expect I was; and the strange part of it is that there are lots and lots of people who insist that I have never got over it. But I can read you like a book. You and Mr. Langdon and Patricia have been having no end of a row. He might just as well have told me that much when he came after me and insisted that I should accompany him to the opera to-night. He said that Patricia wouldn't, and he wanted me to take her place. I wish you would tell me all about it." Then, with a slight toss of her head, Beatrice added: "I suppose Patricia has refused you again?"

"No. She has accepted me, this time," was the blunt reply.

Beatrice stared straight in front of her for a moment, and there was a suggestion of gathering pallor in her face. Then, she drew backward, away from her companion, and her blue eyes widened. If there was a shock to her in the knowledge she had just received, she accepted it with a very clever little laugh which she always had ready at hand.

"So," she said, "that is what makes you so glum, is it? Really, you are a most amazing person. I had supposed that when Patricia accepted you, finally, and set the day--"

"The day hasn't been set. It may be a week, a month, or a year hence, for all I know." This was said harshly, and while Duncan's eyes were fixed steadily upon Mary Garden, on the stage.

"How intensely interesting!" Beatrice exclaimed, under her breath. "I shall insist upon your taking us to supper after the opera, and telling me all about it."

The loud bars of music which announce the finale of an act and the entrance of the chorus precluded the possibility of further conversation just then; and as soon as the curtain was down and the applause had ceased, Stephen Langdon left his chair and reached for his coat and hat. Then, he addressed the two young people who were his companions in the box.

"If you two youngsters care to see this out, I'll leave you here, together," he said. "I have just remembered something I should have attended to, to-night. I must see Melvin, my lawyer. You won't mind, Beatrice, will you, if I leave you in Roderick's care? Possibly, I'll return before the show is out."

Before either of them could answer, Langdon had pa.s.sed out into the aisle, and hurried away, leaving Duncan and Miss Brunswick alone together in the box. If Roderick Duncan had really desired an opportunity to confide his troubles to Beatrice, it was afforded him then; but now that it was at hand, he felt suddenly uncertain about the wisdom of such a proceeding.

CHAPTER IV

THE BOX AT THE OPERA

Duncan stared helplessly at the spot where the curtains had fallen together behind the departing figure of Stephen Langdon; then he turned his eyes toward Beatrice, to discover that she was convulsed with laughter. But whether her demeanor and her quick surrender to expressions of levity had been excited by the departure of the banker, or by Duncan's att.i.tude of dismay, the young man could not have told.

He laughed with her, for there was a distinctly ludicrous side to the situation, following, as it did, so closely upon the announcement of his engagement to Patricia.

By mutual consent, they withdrew to the rear of the box, and then Beatrice, with a touch of teasing witchery in her voice and with laughter still in her eyes, asked him:

"Don't you think that this is rather a compromising situation, particularly in view of the fact that you have only just become engaged to Patricia? Really, you know, it is dreadful; isn't it?"

"I hadn't thought of that," he replied, quite truthfully. "I was thinking of what Langdon said, when he left us. It recalled something--"

"About leaving us two 'youngsters' alone together?" she asked him, with a pretense of frightened expression in her eyes.

"No, that wasn't the last thing he said."