The Tempting of Tavernake Part 24

Presently, people began to emerge from the door. First of all, the musicians and a little stream of stage hands.

Then a girl's hat appeared in the doorway, and the first of the Atlas young ladies came out, to be claimed at once by her escort. Very soon afterwards, Beatrice arrived. She recognized Tavernake at once and crossed over to him.

"Well?" she asked.

"You looked very nice," he said, slowly, as he led the way down the street. "Of course, I knew about your singing, but everything else--seemed such a surprise."

"For instance?"

"Why, I mean your dancing," he went on, "and somehow or other you looked different on the stage."

She shook her head.

"'Different' won't do for me," she persisted. "I must have something more specific."

"Well, then, you looked much prettier than I thought you were,"

Tavernake declared, solemnly. "You looked exceedingly nice."

"You really thought so?" she asked, a little doubtfully.

"I really thought so. I thought you looked much nicer than any of the others."

She squeezed his arm affectionately.

"Dear Leonard," she said, "it's so nice to have you think so. Do you know, Mr. Grier actually asked me out to supper."

"What impertinence!" Tavernake muttered.

Beatrice threw her head back and laughed.

"My dear brother," she protested, "it was a tremendous compliment. You must remember that it was entirely through him, too, that I got the engagement. Four pounds a week I am going to have. Just think of it!"

"Four pounds a week is all very well," Tavernake admitted. "It seems a great deal of money to earn like that. But I don't think you ought to go out to supper with any one whom you know so slightly."

"Dear prig! You know, you are a shocking prig, Leonard."

"Am I?" he answered, without offence, and with the air of one seriously considering the subject.

"Of course you are. How could you help it, living the sort of life you've led all your days? Never mind, I like you for it. I don't know whether I want to go out to supper with anybody--I really haven't decided yet--but if I did, it would certainly be better for me to go with Mr. Grier, because he can do me no end of good at the theatre, if he likes."

Tavernake was silent for several moments. He was conscious of feeling something which he did not altogether understand. He only knew that it involved a strong and unreasonable dislike to Mr. Grier. Then he remembered that he was her brother, that he had the right to speak with authority.

"I hope that you will not go out to supper with any one," he said.

She began to laugh but checked herself.

"Well," she remarked, "that sounds very terrible. Shall we take a 'bus?

To tell you the truth, I am dying of hunger. We rehea.r.s.ed for two hours before the performance, and I ate nothing but a sandwich--I was so excited."

Tavernake hesitated a moment--he certainly was not himself this evening!

"Would you like to have some supper at a restaurant," he asked, "before we go home?"

"I should love it," she declared, taking his arm as they pa.s.sed through a stream of people. "To tell you the truth, I was so hoping that you would propose it."

"I think," Tavernake said, deliberately, "that there is a place a little way along here."

They pushed their way down the Strand and entered a restaurant which Tavernake knew only by name. A small table was found for them and Beatrice looked about with delight.

"Isn't this jolly!" she exclaimed, taking off her gloves. "Why, there are five or six of the girls from the theatre here already. There are two, see, at the corner table, and the fair-haired girl--she is just behind me in the chorus."

Tavernake glanced around. The young women whom she pointed out were all escorted by men who were scrupulously attired in evening dress. She seemed to read his thoughts as she laughed at him.

"You stupid boy," she said. "You don't suppose that I want to be like them, do you? There are lots of things it's delightful to look on at, and that's all. Isn't this fish good? I love this place."

Tavernake looked around him with an interest which he took no pains to conceal. Certainly the little groups of people by whom they were surrounded on every side had the air of finding some zest in life which up to the present, at any rate, had escaped him. They came streaming in, finding friends everywhere, laughing and talking, insisting upon tables in impossible places, calling out greetings to acquaintances across the room, chaffing the maitre d'hotel who was hastening from table to table.

The gathering babel of voices was mingled every now and then with the popping of corks, and behind it all were the soft strains of a very seductive little band, perched up in the balcony. Tavernake felt the color mounting into his cheeks. It was true: there was something here which was new to him!

"Beatrice," he asked her suddenly, "have you ever drunk champagne?"

She laughed at him.

"Often, my dear brother," she answered. "Why?"

"I never have," he confessed. "We are going to have some now."

She would have checked him but he had summoned a waiter imperiously and given his order.

"My dear Leonard," she protested, "this is shocking extravagance."

"Is it?" he replied. "I don't care. Tell me about the theatre. Were they kind to you there? Will you be able to keep your place?"

"The girls were all much nicer than I expected," she told him, "and the musical director said that my voice was much too good for the chorus.

Oh, I do hope that they will keep me!"

"They would be idiots if they didn't," he declared, vigorously. "You sing better and you dance more gracefully and to me you seemed much prettier than any one else there."

She laughed into his eyes.

"My dear brother," she exclaimed, "your education is progressing indeed!

It is positively the first evening I have ever heard you attempt to make pretty speeches, and you are quite an adept already."

"I don't know about that," he protested. "I suppose it never occurred to me before that you were good-looking," he added, examining her critically, "or I dare say I should have told you so. You see, one doesn't notice these things in an ordinary way. Lots of other people must have told you so, though."

"I was never spoilt with compliments," she said. "You see, I had a beautiful sister."

The words seemed to have escaped her unconsciously. Almost as they pa.s.sed her lips, her expression changed. She s.h.i.+vered, as though reminded of something unpleasant. Tavernake, however, noticed nothing.

For the greater part of the day he had been sedulously fighting against a new and unaccustomed state of mind. He had found his thoughts slipping away, time after time, until he had had to set his teeth and use all his will power to keep his attention concentrated upon his work. And now once more they had escaped, again he felt the strange stir in his blood.

The slight flush on his cheek grew suddenly deeper. He looked past the girl opposite to him, out of the restaurant, across the street, into that little sitting-room in the Milan Court. It was Elizabeth who was there in front of him. Again he heard her voice, saw the turn of her head, the slow, delightful curve of the lips, the eyes that looked into his and spoke to him the first strange whispers of a new language. His heart gave a quick throb. He was for the moment transformed, a prisoner no longer, a different person, indeed, from the stolid, well-behaved young man who found himself for the first time in his life in these unaccustomed surroundings. Then Beatrice leaned towards him, her voice brought him back to the present--not, alas, the voice which at that moment he would have given so much to have heard.