“You were in the Abracadabra the whole evening, and the only turn you missed was mine.”
He began to see. This, then, was Lizzie’s line at present, yet how on earth, under the absurd and Italianised stage-name on the programme, even if it had attracted his attention at all, could he ever have dreamed of looking for Lizzie Devine?
“Why, of course, I had no idea it was you,” he said.
“Well, you see, you needn’t have looked so black and suspicious at me. I’m a first-rate draw there, I can tell you, and that’s worth something a week. And I’ve got other engagements sticking out that are better still.”
“I’m delighted to hear it, Lizzie. And—how well you’re looking!”
“That’s more than you are,” she said quickly, the glow of pride and pleasure evoked by the compliment from his lips giving way to a helpless feeling of compunction and concern as she looked at him, the while in a confused whirl her thoughts were chasing each other round and round. She had heard enough of Cranston gossip to know what had happened between General Dorrien and his eldest son, and now the appearance of the latter, accidentally encountered after all this time, had enabled her shrewdly to fill up the gap. What could she do? If only she could help him. She had gone up in the world materially, and was going up still more—not by reason of her performance, which was only average, but by her rare physical attractiveness—and was commanding large salaries. Yet withal, she had kept straight by reason of the memory of the man talking with her here to-night; but ah! what a wreck he was compared with his former self, and the reason thereof nobody was more capable of appreciating. Yet she knew she was as powerless to help him in the slightest degree as yon ragged tramp “singing” outside the public-house over the road just before closing time; and that apart from the certainty that now he only saw her as the daughter of a flagrantly drunken and disreputable village rowdy.
“Getting late, isn’t it?” he said, misinterpreting her silence. “We might drop in somewhere and get a ‘split’ or something before closing time.”
“We’ll drop in and get something—yes,” she answered decisively, “but nowhere else than in my own place. You’re not too proud, are you—remembering old times on the other side? No, you can’t be.”
He laughed wearily. “I don’t know. I’m not much up to conviviality these days. I think I’ll go and turn in. Fact is I’m beastly tired.”
“Great Scott, but that’s a fine girl!” said a voice behind, obviously not intended to be heard by its object or her escort. “Wonder if she’ll be as disappointing as to the face.”