Those three days and nights were full of joy and enchantment for Barnes. True, he did not sleep very well,--indeed, scarcely at all,--but it certainly was not a hardship to lie awake and think of her throughout the whole of each blessed night. He recalled and secretly dilated upon every sign of decreasing reserve on her part. He shamed himself more than once for deploring the fact that her ankle was mending with uncommon rapidity, and that in a few days she would be quite able to walk without support. And he actually debased himself by wishing that the Rushcroft company might find it imperative to go on rehearsing for weeks in that dim, enchanted temple.

It was not a "barn of a place" to him. It was paradise. He sat for hours in one of the most uncomfortable seats he had ever known, devouring with hungry eyes the shadowy, interested face so close to his own,--and never tired.

And then came a time at last when conversation became difficult between them; when there were long silences fraught with sweet peril, exceeding shyness, and a singular form of deafness that defied even the roars of the players and yet permitted them to hear, with amazing clearness, the faintest of heart-beats.

On the afternoon of the dress rehearsal, he led her, after an hour of almost insupportable repression, to the rear of the auditorium, in the region made gloomy by the shelving gallery overhead. Dropping into the seat beside her, he blurted out, almost in anguish:

"I can't stand it any longer. I cannot be near you without--why, I--I--well, it is more than I can struggle against, that's all. You've either got to send me away altogether or--or--let me love you without restraint. I tell you, I can't go on as I am now. I must speak, I must tell you all that has been in my heart for days. I love you--I love you! You know I love you, don't you? You know I worship you. Don't be frightened. I just had to tell you to-day. I could not have held it back another hour. I should have gone mad if I had tried to keep it up any longer." He waited breathlessly for her to speak. She sat silent and rigid, looking straight before her. "Is it hopeless?" he went on at last, huskily. "Must I ask your forgiveness for my presumption and--and go away from you?"

She turned to him and laid her hand upon his arm.

"Am I not like other women? Have you forgotten that you once said that I was not different? Why should I forgive you for loving me? Doesn't every woman want to be loved? No, no, my friend! Wait! A moment ago I was so weak and trembly that I thought I--Oh, I was afraid for myself.

Now I am quite calm and sensible. See how well I have myself in hand? I do not tremble, I am strong. We may now discuss ourselves calmly, sensibly. A moment ago--Ah, then it was different! I was being drawn into--Oh! What are you doing?"

"I too am strong," he whispered. "I am sure of my ground now, and I am not afraid."

He had clasped the hand that rested on his sleeve and, as he pressed it to his heart, his other arm stole over her shoulders and drew her close to his triumphant body. For an instant she resisted, and then relaxed into complete submission. Her head sank upon his shoulder.

"Oh!" she sighed, and there was wonder, joy--even perplexity, in the tremulous sign of capitulation. "Oh," came softly from her parted lips again at the end of the first long, pa.s.sionate kiss.

CHAPTER XXI

THE END IN SIGHT

Barnes, soaring beyond all previous heights of exaltation, ranged dizzily between "front" and "back" at the Grand Opera House that evening. He was supposed to remain "out front" until the curtain went up on the second act. But the presence of the Countess in Miss Thackeray's barren, sordid little dressing-room rendered it exceedingly difficult for him to remain in any fixed spot for more than five minutes at a stretch. He was in the "wings" with her, whispering in her delighted ear; in the dressing-room, listening to her soft words of encouragement to the excited leading-lady; on the narrow stairs leading up to the stage, a.s.sisting her to mount them,--and not in the least minding the narrowness; out in front for a jiffy, and then back again; and all the time he was dreading the moment when he would awake and find it all a dream.

There was an annoying fly in the ointment, however. Her languorous surrender to love, her physical confession of defeat at the hands of that inexorable power, her sweet submission to the conquering arms of the besieger, left nothing to be desired; and yet there was something that stood between him and utter happiness: her resolute refusal to bind herself to any promise for the future.

"I love you," she had said simply. "I want more than anything else in all the world to be your wife. But I cannot promise now. I must have time to think, time to--"

"Why should you require more time than I?" he persisted. "Have we not shown that there is nothing left for either of us but to make the other happy? What is time to us? Why make wanton waste of it?"

"I know that I cannot find happiness except with you," she replied. "No matter what happens to me, I shall always love you, I shall never forget the joy of THIS. But--" She shook her head sadly.

"Would you go back to your people and marry--" he swallowed hard and went on--"marry some one you could never love, not even respect, with the memory of--"

"Stop! I shall never marry a man I do not love. Oh, please be patient, be good to me. Give me a little time. Can you not see that you are asking me to alter destiny, to upset the teachings and traditions of ages, and all in one little minute of weakness?"

"We cannot alter destiny," he said stubbornly. "We may upset tradition, but what does that amount to? We have but one life to live. I think our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren will be quite as well pleased with their ancestors as their royal contemporaries will be with theirs a hundred years from now."

"I cannot promise now," she said gently, and kissed him.

The first performance of "The Duke's Revenge" was incredibly bad. The little that Barnes saw of it, filled him with dismay. Never had he witnessed anything so hopeless as the play, unless it was the actors themselves. But more incredible than anything else in connection with the performance was the very palpable enjoyment of the audience. He could hardly believe his ears. The ranting, the shouting, the howling of the actors sent shivers to the innermost recesses of his being. Then suddenly he remembered that he was in the heart of the "barn-stormer's"

domain. The audience revelled in "The Duke's Revenge" because they had never seen anything better!

Between the second and third acts Tommy Gray rushed back with the box-office statement. The gross was $359. The instant that fact became known to Mr. Rushcroft he informed Barnes that they had a "knockout," a gold mine, and that never in all his career had he known a season to start off so auspiciously as this one.

"It's good for forty weeks solid," he exclaimed. Both Barnes and the wide-eyed Countess became infused with the spirit of jubilation that filled the souls of these time-worn, hand-to-mouth stragglers. They rejoiced with them in their sudden elevation to happiness, and overlooked the vain-glorious claims of each individual in the matter of personal achievement. Even the bewildered Tilly bleated out her little cry for distinction.

"Did you hear them laugh at the way I got off my speech?" she cried excitedly.

"I certainly did," said Mr. Bacon amiably. "By gad, I laughed at it myself."

"Parquet $217.50, dress circle $105, gallery $36.50," announced Tommy Gray, as he donned his wig and false beard for the third act.

"Sixty-forty gives us $215.40 on the night. Thank G.o.d, we won't have to worry about the sheriff this week."

In Miss Thackeray's dressing-room that level-headed young woman broke down and wept like a child.

"Oh, Lord," she stuttered, "is it possible that we're going to stay above water at last? I thought we had gone down for the last time, and here we are bobbing up again as full of ginger as if we'd never hit the bottom."

The Countess kissed her and told her that she was the rarest girl she had ever known, the pluckiest and the best.

"If I had your good looks, Miss Cameron," said Mercedes, "added to my natural ability, I'd make Julia Marlowe look like an old-fashioned one-ring circus. Send Mr. Bacon to me, Mr. Barnes. I want to congratulate him."

"He gave a fine performance," said Barnes promptly.

"I don't want to congratulate him on his acting," said she, smiling through her tears. "He's going to be married to-morrow. And I am going to have Miss Cameron for my bridesmaid," she added, throwing an arm about the astonished Countess. "Mr. Bacon will want Dilly for his best man, but he ought to think more of the general effect than that. Dilly only comes to his shoulder." She measured the stalwart figure of Thomas Barnes with an appraising eye. "What do you say, Mr. Barnes?"

"I'll do it with the greatest pleasure," he declared.

The next afternoon in the town of Bittler the Countess Mara-Dafanda, daughter of royalty, and Thomas Kingsbury Barnes "stood up" with the happy couple during a lull in the hastily called rehearsal on the stage of Fisher's Imperial Theatre, and Lyndon Rushcroft gave the bride away.

There was $107 in the house that night, but no one was down-hearted.

"You could do worse, dear heart, than to marry one of us care-free Americans," whispered Barnes to the girl who clung to his arm so tightly as they entered the wings in the wake of the bride and groom.

And she said something in reply that brought a flush of mortification to his cheek.

"Oh, it would be wonderful to marry a man who will never have to go to war. A brave man who will not have to be a soldier."

The unintentional reflection on the fighting integrity of his country struck a raw spot in Barnes's pride. He knew what all Europe was saying about the p.u.s.s.y-willow att.i.tude of the United States, and he squirmed inwardly despite the tribute she tendered him as an individual. He was not a "peace at any price" citizen.

He gave the wedding breakfast at one o'clock that night.

Three days later he and "Miss Jones" said farewell to the strollers and boarded a day train for New York City. They left the company in a condition of prosperity. The show was averaging two hundred dollars nightly, and Mr. Rushcroft was already booking return engagements for the early fall. He was looking forward to a tour of Europe at the close of the war.

"My boy," he said to Barnes on the platform of the railway station, "I trust you will forgive me for not finding a place in our remarkably well-balanced cast for your friend. I have been thinking a great deal about her in the past few days, and it has occurred to me that she might find it greatly to her advantage to accept a brief New York engagement before tackling the real proposition. It won't take her long to find out whether she really likes it, and whether she thinks it worth while to go on with it. Let me give you one bit of advice, my dear Miss Jones. This is very important. The name of Jones will not get you anywhere. It is a nice old family, fireside name, but it lacks romance. Chuck it. Start your new life with another name, my dear. G.o.d bless you! Good luck and--good-bye till we meet on the Rialto."

"I wonder how he could possibly have known," she mused aloud, the pink still in her cheeks as the train pulled out.

"You darling," cried Barnes, "he doesn't know. But taking it by and large, it was excellent advice. The brief New York engagement meets with my approval, and so does the change of name. I am in a position to supply you with both."

"Do you regard Barnes as an especially attractive name?" she inquired, dimpling.

"It has the virtue of beginning with B, ent.i.tling it to a place well toward the top of alphabetical lists. A very handy name for patronesses at charity bazaars, and so forth. People never look below B unless to make sure that their own names haven't been omitted. You ought to take that into consideration. If you can't be an A, take the next best thing offered. Be a B."