On this Christmas Eve, while the young girl was standing upon a chair, holding in her hand two large bunches of holly with the intention of fixing them behind a print after Watteau, she heard a sharp knock at the door.
She hurriedly jumped down and cried, ‘Come in!’
To her amazement and indignation the door opened and admitted Elise Angel.
The dancer was wrapped in a black Spanish cloak which she promptly flung down upon a chair. She then quite calmly closed the door behind her and, folding her arms with a dramatic gesture, ejaculated the words, ‘So it’s as they told me! I didn’t believe it. It seemed too funny to be true.’
‘What seemed too funny to be true, Miss Angel?’
‘That you and Richard should be living together.’
‘We’re not living together!’
‘Well, that you should be here, then. It isn’t for outsiders of course to inquire any further.’
‘I’m expecting him back any moment; so unless you want to meet him I advise you to leave your message quickly.’
‘Mon dieu! We have changed from our little devoted Cathy! Richard must have been telling you fine stories about me.’
‘We’ve never spoken of you once. Not once. Will you sit down?’
The last words were uttered in a reluctantly softened voice. It was difficult in the presence of Elise Angel, even for a jilted rival, to keep up the role of moral indignation.
The dancer settled herself in the armchair and fixed upon Catharine a look so disarming that the young girl asked hurriedly, ‘Can I get you anything, a glass of water?’
‘No — no! child. I’m only a bit tired. Your friend has left me and sailed for Russia.’
Catharine Gordon turned pale and leant against the table. ‘Sailed for Russia?’ she gasped. ‘When?’
‘Oh several weeks ago. I ought to have come and told you before. We quarrelled before he went — of course.’
‘He left you, too?’
Elise Angel smiled. ‘Yes, my dear, he left me too! It seems that neither you nor I are very clever at keeping people. But you seem to have got Richard safely anyhow!’
‘Have you come to take him away?’
‘Mon dieu! little one, heaven forbid! But my impression is that our good Richard is pining for his wife. You know that pretty young person is going to have a child?’
‘A child? He never told me!’
‘I don’t know why he should have told you, you funny thing, unless you’re in love with him now.’
Catharine Gordon frowned at this and shook her head.
‘Not yet?’ repeated the dancer. ‘You’re just living — what shall I say — like brother and sister?’
The young girl coloured and nodded furiously.
There was a moment’s pause during which the two women exchanged one of those indescribable glances which reveal without words so many things. Then the dancer stretched out her arms.
‘Come and be friends again, you darling! We’re both deserted now!’
The look which accompanied this gesture was too much for the generous-hearted Catharine. She slid down upon the arm of her rival’s chair and hugged her impetuously.
‘What you and I have to think about now,’ said Elise Angel, ‘is what we’re going to do with our dear Richard. I caught a glimpse of him in the street the other day and he looked to me wretchedly thin.’
Catharine pouted like a child at this.
‘I give him very good meals,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you do. But he’s an Englishman, my dear, and English— men, whatever they may do in New York, pine for their rainy fields. We don’t want to have to bury our Richard out here do we?’
‘But he’s got no money. He sends home nearly all he makes, as it is.’
‘Well! We must get him the money. A thousand dollars would keep him going till he could get over to Paris. And once in Paris he’d soon pick up again. They know his value over there.’
‘But — a thousand dollars!’
‘It isn’t so much as it sounds, you dear baby. Why, Pat Ryan lent me as much as that only two months ago! I mustn’t go to him for this; but I could sell my pearl necklace.’
Catharine looked at her with tears in her eyes. A wave of vibrant sympathy flowed between the two.
‘You dear!’ cried the younger girl.
Elise smiled. ‘You’d do the same for him. I’m not blind. You’re one of those people, little Cathy, who put their genius into their heart, just as I put mine into my legs!’
Catharine looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I have got fond of him. But that’s because he’s got so used to me, I expect. It’s a new thing to me to be really wanted.’
The dancer put her arm around her waist. ‘Well! now we’re friends again, I may tell you that I want you most abominably. So you see my cunning design! I pack off our good Richard to his wife and have you all to myself again! For you will come back to me now, child, won’t you? No! don’t shake your head. You must — I can’t be deserted by everyone.’
Catharine looked wonderingly into those mysterious eyes which were neither grey nor blue nor violet nor green, and yet were all those colours together.
‘If you’re very good and very nice, I may teach you to dance,’ said Elise Angel.
Catharine leapt to her feet at those words and clapped her hands. ‘Not really? Do you think I could? That would be simply heaven! I used to dream of that when I was a little girl. And to be taught by you!’ She snatched at one of the dancer’s hands and kissed it fervently.
‘Meanwhile,’ said Elise, ‘I’ve got to go round and pick up a thousand dollars.’ She rose slowly from the armchair and laid her hand on her Spanish cloak. ‘Richard won’t, I suppose, be too proud to take it when I’ve got it?’ she said, as Catharine arranged the cloak round her shoulders.
Once more they exchanged that curious enigmatic glance with which women converse without the necessity for words.
‘I don’t think so,’ responded the girl smiling. ‘I don’t think he is very proud — in those things.’
‘Well! goodbye, you dear child. I’ll bring the money round to you in a day or two. By the way, why don’t you bring him to see me dance tonight? I’ll tell them at the box office to keep you good seats. But just as you like of course. It won’t matter if you don’t come. Goodbye!’ And she ran lightly down the narrow stairs and let herself into the street.
That last word of Elise’s had a little clouded Catharine’s pleasure.
Somehow she felt reluctant to sit with Richard in a prominent seat at that theatre.
She left her pieces of holly lying on the table and, sitting down with her hands around her knees, fell into deep meditation.
Just very faintly, across the most remote portion of her consciousness, there flickered a vague shadow of suspicion. It was scarcely articulate. It had no definite shape or form. But like a small cloud on the horizon it spoilt the complete harmony of her thoughts. Before Richard’s return, however, she had recovered the balance of her normal generosity and had driven this little cloud altogether out of her mind. The pieces of holly with their red berries were now adorning the ‘Watteau’ print and the table was decorated with copper-coloured chrysanthemums, candied ginger, New England grapes and a bottle of California wine.
He arrived at half past six. He was already in better spirits than he had been in for some long while, and the sight of his ‘young monk’, as he called her, with this festive background gave him a thrill of pleasurable excitement.
They were halfway through their meal, drinking wine and tea in shameless propinquity, and laughing with most keen amusement over what Richard called ‘crackers’ and she called ‘bon-bons’, when Catharine broached the subject of Elise’s visit and her offer of tickets for that night.