CHAPTER XIII
"What would I wear if I were you?"
Miss Proll, echoing Claire's question, swept the array of finery upon the bed with a critical eye and finally drew forth the iridescent peacock-blue dress with which Claire had startled even the patrons of the Café Ithaca.
Claire shook her head. "It's cut rather too low," she said.
But Miss Proll would not listen to any such argument. "I've a black-lace shawl ... my mother's. If you put that about your shoulders...."
Claire allowed herself to be persuaded. She had very little heart in the adventure, anyway, and Miss Proll seemed to be taking such a tremulous joy in being daring by proxy. In the end the results justified the choice. The black-lace shawl tempered the gown's wanton splendor, and, lacking any exaggeration of hair or complexion, Claire's personality glowed warmly but without flare. She emerged neither the Claire of church-social evenings nor Café Ithaca midnights, but a Claire tempered into the crucible of both these divergent experiences.
Nellie Holmes, answering the message sent through Danilo, arrived in time to put one or two deft touches to the general effect, a twist here and a soft pat there, that added a chic note to Miss Proll's rather prim efforts.
"Well, Robson," she said, standing off critically, "but you do give swell clothes a chance, don't you? Friend Danilo ought to throw his chest out about twelve inches when he gets his eyes on you to-night. By the way, what is the matter with him? He looks like a sick kitten that's been rained on. I never did see such a sad comedian. The face he's wearing these days ain't much of a compliment to you."
The taxicab came promptly at half past eight.
Claire went in to say good-by to her mother. But Mrs. Robson merely opened her eyes, and closed them again.
"I don't think she knows me," Claire faltered. "I wonder whether I ought to go? What do you think, Nell? The whole thing seems such a farce!"
Her passionate exclamation brought a questioning lift of the eyebrows to Nellie Holmes's face. "What do you mean, Robson? Your mother is all right.... I don't think Danilo would let you leave if.... Tell me, have you and Danilo...."
"No. I'm just tired, Nell. Let me go and have it over with."
She released herself from her friend's implied embrace and went down to the waiting taxi.
She met Lily Condor in the hallway of the St. Francis, almost at the door of the dressing-room.
"I've just taken a look in at the audience," Mrs. Condor said. "The place is packed. Even the real people have come early to-night. It's plain that you're the attraction."
Claire tried to turn this observation off with a laugh, but she knew in her heart that Lily Condor was right. The newspaper chatter had had its effect.
Mrs. Condor swept on the stage a little ahead of Claire at precisely fifteen minutes past nine. A patter of applause greeted her. But a moment later Claire came into view, and a clapping of hands, out of all proportion to her position as accompanist, rippled through the room. Claire stood for the briefest of moments facing the throng, bending slightly forward in acknowledgment of the recognition given her. But in that short time it seemed that she had taken note of every familiar face in the crowd below—Stillman, Flint without his wife, and, farther back, Miss Munch and Mrs. Richards, Mrs. Finnegan and "the old man," Doctor Stoddard, Mrs. Towne, even Lycurgus and a half-score of the Ithaca patrons, including a few of the old entertainers headed by Doris, the French Jewess. They were all applauding heartily, except Miss Munch and her cousin.
"What irony!" flashed through Claire's mind as she took her seat before the piano.
Six months ago she had been starving for just the recognition that was now her portion. To-night she found applause empty of any real meaning. And the presence of these people who had colored her life made her feel as if all the joys and hopes and fears of her existence had been suddenly made flesh and were sitting in judgment upon her. She began to play.
Presently Lily Condor's voice came to her—remote, unreal, a thin, clear stream of song like the trickling of some screened fountain.
"Mrs. Condor is singing well to-night," she thought.
At the end of three numbers the applause was still insistent, but Mrs. Condor denied the clamor with a smiling shake of the head. Flowers began to be handed up—orchids and roses and carnations and flamboyant peonies. Claire passed Mrs. Condor a share of the bloom and together they bowed their acknowledgments. They came back upon the stage for a fourth and last time. It was then that Claire caught glimpses of others whose presence had escaped her—her two aunts, Billy Holmes sitting alone, and back, far back, standing with his hands folded in a sort of dreadful resignation, Danilo, his lips still pallid and the hollows in his cheeks showing up even in the distance.
"You did beautifully," Claire said to Mrs. Condor as they gained the cloak-room.
"Yes ... I know.... Because I realized that it was for the last time.... I'm through."
She tossed Claire's flowers upon a lounge and went back to hear the next number.
Claire looked over the cards attached to the bouquets. The orchids were from Stillman, roses from Nellie Holmes, a flaming bunch of carnations from Lycurgus, and—she looked twice at the card—the peonies bore Flint's name.... Not a sign from Danilo!
She decided to go home. She looked about for the attendant in charge of the wraps, and discovered that the room was empty. The sound of a violin floated from the concert platform. She went out and glanced down the passageway. The maid was standing in a screened position by the entrance to the hall, listening. Claire went back and sat down upon the lounge beside her flowers, and as she did so Danilo stepped into the room. She rose with a quick movement of protest.
"Really—you mustn't!" she objected. "This is the ladies' dressing-room."
He ignored her with a malignant smile; he did not speak. But he walked rapidly toward the heap of flowers and began to snatch at the attached cards with sudden fury.
"Stillman!" he sneered. "Holmes—Lycurgus—Flint!" He looked at her with glittering eyes. "Then it is so!"
"What do you mean?"
"Flint!" he cried. He tore the card into bits and flung them to the ground. "So we men are all alike? Well, you ought to know! You have had experience enough. What a fool I have been! What a fool! Well, I am not like the rest of them!"
She drew away. His brow had curdled with bitter intensity. He took her arm in a firm grip and drew a pistol from his pocket.
"Do you see that?" He held the weapon up to her. "I bought that yesterday to call the man out and shoot him.... Then I heard that there was another. Well, in my country we do not waste more than one bullet."
His eyes fell upon her with a mad fury, yet she faced him calmly, almost unafraid.
"Why don't I scream?" she asked herself. "He intends to kill me ... here! And yet I am not even trying to...."
And suddenly she discovered that he had a great black smudge on his nose. She wanted to laugh.
"In my country we do not waste more than one bullet!" he was repeating.
"Yes ... I heard you. You don't have to shout! I'm not deaf!" she could hear herself saying.
He lifted the pistol higher, on a level with her mouth. She could see by the glitter in his eyes that he was in the grip of a dreadful frenzy.
"Temporary insanity! That will be his defense!" she thought at once.
And she pictured herself lying before him in a crimson pool, saw a black, surging crowd pushing into the dressing-room from the hotel corridors, felt herself lifted up tenderly by some one. Would Ned Stillman pick her up? Or perhaps Flint?... She imagined the trial—Danilo pale and grief-worn, incapable of caring whether he lived or died, oblivious to his surroundings. Temporary insanity ... that would be his lawyer's plea.... The black smudge was still there ... it was too ridiculous! She fumbled with her free hand and, lifting the edge of Miss Proll's lace shawl deliberately, wiped the spot from the tip of Danilo's nose.
At that moment she heard a sharp report, glass came crashing to the floor.
"Well, at least his face is clean!" flashed through her mind.... She felt herself sinking backward....
"Yes, a pistol-shot!" the maid was reiterating. Claire opened her eyes. She was lying upon the lounge and the flowers had been thrown unceremoniously upon the floor and were being trampled underfoot. The orchids, crushed and abandoned, looked particularly sorry. She had an impulse to rise and rescue them.
"Nonsense!" It was Lily Condor's voice. "She merely fainted. What you heard must have been falling glass. She struck the mirror as she fell."
An enormous relief came over Claire. She closed her eyes again. "Where is Danilo?" she asked herself.... Suddenly she remembered every detail of what had gone before—the pistol, the black smudge, the sharp report, the crash of falling glass. It was the black smudge on Danilo's nose that had saved her. She realized that now. What a ridiculous thing life was, anyway! And what trivial circumstances determined its issues! The wrong seats at a church social had yielded her Stillman. A black smudge upon the nose of an emotionally shaken man had snatched her from death. What grotesque impulse had moved her to reach forward at the critical moment and flick the tip of Danilo's nose with Miss Proll's lace shawl? Miss Proll's lace shawl! Suppose she had not worn it? Would she have attempted to remove the speck with a bare finger? She doubted it. Then even Miss Proll's lace shawl had played its part! It was all very puzzling; the pattern of life became too intricate, too full of flaming colors that in the weaving seemed of dullest drab.... The muffled talking about her began again.
"Excuse me for troubling you," she heard Mrs. Condor say, "but Claire here.... I have looked all over for Danilo.... Oh, nothing serious!... Her mother.... A little old maid? It must be the dressmaker who.... Yes, bring her in, by all means."
Claire roused herself. She was sitting on the edge of the couch when Ned Stillman came through the door with Miss Proll. Claire understood at once. She rose to her feet. Lily Condor started toward her.
"Oh no—really, I am quite all right. What is the matter? Is my mother...."
"Yes," answered Miss Proll. "You had better come at once."
Stillman went to call a taxicab. Mrs. Condor helped Claire into her wrap. In less than five minutes they were all standing at the curb, ready to step into the vibrating car. Stillman lifted the ladies in. He was drawing back when Claire thrust her head out and said:
"Won't you please come, too? I am not sure about Danilo, and...."
He climbed in, slamming the door.
Claire went into her mother's room alone. Nellie Holmes was bending anxiously over the sufferer.
"You have come in time," Nellie was saying as she yielded her place to Claire.
Mrs. Robson looked up bewildered. For a moment her dull eyes roamed restlessly about as if in search of some missing thing. Finally, with a great effort the words shaped themselves. Claire listened attentively.
"Danilo ... where is Danilo?"
"Yes ... in a moment.... Presently."
Mrs. Robson closed her eyes with a smile of satisfaction. It was her last conscious moment. Slowly she fell into a stupor.... Toward midnight she died.
It was all very simple, Claire thought afterward. Much simpler than living.