The Girl From His Town Part 13

"Miss Lane-Miss Lane!" called the page boy.

"Never mind that," said the actress, "it is a long wait this act. I don't go on yet."

Higgins went to the door and opened it and stood a moment, then disappeared into the side scenes.

Letty Lane ruffled the pile of banknotes and without looking drew out two or three bills, putting them into the child's hands. "Don't you lose them; stuff them down; this will keep you and your father for a couple of years. Take care of it. You are quite rich now. Don't get robbed."

The child tremblingly folded the notes and hid them among her rags. The tears of happiness were straggling over her face. She said finally, finding no place to stow away her riches, "I expect I'd best put them in daddy's pocket."

And Dan came to her aid; taking the notes from her, he folded and put them inside the clothes of the old beggar.

"Miss Lane," said Higgins, who had come in, "it is time you went on."

"I'll see your friends out of the theater," Blair offered. And as he did so, for the first time she looked at him, and he saw the fever in her brilliant eyes.

"Thanks awfully," she accepted. "It is perfectly crazy to give them so much money at once. Will you look after it like a good boy and see something or other about them?"

He thought of her, however, and caught up a great soft shawl from the chair, wrapped it around her tenderly, and she flitted out, Higgins after her, leaving the rest of the money scattered on her dressing-table.

"Come along," said Blair kindly to the two who stood awaiting his orders with the docility of the poor, the obedience of those who have no right to plan or suggest until told to move on. "Come, I'll see you home." And he didn't leave them until he had taken them in a cab to their destination-until he had persuaded the girl to let him have the money, look after it for her, come to see her the next day and tell her what to do.

Then he went back to the theater and stood up in the rear, for the house was crowded, to hear Letty sing. It was souvenir night; there were post-cards and little coral caps with feathers as _bonbonnieres_. They called her out before the curtain a dozen times, and each time Dan wanted to cry "Mercy" for her. He felt as though this little act had established a friends.h.i.+p between them; and his hands clenched as he thought of Poniotowsky, and he tried to recall that he was an engaged man. He had an idea that Letty Lane was looking for him through the performance. She finished in a storm of applause, and flowers were strewn upon her, and Dan found himself, in spite of his resolution, going back into the wings.

This time two or three cards were sent in. One by one he saw the visitors refused, and Dan, without any formality, himself knocked at Letty Lane's small door, which Higgins opened, looked back over her shoulder to give his name to her mistress, and said to Dan confidently, "Wait, sir; just wait a bit." Her lips were affable. And in a few moments, to Dan's astonished delight, the actress herself appeared, a big scarf over her head and her body enveloped in her snowy cloak, and he understood with a leap of his heart that she had singled him out to take her home.

She went before him through the wings to the stage entrance, which he opened for her, and she pa.s.sed out before him into the fog and the mist.

For the first time Blair followed her through the crowd, which was a big one on this night. On the one side waited the poor, who wished her many blessings, and on the other side her admirers, whose thoughts were quite different. Something of this flashed through Dan's mind,-and in that moment he touched the serious part of life for the first time.

In Letty Lane's motor, the small electric light lit over their heads and the flower vase empty, he sat beside the fragrant human creature whom London adored, and knew his place would have been envied by many a man.

"I took your friends to their place all right," he told her, "and I'm going to see them myself to-morrow. I advised the girl not to get married for her money. Say, this is awfully nice of you to let me take you home!"

She seemed small in her corner. "You were great to-night," Dan went on, "simply great! Wasn't the crowd crazy about you, though! How does it feel to stand there and hear them clap like a thunderstorm and call your name?"

She replied with effort. "It _was_ a nice audience, wasn't it? Oh, I don't know how it feels. It is rather stimulating. How's the other boy?"

she asked abruptly, and when Dan had said that Ruggles had left him alone in London, she turned and laughed a little.

Dan asked her why she had sent for him to-day. "I'm mighty sorry I was out of town," he said warmly. "Just to think you should have wanted me to do something for you and I didn't turn up. You know I would be glad to do anything. What was it? Won't you tell me what it was?"

"The Jew did it for me."

And Dan exclaimed: "It made me simply sick to see that animal in your room. I would have kicked him out if I hadn't thought that it would make an unpleasant scene for you. We have pa.s.sed the Savoy." He looked out of the window, and Letty Lane replied:

"I told the driver to go to the Carlton first."

She was taking _him_ home then!

"Well, you've got to come in and have some supper with me in that case,"

he cried eagerly, and she told him that she had taken him home because she knew that Mr. Ruggles would approve.

"Not much you won't," he said, and put his hand on the speaking tube, but she stopped him.

"Don't give any orders in my motor, Mr. Blair. You sit still where you are."

"Do you think that I am such a simple youth that I-"

Letty Lane with a gesture of supreme ennui said to him impatiently:

"Oh, I just think I am pretty nearly tired to death; don't bother me. I want my own way."

Her voice and her gesture, her beauty and her indifference, her sort of vague lack of interest in him and in everything, put the boy, full of life as he was, out of ease, but he ventured, after a second:

"Won't you please tell me what you wanted me to do this afternoon?"

"Why, I was hard up, that's all. I have used all my salary for two months and I couldn't pay my bill at the Savoy."

"Lord!" he said fervently, "why didn't you-"

"I did. Like a fool I sent for you the first thing, but I was awfully glad when five o'clock came you didn't turn up. Please don't bother or speak of it again."

And burning with curiosity as to what part Poniotowsky played in her life, Dan sat quiet, not venturing to put to her any more questions. She seemed so tired and so overcome by her own thoughts. When they had turned down toward the hotel, however, he decided that he must in honor tell her his news.

"Got some news to tell you," he exclaimed abruptly. "Want you to congratulate me. I'm engaged to be married to the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater.

She happens to be a great admirer of your voice."

The actress turned sharply to him and in the dark he could see her little, white face. The covering over her head fell back and she exclaimed:

"Heavens!" and impulsively put her hands out over his. "Do you really mean what you say?"

"Yes." He nodded surprisedly. "What do you look like that for?"

Letty Lane arranged her scarf and then drew back from him and laughed.

"Oh, dear, dear, dear," she exclaimed, "and I ... and I have been...."

She looked up at him swiftly as though she fancied she might detect some new quality in him which she had not observed before, but she saw only his clear, kind eyes, his charming smile and his beautiful, young ignorance, and said softly to him:

"No use to cry, little boy, if it's true! But that woman isn't half good enough for you-not half, and I guess you think it funny enough to hear _me_ say so! What does the other boy from Montana say?"

"Don't know," Dan answered indifferently. "Marconied him; didn't tell him about it before he left. You see he doesn't understand England-doesn't like it."

A little dazed by the way each of the two women took the mention of the other, he asked timidly:

"You don't like the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater, then?"

And she laughed again.

"Goodness gracious, I don't know her; actresses don't sit around with d.u.c.h.esses." Then abruptly, her beautiful eyes, under their curled dark lashes, full on him, she asked: