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

eyes was not repeated; so his interest vanished, and he urged the mare into a sharp run. Twice in the course of the ride he passed her, but her head never turned. He knew it did not because he turned to see.

So he went back to his tentative romance. She had passed his window and disappeared into the fog, and there was a reasonable doubt of her ever returning from it. The Singer in the Fog; thus he would write it down in his book of memories and sensibly turn the page. Once down-town he would countermand his order, and that would be the end of it. At length he came back to the entrance and surrendered the mare. He was about to cross the square, when he was hailed.

"Hello, Jack! I say, Hillard!"

Hillard wheeled and saw Merrihew. He, too, was in riding-breeches.

"Why, Dan, glad to see you. Were you in the park?"

"Riverside. Beastly cold, too. Come into the Plaza and join me in a cup of good coffee."

"Had breakfast long ago, boy."

"Oh, just one cup! I'm lonesome."

"That's no inducement; but I'll join you," replied Hillard cheerfully.

The two entered the café, sat down, and Merrihew ordered Mocha.

"How are you behaving yourself these days?" asked Merrihew. He drank more coffee and smoked more cigars than were good for him. He was always going to start in next week to reduce the quantity.

"My habits are always exemplary," answered Hillard. "But yours?"

Merrihew's face lengthened. He pulled the yellow hair out of his eyes and gulped his coffee.

"Kitty Killigrew leaves in two weeks for Europe."

"And who the deuce is Kitty Killigrew?" demanded Hillard.

"What?" reproachfully. "You haven't heard of Kitty Killigrew in The Modern Maid? Where've you been? Pippin! Prettiest soubrette that's hit the town in a dog's age."

"I say, Dan, don't you ever tire of that sort? I can't recall when there wasn't a Kitty Killigrew. What's the attraction?" Hillard waved aside the big black cigar. "No heavy tobacco for me in the morning. What's the attraction?"

Merrihew touched off a match, applied it to the black cigar, took the cigar from his teeth and inspected the glowing end critically. He never failed to go through this absurd pantomime; he would miss a train rather than omit it.

"The truth is, Jack, I'm a jackass half the time. I can't get away from the glamour of the footlights. I'm no Johnny; you know that. No hanging round stage-entrances and buying wine and diamonds. I might be reckless enough to buy a bunch of roses, when I'm not broke. But I like 'em, the bright ones. They keep a fellow amused. Most of 'em speak good English and come from better families than you would suppose. Just good fellowship, you know; maybe a rabbit and a bottle of beer after the performance, or a little quarter limit at the apartment, singing and good stories. What you've in mind is the chorus-lady. Not for mine!"

Hillard laughed, recalling his conversation with the policeman.

"Go on," he said; "get it all out of your system, now that you're started."

"And then it tickles a fellow's vanity to be seen with them at the restaurants. That's the way it begins, you know. I'll be perfectly frank with you. If it wasn't for what the other fellows say, most of the chorus-ladies would go hungry. And the girls that you and I know think I'm a devil of a fellow, wicked but interesting, and all that."

Hillard's laughter broke forth again, and he leaned back. Merrihew would always be twenty-six, he would always be youthful.

"And this Kitty Killigrew? I believe I've seen posters of her in the windows, now that you speak of it."

"Well, Jack, I've got it bad this trip. I offered to marry her last night."

"What!"

"Truth. And what do you think? Dropped me very neatly two thousand feet, but softly. And I was serious, too."

"It seems to me that your Kitty is not half bad. What would you have done had she accepted you?"

"Married her within twenty-four hours!"

"Come, Dan, be sensible. You are not such an ass as all that."

"Yes, I am," moodily. "I told you that I was a jackass half the time; this is the half."

"But she won't have you?"

"Not for love or money."

"Are you sure about the money?" asked Hillard shrewdly.

"Seven hundred or seven thousand, it wouldn't matter to Kitty if she made up her mind to marry a fellow. What's the matter with me, anyhow? I'm not so badly set-up; I can whip any man in the club at my weight; I can tell a story well; and I'm not afraid of anything."

"Not even of the future!" added Hillard.

"Do you really think it's my money?" pathetically.

"Well, seven thousand doesn't go far, and that's all you have. If it were seventy, now, I'm not sure Kitty wouldn't reconsider."

Merrihew ran his tongue along the cigar wrapper which had loosened. He had seven thousand a year, and every January first saw him shouldering a thousand odd dollars' worth of last year's debts. Somehow, no matter how he retrenched, he never could catch up. It's hard to pay for a horse after one has ridden it to death, and Merrihew was always paying for dead horses. He sighed.

"What's she like?" asked Hillard, with more sympathy than curiosity.

Merrihew drew out his watch and opened the case. It was a pretty face; more than that, it was a refined prettiness. The eyes were merry, the brow was intelligent, the nose and chin were good. Altogether, it was the face of a merry, kindly little soul, one such as would be most likely to trap the wandering fancy of a young man like Merrihew.

"And she won't have you," Hillard repeated, this time with more curiosity than sympathy.

"Oh, she's no fool, I suppose. Honest Injun, Jack, it's so bad that I find myself writing poetry on the backs of envelopes. And now she's going to Europe!"

"London?"

"No. Some manager has the idea in his head that there is money to be made in Italy and Germany during the spring and summer. American comic-opera in those countries; can you imagine it? He has an angel, and I suppose money is no object."

"This angel, then, has cut out a fine time for his bank account, and he'll never get back to heaven, once he gets tangled up in foreign red-tape. Every large city in Italy and Germany has practically its own opera troupe. In full season it is grand opera, out of season it is comic-opera, not the American kind; Martha, The Bohemian Girl, The Mascotte, The Grand Duchess, and the like. And oh! my boy, the homeliest chorus you ever dreamed of seeing; but they can sing. It's only the ballerina who must have looks and figure. Poor angel! Tell your Kitty to strike for a return ticket to America before she leaves."

"You think it's as bad as that?"

"Look on me as a prophet of evil, if you like, but truthful."

"I'll see that Kitty gets her ticket." Merrihew snapped the case of his watch and drew his legs from under the table. "I lost a hundred last night, too."

"After that I suppose nothing worse can happen," said Hillard cheerily. "You will play, for all my advice."

"It's better to give than receive ... that," replied Merrihew philosophically. "I've a good mind to follow the company. I've always had a hankering to beat it up at Monte Carlo. A last throw, eh? Win or lose, and quit. I might."

"And then again you mightn't. But the next time I go to Italy, I want you to go with me. You're good company, and for the pleasure of listening to your jokes I'll gladly foot the bills, and you may gamble your letter of credit to your heart's content. I must be off. Who is riding the Sandfords' black?"

"Haven't noticed. What do you think of Kitty?"

"Charming."

"And the photo isn't a marker."

"Possibly not."

"Lord, if I could only hibernate for three months, like a bear! My capital might then readjust itself, if left alone that length of time. Jack, why the deuce haven't I a relation I never heard of, who would politely die to-morrow and leave me that beggarly thousand? I'm not asking for much. The harder I chase it, the faster it runs ahead." Merrihew thwacked his boots soundly with his crop.

"Some day I'm going to enter that thousand in the Suburban handicap. And won't there be a killing!"

"It wouldn't do you any good to borrow it?"

"In that case I should owe two thousand instead of one. No, thank you. Shall I see you at the club to-night?"

"Perhaps. Good-by."

They nodded pleasantly and took their separate ways. Merrihew stood very high in Hillard's regard. He was a lovable fellow, and there was something kindred in his soul and Hillard's, possibly the spirit of romance. They had met years before, at a commencement, Merrihew in his mortar-board and gown and Hillard as an old graduate, renewing his youth at the fountains. What drew them together, perhaps more than anything else, was their mutual love of out-door pleasures. Their first meeting was followed by many hunting and fishing expeditions, and many long rides on horseback. Take two men and put them on good horses, send them forth into the wilds to face all conditions of weather and inconveniences, and if they are not fast friends at the end of the journey, rest assured that they never will be.

For all his aversion to cards, there was a bit of the gamester in Hillard; as, once in his office, he decided on the fall of a coin not to withdraw his personal from the paper. He was quite positive that he would never hear that Voice again, but having thrown his dice he would let them lie.

Now, at eleven o'clock that same morning two distinguished Italians sat down to breakfast in one of the fashionable hotels. The one nor the other had ever heard of Hillard, they did not even know that such a person existed; and yet, serenely unconscious, one was casting his life-line, as the palmist would say, across Hillard's. The knots and tangles were to come later.

"The coffee in this country is abominable!" growled one.

"Insufferable!" assented his companion.

The waiter smiled covertly behind his hand. He had a smattering of all tongues, being foreign born. These Italians and these Germans! Why, there is only one place in the world where both the aroma and the flavor of coffee are preserved; and it is not, decidedly not, in Italy or Germany. And if his tip exceeded ten cents, he would be vastly surprised. The Italian is always the same, prince or peasant. He never wastes on necessities a penny which can be applied to the gaming-tables. And these two were talking about Monte Carlo and Ostend and the German Kursaalen.

The younger of the two was a very handsome man, tall, slender and nervous, the Venetian type. His black eyes were keen and energetic and roving, suggesting a temper less calculating than hasty. The mouth, partly hidden under a graceful military mustache, was thin-lipped, the mouth of a man who, however great his vices, was always master of them. From his right cheek-bone to the corner of his mouth ran a scar, very well