CHAPTER IV-IN THE CORAL ROOM

"Mandalay" had run at the Gaiety the season before and again opened the autumn season. Light and charming, thoroughly musical, it had toured successfully through Europe, but London was its home, and its great popularity was chiefly owing to the girl who had starred in it-Letty Lane. Her face was on every post-card, hand-bill, cosmetic box, and even popular drinks were named for her.

The night of the Osdene box party was the reopening of _Mandalay_, and the curtain went up after the overture to an outburst of applause. Dan Blair had never "crossed the pond" before this memorable visit, when he had gone straight out to Osdene Park. London theaters and London itself, indeed, were unexplored by him. He had seen what there was to be seen of the opera bouffe in his own country, but the brilliant, perfect performance of a company at the London Gaiety he had yet to enjoy.

The opening scene of _Mandalay_ is oriental; the burst of music and the tinkling of the silvery temple bells and the effect of an extremely blue sea, made Dan "sit up," as he put it. The theatrical picture was so perfect that he lifted his head, pushed his chair back to enjoy. He was thus close to the d.u.c.h.ess. With invigorating young enthusiasm the boy drew in his breath and waited to be amused and to hear. The tunes he already knew before the orchestra began to charm his ear.

On landing at Plymouth Dan had been keen to feel that he was really stepping into the world, and at Osdene Park he had been daily, hourly "seeing life." The youngest of the household, his youth nevertheless was not taken into consideration by any of them. No one had treated him like a junior. He had gone neck to neck with their pace as far as he liked, furnished them fresh amus.e.m.e.nt, and been their diversion. In all his rare unspoiled youth, Blair had been suddenly dropped down in an effete set that had whirled about him, and one by one out of the inner circle had called him to join them; and one by one with all of them Dan had whirled.

Lord Galorey had talked to him frankly, as plainly as if Dan had been his own father, and found much of the old man's common sense in his fine blond head. Lady Galorey had come to him in a moment of great anxiety, and no one but her young guest knew how badly she needed help. He had further made it known to the lady that he was not in the marriage market; that she could not have him for any of her girls. And as for the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater, well-he had whirled with her until his head swam.

He had grown years older at the Park in the few weeks of his visit, but now for the first time, as the music of _Mandalay_ struck upon his ears, like a ripple of distant seas, he felt like the boy who had left Blairtown to come abroad. He had spent the most part of the day in London with a man who had come over to see him from America. Dan attended to his business affairs, and the people who knew said that he had a keen head. Mr. Joshua Ruggles, his father's best friend, whom Dan this afternoon had left to go to his room at the Carlton, had put his arm with affection through the boy's:

"Don't look as though it were any too healthy down to the place you're visiting at, Dan. Plumbing all right?"

And the boy, flushing slightly, had said: "Don't you fret, Josh, I'll look after my health all right."

"There's nothing like the mountain air," returned the Westerner. "These old fogs stick in my nostrils; feel as though I could smell London clean down to my feet!"

From the corner of the box Dan looked hard at the stage, at the fresh brilliant costumes and the lovely chorus girls.

"Gosh," he thought to himself, "they are the prettiest ever! Dove-gray, eyes of Irish blue, mouths like roses!"

Leaning forward a little toward the d.u.c.h.ess he whispered: "There isn't one who isn't a winner. I never struck such a box of dry goods!"

The d.u.c.h.ess smiled on Dan with good humor. His nave pleasure was delightful. It was like taking a child to a pantomime. She was wearing his flowers and displaying a jewel that he had found and bought for her, and which she had not hesitated to accept. She watched his eager face and his pleasure unaffected and keen. She could not believe that this young man was master of ten million pounds.

When Letty Lane appeared Blair heard a light rustle like rain through the auditorium, a murmur, and the house rose. There was a well-bred calling from the stalls, a call from the pit, and a generous applause-"Letty Lane-Letty Lane!" and as though she were royalty, there was a fluttering of handkerchiefs like flags. The young fellow with the others stood in the back of the box, his hands in his pockets, looking at the stage. There wasn't a girl in the chorus as pretty as this prima donna! Letty Lane came on in _Mandalay_ in the first act in the dress of a fashionable princess. She was modish and worldly. For the only time in the play she was modern and conventional, and whatever breeding she might have been able to claim, from whatever cla.s.s she was born, as she stood there in her beautiful gown she was grace itself, and charm. She was distinctly a star, and showed her appreciation of her audience's admiration.

At the end of the tenor solo the Princess Oltary runs into the pavilion and there changes her dress and appears once more to dance before the rajah and to prove herself the dancer he has known and loved in a cafe in Paris. Letty Lane's dress in this dance was the cla.s.sic ballet dancer's, white as the leaves of a lily. She seemed to swim and float; actually to be breathed and exhaled from out her filmy gown; and the only ray of color in her costume was her own golden hair, surmounted by a small coral-colored cap, embroidered in pearls. The actress bowed to the right and left, ran to the right, ran to the left; glanced toward the d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater's box; acknowledged the burst of applause; began to dance and finished her _pas seul_, and with folded hands sang her song. Her beautiful voice came out clear as crystal water from a crystal rock, and her words were cradled like doves, like boats on the boundless seas....

"From India's coral strand...."

But there was no hymn tune to this song of Letty Lane's in _Mandalay_!

To the boy in the box, however, the words, the tune, the droning of the flies on the window-pane, the strong odor of the hymn-books and panama fans, came back, and the clear sunlight of Montana seemed to steal into the Gaiety as Letty Lane sang.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Breakwater clapped with frank enthusiasm, and said: "She is a perfect wonder, isn't she? Oh, she is _too_ bewitching!"

And she turned for sympathy to her friend, who stood behind her, his face illumined. He was amazed; his blue eyes ablaze, his head bent forward, he was staring, staring at the Gaiety curtain, gone down on the first act.

He laughed softly, and the d.u.c.h.ess heard him say:

"_Good!_ Well, I should say she was! She's a girl from our town!"

When the d.u.c.h.ess tried to share her enthusiasm with Dan he had disappeared. He left the box and with no difficulty made his way as far as the first wing.

"Can you get me an entrance?" he asked a man he had met once at Osdene and who was evidently an habitue.

"I dare say. Rippin' show, isn't it?"

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Dan put his hand on ducal shoulders and followed the n.o.bleman through the labyrinth of flies.

"Which of 'em do you want to see, old man?"

Dan, without replying, went forward to a small cl.u.s.ter of lights in one of the wings. He went forward intuitively, and his companion caught his arm: "Oh, I say, for _G.o.d's_ sake, don't go on like this!"

But without response Dan continued his direction. A call page stood before the door, and Dan, on a card over the entrance, read "Miss Lane."

The smell of calcium and paint and perfume and the auxiliaries hung heavy on the air. The other man saw Dan knock, knock again and then go in.

Unannounced Dan Blair opened the door of the dressing-room of the actress. Miss Lane's dressing-rooms were worth displaying to her intimate friends. They were done with great taste in coral tint. She might have been said to be in a coral cave under the sea, as far as young Blair was concerned. As he came in he felt his ears deaden, and the smoke of cigarettes grew so thick that he looked as through a veil.

The dancer was standing in the center of the room, one hand on her hip, and in the other hand a cigarette. Her short skirt stood out around her like a bell, and over the bell fell a rain of pinkish coral strands. She wore a thin silk slip, from which her neck and arms came shining out, and her woman knelt at her feet strapping on a little coral shoe.

Blair shut the door behind him, and began to realize how rude, how impertinent his entrance would be considered. But he came boldly forward and would have introduced himself as "Dan Blair from Blairtown," but Miss Lane, who stared at the entrance through the smoke, burst into a laugh so bright, so delightful, that he was carried high up on the coral strands to the very beach. She crossed her white arms over her breast and leaned forward, as a saleswoman might lean forward over a counter, and with her beautifully trained voice, all sweetly she asked him:

"h.e.l.lo, little boy, what will _you_ take?"

Blair giggled, quick to catch her meaning, and answered: "Oh, chocolate, I guess!"

And Letty Lane laughed, put out her white hand, the one without the cigarette, and said: "Haven't got that brand on board-so sorry! Will a c.o.c.ktail do? All sorts in bottles. Higgins, fix Mr. Blair a Martini."

As the dresser rose from her stooping position, the rest of Letty Lane's dressing-room unfolded out of the mist and smoke. On a sofa covered with lace pillows Blair saw a man sitting, smoking as well. He was tall and had a dark mustache. It was Prince Poniotowsky, whom Dan had already met at the Galorey shoot.

"Prince Poniotowsky," Miss Lane presented him, "Mr. Blair, of Blairtown, Montana. Say, Frederick, give me my cap, will you? It is over by your side. I've got to hustle."

The man, without moving, picked up a small red cap with a single plume, from the sofa at his side. In another second Letty Lane had placed it on her head of yellow hair, real yellow hair and not a doubt of it, like sunshine-not the color one gets from inside bottles. Her arms, her hands flashed with rings, priceless flashes, and the little spears p.r.i.c.ked Dan like sharp needles.

"It's the nicest ever!" she was saying. "How on earth did you get in here, though? Have you bought the Gaiety Theater? I'm the most exclusive girl on the stage. Who let you in?"

Her accent was English, and even that put her from him. As he looked at her he couldn't understand how he had ever recognized her. If he had waited for another act he wouldn't have believed the likeness real. The girl he remembered had both softened and hardened; the round features were gone, but all the angles were gone as well. Her eyes were as gray as the seas; she was painted and her lids were darkened. Seen close, she was not so divine as on the stage, but there was still a more thrilling charm about the fact that she was real.

"To think of any one from Montana being here to-night! Staying very long, Mr. Blair?" Between each sentence she directed Higgins, who was getting her into her bodice. "And how do you like _Mandalay_? Isn't it great?"

She addressed herself to Dan, but she smiled on both the men with extreme brilliance.

"You bet your life," he responded. "I should think it was great."

Poniotowsky rose indolently. He had not looked toward the new-comer, but had, on the other hand, followed every detail of Miss Lane's dressing.

"Better take your scarf, Letty. Hand it to Miss Lane," he directed Higgins. "It is so d.a.m.ned drafty in these beastly wings."

He drew his watch out, gathered up his long coat, flung it over his arm and picked up his opera hat which lay folded on Letty Lane's dressing-table.