"Man! who are you to drive me from this threshold? Out of the way! Clear!—and let me look at her. Do you ask whom? She! that woman who stands behind you smiling, with the white dove perched upon her whiter hand. Times have changed, my girl, since you and I last saw each other! Well, well! You are the same, whatever I may be!"
She laughed, a deep, melodious ha, ha, ha! not at all like the laughter of everyday people. Even P. C. Breagh, inexperienced as he was in such matters, recognized it as the artificial laughter of the stage. And, profiting by the momentary confusion of the functionary, she swept in her silken rags toward the person indicated; who looked back at her with beautiful stagey eyes from a life-sized canvas, wearing a stage costume; standing in a pose of the theater; fondling the bird that was palpably a property of the scene.
A long gilt-framed mirror hung beside the portrait, and to this she pointed with the tattered remnants of her theatrical manner, exclaiming with another of the stage laughs:
"Look upon this picture and on that! Ye gods!..." Adding, as the guardian of the vestibule, now wroth, advanced upon her: "No! Don't you hustle me. I'm off, governor! Farewell. Ta-ta!—until we meet again!"
She was gone, but she must have noted the boy who stared, fascinated by her haggard beauty and her dreadful misery. In fact, P. C. Breagh, passing on, had barely traversed a dozen yards of slushy pavement, before, with a bound and rush, a supple movement, predatory and feline, the woman emerged from an alley, and was by his side.
"Who are you? A waif, like me? Where do you come from? I saw you looking at me with all your eyes and your heart in them!—I played that scene with the picture and the mirror for you! You know——" She took P. C. Breagh's reluctant arm and leaned to his ear, being taller than he was, "There's always one person in the house you play to—and when that person's not there—the inspiration doesn't come. When it won't, you—shall I tell you what you do if God hasn't made you able to say 'No' to them?—you send out the devils to fetch you brandy and champagne!"
She laughed wildly and looked round suspiciously.
"Walk fast! A policeman's behind us, shadowing us. I'll tell you my story as we go. Did you ever hear of Anabel Foltringham? You must have! Everybody has! I drew crowds to that theater you've seen me kicked out of!—I was beautiful—great—famous! Men gloated over my beauty—they hung upon my every word. That made the devils jealous—the smooth, servile, obsequious devils in white aprons, that you find behind the scenes at every theater. They call them dressers, but I know better, you can't deceive me! You boy, I like your face! You look at me as if I were a Christian, and a man I knew had eyes like yours! ... Don't leave me! I'll make it worth your while to stay, only listen! ... I'll teach you all I know, make you a greater artist than any of them. For the things that you shall learn from me—I learned myself—in Hell!"
She hung upon the boy's wincing arm, her terrible breath scorched him, her burned-out eyes appalled—her greedy, long-nailed clutch found his flesh through his sleeve like the talons of a beast of prey. And he wrenched himself free, and fled, sick at heart; fancying that the old boot and shoe were running after him, and that the mud-trimmed silk gown flapped at his hurrying heels like leathery wings.
He broke into his shilling to pass the turnstile of Waterloo Bridge, stowed himself in a corner of one of the seated niches, and found relief in the presence of a stray kitten, sore-footed, hungry-eyed, ginger-haired, that rubbed against his legs and responded with appreciative purrs to his tentative back-strokings and ear-rubbings, administered half-unconsciously, as he wondered why human beings—under certain given circumstances, should be so much more beastly than the brutes?