"Oh, yes, do, run away before you are beaten," said Miss Cavendish, scornfully. "Why, you can't go now. Everybody will be back in town soon, and there are a lot of new plays coming on, and some of them are sure to be failures, and that's our chance.
You rush in with your piece and somebody may take it sooner than close the theatre.""I'm thinking of closing the theatre myself," said Carroll.
"What's the use of my hanging on here?" he exclaimed. "It distresses Helen to know I am in London, feeling about her as Ido--and the Lord only knows how it distresses me. And, maybe, if I went away," he said, consciously, "she might miss me. She might see the difference."Miss Cavendish held herself erect and pressed her lips together with a severe smile. "If Helen Cabot doesn't see the difference between you and the other men she knows now," she said, "I doubt if she ever will. Besides--" she continued, and then hesitated.
"Well, go on," urged Carroll.
"Well, I was only going to say," she explained, "that leaving the girl alone never did the man any good unless he left her alone willingly. If she's sure he still cares, it's just the same to her where he is. He might as well stay on in London as go to South Africa. It won't help him any. The difference comes when she finds he has stopped caring. Why, look at Reggie. He tried that. He went away for ever so long, but he kept writing me from wherever he went, so that he was perfectly miserable--and I went on enjoying myself. Then when he came back, he tried going about with his old friends again. He used to come to the theatre with them--oh, with such nice girls--but he always stood in the back of the box and yawned and scowled--so I knew. And, anyway, he'd always spoil it all by leaving them and waiting at the stage entrance for me. But one day he got tired of the way I treated him and went off on a bicycle tour with Lady Hacksher's girls and some men from his regiment, and he was gone three weeks and never sent me even a line; and I got so scared; I couldn't sleep, and I stood it for three days more, and then I wired him to come back or I'd jump off London Bridge; and he came back that very night from Edinburgh on the express, and I was so glad to see him that I got confused, and in the general excitement I promised to marry him, so that's how it was with us.""Yes," said the American, without enthusiasm; "but then I still care, and Helen knows I care.""Doesn't she ever fancy that you might care for some one else?
You have a lot of friends, you know."
"Yes, but she knows they are just that--friends," said the American.
Miss Cavendish stood up to go, and arranged her veil before the mirror above the fireplace.
"I come here very often to tea," she said.
"It's very kind of you," said Carroll. He was at the open window, looking down into the street for a cab.
"Well, no one knows I am engaged to Reggie," continued Miss Cavendish, "except you and Reggie, and he isn't so sure. SHEdoesn't know it."
"Well?" said Carroll.
Miss Cavendish smiled a mischievous kindly smile at him from the mirror.
"Well?" she repeated, mockingly. Carroll stared at her and laughed. After a pause he said: "It's like a plot in a comedy.
But I'm afraid I'm too serious for play-acting.""Yes, it is serious," said Miss Cavendish. She seated herself again and regarded the American thoughtfully. "You are too good a man to be treated the way that girl is treating you, and no one knows it better than she does. She'll change in time, but just now she thinks she wants to be independent. She's in love with this picture-painting idea, and with the people she meets. It's all new to her--the fuss they make over her and the titles, and the way she is asked about. We know she can't paint. We know they only give her commissions because she's so young and pretty, and American. She amuses them, that's all. Well, that cannot last; she'll find it out. She's too clever a girl, and she is too fine a girl to be content with that long. Then--then she'll come back to you. She feels now that she has both you and the others, and she's making you wait: so wait and be cheerful.
She's worth waiting for; she's young, that's all. She'll see the difference in time. But, in the meanwhile, it would hurry matters a bit if she thought she had to choose between the new friends and you.""She could still keep her friends, and marry me," said Carroll;"I have told her that a hundred times. She could still paint miniatures and marry me. But she won't marry me.""She won't marry you because she knows she can whenever she wants to;" cried Marion. "Can't you see that? But if she thought you were going to marry some one else now?""She would be the first to congratulate me," said Carroll. He rose and walked to the fireplace, where he leaned with his arm on the mantel. There was a photograph of Helen Cabot near his hand, and he turned this toward him and stood for some time staring at it. "My dear Marion," he said at last, "I've known Helen ever since she was as young as that. Every year I've loved her more, and found new things in her to care for; now I love her more than any other man ever loved any other woman."Miss Cavendish shook her head sympathetically.
"Yes, I know," she said; "that's the way Reggie loves me, too."Carroll went on as though he had not heard her.
