CHAPTER XI

WHEREIN HELEN LIVES A CROWDED HOUR

"Millicent! You here!" Helen breathed the words in an undertone that

carried more than a hint of dismay.

It was one of those rare crises in life when the brain receives a

presage of evil without any prior foundation of fact. Helen had every

reason to welcome her friend, none to be chilled by her unexpected

presence. Among a small circle of intimate acquaintances she counted

Millicent Jaques the best and truest. They had drifted apart; but that

was owing to Helen's lack of means. She was not able, nor did she

aspire, to mix in the society that hailed the actress as a bright

particular star. Yet it meant much to a girl earning her daily bread

in a heedless city that she should possess one friend of her own age

and sex who could speak of the golden years when they were children

together,--the years when Helen's father was the prospective governor

of an Indian province as large as France; when the tuft hunters now

gathered in Maloja would have fawned on her mother in hope of

subsequent recognition.

Why, then, did Helen falter in her greeting? Who can tell? She herself

did not know, unless it was that Millicent rose so leisurely from the

table at which she was drinking a belated cup of tea, and came toward

her with a smile that had no warmth in it.

"So you have returned," she said, "and with both cavaliers?"

Helen was conscious of a queer humming noise in her head. She was

incapable of calm thought. She realized now that the friend she had

left in London was here in the guise of a bitter enemy. The veranda

was full of people waiting for the post. The snow had banished them

from links and tennis court. This August afternoon was dark as

mid-December at the same hour. But the rendezvous was brilliantly

lighted, and the reappearance of the climbers, whose chances of safety

had been eagerly debated since the snow storm began, drew all eyes.

Someone had whispered too that the beautiful woman who arrived from

St. Moritz half an hour earlier, who sat in her furs and sipped her

tea after a long conversation with a clerk in the bureau, was none

other than Millicent Jaques, the dancer, one of the leading lights of

English musical comedy.

The peepers and whisperers little dreamed that she could be awaiting

the party from the Forno. Now that her vigil was explained, for Bower

had advanced with ready smile and outstretched hand, the Wraggs and

Vavasours and de la Veres--all the little coterie of gossips and

scandalmongers--were drawn to the center of the hall like steel

filings to a magnet.

Millicent ignored Bower. She was young enough and pretty enough to

feel sure of her ability to deal with him subsequently. Her cornflower

blue eyes glittered. They held something of the quiet menace of a

crevasse. She had traveled far for revenge, and she did not mean to

forego it. Helen, whose second impulse was to kiss her affectionately,

with excited clamor of welcome and inquiry, stood rooted to the floor

by her friend's strange words.

"I--I am so surprised----" she half stammered in an agony of confused

doubt; and that was the only lame phrase she could utter during a few

trying seconds.

Bower frowned. He hated scenes between women. With his first glimpse

of Millicent he guessed her errand. For Helen's sake, in the presence

of that rabbit-eared crowd, he would not brook the unmerited flood of

sarcastic indignation which he knew was trembling on her lips.

"Miss Wynton has had an exhausting day," he said coolly. "She must go

straight to her room, and rest. You two can meet and talk after

dinner." Without further preamble, he took Helen's arm.

Millicent barred the way. She did not give place. Again she paid no

heed to the man. "I shall not detain you long," she said, looking only

at Helen, and speaking in a low clear voice that her stage training

rendered audible throughout the large hall. "I only wished to assure

myself that what I was told was true. I found it hard to believe, even

when I saw your name written up in the hotel. Before I go, let me

congratulate you on your conquest--and Mr. Mark Bower on his," she

added, with clever pretense of afterthought.

Helen continued to stare at her helplessly. Her lips quivered; but

they uttered no sound. It was impossible to misunderstand Millicent's

object. She meant to wound and insult in the grossest way.

Bower dropped Helen's arm, and strode close to the woman who had

struck this shrewd blow at him. "I give you this one chance!" he

muttered, while his eyes blazed into hers. "Go to your room, or sit

down somewhere till I am free. I shall come to you, and put things

straight that now seem crooked. You are wrong, horribly wrong, in your

suspicions. Wait my explanation, or by all that I hold sacred, you

will regret it to your dying hour!"

Millicent drew back a little. She conveyed the suggestion that his

nearness was offensive to her nostrils. And she laughed, with due

semblance of real amusement. "What! Has she made a fool of you too?"

she cried bitingly.

Then Helen did exactly the thing she ought not to have done. She

fainted.

Spencer, in his own vivid phrase, was "looking for trouble" the

instant he caught sight of the actress. Had some Mahatma-devised magic

lantern focused on the screen of his inner consciousness a complete

narrative of the circumstances which conspired to bring Millicent

Jaques to the Upper Engadine, he could not have mastered cause and

effect more fully. The unlucky letter he asked Mackenzie to send to

the Wellington Theater--the letter devised as a probe into Bower's

motives, but which was now cruelly searching its author's heart--had

undoubtedly supplied to a slighted woman the clew to her rival's

identity. Better posted than Bower in the true history of Helen's

visit to Switzerland, he did not fail to catch the most significant

word in Millicent's scornful greeting.

"And with _both_ cavaliers!"

In all probability, she knew the whole ridiculous story, reading into

it the meaning lent by jealous spleen, and no more to be convinced of

error than the Forno glacier could be made to flow backward.

[Illustration: "No," said Spencer, "ring for the elevator."

_Page 217_]

But if his soul was vexed by a sense of bygone folly, his brain was

cool and alert. He saw Helen sway slightly. He caught her before she

collapsed where she stood. He gathered her tenderly in his arms. She

might have been a tired child, fallen asleep too soon. Her limp head

rested on his shoulder. Through the meshes of her blue veil he could

see the sudden pallor of her cheeks. The tint of the silk added to

the lifelessness of her aspect. Just then Spencer's heart was sore

within him, and he was an awkward man to oppose.

George de Courcy Vavasour happened to crane his neck nearer at the

wrong moment. The American sent him flying with a vigorous elbow

thrust. He shoved Bower aside with scant ceremony. Millicent Jaques

met a steely glance that quelled the vengeful sparkle in her own eyes,

and caused her to move quickly, lest, perchance, this pale-faced

American should trample on her. Before Bower could recover his

balance, for his hobnails caused him to slip on the tiled floor,

Spencer was halfway across the inner hall, and approaching the

elevator.

An official of the hotel hastened forward with ready proffer of help.

"This way," he said sympathetically. "The lady was overcome by the

heat after so many hours in the intense cold. It often occurs. She

will recover soon. Bring her to a chair in the office."

But Spencer was not willing that Helen's first wondering glance should

rest on strangers, or that, when able to walk to her own apartments,

she should be compelled to pass through the ranks of gapers in the

lounge.

"No," he said. "Ring for the elevator. This lady must be taken to her

room,--No. 80, I believe,--then the manageress and a chambermaid can

attend to her. Quick! the elevator!"

Bower turned on Millicent like an angry bull. "You have chosen your

own method," he growled. "Very well. You shall pay for it."

Her venom was such that she was by no means disturbed by his threat.

"The other man--the American who brought her here--seems to have

bested you throughout," she taunted him.

He drew himself up with a certain dignity. He was aware that every

tongue in the place was stilled, that every ear was tuned to catch

each note of this fantastic quartet,--a sonata appassionata in which

vibrated the souls of men and women. He looked from Millicent's pallid

face to the faces of the listeners, some of whom made pretense of

polite indifference, while others did not scruple to exhibit their

eager delight. If nothing better, the episode would provide an

abundance of spicy gossip during the enforced idleness caused by the

weather.

"The lady whom you are endeavoring to malign, will, I hope, do me the

honor of becoming my wife," he said. "That being so, she is beyond the

reach of the slanderous malice of an ex-chorus girl."

He spoke slowly, with the air of a man who weighed his words. A thrill

that could be felt ran through his intent audience. Mark Bower, the

millionaire, the financial genius who dominated more than one powerful

group in the city, who controlled a ring of theaters in London and the

provinces, who had declined a knighthood, and would surely be created

a peer with the next change of government,--that he should openly

declare himself a suitor for the hand of a penniless girl was a

sensation with a vengeance. His description of Millicent as an

ex-chorus girl offered another _bonne bouche_ to the crowd. She would

never again skip airily behind the footlights of the Wellington, or

any other important theater in England. So far as she was concerned,

the musical comedy candle that succeeded to the sacred lamp of West

End burlesque was snuffed out.

Millicent was actress enough not to flinch from the goad. "A charming

and proper sentiment," she cried with well simulated flippancy. "The

marriage of Mr. Mark Bower will be quite a fashionable event, provided

always that he secures the assent of the American gentleman who is

paying his future wife's expenses during her present holiday."

Now, so curiously constituted is human nature, or the shallow

worldliness that passes current for it among the homeless gadabouts

who pose as British society on the Continent, that already the current

of opinion in the hotel was setting steadily in Helen's favor. The

remarkable change dated from the moment of Bower's public announcement

of his matrimonial plans. Many of those present were regretting a lost

opportunity. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence--and the

worn phrase took a new vitality when applied to some among the

company--that any kindness shown to Helen during the preceding

fortnight would be repaid a hundredfold when she became Mrs. Mark

Bower. Again, not even the bitterest of her critics could allege that

she was flirting with the quiet mannered American who had just carried

her off like a new Paris. She had lived in the same hotel for a whole

week without speaking a word to him. If anything, she had shown favor

only to Bower, and that in a way so decorous and discreet that

more than one woman there was amazed by her careless handling of a

promising situation. Just give one of them the chance of securing such

a prize fish as this stalwart millionaire! Well, at least he should

not miss the hook for lack of a bait.

Oddly enough, the Rev. Philip Hare gave voice to a general sentiment

when he interfered in the duel. He, like others, was waiting for

his letters. He saw Helen come in, and was hurrying to offer his

congratulations on her escape from the storm, when the appearance of

Millicent prevented him from speaking at once. The little man was hot

with vexation at the scene that followed. He liked Helen; he was

unutterably shocked by Millicent's attack; and he resented the unfair

and untrue construction that must be placed on her latest innuendo.

"As one who has made Miss Wynton's acquaintance in this hotel," he

broke in vehemently, "I must protest most emphatically against the

outrageous statement we have just heard. If I may say it, it is

unworthy of the lady who is responsible for it. I know nothing of your

quarrel, nor do I wish to figure in it; but I do declare, on my honor

as a clergyman of the Church of England, that Miss Wynton's conduct

in Maloja has in no way lent itself to the inference one is compelled

to draw from the words used."

"Thank you, Mr. Hare," said Bower quietly, and a subdued murmur of

applause buzzed through the gathering.

There is a legend in Zermatt that Saint Theodule, patron of the

Valais, wishing to reach Rome in a hurry, sought demoniac aid to

surmount the impassable barrier of the Alps. Opening his window, he

saw three devils dancing merrily on the housetops. He called them.

"Which of you is the speediest?" he asked. "I," said one, "I am

swift as the wind."--"Bah!" cried the second, "I can fly like a

bullet."--"These two talk idly," said the third. "I am quick as the

thought of a woman." The worthy prelate chose the third. The hour

being late, he bargained that he should be carried to Rome and back

before cockcrow, the price for the service to be his saintly soul. The

imp flew well, and returned to the valley of the Rhone long ere dawn.

Joyous at his gain, he was about to bound over the wall of the

episcopal city of Sion, when St. Theodule roared lustily, "_Coq,

chante! Que tu chantes! Ou que jamais plus tu ne chantes!_" Every cock

in Sion awoke at his voice, and raised such a din that the devil

dropped a bell given to his saintship by the Holy Father, and Saint

Theodule was snug and safe inside it.

The prelate was right in his choice of the third. The thoughts of two

women took wings instantly. Mrs. de la Vere, throwing away a

half-smoked cigarette, hurried out of the veranda. Millicent Jaques,

whose carriage was ready for the long drive to St. Moritz, decided to

remain in Maloja.

The outer door opened, with a rush of cold air and a whirl of snow.

People expected the postman; but Stampa entered,--only Stampa, the

broken survivor of the little band of guides who conquered the

Matterhorn. He doffed his Alpine hat, and seemed to be embarrassed by

the unusually large throng assembled in the passageway. Bower saw him,

and strode away into the dimly lighted foyer.

"Pardon, _'sieurs et 'dames_," said Stampa, advancing with his uneven

gait, a venerable and pathetic figure, the wreck of a giant, a man who

had aged years in a single day. He went to the bureau, and asked

permission to seek Herr Spencer in his room.

* * * * *

Helen was struggling back to consciousness when Mrs. de la Vere joined

the kindly women who were loosening her bodice and chafing her hands

and feet.

The first words the girl heard were in English. A woman's voice was

saying cheerfully, "There, my dear!" a simple formula of marvelous

recuperative effect,--"there now! You are all right again. But your

room is bitterly cold. Won't you come into mine? It is quite near,

and my stove has been alight all day."

Helen, opening her eyes, found herself gazing up at Mrs. de la Vere.

Real sympathy ranks high among good deeds. The girl's lips quivered.

Returning life brought with it tears.

The woman whom she had regarded as a social butterfly sat beside her

on the bed and placed a friendly arm round her neck. "Don't cry, you

dear thing," she cooed gently. "There is nothing to cry about. You are

a bit overwrought, of course; but, as it happens, you have scored

heavily off all of us--and not least off the creature who upset you.

Now, do try and come with me. Here are your slippers. The corridor is

empty. It is only a few steps."

"Come with you?"

"Yes, you are shivering with the cold, and my room is gloriously

warm."

"But----"

"There are no buts. Marie will bring a basin of nice hot soup. While

you are drinking it she will set your stove going. I know exactly how

you feel. The whole world is topsyturvy, and you don't think there is

a smile in your make-up, as that dear American man who carried you

here would say."

Helen recovered her senses with exceeding rapidity. Mrs. de la Vere

was already leading her to the door.

"What! Mr. Spencer--did he----"

"He did. Come, now. I shall tell you all the trying details when you

are seated in my easy chair, and wrapped in the duckiest Shetland

shawl that a red headed laird sent me last Christmas. Excellent! Of

course you can walk! Isn't every other woman in the hotel well aware

how you got that lovely figure? Yes, in that chair. And here is the

shawl. It's just like being cuddled by a woolly lamb."

Mrs. de la Vere turned the keys in two doors. "Reggie always knocks,"

she explained; "but some inquisitive cat may follow me here, and I am

sure you don't wish to be gushed over now, after everybody has been so

horrid to you."

"You were not," said Helen gratefully.

"Yes, I was, in a way. I hate most women; but I admired you ever since

you took the conceit out of that giddy husband of mine. If I didn't

speak, it arose from sheer laziness--a sort of drifting with the

stream, in tow of the General and that old mischief maker, Mrs.

Vavasour. I'm sorry, and you will be quite justified to-morrow morning

in sailing past me and the rest as though we were beetles."

Then Helen laughed, feebly, it is true, but with a genuine mirth that

chased away momentarily the evergrowing memory of Millicent's

injustice. "Why do you mention beetles?" she asked. "It is part of my

every day work to classify them."

Mrs. de la Vere was puzzled. "I believe you have said something very

cutting," she cried. "If you did, we deserve it. But please tell me

the joke. I shall hand it on to the Wraggs."

"There is no joke. I act as secretary to a German professor of

entomology--insects, you know; he makes beetles a specialty."

The other woman's eye danced. "It is all very funny," she said, "and

I still have my doubts. Never mind. I want to atone for earlier

shortcomings. I felt that someone really ought to tell you what took

place in the outer foyer after you sank gracefully out of the act. Mr.

Bower----"

A tap on the door leading into the corridor interrupted her. It was

Marie, armed with chicken broth and dry toast. Mrs. de la Vere, who

seemed to be filled with an honest anxiety to place Helen at her ease,

persuaded her to begin sipping the compound.

"Well, what did Mr. Bower do?" demanded Helen, who was wondering now

why she had fainted. The accusation brought against her by Millicent

Jaques was untrue. Why should it disturb her so gravely? It did not

occur to her that the true cause was physical,--a too sudden change of

temperature.

"He sat on that young woman from the Wellington Theater very severely,

I assure you. From her manner we all imagined she had some sort of

claim on him; but if she was laboring under any such delusion he cured

her. He said--Are you really strong enough to stand a shock?"

"Twenty shocks. I can't think how I could have been so silly----"

"Nerves, my dear. We all have 'em. Sometimes, if I didn't smoke I

should scream. No woman really likes to see her husband flirting

openly with her friends. I'm no saint; but my wickedness is defensive.

Now, are you ready?"

"Quite ready."

"Mr. Bower told us, _tout le monde_, you know, that he meant to marry

you."

"Oh!" said Helen.

During an appreciable pause neither woman spoke. Helen was not sure

whether she wanted to laugh or be angry. Mrs. de la Vere eyed her

curiously. The girl's face was yet white and drawn. It was impossible

to guess how the great news affected her. The de la Veres were poor on

two thousand a year. What did it feel like to be the prospective bride

of a millionaire, especially when you were--what was it?--secretary to

a man who collected beetles!

"Did Mr. Bower assign any reason for making that remarkable

statement?" said Helen at last.

"He explained that the fact--I suppose it is a fact--would safeguard

you from the malice of an ex-coryphee. Indeed, he put it more

brutally. He spoke of the 'slanderous malice of an ex-chorus girl.'

The English term sounds a trifle harsher than the French, don't you

think?"

It began to dawn on Helen that Mrs. de la Vere's friendliness might

have a somewhat sordid foundation. Was she tending her merely to

secure the freshest details of an affair that must be causing many

tongues to wag?

"I am acquiring new theories of life since I came to Maloja," she said

slowly. "One would have thought that I might be the first person to be

made aware of Mr. Bower's intentions."

"Oh, this is really too funny. May I light a cigarette?"

"Please do. And now it is my turn to ask you to point out the

exquisite humor of the situation."

"Don't be vexed with me, child. You needn't say another word if you

don't wish it; but surely you are not annoyed because I have given you

the tip as to what took place in the hall?"

"You have been exceedingly good----"

"No. I haven't. I was just as nasty as the others, and I sneered like

the rest when Bower showed up a fortnight since. I was wrong, and I

apologize for it. Regard me as in sackcloth and ashes. But my heart

went out to you when you dropped like a log among all those staring

people. I've--I've done it myself, and my case was worse than yours.

Once in my life I loved a man, and I came home one day from the

hunting field to read a telegram from the War Office. He was

'missing,' it said--missing--in a rear-guard action in Tirah. Do you

know what that means?"

A cloud of smoke hid her face; but it could not stifle the sob in her

voice. There was a knock at the door.

"Are you there, Edith?" demanded Reginald de la Vere.

"Yes. Go away! I'm busy."

"But----"

"Go away, I tell you!"

Then she jerked a scornful hand toward the door. "Six months later I

was married--men who are missed among the Afridis don't come back,"

she said.

"I'm more sorry than I can put into words!" murmured Helen.

"For goodness' sake don't let us grow sentimental. Shall we return to

our sheep? Don't be afraid that I shall pasture the goats in the hall

on your confidences. Hasn't Bower asked you?"

"No."

"Then his action was all the more generous. He meant to squelch that

friend of yours--is she your friend?"

"She used to be," said Helen sadly.

"And what do you mean to do about it? You will marry Bower, of

course?"

Helen's heart fluttered. Her color rose in a sudden wave. "I--I don't

think so," she breathed.

"Don't you? Well, I like you the better for saying so. I can picture

myself putting the same questions to one of the Wragg girls--to both

of 'em, in fact. I am older than you, and very much wiser in some of

the world's ways, and my advice is, Don't marry any man unless you are

sure you love him. If you do love him, you may keep him, for men are

patient creatures. But that is for you to decide. I can't help you

there. I am mainly concerned, for the moment, in helping you over the

ice during the next day or two--if you will let me, that is. Probably

you have determined not to appear in public to-night. That will be a

mistake. Wear your prettiest frock, and dine with Reggie and me. We

shall invite Mr. Bower to join us, and two other people--some man and

woman I can depend on to keep things going. If we laugh and kick up no

end of a noise, it will not only worry the remainder of the crowd, but

you score heavily off the theatrical lady. See?"

"I can see that you are acting the part of the good Samaritan," cried

Helen.

"Oh, dear, no--nothing so antiquated. Look at your future

position--the avowed wife of a millionaire. Eh, what? as Georgie

says."

"But I am not anything of the kind. Mr. Bower----"

"Mr. Bower is all right. He has the recognized history of the man who

makes a good husband, and you can't help liking him, unless--unless

there is another man."

"There, at least, I am----" Helen hesitated. Something gripped her

heart and checked the modest protestation of her freedom.

Mrs. de la Vere laughed. "If you are not sure, you are safe," she

said, with a hard ring in her utterance that belied her easygoing

philosophy. "Really, you bring me back a lost decade. Now, Helen--may

I call you Helen?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Well, then, don't forget that my name is Edith. You have just half an

hour to dress. I need every second of the time; so off you run to your

room. As I hear Reggie flinging his boots around next door, I shall

hurry him and arrange about the table. Call for me. We must go to the

foyer together. Now kiss me, there's a dear."

Helen was wrestling with her refractory tresses--for the coiffure that

suits glaciers and Tam o'Shanters is not permissible in evening

dress--when a servant brought her a note.

"DEAR MISS WYNTON," it ran,--"If you are able to come down

to dinner, why not dine with me? Sincerely,

"CHARLES K. SPENCER."

She blushed and laughed a little. "I am in demand," she thought,

flashing a pardonable glance at her own face in the mirror. She read

the brief invitation again. Spencer had a trick of printing the K

in his signature. It caught her fancy. It suggested strength,

trustworthiness. She did not know then that one of the shrewdest

scoundrels in the Western States had already commented on certain

qualities betokened by that letter in Spencer's name.

"I cannot refuse," she murmured. "To be candid, I don't want to

refuse. What shall I do?"

Bidding the servant wait, she twisted her hair into a coil, threw a

wrap round her shoulders, and tapped on Mrs. de la Vere's door.

"_Entrez!_" cried that lady.

"I am in a bit of difficulty," said Helen. "Mr. Spencer wishes me to

dine with him. Would you----"

"Certainly. I'll ask him to join us. Reggie will see him too. Really,

Helen, this is amusing. I am beginning to suspect you."

So Spencer received a surprising answer. He read it without any sign

of the amusement Mrs. de la Vere extracted from the situation, for

Helen took care to recite the whole arrangement.

"I'm going through with this," he growled savagely, "even if I have to

drink Bower's health--damn him!"