The first young fellow shook his head.
"No, Yorke Auchester doesn't drink, if that's what you mean; it isn't that, but hang me if I know what it is. Yorke!" he called out, "you can't play."
Yorke gave a little start in the middle of one of the reflective smiles.
"Eh? No. I'm making a fool of myself, I know."
"You must have been to bed early wherever you've been for the last week," suggested one of the men, and they were all surprised to see him flush, "like a great girl, by Jingo!"
"Yes, I have, and it hasn't agreed with me in a billiard sense," he said, good temperedly, as he put on his coat and sauntered out. He went to his chambers and dressed, and the faithful Fleming also noticed the singular fit of abstraction which had fallen upon his beloved master.
"Seems to have something on his mind," was his mental reflection. "And it doesn't look as if it was bills or anything unpleasant of that kind."
"Shall I wait up to-night, my lord?" he asked, as he put on the perfectly cut dress overcoat, and handed the speckless, flawless hat.
He had to put the question twice, and even then Yorke did not seem to catch the sense of it immediately.
"Eh? No, don't sit up; I may be late. And, by the way, I may be off to the country to-morrow morning, so have some things packed."
"Something up at that outlandish place he's been staying at," was Fleming's mental comment, and he watched his master go slowly down the stairs with the faint flicker of a smile on his handsome face.
Yorke dined at the club and for once seemed quite indifferent as to what he ate, and when the footman brought the wrong claret, took it without a word of reproach. Some of his friends watched him from an adjacent table, and shook their heads.
"Somebody's gone and died and left him a hatful of coin, or else he's won a big wager. Never saw Yorke Auchester go dreaming over his dinner in his life before," was the remark.
About nine o'clock he lit a cigar, and walked down to the Diadem.
The attendants, box-keepers, even the men in the orchestra knew him, and people pointed him out to each other as his stalwart figure made its way to his stall; and when Finetta sprang onto the stage in her dainty page's dress of scarlet and black satin, the man who always "knows everything" about the actors and actresses whispered to a country cousin, "That's Finetta. Look! You'll see her glance toward him and perhaps give a little nod. They say he's spent every penny of an enormous fortune in diamonds for her; got some of 'em on to-night," etc.
As a matter of fact, Finetta saw him without any direct glance, and saw nothing else.
It was said that she danced her best that night, and the house stamped and cheered with delight.
But as Yorke looked at her, and clapped, he thought:
"Poor Fin. It won't be hard to leave her."
And the remembrance of the laugh he had heard at St. Martin's Tower rose, and made him shudder. He lit a cigar after the theater, and set out to walk to St. John's Wood.
As the page opened the door – Finetta had two men-servants, both as well appointed and trained as any of Lady Eleanor's – Yorke heard the sound of laughter and music in the dining-room; and above it all, Finetta's laugh; it made him shudder once more.
Supper was nearly over – a dainty supper with ice puddings and the best brands of champagne and some one at the piano was dashing out with the true artistic touch, the popular song from the late comic opera, and some of the guests were singing it.
There were three or four men – Lord Vinson was among them and – and as many ladies. At the head of the table sat Finetta. She was magnificently dressed in a cream silk, soft and undulating.
A crimson rose was her only ornament, and that worn in the thick, glossy hair; she knew Yorke's taste too well to smother herself in diamonds, and she knew also that the soft cream and the rich red rose showed up her dark, Spanish complexion as no other colors could do.
Her eyes lit up as he entered, and she signed to him to take a chair next her.
"I knew you'd come," she said, in a low voice. "You never break a promise. Polly, give Lord Auchester some gelatine – or what will you have?"
He took a biscuit and a glass of wine, and joined in with the talk.
It was not very witty, but it was not dull. The men talked of the theater, the turf, and talked a great deal better and more fluently than they did at "respectable" dinner parties, and every now and then one of them was asked to sing, and did so cheerfully and willingly, and as a rule sang well, and the rest made a chorus if it was needed.
With the exception that no one looked or was bored, and all tried to make themselves pleasant and agreeable, it differed very little from the dinners and suppers which we, the most respectable of readers, so often yawn over.
Finetta said but little, sang one song only, and was so silent and quiet and subdued, that Lord Vinson, as he rose to take his leave, whispered to Yorke on passing:
"Look out for squalls, old fellow! She's most dangerous when she's like this, don't you know."
When they had all gone but Yorke, and Polly had retired to a corner of the inner room, and taken out some lace of her sister's to mend, Finetta lit a cigarette for Yorke, and then, going to the piano, began to play – she had learned to play a little – the air to which she danced her great dance. Then she moved way and as if she were thinking of anything but the silent young man with the far-away look on his face, and humming the air musically enough, glided into the dance itself.
Surely since Taglioni there has been no more graceful dancer than Finetta, and even Yorke, with his heart soaring miles away to the flower-faced girl who owned it, could not but look and admire.
"Bravo, Fin," he said, almost involuntarily. "No wonder they encore that every night! Don't leave off," for she had stopped suddenly right in front of him, her dark eyes flashing into his, her lips apart.
"Yes," she said. "I am not going to dance any more to-night. I am going to sit here and listen while you tell me everything! Now Yorke!"
CHAPTER XV.
FINETTA LEARNS THE TRUTH
"Now tell me everything," repeated Finetta, and she drew an amber satin cushion from the sofa, and seated herself at his feet, her hands clasped round her knees, her dark eyes turned up to him.
Now here was the way ready made for him; but what man ever answered such an appeal at once and fully? Yorke took the cigarette from his lips and looked down at her with a troubled surprise.
"What do you mean?" he said. "How do you know there is anything to tell?"
She laughed, almost contemptuously.
"How do you know when it's going to rain? By the clouds, don't you? Do you think I'm blind, Yorke? I'm not clever like some of your swell friends, but I'm not a fool. I've got eyes like other women, and perhaps they're sharper than some, and I can see something is the matter. I saw it the moment I rode up to you in the park to-day, and I've been watching you all the evening."
"You'd make a decent detective, Fin," he said, trying to speak banteringly.
"I dare say," she assented. "Most women would, especially if they knew the man they were after as well as I know you."
"Yes, we are old friends, Fin," he said.
"That's it," she said. "And that's why I ask you what's the matter, what's happened? Some men would push me off or give me the lie, but you aren't like that sort."
"Thanks," and he laughed.
"No, you always go straight, and that's one of the reasons why – I like you, don't you see?"
"I see," he said. "And so you thought I looked this morning as if I'd got something on my mind?"
She nodded.
"Yes, when I came up you were leaning against the rail, looking at nothing, as if you were dreaming; and while you were speaking to Lady Eleanor – ."
He moved slightly.
"You don't like me to speak of her?" she said, with a woman's quickness. "All right, I sha'n't hurt her by mentioning her name."
"Don't be foolish, Fin," he said, coloring at the truth of her insight; he did not like to hear her mention Lady Eleanor's name.
"Oh, I'm not foolish. I was saying that you looked at her ladyship just as you looked at me, as if you didn't see either of us, as if you were looking right away beyond us, and it's been the same to-night. You haven't heard half that was going on, but have just been mooning and dreaming, and so I ask you what it is? Wait a minute. If you're going to tell me that it's money matters, you needn't, for I shouldn't believe you. If the bailiffs were in the house you wouldn't let it trouble you, you know."
He laughed.
"I am afraid I shouldn't," he admitted.
"Very well," she said, "then it isn't that – though you are hard up, and pretty deep in debt, eh, Yorke?"
"Of course," he said. "Always have been, and shall be; everybody knows that."
"And so you're used to it, and don't mind it," she went on. "It isn't that then. What is it?"
He was silent, struggling hard for courage to tell her.
"You don't like making a clean breast of it," she said, slowly. "And you think it's like my cheek to ask you. But I'm an old friend, am I not? I'm only Finetta, the girl that dances at the Diadem, but I've got a feeling that I'm a better friend to you than many of your swell ones. I dare say they think I'm a bad lot, and that I've done you no end of harm. Perhaps I have. I've let you come here when you liked, and take me about riding and driving, when you ought to have been with them; but I don't know, after all, that I've hurt you much. I dare say I could if I liked. You'd have given me things like Charlie Farquhar, if I'd let you; but I didn't. I was a fool, perhaps, sometimes I think I am. But – but, you see, I liked you. I didn't care for the others, they were nothing to me and it wouldn't have mattered if they'd spent their last shilling in rings and flowers and things. But with you it was different. I don't know quite why," and her eyes sank thoughtfully. "Perhaps it was because you always treated me like a lady, and didn't bother me to run off with you or – or marry you."
Her voice softened, and a dash of color came into her olive cheeks.
"You'd have made a poor bargain if I had and you consented, Fin," he said, gravely.
"I dare say," she assented. "Anyhow, you didn't and don't mean to. Don't deny it. I know how you've always thought of me. I've been just Finetta, of the Diadem, and it's been pleasant and amusing to take me about and come and have supper, and – and that's all."
She raised her eyes to his face with a smile, a brave smile that did not hide her aching heart from him.
"And we've been such very good friends," she went on after a pause, "that I speak out straight and plain when I see that something is the matter, and I ask you what it is, and if you take my advice, you'll tell me. Who knows, I might be able to help you, if you want any help. Don't laugh. What's that story about the lion and the mouse? I'm only a mouse I know, and you are no end of a lion, but you may find yourself in a net some day, don't you know."
Her tone was slangy, but there was an earnestness in it, and in her dark eyes, which touched Yorke.
He was silent for a moment or two, then he said in a voice inaudible to Polly, who stolidly stitched and stitched in the inner room:
"You are right, Fin. Something has happened – ."
"I knew it," she said, quietly.
He screwed his courage up.
"The fact is, Fin, I am – going to be married," he said, almost in a whisper.
She did not start, did not move a muscle for a moment, then she got up.
"Wait a minute, I want a cigarette."
She crossed the room to an inlaid cabinet, and took out a silver box – of course a present – and got a cigarette from it, and her hand shook so that for a moment she could not hold the match straight.
But when she glided back to her place at his feet her hand was steady, and seeing that his face was rather pale, she showed no sign of emotion, either of surprise, or anger, or resentment.
"Going to be married?" she said, leaning back. "To Lady Eleanor, I suppose?"
"No," said Yorke, emphatically. "Why should you think that?"
He was relieved, greatly relieved by the quiet way in which she had taken the announcement, and, man like, was completely deceived.
"Oh, I don't know. Everybody said you were going to marry her. She has plenty of money and is a swell. So, it's not her?" she said, slowly, her eyes downcast.
"No, it is not," he responded. "And there's no reason why people should say – ." He stopped, conscience-smitten.
"Oh, they say it because you and she are so much together, and you've made love to her; but that means nothing with you, does it?" she said, shooting a glance up at him.
Yorke colored.
"If a man's to marry every girl he flirts with – ," he said, half-angrily.
"All right, I don't mind. You've flirted with me and I haven't asked you to marry me. And so it's not her ladyship." A faint smile curved her lips, which looked drawn and constrained. "What other swell is it? I know 'em all – by sight."
"She is not a 'swell' at all," he said. "And you do not know her. I only saw her the other day down in the country."
"Where you have been this last week?" she said, in a low voice, perfectly steady and under control.
"Yes, I saw her, met her, by chance, quite by chance."
"And – and you fell in love with her right off?" she said.
"Yes," he said, looking straight before him and speaking as if in a dream. "I loved her at first sight."
"She must be very good-looking."
He smiled, absently. "Good-looking" was so poor a phrase by which to describe his Leslie.
"Yes, she is good-looking, as you call it, Fin," he said.
"What is she like? Is she tall and fair – I suppose so, that's the style that fetches most men."
"N-o," he said. "She is not fair – not what one would call fair."
"Dark?" and she flashed her brilliant eyes up at him, and then at a mirror opposite her.
"N-o, not dark, I think; I can't tell. Her hair is dark."
"As mine?" she asked.
He looked down at her as if he had forgotten the color of her hair, and she felt the look like a dagger stab.
"Yes, but she has blue or gray eyes."
She nodded.
"I knew," she said, shortly, as if it cost her something to speak. "I know the sort of girl. I've seen 'em. Dark hair and bluish-gray eyes. Yes! And you fell in love with her at first sight. And – why don't you go on? I want to know all about her," and she laughed.
In his abstraction he did not detect the tone of agony, of jealousy, in the laugh, and only thought how well Finetta was behaving, and what a brick she was.
"There's not much more to tell," he said. "I – I told her that I loved her, and – and – ." He paused, recalling the tender, the precious confession of his darling. "Well, we're to be married, Fin, as soon as we can. I'm as poor as a church mouse, and we sha'n't have much to live upon; but I dare say we shall get on somehow or other. Anyhow, I've made up my mind, and – ." He stopped.
"No one, not the devil himself, could stop you," she finished, not passionately, but in a slow, steady voice. "And so you've come to me and told me like – like a man, Yorke."
"We are old friends, Fin," he said, "and I felt you ought to know."
"I see," she said. "It will make a difference to us, won't it? Good-by to our acquaintance now. No more dinners at Richmond, or suppers at the little house in St. John's Wood. It wouldn't do for a man who is going to be married to be friends with Finetta, eh? Oh, I understand, and I'm much obliged to you – ."
"Fin – ."
"Wait. I'm speaking the truth. I am much obliged to you. Some men would have kept it to themselves; would have cut me straight away without a word, and left me to find out the reason by reading the accounts of the wedding in the newspapers. But you aren't that sort, are you, Yorke – or I suppose I ought to say Lord Auchester now?"
He colored and bit his lip.
"Hit away, Fin," he said. "I deserve it."
"No," she said. "I won't hit you, though I dare say Lady Eleanor and the heaps of other ladies you've made love to will, and pretty hard. But I am not a lady, you see, and that makes a difference. And this – this young lady? You say she's not a swell?"
He laughed.
"Not what you call a swell, Fin," he said. "She is the daughter of an artist, and not a first-rate one at that."
"An artist?" The full lips writhed into an expression of amazement and contempt which he did not see. "An artist, one of those fellows who paint pictures."
"And awfully bad ones," said Yorke, with a rueful laugh.
"And they're poor?"
"They are certainly not rich," he said.
"And you'll be poor, too, you and she, when – when you're married?"
He laughed rather ruefully again.
"I know the sort of thing," she said, with all the scorn of one who has passed from squalid poverty to luxury and wealth. "You'll have to live in a small house with one or two servants, you won't be able to afford a valet or a horse – ."
"Excepting a clothes-horse."
"Well, you'll want that, as I dare say she – your wife – will have to do the washing, and you'll have to dine like a workman, in the middle of the day, and drink cheap ale, and wear shabby clothes. I should like to see you in seedy clothes, Yorke; you'd look funny," and she laughed bitterly. "And she'd wear cheap things, turned dresses, and that sort of thing, and she'd get dowdy and ill-tempered, and you'd ask yourself what on earth you ever saw in her that you should go and ruin yourself by marrying her. Oh, I know!" and she leaned back and puffed at her cigarette with a contempt that was almost imperial.
Yorke colored.
"A good deal of what you say is true, but not all, Fin," he said, almost gently. It would be base ingratitude to be angry with her after the admirable way in which she had received the news. "For one thing, Leslie would never be dowdy. You'd understand that if you knew her, had seen her. I suppose she wears cheap clothes, now. If so, all I can say is that she looks as well, as refined and lady-like, as – as anybody I know."
"As Lady Eleanor?" she put in, with a flash of her dark eyes.
"Well, yes," he assented; "and for another thing, she wouldn't get ill-tempered; it isn't possible."
"Oh, isn't it?" with another curl of the lip.
"No," he said, quietly, earnestly; "I'll go bail for that much. And I'll stake my life I shall never ask myself why I married her! But you're right about a great deal of it, Fin; and we shall have to put up with it. After all, you know, you can't have everything you want in this world. Did you ever notice that the rich people, the people with hatfuls of money, generally look the most wretched? I have. They want something they haven't got, you may depend upon it; something they value ever so much higher than their coin. Well, we shall want money, but we shall have a good many other things – ."
She laughed, a dry, harsh laugh.
"Don't mind me," she said; "I can't help smiling. It's as good as a play to hear you talking like the leading juvenile in a sentimental piece. Love, love, love! That's what you're thinking of. Well, perhaps you're right. God knows! I dare say you're right."
She was silent a moment, then she said:
"And when's the wedding to be?"
"Soon," he said, dreamily; "as soon as possible. It's a secret. I mean our engagement."
She looked up sharply.
"Oh, it isn't in the papers or known yet?"
He shook his head.
"No, no. We've reasons for keeping it quiet for a little while."
"But you came and told me," she said, broodingly. "Well, it was straight and kind of you, as I said, and – and I'm much obliged."
He put out his hand to her in acknowledgment. She looked at it for a moment as if she doubted whether she would take it; then she put her own into it, and hers burned like a red-hot coal.
She took it away instantly, and rose and walked slowly up to the table, poured out a couple of glasses of champagne, and brought him one and raised the other to her lips.
"Here's luck to you – both!" she said, with a laugh. "May you be happy ever afterward, as they say in the story books," and she looked over the rim of the glass at him, with her dark eyes flashing under the thick brows.
"Thanks, Fin," he said. "You are a good sort, and – ." He rose.
"But you don't want to know any more of me," she broke in. "I understand. Oh, don't apologize. I'm cute enough to see why you've told me, why you've come to me first of all. There's to be an end to our friendship – ." Her voice broke for a moment, then she hurried on with forced gayety and indifference. "And you're quite right. A man who's going to settle down, doesn't want such acquaintances as me. Well, good-by."
She held out her hand.
Yorke, feeling as a man must feel under such circumstances, when he cannot contradict and would like to do so, hung his head for a moment, then he took her hand, and holding it, said:
"I'm not much loss, Fin. As I told her, I'm a bad lot, and dear at any price, and – there, good-by!"
Then he did a foolish thing. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
She quivered, almost as if he had struck her; her eyes closed, and she leaned heavily against the edge of the table.
Yorke, feeling unutterably miserable, dropped her hand and left the room. He gave the page who helped him on with his coat a sovereign, and got outside.
"Poor Fin!" he muttered, standing on the pavement and staring about him. "Poor Fin!"
And so he got off with the old love number two.
Finetta stood where he had left her for a second, then sprang forward with her magnificent arms stretched out.
"Yorke, Yorke!" broke from her white lips. But the door had closed, and he did not hear her.
She stood erect for a moment, then staggered and fell face downward upon the sofa.
Polly ran to her – locking the door on her way – and raised her head. She had fainted.
Polly poured some wine through the clenched teeth and bathed the set face, and presently Finetta came to; but it was to pass from a swoon into an awful torrent of weeping.
"He's gone! He's gone! Forever!" she moaned. "I shall never see him again! Why did I let him go like that? Why didn't I ask him on my knees to let us be friends still? I should have seen him now and again, and that would have been something; to speak to him, hear him laugh and talk, and call me 'Fin;' but it's all over now. He'll never come back! Oh, I wish I were dead, dead, dead!"
"Hush, hush," implored Polly, trying to soothe her. "He's better gone. There was no good in his staying."
"No, no! I know that! He never cared for me. I only amused him, and directly he left me he forgot me. They're all alike. No, he was different. Look how he came and told me – like a man! Oh, Yorke, Yorke! Oh, he little guesses how I – ." Her lips shook, and she hid her face even from her sister.
"Where's your pride, Fin?" whispered Polly, almost as Lady Denby had said to Lady Eleanor.
"My pride!" retorted Finetta. "Ah, you can talk like that, you who don't know what I feel! I haven't any. I'd have followed him round the world like a dog, grateful for a kind word – or a blow! I'd have worked for him like a slave. Poor! He needn't have been poor if he'd married me. He should have had every penny, and I'd have been content to go in rags so long as he had the best of everything; and I'd have made him happy, or die in the trying."
"You'd most likely have died," remarked Polly, with a woman's insight.
"I dare say. Well, I could have died. But it's all over."
She hid her face in her hands and shook like a leaf for a full minute, then suddenly her mood changed, and she started up – in a fury.
The tears dried up in her burning eyes, her face became white, her lips rigid; and as she stood with clenched hands and heaving bosom she looked like an outraged goddess, a tigress robbed of her cub, a woman despised and deserted – and that is a more terrible thing than the outraged goddess or the bereaved tigress, by the way.
"He's a fool!" she panted. "A fool! To leave me for such as her! Says she's pretty!" She strode to the glass and stood erect before it. "Is she better looking than I am? I don't believe it. And what else is she? Nothing. She's poor – she isn't a swell even. And he's left me and that other, that Lady Eleanor, for her! Yes; I could have borne it better if it had been Lady Eleanor; if it had been one of her sort it would be more natural; but a mere nobody, the daughter of an artist!"
In her ignorance poor Finetta regarded the painters of pictures and gate posts as equals.
"A common painter! Why, he'd better have married me!" and she drew a long breath. "I'm as good as she is, and she'll be a lady. I'd make as good a lady as she would."
"You never saw her," ventured Polly, timidly.
The tigress swung round upon her, dashing the wine glasses to the ground in the movement.
"Saw her! I don't want to see her, to know what she's like! I can guess. A dowdy, simpering, doll-faced chit of a girl that caught his fancy! And she'll be his wife, while I – ." She raised her clenched hands above her head, and laughed a wild, discordant laugh. "It makes me mad!"
She fell to pacing the room. Her hair had become unfastened, and fell in a black torrent over the creamy satin. Her lithe figure, erect and quivering, looked six feet high. A magnificent spectacle for a painter or sculptor, but not for the man or woman who had offended her.
"I'm flung aside as not fit for him to know, and she'll be his wife. I wish she were here now; I'd kill her! Oh, if I could only do something to separate them! If I could only come between them!"
She flung herself on the sofa, and hid her face on the cushion.
Polly went up to her.
"You're wearing yourself out, Fin," she said. "You'll suffer for this to-morrow. Better come to bed. Besides, what's the use of it? You can't bring him back, or stop his marrying the other girl."
Finetta raised her head, and looked at her as if she did not see her.
"Can't I?" she muttered between her closed teeth. "Can't I? I don't know! Such things have been done. Sometimes there's a way." She put her hand to her brow, and drew a labored sigh. "I can't think; my head's like lead and on fire, and my heart's aching. When did he say the wedding was to be?"
"Soon," said Polly. "What's the use – ."
Finetta held up her hand to silence her.
"Go to bed," she said, hoarsely.
"You come too – ."
"Go to bed; get out of my sight. I want to be alone, to think. To think! There must be some way to stop it, and – and I'll find it out. Go away – ," with a flash of her somber eyes – "Go away and leave me. I'm best alone."
Polly, awed and frightened, crept to the door; but as she paused a moment and looked back she heard the hoarse, broken voice still muttering:
"There must be some way!"