CHAPTER XVII--LETTY LANE SINGS
The house of the Duchess of Breakwater in Park Lane was white, withgreen blinds and green balconies; beautiful, distinguished and old,mellow with traditions, and the tide of fashion poured its stream intothe music-room to listen to the Sunday concert. Without, the day wasbland and beautiful, mild spring in the deep sweet air, and already thebloom lay over the park and along the turf. Piccadilly was ablaze withflowers, and in the windows and in the flower-women's baskets they wereso sweet as to make the heart ache and to make the senses thrill. Keento the spring beauty, the last guest to go into the drawing-room of theDuchess of Breakwater was the young American man in whom the magic ofthe season had stirred the blood. He seemed the youngest and thebrightest guest to cross the sill of the great house whose debts he wasgoing to pay, and whose future he was going to secure with Americanmoney.
Close after him a motor car rolled up to the curb, and under the awningLetty Lane passed quickly, as though thistledown, blown into thedistinguished house. The actress was taken possession of by severalpeople and shown up-stairs.
Dan spoke to his hostess, who wore, over her azure dress, a necklacegiven her by Dan. She said he was "too late for words," and why hadn'the come before. After greeting him she set him free, and he went eagerlyto find his place next an elderly woman whom he liked immensely, LadyCaiwarn. She had given him twenty pounds for some of his poor. LadyCaiwarn had a calm, kind face, and Dan sat down beside her, well out ofthe crush, and they talked amiably throughout the violin solo.
"Think of it," she said, "Letty Lane of the Gaiety is going to sing. I'dsit through a great deal for that. Let that man with the fiddle do hisworst."
Blair laughed appreciatively. He thought Lady Caiwarn would be a goodfriend for Miss Lane, better than the duchess herself. "I wish Lilycould hear you talk about her violinist," he said, delighted; "shethinks he's the whole show." And tentatively, his ingenuous eyes fixedon his friend, he asked: "I wonder how you would like to meet Miss Lane.She's perfectly ripping, and she's from my State."
"_Meet her!_" Lady Caiwarn exclaimed, but before she could finish,through the room ran the little anticipatory rustle that comes beforethe great, and which, when they have gone, breaks into applause. Thegreat actress had appeared to give her number. Dan and Lady Caiwarn,behind the palms in a little corner of their own, watched her.
A clever understanding of the world into which she was to come this day,had made the girl dress like a charm. She stood quietly by the piano,her hands folded. Among the high ladies of the English world in theirsplendid frocks, their jewels and feathers, she was a simple figure, herdress snow white, high to her throat, unadorned by any gay color,according to the fashion of the time. It was such a dress as Romneymight have painted, and under her arms and from across her breast therefell a soft coral-colored silken scarf. The costume was daring in itssimplicity. She might have been Emma, Lady Hamilton, because perfectlybeautiful, perfectly talented, she could risk severe simplicity, havingin herself the fire and the art and the seduction. Her hair was a goldencrown and her eyes like stars. She was excited, and the scarlet had runalong her cheeks like wine spilled over ivory.
She looked around the room, failed to see Blair, but saw the Duchess ofBreakwater in her velvet and her jewels. Letty Lane began to sing. Danand she had chosen _Mandalay_ and she began with it. Her dress only wassimple. All the complexity of her talent, whatever she knew of seductionand charm, she put in the rendering of her song. Even the conventionalaudience, most of which knew her well, were enchanted over again, andthey went wild about her. She had never been so charming. The menclapped her until she began in self-defense another favorite of themoment, and ended in a perfect huzzah of applause.
She refused to sing again until, in the distance, she saw Dan standingby the column near his seat. Then indicating to the pianist what shewanted, she sang _The Earl of Moray_, such a rendering of the old balladas had not been heard in London, and coming, as it did, from the lips ofa popular singer whose character and whose verve were not supposed to besympathetic to a piece of music of this kind, the effect was startling.Letty Lane's face grew pale with the touching old tragedy, the scarletfaded from her cheeks, her eyes grew dark and moist, she might indeedherself have been the lady looking from the castle wall while theycarried the body of her dead lover under those beautiful eyes.
Dan felt his heart grow cold. If she had awakened him when he was alittle boy, she thrilled him now; he could have wept. Lady Caiwarn didwipe tears away. When the last note of the accompaniment had ended,Dan's friend at his side said: "How utterly ravishing! What a beautiful,lovely creature; how charming and how frail!"
He scarcely answered. He was making his way to Letty Lane, and he wrungher hand, murmuring, "Oh, you're great; you're great!" And the pleasureon his face repaid her over and over again. "Come, I want you to meetthe Duchess of Breakwater, and some other friends of mine."
As he let her little cold hand fall and turned about, the room as bymagic had cleared. The prime minister had arrived late and was in theother room. The refreshments were also being served. There was no one tomeet Letty Lane, except for several young men who came up eagerly andasked to be presented, Gordon Galorey among them.
"Where's Lily?" Dan asked him; "I want her to meet Miss Lane."
"In the conservatory with the prime minister," and Galorey lookedmeaningly at Dan, as much as to say, "Now don't be an utter fool."
But Letty Lane herself saved the situation. She shook hands with theutmost cordiality and sweetness with the men who had been presented toher, and asked Dan to take her to her motor. He waited for her at thedoor and she came down wrapped around as usual in her filmy scarf.
"Are you better?" he asked eagerly. "You look awfully stunning, and Idon't think I can ever thank you enough."
She assured him that she was "all right," and that she had a "lovely newrole to learn and that it was coming on next month." He helped her inand she seemed to fill the motor like a basket of fresh white flowers.Again he repeated, as he held the door open:
"I can't thank you enough: you were a great success."
She smiled wickedly, and couldn't resist:
"Especially with the women."
Dan's face flushed; he was already deeply hurt for her, and her wordsshowed him that the insult had gone home.
"Where are you going now?"
"Right to the Savoy."
Without another word, hatless as he was, he got into the motor andclosed the door.
"I'm going to take you home," he informed her quietly, "and there's nouse in looking at me like that either! When I'm set on a thing I getit!"
They rolled away in the bland sunset, passed the park, down Piccadilly,where the flowers in the streets were so sweet that they made the heartache, and the air through the window was so sweet that it made thesenses swim!
The Girl From His Town Page 17
