XV

During the remainder of that afternoon and evening John was oppressed by a vague sense of the splendor of his surroundings and his companion's mysterious capacity for achieving impossibilities. Their visits to the tailors, the shirt-makers, the hosiers, and the boot-makers almost resembled a royal progress. All difficulties were waved aside. That night he dined, clothed like other men from head to foot, in the lofty dining room of one of the most exclusive clubs in London. The prince proved an agreeable if somewhat reticent companion. He introduced John to many well-known people, always with that little note of personal interest in his few words of presentation which gave a certain significance to the ceremony.

From the club, where the question of John's proposed membership, the prince acting as his sponsor, was favorably discussed with several members of the committee, they drove to Covent Garden, and for the first time in his life John entered the famous opera-house. The prince, preceded by an attendant, led the way to a box upon the second tier. A woman turned her head as they entered and stretched out her hand, which the prince raised to his lips.

"You see, I have taken you at your word, Eugène," she remarked. "So many evenings I have looked longingly from my stall at your empty box. To-night I summoned up all my courage, and here I am!"

"You give me a double pleasure, dear lady," the prince declared. "Not only is it a joy to be your host, but you give me also the opportunity of presenting to you my friend, John Strangewey. Strangewey, this is my very distant relative and very dear friend, Lady Hilda Mulloch."

Lady Hilda smiled graciously at John. She was apparently of a little less than middle age, with dark bands of chestnut hair surmounted by a tiara. Her face was the face of a clever and still beautiful woman; her figure slender and dignified; her voice low and delightful.

"Are you paying your nightly homage to Calavera, Mr. Strangewey, or are you only an occasional visitor?" she asked.

"This is my first visit of any sort to Covent Garden," John told her.

She looked at him with as much surprise as good breeding permitted. John, who had not as yet sat down, seemed almost preternaturally tall in that small box, with its low ceiling. He was looking around the house with the enthusiasm of a boy. Lady Hilda glanced away from him toward the prince, and smiled; then she looked back at John. There was something like admiration in her face.

"Do you live abroad?" she asked.

John shook his head.

"I live in Cumberland," he said. "Many people here seem to think that that is the same thing. My brother and I have a farm there."

"But you visit London occasionally, surely?"

"I have not been in London," John told her, "since I passed through it on my way home from Oxford, eight years ago."

"But why not?" she persisted.

John laughed a little.

"Well, really," he admitted, "when I come to think of it seriously, I scarcely know. I have lived alone with an elder brother, who hates London and would be very unhappy if I got into the way of coming up regularly. I fancy that I have rather grown into his way of thinking. I am quite satisfied—or rather I have been quite satisfied—to live down there all the year round."

"I have never heard anything so extraordinary in my life!" the woman declared frankly. "Is it the prince who has induced you to break out of your seclusion?"

"Our young friend," the prince explained, "finds himself suddenly in altered circumstances. He has been left a large fortune, and has come to spend it. Incidentally, I hope, he has come to see something more of your sex than is possible among his mountain wilds. He has come, in short, to look a little way into life."

Lady Hilda leaned back in her chair.

"How romantic!"

"The prince amuses himself," John assured her. "I don't suppose I shall stay very long in London. I want just to try it for a time."

She looked at him almost wistfully. She was a woman with brains; a woman notorious for the freedom of her life, for her intellectual gifts, for her almost brutal disregard of the conventions of her class. The psychological interest of John Strangewey's situation appealed to her powerfully. Besides, she had a weakness for handsome men.

"Of course, it all sounds like a fairy tale," she declared. "Tell me exactly, please, how long you have been in London."

"About forty-eight hours," he answered.

"And what did you do last night?"

"I dined with two friends, we went to the Palace, and one of them took me to a supper club."

She made a little grimace.

"You began in somewhat obvious fashion," she remarked.

"I can vouch for the friends," the prince observed, smiling.

"At any rate," said Lady Hilda, "I am glad to think that I shall be able to watch you when you see Calavera dance for the first time."

The curtain rang up upon one of the most gorgeous and sensuous of the Russian ballets. John, who by their joint insistence was occupying the front chair in the box, leaned forward in his place, his eyes steadfastly fixed upon the stage. Both the prince and Lady Hilda, in the background, although they occasionally glanced at the performance, devoted most of their attention to watching him.

As the story progressed and the music grew in passion and voluptuousness, they distinctly saw his almost militant protest. They saw the knitting of his firm mouth and the slight contraction of his eyebrows. The prince and his friend exchanged glances. She drew her chair a little farther back, and he followed her example.

"Where did you find anything so wonderful as this?" she murmured.

"Lost among the hills in Cumberland," the prince replied. "I have an estate up there—in fact, he and I are joint lords of the manor of the village in which he has lived."

"And you?" she whispered, glancing at John to be sure that she was not overheard. "Where do you come in? An educator of the young? I don't seem to see you in that rôle!"

A very rare and by no means pleasant smile twisted the corners of his lips for a moment.

"It is a long story."

"Can I be brought in?" she asked.

He nodded.

"It rests with you. It would suit my plans."

She toyed with her fan for a moment, looked restlessly at the stage and back again at John. Then she rose from her place and stood before the looking-glass. From the greater obscurity of the box she motioned to the prince.

John remained entirely heedless of their movements. His eyes were still riveted upon the stage, fascinated with the wonderful coloring, the realization of a new art.

"You and I," Lady Hilda whispered, "do not need to play about with the truth, Eugène. What are you doing this for?"

"The idlest whim," the prince assured her quietly. "Look at him. Think for a moment of his position—absolutely without experience, entirely ignorant about women, with a fortune one only dreams of, and probably the handsomest animal in London. What is going to become of him?"

"I think I understand a little," she confessed.

"I think you do," the prince assented. "He has views, this young man. It is my humor to see them dissipated. The modern Sir Galahad always irritated me a little."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"They'll never give him a chance, these women," she said. "Much better hand him over to me."

The prince smiled enigmatically, and Lady Hilda returned to her seat. John was still leaning forward with his eyes fixed upon Calavera, who was dancing alone now. The ballet was drawing toward the end. The music had reached its climax of wild and passionate sensuousness, dominated and inspired by the woman whose every movement and every glance seemed part of some occult, dimly understood language.

When the curtain rang down, John, like many others, was confused. Nevertheless, after that first breathless pause, he stood up and joined in the tumultuous applause.

"Well?" the prince asked.

John shook his head. "I don't know," he answered.

"Neither does any one else," Lady Hilda said. "Don't try to analyze your impressions for our benefit, Mr. Strangewey. I am exactly in your position, and I have been here a dozen times. Even to us hardened men and women of the world, this Russian music came as a surprise. There were parts of it you did not like, though, weren't there?"

"There were parts of it I hated," John agreed. "There were passages that seemed to aim at discord in every sense of the word."

She nodded sympathetically. They were on their way down the broad staircase.

"I wonder," she murmured, "whether I am going to be asked out to supper?"

"Alas, not to-night, dear lady," the prince regretted. "I am having a few friends at Seyre House."

She shot a glance at him and shrugged her shoulders. She was evidently displeased.

"How much too bad!" she exclaimed. "I am not at all sure that it is right of you to invite Mr. Strangewey to one of your orgies. A respectable little supper at the Carlton, and a cigarette in my library afterward, would have been a great deal better for both of you—certainly for Mr. Strangewey. I think I shall run away with him, as it is!"

The prince shrugged his shoulders.

"It is unfortunate," he sighed, "but we are both engaged. If you will give us the opportunity some other evening—"

"I am not at all sure that I shall have anything more to do with you, Eugène," she declared. "You are not behaving nicely. Will you come and see me while you are in town, Mr. Strangewey?" she added, turning to John. "I suppose you can be trusted to reach No. 21 Pont Street without your Mephistophelian chaperon?"

"I should like to very much," he replied. "I think," he added, a little hesitatingly, "that I have read one of your books of travel. It is very interesting to meet you."

"So my fame has really reached Cumberland!" she laughed. "You must come and talk to me one afternoon quite soon. Will you? I want so much to hear your impressions of London. I am always in between six and seven; or if you want to come earlier, I will try to be in if you telephone."

"I will come with pleasure," John promised.

They stood for a few moments in the crowded vestibule until Lady Hilda Mulloch's car was called. The prince stood back, allowing John to escort her to the door. She detained him for a moment after she had taken her seat, and leaned out of the window, her fingers still in his hand.

"Be careful!" she whispered. "The prince's supper parties are just a little—shall I say banal? There are better things if one waits!"