CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A Proposal of Marriage
After the restaurant was cleared and all outsiders gone, Alexander remained, wandering dolefully about the room and discussing with Leo Cohen the sum he hoped to get from the company in which he was insured against fire.
The conversation ought to have been of absorbing interest to Cohen, as eventually Alexander's business would be his, provided there were no hitch in the marriage negotiations; nevertheless, he was absent-minded, for the new waiter had not yet left the premises, and – the watchful Cohen had noticed a peculiar light in Isidora's eye when her father had brusquely ordered her upstairs, "out of the way."
She had offered no objection to going, and had bidden Leo good-night, very prettily. But before tripping away, she paused for an instant in the corridor, her face turned towards the kitchen in which P. Gordon was helping Black Dick put things to rights.
Cohen noticed this turn of the head, this fluttering hesitation, standing as he did near the door-way now stripped of the red curtain. But when Isidora had vanished above, Alexander dismissed Blinkey and the Pole, shutting the door which usually stood open, because of the draught from the broken window.
"Why don't you send that man Gordon away, too?" Cohen asked.
"Because I'm payin' him big money, and he's got to earn it," explained Alexander. "He can stay and help Dick tidy up, if it takes till twelve o'clock. It ain't hurting us. Why should you care?"
Even Cohen, who seldom erred on the side of timidity in speech, scarcely ventured to put into words the reason why he did "care." Alexander was a good friend of his, and desired warmly to welcome him as a member of the family, but he worshipped his daughter Izzie; and as he had a violent, uncertain temper, he might resent a suggestion that she could be interested in Gordon.
Cohen had a rooted objection to draughts, or fresh air in any form, except in the warmest weather; still he would have preferred a draught to the shut door behind which the girl might steal downstairs to gossip with the Englishman in the kitchen. Of course Dick was there, but he was a slave to Isidora's fascinations, and the coal-black youth who was his adjutant had now gone home to patch up burnt hands and head. Cohen hardly heard what Alexander said, so keenly was he pricking his ears for a footfall on the stairs, behind the closed door; and he answered at random while his intended father-in-law demonstrated the prospects of opening the restaurant as usual in the morning.
"See here, are you sick, or what's the matter?" snapped Alexander at last.
"Oh, I'm all right," said Cohen, "only the smoke's got into my eyes. They smart so, I can see no more'n a bat. If it hadn't been for the smoke, which always makes me blind and dizzy, I'd have been more use in the panic."
Alexander laughed. "Well, you weren't no hero. Never mind, though, most of us was put out of business. And nobody had time to see what anybody else was at. But you do seem dicky. Mebbe you'd better be gettin' home. I don't want to keep you up."
"Oh, I'm not all in yet," Cohen hastened to protest. "But can't you leave me to watch that winder, while you see after Izzie? She was lookin' white and scared. Maybe she don't like bein' left alone. Or I could go up myself, and sit by her awhile. 'Tain't late."
Alexander chuckled. "Say, you're mighty thoughtful, ain't you? But you let Izzie alone tonight. I know dat girl, and de best ting for her is to go to bed."
"It ain't much past nine," said Cohen. "I don't guess she'll go to bed yet."
"Well, she's got the hired gel to chat with – unless it's her evenin' out. Now, don't you look so glum, Leo. Izzie ain't mashed on you yet, and if you was to go stir her up when she's all on the jump, you'd do for yourself with her. I tell you dat straight. And dat ain't what you want, huh?"
Cohen admitted that it was not, and gloomily allowed his services to be enlisted by Alexander in the way of examining the furniture for damage, piling broken chairs in a corner, and sorting out those in a fit condition to be used tomorrow.
Meantime Isidora had been busy justifying her lover's worst fears.
As she reached the top of the staircase, she heard the loud slamming of the door which had been warped and blistered by the heat. Her heart gave a little jump of excitement. Already she was keyed to a highly emotional state, and in her longing for a talk with Loveland, alone, she was ready to run almost any risk. The thought that he was still in the house, so near yet so far, had been almost insupportable, and she had fully intended to have a "good cry" the moment she arrived in the sitting-room upstairs. But the unexpected shutting of the restaurant door caused her a tremor of delight. She tip-toed down again, with her heart loud as a hammer in her breast, and flitted softly into the kitchen, not daring to speak till she had quietly closed the door also, lest the sound of her voice should carry across the passage.
"Oh, Mr. Gordon," she breathed. "I'm so sorry about your poor hand; and your face is scorched, too. I do wish you'd let me do something for you."
Loveland thanked her, but said that Dick had bandaged up his hand and wrist very nicely, with a soothing application of lard on an old rag.
Isidora gave a little sniff of scorn for the negro's ministrations.
"A pretty bandage!" she sneered. "A nasty torn bit of coarse towel; and lard ain't the right thing, either. I've taken lessons in First Aid. All the girls in my school did, and I ain't forgot what I learnt. Please come with me, and I'll do you up all right. Now, don't say no, or you'll hurt my feelings. I feel ready to cry anyway, and I sure will, if you ain't kind."
Loveland disavowed all intention of being unkind, but assured the girl that he was in very little pain, and need not put her to trouble. He would soon be ready to go away, and really thought it would be better. But when he had got so far in his rather straggling argument, two tears splashed over Izzie's cheeks. More threatened to follow, and Loveland yielded incontinently. It would hardly have been human not to feel some stirrings of gratitude, and besides, Loveland hated to see a woman cry.
"Oh, I'll come," he said desperately, and followed Isidora into the passage. Her finger on her lip told him that his visit to the family sitting-room was to be a secret, but even if prudence would have turned him back at the last moment, he was committed to the adventure and could not escape.
The parlour, which also served as dining-room, was appalling in its bravery of old gold plush, and portraits of defunct Hebrew ladies and gentlemen on a claret-coloured wall paper. There was an upright piano with the latest thing in coon songs upon it; there were wax flowers under glass cases; there were terra-cotta statuettes of incredible ugliness; there were crocheted "tidies" on the sofas and chairs. On the centre table, which was covered with a blue cloth, stood a lamp that had been lighted when the electricity failed, and in its rays, filtering softly through a shade composed of pink paper roses, Isidora looked even prettier than usual – perhaps partly in contrast with her hideous surroundings.
She made Loveland sit down in a leather armchair which smelled of the tobacco her father affected; and then, kneeling on a low footstool beside him, she began to unfasten Black Dick's clumsy bandage.
"I don't like to have you wait on me," said Loveland, who, a few weeks ago, took the most exaggerated petting for granted, from pretty women.
"Well, I like to do it, anyhow," replied the girl, with a lingering, liquid glance. "You're so brave, I'm proud to be waitin' on you. I never knew anybody just like you, before."
Loveland thought this very probable, but merely remarked, with becoming modesty, that he had done very little.
"You were a real hero," said Isidora. "Oh! o – oh!" and she breathed little cooing sighs of pity at sight of the hero's burns. "I could cry over your poor hand. It's a shame – "
"Please don't!" exclaimed Loveland, laughing. "I can't stand any more tears."
"Did you mind when I cried?" asked Izzie.
"Awfully," said Loveland. As he spoke he smiled down at her in a friendly way; and the kindness in the blue, black-lashed eyes made the girl's heart flutter like an imprisoned bird. She had been in love with him since the first day, a little; then more and more. Now her love overflowed. It was too much for her emotional nature. She could not keep it back. And why should she try to keep it back, she asked herself, since her love must be considered an honour by this unsuccessful foreign adventurer? She felt that she was like a queen, laying down her crown at the feet of a handsome beggar – she, Alexander the Great's only daughter and heiress. There was no question in her mind but that her love would be welcomed.
"I'm glad," she almost sobbed. "Oh, you're worth more to me than anything in the world. I won't cry again if you ask me not. I'll do whatever you want me to. Pa'd 'most kill me if he knew I was talking like this. But I don't care – I don't care for anybody but you – no one else. Oh, suppose I'd let Pa make me marry Leo Cohen before I'd met you!"
Loveland was dumbfounded. "My dear girl!" he exclaimed. "You don't know what you are saying. You – "
"I do know," Isidora broke in. "I know you are poor, and in a lot of trouble, and you might have gone to prison. But you're a gentleman, all right. You're You, and that's enough. If you care about me same as I do about you, why, all the rest – "
"But I – I mean, I'm sure you – don't really care," stammered Val, checking himself on the verge of saying something rude.
It would have simplified matters if he had said it, for Isidora's opinion of her own high value as Alexander's rich, desirable daughter made it too easy for her to misunderstand.
"I do care. You needn't be afraid," she assured him. "I wouldn't have said a word – I'd o' waited for you to speak if things had been different, but I saw how you felt by the way your eyes looked a minute ago, and I wouldn't stop for manners, because, I says to myself, he's too much of a gentleman to tell a girl he loves her, when he's got nothing and she everything."
"I hope I am too much of a gentleman to – " Val began desperately, but she cut him short, with one little plump, Patchouli-scented hand over his mouth.
"I know it! That's what I said. You don't need to tell me," she hurried on. "We'll have to run away and get married. Then Pa'll forgive me. I'm all he's got. He couldn't bear me to want for anything. But it's no use asking him first. He – "
"Dear girl, I have no idea of asking him – "
"No, of course. You ain't so silly. His heart's set on my taking Leo, but I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole, now. My hero! I'll marry you tomorrow."
"The devil you will!" said Alexander.
They stood together at the door, he and Leo Cohen, who had persuaded the old man at last, on one excuse or another, to invite him upstairs. Neither Loveland nor Isidora had heard the door open; neither knew how long the eavesdroppers had listened outside.
The girl struggled up from her knees, and as Loveland bounded out of the big chair she caught his arm, nestling against him.
"You villain, stealin' my gal's love, behind my back, and enticin' her to run off with you!" stuttered Alexander, purple with fury.
"I didn't – " began Val, indignantly.
"What, you didn't?" roared the Jew. "You want me to believe my gal asked you to marry her?"
Loveland started as if Alexander had struck him, and flushed to the forehead. Involuntarily he glanced at Isidora, who looked up at him beseechingly. "Spare me!" the almond eyes implored.
"No. I don't want you to believe that," he said. And how hugely he would have laughed had he been told a few weeks ago that he would let himself be misunderstood and shamed for the sake of a girl like Isidora! But now he did not feel it strange that he should make this sacrifice for her. And curiously enough, it seemed to be Lesley Dearmer's voice, Lesley Dearmer's eyes, which – haunting him always – bade him spare this common little Jewess, at any cost.
"You're a d – d sneak," said Alexander. "Ain't you ashamed of yourself?"
"No," answered Loveland.
"Shows what you are, den. You're a tief. You try to steal my daughter, because you tink you get her money."
"Oh, Pa, he loves me! It's me he wants!" wailed Isidora, weeping, yet not daring to defend her lover at the expense of womanly self-respect. What good would it do him, she thought, for her to confess who had proposed a runaway marriage? Her father would be no less angry with Gordon, and he would be a great deal more angry with her – so angry that he would watch her always, perhaps insist on an immediate wedding with Leo Cohen. No, she could not speak; and besides, it would be too humiliating, before Leo. So she only sobbed, and sobbed the louder, when Loveland gently but firmly unlinked her arm from his.
"You're a little fool, Izzie, or you wouldn't believe any such a ting," Alexander scolded her, somewhat softened by her tears. "A feller like dat – a fraud, a liar – "
"If you were a younger man you wouldn't dare to say that," Loveland cut him short. "It's you who are lying."
"What – you call me a liar? You – you cheat, you convict!" sputtered Alexander. "Take dat for your impudence!" And rushing at Loveland like an angry bull, he struck him with both podgy fists.
Isidora screamed, and seized her father's arms, struggling with him, crying out that he was wicked, cruel, ungrateful to the man who had saved his house from burning.
"Don't be afraid, I'm not going to strike back," Loveland reassured her. "He knows that."
"Yes, he knows dat, because he knows youse a coward," Alexander sneered, wheezing asthmatically. "You come over here to cheat Noo York, but you ain't done it, not much. Lucky for you you ain't in prison. Now you get out of my house, quick – see? You just git."
"That's exactly what I'm anxious to do," said Loveland. "Goodbye, Miss Alexander."
"Oh, you ain't leavin' me forever?" cried the girl. "Pa, don't send him away like this. He – he ain't to blame." She hesitated, stammering: then a wild longing to keep her lover at all hazards overcame fear and scruples. "It was me who – "
"Don't," said Loveland. "You can do no good. I shan't forget your kindness. We won't see each other again, but you must forget tonight, and marry some man who can make you happy. Goodbye once more." And pushing regardlessly past Cohen, who hovered near the door, he sent the commercial traveller sprawling as he walked out of the room.
Black Dick, who had been told to guard the broken window of the restaurant, in the master's absence, had heard all or most of the disturbance, from the foot of the stairs, and he ran after Loveland to suggest the wisdom of getting money from Alexander.
"He am a mighty wicked ole man," whispered the Negro. "You done a lot fur him, an' now he kick you out o' de house widout wages."
"I shall never get a penny from the old beast. It's useless to try," said Loveland, heavily, seeing a vision of homeward-bound ships sailing away without him on board. "Goodbye, Dick. I wish I had something to give you to remember me by, but I haven't."
"Lawd, why I'm a rich man, wid money in de bank," protested Dick. "Do you tink because I got a black face, I take suffin' off'n you? No; on de odder hand I lend you what you like, sah, and you pay me back when you like. You've tret me like a gemman."
Loveland thanked him, curiously touched; and as he refused the loan he found himself, somewhat to his own surprise, shaking hands warmly with the coloured cook.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
"Wanted: Juvenile Leading Man"
Bill Willing sat reading in the coldest corner of the writing-room, in the Bat Hotel. Somehow, when he had not denuded himself of his last nickel, and could afford to pay for a corner anywhere, it was always the coldest corner, because he blithely sacrificed his chances of the warmer ones to others. But he was not conscious that his corner was cold tonight. There was that in his heart which would have made the edge of an iceberg seem a comfortable resting-place; and he was so deeply absorbed in his paper (which was one devoted to the interests of the stage) that Loveland had to speak to him twice before he heard and looked up.
At any other time he would have started, stared, and wanted to know whether Loveland's battered appearance was due to a fight or a fire; but now in self-absorption unusual for him, he noticed nothing strange. "Just look at this, my boy," he exclaimed, his eye sparkling with excitement, as he pointed to a paragraph which he had marked with red ink from a bottle on the table. The paragraph was an advertisement, in the midst of a column of other advertisements, apparently all of the same nature, and that column was one of five or six on a page entirely devoted to such advertisements. Still, the few lines were evidently of the most vital importance to Bill, and Loveland supposed he had hit on the offer of some wonderful situation, such as he had been looking for all his life.
"Wanted," was the attractive word which headed the paragraph: and that was what Val had expected; but as he read on, he grew puzzled. "Wanted – For Repertoire Work, Juvenile Leading Man. Must be tall; good looker, not over thirty; gentlemanly manners and appearance, slim figure, fashionable wardrobe on and off stage. No boozers or loafers need apply. Write at once enclosing photo, and stating experience, age, weight, and lowest salary, to Jack Jacobus, Managing Star Tour for Lillie de Lisle, the Little Human Flower; Modunk, Ohio."
Loveland read the advertisement over, half aloud, his friend following every word with the keenest interest and delight.
"Great Scott, ain't it the grandest ever?" Bill demanded, with a beaming smile.
"I don't understand," said Val. "Are you going to try for the engagement?"
"I?" echoed Bill. "Lord, no."
"Well, then what are you so excited about?" Loveland wanted to know.
"Why, that she should be a star – a real live star. My little gal, Lillie de Lisle. It's her – it's her! There can't be two Lillie de Lisles. Praise be, I've heard of her again. And she's way up top. She's a star."
"Oh, the girl you used to be in love with at the theatre?" asked Loveland.
"Used to be? Was, am, and will be till I end my days. Gee! Every week, whenever there was a spare dime, I've always bought this paper, to see if I could run acrost her name, and know where she was or what she's doing. Once, I seen a letter advertised for her, but that was all, till now. And here she is, a star, on a tour of her own, doin' business as a Little Human Flower. Great, ain't it?"
"Modunk, Ohio," Loveland read again. "Is that much of a place?"
"Never heard of it," admitted Bill. "But geography ain't been my speciality."
"It doesn't sound like a big town," said Val.
"No, that's so. But it's a lucky town, because the Little Human Flower's bloomin' there."
"Why don't you write, and say you'd like to have this engagement?"
"Me? Oh, Jiminy, am I a good looker, am I under thirty with a fashionable wardrobe on and off? Huh! Mine's mostly off." Bill laughed, and then sighed. "The good Lord didn't make me for no juvenile lead."
"But if she still likes you, she'd stretch a point in your favour," Loveland suggested.
"Jacobus wouldn't. He was the property man I told you about, that got me the sack on account of Lillie."
"By Jove," exclaimed Val, forgetting his own troubles enough to be genuinely interested in the dramatic development of Bill's love episode. "I say, you don't suppose he's married her since?"
"Can't have; at least, not unless his wife's gone off the hooks," said Bill. "I heard of him not a year ago from one of the boys who used to supe with me. Said Jacobus had married an actress named Thora Moon, a big dark woman, in the heavy line."
"The heavy line?" asked Loveland.
"Yes. Does heavies, don't you know? But you never can tell with pros. It's married one year and a bachelor the next."
"Widower, you mean," said Val.
"No, I don't, unless it's grass, and grass don't count. I should feel mighty bad if I thought Lillie'd married Jack Jacobus. He ain't the right sort. Jinks, I wish they was advertising for a scene painter, instead of juvenile lead. Wouldn't I just whizz out to Modunk like a shot. Say, Gordon, you wouldn't like the job, would you? Great idea! Why, you're made for it. And you could give the Little Human Flower old Bill's never failin' love."
"I couldn't get them to take me, I'm afraid," said Loveland. "I'm not an actor."
"An actor!" repeated Bill, with inexpressible scorn. "As if they wanted an actor in a show like that, or would know one if they saw him! You're a good looker, you're young, with a tall, slim figure, and all the other qualifications named."
"Except the experience – and the wardrobe."
"Pooh!" said Bill. "Ain't you ever played as an amateur?"
"Yes, once or twice. They roped me in," said Loveland, recalling a brilliant scene in the country-house of a Duchess, and another for the success of which some of the young officers of his battalion had been responsible.
"Well, then, there you are with your experience. And as for the wardrobe – my goodness, lad, what do you want more than those swell tweeds of yours, and the dress suit you've got on? If it comes to costoom parts, why, the management will just have to fit you out with some of their own glad rags – or make the ghost walk your way in advance."
"You don't seem to think much of your star's company, if you believe a raw amateur, with hardly a stitch to his back, would be good enough for them," Loveland said.
"I don't claim it's a Noo York Company," explained Bill. "I guess they're doin' the barn-storming act. Perhaps I've been kind of carried away, thinkin' of Lillie, and what it would be to get the news of her from a chum. I don't suppose there's much in this for you. Maybe you'll do better at Alexander's, now you're a kind of star yourself – "
"A fallen star," laughed Loveland. "Look at me, and see the marks I got sliding down the sky."
Then, for the first time, Bill noticed that his friend's hair was singed and his face reddened on one side, his white shirt covered with black spots, and his left hand partly in, partly out of, a clumsily made bandage.
"Moses! But you have been through the wars!" exclaimed Bill. And he listened with growing excitement to Loveland's version of the fire.
"Alexander ought to give you a partnership," he commented at last, though Val had made no boast of his own part in the affair.
"He's chucked me," said Loveland.
"Je —rusalem! Why, in the name of all that's decent?"
"It was in the name of everything indecent – 'villain, cheat, liar, coward' – that he did it. According to him I was all those, and ought to be in prison; though what he meant by his weird accusations, I can't imagine, unless he just hit on whatever came first. I suppose it must have been that. He thought I'd been making love to his daughter."
"Gee! And had you?"
"No. It was a misunderstanding. But I couldn't explain. And the long and short of it is that I crawled in the dust for a few wretched dollars, which it seems I've got to lose, after all. I don't know how I'm to touch any more – unless I do as you say, and get this place with your friend, the Human Flower."
"You'll go?" asked Bill, brightening.
"Rather. If they'll have me. But I haven't even a photograph – "
"Come out with me," said Bill, seizing him by his sound arm. "I know a place where they do you a tin-type by flashlight for ten cents, and finish while you wait. I'll stand the racket. You can turn your good side to the machine; by the time the answer comes, your hair'll have grown out and you'll be looking A 1. Hurrah! Three cheers for Lillie de Lisle, the Little Human Flower, and her new Juvenile Lead!"