The Bacillus of Beauty Part 34

"No; twenty-nine."

"What's His Lordlets doing in New York?" inquired Pros., who was there as usual, a queer and quiet wooer.

"Tinting the town a chaste and delicate pink, a.s.sisted and chaperoned by his cousin, the Hon. Stephen Allardyce Poultney. Ugh! Glad the _Star_ doesn't want an interview with _His_ Geniality; don't like S.A.P.

Esq.," said Cadge energetically. "But, Helen, now you've got people where you want 'em, you play your own hand. You don't want any Van Dam for a bear leader. That crowd's been working every fetch there is to get in with the top notchers, and they just couldn't. Knowing you is worth more to them than endowing a hospital. You're a social bonanza."

Perhaps I shouldn't have let her talk so about Meg, but, after all, she told me nothing new.

"Did I send you a marked paper with the paragraph I wrote about the important 'ological experiments you couldn't leave, even for the 'land of the lily and the rose?'" she proceeded. "Don't wonder you didn't want to go to Bermuda, everything coming so fast your way. I crammed your science into the story because it's good advertising. Don't really study at Barnard now, do you? I wouldn't; would you, Kitty?"

Her white, mobile face gleaming with animation, Cadge declaimed upon one of her thousand hobbies:--

"What's women's science good for but dribbling essays to women's clubs? If some 'Chairwoman of Progress' were to grab off the Princess, does it take science to give 'em 'Fresh Evidence that Woman was Evolved from a Higher Order of Quadrumanous Ape than Man?' We all know what the clubs want, and if they get it, they'd vote any one of us as bright a light as Haeckel.-- Pros., you saved any clippings for the Princess?"

Pros. gave me a quant.i.ty of articles about my beauty cut from out-of-town and foreign papers. I believe I'll subscribe to a clippings bureau. I hadn't thought of that.

I stayed and stayed; it was so pleasant in the eyrie; but when at last I rose to go, Kitty sighed:--

"Why, you've only been here a minute, and in that gorgeous dress, you're like a real Princess, not my chum. I shall suggest a court circular--'The Princess Helen drove out yesterday attended by Gen. Van Dam.'--'Her Serene Highness, Princess Helen, honoured the Misses Reid and Bryant last evening at a soiree.'--leaded brevier every morning on the editorial page. Oh, Nelly, can't I have your left-off looks? A homely girl starves on bread and water, while a pretty one wallows in jam."

"Princess must be wallowing in wealth," said Cadge, inspecting my evening dress; "suspect she didn't dress for us; it's Opera night. Stockholders share receipts with you? Beauty show in that first tier box must sell tickets."

"Wish they would divide; I'm as poor as a church mouse," I said, laughing.

I didn't go to the Opera, though the girls had cheered me up until I hurried home prepared to do Meg's bidding; but she had gone--angry, I suppose--and I didn't follow.

I gained nothing; the Opera gives me my best chance to see and be seen. I might as well have had my hour of triumph, the men in the box, the jealous glances of the women. I might as well have scanned with feverish expectation the big audience that turns to me more eagerly than to the singers, searching--oh, I'm mad to think that Ned might come there again to look upon me.

I didn't even escape the Earl. Meg and her husband came home early, bringing him and Poultney; we had the supper, and, for my sins, I made myself so agreeable that Meg forgave me, almost.

It was easy; I just let the poor boy talk to me about his mother and sisters, and watched his face light up as he spoke of them in a simple, hearty way that American boys don't often command. He is really very nice.

One of his sisters is a beauty.

"But not like you," he said.

He's as boyishly honest as if he were sixteen; and as modest. To be Countess of Strathay would be a--

Of course Mrs. Henry and Peggy were here, smiling on Mr. Poultney, Strathay's cousin. Oh, I'm useful! I believe Mrs. Marmaduke is the only Van Dam who's kind to me without a motive; they're not Knickerbockers at all, as I supposed.

Cadge is right; I gain nothing socially by remaining with Meg; and her guesses come too close to my heart's sorrow. She watches and worries, forever concerned lest some "folly" on my part interfere with her ambitions. Why, I'm frantic at times with imagining that even the maid she lends me--an English "person"--reports upon my every change of mood.

Oh, I ought to be independent, independent in all ways. With a little money I could manage it.

There's a Mrs. Whitney, a widowed aunt of Meg's husband, who lives alone in an apartment where a paying guest, if that guest were I, might be received. Meg would raise an outcry, of course, but I can't keep on visiting her indefinitely; and I should still be partly in her hands.

But I have no money. My allowance is the merest nothing, spent before it comes. Why, I owe Meg's dressmaker, for the dress Cadge admired and for others--Mrs. Edgar was cheaper; I must go back to her. And in the Nicaragua, where Mrs. Whitney lives, the cost of--but it wouldn't be for long.

If Ned doesn't--

I won't think about Strathay. I must wait. It's my fault that I haven't plenty of money. I've been so unhappy that I haven't explained to Father how my needs have increased, how my way of life has changed. But I'll write to-night; he refuses me nothing. He must send me a good sum at once; as much as he can raise.

Mrs. Whitney's a harmless tabby--a thin, ex-handsome creature struggling to maintain appearances; but I can put up with her. I will go to the Nicaragua. I'll go at once.

CHAPTER III.

THE SUDDENNESS OF DEATH.

The Nicaragua, March 29.

How could I have known that he would die?

I had never seen any one die. It was as if life were a precious wine rus.h.i.+ng from an overturned gla.s.s that I could not put right again. I did not dream a man could be so fragile.

For weeks I have not added a word to this record. But now I have looked upon death, and I must write. There is no one to confide in but this little book, stained by so many tears, confident of so many sorrows, so many disappointments.

Prof. Darmstetter is dead.

Dead, but not by my fault. I was not the thousandth part to blame. Yet I tremble like a leaf to think of it. I shall get no sleep to-night and to- morrow look like a fright to pay for it--no! I can never do that now, thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d for that!

Yes, I'm glad; when I try to be calm, I am glad he's dead--no, not that-- sorry he's dead, of course, but glad that my rights are safe--when I am calm.

But I can't be calm; it was too horrible!

It happened yesterday in the laboratory; we were alone together. I have seldom been to the laboratory of late, but I had begun to suspect that the Professor was planning treachery, preparing to try the Bacillus upon other women. He had been so impatient because I had not gone often enough, that he might make his records, his comparisons, his tests--I don't know what flummery. All at once he ceased his importunities; some instinct taught me that he was about to seek a more tractable subject. I was resolved that if he did contemplate such injustice, I should put a stop to it. And I went to watch him.

Was that wrong? Why, he had promised me that I should have pioneer's rights in the realm of beauty. Sole possession was to be my reward? I had the right to hold him to his promise. But I didn't think--

Yesterday I spoke to Prof. Darmstetter. That was how it came about. He had looked disconcerted at my appearance in the laboratory, and my suspicions had suddenly grown to certainty. I said to him:--

"I wish to see you alone."

A guilty look came to his face. I was watching him as he had watched me before the great change, and when he started at my words I knew he was thinking of playing me false; his conscience must have warned him that I had read his thoughts. But he knew that my strength was greater than his and he bowed a.s.sent.

When the other girls had gone--some of them with frightened looks at me, as if mine were the devil's beauty they tell about--and when Prof.

Darmstetter was ready to begin his own work, I faced him with a challenge:--

"Prof. Darmstetter, you are about to break your word."

"You are mistaken," he said; but he could not face my look.

"I am not mistaken; you are planning to try the Bacillus upon other women, and you promised that I should be first."

"And so you are! I dit not promise t'at you should be t'e only beautiful voman all your life, or ten years, or von year. You haf t'e honour of being first. It is all, and it is enough. You shall be famous by t'at. I am an old man and must sometime brint my discofery for t'e goot of t'e vorld; but first I must make experiments; I must try the Bacillus vit' a blonde voman, vit' a brunette voman, vit' a negro voman--it vill be fine to share t'e secrets of Gott and see v'at He meant to make of t'e negro."

If his enthusiasm had not run counter to my rights, I might have admired it.