The next moment he was gone, and George was staring after him.
CHAPTER VIII
[A BACCHANTE]
Lola Velez was the rage for a season. She sprang into fame in a single night, and thenceforth held an undisputed position as the favorite of the London public. She was not exceptionally handsome, nor was her dancing distinguished by any special grace; but about her there was something weird and original, which appealed to her audience. Such an extraordinary dancer had never been seen on the stage. She capered like one in a frenzy, with mad leaps and bounds, and throughout her orgiastic performance behaved as one possessed. It was not so much the poetry of motion as the madness of movement. George Brendon had been instrumental in introducing her to the public, and she owed her position as much to his kindness as to her own genius.
It was a snowy winter's night when Brendon found her. He had just entered Pembroke Square, where he had lodgings, when he heard a moan. Turning aside into the shadow of a wall he found a woman lying there, exhausted with cold and hunger. Always anxious to do good, he brought the poor creature to his rooms. Under the influence of food and wine and warmth she revived sufficiently to tell her story.
Her name, she stated, was Lola Velez. She was Spanish by birth, but had lived many years in Italy. Trained as a dancer, she had appeared at several of the best theaters with more or less success; but owing to her violent temper she had lost all chance of gaining a permanent position. But that Lola was rendered weak by privations she would not have told George the exact truth; but she confessed to her temper, to a certain episode connected with the stabbing of a woman of whom she was jealous, and to the many quarrels which had resulted in her being thrown out of employment. Finding Italy too hot to hold her, she had danced her way to Paris through various small towns, but here, as elsewhere, her temper proved her ruin. Then she had crossed the Channel, only to find that the market was overstocked with dancers. Unable to obtain employment, and having very little money, the unfortunate woman had fallen lower and lower, until she was reduced to begging in the streets. Finally she was turned out of her poor lodgings and had expended her last sixpence on food. It was shortly after this that Brendon found her.
He acted the part of a good Samaritan. Giving her a sovereign; he sent her away, restored in a measure to her right mind. The next day he saw the proprietor of a music-hall, with whom he was acquainted, and procured her an engagement in a ballet. It was a Dresden china piece, and the violent dancing of Lola was by no means suited to the Watteau costumes and stately dances of the powder and patches type. But the manager--a shrewd Jew called Kowlaski--saw in his new recruit the possibilities of success. He staged a ballet adapted from "The Bacchanals" of Euripides, and Lola danced the part of Agave, the mother of Pentheus, who is rendered insane by Bacchus.
Her success was immediate. She enacted the part with a reckless abandon and a wild frenzy which thrilled the house. For the moment Lola was not herself, but the wild Theban Queen raging in the orgies of the Wine-god. All London came to see the frantic revels over which Lola presided, and night after night the little music-hall was filled to overflowing. Lola made good use of her fame. She insisted that her salary should be raised, took modest lodgings in Bloomsbury, and, for a time, saved her money as a provision against old age and poverty. On the stage she was a dancing demon, but at home no one could have been more modest. There was not a breath of scandal against her, in spite of Mrs. Ward's hint to Brendon.
This change in the formerly reckless woman was caused by love and gratitude to George. He had saved her from starvation, from death, he had procured her the engagement which had led to her success and present ease, and, figuratively speaking, she cast herself and all she had at his feet. Brendon found this excessive gratitude rather trying. Even then he was in love with Dorothy, whom he had met twice or thrice, and he was not disposed to accept the wild passion which Lola so freely offered to him. He tried to make her see reason, to look upon him as a friend and not as a lover, but in her insane way she resolutely refused to regard him as other than the man she intended to marry. In spite of her tempers and her wild career Lola had never erred, and so far Brendon could well have made her his wife. But he did not love her, and hardly relished the idea of taking this wild creature to his heart and home.
Lola could not understand this coldness. She was accustomed to see men at her feet and to spurn them. Now that she was willing to surrender her liberty and to give her love, it exasperated her to think that the one man she had chosen would have none of her. As yet she knew nothing of Brendon's love for Dorothy, but with the instinct of a jealous woman guessed that some such passion engrossed the mind of the man she desired to marry. Again and again she deluged George with questions, which he always refused to answer, so she could learn nothing. Wearied of her persistency, Brendon stopped away, and for a few weeks Lola did not see him. She followed him to his rooms, but found him absent. Then she saw his name in the papers connected with the Amelia Square tragedy, and wrote to him. He accepted her invitation and came to supper, less because of her desire than because he wished to speak to her about Bawdsey. The name of Lola Velez on the lips of the red man had startled Brendon almost as much as the fact that Bawdsey appeared to be acquainted with him. George could not recall meeting the man, and as he was not yet sufficiently famous for his name to be on the lips of the public, he wondered how it came about that Bawdsey knew of his existence. Anxious to know who the man was, he sent a note, marked private, to Miss Bull, and received a reply stating that Mr. Bawdsey was a new boarder, and, so far as she knew, a gentleman who lived on his income. But this did not satisfy Brendon, as it did not account for Bawdsey's knowledge. There remained Lola to question, and to Lola George went a night or two after the rescue of the red man. George made up his mind, and a strong mind it was, that he would not leave Lola until he knew positively how her name came to be mentioned by Bawdsey.