“Gad!” he remarked with appalled conviction. “Death’s too good for them! Here, let’s get out of this while I’ve got strength——”
Banford lifted a pleading hand. There was a warning roll of drums, a preliminary lilt of violins, and the orchestra swung triumphantly into the “Biddy Waltz”—the waltz that all London had revolved to for three good months. The house sighed like a delighted child, and far up in the gallery an ecstatic voice called “Ah, there, lassie!” And another echoed “Come ahn, Biddy—Alf and me’s ’ere!”
And onto a stage that was black as night, with one great bound as though she had leapt through infinite space from a falling star into the small safe circle of the spotlight, came Biddy O’Rourke, straight on the tips of her silver toes, with laughter for a dark world in both her outstretched hands—and the piece of the world that faced her rose to its feet and shouted a welcome. All but one.
The Black Duke of Bolingham sat square in the centre in the first row of seats in the Liberty Music Hall as still as though he had been struck down by lightning, with the “Biddy Waltz” rising and falling about him unheeded, his eyes fixed incredulously on the Vision in the spotlight. The Vision had already fixed the eyes and turned the heads and broken the hearts of half the masculine population of London (the other half not having seen her!) but nothing that the duke had heard had prepared him for this.
Who could have told him that a music hall dancer called Biddy O’Rourke, late of Dublin, no taller than a child and seventeen years old to the day, could look like a fairy and an angel and an imp and a witch and a dream? Not Gaddy Banford, of a certainty—not Gaddy, who, in a burst of lyric enthusiasm, had confided to his duke that she was little and blonde and light on her feet. “Little”—you who were more fantastically minute than any elf, Biddy! Blonde—oh, sacrilege, to dismiss thus that foam and froth of curls cresting and bubbling about your gay head like champagne, with the same pure glitter of pale gold—that skin of pearl beneath which danced little flames of rose fire—those eyes, bluer than anything on earth—blue as the skies and seas and flowers that haunt our dreams. Light on your feet—oh, Biddy, you, who soared and floated and drifted like a feather in the wind, like a butterfly gone mad—like a flying leaf and a dancing star! Had he said that you had a nose tilted as a flower petal, and a mouth that tilted, too? Had he said that when you blew across the dark stage that you would be arrayed in silver brighter than foam and white more airy than clouds? Had he said that you would dance not only with those miraculous toes but with your curls and with your lashes and with your lips and with your heart? Had he said that you would come laughing, little Biddy?
High on the tips of those incredible toes she came—nearer and nearer, so swift and light and sure that it seemed to Bolingham’s dazzled eyes that it would take less than a breath to blow her over that barrier of light straight into his arms—straight into his heart—into his tired and lonely heart. He leaned forward, and the vision of gold and silver stared back at him, faltered, tilted forward on her toes, and flung down to him the airy music of her mirth.
“Oh, I couldn’t any more dance with you looking like that than I could grow feathers!” cried the Vision. “No, not if Saint Patrick himself were to bid me. Whatever in the whole world’s the matter?”
The audience stopped howling its delirious approval at their Biddy’s appearance in order to revel in their Biddy’s chaff. No one could chaff like Biddy—no one nearer than Cork, at any rate. It was better than seeing her dance to listen to her laugh, gentle as a lamb, and pert as a monkey, and gay as a Bank Holiday. Free as air, too; if any of those Johnnies in the stalls tried any of their nonsense, it was a fair treat to hear her give ’em what for! The audience stood on tiptoes and shoved and elbowed in riotous good humour in their efforts to locate her latest victim—that great black fellow with shoulders like a prize-fighter, likely. The great black fellow promptly gratified their fondest expectations by falling into the silver net of Biddy’s laughter and answering her back.
“Thanks,” he replied distinctly. “Nothing in the whole world’s the matter—now.”
“Whatever were you thinkin’ to make you scowl the big black ogre himself then?”