I

Sir Peter Chalfont’s cork arm had become one of the institutions of the town. Long ago the grimness had gone out of everybody’s laughter at the tricks he played with it,—presenting it with the palm the wrong way, making it squeak suddenly and wagging it about from the wrist as a greeting to his friends. Every one had grown accustomed to his frequent changes of gloves and his habit of appearing at dinner with those dreadful stiff fingers in white buckskin. He had indeed trained the thing to perform as though it were an animal and he could do almost anything with it except tie a dress tie. That was beyond him.

At quarter to eight on the evening of Lola’s first dip into life, he turned away from the telephone and presented himself to the man who had been his batman during the last year of the War. He had had three since the miracle of the Marne. He was rather bored because he had just been told by the girl who had promised to dine with him that she didn’t feel like eating and he knew that meant that some one else had cropped up who was more amusing than himself. He had a great mind to give the Savoy a wide berth and walk round to Boodles and have dinner with the Pall Mall Gazette. But on second thoughts the idea of accompanying his cold salmon and cucumber with the accumulating mass of depressing evidence of the world’s unrest, as set forth in the evening paper, appalled him. Charles was trying to edge his way back into Hungary. The Russian Reds were emptying their poison all over the map. English miners had gone out on strike and with a callousness altogether criminal had left the pumps unmanned. Viviani had landed in the United States to endeavor to prove to the new President that if he did not jerk the Senate out of Main Street he would inevitably sentence Europe to death. And Lloyd George, even to the amazement of those who knew him best, was continuing his game of poker with Lenin and Trotsky.

It couldn’t be done. And so, his tie duly tied by the clumsy-fingered man who had received lessons from a shop in the Burlington Arcade, the gallant Peter left his rooms in Park Place and stood on the curb in St. James’s Street. Should he walk or drive? Should he try to raise a friend equally at a loose end, or carry on alone? How he missed his dear old father, who, until the day of his peaceful death, was always ready to join him in a cheery dinner at the Marlborough or the Orleans or at one of the hotels where he could see the pretty girls. After all, dining at the Savoy was not such a lonely proceeding as it seemed. Among the profiteers and the new rich there might be a familiar face. And there was at any rate an orchestra. With a dump hat at an angle of forty-five and a light overcoat over his dinner jacket, he was a mark for all the prowling cabs which found business worse than usual. Two or three of them knew this tall wiry man and had served in his Division. One of the youngest of the Brigadier Generals in the British Army, he had worn his brass hat as though it were the cap of a man with one pip; they loved him for that and any day and any night would cheerfully have followed him to hell. Many of them had called him “Beauty Chalfont,” which had made him uncomfortable. It was better than “Bloody” Chalfont or “Butcher” Chalfont,—adjectives that had been rather too freely applied to some of his brother Brigadiers. So far as the majority of passers-by were concerned, this man to whom willing hands had gone up in salute and who had turned out to be a born soldier was, like so many demobilized officers all over the country, of no account, a nobody, his name and his services forgotten.

The pre-war cheeriness which had belonged to the Savoy was absent now. Chorus ladies and Guards officers, baby-faced foreign office clerks and members of the Bachelors, famous artists and dramatists and the ubiquitous creatures who put together the musical potpourris of the town, beautiful ladies of doubtful reputation and highly respectable ones without quite so much beauty no longer jostled the traveling Americans, tennis-playing Greeks and Indian rajahs in the foyer. Chalfont marched in to find the place filled with wrongly dressed men with plebeian legs and strange women who seemed to have been dug out of the residential end of factory cities. Their pearls and diamonds were almost enough to stir Bolshevism in the souls of curates.

Shedding his coat and hat and taking a ticket from a flunkey, on whose chest there was a line of ribbons, he looked across the long vista of intervening space to the dining room. The band was playing “Avalon” and a buzz of conversation went up in the tobacco smoke. What was the name of that cheery little soul who had dined with him in March, 1914? March, 1914. He had been a happy-go-lucky Captain in the 21st Lancers in those days, drawing a generous allowance from the old man and squeezing every ounce of fun out of life. The years between had brought him up against the sort of realities that he did not care to think about when left without companionship and occupation. Two younger brothers dead and nearly all his pals.—Just as he was about to go down the stairs and be conducted to one of the small tables in the draught he saw a girl in a black cloak with touches of silver on it standing alone, large-eyed, her butter-colored hair gleaming in the light, and caught his breath. “Jumping Joseph,” he said to himself, “look at that,” and was rooted to the floor.

It was Lola, as scared as a child in the middle of traffic, a rabbit among a pack of hounds, asking herself, cold and hot by turns, what she had done—oh, what—by coming to that place with no one to look after her, wishing and wishing that the floor would open up and let her into a tunnel which would lead her out to the back room of the nerve-wrung dressmaker. Every passing man who looked her up and down and every woman who turned her head over her shoulder added stone after stone to the pile of her folly, so childish, so laughable, so stupendous. How could she have been such a fool,—the canary so far away from the safety of its cage.

Chalfont looked again. “She’s been let down by somebody,” he thought. “What sort of blighter is it who wouldn’t break his neck to be on the steps to meet such a—perfectly——All these cursed eyes, greedily signaling. What’s to be done?”

And as he stood there, turning it all over, his chivalry stirred, Lola came slowly out of her panic. If only Mrs. Rumbold had asked her with whom she was going, if only she had had, somewhere in all the world, one sophisticated friend to tell her that such a step as this was false and might be fatal. The way out was to stand for one more moment and look as though her escort were late, or had been obliged to go to the telephone, and then face the fact that in her utter and appalling ignorance she had made a mistake, slip away, drive back to that dismal Terrace and change into her Cinderella clothes. Ecstasy approaching madness must have made her suppose that all she had to do was to sail in to this hotel in Lady Feo’s frock and all the rest would follow,—that looking, as well as feeling “a lady” now and loving like a woman, something would go out from her soul—a little call—and Fallaray would rise and come to her. Mr. Fallaray. The Savoy. They were far, far out of her reach. Her heart was in her borrowed shoes. And then she became aware of Chalfont, met his eyes and saw in them sympathy and concern and understanding. And what was more, she knew this man. Yes, she did. He was no stranger; she had seen him often,—that very day. It was a rescue! A friendly smile curled up her lips.

Chalfont maintained his balance. Training told. He gave it fifty seconds—fifty extraordinary seconds—during which he asked himself, “Is she—or not?” Deciding not by a unanimous vote, he went across to her and bowed. “I’m awfully afraid that something must have happened. Can I be of use to you?”

“I’m longing for asparagus,” said Lola in the manner of an old friend.

“That’s perfectly simple,” said Chalfont, blinking just once. “I’m alone, you’re alone, and asparagus ought to be good just now.”

“Suppose we go in then,” said Lola, buying the hotel, her blood dancing, her eyes all free from fright. She was perfectly happy in the presence of this man because she recognized in him immediately a modern version of the Chevalier who had so frequently brought her bonbons to her room at Versailles which overlooked the back yard of Queen’s Road, Bayswater.

“My name’s Chalfont, Peter Chalfont.” A rigid conventionality sat on his shoulders.

“I know,” she said, and added without a moment’s hesitation, “I am Madame de BrÉzÉ.” And then she knew how she knew. How useful was the Tatler. Before the War, during the War, after the War, the eyes of this man had stared at her from its pages in the same spirit of protection. That very afternoon she had paused at his photograph taken in hunting kit, sitting on his horse beside the Prince of Wales, underneath which was printed, “Sir Peter Chalfont, Bart. V. C. Late Brigadier General,”—and somewhere among that crowd was Fallaray.

II

As they went down the red-carpeted stairs and passed through what Peter called “the monkey house,” the people who had dined at a cheap restaurant and now at the cost of a cup of coffee were there to watch the menagerie followed Lola with eager eyes. Some of them recognized Chalfont. But who was she? A chorus girl? No. A sister? He was certainly not wearing a brotherly expression. A lady? Obviously, and one who could afford not to wear a single jewel. What a refreshing contrast to the wives of profiteers. And she was so young, so finished,—a Personality. Even Grosvenor Bones, the man who made it his duty to know everybody and supplied the Daily Looking Glass with illiterate little paragraphs, was puzzled and, like a dramatic critic who sees something really original and faultless, startled, disconcerted.

Feeling her own pulse as she passed through the avenue of stares, Lola was amazed to find that her heart-beats were normal, that she was not in the least excited or frightened or uncertain of herself any longer. She felt, indeed—and commented inwardly on the fact—as though dinner at the Savoy were part of her usual routine, and that Peter Chalfont was merely Albert Simpkins or Ernest Treadwell in a better coat and cast in a rarer mold. How Chalfont would have laughed if she had told him this. She felt, as a matter of fact, like a girl who was playing a leading part on the London stage as a dark horse, but who had in reality gained enormous experience in a repertory company in the Provinces. She thanked her stars that she had indulged in her private game for so long a time.

The bandmaster, a glossy person with a roving and precocious eye, bent double, violin and all, and signaled congratulations to Chalfont with ears and eyes, eyebrows and mouth. He had the impertinence of a successful jockey. A head waiter came to the entrance of the dining room and washed his hands,—his face wearing his best bedside manner. “For two, Sir Peter?” he asked, as though he were not quite sure that some miracle might not break them into three. And Peter nodded. But Lola was not to be hurried off to the first of the disengaged tables. Fallaray was somewhere in the room and her scheme was, if possible, to sit at a table well within his line of vision. She laid the tips of her fingers on Chalfont’s arm and inspected the room.—There was Fallaray, as noticeable in that heterogeneous crowd as a Rodin figure among the efforts of amateur sculptors. “That table,” she said to the head waiter and indicated one placed against a pillar. One or two of Chalfont’s friends S. O. S.’d to him as he followed the young, slim erect figure across the maze. Luck with her once more, Lola found herself face to face with Fallaray, only two tables intervening. She decided that the charming old lady was his mother. The other had no interest for her.

A thousand questions ran through Chalfont’s head. Madame de BrÉzÉ.—Widow of one of the gallant Frenchmen who had been killed in the War, or the wife, let down by her lover, of an elderly Parisian blood? He would bet his life against the latter conjecture, and the first did not seem to be possible because he had never seen any face so free from grief, pain or suffering. De BrÉzÉ. The name conveyed nothing. He had never heard it before. It had a good ring about it. But how was it that this girl talked English as well as his sister? She looked French. She wore her dress like a Frenchwoman. There was something about the neatness of her hair which Frenchwomen alone achieve. Probably educated in England. He was delighted with her acceptance of the situation. That was decidedly French. An English girl, even in these days, would either have frozen him to his shoes or lent to the episode a forced note of irregularity which would have made it tiresome and tasteless.

It was not until after the asparagus had arrived that Lola succeeded in catching Fallaray’s eyes. They looked at her for a moment as though she were merely a necessary piece of hotel decoration and wandered off. But to her intense and indescribable joy, they returned and remained and something came into them which showed her that he had focused them upon her as a human being and a woman. She saw that he wore the expression of a man who had suddenly heard the loud ringing of a bell, an alarm bell. And then, having seen that his stare had been noticed, he never looked again.

The rustle of silk!—The rustle of silk!

And presently, Chalfont being silent, she leant forward and spoke in a low voice. Luckily the band was not playing a jazz tune but at the request of some old-fashioned person Massenet’s “Elegy.” She said, “Sir Peter, will you do something for me?” And he replied, “Anything under the sun.” “Well, then, will you introduce me to Mr. Fallaray before he leaves the room? He’s at a table just behind you. I admire him so much. It would be a great—the greatest——”

Her voice broke and a flush ran up to her hair, and something came into her eyes that made them look like stars.

Luckily Chalfont was not looking at her face. Her request was a large order, and as usual when puzzled,—he was never disconcerted—he began twisting about his comic cork hand. “Fallaray?” he said, and raised his eyebrows. “Of course, I’d love to do it for you. I know him as well as anybody else does, I suppose—I mean ordinary people. But he doesn’t remember me from Adam. He passed me to-night in the foyer, for instance, and looked clean through my head. I had to put up my hand to see that I hadn’t left it at home. He’s the only man, except the sweep who used to come to our house when I was a kid, of whom I’ve ever been afraid. However—you wish it and the thing must be done.” And he gave her a little bow.

Lola could see that she had given her new friend a task from which he would do almost anything to escape. After all, there was not much in common between Fallaray, whose nose was at the grindstone, and Peter Chalfont, who had nothing to do but kill time. But she must meet Fallaray that night. It was written. Every man was a stepping-stone to this one man who needed her so, but did not know her yet. Therefore, with a touch of ruthlessness that came to her directly from her famous ancestress, she thanked him and added, “It can be managed near the place where you put your hat and coat.”

Chalfont was amused and interested and even perhaps a little astonished at this pretty young thing who had the ways of a woman of the world. “I agree with you,” he said, “but——” and looked at the menu.

Lola shook her head. “I hate buts. They are at the meat course and we’ve only just begun. Dinner doesn’t really interest you and I’m a mere canary. The moment they rise from the table we can make a quick exit.” It was on the tip of her tongue to quote Simpkins and say “nick out.”

Chalfont grinned, pounced upon his roll and started to eat. “After all,” he said, “it will give me an admirable opportunity of inviting you to supper. Keep an eye on the old birds and as soon as they show a disposition to evacuate the situation we’ll limber up and wait for them in the foyer. He’s a hero of yours. Is that the idea?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Do you happen to know Lady Feo?”

“Very well, indeed. She has been very kind to me. I like her.”

Chalfont shifted his shoulders. That was quite enough. “Are you going to give me the whole of the evening?” he asked. “Or will that escort of yours show up sooner or later and claim you?”

“He’s as good as dead, as far as I’m concerned. What do you suggest?”

He bent forward eagerly. “I dunno. A show of sorts. Not the theater. I can’t stand that. We might drop into one of the Reviews or see what they are doing at the Coliseum. I love the red-nosed comedian who falls over a pin and breaks a million plates in an agony of economical terror. Do you like that sort of thing?”

Lola’s experience of Reviews and Variety entertainments was limited to Hammersmith and the suburbs. “You’re going to do something for me,” she said, “so I am perfectly ready to do something for you. I’m rather keen about give and take.”

Which was good hearing for Chalfont. He hadn’t met many women who understood that golden rule. He could see even then that the little de BrÉzÉ was going to play ducks and drakes with his future plans, put him to a considerable amount of inconvenience and probably keep him hanging about town,—for which he had very little use now that the sun was shining. Already Lola’s attraction had begun its disturbing effect. He was on the verge of becoming brother of a valet, a butler, two footmen and the Lord knew how many of the hobble-de-hoys of Queen’s Road, Bayswater.

The fish came and they both fell to,—Lola watching Fallaray’s table keenly. “I saw a rather decent photograph of you in the Tatler to-day,” she said. It might have been Feo who spoke. “You won the point to point, didn’t you?”

“I did,” said Chalfont. “But I should have been beaten by the Boy if I hadn’t had a better horse. He rode like the devil.”

“You don’t think that point to points are rather playing the fool just now, then?” The question came quietly but had the effect of making Chalfont suspend his fork in mid-air.

“Yes. I do. But under the present system what is the ordinary plain man to do but stand aside and watch our political muddlers mess everything up? I was asked to rejoin and take over a district in Ireland. Not me. I could see myself raising Cain in about ten minutes and washed out at the end of a week. Soldiers aren’t required in Ireland.”

“No?”

“No. Nor policemen, nor machine guns. Ireland stands in need of a little man with an Irish accent and the soul of Christ.”

Lola rose to her feet. Fallaray had done the same thing and was bending over his mother.

And so Chalfont with, it must be confessed, a slightly rueful glance at his plate, told the waiter to give his bill to his chief, and followed Madame de BrÉzÉ along the lane between the tables and up the long path of the “monkey house.” And presently, when Fallaray gave his number to the flunkey and waited for his coat and hat, Chalfont carried out his orders. He went forward. “How do you do?” he said. “Wonderful weather.” It was a little lame.

Fallaray did not recognize the speaker except as a man who obviously had been a soldier. A left hand had been presented. The other was eloquent enough. “How are you?” he replied. “Yes, it is wonderful weather.”

And then Chalfont made the plunge. “I want to introduce you, if I may, to one of our Allies who admires you very much, Madame de BrÉzÉ—Mr. Fallaray.”

Fallaray turned. From the little eager hand that nestled into his own Lola sent a message of all the hero-worship and adoration that possessed her soul and all the desire to serve and love that had become the one overwhelming passion of her life. But neither spoke.

A moment later she was standing with Peter Chalfont, watching Fallaray on his way out with the two little ladies.—Her heart was fluttering like the wings of a bird.

But half-way through the evening, after having been swept away by Tschaikowsky’s “Francesca da Rimini” and the Fantasy from “Romeo and Juliet” and stirred deeply by Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” Fallaray underwent a strange and disconcerting experience. Leaving his place between his mother and old Lady Ladbroke, he went to smoke a cigarette in the foyer of the hall during the intermission. The music had gone to his brain and driven out of it for the moment the anxieties that beset him. All the vibrations of that wonderful orchestra flew about him like a million birds and the sense of sex that he had got from Lola’s touch ran through his veins.

He went through the swing-doors and out onto the steps of the building. It was one of those wonderful nights which come sometimes in April and touch the city with magic. It was like the advance guard of June bringing with it the warmth and the scents of that exquisite month. The sky was clear and almost Italian, and the moonlight lay like snow on the roofs. It cast long shadows across the street. Fallaray looked up at the stars and a new and curious thrill of youth ran through him and a sort of impatience at having missed something—he hardly knew what. Wherever he looked he seemed to see two wide-apart eyes filled with adoration and longing and a little red mouth half open. “De BrÉzÉ,” he said to himself. “De BrÉzÉ.” And the name seemed to hold romance and to carry his thoughts out of London, out of the present and back to the times of beflowered garments and powdered heads, of minuets and high red heels.

And as he stood there, far away from the bewilderment and futility of Parliament, a car drove up to the hall and two women got out. They were Mrs. Malwood and Feo and they were dressed in country clothes—the curious country clothes affected by them both. Mrs. Malwood, who was laughing and excited, passed Fallaray without noticing him and entered the building. But Feo drew up short in front of him, amazed at his expression. “Good Lord, Arthur,” she said, “what are you doing here and what on earth are you thinking about?”

Music and the stars and Lola were in his eyes as he looked at her. “I thought you were in the country,” he said.

“I was. I shall be again in an hour or two. In the middle of dinner I suddenly remembered that a protÉgÉ of mine, Leo Kirosch, was to sing here to-night. So I dashed up. He’s in the second part of the program, so I shall be in time to hear him. It entirely rotted the party, but that couldn’t be helped.”

She had never seen that look in Fallaray’s eyes before and was intrigued. It had never been brought to life by her. Could it be possible that this Quixote, this St. Anthony, had looked at last upon the flesh pots? What fun if he had! How delicious was the mere vague idea of Fallaray, of all men, being touched by anything so ordinary and human as love, and how vastly amusing that she, who had worked herself into a sort of half belief that she was attracted by this young Polish singer, should now stand face to face with the man to whom she was tied by law, though by no other bonds. The dash up from the country was worth it even though she had risen unsatisfied from dinner and missed her coffee and cognac.... Or was it that she herself, having dropped from the clouds, and looking as she knew she did, more beautiful and fresh than usual because of her imaginary love affair with this long-haired youth who sang like a thrush, had brought this unaccustomed look into her husband’s eyes?... How very amusing!

“Do you mean to say that having only driven down this afternoon to the country, you’ve come all the way up again just to hear two or three songs?”

“I do,” she said. “Mad, isn’t it? ‘That crazy woman Feo on the rampage again.’ Is that what you’re thinking?”

“Something like that,” he answered, and smiled at her. He felt queerly and charmingly young that night and lenient and rather in sympathy with madness. The Cromwellianism in which he had wrapped himself had fallen temporarily from his shoulders. He put his hand under her elbow and brought her up to the top step on a level with himself.

“My God,” thought Lady Feo, “the man’s alive for once. He tingles. I must be looking well.” What did it matter if Leo Kirosch was singing and she would miss his songs? It was much better sport to stand on the steps of that old building and flirt with her husband. She took his arm and stood close against him and looked up into his face with her most winning smile. “It gave me the shock of my life to see you here,” she said. “I didn’t know that you had a penchant for these suburban orgies. Who are you with?”

“My mother and Aunt Betsy.”

Under any other circumstances Feo would have thrown back her head and laughed derisively. Those two old birds. Instead of which she snuggled a little closer just to see the effect. It was ages since she had treated this man to anything in the nature of familiarity, in fact it was the first time since that night when she had made him kiss her because his profile and his tennis playing had obsessed her.

“After you’ve taken them home,” she said, “why not motor back with us? It’s a gorgeous night, and the Eliots’ cottage is high up on a range of hills almost within reaching distance of the stars.”

Her grotesque sense of humor carried her away. How immense it would be to tempt this man out of the stony path of duty and see what he would do. What a story for her little friends! What screams of mirth she could evoke in her recital of so amazing an event, especially as she could dress it all up as she alone knew so well how to do! And then to be able to add to it all the indignant broken English of Kirosch at finding himself deserted. He had promised to sing to her that night. What a frightfully funny story.

For a moment or two, with the intoxication of music and of those wide-apart eyes still upon him, Fallaray stood closer to his wife than he had ever been. It seemed to him that she had grown softer and sweeter and he was surprised and full of wonder, until he remembered that she had come to see Kirosch, whom she called her protÉgÉ—and then he understood.

Mrs. Malwood came out and luckily broke things up. “He’s singing,” she said. “Aren’t you coming in? Good heavens, Feo, what the deuce are you playing at? You’ve dragged me up and ruined everything, only to miss the very thing you seemed so keen to hear. What is the idea?” She recognized Fallaray and said, “Oh, it’s you.”

And he bowed and got away—that kink in Feo’s nature was all across her face like a birthmark.

And when Feo looked again, she saw in Fallaray’s eyes once more the old aloofness, the old dislike. And she laughed and threw back her head. “Cherchez la femme,” she said. “One of these days I’ll get you to tell me why you looked like that.” And she disappeared with Mrs. Malwood to smile down on Kirosch from her seat near the platform.

And Fallaray remained out under the stars, his intoxication all gone. Nowhere could he see and nowhere did he wish to see those wide-apart eyes with their adoration. The tingle of that little hand had left him. And just as he turned to go back into the building a newspaper boy darted out to a side street with a shrill raucous cry, “Speshall. Mines Floodin’. Riots in Wales. Speshall.”

III

The tears that blinded her eyes had gone when Chalfont came back from the cloakroom. He saw on Lola’s face a smile that made him think of sunlight on a bank of primroses.

But they didn’t go to the Coliseum, after all. It so happened that just as they were about to leave the Savoy, Chalfont was pounced upon by a little woman, the sight of whom made Lola long to burst into a laugh. She was amazingly fat, almost as fat indeed as one of those pathetic women who go round with circuses and sit in a tent all by themselves dressed in tinsel and present an unbelievable leg to gaping yokels and say, “Pinch it, dearie, and see for yourself.” Her good-natured face, with eyes as blue as birds’ eggs, ran down into three double chins. It was crowned with a mass of hair dyed a brilliant yellow, the roots of which grew blackly like last year’s leaves under spring’s carpet. With an inconceivable lack of humor she was dressed like a flapper. She was a comic note in a tragic world. “Oh, hello, Peter,” she said. “You bad boy, you’ve deserted me,” and then she looked at Lola with a beaming smile of appreciation and added, “No wonder.”

More than a little annoyed, because the one thing that he most wanted was to keep Lola to himself, Peter presented his cork hand. “I’ve been in the country,” he said. “I’m awfully sorry I had to miss your party. Lady Cheyne—Madame de BrÉzÉ.”

“There, I knew you were French. I’ve been betting on it ever since you came in. We could see you two from our table.” She waved her hand towards a group of six or seven people who were standing at the top of the stairs. “Come along home with me now,” she said. “We’re going to have some music. I’ve got a new Russian violinist—you needn’t be afraid, he’s been thoroughly disinfected—and a dear thing who sings the roof off. I can’t pronounce her name. It’s a cross between a sneeze and an oath. I believe she comes from Czecho-Slovakia. Also I’ve got Alton Cartridge, the poet. He’s going to read one of his latest effusions. He’s the great futurist, you know. That is, he doesn’t bother himself about rhymes and not very much about reason. Why don’t you both come?”

Chalfont looked quickly at Lola and signaled, “For God’s sake, no.”

So she said, “I should love to.” The name and fame of Lady Cheyne was well known to her through the medium of the “Letters of Evelyn.”

“That’s very sweet of you, my dear. One hundred Kensington Gore. Memorize it, because I know that Peter will forget. He always does. We can’t raise a car between us so we’re all going in taxis. See you later then.”

She squeezed Lola’s hand, nodded roguishly at Peter and bounced away to join her friends, watched hypnotically by people on their way out who, although she was one of London’s landmarks, had never seen her before.

Chalfont was abominably disappointed. It would have been so jolly to have had Lola all to himself. “Wasn’t that rather unkind of you?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Lola, “it was, but I couldn’t resist the chance to see Lady Cheyne at home and discover if all the stories about her are true. I’m so sorry, but after all we can do the Coliseum another night.”

“Oh, well, then, that’s all right.” He brightened up considerably. “Probably you will be more amused at number One Hundred than you would have been at the Coliseum. Poppy manages to surround herself with all the latest freaks.” He led her out, captured a cab and gave the man the address.

“Tell me about her,” said Lola. “You know her very well, it seems.”

“No, I don’t. I’ve only met her twice. She arrives at Christian names within half an hour. She calls herself the mother of thousands, and is, although she’s never had a child of her own. Nobody knows who she was before she married Sir William Cheyne, the contractor, but it’s generally believed that she’s the daughter of a country parson brought up between the Bible and the kitchen garden. She tells everybody that she was very pretty as a girl. It’s her horticultural training that makes her look like a cauliflower. The old man died about ten years ago and left her very well off. She’s really a remarkable little soul, greatly to be respected. Every struggling artist who has ever found his way into London has been financed by her. She has a heart of gold and during the War she was the chairman of one of the soldiers’ entertainment committees. I shall never forget seeing her behind the lines, surrounded by muddy Tommies just relieved. She was a prime favorite out there and was known as Poppy throughout the British Army. How long are you going to be in London?” He switched suddenly to personalities.

“For the rest of the season,” said Lola, “and then my plans are uncertain. I may go down to Buckinghamshire or I may spend July at Dinard. It isn’t settled yet.” She had heard Lady Feo talk over both places with Mrs. Malwood.

“I wonder if I’ve met your husband about London?”

“I am a widow,” said Lola. Her tone was a little sad but, at the same time, it was filled with resignation.

That was something to know. There was no further information forthcoming, however, and as Peter was one of those men who had a great respect for fourth walls, he left it at that.

They were the last to arrive. Their cab had stalled three times in Piccadilly and coughed badly through Knightsbridge. Every window of number One Hundred was alight and as they entered the hall a high soprano voice was sending piercing vibrations all through the house. A long oak settle in the hall was covered with strange coats and stranger hats and there were queer people sitting on the stairs. The drawing-room was obviously overflowing.

Lola picked her way upstairs, Chalfont following closely. Among these people who conveyed the impression of having slept in their clothes—Art is always a little shy of cold water—Lola felt a sense of distress. Democratic in her ability to make friends with all honest members of the proletariat, like those in the servants’ sitting room in Dover Street, she felt hopelessly aristocratic when it came to affection with dandruff on its velvet collar.

The drawing-room, wide and lofty, was one great square of bad taste, filled, overfilled, with what America aptly calls “junk.” Spurious Italian furniture jostled with imitation English oak. Huge pieces of fake tapestry hung on the walls side by side with canvases of extremely self-conscious nudes. Early Victorian whatnots covered with silver apostle spoons jostled with Tottenham Court Road antiques. All the lamp shades on the numerous electric lamps were red and heavy, so that the light crept through. To add to the conglomeration of absurdities the whole place reeked with burning josh sticks. A woman who dyes her hair a brilliant yellow invariably burns something on the altar of renewed optimism. The only thing that rang true in the room was the grand piano and that was kept in tune.

Sprawling on divans which were ranged around the walls Lola could make out the forms of men and women of all sizes, ages and nationalities. The men had more hair than the women. There must have been at least sixty people present, among whom Peter Chalfont looked like a greyhound and Lola like an advertisement of somebody’s soap. A tremendous woman, standing with her feet wide apart like a sea captain in a gale, or a self-conscious golfer on the first tee, was singing Carmen’s most flamboyant song. She was accompanied by a little person of the male gender whose lank black locks flapped over his eyes. They seemed to be competing in making the most noise because when the pianist attempted to overwhelm the voice with all the strength that he possessed, the singer filled herself with breath, gripped the floor with her well-trained feet, and sent forth sounds that must have been excessively trying to the Albert Memorial.

At the end of this shattering event Lady Cheyne bubbled forward and took Lola’s hand. “What do you do, my dear?” she asked, as though she were a performing dog to be put through her tricks. To which Lola replied, “Nothing. Nothing at all,” with rock-like firmness.

So the exhibitor of human vanities turned persuasively to Peter. “But you whistle, don’t you?” she asked. And Peter with a stiffening spine replied, “Yes, but only for taxis.”

“In that case,” said Lady Cheyne, genuinely astonished that neither of the new arrivals showed any eagerness to jump at her suggestion to advertise, “find a corner somewhere. A little protÉgÉe of mine is going to dance for us. She is an interpreter of soul moods. So wonderful and inspiring. You’ll love it, I’m sure.”

Obeying orders, Peter led Lola into a distant corner, eyed by various artists who labeled him “Soldier” and dismissed him loftily. The passing of Lola sent a quiver through them and they were ready for the first available opportunity to attitudinize about her chair. At a sign from Lady Cheyne the little pianist commenced to play one of Heller’s “Sleepless Nights” and a very thin girl, wrapped in a small piece of chiffon, dropped into the middle of the room like a beam of moonlight.

“A spring onion,” said Chalfont, in a whisper, “newly plucked from the warm earth.” The burst of applause drowned Lola’s flutter of laughter. The interpretation of soul moods resolved itself, of course, into the usual series of prancings and high jumps, scuttlings round and roguish bendings, a final leap into the air and a collapse upon the floor.

And so the evening unwound itself. There were violin solos by men in a frenzy of false ecstasy, piano solos by women who put that long-suffering instrument through every conceivable form of torture, readings of nebulous drivel by the poet Cartridge in a high-pitched minor-canon voice, and recitations by women without restraint or humor,—disciples of the new poetry, which Chalfont, quoting from one of the precocious members of the Bachelors’ Club, called “Loose Verse.”

And then came supper, a welcome event for which all those sixty people had been waiting. This was served in the dining room, another large and eccentric apartment where an embittered man manipulated the punch bowl and was in great request. As soon as she had seen all her guests fully occupied with chicken salad and fish croquettes, Lady Cheyne returned to the deserted drawing-room where she found Chalfont and Lola in deep conversation. She burst upon them like a hand grenade, crying, “Aren’t they darlings? Every one a genius and all of them hungry. They come to me like homing pigeons and I do my best to get them placed. Always I have here one or two of the great impressarios,—agents, you know, and sometimes I achieve the presence of an actor-manager. But Shakespeare is out of fashion now and so all my Romeos and Juliets stand a poor chance. I often sigh for dear Sir Herbert who came here for what he called ‘atmosphere and local color.’ You must come again, my dear. Peter will be very glad to bring you, I’m sure, and I shall be delighted to have you for my week-end parties. I have a place at Whitecross, Bucks. The garden runs down to the Fallaray place, you know.”

From that point on, that big point, Lola ceased to listen.

The whole evening had been filled with amazing sensations. Panic, the sudden switch to reassurance, the excitement of meeting Chalfont, the sweeping joy of touching Fallaray’s hand and the knowledge that having broken through the hoop she could now continue to emerge from Dover Street with her new and eager companion to serve an apprenticeship for her final rÔle. She had lived a year in an evening. But there was still another sensation lying in wait for her. The moment had come when she must return unseen to Castleton Terrace and get back to Dover Street in good time to reassume the part of lady’s maid so that she might not be caught by the housekeeper and reported,—a chance for which Miss Breezy was eagerly waiting. And as she sat unconscious of Lady Cheyne’s babble and the buzz of conversation which drifted in from the dining room, she switched on her brain.

How, in the name of all that was wonderful, was she to give Chalfont the slip. That was the new problem to solve; because, of course, he would naturally insist on seeing her home in the ordinary course of events. If he had thought about it at all, she knew that he must have imagined that she was staying either at the Ritz, the Carlton or the Berkeley, or that she was living in one of the smaller houses in Curzon Street, Half Moon Street or Norfolk Street, Park Lane. The jagged end of panic settled upon her once more and her hands grew icy. It was utterly essential to her future plans that Chalfont should remain in complete ignorance of her identity. He must be used by her during the remainder of the season. He must bring her again to this house. Lady Cheyne had become an important factor in her scheme because the garden of her country house ran down to Chilton Park. It was to Chilton Park that Fallaray loved to go alone for the week-end and wander about, gaining refreshment for his tired brain; and always it had seemed to Lola, when she had dared to look into the future, that this place, standing high up on the ridge of hills above the vale of Aylesbury, backed by a great beech forest and landmarked by the white cross that had been cut by the Romans, was the first milestone on her road to love and to the fulfillment of the dream which had held her all those years.

The problem of her escape and her Cinderella flight became more and more pressing. What fib could she invent to tell Chalfont? Without any doubt he would ask her for permission to call. He would want to know her telephone number and her address. In his eye already there was the Simpkins look, the Ernest Treadwell expression and, but for his innate chivalry and breeding, she knew that he would have given tongue to some of the things which she could see at the back of his eyes. It was past eleven. She had heard the clock in the hall strike just now.

She began to rehearse a series of scenes. She saw herself rise and say, “I must go now. A thousand thanks for all that you have done for me this evening. Will you please ask Lady Cheyne if I may have a taxi?” She saw herself standing on the doorstep, the taxi waiting, with Chalfont assuming that he was to play the cavalier and eventually stand bareheaded, holding her hand, opposite the shabby little villa in Castleton Terrace. Which would never do. Madame de BrÉzÉ did not live anywhere near Queen’s Road, Bayswater.

She saw herself driven by Chalfont to the Ritz or the Carlton, escorted by him to the lift where he would wait to see the last of her as she was taken up to the rooms that she did not possess. That also was impossible. Great heavens, what was she to do? Trying again, her hands icier than ever, she saw Chalfont with growing incredulity listening to cock-and-bull stories which ran like this:

“I don’t want you to see me home. As a matter of fact I’m very old-fashioned.” Or, “We must say good night here. I’m staying with a puritanical aunt who will be sure to ask me who brought me home and when I say, ‘Sir Peter Chalfont’ her answer will be ‘I didn’t know you knew Sir Peter Chalfont. Where did you meet him?’ And then I shall have to tell the story of how you picked me up. Can you imagine the result?”—And this was hopeless because, of course, Peter would say, “How in the name of all that’s marvelous will your good old aunt know who brings you home? Good old aunts haven’t got to know the truth. Besides, if it comes to that, you can drop me about ten doors from the house and then go on alone. It’s perfectly easy, and it’s done every day.” And who, after all, was this aunt? Miss Breezy, the housekeeper.

Phew!

And then came an inspiration. “I’m very hungry,” she said aloud. “I begin to remember that dinner was a little unsatisfactory.” She laughed and Peter laughed. “But I must go and powder my nose. Please don’t bother, Lady Cheyne. I’ll find my way and rejoin you in a moment.”

She picked up the cloak which she had brought into the drawing-room, threw at Chalfont a smile of the most charming camaraderie, touched Lady Cheyne’s arm in a way that asked for friendship and left the drawing-room. With one quick look at the deserted hall with all its strange coats and stranger hats, she made for the front door, opened it, closed it behind her stealthily and ran down the stone path which led to the street. The theater traffic was all headed towards High Street, Kensington. There was not a vacant taxi to be seen. It would not do to stand about in front of the house, so the little Cinderella who had not waited for the magic hour of twelve and had taken good care not to leave her crystal slipper behind her ran up the street to the first turning and stood quivering with excitement and glee beneath a friendly lamp post. A little laugh floated into the muggy air.

“Yes, it’s a funny world, ain’t it?”

It was a Bobby who had sidled up from the shadow of a wall and towered above her, with a sceptical grin about his mouth.

Instantly a new thought came into Lola’s head. “What would Lady Feo do?” She gave it five seconds and turned coolly, calmly and graciously to the arm of the law,—a strong and obviously would-be familiar arm. This girl—running about alone in evening dress—at that time of night.

“I told my car to wait here,” she said. “Evidently there has been some mistake. Will you be good enough to call me a cab?”

A hand swept up to the peak of the helmet. “Nothing simpler, Madam.”

By the grace of God and the luck that follows drunkards, a taxi was discharging a fare halfway down the road. The ex-sergeant of the Sussex regiment put two fingers into his mouth. With a new interest in life the cab made a wide turn and came up not without style, but with a certain amount of discretion, because of the uniform which could be seen beneath the lamp post.

The Bobby opened the door. There was admiration in his eyes. “A good fairy, ma’am,” he said.

And Lola paused and looked up into his face,—a man face, with a big moustache and rather bristling eyebrows, a dent in a firm chin and the mark of shrapnel on the left cheek bone. “A very good fairy,” she said. “You’ll never know how good. Thanks, most awfully.”

And once more the hand flicked to the brim of the helmet as Lola in an undertone gave her address to the driver. Not even the Bobby must see the anti-climax which would be brought about by such an address as Castleton Terrace.

A scrawny black cat rose and arched its back as Lola, telling the taxi man to wait, ran up the steps. One of those loose bells that jangle indiscreetly woke the echoes in the sleeping street, and the door was opened by the invincible Mrs. Rumbold, tired-eyed, with yawn marks all over her face. “Well, here you are, dearie,” she said, as cheerful as usual, “absobally-lootely to the minute. The old man ain’t turned up yet. But you’re not going to keep the taxi waiting, are you?”

“Yes,” said Lola.

“Gor blimey.” The comment was a perfectly natural one under the circumstances.

And while Lola changed back again into the day clothes of the lady’s maid, Mrs. Rumbold lent a willing hand and babbled freely. It was good to have some one to speak to. Her legless son had been put to bed two hours before, asking himself, “Have they forgotten?”

Finally the inevitable question, which Mrs. Rumbold, for all her lessons in discretion, simply could not resist. “Where have yer bin, dearie?”

And Lola said, “The Savoy. I dined with a knight in shining armor with a white cross on his chest.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Rumbold, “he was going on to a fancy ball, I suppose. Lord, how these boys love to dress themselves up.” But a lurking suspicion of something that was not quite right edged its way into that good woman’s thoughts. What was little Lola Breezy from the shop round the corner doing with a gent as ’ad enough money to dine at the Savoy and sport about in old-time costumes? “Well, of course, as I said before, you can only live once. But watch your step, dearie. Lots of banana skins about.”

And Lola threw her arms round the woman’s neck and kissed her warmly. “Fate has swept the pavement for me,” she said, once more as Feo would have spoken. “I shall not make any slip.”

IV

Ernest Treadwell faced her at the bottom of the steps, and beneath the peak of his flabby cap his eyes were filled with fright.

“Is anything the matter with Father or Mother?”

“No,” he said.

“Why do you look like that, then?” Her hand fell away from his coat. If there was nothing wrong with her parents——

He edged her away from the cab and spoke quickly, without the usual stammer and timidity. He was laboring under a passion of apprehension. It made him almost rude. “I came this way round from the Tube and saw you get out of this cab dressed up like a—a lady. What are you doing? Where’ve you been?” He caught her by the wrist, excited by a sense of impending evil. Oh, God, how he loved this girl!

And Lola remembered this, although her brain was filled with pictures of the Savoy, of Chalfont and of Fallaray. Irritation, in which was mingled a certain degree of haughtiness, was dropped immediately. She knew that she had always been enthroned in this boy’s heart. She must respect his emotion.

“Don’t worry about me, Ernie,” she said, soothingly. “Lady Feo gave me the dress. I changed into it at Mrs. Rumbold’s and brought it back for her to work on again. It isn’t quite right.”

“But where could you go to wear a thing like that—and the cloak? You looked so—so unlike——” He could only see her as she used to be behind the shop counter and out for walks with him.

And Lola gave a little reassuring laugh because an answer was not ready. If instead of Ernest Treadwell the man who held her up had been Simpkins! “One of the girls had two stalls for the St. James’s—her brother’s in the box office—and so we both dressed up and went. It was great fun.” Why did these men force her into lying? She took her hand away.

“Oh,” he said, “I see,” his fear rising like a crow and taking wings.

“And now if you’ve finished playing the glaring inquisitor, I’ll say good night.” She gave him her hand again.

Covered with the old timidity, he remained where he stood and gazed. There was something all about her, a glow, a light; a look in her eyes that he had put there in his dreams. “Can’t I go with you to Dover Street?”

Why not? Yes, that might be good, in case Simpkins should be waiting. “Come along then. You’ve made me late. Tell him where to go.”

The cab turned into Queen’s Road and as it passed the narrow house with the jeweler’s shop below—all in darkness now—Lola leaned forward and kissed her hand to it. Her father with the glass in his eyes, the ready laugh, the easy-going way, the confidence in her; her capable mother, a little difficult to kiss, peeping out of a shell; her own old room so full of memories, the ground in which she grew. They were slipping behind. They had almost been specks on the horizon during all that eventful night, during which she had found her wings. And this Treadwell boy, his feet in a public library, his soul among the stars, such clothes and such an accent.—And now there were Chalfont and Lady Cheyne and—Fallaray? No, not yet. But he had touched her hand and heard the songs of birds.

“Lola, it hurts me now you’ve gone. I hate to pass the shop. There’s nothing to do but”—he knew the word and tumbled it out—“yearn.” If only he might have held her hand, say halfway to the house that he hated.

“Is that a new cap, Ernie? Take it off. You don’t look like a poet. Nothing to do? Have you forgotten your promise to read and learn? You can’t become a Masefield in a day!”

He put his hands up to his face and spoke through sudden sobs. “With you away I shall never become anything, any time. Come back, Lola. Nothing’s the same now you’re away.”

And she gave him her hand, poor boy. And he held it all too tight, like a drowning man, as indeed he felt that he was. Since Dover Street had come into life he hadn’t written a line. The urge had gone. Ambition, so high before, had fallen like an empty rocket. Lola,—it was for her that he had worked his eyes to sightlessness far into all those nights.

“This will never do,” she said. Inspiration—she could give him that, though nothing else—was almost as golden as love. He was to be Some One,—a modern Paul Brissac. She needed that. And she refired him as the cab ran on, rekindled the cold stove and set the logs ablaze. Work, work, study, feel, express, eliminate, temper down. Genius could be crowded out by weeds like other flowering things.

And as the cab drew up the hand was raised to burning lips. But the shame of standing aside while the driver was paid—that added a very big log.

“Good night, Poet.”

“Good night, Princess.” (Oh-h, that was Simpkins’s word.)

Dover Street—and the area steps.