The Silent Barrier

by Louis Tracy

  CHAPTER XI

  WHEREIN HELEN LIVES A CROWDED HOUR

  "Millicent! You here!" Helen breathed the words in an undertone thatcarried more than a hint of dismay.

  It was one of those rare crises in life when the brain receives apresage of evil without any prior foundation of fact. Helen had everyreason to welcome her friend, none to be chilled by her unexpectedpresence. Among a small circle of intimate acquaintances she countedMillicent Jaques the best and truest. They had drifted apart; but thatwas owing to Helen's lack of means. She was not able, nor did sheaspire, to mix in the society that hailed the actress as a brightparticular star. Yet it meant much to a girl earning her daily breadin a heedless city that she should possess one friend of her own ageand sex who could speak of the golden years when they were childrentogether,--the years when Helen's father was the prospective governorof an Indian province as large as France; when the tuft hunters nowgathered in Maloja would have fawned on her mother in hope ofsubsequent recognition.

  Why, then, did Helen falter in her greeting? Who can tell? She herselfdid not know, unless it was that Millicent rose so leisurely from thetable at which she was drinking a belated cup of tea, and came towardher with a smile that had no warmth in it.

  "So you have returned," she said, "and with both cavaliers?"

  Helen was conscious of a queer humming noise in her head. She wasincapable of calm thought. She realized now that the friend she hadleft in London was here in the guise of a bitter enemy. The verandawas full of people waiting for the post. The snow had banished themfrom links and tennis court. This August afternoon was dark asmid-December at the same hour. But the rendezvous was brilliantlylighted, and the reappearance of the climbers, whose chances of safetyhad been eagerly debated since the snow storm began, drew all eyes.Someone had whispered too that the beautiful woman who arrived fromSt. Moritz half an hour earlier, who sat in her furs and sipped hertea after a long conversation with a clerk in the bureau, was noneother than Millicent Jaques, the dancer, one of the leading lights ofEnglish musical comedy.

  The peepers and whisperers little dreamed that she could be awaitingthe party from the Forno. Now that her vigil was explained, for Bowerhad advanced with ready smile and outstretched hand, the Wraggs andVavasours and de la Veres--all the little coterie of gossips andscandalmongers--were drawn to the center of the hall like steelfilings to a magnet.

  Millicent ignored Bower. She was young enough and pretty enough tofeel sure of her ability to deal with him subsequently. Her cornflowerblue eyes glittered. They held something of the quiet menace of acrevasse. She had traveled far for revenge, and she did not mean toforego it. Helen, whose second impulse was to kiss her affectionately,with excited clamor of welcome and inquiry, stood rooted to the floorby her friend's strange words.

  "I--I am so surprised----" she half stammered in an agony of confuseddoubt; and that was the only lame phrase she could utter during a fewtrying seconds.

  Bower frowned. He hated scenes between women. With his first glimpseof Millicent he guessed her errand. For Helen's sake, in the presenceof that rabbit-eared crowd, he would not brook the unmerited flood ofsarcastic indignation which he knew was trembling on her lips.

  "Miss Wynton has had an exhausting day," he said coolly. "She must gostraight to her room, and rest. You two can meet and talk afterdinner." Without further preamble, he took Helen's arm.

  Millicent barred the way. She did not give place. Again she paid noheed to the man. "I shall not detain you long," she said, looking onlyat Helen, and speaking in a low clear voice that her stage trainingrendered audible throughout the large hall. "I only wished to assuremyself that what I was told was true. I found it hard to believe, evenwhen I saw your name written up in the hotel. Before I go, let mecongratulate you on your conquest--and Mr. Mark Bower on his," sheadded, with clever pretense of afterthought.

  Helen continued to stare at her helplessly. Her lips quivered; butthey uttered no sound. It was impossible to misunderstand Millicent'sobject. She meant to wound and insult in the grossest way.

  Bower dropped Helen's arm, and strode close to the woman who hadstruck this shrewd blow at him. "I give you this one chance!" hemuttered, while his eyes blazed into hers. "Go to your room, or sitdown somewhere till I am free. I shall come to you, and put thingsstraight that now seem crooked. You are wrong, horribly wrong, in yoursuspicions. Wait my explanation, or by all that I hold sacred, youwill regret it to your dying hour!"

  Millicent drew back a little. She conveyed the suggestion that hisnearness was offensive to her nostrils. And she laughed, with duesemblance of real amusement. "What! Has she made a fool of you too?"she cried bitingly.

  Then Helen did exactly the thing she ought not to have done. Shefainted.

  Spencer, in his own vivid phrase, was "looking for trouble" theinstant he caught sight of the actress. Had some Mahatma-devised magiclantern focused on the screen of his inner consciousness a completenarrative of the circumstances which conspired to bring MillicentJaques to the Upper Engadine, he could not have mastered cause andeffect more fully. The unlucky letter he asked Mackenzie to send tothe Wellington Theater--the letter devised as a probe into Bower'smotives, but which was now cruelly searching its author's heart--hadundoubtedly supplied to a slighted woman the clew to her rival'sidentity. Better posted than Bower in the true history of Helen'svisit to Switzerland, he did not fail to catch the most significantword in Millicent's scornful greeting.

  "And with _both_ cavaliers!"

  In all probability, she knew the whole ridiculous story, reading intoit the meaning lent by jealous spleen, and no more to be convinced oferror than the Forno glacier could be made to flow backward.

  "No," said Spencer, "ring for the elevator." _Page 217_]

  But if his soul was vexed by a sense of bygone folly, his brain wascool and alert. He saw Helen sway slightly. He caught her before shecollapsed where she stood. He gathered her tenderly in his arms. Shemight have been a tired child, fallen asleep too soon. Her limp headrested on his shoulder. Through the meshes of her blue veil he couldsee the sudden pallor of her cheeks. The tint of the silk added tothe lifelessness of her aspect. Just then Spencer's heart was sorewithin him, and he was an awkward man to oppose.

  George de Courcy Vavasour happened to crane his neck nearer at thewrong moment. The American sent him flying with a vigorous elbowthrust. He shoved Bower aside with scant ceremony. Millicent Jaquesmet a steely glance that quelled the vengeful sparkle in her own eyes,and caused her to move quickly, lest, perchance, this pale-facedAmerican should trample on her. Before Bower could recover hisbalance, for his hobnails caused him to slip on the tiled floor,Spencer was halfway across the inner hall, and approaching theelevator.

  An official of the hotel hastened forward with ready proffer of help."This way," he said sympathetically. "The lady was overcome by theheat after so many hours in the intense cold. It often occurs. Shewill recover soon. Bring her to a chair in the office."

  But Spencer was not willing that Helen's first wondering glance shouldrest on strangers, or that, when able to walk to her own apartments,she should be compelled to pass through the ranks of gapers in thelounge.

  "No," he said. "Ring for the elevator. This lady must be taken to herroom,--No. 80, I believe,--then the manageress and a chambermaid canattend to her. Quick! the elevator!"

  Bower turned on Millicent like an angry bull. "You have chosen yourown method," he growled. "Very well. You shall pay for it."

  Her venom was such that she was by no means disturbed by his threat."The other man--the American who brought her here--seems to havebested you throughout," she taunted him.

  He drew himself up with a certain dignity. He was aware that everytongue in the place was stilled, that every ear was tuned to catcheach note of this fantastic quartet,--a sonata appassionata in whichvibrated the souls of men and women. He looked from Millicent's pallidface to the faces of the listeners, some of whom made pretense ofpolite indifference, wh
ile others did not scruple to exhibit theireager delight. If nothing better, the episode would provide anabundance of spicy gossip during the enforced idleness caused by theweather.

  "The lady whom you are endeavoring to malign, will, I hope, do me thehonor of becoming my wife," he said. "That being so, she is beyond thereach of the slanderous malice of an ex-chorus girl."

  He spoke slowly, with the air of a man who weighed his words. A thrillthat could be felt ran through his intent audience. Mark Bower, themillionaire, the financial genius who dominated more than one powerfulgroup in the city, who controlled a ring of theaters in London and theprovinces, who had declined a knighthood, and would surely be createda peer with the next change of government,--that he should openlydeclare himself a suitor for the hand of a penniless girl was asensation with a vengeance. His description of Millicent as anex-chorus girl offered another _bonne bouche_ to the crowd. She wouldnever again skip airily behind the footlights of the Wellington, orany other important theater in England. So far as she was concerned,the musical comedy candle that succeeded to the sacred lamp of WestEnd burlesque was snuffed out.

  Millicent was actress enough not to flinch from the goad. "A charmingand proper sentiment," she cried with well simulated flippancy. "Themarriage of Mr. Mark Bower will be quite a fashionable event, providedalways that he secures the assent of the American gentleman who ispaying his future wife's expenses during her present holiday."

  Now, so curiously constituted is human nature, or the shallowworldliness that passes current for it among the homeless gadaboutswho pose as British society on the Continent, that already the currentof opinion in the hotel was setting steadily in Helen's favor. Theremarkable change dated from the moment of Bower's public announcementof his matrimonial plans. Many of those present were regretting a lostopportunity. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence--and theworn phrase took a new vitality when applied to some among thecompany--that any kindness shown to Helen during the precedingfortnight would be repaid a hundredfold when she became Mrs. MarkBower. Again, not even the bitterest of her critics could allege thatshe was flirting with the quiet mannered American who had just carriedher off like a new Paris. She had lived in the same hotel for a wholeweek without speaking a word to him. If anything, she had shown favoronly to Bower, and that in a way so decorous and discreet thatmore than one woman there was amazed by her careless handling of apromising situation. Just give one of them the chance of securing sucha prize fish as this stalwart millionaire! Well, at least he shouldnot miss the hook for lack of a bait.

  Oddly enough, the Rev. Philip Hare gave voice to a general sentimentwhen he interfered in the duel. He, like others, was waiting forhis letters. He saw Helen come in, and was hurrying to offer hiscongratulations on her escape from the storm, when the appearance ofMillicent prevented him from speaking at once. The little man was hotwith vexation at the scene that followed. He liked Helen; he wasunutterably shocked by Millicent's attack; and he resented the unfairand untrue construction that must be placed on her latest innuendo.

  "As one who has made Miss Wynton's acquaintance in this hotel," hebroke in vehemently, "I must protest most emphatically against theoutrageous statement we have just heard. If I may say it, it isunworthy of the lady who is responsible for it. I know nothing of yourquarrel, nor do I wish to figure in it; but I do declare, on my honoras a clergyman of the Church of England, that Miss Wynton's conductin Maloja has in no way lent itself to the inference one is compelledto draw from the words used."

  "Thank you, Mr. Hare," said Bower quietly, and a subdued murmur ofapplause buzzed through the gathering.

  There is a legend in Zermatt that Saint Theodule, patron of theValais, wishing to reach Rome in a hurry, sought demoniac aid tosurmount the impassable barrier of the Alps. Opening his window, hesaw three devils dancing merrily on the housetops. He called them."Which of you is the speediest?" he asked. "I," said one, "I amswift as the wind."--"Bah!" cried the second, "I can fly like abullet."--"These two talk idly," said the third. "I am quick as thethought of a woman." The worthy prelate chose the third. The hourbeing late, he bargained that he should be carried to Rome and backbefore cockcrow, the price for the service to be his saintly soul. Theimp flew well, and returned to the valley of the Rhone long ere dawn.Joyous at his gain, he was about to bound over the wall of theepiscopal city of Sion, when St. Theodule roared lustily, "_Coq,chante! Que tu chantes! Ou que jamais plus tu ne chantes!_" Every cockin Sion awoke at his voice, and raised such a din that the devildropped a bell given to his saintship by the Holy Father, and SaintTheodule was snug and safe inside it.

  The prelate was right in his choice of the third. The thoughts of twowomen took wings instantly. Mrs. de la Vere, throwing away ahalf-smoked cigarette, hurried out of the veranda. Millicent Jaques,whose carriage was ready for the long drive to St. Moritz, decided toremain in Maloja.

  The outer door opened, with a rush of cold air and a whirl of snow.People expected the postman; but Stampa entered,--only Stampa, thebroken survivor of the little band of guides who conquered theMatterhorn. He doffed his Alpine hat, and seemed to be embarrassed bythe unusually large throng assembled in the passageway. Bower saw him,and strode away into the dimly lighted foyer.

  "Pardon, _'sieurs et 'dames_," said Stampa, advancing with his unevengait, a venerable and pathetic figure, the wreck of a giant, a man whohad aged years in a single day. He went to the bureau, and askedpermission to seek Herr Spencer in his room.

  * * * * *

  Helen was struggling back to consciousness when Mrs. de la Vere joinedthe kindly women who were loosening her bodice and chafing her handsand feet.

  The first words the girl heard were in English. A woman's voice wassaying cheerfully, "There, my dear!" a simple formula of marvelousrecuperative effect,--"there now! You are all right again. But yourroom is bitterly cold. Won't you come into mine? It is quite near,and my stove has been alight all day."

  Helen, opening her eyes, found herself gazing up at Mrs. de la Vere.Real sympathy ranks high among good deeds. The girl's lips quivered.Returning life brought with it tears.

  The woman whom she had regarded as a social butterfly sat beside heron the bed and placed a friendly arm round her neck. "Don't cry, youdear thing," she cooed gently. "There is nothing to cry about. You area bit overwrought, of course; but, as it happens, you have scoredheavily off all of us--and not least off the creature who upset you.Now, do try and come with me. Here are your slippers. The corridor isempty. It is only a few steps."

  "Come with you?"

  "Yes, you are shivering with the cold, and my room is gloriouslywarm."

  "But----"

  "There are no buts. Marie will bring a basin of nice hot soup. Whileyou are drinking it she will set your stove going. I know exactly howyou feel. The whole world is topsyturvy, and you don't think there isa smile in your make-up, as that dear American man who carried youhere would say."

  Helen recovered her senses with exceeding rapidity. Mrs. de la Verewas already leading her to the door.

  "What! Mr. Spencer--did he----"

  "He did. Come, now. I shall tell you all the trying details when youare seated in my easy chair, and wrapped in the duckiest Shetlandshawl that a red headed laird sent me last Christmas. Excellent! Ofcourse you can walk! Isn't every other woman in the hotel well awarehow you got that lovely figure? Yes, in that chair. And here is theshawl. It's just like being cuddled by a woolly lamb."

  Mrs. de la Vere turned the keys in two doors. "Reggie always knocks,"she explained; "but some inquisitive cat may follow me here, and I amsure you don't wish to be gushed over now, after everybody has been sohorrid to you."

  "You were not," said Helen gratefully.

  "Yes, I was, in a way. I hate most women; but I admired you ever sinceyou took the conceit out of that giddy husband of mine. If I didn'tspeak, it arose from sheer laziness--a sort of drifting with thestream, in tow of the General and that old mischief maker, Mrs.Vavasour. I'm sorry, and you wil
l be quite justified to-morrow morningin sailing past me and the rest as though we were beetles."

  Then Helen laughed, feebly, it is true, but with a genuine mirth thatchased away momentarily the evergrowing memory of Millicent'sinjustice. "Why do you mention beetles?" she asked. "It is part of myevery day work to classify them."

  Mrs. de la Vere was puzzled. "I believe you have said something verycutting," she cried. "If you did, we deserve it. But please tell methe joke. I shall hand it on to the Wraggs."

  "There is no joke. I act as secretary to a German professor ofentomology--insects, you know; he makes beetles a specialty."

  The other woman's eye danced. "It is all very funny," she said, "andI still have my doubts. Never mind. I want to atone for earliershortcomings. I felt that someone really ought to tell you what tookplace in the outer foyer after you sank gracefully out of the act. Mr.Bower----"

  A tap on the door leading into the corridor interrupted her. It wasMarie, armed with chicken broth and dry toast. Mrs. de la Vere, whoseemed to be filled with an honest anxiety to place Helen at her ease,persuaded her to begin sipping the compound.

  "Well, what did Mr. Bower do?" demanded Helen, who was wondering nowwhy she had fainted. The accusation brought against her by MillicentJaques was untrue. Why should it disturb her so gravely? It did notoccur to her that the true cause was physical,--a too sudden change oftemperature.

  "He sat on that young woman from the Wellington Theater very severely,I assure you. From her manner we all imagined she had some sort ofclaim on him; but if she was laboring under any such delusion he curedher. He said--Are you really strong enough to stand a shock?"

  "Twenty shocks. I can't think how I could have been so silly----"

  "Nerves, my dear. We all have 'em. Sometimes, if I didn't smoke Ishould scream. No woman really likes to see her husband flirtingopenly with her friends. I'm no saint; but my wickedness is defensive.Now, are you ready?"

  "Quite ready."

  "Mr. Bower told us, _tout le monde_, you know, that he meant to marryyou."

  "Oh!" said Helen.

  During an appreciable pause neither woman spoke. Helen was not surewhether she wanted to laugh or be angry. Mrs. de la Vere eyed hercuriously. The girl's face was yet white and drawn. It was impossibleto guess how the great news affected her. The de la Veres were poor ontwo thousand a year. What did it feel like to be the prospective brideof a millionaire, especially when you were--what was it?--secretary toa man who collected beetles!

  "Did Mr. Bower assign any reason for making that remarkablestatement?" said Helen at last.

  "He explained that the fact--I suppose it is a fact--would safeguardyou from the malice of an ex-coryphee. Indeed, he put it morebrutally. He spoke of the 'slanderous malice of an ex-chorus girl.'The English term sounds a trifle harsher than the French, don't youthink?"

  It began to dawn on Helen that Mrs. de la Vere's friendliness mighthave a somewhat sordid foundation. Was she tending her merely tosecure the freshest details of an affair that must be causing manytongues to wag?

  "I am acquiring new theories of life since I came to Maloja," she saidslowly. "One would have thought that I might be the first person to bemade aware of Mr. Bower's intentions."

  "Oh, this is really too funny. May I light a cigarette?"

  "Please do. And now it is my turn to ask you to point out theexquisite humor of the situation."

  "Don't be vexed with me, child. You needn't say another word if youdon't wish it; but surely you are not annoyed because I have given youthe tip as to what took place in the hall?"

  "You have been exceedingly good----"

  "No. I haven't. I was just as nasty as the others, and I sneered likethe rest when Bower showed up a fortnight since. I was wrong, and Iapologize for it. Regard me as in sackcloth and ashes. But my heartwent out to you when you dropped like a log among all those staringpeople. I've--I've done it myself, and my case was worse than yours.Once in my life I loved a man, and I came home one day from thehunting field to read a telegram from the War Office. He was'missing,' it said--missing--in a rear-guard action in Tirah. Do youknow what that means?"

  A cloud of smoke hid her face; but it could not stifle the sob in hervoice. There was a knock at the door.

  "Are you there, Edith?" demanded Reginald de la Vere.

  "Yes. Go away! I'm busy."

  "But----"

  "Go away, I tell you!"

  Then she jerked a scornful hand toward the door. "Six months later Iwas married--men who are missed among the Afridis don't come back,"she said.

  "I'm more sorry than I can put into words!" murmured Helen.

  "For goodness' sake don't let us grow sentimental. Shall we return toour sheep? Don't be afraid that I shall pasture the goats in the hallon your confidences. Hasn't Bower asked you?"

  "No."

  "Then his action was all the more generous. He meant to squelch thatfriend of yours--is she your friend?"

  "She used to be," said Helen sadly.

  "And what do you mean to do about it? You will marry Bower, ofcourse?"

  Helen's heart fluttered. Her color rose in a sudden wave. "I--I don'tthink so," she breathed.

  "Don't you? Well, I like you the better for saying so. I can picturemyself putting the same questions to one of the Wragg girls--to bothof 'em, in fact. I am older than you, and very much wiser in some ofthe world's ways, and my advice is, Don't marry any man unless you aresure you love him. If you do love him, you may keep him, for men arepatient creatures. But that is for you to decide. I can't help youthere. I am mainly concerned, for the moment, in helping you over theice during the next day or two--if you will let me, that is. Probablyyou have determined not to appear in public to-night. That will be amistake. Wear your prettiest frock, and dine with Reggie and me. Weshall invite Mr. Bower to join us, and two other people--some man andwoman I can depend on to keep things going. If we laugh and kick up noend of a noise, it will not only worry the remainder of the crowd, butyou score heavily off the theatrical lady. See?"

  "I can see that you are acting the part of the good Samaritan," criedHelen.

  "Oh, dear, no--nothing so antiquated. Look at your futureposition--the avowed wife of a millionaire. Eh, what? as Georgiesays."

  "But I am not anything of the kind. Mr. Bower----"

  "Mr. Bower is all right. He has the recognized history of the man whomakes a good husband, and you can't help liking him, unless--unlessthere is another man."

  "There, at least, I am----" Helen hesitated. Something gripped herheart and checked the modest protestation of her freedom.

  Mrs. de la Vere laughed. "If you are not sure, you are safe," shesaid, with a hard ring in her utterance that belied her easygoingphilosophy. "Really, you bring me back a lost decade. Now, Helen--mayI call you Helen?"

  "Yes, indeed."

  "Well, then, don't forget that my name is Edith. You have just half anhour to dress. I need every second of the time; so off you run to yourroom. As I hear Reggie flinging his boots around next door, I shallhurry him and arrange about the table. Call for me. We must go to thefoyer together. Now kiss me, there's a dear."

  Helen was wrestling with her refractory tresses--for the coiffure thatsuits glaciers and Tam o'Shanters is not permissible in eveningdress--when a servant brought her a note.

  "DEAR MISS WYNTON," it ran,--"If you are able to come down to dinner, why not dine with me? Sincerely,

  "CHARLES K. SPENCER."

  She blushed and laughed a little. "I am in demand," she thought,flashing a pardonable glance at her own face in the mirror. She readthe brief invitation again. Spencer had a trick of printing the Kin his signature. It caught her fancy. It suggested strength,trustworthiness. She did not know then that one of the shrewdestscoundrels in the Western States had already commented on certainqualities betokened by that letter in Spencer's name.

  "I cannot refuse," she murmured. "To be candid, I don't want torefuse. What shall I do?"

 
; Bidding the servant wait, she twisted her hair into a coil, threw awrap round her shoulders, and tapped on Mrs. de la Vere's door.

  "_Entrez!_" cried that lady.

  "I am in a bit of difficulty," said Helen. "Mr. Spencer wishes me todine with him. Would you----"

  "Certainly. I'll ask him to join us. Reggie will see him too. Really,Helen, this is amusing. I am beginning to suspect you."

  So Spencer received a surprising answer. He read it without any signof the amusement Mrs. de la Vere extracted from the situation, forHelen took care to recite the whole arrangement.

  "I'm going through with this," he growled savagely, "even if I have todrink Bower's health--damn him!"