CHAPTER XVI--THE MUSICALE PROGRAM
The duchess ran Dan, made plans, set the pace, and they were very muchin evidence during the season. The young American, good-natured andgenerous, the duchess beautiful and knowing, were the observed ofLondon, and those of her friends who would have tolerated Dan on accountof his money, ended by sincerely liking him. The wedding-day had notbeen fixed as yet, and Dan was not so violently carried away that hecould not wait to be married. Meanwhile Gordon Galorey thanked God forthe delay and hoped for a miracle to break the spell over his friend'sson before it should be too late. In early May the question came upregarding the musicale. The duchess made her list and arranged theSunday afternoon and her performers to suit her taste, and the weekbefore lounged in her boudoir when Dan and Galorey appeared for a latemorning call.
"There, Dan," she said, holding out a bit of paper, "look at the listand the program, will you?"
"Sounds and reads all right," commented Dan, handing it on to Galorey.
Besides being an artistic event, she intended that the concert shouldserve to present Dan to her special set. She now lit a cigarette andgave one to each of her friends, lighting the Englishman's herself.
"The best names in London," Lord Galorey said. "You see, Dan, we shalltrot you out in a royal way. I hope you fully appreciate how swaggerthis is to be."
Glancing at the list Blair remarked:
"But I don't see Miss Lane's name?"
"Why should you?" the duchess answered sharply.
"Why, we planned all along that she was to sing," he returned.
She gave a long puff to her cigarette.
"We did _rather_ speak of it. But we shall do very well as we are. Theprogram is full up and it's perfectly ripping as it stands."
"Yes, there's only just one thing the matter with it," the boy smiledgood-naturedly, "and it's easy enough to run her in. I guess Miss Lanecould be run in most anywhere on any program and not clear the house."
Lord Galorey, who knew nothing about the subject under discussion, saidtactfully: "Why, of course, Letty Lane is perfectly charming, but youcouldn't get her, my dear chap."
"I think we will let the thing stand as it is," said the duchess, goingback to her desk and stirring her paper about. "It's really too latenow, you know, Dan."
Unruffled, but with a determination which Lord Galorey and the lady werefar from guessing, Blair resumed tranquilly:
"Oh, I guess she'll come in all right, late as it is. We'll send word toher and fix it up."
The duchess turned to him, annoyed: "Oh, don't be a beastly bore,dear--you are not really serious."
Dan still smiled at her sweetly. "You bet your life I am, though, Lily."
She rang a bell at the side of her desk, and when the footman came ingave him the sheet of paper. "See that this is taken at once to thestationer's."
"Better wait, Lily"--her fiance extended his hand--"until the program isfilled out the way it is going to stand." And Blair fixed his handsomeeyes on his future wife. "Why, we got this shindig up," he notedirreverently, "just so Miss Lane could sing at it."
"Nonsense," she cried, angry and powerless, "you ridiculous creature!Fancy me getting up a musicale for Letty Lane! Do tell Dan to stopbothering and fussing, Gordon. He's too ridiculous!"
And Lord Galorey said: "What is the row anyway?"
"Why, I want Miss Lane to sing here on Sunday," Dan explained....
"And I don't want her," finished the Duchess of Breakwater, who wasevidently unwilling to force a scene before Lord Galorey. She handed thelist to her servant, but Dan intercepted it.
"Don't send out that list, Lily, as it is."
He gave it back to her, and his tone was so cool, his expression sodecided and quiet, that she was disarmed, and dismissed the servant,telling him to return when she should ring again. Coloring with anger,she tapped the envelope against her brilliantly polished nails.
If she had been married to Blair she would have burst into a violentrage; if he had been poorer than he was she would have put him in hisplace. Lord Galorey understood the contraction of her brows and lips asDan reminded: "You promised me that you would have her, you know, Lily."
"Give in, Lily," Galorey advised, rising from the chair where he waslounging. "Give in gracefully."
And she turned on Galorey the anger which she dared not show the otherman. But Dan interrupted her, explaining simply:
"I knew the girl when she was a kid: she is from my old home, and I wantLily to ask her here to sing for us, and then to see if we can't dosomething to get her out of the state she is in."
Galorey repeated vaguely, "State?"
"Why, she's all run down, tired out; she's got no real friends inLondon."
The other man flicked the ash from his cigarette and looked at Blair'sboy through his monocle.
"And you thought that Lily might befriend her, old chap?"
"Yes," nodded Dan, "just give her a lift, you know."
Galorey nodded back, smiling gently. "I see, I see--a moral, spirituallift? I see--I see." He glanced at the woman with his strange smile.
She put her cigarette down and seated herself, clasping her hands aroundher knees and looked at her fiance.
"It's none of my business what Letty Lane's reputation is. I don't care,but you must understand one thing, Dan, I'm not a reformer, or acharitable institution, and if she comes here it is purelyprofessional."
He took the subject as settled, and asked for a copy of the program andput it in his pocket. "I'll get the names of her songs from her and takethe thing myself to Harrison's. And I'd better hustle, I guess; there'sno time to lose between now and Sunday." And he went out triumphant.
Galorey remained, smoking, and the duchess continued her notes insilence, cooling down at her desk. Her companion knew her too well tospeak to her until she had herself in hand, and when finally she took upher pen and turned about, she appeared conscious for the first of hispresence.
"Here still!" she exclaimed.
"I thought I might do for a safety valve, Lily. You could let some ofyour anger out on me."
The duchess left her desk and came over to him.
"I expect you despise me thoroughly, don't you, Gordon?"
They had not been alone together since her engagement to Blair, for shehad taken pains to avoid every opportunity for a tete-a-tete.
"Despise you?" he repeated gently. "It's awfully hard, isn't it, for achap like me to despise anybody? We're none of us used to the bestquality of behavior, you know, my dear girl."
"Don't talk rot, Gordon," she murmured.
"You didn't ask my advice," he continued, "but I don't hesitate to tellyou that I have done everything I could to save the boy."
She accepted this philosophically. "Oh, I knew you would; I quiteexpected it, but--" and in the look she threw at him there was moreliking than resentment--"I knew you, too; you _couldn't_ go very far, mydear fellow."
"I think Dan Blair is excellent stuff," Gordon said.
"He is the greenest, youngest, most ridiculous infant," she exclaimedwith irritation, and he laughed.
"His money is old enough to walk, however, isn't it, Lily?" She made anangry gesture.
"I expected you'd say something loathsome."
Her companion met her eyes directly. She left her chair and came and satdown beside him on the small sofa. As he did not move, or look at her,but regarded his cigarette with interest, she leaned close to him andwhispered: "Gordon, try to be nice and decent. Try to forget yourself.Don't you see what a wonderful chance it is for me, and that, as far asyou and I are concerned, it can't go on?"
The face of the man by her side grew somber. The charm this woman hadfor him had never lessened since the day when he told her he loved her,long before his marriage, and they were both too poor.
"We have always been too poor, and Edith is jealous of me every day andhour of her life. Can't you be generous?"
He rose and stood over her, looking down at her beautiful form and herso
mewhat softened face, but his eyes were hard and his face very pale.
"You had better go, Gordon," she said slowly; "you had better go...."
Then, as he obeyed her and went like a flash as far as the door, shefollowed him and whispered softly: "If you're really only jealous, I canforgive you."
He managed to get out: "His father was my friend; he sent the boy to meand I've been a bad guardian." He made a gesture of despair. "Putyourself in my place. Let Dan Blair go, Lily; let him go."
Her eyelids flickered a little, and she said sharply: "You're out ofyour senses, Gordon--and what if I love him?"
With a low exclamation he caught her hand at the wrist so hard that shecried out, and he said between his teeth: "You _don't_ love him! Takethose words back!"
"Of course I do. Let me free!"
"No," he said passionately, holding her fast. "Not until you take thatback."
His face, his tone, his force, dominated her; the remembrance of theirpast, a possible future, made her waver under his eyes, and the womansmiled at him as Blair had never seen her smile.
"Very well, then, goose," she capitulated almost tenderly; "I don't lovethat boy, of course. I'm marrying him for his money. Now, will you letme go?"
But he held her still more firmly and kissed her several times before hefinally set her free, and went out of the house miserable--bound to herby the strongest chains--bound in his conscience and by honor to histrust to Dan's father, and yet handicapped by another sense of honorwhich decrees that man must keep silence to the end.