“You look a trifle distrait,” Winterton observed, just a shade reproachfully, and instantly she remembered how much depended on her, and called upon all her reserves to be as charming to him as possible.
“Please forgive me,” she said, lying blatantly, “but my ankle hurt me last night, and I didn’t sleep very well.”
She certainly hadn’t slept well, but it was not due to her ankle. Winterton instantly looked concerned,
“Forgive me,” he begged her. “I’m afraid I forgot that it might be troubling you still.” He looked down at the slender ankle, encased in a sheer stocking, and his brow clouded. “I don’t like to think of you being troubled by anything—certainly not enduring pain. I wish you had allowed me to get my doctor to look at it.”
“No, no,” she said quickly—almost too hastily. “It really is very much better, but I’m afraid I danced rather a lot last night.”
Immediately she wished she hadn’t said that.
“You danced?” But to her relief he didn’t ask her where, or with whom, she danced. Instead he smiled at her, a warm and uncannily understanding smile. “I like to think of you dancing,” he told her. “I like to think of you enjoying yourself. Someone like you should dance, and have a good time, and be utterly carefree. I’m not at all sure I would saddle you with the formidable daily routine of a singer, or the responsibility for entertaining the public.”
“But my career is important,” she pointed out.
“Is it?” He continued to smile at her. “Is it so important, Vanessa?”
She felt vaguely afraid as she met his eyes ... vaguely alarmed.
“Naturally, it is the most important thing in life to me,” she told him.
He looked down thoughtfully at her slim fingers, that were tightly clasped in her lap. His eyes roved round the room, with V for Vanessa in an arrangement of flowers—his own flowers—in a corner, and on a gold-cigarette-case that lay on a table. Her slim sharkskin handbag, that also had a huge golden V.B. on it, lay beside them on the settee.
“In that case,” he asked quietly, “why did you not seek to make a career of your own, my dear? What tempted you to step into another woman’s shoes, instead of looking for a pair of suitable shoes for yourself?”
She gasped. He knew! And she could say nothing at all to answer him.
“Don’t panic, my dear,” he said even more gently. “I’m amazed that Veldon thought I could be so easily taken in, although I’m sure he had his reasons for running a risk of this sort. I have never met Miss Vanessa Brandt, but her appearance can’t really be very similar to yours. You no doubt have her features, and her colouring, but she is a woman of experience ... And you, my dear, are you!”
She felt him take her hand, and she permitted him to retain it, a limp and petrified thing in his warm clasp. The scent of his lavender toilet soap—or was it his shaving-cream?—no longer affronted her in any way, and she was amazed because he was not harsh, or annoyed, or even critical. She was still more amazed that he went on talking to her in such a soothing voice.
“Why did you do it?” he asked. “And where is the real Vanessa?”
“In London,” she answered, licking her lips. “In a clinic, where she underwent an operation yesterday morning. I took her place because she wanted your contract, and she was afraid that if you knew about the trouble she was having with her throat you wouldn’t consider she was fit for a contract.”
He sat very silent for a few minutes, and then he asked;
"And Veldon? He is in the secret, of course? No doubt the whole thing was his idea?”
“No, it wasn’t.” She denied it almost vehemently. “It was Vanessa’s idea, because she wanted the contract ... no one else’s, and therefore no one else can be held responsible. Except me,” she added, with a catch in her voice. “I ought to have realized that no one could possibly mistake-me for Vanessa.”
‘'Oh, but they have,” he assured her. “I don’t think anyone save myself has had any doubts whatsoever.”
She realized that she ought to be relieved, but she wasn’t. He stood up and started to walk briskly up and down the confined limits of the hotel sitting-room.
“You can defend Veldon,” he said, with a frown between his brows, “but it doesn’t surprise me that he lent himself to this. Vanessa—Miss Brandt—was discovered by him and made famous by him, and in addition he may have other, more personal, reasons for wishing to further her career.” He looked at Janie as if trying to find out whether she knew, but she shook her head.
“I know nothing about the relationship between Miss Brandt and Mr. Veldon,” she assured him.
He said nothing. He continued his pacing up and down.
“And I’m sure Mr. Veldon didn’t want to have anything to do with deceiving you,” she put in with a note of almost pleading anxiety in her voice. “Please, Mr. Winterton” she begged, “you must believe that.”
He smiled suddenly and came across to her. “I’ll believe anything you care to tell me,” he reassured her, “except that you’re Vanessa Brandt. And, by the way,” he wanted to know, once more taking his place beside her on the settee, “what really is your name? What may I call you when no one else is likely to overhear?”
She gazed at him hopefully.
“You mean that you won’t give me away? That you’ll go on pretending?”
“We’ll see,” he replied, smiling as he might have smiled at a child he was humouring. “But before I arrive at any decision of that sort you must tell me your name ... the name which is really and truly yours.”
“Jane Dallas,” she answered.
“Ah,” he said, softly. “I like that. Jane Dallas. Somehow it suits you much more than Vanessa.” Then he took both her hands determinedly, and gripped them strongly. “Jane, I could make matters unpleasant for you, but believe me that is not my intention. I suppose I could make things pretty awkward for Veldon, but I won’t do that, either ... if I get what I want. And I want you, Jane. I want to marry you!”
“What?” she gasped.
He repeated very solemnly, “I want to marry you. You’re the first young woman I’ve ever met who has filled me with an almost instantaneous desire to take a wife, and you’re the first young woman who has it in her power to make me bitterly unhappy if you refuse. But you won’t refuse, will you, Jane?” very softly indeed. “For if you’d the courage to come out here as Vanessa Brandt you’ve the courage to marry me—a man you hardly know! And if you disappoint me cruelly by turning me down I’ll have to think twice about that contract for Vanessa ... the real Vanessa. And then there’s this piece of gross deception permitted by Max Veldon ... a man very much in the public eye. It won’t do him very much good if the truth leaks out, will it? You know the old saying ... “The higher you climb, the farther you can fall!”
“You’re threatening me,” she said dully. ‘You’re threatening Mr. Veldon, through me.”
His smile was almost whimsical.
“You can put it like that if you wish. But a man who is fighting for his own interests has to use ugly weapons sometimes!”
CHAPTER IX
Miss Calendar fussed somewhat unnecessarily about the sitting-room while Janie waited for the door to open and Max Veldon to stand looking in upon them, one eyebrow rather questioningly raised.
Janie looked so taut that Miss Calendar, no fool, realized that something in the nature of a crisis had arisen. But Janie refused to discuss it, and the one thing she had said urgently when Abraham Winterton departed was that they must get in touch with Mr. Veldon.
“But I haven’t any real idea where he is,” his secretary protested. “He could be in any one of half-a dozen, places, and if it’s really urgent I’ll telephone and see if I can run him to earth. But I’d like to be convinced that it is urgent.”
“It is,” Janie assured her quietly. “It’s extremely urgent.”
Miss Calendar sent her a long look, remembered how exceptionally affable Mr. Winterton had been when he
took his departure, and wished she had some clue to what had happened.
Max Veldon was not in any of the half-dozen places, and a few other telephone calls refused to establish contact with him. But after lunch he telephoned the suite himself, and Miss Calendar said at once that Janie was very anxious to see him.
“Very anxious,” she repeated.
At the other end of the line the conductor asked curtly:
“Anything wrong?”
“Not so far as I know,” Miss Calendar replied. ‘'But you’d better get here as quickly as possible all the same.”
Max Veldon arrived about twenty minutes later. He was wearing a very debonair light grey suit, and there was a half-opened pale pink rosebud in his buttonhole. He looked as if he had been torn from a lunch at which he had been prepared to enjoy himself j but he was no longer prepared to enjoy himself in the slightest when he looked across the room at Janie.
“Well?” he said.
Janie looked at Miss Calendar, who took the hint and evaporated as quickly and silently as she could. Max Veldon strode into the middle of the room and extracted a carnation from a vase on a table. He wielded it as if it was a baton as he addressed himself to Janie.
“You’d better tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” he advised her grimly.
She did, and she had the satisfaction for the first time of seeing him look completely and absolutely astounded. He sat down on the arm of a chair after giving a careful hitch to his trousers—she realized that it was purely force of habit that caused him to do so—and stared at her as if he was seeing her also for the first time, and was attempting to assimilate all that was there to be taken in.
“You really expect me to believe, Fraulein,” he said at last—and it was noticeable that under stress his English became much more mixed up with his native German—“that a man who is so wealthy, and so personally attractive to women that he can have his pick of them, has asked you—you to be his wife?”
Janie’s pale skin became stained with the flush of humiliation. Even in such a moment he had the power to make her feel insignificant, and even worthless.
“I have just told you that Mr. Winterton proposed to me quite seriously this morning,” she said through stiff, resentful lips. “He asked me to be his wife. In fact, I have no alternative to becoming his wife if your reputation and Vanessa’s are not to—well, suffer badly! And Vanessa will lose her contract.”
Max Veldon’s brows puckered in perplexity. He had noticed the rush of colour to the girl’s cheeks, and to her surprise it was an apology he offered her before he said anything else.
“You mustn’t mistake my intention when I say something at which you can take offence, Janie...” And it was the very first time he had called her Janie. “I am quite certain there are lots of men who would be delighted to marry you, but Winterton is not just any man. Not merely can he pick and choose, but he can pick and choose all the time. If he wants a wife who is supremely beautiful he can pick a wife who is supremely beautiful, and if he wants talent and beauty ... why, then, talent and beauty are both his. But you are a young woman with no particular talents and your background is obscure. He isn’t even Interested in your background ... he just wishes to marry you! Why?”
“Because he is annoyed with Vanessa, perhaps. Annoyed with you.” She looked away from him as she spoke, and the muscles of her slender white throat contracted.
“My dear child, don’t talk as if you’ve never even begun to grow up.” Then he laughed, rather strangely, and stood up and started to pace about the room. She watched his pantherish strides as if they fascinated her. “What a triumph for you!” He glanced over his shoulder at her, almost appreciatively. “The little girl from the antique shop to the first Mrs. Winterton ... the first Mrs. Winterton, mind!”
“Don’t be absurd,” Janie returned, with the same taut look.
“But I am not being absurd,” he told her. “It has happened before, of course ... someone like you bowling over an experienced man. Someone young, and fresh, and charming. Yes,” he conceded., turning to stare at her openly. “You are undoubtedly very charming.” He inclined his dark head several times to give emphasis to his words.
Janie felt as if her whole being quivered with resentment as she met his eyes. She couldn’t believe that he wasn’t mocking her.
“But Winterton must be somewhere in his forties, and you are a young woman in her early twenties. It is too much like May and December to appeal to me, so I’m afraid I can’t offer you my congratulations.”
Janie felt as if she would choke.
“I’m not asking you to congratulate me! I’m merely trying to make you understand that the position is serious! For some reason Mr. Winterton means that if I don’t marry him Miss Brandt will not receive a contract.”
“The reason is obvious. He’s in love with you,” he said suavely.
“But what about ... your reputation?” she inquired, marvelling at his lack of concern, his strange but interested detachment.
He shrugged.
“Oh, I suppose he could do me a certain amount of harm ... but the thought of it doesn’t really upset me. And Vanessa will survive without her contract.”
“But only yesterday you told me—”
He shrugged once more, and waved one of his slim hands carelessly.
“Naturally she’ll be disappointed, but she wouldn’t expect you to marry in order to prevent her disappointment.” His expression grew sharper, more alert. “And you’re not seriously contemplating marrying Winterton in order to safeguard my reputation and further Vanessa’s interests, are you?” he asked, going closer to her and peering into her face.
“I am,” she answered, feeling the instinct to back away from him, but not doing so. “Only yesterday you said that if I failed you—if I endangered Vanessa’s future and made you a subject for gossip— you would never forgive me, and so I told Mr. Winterton that I was immensely flattered by his proposal, and would marry him whenever he wishes.”
For the second time she felt his fingers encompassing her wrist, bruising it cruelly.
“You little fool!” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe you!”
“Nevertheless it’s true.” Her grey eyes were quiet and unrevealing as she gazed at him. “I said I would marry him because there didn’t seem to be any alternative, and he’s giving a party tonight at which our engagement will be announced. The wedding will take place practically immediately, because he has plans for a somewhat unusual honeymoon ... but that concerns you!”
Veldon didn’t seem to be listening. He gripped her by her other hand and almost dragged her up against him.
“Tell me something,” he ordered. “Are you tempted by Winterton’s money? ... his position?”
“Of course not,” she gasped back, her expression of astonishment so obviously genuine that it should have convinced him. “How can you imagine such a thing?”
“I can, easily,” he replied tersely. “When a young woman like you decides to marry a man twice her age on some trumped-up pretext...”
“It isn’t a pretext,” she declared furiously—and for the first time she was so angry with him that all the colour left her face, and she started to shake. “I think you are absolutely detestable—and I think Miss Vanessa Brandt is detestable, too, otherwise she wouldn’t despise her own humble beginnings and involve you in something that could be fatal to your career! But so far as I’m concerned your career is important only because, if anything happens to it, I am the one you will blame! You have already said things I’m not likely to forget.”
“What do you mean by Vanessa’s humble beginnings?” he demanded, ignoring the rest.
“Her father isn’t an antique dealer; he keeps a second-hand shop in a part of London you would be most unlikely to frequent. But I was his assistant, and I’m very devoted to him.”
“Then why didn’t you stay with him instead of being tempted by a trip to New York?”
“I wa
sn’t tempted.” Active dislike invaded her expression as she stared up at him. “I was talked into it, and also, I suppose, I was sorry for poor old Hermann. There was a time when his daughter was everything to him, and he made sacrifices for her—he went on living where he still does live, in a tiny flat over his sordid shop, in order that she should be sent away to school and given a good education. And later there was all the expense of training her voice ... and now she despises him!” Her voice quivered with indignation. “She wasn’t even prepared to spend one night in the flat with him before she went into the nursing home!”
Max Veldon accepted this piece of information without comment. And he went on gripping her wrists.
“And you want me to believe that there was nothing—nothing about this trip to New York that tempted you?” he insisted.
She was about to reply contemptuously that a few smart clothes and the opportunity to mix with some superficially smart people would never tempt her, when her native truthfulness got the better of her, and she added a piece of information that did surprise him.
“If I was tempted at all, it was because you were a kind of hero of mine ... someone I worshipped from afar. Like hundreds and thousands of other women who sit in your audiences and watch you I thought you were wonderful. And it seemed almost too good to be true that I could spend a few days in your company, and have them to treasure for the rest of my life. But my very first interview with you was rather like a shock.”
“Yes,” he said quietly, watching her closely. “Why was it a shock?”
“Because it revealed the feet of clay! As a conductor you were—you are—wonderful; but as a man in the life of a young woman like myself there is nothing wonderful about you. You took an almost instantaneous dislike to me, and you never even pretended that it was otherwise. Why should you? When you are you, and I am—well, just me! Why should a great man like yourself put himself out to be polite and considerate to a girl whose rightful background is the shop where she is employed?”
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