Lady Méchante

by Gelett Burgess

LADY MÉCHANTE

BEING CERTAIN PRECIOUS PHASES IN THE CAREER OF A NAUGHTY NONPAREILLE—
A FARCE

By Gelett Burgess

AT the age of three-and-twenty, Mrs. Florizelle Gaillarde found, among her charms and tokens, item: a flamboyant youth which had at last got its second wind, in the rather splendid pace she had set for herself, and, to this, a nimble wit sharpened to a wire edge by alternate poverty and wealth; also a footing in the haut monde won by finesse, the attainment of which scarce repaid her for the struggle. She had, moreover, a sense of the Relative Importance of Things by which she was able to classify her desires and to lay a tiny curly finger upon her nearest wish. First, then, she touched Romance, for, despite her variations of social altitude, neither Time nor Fortune had yet brought to her door an Interesting Man.

While her husband had lived, life had gone, in a way, merrily enough, for his profession (he was a swell "cracksman" of acknowledged ability) had savored their nights with the truths that are stranger than fiction; but, even then, she was by no means satisfied. No matter how picturesque a man's trade may be, if he is not of the fibre of fancy, he grows dulled, sooner or later, to the beautiful opportunities of his vocation, and inevitably he gets to taking his emotions cavalierly. Leopold had done his poor best, in the earlier years of their married life, to satisfy his wife's idealism, but he was internally cursed with the fatal quality of "meaning well." Though, after the honeymoon, he had given himself up to her empire, she had never really succeeded in scanning any poetical quality into the bald prose of his profession. Such things must come intuitively, and Leopold was a hopeless Uitlander to the fate-marked aristocracy of Pure Romance.

He was a clever burglar, as burglars go, but he had more of the artisan than the artist in him. His fingers were facile, but his fancy faint. He dabbled in wee sensations; he was quick enough at a hint, but slow to see for himself, at a clin d'œil, what risks were raw, what ripe, what rotten.

After his death, Florizelle, who, in her salad days, before the mésalliance, had been a regularly apprenticed débutante in the service of Madame Qui-Vive, was enabled, thanks to her departed husband's industry, to take up again her card case and lorgnette, brougham and liveries, and enter London society through the Gate of Affluence as a sort of journeyman mondaine, to practice the mechanics of high life amenities.

The assumption of the old-new routine, however, entailed many onerous punctilios that chafed her more mature enthusiasm. The receptions to which she was invited were dull, the dinners homicidal. She found that her associates played at the game of Society, now, with the stolidity of whist fiends competing for points and prizes, rather than with any true sporting instinct. In short, she had returned to her world to find one dimension gone. Her sphere had become a mere circle, with longitude and latitude, but without depths of possibility.

She might have escaped, it is true, by staying away from such mummeries had she not unwittingly fascinated a dozen or so frock-coats, who, before she was aware of the invasion, came a-vaulting the walls of her Mayfair street privacy and trampled the garden of her domestic life. They would not come on her "days," but persisted in dropping into her seclusion to bore her one by one. It was useless to forbid them entrance; they lay in wait for her at every corner. The worst of it all was, that what agile wits there were among them were frightened away by this siege, and Florizelle was encompassed by a retinue of slow-minded retainers whom it was impossible to discourage. Her back yard was littered with the bouquets that she flung with impetuous adjectives from her morning-room windows, and her maids grew affluent on ancillary arles. Mrs. Gaillarde was forced to live a large portion of her time in her brougham in order to escape the insistence of her satellites.

Despite all this, the gaiety of the town held the charming widow captive, for she was city-bred and disdained the unspiced flavor of rural joys. She could no more deny herself the stimulus of gas-lit frivolity than she could refuse her lips the invisible aid of vermeil. She was a creature who craved exotic intellectual sensations. Still, as she was clever and imaginative, she could not help seeing all about her the avenues of Indiscretion which led to tiny twilight paradises, little carousels of fashion, into which her comrades strayed, hand in hand, questing adventure; but these were not for her. She was for a marvel; the caverns of her joy must be, not stucco, but crystal and ruby.

She thought time and again of flinging away her fortune and making for the purlieus again, but the memory of her former society checked her; she did not like second-story men, she found forgers and counterfeiters, cracksmen and confidence sharps, all one-sided and vulgar. There were, on the contrary, many men in the world polite whom she would welcome into her acquaintance, if they could be induced to come, but they would not come. In short, she longed to pick her own friends as men used, and to be free to go and come at will among them, without card or caution.

But she lacked the precise impelling motive till, at a dinner given by Madame Qui-Vive, she found herself taken in to table by a man whose face seemed piquantly suggestive. She tried to pick up, in her memory, his name from the mumble that had served as her introduction, but except that it began or ended with an "R," she found nothing to prompt her. She read his name on the card beside his plate. It was "Mr. Guy Bounder."

She said, then, as he began his oysters with the wrong fork, "Mr. Bounder, I seem to recall your face, as of one I have known, but I cannot put you quite in your place in that rogues' gallery of my mind; something in your gaucherie, too, cries out for recognition; a certain slipshod habit of your attire, an unpleasant though familiar expression in your eyes, proclaim you an old friend, but I am at a loss to class you. If you have this stolen property of mine, I pray you return me my recognition."

"I thank you a thousand times for your insults," said Mr. Bounder, dropping his serviette, and planting a kiss upon Mrs. Gaillarde's carelessly dropped hand as he stooped to pick up the linen before the waiter could intervene. "I thank you, since it proves you really are what I had suspected; you are my Lady Méchante!"

Mrs. Gaillarde nearly swooned. "But your name!" she cried, in a tone that brought twenty eyes jumping toward them, hurdling the lighted candlesticks to throw themselves mercilessly upon the pair.

"I call her Emily, only Emily, and she has just commenced to talk!" he replied, with rare presence of mind. "Only the other day she toddled in, and said—" But by this time the inquisitors had turned their attention from the two, and he resumed, with more adulation. "Surely you remember 'Mustard,' the hero of the Belgrave Square job? I remember your own congratulations one evening at the Burglars' Ball! And so poor Leopold is dead? I suppose you keep on with the business?"

"What, in heaven's name, do you mean?" said Lady Méchante. Then, turning to the human being on her left, she murmured, "No, I haven't been to the theatre for two days! 'The Atom ' was so clever that it absolutely exhausted me. . . . Yes, you must come and see me! I am always at home on the fifth Wednesday in February, from eleven to quarter-to-twelve. . . . No, really?" And then, to Mr. Bounder she added, "Is it possible that there is a profession that my sex has not adventured? Are there, then, female burglars?"

"Heaven forbid!" said Mr. Bounder, "but I thought that one of your Ladyship's attainments and cleverness would have profited by your husband's tutelage."

"I am no Lady," said Mrs. Gaillarde. "I have dropped the sobriquet. Here are ladies around you; do you confound me with such waxwork? But seriously, you have, for once, put an idea into my head. No, no; not that there was not plenty of room," she added; "but that you should have done it!"

"I could find you the necessary tools," said Mr. Bounder. "I have myself a silver-mounted set that I would willingly place at your service." The love-light had stolen into his face.

"It is not that—it is not even the lack of familiarity with the old-time 'fences,’" she said, casting down her eyes. "I have not lost my proficiency. See here!" and, as he looked, she abstracted the gold watch from her neighbor's pocket, while she feigned to reach for the celery.

"Ah, yes; I remember that trick well," said Mr. Bounder, as he accepted the little token of old friendship. "I once waltzed with you!"

"Do not mention it," the widow replied, summoning a blush. "It was such a little thing to do for a friend. I am sure you profited by it in the long run. But this is the point: I am bored. Frankly, dull as you are, you are a Haroun-al-Raschid compared with these half-witted objects here. You have—unwittingly, I acknowledge—pointed out to me an avenue of escape. You still love me?"

"Madly," murmured Mr. Bounder.

"Then accept your reward! Kiss me!" said Mrs. Gaillarde, slightly inclining her head.

"What ho! Before all these people?" cried Bounder.

"You are a poor fool," said the little widow. "One does not offer such a favor twice. You have lost that one forever. But you still have the watch, and it will stand you ten bob at least. Let that suffice. As for me, I have found my career. The world shall once more hear of Lady Méchante!" And, though the entrée had just been served, she rose and left the table.

In this wise did Mrs. Florizelle make her dignified exit from Society.

 

II

It was not long before Mrs. Florizelle Gaillarde's prestige had flooded the crepuscular sub-world of extra-ritualistic functions; for, among that Submerged Tenth, her skill and daring, combined with the compulsion of her ardent nature and lambent temperament, would have insured her leadership even if she had not had the handicap of Leopold's connection with the profession. She had no need, then, to begin with Shoreditch or the Newington Causeway, and, though she was known and feared at the "Elephant and Castle," her fame jumped boldly into the secret councils of Soho. In the empire of Crime and Adventure women have larger rights and lesser privileges, so she threw off the insistence of chivalry; she was no longer over-sexed, she had become an Economic Factor, taking her place as an equal.

London, indeed, soon began to hear of Lady Méchante, as she had predicted. She fitted modern methods to modern needs, and, not content with harassing the better known districts of Society, she became an explorer, and laid her tribute upon new territories. Her ablest accomplice in this work was Guy Bounder, who, though a child compared with her, in the field of invention, was familiar with the machinery of the profession, having kept in touch with affairs while she was rusting in the aristocracy.

But, though it is not of these industries that our tale is concerned, let us mention some of her more important departures. First among these came her innovations in the scandal market; she replaced the private detective in important divorce proceedings, and became a purveyor of sensation to the more lurid journals. Her skill in breaking and entering gave her marvelous proficiency and usefulness to her clients, but by reason of her intimate familiarity with the classes, she was enabled to select and obtain what ordinary thieves would hardly have noticed. She did, it is true, pick up a rare first edition here and a particularly attractive etching there, but this was mere by-play.

Prominent in her mind, too, was always the possibility of a literary career when she should settle down to a demure old age. She began to keep a journal, descriptions of famous persons she had met, hints of place and environment. These sketches, to be sure, had to be done by half light, but she linked herself to the Impressionists and the Symbolistic School, and found ample material for such nuances. From these hints of Memoir and Reminiscence her fancy flew to more picturesque heights. Now she visited the habitations of the literati, and "lifted" manuscript in bulk. Before long her private writing-room was stored with all that was best of the literature, not of to-day, but of to-morrow, carefully classified and indexed, gauged, too, for publication at the right moment, so as to forestall charges of plagiarism. For a time she dallied with these tasks herself, but the work became too strenuous, and a corps of writers was installed in the little house on Mayfair street, and nearly every day saw a book of poems, essays, a novel, biography or what-not sent to the publisher, to appear shortly with the name of Florizelle Gaillarde upon the back. What she could not use was disposed of at absurd prices to the tertiary authors, and the Bureau of Plagiarism thrived and increased. Reputation was, in this way, divided more equally; like Robin Hood, she took only from those who had fame to spare, and conferred it upon the poor but deserving.

Yet, in spite of these activities, and too many more to describe, she lacked Adventure of proper quality to satisfy her multiplex necessities. Guy Bounder and her lesser associates she saw as through the wrong end of the opera glass—small, sharply set in a wonder-world of insignificant emotions, delicately colored, but cold and unreal. After all, they were no more worth while than her five o'clock frock-coats. They were indurated; the crust of their professionalism could be broken into by no pang of novelty, nor by the stabs with which the mad-hearted little Florizelle sought to pierce their calm.

Still, she knew that there were men worth while knowing, and if they attended neither the ordeals of Belgravia nor the occult processes in Soho, she must find them out at home. What use was her marvelous capacity if she must be balked of such glorious booty as the acquaintance with an Entertaining Man? A lively appetite for originality grew into a hunger unbearable, and from that to an intellectual starvation. Such was her London. It has been many another's.

She was lunching at Dieudonné's one day, saucing her duck with such reflections, when a gentleman entered who probed her curiosity to the quick. Here, she thought, is one of the three interesting men in London. The unknown seated himself near her table and proceeded to give evidences of taste and originality. His judgment of the menu was of a hair-trigger accuracy and swiftness; his order was sharp without being hurried, and his treatment of the waiter and the waiter's treatment of him exhibited patently the importance of the guest, both to the community and to himself. Lady Méchante could not help contrasting such individuality with Guy Bounder's nonentical rule-of-thumb savoir faire. Guy, too, had a rabbit lip, with the chin of a lizard; he had a rush of teeth to the mouth, and yet she spent her time with him and his commonplaces when she might have been collecting such patrons as this genius for her clientèle. Surely she had lost much time!

She gave the word to her groom, then, upon leaving, and an hour later received the information that the man was a Mr. Saul Edam, living at No. 67 Knightsbridge, and that he carried on business as an East India warehouseman in the city. The last item was a shock to her, yet the attraction of his personality drew her, and she persuaded herself of his worth by many feminine excuses. That very night, indeed, she set out; she was not one to linger long while her egg cooled.

"I will do him the honor of robbing him with my own hands," she said to herself, "and, incidentally, I will find out what manner of man it is who has hands like that and who wears a brown that is at least six weeks in advance of the mode!"

Lady Méchante, like Love, laughed at locksmiths, but, unlike Love, she was by no means blind. Yet, for the first time in her life, she bungled. She entered and threaded her way through the house with dexterity, giving a quick glance here and there as to the importance or value of the mental furnishings of the place. Try as she might, however, there was little trace of any secret that could be made worth her time or trouble. The man's life was absurdly blameless, she estimated—there was hardly ten shillings' worth of blackmail from cellar to garret. It was, after all, a house for the rank and file of sneak-thieves, surely no place for a lady. Still, she dared not go till she had taken a look through the secretary in the library.

A few old love letters, yes; and she smiled at their uncompromising character. The man's life must, she thought, have been singularly dull. It would be a charity to write a note and leave it here for him, perhaps, and she was feeling for a pen when a noise behind her turned her head. Mr. Edam had entered, and his face wore an unaccustomed look of surprise. It was evident that he was unused to entertaining ladies in his rooms; he was even ungallant enough to exhibit his displeasure.

"What, in heaven's name, does this mean, madam? And by what right are you ransacking my desk at this hour of the night?"

"Pray don't disturb yourself; I have just finished," said Lady Méchante, drawing on her gloves. "I was just picking up a few trifles, but I assure you that I have found nothing of value. I won't trouble you longer—really, I must be moving. But that old scarab seal there, yes, I might take that. Thank you, good-night!" She turned as she passed him: "Poor, dear man! You are bored, aren't you? Now, I know of a lady who is so good at that sort of thing. Really, she does it very well indeed!"

"Who and what are you?" Mr. Edam insisted. "Am I to take you for a common burglar? How did you enter my house?"

"Pat-à-'tie, pat-à-ta!" mocked Florizelle. "In a moment I shall be annoyed, and then I shall never, never come again! I came in by the window—we modern Englishwomen are agile. A burglar, yes—a common burglar, no! My word, sir, do I look it?" And she ran up to the mirror.

"You are young for this business, my dear," said Edam, who could not help but be charmed by the lady's manners. "But think what this means—at your age, too!" Lady Méchante blew him a kiss. "You a thief! God help me! I can hardly believe my eyes!"

"Oh, I beg you not to inflict your Nonconformist morality upon me at this hour," she answered. "What, then, is your honesty—you, a city merchant? You buy, it is true, but you sell for more than you gave, cheating your victim out of one or two hundred per cent. What more do I? I take, here and there, what I can find, and I sell it again at an insignificant advance; think of the risks, too, should I fall in with those who are not gentlemen!" She gave him a searching glance, which embarrassed him visibly. "No, no, I believe you honorable, Mr. Edam; I do not accuse you. You believe in competition. You know that honesty is an outworn policy in your business. It has as little place in mine. I know, too, that you play the stock market; you are, in short, a gambler. Well, then, you prefer chance, and I, skill. Yet I had fancied you might understand—that you might appreciate the compliment I paid you. Never mind. You may yet regret your treatment of Lady Méchante. And now, sir, though I am far from angry, there is nothing I desire so much as a way to the door. I have a shattered ideal to nurse. It is very late. Yes, the tips of my fingers only. Well, perhaps we may yet be friends. Good-night!" She ran down stairs lightly and was into her brougham before Saul Edam could pursue.

Disastrous as was this sentimental experiment, she could not help confessing, whimsically, to Guy Bounder, who heard the tale with a lowering brow. "Oh, I say!" he interrupted. "You'd better steer clear of Johnnies like that, you know! It was all right when you were in the swim, but business is business, now, and I don't like it." The vital point of the episode had, as usual, utterly failed him, and Florizelle sighed.

Yet she was only twenty-three, youth was still bubbling in the glass of life, and she coaxed her illusion back to convalescence. From many pleasing hints and anecdotes the name of Sir Seton Maldivers, Q.C., became known to her as an advocate of unusual astuteness. In all her life she had not met a barrister. A few phrases of his lodged in her mind. He had a way with men and children. He was a woman-hater, to boot, and this alone was enough to pay for the trip to St. John's Wood. Up she went, then, and in she got by way of a parlor casement. She hoped he would be at home, for she was minded to steal a glimpse of his profile. There was an odor of good tobacco in the house as she tripped up stairs. She laid hand upon the door whence it proceeded most plainly, and walked in boldly. She was bound, this time, to put the matter to the touch without preliminary skirmish.

Sir Seton Maldivers was reading, but he rose hurriedly as she entered. "I beg pardon, "he exclaimed; "really, I had not heard you announced; you know, you quite surprised me!"

"It is close upon three in the morning," Florizelle returned, "and I had not thought it worth while to disturb the servants."

"But I don't quite understand—" began the baronet.

"I shall try to make it easier for you," said the lady. "Fancy, for the instant, that you are back in the days of Romance. Your book, yes, as I thought—Anthony Hope—that simplifies matters. Let us proceed, then, en règle. I come in the guise of a highwayman, by burglarious entry; I ask you to stand and deliver. Your ideas, then, or your life! I need not say I am desperate. Thank your stars that I am also beautiful. You are indeed fortunate, and this relief should be a pleasure. But I am in haste. What ideas, thoughts, fancies, quips, jests, conceits, inventions, judgments, theories, speculations, notions, opinions, beliefs, sentiments, or what not you have, you must make over, for I must fill my head before morning breaks. I prefer a marketable commodity, surely, yet I shall not stick for commerce. Speak, then, if you dare answer a hot-headed woman! I am in no mood to wait while you consult the encyclopedia! Understand, my dear sir, if you please, you are being bullied. I am prepared to use force!"

"My dear Miss Rigmarole," cried the barrister, "I pray that you attempt to calm yourself. I will ring for attendance; surely you are distraught! Just a minute, and my maid——"

The little lady whipped out a revolver and presented it at his head. "Must I be more explicit?" she said. "Do you imagine that because I can gossip I shall not face death if necessary? I have not touched your property, as yet, but pray do not found too high a conception of my scruples upon that restraint. I am of the criminal class, I assure you, and though I have neither a low, receding forehead nor the unsymmetrical stigmata of the mattoid, yet I am bad enough, in a way, as the world judges. Are you a man, then, or a mouse?"

"Are you a woman or a devil?" retorted the barrister.

Lady Méchante dropped the end of her weapon. "The retort courteous," she mused. "He may do."

In an instant she was disembarrassed of the pistol, and found herself violently seated upon a lounge. The tête-à-tête had become intense.

"By your eye, you are mad!" said Sir Seton, "and I shall take immediate steps for your apprehension."

The lady forced a laugh. "Oh, no; never mind. My apprehension is satisfactory to me." She opened her chatelaine and displayed several instruments, the use of which is unmistakably illegal. "Here; I may convince you, at least, of my sanity."

"Heavens! How came you to this pitch of corruption?" said the other.

"Mere enthusiasm," asserted the lady, lightly. "Much as you have attained your own eminence in the law. I mean, however, I have been misinformed as to your conversational brilliancy. Yet I object to your substantive. Corruption is an unpleasant term; it is horridly suggestive of physical decay."

"Yet you acknowledge that you have chosen a career cf vice," the baronet said, still feeling her with his two eyes. "Have you no conscience, then, madam, that you so prostitute your intellect in such an infamous pursuit?"

"Enough of such Philistinism. I am sick of such conventional minded obloquy! You dare speak to me of conscience, of infamous pursuits—you, who trade in professional hypocrisy? You, sir, are a criminal advocate; it is your business to defend or to prosecute, as your retainer bids; to shut your eyes to the verities and attempt to close others' vision. What are you but a licensed liar? It is the same to you whether you are keeping a criminal from his just deserts or stretching the neck of an innocent father whose little ones shall cast his blood upon your head! Sac-à-papier!My trade is open and holy beside yours. I pit my craft against organized society, and take all chances. Even you know me by name and by fame. I am Lady Méchante, the heroine of ten thousand actionable works of art and genius!"

With that she turned and left him. At the door she stopped and turned to him, as an actress pauses at the wings before the customary stage exit. "I shall not come again," she said; "I shall not come again!" Her veil was tied, her gloves buttoned; she ducked her head and threw her- self out of the doorway, leaving the baronet wiping his eyeglasses nervously.

"My word, you surprise me," said Guy Bounder, when he heard of the exploit. "But I say, you know, you don't want to go and make gyme of a toff like Sir Seton, blimy, or I'm fair to split! Why, he's the larst charnst, he is. Some day we'll be needing him, maybe. What's the use of being so cocky? Why, Sir Seton is by way of being the best criminal advocate in the city, and we're like to need him any time, s'help me! My word, it'll take a bit of doing to get you off, Florrie, when you're pulled!" Guy's fortunes had fallen to a low ebb, and his manners usually kept them company.

Such remonstrances, however, failed to dampen Mrs. Gaillarde's enthusiasm. Nor, indeed, did a series of unsuccessful attempts at nocturnal adventure during the ensuing season. She flitted here and there, breaking and entering, and now and again, as her moods grew more reckless, she hazarded interviews with her patrons. She confined her attentions to gentlemen whose birth and repute promised the greatest intellectual satisfaction, and she became a polite register of the town's bachelordom and jeunesse dorée. Many a youth awakened at two in the morning to find a beautiful woman, masked, but attired in tune with the latest cry, sitting in his favorite armchair, smoking a perfumed cigarette, waiting for him to compose his wits for the colloquy. She ranged wide with such as were fit opponents, touching religion, conduct, art, fashion and sport, working delicately along the lines of least resistance.

How few there were, however, worth her while! From Mayfair to St. John's Wood, from St. James's to Chelsea and Bayswater, she followed every clue, and the legend of Lady Méchante arose and flew from club to club and from pub to pub. Last night she had visited young Barnegat, the Australian millionaire, at his rooms in Duke street; last week she had fascinated Lord George Cobhouse, and he had chased her half-way across Kensington Gardens in his pajamas before her grooms had caught him and beaten him blue. To-night wagers had been laid on Blankinsop, the American plunger, and men walked the streets about Cavendish Square, hoping for a sight of the green brougham. Gentlemen of fashion began to leave their house doors unlocked and their watches prominently displayed to net this butterfly. Her mots were retailed at afternoon functions; the women of the innermost circles conspired together to put a stop to the innovator. The man who had last received Lady Méchante was the popular hero until the next was chosen; and before long it came to pass that there were false witnesses enough for a dozen duels. No one, as yet, had seen her face; no one had touched her lips. With all her prominence in the arena of gossip, scandal had not wounded her; there were too many men-about-town infatuated with Lady Méchante to make that safe.

 

III

There was a time when Guy Bounder had kept up a dummy residence in Jermyn street and built from that pied-à-terre a flimsy fabric of fashionable prestige. It was at Madame Qui-Vive's, indeed, that Mrs. Gaillarde first encountered him after her re-entrance into Society, but Mr. Bounder's presence there would hardly bear investigation. There are paid, as well as paying guests, at the functions of the beau monde. That had been Guy Bounder's unique appearance at the Hotel Qui-Vive.

For a while the magnificent successes of Lady Méchante enabled her partner to keep up the Jermyn street apartments upon a still more solid basis than before, and Guy found his professional connections with Society by day gave him many advantages, which he was not slow to use by night. The partnership flourished for a while, but my Lady Méchante's fantastic taste for originality and the spicery of genius led her steadily away from those industries Guy himself considered most remunerative. The weekly accountings grew smaller and smaller, and, not to put too fine a point to his sufferings, four months later found Guy Bounder installed permanently in rooms on the Queen's Road, Chelsea, opposite the Royal Hospital, a seedy, plucked thing of questionable antecedents and suspicious habits. He at his perihelion was no Adonis, but in this phase of disrespectability his weakness betrayed itself in face, form and gesture as he sat at his tiny window and thought of the recidivation of his associate.

At the rare intervals when he was permitted to see Mrs. Gaillarde, he was, of course, unable to give voice to his reproaches. Florizelle was too gay and irresponsible for that; she had but to crook a little finger and he melted into a canine submission and sentimentality. She twittered and laughed away his disappointment, and yet he lacked the stamina to break with her directly—to plunge alone into manly enterprises of his own and reinstate himself in the profession and at the secret councils of the Fraternity. Lady Méchante had long since begun to neglect the conspiracies of Soho, and was in open revolt, playing her own part in the town as a free lance, and reporting to no central authority, claiming no vote in the tribunal. Guy feared for her. She was already suspected, but he had defended her as well as his standing permitted; he had no suspicion yet of any cardinal lapse from the primitive morality of the clique. If such a mouse can love, he loved Florizelle, and love can accomplish marvels. His passion was in a fair way soon to make a man of him. A drop of jealousy in that sweet solution would at any moment turn it to a mordant acid.

He was sitting indolently at his window one day, watching the daily pavement quarrel, whose actors were usually recruited from Paradise Alley across the street, when a green brougham came into the road from Tite street and drew up at the curb. From this alighted something in veil and lace and fashionable frippery—woman or angel, he guessed—and, as the crowd made way for her, she pushed open the iron gate of the tiny garden and rapped at the knocker with a gusto that rattled the windows. It was not two minutes before a flutter outside his door told him the honor was to be his, and, after a summons to the door, Mrs. Gaillarde entered to him, borne up from below on a wave of curiosity visible and audible from his landlady, her father, daughter and the slavey who whispered and peeped on the second landing. Mr. Bounder welcomed his caller with surprise, stuffed a wad of paper into the key-hole and showed the lady a seat.

"Oh, Guy!" she commenced, casting a lively eye over the dingy chamber, "what a dear, funny little room!"

"It's all o' that," said Guy, "at eight-and-six a week in advance, and sixpence a scuttle for coals. It's beastly funny, ain't it? Want to tyke a room here?"

"Poor old Guy," the visitor murmured. "Are you strapped again, boy?"

"Strapped ain't wot it is—I'm bust, Florry! I've winked me jerry, I've popped me topper, and I've hung up me waistcoats, and I've done in every last flash at Uncle Jacob's. I ain't got chalk fer a 'arf-pint o' bitter at the Six Bells. I'm a vag, I am."

"My word!" cried the little lady, drawing out her handkerchief, a lace bit, a two-guinea affair from New Bond street, and wiping a tear from her lid. "Aren't you doing any jobs now?"

"I ain't got the nerve without you, Florry, blimy if I have! I ain't bust a 'ouse since you give me the sneak. Strike me blue if I won't be carryin' the flag in another week! I've got down to w'istlin' up 'ansoms fer the toffs and cab-duckin', I have. An' you flashin' abart in brooms, s'help me! Christmas! I feel as mean as a dyin' duck in a thunderstorm, Florry. But I ain't tried to touch you, old girl, 'ave I? Not for a half-crown, I ain't. I'll do time first!"

"Poor old Guy! Think of the good jobs we've been in together! How I have neglected you! But that's all right, Guy; I've been busy myself."

"Busy at wot, I'd like to arst? I've heard o' Lady Meshant's doin's abart town, Florry, an' I ain't winked. I kin trust you fer a pal, old girl, cos I know yer stryte, but wot's the little gyme? Ain't it time to let me in?"

"Never mind my affairs in the past," replied Mrs. Gaillarde, "but I've a 'pony' for you now, for the luck's turned. Yes, a 'monkey,' if you like, and you fit. See here: how much are you in for with your landlady?"

Bounder took out a roll of greasy sheets from an empty tobacco jar. "I don't do much eatin'," he mumbled. "I get sevenpence-ha'penny breakfasts, wich means tea like paynt, an' a 'orrid egg with two slabs o' toast to it, and mangy butter. There's fourteen bob four a week fer six weeks, is two pun six, an' I ain't give the slavey a tanner sinct I come. Oh, I'm a high Willy, I am!"

"Here, take this for the present," said Lady Méchante, handing over a pair of ten-pound notes. "There's more to come when you've got your clothes out of pawn. I hope you haven't forgotten how to speak English, though, Guy; you're no use to me on the 'other side of the water.' I don't do much business in Battersea or the New Cut nowadays."

"My dear Mrs. Gaillarde," protested Mr. Bounder, with emphasis, "you will find that when you leave cards like this with me, Guy Forsythe Bounder, Esquire, is always at home. I can learn more English from a Bank of England note in four minutes than from all the pawntickets on the Old King's Road, I assure you. I am by way of being a creature of environment. Contact with the purlieus of Paradise Alley gilds one, in a way, with a manner. I take on color. From this moment I am all West End. When I wear varnished boots I promise you that everything else shall correspond. I shall tub daily while this munificence lasts, and I forswear Shag for Egyptian Deities forthwith."

"Here, take one," cried Mrs. Gaillarde, merrily, producing an enameled cigarette case. "I confess your room reeks. Now you are rehabilitated, you surely must notice it. Matches?" she added, and she shook the box as she passed it. "And now to business, for I see my carriage is creating an excitement in the neighborhood, and there are goings and comings on the stair. You can still do my bidding without unnecessary curiosity as to my motives?"

"Madam, I am your champion again," Mr. Bounder protested. "In our profession the days of chivalry have never died."

"Let us call it nights of chivalry, to be more precise. I have need of you."

"Otherwise you would not be here," said Bounder, sadly.

"No, no; not that exactly," she replied. "But that is beside the mark You have mentioned my green brougham. I am sincerely sorry to find it has become so conspicuous. Yet I may as well use the advertisement. I propose to use it, then, henceforth as a decoy; that is, if you will be my duck." And Mrs. Gaillarde leaned toward him semi-affectionately.

Such demonstrations always made Mr. Bounder nervous. Like most men, he preferred to make his own advances, and grew embarrassed when forced to play up to such trumps. There was, indeed, more difficulty in Lady Méchante's leniency than in her reserve, so her demeanor sobered him. He rose awkwardly.

"What do you mean?" he stammered.

Mrs. Gaillarde laughed wickedly, knowing her hold over him was so sure. "This, if I must put it into words of one syllable," she said. "I propose to ransack the town while you play ducks and drakes with these silly men. You take my brougham and my mask and entertain my friends. I assure you I have a wide acquaintance, and your entries will be easy. Meanwhile, I have my part to play, which need not concern you."

"What shall I say?" cried Mr. Bounder, pitifully. "I've heard the talk on the Row, and I know you've been up to some game with the Johnnies; but, my word! I don't see myself sitting in men's chambers in an evening gown, prattling Ascot and Goodwood at three in the morning! I'm out for the oof, Florry. Business is business. I don't complain, mind you. I know you're straight, as I said, and I don't pretend to fathom your tricks. If I didn't trust you, you know I have only to put them on to you at Soho Square."

"Sac-à-papier!" cried Mrs. Gaillarde. "Do I understand you to threaten me? Do you know I am Lady Méchante? I could undo the Burglars' Central Committee in ten minutes. Man, I am in with the Privy Council, to the last Lord! I needn't mention the Prince—you may have heard."

"That's all gammon, Florry; but I said I was sure of you. Still, business is business, too," he repeated.

"Well, you won't complain. See here: that chatelaine I found on the dressing-table of—well, never mind whom. It was laid there for me. It's a Queen Anne, too. Charlie Northbrooke—you know Charley? Dear boy! It's a pity he hasn't brains! Why, he leaves ten-pound notes about, with poems on the back. No trick, either, for they cash all right. Why, you stupid, you have only to take a Gladstone bag and pick the swag everywhere you go. You'll find they're fond of me. I've been offered twenty guineas to drop my mask. The town's wild over me! You can make a thousand a week!"

"Why do you leave it, then?" asked the astounded Bounder.

"Never mind! I've a better graft than that. Will you do it or not, that's the question?"

"I will, if it's like that," said Guy. "When do I commence?"

"To-night. Come to No. 45, Fitzroy street, and jump into the carriage as it goes past at one o'clock. You'll find all the information in the right-hand pocket by the clock, and mind, be sharp. Do as much as you can. There are several expecting me; and don't drop the mask, not for anything they offer. Here—you'll find a sergeant of police at the corner of Brook street and Grosvenor Square. I owe him five pounds. He's a dear! Your costume? Oh, yes; I'll leave all the necessary things in the carriage, and you can change while you're riding."

"Fancy!" interjected Bounder. "I don't mind a bit of acting, for I'm by way of being a proper 'serio,' but Lord! I can't train down to your figure!" and he looked at her with complimentary glances.

"You'll have to lace; it must be done, my dear fellow, and the cape will help. But study your part well, mind. There's Sir Cyril Heatherby—talk polo to him, and say you've seen him in the Park with Dolly Chatterton. He'll protest. Then Lord Suddenleigh; he's engaged to the Honorable Maude Evelyn Poke, and you can twit him with that. Leave him the note you'll find in the left-hand pocket of the brougham, and borrow all you can. Look out sharp for Colonel Wetmore; he'll jolly well chase you down stairs if you don't have your revolver ready. The Marquis of Newbury will probably offer you jewelry, but insist on cash."

"Do they know you're coming?"

"Lord, no; that is, not just when. I've no doubt they've all paid the bobbies to look the other way. No, I never make engagements, it's too risky. I just drop in casually."

"Well, you have got a calling list, Florry; my word! I'll do what I can, but I'd like to know what you're up to!"

"You'll be busy enough without wondering about that! Well, I must be off. So long, old boy! do it well!" She opened the door, blew him a kiss, and tripped down stairs. The front door slammed, the carriage door snapped and the green brougham was off toward the West End.

Quickly as she vanished, however, the landlady was up stairs for her rent before the horses felt the whip. Bounder had already begun to shave, and was practicing the airs and graces of a gentleman.

"H'm, h'm," murmured Mrs. Gaillarde to herself, as the houses flew by, "I thought he was in a way to make me trouble. I think I looked him up just in time. He'll talk about me at the Committee Rooms in Soho, will he? Well, I've got rid of that. He'll be too busy to watch me for a while, I give my word. I'll settle him, just as sure as my name is Lady Méchante, and that's no joke, either. And now, and now, for Mortimer Stencill. Ye gods, a whole Winter gone and no one yet worth while! London is the dullest place on earth. If he is as much a 'card' as the others, heaven help me, for the devil won't! Yet what an actor he is! He ought to be the one at last! Heigho, I'm bored to death. Tim's my last chance; if he fails me, I'll join the Salvation Army and be a lieutenant of the Kennington Devil Drivers!"

 

IV

Mortimer Stencill was an American, which fact may or may not have been the foundation of Lady Méchante's hopes. He was good looking, even for a matinée idol, having the sort of face that men admire without contempt, and not of that conventional, shaved cast which proclaims the profession. Travel had tuned him; he did not jar or discord in any society. He had wit, the dry humor of his nationality, and not a little of the romantic conservatism of the American in London. He lived, during his London seasons, in a little street off Westbourne Grove, no matter precisely where, save that it was as isolated as is possible in that locality. It was called Something Crescent, a street on a curve, boasting front gardens elevated above the pavement.

It was a "typical London" evening, as tourists would call it, when Mrs. Gaillarde drove past the warehouses of Whiteley, the "Universal Provider," wondering whether, even in that famous magazine, she could find her quest—an interesting man. The fog had obliterated perspective as a coat of whitewash destroys the scrawls and shadows of a cellar wall. The horse padded on, doubtfully, coming to rude stops occasionally as the driver attempted to force him up over a curb or into a hydrant, and Lady Méchante was buffeted to and fro inconsiderately. She had changed her brougham for a private hansom and her evening gown for a white shirt and swallowtail. An Inverness cape was over all. Upon her coiled hair sat a mohair opera hat, securely pinned. Between her lips was a white cigarette, burning reluctantly, for the lady was a bit nervous.

Yet there was a smile on the face of this beautiful Nonpareille and her mind was alert and ware. When she reached the house of her new client she sprang from the seat, and the cab passed on without stopping. She ran up the wooden steps, passed quickly around the house, and paused at a window in the rear. In a moment her mask was adjusted and she had begun to force the sash. That done, she slid over the sill, navigated the floor without disaster and passed into the hall.

Above, it seemed to her that she heard the sound of voices, so she dropped to a seat on the stair to listen and wait till the house grew quiet Someone was speaking in a mellow, modulated tone; it was not the tune of any English inflection, for the sentences ended with a falling accent. No Briton, she knew, could finish a sentence without the customary "isn't it?" with the characteristic circumflex. No Briton, either, could make a statement without interlarding the phrases with "what I mean to say is this." And yet there was not the nasal drawl she had been wont to call American. It was evidently the voice of a gentleman. After a while the monologue ceased, and waiting a half-hour, she stole up to the upper landing.

In the upper hall a thin pencil of light shot from a single keyhole, and she bowed her head to peep in, with a muttered apology. Within the chamber a gentleman was standing with his back to her, in front of a mirror. He was swathed in a dressing gown or bath robe of Japanese flowered crêpe and was brushing his hair vigorously with two brushes without handles. Below, a cuckoo clock set up a distressing double hiccough.

Mrs. Gaillarde turned the handle, but the door was locked; then she cried "Mortimer!" through the key-hole, and waited. The occupant of the room answered directly, and threw open the door. His aplomb certified to his gentility, for he bowed politely, and then threw up his hands in the American fashion, in token of submission to the "hold-up."

"My watch and what money I have you will find on the bureau," he said. (Mrs. Gaillarde wondered what 'bureau' meant.) "I beg you to make no more noise than is conveniently necessary. These incidents, I suppose, will happen, even in London, and, as long as you do not shoot at my toes, to force me to dance, I can only admire your enterprise." He waved her toward the mirror, and then, seeing no weapon in her hand, let his arms drop, and waited for his cue.

Mrs. Gaillarde, accustomed as she was to cordial receptions in her wanderings, could not but wonder at the man's courtesy. She reflected, too, that she was, for the first time, in masculine attire, and the astonishment grew to a marvel. She dropped into a chair, therefore, smiling behind her mask. "You take me, then, for a burglar?" she murmured.

"I had sincerely hoped so!" Mr. Stencill explained. "To my mind, it is the most picturesque of professions. I have long desired to become acquainted with the fraternity. I beg you," he added, "do not disappoint me. Your informal entrance has, you will admit, given me grounds for my suspicion."

"It is a nasty trade," cried the new-comer. "I loathe it; and yet, when you learn my real condition, what will you think?"

"Come, come," replied the actor. "Why, my dear fellow, when I think of the shame and deceptions of my own profession, the simulation of vices, the affectation of virtues, the eternal disguise of another's thoughts, speech and costume, the absolute impossibility of any spontaneous act—your own craft strikes me as being noble in comparison. You may at least be yourself, you do not have to wear the second-hand robes of Hypocrisy!"

"Yet I am a criminal and an outcast," his visitor insisted. How often had she not used his very words; how strange it seemed to hear his defense! More than one swift, silent, sympathetic glance shot from the eye-holes of her visor. How she delighted in his sophistries! How often had she not prated thus!

"A criminal, yes! And what am I? While I do murder, the pit applauds; but what benefit do I get from my imitated crimes? You go gloriously at large. You cry 'Open Sesame,' and the doors that are closed to me give you a sensational entry. Who receives an Adelphi player? My God! man, it is I who am branded, not you? I, who am surrounded by Romance, can never taste it myself. I perish of thirst, surrounded by the sea! I have not even the tinsel glamor of the stage to feed my hunger for the picturesque. I am behind the scenes—I see the back of painted flats, faces heckled with rouge, mock properties and empty wine glasses. You have the run of the town!"

"I would not deceive you," answered the lady, affected potently; "think so, if you can. Romance? Pish! Not an Englishman in London can so much as spell the word. Yet you seem to have ideals. I have looked for you long, Mr. Stencill! You are one of three millions. I speak timidly at such a visitation; you may think I am but a timid burglar, even at three-and-twenty, but—I should like to know you."

"Is this possible?" cried Mr. Stencill. "You do me too much honor, sir!"

"I have not yet confessed," Mrs. Gaillarde answered. "I have still to test you. You Americans are so absurdly chivalrous that you must compensate somehow in your attitude toward women. Yes, I am a woman! Hate me now, despise me, and my long quest is over, and I shall return to respectability!" So saying, in a fervor of suspense she threw off her mask and fell to weeping.

Stencill's whole appearance changed. "Heavens!" he cried, as he saw her young, fresh face, lighted by imagination and sentiment, very beautiful. Then, "Hush!" and he sprang to the door and closed it. "My wife!" he cried, in a low, piercing voice.

The words stabbed her, but it was not so much that name as the tone in which it was uttered that sent a shaft of despair into the heart of Florizelle Gaillarde. He was an American, and therefore of the Middle Ages of sentiment. He was in love with his wife. The accent of his emotion proved it. She looked up at him, a little haggardly. She must rob him, and that quickly, or her reputation would be gone with him. She drew out her pistol with a forced braggadocio and pointed it tremblingly at his head. She saw on the moment that at this demonstration his conscience was relieved.

"I shall not disturb Mrs. Stencill, and, now that I know who is in the house, I need trouble you no longer with my fictions. Forgive me my ruse!" She stepped to the chiffonier and shoveled the trinkets listlessly into a pocket of her Inverness. His interest in her had been extinguished the moment he discovered her sex. Married, and still in love! It was ridiculous, effeminate, anachronistic, yet the pose fascinated her. She must have time to think it over.

Stencill's keen interest in the waywardness of her business exhibited an obvious struggle with his fear of her discovery. His voice sank into a hushed double piano as he said, "You interest me, madam, beyond words. Had you been the man you seemed, I would have liked nothing better than to know you; we could be much to each other. And, too, I am very curious; I have ideas of my own that might—I speak in all modesty—assist you. But I confess I am in an uncomfortable position. You understand——"

"Perfectly!" said Mrs. Gaillarde, freezingly.

"Still," he continued, weakening under her scorn, "under other cirstances—you might call upon my wife, perhaps."

"Sir!" cried Florizelle, with a fine histrionic scorn.

"Ah, well, of course!" he assented. "I remember one of my pet uncle's earliest maxims: 'Never introduce female contemporaries.' But may I not ask your name?"

For the first time in her illicit career Florizelle hesitated. She even blushed. "I am she who has been known as Lady Méchante," she murmured, casting down her eyes.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the other, almost aloud. Not quite. The burden of a presence in a proximate apartment still cowed him. He sat down on his bed and put his head in his hands.

The gesture was opportune. When he looked up again his visitor had vanished. He threw open the door and began to whistle loudly, but out of tune, an insistently apologetic melody.

 

V

Used as she was to calling Guy Bounder a "cake," Mrs. Gaillarde could not deny his gifts, and she had not picked him for a stool-pigeon without a good opinion of his powers of mimicry. He was not half-bad as an actor, his form was plastic, his voice capable of much distortion, and he could even imitate the floating diminuendo of Lady Méchante's quicksilver laughter. He had her mannerisms by heart, as when she sat down with a gyratory curl of her skirt he had caught the pat-à-tie, pat-à-ta tattoo of her fingers, the tilt of her chin, and her wavelike step.

So it was that his first attempts at impersonation succeeded miraculously, and his studies to maintain her distinguished prestige did her no little credit. Her stock went up all over town, as she was found to be more than ever amenable to complimentary benefices. Lord Suddenleigh's generosity induced Guy to visit at Belgrave Square more often, perhaps, than Mrs. Gaillarde would have approved had Mrs. Gaillarde known, but Guy gathered other valuables besides "tenners" and "twenties," and Florry acquired an amount of scandal that might some time be of use with the Honorable Maude Evelyn. Bounder found an easy method of erasing Charley Northbrooke's poems from the back of his banknotes, and he had less fear of the Marquis of Newbury's jewels than did his principal. Of Colonel Wetmore, more later. He was by far the most untractable, but as he was disgustingly wealthy, poor Guy could not keep away, as shall be seen in the sequel.

He went and came, then, for a time in blissful content, too busily employed to notice Lady Méchante's delinquency. No offers would induce his favor even to the extent of a kiss. It goes without saying that he did not allow the mask to be dropped for an instant.

All this while he trusted Florry as a dog trusts his master, but, once on the path of wonder, there was but a single destination. Lady Méchante, in her proper person, was heard of no more, and he began to suspect her disappearance. The spark traveled slowly, but at last it came upon some inflammable fibres of sensibility, when suspicion flamed up, burning with a fire colored with presentiment. Had Florry gone wrong? Enough manhood was melted down into a lump of resolve to give his fears solidity, and he set himself to hunt the lady down and prove her.

It was not long before he found his opportunity. He dropped in at the Adelphi one night, and there, with her eyes glued to the stage, with her lace handkerchief ready for an explosion of emotion, sat Mrs. Gaillarde. Behind the footlights the actors ranted and sawed the air, and for some time Guy could not distinguish the particular attraction to his lively and affected patron. As the scene changed, my Lady Méchante grew distraite, but the entrance of Mr. Mortimer Stencill, spouting a bombastic soliloquy, drew her from her reverie, and her opera glasses flew up. This was enough for Bounder, and he did not notice the interested occupant of the opposite box, a lady of sprightly figure, dressed in the outrageous good taste that becomes the American woman. She seemed a good-natured observer of the ingenuous occupation of her vis-à-vis, and laughed merrily in a manner that to the pit seemed inconsequent.

A word at the box-office gave Guy Bounder information of the star's abode, and two hours later, after a game of draughts at the Café Royal, he hailed a cab and set off for Something Crescent, Westbourne Grove. The equipage was dismissed at the Royal Oak, and Guy set out on foot into the fastnesses of Bayswater. The house was found without difficulty, and he smiled to see a front upper story room alight.

He was a "second-story" man of old, and the veranda columns were no trick. From the top of the portico he had a clear view into the room through a slit between the curtains, and, by a rare chance, the window was slightly open. There, in very fact, was Stencill, ensconced in an easy-chair, smoking a perfecto, conversing with someone in evening dress, someone whose back was turned. This person still wore a hat, and was not smoking, nor was the glass propinquous upon the table filled. These things were disagreeably suspicious.

"My dear fellow," Stencill was saying, "if you insist upon my calling you that, I can't put you out, you know, but I assure you I am trepid. You have seen enough of me to know I am unique. I am a man who can love but once. A platonic affection? If you like, and if you still believe in such follies, well enough. You are still young and enthusiastic. I have paid for that farce in my day, and if you are willing to take the consequences, I can't help saying that I like you!"

"And you the only interesting man in London!" said the other, while Guy gasped at the timbre of the voice which uttered this familiar sentiment. "What hope is left for me? For the first time in my life I have made a fool of myself. To think of Lady Méchante, Lady Méchaiite forcing her attentions on a man!" She turned her profile; it was indeed she, and Guy felt the portico sway under him.

"Florry, Florry here, for pleasure!" he muttered. "Calling on this play-actor, free? My Gawd!"

"I have had a strange life," she went on, "cursed by the continuous desire for human interest. Men may make their own friends, aye, and keep them with no fear. We women are bound to take what the gods send us. The good old days are gone by," she continued, "when 'the males compete and the females select.' I have vibrated between the limits of Society and Crime. I have ranged high and low; I tried even marriage! I have found you too late. What is left? More dinners at Madame Qui-Vive's? I was no more born for those ceremonials than for the conspiracies of Soho Square. I have had my fling, and I have lost. Mon Dieu! How I have fallen, to pursue you like this!"

"There are others; I am by no means the only man with an imagination in the world," Stencill protested, mildly. "The way is open for you to explore; there, too, lies America."

"I am fastidious," she responded. "I want all or nothing—that is, all my own way. Tell me, do you believe in Affinities?" she asked.

"Affinities!" and Mortimer Stencill hid his smile. "Why, my dear, I am thirty-three! Go seek a chameleon. You may find Affinities to throw at the birds! My dear child, heaven forgive me, but I believe you are an American!"

Guy Bounder heard no more. His soul was sick with this sentimentality. Hardly had he left the house, however, before Mrs. Stencill opened the door where the two were conversing, and entered with a smile. Mortimer started guiltily. As for Lady Méchante, she had foregone the possibility of embarrassment long ago.

"Tim," said the hostess of this somewhat dizzy group, "pray present me!" She did not wait, however, but went gaily up to Florizelle with a great show of frankness. Lady Méchante rose and met her. The two kissed theatrically. Mortimer Stencill looked on puzzled. Then his face brightened. "Well," said Florizelle, "it's up to you, Mrs. Stencill!" She had not been calling upon the American twice a week without imbibing a few new metaphors.

"Well," began Roberta Stencill, "you see, my dear, it's no sort of use. I knew it wouldn't be, in the beginning, but I did so want dear old Tim to have a good time. He's so romantic that it seemed a shame to have him all to myself, and yet he's utterly incapable of an actual affair. His sentiment is all theoretical. You are a creature of action—I can see that, my dear—and I knew you'd never believe it if I told you how partial Tim was. He's done you good, and you've done him good. So now I don't see why we can't all three have a good time together. Bless you, you needn't call! You may burgle us to your heart's content; the more scandal the better in our business. But the immediate fact is that there's been a man outside your window, listening. I thought you'd like to know. It seemed to me that he fainted away and fell off the roof of the portico. Anyway, he's gone, and he left this behind." She pointed to a small but exquisitely tooled silver lantern. It bore a monogram—"G. B."

"Guy Bounder!" cried Lady Méchante. "He was here, and he listened?"

"With interest," said Roberta Stencill. "As much as mine," she added, naïvely.

"It was a psychological moment!" said Mortimer.

"My dear," said Lady Méchante, "it was climacteric."

 

VI

Three days after this the "All Smoke and No Fire" company finished its engagement at the Adelphi, and the actors and actresses of the troupe had their farewell dinner at Kettner's. Mr. Stencill, true to the Quixotic chivalry of his continent, had dined there with his wife. He was a monomaniac on the subject of connubial faith. Mrs. Stencill shared his views, moreover, and the two kept up the national pose with childlike confidence.

They returned from this banquet, on foot, at two in the morning, fascinated at the secret charms of the deserted city, now vacant as a beach at low tide. Now and again the jingling note of a passing hansom sang from a distant square, like the cry of a belated October mosquito. Hardly a light was visible save that row of lamps that divides the traffic and guides the eastward vehicles down into the constellation of islands at the Piccadilly archipelago. The Circus was a polar sea of white electric light as they crossed, and above, the stars sprang for a few hours from their daily eclipse as the curtain of smoke and vapor thinned. Piccadilly was theirs alone, as far as the eye could reach. The very houses seemed to sleep.

They took the path across Hyde Park, along the Serpentine, and out the Victoria Gate, talking ever of Lady Méchante; of the absurd incongruity of a lady with a temperament in this supercivilized town; of her tantalizing efforts to find a man of her mettle. She was a sport, a hybrid, exotic to the anæmic, hypercultivated hothouse. Peril was in store for her.

They crossed toward Sussex Square, and there, as a carriage flashed past, gently trotting round the ring, Roberta pressed the arm of her husband.

"See, the green brougham!" she cried. "I saw it from the Park; it has been round three times since I first looked. It must be waiting for Lady Méchante. Let's wait and see her."

As she spoke the carriage came again into view, traveling like a star around its orbit, hugging the curb by the iron palings. The two walked slowly, circling in an opposite direction round the Square.

They had hardly completed the circuit, however, when, from the front door of a house in Stanhope street, directly opposite, burst an extraordinary apparition. The door was suddenly flung open with violence, displaying a square of brilliant light in the façade of the residence. Silhouetted against this background was a confused mass—human beings intermingled in a preposterous skirmish, from which arms were flung and legs gesticulated. The mêlée was over in a moment, the door was slammed with a jar, locking the house in darkness, while a frenzied figure flung down the steps.

Whether man or woman could not be determined at first, though the grotesque form bore a skirt and the remnants of a hat waved from a wig atop the disheveled head. It tottered into the light of a lamp-post, staggered, and then made at a sharp run for the brougham swinging into sight. The upper half of the creature proclaimed manhood, yet the gown hung at his belt and the hat was cast loose upon the pavement. He was almost bare from the waist up, and round his bleeding breast circled the remnants of a pair of stays and a few fripperies of lace and ribbon. He ran like a madman, an unholy spectacle, through the stillness of the night, swearing horribly in strange coster's oaths. He sprang upon the brougham and wrenched at the door.

Then from the window a pretty head appeared, and a ripple of quicksilver laughter rang out. Lady Méchante had come again by her own. It was a ridiculous colloquy. The lady tittered to die at his plight, but kept the door of the carriage locked, while the driver fingered his whip apprehensively.

"Oh, you guy, Guy!" she screamed. "I told you to look sharp for the mask, and be careful of Colonel Wetmore. You'll eavesdrop on me, on Lady Méchante, will you? You'll report my case in Soho, my dear fellow, will you? Why couldn't you attend to your own affairs, Bounder? I'm shocked. You're a sight for the gods—not for a lady—my friend. Get to the Park, you inebriated tatterdemalion," and she rang the electric bell for the driver.

Bounder broke out into oaths, fuming furious. He put his fist through the carriage window, and the broken glass tinkled merrily against the cobbles. He dodged back then, but not quick enough to escape the lash of the coachman's whip, which landed on his bare back, curling him up in agony. They were off at a hand gallop forthwith, brougham, driver and the fair passenger inside whirling past Mr. and Mrs. Stencill, gaping on the pavement. Guy stood, an inhuman scarecrow, in all his outrageous circumstance, fair in the middle of the street, and continued his profanity, gesturing the moon. He had dropped his h's with his waist and corsage, and his talk was the talk of a bargee the next morning of a mad Bank Holiday.

Mortimer Stencill drew his wife away, though there was not a word audible that a lady should understand, and left the victim to his apostrophe. But at the next turning the indecent nightmare shot by them, sprinting like a demon, a marvel of preposterous déshabillé, an outrage to sound and sight, dripping lingerie and buttons, as he galloped to the top of the street and collided with a policeman at the turning. As the couple went out of sight, officer and maniac were locked in each other's arms, and a shrill whistle was being echoed from several directions at once.

The actor and his spouse were by this time too weak to talk, and they went home, borne by gasps and concussions of inane hysteria. It was too late to sleep, for they were to take the 2.15 train at Victoria for Southampton, and for several hours the husband and wife sat in excited conversation on the freaks and madcap perfervor of my Lady Méchante. That her rope was short they could not but believe. The capture of Bounder would inevitably compromise her, and the hue-and-cry would surely set the fashionable districts of London by the ears. She was doubtless betrayed at Soho Square long before this, and Fate must soon overtake her who had mocked high and low.

"Tim," Mrs. Stencill said, finally, "we must rescue her. It would be a shame to let such a spirit languish here, even were she to escape from the clutches of the law. What an American she would make! What a wife for some nice man!"

"What a wife, indeed!" mused Mortimer. "A man with nerve and sentiment might tame her, if he lived."

"Nonsense! You won't understand. What is her vivacity but the reaction from the canons of this effete community? In the West her eccentricity would never be noticed. And give her the sight of real men and women living sane and untrammeled lives, I am sure she would be a new woman. She has balked and kicked over the traces because she felt the restraint, but once show her liberty and she will be tractable enough. She's a thousand times too good for London."

"She's too good to be true, I'm afraid. Have you any amiable snake charmer or lion tamer in mind, my dear little match-maker?" he added.

"Tim, don't jolly me, for I'm in earnest," she protested. "As to my plans, you shall see. The first and immediate thing is to find her and get her away." She rose and put on her hat.

Mortimer Stencill followed her, as was his wont, being an ideal American husband. There was no denying her in this mood. It was now nearly five o'clock. They happened on a cab at their very door, and drove at a well-tipped pace in the direction of Bloomsbury.

"Are you going to break in?" he asked, as they passed out of Holborn.

Mrs. Stencill made a mouth. "If necessary," she said.

But it was not necessary. The front door of No. 31, Fitzroy street was seen, as they drew up, to stand ajar.

"We must hurry," cried the wife. "I am afraid we are too late."

They ran up the steps and in unhindered. But as they reached the second landing a jaded, hispid French maid confronted them.

"Eet ees ze poleece?" she asked. "I am ready; but zere ees nozzing here!" There was, indeed, nothing in Lady Méchante's boudoir but the wreck of a luxuriant apartment, still odorous with violets. Every stick of furniture had been removed—hurriedly, it might seem, by the evidence of the scratches and rags of tapestry on the walls. In my lady's chamber a few gowns still remained; the maid had evidently been interrupted in her work.

Mrs. Stencill then explained that she was a friend of the vanished mistress, and anxious to help her away.

"Ah, zat ees diffairente," said Suzette. "But vraiment, I do not know! My lady left one hour ago, een a hurry, yes! She deed not say to where I should send ze things, but I deed not veesh ze poleece to get everyzing. So I have removed them. Perhaps I shall hear, perhaps not. Que voulez-vous que je fasse?"

There was no time to wait. The gay bird had flown, and Mr. and Mrs. Stencill returned sadly to their house in Something Crescent, in bare time to get their own impedimenta ready for the train. They made the trip down to Southampton quietly, in a first-class compartment. The only other occupant was a little old lady with gray hair and a deep mourning veil. It seemed she, too, was bound for the American steamer, for she was still with them when the tender put off. But they did not see her again for several days, owing to Mrs. Stencill's mal de mer.

It was when Roberta crawled down to the dining-room for dinner on the fourth day out, trembling but victorious, that she found, seated opposite her at the table, pink of cheek, curly of hair, bright of eye, and with an inimitable expression of some devil turned saint—who but my Lady Méchante!