________________________________________________
_ On the night of his arrival in London,
Alexander went immediately to the hotel on the
Embankment at which he always stopped,
and in the lobby he was accosted by an old
acquaintance, Maurice Mainhall, who fell
upon him with effusive cordiality and
indicated a willingness to dine with him.
Bartley never dined alone if he could help it,
and Mainhall was a good gossip who always knew
what had been going on in town; especially,
he knew everything that was not printed in
the newspapers. The nephew of one of the
standard Victorian novelists, Mainhall bobbed
about among the various literary cliques of
London and its outlying suburbs, careful to
lose touch with none of them. He had written
a number of books himself; among them a
"History of Dancing," a "History of Costume,"
a "Key to Shakespeare's Sonnets," a study of
"The Poetry of Ernest Dowson," etc.
Although Mainhall's enthusiasm was often
tiresome, and although he was often unable
to distinguish between facts and vivid
figments of his imagination, his imperturbable
good nature overcame even the people whom he
bored most, so that they ended by becoming,
in a reluctant manner, his friends.
In appearance, Mainhall was astonishingly
like the conventional stage-Englishman of
American drama: tall and thin, with high,
hitching shoulders and a small head glistening
with closely brushed yellow hair. He spoke
with an extreme Oxford accent, and when he was
talking well, his face sometimes wore the rapt
expression of a very emotional man listening
to music. Mainhall liked Alexander because
he was an engineer. He had preconceived
ideas about everything, and his idea about
Americans was that they should be engineers
or mechanics. He hated them when they
presumed to be anything else.
While they sat at dinner Mainhall acquainted
Bartley with the fortunes of his old friends
in London, and as they left the table he
proposed that they should go to see Hugh
MacConnell's new comedy, "Bog Lights."
"It's really quite the best thing MacConnell's done,"
he explained as they got into a hansom.
"It's tremendously well put on, too.
Florence Merrill and Cyril Henderson.
But Hilda Burgoyne's the hit of the piece.
Hugh's written a delightful part for her,
and she's quite inexpressible. It's been on
only two weeks, and I've been half a dozen times
already. I happen to have MacConnell's box
for tonight or there'd be no chance of our
getting places. There's everything in seeing
Hilda while she's fresh in a part. She's apt to
grow a bit stale after a time. The ones who
have any imagination do."
"Hilda Burgoyne!" Alexander exclaimed mildly.
"Why, I haven't heard of her for--years."
Mainhall laughed. "Then you can't have
heard much at all, my dear Alexander.
It's only lately, since MacConnell and his
set have got hold of her, that she's come up.
Myself, I always knew she had it in her.
If we had one real critic in London--but what
can one expect? Do you know, Alexander,"--
Mainhall looked with perplexity up into the
top of the hansom and rubbed his pink cheek
with his gloved finger,--"do you know, I sometimes
think of taking to criticism seriously myself.
In a way, it would be a sacrifice;
but, dear me, we do need some one."
Just then they drove up to the Duke of York's,
so Alexander did not commit himself,
but followed Mainhall into the theatre.
When they entered the stage-box on the left the
first act was well under way, the scene being
the interior of a cabin in the south of Ireland.
As they sat down, a burst of applause drew
Alexander's attention to the stage. Miss
Burgoyne and her donkey were thrusting their
heads in at the half door. "After all,"
he reflected, "there's small probability of
her recognizing me. She doubtless hasn't thought
of me for years." He felt the enthusiasm of
the house at once, and in a few moments he
was caught up by the current of MacConnell's
irresistible comedy. The audience had
come forewarned, evidently, and whenever
the ragged slip of a donkey-girl ran upon the
stage there was a deep murmur of approbation,
every one smiled and glowed, and Mainhall
hitched his heavy chair a little nearer the
brass railing.
"You see," he murmured in Alexander's ear,
as the curtain fell on the first act,
"one almost never sees a part like that done
without smartness or mawkishness. Of course,
Hilda is Irish,--the Burgoynes have been
stage people for generations,--and she has the
Irish voice. It's delightful to hear it in a
London theatre. That laugh, now, when she
doubles over at the hips--who ever heard it
out of Galway? She saves her hand, too.
She's at her best in the second act. She's
really MacConnell's poetic motif, you see;
makes the whole thing a fairy tale."
The second act opened before Philly
Doyle's underground still, with Peggy and
her battered donkey come in to smuggle a
load of potheen across the bog, and to bring
Philly word of what was doing in the world
without, and of what was happening along
the roadsides and ditches with the first gleam
of fine weather. Alexander, annoyed by
Mainhall's sighs and exclamations, watched
her with keen, half-skeptical interest. As
Mainhall had said, she was the second act;
the plot and feeling alike depended upon her
lightness of foot, her lightness of touch, upon
the shrewdness and deft fancifulness that
played alternately, and sometimes together,
in her mirthful brown eyes. When she began
to dance, by way of showing the gossoons what
she had seen in the fairy rings at night,
the house broke into a prolonged uproar.
After her dance she withdrew from the dialogue
and retreated to the ditch wall back of Philly's
burrow, where she sat singing "The Rising of the Moon"
and making a wreath of primroses for her donkey.
When the act was over Alexander and Mainhall
strolled out into the corridor. They met
a good many acquaintances; Mainhall, indeed,
knew almost every one, and he babbled on incontinently,
screwing his small head about over his high collar.
Presently he hailed a tall, bearded man, grim-browed
and rather battered-looking, who had his opera cloak
on his arm and his hat in his hand, and who seemed
to be on the point of leaving the theatre.
"MacConnell, let me introduce Mr. Bartley
Alexander. I say! It's going famously
to-night, Mac. And what an audience!
You'll never do anything like this again, mark me.
A man writes to the top of his bent only once."
The playwright gave Mainhall a curious look
out of his deep-set faded eyes and made a
wry face. "And have I done anything so
fool as that, now?" he asked.
"That's what I was saying," Mainhall lounged
a little nearer and dropped into a tone
even more conspicuously confidential.
"And you'll never bring Hilda out like
this again. Dear me, Mac, the girl
couldn't possibly be better, you know."
MacConnell grunted. "She'll do well
enough if she keeps her pace and doesn't
go off on us in the middle of the season,
as she's more than like to do."
He nodded curtly and made for the door,
dodging acquaintances as he went.
"Poor old Hugh," Mainhall murmured.
"He's hit terribly hard. He's been wanting
to marry Hilda these three years and more.
She doesn't take up with anybody, you know.
Irene Burgoyne, one of her family, told me in
confidence that there was a romance somewhere
back in the beginning. One of your countrymen,
Alexander, by the way; an American student
whom she met in Paris, I believe. I dare say
it's quite true that there's never been any one else."
Mainhall vouched for her constancy with a loftiness
that made Alexander smile, even while a kind of
rapid excitement was tingling through him.
Blinking up at the lights, Mainhall added
in his luxurious, worldly way: "She's an elegant
little person, and quite capable of an extravagant
bit of sentiment like that. Here comes
Sir Harry Towne. He's another who's
awfully keen about her. Let me introduce you.
Sir Harry Towne, Mr. Bartley Alexander,
the American engineer."
Sir Harry Towne bowed and said that he had
met Mr. Alexander and his wife in Tokyo.
Mainhall cut in impatiently.
"I say, Sir Harry, the little girl's
going famously to-night, isn't she?"
Sir Harry wrinkled his brows judiciously.
"Do you know, I thought the dance a bit
conscious to-night, for the first time. The fact
is, she's feeling rather seedy, poor child.
Westmere and I were back after the first act,
and we thought she seemed quite uncertain of
herself. A little attack of nerves, possibly."
He bowed as the warning bell rang, and
Mainhall whispered: "You know Lord Westmere,
of course,--the stooped man with the
long gray mustache, talking to Lady Dowle.
Lady Westmere is very fond of Hilda."
When they reached their box the house
was darkened and the orchestra was playing
"The Cloak of Old Gaul." In a moment
Peggy was on the stage again, and Alexander
applauded vigorously with the rest. He even
leaned forward over the rail a little. For some
reason he felt pleased and flattered by the
enthusiasm of the audience. In the half-light
he looked about at the stalls and boxes and
smiled a little consciously, recalling with
amusement Sir Harry's judicial frown.
He was beginning to feel a keen interest in
the slender, barefoot donkey-girl who slipped
in and out of the play, singing, like some one
winding through a hilly field. He leaned
forward and beamed felicitations as warmly
as Mainhall himself when, at the end of the
play, she came again and again before the
curtain, panting a little and flushed, her eyes
dancing and her eager, nervous little mouth
tremulous with excitement.
When Alexander returned to his hotel--
he shook Mainhall at the door of the theatre--
he had some supper brought up to his room,
and it was late before he went to bed.
He had not thought of Hilda Burgoyne for
years; indeed, he had almost forgotten her.
He had last written to her from Canada,
after he first met Winifred, telling her that
everything was changed with him--that he had
met a woman whom he would marry if he could;
if he could not, then all the more was
everything changed for him. Hilda had never
replied to his letter. He felt guilty and
unhappy about her for a time, but after
Winifred promised to marry him he really forgot
Hilda altogether. When he wrote her that
everything was changed for him, he was telling
the truth. After he met Winifred Pemberton
he seemed to himself like a different man.
One night when he and Winifred were
sitting together on the bridge, he told her
that things had happened while he was studying
abroad that he was sorry for,--one thing in
particular,--and he asked her whether she
thought she ought to know about them.
She considered a moment and then said
"No, I think not, though I am glad you ask me.
You see, one can't be jealous about things
in general; but about particular, definite,
personal things,"--here she had thrown her
hands up to his shoulders with a quick,
impulsive gesture--"oh, about those I should be
very jealous. I should torture myself--I couldn't
help it." After that it was easy to forget,
actually to forget. He wondered to-night,
as he poured his wine, how many times he had
thought of Hilda in the last ten years.
He had been in London more or less,
but he had never happened to hear of her.
"All the same," he lifted his glass, "here's to you,
little Hilda. You've made things come your way,
and I never thought you'd do it.
"Of course," he reflected, "she always had
that combination of something homely and
sensible, and something utterly wild and daft.
But I never thought she'd do anything.
She hadn't much ambition then, and she was
too fond of trifles. She must care about the
theatre a great deal more than she used to.
Perhaps she has me to thank for something,
after all. Sometimes a little jolt like that
does one good. She was a daft, generous
little thing. I'm glad she's held her own since.
After all, we were awfully young. It was youth
and poverty and proximity, and everything
was young and kindly. I shouldn't wonder
if she could laugh about it with me now.
I shouldn't wonder-- But they've probably
spoiled her, so that she'd be tiresome if
one met her again."
Bartley smiled and yawned and went to bed. _
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