Part 6 (1/2)
”What was it? I didn't hear it.”
”He said he was going to see Melvin. I suppose you know who Melvin is, don't you?”
”Oh, yes, indeed. Mr. Melvin and I are great friends. I think he is about the nicest old gentleman of my acquaintance; don't you? He is what I should call the _arbiter elegantiarum_ of the Langdon court, if one could imagine Old Steve as a Caesar, and Patricia as--” Beatrice paused, and flushed hotly. She had not considered to what length her words were reaching. She had almost cast a reflection upon her friend, which would have been as unkind as it was unmerited. She added, quickly: ”But why, if I may ask, did the mention of Mr. Melvin's name interest you?”
Duncan gazed at his companion rather stupidly, for a moment, for his mind had suddenly become intent upon the complications of the day, and he had forgotten for the time being, where he was, and with whom he was talking. But Beatrice's smile and the mockery in her eyes brought him back to the present.
”I remembered that I should have gone, myself, to see Melvin, to-night,” he told her, quietly. ”It really was quite important. I should have sought him, instead of coming here.”
”Indeed?” Beatrice laughed, brightly. ”Mr. Melvin seems to be in great demand. Are you and Patricia to follow the French fas.h.i.+on of drawing the marriage-contract? and is Mr. Melvin to act the part of a French notary?” There was a touch of irony in her question, a little shaft of sarcasm that brought a quick flush to Duncan's face. He was reminded instantly of the tentative betrothal with Patricia, and his misgivings concerning it. Beside him was seated the one person who might aid them both; and with sudden resolution, acted upon as quickly as it was formed, he reached out and took one of Miss Brunswick's hands, holding it between both his own.
”Beatrice,” he said, with quiet emphasis, ”you have always been a good fellow, if ever there was a girl born in the world who was one. I wonder if you could be persuaded to give me the benefit of your advice, and, possibly, your active a.s.sistance?”
She flushed a little under the praise and the intimately personal request that came with it, but he did not notice this as he went on: ”I've somehow got things into the biggest kind of a muddle to-day, and I have a notion to tell you all about it; I have the impulse to take you into my confidence and to ask you to help me out. I know you can do it. By Jove, Beatrice, I think you are the only person in the world who can do it! Will you?”
She shrugged her shoulders ever so little, and the flush left her cheeks, rendering them paler than was their wont. It suddenly came home to her that he was asking a favor that might prove extremely difficult to grant.
”I cannot say as to that until I hear what you wish me to do,” she replied.
”I want you to help me square myself,” he said, quickly.
”To square yourself?” She raised her brows in a.s.sumed surprise. ”With whom?”
”Why, with Patricia, of course.”
”Help you to square yourself with Patricia?” She laughed outright, but without mirth. ”I am afraid I don't at all understand you, Roderick. I supposed you had already accomplished that much, for you told me--did you not?--that Patricia has just accepted you?”
”Yes, and that's the devil of it!” was the unexpected astounding reply. Beatrice moved farther away from him, and took her hand from his grasp, in well-simulated horror of what he had said.
”Let us, at least, confine ourselves to the usages and language of polite society;” she said, with mock severity. ”We will leave the devil out of it, if you please. Besides, you amaze me! Patricia has just accepted you, and that is 'the devil of it.' Really, I can't guess what you mean by such a paradoxical statement as that.”
”Forgive me. I am so wrought up that I scarcely know what I am talking about, or what I am doing. As I said before, I have managed to get things into a terrible mess, and I believe that you, Beatrice, are the only person alive who can unravel the tangle for me. Will you help me out? Will you?”
”You must tell me what it is, before I commit myself. You are so very aggravating, in words and manner, that I cannot even attempt to understand you.”
For just a few moments, he hesitated. There was within him the feeling that he would outrage Patricia's ideas of the fitness of things, if he should take Beatrice Brunswick into his confidence and relate to her all that had occurred this afternoon and evening. But, on the other hand, he saw in this beautiful girl a personification of the straw at which a drowning man grasps. He knew that she was, personally, closer to Patricia than any other friend had been, and that she understood Patricia better than did anyone else, save Stephen Langdon, perhaps. He knew, also, that he could trust her, and that he could rely, implicitly, upon her loyalty. He knew that she would never betray the secrets he would be obliged to tell concerning Stephen Langdon's affairs. He had tried her often, and he had never found her wanting. Therefore, he felt that the greatest secret of all, concerning the financial extremity in which Stephen Langdon had become involved, would be safe with Beatrice Brunswick. Manlike, he began very stupidly and very strangely.
”By Jove, Beatrice!” he exclaimed. ”I wish I might have fallen in love with you, instead of with Patricia! You would never have seen things in the light she does!”
Beatrice's eyes widened and deepened; then, they narrowed so that she almost frowned. She bit her lips with vexation, and for an instant was angry. At last, she laughed. She did not wish him to know how deeply he had wounded her by that careless statement, so she uttered a care-free ripple of laughter.
”I don't quite know whether I should take that as a compliment or not,” she replied. ”It is more than likely that I would have conducted myself very much worse than Patricia has done in this affair which you have not as yet explained to me. Perhaps, it is a fortunate thing for both of us that you did not fall in love with me, instead of her. I'm sure I don't know what I should have done with you, in such a case.
But I will help you if I can; only, understand in the beginning that if you tell me the story at all, you must tell me all of it. I don't want any half-confidences, Roderick.”
Duncan did tell her all of it then, leaving nothing to be added, when he had finished; and she listened to the end of his tale in utter silence, with her head half-turned away and her chin supported by the palm of one of her jeweled hands. They did not move to the front of the box again, nor give any heed to the rise of the curtain or to what was taking place on the stage, during the ensuing act. Duncan talked straight on, through it all; and Beatrice listened with close attention. One might have supposed that the music and the singing did not reach the ears of either of them, and one would not have been very wrong in that surmise. The tragic fate of John, the Baptist; the unholy, unnatural pa.s.sion of a depraved soul for the dead lips of a man who had spurned her while he lived; the exquisite music of Strauss; the superb scenery and stage-setting; the rich and gorgeous costumes--all remained unseen and unheard by these two, one intent upon reestablis.h.i.+ng himself in the esteem of Patricia Langdon, the other disturbed by emotions she could not have named, which she would have declined to recognize, even had they presented themselves frankly to her. She had known, of course, of Duncan's love for her friend, but until this hour there had always existed an unformed, unrecognized doubt in the mind of Beatrice that it would ever be requited.
When he had finished, she was still silent, and for so long a time that at last, with some impatience, he bent nearer to her, and exclaimed:
”Well, Beatrice? What do you think of it all?”
She shuddered a little. There was still another interval before she spoke, and then, with calm directness, she replied: