And the girl said pa.s.sionately: "I wish to G.o.d I spoke it right through!

I wish I had never changed my speech or anything in me that was like home."

And the boy leaning forward as eagerly exclaimed: "Oh, do you mean that?

Think how crazy London is about you! Why, if you ever go back to Montana, they will carry you from the cars in a triumphal chair through the town."

She waited until she could control the emotion in her voice.

"Go on telling me about the little girl."

"She was so trusting as to give the money up to me and I guess it will draw interest for her all right."

"Thank you," smiled the actress, "you are terribly sweet. The child got Higgins to let her into my dressing-room one day after a matinee. I haven't time to see anybody except then."

Here Higgins made her appearance in the room, with an egg-nog for her lady, which, after much coaxing, Dan succeeded in getting the actress to drink. Higgins also had taken away the flowers, and Letty Lane said to Dan:

"I send them to the hospital; they make me sick." And Dan timidly asked:

"Mine, too?"

This brought a flush across the ivory pallor of her cheek. "No, no, Higgins keeps them In the next room." And with an abrupt change of subject she asked: "Is the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater very charitable?" And Blair quickly replied:

"Anyhow she wants you to sing for her at a musicale in Park Lane when you're fit."

Miss Lane gave a soft little giggle. "Is _that_ what you call being charitable?"

Dan blushed crimson and exclaimed: "Well, hardly!"

"Did you come here to ask me that?"

"I came to tell you about 'our mutual poor.' You'll let me call them that, won't you, because I happened to be in your dressing-room when they struck their vein?"

Miss Lane had drawn herself up in the corner of the sofa, and sat with her hands clasped around her knees, all swathed around and draped by the knitted shawl, her golden head like a radiant flower, appearing from a bank of snow. Her fragility, her sweetness, her smallness, appealed strongly to the big young fellow, whose heart was warm toward the world, whose ideals were high, and who had the chivalrous longing inherent in all good men to succor, to protect, and above all to adore. No feeling in Dan Blair had been as strong as this, to take her in his arms, to lift her up and carry her away from London and the people who applauded her, from the people that criticized her, and from Poniotowsky.

He was engaged to the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater. And as far as his being able to do anything for Letty Lane, he could only offer her this politeness from the woman he was going to marry.

"I never sing out of the theater." Her profile was to him and she looked steadily across the room. "It's a perfect fight to get the manager to consent."

Blair interrupted and said: "Oh, I'll see him; I'll make it all right."

"Please don't," she said briskly, "it's purely a business affair. How much will she pay?"

Dan was rather shocked. "Anything you like."

And her bad humor faded at his tone, and she smiled at him. "Well, I'll tell Roach that. I guess it'll make my singing a sure thing."

She changed her position and drew a long sigh as though she were very tired, leaned her blond head with its soft disorder back on the pillow, put both her folded hands under her cheek and turned her face toward Dan. The most delicate coral-like color began to mount her cheeks, and her gray eyes regained their light.

"Will two thousand dollars be too much to ask?" she said gently.

If she had said two million to the young fellow who had not yet begun to spend his fortune, which as far as he was concerned was nothing but a name, it would not have been too much to him; not too much to have given to this small white creature with her lovely flushed face, and her glorious hair.

"Whatever is your price, Miss Lane, goes."

"I'll sing three songs: one from _Mandalay_, an English ballad and something or other, I don't know what now, and I expect you don't realize how cheaply you are getting them." She laughed, and began to hum a familiar air.

"I wish you would sing just one song for me."

"For another thousand?" she asked, lifting her eyebrows. "What song is it?"

And as Dan hesitated, as if unwilling to give form to words that were so full of spell to him, she said deliciously: "Why, can you see a London drawing-room listening to me sing a Presbyterian hymn tune?" Without lifting her head from the pillow she began in a charming undertone, her gray eyes fixed on his:

"From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strands, Where Afric's sunny fountains Roll down their golden sands."

Blair, near her, turned pale. There rose in him the same feeling that she had stirred years ago in the little church, and at the same time others. He had lost his father since then, and he thought of him now, but that big, sad emotion was not the one that swayed him.

"Please stop," he pleaded; "don't go on. Say, there's something in that hymn that hurts."

Letty Lane, unconscious of how subtly she was playing, laughed, and suddenly remembered that Dan had sat before her that day by the side of old Mr. Blair. She asked abruptly:

"Why does the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater want me to sing?"

"Because she's crazy about your voice."

"Is she awfully rich?"

"Um ... I don't know."

Letty Lane flashed a look at him. "Oh," she said coolly, "I guess she won't pay the price then."

Dan said: "Yes, she will; yes, she will, all right."

"Now," Letty Lane went on, "if it were a charity affair, I could sing for nothing, and I don't doubt the d.u.c.h.ess, if she is as benevolent as you say she is, could get me up some kind of a charity show."

Dan, who had started to rise, now leaned toward her and said: "Don't you worry about it a bit. If you'll come and sing we will make it right about the price and the charity; everything shall go your way."

She was seized upon by a violent fit of coughing, and Dan leaned toward her and put his arm around her as a brother might have done, holding her tenderly until the paroxysm was past.

"Gosh!" he exclaimed fervently, "it's heartbreaking to hear you cough like that and to think of your working as you do. Can't you stop and take a good rest? Can't you go somewhere?"

"To Greenland's icy mountains?" she responded, smiling. "I hate the cold."

"No, no; to some golden sands or other," he murmured under his breath.

"And let me take you there."

But she pushed him back, laughing now. "No golden sands for me. I'm afraid I've got to sing in _Mandalay_ to-night."

He looked at her in dismay.

She interrupted his protest: "I've promised on my word of honor, and the box-office has sold the seats with that understanding."