Beatrix Randolph

Copyright bt'Amkrican Puess Associatiox, Mr. Wallie Dinsmore liad been indulging in a good deal of casuistry of late, owing to a desire to reconcile his theory that hmnan beings ought to help one auother witb his temperamental aversión to bang mixed up in other people's affairs. He might have evaded the ilifficulty liy handing over the matter which troubled him toMrs. Cadwalader; but that would only have been au indirect way i 't' forcing his own hand. He smoked a great number of eigars. seated in his stufly chai r, and incidentally tried to stare his great white owl nnt of countenauce; but he hesitated still. Onernorning while tluis occnpied he heard.a carriage stop at the. door and a card was bronght np to him. Contrary to his nsual ctistom in sv.eh cases, he jumped up, tossed his cigar into the lire, gave a pull to his collar and a jerk to his coat, and bade the servant conduct Hile. Maraña upstairs. By the time she appeared he had recovered his genial serenity. He shook hands with her with the quiet eordiality of a man constantly in the habit of receiving faiuous prime donne in his private sitting room. and at the same time gave the servant a look which intimated that he wonld be not at home while this visitor remained. "Yon come in good season," said he; "the owl and I have just been talking about you." "I did not aak tbr Mrs. Dinsmore," began the prima donna. "Well, I know," interposed Wallie. "I have often tried to persuade her that the morning is the proper time to receive calis, but she is still wedded to her superstitions. You must try to pat up with me. I believe I should make a pretty good aunt." The lady feit the kindness with which he endeavored to put her at her ease, and a faint color dawned in her cheeks. He went on: "I see by the papers that you are soon to leave us. It must be pleasant to you to feel how much respect and regard, as well as renown, you have won since you came here. I bope it maj' soon bring you back to us?" "Do you respect me, Mr. Dinsmore?" demanded she, fixing her eyes on him. "You were an enigma to me at first," he replied immediately, "but I respected you involuntarily, even before I knew that I was right in doing so." He met her look as he spoke, and she feit that he spoke what he meant. "I came to ask you to help me respect myself," she said, with a pause between. "Did you know that I was an actress as well as a singer?" "I knew what you refer to the first moment we met," answered he, with a friendly smile. "I had seen Mlle. Marana abroad." She did not need to ask him whether he had kept her secret. Between persons of a certain order of integrity assurances of such a kind are superfluous. She breathed a sigh of relief. He had known, and yet had not withheld his respect, the respect of a gentleman. Her sad heart began to take a little courage. "I think I know your father, Mr. Randolph," he resumed, with the slightest accent of interrogation. "You must not think me a Paul Pry, but Mr. Randolph is a gentleman of the old school, not a good dissimulator, and he accidentally betrayed himself to me one day without knowing it. Perhaps I ought to have confessed to him, but I am a wretchedly undecided mortal about such things, and I have beea debating for the last month what I had better do. More than a month; in fact, ever since Geoffrey Bellingham went away." As he carelessly uttered the last words his glance passed over her. She did not move an eyelid. Her breath stopped for a few inoments, but that could not be seen. "She has already learned some things, poor girl!" thought Wallie to himself. "Your main object in entering the profession must be nearly achieved," he presently continued, as she remained silent. "You think it was only the object that justified mc?:' she said quickly. "If I were you," he replied, "I would be myself in the fature." "But can I sing any more?" "Speaking for the public, I should say sing on forever. You have gained a footing from which nothing can dislodge you. You need no other woman's reputationy and the public will easily f orgiVe you the ruse yo.u have put upon them; indeed they have nothinjj,to_fqrgive." 'I wonld rather you found fault with me than made it easy for me," sha said, with i tremor in hor voice. "There is no one else I can go to." "I don't think you need a scolding," retorned Wallie, with his kindly smile. 'The past is done with. lean imagine you have liad an uphill time of it in many ways. But you have gone far to rehabilítate completely Mlle. Marana's character, and I should faney she would be very reluctant to have it known that she cannot claim the inerit of the vindication. Another season you would probably be free from vulgar annoyance, even were you to continue your present disguise, but in your owu name and with the outside protection which it would enable you to command you would be perfectly secure. However, I sha'n't pretend to advise you, Mademoiselle - Mi.ss Randolph. In the first place I am an interested party - I want you to go on singing for my own benefit: and, farthermore, I cannot teil how far the pleasures of the profession may seem to you to outweigh the drawbacks - or vice versa." "It's the only thing I'm good for - that's all." said she, looking up at him. "I wonder what Geoffrey would say to that?" thought Wallie. "By Jove! it's outrageous what fools these boys and girls will be. They will - they seem to like it! Well, then, they deserve to have their httle miseries, don't they? üf course they do! I wish I were" - he checked himself and dropped his eyes, which had dwelt too long upon her loveliness. "Come, come," he said to himself severely, "this will never do. Attend to your business, oíd two-and-forty, and pay proper reverence to your daughter!" He got up and said aloud: "Miss Randolph, I'm going to ask you a great favor. I'm an oíd man, as I needn't tell you, and I am a slave to my babits. Would you permit me to smoke i a eigaxette? What small wits I have go liopelessly wool gathering if I don't keep them togüther with a little tobáceo." Miss Randolph smiled. "My father always smoked," said she. "It would make me feel at home." "Dear me!" thought Wallie ruefully. "she might have let me off as an eider brother! But she takes me at my own valuation - bless her heart! Now let us sce what can be done." He lit his cigarette, and sent the smoke curling through his nose. "Art is certainly a great resource," he observed, "and a noble one. It has been said, and it may be true, that it admits of no rivals. If one's affections are unoccupied - one's human affections, I mean - and are likely to remain so, I daré say one could not do better than to devote one's self wholly to art. You feel, you say, that there is nothing else you could possibly prefer to it; that you were made for music and for nothing else?" "Nothing else," she repeated in a husky voice, feeling as if, with those words, she had surrendered her last secret of hope of happiness. "This will come out all right," thonght Wallie to himself cheerfully; "if that ass Geoffrey were only here it might be settled on the spot." Aloud he said: "That being the case, I don't see how you could be more fortunately situated. With you circumstances, expediency and inclination all pull together. It was not so with a young friend of mine once who showed remarkable talent for the stage. She had got so far as to make her debut, with every prospect of success, when she was unlucky enongh to fall in love with - and be fallen in love with by - a young gentleman of good family here, a lawyer. You will hardly believe it, Miss Randolph, you are so differently constituted in every way from her," continued Wallie, gravely; "but when she discovered that he would feel pained if she remained on the stage she actually gaveup herwhole career! And they were married, and she has never been heard of in a public way since. And she seems very happy too! But she could never have had the same single hearted devotion to art that you have." "I can - understand her being happy, though," said Miss Randolph, almost in a whisper. Then Wallie's heart smote him that he had played upon her. After all, what did he know about what had occurred between her and Geoffreyi There may have been a veritable tragedy instead of an ordinary lover's misunderstanding. As a matter of fact he had no suspicion of the tragi-comic mistake which was the immediate cause of their separation. He thought it probable that she had revealed her true name t'o him, and supposed that they had differed on the "public career" question, which he had just illustrated in his fable. In order to give himself and her time for reflection he took up the conversation at another point. "In the event of your accepting another engagement," he said, "I suppose Inigo would be the fortúnate man?" "Nothing has been decided about that," she replied, falling with a sense of relief into the business tone. "I have j been told- that is, it seems that there may be a difficulty I had not thought of- a legal trouble. This money that I have been receiving," she went on, after a pause, "has been paid, of course, toMlle. Maraña. The agreement according to which it ia paid is signed by her - that is, not by me. So it seems that legally I am only her representative- her deputy, as it were, and she can, if she chooses, demand that 1 make over all the money to her. But of course all the money, or most of it, has been paid away for- to my father, so you see there would be trouble." "Humph!" ejaculated Wallie, taking a pinch of his nmstache between his thumband forefinger. He meditated for a while, staring at the owl, whicta silently retnrned bis gaza. "Wlio is your lawyer?" he inqnired at length. "I havent any." "Was it Iñigo who" "No - he - Idon't know whether it liad occurred to him." The trutli was that Hamilton Jocelyn, in requital of the injuvy to his Eeelings, had written the prima donna a letter, in which he had advanccd the above suggostion; and he had further announced that it was his purpose immediately to aequaint the real Maraña with the position of affairs, and to offer her his services in the event of a prosecution. It is doubtfnl whether he really eontemplated any action of the kind, but it would not have sof tened the unloveliness of his present sensations could he have known that Beatriz was not in the least surprised or shocked at the position he had taken. It seemed to her quite in keeping with his character. "She might give you some annoyance," Wallie admitted, after further consultation with the owl, "but I'in by no means sure she could obtain a verdict. I imagine she must have writren to Inigo. definitely withdrawing from the engagement, and henee his substitution of you. Was that the way of it?" "Yes; and 1 believe she paid the forfeit." "Then I don't think you need worry. There can at any rate be no doubt that you have done the siuging, and as singing is paid nowadays, four thousand dollars a night is none too much for it. " "It was three thousand the first month, and thirty-three hundred afterward," put in the prima donna. "Inigo certainly told me when he returned from Europe last June that he got Maraña for four thousand a night," Wallie affirmed. 'But probably he took advantago of your being a debutante to cut it down." "Mr. Jocelyn - that is, 1 think not; 1 was told that I received the same that she was to have had." "Hamilton Jocelyn? Is he mixed up in this affair?" inquired Wallie, with an air of dissatisfaction. She had intended not to bring Jocelyn's name into the conversation, but as it had slipped out she now ttiought it best to say, "It was he who introduced me to Gen. Inigo, and he has been acting as my agent - paying me the nioney. And he said," she added, wishing to do herenemy justice, "that it was by his exertions that Oen. Inigo was persuaded to raise my salary after the first month." Wallie threw away his cigarette and rnbbed Hs nose "Well." he said. nrnsently, "I dare say Jocelyn knew what he was about. I should like to hear what he has to say in Inigo"s presenco. Impresarios and agents are human, and need looking after occasionally." "What I thought was,' she resumed, "that if it should turn out Ihad no legal right to the money, 1 phould really have to make some more, whether I liked it or not. It would have to be made in some way, you know, and papa - and there seems to be no other way but for me to go on singing, if I can get an engagement." '■As to that," said Wallie smiliug, "if I wanted to make a fortune I would turn impresario and make }"ou my single investment. Let us assume, for argumenfs sake, that from the pecuniary standpoint you are perfectly free either to go on or not. Now, of course there are ways in which you might cultívate music without keeping in opera. You could sing at a church, or, when you feit in the mood, at a private or public concert. But there is something else in the profession besides the singing - there is the audience. Do you know what I mean?" "Yes," said she, in a low voice. "It is a magnificent stimulant," he continued. "There is no other to compare with it in the world. They say when you have once feit the delight of it nothing is so difficult as to give it up. There is nothing that you would exchange for it." "That is not trne!" said she, lifting her head. In a moment she added: "But I have feit that it would be a great cónsolation." Wallie glanced up, and she blushed. He rose again from his chair and took another cigarette from the bos on the low hookcase. Then he went to another place for a match, which he scratched underneath the mantelpiece. Then he lit the cigarette and threw the burnt end of the match in the fire, after having shaken it rapidly to and f ro to extinguish it. She watched him half absently, thinking what a good fellow he was, how quiet, how honest, how kind, how quick of apprehension. But through him, bevond him, in his place she was seeing another figure, which she never hoped to behold again in reality. Oh, the perversity of human affairs! The goodness that we meet with is not the goodness that we want; the evil that happens to us is not the punishment of our evil! Wallie glanced at her through the smoke of his cigarette with a sympathetic interest, half sad, half humorous. The heavy f ur lined cloak that she wore was thrown back on the chair; her head leaned backward, showing the white throat; her richly made, close fitting black dress revealed the lithe beauty of her figure; there was a soft dimness about her eyes; a little strand of bright hair had strayed across her forehead. How mournful she looked! How easily she might be happy! How gladly he would make her so! But those who have the good will have not the power, and those who have the power - "I hope to gracious!" exclaimed Wallie to himself, "that he is suffering the torments of the damned! 1 may have been a fooi in my time, but nothing should ever have made me turn my back on a woman like that!" And he reseated himself with a resentful vehemence that drew.a creaking remonstrance from his armchair. "Do you think, Miss Randolph," he asked, "that the time would ever come when you would prefer the consolation to the - thing it consoled you for?" "A consolation is only - a consolation. she replied, with a little smile. "But you must not think that I am- was meaning anything except in a general way. _I Bhqtüd. only íind it more sorñe than usual tó have nothing tocio now that I know what it is to do something." "Speatrinrjin a general way, however, don't y#u think it would be unwise k consolation is sucli until one was quite certain, beyond the possibility oí' ;i doubt, 1: ilion was tbe thing ona ne ided?" "Oh, of course there can be no doubt!" she answered. Dut there was in her tone, and in the suddeu, inquiring expansión of her cy(-s, ,-i feeling less of conviction than of misgiring au 1 suspense, as ir' the earnestemphasis with which he had spoken had led her to suspect that he inight know somothing of great moment to her. He had no sucli knowledge, bnt he had a strong persuasión that she was t'ae v;ctini of i misfortune that might be set right; and he perceived that the timo was now come when he might speak to her openly on the subject which had all along been in both their minds. But as he opened his mouth to do so there was i knook at the door, and the servant came in with a letter. "The messenger boy's waiting, sir," he said, "and wants to know if there's au answer." "Teil him," said Wallie sternly, "to go to" - He stopped. The hand writing on the envelope had caught his eye. "Ö you will excuse me?" he said, glancing at his visitor, while he tore the letter open. He took in its contents with a look. "No answer - 111 answer it in person,"' he said to the servant, who withdrew. "Miss Randolph," said Wallie, standing in front of her with the letter in his hand, and a peculiar smile on his face, "thia is f rom a friend of mine whom you know. There's nothing in it that you may not see; will you read it?" She took the letter, saw the signature, let her hand fall to her lap for a moment, then Kfted it again and read as follows: Deak Wallie- I returned thia morning. In Ireland I met a young follow oamed Randolph, wiih a lady, who turuedout tobe Mlle. Maraña. I didn't know v.hat to think, but came on at ooce in order to warn her namesake bere. At the hotel I found ltandolph and his father. It appears that the former and Maraña had arrived a few bours t)efpC6 me on another steamer. Our Slarana went out thia morning, no ono knows where. From bometUing I happened t-o hear old Randolph say to his son I bogia to suspect I have made nn astoniaMng and wicked blunder. I will eïplaia wheu I seo you, which must be at once. The two ladioa must not meet at present, lf wo can help it. Il' you got taid ia time muot me here at 1 o'clook. O. Dellinoha. "Shall we ;o to the hotel together?" s;iid Wallie, v,-hen slie had read the letter. "N. I cannot see him. Oli, mybrother!" she pressed her hands over her face, and )ent her head down on the arm of the chair. "I think," said Wallie gently, after a pause, "that Mrs. Dinsmore has just come in. I know she'll want you to stay to lunch. Shall I teil her you're here:'' "Let me go to her." said Beatrix. - 'singstiddenly and moving blindly toward the door. Wallie drew her arm beneath his and led her out. Ten minutes later ho was on his way up town. What a debt "f gratitude tlip world owes to such men as Dis. Ayer and Jenner - the latter for the great discovèry of vaeeiiiation, and the former for liis Extract of Sarsapnrilla - tlio best of all blood pnriflers ! Who can estímate how much these discoveries have l)enefited the race I Bound to have its ''turn" gome day - The worm. "How are the acousties of that theater?" "The what?" "Aeoustio proporties." "Oh. ah, vos. The acoustic proporties. Wliy, it struck me they were rather gaudy. -