On the night of his arrival in London, Alexander went immediately to the
hotel on the Embankment at which he always stopped, and in the lobby he was
accosted by an old acquaintance, Maurice Mainhall, who fell upon him with
effusive cordiality and indicated a willingness to dine with him. Bartley never
dined alone if he could help it, and Mainhall was a good gossip who always knew
what had been going on in town; especially, he knew everything that was not
printed in the newspapers. The nephew of one of the standard Victorian
novelists, Mainhall bobbed about among the various literary cliques of London
and its outlying suburbs, careful to lose touch with none of them. He had
written a number of books himself; among them a "History of Dancing," a "History
of Costume," a "Key to Shakespeare's Sonnets," a study of "The Poetry of Ernest
Dowson," etc. Although Mainhall's enthusiasm was often tiresome, and although he
was often unable to distinguish between facts and vivid figments of his
imagination, his imperturbable good nature overcame even the people whom he
bored most, so that they ended by becoming, in a reluctant manner, his friends.
In appearance, Mainhall was astonishingly like the conventional stage-Englishman
of American drama: tall and thin, with high, hitching shoulders and a small head
glistening with closely brushed yellow hair. He spoke with an extreme Oxford
accent, and when he was talking well, his face sometimes wore the rapt
expression of a very emotional man listening to music. Mainhall liked Alexander
because he was an engineer. He had preconceived ideas about everything, and his
idea about Americans was that they should be engineers or mechanics. He hated
them when they presumed to be anything else.
While they sat at dinner Mainhall acquainted Bartley with the fortunes of his
old friends in London, and as they left the table he proposed that they should
go to see Hugh MacConnell's new comedy, "Bog Lights."
"It's really quite the best thing MacConnell's done," he explained as they
got into a hansom. "It's tremendously well put on, too. Florence Merrill and
Cyril Henderson. But Hilda Burgoyne's the hit of the piece. Hugh's written a
delightful part for her, and she's quite inexpressible. It's been on only two
weeks, and I've been half a dozen times already. I happen to have MacConnell's
box for tonight or there'd be no chance of our getting places. There's
everything in seeing Hilda while she's fresh in a part. She's apt to grow a bit
stale after a time. The ones who have any imagination do."
"Hilda Burgoyne!" Alexander exclaimed mildly. "Why, I haven't heard of her
for--years."
Mainhall laughed. "Then you can't have heard much at all, my dear Alexander.
It's only lately, since MacConnell and his set have got hold of her, that she's
come up. Myself, I always knew she had it in her. If we had one real critic in
London--but what can one expect? Do you know, Alexander,"-- Mainhall looked with
perplexity up into the top of the hansom and rubbed his pink cheek with his
gloved finger,--"do you know, I sometimes think of taking to criticism seriously
myself. In a way, it would be a sacrifice; but, dear me, we do need some one."
Just then they drove up to the Duke of York's, so Alexander did not commit
himself, but followed Mainhall into the theatre. When they entered the stage-box
on the left the first act was well under way, the scene being the interior of a
cabin in the south of Ireland. As they sat down, a burst of applause drew
Alexander's attention to the stage. Miss Burgoyne and her donkey were thrusting
their heads in at the half door. "After all," he reflected, "there's small
probability of her recognizing me. She doubtless hasn't thought of me for
years." He felt the enthusiasm of the house at once, and in a few moments he was
caught up by the current of MacConnell's irresistible comedy. The audience had
come forewarned, evidently, and whenever the ragged slip of a donkey-girl ran
upon the stage there was a deep murmur of approbation, every one smiled and
glowed, and Mainhall hitched his heavy chair a little nearer the brass railing.
"You see," he murmured in Alexander's ear, as the curtain fell on the first
act, "one almost never sees a part like that done without smartness or
mawkishness. Of course, Hilda is Irish,--the Burgoynes have been stage people
for generations,--and she has the Irish voice. It's delightful to hear it in a
London theatre. That laugh, now, when she doubles over at the hips--who ever
heard it out of Galway? She saves her hand, too. She's at her best in the second
act. She's really MacConnell's poetic motif, you see; makes the whole thing a
fairy tale."
The second act opened before Philly Doyle's underground still, with Peggy and
her battered donkey come in to smuggle a load of potheen across the bog, and to
bring Philly word of what was doing in the world without, and of what was
happening along the roadsides and ditches with the first gleam of fine weather.
Alexander, annoyed by Mainhall's sighs and exclamations, watched her with keen,
half-skeptical interest. As Mainhall had said, she was the second act; the plot
and feeling alike depended upon her lightness of foot, her lightness of touch,
upon the shrewdness and deft fancifulness that played alternately, and sometimes
together, in her mirthful brown eyes. When she began to dance, by way of showing
the gossoons what she had seen in the fairy rings at night, the house broke into
a prolonged uproar. After her dance she withdrew from the dialogue and retreated
to the ditch wall back of Philly's burrow, where she sat singing "The Rising of
the Moon" and making a wreath of primroses for her donkey.
When the act was over Alexander and Mainhall strolled out into the corridor.
They met a good many acquaintances; Mainhall, indeed, knew almost every one, and
he babbled on incontinently, screwing his small head about over his high collar.
Presently he hailed a tall, bearded man, grim-browed and rather
battered-looking, who had his opera cloak on his arm and his hat in his hand,
and who seemed to be on the point of leaving the theatre.
"MacConnell, let me introduce Mr. Bartley Alexander. I say! It's going
famously to-night, Mac. And what an audience! You'll never do anything like this
again, mark me. A man writes to the top of his bent only once."
The playwright gave Mainhall a curious look out of his deep-set faded eyes
and made a wry face. "And have I done anything so fool as that, now?" he asked.
"That's what I was saying," Mainhall lounged a little nearer and dropped into
a tone even more conspicuously confidential. "And you'll never bring Hilda out
like this again. Dear me, Mac, the girl couldn't possibly be better, you know."
MacConnell grunted. "She'll do well enough if she keeps her pace and doesn't
go off on us in the middle of the season, as she's more than like to do."
He nodded curtly and made for the door, dodging acquaintances as he went.
"Poor old Hugh," Mainhall murmured. "He's hit terribly hard. He's been
wanting to marry Hilda these three years and more. She doesn't take up with
anybody, you know. Irene Burgoyne, one of her family, told me in confidence that
there was a romance somewhere back in the beginning. One of your countrymen,
Alexander, by the way; an American student whom she met in Paris, I believe. I
dare say it's quite true that there's never been any one else." Mainhall vouched
for her constancy with a loftiness that made Alexander smile, even while a kind
of rapid excitement was tingling through him. Blinking up at the lights,
Mainhall added in his luxurious, worldly way: "She's an elegant little person,
and quite capable of an extravagant bit of sentiment like that. Here comes Sir
Harry Towne. He's another who's awfully keen about her. Let me introduce you.
Sir Harry Towne, Mr. Bartley Alexander, the American engineer."
Sir Harry Towne bowed and said that he had met Mr. Alexander and his wife in
Tokyo.
Mainhall cut in impatiently.
"I say, Sir Harry, the little girl's going famously to-night, isn't she?"
Sir Harry wrinkled his brows judiciously. "Do you know, I thought the dance a
bit conscious to-night, for the first time. The fact is, she's feeling rather
seedy, poor child. Westmere and I were back after the first act, and we thought
she seemed quite uncertain of herself. A little attack of nerves, possibly."
He bowed as the warning bell rang, and Mainhall whispered: "You know Lord
Westmere, of course,--the stooped man with the long gray mustache, talking to
Lady Dowle. Lady Westmere is very fond of Hilda."
When they reached their box the house was darkened and the orchestra was
playing "The Cloak of Old Gaul." In a moment Peggy was on the stage again, and
Alexander applauded vigorously with the rest. He even leaned forward over the
rail a little. For some reason he felt pleased and flattered by the enthusiasm
of the audience. In the half-light he looked about at the stalls and boxes and
smiled a little consciously, recalling with amusement Sir Harry's judicial
frown. He was beginning to feel a keen interest in the slender, barefoot
donkey-girl who slipped in and out of the play, singing, like some one winding
through a hilly field. He leaned forward and beamed felicitations as warmly as
Mainhall himself when, at the end of the play, she came again and again before
the curtain, panting a little and flushed, her eyes dancing and her eager,
nervous little mouth tremulous with excitement.
When Alexander returned to his hotel-- he shook Mainhall at the door of the
theatre-- he had some supper brought up to his room, and it was late before he
went to bed. He had not thought of Hilda Burgoyne for years; indeed, he had
almost forgotten her. He had last written to her from Canada, after he first met
Winifred, telling her that everything was changed with him--that he had met a
woman whom he would marry if he could; if he could not, then all the more was
everything changed for him. Hilda had never replied to his letter. He felt
guilty and unhappy about her for a time, but after Winifred promised to marry
him he really forgot Hilda altogether. When he wrote her that everything was
changed for him, he was telling the truth. After he met Winifred Pemberton he
seemed to himself like a different man. One night when he and Winifred were
sitting together on the bridge, he told her that things had happened while he
was studying abroad that he was sorry for,--one thing in particular,--and he
asked her whether she thought she ought to know about them. She considered a
moment and then said "No, I think not, though I am glad you ask me. You see, one
can't be jealous about things in general; but about particular, definite,
personal things,"--here she had thrown her hands up to his shoulders with a
quick, impulsive gesture--"oh, about those I should be very jealous. I should
torture myself--I couldn't help it." After that it was easy to forget, actually
to forget. He wondered to-night, as he poured his wine, how many times he had
thought of Hilda in the last ten years. He had been in London more or less, but
he had never happened to hear of her. "All the same," he lifted his glass,
"here's to you, little Hilda. You've made things come your way, and I never
thought you'd do it.
"Of course," he reflected, "she always had that combination of something
homely and sensible, and something utterly wild and daft. But I never thought
she'd do anything. She hadn't much ambition then, and she was too fond of
trifles. She must care about the theatre a great deal more than she used to.
Perhaps she has me to thank for something, after all. Sometimes a little jolt
like that does one good. She was a daft, generous little thing. I'm glad she's
held her own since. After all, we were awfully young. It was youth and poverty
and proximity, and everything was young and kindly. I shouldn't wonder if she
could laugh about it with me now. I shouldn't wonder-- But they've probably
spoiled her, so that she'd be tiresome if
one met her again."
Bartley smiled and yawned and went to bed.
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