Part 40 (1/2)

”It is a pity,” he said to Lionel. ”She had a fresh voice; she was improving in her stage-business; and the public liked her. What on earth made her go off like this?”

”She left no explanation with me,” Lionel said, honestly enough. ”But in her letter to Miss Girond she hopes you won't be put to any inconvenience. By the way, if Miss Ross owes you any forfeit, I'll settle that up with you.”

”No, there's no forfeit in her agreement; it wasn't considered necessary,” the manager made answer. ”Of course I am a.s.suming that it's all fair and square; that she hasn't gone off to take a better engagement--”

”You needn't be afraid of that,” Lionel said, briefly; and, as Miss Constance here made her appearance, he withdrew from the empty stage, and presently had left the building.

He thought he would walk up to the Restaurant Gianuzzi in Rupert Street, and make inquiries there. But he was not very hopeful. For one thing, if Nina were desirous of concealment or of getting free away, she would not go to a place where, as he knew, she had lodged before; for another, he had disapproved of her living there all by herself, and Nina never forgot even his least expression of opinion. When he asked at the restaurant if a young lady had called there on the previous day to engage a room, he was answered that they had no young-lady visitor of any kind in the house; he was hardly disappointed.

But as he walked along and up Regent Street (here were the well-remembered shops that Nina and he used to glance into as they pa.s.sed idly on, talking sometimes, sometimes silent, but very well content in each other's society) he began to ask himself whether in truth he ought to seek out Nina and try to intercept her flight, even if that were yet possible. Estelle's questions were significant. What would he do, supposing he could induce Nina to come back? At present, he vaguely wished to restore the old situation--to have Nina again among her friends, happy in her work at the theatre, ready to go out for a stroll with him if the morning were fine, he wanted his old comrade, who was always so wise and prudent and cheerful, whom he could always please by sending her down a new song, a new waltz, an Italian ill.u.s.trated journal, or some similar little token of remembrance. But if Estelle's theory were the true one, _that_ Nina was gone forever, never to return; her place was vacant now, never to be refilled; and somewhere or other--perhaps hidden in London, perhaps on her way back to her native land--there was a woman, proud, silent, and tearless, her heart quivering from the blow that he had unintentionally dealt. How could he face _that_ Nina? What humble explanations and apologies could he offer?

To ask her to come back would of itself be an insult. Her wrongs were her defence? she was sacred from intrusion, from expostulation and entreaty.

At the theatre that evening he let the public fare as it liked, so far as his part in the performance was concerned. He got through his duties mechanically. The stage lacked interest; the wings were empty; the long, glazed corridor conveyed a mute reproach. As for the new Clara, Miss Constance did fairly well; she had not much of a voice, but she was as bold as bra.s.s, and her ”cheek” seemed to be approved by the audience. At one point Estelle came up to him.

”Is it not a change for no Nina to be in the theatre? But there is one that is glad--oh, very glad! Miss Burgoyne rejoices!”--and Estelle, as she pa.s.sed on, made use of a phrase in French, which, perhaps fortunately, he did not understand.

After the performance, he went up to the Garden Club--he did not care to go home to his own rooms and sit thinking. And the first person he saw after he pa.s.sed into the long coffee-room was Octavius Quirk, who was seated all by himself devouring a Gargantuan supper.

”This is luck,” Lionel said to himself. ”Maurice's Jabberwock will begin with his blatherskite nonsense--it will be something to pa.s.s the time.”

But on the contrary, as it turned out, the short, fat man with the unwholesome complexion was not at this moment in the humor for frothy and windy invective about nothing; perhaps the abundant supper had mollified him; he was quite suave.

”Ah, Moore,” said he, ”haven't seen you since you came back from Scotland. It was awfully kind of Lady Adela to send me a haunch of venison.”

”It would serve you for one meal, I suppose,” Lionel thought; he did not say so.

”I dine with them to-morrow night,” continued Mr. Quirk, complacently.

”Oh, indeed,” said Lionel? Lady Adela seemed rather in a hurry, immediately on her return to town, to secure her tame critic.

”Very good dinners they give you up there at Campden Hill,”

Mr. Quirk resumed, as he took out a big cigar from his case.

”Excellent--excellent--and the people very well chosen, too, if it weren't for that loathsome brute, Quincey Hooper. Why do they tolerate a fellow like that--the meanest lick-spittle and boot-blacker to any Englishman who has got a handle to his name, while all the time he is writing in his wretched Philadelphia rag every girding thing he can think of against England. Comparison, comparison, continually--and far more venomous than the foolish, feeble sort of stuff which is only Anglophobia and water; and yet Hooper hasn't the courage to speak out either--it's a morbid envy of England that is afraid to declare itself openly and can only deal in hints and innuendoes. What can Lady Adela see in a fellow like that? Of course he writes puffing paragraphs about her and sends them to her; but what good are they to her, coming from America? She wants to be recognized as a clever woman by her own set.

She appeals to the _dii majorum gentium_; what does she care for the verdict of Was.h.i.+ngton or Philadelphia or New York?”

Well, Lionel had no opinion to express on this point; on a previous occasion he had wondered why these two augurs had not been content to agree, seeing that the wide Atlantic rolled between their respective spheres of operation.

”I have been favored,” resumed Mr. Quirk, more blandly, ”with a sight of some portions of Lady Adela's new novel.”

”Already?”

”Oh, it isn't nearly finished yet; but she has had the earlier chapters set up in type, so that she could submit them to--to her particular friends, in fact. You haven't seen them?” asked Mr. Quirk, lifting his heavy and boiled-gooseberry eyes and looking at Lionel.

”Oh, no,” was the answer. ”My judgment is of no use to her; she is aware of that. I hope you were pleased with what you saw of it. Her last novel was not quite so successful as they had hoped, was it?”

”My dear fellow!” Mr. Quirk exclaimed, in astonishment (for he could not have the power of the log-rollers called in question). ”Not successful?

Most successful!--most successful! I don't know that it produced so much money--but what is that to people in their sphere?”