But Spencer was not willing that Helen’s first wondering glance should rest on strangers, or that, when able to walk to her own apartments, she should be compelled to pass through the ranks of gapers in the lounge.
“No,” he said. “Ring for the elevator. This lady must be taken to her room,—No. 80, I believe,—then the manageress and a chambermaid can attend to her. Quick! the elevator!”
Bower turned on Millicent like an angry bull. “You have chosen your own method,” he growled. “Very well. You shall pay for it.”
Her venom was such that she was by no means disturbed by his threat. “The other man—the American who brought her here—seems to have bested you throughout,” she taunted him.
He drew himself up with a certain dignity. He was aware that every tongue in the place was stilled, that every ear was tuned to catch each note of this fantastic quartet,—a sonata appassionata in which vibrated the souls of men and women. He looked from Millicent’s pallid face to the faces of the listeners, some of whom made pretense of polite indifference, while others did not scruple to exhibit their eager delight. If nothing better, the episode would provide an abundance of spicy gossip during the enforced idleness caused by the weather.
“The lady whom you are endeavoring to malign, will, I hope, do me the honor of becoming my wife,” he said. “That being so, she is beyond the reach of the slanderous malice of an ex-chorus girl.”
He spoke slowly, with the air of a man who weighed his words. A thrill that could be felt ran through his intent audience. Mark Bower, the millionaire, the financial genius who dominated more than one powerful group in the city, who controlled a ring of theaters in London and the provinces, who had declined a knighthood, and would surely be created a peer with the next change of government,—that he should openly declare himself a suitor for the hand of a penniless girl was a sensation with a vengeance. His description of Millicent as an ex-chorus girl offered another bonne bouche to the crowd. She would never again skip airily behind the footlights of the Wellington, or any other important theater in England. So far as she was concerned, the musical comedy candle that succeeded to the sacred lamp of West End burlesque was snuffed out.
Millicent was actress enough not to flinch from the goad. “A charming and proper sentiment,” she cried with well simulated flippancy. “The marriage of Mr. Mark Bower will be quite a fashionable event, provided always that he secures the assent of the American gentleman who is paying his future wife’s expenses during her present holiday.”
Now, so curiously constituted is human nature, or the shallow worldliness that passes current for it among the homeless gadabouts who pose as British society on the Continent, that already the current of opinion in the hotel was setting steadily in Helen’s favor. The remarkable change dated from the moment of Bower’s public announcement of his matrimonial plans. Many of those present were regretting a lost opportunity. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence—and the worn phrase took a new vitality when applied to some among the company—that any kindness shown to Helen during the preceding fortnight would be repaid a hundredfold when she became Mrs. Mark Bower. Again, not even the bitterest of her critics could allege that she was flirting with the quiet mannered American who had just carried her off like a new Paris. She had lived in the same hotel for a whole week without speaking a word to him. If anything, she had shown favor only to Bower, and that in a way so decorous and discreet that more than one woman there was amazed by her careless handling of a promising situation. Just give one of them the chance of securing such a prize fish as this stalwart millionaire! Well, at least he should not miss the hook for lack of a bait.