“I say,” I observed, as I stretched luxuriously upon the grass beside her, “you put up at a shockingly disreputable place, Signorina.”
“Yes?” said she.
“That fellow who just went out,” I explained—“do you know the police want his address, I think? No,” I continued, after consideration, “I am sure I’m not mistaken—that is either Ned Lethbury, the embezzler, or his twin-brother. It’s been five years since I saw him, but that is he. And that,” said I, with proper severity, “is a sample of the sort of associate you prefer to your humble servant! Ah, Signorina, Signorina, I am a tolerably worthless chap, I admit, but at least I never forged and embezzled and then skipped my bail! So you had much better marry me, my dear, and say goodbye to your peculating friends. But, deuce take it! I forgot—I ought to notify the police or something, I suppose.”
She caught my arm. Her mouth opened and shut again before she spoke. “He—he is my husband,” she said, in a toneless voice. Then, on a sudden, she wailed: “Oh, forgive me! Oh, my great, strong, beautiful boy, forgive me, for I am very unhappy, and I cannot meet your eyes—your honest eyes! Ah, my dear, my dear, do not look at me like that—you don’t know how it hurts!”
The garden noises lisped about us in the long silence that fell. Then the far-off whistling of some home going citizen of Fairhaven tinkled shrilly through the night, and I shuddered a bit.
“I don’t understand,” I commenced, strangely quiet. “You told me—”
“Ah, I lied to you! I lied to you!” she cried. “I didn’t, mean to—hurt you. I did not know—I couldn’t know—I was so lonely, Bobbie,” she pleaded, with wide eyes; “oh, you don’t know how lonely I am. And when you came to me that first night, you—why, you spoke to me as the men I once knew used to speak. There was respect in your voice, and I wanted that so; I hadn’t had a man speak to me like that for years, you know, Bobbie. And, boy dear, I was so lonely in my squalid world—and it seemed as if the world I used to know was calling me—your world, Bobbie—the world I am shut out from.”
“Yes,” I said; “I think I understand.”
“And I thought for a week—just to peep into it, to be a lady again for an hour or two—why, it didn’t seem wicked, then, and I wanted it so much! I—I knew I could trust you, because you were only a boy. And I was hungry—so hungry for a little respect, a little courtesy, such as men don’t accord strolling actresses. So I didn’t tell you till the very last I was married. I lied to you. Oh, but you don’t understand, this stupid, honest boy doesn’t understand anything except that I have lied to him!”
“Signorina,” I said, again, and I smiled, resolutely, “I think I understand.” I took both her hands in mine, and laughed a little. “But, oh, my dear, my dear,” I said, “you should have told me that you loved another man; for you have let me love you for a week, and now I think that I must love you till I die.”
“Love him!” she echoed. “Oh, boy dear, boy dear, what a Galahad it is! I don’t think Ned ever cared for anything but Father’s money; and I—why, you have seen him. How could I love him?” she asked, as simply as a child.
I bowed my head. “And yet—” said I. Then I laughed again, somewhat bitterly. “Don’t let’s tell stories, Mrs. Lethbury,” I said; “it is kindly meant, I know, but I remember you now. I even danced with you once, some seven years ago—yes, at the Green Chalybeate. I remember the night, for a variety of reasons. You are Alfred Van Orden’s daughter; your father is a wealthy man, a very wealthy man; and yet, when your—your husband disappeared you followed him—to become a strolling actress. Ah, no, a woman doesn’t sacrifice everything for a man in the way you have done, unless she loves him.”
I caught my breath. Some unknown force kept tugging down the corners of my mouth, in a manner that hampered speech; moreover, nothing seemed worth talking about. I had lost her. That was the one thing which mattered.
“Why, of course, I went with him,” she assented, a shade surprised; “he was my husband, you know. But as for loving—no, I don’t think Ned ever really loved me,” she reflected, with puckering brows. “He took that money for—for another woman, if you remember. But he is fond of me, and—and he needs me.”
I did not say anything; and after a little she went on, with a quick lift of speech.
“Oh, what a queer life we have led since then! You can’t imagine it, my dear. He has been a tavern-keeper, a drummer—everything! Why, last summer we sold rugs and Turkish things in Atlantic City! But he is always afraid of meeting someone who knows him, and—and he drinks too much. So we have not got on in the world, Ned and I; and now, after three years, I’m the leading lady of the Imperial Dramatic Company, and he is the manager. I forgot, though—he is advance-agent this week, for he didn’t dare stay in Fairhaven, lest some of the men at Mr. Charteris’s should recognize him, you know. He came back only this evening—”
She paused for a moment; a wistful quaver crept into her speech. “Oh, it’s queer, it’s queer, Bobbie! Sometimes—sometimes when I have time to think, say on long Sunday afternoons, I remember my old life, every bit of it—oh, I do remember such strange little details! I remember the designs on the bread and butter plates, and
