“I don’t believe that there would be any investigation, if only because London first believed those outrageous stories of Levering’s, and then reacted from them. He overreached himself—”
“Levering was extraordinarily moderate. No doubt it would be as you say, as long as I remained a mere prima donna, for people are only too anxious there should be no obstacle between their conscience and the pleasure of lionizing: but the moment I gave up the stage, married one of their own—I should be stoned out of the gates and you with me.”
Ordham sprang to his feet, overturning his chair. “Enough of improbabilities. Mabel has no intention of dying. We have only the present to consider and we have wasted too many words already. You and I exist in a void. We have been driven straight toward each other for the last fourteen months. As well try to escape the morrow’s sun—”
She too had risen and pushed back her chair, but she kept the table between them. Her face flushed almost black, then turned so white that he thought her about to faint. But something in her eyes arrested him. He held his breath. Once more he almost turned on his heel.
“Then listen to the whole story,” she cried, with that hoarse muddle of accents that banished the very memory of her gift of song. “God! how am I to say it all? And is it for your sake alone? I wonder? I have vowed to save you from yourself, give you to public life; but I doubt if I could bring myself to rip the grave-clothes and show the corpse, if my own career were not so dear to me, the delight in song, in art, in holding great publics spellbound, in reigning a queen of sorts—and a singer’s time is brief enough! I have asked—oh, many times—whether I loved you or my art most, and the answer has not always been the same, not by any means. I don’t know! I don’t know!
“But not for a moment do I believe that we could compromise with the world as you have arranged in your royal manner. It would mean that one of us would have to go into obscurity, be forgotten by the world, and that would be my part. You would never give way, and I should hate you if you did. Good God! Do you think I have thought of anything else since my return to Munich? I have been tempted to scald my flesh to relieve the torments of my mind. And I tell you there is no way out, there is nothing for us in this life but what we have had already, nothing! We must part, and part to-night, before it is too late, and as there is no other way to bring you to your senses, I shall tell you that hideous history, not only to blast your love out of existence, but to inspire you with a vision of the enthusiasm with which London would receive me as a peeress, should you ever be free.”
She hurried on as if she feared he might protest, or her own courage ebb. “I have told you that I was bred in a coal-mining district, where I never saw a clean face, where I do not recall a fugitive instinct for cleanliness in myself, where human beings were merely brutes that walked on two legs instead of four. We threw our dead out into the snow to lie there until the ground thawed—until a reporter chanced along, wrote a sensational story for his newspaper, and put our overseer to shame. I did not know the alphabet; perhaps I did not know there was such a thing—I forget.
“I was not fifteen when a drummer came to the hamlet, an alert flashy young man. I think I told you that I wore hopsacking—if your imagination can picture that material. But in spite of hopsacking, in spite of a dirty face, the man saw the promise of beauty, and to do the creature justice he thought me several years older than I was, for I was already very tall. He made no impression upon me whatever during that visit, but on his return some months later he brought me candy, ribbons, many small trinkets which I could hide, and promised me unlimited silk and diamonds if I would go with him. The men of the district had not been unkind to me, except that I was made to do double the usual woman’s work on account of my physique and strength; the father of the family I lived with had no doubt given me the benefit of his protection, as I was able to earn almost as much as a boy. As for myself, I was always too busy or too tired to get into mischief. I do not fancy that the silks and jewels would have tempted me particularly, for I had never seen any, and he had some trouble making his meaning clear. But when he promised me a life of ease, a comfortable home, and a servant, I did not hesitate a moment. I stole off one night and met him at a flag station where he gave me a suit of decent clothes to put on, and the train came along half an hour later. He took me to New York. I ran away from him three times in the first month. I not only hated him, but I was made to do all the work in his dingy little flat. But the streets terrified me and I went back to him. I lived with him a year, and he was often away. During that year I learned many things. I saw children going to school and knew what it meant, for he had amused himself teaching me to read and write. I saw the outside of luxury and pleasure. He gave me good sensible clothes and took me to the theatre, where we sat in the gallery and gazed down upon a bewildering world of wealth and fashion. All the women looked to me like goddesses or angels. So did the actresses!
“The days were very long. No one in the big cheap apartment house ever spoke to me, and one day the janitress slapped me for spilling milk in the entrance and called me a name one does not forget. My man was coarse and violent. I hated him increasingly. There was but one way of escape. I had often been out with him late at night. I went out one night alone. By this time I was conscious of my looks, and from some remote recess in my slowly awakening brain the instinct for dress had crept forth. I did not return to the flat. I lived the life of the streets with complete unconcern until I finally picked up an easy-going man of middle age with a leaning toward benevolence, whom I asked to educate me, and who consented, much pleased with the element of variety thus introduced into a somewhat humdrum existence. He put me in a little flat not far from his own modest brownstone mansion, found me a respectable-looking harridan to act as chaperon and sent me to a school as his ward. I disliked him as much as my original protector, but I tolerated him until I was eighteen, and as well educated as the ordinary girl of a year or two younger. By this time he had fallen into the habit of bringing men to the flat to dinner. He was proud of his discovery, I was pert and sharp and bad-tempered, and amused him and his friends. These evenings were not very hilarious, but they must have been an immense relief to the respectable man with a sneaking blackguard in him—a common enough type—after the dull order of his family circle. They were not even fashionable; he was a merchant of some standing and a fair income, but far from being a high liver in any way.
“He looked upon me as a child, a bright waif who naturally desired to educate herself against the time when beauty should have fled, and she might aspire to some means of support above service. I made my deliberate choice of the youngest and least ill-favoured of his friends, a bachelor with a gay temper and good manners. That was my first exercise of the art of fascination. Heretofore, hardly dreaming of anything higher, I had been a mere creature of commerce. I vanquished him in a week, and transferred my belongings to another retreat. I liked this man well enough. He surrounded me with luxuries, provided me with private teachers, and gave me a liberal allowance.