Her face, as she looked up at him, was so sweet and lovely, so throbbing with the pity of the little tale, that he could hesitate no longer.

"No," he said, "you shall not play me the music now. Listen, oh, my dear, listen instead to my story, because I love you!"

CHAPTER XVIII

A LOVER, AND NEWS OF LOVERS

Mary Marriott sat alone in her little flat at the top of the old house in Bloomsbury. The new year had begun, bright and cold from its very first day until the present--eight days after its birth.

The terrible fogs and depression of the old year had vanished as if they had never been. On such a morning as this was they seemed but a dim memory.

And yet how much had happened during those weeks when London lay under a leaden pall. For Mary at least they had been the most eventful weeks of her life.

Everything had been changed for her. From obscurity she had been given an unparalleled opportunity of gaining fame--swift and complete--a fame which some of the best judges in London told her was already a.s.sured.

Nor was this all, stupendous though it was. A few weeks ago she had been as friendless and lonely a girl as any in London; now she had troops of friends, distinguished, brilliant, and fascinating, and among all these kind people she was, as it were, upon a pedestal. They regarded her as a great artist, took her on trust as that; they regarded her also as a tremendous force to aid the victory of the Cause they had at heart.

And there was more even than this. In the old days her art had always been her one ideal in life. The art of the theatre was everything to her. It was so still, but it was welded and fused with another ideal.

Art for art's sake, just that and nothing more, was welded and fused with something new and uplifting. She saw how her art might become a means of definitely helping forward a movement which had for its object the relief of the down-trodden and oppressed, the doing away with poverty and misery, the ushering in--at last--of the Golden Age! She was to fulfil her artistic destiny, to do the work she came into the world to do, and at the same time to consecrate that work to the service of her sisters and brethren of England.

In all the socialistic ranks there was no more enthusiastic convert than this lovely and brilliant girl. She was singing now as she sat in her little room, and the crisp, bright winter sunshine poured into it; crooning an old Jacobite song, though her eyes were fixed upon the typewritten ma.n.u.script of her part in the new play at the Park Lane Theatre. Her ivory brow was wrinkled a little, for she was deep in thought over a detail of her work--should the voice drop at the end of that impressive line, or would not the excitement in which it was to be uttered give it a sharper and more staccato character?--it required thinking out.

The little sitting-room was not quite the same as it had been. Another bookshelf had been added, and it was filled with the literature of Socialism. On the top shelf was a long row of neat volumes bound in grey-green, the complete works of James Fabian Rose, presented to Mary by the author himself. All over the place ma.s.ses of flowers were blooming, pale mauve violets from the Riviera, roses of sulphur and blood-colour from Gra.s.se, striped carnations from Nice. Mary had many friends now who sent her flowers. They came constantly, and her tiny room was redolent of sweet odours. The walls of the room now bore legends painted upon them in quaint lettering. Mr. Conrad, the socialistic clergyman, Fabian Rose's friend, was clever with his brush, and had indeed decorated his church with fresco work. He had painted sentences and socialistic texts upon the walls of Mary's sitting-room.

"The rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the maker of them all," was taken from the Book of Proverbs and painted over the door.

Upon the board over the fire, painted in black letter, was this quotation from Sir Thomas More: "I am persuaded that till property is taken away there can be no equitable or just distribution of things, nor can the world be happily governed, for so long as that is maintained the greatest and the far best of mankind will be still oppressed with a load of cares and anxieties."

There were many other pregnant and pithy sayings upon the walls, and Mary, who used to speak of her cosy little attic as her "sanctum" or "nest," now laughingly called it her "Profession of faith."

Mary also was not quite as she had been. A larger experience of life, new interests, new friends, and, above all, a new ideal had added to her grace and charm of manner, given fulness and maturity even to her beauty. More than ever she was marvellously and wonderfully alive, charged with a kind of radiant energy and force, a joyous power of true correspondence with environment which had made Conrad whisper to James Fabian Rose--one night in the house at Westminster: "For she on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise." Indeed, her experiences had been strangely varied and diversified during the last few weeks.

Rose and his friends had spared nothing in the effort to make her a very perfect instrument which should interpret their ideas to the world at large. They had found their task not only easy, but full of intense pleasure. The girl was so responsive, so quick to mark and learn, of such an enthusiastic and original temper of mind that her education on new lines was a specific joy, and their first hopes seemed already a.s.sured of fruition.

It was now only a few days before the play upon which so many hopes depended was to be produced at the Park Lane Theatre.

Already the whole of London was in a fever of curiosity about it. Mr.

Goodrick had begun the stimulation of public curiosity in the _Daily Wire_, Lionel Westwood had continued the work until the whole Press had interested itself and daily teemed with report, rumour, and conjecture.

Almost everyone in the metropolis knew that something quite out of the ordinary, unprecedented, indeed, in the history of the theatre was afoot. Absolutely correct information there was none. Goodrick was reserving full and accurate details for the day before the production, when the _Daily Wire_ promised a complete and authoritative statement of an absolutely exclusive kind.

The three facts which had leaked out in more or less correct fashion, and which were responsible for much of the eager curiosity of London, were the three essential ones. _The Socialist_, which was announced as the t.i.tle of the play, was known to be the first step in an organised attempt to use the theatre as a method of socialistic propaganda. It was also said that the play was indubitably the masterpiece of James Fabian Rose. This in itself was sufficient to attract marked interest.

Secondly, every one seemed to be aware that a young actress of extraordinary beauty and talent had been discovered in the provinces and was about to burst into the theatrical firmament as a full-fledged star, a new Duse or Bernhardt, a star of the first magnitude.

Again, there were the most curious rumours afloat in regard to the actual plot of the play. It was said that the whole scheme was nothing more or less than a virulent attack upon a certain great n.o.bleman who owned a large portion of the West End of London and whose name had been much in the public mouth of late. No newspaper had as yet ventured to print the actual name, but it was a more or less open secret that the Duke of Paddington was meant.

Mary had seen but little of the duke, and then she had thought his manner altered. She had met him once or twice at the Roses' house, and he seemed to her to have lost his usual serenity. He was as a man on whose mind something weighs heavily. Restless, and with a certain appeal in his eyes. He looked, Mary reflected upon one of these occasions, like a man who had made some great mistake and was beginning to find it out.

She had had little or no private talk with him except on one occasion, and then only for a moment.

One afternoon the duke had taken her and Mrs. Rose to Paddington House in Piccadilly, and showed the two ladies the treasures of the historic place. It was an old-standing promise, dating from the time of his illness at Westminster, that he should do so.

He had called for them in his motor-brougham, and they had noticed his restlessness and depression, both of which seemed accentuated. After a little while the young man's spirits began to improve, and he had not been with them for half an hour when he became bright and animated. In some subtle way he managed to convey to Mary--and she knew that she was not mistaken--a sense that he was glad to see her, glad to be with her, that he liked her.

When they were in the picture gallery Mrs. Rose had walked on a few yards to examine a Goya, and the two younger people were left alone for a minute.

"I have secured my box for the first performance of _The Socialist_, Miss Marriott," the duke said.

Mary flushed a little, she could not help it. "I am sure----" she began, and then hesitated as to what she should say.

"You mean that I had better not come," the duke answered with a smile.

"Oh, I don't think I shall mind Rose's satire, judging from what I heard when the play was read, at any rate, and, besides, I quite understand that it is not I personally who am shot at so much as that I am unfortunately a sort of typical target. The papers I see are full of it and all my friends are chaffing me."

Mary looked at him, her great eyes full of doubt and musing. There was something in his voice which touched her--a weariness, a sadness. "I don't know," she said, "but I think it very likely that when you see the play as it is now you will find it hits harder than you expect. We are all very much in earnest. I think it is very good of you to come at all.

I hope at any rate that you will forgive me my part in it. You and I live in very different ways of life, but since we have met once or twice I should not like you to think hardly of me."

She spoke perfectly sincerely, absolutely naturally, as few people ever spoke to him.

The duke's answer had been singular, and Mary did not forget it. "Miss Marriott," he said in a voice which suddenly became intensely earnest and vibrated strangely, "let me say this, once and for all, Never, under any circ.u.mstances whatever, could I think hardly or unkindly of you. To be allowed to call myself your friend, if, indeed, I may be so allowed, is one of the greatest privileges I possess or ever can possess."

He had been about to say more, and his eyes seemed eloquent with further words, when Mrs. Rose rejoined them. Mary heard him give a little weary sigh, saw the light die out of his eyes, and something strangely like resignation fall over his face.

She had wondered very much at the time what were the causes of the recent changes in the duke's manner, what trouble a.s.sailed him. When he had spoken to her in the picture gallery there had been almost a note of pleading in his voice. It hurt her at the time, and she had often recalled it since, more especially as she had seen nothing of him for some time. He had not been to see the Roses, and had, it seemed, quite dropped out of the life of Mary and her friends.

The girl was sorry, perhaps more sorry than she cared to admit to herself. Quite apart from the romance of their first meeting, without being in any way influenced by the unique circ.u.mstances of his rank and wealth, Mary liked the duke very much indeed. She liked him better, perhaps, than any other man she had ever met. It was always a pleasure to her to be in his society, and she made no disguise about it to herself.

Mary put down the ma.n.u.script of the play and glanced at the little carriage clock, covered in red leather, which stood on the mantelshelf.

It was eleven o'clock, and she had to be at the theatre at the half hour to meet Aubrey Flood and discuss some details of stage business with him. Then she was to lunch with the Roses at Westminster, after which she would return to the theatre and begin a rehearsal, which, with a brief interval for dinner, might last till any hour of the night.

She put on her hat and jacket, descended the various flights of stairs which led to her nest in the old Georgian mansion, and walked briskly towards Park Lane.

Mr. Flood had not yet arrived, she was told by the stage-door keeper, and thanking him she pa.s.sed down a short stone pa.s.sage and pushed open the swing door which led directly on to the stage itself.

She was in a meditative mood that morning, and as her feet tapped upon the boards of the huge empty s.p.a.ce she wondered if indeed she was destined to triumph there. Was this really to be the scene in which she would realise her life-long dreams or---- She put the ugly alternative away from her with a shudder and fell to considering her part, walking the boards and taking up this or that position upon them in solitary rehearsal.

The curtain was up and the enormous cavern of the auditorium in gloom, save only where a single pale shaft of sunlight filtered through a circular window in the roof. The brown holland which covered all the seats and gilding seemed like some ghostly audience. To Mary's right, on the prompt side of the proscenium, a man stood upon a little railed-in platform some eight feet above the stage-floor level. He was an electrician, and was busy with the frame of black vulcanite, full four feet square and covered with taps and switches of bra.s.s. From here the operator would control all the lights of the stage as the play went on.

A click, and the moon would rise over the garden and flood it with soft, silver light; a handle turned this way or that, and the lights of the mimic scene would rise or die and flood the stage with colour--colour fitted to the emotion of the moment, as the music of the orchestra would be fitted to it also--science invoked once more to aid the great illusion.

Mary looked up at the man and the thought came to her swiftly. Yes, it was illusion, a strange and dream-like phantasma of the truth! She herself was a shadow in a dream, moving through unrealities, animated by art, so that the dream should take shape and colour, and the others--the real people--on the other side of the footlights should learn their lesson and take a forceful memory home. It was a strange and confusing thought, remote from actuality, as her mood was at that moment. She looked upwards into a haze of light, far away among the network of beams and ropes and hanging scenery of the "grid."

A narrow-railed bridge crossed the open s.p.a.ce nearly forty feet above her. Two men in their shirt-sleeves were standing there talking, small and far away. They seemed like sailors on the yard of a ship, seen from the deck below.

The girl had seen it all a thousand times before, under every aspect of shifting light and colour, but to-day it had a certain unfamiliarity and strangeness. She realised that she was not quite herself, her usual self, this morning, though for what reason she could not divine. Perhaps the strain of hard work, of opening her mind to new impressions and ideals, was beginning to tell a little upon her. Life had changed too suddenly for her, perhaps, and, above all, there was the abiding sense of waiting and expectation. Her triumph or her failure were imminent.

One thing or the other would a.s.suredly happen. But, meanwhile, the waiting was trying, and she longed for the moment of fruition--this way or that.