THE LAST ACT OF "GIRLS' LOVE"

The wail of grief that echoed through New York for Rose Doran, suddenly snatched from life in the prime of her beauty, sounded in the ears of Max a warning note. Her memory must not be smirched. And then again came the temptation. As she lay dying he had decided what to do. But now that she was dead, now that letters and telegrams by the hundred, and visits of sympathy, and columns in the newspapers, were making him realize more and more her place in the world she had left, and the height of the pedestal on which the Doran family stood, the question repeated itself insistently: Why not reconsider?

Max had thought from time to time that he knew what temptation was; but now he saw that he had never known. His safeguard used to be in calling up his father's image to stand by him, in listening for the tones of a beloved voice which had the power to calm his hot temper, or hold him back from some impetuous act of which he would have been ashamed later. He had seemed to hear the voice as Rose slept her last sleep, under her white veil, but later it was silent. It left him to himself, and sometimes he was even persuaded that it joined with the voice of Rose, whispering that siren word, "Reconsider."

Jack Doran had loved Rose. Perhaps on the other side of the valley he had forgiven her, and wished above all other things that her memory should remain bright. If Max reconsidered, it would all be easy. No one would be surprised if he took long leave and went abroad. No one would think it strange or suspicious if a girl "Cousin" should later appear on the scene: a Miss Doran of whom no one had ever heard, who had been educated abroad, and who, because she had lost her parents, was to take up life in America. Or maybe it needn't even come to that, in case he found the girl. She might be married. She might prefer to remain where she was, with plenty of money from her distant relations, the Dorans, of whose existence she would be informed for the first time. There would be no difficulty in arranging this. The one real difficulty was that Max's soul would be in prison. The bars would be of gold, and he would have in his cell everything to make him and his friends think it a palace. But it would be a prison cell, all the same, for ever and ever; and at night when he and his soul were alone together, looking into each other's eyes, he would know that from behind the door he had locked upon himself there was no escape.

There were moments, and whole hours together, when he said with a kind of sudden rage against the responsibility thrown on him, "I'll take Rose's advice—the last words she ever spoke." But then, in some still depth far under the turmoil of his tempted spirit, he knew that his first decision was the only one possible for honour or even for happiness. And the day after the funeral he made it irrevocable by telling Edwin Reeves a wild story that had come to him in a strange moment of something like exaltation. It had come as he stood bareheaded by the grave where Rose had just been laid to sleep beside Jack Doran; and in that moment a lie for their sakes seemed nobler than the truth that would hurt them. More and more, as he thought of it on his way back to the house which had once been "home," and as the possibilities developed in his mind, with elaborations of the tale, this lie appealed to his chivalry. Everybody might hear it without fear that Jack or Rose would be blamed. That was the great advantage. There need be no whisperings and mysteries. And once the tale was told, there would be no going back from it.

The story which fixed his imagination and inspired him to martyrdom might have made a plot for some old-fashioned melodrama, but Max began to realize that there was nothing in fiction so incredible as the things which happen in life: things one reads about any day in newspapers, yet which in a novel would be laughed at by critics. He would say to Edwin Reeves that, shortly before her death, Rose had learned through the dying confession of a Frenchwoman who had nursed her in childbirth that her girl baby had been changed for a boy, born about the same time to a relative of the nurse; that hearing this story she had intended to write Max, and ask him to go to France to prove or disprove its truth, but that she had been struck down before summoning courage to break the news. Edwin Reeves would then understand Rose's anxiety to see Max; and he would keep the secret, at least until the girl was found. As for what ought to be done in the case of not finding her, or learning without doubt that she was dead, Max thought he might take the lawyer's advice as a friend of the Dorans, as a legal man, and as a man of the world. Perhaps, if in Edwin Reeves's judgment silence would in that event be justified, Max might accept this verdict.

There was that one grain of hope for the future—if it could be called hope. But there was another person besides Edwin Reeves and Edwin Reeves's son (Max's best friend of old days) who must be told at once how little claim he had to the Doran name and fortune. That person was Billie Brookton.

Max had dimly expected opposition from Edwin Reeves, whose advice might be what Rose Doran's had been: to give money, and let everything remain as it had been. It was somewhat to his surprise that the lawyer, after listening in silence, agreed that there was just one thing to do, if the girl still lived. Grant (who was with him in their private office by Max's wish), though more demonstrative, more openly sympathetic, held the same opinion.

Max ought to have been glad of this encouragement, but somehow, shaming himself for it, he felt a dull sense of injury, especially where Grant was concerned. Grant exclaimed that it was horribly hard lines, and that old Max was the splendid fellow everybody had always believed him to be. Lots of chaps would have been mean, and stuck to the name and money, though of course no honourable man could do that. Grant quite saw how Max felt, and would have to act in the same way himself, no matter what it cost. If the truth had to come out, every one would say he'd behaved like a hero—that was one comfort; but, as Edwin Reeves reminded them both, Max might be rewarded for his noble resolve by learning that there was no need to make the sensational story public. If the girl had died or could not be found, it would be—in Mr. Reeves's opinion—foolishly quixotic to rouse sleeping dogs, and ruin himself, to put money in the pockets of the Reynold Dorans, who had more than they wanted already.

"You'll feel like getting leave to run over to France, I suppose," said the lawyer, "though of course the search might be made for you if you prefer."

"I prefer to go myself," Max decided quietly.

"Why not let me go with you?" Grant suggested, with a certain eagerness which it seemed to Max he tried to suppress, rather than to show as a proof of friendship. "The governor could spare me for a while, I expect, and it wouldn't be quite such a gloomy errand as if you were alone. I'd be glad to do it for you, dear old boy, honestly I would."

Yes, he would be glad. Max saw that. And instead of feeling drawn nearer to Grant Reeves, he felt suddenly miles away. They had drifted apart since Max had joined his regiment in the West and Grant had become a partner with his father. Now Max told himself that he had never known Grant: that as men they were so far from one another he could really never know him; and he wondered at the impulse which had made him wish Grant to hear the story with Edwin.

"But suppose it's all true and you find the girl over on the other side somewhere?" Grant went on, when Max had answered that the search might be long, and it would be better for him to make it alone. "What will you do? Hadn't my mother better fetch her? Mother's over in Paris now, you know, so it would be less trouble. You mightn't want to bring her back yourself, unless, of course——"

"Unless—what?" Max wanted to know.

"Well, you're not related to the girl, and you're about the same age. She'll naturally look upon you as a hero, a deliverer, and all that, if she's a normal woman. If it were in a book instead of real life, the end would be——"

"Different from what it will be with us," Max cut him short. "Don't let's speak or think of anything like that."

"It only occurred to me," Grant excused himself mildly, "that if—nothing like that did happen, you mightn't want to come back to this country yourself, for a while. It's a queer sort of case. And you see you went through West Point and got your lieutenancy as Max Doran. If you weren't Max Doran, but somebody else, I wonder what they would do about——"

"I shouldn't give them the trouble of doing anything," said Max quietly. "I'd resign from the army. But there'll be other doors open, I hope. I don't mean to fade out of existence because I'm not a Doran or a fellow with money. I'll try and make something out of another name."

"And you'll succeed, of course," Edwin Reeves assured him. "I suppose it was in Grant's mind that if this extraordinary story proved to be true, and you should give up your name and your fortune to John and Rose Doran's daughter, why you would in a way be giving up your country, too. You say that the confession Mrs. Doran received was from a Frenchwoman: that this person took the child of a relative, and exchanged it for the Doran baby. If we are to believe that, it makes you of French blood as well as French birth. Grant supposed, perhaps, that this fact might change your point of view."

Max had not thought of it, and resented the suggestion which the two seemed to be making: that he would no longer have the right to consider himself an American. "But I don't feel French," he exclaimed. "I don't see how I ever can."

"Yet you speak French almost like a Frenchman," said Grant. "We used to tease you about it in school. Do you remember?"

Did he remember? And Jack Doran had called him "Frenchy." Always, it seemed, he had been marching blindly toward this moment.

Nothing was settled at the end of the talk, except that the secret was to be kept for the present. And Max learned that Rose had made an informal will, leaving him all her jewellery, with the request that it should be valued by experts and sold, he taking the money to "use as he thought fit." She had made this will years ago, it seemed, directly after Jack Doran's death, while her conscience was awake. Max guessed what had been in her mind. She had wanted him to have something of his own, in case he ever lost his supposed heritage. He was grateful to her because, not loving him, she had nevertheless thought of his welfare and tried to provide for it. Mr. Reeves knew something about the value of Rose's jewels. She had not had many, he reminded Max. Once, soon after her marriage, and while she was still abroad, all her wedding presents and gifts from her husband had been stolen in a train journey. Since then, she seemed to have picked up the idea that a beautiful woman ought not to let herself be outshone by her own jewels. She had cared for dress more than for jewellery, and, with the exception of a rope of pearls, her ornaments had not been worth a great deal. Still, they ought to sell for at least twelve or fifteen thousand dollars, counting everything, and two or three rather particularly fine rings which Jack had given her.

"I think she must have meant me to except those from the things to be sold," said Max. "She would have known I'd never let them go."

His first impulse after that interview with the Reeveses was to dash out West and see Billie, to tell her that something had happened which might make a great difference in his circumstances, and to give her back her freedom. But when he had stopped to think, he said to himself that it wouldn't be fair to go. Face to face, it would be hard for Billie to take him at his word, and he did not want to make it hard. Instead, he wrote, telling her that he was getting leave to go abroad on important business—business on which the whole future would depend. Perhaps (owing to circumstances which couldn't be explained yet, till he learned more about them himself) he might be a poor man instead of a rich one. Meanwhile, she mustn't consider herself bound. Later, when he knew what awaited him, if things righted themselves he would come to her again, and ask what he had asked before. In any case, he would explain.

It was rather a good letter, the version which Max finally let stand, after having torn up half a dozen partly covered sheets of paper. His love was there for the girl to see, and he could not help feeling that, possibly—just possibly—she might write or even telegraph, saying, "I refuse to be set free."

While he waited, he engaged his passage to Cherbourg on a ship that was to sail at the end of the week. That would give Billie's answer time to come. Or—just madly supposing she cared enough to have an understudy play her part for a few days—it would allow time for a wonderful surprise, and the greatest proof of love a girl could give a man.

There was no telegram, but the day before he was to sail an envelope with Billie Brookton's pretty scrawl on it was put into his hand. He opened it carefully, because it seemed sacrilege to tear what she had touched, or break the purple seal, with the two bees on it, which she used instead of initials or a monogram. The perfume which came from the paper was her own special perfume, named in honour of her success and popularity—"Girls' Love." Max remembered Billie's telling him once that it cost "outsiders" five dollars an ounce, because there were amber and lots of wonderful, mysterious things in it; but she got it for nothing.

"How good, how noble you are!" were her first words; and Max's heart leaped. This divine creature, who could have her pick of men, was going to say ... but as his eyes travelled fast from line to line, the beating of his heart slowed down.

"Come back to me when this horrible business trouble is over, and ask me again, as you say you will. You'll find me waiting, oh, so impatiently! for I do love you. Whatever happens, Max—dear, handsome Max—you will be the one great romance of my life. I can never forget you, or those blue eyes of yours, the day you told me you cared. They will haunt me always. Oh, how I wish I were rich enough for both of us, so that we might be happy, even in case of the worst, and you lose your money! But I don't know how to keep the wretched stuff when I have it. And though I make a lot now, I'm not strong, and who knows how long my vogue may last? We poor actress girls, who depend on our health and the fickle public, have to think of these sordid things. It is, oh, so sad for us! No woman who hasn't known the struggle herself can realize. Do hurry back, with good news for both, and save me from a dreadful man who is persecuting me to marry him. I met him in such an odd way the last time I was here in Chicago, but I didn't tell you the story of the adventure, because it would only have worried you. Besides, you made me forget every one and everything—you did truly, Max! But he frightens me now, he is so fearfully rich, and so strong and insisting; and somehow he's got round auntie. She's so silly; she thinks you oughtn't to have left me as you did, though of course you had to. I understood, if she doesn't. She's only a foolish old lady, but she does fuss so about this man! If you don't rescue me, he may be my fate. I feel it. Dear Max, I wait for you. I want you.

Billie.

"P.S. Please wire when you know."

As he read the letter through for the second time, he could hear through the open window of his room a woman's voice singing one of GaËta's songs, the one most popular: "Forever—never! Who knows?"

The words mingled themselves with the words of the letter: "Come back. Bring good news. Forever—never! Who knows?" And the song was from the last act of "Girls' Love."