CHAPTER XIV.
Somewhere down in the Gray's Inn Road a piano organ was grinding out its repertoire of hackneyed airs, elaborated with impossible runs and flourishes; and this, combined with the intermittent roar of electric trams, the rumble of slower traffic, and shrill street cries, floated up to Sprague as he sat by the window in a bedlam of irritating sound.
Before him on the little table lay a writing pad, the fair surface of its topmost sheet disfigured with a few lines of writing viciously obliterated. He sat staring at it with knitted brows for perhaps five minutes; then, as the piano commenced an uncalled-for encore directly under his window, he breathed an emphatic expletive, and pushed back his chair.
“And yet Thackeray could write at an 'at home,'” he muttered. “Perhaps that accounts”
Still with a dissatisfied frown, he donned his coat and hat and passed out into the street.
A cabman raised his whip, and Sprague nodded; then, as the hansom drove up to the curb, he flushed with annoyance at his own absent-mindedness.
“Sorry to have troubled you,” he said. “I forgot—I can't afford it.”
The simplicity of the announcement had an extraordinary effect on the jehu; he said nothing, and, flicking his horse, was soon lost in the maze of traffic.
Sprague laughed, and, thrusting his hands deep into his overcoat pockets, turned his steps toward Chancery Lane. His thoughts traveled involuntarily back over the past three weeks—the torture of them. The inclination—even the ability—to work had apparently deserted him with the necessity, and the exasperation of it was written in his face. Its tan was gone; there were shadows born of late hours and unwholesome air beneath his eyes; and the lines about his mouth bespoke overtaxed nerves. He had tried—God! how he had tried!—and the result was on the topmost sheet of the writing pad back in his room.
He quickened his pace at the thought, and turned into the Strand, to stand dumfounded a moment later in the middle of the pavement, an unconscious obstruction in the hurrying stream of passers-by, while he stared at a poster on a hoarding across the street.
He had seen it many times before, and felt a certain pride in the restraint of its coloring and design:
OLYMPIC THEATER
MISS NINA HOLMES
presents
“LORETTE”
A drama in three acts
by
John Sprague
But now another notice was pasted across it from corner to corner, and the words “LAST NIGHTS” confronted him in letters of fire.
For the past week he had hardly left his rooms; this, of course, accounted for his not having learned before that for some reason “Lorette”—his “Lorette'”—was a ghastly failure.
He moved on at last, and, seized with a sudden impulse, turned into a “tube” station, and took train for Maida Vale.
Miss Holmes, in a tasteful dressing jacket of pale-blue silk, was half lying, half sitting against the pillows, alternately munching dry toast and sipping weak tea, when Sprague was shown into the room,
She greeted him with a slightly forced cheerfulness.
“I've been expecting you all the week,” she said, indicating a white-enameled chair.
“In fact, ever since the 'last-nights' announcement,” Sprague suggested.
“Yes, you poor boy”
“Please don't trouble; I didn't come for sympathy.” Sprague waved a large hand in unconscious eloquence. “As a matter of fact, I didn't expect you'd see me. According to all the laws of precedent, you ought to throw me away like an old boot; but before you do that would you mind telling me what was wrong—it may help in the future.”
Miss Holmes held a morsel of toast between a dainty finger and thumb, and studied Sprague over it. She liked the boy—for himself. His candor had a knack of drawing her out of herself, which was refreshing.
“I'm afraid I can't, because I don't quite know; perhaps I'm 'going out.'”
“Oh, that's nonsense!” said Sprague, with a hint of impatience; and Miss Holmes brightened visibly. “It was either the play or the theater—which? I'm asking because if it was the play I shall never write another; if it was the theater I may. So please be definite.”
Then it was that Miss Nina Holmes admitted to this young man what she would have withheld on the to any one else—that it was the theater—her incomparable little bandbox of a theater. That what she had always looked upon as her audience—the stalls and dress circle—was not her audience at all, but the orange-sucking pit and gallery.
Her disgust forced a laugh from Sprague.
“And so,” she ended, with whimsical resignation, “I'm going to give the dear things what they want, and where they want it; the Amphitheater has offered me two hundred a week for a couple of scenes with Howard and I've let the Olympic to a flat-footed woman who does Italian dances.
Sprague went over to the bed and held out his hand.
“Good-by,” he said. “There's no need to wish you every success.”
Something in his voice seemed to arrest Miss Holmes' attention. He had reached the door when she suddenly sat upright and looked at him over the foot of the bed.
“This doesn't mean anything serious to you, does it?” she queried. “I mean financially.”
“Do I look like it?” Sprague smiled as he shut the door.
He smiled again as the lift wafted him to the ground floor at the thought of the fifteen pounds in the Birkbeck Bank that stood between him and actual want. Indeed, as he left the “tube” at Regent Street with the idea of a roundabout walk home, he was conscious of a vague surprise at his own elation of mind under circumstances that should have been most distressing.
Sprague was not much addicted to self-analysis, but by the time he reached the Circus he had traced the cause to the fact that his mind was made up finally, irrevocably. He said as much to a dummy in the window of Swan & Edgar's, and turned—almost into the arms of Millicent Waring.
“Jack!” she exclaimed, and nearly dropped the toy pug she was carrying.
Sprague raised his hat and smiled amiably.
“How are you?” he said. “But there's no need to ask.” His eyes traveled swiftly from the neat fur toque to the equally neat patent-leather shoes—she had always dressed well, he remembered. “Let me congratulate you instead.”
The blood surged to the girl's face as she tucked the pug more securely into the curve of her arm.
“And I must congratulate you,” she returned. “I thought it splendid.”
“Oh, the play! Thanks.” Sprague laughed. “Let's hope your cause for congratulation will prove a little more substantial than mine; perhaps you noticed that 'Lorette' is in her last three nights.”
“Yes. Whatever is the reason? But take me to tea somewhere; I want to talk.”
“I will on one condition,” said Sprague.
“And that?”
“That you pay for it. I can't afford luxuries.”
They found an unoccupied corner in the Cottage Tea Room, and when the pug had been carefully deposited in the cushions the girl turned to Sprague with an air of mingled amusement and perplexity.
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“Exactly what I say; I haven't any money to speak of.” Sprague smiled amusedly into her eyes.
“Is this a joke?”
“I hope it's going to be, but I'm hardly in a position to judge yet; you see, I still have fifteen pounds; when that's gone I can tell you more definitely.”
“Jack, are you mad?”
The girl's eyes held genuine alarm; even the pug was forgotten, and lay breathing audibly into her muff.
"Never more sane,” said Sprague cheerfully. “Don't you see? I've thought in turn that I was a business man, a cad, a cowboy, an actor, a short-story writer, and a playwright. When these fifteen pounds pounds are gone I shall know what the mischief I am. Perhaps I shall turn out to be a man; think of the joys of discovery! The man who finds the south pole won't be in it with me.”
“A cad?" the girl murmured. “I don't seem to remember your being that.”
“Don't you? Not when I was trying to marry you for your money?”
“But you ran away?”
“Not without breaking off the engagement. By the way, I'm glad it's Duprez—he's a good sort. Ah, I see you haven't forgotten.”
“No.” said the girl, dropping the third lump of sugar into the cup, “I haven't forgotten.”
She watched him surreptitiously as he drank, and a wistful shadow crossed her face.
“You're just the same,” she said presently.
“I'm afraid so,” Sprague admitted. “I'm waiting for that fifteen pounds to work the transformation.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Take the first boat for Australia.”
“On fifteen pounds?”
“Ah, ha!” He leaned over the table with boyish enthusiasm. “That is one of the drawbacks of your station; you wot not of the ways and means of the penurious. We are cunning. Economy with us is a fine art. We take an unholy joy in defrauding governments—especially a labor government. I propose to travel twelve thousand odd miles for the sum of five pounds—as a farmer, a butler, a coachman, or a plumber; I'm not sure which yet.”
“Good heavens!”
“Save your ejaculations until the climax, for, as a representative of any one of these admirable callings, I am entitled to take my wife and an unlimited number of children—still for the five pounds, mark you—and remain as a guest of the said government for two weeks at the end of my journey—how now?”
The girl was between laughter and tears.
“Don't go!” she said suddenly.
Sprague leaned back on the cushions and looked at her across the table.
“I've got to work,” he said, with sudden gravity, “and if I have to soil these lovely white hands of mine with a pick or a spade I'll do it in the sunshine for nine shillings a day, instead of in the rain for five.”
“But—but it's madness! Surely there's some other way”
Sprague slowly shook his head, and a look came into his face that the girl across the table was at a loss to understand.
“I used to think so,” he said, more to himself than to her; “but Stone is right” He rose abruptly. “I must be going.”
As they said good-by the girl looked into his eyes with a half smile hovering about her mouth.
“Are you sure that nothing besides the sunshine and nine shillings a day is taking you back to Australia?” she asked.
“Quite,” Sprague replied; and he meant it.
She watched his tall figure threading its way across the Circus, then turned and walked slowly toward a waiting brougham. In it sat a military-looking gentleman with a fair mustache, alternately consulting his watch and glancing up and down the pavement with a frown. But he said nothing when the girl sank onto the cushions at his side.
Presently she sighed.
“What's up?” demanded the military-looking gentleman.
“Nothing,” she answered. “I was only thinking.”
The next minute she had grasped his arm.
“I've forgotten Peter,” she gasped.
“Good Lord!” said the military-looking gentleman.
The first thing that Sprague did after reaching his rooms was to rip off the top sheet of the writing pad, crumple it into a firm ball, and fling it into the fender. Then he went into the bedroom and dragged a battered, label-plastered trunk from under the bed, and stood contemplating it lovingly.
At this juncture Stone entered. Sprague looked up in some surprise, for the American had not put in an appearance for nearly two weeks. His face was quietly radiant.
“Well?” Sprague suggested.
“It's all fixed,” said Stone, lying back on the bed and staring ecstatically at the ceiling. “We're sailing for New York the day after to-morrow. We can get the divorce without any difficulty; the beast deserted her a year after marriage. She's been like that—as we found her—for two years. Think of it!” He struggled to his feet, and paced the rooms with gigantic strides. “It took me nearly two weeks to persuade her, Sprague—I nearly lost hope—she ran away from me once, but I found her. She said it wasn't fair—to me—that she cared too much; she would never do it; but I told her—I told her what I told you that night on the Orontes, and it's all fixed”
He came to a stop before the fireplace.
“What are you doing?” he demanded suddenly.
“Packing my swag,” said Sprague. He was aware that he envied this man his happiness, and felt ashamed. “I'm sailing for Australia the day after to-morrow.”
“And the destiny?”
Stone stood with long legs slightly apart, looking down on him with his slow, compassionate smile.
Sprague threw a shirt into the trunk and trod on it.
“Destiny be damned!” he said.
Stone remained silent.
“'Lorette' is a frost,” Sprague added.
The American took a leisurely seat on the edge of the bed, and studied his gigantic feet.
“That's too bad,” he drawled; “too bad—especially as it was a good play.”
Sprague looked up.
“Do you honestly think so?” he demanded.
“I've told you what I think about it,” said Stone.
Sprague rose deliberately, and went over to the little table by the window. He sat writing for perhaps two minutes, then handed Stone what he had written, together with a battered manuscript threaded with a boot lace.
“Permit me,” he said, with mock impressiveness, “to present you with the remains of one 'Lorette,' who perished of exposure and frostbite after a brief, but all too long, career of three weeks. 'Here lies cheap destiny!'”
For a moment Stone hesitated, then took the proffered papers, and thrust them into a spacious overcoat pocket.
“Thanks,” he said gravely. “Let me have your address, will you? I should like to meet you again after we're married—if you don't mind.”
“So should I,” said Sprague, with a brusqueness assumed by those who have an instinctive horror of sentiment between men. “G.P.O., Sydney, will always find me in the long run.”
There was a pause while Stone went to the window and looked down into the street.
“What are you going to do out there?” he asked presently.
“Chase my destiny,” said Sprague, crushing the heel of a riding boot into the silk facing of a dinner jacket. “Is it possible to look like a coachman without side whiskers?”