“I’m afraid that your happiness is not the main object of the moment. Will you be so good as to tell me how you met Sir Joseph in––in Berlin.”
Marie Louise drew a deep breath. The past that she had tried to smother under a new life must be confessed at such a time of all times!
“Well, you know that Sir Joseph had a daughter; the two children up-stairs are hers, and––and what’s to become of them, in Heaven’s name?”
“One problem at a time, if you don’t mind. Sir Joseph had a daughter. That would be Mrs. Oakby.”
“Yes. Her husband died before her second baby was born, and she died soon after. And Sir Joseph and Lady Webling mourned for her bitterly, and––well, a year or so later they were traveling on the Continent––in Germany, they were, and one night they went to the Winter Garten in Berlin––the big music-hall, you know. Well, they were sitting far back, and an American team of musicians came on––the Musical Mokes, we were called.”
“We?”
She bent her head in shame. “I was one of them. I played a xylophone and a saxophone and an accordion––all sorts of things. Well, Lady Webling gave a little gasp when she saw me, and she looked at Sir Joseph––so she told me afterward––and then they got up and stole ’way up front just as I left the stage––to make a quick change, you know. I came back––in tights, playing a big trombone, prancing round and making an awful noise. Lady Webling gave a little scream; nobody heard her because I made a loud blat on the trombone in the ear of the black-face clown, and he gave a shriek and did a funny fall, and––”
“But, pardon me––why did Lady Webling scream?”
“Because I looked like her dead daughter. It was so horrible to see her child come out of the grave in––in tights, blatting a trombone at a clown in that big variety theater.”