Thelma
in ten minutes. Be sure to mention that I am very shy,--and unaccustomed
to company!"
And, giggling gently like an awkward school-girl, she held down her head
with feigned bashfulness, and stepped mincingly across the stage with
such a ludicrous air of prim propriety, that all her associates burst
out laughing, and applauded her vociferously. She turned and curtsied to
them demurely--then suddenly raising one leg in a horizontal position,
she twirled it rapidly in their faces,--then she gave a little shocked
cough behind her hand, grinned, and vanished.
When, in the stipulated ten minutes, she was ready to receive her
unknown visitor, she was quite transformed. She had arrayed herself in a
trailing gown of rich black velvet, fastened at the side with jet
clasps--a cluster of natural, innocent, white violets nestled in the
fall of Spanish lace at her throat--her face was pale with
pearl-powder,--and she had eaten a couple of scented bon-bons to drown
the smell of her recent brandy-tipple. She reclined gracefully in an
easy chair, pretending to read, and she rose with an admirably acted air
of startled surprise, as one of the errand boys belonging to the
Brilliant tapped at her door, and in answer to her "Come in!" announced,
"Lady Winsleigh!"
A faint, sweet, questioning smile played on the Vere's wide mouth.
"I am not aware that I have the honor of--" she began, modulating her
voice to the requirements of fashionable society, and wondering within
herself "what the d----l" this woman in the silk and sable-fur costume
wanted.
Lady Winsleigh in the meantime stared at her with cold, critical eyes.
"She is positively rather handsome," she thought. "I can quite imagine a
certain class of men losing their heads about her." Aloud she said--
"I must apologize for this intrusion, Miss Vere! I dare say you have
never heard my name--I am not fortunate enough to be famous,--as _you_
are." This with a killing satire in her smile. "May I sit down? Thanks!
I have called upon you in the hope that you may perhaps be able to give
me a little information in a private matter--a matter concerning the
happiness of a very dear friend of mine." She paused--Violet Vere sat
silent. After a minute or two, her ladyship continued in a somewhat
embarrassed manner--
"I believe you know a gentleman with whom I am also acquainted--Sir
Philip Bruce-Errington."
Miss Vere raised her eyes with charming languor and a slow smile.
"Oh yes!"
"He visits you, doesn't he?"
"Frequently!"
"I'm afraid you'll think me rude and inquisitive," continued Lady
Winsleigh, with a coaxing air, "but--but may I ask--"
"Anything in the world," interrupted Violet coolly. "Ask away! But I'm
not bound to answer."
Lady Winsleigh reddened with indignation. "What an insulting creature!"
she thought. But, after all, she had put herself in her present
position, and she could not very well complain if she met with a rebuff.
She made another effort.
"Sir Francis Lennox told me--" she began.
The Vere interrupted her with a cheerful laugh.
"Oh, you come from him, do you? Now, why didn't you tell me that at
first? It's all right! You're a great friend of Lennie's, aren't you?"
Lady Winsleigh sat erect and haughty, a deadly chill of disgust and fear
at her heart. This creature called her quondam lover, "Lennie"--even as
she herself had done,--and she, the proud, vain woman of society and
fashion shuddered at the idea that there should be even this similarity
between herself and the "thing" called Violet Vere. She replied
stiffly--
"I have known him a long time."
"He's a nice fellow," went on Miss Vere easily--"a _leetle_ stingy
sometimes, but never mind that! You want to know about Sir Philip
Errington, and I'll tell you. He's chosen to mix himself up with some
affairs of mine--"
"What affairs?" asked Lady Winsleigh rather eagerly.
"They don't concern you," returned Miss Vere calmly, "and we needn't
talk about them! But they concern Sir Philip,--or he thinks they do, and
insists on seeing me about them, and holding long conversations, which
bore me excessively!"
She yawned slightly, smothering her yawn in a dainty lace handkerchief,
and then went on--
"He's a moral young man, don't you know--and I never could endure moral
men! I can't get on with them at all!"
"Then you don't like him?" questioned Lady Winsleigh in rather a
disappointed tone.
"No, I don't!" said the Vere candidly. "He's not my sort. But, Lord
bless you! I know how he's getting talked about because he comes
here--and serve him right too! He shouldn't meddle with my business."
She paused suddenly and drew a letter from her pocket,--laughed and
tossed it across the table.
"You can read that, if you like," she said indifferently. "He wrote it,
and sent it round to me last night."
Lady Winsleigh's eyes glistened eagerly,--she recognized Errington's
bold, clear hand at once,--and as she read, an expression of triumph
played on her features. She looked up presently and said--
"Have you any further use for this letter, Miss Vere? Or--will you allow
me to keep it?"
The Vere seemed slightly suspicious of this proposal, but looked amused
too.
"Why, what do you want it for?" she inquired bluntly. "To tease him
about me?"
Lady Winsleigh forced a smile. "Well--perhaps!" she admitted, then with
an air of gentleness and simplicity she continued, "I think, Miss Vere,
with you, that it is very wrong of Sir Philip,--very absurd of him, in
fact--to interfere with your affairs, whatever they may be,--and as it
is very likely annoying to you--"
"It _is_," interrupted Violet decidedly.
"Then, with the help of this letter--which, really--really--excuse me
for saying it!--quite compromises him," and her ladyship looked amiably
concerned about it, "I might perhaps persuade him not to--to--intrude
upon you--you understand? But if you object to part with the letter,
never mind! If I did not fear to offend you, I should ask you to
exchange it for--for something more--well! let us say, something more
substantial--"
"Don't beat about the bush!" said Violet, with a sudden oblivion of her
company manners. "You mean money?"
Lady Winsleigh smiled. "As you put it so frankly, Miss Vere--" she
began.
"Of course! I'm always frank," returned the Vere, with a loud laugh.
"Besides, what's the good of pretending? Money's the only thing worth
having--it pays your butcher, baker, and dressmaker--and how are you to
get along if you _can't_ pay them, I'd like to know! Lord! if all the
letters I've got from fools were paying stock instead of waste-paper,
I'd shut up shop, and leave the Brilliant to look out for itself!"
Lady Winsleigh felt she had gained her object, and she could now afford
to be gracious.
"That would be a great loss to the world," she remarked sweetly. "An
immense loss! London could scarcely get on without Violet Vere!" Here
she opened her purse and took out some bank-notes, which she folded and
slipped inside an envelope. "Then I may have the letter?" she continued.
"You may and welcome!" returned Violet.
Lady Winsleigh instantly held out the envelope, which she as instantly
clutched. "Especially if you'll tell Sir Philip Errington to mind his
own business!" She paused, and a dark flush mounted to her brow--one of
those sudden flushes that purpled rather than crimsoned her face. "Yes,"
she repeated, "as he's a friend of yours, just tell him I said he was to
mind his own business! Lord! what does he want to come here and preach
at me for! I don't want his sermons! Moral!" here she laughed rather
hoarsely, "I'm as moral as any one on the stage! Who says I'm not! Take
'em all round--there's not a soul behind the footlights more open and
above-board than I am!"
And her eyes flashed defiantly.
"She's been drinking?" thought Lady Winsleigh disgustedly. In fact, the
"Vere's Own" tipple had begun to take its usual effect, which was to
make the Vere herself both blatant and boisterous.
"I'm sure," said her ladyship with frigid politeness, "that you are
everything that is quite charming, Miss Vere! I have a great respect for
the--the ornaments of the English stage. Society has quite thrown down
its former barriers, you know!--the members of your profession are
received in the very best circles--"
"I ain't!" said Violet, with ungrammatical candor. "Your Irvings and
your Terrys, your Mary Andersons and your Langtrys,--they're good enough
for your fine drawing-rooms, and get more invitations out than they can
accept. And none of them have got half my talent, I tell you! Lord bless
my soul! if they're respectable enough for you,--so am I!"
And she struck her hand emphatically on the table, Lady Winsleigh looked
at her with a slight smile.
"I must really say good-bye!" she said, rising and gathering her furs
about her. "I could talk with you all the morning, Miss Vere, but I have
so many engagements! Besides I mustn't detain _you_! I'm so much obliged
to you for your kind reception of me!"
"Don't mention, it!" and Violet glanced her over with a kind of sullen
sarcasm. "I'm bound to please Lennie when I can, you know!"
Again Lady Winsleigh shivered a little, but forced herself to shake
hands with the notorious stage-Jezebel.
"I shall come and see you in the new piece," she said graciously. "I
always take a box on first nights? And your dancing is so exquisite! The
very poetry of motion! So pleased to have met you! Good-bye!"
And with a few more vague compliments and remarks about the weather,
Lady Winsleigh took her departure. Left alone, the actress threw herself
back in her chair and laughed.
"That woman's up to some mischief," she exclaimed sotto voce, "and so is
Lennie! I wonder what's their little game? _I_ don't care, as long as
they'll keep the high-and-mighty Errington in his place. I'm tired of
him! Why does he meddle with _my_ affairs?" Her brows knitted into a
frown. "As if he or anybody else could persuade me to go back to--," she
paused, and bit her lips angrily. Then she opened the envelope Lady
Winsleigh had left with her, and pulled out the bank-notes inside. "Let
me see--five, ten, fifteen, twenty! Not bad pay, on the whole! It'll
just cover the bill for my plush mantle. Hullo! Who's there?"
Some one knocked at her door.
"Come in!" she cried.
The feeble Tommy presented himself. His weak mouth trembled more than
ever, and he was apparently conscious of this, for he passed his hand
nervously across it two or three times.
"Well, what's up?" inquired the "star" of the Brilliant, fingering her
bank-notes as she spoke.
"Miss Vere," stammered Tommy, "I venture to ask you a favor,--could you
kindly, very kindly lend me ten shillings till to-morrow night? I am so
pressed just now--and my wife is ill in bed--and--" he stopped, and his
eyes sought her face hopefully, yet timidly.
"You shouldn't have a wife, Tommy!" averred Violet with blunt frankness.
"Wives are expensive articles. Besides, I never lend. I never
give--except to public charities where one's name gets mentioned in the
papers. I'm obliged to do that, you know, by way of advertisement. Ten
shillings! Why, I can't afford ten pence! My bills would frighten you,
Tommy! There go along, and don't cry, for goodness sake! Let your fiddle
cry for you!"
"Oh, Miss Vere," once more pleaded Tommy, "if you knew how my wife
suffers--"
The actress rose and stamped her foot impatiently.
"Bother your wife!" she cried angrily, "and you too! Look out! or I tell
the manager we've got a beggar at the Brilliant. Don't stare at me like
that! Go to the d----l with you!"
Tommy slunk off abashed and trembling, and the Vere began to sing, or
rather croak, a low comic song, while she threw over her shoulders a