He scarcely answered. He was making his way to Letty Lane, and he wrung her hand, murmuring, "Oh, you're great; you're great!" And the pleasure on his face repaid her over and over again. "Come, I want you to meet the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater, and some other friends of mine."

As he let her little cold hand fall and turned about, the room as by magic had cleared. The prime minister had arrived late and was in the other room. The refreshments were also being served. There was no one to meet Letty Lane, except for several young men who came up eagerly and asked to be presented, Gordon Galorey among them.

"Where's Lily?" Dan asked him; "I want her to meet Miss Lane."

"In the conservatory with the prime minister," and Galorey looked meaningly at Dan, as much as to say, "Now don't be an utter fool."

But Letty Lane herself saved the situation. She shook hands with the utmost cordiality and sweetness with the men who had been presented to her, and asked Dan to take her to her motor. He waited for her at the door and she came down wrapped around as usual in her filmy scarf.

"Are you better?" he asked eagerly. "You look awfully stunning, and I don't think I can ever thank you enough."

She a.s.sured him that she was "all right," and that she had a "lovely new role to learn and that it was coming on next month." He helped her in and she seemed to fill the motor like a basket of fresh white flowers.

Again he repeated, as he held the door open:

"I can't thank you enough: you were a great success."

She smiled wickedly, and couldn't resist:

"Especially with the women."

Dan's face flushed; he was already deeply hurt for her, and her words showed him that the insult had gone home.

"Where are you going now?"

"Right to the Savoy."

Without another word, hatless as he was, he got into the motor and closed the door.

"I'm going to take you home," he informed her quietly, "and there's no use in looking at me like that either! When I'm set on a thing I get it!"

They rolled away in the bland sunset, pa.s.sed the park, down Piccadilly, where the flowers in the streets were so sweet that they made the heart ache, and the air through the window was so sweet that it made the senses swim!

CHAPTER XVIII-A WOMAN'S WAY

When the d.u.c.h.ess thought of looking for Blair later in the afternoon he was not to be found. Galorey told her finally he had gone off in the motor with Letty Lane, bareheaded. The d.u.c.h.ess was bidding good-by to the last guest; she motioned Galorey to wait and he did so, and they found themselves alone in the room where the flowers, still fresh, offered their silent company; the druggets strewn with leaves of smilax, the open piano with its scattered music, the dark rosewood that had served for a rest for Letty Lane's white hand. Galorey and the d.u.c.h.ess turned their backs on the music-room, and went into a small conservatory looking out over the park.

"He's nothing but a cowboy," the lady exclaimed. "He must be quite mad, going off bareheaded through London with an actress."

"He's spoiled," Lord Galorey said peacefully.

She carried a bunch of orchids Dan had given her, and regarded them absently. "I've made him angry, and he's taking this way of exhibiting his spleen."

Galorey said cheerfully: "Oh, Dan's got lots of spirit."

Looking up from the contemplation of her flowers to her friend, the d.u.c.h.ess murmured with a charming smile: "I don't hit it off very well with Americans, Gordon."

His color rising, Galorey returned: "I think you'll have to let Dan go, Lily!"

For a second she thought so herself; and they both started when the voice of the young man himself was heard in the next room.

"Good-by, I'll let you make your peace, Lily," and Gordon pa.s.sed Dan in the drawing-room in leaving, and thought the boy's face was a study.

The d.u.c.h.ess held out her hand to Dan as he came across the room.

"Come here," she called agreeably. "Every one has gone, thank heaven!

I've been waiting for you for an age. Let's talk it all over."

"Just what I've come back to do."

There had been royalty at the musicale, and the hostess spoke of her guests and their approval, mentioning one by one the names of the great.

It might have impressed the ear of a man more sn.o.b than was the Montana copper king's son. "I did so want you to meet the Bishop of London," she said. "But n.o.body could find you. You look most awfully well, Dan," and with the orchids she held, she touched his hand.

He was so direct, so incapable of anything but the honest truth, that Dan didn't know deceit when he saw it, and his lady spoke so naturally that he thought for a moment her rudeness had been unintentional.

Perhaps she hadn't really meant-Everybody in her set was rude, great and rude, but she could be deliciously gracious, and was so now.

"Don't you think it went off well?"

Dan said that it had been ripping and no mistake.

"I like Lady Caiwarn; she's bully, and I liked the king. He spoke to me as if he had known me for a year."

She began to be a little more at her ease.

"I didn't care much for the fiddling, but Letty Lane made up for all the rest," said Dan. "Wasn't she great?"

"Ra-ther!" The d.u.c.h.ess' tone was so warm that he asked frankly: "Well, why didn't you speak to her, Lily?" And the directness caught her unprepared. The insult to the actress by which she had planned to teach him a lesson failed to give her the bravado she found she needed to meet Dan's question. Her part of the transaction, deliberate, unkind, seemed worse and more serious through his headlong act, when he had driven off, braving her, in the motor of an actress. She didn't dare to be jealous.

"Wasn't it too dreadful?" she murmured. "Do you think she noticed it too awfully? I was just about to go up and speak to her when the prime minister-"

Dan interrupted the d.u.c.h.ess. He blushed for her.

"Never mind, Lily." His tone had in it something of benevolence. "If you really didn't mean to be mean-"

She was enchanted by her easy victory. "It was abominable."

"Yes," he accepted, "it was just that! I was mortified. You wouldn't treat a beggar so. But she's got too much sense to care."

Eager to do the d.u.c.h.ess justice, even though he was little by little being emanc.i.p.ated, he was all the more determined to be fair to her.

"It was too sweet of her not to mind. I dare say her check helped to soothe her feelings," the woman said.

"You don't know her," he replied quietly. "She wouldn't touch a cent."

The d.u.c.h.ess exclaimed in horror: "Then she _did_ mind."