VIII

Those first few sentences, spoken in the midst of a curious little crowd of strangers, seemed to John, when he thought of his long waiting, almost piteously inadequate. Louise, recognizing the difficulty of the situation, swiftly recovered her composure. She was both tactful and gracious.

"Do tell me how you got in here," she said. "No one is allowed to pass the stage door at rehearsal times. Mr. Faraday, to whom I will introduce you in a moment, is a perfect autocrat; and Mr. Mullins, our stage manager, is even worse."

"I just asked for you," John explained. "The doorkeeper told me that you were engaged, but I persuaded him to let me come in."

She shook her head.

"Bribery!" she declared accusingly.

"I heard your voice, and after that it was hard to go away. I'm afraid I ought to have waited outside."

Louise turned to Miles Faraday, who was looking a little annoyed.

"Mr. Faraday," she said appealingly, "Mr. Strangewey comes from the country—he is, in fact, the most complete countryman I have ever met in my life. He comes from Cumberland, and he once—well, very nearly saved my life. He knows nothing about theaters, and he hasn't the least idea of the importance of a rehearsal. You won't mind if we put him somewhere out of the way till we have finished, will you?"

"After such an introduction," Faraday said in a tone of resignation, "Mr. Strangewey would be welcome at any time."

"There's a dear man!" Louise exclaimed. "Let me introduce him quickly. Mr. John Strangewey—Mr. Miles Faraday, M. Graillot, Miss Sophy Gerard, my particular little friend. The prince you already know, although you may not recognize him trying to balance himself on that absurd stool."

John bowed in various directions, and Faraday, taking him good-naturedly by the arm, led him to a garden-seat at the back of the stage.

"There!" he said. "You are one of the most privileged persons in London. You shall hear the finish of our rehearsal. There isn't a press man in London I'd have near the place."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," John replied. "Is this, may I ask, the play that you are soon going to produce?"

"Three weeks from next Monday, I hope," Faraday told him. "Don't attempt to judge by anything you hear this afternoon. We are just deciding upon some cuts. See you later. You may smoke, if you like."

Twenty-four hours away from his silent hills, John looked out with puzzled eyes from his dusty seat among ropes and pulleys and leaning fragments of scenery. What he saw and heard seemed to him, for the most part, a meaningless tangle of gestures and phrases. The men and women in fashionable clothes, moving about before that gloomy space of empty auditorium, looked more like marionettes than creatures of flesh and blood, drawn this way and that at the bidding of the stout, masterly Frenchman, who was continually muttering exclamations and banging the manuscript upon his hand.

He kept his eyes fixed upon Louise. He told himself that he was in her presence at last. As the moments passed, it became more and more difficult for him to realize the actuality of the scene upon which he was looking. It seemed like a dream-picture, with unreal men and women moving about aimlessly, saying strange words.

Then there came a moment which brought a tingle into his blood, which plunged his senses into hot confusion. He rose to his feet. Faraday was sitting down, and Louise was resting both her hands upon his shoulders.

"Is there nothing I can be to you, then, Edmund?" she asked, her voice vibrating with a passion which he found it hard to believe was not real.

Faraday turned slowly in his chair. He held out his arms.

"One thing," he murmured.

John had moved half a step forward when he felt the prince's eyes fixed upon him, and was conscious of a sudden sense of ignorance, almost of uncouthness. It was a play which they were rehearsing, of course! It was a damnable thing to see Louise taken into that cold and obviously unreal embrace, but it was only a play. It was part of her work.

John resumed his seat and folded his arms. With the embrace had fallen an imaginary curtain, and the rehearsal was over. They were all crowded together, talking, in the center of the stage. The prince, who had stepped across the footlights, made his way to where John was sitting.

"So you have deserted Cumberland for a time?" he courteously inquired.

"I came up last night," John replied.

"You are making a long stay?"

John hesitated. He felt that no one knew less of his movements than he himself. His eyes had wandered to where Louise and Graillot were talking.

"I can scarcely tell yet. I have made no plans."

"London, at this season of the year," the prince observed, "is scarcely at its best."

John smiled.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I am not critical. It is eight years since I was here last, on my way down from Oxford."

"You have been abroad, perhaps?" the prince inquired.

"I have not been out of Cumberland during the whole of that time," John confessed.

The prince, after a moment's incredulous stare, laughed softly to himself.

"You are a very wonderful person, Mr. Strangewey," he declared. "I have heard of your good fortune. If I can be of any service to you during your stay in town," he added politely, "please command me."

"You are very kind," John replied gratefully.

Louise broke away from the little group and came across toward them.

"Free at last!" she exclaimed. "Now let us go out and have some tea."

They made their way down the little passage and out into the sudden blaze of the sunlit streets. Two cars were drawn up outside the stage door.

"The Carlton or Rumpelmayer's?" asked the prince, who had overtaken them upon the pavement.

"The Carlton, I think," Louise decided. "We can get a quiet table there inside the restaurant. You bring Sophy, will you, Eugène? I am going to take possession of Mr. Strangewey."

The prince, with a little bow, pointed to the door of his limousine, which a footman was holding open. Louise led John to a smaller car which was waiting in the rear.

"The Carlton," she told the man, as he arranged the rugs. "And now," she added, turning to John, "why have you come to London? How long are you going to stay? What are you going to do? And—most important of all—in what spirit have you come?"

John breathed a little sigh of contentment. They were moving slowly down a back street to take their place in the tide of traffic which flooded the main thoroughfares.

"That sounds so like you," he said. "I came up last night, suddenly. I have no idea how long I am going to stay; I have no idea what I am going to do. As for the spirit in which I have come—well, I should call it an inquiring one."

"A very good start," Louise murmured approvingly, "but still a little vague!"

"Then I will do away with all vagueness. I came to see you," John confessed bluntly.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed, looking at him with a little smile. "How downright you are!"

"Country methods," he reminded her.

"Don't overdo it," she begged.

"The truth—" he began.

"Has to be handled very carefully," she said, interrupting him. "The truth is either beautiful or crude, and the people who meddle with such a wonderful thing need a great deal of tact. You have come to see me, you say. Very well, then, I will be just as frank. I have been hoping that you would come!"

"You can't imagine how good it is to hear you say that," he declared.

"Mind," she went on, "I have been hoping it for more reasons than one. You have come to realize, I hope, that it is your duty to try to see a little more of life than you possibly can leading a patriarchal existence among your flocks and herds."

"That may be so," John assented. "I have often thought of our conversation. I don't know, even now, whether you were right or wrong. I only know that since you went away I have felt something of the unrest with which you threatened me. I want to settle the matter one way or the other. I want to try, for a little time, what it is like to live in the crowded places, to be near you, to see, if I may, more of you and your way of living."

They were silent for several moments.

"I thought you would come," Louise said at last; "and I am glad, but even in these first few minutes I want to say something to you. If you wish to succeed in your object, and really understand the people you meet here and the life they lead, don't be like your brother—too quick to judge. Do not hug your prejudices too tightly. You will come across many problems, many situations which will seem strange to you. Do not make up your mind about anything in a hurry."

"I will remember that," he promised. "You must remember, though, that I don't expect ever to become a convert. I believe I am a countryman, bred and born. Still, there are some things that I want to understand, if I can, and, more than anything else—I want to see you!"

She faced his direct speech this time with more deliberation.

"Tell me exactly why."

"If I could tell you that," he replied simply, "I should be able to answer for myself the riddle which has kept me awake at night for weeks and months, which has puzzled me more than anything else in life has ever done."

"You really have thought of me, then?"

"Didn't you always know that I should?"

"Perhaps," she admitted. "Anyhow, I always felt that we should meet again, that you would come to London. The problem is," she added, smiling, "what to do with you now you are here."

"I haven't come to be a nuisance," he assured her. "I just want a little help from you."

She became indiscreet. She looked at him with a little smile at the corners of her lips.

"Nothing else?" she asked, almost under her breath.

"At the end of it all, yes," he answered simply. "I want to understand because it is your world. I want to feel myself nearer to you. I want—"

She gripped at his arm suddenly. She knew well enough that she had deliberately provoked his words, but there was a look in her face almost of fear.

"Don't let us be too serious all at once," she begged quickly. "If you have one fault, my dear big friend from the country," she went on, with a swiftly assumed gaiety, "it is that you are too serious for your years. Sophy and I between us must try to cure you of that! You see, we have arrived."

He handed her out, followed her across the pavement, and found himself plunged into what seemed to him to be an absolute vortex of human beings, all dressed in very much the same fashion, all laughing and talking together very much in the same note, all criticising every fresh group of arrivals with very much the same eyes and manner. The palm-court was crowded with little parties seated at the various round tables, partaking languidly of the most indolent meal of the day. Even the broad passageway was full of men and women, standing about talking or looking for tables. One could scarcely hear the music of the orchestra for the babel of voices.

The Prince of Seyre beckoned to them from the steps. He seemed to have been awaiting their arrival there—a cold, immaculate, and, considering his lack of height, a curiously distinguished-looking figure.

"I have a table inside," he told them as they approached. "It is better for conversation. The rest of the place is like a beer-garden. I am not sure if they will dance here to-day, but if they do, they will come also into the restaurant."

"Wise man!" Louise declared. "I, too, hate the babel outside."

They were ushered to a round table directly before the entrance, and a couple of attentive waiters stood behind their chairs.

"We are faced," said the prince, as he took up the menu, "with our daily problem. What can I order for you?"

"A cup of chocolate," Louise replied.

"And Miss Sophy?"

"Tea, please."

John, too, preferred tea; the prince ordered absinth.

"A polyglot meal, isn't it, Mr. Strangewey?" said Louise, as the order was executed; "not in the least; what that wonderful old butler of yours would understand by tea. We become depraved in our appetites, as well as in our sensations. We are always seeking for something new. Sophy, put your hat on straight if you want to make a good impression on Mr. Strangewey. I am hoping that you two will be great friends."

Sophy turned toward John with a little grimace.

"Louise is so tactless!" she said. "I am sure any idea you might have had of liking me will have gone already. Has it, Mr. Strangewey?"

"On the contrary," he replied, a little stiffly, but without hesitation, "I was thinking that Miss Maurel could scarcely have set me a more pleasant task."

The girl looked reproachfully across at her friend.

"You told me he came from the wilds and was quite unsophisticated!" she exclaimed.

"The truth," John assured them, looking with dismay at his little china cup, "comes very easily to us. We are brought up on it in Cumberland."

"Positively nourished on it," Louise agreed. "My dear Sophy, what he says is quite true. Up there a man would tell you that he didn't like the cut of your new blouse or the droop of your hat. It's a wonderful atmosphere, and very austere. You ought to meet Mr. Strangewey's brother, if you want to know the truth about yourself. Do go on looking about you, Mr. Strangewey; and when you have finished, tell us just what you are thinking."

"Well, just at that moment," he replied, "I was thinking that I ought not to have come here in these clothes."

The girl by his side laughed reassuringly.

"As a matter of fact, you couldn't have done anything more successful," she declared. "The one thing up here that every one would like to do if he dared is to be different from his fellows; but very few have the necessary courage. Besides, at heart we are all so frightfully, hatefully imitative. The last great success was the prince, when he wore a black stock with a dinner-coat; but, alas, next evening there were forty or fifty of them! If you come here to tea to-morrow afternoon, I dare say you will find dozens of men wearing gray tweed clothes, colored shirts, and brown boots. I am sure they are most becoming!"

"Don't chatter too much, child," Louise said benignly. "I want to hear some more of Mr. Strangewey's impressions. This is—well, if not quite a fashionable crowd, yet very nearly so. What do you think of it—the women, for instance?"

"Well, to me," John confessed candidly, "they all look like dolls or manikins. Their dresses and their hats overshadow their faces. They seem all the time to be wanting to show, not themselves, but what they have on."

They all laughed. Even the prince's lips were parted by the flicker of a smile. Sophy leaned across the table with a sigh.

"Louise," she pleaded, "you will lend him to me sometimes, won't you? You won't keep him altogether to yourself? There are such a lot of places I want to take him to!"

"I was never greedy," Louise remarked, with an air of self-satisfaction. "If you succeed in making a favorable impression upon him, I promise you your share."

"Tell us some more of your impressions, Mr. Strangewey," Sophy begged.

"You want to laugh at me," John protested good-humoredly.

"On the contrary," the prince assured him, as he fitted a cigarette into a long, amber tube, "they want to laugh with you. You ought to realize your value as a companion in these days. You are the only person who can see the truth. Eyes and tastes blurred with custom perceive so little. You are quite right when you say that these women are like manikins; that their bodies and faces are lost; but one does not notice it until it is pointed out."

"We will revert," Louise decided, "to a more primitive life. You and I will inaugurate a missionary enterprise, Mr. Strangewey. We will judge the world afresh. We will reclothe and rehabilitate it."

The prince flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette.

"Morally as well as sartorially?" he asked.

There was a moment's rather queer silence. The music rose above the hubbub of voices and died away again. Louise rose to her feet.

"Quite an intelligent person, really," she said, moving her head in the direction of the prince. "His little attacks of cynicism come only with indigestion or after absinth. Now, if you like, you shall escort me home, Mr. Strangewey. I want to show him exactly where I live," she explained, addressing the others, "so that he will have no excuse for not coming to pay his respects to me to-morrow afternoon."

The prince, with a skilful maneuver, made his way to her side as they left the restaurant.

"To-morrow afternoon, I think you said?" he repeated quietly. "You will be in town then?"

"Yes, I think so."

"You have changed your mind, then, about—"

"M. Graillot will not listen to my leaving London," she interrupted rapidly. "He declares that it is too near the production of the play. My own part may be perfect, but he needs me for the sake of the others. He puts it like a Frenchman, of course."

They had reached the outer door, which was being held open for them by a bowing commissionnaire. John and Sophy were waiting upon the pavement. The prince drew a little back.

"I understand!" he murmured.