With her warm hand still in his, how could he hesitate? "Oh, Eileen, if you'd only let me!"
The imagination of the tableau was only less tempting to Eileen. It was procurable-she had only to move her little finger, or rather not to move it. But the very facility of production lessened the tableau's temptingness. The triumph was complete without the vulgar actuality.
"I can't," she said, withdrawing her hand. "But you are a good fellow. Good-by." She moved towards the garden steps. He was incredulous of the utter end. "I shall write to you," he said.
"This is a short cut," she murmured, descending. As her feet touched the grass she smiled. How they had both tried to stop her, mother and son! She hurried through the shrubbery, and by a side gate was out on the old wagon road. More slowly, but still at a good pace, she descended towards the Black Hole, now beginning to twinkle and glimmer with lights, and far less grimy and prosaic than in the crude day.
X.
While packing her big box, she had decided to try to lodge that night with a programme-girl she had got to know at the Theatre Royal, and the motive that set her pace was the desire to find her before she had started for the theatre.
The girl usually hovered about Mrs. Maper's box. Once Eileen had asked her why she wasn't in evidence the week before. "Lord, miss," she said, "didn't you recognise me on the stage?"
Eileen thus discovered that the girl sometimes figured as a super, when travelling companies came with sensational pieces, relying upon local talent, hastily drilled, for the crowds. Mary became a Greek slave, or a Billingsgate fishwife, with amusing unexpectedness.
Eileen's next discovery about the girl was that she supported a paralysed mother, though the bed-ridden creature on inspection proved to be more cheerful than the visitors she depressed. Mr. Maper had sent her grapes from his hothouse only a few days before, and in taking them to the little house Eileen had noticed a "Bedroom to Let."
To her relief, when she reached the bleak street, she could see that though the blind was down, the bill was still in the window. Her spirits bubbled up again. Ere she could knock at the door, the programme-girl bounced through it, hatted and cloaked for the theatre.
"Miss O'Keeffe!" She almost staggered backward. Eileen's face worked tragically in the gloom.
"There are villains after me!" Eileen gasped. "Take this bag, it contains the family jewels. That bedroom of yours, it is still to let?"
"Yes, miss."
"I take it for to-night, perhaps for ever. The avenger is on my footsteps. The law may follow me, but I shall defy its myrmidons in my trackless eyrie."
"Oh, Miss O'Keeffe! You frighten me. I shouldn't like to have all these jewels in my house, and with my mother tied to her bed."
Eileen burst into a laugh. "Oh, miss!" she said, mimicking the programme-girl. "Didn't you recognise me on the stage?"
"Mary Murchison!" gasped the programme-girl. "Oh, Miss O'Keeffe, how wonderful! You nearly made my heart stop-"
"I am sorry, but I do want to take your bedroom. I've left Mrs. Maper, and you are not to ask any questions."
"I haven't time, I'm late already. Fortunately, I only come on in the second act."
"That's nice; put my bag in and I'll come to the theatre with you." The thought was impromptu, an evening with a bed-ridden woman was not exhilarating at such a crisis.
"You ought to be an actress yourself," the programme-girl remarked admiringly on the way.
Eileen shuddered. "No, thank you. Scream the same thing night after night-like a parrot with not even one's own words-I should die of monotony."
"Oh, it isn't at all monotonous. It's a different audience every night, and even the laughs come in different places. My parts have mostly been thinking parts-to-night I'm a prince without a word-but still it's fun."
"But how can you bear strange men staring at you?"
"One gets used to it. The first time they put me in tights I blushed all through the piece, but they had painted me so thick it wasn't visible."
"In short, you blushed unseen."
Eileen wished to go to the pit, but her new friend would not hear of her not occupying her habitual box, since she knew that the management would be glad to have it occupied if it were empty. This proved to be the case, and put the seal upon Eileen's enjoyment of the situation. To spend her evening in Mrs. Maper's box was indeed a climax.
She borrowed theatre-paper and scribbled a note to her ex-employer, giving the address for her trunk. An orange and some biscuits sufficed for her dinner.
Not till she was in her little bedroom, surrounded by pious texts, did she break down in tears.
XI.
The next morning, as she sat answering advertisements, the programme-girl knocked at the door of the bedroom and announced that Mr. Maper had called.
Eileen turned red. It was too disconcerting. Would he never take "no" for an answer? "I won't see him. I can't see him," she cried.
The girl departed and returned. "Oh, Miss O'Keeffe, he begs so for only one word."
"The word is 'no.'"
"After he's been so kind as to bring your box down!"
"Oh, has he? Then the word is 'thanks.'"
"Please, miss, would you mind giving it to him yourself?"
"Who's Irish, you or I? I won't speak to him at all, I tell you."
"But I don't like to send him away like that, when he's been so kind to mother."
"When has he been kind to your mother?"
"Those grapes you brought-"
"That was old Mr. Maper."
"So is this."
"Oh!" Eileen was quite taken aback, for once. "All right, I'll go into the parlour."
He was infinitely courteous and apologetic. He had been very anxious about her. Why had she been so unkind as to leave, and without ever a good-by to him?
"Oh, hasn't your wife told you, then?"
"She has told me you were rude, and that you left without notice, and she wants me to prosecute you. I suppose you lost your temper. You found her rather difficult."
"I found her impossible," said Eileen, frigidly.
"Yes, yes, I understand." He was flushed and unhappy. "You found her impossible to live with?"
Eileen nodded; she would have added "or to make a lady of," but he looked so purple and agitated that she charitably forbore. She was wondering whether Mrs. Maper could really have been so mean as to omit her share in the quarrel, but he went on eagerly:-
"Quite so, quite so. And what do you think it has been for me?"
She murmured inarticulate sympathy.
"Ah, if you only knew! Oh, my dear Miss O'Keeffe, while you've been in the house, it's been like heaven."
"I'm glad I've given satisfaction," she said drily.
"Then what do you give by going? I assure you the day you came to the works it was like heaven there too."
"You forget the temperature," Eileen smiled. "However, it was a very nice day, and I thank you. But I can't come back after-"
"Who asks you to come back?" he broke in. "No, I should be sorry to see you again in a menial position, you with your divine gifts of beauty and song. The idea of your getting a new place," he added with a fall into prose, "makes me feel sick."
"I value your sympathy, but it is misplaced," she replied freezingly.
"Sympathy! It isn't sympathy! It's jealousy. Oh, my dear Miss O'Keeffe!" He seized her limp hand. "Eileen! Let me help you-"
As the true significance of his visit, and of the purple agitation, dawned upon her, the grim humour of the position overbore every other feeling. Her hand still in his, she began to laugh, and no biting of her lips could do more than change the laugh into an undignified snigger. Instead of profiting by his grip of her, he dropped her hand suddenly as if a hose had been turned on his passion, and this surrender of her hand reduced Eileen to a passable gravity.