Chapter XXI: In Disguise

“My dear Dolly!” said Mr. Starr-Dalton; he looked round him with an air of lordly disgust. “You’ll forgive my saying that this--this surrounding--is a very queer freak for a little countess.”

Dolly, a little pale, a little roused, regarded him calmly. Before she told him things she must find out what he knew. It was well that Miss Magdalen Clyde, seated in dudgeon in the kitchen, could not see her stepsister’s face.

“It’s extremely dull being a countess,” said she. “The Scotch house appalled me, the town one was worse--I’d have seen Barnysdale’s ghost on the stairs!” For reasons of her own her shudder was real. “Anyhow, I prefer this to a suburban flat full of crying babies and women who wonder whether you’re respectable. Now, here you go in past the tailor’s shop, up one flight that no one uses but us and you’re at our front door--with a most respectable door-plate--if it were polished!”

“You’ve the whole house, then?”

“The two top stories,” she carelessly responded. “Down here this sitting-room, my room, Ronald’s; upstairs Magdalen’s, the dining-room and kitchen. It’s so convenient and comfortable.”

Mr. Starr-Dalton remembered the neglected passage, the cold stairs; looked at the gray and hideous wallpaper, the half-completed furnishings, and would have thought if it had not been for his hostess’ toilet that she was in lower water than ever since he had known her.

“Convenient and comfortable!” He gave one of those short, hateful laughs that always made Magdalen start. “I think it is. Can I have a whisky-and-soda? You know I don’t take tea.”

“There’s none in the house,” she calmly replied.

“Oh, send the housemaid for it. You’re getting very starched, my lady.”

“If you want it you’ll have to go for it,” returned Dolly unmoved. “I’ve had no time to look for servants. There’s no housemaid.”

No time? To his certain knowledge that red-haired sister had been in town for a week.

For a moment the horrid conviction came over him that some one had spoiled the show--that he was too late to make any bargain. And the antique-furniture business was worse than ever.

“Do you remember my letters?” he said slowly.

Dolly sat up and looked at him.

“Letters? How many did you write? And how dared you write to me at all?”

“Dare! Oh, come now!” and his laugh was meant to be soothing. “You and I are too old friends to say ‘dare’ to each other.”

“How many did you write?” she repeated, thinking of the post-bag and Stratharden’s servants.

“I only wrote one; I didn’t mean to say letters,” Starr-Dalton said truthfully. “You got it?”

He was surprised at the relief on her face.

“I got it,” she carelessly observed, sinking back in her chair again. “I didn’t understand it. Why?”

“Look here, Dolly,” said the man not unkindly, “you may as well make a clean breast of it. You treated me d---- badly and you know it; paid me my money like a tradesman and gave me the cold slip. But I’m fond of you and I don’t bear malice, though I know well enough you’d never have sent for me if I hadn’t met you by chance and you were afraid,” he added significantly.

“Chance? You’ve been hanging round for days.”

“Say! I tried to catch up with your sister in the street and you’ll soon learn the truth.” For the first time he spoke unpleasantly. “But that’s neither here nor there. Are you here because you’ve been found out?” with a disparaging glance at the uncomfortable room.

“What do you mean?” She never moved, never looked either angry or startled. They were getting to the point, just as she had meant all along. “I’m here because it suits me.”

“Oh, rot!” ejaculated Mr. Starr-Dalton politely. “I found you out long ago; don’t you know that, Dolly?”

She knew it or she would not have been sitting behind Madame Aline’s door-plate; but she only shook her head.

“You’ll have to explain,” she deliberately returned. “I can’t talk in the dark.”

“Terms!” The word leaped in Mr. Starr-Dalton’s head exultingly. But he steadied himself as he remembered that it might be too late for a bargain with a countess who had retired incognito to a milliner’s discarded rooms.

“Oh, I’ll explain!” He was carefully picking out each blunt word. “I saw you at Krug’s that night when Churchill made all the shouting at you. I found out who he was; I saw him; I know all about you and him,” oblivious that he had found out from anyone but the man himself.

“Churchill!” Dolly Barnysdale became white. She had nearly said what could never have been recalled when she realized that Starr-Dalton was again speaking.

“Yes, just him! And do you mean to tell me that if some of your fine relations hadn’t found out that you were married to him before you were to Barnysdale you’d be here?”

“Churchill! Married to him! Barnysdale!” The thoughts rang like bells in her brain. Was this all he knew--this?

She put out her hand and touched Starr-Dalton; called him for the first time by his Christian name.

“Jack, you’re all wrong,” she said. “Not a soul of them even dreams of anything like that. I’ll tell you presently--and you can believe me or not, as you like--why I’m here. Only first tell me what on earth you’ve got hold of about Churchill.” Her voice was very earnest, very natural.

“Just what I said. It’s enough, Dolly. Don’t put on frills. I saw your face when Churchill made all that row and it set me thinking----”

“You didn’t think about stopping him or helping me,” she sharply remarked.

“That pal of Magdalen’s was too quick for me, anyhow”--truthfully. “I don’t know that I thought about helping you. I was too--interested.”

“What? Before you knew I was Lady Barnysdale?” But she said it without malice.

He nodded.

“I thought you cleverer than to let any man have a hold on you,” he said simply. “I don’t mind saying that it didn’t occur to me to find out who Churchill was till you paid me my money and told me to go. And then I was angry. I went straight to Krug’s and a waiter told me all I wanted to know. It struck me----” Here he paused, neglecting to say, “there was money in it.”

“About me? I don’t believe it.”

“No! Who the man was and where he lived. I went there.”

“Where?”

“Just behind this very house. In the place off the lane. But he’s not there now; so you needn’t be frightened. He got hold of a little money and went away to die on it--he looked like dying.”

“And he told you he was married to me?” There was a queer look on her pretty face, the look of a woman who finds a live spark in the dead ashes of her heart.

Mr. Starr-Dalton considered a moment. Truth might be stranger than fiction, but it was certainly safer.

“He said he didn’t know any Dolly and didn’t want to. But--he wasn’t alone when he said it!”

Dolly nodded. The growing spark had gone out again.

“Then who told you he married me?”

“Maltby. I asked him--oh, not that!--but just about Churchill in general. He told me he married a girl named Dolly Deane and deserted her--told me the year. But it was just casual gossip. He thought I knew Churchill well.”

Lady Barnysdale looked at him and saw he had told all he knew or thought. It was all she could do not to sit up like a creature transfigured, not to laugh or cry out. She had been hiding in holes and corners for this, that was not worth the snap of her finger--Churchill!

She had never acted well on the stage, but now her quick, blank face was perfect. Let him think he had her secret or he might end by finding it out.

“Are you going to tell?” she said with her eyes on his face.

“On a pal?” He was staring at her. “No.”

She drew a long breath, as people do when fear passes them by.

“Then,” she said slowly, “I’ll tell you something. I never was married to Churchill, but----Oh, yes! he could rake up scandal.” For which she would not have cared one penny. “It was that that terrified me. I came here partly because of your letter. I thought if I kept out of the way you might forget me--and Churchill--and partly----”

“I’d never forget,” he put in hastily. He did not believe one word she said, just as she had meant he should not. He drew his chair close to hers.

“Dolly, you mean it can’t be proved?”

“Never!” And because her secret was safe she let her triumph break out; she looked him in the face with bright, steady eyes, her rouge showing like spots on her excited face. “Never, never, never!” she cried in exultation. “But, oh! Jack, I want a friend. I’m frightened to death and I didn’t dare do anything because I knew from your letter you were angry with me. I thought you meant to show me up.”

So she had, twenty minutes ago. Now she could have laughed in his face, for whatever secret she had Starr-Dalton had not touched the garment’s hem of it.

“You did your best to make me hate you,” he said slowly. “But--no, I never meant to give you away.”

Nor had he. Churchill was dying at a gallop, might be in his grave now; and “the Countess of Barnysdale and Mr. Starr-Dalton” would make an imposing mouthful; to say nothing of the money that would come through a matrimonial connection of the two names.

Dolly put her hand on his thick one, that Magdalen would have died rather than have touched.

“You’re a good friend, Jack,” she said simply, “and if you’ll help me you won’t regret it. If you hadn’t frightened me by your letter I’d have sent for you the minute I got to London. Now listen to me and have patience, for it’s a long story.”

Word for word she told him about Ardmore and Ronald--everything. If she all but left out the Chinaman it was because he seemed the least important part of the whole thing. She had not gone in terror of him night and day, like Magdalen.

“So you see I was frightened and I hid. I dared not do anything else while I thought you might tell all you knew about me,” she finished. “As for this morning, we gave them the slip. All they know is that I’m in London.”

Starr-Dalton sat stupefied. She had told her story patchily--it did not hang together; but even so he could see she meant every incredible word of it.

“But if it’s true,” he said bluntly, “why don’t you make a row?”

“I can’t,” with a little significant gesture. “Suppose I charged Stratharden with trying to murder Ronald and me, do you think my whole history wouldn’t come out? They might convict him, and much good it would do me when I was stripped of my money and my name. Anyhow, who’d believe me? The story is too monstrous! Even you think I’m exaggerating.”

“If it were any other man than Stratharden!” said Starr-Dalton significantly. “But, on my soul, Dolly, you’re right. To tell would get you put in a lunatic asylum. I never heard a breath about the man except that your getting the title has ruined him. He’s extravagant, of course, but nothing else. He’s a great traveler, a tremendous swell, who goes everywhere and--oh! you might as well accuse the Prince of Wales of murder.”

“That’s just what I meant,” she said quietly. “Why I’m here and why I never mean him to set eyes on me or Ronald again. He’s so clever and so deep that no one ever suspects his infamy.”

Mr. Starr-Dalton only knew Lord Stratharden as a perfectly dressed and well-mannered man, who collected curiosities and needed money. The last and that alone made him put any faith in Dolly’s story. He was a shrewd man in his way and he took in every line of her face as he looked at her. There was no doubt she was terrified.

“The money is the least part of it,” he said. “You draw the checks and I’ll get you all the money you want.”

It was what she meant him to do, and she flushed with relief.

“But you ought not to be living here as Madame Aline. It’s wild!”

“Who said I was Madame Aline? Not I. It’s Magdalen. I’m only staying with her. There’s no harm in that.”

“Except it is not specially natural that she should work when you’ve money. However----” He bent over her suddenly. “Dolly, supposing I help you do all you say, where do I come in?”

“Money?” with the old, reckless smile.

He shook his head. He was not smiling and his fat face was dangerous.

With the hate of hell in her heart, because but for what she thought he knew she would not have been here, Lady Barnysdale looked at him with sweet, amiable eyes. Now he was useful; by and by, when she had done with him and he was sent raging and impotent away, there would be no need to tell him how she hated him. He would know, as a snake knows whose back is broken.

“I don’t know what you want, then,” she said.

“You do,” he roughly asserted.

“If I do it’s enough for you to know that I do without talking of it. Now, can’t you see it would make too much talk and stir? If I’m not quite quiet I may turn into Dolly Arden again, without a penny. You’ve got to help me, keep me safe from Stratharden and Churchill. And you once lent me money; now I’ll lend you all you want”--counting cleverly enough on the lowness of his funds; for in spite of the gardenia the man had a shifty, impecunious look.

“Stratharden may drop in on you any day,” he said; not that he believed it, for what might have been done at Ardmore could not be done in London.

Dolly’s eyes flashed.

“Not with you to help me!” she cried. “Every time I want money you’ll forward my check from Paris. I’ll make it payable to you; you’ll endorse it. Stratharden will find out from the bank and never come near me. If he gets at you you’ll know what to say, you’re my man of business. Go out, Jack, and get your whisky and some soda. I can drink my tea now, for I’m safe--safe!”

“You don’t mean me to stay in Paris?”

“No, no! But now it’s time for you to solace yourself with your whisky.”

“When you tell me in plain English what the end’s going to be,” he said with the uncomfortable gleam still in his eyes.

“Let things quiet down, let people forget me.” She was certainly doing what he asked. “Churchill can’t live forever; Maltby doesn’t know Lady Barnysdale is me,” she ungrammatically declared; “no one does but you and Churchill. And when he’s gone----” She smiled at him and for the first time the passion he had had for Dolly Arden awoke under Lady Barnysdale’s eyes.

Mr. Starr-Dalton departed to buy whisky and soda--for which she omitted to give him the money--and as the front door closed on him Dolly Barnysdale stood up and danced in silent glee.

“He doesn’t know--nobody knows!” she thought rapturously. “I’ll get rid of him by sending him to Paris and get Stratharden off the scent. He shall go to-morrow, to-morrow.” She waltzed around the room and broke into wild laughter. “Churchill,” she gasped, “and I married to him! If we wait till he dies and can’t talk we’ll wait a good while. He’s been a death’s-head ever since I first saw him; that kind never die. Marry Starr-Dalton!” The glee died from her face. “Oh, how I hate him!” she thought passionately. “Except for the dinners I got out of him when I used to be hungry. All I want is to be left in peace with Ronald.”

She stood thinking, as a scout might stand looking over doubtful country. As a scout might lie hidden, seeking more secure cover behind her fear of Stratharden.

Starr-Dalton was no matter; Maltby had never seen her; he was a hearsay man who lived a life she never touched; Churchill was dying. Those were all, absolutely all, who could talk. She assured herself they were all and knew all the time that it was casual people, not her enemies, who might spring a mine under her.

She would never dare go to a theater nor take up her abode in Barnysdale’s house; never dare live the life her soul loved.

“I knew that all along,” she said to herself coolly. “It’s a small price to give for money and Ronald.”

As if the child’s name brought back the terror of Stratharden, she ran to the window and looked into the dreary street. There was not a soul to be seen but Starr-Dalton, approaching with his pockets unduly distended.

When he knocked at the door she let him in with a quiet heart; after half an hour she let him out again to catch the night train for Paris.

For the first time since that far-away dinner at Krug’s she went to bed in peace.

But Lord Stratharden sat up far into the night with the information he had gleaned from Keith’s blotting-book neatly written out before him. He had not been idle while Dolly talked to her wolf who had turned out to be a sheep. He had learned enough to ruin his sister-in-law and her boy to-morrow. But to-morrow he would get no good of it.

Lord Stratharden rang his bell for Ah Lee.