The Last Woman Part 7

"Will you do it?" he asked her, whispering. "Will you do it, Beatrice?"

She made no reply, and he bent still nearer, seizing her hand in both his own, now.

"Will you do it, dear?" he repeated, a third time. "I'm game, if you are. It is a solution of the whole beastly muddle. Come on. I'll stump you! That is what we used to say, when we were kids. By Jove, girl, you're in as deep as I am, now; and, besides, you gave me your word that you'd help me, didn't you? Turn your eyes toward me. Tell me you'll do it. Say yes. Come on, Bee. I'll dare you. We can slip away from here while their backs are turned. What do you say? Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she replied, without moving or withdrawing her gaze from the stage, and she repeated: "yes, if you wish it." He could not see her face.

"Will you do it now?" Duncan demanded, half-startled by her ready acquiescence.

"Yes."

"Good! I knew you were game!"

He left his chair quickly and secured her wraps and his own coat and hat. Then, he stepped to the opening between the curtains and turned expectantly toward her.

She had not moved; but now, as if she had seen his every act without looking toward him, she turned her head slowly, observing him coolly, and she gave a little nod of comprehension and a.s.sent. He returned the nod, touched his fingers to his lips to enjoin silence, and pa.s.sed outside. In another moment, she had glided softly but swiftly from her seat, and, unnoticed by the other occupants of the box, followed him, dropping the curtains silently after her.

He put her opera-cloak about her shoulders, and swiftly donned his own coat and hat, and so without as much as "by your leave," they left the theatre together and waited in the foyer while the special officer in gray called a taxicab for their use.

Duncan led her across the pavement to the cab, and a.s.sisted her inside.

"Do you know where the Church of the Transfiguration is located?" he asked the chauffeur.

"I do, sir," was the reply.

"Drive us there, and be quick about it," said Duncan, and he sprang inside and banged the door shut after him.

CHAPTER V

BEATRICE BRUNSWICK'S PLOT

The chauffeur to whom the order was given that the taxicab be driven to the Church of the Transfiguration, proved to be an adept and skillful driver; one of those who can exceed the speed limit and then slow down his machine so quickly and quietly at the sight of a bluecoat that he inevitably escapes arrest for his transgression. As a consequence, there was very little time for conversation between these two apparently mad young persons during the journey between the opera-house and the church.

Little as there was, the greater part of it was pa.s.sed in silence. But when they were quite near to their destination, Beatrice spoke up quickly and rather sharply to her companion.

"Roderick, have you for a moment supposed that I have taken you seriously in this mad proposition you have made to me, to-night?" she demanded. "Surely, you don't think that, do you?"

Duncan stared at her, speechless. Then, with a vehemence that can better be imagined than described he exclaimed, half-angrily, half-resentfully:

"Then, in G.o.d's name, Beatrice, why are we here? and why should we go to the church at all?"

"Were you serious about it?" she asked.

"I certainly was--and am, now!"

"Foolish boy!" she exclaimed, laughing with nervous apprehension. What more she might have said on this point was interrupted by the skidding of the taxicab as they were whirled around the corner of Twenty-ninth street.

"Why, in heaven's name, are we here, then?" he demanded, just as they were drawn swiftly to the curb, and the cab came to a stop in front of the church.

"You requested my help, did you not?" she replied.

"I certainly did."

The chauffeur, in the meantime, had leaped to the pavement and thrown open the door of the cab.

"You may close the door again, chauffeur, and wait where you are for further orders," Beatrice told him, calmly. And when that was done, she again addressed her companion. "You have called me a 'good fellow'

to-night," she said slowly, with quiet distinctness, "and I mean to be one. I have always meant to be one, and to a great extent I think I have succeeded. But I would have to be a much better fellow than I am to go to the extent of marrying a man who does not love me, and who does love another, simply to help him out of a mess in which his own stupidity has involved him. Wouldn't I? Ask yourself the question!"

Duncan shrugged his shoulders and parted his lips to reply, but she went on rapidly:

"That is asking me to go rather farther than I would care to venture, my friend; or you, either, if you should stop to think about it. Your proposition is utterly a selfish one. You must know that. You have thought only of yourself and the mess you are in. You do not consider me at all. You would cheerfully use me as a means of venting your spite--or shall I call it, temper?--against Patricia. For the moment, you are intensely angry at her. Not only that, you feel that you have been out-done, at every point. That she has acted unreasonably, I will not deny. But what a silly thing it would be for you and me to stand together at the altar, and pledge ourselves to each other for life, or until such time as the divorce-courts might intervene, just because of the events of to-day!" She was smiling upon him now, as if he were, indeed, a foolish boy who needed chiding.

Duncan pulled himself together. For the first time since their exit from the opera-house, and for perhaps the first time since the moment when Patricia discovered him in the private office of her father, he was capable of acting and thinking quite naturally.

"Beatrice," he said, "if the sentiments you have just expressed are the same as those you felt before you left the box at the opera-house, would you mind telling me why in the world you have acted as you have done? Why, in the name of all that's phenomenal and strange, are we here?"

She turned her head away from him, and peered through the gla.s.s door at the chauffeur, who was striding slowly up and down the pavement outside, and who had taken the opportunity to indulge himself in a smoke.

"I did it," she said, "because I thought I saw a way to help you and Patricia out of your difficulties. I saw that we could leave the box without her knowledge, and believed that neither she nor her companions would discover our departure for some time afterward. I remembered just then that Patricia had witnessed the tender and somewhat touching scene in the box between you and me. My goodness, Roderick! I hope you didn't think that I meant _that_! It was all done for Patricia's benefit, you goose! Didn't you know that? Did you suppose that I had suddenly fallen head over heels in love with you?

You're not very complimentary, are you? Or is it that you were throwing bouquets at yourself?"

"Will you tell me why you did it?" he asked, flus.h.i.+ng hotly under the jibe.

"Because I wished Patricia to see it."

"Why?"

"I thought it might bring her to her senses."

"How, Beatrice?"

"Jealousy, you dunce!"

"But why the rest of your superb play-acting?"

"It all works out toward the same end. Don't you suppose that Patricia is in hot water, by this time? When she realized that we had sneaked away, to put it plainly, don't you think she would put two and two together, and make four out of it?"

"It strikes me," he interrupted her, with a light laugh, "that this is a case where two are supposed to make one."

"We won't joke about it, if you please. Still, that isn't a bad idea.

But, at all events, I wish Patricia to believe that we left the opera-house because, for the moment at least, you preferred my society to hers. If we can convince her that we ran away to be married, so much the better!"

"You are deeper than I am, Bee. I confess that you've got me up a tree. I haven't the least idea what you are driving at, but I am quite willing to be taught. What is to be the next play in this little game of yours?"

"You need not be nasty about it, when I'm trying to help you," she retorted.