Theodore Drost, to do him justice, was devoted to his daughter, who, because of her childish aptitude, had become a dancer on the lowest level of the variety stage, a touring company which visited fifth-rate towns. Yet, owing to her discovered talent, she had at last graduated through the hard school of the Lancashire “halls,” to what is known as the “syndicate halls” of London.
From a demure child-dancer at an obscure music-hall in the outer suburbs, she had become a noted revue artiste, a splendid dancer, who commanded the services of her own press-agent, who in turn commanded half-a-dozen lines in most of the London morning papers, both her prestige and increased salary following in consequence. The British public so little suspect the insidious influence of the press-agent in the formation of modern genius. The press-agent has, in the past, made many a mediocre fool into a Birthday Baronet, or a “paid-for Knight,” and more than one has been employed in the service of a Cabinet Minister. Oh what sheep we are, and how easily we are led astray!
On that wintry night, Ella Drost—known to the theatre-going public as Stella Steele, the great revue artiste whose picture postcards were everywhere—sat in that stuffy, dingy little restaurant in Soho, sipping a glass of its pseudo-Danish lager, and laughing with the two unpresentable men before her.
Outside the unpretentious little place was written up the single word “Restaurant.” Its proprietor a big, full-blooded, fair-bearded son of the Fatherland, had kept it for twenty years, and it had been the evening rendezvous of working-class Germans—waiters, bakers, clerks, coiffeurs, jewellers, and such-like.
Here one could still revel in Teuton delicacies, beer brewed in Hamburg, but declared to be “Danish,” the succulent German liver sausage, the sausage of Frankfort—boiled in pairs of course—the palatable sauerkraut with the black sour bread of the Fatherland to match.
“I wish you could get rid of Kennedy,” said Ortmann, as he again, in confidence, bent across the table towards Ella’s father. “I believe she’s in collusion with him.”
“No,” laughed the elder man, “I can’t believe that. Ella is too good a daughter of the Fatherland.” He was one of Germany’s chief agents in England, and had much money in secret at his command.
Ortmann screwed up his eyes and pursed his lips. He was a shrewd, clever man, and very difficult to deceive.
“Money is at stake, my dear Drost,” he whispered very slowly—“big money. But there is love also. And I believe—nay, I’m sure—that Kennedy loves her.”
“Bah! utterly ridiculous!” cried her father. “I don’t believe that for a single moment. She’s only fooling him, as she has fooled all the others.”