Part 37 (1/2)

”To-morrow,” replied he, ignoring her hand.

”No. My money is all gone. Besides, I have no time for amateur trifling.”

”Your lessons are paid for until the end of the month. This is only the nineteenth.”

”Then you are so much in.” Again she put out her hand.

He took it. ”You owe me an explanation.”

She smiled mockingly. ”As a friend of mine says, don't ask questions to which you already know the answer.”

And she departed, the smile still on her charming face, but the new seriousness beneath it. As she had antic.i.p.ated, she found Stanley Baird waiting for her in the drawing-room of the apartment. Being by habit much interested in his own emotions and not at all in the emotions of others, he saw only the healthful radiance the sharp October air had put into her cheeks and eyes. Certainly, to look at Mildred Gower was to get no impression of lack of health and strength.

Her glance wavered a little at sight of him, then the expression of firmness came back.

”You look like that picture you gave me a long time ago,” said he. ”Do you remember it?”

She did not.

”It has a--different expression,” he went on. ”I don't think I'd have noticed it but for Keith. I happened to show it to him one day, and he stared at it in that way he has--you know?”

”Yes, I know,” said Mildred. She was seeing those uncanny, brilliant, penetrating eyes, in such startling contrast to the calm, lifeless coloring and cla.s.sic chiseling of features.

”And after a while he said, 'So, THAT'S Miss Stevens!' And I asked him what he meant, and he took one of your later photos and put the two side by side. To my notion the later was a lot the more attractive, for the face was rounder and softer and didn't have a certain kind of--well, hardness, as if you had a will and could ride rough shod. Not that you look so frightfully unattractive.”

”I remember the picture,” interrupted Mildred. ”It was taken when I was twenty--just after an illness.”

”The face WAS thin,” said Stanley. ”Keith called it a 'give away.'”

”I'd like to see it,” said Mildred.

”I'll try to find it. But I'm afraid I can't. I haven't seen it since I showed it to Keith, and when I hunted for it the other day, it didn't turn up. I've changed valets several times in the last six months--”

But Mildred had ceased listening. Keith had seen the picture, had called it a ”give away,” had been interested in it--and the picture had disappeared. She laughed at her own folly, yet she was glad Stanley had given her this chance to make up a silly day-dream. She waited until he had exhausted himself on the subject of valets, their drunkenness, their thievish habits, their incompetence, then she said:

”I took my last lesson from Jennings to-day.”

”What's the matter? Do you want to change? You didn't say anything about it? Isn't he good?”

”Good enough. But I've discovered that my voice isn't reliable, and unless one has a reliable voice there's no chance for a grand-opera career--or for comic opera, either.”

Stanley was straightway all agitation and protest. ”Who put that notion in your head? There's nothing in it, Mildred. Jennings is crazy about your voice, and he knows.”

”Jennings is after the money,” replied Mildred. ”What I'm saying is the truth. Stanley, our beautiful dream of a career has winked out.”

His expression was most revealing.

”And,” she went on, ”I'm not going to take any more of your money--and, of course, I'll pay back what I've borrowed when I can”--she smiled--”which may not be very soon.”

”What's all this about, anyhow?” demanded he. ”I don't see any sign of it in your face. You wouldn't take it so coolly if it were so.”