The Lure of the Mask, Harold MacGrath [best beach reads of all time .txt] 📗

continued Sandford seriously, "unless you bribed the caretaker, you could not possibly have entered the house. You have been dreaming."

"Very well, then; it begins to look as if I had." It was apparent to Hillard that Sandford was not in his wife's confidence in all things. He also saw the wisdom of dropping the subject while at the table. To take up the thread of that romance again! He needed no wine to tingle his blood.

They took coffee and liqueur in the glass-inclosed balcony. All Naples sparkled at their feet, and the young moon rose over the Sorrentine Hills. Sandford and Merrihew and the other two ladies began an animated exchange of experiences. Hillard found a quiet nook, not far from the lift. He saw that Mrs. Sandford's chair was placed so that she could get a good view of the superb night. He sat down himself, sipped his liqueur meditatively, drank his coffee, and, as she nodded, lighted a cigarette.

"Well?" she said, smiling into his brown eyes. She was rather fond of Hillard; a gentleman always, and one of excellent taste. There was never any wearisome innuendo in his wit nor suggestion in his stories.

"You deliberately winked at me," he began.

"I deliberately did."

"Sandford is in the dark; I suspected as much."

"Regarding the wink?"

"Regarding the mysterious woman who occupied your house by your express authority, and who rode the hunter in the park."

"Was there ever a more beautiful picture?" sweeping her hands toward the city.

"The beauty of it will last several hours yet. Who and what was she?"

"I wish I could find you a wife; you would make a good husband."

"Thank you. I am even willing, with your assistance, to prove it. Who was she, and how came she in your house?"

"She wished that favor, and that her presence in New York should not be known. Now, describe to me exactly what happened. I am worrying about the plate and the silver."

He laughed. "And you will meet me half-way?"

"I promise to tell you all I ... dare."

"There is a mystery?"

"Yes. So begin with your side of it."

He was a capital story-teller. He recounted the adventure in all its color; the voice under his window, the personals in the paper, the interchange of letters, the extraordinary dinner, the mask in the envelope. She followed him with breathless interest.

"Charming, charming!" She clapped her hands. "And how well you tell it! You have told it just as it happened."

"Just as it happened!" confounded for a moment.

"Exactly. I have had a letter, two, in fact. You did not see her face?"

"Only the chin and mouth. But if I ever meet her again I shall know her by her teeth."

"Heavens! And how?"

"Two lower ones are gone; otherwise they would be beautiful."

"Poor man! You have builded your house upon the sands. Her teeth are perfect. She has fooled you."

"But I saw with these two eyes!"

"There is a preparation which theatrical people use; a kind of gum. She mentioned the trick. Isn't she clever?"

"Yet I shall know her hair," doggedly.

She put her hands swiftly to her head. "Now, you have known me for years. What is the color of my hair?"

"Why, it is blond."

"Nothing of the kind. It is auburn. If you can not tell mine, how will you tell hers?"

"I shall probably run after every red-headed woman in Europe till I find her," humorously.

"If you can keep out of jail long enough."

"I shall at any rate remember her voice."

"That is better. Our ears never deceive half so often as our eyes."

"Her face is not scarred, is it?"

"Scarred!" indignantly. "She is as beautiful as a Raphael, as lovely as a Bouguereau. If I were a man I should gladly journey round the world for the sight of her."

"I am willing, even anxious."

"I should fall in love with her."

"I believe I have."

"And I should marry her, too."

"Even that."

"Come, Mr. Hillard; I am just fooling. You are too sensible a man to fall in love with a shadow, a mask. Your fancy has been trapped, that is all. One does not fall in love that way."

"You ought to know," with a sidelong glance at Sandford.

As her glance followed his, hers grew warm and kindly. Sandford, by chance meeting the look, smiled back across the room. This little by-play filled Hillard with a sense of envy and loneliness. At three-and-thirty a bachelor realizes that there is something else in life besides business and travel.

"It is quite useless to ask who she is?" he inquired of his hostess.

"Quite useless."

"She is married?"

"Certainly I have not said so."

He flicked the ash from his cigarette. What was the use of trying to trap a woman into saying what she did not propose to say?

"Have you those letters?"

"One of them I'll show you."

"Why not the other?"

"It would be wasting time. It merely relates to your adventure. She sailed the day after you dined with her."

"That accounts for the shutters. The police and the caretaker were bribed."

"I suspect they were."

"If I were a vain man, and you know I am not, I might ask you if she spoke well of me in this letter. Understand, I am not inquiring."

"But you put the question as adroitly as a woman. We are sure of vanity always. Yes, she spoke of you. She found you to be an agreeable gentleman. But," with gentle malice, "she did not say that she wished she had met you years ago, under more favorable circumstances, or that she liked your eyes, which are really fine ones."

He had to join in her laughter.

"Come, give me the death-stroke and have done with it. Tell me what you dare, and I'll be content with it."

She opened her handkerchief purse and delved among the various articles therein.

"I expected that you would be asking questions, so I came prepared. I did not tell my husband for that very reason. He would have insisted upon knowing everything. Here, read this. It is only a glimpse."

He searched eagerly for the signature.

"Don't bother," she said. "The name is only a nickname we gave her at school."

"School? Do you mean to tell me that you went to school with her? Where?"

"In Pennsylvania first; then in Milan. Read."

O Cara Mia-If only you knew how sorry I am to miss you! Why must
you sail at once? Why not come to my beautiful Venice? True, I
could not entertain you as in the days of my good father. But I
have so much to say to you that can not be written. You ask about
the adventure. Pouf! goes my little dream of greatness. It was a
blank failure. Much as I knew about Italy I could not know
everything. The officials put unheard-of obstacles in our path. The
contracts were utterly disregarded. In the first place, we had not
purchased our costumes and scenery in Italy.

"Costumes and scenery?" Hillard sought the signature again. Mrs. Sandford was staring at the moonlit bay.

That poor manager! And that poor man who advanced the money! They
forgot that the booking is as nothing, the incidentals everything.
The base of all the trouble was a clerk in the consulate at Naples.
He wrote us that there would be no duties on costumes and scenery.
Alas! the manager and his backer are on the way to America, sadder
and wiser men. We surrendered our return tickets to the chorus and
sent them home. The rest of us are stranded-is not that the
word?-here in Venice, waiting for money from home. If I were
alone, it would be highly amusing; but these poor people with me!
There is only one way I can help them, but that, never. You
recollect that my personal income is quarterly, and it will be two
months before I shall have funds. I could get it advanced, but I
dare not. There are persons moving Heaven and earth to find me. My
companions haven't the least idea who I am; to them I am one of the
profession. So here we all are, wandering about the Piazza San
Marco, calling at Cook's every day in hopes of money, and
occasionally risking a penny in corn for the doves. I am staying
with my nurse, my mother's maid, in the Canipo Santa Maria Formosa,
near our beloved Santa Barbara. Very quietly I have guaranteed the
credit of my unfortunate companions, and they believe that
Venetians are very generous people. Generous! Think of it! Come to
Venice, dear; it is all nonsense that you must return to America.
Perhaps you will wonder how I dared appear on the stage in Italy. A
black wig and a theatrical make-up; these were sufficient. A duke
sent me an invitation to take supper with him, as if I were a
ballerina! I sent one of the American chorus girls, a little minx
for mischief. She ate his supper, and then ran away. I understand
that he was furious. Only a few months more, Nell, and then I may
come and go as I please. Come to Venice. Capricciosa.

Hillard did not stir. Another labyrinth to this mystery! Capricciosa; Kitty Killigrew's unknown prima donna; and all he had to do was to take the morning train for Venice, and twenty-four hours later he would be prowling through the Campo Santa Maria Formosa. Though his mind was busy with a hundred thoughts, his head was still bent and his eyes riveted upon the page.

Mrs. Sandford observed him curiously, even sadly. Why couldn't his fancy have been charmed by an every-day, sensible girl, and not by this whimsical, extraordinary woman who fooled diplomats, flaunted dukes, and kept a king at arm's length as a pastime? And yet-!

"Capricciosa," he mused aloud. "That is not her name."

"And I shall not tell it you."

"But her given name? Just a straw; something to hold on; I'm a drowning man." Hillard's pleadings would have melted a heart of stone.

"It is Hilda."

"That is German."

"She prefers it to Sonia."

"Sonia Hilda; it begins well. May I