XVI

The reception-rooms of Seyre House, by some people considered the finest in London, were crowded that night by a brilliant and cosmopolitan assembly. For some time John stood by the prince's side and was introduced to more people than he had ever met before in his life. Presently, however, he was discovered by his friend Amerton.

"Queer thing your being here, a friend of the prince and all that!" the young man remarked. "Where's Miss Sophy this evening?"

"I haven't seen her," John replied. "I don't believe she is invited."

"Did you hear that Calavera is coming?" Amerton inquired.

John nodded.

"She's expected any moment. I wonder what she's like off the stage!"

"You wait and see," Lord Amerton sighed. "There isn't another woman in Europe to touch her. Why, they say that even our host is one of her victims. Like to be introduced to some of the girls, or shall we go and have a drink?"

John was hesitating when he felt a hand upon his shoulder. The prince's voice sounded in his ear.

"Strangewey," he said, "I am privileged to present you to Mme. Aida Calavera. Madame, this is the friend of whom I spoke to you."

John turned away from the little group of girls and young men toward whom Amerton had been leading him. Even though the prince's speech had given him a moment's breathing-space, he felt himself constrained to pause before he made his bow of ceremony.

The woman was different from anything he had imagined, from anything he had ever seen. In the ballet a writhing, sensuous figure with every gesture a note in the octave of passion, here she seemed the very personification of a negative and striking immobility. She was slender, not so tall as she had seemed upon the stage, dressed in white from head to foot. Her face was almost marblelike in its pallor, her smooth, black hair was drawn tightly over her ears, and her eyes were of the deepest shade of blue.

During that momentary pause, while he searched among a confused mixture of sensations for some formula of polite speech, John found time to liken her in his mind to something Egyptian. She raised her hand, as he bowed, with a gesture almost royal in its condescension. The prince, with quiet tact, bridged over the moment during which John struggled in vain for something to say.

"Mr. Strangewey," he remarked, "paid his first visit to Covent Garden to-night. He has seen his first ballet, as we moderns understand the term. I cannot help envying him that delight. He naturally finds it difficult to realize this additional good fortune. Will you excuse me for one moment?"

The prince departed to welcome some later arrivals. The noisy little group standing close at hand, from which John had been diverted, passed on into the refreshment-room, and the two were, for a few moments, almost isolated.

Even then John felt himself tongue-tied. Standing where she was, with that background of dark oil-paintings lit only by shaded electric lamps, she was more than ever like a wonderful old Egyptian statue into which some measure of slow-moving life had been breathed. He recognized almost with wonder the absence of any ornament of any sort on her neck or fingers.

"You were pleased with the performance, I hope?"

Her voice was in character with her personality. It was extremely low, scarcely louder than a whisper. To his surprise, it was almost wholly free from any foreign accent.

"It was very wonderful," John answered.

"You understood the story?"

"Only partly," he confessed.

"Would you have recognized me, seeing me as you do now?"

"Never in the world," he assured her.

"Tell me why I am so different off the stage."

"On the stage," he replied, "you seem to me to be the embodiment of wild movement. Here, you seem—forgive me—to be a statue. I can scarcely believe that you walked across the room."

"It is my pose," she said calmly.

"Then you are a great actress as well as a great dancer," he declared.

For the first time the plastic calm of her features seemed disturbed. She smiled, but even her smile seemed to him more like some mechanically contrived alteration in the facial expression of a statue than anything natural or spontaneous.

"The prince tells me," she continued, "that you are a stranger in London. Give me your arm. We will walk to a quieter place. In a few moments we are to be disturbed for supper. One eats so often and so much in this country. Why do I say that, though? It is not so bad as in Russia."

They passed across the polished wood floor into a little room with Oriental fittings, where a lamp was swinging from the ceiling, giving out a dim but pleasant light. The place was empty, and the sound of the music and voices seemed to come from a distance. She sank down upon a divan back among the shadows, and motioned John to sit by her side.

"You have come to find out, to understand—is that not so?" she inquired. "What you know of life, the prince tells me, you have learned from books. Now you have come to discover what more than that there is to be learned in the world of men and women."

"Did the prince tell you all this?" John asked.

"He did," she admitted. "He seems much interested in you."

"He has been very kind," John said.

She turned her head slowly and looked at him.

"A young man to whom the prince chooses to be kind is, in a way, fortunate," she said. "I think he knows more of life than any other person whom I ever met."

"You have known him for long?"

"In Budapest, five years ago; in Russia, the season afterward; then in Paris; in Petersburg again, and now in London. The prince has been a faithful friend. He came once from Florence to Petersburg, to be present at my first night at the opera. Always he impresses me the same way. There is very little in life, in men or in women, which he does not understand. Let us return to what we were speaking about. I find it very interesting."

"You are very kind," John declared.

"What you will learn here," she went on, "depends very much upon yourself. Are you intelligent? Perhaps not very," she added, looking at him critically. "You have brains, however, without a doubt. You have also what places you at once en rapport with the cult of the moment—you are wonderfully good-looking."

John moved a little uneasily in his place. He felt that the dancer's eyes were fixed upon him, and he was feverishly anxious not to respond to the invitation of their gaze. He was conscious, too, of the queer, indefinable fascination of her near presence in the dimly lighted room.

"What you will learn," she proceeded, "depends very much upon your desires. If you seek for the best, and are content with nothing else, you will find it. But so few men are content to wait!"

"I intend to," John said simply.

"Look at me, please," she ordered.

Once more he was compelled to look into her deep-blue eyes. The incomprehensible smile was still upon her lips.

"You have loved?"

"No," he answered, taken a little aback by the abruptness of the question.

"You grow more wonderful! How old are you, may I ask?"

"Twenty-eight."

"At the present moment, then, you are free from any distracting thoughts about women? You have no entanglements?"

"I have nothing of the sort," John declared, almost irritably. "There is one person who has made a wonderful change in my life. I believe I could say that I am absolutely certain of my feelings for her, but so far she has not given me much encouragement. Tell me, madame, why do you ask me these questions?"

"Because it interests me," she replied. "Why do you not insist that this lady should tell you the truth?"

"I have come to London to insist," he told her, "but I have been here only forty-eight hours."

"So you are waiting?"

"I am waiting," he assented.

"So many people spend their lives doing that," she went on presently. "It does not appeal to me. The moment I make up my mind that I want a thing, I take it. The moment I make up my mind to give, I give."

John was suddenly conscious of the closeness of the atmosphere. The fingers of his hands were clenched tightly together. He swore to himself that he would not look into this woman's face. He listened to the band which was playing in the balcony of the great hall, to the murmur of the voices, the shouts of laughter. He told himself that Mme. Calavera was amusing herself with him.

"The prince's party," she continued, after a long pause, "seems to be a great success, to judge by the noise they are making. So many people shout and laugh when they are happy. I myself find a more perfect expression of happiness in silence."

She was leaning a little back in her place. One arm was resting upon a pile of cushions, the other hung loosely over the side of the divan. John felt a sudden desire to rise to his feet, and a simultaneous consciousness that his feet seemed to be made of lead.

"You may hold my fingers," she said; "and please keep your face turned toward me. Why are you nervous? I am not very formidable."

He took her fingers, very much as the prince had done upon her arrival, and pressed them formally to his lips. Then he released them and rose.

"You know," he confessed, "I am very stupid at this sort of thing. Shall we go back to the reception rooms? I shall be the most unpopular man here if I keep you any longer."

The smile deepened slightly. Little lines appeared at the sides of her eyes. So far from being annoyed, he could see that she was laughing.

"Joseph," she mocked, "I am not tempting you, really! Do sit down. I have met men in many countries, but none like you. So you do not wish to accept those small privileges which a woman may offer when she chooses?"

"I believe—in fact, I am almost certain—that I love the woman I have come to London to see," John declared.

"You get more and more interesting," she murmured. "Don't you realize that your love for one woman should make you kind to all?"

"No, I don't," he answered bluntly.

"Come," she said, "do not be afraid of me. I will not make love to you—seriously. You must be kind to me because everybody spoils me. After supper there are one or two more questions I must ask you. Do you know that I am going to dance here? Never before have I danced in a private house in England. Except upon the stage, I like to dance only to those whom I love!"

The little space between the curtains was suddenly darkened. John turned eagerly around, and, to his immense relief, recognized the prince. Their host came forward to where they were sitting, and held out his arm to Calavera.

"Dear lady," he announced, "supper is served. Will you do me this great honor?"

She rose to her feet. The prince turned to John.

"This is my privilege as host," he explained; "but if you will follow us, you will find some consolation in store for you."