XIII

John's first caller at the Milan was, in a way, a surprise to him. He was sitting smoking an after-breakfast pipe on the following morning, and gazing at the telephone directory, when his bell rang. He opened the door to find the Prince of Seyre standing outside.

"I pay you a very early visit, I fear," the latter began.

"Not at all," John replied, taking the pipe from his mouth and throwing open the door. "It is very good of you to come and see me."

The prince followed John into the little sitting room. He was dressed, as usual, with scrupulous care. His white linen gaiters were immaculate, his trousers were perfectly creased, the hang of his coat had engaged the care of an artist. His tie was of a deep shade of violet, fastened with a wonderful pearl, and his fingers were perhaps a trifle overmanicured. He wore a bunch of Parma violets in his buttonhole, and he carried with him a very faint but unusual perfume, which seemed to John like the odor of delicate green tea. It was just these details, and the slowness of his speech, which alone accentuated his foreign origin.

"It occurred to me," he said, as he seated himself in an easy chair, "that if you are really intending to make this experiment in town life of which Miss Maurel spoke, I might be of some assistance to you. There are certain matters, quite unimportant in themselves, concerning which a little advice in the beginning may save you trouble."

"Very good of you, I am sure," John repeated. "To tell you the truth, I was just looking through the telephone directory to see if I could come across the name of a tailor I used to have some things from."

"If it pleases you to place yourself in my hands," the prince suggested, "I will introduce you to my own tradespeople. I have made the selection with some care."

"That will suit me admirably," John declared. "If you will just give me the addresses—I couldn't think of taking up your time."

"I have, fortunately, an idle morning," the prince said, "and it is entirely at your disposal. At half past one I believe we are both lunching with Miss Maurel."

John was conscious of a momentary sense of annoyance. His tête-à-tête with Louise seemed farther off than ever. At the prince's suggestion, however, he fetched his hat and gloves and entered the former's automobile, which was waiting below.

"Miss Maurel!" the prince remarked, as they glided off westward, "is, I believe, inviting a few friends to meet you. If you would feel more comfortable in town clothes, I think the tailor to whom I am taking you will be able to arrange that. He makes special preparations for such emergencies."

"I will do what you think best," John agreed.

They spent the morning in the neighborhood of Bond Street, and John laid the foundations of a wardrobe more extensive than any he had ever dreamed of possessing. At half past one they were shown into Louise's little dressing room. There were three or four men already present, standing around their hostess and sipping some faint yellow cordial from long Venetian glasses.

Louise came forward to meet them, and made a little grimace as she remarked the change in John's appearance.

"Honestly, I don't know you, and I don't believe I like you at all!" she exclaimed. "How dare you transform yourself into a tailor's dummy in this fashion?"

"It was entirely out of respect to you," John said.

"In fact," the prince added, "we considered that we had achieved rather a success."

"I suppose I must look upon your effort as a compliment," Louise sighed, "but it seems queer to lose even so much of you. Shall you take up our manners and our habits, Mr. Strangewey, as easily as you wear our clothes?"

"That I cannot promise," he replied.

"The brain should adapt itself at least as readily as the body," the prince remarked.

M. Graillot, who was one of the three men present, turned around.

"Who is talking platitudes?" he demanded. "I write plays, and that is my monopoly. Ah, it is the prince, I see! And our young friend who interrupted us at rehearsal yesterday."

"And whom I am anxious to have you meet again," Louise intervened. "You remember his name, perhaps—Mr. John Strangewey."

Graillot held out his left hand to the prince and his right to John.

"Mr. Strangewey," he said, "I congratulate you! Any person who has the good fortune to interest Miss Maurel is to be congratulated. Yet must I look at you and feel myself puzzled. You are not an artist—no? You do not paint or write?"

John shook his head.

"Mr. Strangewey's claim to distinction is that he is just an ordinary man," Louise observed. "Such a relief, you know, after all you clever people! And that reminds me, Miles," she added, turning to the actor, "I asked you here, too, especially to meet Mr. Strangewey again. Mr. Faraday is one of the most dangerous guides in London a young man could have. He knows everybody and everything unknowable and yet worth knowing. I present him to you as a hero. He is going to make love to me three hours a night for very many nights, we hope."

John shook hands with everybody and sipped the contents of the glass which had been handed to him. Then a butler opened the door and announced luncheon. Louise offered her hand to the prince, who stepped back.

"It shall be the privilege of the stranger within our gates," he decided.

Louise turned to John with a little smile.

"Let me show you, then, the way to my dining room. I ought to apologize for not asking some women to meet you. I tried two on the telephone, but they were engaged."

"I will restore the balance," the prince promised, turning from the contemplation of one of the prints hanging in the hall. "I am giving a supper party to-night for Mr. Strangewey, and I will promise him a preponderance of your charming sex."

"Am I invited?" Louise inquired.

The prince shook his head.

"Alas, no!"

They passed into a small dining room, and here again John noticed that an absolute simplicity was paramount. The carpet was of some dark, almost indistinguishable color. The walls were white, hung with three or four French etchings in black reed frames. At one end a curved window looked out upon a vista of green trees and shrubs, and the recess was completely filled in with what appeared to be almost a grotto of flowers. The round table, covered with an exquisitely fine cloth, was very simply laid. There was a little glass of the finest quality, and a very little silver. For flowers there was only one bowl, a brilliant patch of some scarlet exotic, in the center.

"A supper party to which I am not invited," said Louise, as she took her place at the table and motioned John to a seat by her side, "fills me with curiosity. Who are to be your guests, prince?"

"Calavera and her sprites," the prince announced.

Louise paused for a moment in the act of helping herself to hors d'oeuvres. She glanced toward the prince. He was busy studying the menu through his eyeglass.

"By her sprites you mean—"

"The young ladies of her wonderful ballet," the prince replied. "I am also dipping into musical comedy for a few of my guests. Calavera, however, is to be the pièce de résistance."

The prince dropped his eye-glass and glanced toward his hostess. For a moment their eyes met. Louise's lips were faintly curled. It was almost as if a challenge had passed between them.

"Mr. Strangewey," she said, turning to John, "let me warn you. You are to meet to-night a woman for whom kings are reported to sigh in vain, at whose feet the jeunesse dorée of the world pours out its riches. Is it kind of the prince, I wonder, to try and seal your fate so soon?"

John laughed easily. He met the challenge in her eyes and answered it.

"If you are talking of the great Calavera," he said, "she will be far too wonderful a lady to take any notice of a yokel like myself. And besides—"

"Besides?" the prince intervened.

"I have only seen her photographs and read of her," John remarked, "but I don't think she would attract me very much."

They all laughed. Graillot leaned across the table.

"My young friend," he exclaimed, "pray to your presiding genius, the presiding genius that won for you the friendship of our hostess, that Calavera never hears that speech, or within a week you will be at her chariot-wheels! I have seen many women and loved many, but there are none like Calavera. In her way she is the greatest artist that ever breathed. As for her beauty, wait till you see her! She has a body which makes me close my eyes and dream of Greece; eyes such as one seldom sees save in a few parts of southern Spain; and as for her smile—well, if I go on I shall begin to tell stories of her victims and neglect my lunch."

The conversation drifted away to reminiscences of other great dancers. Louise, under its cover, devoted her attention to her guest,

"First of all," she asked, "tell me how you like my little friend?"

"I think she is charming," John answered without hesitation. "We went to a supper club last night and stayed there till about half past three."

"A supper club?"

John nodded.

"I have forgotten the name of the place, but they made me a member. It was great fun. We had some more champagne, and Sophy danced. I found a young man there whom I used to know."

"Really," said Louise, "I am not sure that I approve of this! A supper club with Sophy until half past three in the morning!"

He looked at her quickly.

"You don't mind?"

"My dear man, why should I mind?" she returned. "What concern is it of mine if you and Sophy care to amuse each other? It is exactly what I hoped for."

"That's all right, then," John declared, with a sigh of relief. "Do you know," he went on, lowering his voice, "that I am just a little disappointed about today?"

"Disappointed? After I have taken the trouble to give a luncheon party for you?"

"I should have thought it a greater compliment, and liked it better, if you had asked me to lunch with you alone," he said.

She shook her head.

"It would have been a wasted opportunity. You have come up to London with a purpose. You have an experiment to make, an experiment in living. All these men can help you."

"The greater part of my experiment," he pointed out, "needs the help of only one person, and that person is you."

She moved a little uneasily in her chair. It might have been his fancy, but he imagined that she glanced under her eyelids toward the Prince of Seyre. The prince, however, had turned almost ostentatiously away from her. He was leaning across the table, talking to Faraday.

"You have not lost your gift of plain speech," she observed.

"I hope I never shall," he declared. "It seems to me to be the simplest and the best plan, after all, to say what you feel and to ask for what you want."

"So delightful in Cumberland and Utopia," she sighed; "so impracticable here!"

"Then since we can't find Utopia, come back to Cumberland," he suggested.

A reminiscent smile played for a moment about her lips.

"I wonder," she murmured, "whether I shall ever again see that dear, wonderful old house of yours, and the mist on the hills, and the stars shining here and there through it, and the moon coming up in the distance!"

"All these things you will see again," he assured her confidently. "It is because I want you to see them again that I am here."

"Just now, at this minute, I feel a longing for them," she whispered, looking across the table, out of the window, to the softly waving trees.

At the close of the luncheon, a servant handed around coffee and liqueurs. The prince turned to Louise.

"You must not keep our young friend too late," he said. "He has appointments with his tailor and other myrmidons who have undertaken to adorn his person."

"Alas," replied Louise, rising, "I, too, have to go early to my dressmaker's. Do the honors for me, prince, will you?—and I will make my adieus now."

They all rose. She nodded to Graillot and Faraday. The prince moved to stand by the door. For a moment she and John were detached from the others.

"I want to see you alone," he said under his breath. "When can I?"

She hesitated.

"I am so busy!" she murmured. "Next week there are rehearsals nearly every minute of the day."

"To-morrow," John said insistently. "You have no rehearsals then. I must see you. I must talk to you without this crowd."

It was his moment. Her half-formed resolutions fell away before the compelling ring in his voice and the earnest pleading in his eyes.

"I will be in," she promised, "to-morrow at six o'clock."